Declaring that a movie’s “gonna suck” before it’s been seen by anybody is a game of averages. Yes, maybe it will. But maybe it will surprise you. The oddest things have been instant classics.
So I am not writing off the upcoming ALIEN: COVENANT. Honestly, I am not. It may very well be a splendid, wholly effective and downright praiseworthy installment in its series.
However, it has this working against it from the start. We know the Xenomorph life cycle. We know about the egg, the face-hugger, the chest-burster, the dildo-head. We also know about the acid blood, the spring-loaded teeth, the desperate flights through narrow corridors. We know that human (or android) betrayal will play into the game of attrition of some point. We know about all that stuff, that has worked in the past, and we also know about the silly imbecile bullshit from PROMETHEUS, which may well play into this new story, at some level we cannot yet predict. This is all known, this is all set in stone, and part of the problem is that the movie is not only expected to hit the same notes, it is required and doomed to play the same notes.
No film, except the two filmed versions of the stage play with Johnny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch, ever captured the Frankenstein Monster of Mary Shelley’s novel, but the movie monster was a fine doomed character in his own right, and one of the great things THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN did as it spun off from the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN, was give him a fresh journey: self-awareness, self-determination, a quest for love, rejection at that, finally a despairing and almost noble suicidal impulse. He did new things, and things that took him to places where he had not been before. The sequels that followed were made by people who failed to respect him as anything but the rampaging Other, and so they became less continuations on his story and more empty repetitions of it, until he was ultimately reduced to being part of a menagerie. Still, there was that first sequel, and it was only possible in the first place because he was known to us; he had a soul.
There are still passionate arguments over whether ALIENS was better than the original film or a diminution of it, but it worked as well as it did, however high you measure that, because it was able to expand on their life cycle and on their menace while simultaneously giving us a closer look at the qualities that drove the human protagonist, Ellen Ripley. It was a sequel that expanded on both the character, and the menace, and how rare is that? But Ripley is gone; there is no replacing her except with someone else, someone who may well be an echo of her, but had damn well better be a character of equivalent stature, and the woman Noomi Rapace played in PROMETHEUS was, however hard they tried and however game the actress was in the attempt, not it. We don’t yet know whether this new movie can manage the trick, but even if whoever we get is spectacular, we run into the other problem: namely, that the Xenomorphs are still ants in bondage gear. They’re known quantities. They can only be multiplied, as James Cameron did so successfully, or they can be placed in different contexts, as subsequent sequels and prequels attempted and, largely, failed. It is highly unlikely that you’ll get any further surprises from them.
I repeat. The movie may not be bad. It may indeed be great fun. But for these reasons I have precious little expectation of it being a thunderbolt.
Comment By: Reggie May
May 4th, 2017 at 9:17 am
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
The alien kills people.
Comment By: Greg Lewis
May 4th, 2017 at 9:17 am
I was such a huge fan as a little boy. So many action figures. Loved the first three movies (the third out of nostolgia) and been contantly burned again and again since then. I almost dare not hope .
Comment By: Jennifer Lynn Schillig
May 4th, 2017 at 10:17 am
Can I just say how much I hate the “gonna suck” trend? When the Paddington movie was announced, I read a blog post about “how they’re going to ruin it” before a single casting announcement was made or a single frame filmed. (And it ended up being almost universally beloved.) I mean, I know negativity’s in these days, but really?
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 10:17 am
You will note that I didn’t really do that.
(Really, I’ve hated the “gonna suck” trend since TITANIC, which — whatever you thought of it — was knowingly slimed by uncounted idiots on the specific and idiotic grounds that they already knew the boat sinks.)
Comment By: Michael Pullmann
May 4th, 2017 at 10:17 am
Hot Topic sold T-shirts to that effect.
Good barometer of the inanity of an opinion, that.
Comment By: Jennifer Lynn Schillig
May 4th, 2017 at 10:17 am
Oh, of course. I’m referring to others who do that. I get sick of endless negativity. (I’d provide a link to the “Deaths of Doctor Who” blog post, but it’s defunct. Basically, it’s a chronicle of all the times a certain contingent of fans have declared Doctor Who “dead” over the years. “1974. The new Doctor is a grinning, goggle-eyed idiot. Doctor Who dies…1981. The best Doctor EVER is replaced by a goddamn vet. Doctor Who dies.” To which I would have added last year, “The new companion asks a few questions that are played for laughs in a two-minute promotional video. Doctor Who dies.”)
