Alien Covenant: A Requiem to Prequels

Crafting a good prequel film can be tricky. While it is exciting to see backstories of fan-favorite characters or the genesis of a cinematic world, the audience usually knows the outcome of the film. No matter how ambitious, creative, or innovative directors attempt to be, prequels are doomed from the start and are always a slave to canon. As a result, most prequels (X-Men: First Class, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Rogue One aside) are merely “creative ways” to reach an assured end and can often feel only marginally connected to the original film that inspired it. This debacle is largely what plagues director Ridley Scott’s latest sci-fi horror film, Alien: Covenant.

Laughing in the Face of Solitude: The Martian

By JACK JONES

I’ve never seen a space movie that made me want to go to space. In space movies, astronauts never head into the unknown, have a pleasant and informative trip, and return on schedule to their families. Instead, nearly every conceivable disaster strikes, leaving the astronauts with the unsettling prospect of their lifeless bodies floating, weightless and irretrievable, somewhere beyond the sky. As a result, space movies are generally grave and somber affairs, from Apollo 13 to Gravity to last year’s Interstellar. Opportunities for humor are scarce when the characters are surrounded by a seemingly limitless abyss which threatens at all times to swallow them.

The Martian: Rocket Science as Comedy

 

Fall movie season is officially here, which means that even after a summer of particularly good popcorn fare, Hollywood starts craving some respect and puts out all its prestige films. Generally, around this weekend there is one high-quality film released by a major studio and helmed by a heavyweight director. I’m pleased to report that The Martian is this year’s movie. Directed by Ridley Scott and running two and a half never-boring hours, it is a pleasurable and sometimes awe-inspiring ride. It contains some moments of genuine amazement, many that are laugh-out loud funny, and fits neatly into the tradition of recent space-set blockbusters by big-name directors like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. The film plays like a comedic fantasy version of Apollo 13 with its good-natured characters, not a one of them evil or out for sabotage, striving to bring home a lone marooned space explorer on cinema’s favorite alternative planet.