194 replies to this topic

[Will Carper]

Is it not the planet from Alien? If not, that point completely evaded me.

[craggy]

Is it not the planet from Alien? If not, that point completely evaded me.

yeah me too. it was covered earlier. vaguely.

[Johnny Henning]

This is LV-223 and that is LV-426. It's 203 LV's away.

[Sarah Horrocks]

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?

It wasn't a plot driven movie like inception. It was an idea myth type movie where characters represented ideas more than back stories and character motivations.

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?

People didn't have time to morn, things were happening bing bang boom. Charlie dies. Shaw has the abortion. Weyland is killed. Ship goes to take off for earth. Ship stopped. Alien kills the engineer--that all happened in like what...2 hours maybe? When were they supposed to have a funeral? They don't morn any of the red shirts in the first Alien either.

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.

I saw it as Vickers getting him out of the control room so whatever was about to happen would happen. She's not someone who would otherwise want to have sex. She uses all of her actions as a way to use her power. Remember she's working for the company.

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.

Fair enough. I think most of the people who enjoyed it, enjoyed it fractally for all of the ideas and questions it brings up. The things which the people who didn't like it complain about, aren't the things which the people who like it, like. So it's really just a difference in terms of what you want out of the experience.

[Robert B]

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.

Mentioning the comic here made me think that the film reminded me of The Fountain as well. In a related story, I loved The Fountain.

But then if you go in expecting Alien and get The Fountain, then I can see where the frustration comes in.

[Chris D]

In a related story, I loved The Fountain.

Me too. One of my favorite movies of the last decade. Oddly (maybe), I liked both Inception and Prometheus. In large part because of the great visuals and charismatic cast. But I think I need to watch Prometheus again before I really make any final judgments on it. See how it holds up on repeat viewings.

[Robert B]

Me too. One of my favorite movies of the last decade. Oddly (maybe), I liked both Inception and Prometheus. In large part because of the great visuals and charismatic cast. But I think I need to watch Prometheus again before I really make any final judgments on it. See how it holds up on repeat viewings.

No, it's not odd, I didn't mean to make it sound like a black and white thing.

[Johnny Henning]

The problem with going for the ideas is that I didn't need to pay fifteen bucks for the half baked ideas the movie vaguely explores. I could just go to David Icke's website.

If they really cared about the ideas, Scott and Lindelof could have still told a character driven story. That would've presented the same ideas with much greater impact.

In the end, the ideas in this movie don't really have any resonance after the credits roll. No matter what the mystery is, it only matters to the movie's world, and it's not a world where good ideas flourish.

And, honestly, it is nothing like an "ideas" movie. It is pretty overtly an idiot plot thriller designed to push the perfunctory thrills and scares and dumbing down the characters to do it. It's exactly the sort of rote, thoughtless "scary movie" that Cabin In The Woods satirized.

[Barry Matthew Ween]

Well, it looks like there might be plans for a Prometheus sequel entitled "Paradise" which apparently was the original title for Prometheus.

Paradise

[Sarah Horrocks]

In the end, the ideas in this movie don't really have any resonance after the credits roll.

For you. I've had some amazing conversations about the movie on email and twitter this week with all sorts of people. It's being discussed and dissected with a fervency I didn't see with say the Avengers which was presumably a better character driven movie going by the reviews and reactions.

A movie where Rapace is running around a Giger world with Michael Fassbender's head in her backpack would be extremely dope.

[Johnny Henning]

Avengers is an odd comparison, but it has gotten a lot of discussion. I don't consider Avengers to be character driven, though. It is definitely plot driven with well-drawn characters. However, I think INCEPTION certainly had far more discussion and dissection and it still had a coherent plot with characters you remember as more than vague sketches. Or THE PRESTIGE orTHE FOUNTAIN or BLACK SWAN. All much more idea movies and story driven movies than PROMETHEUS.