Comment By: Michael Pullmann
May 4th, 2017 at 10:17 am
Doctor Who died in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1981, 1984, 1986, 1996, 2005, 2010, and 2013.
Of course, it keeps on regenerating, so that’s all right.
Comment By: Dennis Dickens
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
I suspect that I have seen five percent of the movie in bits and pieces. I did read the Alan Dean Foster adaptation though.
Comment By: Reggie May
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
More to the point, however — if a ship from untold kajillion light thingys away from Earth, carrying humans, lands on a remote desolate world (or what seems like such, to our fragile, squishy bodies)…
aren’t WE the aliens?
(BTW, I’ve petitioned the IAU to adopt “kajillion” and “light thingys” as official units of interstellar measurement. It should be a thing.)
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
Similarly: the two beasts who have contended with another many times in print and twice (I think) on film, ALIENS and PREDATORS, are both aliens and predators.
Comment By: Dennis Dickens
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
Adam-Troy Castro Aliens from our perspective. Natives from their own.
Comment By: Luis M Milan Leal
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
Well, if the ship lands on a remote world that’s not their own, and the humans also land on that world, technically both species are aliens.
Comment By: Josh Olson
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
Add to that – Ridley Scott consistently makes bad movies.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
Not QUITE consistently. He’s pulled out a few really good ones. But the bad ones, the disappointing ones, the downright noxious ones, are a hell of a lot more dominant in his filmography than is usually recognized.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
I just did the math. 39 directorial credits, including much television. Before THE MARTIAN, the last movie he made that I would consider a good one was MATCHSTICK MEN, in 2003.
I would say…five good movies I know of, one arguably great one, since the 1970s, honestly, lots and lots of dross.
Comment By: Brian Siano
May 4th, 2017 at 11:18 am
I’m not sure I agree. (Strap in for Patented Siano mini-essay)
Okay, I think we agree that Scott is a director who _needs_ a good script handed to him. He certainly didn’t originate _Thelma and Louise_, he was hired on for _Alien_, _The Martian_ was a pretty straightforward adaptation, and the craziness of _The Counselor_ was all Cormac McCarthy. He’s not like Coppola or Welles, who can take mediocre material and rewrite it into something really amazing.
Basically, Ridley Scott brings great production values. Even his lesser movies, like _A Good Year_, or that Exodus movie, or _Matchstick Men_, look amazing. And that’s part of what a movie offers that reading doesn’t.. (Thank god for fast-forward.) But watching those is a lot like watching David Lean slather time and money and 70mm filmstock all over _Ryan’s Daughter_.
So for me, I don’t think Ridley Scott’s made a _bad_ film, but he’s made a number of mediocre ones that look terrific.
Comment By: Chris Palmer
May 4th, 2017 at 12:18 pm
I think that’s right. A coworker and I had this conversation yesterday. Ridley Scott can tell a story and make it look incredible, but he seems limited in understanding a story or necessarily distinguishing good ones from bad ones. The talent expended in making Prometheus makes me sad that no one apparently ever said, “Uh, this story is really stupid”.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 1:18 pm
I think he demonstrated his cluelessness when he was hired for NOTTINGHAM, the screenplay about the Sheriff of Nottingham tracking down this unseen thief, Robin Hood. Just to hear that premise is to want to see it, but it was Ridley Scott who said, “Hell, no, if I get to make a Robin Hood movie, I’ll make a Robin Hood movie,’ and then produced something routine and joyless, utterly without invention except for one heralded special effects shot.
MATCHSTICK MEN would be on my list of his five good movies. I will stretch the list as high up as eight, to accommodate the three that invite debate, but only reluctantly.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 1:18 pm
(Of course, many bad movies have great moments. The awful Kevin Costner ROBIN HOOD has maybe three or four of them even if you don’t count the terrific Sean Connery cameo. I would sit through a lot of awfulness for the couplet, “Why a spoon?” “Because it would hurt more, you idiot!”)
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 1:18 pm
Brian Siano And, God, would I disagree that Scott hasn’t made bad films. PROMETHEUS, just to *START*.
Comment By: Brian Siano
May 4th, 2017 at 1:18 pm
So let’s have a list of the _bad_ Ridley Scott movies. I’d definitely start with _Prometheus_.
