MORE ALIENS

I went to the cinema today. I mean I had to. Richard (of RBB) let the side down yesterday by going to see a Chick Flick see here:

LETTING THE SIDE DOWN

I had to balance things out a bit. Up north in Whangarei there wasn't a Gary Cooper or John Wayne Western but there was a new Ridley Scott film - Alien Covenant showing. I like Scott as a film-maker. He made Alien in 1979 which was outstanding and spawned the Alien business with many so-called sequels until the real sequel/prequel Prometheus was released. Alien Covenant is more a sequel to Prometheus that was a prequel to Alien. Got it?

Old Ridley did a better job with this latest film than he did with Exodus: Gods and Kings which I saw and didn't like a couple of years ago. See here:

DIDDLY SQUAT

The film was pretty damn good with once again great special effects and good acting. If I had to complain about anything though it would be:

• Borrowing from James Cameron's Aliens sequel with the dumb, gung-ho attitude shown by the crew.
• Too many Americans.
• No Chinese or Eastern Europeans (even old Star Trek had some of these).
• Being a bit too formulaic and not having any 'new' surprises.

The early parts of the film were filmed in New Zealand (Milford area). This being a depiction of a new planet where settlers were going to colonise. This to me seemed to be a metaphor for Americans fleeing USA for greener pastures.

This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing except for the fact that:

• There was already a former civilisation there that had died out.
• It was pretty dangerous in places.
• There had been introduced plague and environmental damage.
• There was a nasty predator with scary teeth about that was destroying everything.

Mmmm. Maybe a good metaphor after all.