198 replies to this topic

[craggy]

Lindelof is the main reason the film doesn't make sense. His experience on 'Lost' really seems to have impacted his approach to things.

I think you're suggesting that given his success with failing to make up a story as he goes along once, that he takes that approach for everything now. Yes?

[steveuk]

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?

Off the top of my head... none?

Abducted, summoned, transported or otherwise press-ganged is something else and there are a few films like that.

Oh wait, 'Independence Day'. Hot-shot pilot Will Smith flies out to the mothership in a UFO that crashed in Roswell back in the 1940's.

But even then, he's got the the scientists who've been examining the ship for decades and the aliens take over the ship for the final approach and docking.

Also, like I said, this is one problem. in a more complete film it would be a minor point, it's still a minor point, but it has a lot of other minor points to go with it.

Together, they break that camel's back.

I think you're suggesting that given his success with failing to make up a story as he goes along once, that he takes that approach for everything now. Yes?

I think he doesn't worry about explaining everything, or even anything, and feels in his bones that he'll get by on mystery, atmosphere and the fact that he can sort out later; hence all the talk of the sequels that will bridge the gap from here to 'Alien'.

EDIT:
And honestly, I'm NOT looking for these problems, they slapped me in the face while I watched the movie. I think my original, day-I-saw-it, reaction is still on this board somewhere.

I laughed at the film when I saw it. At it, not with it, and in a, "I can't believe they're doing this." sort of a way.

There are SyFy movies better than this scifi movie.

[Johnny Henning]

There was also Flight of the Navigator where a little boy somehow became a UFO pilot. But the ship was intelligent and able to speak English.

However, that didn't claim to be a movie about ideas... nor did Independence Day for that matter.

[steveuk]

There was also Flight of the Navigator where a little boy somehow became a UFO pilot. But the ship was intelligent and able to speak English.

However, that didn't claim to be a movie about ideas... nor did Independence Day for that matter.

I liked that movie. It's overdue for a good remake.

EDIT:
Does 'The Last Starfighter' count? He was "trained" by playing the arcade game, like Flynn in 'Tron'.

[Johnny Henning]

Now, though I think it's true that the nonsensical way the movie played out compromised any real consideration of its ideas, I do believe that there are some interesting points to the film's concept.

One thing I wish they had followed up on a little more is the comparison between the Engineer's technology and the humans'. I think it was intentional (but, from the narrative, this could be completely accidental) to indicate that in some ways, the human race was actually ahead of the Engineers technologically.

At the beginning, Weyland addresses the crew via hologram. Later on, David activates a holographic system in the Engineer's ship/compound.

When the Prometheus' ion drive is active, it has an interesting dopler effect. That was visually an inventive way to show faster than light travel - that you would see several images of the ship in flight. At the end, when Shaw/David activate the drive on the other Engineer ship, it has the same kind of effect. Basically, except for the "impulse" capability that allows Engineer ships to levitate opposed to the thrusters on Prometheus, both humans and Engineers use the same method of propulsion for interstellar journeys. (quick note: in the script, the Captain says they traveled half a billion millions, but that would just put them at about the orbit of Saturn - once again, basic astronomy baffles screenwriters - re: the recent STAR TREK movie)

Also, the Engineers used cryo units for interstellar journeys as well which indicates that either they have a very low tolerance for boredom, that they need to conserve resources whenever necessary or, most likely, they age and die like humans. They are not immortal and probably can't deliver immortality any more than Tyrell could extend Roy Batty's life in BLADE RUNNER. "You were made as well as we could make you, Roy." "But not to last."

Also, humans certainly excelled in some ways at mechanical technology. David far exceeds any actual device on the Engineer's ship. While the Engineers seem to primarily be geniuses at bioengineering (though not smart enough to not be killed by their own creations - human and xenomorph). The "goo" is really the only thing in the engineer's compound that indicates a level of advancement far beyond anything the human crew (including David) can understand. You can call it a DNA accelerant, but that basically means it can do anything the writer wants it to. How does accelerating DNA reanimate a corpse and send it back to its origin to kill the others?

DNA does what it does. There is no innate "direction" to evolution, but there seemed to be an intention to the activities of the goo. I like the idea that it is designed to activate dormant gene groups or introduce new instructions to the genetic code it encounters, but, again, nothing in the film indicates it is anything other than a plot device. (to be fair to the Engineers, though, David's abilities to grasp everything about them at a glance is a plot device as well).

However, the idea that human technology can compete with Engineers is an interesting one. The fact that 2000 years of unintended advancement may have caught the Engineers unaware and challenge their dominance of space could be a dramatic set up for the next movie.

