Prometheus *SPOILERS FROM POST 1538*

Zubeneschamali

Turpentine wrote: »

Why use miraculous space lasers to intricatley cut a wound deep enough to allow access for a C-section, only to close said wound with builders-provider-grade staples?

The answer to all questions about plot-holes in Prometheus is "Space Jesus".

You can't argue with Space Jesus.

briany

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Actually just watched it there and enjoyed it, I could have done without the Alien origin stuff particulary the last scene, this all seemed tacked on just to keep the movie in the Alien universe. It reminded me a bit of Contact. Is there deffo a follow up? 8/10 for me!

I think most of us would have preferred not to have had a definite answer about where the Alien aliens came from but now we do, unfortunately. The ending seems like the perfect setup for at least one sequel and, to be fair, the possible themes in one could be interesting and philosophical, asking questions about our place in the universe but would that sell? Furthermore, would it be sold as that or given another misleading trailer leading to a backlash?

Zubeneschamali

briany wrote: »

I think most of us would have preferred not to have had a definite answer about where the Alien aliens came from but now we do, unfortunately.

Just because someone makes a movie saying that Predators spread the Aliens around to make for fun hunting doesn't make it so.

krudler

briany wrote: »

I think most of us would have preferred not to have had a definite answer about where the Alien aliens came from but now we do, unfortunately. The ending seems like the perfect setup for at least one sequel and, to be fair, the possible themes in one could be interesting and philosophical, asking questions about our place in the universe but would that sell? Furthermore, would it be sold as that or given another misleading trailer leading to a backlash?

Not really though, there's nothing to suggest the proto-alien thingy at the end is the same as what are in the Alien movies, its genesis makes zero sense, and there's a figure in the chamber that looks more like the xenomorphs from the other movies so its possible they already exist in the Prometheus universe.

Turpentine

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

The answer to all questions about plot-holes in Prometheus is "Space Jesus".

You can't argue with Space Jesus.

You said it man, nobody fcuks with the Space Jesus.

kevohmsford

I watched Prometheus tonight. It was a decent film but I was disappointed.

TwoShedsJackson

Saw it last night, looked great, Fassbender was really good, and the c-section scene was remarkably unpleasant and well done. Apart from that, adequate entertainment at best.

Agricola

Watched this again on a flight recently and it didnt improve with a second viewing. All the time I was thinking of a youtube spoof of it which I saw during the summer.
There is just so much stupid in it, its beyond belief. A perfect example of how the greatest films are often like capturing lightning in a bottle. Get the right director, actors, script, people to rewrite the script and hopefully studio executives with half a brain and you might pull off something great. Miss out on one or a few of these ingredients and you could end up with an expensive turkey like this. Absolute bilge.

krudler

Its pants, watched it for the second time since seeing it in the cinema, the script is garbage, its makes no sense, plotholes all over the place, and the dumbest bunch of scientists to ever be sent to space. Afraid of the thing dead for 2000 years? well here's a very alive and clearly pissed off space cobra for you to poke, gwan you know you want to, dumbass.

Tipsy McSwagger

I know when I watch this again I will hate it, it looked amazing in the cinema and I really enjoyed it, but sometimes watching a film on the big screen can blind you from its obvious flaws (Avatar is the most obvious).

krudler

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

I know when I watch this again I will hate it, it looked amazing in the cinema and I really enjoyed it, but sometimes watching a film on the big screen can blind you from its obvious flaws (Avatar is the most obvious).

This basically, Prometheus looks lovely, and has one standout setpiece in the C-section scene, but its insultingly stupid throughout. stuff like Weyland being on board, why bother keeping it a secret? he's funding the trip, he's alive and well, why bother sneaking him on board his own vessel when they could have just told the crew from the beginning? It was put in for a twist reveal and doesnt work. And Guy Pearce looks ridiculous in it.

Turpentine

krudler wrote: »

This basically, Prometheus looks lovely, and has one standout setpiece in the C-section scene, but its insultingly stupid throughout. stuff like Weyland being on board, why bother keeping it a secret? he's funding the trip, he's alive and well, why bother sneaking him on board his own vessel when they could have just told the crew from the beginning? It was put in for a twist reveal and doesnt work. And Guy Pearce looks ridiculous in it.

100%. Why didn't they just get an older actor to play Weyland? It's not as if there were any flashback scenes in the film.

The TED virals were interesting and Pearce was good as a young Weyland, but that has no actual relation to the finished film other than being a little easter egg outside of the narrative.

Maybe they'd intended to have the TED talk as part of the film or something? I don't think Ridley Scott even directed it though.

