Prometheus *SPOILERS FROM POST 1538*

Duggys Housemate

It's possible for the ship to take 2 ship years to travel 35 light years because of the Lorenz contraction. Just saying.

Duggys Housemate

Mickeroo wrote: »

Mellor wrote: »

Why do they say all life?

I took it that they were referring to human life, ie intelligent life. They repeatedly referred to "us", "humans"etc.

They went to great lengths to show us earth looking barren and uninhabited at the start of the film (even if it was iceland :P). Suppose its possible there was already micro-organisms knocking around before they did what they did what with the running water and all. I took it that they were responsible for all life on earth though.

No. There was no water 4 billion years ago. The engineers created humans.

It's a creationist movie. The creators are aliens not god.

Goldstein

There seems to be a disproportionate focus on some of Prometheus' more pedantic issues when there are massive gaping black hole sized failings staring everyone in the face throughout. There's just so many writing problems to choose from it's inevitable that minor ones will be discussed given the size of this thread.

Struggling to defend these lesser problems as pedantry or knitpicking however does nothing to mask or excuse the film's real problems - such as the entire nonsensical plot and cardboard characters (David being the exception ironically).

As for they created only humans - seriously people? That's well into fantasy territory.

shizz

All of those problems have been put forward many times. That's why people have gone further to see all of the problems in the movie.

Mickeroo

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

No. There was no water 4 billion years ago. The engineers created humans.

It's a creationist movie. The creators are aliens not god.

I really don't think the screen writers gave things like the existence of water(or oxygen or anything else) 4 billion years ago much thought to be honest.

Duggys Housemate

Mickeroo wrote: »

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

No. There was no water 4 billion years ago. The engineers created humans.

It's a creationist movie. The creators are aliens not god.

I really don't think the screen writers gave things like the existence of water(or oxygen or anything else) 4 billion years ago much thought to be honest.

I bet they did. Scifi writers know this stuff.

shizz

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

I bet they did. Scifi writers know this stuff.

Well if they "know this stuff" why did they get so many simple science related things wrong?

Mickeroo

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

I bet they did. Scifi writers know this stuff.

One of these guys wrote Lost, we're not exactly in Arthur C. Clarke territory here.

uncleoswald

Prometheus really does get worse the more you think about it.

While in general I have no problem with the ambiguity of the Engineer's motivations, it does make me wonder why this film exists. Scott has said the entire idea behind Prometheus was that he realised there was a question in Alien which none of the sequels dealt with, namely "who was the Space Jockey?" Why dismantle one of science fiction's most endearing mysteries only to replace it with muddled ambiguity? (I'm quite sure any sequels to Prometheus could never adequately explain the mess that is the Engineer's plan even if they tried, which they wont.) When even Paul W.S. Anderson has the good sense not to mess with something beloved you know you should leave well alone.

Also, while the comparisons with Lost in regard to "questions" is way off, largely because Lost answered most of it's questions, Prometheus is still clearly the work of Lindelof. Big themes awkwardly handled, muddled motivations, illogical character decisions and, no doubt if the sequels are made, major plot points that have been left hanging will be forgotten or given explanations that don't actually make any sense when viewed retrospectively.

Calibos

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

It's possible for the ship to take 2 ship years to travel 35 light years because of the Lorenz contraction. Just saying.

The Lorenz contraction comes into play for travel at relativistic speads within the universe. With the equations you could work out what percentage of the speed of light they would have had to be traveling at to travel 35LY in 2 years. I don't know the equation but say for example its 90% of the speed of light. Now, the Lorenz contraction means the 2 years travel time is only from the crews point of view not from the reference frames, ie. Earth or LV226. The journey still takes 35 years +10% from the point of view of earth or LV226. ie 38.5 years. Alien is supposed to take place 30 years after the date in this film. ie. The Prometheus wouldn't have even arrived at LV226 by the time of the events of Alien.

So the propulsion system has to be some kind of Warp/Jump/subspace drive to get around this problem. Its why they were invented in science fiction to get around this inherent problem of relativity otherwise the month long trip to drop off spock on Vulcan would have the Enterprise arriving back on earth 1000 years after they left

Just Sayin'

BTW, Theres a book series called Forever War that deals with a war with an alien race where only relativistic speeds are possible. EG. One Skirmish as them on an even footing technology wise. Next week they intercept another alien cruiser thats 100 years more advanced. They're saved by another earth ship arriving on the scene thats 100 years more advanced than the aliens and 200 years more advanced than them etc etc. I made that up as an example, but thats the kind of thing that happens in parts of the books.

