194 replies to this topic

[Dave Wallace]

Because the last thread was closed but a new one not opened, I'll repost my last post from that:

just saw this movie last night, and I'm surprised by how much negativity there is in this thread, as I really rather enjoyed it. It felt like Scott was consciously trying to make a modern '2001' (there were so many nods to that film in the opening half hour that I lost count), but with a lot of explicit links to the previous films in the Alien franchise too.

The vast majority of the complaints I've seen tend to be fairly petty ones that revolve around elements of the story which were unexplained - but that doesn't mean that there isn't an explanation, and the ambiguity of certain points is (I think) perfectly fitting for a film that has as one of its main themes the idea that we choose our beliefs and explanations based on our own life experiences and feelings.

I don't think any of the core plot of this film was weakened by the unresolved elements within it - I think all the really important stuff was addressed for the purposes of this movie (although it certainly doesn't spoonfeed you - right from the beginning, plot points are often heavily implied rather than explicitly spelled out, crediting the audience with a certain amount of intelligence). And those elements that weren't fully explained within this movie all pose interesting questions that could be explored in future - or could be left satisfyingly ambiguous.

(I especially think that most of the ambiguous plot points around the engineers should be left like that, given that the whole film was about us trying to discover and understand aliens that are completely beyond our experiences or understanding).

It's not a flawless film: the script is clunky in places, with some embarrassingly clichéd dialogue that we've all heard a million times recycled shamelessly. And for me, the weakest moments were those where the film chose to spell things out too obviously: the setup of the medical bay, the lifeboat pod, or the scene with Charlize Theron trying to say the word "father" as dramatically as possible.

Also, I would question why they didn't use an older actor to play Weyland, unless they're planning on revisiting his younger self in potential sequels/prequels.


Finally, I think the film would have been better without that final coda: if you've seen the previous alien movies, you know exactly what that proto-facehugger has done to the Engineer. Seeing the end result felt somehow anticlimactic, and too much like fan service.

Just before the thread closed, steveuk questioned my use of the word 'petty' - but I didn't mean it as a personal insult (as in calling those who didn't like it small-minded), I just felt that most of the things people are picking holes in are pretty minor (either plot points or character problems) that didn't really have much bearing on the overall story. I wasn't trying to pick a fight.

[steveuk]

Ok. Understood.

However I don't see how the film not making sense is a minor point?

You're talking about the overall story, but these points are the building blocks of the story; what people do and why they do it? If these things don't work then the story doesn't work.

It's just a sequence of events that the filmmakers wanted to include, come what may. That's not actually a story.

[O.S. Georg]

I was reading about it on wiki. On the subject of working with Scott, one of the writers says that “he periodically had to rein in some of the director's ideas such as reminding Scott that in the scene they were discussing, the characters were subject to gravity and so could not simply float”.

This somewhat sums up the movie. Everything just happens in a rather random fashion with no purpose behind it, other than they thought it would look cool. Yes, I realize that there are several symbols and what not, but the sense of cohesive narrative is absent.

[Tonycal]

Like someone said Prometheus is getting reviews and chatter similar to Inception and Super 8 (which I both liked)

So this will be one of those movies people love or hate.

I'm with Dave...I liked it.

[Christian U]

Like someone said Prometheus is getting reviews and chatter similar to Inception and Super 8 (which I both liked)

Huh. I remember Inception and Super 8 getting very different reviews. With Inception mostly getting rave reviews (bit too high praise in my opinion), whereas people seemed to be mostly disappointed with Super 8 (which I didn't watch) simply because they thought it was a lukewarm movie.

[Johnny Henning]

Huh. I remember Inception and Super 8 getting very different reviews. With Inception mostly getting rave reviews (bit too high praise in my opinion), whereas people seemed to be mostly disappointed with Super 8 (which I didn't watch) simply because they thought it was a lukewarm movie.

