As a huge Alien fan, I have come away from tonight’s screening actually angry. The sets and practical effects were fantastic, but you barely saw the aliens until the climax to the mid-section of the film.
Bringing back Ian Holm as Rook took some getting used to, especially as some of those shots were off. It seemed to get better as the film progressed. I already have a theory on that one. The credits listed the crew who worked on the Rook animatronic. I wonder if they were displeased with the result and used CGI to cover the face? (Maybe I’m just too angry at the moment 😆)
The visual and audio Easter eggs were annoying, especially when Andy repeated Ripley’s line. My audience laughed, and I was just facepalming by this point.
I think what finally broke the camel’s back was the third act, which links the film to Covenant and Prometheus. I didn’t like those films as hey try to explain the alien’s origins, and now we have to have a fight with a creature that was giving me Alien:Resurrection newborn vibes. Is this Ridley sticking his oar in, as it is his creation?
I’m just so disappointed. After seeing the first two trailers, I thought we were getting something that was going to be really special, a return to form.
Ugh!
Kind of late, since i just came around to seeing it. Some thoughts:
I really liked the visuals and i’m glad i got to see it in the cinema on a really good screen, so more or less the best possible experience. But i agree that the Rook animatronic looked a bit off (i’d have to rewatch it again).
As someone else already mentioned i also liked the dystopian setting of the first act.
I liked that they were leaning more into the horror, rather than action genre. But imo unlike the first Alien movie it had a few too many jump scares and overused the xenomorphs. Where the original was able to build tension with what you can’t see, here you had a whole pack of them. And somehow they get mowed down way too easily.
Agreed that there were too many callbacks and easter eggs, rather than letting the movie stand on its own. Especially the Ripley line was just too obvious and imo breaks the immersion into the movie.
Not a huge fan of the third act