198 replies to this topic

[steveuk]

it kinda did with the worm in holloways eye, and that fact that it showed the worms grow super fast.

Which worms? The white cobra-headed ones that kill one guy and turn the other into a super zombie?

Or specifically the one in Holloway's eye?

he does say ships, so they are bound to come across something soon if they are looking on a small moon

The issue isn't how they found another ship, it was probably parked next to the first one, it was whether that facility was the only one on the moon? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. The film doesn't cover that at all.

I'm waiting for the sequel. A 120 minute guide to the navigation and control systems.

I know it's funny Gar, and we have tried to stop doing this, but the problem with Prometheus isn't that they don't make it seem possible for David to fly the ship, or figure out the Engineer science, or for the biology to make any sense, or for the characters to make any sense, or for the plot to make much sense or for the questions to have any answers.

The problem with 'Prometheus' is that it suffers from ALL of these problems and more besides.

Fix half of them and you've got a good movie. Fix all of them and its a classic.

But the film didn't.

It's made of handwavium from beginning to end and not even 24 carat handwavium. More like the stuff you'd get off a market stall.

As Johnny keeps saying, people in this thread, yourself included, are coming up with workable solutions that could've fixed the film but none of them are in the film itself.

[Johnny Henning]

The thing in Holloway's eye is substantially different from the worms in the Urn of Death. That part at least, seemed pretty clear. When they walk into the mural room, there are pale blue worms in the soil. When the black goo covers the floor, those worms turn into the pale blue space vagina cobras. That seemed fairly obvious in just a color coded sense. The tendril in Holloway's eye was black like the stuff David put in his drink - it wasn't one of those worms. Also, what was happening to Holloway mirrored what happened to the reanimated geologist. Why he turned into terminator space zombie is just a mystery - you can assume whatever you want, really. The goo also acts as a security device taking over intruders and sending them to kill their fellows.

Now, the real question is why the Geologist and the Biologist (Milburn and Fifeld - Abbot and Costello) decide that the room that freaked them out in the first place, the one that is now covered in oily black goo, is the best place to break out the silvery sleeping bags and spend the night?

[JustinMcElroy]

i didn't mean to imply that the worms in the urn room were the same as the ones in holloways eye.
the worms in the urn room were probably similar to average garden worms until the dna accelerant boosted there evolution into space cobras
i believe the thing in holloway's eye was either a demodox (eyelash mite), or a fungal flora that lives in the human eye.

[garjones]

As Johnny keeps saying, people in this thread, yourself included, are coming up with workable solutions that could've fixed the film but none of them are in the film itself.

And as I keep saying he's looking for problems. You've both half conceded there's actually nothing to say flying the ship is complicated at all.

One makes the presumption it is and another makes a presumption it isn't and it becomes a problem or not because of that. I'm no more writing the story on that point than he is.

I'll concede in return that the film is full of handwavium and I have more tolerance for that than most, I find hard sci-fi deathly boring and like pretty pictures and I'm sure from Johnny's posts here he's looking for the exact opposite. Nothing is going to change that but I think it's perfectly valid to nit the picks back if it is coming from a place of logic.

[craggy]

Now, the real question is why the Geologist and the Biologist (Milburn and Fifeld - Abbot and Costello) decide that the room that freaked them out in the first place, the one that is now covered in oily black goo, is the best place to break out the silvery sleeping bags and spend the night?

because there was a huge temperature drop at night, and that was the warmest room they'd found. Captain Suicide called them and told them that.

[Johnny Henning]

^{Good point. Just after he told them the probe detected a lifeform and then signed off to go have sex with Vickers leaving no one to monitor the lot crewmembers.}

[steveuk]

And as I keep saying he's looking for problems. You've both half conceded there's actually nothing to say flying the ship is complicated at all.

One makes the presumption it is and another makes a presumption it isn't and it becomes a problem or not because of that. I'm no more writing the story on that point than he is.

No, that's not what Johnny or I have said. We see what we all see; the flute, the hologram and the pilot chair. That all looks complicated to me.

What Johnny said was it would make sense if the ship was easy to fly, as you suggested, BUT there's only complication shown in the movie. Therefore; the ship IS complicated to fly!

No one has to go looking for that as a problem, instead you have to guess about things that are not shown in order to dismiss the objection.

I'll concede in return that the film is full of handwavium and I have more tolerance for that than most, I find hard sci-fi deathly boring and like pretty pictures and I'm sure from Johnny's posts here he's looking for the exact opposite. Nothing is going to change that but I think it's perfectly valid to nit the picks back if it is coming from a place of logic.

And I agree with that principle.

