This looks so cool and the entire back half of this movie is a thrill ride. The fan service stuff was very dumb and bad though and kinda knocked the movie down a few points for me. Overall really fun summer movie aside from the typical Disney legacy sequel nonsense
Yeah the fan service character was a bit much, but considering how much this character was used in the film, I could see why they wanted someone the audience would recognize. Having a complete rando would be kind of weird as well.
I loved this but agreed with mostly all the points already made in here. Loved the care that Alvarez took to make it look and feel like the beginning of the franchise - also love how it was a nice blend of the first two movies in terms of atmosphere. The third act worked for me and honestly I kinda dug the connection to the Prometheus black goo and this being like a human/engineer hybrid of sorts. What absolutely did not work for me was the Rook android and it being such a bad washed out cgi Ash. That took me out for awhile. I personally would've preferred someone brand new - the name Rook lends itself to being another line of androids that WY would've created in between Ash and Bishop. I get that it could be like an Ash 2.0 (this tracks with David and then Walter looking identical), but it just looked so bad.
so the spoiler i originally saw was CGI Ash/Rook. definitely not necessary in the slightest. however, maybe it's just my theater and where i was sitting, but it didn't look as bad as i expected it to? it didn't look good, but based on just one viewing, i think it was less-jarring than CGI Tarkin. i guess there's probably some universe where the filmmakers would argue that the uncanny nature of his appearance might be fitting for a derelict synthetic, but i will agree that if you stare at it long enough, it's pretty noticable.
I think it was worse than Tarkin easily. Like Zilla said the teeth/mouth were especially bad. I get why they used him but they really didn’t need to.
It’s that trope (?) where a character pauses for too and slowly does something, for dramatic effect for the viewer but it takes me out of the movie: Rain pausing to pull the lever to drop the cargo Tyler pausing for too long identifying his sisters voice Like for example, a similar thing happens in Alien with Lambert’s death, but it’s clear she paralyzed with fear and her commentary through it is horrifying and human
that's fair. i don't think i paid attention long enough on the teeth, but at times it did look like the audio struggled to match up to the mouth's movements. repeat viewings will probably make me like it even less. but i agree it was an unnecessary addition.
although now that i think about it, part of me wonders if something this fan service-y was originally written with streaming in mind (i know they changed it to a theatrical release shortly before filming started). maybe not, but still.
Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, and Cailee Spaeny were easily the highlights of the cast, but I enjoyed the entire cast.
I think Isabella waking up in the ship -> getting taken by the Xeno was my favorite segment of the movie. Just perfected the atmosphere, and all of the actors nailed tension needed to make the scene work.
isabella rocked, first time i’ve seen her i think. was distracted for the first 15 minutes or so thinking that vanessa hudgens was in the movie
My desire for this to do well so we get more Alien movies is directly at odds with my fear that Disney will fuck it up
When the Xeno first awakens and is on top of the walk way the sister was crawling under….that part was scary af lol. Then she easily has the most traumatic death/encounters in the film. Poor girl
David Jonsson was phenomenal. Personally, I would have much preferred the movie end 12 minutes sooner than it did, but to each their own. I think the hybrid looked like Buster Bluth. People in my theater were laughing at it. Also, did the trailer for Red One play before the movie for anyone else? That has got to be the worst thing I have ever seen. I cannot even imagine who the fuck that movie is for. And I've come to the conclusion that Chris Evans has either A. the worst agent or B. absolutely terrible taste.
Also how come we didn’t see the Xeno’s earlier if they had already harvested all the old crew members? Was it just cuz they weren’t on that floor yet?
I agree with others that the CG Rook was a bad choice. He was already torn up, so they could have done something, anything to his face (torn skin, melted scalp, milk blood congealed in his mouth) that would have distracted from the uncanny valley-ness of it. With so many great practical effects, it really stood out.