Another interesting point that doesn't get much discussion is the idea that David lacks emotion. In the viral ad campaign that introduced him, he says that he understands emotions though he doesn't have them himself, but when he says that a tear is running down his cheek. He was just asked "what makes you sad?" "Unnecessary violence" was his answer.

There is a theory in psychology and neurology that consciousness - not necessarily intelligence, but awareness - cannot exist without emotion. That self-awareness requires a certain amount of investment in one's self, and even with intelligence, there is the concept that complex intelligence - human intelligence - builds up from emotional drives,

David definitely seems to be emotional. When we see him by himself, he is rarely on task the whole time. What possible purpose does he have by saying "Big things have small beginnings" when he's alone with the goo? Obviously, it satisfies something emotional in him to say that - to act like Lawrence of Arabia. He's primarily very curious and at the same time very pretentious, but it is hard to be truly curious without emotional connection to the source of both curiousity about the external world and internal self. To have a passion - or in David's case - even an obsession for it.

In the end, I think David has emotions and is unaware of it which is why his behavior is more irrational than expected. He believes he is following his programming, serving Weyland, but his behavior is contrary to that even up to the very end when he has to know that Weyland is going to die.

[Rory Abel]

Saw this last night, walked out thinking that it was a very stupid movie about big ideas. It was very pretty but never particularly engaging and incredibly lazy with its plotting and characters.

[Dave Wallace]

I've been away from the board for the last week or so, and this thread has got even crazier than it was when I left it.

One interesting development is that most of the detractors now seem to be insisting that any of the defenders' explanations for apparent plot holes need to have supporting evidence from within the film itself. But I really don't understand why: much of the enjoyment of these kinds of films (for me, anyway) comes from engaging with the film and filling in the blanks for yourself. In fact, I think more than any other recent film, Prometheus relies on the audience's engagement with the story and their willingness to provide their own answers for many of the film's questions, both big and small. I think that complaining that the film isn't providing those answers is missing the point.

(I mean, are we really at the stage where we're picking a film apart to the extent that we think that a sequence showing a human piloting an alien spaceship has to spell out the exact mechanics of how the ship works, or else be considered flawed storytelling? Some smaller things like this have to be taken as read, and others require either a certain suspension of disbelief or a willingness to fill in the gaps yourself).

Now, I can understand people feeling as though there simply isn't an incentive to invest in the film to that extent because the characters aren't engaging, or the central ideas of the story weren't made interesting or accessible enough. But I find it difficult to see why people who have engaged with the film to that extent would expect answers and full explanations for everything. I certainly don't feel as though the film sets up those kinds of expectations for the audience.

[steveuk]

<SNIP>

I mean, are we really at the stage where we're picking a film apart to the extent that we think that a sequence showing a human piloting an alien spaceship has to spell out the exact mechanics of how the ship works, or else be considered flawed storytelling?

<SNIP>

No, we're not. That's not the criticism that was made.

No-one would expect a film to include a detailed set of instructions for a piece of imaginary equipment, but what a well made movie would do is setup a situation where it was clear that operating the machine was within the abilities of the character who does so.

This example is relatively minor compared with the idea that Shaw can confidently reanimate a dead alien head that's been lying in a cave for two thousand years or run around after major surgery without bleeding to death or that an unspecified alien goo can perform multiple biological miracles with no consistency or explanation.

That's the criticism... some of them anyway.

[Dave Wallace]

This example is relatively minor compared with the idea that Shaw can confidently reanimate a dead alien head that's been lying in a cave for two thousand years or run around after major surgery without bleeding to death or that an unspecified alien goo can perform multiple biological miracles with no consistency or explanation.

Interestingly, I completely agree with the first complaint, feel ambivalent about the second, and completely disagree with the third.

The first was a silly moment - despite only having encountered the Engineers a matter of hours ago (maybe even minutes), she's confident enough to instruct the ship's medical officer on how to reanimate the severed head. That actively goes against the setup of the story and the supposed level of realism of the world it's set in.

Shaw running around after surgery is on the one hand a bit of a naff Hollywood convention that I can live with (it's certainly no worse than some of the feats we see Bruce Willis perform in the Die Hard series, say, or any number of other action movies you could name that are set in far more realistic worlds than Prometheus). On the other hand, though, it detracts from the feeling of vulnerability that we're meant to feel on her behalf, and so lessens the jeopardy she's in.

