'Prometheus' (2012) - Ridley Scott's 'Alien' prequel.

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Overall, more than the stupidity of the characters in a survival situation, I think the movies biggest failing is the *profound* and deep stuff they try to push on us.

Could be just a tactic to push the sales of the home video release here.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Could be just a tactic to push the sales of the home video release here.

Frankly, I don't think Scott deserves more screentime to mess the movie up.

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Frankly, I don't think Scott deserves more screentime to mess the movie up.

I don't know. With Ridley Scott, some recut and extention of his films on home release might just actually turns out better then the theatrical release. Examples includes Blade Runner, Gladiator and Kingdom Of Heaven.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

I don't know. With Ridley Scott, some recut and extention of his films on home release might just actually turns out better then the theatrical release. Examples includes Blade Runner, Gladiator and Kingdom Of Heaven.

The directors cut for Robin Hood was pretty bad though. Also. Gladiator and Blade Runner are old movies.



And the directors cut isn't going to change how stupid most of the characters were.

[Renegade334]

Gave it a try...and even though there were some alluring ideas with the themes of panspermia and Erick von Daniken-inspired ideas (early civilizations raised/created by ancient astronauts) as well as the creator-creation stormy relationship, I found myself gnashing my teeth a handful of times during the movie.

At several points I was practically balling my fists and exhorting the main character to die already - her overbearing faith ("I chose to believe") grated on my nerves even to the end

Spoiler:

where, in spite of the crushing realization that she should NOT attempt any further contact with the obviously hostile Engineers, she still chose to run after them to get her answers, under the pretense that this kind of action was what made her human...in sharp contrast to David (who, in line with the Alien tradition of severely mutilating androids [the most notable exception being Resurrection], ends up in pieces, with only a part of him still active) who points out that getting answers no longer matters and that this was obviously the logical thing to do (ever thought about going back and telling everyone that Engineers were a bad crowd?). I was practically banging my head on the seat in front of me.

As for the two guys who were left behind due to the storm - Fifield and Whowasitagain? Why in the nine hells were they going all "coochie coochie coo, little cobra-like creature, let me caress you HEYWHATTHEAAAARGHMYARM"? Don't they know better than trying to approach an unknown lifeform that has uncanny physical similarities with a well-known venomous animal from Earth?

The lack of safety protocols (I almost started cheering every time Charlize Theron did her "political officer back from the forgotten ashes of the Soviet Union" act) is downright appalling - from Holloway deciding to kick-start the exploration right after landing because "it's Christmas and I want my presents" to the "something is REALLY wrong, we lost three crew members to causes unknown and - oh, wait, I see something outside let's open the hangar door to see what it is and hey I know you oh wait urk I'm dead" part, it felt like a poorly organized expedition with no sense of camaraderie and cooperation within the entirety of the crew. They felt fractured and careless. Holloway, for one, had me stroking the bridge of my nose in aggravation - the guy just realizes that the Engineers are all dead and goes all mopey, trying to drown his misery in alcohol. That guy, who, a few hours ago was acting every bit like a daredevil archaeologist, practically lost his entire commitment to the mission. Very anticlimactic.

The black goo stuff is a bit too undefined for my tastes, especially if they are to make sequels for the Prometheus storyline - in one instance the liquid acts like a corrosive, neurotoxin-like agent (the Engineer at the very beginning) but in others it acts like an evolution jumpstarter. Either way, it seems to mess with the target's DNA...but the effects seem too conveniently vague and variable. Unless the black goo is just a liquid containing different nanomachines...and the Engineers never thought about sticking labels on containers.

Which brings me to the next part...I know Androids have a far greater capacity for learning (and David obviously knew it, seeing how he strutted left and right during the entire movie), but how in the nine hells did David manage to decipher the Engineer language so fast? Even with the holograms' help, he shouldn't be THAT fluent already... Unless he DERP'ed, completely misinterpreted certain words and inadvertently told the Engineer that he was a "sexually confused hairless albino douchebag"...so much for first contacts... XD

Girls...when a bloody, doughnut-shaped spaceship is rolling towards you, you better start running perpendicularly to its trajectory, NOT RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT. Jesus.

Skull-like helmets? Uhm...uh...okay, it's weird but I can stomach that for the sake of graphic style.