Mickeroo

Turpentine wrote: »

100%. Why didn't they just get an older actor to play Weyland? It's not as if there were any flashback scenes in the film.

The TED virals were interesting and Pearce was good as a young Weyland, but that has no actual relation to the finished film other than being a little easter egg outside of the narrative.

Maybe they'd intended to have the TED talk as part of the film or something? I don't think Ridley Scott even directed it though.

That TED talk is frankly the best thing that came out of the film imo. An ambitious young Weyland leading the expedition could have made for a better story I think.

Turpentine

Mickeroo wrote: »

That TED talk is frankly the best thing that came out of the film imo. An ambitious young Weyland leading the expedition could have made for a better story I think.

I'd be inclined to agree.

While an aged tycoon searching for the fountain of youth serviced the story somewhat, it would have been better had it been the Pearce of the TED talk in the film.

In my opinion, exploratory zeal and greed would have been a better motivation than "I'm old and my make-up's crap".

It also would have been more interesting to show Weyland's strengths rather than concentrate on his weakness, which is what we got.

krudler

Mickeroo wrote: »

That TED talk is frankly the best thing that came out of the film imo. An ambitious young Weyland leading the expedition could have made for a better story I think.

Agree, he could have been a great flawed character, I'm not sure why he needed to be in the role he's in at all tbh, he shows up in the last few minutes, doesnt do much but walk like a geriatric Robocop and then gets twatted with an android head, there's no logic in having him smuggled on board and pretend to be dead. You dont even see the relationship he had with Holloway and Shaw, we're just told in one line of dialogue during the hologram sequence that he believes in their work, so spends a trillion dollars sending them into space after faking his own death,or at least letting people believe he's dead? ok then.

Duggy747

For Guy Pearce's old man make-up.

IMDB wrote:

Ridley Scott' initially wanted 'Max Von Sydow' for the role of Peter Weyland. However, Scott and Damon Lindelof conceived of a scene in which David the android (Michael Fassbender) would interface with Weyland while in hypersleep, and that Weyland's dream would reflect his looks as a younger man since he is obsessed with immortality.

Though the scene was cut from the script and never filmed, Guy Pearce had already been cast in the role and thus underwent extensive make-up to appear elderly.

krudler

Duggy747 wrote: »

For Guy Pearce's old man make-up.

that would have been much better tbh, would have given Pearce a more prominent role instead of showing up in the last few minutes.

the most underused part of the film was Charlize Theron, she doesnt do a whole lot but look annoyed throughout, there's no character development with her, and the biggest unanswered question of the film did she actually bang Stringer Bell?

the_monkey

Gave this a second viewing over the weekend, still very dissapointing.

Stupid characters, the Alien creature(s) were rubbish, black goo ?? come on - 30 years out of sci fi and Ridley couldn't come up with something better ??

This image sums it up nicely -





Any sign of a directors cut of this ?

Duggy747

Some new bits from the upcoming Blu-Ray release:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK684Ti1KyI

Incomplete CGI shots in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSt0iCgonbs

Bits of new scenes in this, including a tiny look at the different Fifield mutation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd1VqCtJY3E

Duggy747

Plus, things taking from the audio commentary:

The Primordial ship was originally meant to be the Alien Derelict/Juggernaut ship in Lindelof’s draft, but Ridley Scott thought it would be cooler to show something else.

The opening sequence was meant to be longer, showing a group of Engineers talking to each other in a proto-language.

In most of Spaihts’ drafts, the black material that consumed the Sacrifice Engineer transmuted, flew away and bit a primitive woman/man. Their pupils dilated and you could see something change inside them. Another version included a salamander-like hand reach out of the water.

There was a scene cut for financial reasons in which a submarine expedition are looking at a sunken city in the Mediterranean where they find a giant tablet with a star map on it. A different version of the script included an archaeological dig on Mars where they found ruins sharing similarities with ancient ruins on Earth.

In some of Spaihts drafts, Holloway and Shaw went to visit Weyland in his private residence, a space station orbiting around Earth. Another one included the couple travelling to Mars and visiting Weyland in his home which had a view of the terraforming work taking place on the planet.

Jon Spaihts imagined Holloway as an older person, perhaps inappropriately old for Shaw as a mate. Additionally Shaw was Holloway’s student at university.
There was a scene were Milburn discovers a little worm and talks about how important this discovery is. Lindelof mentions that this would have kinda explained why he was so excited about his later encounter with the Hammerpede.

Spaihts experimented with the idea that the Engineers saw in a whiter spectrum than human beings did. To David’s eyes, the ruins and catacombs showed interfaces that only he could see. Picking up clues that nobody else was picking up.

