tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4633480297352890314.post629348674952458063..comments2024-03-28T03:28:11.926-11:00Comments on Kinemalogue: Alien Week, part VIII: The dark starHunter Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10925220178171355473noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4633480297352890314.post-22577570468913063692017-10-12T16:53:45.795-11:002017-10-12T16:53:45.795-11:00Yeah, I'm still unclear on what the actual scr...Yeah, I'm still unclear on what the actual screenwriting process on Covenant looked like, but there's no way it started out "Shaw's already dead, and the empire of the Engineers was wiped out in a flashback." It's not as obviously tormented, but it's got very much the same kind of vibe as Alien 3: somebody's original, conceivably good idea, twisted and warped till it's not even recognizable.<br /><br />If they do make another, they have GOT to embrace the fact that David is the protagonist of this series, and not some new lady that they can vaguely position as Ripleyesque. Though I guess that still might be the most interesting thing about it, how Scott's Godling Metaphor keeps co-opting and killing the would-be dragonslayer. Now, I still <i>like</i> it better when it's called "Blade Runner."Hunter Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10925220178171355473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4633480297352890314.post-70846980899926825912017-10-12T07:42:18.883-11:002017-10-12T07:42:18.883-11:00The film also repeats the cardinal error of Alien3...The film also repeats the cardinal error of Alien3: Taking protagonists that the audience has built an emotional connection with, and then having them murdered and dismembered offscreen. I suppose it makes David all the more horrifying, as turning Shaw into some of Giger's more feminine works is pretty much the worst thing that could be done to someone. Still, it leaves the audience feeling unsatisfied. <br /><br />It's also weird how the Engineers seemed to have completely regressed into the Renaissance. A society that maintained biological and social cohesion for over a billion years just randomly returning to planetbound barbarism in time for David to turn them all into alien gestation units? Questionable. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4633480297352890314.post-57325750625460098702017-07-18T00:12:15.900-11:002017-07-18T00:12:15.900-11:00OK, the last line made me laugh, as did Russell Cr...OK, the last line made me laugh, as did Russell Crowe's explication of how Scott makes movies with a magpie's sense of what to include. "...Say that!"<br /><br />Anyway, Scott's a weird one. I think he's always been drawn to a certain mood, and he has a fascination with material that has an air of inevitability and death (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, The Counselor, Prometheus, Covenant, Black Hawk Down, even Gladiator, if you ignore the "restoration of the Republic" nonsense), but while I've never been entirely sure how deliberate it is, I don't think it's a total accident.Hunter Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10925220178171355473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4633480297352890314.post-80137798142097298712017-07-15T23:36:40.509-11:002017-07-15T23:36:40.509-11:00My theory is that Sir Ridley is happy to sell prod...My theory is that Sir Ridley is happy to sell products, whether they be Apple computers or Fox monster properties, and leave the thematics and dialogue to anyone, whether Damon Lindelof or Cormac McCarthy - as long as he meets his personal quota of art history photo-tributes. 1979's Alien film is a serendipitous convergence, of Scott's British fetish for William Blake and television close-ups, with producer/writer Walter Hill's American fetish for Continental-Marxist dramatic pragmatism. With his new Alien films, Scott finally is interested in his own personal statement of sorts, and the statement turns out to be a campy demonization of such statements themselves: art, in Scott's working-class view, provokes too much thought from queer android toffs like Ash, David, or Hannibal Lecter.<br />My favorite account of Scott's process: https://youtu.be/TvGPd4v31HA?t=1283Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com