And...behold the future of computer technology. Flute-activated dashboards/PCs!
Has Apple, Motorola or any other well-known patent bully copyrighted this already?


But...yeah, the visuals are great - that's at least one thing you can count Ridley Scott to deliver: great scenes that almost should belong in a glorious painting.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Gave it a try...and even though there were some alluring ideas with the themes of panspermia and Erick von Daniken-inspired ideas (early civilizations raised/created by ancient astronauts) as well as the creator-creation stormy relationship, I found myself gnashing my teeth a handful of times during the movie.

At several points I was practically balling my fists and exhorting the main character to die already - her overbearing faith ("I chose to believe") grated on my nerves even to the end

Spoiler:

where, in spite of the crushing realization that she should NOT attempt any further contact with the obviously hostile Engineers, she still chose to run after them to get her answers, under the pretense that this kind of action was what made her human...in sharp contrast to David (who, in line with the Alien tradition of severely mutilating androids [the most notable exception being Resurrection], ends up in pieces, with only a part of him still active) who points out that getting answers no longer matters and that this was obviously the logical thing to do (ever thought about going back and telling everyone that Engineers were a bad crowd?). I was practically banging my head on the seat in front of me.

As for the two guys who were left behind due to the storm - Fifield and Whowasitagain? Why in the nine hells were they going all "coochie coochie coo, little cobra-like creature, let me caress you HEYWHATTHEAAAARGHMYARM"? Don't they know better than trying to approach an unknown lifeform that has uncanny physical similarities with a well-known venomous animal from Earth?

The lack of safety protocols (I almost started cheering every time Charlize Theron did her "political officer back from the forgotten ashes of the Soviet Union" act) is downright appalling - from Holloway deciding to kick-start the exploration right after landing because "it's Christmas and I want my presents" to the "something is REALLY wrong, we lost three crew members to causes unknown and - oh, wait, I see something outside let's open the hangar door to see what it is and hey I know you oh wait urk I'm dead" part, it felt like a poorly organized expedition with no sense of camaraderie and cooperation within the entirety of the crew. They felt fractured and careless. Holloway, for one, had me stroking the bridge of my nose in aggravation - the guy just realizes that the Engineers are all dead and goes all mopey, trying to drown his misery in alcohol. That guy, who, a few hours ago was acting every bit like a daredevil archaeologist, practically lost his entire commitment to the mission. Very anticlimactic.

The black goo stuff is a bit too undefined for my tastes, especially if they are to make sequels for the Prometheus storyline - in one instance the liquid acts like a corrosive, neurotoxin-like agent (the Engineer at the very beginning) but in others it acts like an evolution jumpstarter. Either way, it seems to mess with the target's DNA...but the effects seem too conveniently vague and variable. Unless the black goo is just a liquid containing different nanomachines...and the Engineers never thought about sticking labels on containers.

Which brings me to the next part...I know Androids have a far greater capacity for learning (and David obviously knew it, seeing how he strutted left and right during the entire movie), but how in the nine hells did David manage to decipher the Engineer language so fast? Even with the holograms' help, he shouldn't be THAT fluent already... Unless he DERP'ed, completely misinterpreted certain words and inadvertently told the Engineer that he was a "sexually confused hairless albino douchebag"...so much for first contacts... XD

Girls...when a bloody, doughnut-shaped spaceship is rolling towards you, you better start running perpendicularly to its trajectory, NOT RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT. Jesus.

Skull-like helmets? Uhm...uh...okay, it's weird but I can stomach that for the sake of graphic style.

And...behold the future of computer technology. Flute-activated dashboards/PCs!
Has Apple, Motorola or any other well-known patent bully copyrighted this already?


But...yeah, the visuals are great - that's at least one thing you can count Ridley Scott to deliver: great scenes that almost should belong in a glorious painting.

Spoiler for my thoughts:

The whole basis of the movie being *Belief* was really my biggest fucking problem with it. Because there is NOTHING endearing or worthwhile demonstrated in the world view of these characters who are the most adamant practitioners of this belief.