Prometheus has both - rave reviews and big disappointment reviews. Some reviewers like Ebert's and the New Yorker's think it is the best SF film since Inception and others think it is doesn't hold up - like Super 8. However, they all seem to think it looks and sounds damn good.

I think most negative posts think that primarily the characters do not behave like they have been established - or like any sane reasonable person would (hey, that alien tentacle looks like a cobra and hisses too. I know, let's touch it and see what happens!) - and in the end, they just aren't interesting characters. On top of that, apparently the story is a bit contradictory, but that may just be that Scott didn't tell the whole story why these things have happened the way they did.

[steveuk]

Is this one of those times when Ebert wasn't actually paying attention to the film?

We're divided in this thread but has anyone actually loved the movie? Not just liked or enjoyed, but really thought it was a great film?

[John Mosby]

I'm of the mind that there's plenty of scope for different schools of thought. You can love something I hate or vice versa and there's no reason why each opinion isn't valid.

But with Prometheus you have to over-look a vast amount of coincidences, conveniences, contradictions, characters doing things you'd suspect they'd know NOT to and huge leaps in logic.

You can do all that - and enjoy it - but even the best reviews I've seen acknowledge that the above factors exist. Which to me, by default, makes it very hard to think it's a *great* movie in any way.

However, Transformers 3 taught me that no-one ever goes broke from making movies that defy the necessities.

[Hank Cannon]

The movie was visually striking, the characters disappointed me...strongly. Their behavior from the moment they stepped foot on the alien ship struck me as sharply...stupid. David has an excuse, but the lack of...I don't know...self preservation instincts, anti-contamination and decontamination protocols...just turned me off. Not that some of those things mattered in the end, but their lack of presence on a mission to find life on another planet just gnawed at me.

[Dave Wallace]

We're divided in this thread but has anyone actually loved the movie? Not just liked or enjoyed, but really thought it was a great film?

I'd probably have to watch it another couple of times at least to be able to say whether it holds up as a truly great film, but I came out of it buzzing and feeling as though the only two films I've seen at the cinema this year (this and Avengers) had exceeded my expectations and done what they set out to do pretty brilliantly.

However I don't see how the film not making sense is a minor point?

I don't really see anything about it that necessarily doesn't make sense - at the risk of repeating the discussion of the previous thread (which I only skimmed because I was avoiding spoilers), can we talk about what we think the major plot failings are?

I'm of the mind that there's plenty of scope for different schools of thought. You can love something I hate or vice versa and there's no reason why each opinion isn't valid.

But with Prometheus you have to over-look a vast amount of coincidences, conveniences, contradictions, characters doing things you'd suspect they'd know NOT to and huge leaps in logic.

I actually think that most of the characters' questionable choices are pretty explainable, and are set up by the way their personalities are characterised when we first meet them in the movie's early scenes.

[steveuk]

Well, John did a good job of outlining a lot of the problems in his post; http://forums.millar...ost__p__2441799

And his review; http://www.impactonl...ometheus-review

But to pick up the final point in an attempt to address the others; why that lot of idiots as the crew?

None of them seem all that good at their jobs, with the exception of Idris Elba and David. Possibly the betting guys too but I couldn't tell you anything about them.

Rapace has to come along; its her discovery. Her boyfriend has to come along, because its his too, but out of all the other qualified people on earth they get an angry, antagonistic geologist and a socially dysfunctional biologist, both of whom turn out to be cowards???

I've no idea about anyone else, the cannon fodder who get killed by the antagonistic geologist when he gets infected by the alien/cobra/slime/whatever because the filmmakers feel that the film needs a body count at that point.

[Dave Wallace]

I think the biologist and the geologist probably had the toughest jobs out of the lot of them, given that they were faced with completely alien geology and biology. Everyone else in the crew seemed pretty competent - the medical staff, the co-pilots, and David all did their jobs well.

