Armond White on Alien Covenant: 'Ridley Scott’s franchise is hackery in action'

Ultra-hack Ridley Scott has ruined the Alien franchise. His first episode in 1979 was a visually textured, erotic genre film that veered sensually and sensationally into techno-evolutionary horror. It was that decade’s most original scary movie. But Alien: Covenant, the sixth installment and Scott’s third go-round, works exactly as Pauline Kael described in her derisive dismissal of the first film: “a gorilla in a haunted house movie.”

When a distress signal from a distant planet is answered by the Covenant, a U.S. space vehicle whose crew is employed to colonize new territory, Scott shamelessly imitates the first film’s narrative — he panders to Millennials whom Hollywood considers attention-deficit-disordered and unfamiliar with anything before video games. Scott milks the franchise, disguising craven greed as pseudo-artiness. The Covenant’s “diverse” crew (male, female, white, black, American, Middle Eastern) become cannon fodder in an intergalactic update of Ten Little Victims.

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The only difference here is that annoying ultra-hack habit of pseudo-relevance. Screenwriter John Logan (who did Scorsese’s Hugo) debases the poetic conceit that worked well in the first film. Graphic artist H. R. Giger’s vision of a biomorphic-mechanical monster, which was ingeniously derived from William Blake’s poem “The Tyger,” serves as a now-fashionably-sacrilegious allegory. Covenant’s captain (Billy Crudup) is a believer. Doubted by his team and pushed to his Christian limit, he suffers man’s fall from grace. “There’s nothing you can do — nothing,” he is told when praying over a crew member’s dead body.

Lacking originality, Logan and Scott emphasize dread; they degrade the first film’s evolutionary mystery (which Jean-Pierre Jeunet also explored in the exquisite, languorous, and tense Alien Resurrection). Alien: Covenant mocks man’s relation to God, starting with its opening scene of cyborg David (blue-eyed blond Michael Fassbender) confronting his inventor. When asked “What do you believe in?” robotic David (named after Donatello’s statue now housed in a futuristic laboratory-museum-penthouse) answers “creation” as smoothly as Hal 9000. Alien: Covenant is not just hackneyed, it’s brazenly diabolical — stupidly so when trading William Blake for Richard Wagner and trite Nazi allusions. Doesn’t Scott realize how, in recent months, Antifa has made all Nazi references meaningless?

More like, Armond White inside OP's anus

LOL

Had ultra-hack Scott dropped the simple-minded goose-stepping implications, Alien: Covenant wouldn’t seem so insultingly indifferent to today’s ideological turmoil. It might have achieved a Blakean vision of hell (hubris gone too far, as Mel Gibson depicted in Hacksaw Ridge, where roiling action and the specter of death affected its hero’s consciousness). Instead, Scott strikes an atheistic pact with Hollywood’s culture warriors who demean Christian theology; he pulls out that penile-squid monster for predictably spooky, grisly appearances (vagina dentata and then some) to create the film’s inane shock effects. So far, Alien: Covenant is the year’s most obscene Hollywood undertaking.

BASED

king him

He's shit on a lot of movies (and people) but this is genuinely mean.

>he pulls out that penile-squid monster for predictably spooky, grisly appearances (vagina dentata and then some)

>The Covenant’s “diverse” crew (male, female, white, black, American, Middle Eastern)

I'm glad there are also black people that are bothered by this.

Ridley apologists BTFO

BASED AF.

ULTRA HACK
L
T
R
A

H
A
C
K

And this is all coming from the same guy that liked Jack and Jill, yet disliked the Dark Knight

>the exquisite, languorous, and tense Alien Resurrection
He had me until this. He always has to slip in one line to give away that he's fucking trolling.

Critics are performance artists, the sooner we all realize this, the better.

If you agreed with everyone else he said, then does that mean your opinion is a troll opinion?

I didn't believe everything else he said -- I believed it to be his sincere opinion. I thought he meant it.

Until that line, then it became obvious, like his Jack and Jill review.

This off the wall insidious gay nigger actually believes that David kissing his brother has some way damaged the way people views fags. It's like he's forgotten about the fag parades and the rest of it that does that all on its own. He actually believes, this gay nigger does, that the movement in the 70's, 80's and 90's, up until our day no less, to stop Shrinks and other brain doctors from classifying faggotry as a demented practice had freed them from that description. But, least he forgot, forcing those who had the statistically data to recant all the data as show and to give you and yours a free pass does not in anyway lessen how skull fucked faggots truly are. But of course Colbert's insult and then Covenant has some how lessened all the positivenesses faggots has gained in these last few years. As if those people ever had anything positive to begin with but don't Tell Shakespeare from the Jungle that.

