BEFORE: I know what you're thinking - yesterday's film was part ghost-story, and an "Alien" film by definition is another mash-up, part sci-fi and part horror. So why deal with this film now, why not save it for October? Well, I have to walk this fine line between dealing with the linking and dealing with movies thematically - for me to have any chance of having a "perfect" year with an unbroken chain, I've got to deal with films as they come up to the top of the list, or else re-arrange everything, and I feel like I JUST got my chain settled from now until mid-July, so I don't want to tear it all apart or mess with it.
You'd think that would be simple, just move "The Vault" and this film to October, only then I have to think about linking TO those films, and then AWAY from them, and I just don't have the links. As a pair these two films don't match anything that's currently set for horror month - and anyway, I may be running a reduced horror month in 2019 anyway. To get "Coco" and "Hotel Transylvania 3" in there with my other films, I had to add some other animated films as connective tissue - so the October chain right now is 11 films, that's a short month, but at least everything links. As it is, I still need to come up with an intro and an outro, but there seem to be a lot of possible ways to get there and back again. More on this later. I just want to know that I'll be able to include "New Mutants", "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", "Bird Box" and "Mary Shelley". It would also be great if "Glass" became available by then, even on some streaming service, and I've got an option to add either "The Witch" or "It: Chapter Two", but not both. So we'll see.
I thought I had something yesterday, I tried moving today's film, plus "A Quiet Place" and "Fantastic Beasts 2" to October, but a couple bad things happened - one, I couldn't close the gap in April that was formed by taking those films out, and also that meant I'd have to move "Mary Poppins Returns" and possibly also "Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again" with them, and those don't really belong in October, right? (One links to "The Cloverfield Paradox", the other links to "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", if you really need to know...)
But then I saw it would be easier to go from the animated Halloween films to that zombie film if I just added a couple more animated films. So, which is the greater sin, putting a few films in October that clearly don't belong there, or taking a couple horror-like films OUT of October and watching them in April? I'm not sure, I have to just go with my gut here - and I'll probably end up making two mistakes, since a couple cutesy animated films are going to creep into October anyway, unless something changes. I'll have to review this again in August, I think.
For now, James Franco carries over from "The Vault" to what I think is a very small cameo here, but it counts. And this may be the last time I see him for a while, but again, you never know. 9 films with him already this year is a good total, that will have to do. There's not much on his filmography that I haven't seen that I also feel compelled to seek out at this time.
Umm, SPOILER ALERT if you're not current on this franchise, but even if you're not, you can probably guess what to expect from an "Alien" film, right?
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Prometheus" (Movie #1,470)
THE PLOT: The crew of a colony ship, bound for a remote planet, discover an uncharted paradise with a threat beyond their imagination and must attempt a harrowing escape.
AFTER: I finally got to the end of buying digital files to replace all of my cassette tapes, the last band was, of course, ZZ Top - and now I have to take a look at my CDs and tapes of soundtracks and compilations to see if any of them warrant being replaced digitally. Then I've got a whole ton of cover albums, mostly Beatles-related, since everyone and his brother has covered Beatles songs at some point. That task seems even harder than ripping and replacing all the original music from A to Z, and by the time I finish, there will be some new music format released and I'll have to start all over. ("What, you're still using MP4s, grandpa, get with the program - everyone's on liquid crystal MP5 now, you put them in an eyedropper and get the music delivered right into your brain via the optic nerve...")
But I bring up the music because the latest film in a movie franchise is a lot like the latest album by your favorite band. You have to listen to it, because you used to love that band, but you're never sure if the new album is going to live up to the band at their peak, that heyday they had when you were a kid, so will listening to their new stuff measure up, or is it just bound to disappoint you? I loved ZZ Top when I was 15, and the next three albums after "Eliminator" entertained me, but after the "Antenna" album in 1991 there was a distinct drop in quality, and the band never won me back. "Rhythmeen"? "XXX"? By the time the band released "Mescalero" I felt I didn't even understand them any more. It looks like they had a new album in 2012 that I totally missed, now I have to decide if it's worth a listen.