Halloway and Shaw are the biggest proponents about belief...but they're completely unsympathetic, arrogant and narcissistic characters. Their belief doesn't make them more compassionate to people around them. It mainly manifests as a way for them to talk down to people who don't agree with them. And this doesn't change throughout the course of the movie. At no point in the movie are ever provided a compelling reason to find their world view sympathetic. Nor does the movie ever give us a good reason why we should care so much about why the Space Jockey's created us/wanted to kill us. The only thing I got from the movie is that Halloway and Shaw have incredible daddy issues.


I think the biggest problem with the creatures/fantastical beings in this movie, was that there was no dramatic moment when you REALLY realize the characters just came across something so significant, that the after effects of the encounter define the entire movie.


The penis worms
-The penis worms kill those two guys...and that's it. Nothing comes from them. The fact that there are penis worms has no further relevance to the plot

Bearded guy zombie
-Bearded guy falls face first into a pool of the black goo, and turns into a zombie. He goes onto a one scene killing spree...which aside from a rather impressive body count, has no further relevance to the plot.

Halloway infection/Squid pregnancy
-Now is THIS the defining creature feature of this film? No. It almost seems that might be the case, with Halloway's mutation leading to him impregnating Shaw with the squid fetus, which she is forced to C-sec...except the squid is incredibly just forgotten about, left to grow in the room despite everyone knowing it should be there, merely to serve as a Deus Ex machina to save Shaw from the Space Jockey.

The Space Jockey
-They wake the Space Jockey up...and he goes on a killing spree. And? What else? Do we consider the Space Jockey's motivations? What kind of tactics/strategy need to be used to fight him?


The biggest failing of Prometheus EVEN as just a mindless popcorn flick, is that we have four different "OH SHIT!" plot threads, each of with by itself could have stood by itself in a sci-fi/horror movie. But instead we have all four crammed into the same movie, and they're not really elaborated on beyond a couple of scenes each. Which totally undermines them in terms of dramatic pacing.

[MrTerrorist]

Neil deGrasse Tyson on "Prometheus" Gaffe

[Vexx]

My son's review of the movie: A lot of gloriously pretty pictures pasted onto a juvenile hack story with characters you hated like some schlock horror movie. And then he ranted about the utter stupidity of the main character.

His final remark: "There's some really great science fiction out there... but most of it has never been filmed and I'm thinking it won't be because no one in the business appears to have a clue..."

[james0246]

I'm still not sure what to think of the film. On one hand, there is some truly great images, mixed with an potentially interesting story and characters, and it is all well acted (even if I do not remember more than 3 of the characters names (I spent the first half hour of the film intermittently giggling over the fact that Noomi Rapace went from a character named Lisbeth to a character named Elizabeth)). On the other hand, the characters have no depth (and any depth you think they have comes solely from the actor's acting the hell out of the stupid story (there are sequences with some amazing acting, but the context for the acting makes little to no sense; this odd disparity between acting and sub-par characterization is truly mind boggling, more so than the lackluster story)), and the story never really goes anywhere (except to an inevitable sequel). I can't say I'm really disappointed in the film (since I didn't expect much from Ridley Scott to begin with (when did Ridley's brother Tony Scott become the better director?)), but I can't say I am pleased with the end result. 50/100.

[TinyRedLeaf]

On the one hand, it's cool that the Alien universe just got expanded, with obvious openings for further exploration of the Engineers plot line. On the other hand, the movie just felt pedestrian from beginning to end. There was plenty of eye candy, in the form of shiny gadgetry and a statuesque Charlize Theron, but the film never managed to generate an iota of dramatic tension, just a lot of overblown angst.

Given the expectations and hype surrounding this project, it's a great letdown. Prometheus felt like Ridley Scott trying to channel James Cameron only to fail miserably. You know you've just watched a dud when the most memorable thing about the whole evening was the new Dark Knight trailer...

[Jaden]

'Pretentious' is the word that comes to mind. But there was some good eye candy and a couple badass moments. Thanks to that the film felt very atmospheric and fun to watch. Just kinda fails on the sci-fi department.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

On the one hand, it's cool that the Alien universe just got expanded, with obvious openings for further exploration of the Engineers plot line. On the other hand, the movie just felt pedestrian from beginning to end. There was plenty of eye candy, in the form of shiny gadgetry and a statuesque Charlize Theron, but the film never managed to generate an iota of dramatic tension, just a lot of overblown angst.