*has shown and to give you and yours a free pass does not in anyway lessen how skull fucked faggots truly are.

I love Armond. He's literally Sup Forums the critic.

WTF I love Alien Covenant now.

>Doesn’t Scott realize how, in recent months, Antifa has made all Nazi references meaningless?

This is so dumb in so many levels.

>there are people who like "Alien" "Covenant"
What the hell?

I haven't seen Jack and Jill since I hate most comedies but The Dark Knight sucked. I am sorry you think Bale is a good Batman and The Crow Tom Waits is a good Joker and Two-Face's CGI face worked.

...

>He's literally Sup Forums the critic.
No. He doesn't fatpost, brappost, footpost, ask "Is it kino?" ad nauseum, mommypost, ask "what the fuck was his problem", or ask "what did he mean by this".

Sup Forums is the cosplay obsessed child of Sup Forums and /s4s/

>Sup Forums is one person
This nigger is a moronic simpleton who baits the easily impressed with winsome cordials.

damn, whitebois BTFO yet again

Based Armond BTFO retarded plebbitors

>king kong-trarian hates it
Shit, my expectations had been lowered but now I'm actually kind of hyped for the movie.

>there are """""people""""" on this board who think that Ridley Scott made a single good movie outside of the original Alien and The Duellist
>there are """""people""""" on this board who think that just because a critic doesn't shill every third blockbuster, pixar movie and romantic comedy every week that those critics are contrarians
>there are """""people""""" on this board who think that television-tier nondirectors with shallow politics and characters aren't the ones getting the most praise from a visually-illiterate and commercially-hypnotized group of millenial "film-buffs" whose knowledge of the medium consists of the sleek plot-driven schlock of the 80s and the degeneration of the medium as an art form and who wouldn't dare look beyond "essential" older movies nor actual challenging independent recent productions
>there are """""people""""" on this board who think that movies aren't some of the most ideologically-loaded experiences in existence

>LOL

How's reddit these days? I heard it's changed quite a bit especially with many flocking to see r/thedonald.

>the exquisite, languorous, and tense Alien Resurrection

Why should this man be taken serious?

>10/10 would sputter my penis butter in his orifice

>(which Jean-Pierre Jeunet also explored in the exquisite, languorous, and tense Alien Resurrection)
Goddamn it, his review seemed genuine until he shoved in this bullshit. Why does he always do this? Is he really this desperate for clicks?

>>there are """""people""""" on this board who think that Ridley Scott made a single good movie outside of the original Alien and The Duellist
>implying Blade Runner, Matchstick Men, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, American Gangster, Someone to Watch Over Me, Kingdom of Heaven (director's cut) and Thelma & Louise are bad movies

>movies
the proper term for those kinds of titles are "flicks" user

Blade Runner is a film.

Blade Runner is cinema, American Gangster and Kingdom of Heaven are films, Matchstick Men, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down are movies, Something to Watch Over Me and Thelma & Louise are flicks.

>vulgar autism

>10/10 would sputter my penis butter in his orifice

I love how autistic Sup Forums gets with that.

>movies
but the term 'movies' is a low brow nick name for moving pictures, senpai.

They vary from mediocre to actually shit

>Liked
Revenge of The Fallen
Jack and Jill
Jonah Hex
Norm of The North
I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry
Dirty grandpa
Resident Evil: The Final chapter
Grown Ups

>Disliked
Wall-E
The Dark Knight
Transformers 2007
Silence
The Social Network
There Will be Blood
Inglorious Bastards

It's pretty obvious why Sup Forums likes this guy so much, he's just a pseudo-intellectual contrarian for the sake of being one. Sound familiar?
>Inb4 you didn't read his reviews

Yes, I have actually read some. Here's his Jack and Jill review. What the actual fuck?
nyfcc.com/2011/11/jack-and-jill-reviewed-by-armond-white-for-cityarts/

Fuck you aunty fangina

u r objektiv wrong. fuck u

>Disliked Tree of Life
>Liked To the Wonder
Armond is funny but he seems to be contrarian for no reason.

kek

>Blade Runner
>mediocre
It's Ridley Scott's best film.