As for the alien goo, the only thing we really see it do is infect living lifeforms to initiate the alien lifecycle. Yes, it does that in a pretty roundabout way, but I think this is a good example of a point where the audience can work out enough to fill in the gaps without being given a dull overt explanation for it. Its purpose in the film is a pretty simple one - it's a biological weapon of some sort that creates nasty alien beasties - and I think that if you tried to put together a serious pseudo-realistic scientific explanation for that, you'd probable cause more problems by bringing it to the audience's attention than you'd solve by trying to explain it.

I guess we all have different levels of acceptance for these kinds of things, and it obviously very much depends upon the kind of movie you're watching (I'll accept slightly outlandish and mysterious alien concepts far more readily in a sci-fi movie like Prometheus than I would in something more grounded). But personally, I didn't feel like any of the problems with Prometheus (and yeah, there were some) were serious enough to detract from the big picture of the story being told.

No-one would expect a film to include a detailed set of instructions for a piece of imaginary equipment, but what a well made movie would do is setup a situation where it was clear that operating the machine was within the abilities of the character who does so.

Again, it's a question of what level of explanation is going to serve the story best. For me, having Shaw be accompanied by David - who has deciphered the Engineer language well enough to operate their technology and hold conversations with them, and has also seen a recording of the Engineers operating the ship's controls - is enough to provide a reasonable basis for her to be able to use one to escape. I'm not sure that a more thorough and detailed explanation of that plot point (which the film certainly could have provided easily enough) would have really added anything to the story.

There's an alien ship, David knows how to operate alien technology, so Shaw can use his knowledge to use the ship to escape. Do we really need any more than that?

[steveuk]

Well, to stick to the two points of disagreement. I still think Shaw's behaviour is even less believable than John McClane's invulnerability in 'Die Hard 4', but even so there's still just a single standard at work.

'Die Hard 4' got plenty of criticism for Willis' Wolverine-like like ability to bounce back from a multitude of injuries that should've put him in hospital or the morgue.

The goo though, the goo is something else. Gaps can only be filled if they are consistent gaps, like those in a crossword puzzle. The story provides a few letters and the viewer completes the word.

The goo is just gibberish though.

[Dave Wallace]

The goo though, the goo is something else. Gaps can only be filled if they are consistent gaps, like those in a crossword puzzle. The story provides a few letters and the viewer completes the word.

The goo is just gibberish though.

Then you could equally say that the original Alien is 'gibberish' because it doesn't explain what the xenomorph is or how its lifecycle works. In that film, you have an egg give birth to a creature that looks like a giant skeletal hand with a tail that moves about like a crab, has acid for blood, and which attaches itself to a bloke's face and lays eggs down his throat, which hatch into a completely different kind of creature, which grows from being a few inches long to being taller than a human in next to no time.

That's hardly more coherent than what we learn about the black goo in Prometheus!

But it doesn't seem to stop people from enjoying Alien - and in fact, I think that if that film had tried to explain what the aliens were, or how their lifecycle worked, it would have been the worse for it. That element of mystery (which you can try to interpret, but which you won't ever be exactly sure about) adds to the scariness and alienness, for me.

[steveuk]

Then you could equally say that the original Alien is 'gibberish' because it doesn't explain what the xenomorph is or how its lifecycle works. In that film, you have an egg give birth to a creature that looks like a giant skeletal hand with a tail that moves about like a crab, has acid for blood, and which attaches itself to a bloke's face and lays eggs down his throat, which hatch into a completely different kind of creature, which grows from being a few inches long to being taller than a human in next to no time.

That's hardly more coherent than what we learn about the black goo in Prometheus!

It's much more coherent.

Egg hatches a face hugger, face hugger implants an embryo, the embryo grows to a chestburster and emerges from the host and continues to grow, then once its grown further... well the only bit that was left was how it produced the eggs?

The acid for blood is introduced, commented upon and explained for the audience as a defence mechanism.

How does the goo work again? When does is dissolve creatures, or grow white cobras or make super zombies or squid babies or eye worms?

Very different to Alien.

But it doesn't seem to stop people from enjoying Alien - and in fact, I think that if that film had tried to explain what the aliens were, or how their lifecycle worked, it would have been the worse for it. That element of mystery (which you can try to interpret, but which you won't ever be exactly sure about) adds to the scariness and alienness, for me.

The mystery is where the aliens, the ship, the space jockey all came from? That's not explained but by the same token its also not badly explained or presented in a mixed up way that's supposed to answer some questions but fails to do so.

[Dave Wallace]

How does the goo work again? When does is dissolve creatures, or grow white cobras or make super zombies or squid babies or eye worms?