However, both PROMETHEUS and INCEPTION have ideas that in the end don't resonate as well after you see the movie. So what if Cobb's dreaming at the end? So what if Cobb's asleep the entire movie and wakes up only at the end on the plane? It doesn't really reveal anything about the human condition as much as obsessive interest in it implies.

Same for PROMETHEUS. It doesn't really say anything about our creator, if we have one, or our creations. People are interested in the puzzle - why do the Engineers want to destroy us?

Because they were offended by the Roman Empire? Good answer! Because they are a death cult who see the alien from Alien as the perfect organism, to use Ash's description? Equally good answer. However, at the same time, the resonance of that question is not in "why do the gods want to destroy us... after accidentally killing most of their number and we wake one up?" It's more in why does God actively hate us? Why is there so much suffering that it is impossible to believe we were created for anything else? That deeper question is the one Prometheus aims at but fumbles badly.

Unlike BLADE RUNNER, which asked the same damn questions much more strongly and whose answers are still being debated and dissected because the story - driven by the characters (and what characters they are) - wasn't just there to deliver ideas, but it also delivered the emotional visceral connection to the experience on screen that make those ideas important. So the intrinsic question of whether Deckard is a replicant or not means something to the external questions - what does it mean to be human? Do we have a creator and why did it make us? Are we meant to be slaves to something? Even if we are, should we submit to it?

However, to stay within the confines of Prometheus - like I posted earlier, it has hints of what could've been a great story with great ideas. My favorite moment is the end - ha ha - but seriously, the exchanges between Shaw and David's head are very interesting. Marred still by the very flat clutzy dialog about "not go where we came from. I want to go where they came from," when Shaw puts David's head in the bag, she says to him "I'm sorry." And he looks at her and says "that's quite all right."

Just before that, there has another clunky bit where David asks her what could it possibly matter if she found her answer (honestly, at that point it doesn't), and she replies with "That's what makes me human, and makes you a robot."

However, that's not true. Her desire to know why she was created and why her creators wanted to destroy their creation is, frankly, b.s. the writer wrote and she had to say. The movie, unfortunately, does not give that question any significance. Instead, what makes Shaw human is that she can forgive David, a creation of humans, despite all the evil he has done. She can still, literally, be "human" to him because she can see that he was doing what he was made to do - an imperfect work of imperfect hands - and that there is still intrinsic value to who he is, to his companionship, and not simply to what he is, her means for escaping the planet and traveling to the stars once more. If he was just a tool to her, she would not apologize for putting him in the sack. And was she just apologizing for that or for something deeper?

And, damn it all, if she can forgive David, then what right to the engineers have to simply summarily destroy us if we don't live up to their arbitrary standards?

In the entire movie, with all its outright pontificating and circular ratiocinating conversations that go nowhere, nothing was better able to connect to the thematic element than a small act of kindness in practically the next to last shot.

[Robert B]

Same for PROMETHEUS. It doesn't really say anything about our creator, if we have one, or our creations. People are interested in the puzzle - why do the Engineers want to destroy us?

Because they were offended by the Roman Empire? Good answer! Because they are a death cult who see the alien from Alien as the perfect organism, to use Ash's description? Equally good answer. However, at the same time, the resonance of that question is not in "why do the gods want to destroy us... after accidentally killing most of their number and we wake one up?" It's more in why does God actively hate us? Why is there so much suffering that it is impossible to believe we were created for anything else? That deeper question is the one Prometheus aims at but fumbles badly.

It only fumbles if you're looking at the movie for answers, not questions.

It is a little funny to me that a lot of the anger towards the movie comes from people who wanted answers and didn't get them, considering that is the arc of one of the story's main characters.

[garjones]

I do notice that the more scientifically minded people have the biggest objections. Which may be part of why it is so polarizing.

It's been a while since I've seen a film that has divided people quite so much, one post calling it a complete failure and the saying they loved it.

[Johnny Henning]

It only fumbles if you're looking at the movie for answers, not questions.

It is a little funny to me that a lot of the anger towards the movie comes from people who wanted answers and didn't get them, considering that is the arc of one of the story's main characters.