[craggy]

^{Good point. Just after he told them the probe detected a lifeform and then signed off to go have sex with Vickers leaving no one to monitor the lot crewmembers.}

hey, you didn't question if he was a good captain, or a lucky man, you just asked why they holed up in the Death Room.

[garjones]

No, that's not what Johnny or I have said. We see what we all see; the flute, the hologram and the pilot chair. That all looks complicated to me.

What Johnny said was it would make sense if the ship was easy to fly, as you suggested, BUT there's only complication shown in the movie. Therefore; the ship IS complicated to fly!

..but it isn't. The flute starts the sequence and the hologram is a display. The musical notes are no more than a PIN for your ATM. Done in flashy style because entering a PIN would be very boring cinematically. What's complicated about a chair once you remove the words 'alien albino'?

David does nothing difficult.

[Johnny Henning]

Yeah, my main problem isn't so much that the film is very soft on the science, but that it intentionally references the strongest science fiction film in history - 2001: A Space Oddysey - and claims to be about "big ideas", and then pretty much ignores any reasonable attempt to portray either a plausible space mission or scientific expedition and introduces ideas that might be interesting but really are only devices to deliver very standard horror movie thrills that really require the characters to be as dumb as dirt to die in the ways they do.

I mean, if you saw a movie where they randomly introduced the idea that a certain character has a pathological fear of turning left, and then later he dies because he turns right and falls off a cliff even though there was an entirely open space on the left - you'd have to think that was pretty dumb and poorly written. And when someone points out that "hey, they told you he was afraid of turning left at the beginning of the movie" it doesn't exactly fix that feeling.

It's like the medical pod in Vickers office (that is not programmed for her) - Shaw sees it, recognizes it and then, of course, later on uses it on herself. Everything is supported. They don't have to explain how she knows what it is - it would've been nice, though - like she started her studies in medicine because of the way her father died and then became an anthropologist (actually, they are never clear on what her field is, exactly, but since she's a doctor, she must know how to perform surgery, right?).

But they don't have to explain it - still, it is clumsy and boring storytelling. We find out there is a practically magical surgery machine on board and then when Shaw is infected with an alien pregnancy, she just needs to get to the magic box to take it out.

..but it isn't. The flute starts the sequence and the hologram is a display. The musical notes are no more than a PIN for your ATM. Done in flashy style because entering a PIN would be very boring cinematically. What's complicated about a chair once you remove the words 'alien albino'?

David does nothing difficult.

Primarily, it looks like you fly it like playing a theramin - or at least you operate the controls by manipulating holographic waveforms, which is quite more complex than point and click. And David hasn't seen the alien actually fly anything at that point since that is done from the jockey chair he doesn't even see. A chair that looks pretty much designed for a 10 foot tall person. Also, unless I missed something, the alien doesn't even open one of the pods - so again, it's just another leap of logic that David can figure it out.

However, you can give them the benefit of the doubt, but for me, the characters' actions, behavior and decisions - not simply the plausibility of the plot - had all felt very nonsensical and unreasonably manipulated up to that point.

[Robert B]

I don't think 2001 could hold to the kind of scrutiny this movie is getting. I don't think any movie could. Now it's a flaw that Shaw knew what the medical pod was? I mean seriously.

[garjones]

I also thought the selling point of a theramin was it was the easiest thing you could play.

Now if it were a church organ we'd be talking.

[Robert B]

I also thought the selling point of a theramin was it was the easiest thing you could play.

Yeah, if Stringer Bell can play an accordion then a therimin should be no problem. But how do we know where he learned to play the accordion? I would have liked to have seen a flashback where he maybe has a few music lessons.

[garjones]

Yeah, if Stringer Bell can play an accordion then a therimin should be no problem. But how do we know where he learned to play the accordion? I would have liked to have seen a flashback where he maybe has a few music lessons.

I think it's in the deleted scenes on the blu-ray.

[Johnny Henning]

I don't think 2001 could hold to the kind of scrutiny this movie is getting. I don't think any movie could. Now it's a flaw that Shaw knew what the medical pod was? I mean seriously.

not a flaw - just lazy.

The writers knew they were going to infect her with an alien thing that she'd have to cut out of her, but inventing a magic surgical pod to do it - and making such a fuss over it - is really no more believable, and actually less dramatic, than having her perform actual surgery on herself under local anaethesia.

I mean, I imagine this conversation in story development:

Scott - "I want Shaw to become pregnant with an alien fetus."

Lindelof - "You mean like the 'alien' chestbuster from ALIEN?"

Scott - "Sorta. More like the facehugger from the egg, but mixed with human DNA somehow."

Lindeloff - "So, does she give birth to it?"