I'd really argue against that point. What exactly has Ridley Scott tangibly added to the Alien universe with this film? This film doesn't have any iconic monsters, it doesn't have any iconic scare moments. When you think about it, everything is just an awkward regurgitation of what we've seen in previous Alien movies. All the movie does is tease you that you MIGHT get answers to the questions that were raised before you even stepped into the theater...in the next movie.

Wanna know what this makes this movie? A two hour commercial.



edit: THIS was an interesting read.

5 ways to improve Prometheus.

VERY interesting read.

Spoiler for the article: SPOILERS:

I recently watched Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, and while I did enjoy some of the movie, overall I felt underwhelmed as there was so much wasted potential. Somewhere inPrometheus is a really great science fiction film, but sadly what we get instead is a mostly lackluster homage to the Alien franchise. The technical elements of the movie and the performances were very good, so I’ll mainly be commenting on the plot, as the failings of Prometheus, in my opinion, rest in the screenwriting.

Lots of spoilers, so read on only if you’ve already seen the movie or don’t mind!

1. Cut the Cast in Half and pick a protaganist.

Prometheus has a large cast that is meant to be reminiscent of the crew in Alien or the space marines in Aliens, except they really aren’t like those at all. Because this isn’t a horror or action film (where a large cast can be whittled down to build increasing tension), there’s no real benefit to having all these people hanging around. Not enough time can be spent on any character, so we end up not really caring about most of them.

I think few will dispute that David the robot (expertly played by Michael Fassbender) is the most developed character, and from the first 20 minutes of the film it felt like he was going to be our protagonist. Unfortunately this isn’t really the case, with the majority of Prometheus jumping around to little scenes with lots of characters we never really get to know. I think about halfway through the film decides that Elizabeth Shaw (played by Noomi Rapace) should be the main character, but there’s no real reason for this other than most of the other people have already died. This is fine for a survival horror film like Alien, where Ripley kind of turns into the main character as the plot progresses, but in a science fiction film with a very different narrative focus, it doesn’t work. I get the feeling she was tapped to be the remaining character because the want her to remind the audience of Ripley. This, however, does not work because they are wildly different characters, no matter how many visual parallels the film shoves in. As such, I will henceforth refer to the character as “Not Ripley.”

In my opinion, the film would have benefitted from only having two real main characters, David the robot and Not Ripley. Not Ripley is this idealist scientist looking for her creator, while David is forced by his creator to go on this crazy mission. Focusing on these two characters more makes scenes in Prometheus work a lot better, and would also give more opportunities to provide context for their actions. As is, many decisions of both David and Not Ripley leave us wondering as to their motivations, and not in a good way.

Ironically the film ends with only these two characters, ready to go on an adventure. Show me that movie!

2. Remove the Subplots that Go Nowhere



Prometheus was co-written by the creator of Lost, which should have warned us all that there would be lots of promises of amazing things with no payoff. The film suffers heavily from a saturation of subplots and minor character stories that neither flesh out any theme or contribute toward the overall plot. Here are some of the things that should have gotten the chopping block:

- Not Ripley’s religious crisis. Other than the fact that there is a “creator” involved, focusing on her faith has no connection to the themes of the film. All it does is give characters the opportunity to say “did you lose your faith yet?” over and over to Not Ripley. Prometheus isn’t about having or losing faith in something! It’s about coming into contact with your creator and the nature of those expectations. Religious metaphors could in theory work for this movie, but they used the wrong ones. As a result, it feels tacked-on and trite.

- The Old Man subplot. So CEO Old Man froze himself in the spaceship too so that he could meet aliens. Fair enough, it reminds me a little of the cancer-riddled billionaire who helped out Jodie Foster in Contact, except in this case there’s no reason for it to be in the movie. I’m assuming he was inserted into the movie because the Alien films usually had jerky corporate people screwing things up, but in those cases their involvement contributed to the primary narrative and changed the nature of what’s going on. In Prometheus, though, you can remove Old Man and his daughter Charlize Theron entirely from the movie and nothing would change, other than some of David’s behavior would be less confusing.

You can and generally should have more than one thing going on in a film like this, but subplots generally tie into the main story in some way. Having side stories that just fizzle out with changing or implicating anything is just filler.