And I think the way the biologist and the geologist were characterised was pretty smart: the biologist (in keeping with his profession) believes in being gentle, kind and approachable, and he ends up paying the price for trying to bond with an alien lifeform. The geologist (in keeping with his) believes in projecting a rock-hard exterior and brute strength, and he ends up paying the price for being aggressive.

As for having him kill so many of the crew, I think the film was trying to suggest that humanity is as much as danger to itself as any alien race might be. (Hardly a profound point, but one that's probably important to acknowledge given the other ideas this film was dealing with).

[steveuk]

I get that as an idea, but... in context it's moronic.

Whatever his "character" the biologist shouldn't be stupid enough to approach the 'cobra' and the geologist shouldn't be such a coward if he got on a spaceship in the first place!

As for the body count, well its that kind of movie. They have to kill characters, but those characters had no character. No one bothered to introduce them as people in the film.

[Dave Wallace]

Addressing John's points from the post you linked to:

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[quote]1) Why is it assumed it is an invitation to the stars - and as has been said already, whether it is or isn't, why do the co-ordinates lead to a secret arms dump?[/quote]
I thought the whole point was that (mirroring the Prometheus myth) the Engineers were seeking to punish humanity for trying to get too close to their creators. Presumably those 'invitations' were created millions of years after we see the first Engineer create life on Earth in the opening sequence - the logical implication is that the Engineers came back to Earth at some point with the explicit goal of leading us somewhere very nasty once we got smart enough to have the technology to get there.

It reminds me a little of the function of the moon-obelisk in "2001", which acted like a cosmic alarm system to let the aliens know when we'd become smart enough to get to the moon.

[quote]2) Why exactly IS Weyland's presence a big secret. I mean, it works as a story 'reveal', but really he wants to meet with an alien. Why would his presence, in statis for the most part, be such a secret practically within story logic?[/quote]
I'm not completely clear on this, but I'm guessing that he'd rather make out that he's funding the project as a purely exploratory mission of discovery, rather than as a self-centred personal venture of his own. I agree, though, that the reasoning was a bit vague on exactly why he wanted his presence to be kept such a secret, and why David assumed he wouldn't want their dream-conversations to be shared with his daughter.

[quote]3) The ghostly holograms replay old events(why do they exist?)[/quote]
I just saw that as an alien CCTV-type thing that David had worked out how to operate. Seems pretty reasonable if it's an experimental weapon development facility that they'd have recording capabilities, especially if something went wrong.

[quote]We see that a massive stone door severed an Ancient Engineer's head cleanly off their shoulders. It's amazing that a door that seems to be that thick can cut so cleanly rather than just squishing the head.[/quote]
I didn't register the thickness of the door at all, so that didn't occur to me whatsoever.

[quote]Mind you, we also get a pointless re-animated head explodey scene later that tells us... well, nothing.[/quote]
Well, it tells us about the deadly infection, which is pretty important.

[quote]4) Hello, scientists... you see a strange alien life-form in what you think is an alien tomb with weird things happening in it and you want to get down on all fours and play with it? You deserve to die. And, yes... voila.[/quote]
Like I said, that's the touchy-feely biologist getting his just rewards. Yeah, most people might not react like that, but he's established from his very first scene as being the kind of person who might.

[quote]5) We learn Rapace's character can't have kids and how frustrating that is. BIG DEAL scene. Immediately after we find out she's pregnant. There's surely an opportunity for a moment when she'd consider keeping the child, even if confounded by the pregnancy.[/quote]
Interestingly, I read that completely differently - that if she knows she's medically incapable of having children, she'd be even more weirded out by having been successfully impregnated by an alien seed.

[quote]If David has a plan to put her in stasis take the organism inside her back to Earth, why does he deliberately antagonise her about the unhealthy nature of the embryo so that she'd obviously NOT want it? The story beats just feel very off and David's agenda isn't clear or his technique sucks.[/quote]
Yeah, that's a bit odd, isn't it? I assumed that the plan was to take a healthy alien foetus back to Earth in stasis (a bit like in previous Alien films).