But let me relate the "Alien" franchise to a band that more people are familiar with, the Beatles. I don't think anyone can argue that the Beatles had probably the best run ever, in the 7 short years they were recording together, and ever since they've been the symbol of lightning in a bottle, they couldn't get back together but had successful solo careers, and every band probably wonders if they could ever hope to duplicate that type of success, and whether it's even worth it in the end if phenomenal success also causes you to burn out twice as quickly. The first "Alien" film was a hit, because nobody had seen anything like it before - so that's the equivalent of "Meet the Beatles", taking the world by storm. Somehow "Aliens" became more successful, building on the success of the first film, better creatively even though it played with the same themes, that's a bit like "A Hard Day's Night".
For the sake of argument, let's call the next two films, "Alien 3" and "Alien: Resurrection" sort of like the "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" of the franchise, where the hardcore fans really liked them, but there was sort of a tonal shift that left other fans behind, and so you're hard pressed to find fans who'll say, "Oh, that album was my favorite" except in certain circles. And then the "Alien vs. Predator" films just sort of seem kind of "Magical Mystery Tour" or "White Album"-y to me, where there was so much going on and the creativity seemed to be firing in too many directions at once, so even the true fans were confused about what was going on, and whether somebody was really in charge of the big picture. So "Prometheus" and "Alien: Covenant" are collectively a bit like "Abbey Road" and "Let it Be" to me, where things seem to be renewed and refreshed from a creative standpoint, but come on, it's got to be sort of like a last hurrah, right? How much longer can they keep adding to the catalog before it collapses in on itself? The storytelling has definitely matured, and in some ways it's a return to form, with callbacks to the original films/albums, but to get there they had to completely burn down the path they were on and rebuild their sound from the ground up.
I don't know, the problem with this analogy is that according to this train of thought, the franchise never had its big "Sgt. Pepper" moment, which I think is accurate, but other fans may disagree. Maybe a better analogy is the "Star Wars" franchise, which also went back to the past to do a series of prequels, which would/will ultimately end in something that takes place RIGHT before the original "Alien" film from 1979. So in this scenario, "Prometheus" is like "The Phantom Menace" and "Covenant" is like "Attack of the Clones", they can probably fit in one more episode before people will want to see a DIRECT prequel to the original film they know from childhood. Interviews with Ridley Scott seem to suggest that this is the path that they're on - but we thought of "Revenge of the Sith" as a direct prequel to "A New Hope", and then somebody shoehorned in "Rogue One" and "Solo: A Star Wars Story", which are like Episodes 3.9 or 3.5. You can fit a whole series of stories between two other ones if you really try.
But to do that, at this point in time, you've got to walk that fine line between breaking new ground and giving the fans what they expect - naturally you've got to get some of those gory, chest-breaking moments where the alien hatches from within somebody in the most gruesome way, and it would be great if there's a point where people are hunting a xenomorph through a spaceship's air ducts and maze-like halls. Really, to be truly innovative at this point, wouldn't an "Alien" film depict an outer-space mission where everything goes according to plan, and nobody dies by being eaten or ripped apart? That would be a first, only everyone would feel disappointed, right? Like, I paid my 15 bucks, I want to see some astronauts suffer, and not just because NASA didn't pack enough medium-sized spacesuits for two women to have a romantic spacewalk together.
So basically all you need to know is that there's a ship full of colonists heading toward a far-off world that's been carefully selected. Probably humans have used up all the viable resources on Earth at this point, so we've got to start moving to other worlds - this is implied but not explicitly stated. But a freak solar flare damages the ship and the ship's resident android, Walter, has to pull the crew out of stasis early to fix the ship. After that happens, they pick up a weird transmission from a nearby planet that seems to be in English, and that planet also appears to be perfect for their needs, so why keep going on their mission when there's a perfect planet RIGHT THERE that could work for their colony? What could POSSIBLY go wrong in this scenario? Umm, here's a hint, it's an "Alien" film...
