Paradise

"Prometheus" and "Alien Covenant" fused into a single film. Decent enough plan, although it seems Mr Willins has done this twice already with his "Derelict" and "Ripley" edits.

Video - 1280 X 720p AVC. The visuals for "Prometheus" are simply better than those for "Covenant." The opening moments with the TED talks could have used less fade-outs. Afterward, the editing is assured and masterful ... for awhile. With "Prometheus" the editor has a strong concept and it shows. The editor has his craft down so I have no comments on technical aspects.

Audio - 128 kbps AAC. 2 Channels. No subs. The editing is smooth, though the audio is spotty at times - in both films. Dialogue is muffled or indecipherable. From hollering to whispering. I listen over speakers, I listen through headphones. No difference. I viewed the 5 GB file, I don't know if the larger, 10 GB file offered 5.1, or if it would have made a difference.

Narrative - As with the previous "Derelict" and "Ripley" edits, Mr Willins runs concurrent stories. With those edits, the story bounces back and forth like a ping pong match. Like an ADD incessantly switching channels. With "Paradise" Job Willins finally hones his storytelling. This becomes David's story, more pronounced and effectively done with the "Prometheus" half. "Covenant" is much too talky.

Enjoyment - Hit n miss for me. The last thirty minutes were repetitive to the point of tedium. Too many climaxes, I just wanted them all to die at that point. In a word, too much "Covenant."
With "Prometheus" he cut most of the garbage I hated. "Covenant," I predicted would be more challenging, and to me he did not successfully carry this off. Comment - songs by the fab four were distracting and incongruous.
Job Willins displays superior abilities and I would like to see him shift away from these back n forth twofers.

Wow! I was really looking forward to a character-driven mashup focusing on the malevolence of David and the Creator/Creation theme. The editor has executed this thesis perfectly. Both original films were very unsatisfying to me, given the Hollywood box-office-appeal choices that were made. This edit strips away much of that artifice. The editor made lots of great decisions, cutting back the TED prelude to its essential message and presenting in B&W; a classic tool to set up a past significant event.

The interweaving of the content from the two originals was to my eyes done seamlessly and purposely to navigate the scenes in the new direction chosen by the editor. Visually, the film looks gorgeous when viewed in full 1080p resolution on my tried and true plasma display. [A quick note that has nothing to do with edits. Many thanks to the editor for making this available directly from Google Drive. I don't burn physical copies, so a direct mp4 upload saves soooo much hassle as a Mac/ATV4 user.]

I like the use of the Beatles in the soundtrack. I'm not sure why this is such a sticking point with folks. If the finale had been set off by "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" I could relate, but I thought the tunes were tastefully chosen. I particularly liked the use of the minor key driven "I Want You (She's so Heavy)".

The overall effect is to set up these films and the next upcoming release as a "David Trilogy". I find this way more satisfying than the emphasis on the Engineers or the Creature. I'm putting this film into heavy rotation both at home on when traveling. Fantastic work!

spoilers ahead

Overall, wow. I'll start with the "enjoyment" category (I give the highest marks there), and work my way up.
Why do I enjoy it so much?

Focusing on the synthetics works so nicely. While it's easy to wish for the suspense of the original Alien, this edit shows that a nearly equal feeling can be achieved through unease. Job gives that sense of unease throughout this movie by focusing on the (to quote Walter) "disturbing" performance of Fassbender. David is the most intriguing character to come out of the films, but is presented in a muddled way in the original films. The question of who David is and who we ought to sympathize with is poorly handled until placed in Job's hands.

That said, I think even more could have been aggressively cut to limit the confusion of multiple crews, plots, moralities, and creations. As such, the narrative still struggled with extra baggage. Moreover, the complete abandonment of Shaw's character and the Engineer plotline so that the movie becomes a more obvious Alien prequel makes for a lackluster story that fanediting can't redeem entirely. As far as the climax - for me it was the moment we realize with few doubts that David killed/mutated Elizabeth (why have a grave in the first place if her corpse is still in your bestiary?). Everything after that is a bit lackluster, reduced to a shoehorn for Alien.

For the most part I enjoyed the audio editing, especially the use of the "farewell elegy to Elizabeth" throughout the movie. That said, the Beatles use at the end didn't seem appropriate, particularly since Walter had already played the Beatles and we had just recovered from a synth switcheroo.

The visual editing had some masterful edits. As others have mentioned, the interwoven infection scenes is the highlight of this edit. However, some of the transitions between crews aren't paced as well.