Thing is, most of his less-than-stellar movies may be perfectly fine, but just _blah_. Didn’t care for _Black Rain_. _A Good Year_ showed why a male version of _Under a Tuscan Sun_ would never work. I actually liked _Hannibal_.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
I liked THELMA AND LOUISE, but in recent years have come to the belief that this “feminist action movie” is the story of two ladies who make *EVERY WRONG DECISION THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR THEM TO MAKE*. I understand that the Sarandon character is traumatized by her past experiences with the law and that the Geena Davis character is traumatized by her own recent rape attempt and the killing she’s witnessed, and is driven by her own intense loyalty toward her friend, but BEYOND THAT, THEY MAKE EVERY DAMN MISTAKE POSSIBLE AND INVENT A BUNCH MORE.
Comment By: Brian Siano
May 4th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
I don’t mind that they made mistakes. The point is that we were with them all the way.
Comment By: Brian Siano
May 4th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
But bringing this back to Ridley Scott– that movie is _clearly_ Callie Khouri’s. And I respect Scott for recognizing its qualities and not fucking it up.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 4:17 pm
Brian Siano Yeah, too that extent, it’s a classical tragedy.
Comment By: Eric Cline
May 4th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
Sidenote: Walter Hill was on Mark Maron’s podcast just recently, and discussed the making of ALIEN. He said the original screenplay wasn’t too good, and that he was about to throw it away…. until he reached the chest bursting scene. No doubt others who were involved have different stories to tell, but Hill said he did a rewrite of the script “and made the protagonist a woman.” He also said that Robert Aldrich (whom he said had been slandered beyond the grave by the recent miniseries) had told him that the success of the film would depend on an excellent, unusual conception of the alien creature….. but as for what such a conception would be, Aldrich could only suggest that they get a trained orangutan and shave its hair off!
Comment By: Brian Siano
May 4th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
I gotta listen to that. Robert Aldrich had input on Alien. Wow.
Comment By: Eric Cline
May 4th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
It was a great interview overall. And the Alien/Aldrich material was in about the last 30 minutes or so.
Comment By: Faisal-Azam Qureshi
May 4th, 2017 at 5:18 pm
I think in one of the Blu-ray’s, someone mentions that Aldrich’s idea of the alien was to go to the butcher’s shop and grab some meat.
Dan O’ Bannon had to fight to get that credit and he’s the one who bought Giger, Foss and Mobeius onto the production.
Comment By: Eric Cline
May 4th, 2017 at 5:18 pm
Faisal-Azam Qureshi yes, I’m sure every hand involved on that film had their own version of what happened. Dan O’Bannon (RIP, sadly) was a talented writer who created at least two iconic horror tropes: (1) the chest busting alien (2) the idea that zombies growl “brains! brains!” (from RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD). He was an … adequate …. actor in his fellow film student John Carpenter’s student film DARK STAR.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 5:18 pm
More than adequate, I think, in context.
Comment By: Eric Cline
May 4th, 2017 at 5:18 pm
Adam: heh, heh. I suppose with the budget those two had to work with they weren’t going to get Robert DeNiro. The fact that it was earnest young guys trying their best gave it a certain charm. Remember the “elevator” that was obviously a wheeled box going down a hallway?
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
May 4th, 2017 at 6:18 pm
My position has always been that if the story works, the special effects do.
Comment By: Whitt Pond
May 5th, 2017 at 1:21 am
Adam-Troy Castro Special effects can make a good story better. They can’t make a bad story good.
Comment By: Dennis Morrigan McDonough
May 4th, 2017 at 5:18 pm
They could go back to the ideas of the first movie that were cut out. The aliens in the first movie had a life cycle that was basically similar to cloning but incorporated some aspects of the host organism.Egg develops facehugger inside. Facehugger develops as chestburster in host, incorporating host genes. Chestburster emerges with traits adopted from host species.. Adult kills prey, implants something that becomes facehugger while creating a web of sorts that leads to the prey becoming the basis of a new egg.
The “xenomorphs” don’t have to be about kill-kill-kill. Post-“Alien,” they’ve had no reason to exist. They don’t appear to eat their prey. They don’t seem to bring prey to the queen. They kill for no reason other than killing. That doesn’t make biological sense. What if their instinctual mission is to colonize by incorporating genes from the species they attack?