Can’t judge it by the trailer. Both Prometheus and Cloud Atlas had excellent trailers but turned out crap. original Guardians of the Galaxy an the recent Get Out had fairly bad trailers but turned out excellent.
John Hardy not a Turnbull fan On the contrary I’m actually much harsher than most on films.
Also, Scott is practically nowhere near this film. He is an exec producer which is basically a badge with a name only. The director Denis Villeneuve is fairly promising which bodes well.
The only good thing I can see about it is the plot summary.
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new director Denis Villeneuve unearths a long-buried screenplay that has the potential to make bank from a franchise that earned very little the first time round. Villeneuve’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Hampton Fancher, the original screenplay writer who Ridley Scott fired from the original film and has been missing for 30 years.
Hopefully Fancher delivered a script that in the end which nobody can understand.
Nooooo. The Alien: Covenant trailer looks like Prometheus.
But I actually have a good feeling about that one too. Because I remembered when I saw the Prometheus trailer and it looked great. It turned out to be terrible but that doesn’t change the fact that it easily could have turned out to be a great film judging by the trailer. So I’m not letting Prometheus stink up Covenant for me. Just hoping they got it right this time.
I was really excited about the first one: the presentation they did at WorldCon made the production values look fantastic! Then I saw it on the big screen, and even from the back row I could see the friggin’ wires on the car: crap.
Lisa Chabot that’s common for pre-release trailers. Same thing on Jurassic Park 4. The longest process is VFX so they often release trailers before that shit is finished
Maybe Harrison Ford is cursed to revisit all the most famous old characters he played in the 80s and 90s, and for every modern remake of each of those films his character has to die off before he can achieve a state of nirvana?
The Martian was a very conventional film just like this one will be. When I said Scott hasn’t made a good film I mean he hasn’t produced a great film since 1982.
The reason we are still talking about Blade Runner 35 years later (I saw it in the cinema when it came out) is that it was far from a conventional film. It was a difficult film for audiences of the time. This one however will spoon-feed audiences every step of the way and will be forgotten within a year.
Really that’s a pretty low bar. Blade Runner was “science fiction” only in the sense that it employed a plausible future scenario and didn’t resort to the supernatural or fantasy elements.
That’s not what made it great however. I think it’s was a great film despite its genre.
Gravity blew it so badly I walked out of watching it, it pissed me off so much. I could forgive them screwing up the orbits, but the whole “let go” scene was so implausible that I couldn’t take it.
And I did not make “being real science fiction” a bar for being a good movie. There’s nothing wrong with soft SF and science fantasy. But actually being credible hard SF is such a unique characteristic for a major studio’s output that it makes The Martian an automatic classic. It’s not just the best example of that genre, it’s pretty much the only example.
Never Stop Posting 
Why not?
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It looks terrible and you know it’s going to be terrible.
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So certain, are you?
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Not least because Scott will try to connect Blade Runner to Prometheus.
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Old Harrison Ford reprising Old Eighties roles is also Old. They should clone his DNA and make him into a unicorn-dreaming replicant.
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I’m so excited for this. Looks incredible.
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Young whipper snappers. Get a haircut.
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lmfao
I’ll report back once I see it. It may well end up terrible but so far shows no sign of that.
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I suggest giving it a chance. There’s a few welcome surprises in there worth the wait.
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You’ll be excited by this for precisely 90 minutes (if you’re lucky) and it will be as memorable as 2010 : The Year We Make Contact.
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Can’t judge it by the trailer. Both Prometheus and Cloud Atlas had excellent trailers but turned out crap. original Guardians of the Galaxy an the recent Get Out had fairly bad trailers but turned out excellent.
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Well OK but there are a few things that make me cautious. The main one being that Ridley Scott has not made a decent movie since 1982.
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Seriously Joe just likes everything. It’s a nice place to be I suppose.
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John Hardy not a Turnbull fan On the contrary I’m actually much harsher than most on films.
Also, Scott is practically nowhere near this film. He is an exec producer which is basically a badge with a name only. The director Denis Villeneuve is fairly promising which bodes well.
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We will see, I am not dismissing the possibility of either direction – good or crap.
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Screenwriter is also the same as the first film … so, not bad pedigree.
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The only good thing I can see about it is the plot summary.