Knight of Cups>To the Wonder>Tree of Life

Fuck this guy and ridley

>>Disliked
>Wall-E
>The Dark Knight
>Transformers 2007
>Silence
>The Social Network
>There Will be Blood
>Inglorious Bastards
Are you saying disliking Transformers and The Dark Knight is a bad thing?

>implying he doesnt

Silence was shit and Scorsese hasn't made a single good movie since the turn of the century

But The Departed was actually better than Infernal Affairs.

You plebs should shut the fuck up now the king has spoken.

First Transformers is a comfy action film, and he liked the second, which is far worse in pretty much every way.
Not liking The Dark Knight is a fucking meme on this board. It has it's share of nolanisms but overall it's still a very solid movie

Do you also pretend to like the Transformers cartoons? Do you still play with action figures?

But it wasn't
And DiCaprio all but ruins every crime movie he's in

Maybe form your own opinion instead?

>Do you also pretend to like the Transformers cartoons

No, actually. I was only 10 when Bays first movie came out, so there's a bit of nostalgic factor to it when it comes to me liking the film itself. I've never seen any of the G1 series or the movie

Your god Armond liked Revenge of the Fallen, which is worse than the first Transformers movie, and that was shit too.

How is Armond my god? I hate Transformers and I hate every Adam Sandler flick.

Then why the fuck are you replying?

>No, actually. I was only 10 when Bays first movie came out
Jesus Christ. You were too young to have watched the 2000s Transformers cartoons? You are cancer.

I can't believe it's not Armond Butter.

Kek, why are you defending this fuck then when he worships Adam Sandler?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA No pleb that shit was top tier garbage. Ol' Marty can do a hell of a lot better than rip off someone else's work. Everyone trying to do a Boston accent were both laughable and atrocious.

It was visually more kinetic and interesting than the first movie. The biggest issue with the Transformer movies is the utterly shit scripts. Bay is unironically a great visual director and when he has a script that's good (Pain and Gain, 13 Hours) he can unironically make kino.

He matured quicker than you did, obviously.

alien ress is actually miles better than aliens:C

FUKK HOTRODD!!!

No it isn't, Covenant is a mess but it's not as bad as Resurrection. Resurrection will always be the worst of the franchise.

Huh? I am defending him by asking why it is bad to shit on Transformers and The Dark Knight?

>It was visually more kinetic and interesting

How? The first is a staple in terms of CGI and how it was used. ROTF was rushed and ended up looking worse than the 2007 film
And I do agree that Bay is a great visual director

Nice trips, faggot. You get a pass for your stupid opinion.

Truly /ourguy/. Is he the only man that can save film?

>ultra-hack

Ahahahahahha

The ascension from the bottom of the sea to the stars and the fight between Prime and Megatron are both fantastic moments. The only failings are the characters and dialogue. And the Fallen being a really quick fight

go be a pleb somewhere else, wonder is much better.

>I'm cancer because I was born after you

Okay

yes, it's usually people who disagree with armond who can't respect that. Stop calling him contrarian, I'll stop calling you idiots.

Hey, Armond.

>"a gorilla in a haunted house movie"
what did she meant by that

Cats don't have the necessary thumbs to operate flick knives

The Forest fight in ROTF i'll admit is probably the best fight in the entire series. I'm actually looking forward to what they're gonna do with Megatron in the Last Knight

It's my opinion that he's a contrarian, it's your opinion that I'm an idiot.

Then again, why should I or you care?

it's my honest opinion.

he's LE contrarian critic lmao

Kinda yeah. It's bad to defend the Transformers franchise at all but you don't even have nostalgia for the cartoons to excuse your like of the shitty flicks. I'm not saying people who still like the cartoons aren't cancer I'm just saying you are MORE cancerous.

So he's cancer either way? Fucking wut?

but that wasn't Donatello's david

he agrees with the tomatometer over 50% of the time. I'm sure you agree with him on a lot of movies. Also, if you formed your own opinions, you wouldn't care much about his anyway. calling him a contrarian makes me think you know deep down that he is right, lol!

Of course. Why is this a conversation? You're allowed to be over 17 and acknowledge Transformers is the shittiest of shit. Even capeshit and Star Wars has material that aren't solely action figure commercials. Transformers and Masters of the Universe are literal toy commercials.

Still right

I don't though. Why would you think that?

Butthurt commie subhuman detected, don't you have old ladies to beat up and Starbucks windows to smash?

>Why is this even a conversation?
Because you seem to be having an autistic fit over nothing?