194 replies to this topic

[olufemi]

It's just a conceit really - you can either go with it, or add it to the "that's stupid" list.

She'd just had major abdominal surgery which would presumably disable anyone for some time in reality, but the plot required that she be able to run about straight afterwards. So you get a bit of her running about as though nothing was wrong, and then a moment of her crouching over in pain to acknowledge the fact that she'd experienced a major trauma.

What's funny is that I remember consciously saying to myself "kinda silly that she's running around after such a major operation, but I'll just let that go since this movie is already pretty preposterous." So when she'd double over, I just assumed it meant there was another alien-baby.

The only reason I thought a plot screw-up had occurred is because I was allowing another plot screw-up.

I'll admit some fault in interpretation here, but honestly, a post-op patient doesn't suffer sudden, fleeting pain attacks while running about. I'm with steveuk; I would have much rather they explained it away with the "it's the future" catchall, than the comical bouts of abdominal cramping we got.

[David Meadows]

I enjoyed the film.

The story didn't hang together well if you poked it too closely, but it hung together just enough that I could ignore the plot holes for the duration (and bitch about them afterwards).

It was soooo beautifully designed, in that every element in it was visually right for the film. Possibly the best overall look I've seen in a film since... well, I almost said Blade Runner, but that's probably not true, so I'll just say a long time.

And the tension was built up so strongly that I was actually sweating by the final scenes.

Too many flaws to call it a masterpiece, but overall a thumbs up despite the flaws.

[Lucian Von Dooom]

How weird. I don't think that ever happened to me.
But then, I've never rewatched a movie I really didn't like, I think.

I believe the film is incomplete and had I not read a bunch of explanations online I probably wouldn't like it as much as I do. Knowing what is happening certainly helps with respect to interactions between characters. There needs to be a bit more character development, especially the relationship between Weyland, Vickers and David. The scenes they cut out no doubt hurt the end product. And I heard Theron filmed a nude scene too. Definitely should've included that.

I think she's grabbing her abdomen because she's just had major abdominal surgery and is being held together by big metal staples.
Quite how she gets over it so fast though? That's a mystery.
I would quite happily accept a scifi explanation, if the surgery pod had used some kind of scifi laser/goo/whatever to put her back together, something that suggested superfast healing.
But it didn't.

Her performance post-surgery really bothered me the first time I saw it but not so much the second time. At first glance I didn't think she was in enough pain after such an ordeal but after my second viewing I think they did enough. She crouched over in pain more times than I thought she did and I felt they did enough to make me believe she was in pain. She was also jacked on drugs too and adrenaline. I don't think she got over it. She was just fighting for her life.

[steveuk]

I think she would've been dying by the end of the film, those staples weren't magic or super scifi ones (again, I'd be fine if they were presented as such). She would've been bleeding internally, probably externally and really just dead/almost dead by the end.

Instead she's lowering a heavy weight on a rope from a pretty fair height!!!

But really, my problems with the movie extend well beyond the medical issues.

[Johnny Henning]

From the scene, it certainly looked like they cut through abdominal muscle tissue as well, so it would take more than staples and stitches just for her to sit up much less walk.

However, the scene itself was ridiculous from the moment she found out she was "pregnant" to her sliding out from under the squid baby. It wasn't intense. It wasn't frightening. It was laughable. Like the severed hand scene from Evil Dead 2, but I don't think the filmmakers were being intentionally funny. Or maybe they are comic geniuses - I don't know.

Instead of all the b.s. "shocks" the story could've accomplished a lot more if they had just had the entire "away team", to use Trek parlance, trapped in the Giant Urn of Death - not just tweedle-dee Fifield and tweedle-dum Milburn. Then you could've had an admittedly "Ripley from Aliens" development for Shaw as she has to take over as a leader and not just a scientist to save her team from all the s**t the Engineers are going to throw at them (like scientists with their lab rats).

You'd have more significant interaction between Shaw, David and Charlie and you might come to care for the other team members who are going to die in this journey. And they might actually contribute something to the story other than their deaths. On top of that, as Shaw and David spend more time in the Engineer's compound, they could come to learn more about them and why this is happening.

