New video! Quick update

I just uploaded a new video to You Tube.

This one features the vocal talents of my goddaughter, Talyan, in addition to yours truly. It also gave me a chance to fool around with CGI. I hope you get a chuckle out of it.

I finally saw Alien: Covenant (spoilers) . . .

Life has been kind of hectic over the past couple of weeks and it's been difficult to find a couple of hours to sneak out to my local theater to catch the latest entry in the Alien franchise.

That changed today. I've now seen it, and my thoughts are below. It'll contain spoilers. You have been warned.

A bit like Prometheus, Covenant started out with some genre identity issues, but, unlike Prometheus, those were settled by the end of the first act. Yes, this is a horror movie, even though it started out as a straight action/adventure scifi flick.

Fans of the Alien and Aliens will spot many callbacks to the previous films, and there are several musical cues taken directly from Jerry Goldsmith's score for the first one. There are also quite a few callbacks to Prometheus in the score, which I thought were nicely done.

There isn't a sense of foreboding that the first movie evoked, a feeling that we are venturing into the unknown. Instead, it begins with a sense of optimism, then panic as the accident that begins the whole sequence of events occurs.

Covenant is a colonial vessel on its way to settle a world that is suspected to be habitable. She carries a crew of fifteen, as well as two thousand colonists asleep in stasis, and another fifteen hundred or so embryos frozen for the trip. A random stream of neutrinos from a nearby star hits the ship while the sails she uses to recharge her power supply are deployed, causing an overload in some of her systems. In the ensuing power surge forty-seven colonists are killed in their stasis pods, as well as the mission's captain, Branson (James Franco). He dies horribly, awake in his pod but unable to escape, as he's burned to death while his wife, Daniels (Katherine Waterson) watches.

I've heard a bit of stir about casting Franco in this role instead of a relatively unknown actor, since he's only actually in the movie for less than a minute. However, I disagree, and think it was a wise choice--using a recognizable actor gives his death more heft, making Daniels's grief more palpable and real.

As they make their repairs they intercept a signal from a nearby system--it's a woman singing John Denver's "Country Roads." When they pinpoint the source of the signal it turns out to be a world that is an even better candidate for colonization than their original destination. The new captain, Oram (Billy Cruddup), decides to change their mission to investigate.

A bit is made in the script that Oram is devoutly religious, though it doesn't go into details as to what his faith actually is. Not much more is made of his beliefs beyond the mention near the beginning, and at first I thought that was an oversight. Now that I've thought about it, though, I don't think so--I think the actual specifics of Oram's beliefs are not really necessary to the plot, it's only necessary that he has them. 

This ties into the themes the new series of movies has been exploring, of creation. This is brought into clear focus when Covenant arrives at the source of the transmission and discovers the sole survivor of the Prometheus mission there--the android David. David has been busy while he's been stuck on this world for the last ten years, experimenting with the black goo that first appeared in Prometheus. And what happened to Noomi Rapace's character, Shaw, who was with David on the Engineer's ship they used to escape at the end of the previous movie?

Shaw repaired David, reattaching his head to his body after it had been ripped apart in the earlier movie. For her pains David used her as source material in his black goo experiments, eventually creating the face huggers we all know so well.  With her DNA he was able to create an organism that was fully capable of infesting and gestating in human hosts.

A complaint with the movie has been the scientists and security people act, well, stupid, and I can't refute that. Landing on an alien world, even one with a breathable atmosphere and what appear to be earth-type flora, would still require one to wear a hazmat suit, at least initially. And exposure to alien spores--another way the goo works to infect a host--would result in immediate quarantine.

The gestation period for (what I'm calling) the prexenomorphs is out of whack, too--it'd take longer than a few minutes for something to grow from a collection of spores or even an implanted embryo to something large enough to emerge from the host body at the size of these creatures.  But I'm willing to let that one go, just so the story can move along.

I've also encountered many complaints about the ending being "predictable." Well, yes, it was. However, there's going to be at least one more of these movies. Think about that ending again, and remember that the next one is going to be called Alien: Awakening.

That promises, in light of where this one wound up, to be horrifying and epic and well worth the wait.

Overall, I'll give it a B+. The stupidity of the scientists was a little too convenient, and the editing was a little choppy in a couple of places, but overall I found it to be quite watchable and interesting. I'll be getting the DVD when it's available and I'm looking forward to the next one more than ever.

Here Be Monsters

Since I finished the pilot script for The Prince I've been looking around for something else to work on.

I've got a lot of projects in various stages of development, but none of them are speaking to me right now. None of them feel right. I was writing a screenplay for a film that I've been toying with for some time now but only half-heartedly--just because I feel the need to be working on something.

Then this idea hit me, as I was out on my walk earlier today. Just the title, really, which is the title for this entry.

But, as I was sitting and rewatching Arrival (and if you haven't seen it yet, you really need to--and if you have seen it, it's even better when you see it again) it occurred to me that the title I came up with will fit nicely with an idea for a TV show I've had for a while.

The idea I had came to me in a dream a couple of years ago. It was weird and kind of silly, actually, but it'll do for something like this. I won't go into details yet, except to say it sort of involves the work I'm doing now, but in a weird and ridiculous way.

So far I'm not even at the point where I can start making notes. It needs to ferment a little more, and some questions need to be answered, before I feel like I can even start coming up with characters and situations and creating the world the show would exist in. Worlds, actually, as there will turn out to be several.

I'm actually excited about this one. As soon as I think about it a bit more I'm going to start hammering out the pilot and creating the bible for the show.

So, my Muse gave me a nice surprise, after coming back from her extended vacation. She was missed, and maybe she's refreshed and recharged enough to stick around a while now.

In other news, I think I'm going to have a major life change coming up in the next few months. Can't go into details about it right now, but hopefully it'll turn out to be a Good Thing. Instead of, you know, the other thing.

And my dentist is telling me I need a crown on one of my teeth. And a crown that I already had needs to be redone. Oh, joy. I get to spend most of a day at the dentist's office with people's hands in my mouth. I can't describe how much I'm looking forward to that.

And I've been learning more and more about how to use my video editing software, thanks to videos created by Ripple Training. If you're into Final Cut Pro or Motion check them out on You Tube. Buy their training videos, too. Worth every penny. They have apps available in Apple's app store, if you want to check them out.

So, though I had gone quiet for a while, I'm still around, still trying to make something happen, still trying to get something on the big screen or on TV.

How are things with you?