Prometheus SPOILERS FROM POST 1538

Scanlas The 2nd · 03-06-2012 05:56PM

nyarlothothep wrote: »

a5y wrote: »

That's a fair point, but there's just one problem: while everyone seems to think its reasonable to demand a higher standard of special effects after all these years in comparison to Aliens, why should we settle for the same standard of inexplicably stupid crew in a comparable horror film? Shouldn't lessons be learned by now?

I know sci fi is demanding in impressive sets and special effects more so than many other genres, but its still storytelling, and using characters written to be mindless idiots for the meatgrinder as the best and brightest of scientists - in a film discussing The Big Questions is not really defensible.

Respectfully I disagree.
This just reduces the characters to Final Destination standard of fodder for the meatgrinder. Except FD had the good manners and sincerity to represent itself as exactly as it was - no attempt at depth or philosophy. A herp-a-derp-tastic slasher fic. If you want to see a slasher fic, go see it, its fantastic in its mindlessness.

Prometheus had the theme of exploring humanities beginning in the trailer. So I expected a reasonable stab at it delivering that, and if it didn't I think its reasonable to be disappointed that it didn't deliver on something a lot of money went into building up hype about.
What the trailer didn't suggest was the scientists and crew selected to perform this noble endeavour
were a better fit for a science fiction parody flick called Lemmingminded Redshirt Bloodbath in Outer Spaaaaace.

I want my science fiction with actual science
(ie, if it has identical DNA to a human, it _is_ a human. This is so dumbed down I'm surprised they dared use DNA frankly)
and storytelling that justifies the fictional world as more than a non interactive sandbox for a big special effects budget of set pieces to stare at (an example:
did they make enormous Engineer Space Jockey ship round in shape solely so they could use that utterly stupid run from the wheel of death scene? I'd like to think the design decisions in spaceships were based on less stupid reasons than that, but the rest of the film has me doubting.

Well for a start that's part of the fun and secondly I don't see why a serious sci fi film can't have gore/dumb characters to the slaughter elements, I don't care for monotonal film making in the respect that a serious film has to be serious or display high mindedness all the way through, for the purposes of maintaining absolute stylistic consistency, otherwise you end up with a Christopher Nolan film. Also it's not really a horror film, it has horror elements but it's really a different kind of animal compared to Alien.

Secondly 99% of science fiction is ridiculous, if you want scientific accuracy watch a documentary. Science Fiction for me, isn't about being faithful to science, it's about using science, even if it's in a non scientific way, to explore philosophical/scientific questions at the limits of human understanding. Star Trek for example makes no sense scientifically but achieves this aim. Well TNG and TOS anyway. And I felt that Prometheus also delivered on this aswell, although the sequel will have a lot of difficult questions to answer, so it will be an even more precarious film to make compared to Prometheus.

Films don't need to be perfect logically, but they need to make enough sense at a minimum so that the viewer doesn't get distracted or annoyed with the nonsense.

Chris_Heilong · 03-06-2012 06:01PM

nyarlothothep wrote: »

In addition Alien and Aliens aren't without their goofy flaws, nostalgia has a huge role to play in the way they're being put up on pedestals. This film was going to be lambasted from the very beginning because it wouldn't measure up to people's rose tinted vision of the first two films. And I'm glad it didn't even try to, because the first two films, while excellent, have been done, no point repeating the past.

not really, I just watched Alien again and with no rose tinted glasses and I tell you the acting, story science procedure and monsters are all more realistic and saticfiying the those of Prometheus, Prometheus needed a lot more character development and less of a hollywood blockbuster type script. Directors cut I will wait for but dont expect much difference, problems came from the script writer.

