Discussion of AI in Alien Covenant - Spoiler Alert
Anyone else disturbed how Artificial Intelligence took over the story line in the Alien franchise series while Ridley basically decided to kill of the Engineer species? While I'm sure, or should I say that I hope, Ridley still plans to incorporate more of the Engineers in his future Alien movies, it's just hard for me to understand that Ridley wanted to center more around AI, than the origin of humans and answering questions he left in Prometheus. I mean that's where he left us hanging, Shaw getting to the Engineer's planet Paradise, and maybe answering the question why the Engineer's created us, and why they wanted us dead. Instead, he kills off Shaw's character, the Engineers, and just explains how the Alien Xenomorph evolved or should I say has been modified. To me that was just an easy way out for a Director, rather than getting into much more detail. I ultimately hate how Directors do this, then specific questions are never answered in the sequel. Then they start off on a new storyline all together. I mean hell, Ridley Scott is 79 years old, he's just setting the movie up for more and more storylines. My worry is that some of these questions will never be answered!
I guess the storyline was just meant to be centered around the Alien creature itself, rather than the Engineer species, hence the name of these movies. I'm still ultimately disappointed that AI ended up being the focal point and that it ended up being the main creator of the Alien species, which attacked and tormented Ripley's character throughout the series. And that this sequel wasn't more centered on the intriguing character, which was the Engineers and they're home planet. Which might I add, looked pretty lame and very primitive, compared to their space ships, lol.
And really, nothing about the AI robots in any of these movies seem to match up. In Prometheus, we start to see somewhat of a rogue robot. Then in Alien Convenant we have a good robot named Walter that tries to save the day. Then again, another rogue robot in Alien, then in Aliens a good robot yet again.
I can't expect any of these storylines to completely match up, because hell, there's been 4 different directors throughout the movie franchise, but I guess I'm little disappointed Ridely didn't go deeper with the Engineers and deeper into why they created the human species.
Again, Ridley is getting up there, I just hope there's some type of closure with these Engineers. I wonder if he just plans to let our imagination run wild! The problem with creating these Sci-Fi flicks back in the day is they did not have the technology to get in depth with characters and planets like the Engineers... CGI was basically nonexistent in the original Alien and now that Directors can do so much more, I guess I expected more....
It's funny, some people say they expected more from Guy Ritchie in the latest King Arthur movie, but for me, I expected more from Ridley in Alien Covenenant. They're still both great movies and I could see myself watching them over and over again throughout the years, I guess I enjoyed King Arthur a little more.
One more thing I'd like to add, we've seen the AI robots throughout the series of Ridley's Alien franchise over and over again. We've also seen the heroic female character, it would of been nice to seem some change with this franchise to give it somewhat of a balance. That change we didn't get, what we did get was repetitiveness, which you can count on with Hollywood.
I guess Ridley always kind of hinted to AI being in the main storyline from the beginning, first starting off with Ash and his admiration for the Xenomorph species. But it would of been nice to add more of a twist, to me the ending with David being Walter was so predictable.
Well described