Meanwhile, Vickers and Yannick, back on the Prometheus, would have more time together to get developed. Yannick might act like a real captain and show some concern toward recovering the lost crew - instead of just laughing and making fun of the poor bastards. Without David, Vickers would have to balance her role as mission leader as well as surrogate for Weyland and his agenda.

Also, with the Engineers dead, it sorta nullifies them as antagonists. If they were alive, behind the scenes and actively testing the humans via a lethal lab maze, it would've more strongly challenged Shaw's basic belief that her creator or creators are essentially benevolent. And it would be a driving, building storyline rather than one that meanders aimlessly between stock and often ridiculous thriller moments.

Honestly, when it comes the engineers, there is just too much random coincidence on top of all the unanswered questions the filmmakers intentionally left. The engineers are all wiped out by their own weapons just when they were about to use them on Earth. All of them are dead except for one who happens to be in the ship inside the compound they first enter. Apparently, in all the other ships, in all the other four or five compounds, there are no more surviving engineers in those cryo chambers either.

[Hank Cannon]

This is a rather fun take on the movie. At the bottom of the initial post is some follow up. But it's rather nice.

http://cavalorn.live...com/584135.html

[craggy]

just realised why the Engineers created the Aliens...they knew about Batman.

[Chris D]

just realised why the Engineers created the Aliens...they knew about Batman.

Even 2000 years ago! That must have been because of Batman's travels through time after taking down Darkseid. I guess in the end it always comes back to those two...

[Lucian Von Dooom]

Even 2000 years ago! That must have been because of Batman's travels through time after taking down Darkseid. I guess in the end it always comes back to those two...

[steveuk]

This is a rather fun take on the movie. At the bottom of the initial post is some follow up. But it's rather nice.

http://cavalorn.live...com/584135.html

Ha! I really enjoyed that! Thanks.

The thing is, I'd love to sit around the kitchen table with Ridley, Damon (and a bottle of the sort of wine that Ridley can afford) and argue the merits (or lack thereof) of all these ideas.

Disappointment is a big factor in why I left the cinema wishing I'd had some rotten fruit to throw at the screen. Not just because I'm a fan(boy) but because there's a lot of good material in the film.

It's handled badly, but it's there.

[Lucian Von Dooom]

Ha! I really enjoyed that! Thanks.

The thing is, I'd love to sit around the kitchen table with Ridley, Damon (and a bottle of the sort of wine that Ridley can afford) and argue the merits (or lack thereof) of all these ideas.

Disappointment is a big factor in why I left the cinema wishing I'd had some rotten fruit to throw at the screen. Not just because I'm a fan(boy) but because there's a lot of good material in the film.

It's handled badly, but it's there.

This is really the film's downfall. So much potential but poorly executed.

[olufemi]

I'll definitely agree, there was plenty of potential in there. But it's like the filmmakers spend so much effort to make the audience ask questions, they end up not saying anything. I'm firmly of the opinion that a movie can be open-ended or ambiguous and it's fine, but if it doesn't make a definitive statement through that ambiguity, it's a cheat. It's the difference between the ending to Inception and the ending to eXistenZ.

There are moments in Prometheus that skim the surface of actual meaning, rather than just being ambiguious for ambiguity's sake:

-Shaw's (boring) boyfriend asks how she can still believe in God when they're about to meet their actual creators, and she responds "who made them?"
-David asks same (boring) boyfriend why humanity built him, and he answers "Idunno; because we could." to which David responds "do you have any idea how unsatisfying it would be for you to hear the same answer from your creator?"

That latter one especially almost suggests the idea that perhaps it's best not to question our existence, to seek out answers we're not meant to know. Maybe God has left us, or grown bored of us, and if that's so, do we really want to seek Him out?

But that doesn't exactly jibe with the whole stupid "our creators want to kill us" plot thread that comes from nowhere (or, rather, "our creators want to sleep for thousands of years for some reason, let us wake them up, THEN travel several light years to destroy us"). Maybe they sought to destroy humanity specifically because we sought them out? Like that was a sin in itself? So the ending with Shaw still seeking answers from the creators is meant to be a tragic one, with her succumbing to a fatal flaw? I really don't know.