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new director Denis Villeneuve unearths a long-buried screenplay that has the potential to make bank from a franchise that earned very little the first time round. Villeneuve’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Hampton Fancher, the original screenplay writer who Ridley Scott fired from the original film and has been missing for 30 years.
Hopefully Fancher delivered a script that in the end which nobody can understand.
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But seriously Joe it does look terrible. The production design is completely wrong.
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Nahh I have high hopes for this one. I’ll happily admit I was wrong if I am. But fuck that’s a great trailer.
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Yeah, it looks like Prometheus.
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Nooooo. The Alien: Covenant trailer looks like Prometheus.
But I actually have a good feeling about that one too. Because I remembered when I saw the Prometheus trailer and it looked great. It turned out to be terrible but that doesn’t change the fact that it easily could have turned out to be a great film judging by the trailer. So I’m not letting Prometheus stink up Covenant for me. Just hoping they got it right this time.
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That shot of Harrison Ford looking at the camera, I was expecting him to respond to “I want to ask you some questions” with “It’s True, All of It”.
In other words, too soon after Star Wars: Whiny Teen Snape.
On the other hand the Atari logo in the first shot…
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Ford looks older. The big secret is that replicants can age?
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I was really excited about the first one: the presentation they did at WorldCon made the production values look fantastic! Then I saw it on the big screen, and even from the back row I could see the friggin’ wires on the car: crap.
Bah, humbug. I won’t be fooled again.
(“Whiny Teen Snape”: perfect!!)
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Lisa Chabot that’s common for pre-release trailers. Same thing on Jurassic Park 4. The longest process is VFX so they often release trailers before that shit is finished
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No, I saw wires in the actual movie. Not in the trailers.
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Lisa Chabot wait up. You’ve seen the new bladerunner movie?
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No, sorry, I’m still bitching about the old one.
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Lisa Chabot oh. That one was universally recognised as a classic tho. It’s not my favourite film but it’s definitely a 91/100 at least.
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Maybe Harrison Ford is cursed to revisit all the most famous old characters he played in the 80s and 90s, and for every modern remake of each of those films his character has to die off before he can achieve a state of nirvana?
Star WarsBladerunnerIndiana Jones
The Fugitive
Air Force One
…
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American Graffiti but set in the 1990s.
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Didn’t Ridley Scott direct “The Martian”? I had heard that was good.
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The Martian was a very conventional film just like this one will be. When I said Scott hasn’t made a good film I mean he hasn’t produced a great film since 1982.
The reason we are still talking about Blade Runner 35 years later (I saw it in the cinema when it came out) is that it was far from a conventional film. It was a difficult film for audiences of the time. This one however will spoon-feed audiences every step of the way and will be forgotten within a year.
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The Martian is probably the only major motion picture that I would call “real science fiction” ever made. Ever. Made. That makes it a great film.
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Gravity?
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Really that’s a pretty low bar. Blade Runner was “science fiction” only in the sense that it employed a plausible future scenario and didn’t resort to the supernatural or fantasy elements.
That’s not what made it great however. I think it’s was a great film despite its genre.
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Gravity blew it so badly I walked out of watching it, it pissed me off so much. I could forgive them screwing up the orbits, but the whole “let go” scene was so implausible that I couldn’t take it.
And I did not make “being real science fiction” a bar for being a good movie. There’s nothing wrong with soft SF and science fantasy. But actually being credible hard SF is such a unique characteristic for a major studio’s output that it makes The Martian an automatic classic. It’s not just the best example of that genre, it’s pretty much the only example.
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Ok well I saw the Martian but didn’t see Gravity. It was an entertaining non-great film. Better than many.
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xkcd.com – xkcd: The Martian
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Peter da Silva well, you just sold me on The Martian
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Okay so I saw Alien: Covenant.
Not good. 52/100
Was hoping for Alien but got Prometheus again. Sigh.
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Scripts! Somebody needs to try writing one.
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John Hardy not a Turnbull fan ‘Get Out’ if you haven’t seen it. Or try ‘Midnight Special’.
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Joe Lancaster Agreed. Alien: Covenant is about a 3.5/10 for me.
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Well, turns out this was actually amazing. 84/100
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Yeah OK the fact that it bombed gives me a glimmer of hope. Haven’t seen it yet but planning to this weekend.
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It’s approximately 10% better than the original. And the original was fairly solid imo.
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I’m actually looking forward to seeing it.
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Just saw it.
As expected: NOPE.
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