Alien: Covenant: A Tale of Two Tales (An Average Conclusion)

Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light

John Milton, Paradise Lost

As the level of anticipation for this last Alien entry has risen to be nearly palpable, so too rises the level of disappointment of the movies overall. Looking back over the series, you can track the quality of the movies and almost create a roller coaster ride with the line connecting them. The thunderous beginning of the series, followed by twists and turns and corkscrews in the movies that come after. All of these aspects inevitably ending with this movie: a slow and sad end of the ride. Ending a series with a movie like this reminds us all of lessons taught repeatedly throughout many franchises in the last decade: a simple premise  CANNOT uphold 40 years of movies and still remain as fresh as the start. I’m pretty bad at analogies involving roller coasters, but I’m pretty good at being bitter and jaded about movies, so let’s end this project with Alien: Covenant.

Prometheus: The New Testament, But At What Cost? (An Avg. Part 7)

[it] wasn’t what we thought [it] was; I was wrong, we were so wrong…

Audiences in the first viewing that wanted to see an Alien prequel, 2012

The final phase is here: a long-awaited end is in sight to this series and my damned Alien project. It’s been quite a ride to bring opinions to you about movies your parents liked and then pretended to only like one or two of. Weathering two very different versions of dead franchises is no small feat, and we can all be thankful that the task is almost over. But before we go back to exclusively watching Disney movies and participating in the end of the world pandemic, there are two more movies in this franchise to discuss. All of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men had gathered together to allow Damien Lindelof and Ridley Scott to answer the question people never truly wanted answered: just what was that spaceship? And who was that jockey from the original Alien? With the last movies before us, let’s begin the conversation about Prometheus.

‘Bright’ Film Review

Grade: C+

Contrary to how critics have felt about David Ayer’s ‘Bright’ (Netflix’s newest attempt at a movie), I honestly felt that it was better than what it was given credit for. Though, beneath its visual splendor and thrilling action lies social commentary we have been exposed to before with the same reluctant-detective-teaming-up-with-a-different-species-to-right-a-wrong premise we have seen in ‘Zootopia’, ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, and many others. Only this time, it feels more like ‘The Lord of the Rings’ as a crime drama set in present day Los Angeles (If Netflix did not step up to the plate, the film could have been distributed by Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, and MGM).  There are orcs, elves, fairies, and dwarves (Maybe we will see hobbits in the sequel?) all living side by side with humans.