Again, though, who wanted answers? I didn't care who the Engineers were, why they made us or why they wanted to destroy us. It never got above the level of dim curiosity and, really, it wasn't at all significant to the story the movie told.

Those questions were stated overtly in the film. They were not generated by the story. To go back to Blade Runner, the questions the movie raises are NOT asked in the movie. No one in the movie asks what it means to be human. Or what you would ask of your creator or anything. The story brings up those questions by the actions of the characters and the development of the plot. Answering those questions is a function of the characters' drives and plot is a way to explore the questions, and in the end, it doesn't answer any of them either, but it does tell a damn good story in the process of not answering them.

The movies that really ask questions don't literally have the characters actually ask the questions out loud. Instead, the craft of telling the story forces the audience to ask the questions ourselves.

[olufemi]

So what if Cobb's dreaming at the end? So what if Cobb's asleep the entire movie and wakes up only at the end on the plane? It doesn't really reveal anything about the human condition as much as obsessive interest in it implies.

Whether Cobb is dreaming or awake at the end of Inception, he doesn't care. He's no longer paying attention to if the top falls or not; he chooses to look at his children's faces, consigning him to that reality, whatever it is. He has chosen his reality.

This is what the movie reveals about the human condition. We live the realities we choose to. I'm a bit off-topic, though.

The movies that really ask questions don't literally have the characters actually ask the questions out loud. Instead, the craft of telling the story forces the audience to ask the questions ourselves.

I agree with this. In Dark City (one of my faves), during a blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit of dialogue, Kiefer Southerland's character reveals that noone knows where the people in the titular city came from; as in, no one knows if they're from Earth (or possibly even of its existence). This makes us question if the characters are human, if they are what it is that makes them human, etc.

The questions I asked watching Prometheus were more "Wait, why did he do that?" or "Who in their right mind would do that?"

[steveuk]

<SNIP>

The questions I asked watching Prometheus were more "Wait, why did he do that?" or "Who in their right mind would do that?"

That's it really.

The secondary questions are to do with the technical details. I'd like some answers but plenty of films still have mysteries by the end.

The primary questions I was left with were about the characters and their actions.

EDIT:
Again, this is one of those films where personal taste really matters.

It's like (and I'm not asking to open this can of worms again) 'Superman Returns'. That's a movie which has all the flaws people ascribe to it, with the lack of action and the "stalker" Superman spying on Lois but... a lot of us like it, and because we like it we ignore, dismiss, excuse or just plain don't notice the problems when we're watching it.

They're still there, they just don't matter as much to us as they do to others.

For people who don't like the film, those problems really get under their skin and affect how the view the whole movie.

That's how I am with 'Prometheus'. The things that are wrong with it get in the way of the things that I would, in another film, still enjoy.

[David Meadows]

Avengers is an odd comparison, but it has gotten a lot of discussion.

A different type of discussion. The Avengers has people saying, "Did you laugh at the Hulk? Wasn't Hawkeye badass?" Promethus has us (some of us) saying, "Do you think...?"

Even you, in your it-was-terrible posts are still moved to discuss the points you claim the film itself doesn't address. If it can get you talking about them, it doesn't actually need to answer them itself.

[steveuk]

A different type of discussion. The Avengers has people saying, "Did you laugh at the Hulk? Wasn't Hawkeye badass?" Promethus has us (some of us) saying, "Do you think...?"

Even you, in your it-was-terrible posts are still moved to discuss the points you claim the film itself doesn't address. If it can get you talking about them, it doesn't actually need to answer them itself.

Why not?

[David Meadows]

Why not?

Because... er... well it just doesn't

[Robert B]

I don't know that I would say the lack of action or the stalker bit in Superman Returns were "flaws". That's the movie it was, and it wasn't what a lot of people wanted. But I wouldn't say they were flaws, and this is coming from someone who didn't like that movie even back when a lot of people liked it. [/can of worms]