Besides which, whatever questions or allegories or references a film chooses to evoke/invoke, it's all moot of they're not hung upon a compelling story that works on its own merits. The characters were forgettable and dumb, and the plot was dumb and forgettable. The antagonists were too nebulous and ill-defined to be scary, and the protagonists' goals were too nebulous and ill-defined to want them to succeed. And the pacing was crummy.

Sure looked pretty, though.

[Sarah Horrocks]

I assumed she was able to run about because she was a tough SOB who did what needed to be done. Just like any other action hero who takes superhuman abuse and just keeps going through.

Plus by that point she's insanely drugged up with space tranqualizers, and probably has an insane adrenaline rush. I imagined once she got the ship going in the right direction, she slept for a long long time.

[Will Carper]

Plus you get a good look at the scar beneath the sutures and it's white.

The xenomorph at the end was the Queen from Aliens, right?* That's why her second mouth was more like a mouth and not a tongue (like with the regular xenomorph "soldiers"). And somebody's got to lay all those eggs.

*I figured the thing Shaw gave birth to was the queen-facehugger.

Anyway, I'm with Robert. I have no idea why this is so divisive. Some of the complaints are on things as inconsequential as why Ian Holm, a really-freakin'-smart android, tried to kill Ripley with a rolled up magazine in Alien.

[Robert B]

I don't know what to tell people who didn't like it other than I must engage with movies/TV much differently than a lot of people here. This goes for the Lost thread too. And last year I think I liked The Tree of Life a lot more than most people here did.

I think it boils down to the fact I loathe exposition and many of you are in favor it. The Inception comparison is an interesting one. Prometheus doesn't really make any more or less sense than Inception, but the former film is like 10% exposition while the latter film is like 90% exposition, and the latter film is more universally loved (although it obviously has its detractors). I far prefer Prometheus, but if it explained a lot of what you're all calling to be explained then I would like it far less (and if Inception did less explaining I would have liked it a lot more). For that reason, Prometheus was the more dreamlike movie even though Inception spent most of the running time literally in dreams, and I like that.

Prometheus just basically let you into its mythical space and let you have a look around. Most of what you gleaned, you gleaned from observation rather than exposition. Which is how I like it. I find plot to be kind of boring in general, and I'm more interested in the experience and how it makes me think and feel. For the post surgery scene, I too thought her recovery time was weird but my reaction was basically "that's weird, but so what, it's a myth."

Then again I've never been into sci-fi, much less hard science fiction, as much as a lot of you are. I think if I came from that background I'd agree with more of you.

Edited by Robert B, 12 June 2012 - 11:20 PM.

[craggy]

Plus you get a good look at the scar beneath the sutures and it's white.

The xenomorph at the end was the Queen from Aliens, right?* That's why her second mouth was more like a mouth and not a tongue (like with the regular xenomorph "soldiers"). And somebody's got to lay all those eggs.

*I figured the thing Shaw gave birth to was the queen-facehugger.

Anyway, I'm with Robert. I have no idea why this is so divisive. Some of the complaints are on things as inconsequential as why Ian Holm, a really-freakin'-smart android, tried to kill Ripley with a rolled up magazine in Alien.

Well, considering it's a different planet from Alien and Aliens, I'm going to say thats a no on the Queen at the end. It's not impossible, but I think it was something different. Another variation on the species. Besides, in Alien 3 Ripley is infected with a queen, from a normal facehugger.

I don't know what to tell people who didn't like it other than I must engage with movies/TV much differently than a lot of people here. This goes for the Lost thread too. And last year I think I liked The Tree of Life a lot more than most people here did.

I think it boils down to the fact I loathe exposition and many of you are in favor it. The Inception comparison is an interesting one. Prometheus doesn't really make any more or less sense than Inception, but the former film is like 10% exposition while the latter film is like 90% exposition, and the latter film is more universally loved (although it obviously has its detractors). I far prefer Prometheus, but if it explained a lot of what you're all calling to be explained then I would like it far less (and if Inception did less explaining I would have liked it a lot more). For that reason, Prometheus was the more dreamlike movie even though Inception spent most of the running time literally in dreams, and I like that.

