Description
Alien: Covenant is the last good film in the Alien universe. But you probably already know that. Still, let’s dig a little deeper into the context.
Lately, a trend has taken hold where a film is measured not by its actual quality — the craft, the writing, the cinematography, the originality of the script, the atmosphere — but exclusively by the marketing money poured into it. In other words, by the cash spent on hyping the film and convincing the public that it really is cool. And this manipulation works surprisingly well.
People are literally convinced that it’s a cool film; they go see it in theaters; the film pulls in an impressive box office; and right after this so-called success, a sequel immediately goes into production. Yes, there are objective, massive flops that can’t be hidden or drowned out with money. Those are easily explained away by claiming the studio spent too little money — not on the production itself, but on the marketing.
Take the relatively recent Alien: Romulus as an example. Objectively, it’s a piece of shit in every possible way. The worst in the entire franchise. At least that’s what I thought until the series came out — which turned out to be even shittier, at a point when it seemed impossible to get any worse. And if Disney didn’t particularly bother with hyping its TV project, just as it didn’t bother with its quality, then the failure of the series Alien: Earth is, in my opinion, obvious to absolutely everyone.
But with Romulus the situation is different. Here, I think, Disney actually managed to convince the public that the film is cool. And if you don’t like it, then something’s probably wrong with you. After all, if everyone likes a film and you don’t, then the problem must be you — not the fact that the film is bad.
Now let’s recall Alien: Covenant and its thunderous flop, which buried any chance of a sequel. But objectively, by every parameter, the film is head and shoulders above Romulus”. Romulus’s plot is simple to the point of indecency. And until recently, every film in the Alien series brought something new to the table, expanded the universe, and answered previously asked questions. Both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant significantly enrich the franchise’s lore.
Romulus, or the series subtitled Earth, bring absolutely nothing new to the universe. It’s complete degradation, a deliberate simplification of the plot. The overall quality of Alien: Earth is on par with low-budget sci-fi series. And I’m not talking about cheap CGI. The main problem is in the writing, the logic of the characters’ actions, and the characters themselves.
But I’ll be honest with you: when Alien: Covenant came out, I didn’t like it — even though I was thrilled by Prometheus. I suspect, like many other fans of sci-fi and the franchise as a whole. And I think the problem was that, right after watching Prometheus, the memories and emotions from that film were still relatively fresh. Hence the inflated expectations and the desire to see something similar.
But Alien: Covenant is absolutely different. It’s nothing like Prometheus, which has way more action; it’s rather meant to uncover new mysteries and answer questions asked decades ago. I believe the film’s failure happened largely because of this. And if 20th Century Fox had spent as much on its marketing as was spent on Romulus, there might have been no flop at all. Or if Covenant had come out now, against the backdrop of all the shit they’re trying to show us these days, it would have been hailed as a masterpiece. But all this is, of course, just my speculation.
A few years later I decided to rewatch the whole franchise. And when the turn came to Alien: Covenant, I liked the film — and after a while it dawned on me that I actually liked it a lot and want to watch it again.
And after all of the above, I accidentally saw the rating of the series Alien: Earth on IMDb, and my reaction was: “What the fuck, 7.1? Where did that come from?” At the same time, the film Alien: Covenant sits at 6.4. But I’ll stress this: the gap in quality between Covenant and that fucked-up, openly phoned-in series Alien: Earth is simply beyond comparison.
P.S.
Not far from where I live there’s a girl who looks insanely like Katherine Waterston, the lead of Alien: Covenant — so I decided to meet her. You can read the continuation of this story here.