3. Cut References to the Alien franchise by 95%

I don’t know how Ridley Scott can say Prometheus isn’t a prequel to Alien with a straight face. It’s not just a prequel, it’s almost a beat-by-beat homage to his earlier film. The references go beyond shameless into the realm of perplexing, and I wonder how many script rewrites it took to force all of them into what would otherwise just be a decent sci-fi movie.

First off, we don’t need an origin story for the xenomorphs (the monsters from Alien). In fact, explaining their existence lessens the impact of the original concept. Half the terror element of the xenomorphs is that they’re from some mysterious place in outer space. Fleshing them out evaporates the mystery and kind of the point of the xenomorphs from a story perspective.

Second, by structuring the narrative like the Alien films, Prometheus fights against itself as it tries to tell a science fiction story. The Alien franchise is in the horror/action genre; and, while each film is very different in style, they all tell a very similar story. However, none of these stories are science fiction stories in the way that Prometheus is, and trying to present Prometheus like those stories is self-defeating.

Prometheus is (in theory) much closer in content and scope of traditional sci-fi, something like Solaris, Contact or Star Trek: the Motion Picture, where the narrative moves forward by way of increasing discovery and understanding. We’re interested in seeing what happens next because we want to uncover the scientific mystery; exploration is the driving force of the plot. Unfortunately, Prometheus takes that premise and tries to make it unfold like a film from the Alien franchise, which is partly why most of the horror/monster elements in the film fall completely flat. We don’t really care about these various monsters, not only because they’re all over the place and have no explanation, but because the reason we’re engaged in the story isn’t based on who lives and who dies.

Prometheus, at times, feels afraid to embrace its own concept and is constantly throwing little visual nods to the Alien films, as well as damn near recreating scenes from those movies. The ending, in particular, is so comical and forced that you have to wonder what anyone was thinking when they wrote it down.

If you want to have one or two little tie-ins with Alien, fine. The “space jockey” image is enough on its own, really. Just having that visual connection makes the universe richer while still being tasteful. We don’t need detailed origin story for a monster from 1979.

4. Move the 3rd Act Reveal to the 1st Act

So 500 hours into the film and we discover that the Engineer/Progenitor aliens are evil and want to kill the human race. Or maybe it’s just the one guy. Who knows? The film certainly won’t tell us. Hearkening back to the comparison to Lost, this really feels like a sloppy “twist” that, expectedly, goes nowhere. The reveal that the Engineers wanted humanity dead is a fascinating concept in itself, but it’s what should have gotten the main plot rolling instead of being a last-minute 3rd Act Twist.

The problem with that revelation is that it doesn’t change the tone of what’s already going on and it doesn’t change any of the stakes of what’s already been presented. Since the first act of Prometheus, all the characters have already realized that “things aren’t how they seem.” They’ve also known for most of the movie that their expectations were wrong and this world (and possibly civilization) is hostile to them. They’re already in danger from the start; showing the Engineers to be hostile along with everything else just adds to the growing list of vaguely-connected threats they’ve already been dealing with. Granted, having the Engineers turn out to be evil is the largest threat, but it’s so late in the plot that no consequences are developed, other than the tired “Earth is in danger” trope. Any time that trope is thrown in and an Earth we never really see or talk about is threatened by a bad guy, it’s a bad sign.

5. Follow Through With the Film’s Premise

The Greek myth of Prometheus is about a god who dared to give fire (civilization) to humanity and is punished. This is what the film Prometheus should have consistently been about, but failed to follow through. The first 20 minutes, in my opinion, held to this very well, but after that there’s a severe loss of focus. Instead of exploring the concept of why a superior civilization would create a new race and then want to destroy it, we’re given a detailed and unfocused origin story for the monsters in the Alien movies.

If we assume that Prometheus follows through thematically with that myth, we can then say that the Engineer from the opening scene is the Prometheus character that is giving “fire” to humanity, and that he is perhaps acting against the wishes of the other Engineers. Were the cave paintings left by the “good” Engineer(s) to warn humanity of their brethren’s evil designs, or was it all an extremely elaborate trap? These are fantastic concepts that should have been the driving force of the movie, but instead we have to perform film archaeology just to piece them together.