Duggys Housemate

A ship with warp wouldn't need chrynogenics of course. Also the max speed would be 99.9% of c to get the Lorenz contraction of approx 20. The rest of your post makes sense.

Sideshow Mark

Only saw it today and found a lot to like, but if there is a longer cut then there's af few things things that must be explained to fix a few plot holes. Or perhaps I missed the explanations in the film.

- Why did David do that with the drink. Don't understand the motivation behind it at all.
- How did the two scientists get lost, with communications to the ship and a great big map showing where they are.
- The significance of Charlize Theroen being Weylands daughter

Mickeroo

Sideshow Mark wrote: »

Only saw it today and found a lot to like, but if there is a longer cut then there's af few things things that must be explained to fix a few plot holes. Or perhaps I missed the explanations in the film.

- Why did David do that with the drink. Don't understand the motivation behind
it at all.

I think it directly stemmed from Weyland telling him to "try harder" and David asking how far is he willing to let him go. I think he just wanted to see what the goo would do to a human, for a ll he knew it could have been the cure Weyland was looking for. I think he picked whatshisname because he was being a dick to David the whole time. I could be wrong, but it seemed pretty clear to me that thats why he spiked the drink.

Sideshow Mark wrote: »

- How did the two scientists get lost, with communications to the ship and a great big map showing where they are.

I doubt this will be addressed in an extended cut as I'm pretty sure its just a result of really bad/illogical writing from Lindelof & co.

Sideshow Mark wrote: »

- The significance of Charlize Theroen being Weylands daughter

Yea I'm not sure what the significance was there at all, it didn't really add anything to the story having her be his daughter. Many people think she is in fact a synthetic herself which would make more sense but I really don't think she was an android.

Sin City

Sideshow Mark wrote: »

Only saw it today and found a lot to like, but if there is a longer cut then there's af few things things that must be explained to fix a few plot holes. Or perhaps I missed the explanations in the film.

- Why did David do that with the drink. Don't understand the motivation behind it at all.

could.be.like the.other aliens plots
get a female impregnated with, an alien to bring back to earth and avoid customs

shizz

I thought it was obvious enough that Weyland wanted to test it on someone, so he had David do it. He was there to try find something to make him live forever, he may have thought the black goo could do something for him.

homerun_homer

Regarding water on the planet at the beginning of the film, Ridley said that he's not saying it is Earth, that is what people are presuming. I suppose it's just to show the aliens process for kick starting life by throwing their DNA into the mix.

This won't help anyone who is annoyed by all the faults of the film but thought I'd throw that in there.

Mickeroo

homerun_homer wrote: »

Regarding water on the planet at the beginning of the film, Ridley said that he's not saying it is Earth, that is what people are presuming. I suppose it's just to show the aliens process for kick starting life by throwing their DNA into the mix.

This won't help anyone who is annoyed by all the faults of the film but thought I'd throw that in there.

When they were filming that sequence this is what he said: “It will be 15 minutes in total, if all goes to plan. We are shooting the beginning of time.”

Not really consistent with what they actually filmed imo, could be a misquote though I suppose.

Goldstein

Calibos wrote: »

BTW, Theres a book series called Forever War that deals with a war with an alien race where only relativistic speeds are possible. EG. One Skirmish as them on an even footing technology wise. Next week they intercept another alien cruiser thats 100 years more advanced. They're saved by another earth ship arriving on the scene thats 100 years more advanced than the aliens and 200 years more advanced than them etc etc. I made that up as an example, but thats the kind of thing that happens in parts of the books.

Funny you bring up Haldeman's masterpiece. Guess who they have lined up to take the helm? It's critical after this that they keep Scott away from it at all costs. He's clearly not the man to adapt such an important work of real science fiction.

Calibos

Goldstein wrote: »

Funny you bring up Haldeman's masterpiece. Guess who they have lined up to take the helm? It's critical after this that they keep Scott away from it at all costs. He's clearly not the man to adapt such an important work of real science fiction.