The stuff the Engineer in the prologue drank before 'dissolving' isn't the same stuff that we see later in the movie, I don't think.

As for the effects of the goo, it only seems complex if you want it to be. It infects a host and causes it to grow a proto-facehugger, which then lays alien eggs in another host. If anything, it's less complex than what we see in the original Alien.

The white snake-creature is presumably either a completely separate lifeform or something that the black goo develops into if it can't find a human host, and the 'super zombie' was a guy who was unhinged and antisocial to begin with, who's almost killed in a terrifying alien encounter, and who crawls his way back to the ship through a poisonous atmosphere to attack his former crewmates.

[steveuk]

This is what Johnny and I (mostly) are talking about; the fact that film doesn't cover any of this.

'Alien' had the characters explain things. they explored, argued, investigated and deduced a consistent set of rules for what was happening. No-one in 'Prometheus' not even David, does that.

The goo all looks the same, the biology is wildly erratic, the characters make inexplicable choice and behave is idiotic ways and then we're here arguing over why?

You see pieces of a mystery, I see a random jumble of ideas put together badly.

If your explanations work for you then that great for you but the film doesn't cover any of it. They're your ideas, not the film's.

[John Mosby]

I tend to agree with what SteveUK said just above.

If you create a join-the-dots puzzle and then forget to put some of the numbers in (and even some of the dots), you don't get to blame the person with the pencil who's trying to do the puzzle for failing to come up with the final image. On the flipside, if the penciller joins the dots in an abstract way that's visually pleasing, most of the credit should go them for their effort, not the people who fluffed the original and want to then say it's all about the individual discovering what the dots mean for themselves.

[Robert B]

I tend to agree with what SteveUK said just above.

If you create a join-the-dots puzzle and then forget to put some of the numbers in (and even some of the dots), you don't get to blame the person with the pencil who's trying to do the puzzle for failing to come up with the final image. On the flipside, if the penciller joins the dots in an abstract way that's visually pleasing, most of the credit should go them for their effort, not the people who fluffed the original and want to then say it's all about the individual discovering what the dots mean for themselves.

That's a good analogy, although I don't think that "putting all the numbers in" is the most important goal for a filmmaker. In fact I think it should be avoided and the audience should have room to fill in gaps, come up with their own theories, and create their own images. But different strokes and all that, we've gone around in circles on this one.

[John Paul Fitch]

The stuff the Engineer in the prologue drank before 'dissolving' isn't the same stuff that we see later in the movie, I don't think.

As for the effects of the goo, it only seems complex if you want it to be. It infects a host and causes it to grow a proto-facehugger, which then lays alien eggs in another host. If anything, it's less complex than what we see in the original Alien.

The white snake-creature is presumably either a completely separate lifeform or something that the black goo develops into if it can't find a human host, and the 'super zombie' was a guy who was unhinged and antisocial to begin with, who's almost killed in a terrifying alien encounter, and who crawls his way back to the ship through a poisonous atmosphere to attack his former crewmates.

What I've gathered is that the "goo" works with the being who ingests it's intentions.

The Engineer at the beginning is there to sacrifice himself to create life on a barren planet and thus the goo dissolves him into the building blocks of life.

After Not-Tom Hardy ingests it, he has sex with Noomi Rapace and they create a squid thing...perhaps he'd had squid for dinner?

The cobra thing bothered me, but someone I spoke to said there were some worms in the earth of the "Head Room" and the goo must have mutated one of them?

it fits with the idea that super-caveman-zombie guy was anti-social, scared and then the goo changed him into an even angrier super-caveman-zombie. But why did he walk like a crab to get back to the ship?

[Johnny Henning]

This is what Johnny and I (mostly) are talking about; the fact that film doesn't cover any of this.

'Alien' had the characters explain things. they explored, argued, investigated and deduced a consistent set of rules for what was happening. No-one in 'Prometheus' not even David, does that.

The goo all looks the same, the biology is wildly erratic, the characters make inexplicable choice and behave is idiotic ways and then we're here arguing over why?

You see pieces of a mystery, I see a random jumble of ideas put together badly.

If your explanations work for you then that great for you but the film doesn't cover any of it. They're your ideas, not the film's.

Yeah, that is mostly what bugged me about it. I think the film offered a lot of set-ups regarding the mystery, but provided no pay-offs from those. Instead, what it did provide was the most predictable and unimaginative sort of horror film where a lot of characters rush stupidly into a mysterious situation, act like they can't believe any of this could be dangerous and then behave in completely incomprehensible ways that lead to their quite idiotic and horrific deaths.