Just sticking with that one theme and following through would make for an excellent film. Plotwise, we’d get great things like:

Providing a serious existential threat of basically having a malevolent God
Discovering why one Engineer sympathize with (or at least created) humanity
Setting up a clear thematic relationship between creators and their “children,” represented by the Engineers, humanity and robots
Offering more opportunities for David to discuss his own motivations in contrast to his human shipmates
Actually having conversations with at least one Engineer and understanding their motivations
Imagine a film where the generally benevolent aliens (akin to Contact)actually had it in for the human race. This is really terrifying, and what’s more it’s a totally different kind of threat than the xenomorphs from the Alien movies. The Engineers and the Xenomorphs are two opposite ends of the “alien threat” spectrum. While the Xenomorphs are scary because they’re monsters who are numerous and hard to kill, the Engineers are terrifying because they are smarter and more advanced than we are. This calls for a different type of film to be made, which is why the Engineer in the film comes off as silly, as he’s portrayed as just another big monster who punches people.

My general complaint about this movie is a lack of focus. There were too many unconnected ideas (probably the result of multiple script revisions), and it loses sight of what the first portion promises. Prometheus beings by asking questions about the nature of the human race and its origins and then promptly forgets about this until the last few minutes. As David and Not Ripley flew away, I immediately though “wait, they’re going to go do what I thought they were supposed to do in this movie!”

************

And those are my basic thoughts. As I said, I don’t think Prometheus is exactly a bad film, but rather a lackluster movie with a much better one hidden inside it.

[solidguy]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Spoiler for Think about it:

Did the movie ONCE actually provide a compelling reason that explained why it was important to figure out why the Space Jockey's created us? Or why there was some profound reason we needed to understand why they wanted to kill us? No. Basically we have a pair of soft headed scientists with daddy issues, flying into space thinking that beings that created humans thousands of years ago can be their surrogate father figures. This is treated as profound and intellectual, rather than emotionally unbalanced behavior that needs to be gotten over, which by the end of the movie, the heroine hasn't. She needs to KNOW why her desired surrogate father wanted to hurt her, rather than acknowledge that these beings are not remotely parental figures, either to her personally, or to humanity as a whole. This nauseating stupidity is celebrated at the end of the movie.

Spoiler for spoiler:

I think that's the entire point of the moive. These questions are so entrenched in the thoughts of humanity that it is assumed that we all ask this question. Emotion is after all what separates us from David. To take a scientific approach to the film would defeat the entire purpose of it, not to mention significantly hinder its chances in connecting to that queezy feeling in our chests we get when pondering on our existence.
I think people are over emphasising the wrong points brought up in the film. IMO the triple juxtaposition between the SJ's, humans and David is where the meat of the film can be found. What separates us from aliens or robots? Where do we differentiate from these near replicas of ourselves? Answering these question help in understanding what humanity actually means.
There is also a little self-reflexive element to the film on the part of Ridley Scott. The movie implies that the power of a god is through creation, more specifically creation of something in the creators image. Scott is (IMO) asserting himself, hence anyone capable of 'creation', a god through using film as a means of 'creation' in our image.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by solidguy

Spoiler for spoiler:

I think that's the entire point of the moive. These questions are so entrenched in the thoughts of humanity that it is assumed that we all ask this question. Emotion is after all what separates us from David. To take a scientific approach to the film would defeat the entire purpose of it, not to mention significantly hinder its chances in connecting to that queezy feeling in our chests we get when pondering on our existence.

Spoiler for spoiler:

Which has some pretty disturbing implications. Cause for all the hoopla about emotion being what separates us from David...the emotionless robot was the only sympathetic character in the entire movie. Every other human character who was supposed to personify emotion and faith were utterly unlikable jerks.

Emotion and faith in this movie translated into "Act like a smug asshole to anyone who doesn't agree with me". David approaches Charlie with some personal perspective about the entire affair, as an artificial being made in much the same way that the Space Jockey's created humans. Does Charlies *emotion* allow him the empathy to see how he and David is similar? No. His smugness and self of superiority makes him disdain the robot, thinking that somehow he is more special than David is.

And while many people question the meaning of life, only a religious UFO nut would think that the answers lie in Aliens. Even IF you had quantifiable proof that the aliens bio-engineered us, you are being incredibly stupid to project such sappy and soft headed notions onto them without having even met them. If a bunch of aliens made us, there's almost no chance it'd be for reasons that would answer that queezy feeling in our chests.