But presumably, given David's behaviour - and also that he didn't give Shaw enough sedative to keep her inactive - he didn't want that to happen. Maybe he had a completely different plan. I'm not sure about that one at all.

[quote]6) Why are the captain's men (the betting duo, whose names I can't even remember) so willing to 'go down with the ship'? There's really no POINT in them dying and I've seen no huge demonstrations of loyalty or suicidal tendencies from them before that.[/quote]
Yeah, I feel as though those characters were under-served by the movie. I wonder if we'll see more of them in a director's cut. Them wanting to go along with Idris almost felt like a gag - as though death would be better than being stuck on an alien moon with Charlize Theron's character. It certainly felt a bit unnecessary.

[quote]6) Charlie Theron's character dies a stupid death because she can't outrun the long shadow of a falling massive elongated spaceship. Rapace's takes two steps to the left and voila, safe (well, for a moment) Again, there's a metaphor there.[/quote]
OK, maybe that was a bit stupid . But in fairness, they did have Theron's character trip over and so end up a lot closer to the ship bearing down on them than Shaw was...

----------------------

So yeah, it's not a flawless film, but I feel like most of those things are still nitpicks that don't take away from the larger themes being played with, and don't break the plot.

[quote name='steveuk' timestamp='1339276573' post='2443746']
I get that as an idea, but... in context it's moronic.

Whatever his "character" the biologist shouldn't be stupid enough to approach the 'cobra' and the geologist shouldn't be such a coward if he got on a spaceship in the first place![/quote]
Well, they were both in pretty extreme circumstances. I think the biologist's curiosity probably got the better of him to an extent. And the geologist - who's only in it for the money, and is probably a lot less macho than he would like people to think - probably would have never expected to be stuck in an alien building away from most of the rest of the crew and surrounded by alien creatures.

It really didn't bother me that much - I don't really know what else they could have done, given that they were already scared that a creature was prowling the tunnels. They were in a bit of a pickle and reacted a bit stupidly - I don't see it as particularly unfeasible.

[Youri Zoutman]

Slashfilm gave it a 4/10. And when you highlight the spoiler section, you get the part I didn't care for. http://www.slashfilm...all-beginnings/

I blame Lindelof more then Scott, but then, Scott gets the benefit of the doubt for Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator.

[Dave Wallace]

As for the body count, well its that kind of movie. They have to kill characters, but those characters had no character. No one bothered to introduce them as people in the film.

Hmmmm, I think that's fair. I do wonder whether having such a large crew was a good idea for that reason.

Maybe having just Elba, Theron, Rapace & boyfriend, David, the medical officer woman, the geologist and the biologist would have been better. I don't think any of the other characters needed to be there. The geologist could have killed just the medical officer when he came back, rather than a whole group of them - it might have been more powerful that way, especially if they'd built up her character a little more.

I think the large crew and the high number of daytime/exterior scenes meant it just didn't feel as tight and claustrophobic as Alien (which is fine, I guess, because it obviously wasn't trying to replicate the feel of that movie).

Slashfilm gave it a 4/10. And when you highlight the spoiler section, you get the part I didn't care for. http://www.slashfilm...all-beginnings/

The problem outlined seems to be that the alien goo affected different organisms differently, behaving differently depending on who it came into contact with.

But that's been a staple of the alien franchise for ages, hasn't it? That the xenomorphs grow and develop differently depending on who hosted them*. That's one of the things I liked about the movie - we had variations on the facehuggers and aliens that evoked them without replicating them exactly. They felt new, but still of a piece with the creatures we've seen before.

(* And presumably, because David is a synthetic lifeform, it didn't have any reaction at all when it came into contact with him. That's why he needed to infect Shaw's boyfriend.)