As for quality, I watched the Vimeo stream at 720p with stereo sound. It looked and sounded lovely considering the source.

Well done Jobwillins! Thanks for sharing your labor of love!

When I first heard about this fan edit combining the two Alien prequels into a single film centred around David, I was immediately intrigued.

The editing is great and for the most the narrative works but having the film narrative in chronological order would have been better than constantly switching from the past and present.

There were some deleted scenes which were not colour corrected or graded to match the film. This is nitpicking but felt worth mentioning.

Lastly, the song “The Entry of the Gods into Valhalla” had a significant meaning, especially how it is played throughout the film with its crescendo to the end when it blasts loudly as David has triumphed from his small beginnings to triumphing over his creator and becoming a god. I felt the song used instead by The Beatles did not suit the film at all and was a disappointing finish to a great idea.

JobWillins’ Derelict was quite the experience, combining two Ridley Scott films separated by over three decades into a coherent and suspenseful single storyline. After Alien: Covenant was released, I suddenly had a spark of inspiration; why couldn’t Prometheus and Covenant be combined in a similar way? After all, both films feature a central character in David, the murderous, disturbingly creative android, so why not give it a go myself? Well, little did I know that JobWillins was already on it, and let’s face it, he was always going to do a better job than I would.

As it turns out, JobWillins had conceived of the Paradise idea long ago. From his Tumblr:

“When I edited Derelict a couple of years ago, combining Prometheus & Alien in black & white, it was mainly because I found Prometheus unsatisfying as a standalone film. Its ending promised (and begged for) a sequel, but that sequel kept falling behind other Ridley Scott productions. With a sequel in doubt, I tried to use material from both films to make a single experience that felt more like a satisfying whole.

“We eventually did get a sequel 5 years later in Alien: Covenant. Half of it felt like a Prometheus sequel and the other half an Alien prequel. In my opinion it didn’t fully succeed in either role. I enjoyed parts of Covenant very much as I did Prometheus, but also much like Prometheus, it ended on an intriguing promise of a sequel. That sequel may never come thanks to its relatively poor box office performance.”

And so, here we are with another expansive, 2.5 hour sci-fi epic!

Opening in the all-too-familiar black-and-white style of Derelict with the ominous Peter Weyland TED Talk, Paradise shifts into full color with the excellent prologue of Covenant, David’s first day of life in the company of his father. However, the prologue stops short, giving us the new title as the Prometheus flies through space. Throughout the film, this prologue will return periodically, as if to punctuate the themes of creation and godhood with increased clarity as the narrative bounces between time frames.

While the transitions aren’t quite as good or numerous as those witnessed in Derelict, JobWillins covers this with a restrained hand, ensuring to keep both films at least thematically-synced. Probably the best example of this would be Covenant‘s backburster scene, intercut with Holloway’s agonizing death in Prometheus. As Ted Kurzel’s brilliant score pulsates away, the horror of both Shaw and Oram seeing their spouses’ deaths is compounded nicely. A lot has been cut from both films, including some of my favorite bits, like Milburn and Fifield’s run-in with the Millipede and various snippets of the Covenant crew’s first trek across Planet 4, but again, this is all in the name of ensuring the finished project isn’t so long that viewers check out for other offerings.

As before in Derelict, several deleted scenes from both films are used, as well as some of the online viral content from Alien: Covenant. Major props to JobWillins for his beautiful rendition of the ‘Crossing’ prologue. As for changes wholly his own, some may or may not like his musical choices for the beginning and end of the Covenant storyline, but I for one enjoyed them.

For this review, I watched his full-quality offering of the edit from Google Drive, which at a file size of 9.62 GBs, is plenty enough for home theater viewing. The video bitrate is a little lower than Derelict‘s at 8 mbps, but this allows for the inclusion of both stereo and surround audio tracks, and I honestly didn’t see any video quality loss, at least on my 1080p equipment.

While Derelict seemed to emphasize the mystery and intrigue of the films it sought to combine, Paradise is an edit more preoccupied with the grander themes at work within Ridley Scott’s mind: themes of creating life from nothing, of going against the natural order, themes more reminiscent of Shelley than Lovecraft, which is something I picked up from Covenant that I’m sure most viewers either didn’t see or didn’t appreciate. JobWillins certainly did, and that’s just one of many reasons why I love Paradise. I’m still thinking of doing my own Prometheus/Covenant fanmix, but not because Paradise was inadequate. On the contrary, if I never got around to it, I wouldn’t feel that bad. I still have this gem to come back to.