Originally Posted by solidguy

Spoiler for spoiler:

I think people are over emphasising the wrong points brought up in the film. IMO the triple juxtaposition between the SJ's, humans and David is where the meat of the film can be found. What separates us from aliens or robots? Where do we differentiate from these near replicas of ourselves? Answering these question help in understanding what humanity actually means.

Spoiler for spoiler:

And this is why the movie bloody falls apart.

What should be the focus of the movie (the Space Jockies, humans, and androids), is basically pushed to the side in order to indulge in 4 different undeveloped creature feature plots.

The Space jockey needed to come into play MUCH earlier in the movie, and the creature feature scenes needed to be cut unless they were going to be directly utilized by the Space Jockey itself.

Originally Posted by solidguy

Spoiler for spoiler:

There is also a little self-reflexive element to the film on the part of Ridley Scott. The movie implies that the power of a god is through creation, more specifically creation of something in the creators image. Scott is (IMO) asserting himself, hence anyone capable of 'creation', a god through using film as a means of 'creation' in our image.

If Ridley Scott thinks that, he's one narcissistic son of a bitch.

[Ithekro]

Perhaps it is to show us the error of our ways by putting the religious types in such a light?

It would fit with today's views on religion and politics (if what I'm reading is correct).

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Perhaps it is to show us the error of our ways by putting the religious types in such a light?

It would fit with today's views on religion and politics (if what I'm reading is correct).

If that was the case, then Shaw shouldn't have her stupid worldview defended so readily by the narrative.



Also, another thought. You all remember the iconic Chest Burster scene in Alien?

YouTube

https://youtu.be/uuapyExYJBI

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

I wonder how Ridley scott would handle this timeless scene in a movie today!

Spoiler for If this scene was hypothetically in Prometheus...:

The crew would forget about it. Five minutes after seeing it. And nobody would remember that there was a alien hellspawn running around on the ship until the very end of the movie, and they were staring up at 7 feet of claws and armored phallic carapace.

[james0246]

^To be fair, the creature in the Med bay was assumed to be dead after Elizabeth ran the decontamination procedure. That doesn't explain the other crazy shit the characters seem to do or forget about, but in this one instance I felt the film provided enough info for the character to assume an appropriate response.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by james0246

^To be fair, the creature in the Med bay was assumed to be dead after Elizabeth ran the decontamination procedure.

Because we always use nerve gas rated for killing macro organisms to kill bacteria on the auto doc that we brought along to use on the frail old man whose probably a few days from death.

Spoiler for spoiler:

Also, the contaminated guy who came back as a zombie didn't die until they shot him over a dozen times, ran him over with a truck, and set him on fire.

Plus the damn thing demonstrates cellular growth that's about 90 times greater than any earth borne organism. It went from a sperm to the size of a small animal over night.


And the first thing everybody does isn't march into the escape ship in pressure suits and with flamers?

[james0246]

Because we always use nerve gas rated for killing macro organisms to kill bacteria on the auto doc that we brought along to use on the frail old man whose probably a few days from death.

Actually, I do not know that. In fact, I know nothing about the technology or the organism (decontamination procedures/devices are given almost magical abilities in film, just look at any number of movies about outbreaks/pandemics). Consequently, I, and I assume most of the audience, am more than willing to accept that Elizabeth thought the creature was dead (obviously I (we) knew it was going to come back, but I did not know this because of any scientific explanation, I simply used horror movie logic to determine that the creature would come back).

There are plenty of plot holes, annoyances and discrepancies in the film, but I do not consider this particular scene to be one of those moments, if only because it is a very obvious horror movie moment (a quite wonderful one at that) with very obvious horror movie logic.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by james0246

There are plenty of plot holes, annoyances and discrepancies in the film, but I do not consider this particular scene to be one of those moments, if only because it is a very obvious horror movie moment (a quite wonderful one at that) with very obvious horror movie logic.

Spoiler:

Oh, but I do quibble with that scene too. Half the time, I was wondering what happened to the team that was supposed to take Shaw to quarantine. Sure, she stunned them for a while as she made her escape, but I find it amazing she knocked them out for so long to prevent them from catching up and interrupting her procedure and then discovering the hellspawn she left in the auto-doc.