Paradise

This is the only way to watch Alien: Covenant.

I need to preface this review by mentioning that none of the drawbacks of this edit come from JobWillins himself. Everything has to do with the original material. I say this as someone who loved Prometheus, but hated Covenant. This edit brings in the best elements of Covenant (the scenes between David and Wayland) which makes Prometheus that much better. In retrospect, I believe it would be much more interesting to have a standalone edit of Prometheus with those scenes added in. Covenant seems like a completely odd and nonsensical sequel to Prometheus, and I truly believe that combining those two movies does more good for Covenant than it does for Prometheus.

However I must congratulate JobWillins' incredible editing skill. He has done the best job anyone could do when it comes to this project. The cuts between the timelines are seamless and seem very fitting every time. It's never jarring and they somehow feel right. However, Covenant remains the movie that it is and unfortunately no amount of editing will ever be able to save that mess. I left this edit feeling like I just wanted to go watch Prometheus instead, as that movie was pretty damn good.

It's worth a watch, if only just for JobWillins' incredible editing, and if for some odd reason you need to watch Alien: Covenant. If not, I would recommend you simply watch Prometheus again.

Probably the best fan edit I've ever seen. Only drawback is I always feel let down by the finale of Covenant, and that is supposed to be the "climax" of this edit. It feels stake-less to me, particularly because the edit is so focused on David and then he's barely part of the finale. However, the edit does do some creative audio and music work with the final moments of the film, as David is walking along the hibernation pods. That really helped to bring it all home. And then I would have liked to see more of the few David scenes that were not present in this edit, but that's probably personal preference. Overall, this is an edit that everyone should watch, you don't have to be a fan of Alien (in fact, that might be the best way to watch it, since so much of this would be new!) and you also don't have to be interested in fan edits, it's that professional and well-done.

I agree with previous reviewers here; the editor started from 2 films that were mediocre and managed to grab the best parts of the 2, as well as the best character arch / best acting, David / Fassbender.

Regarding the frequent jumping between the 2 timelines, for me the editor has found a perfect balance between the need of text on screen to contextualize the jumps and the (many) times when it was not needed, because the start of the scenes had enough context.

Regarding all the mashups I’ve seen, this one is unusual because the more frequent thing to do is to reduce the amount of cutting between the timelines, in order to improve the flow and the narrative. This fanedit may be the one with the most jumps (between the original films) but also the one that’s edited the better to give narrative meaning to those jumps.

Well done!

The technical mastery of this edit is impressive, whether in terms of audio, video or narration processing. The idea to combine these two flawed movies is a very efficient way to get rid of their worst parts and focus on what works. The drawback is the pace that sometimes feels a little rushed (I had this feeling mainly in the first half). I guess it can be challenging for a newcomer to follow all the back and forth between timelines, but I only got slightly confused one time during the infection sequence.

I appreciated how cleverly the plots and themes intertwined, like the choice of the genocide punchline. Also, the alien in shower scene was really really cool. Like others, I wish the Wagner theme was kept in the final scene, but the mash-up of Beatles and David's monologue worked very well anyhow.

'Paradise' totally saves what I think are two visually stunning Blu-rays in my collection suffering from an overarching vagueness and the inexplicable antics of the crews with their cliched foolhardyness, incompetance and inglorious bastardy. The fantastic editorial here sweeps out the worst of this and turns what is left into impactful moments of intrigue. Bringing in an overarchingly vivid mainstay to the previously broken stories. Polishing off may be necessary on the odd dice and blend. Its heavy on the editing though. This may be as good as it gets without stock footage to string things out with. One really has to concentrate to pick out the nicks. And with the engageing plot weaving that highlights the best parts of the originals in the best ways the viewing is fully enjoyable.

It might be a good idea to offer some further textual explanations of the tooings and froings between Prometheus and Covenant but this itself will be a gripe for some (myself included) as it cant be done for the parts where the switching gets complex. Therefore it might well be left as is for the sake of consistency. It starts out a bit confusing with only the oringal mission info blurbs and some very brief notes which kind of pass by subconsciously. I actually quite liked the fact I was getting a bit lost as it adds a puzzle aspect. Its a mystery unravelling. It all pays off beautifully in the end!!