Scott - "Give birth to it? Good lord, no! That would be disgusting."

Lindeloff - "Well, I mean, it would kill her if it just pushed its way out of her belly right?"

Scott - "Good point. What if she cut it out of herself?"

Lindeloff - "Perform surgery on herself? Like a self-performed Caesarian?"

Scott - "Exactly!"

Lindeloff - "That would be dramatic as hell, but even if she did that, we still have her running and jumping for another half hour. How could she even walk?"

Scott - "You're the writer. You figure it out."

Lindeloff - "Okay. What if we introduced this super-advanced medical pod at the beginning? It can do all sorts of surgery and sew her up perfectly so if anyone asks how she can do all this strenuous crap after having a facehugger bellybuster thingee torn out of her, we can just point to the super-advanced medical thing and stuff."

Scott - "Right! Excellent! Just one more thing. It's only configured for males."

Lindeloff - "Why's that, exactly?"

Scott - "So only Weyland can use it! We have to give as many clues as possible so no one is surprised when he turns up alive in the ship."

Lindeloff - "Uh, couldn't any man on the ship use it, though? And, um, how does Shaw use it if it's not configured for women?"

Scott - "She just switches it to manual, of course. Okay, moving on. How do we get the Milfeld and Fiburn back into the room of Goo so they can die horribly?"

Lindeloff - "You mean, Fifeld and Milburn?"

Scott - "It really doesn't matter, does it?"

[Robert B]

I think it's in the deleted scenes on the blu-ray.

Oh, that's good to know.

I'm actually just teasing. I loved the movie and look forward to buying an extended Blu, but I've moved on. Looking forward to Moonrise Kingdom and Spidey and a new season of Louie right now moreso than looking back.

I do think the fact that the movie's detractors are still making the case speaks to the movie's success. To me the worst thing a movie can do is make you not care, and clearly people care about this movie. But I do understand that some is the caring is fueled by folks viewing this film as a missed opportunity.

[Johnny Henning]

yeah, it was broken promise for me. it's the best, most deeply produced science fiction film since AVATAR, but it's got an idiot plot worthy of Platinum Dunes, characters who couldn't be more two dimensional than if they were taken from the comic book adaptation of the story and all the "big ideas" of the movie are dampened down to serve the implausible thriller material.

I went back and rewatched the MAKING OF ALIEN documentary, and it was interesting to see how even then Scott seemed concerned hardly at all about the story the movie told and much more interested in fleshing out the world he created around the story. Oddly, Dan Obannon, who didn't even write the final draft of the script, was shown to have a lot of input on the design of the movie and the adherance to the story and depth of the characters throughout the production.

[steveuk]

..but it isn't. The flute starts the sequence and the hologram is a display. The musical notes are no more than a PIN for your ATM. Done in flashy style because entering a PIN would be very boring cinematically. What's complicated about a chair once you remove the words 'alien albino'?

David does nothing difficult.

Well then.

Is it always the same notes? Is it a pin for everything or just one journey?

If it's universal then how do you choose a destination? How do you work your way through the hologram? Expand it, contract it, shift it in three dimensions?

How do you actually start the engines, make sure they work, trouble shoot them if they don't?

And once you're in the chair, assuming it doesn't mind you're the wrong size, how do you actually pilot the ship?

And this is only the ship, not the rest of the problems with the film.

For a long time Ridley Scott has been called a visualist who doesn't care about story. This is the first of his movies where I really can't disagree with that.

[garjones]

And this is only the ship, not the rest of the problems with the film.

Problems you are looking for. How many films can you name where someone pilots an alien ship? How many of those were extremely advanced AI with a computer brain or just some random bloke?

[steveuk]

yeah, it was broken promise for me. it's the best, most deeply produced science fiction film since AVATAR, but it's got an idiot plot worthy of Platinum Dunes, characters who couldn't be more two dimensional than if they were taken from the comic book adaptation of the story and all the "big ideas" of the movie are dampened down to serve the implausible thriller material.

I went back and rewatched the MAKING OF ALIEN documentary, and it was interesting to see how even then Scott seemed concerned hardly at all about the story the movie told and much more interested in fleshing out the world he created around the story. Oddly, Dan Obannon, who didn't even write the final draft of the script, was shown to have a lot of input on the design of the movie and the adherance to the story and depth of the characters.

Ridley delegated a lot of responsibility to others, including O'Bannon, who set up the art department and remained in charge of it even after Ridley (supreme visualist) became the director.

I can't help thinking that while Scott's fingerprints are the the biggest and deepest on 'Prometheus', Lindelof is the main reason the film doesn't make sense. His experience on 'Lost' really seems to have impacted his approach to things.