Look, there are things I understand about the xenomorph aliens, and there are certainly things I DON'T understand. But this film seems to suggest that they were "designed" as these super-efficient organisms, being great at killing humans, but also at developing within them, and then of course bursting out in spectacular fashion. Is that the goal? Is it like humans are this edible birthing matrix that easily supplies them with their first meal? And then the rest of the humans are just like, big bag lunches just walking around? Humans are their mothers and fathers, but also lunch and dinner? It all seems a bit confusing. And then if the xenomorphs can enter as little floating cells, through the ear tissue or the nostrils, then what do they need the face-huggers for? Are the face-huggers alive or just mindless delivery systems for the embryos? Or is everything like the tiny mouth within the giant mouth, full of recursive back-up systems within the main system?
Everything about the xenomorphs reminds me of the birthing process, as we find out here that humanity is their round-about creator AND their typical hosts. I can't tell which birthing process is more disgusting, though, the one the aliens use or the regular human one. Then, when I think about it, I realize how much the aliens share in common with human fetuses - they grow inside humans, feed off of them, destroy their bodies when they leave, and then continue to use the humans as a food source. Now I can't look at a woman nursing a baby without thinking about either aliens feeding or it being some form of cannibalism. Either way, it's stomach-churning for me, which is probably one of the reasons I don't have any kids. Miracle of childbirth, my ass. A newborn baby covered in fluid, it's just nauseating. I can't wait for the future where babies are fertilized and grown in tanks, and sex is just for fun and not procreation.
NITPICK POINT: Look, I just hope that when humanity is finally ready to explore the galaxy and colonize other planets that they use these "Alien" films as training videos, as examples of what NOT to do. A whole team of people fly down to the surface of an unknown planet and NOT ONE of them wears a spacesuit - and then, when they arrive they START testing the air and the water? If you ask me, that should have been done BEFORE they all started breathing on the planet. They should have all worn air-tight spacesuits before they tested for viruses, pathogens, toxins... am I way off base here? Then there's the issue of putting the medical bay WAY inside the ship, so a sick person would basically infect corridor after corridor before getting to a place where they can be isolated and contained? Uh-uh, no way. There should be a way to contain someone BEFORE bringing them back on board the ship, for exactly this reason, so they won't infect the entire crew.
There are references to the Engineers, which are this ancient race that supposedly terraformed all the planets or something, and sacrificed themselves one by one to jump-start life on all the various planets (Umm, I think...this was sort of shown in "Prometheus"). But then, what was up with the flashback to the Engineers in the MIDDLE of this film? How do the events depicted there link up to the creation of the Xenomorphs? That's all a bit foggy - or do I have to wait until the next film to see the next little snippet of THAT story? It's maddening. And who was "remembering" that story here, or who was telling that story to whom? It seemed to have no relation to the main plot, except for the location.
Just like the "Star Wars" series, the original director came back to make the prequels - Ridley Scott directed both "Prometheus" and this one, and now there's rumblings that James Cameron may come back to the franchise, but I wouldn't put any money on that. Scott's sequel to "Covenant" got put on hold because of poor box office, but now that Disney has acquired most of Fox after Rupert Murdoch cashed in his chips, things are a little bit more hazy, except the only thing for sure is that there WILL be more content. Disney doesn't tend to buy things to NOT make more money from them.
Also starring Michael Fassbender (last seen in "Frank"), Katherine Waterston (last seen in "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her"), Billy Crudup (last seen in "Eat Pray Love"), Danny McBride (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), Demian Bichir (last seen in "The Hateful Eight"), Carmen Ejogo (last seen in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."), Jussie Smollett (last seen in "The Mighty Ducks"), Callie Hernandez (last seen in "La La Land"), Amy Seimetz, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby, Uli Latukefu, Tess Haubrich, Guy Pearce (last seen in "Factory Girl"), Lorelei King, Goran D. Kleut, Andrew Crawford, with archive footage of Noomi Rapace (last seen in "What Happened to Monday"), Logan Marshall-Green (last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming")
RATING: 6 out of 10 airlocks
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