[steveuk]

<SNIP>

It really didn't bother me that much - I don't really know what else they could have done, given that they were already scared that a creature was prowling the tunnels. They were in a bit of a pickle and reacted a bit stupidly - I don't see it as particularly unfeasible.

What they could've done is be written better.

Just like the rest of the film. We don't pick these kind of nits in every movie because not every movie has them.

Having big interesting questions is great, but only if they're handled well. I think they were handled really badly. The film might be less dissapointing if it were actually just dumb, but its not, it wants to be smart but it can't do it properly.

Or it might be equally irritating. That's one question I can't answer.

<SNIP>

The problem outlined seems to be that the alien goo affected different organisms differently, behaving differently depending on who it came into contact with.

But that's been a staple of the alien franchise for ages, hasn't it? That the xenomorphs grow and develop differently depending on who hosted them*. That's one of the things I liked about the movie - we had variations on the facehuggers and aliens that evoked them without replicating them exactly. They felt new, but still of a piece with the creatures we've seen before.

(* And presumably, because David is a synthetic lifeform, it didn't have any reaction at all when it came into contact with him. That's why he needed to infect Shaw's boyfriend.)

Actually that's never been addressed in the films properly.

It's something the fans know, or that we thought we knew, maybe, but was it actually certain?

Because if you're a regular cinema patron no-one has ever outlined that idea in one of the films. Someone really needed to pin that idea down and present it to people.

Either way, what happens in the film still makes no sense. Stuff happens because its cool and Ridley likes it. That's the best explanation I can come up with.

[Hank Cannon]

I did not see Raplace's character as being "pregnant." I saw her as being "parasitized" by the infection in her boyfriend. Especially since they did not explain the nature of her sterility. From her reaction, I felt that she may have had a hysterectomy in the past and she knows that if she is pregnant, something is really really really wrong.

Edited by Hank Cannon, 09 June 2012 - 10:02 PM.

[Barry Matthew Ween]

Well, I saw this movie last night with a group of friends who decided we should make it a double feature of Charlize Theron movies, so we saw both Prometheus and Snow White.

As for Prometheus, first off visually it was very good throughout. The first third or so of the movie was logical in establishing the search for our origins as gleaned from the archaelogical evidence the scientific team had encountered all over Earth.

Where this movie starts going south for me is the majority of the second half. I'm sorry I agree with steve especially about the biologist behaving like a true idiot with playing with the "alien" cobra. And we learn early on that there is a crew of 17 aboard this ship, do we even meet half these people? I realize that a majority of this "crew" exists just to add to the body count, but since I don't know or even meet half these people, I really didn't care that they died.

A lot of the reactions of these people don't make logical sense. The biologist's behavior in regards to the "alien cobra". The fact that they open the ship's door just because they detect the geologist's signal outside the ship's door without taking precaustions considering they had already discovered what happened to the biologist and to Charlie. Dr. Shaw worried about contamination after the incident with Charlie but where was the worry about contamination protection when they were examining the engineer's head.

I did like the establishment of some of the elements we see in the subsequent alien movies, i.e. the prototype alien creature, who the alien creature and telescope like instrument that the crew finds in the Alien movie, etc.

II'd have to rank Prometheus lower below Alien, Aliens, and Alien: Resurrection but at least it was better than Alien³.

I also found it funny for a movie that didn't say one way or the other that it was an Alien prequel when it was being promoted how easily it was to see that it was an Alien prequel.

[Dave Wallace]

Dr. Shaw worried about contamination after the incident with Charlie but where was the worry about contamination protection when they were examining the engineer's head.

The very opening of that scene was the medical officer woman scanning the head and finding it free from contamination.

I also found it funny for a movie that didn't say one way or the other that it was an Alien prequel when it was being promoted how easily it was to see that it was an Alien prequel.

After seeing the film, I can actually completely understand why they wanted to distance themselves from being labelled simply as an 'Alien prequel'. Because it's really a very separate story that nonetheless has ties to those movies.