Like I posted before, the movie on screen really is no different than any b-movie horror. The actual answer to any of the questions is that "it had to be this way so that the characters could die and we could have the standard number of horror scenes the genre requires." That is the only answer that fits with the movie because, in the end, this is a basic and very cookie cutter genre movie. It started with a very standard Alien movie prequel and even though Scott may have wanted to focus more on the "ideas" of human origins, the movie remained a very standard Alien-type film - and not even one of the imaginative or inventive types.

Why does the goo turn into a squid when it impregnates Shaw? Because it's scary and creepy.

Why does the biologist ignore an obvious threatening display from a big space viper and try to touch it? So it can kill him in horrible ways.

Why does the space viper have acid blood when it doesn't seem to be any part of the life-cycle of the xenomorph? So it can burn a hole in the other idiot's suit so he can get infected by the horror goo.

Why does the goo turn him into zombie terminator? So we can have a thrilling scene where he goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of other crew members who would've just gotten in the way at the end.

Does zombie terminator geologist have acid blood now that he's been changed by the goo? Not relevant unless it kills somebody trying to stop him.

How does SquidShaw grow from a cute little 4 kilo baby into a giant 400+ kilo monster in just a few hours even though it doesn't eat anything? DId it eat a random crew member or two off screen at some point? Maybe, but it doesn't matter because we just needed it to turn into a monster so Shaw could hit a button, open a door and kill the alien trying to kill her just like Ripley did in Alien and Aliens.

About that, how does the Engineer know where Shaw is and why doesn't he just go to the spare ship and start over now that there is nothing to stop him? See above answer starting with "...it doesn't matter..."


And so on - the movie is really just a collection of horror scenes strung together with silly string and an inexplicable prologue that sets up a mystery that very little relevance to what goes down in the rest of the film. Honestly, the Engineer's self-sacrifice at the beginning is really paid off when Shaw finds the cave painting. As far as the movie's concerned - and really, as far as the characters behave - there is no reason to think about it again. After Shaw and Holloway find the dead aliens, it looks like they are seriously ready to go back to Earth. The rest of the movie has nothing to do with figuring out the mystery - it's just time to start killing people for whatever damn reason.

Honestly, didn't you all get that impression? It seemed like both these scientists who dedicated everything to get there just gave up looking for answers the moment they saw the aliens were dead, and the only reason they went back to the compound was to find the two missing and now dead crewmen. And everyone else was like "well, heck, looks like these kids were right. But -Yaaawnnn - all the alien space gods are dead and I guess we'll never know why. Okay, I'm gonna go surf the Web now. Call me if you need me for anything."

If I hadn't been promised "a movie about ideas" by Scott in all of the previews and pre-release interviews, it really would've just been another thriller far inferior to Alien and Aliens. Even Alien 3 had stronger character intentions and motivations.

Now, it didn't help that I saw CABIN IN THE WOODS not long before this because, really, the fact that they just flew around looking for stuff instead of doing some sort of hi-tech planetary survey did not bother me. The fact that the others didn't know anything about the mission before agreeing to it didn't bother me.

But when they took off their helmets, when the geologist and biologist freaked out at the sight of the dead engineer, when they get lost, and when an endless string of "WTF?" moments began cascading across the screen, I started wondering when these guys would show up to explain it.

[John Mosby]

There MUST be a Cabin and Prometheus mash-up video out there, it's just begging for it...

[Dave Wallace]

Putting aside all these specific arguments about particular plot points (because I'm pretty sure we've been over all of them and we all know how we feel about them by this point ), there's a larger issue at play for me here: when does a perceived logical flaw become so damaging that it ruins the story for you?

For me, if I'm gripped enough by the larger ideas and concepts of the story, I can ignore the odd logical flaw or two - even if it's so significant that it threatens to undermine the concept of the entire movie. For example, I - like a lot of people - love the original Matrix movie, but it can't be denied that the crux of the story (that humans are being used as unwilling 'batteries' for the machines in the future, and need to be occupied by the fictional world of the Matrix to keep them docile) doesn't work when you start to think about it (because at best, the machines can only reap as much energy from the humans as they're putting in to keep them alive). Still, despite undermining the logic of the entire story, it isn't a big enough problem to stop me enjoying the movie overall.

I wonder whether Prometheus is a good test of what kind of viewer you are: whether logical flaws in the details of the story will prevent you from enjoying the whole, or whether you're willing to be generous and overlook stuff that doesn't make sense in favour of a good yarn.