Alien: Earth (FX)

[nico87]

Originally Posted by Cremildo

Because they didn't understand Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

I also find it funny that some people complain they didn't "need" explanations about the origins of the xeno and the Space Jockey because it ruins their mystery. Ok... But showing some cyborg subduing and capturing a ridiculously lethal xeno without breaking a sweat doesn't?

The prequels only deepen the cosmic horrors of the franchise. God forbid the filmmakers wished to do something new with a stagnating series that had gone off the deep end with all the cloning stuff and the non-canonical crossovers. Ridley Scott had intended to explore who the Space Jockey was since the first movie came out, and even then he had floated the notion that the xenos could be biological weapons (read J.W. Rinzler's making-of book if you don't believe me, folks; being informed doesn't hurt.). The only reason it didn't happen decades sooner is that Fox chose not to engage him for Alien 2.

Ehhhhhh Ridley himself had quotes basically saying that David did in fact create them. To me it's saying that he doesn't really give a damn. And I sort of agree with him in a way.
Aliens, as marvelous as it is, killed the cosmic horror part anyway.

For years I also was clamoring for getting a true explanation of the origins, seeing the space jockeys, etc., then I finally saw the light. Whatever they come up with, it would be disappointing.
It could never top the feeling of wonder and dread that Alien gives you with the derelict, the space jockey and the creature.
No explanation, just like the characters you're left with "what the flying **** was that?" and your imagination.
It opens up the universe. Explaining it would make it feel smaller.

Edit: And yes all the stuff in Alien Earth is just ruining the creature, and the rules of that world, even more.

[Warm Gun]

Watched the first episode. I'll keep watching because I rather like the look of it and it's intriguing, but it's depressing, the way the characters speak is sometimes forced and overly dramatic, and I found how deeply it explores the theme of man and machine merging misplaced in what was originally just a monster movie with corporate themes secondary, which reveals that the alien is so played out by this point and they have to turn the series into something else because there's no place else to go with the monster.

What bothered me most of all was the hybrid Wendy dropping from such a height onto sand. The filmmakers did it for dramatic effect, showing no respect for mechanical engineering and making her pretty unbelievable.

[dyne]

Originally Posted by Warm Gun

What bothered me most of all was the hybrid Wendy dropping from such a height onto sand. The filmmakers did it for dramatic effect, showing no respect for mechanical engineering and making her pretty unbelievable.

And it didn't look too great.

[Jeyl]

Originally Posted by Cremildo

I also find it funny that some people complain they didn't "need" explanations about the origins of the xeno and the Space Jockey because it ruins their mystery. Ok... But showing some cyborg subduing and capturing a ridiculously lethal xeno without breaking a sweat doesn't?

What do those two things have anything to do with one another? Being able to subdue a xeno doesn't take away the mystery of it. It takes away the pre-conception of how invincible the xenos are, which I'd like to state wasn't even the point. The Xenos were never meant to be this awesome invincible entity from which there is no escape. ALIEN writer Dan O'Bannon said as much in his commentary track portion (Helps to be informed). They didn't make the creature unkillable, they made it so that you couldn't kill it. That's why they gave it acid for blood and made a big deal about it's blood eating it's way through the ship. So an android being able to subdue a Xeno? That doesn't bother me because it works within the parameters that the first two movies established. You CAN deal with these creatures, it's just hard. Morrow had an advantage because the xeno was occupied trying to figure out how to bypass Hermit's plot armor.

But here's a much more broad point I'd like to make when it comes to the 'mystery' of it all. There's a big difference between the concept of 'mystery' and the 'unknown'. Mystery is what drives the story. The 'unknown' is the story's flavor. ALIEN was not about solving the 'mystery' of the Space Jockeys or the Xenomorph. It was about surviving something that was unknowable. That Derelict ship could have come from anywhere, millions or billions of years ago. Their entire society and race might be long gone. The eggs could have been a weapon, a by product or something unexpected even for the Jockey. Heck, the Jockey could have come across those eggs from somewhere else and one got loose. Is that what happened? I don't know, and we'll likely never will. And I'm ok with that.

Mystery isn't scary. The uknown is.

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by EvaDK

I don't.

They completely messed up the Xenomorph by inserting David, an android with daddy-issues, into its creation. The original from 1979 is probably the finest film ever made on the subject of Lovecraftian cosmic horror and the Xenomorph required no explanation for that horror to work perfectly.

Neither did the Space Jockey/Engineers need to be explained. Their motive for carrying thousands of eggs - or black goo - in those ships, should remain a mystery to terrify us.

Agreed 100%. To me, there is nothing scarier than the unknown.

[EvaDK]

Originally Posted by Cremildo

Because they didn't understand Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

Prometheus was conceived to create it's own story branch within the same universe, but that plan was abandoned when the sequel went into pre-production. Ridley Scott retooled ALIEN: Covenant and another planned sequel to work more as a setup that would eventually lead into his own 1979 film. That's also why the character Elizabeth Shaw was killed off-screen between films.

As for the Xenomorph itself, he had this to say at a press junket for ALIEN: Covenant:

"We took on a different direction. The Engineers didn’t make him (the Xenomorph), David made him. Which I thought was far more interesting. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop is a great thing.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo30bZc10D0

[morris_schaffer]

But in the hopes of mellowing the waters somewhat, I hope some of you get the David closure you seek and maybe crave. I'm not opposed to it, but don't need it.

[Stanis]

Originally Posted by EvaDK

Prometheus was conceived to create it's own story branch within the same universe, but that plan was abandoned when the sequel went into pre-production. Ridley Scott retooled ALIEN: Covenant and another planned sequel to work more as a setup that would eventually lead into his own 1979 film. That's also why the character Elizabeth Shaw was killed off-screen between films.