In the script, when David breaks the Ampule open, they cut to David’s POV and showed the black goo at a microscopic level.

In Spaihts version of the story, Holloway awakens a Facehugger while he is exploring the pyramid. He is implanted with an Alien, the “classic model”. The “Alien” burst out of Holloway during the love scene between Shaw and Holloway.

Spaihts’ draft included a cargo hold filled up with Alien eggs, David discovers this area. This scene revealed the purpose of the Juggernaut ship which was on its way to Earth to undo the human experiment. When Shaw follows David into the vaults of the ship, he deliberately infected her with a Facehugger. He also took her helmet so she couldn’t run back to the ship and save her life by using the med pod. She still makes it back there by holding her breath and using compressed air.

In the earlier draft by Jon Spaihts, a kind of classic chestburster is extracted from Shaw’s body during the med pod scene. The chestburster is then expelled from the pod and Shaw stays in there while it heals her. As she wakes up, she can see the monster grow up. Eight hours later the monster is full size and she’s watching it kill people through the glass.
Lindelof mentions that there was a two page dialogue exchange between David and the Engineer.

In Spaihts’ draft, the last Engineer died in the pilot’s chair. He had been infected and was carrying a Chestburster. It emerged from him while the Juggernaut was flying which caused the Juggernaut to falter on its path, allowing the Magellan ship to ram it. Shaw manages to eject from the ship just before the ramming took place. Then the Alien that just emerged from the Engineer comes out of the Juggernaut and the final action scene is Shaw being hunted by this creature.

Towards the end of the film, Lindeof talks about a deleted scene in which Shaw asks David what it is that the Engineer said to him during their earlier conversation. David tells Shaw that the Engineer told him that they did not come from there [LV-223] but a place called “Paradise”.

The fight between Shaw and The Engineer is extended, too:

krudler

the extended opening had some shots floating around for a while:

krudler

That blu-ray ad annoys me "hey remember all those plot holes that make no sense in the movie you paid to see? well here's some extra stuff explaining them!"

Duggy747

Pretty much what we all thought, the theatrical cut was a mess so we need the home release to explain their colossal fùck-ups and answer the nonsense that was in (or left out of) the movie.

pixelburp

I admit to being one of the more determined defenders of this movie, and still would be in hindsight, but that Blu-ray trailer makes me annoyed; it's practically trolling the audience. It pretty much confirms that what was released in the cinemas was not the finished product.

I wonder if this release might change peoples' opinions of the film, if indeed it clears up some of the more confusing / messy elements. I doubt it, but it'd be funny & hardly the first time it happened either.

Oafley Jones

Slightly drunk and just out of looper, so here's a rant....

I look in at this thread from time the time and quickly jump out. The energy that is devoted to this is my mind a waste. The finished product and script has nothing but contempt for the audience's intelligence. It's as if the finished product proclaimed that .... 1+1 =5 and a whole bunch of people sat around trying to figure out why. And now with the extended cut we find the missing part of that equation so that the whole thing should make sense. Hurrah. Well FU Ridley your equation is still a reductive piece of ****.

Gorgeous looking though.

uncleoswald

That audio commentary, if true, confirms what we all suspected.

In it's original draft, Prometheus was simply going to be an unnecessary straight up prequel to Alien that had the potential to be a good popcorn flick but still had the opportunity for some sci-fi musings about what it means to be human etc...

Then in vaguely striving to deliver "something different," Scott and Lindelhof created an unholy mess of a film that never seems sure what it's purpose is.

Duggy747

I would've settled for a good Alien flick with a decent script and Scott's knack for great visuals.

This movie looked great but was just horribly crippled by a script that to try too hard to break away from the initial drafts.

krudler

Duggy747 wrote: »

I would've settled for a good Alien flick with a decent script and Scott's knack for great visuals.

This movie looked great but was just horribly crippled by a script that to try too hard to break away from the initial drafts.

the draft idea listed above sound much better than the actual film. It was a prequel to Alien, but then it wasnt, and wanted to be something different, then throws in all these hamfisted nods to the original movie and winds up being a mess.

kowloon

Did they mess up the cinema release on purpose? It almost seems like they did reading and watching the above.

Duggy747

Along with all this new stuff revealed leading up to the Blu-Ray release I read that the intro with all the engineers was cut to make the movie "more mysterious".

One of the biggest complaints about the movie was about things been left unanswered and making no sense like the Biologist being so happy to touch the hissing mutated worm:

There was a scene were Milburn discovers a little worm and talks about how important this discovery is. Lindelof mentions that this would have kinda explained why he was so excited about his later encounter with the Hammerpede.