Paradise

WOW! What else can I say?! What a picture. Keep in mind I have not seen Covenant, and I had only seen Prometheus a few months after it's release, but what I watched may just be my new favourite film. JobWillins has done an excellent job of weaving two narrative pieces into one in a way that is both thematically and narratively enticing. The way the film switches between the perspective of The Covenant and The Prometheus creates an engaging journey that will leave you on the edge of your seat. In my opinion, this not only a superb fanedit -- and film of it's own right, but it allows for David to shine in his own spotlight, outside of the overshadowing glow of the Alien films, and in my opinion, is possibly the most fun I have had watching a film from this franchise. 10s all around, what a great job. I would recommend this to friends, I would also recommend they put this on the shelves and in cinemas.

Let me star off by saying I never watched the theatricals of these movies. I read the reviews and passed. So maybe I'm not in the best position to judge an edit meshing both of them, to say the least. Still, I'll give it a try.

I thought the first part of the movie was brilliant, with two stories developing simultaneously in the past and the present. The music works well here. This part had me on tenterhooks. Kudos to that, well done. Then aliens come in and it all goes to pieces. Let's get this out of the way: David, what a massive piece of trash that guy turned out to be. I hated the character with a passion. Not only is he the ugliest, he's completely unbelievable. How does he learn an alien language? Let alone learn to fly their ships enough to do a planet drive-by shooting. Which, remind me again, why? Just a massive sonnofabitch, I guess.

Also, the Engineers. Towers of muscle with an aggressive streak? How does that fit in with a biological and planetary Engineer? Those guys couldn't raise a cat, let alone an entire species. And having them appear only for them not to answer any questions except "you bad! me kill you!"? Disappointing.

I also would've enjoyed a more positive ending. Would've loved to see that bastard David come to a bad end. The movie as a whole is way too dark to have an even darker ending. By the way, I have no idea if this is a prequel or a sequel, as it doesn't seem to fit in with the others either way.

Speaking of the dark tone of the move, I saw in youtube the scene where the spaceship falls over the two women over the course of then minutes, speeded up and with yakety sax playing. It was hilarious and I was looking forward to watching the original for a much-needed break from all the terrible things happening. Alas, it was not to be, but I understand the need to cut it. However, what happened to the blond? She takes off in an escape pod, but that can't have made it all the way to Earth, so...

Finally, the Beatles? Seemed like an odd choice to me.

I know some or most of the criticism here is directed at the original, since I don't know which is which. I apologize if I was unfair to the edit. I appreciate the opportunity to watch it and it certainly gave me a lot to think about. Specially about that scumbag, David!

Deftly weaving between two films that each had their own unique problems that could be and needed to be fixed, Paradise creates a strong narrative of its own, while retaining Ridley Scott's original themes and removing the attempts to cater to a more mainstream audience. There are so many perfect little cuts that vastly improve the narrative (my favorite being the removal of the close up insert shot of David spiking Holloway's drink).
The editing is flawless and the additions are perfect. Quality is fantastic, although I would be interested in a fully uncompressed BD.
Highly recommended.

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!

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.