I don't have anything against him directing it per se.....as long as he has no creative input into the script

Goldstein

Calibos wrote: »

I don't have anything against him directing it per se.....as long as he has no creative input into the script

I'd have concerns about any director that took even a cursory glance at Lindelof's revised Prometheus and doesn't see it for the schlock that it is. His past reputation is gladly secure but much contemporary credibility has been lost by association.

"The leads are for closers!"

Zubeneschamali

homerun_homer wrote: »

Regarding water on the planet at the beginning of the film, Ridley said that he's not saying it is Earth, that is what people are presuming.

It doesn't matter what planet it is: if there's no life, there'd no free oxygen.

Duggy747

Probably likely we'll be seeing this on DVD release.

Duggys Housemate

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

It doesn't matter what planet it is: if there's no life, there'd no free oxygen.

Is that the only way to produce water, or oxygen? Genuinely curious.

pixelburp

A movie about androids, space travel & aliens seeding life on Earth, and people are quibbling over what the Engineers were breathing? A Mis-prioritisation of one's suspension of disbelief I would have thought.

Duggys Housemate

pixelburp wrote: »

A movie about androids, space travel & aliens seeding life on Earth, and people are quibbling over what the Engineers were breathing? A Mis-prioritisation of one's suspension of disbelief I would have thought.

Its more than that, what they were breathing i.e. air and dying into water, was itself created by life. Early lifeforms produced oxygen, and it reacted with hydrogen in then then very hot atmosphere to produce water. The Engineer was past all that, so we don't really know what was up.

helimachoptor

havent managed to see this yet but tbh i think ill wait for the DVD, had such high hopes for it

GhostInTheRuins

Zubeneschamali

pixelburp wrote: »

A movie about androids, space travel & aliens seeding life on Earth, and people are quibbling over what the Engineers were breathing?

Androids, space travel and aliens seeding life on Earth are all perfectly possible, no great suspension of disbelief required there.

Fysh

pixelburp wrote: »

A movie about androids, space travel & aliens seeding life on Earth, and people are quibbling over what the Engineers were breathing? A Mis-prioritisation of one's suspension of disbelief I would have thought.

Only if your version of "sci-fi" means "any old crap goes, because we're dealing with magic, and we all know there are no rules to magic!"

If, on the other hand, you want sci-fi that can actually stand up to 30 seconds scrutiny, then you probably want something where the concepts relating to current/known science are handled sensibly. So for example, no claiming that a species with baseline human DNA can look substantially different to humans, or that they can breathe in an oxygen-free environment. Or that anyone who's ever been employed in a role even tangentially related to scientific research would think that 10 seconds worth of data suggesting the air might be breathable is enough reason to just take your helmet off and expose yourself to whatever nasties may be present in the environment (not to mention exposing the local environment to the number of disgusting nasties on which we depend for our ongoing survival - eg digestive tract bacteria). Or you know, most of the complete bollocks passed off as science in the film.

Aside from anything else, suspension of disbelief is aided when the familiar parts of a storytelling world are shown to be handled in realistic ways.

There's a difference between "not being bothered by bad science in a film" and "bad science not being present in a film", you know. Just because you personally don't find it bothering you doesn't mean it's somehow not bad storytelling.

willit

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Its more than that, what they were breathing i.e. air and dying into water, was itself created by life. Early lifeforms produced oxygen, and it reacted with hydrogen in then then very hot atmosphere to produce water. The Engineer was past all that, so we don't really know what was up.

Can I ask, and also referring to Zubeneschamali's post and any other relating to the water and oxygen argument, are you all suggesting that the scene is flawed because without life on a planet there would be no water or oxygen? Do you actually believe that all of the water on earth came from the oxygen produced by early life mixing with hydrogen in the very hot atmosphere? And if so, you guys are saying that the engineers creating all life is a flawed concept because there was water and oxygen present in the opening scene so there must have been life to produce this?

That's a genuine question and I am baffled by it. Water on our planet is present due to collisions with comets, and other celestial bodies comprising of ice, and the early earth. It has nothing to do with oxygen produced by early life forms. Hopefully I've read those posts wrongly and people understand this basic fact.