Waow. That was... bad.

Rating: 1/10 (14 July 2017)

The first Alien movie was a huge success. Why? Not only did RS manage to create a realistic environment with believable characters, set in a claustrophobic industrial space ship, with the help of Giger he also created the only really terrifying monster ever put on a screen. Why was it scary? First of all, it looks like it came out of hell, you don't know anything about it, and it works in ways you've never seen - it acts like the prototype of all monsters. It wants to kill you - period. The way it was introduced, chestburster scene, and the way it came to be, facehugger scene. Just iconic scenes. All these ingredients put together in a plot that doesn't let you know more than you need to know; a mining crew on their way home, intercepts a beacon signal, investigates it, and releases a creature, a hostile life form, never seen before. A fight for survival begins. Thats it. Brilliant.
Aliens used pretty much the same procedure. Don't let the audience know more than what is necessary to make the story interesting. Everything else is abundant, not necessary, it only makes the story complicated and leaves little to imagination. Alien 3 was going the right direction, but killing of Newt and Hicks didn't really sit well with me, and the Stop Motion-alien wasn't near as scary as the rubber suits used in previous films. Alien 4 was just alien in comic book form. Stupid ricochet shots and breath ID controllers took Alien from realistic Sci Fi to just Sci Fi.
The Alien franchise is lost somewhere about here.
When Ridley Scott announced to make a sequel that is a prequel I was really happy. I wasn't happy anymore when I left the theater after watching Prometheus. RS just made a George Lucas. He just had to make an over the top story, unfortunately based on the creepy, mysterious Space Jockey. A story so intricate it had to involve the answers to where mankind originated from. The movie begins with a space jockey engineer dissolving himself with some black goo. Already here I raised my eyebrows thinking, "Ok now I know what they look like, and its only 3 minutes into the film. What was the point of this scene?" Dead give away. From here Prometheus just went downhill. It felt like I was watching Tomb raider in space or something. Nothing was scary, didn't feel like the alien universe. All i got were these complicated purpose of life questions, forgettable characters and the stupid story that only took away the mystery surrounding the space jockey. Question is, do we need to know this? Does this combined make the movie scary? Cause, as far as I remember, Alien is about being scared of this monster, that nobody knows anything about and is perfectly fine as it is. If it did make the movie scary, it probably would have made sense, but no story this intricate can become scary, and revealing a complicated backstory is just a very unnecessary step.
Alien: Covenant doesn't even try to repair the damages Prometheus caused. It just makes it worse. Who is afraid of the alien monster now? Nobody. Why even watch it? Pointless. Even more stupid turn of events before encountering the alien creature, or whatever it is nowadays. What the hell is this? Why didn't Ridley Scott just keep it simple? Number 1 rule not to break: Keep the alien creature scary as a nightmare, keep it clouded in mysteries. Did he do that? Nope. Now the alien creature is more synonymous to the babbling android Walter, than to itself. Scary as Hello Kitty, cloned in a thousand none scary ways. Just plain suicide. You should have kept it simple RS. No remarkable story, just a creepy encounter. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking if you manage to make the audience scared. It serves it purpose then and no one could have accused you for being cautious.
Alien: Covenant verdict: - THE VERY END OF THE ALIEN FRANCHISE -
No more aliens for me, thanks.