Alien Covenant – REBOOT=REBUT

Alien Covenant… un film mai infect decat virusii ce-i populeaza continutul! Cica sa nu-ti (re)intalnesti niciodata idolii. Pe buna dreptate. Alaltaseara mi-am plans banii.

Sunt un fan hardcore al seriei Alien, serie pe care o consider poate cea mai buna din istoria cinematografiei de gen. Primul film, cel din ’79, este un clasic indiscutabil, o capodopera claustrofoba ce a anulat fara drept de apel viziunea naiv-tampa a unui Univers prietenos gen Star Wars, in care calatoritul de la o galaxie (far-far away) la alta nu era mai complicat decat drumul pana la piata. In space no one can hear you scream! Genial! Un spatiu vid si totusi dur si rece, populat de creaturi desprinse parca din tablourile lui Hieronymus Bosch… repictate magistral de Giger. Dar povestea este cea care face toti banii in acest prim Alien: tempo desavarsit, tensiune bine dozata, rasturnari de situatie.

Cel de-al doilea, sub bagheta lui James Cameron, este o cursa nebuna cu inima-n gat din prima pana in ultima secunda. Mai simplu, mai „action”, mai „grafic” si totusi savuros pana la Dumnezeu.

De fapt poate ca asta a fost cheia succesului acestei serii: mereu un alt regizor la carma fiecarui nou titlu. Astfel, dupa Cameron au venit David Fincher si Jean Pierre Jeunet, fiecare cu stilul propriu, reimaginand lumea si personajele din Alien. Si tot in acest context, cu tot respectul cuvenit unui titan al cinematografiei si cu riscul de a-mi lua injuraturi, poate ca ar fi momentul ca Sir Riddley sa se cam retraga. Am vazut cu cativa ani in urma un soi de Robin Hood cu Russel Crowe in rolul principal (un film al carui titlu nici macar nu merita retinut), regizat tot de „maestru”… Absolut penibil (era acolo un moment in care debarcau niste cavaleri din niste cutii de lemn asemanatoare navelor folosite la debarcarea din Normandia :)))))). Bre Sir Riddley… opreste-te acu’ cat se mai poate!

Revenind la Alien Covenant si la cea mai jenanta parte a acestuia, adica povestea insasi, am gasit comentariul unui user pe IMDB care mi se pare ca rezuma sublim tot ceea ce este in neregula cu story-ul chinuit si neplauzibil al acestui ultim Alien, acele „plot holes” care te scot din stare… si din minti. Imi permit sa sa reproduc integral mai jos comentariile lui kuuk3 de pe IMDB (sunt geniale!):

1. There is a ship full off over 1000 sleeping passengers. Yet they have just one android to look after it all. Why not have 3, 10 or even 20! They don’t age and surely you need a backup.

2. A rogue unexplained solar flare hits the ship disabling it, and Walter says they should leave the area asap. But instead they go further into it.

3. An astronaut outside the ship picks up a stray signal through his helmets two-way radio, that somehow appears in visual form on the glass of his helmet? Yet the giant ship with the radio dish right next to him misses it!

4. How did they determine the artist from the white noise? What they found later no-way explains why they sent a song into space for no apparent reason!

5. They are able to trace a stray video signal to a planet two weeks away at star-ship speed.

6. You don’t need to send almost the entire crew down to an alien planet! A scout team of four would have sufficed. Or maybe just the android on reconnaissance.

7. They pilot the drop ship through a plasma storm, yet it is sunlight clear within seeing distance. Why not fly around the storm?

8. They should have scouted the area, alien buildings and mass graveyards before landing the ship.

9. They land in the water, even though solid ground is just ten yards away. With unknown worms other possible deadly life in it. Unstable ground is not wise to land on, just to get your shoes wet?

10. You open the door after landing, not during.

11. They don’t bother wearing space suits, they don’t send the android out first to test the area.

12. They leave just one person on the ship, and leave the bay door wide open in unfamiliar terrain.

13. There is wheat on the planet. Did they just take seeds with them for the fun of it?

14. You do not let an infected person with an alien disease back on your ship.

15. Don’t open the door to a quarantine lab with a monster in it, and don’t go inside and slip on the blood.

16. When you shoot the metal wall of your shuttle with metal bullets, they usually ricochet. The fuel canisters are not usually left inside the ship, on the wall next to the door.

17. The two crew members that were in the shuttle as it exploded. At what point do you go check on all the screaming in the next room?

18. When following an android on an alien planet with a flare gun, through a dead city full of dead bodies, don’t bother asking him about any of it. Or suspect him as the only survivor to have been the cause.

19. Androids kissing each other. Android David raping a woman. Why?

20. David decides to give himself a haircut, using garden sheers for no obvious reason, yet afterwards it was clearly done with an electric razor. And no one questions it.

21. Android robots can play the flute. You need lungs for that, to blow air.

22. Android David created the dust mites, the mutant embryo, a dozen eggs without a queen. Yet he made all this without any scientific equipment, zero tools, while living in a cave filled with his drawings and a flute.

23. The smart mini dust mites were perfection. A micro monster that kills within minutes. Logically, why would it evolve to a size that makes it vulnerable?

24. Don’t split up in an alien vessel.

25. When you contact the main ship in orbit, give them a full report. Not just two words. And they should have abandoned you at that point to protect the rest of the passengers.

26. When the Captain finds David, talking to an Alien with the decapitated head of a fellow crew-member in the water, he doesn’t start shooting him. Instead he follows him into the bowels of the ship and into a room full of eggs.

27. Do not look directly into an alien egg that is opening.

28. Apparently the gestation time of face alien impregnating a person to full alien form is just ten seconds now. Yet later it takes a few hours, and in Alien it took a day.

29. When Walter goes to confront David after being attacked, he should have got himself a gun. He was missing a hand, and about to fight another android on his home turf.

30. Do not fly a colony ship into a plasma storm, overwriting every safety protocol.

31. The loading platform should have flown straight back up. There was no reason the pilot was swinging the ship around like a mad man. The alien was not affecting its movement, and the storm had even subsided. Yet he flew it into buildings and all sorts of tilting.

32. With problems piling up, you don’t turn of „Mother” the main ship computer for rebooting.

33. The aliens smash through reinforced glass with its head at every opportunity, without any harm to themselves.

34. The humans wear spacesuits to survive in the vacuum. But apparently aliens can survive without them.

35. Do not take a loud shower, with loud music and ignore the siren alarms.

36. When you have two identical looking androids and one of them is evil. Perhaps ask it a few basic security questions before giving it full command of the ship.