As for the Xenomorph itself, he had this to say at a press junket for ALIEN: Covenant:

"We took on a different direction. The Engineers didn’t make him (the Xenomorph), David made him. Which I thought was far more interesting. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop is a great thing.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo30bZc10D0

I love most of Ridley's movies, his visuals are amazeballs but his ideas are usually crap. He's a great director, not a great idea man/writer.

[Kylo_Ren]

Prometheus and Covenant are awesome!

They are so underrated.

[Kylo_Ren]

Originally Posted by nico87

Ehhhhhh Ridley himself had quotes basically saying that David did in fact create them.

Yes, I know the quote that you are referencing. EvaDK also provided it above. It was in an interview when they were promoting Covenant.

To me, from how Scott worded it and what happens in the actual film, it seemed like he was talking about that specific xenomorph being "made" by David, not necessarily that David completely "created" the xenomorphs from scratch in general. The mural from Prometheus which is still canon disproves the latter being the case. For reference, Scott said:

"We took on a different direction. The Engineers didn’t make him (the Xenomorph), David made him. Which I thought was far more interesting. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop is a great thing.”

Going off the films and taking Scott's quote directly, they took a "different direction" with Covenant meaning no Engineers (except for a flashback), but that does not undo what we saw earlier in Prometheus or that the black goo is a mutagen which gives organisms xeno properties and precedes David.

Again, David made that particular xeno in Covenant as Scott says. But he is not the Creator of them as a whole. Either the Engineers made them, or they came from somewhere else, and the Engineers used these creatures to make the mutagen.

That is how I have always interpreted that quote from Scott.
This is what Prometheus shows us, and David's actions do not really change that.

[sheri1983]

Watched the first episode and liked it a lot, will watch the second tonight not an Alien cult but I liked Romulus, Prometheus and thought this is even on par or even better story telling wise.

[Cremildo]

The thesis that David created the first-ever xenomorph in Covenant only makes sense if one disregards the mural scene from Prometheus and everything that the 2012 movie established about the black mutagen, specifically its end scene showing the ultimate result of mutagen-infected Holloway's impregnation of Elizabeth (I mean the Deacon, clearly a xeno stand-in).

In other words, if one pays enough attention, it's quite clear even in Prometheus that xenos can be achieved by manipulation of the mutagen. The sequel shows David doing that, and that's what Scott was doing while promoting it: spelling it out for those who needed it.

What effed everything up was the studio's refusal to make an Engineer-centric sequel to Prometheus (Covenant feels a bit like the third in an unfinished four-movie series where the second one doesn't exist)

[nico87]

I mean I know the mural in Prometheus still makes it possible to tie it all up somewhat neatly.

But watching the movies themselves you can clearly tell that backstory is not the focus at all.
If anything it's an afterthought.
Seems to me what you get from interviews about the writing and production, is what general ideas and themes they want to explore with the story and characters. All the specifics of the alien itself and engineers, the lore part, is purposefully vague or just absent, which tells me that at the top, Ridley and writers, they don't care too much about that aspect.

In Covenant the scariest thing is David.

[Kylo_Ren]

Originally Posted by Cremildo

The thesis that David created the first-ever xenomorph in Covenant only makes sense if one disregards the mural scene from Prometheus and everything that the 2012 movie established about the black mutagen, specifically its end scene showing the ultimate result of mutagen-infected Holloway's impregnation of Elizabeth (I mean the Deacon, clearly a xeno stand-in).

In other words, if one pays enough attention, it's quite clear even in Prometheus that xenos can be achieved by manipulation of the mutagen. The sequel shows David doing that, and that's what Scott was doing while promoting it: spelling it out for those who needed it.

What effed everything up was the studio's refusal to make an Engineer-centric sequel to Prometheus (Covenant feels a bit like the third in an unfinished four-movie series where the second one doesn't exist)

Exactly.

And in addition to the Deacon in Prometheus, there is also the Neomorph in the first half of Covenant.

David did not really "make" that one intentionally. But it was a xeno-like byproduct of the mutagen achieved through the crew member getting infected by the spores.

[Cremildo]

The first episode of "Alien: Earth" reached 9.2 million views worldwide through its first 6 days of streaming.

The first episode of “Alien: Earth” reached 9.2 million views worldwide through its first six days of streaming.

That total, calculated by dividing the total amount of time streamed by the runtime of the episode, refers to viewership on Hulu and Disney+ alone; it should be noted that the series also airs on FX‘s linear channel, where it accrues additional viewership.

[pikeman1]

[busaikuknee]

So the alien "embryo" is from The Faculty? Is that what Im getting?

Why are they spending so much to license music (that I dont think really jives with the Alien universe) just for end credits?

[Spooked]

Okay, I don't get this show. Halfway through Episode 3, and overall story-wise I can't say I have a problem, but scene-by-scene? I don't understand whose making these decisions. The dialog, the choice of camera angle and shot compositions. Small things. It's certainly not cinematic, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a television show shot like this either. It's almost like the show itself doesn't know what it wants to be much less me as the viewer. I'm feeling a little... adrift? Confused? What am I watching here?

[Gretiem]

The cyborg is getting annoying

[Lemmy Lugosi]

I watched the first episode. Still unsure about it; I’m still collating information.

I have never enjoyed any of the David mythos at all, so I simply disregard it. It’s so convoluted and nonsensical and conveniently confusing. The first two are legendary; everything else ever released in the franchise has been unsatisfying at best, and quite awful at worst.