Prometheus just basically let you into its mythical space and let you have a look around. Most of what you gleaned, you gleaned from observation rather than exposition. Which is how I like it. I find plot to be kind of boring in general, and I'm more interested in the experience and how it makes me think and feel. For the post surgery scene, I too thought her recovery time was weird but my reaction was basically "that's weird, but so what, it's a myth."

Then again I've never been into sci-fi, much less hard science fiction, as much as a lot of you are. I think if I came from that background I'd agree with more of you.

interesting point. Is there a comic adaptation of Prometheus? It'd be nice to see it with and without expository captions, to see which works better. I think the problem might be that for the things that are hinted at or shown briefly, that something else happens before we've got time to properly acknowledge what we're seeing and form definite thoughts on it. Or at least to notice those thoughts.

[Will Carper]

Well, considering it's a different planet from Alien and Aliens, I'm going to say thats a no on the Queen at the end.

It is? I just assumed the planet was named LV-whatever in the years following this story.

Besides, in Alien 3 Ripley is infected with a queen, from a normal facehugger.

I don't think Alien3 or 4 will really play into this movieverse. I don't think that many people outside of fandom are even all that aware or 3 & 4.

The thing at the end did look different from the aliens, though. It's skin didn't look hard. It looked kinda dolphin-y.

[craggy]

maybe it was king snorky?

[Johnny Henning]

I don't know what to tell people who didn't like it other than I must engage with movies/TV much differently than a lot of people here. This goes for the Lost thread too. And last year I think I liked The Tree of Life a lot more than most people here did.

I think it boils down to the fact I loathe exposition and many of you are in favor it. The Inception comparison is an interesting one. Prometheus doesn't really make any more or less sense than Inception, but the former film is like 10% exposition while the latter film is like 90% exposition, and the latter film is more universally loved (although it obviously has its detractors). I far prefer Prometheus, but if it explained a lot of what you're all calling to be explained then I would like it far less (and if Inception did less explaining I would have liked it a lot more). For that reason, Prometheus was the more dreamlike movie even though Inception spent most of the running time literally in dreams, and I like that.

Prometheus just basically let you into its mythical space and let you have a look around. Most of what you gleaned, you gleaned from observation rather than exposition. Which is how I like it. I find plot to be kind of boring in general, and I'm more interested in the experience and how it makes me think and feel. For the post surgery scene, I too thought her recovery time was weird but my reaction was basically "that's weird, but so what, it's a myth."

Then again I've never been into sci-fi, much less hard science fiction, as much as a lot of you are. I think if I came from that background I'd agree with more of you.

my problem wasn't that it didn't explain anything, but that it didn't really tell much of a story. Think about it - if you want to compare it to Inception, all those characters contributed a lot to the story. What did Milburn or Fifield contribute? What did androgynous woman with Scottish accent contribute? Hell, what did Shaw's boyfriend Charlie contribute?

There was hardly any interaction or activity between characters concerned with actually accomplishing anything in the story. As soon as the seeds of story elements were introduced, they were laughably dealt with or paid off with no real lasting effects. Charlie is poisoned and pretty soon he's dead and, really, forgotten by everyone including Shaw. And rightly so, as he didn't add anything to the story other than a means to get the goo and xeno into Shaw. She finds out that she's pregnant with an alien and next thing you know she's cut it out with very little consequence to her performance in the rest of the movie. To no one's surprise, Weyland is actually on the ship, and next thing you know, he's dead -- and who cares, really?

Nothing was allowed to develop between the characters and as soon as anything started to, then some ridiculous plot turn killed one of the characters or separated them for the rest of the movie. Vickers and Yannick sleep together...does it matter to either of them later, or to the audience, or to the story? and what does that accomplish? The ONLY thing it accomplishes is to leave the control room unmanned when Fifield and Milburn get killed in the mot laughable fashion. And, really, how acceptable is that? Yannick's not even guilty about it later. There are absolutely no believable actions or reactions in the movie.

Just looking at what happens in the movie, nothing really builds or develops, nor do the characters drive the story and whatever mystery there is behind the plot was really diminished since there was nothing in the story that I could actually invest in.

[craggy]

Hell, what did Shaw's boyfriend Charlie contribute?

I liked him, he had spunk.