opinion guy · 03-06-2012 06:07PM

Lol

What David actually said

Dear Mr or Mrs (for who knows ?) Engineer,
My master Mr Weyland and I, would like to present a selection of our best idiots sent at great expense as sacrifice to you

krudler · 03-06-2012 06:18PM

just back from it, its ok, good but not great. visually its fantastic, Fassbender steals the show and its got some good sequences, but there's a lot of sillyness

why didnt Rapace and Theron just run sideways from the ship instead of trying to outrun it?

the

surgery scene was nice and icky to watch even if it was beyond ridiculous that Rapace was up and running around seconds after having major invasive surgery and being put back together with staples

. a lot of the alien stuff just seemed shoehorned in there for no reason, like

the maggots in the dirt in the chamber, why were there maggots? we're told the jockey has been dead for 2000 years yet there's maggots? what were they living on?

I thought the 3D was well used in the stuff like monitors, holograms and the helmet HUDS but it was uncessecary in other scenes. overall I'd give it 3/5, this was my most anticipated film of the summer but looks like its on TDKR not to disappoint.

opinion guy · 03-06-2012 06:57PM

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

and the whole thing felt 2 dimensional but then again I did see it in 2D

lol....quality

Augmerson wrote: »

If Weyland could create David, if his company could build a spaceship and all the other amazing scientific and technical equipment, why couldn't they build him a new body? Transfer his conscious or at least his brain into a David-type machine? I just felt that was a bit hokey. I mean they could do all sorts of things like see your dreams, have a computer-operated surgical table etc

Actually yes I did wonder about this too.

rednik wrote: »

Don't forget in Alien, Ripley did not want to let them back onto the ship even at Dallas's insistance, in the end Ash let them on board. Other crew members wanted to freeze Kane. The Nostromo crew were not that dumb.

And Ash did that deliberately as it was his secret mission to obtain an alien specimen.

krudler wrote: »

the maggots in the dirt in the chamber, why were there maggots? we're told the jockey has been dead for 2000 years yet there's maggots? what were they living on?

I thought they made it apparent the maggots were a function of the black goo

I thought the 3D was well used in the stuff like monitors, holograms and the helmet HUDS but it was uncessecary in other scenes. overall I'd give it 3/5, this was my most anticipated film of the summer but looks like its on TDKR not to disappoint.

Aww come on now - the landscapes were STUNNING

Ok whilst we are tearing lumps out of the film - there was one other point that actually really bugged me and broke the dispension of disbelief

Just after Vickers got crushed, the ship tipped over sideways ontop of Shaw and she couldn't get out of the way. But wait - luckily for Shaw, she had fallen against a small rock face that created a small cavity between her and the ship from which she was able to crawl out from.

WHAAADAAAAF*UUUCCKKCKCKC?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

No this bugged me. Ridiculous. Both Shaw and the small rock should have been smushed as flat as Vickers after the GIGANTONORMOUS HONKING GREAT SPACESHIP LANDED ON HER. But she needed to survive to set up the sequel. Grrrrrr

All hail the mighty small rock!!!!!

CiDeRmAn · 03-06-2012 07:06PM

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Secondly 99% of science fiction is ridiculous, if you want scientific accuracy watch a documentary. Science Fiction for me, isn't about being faithful to science, it's about using science, even if it's in a non scientific way, to explore philosophical/scientific questions at the limits of human understanding. Star Trek for example makes no sense scientifically but achieves this aim. Well TNG and TOS anyway.

Well, no.
As a science fiction fan who has read a lot of books and seen his fair share of movies, I have to say you are way off base when you say "99% of science fiction is ridiculous".
Good science fiction is generally anything but ridiculous, using a handful of suppositions to create possible futures or pasts, to generate stories of interest about characters we can relate to.
To suppose that 99% is ridiculous is simply untrue.
Ridiculous scifi is bad scifi, and as a reader of modern masters like Simmons, Banks and Reynolds, as well as the 60's and 70's Blish and Brunner, not to mention the earlier genius of Heinlein, Bradbury and then back further to CS Lewis, Verne, Burroughs, Lovecraft and Conan-Doyle, it is plain to see that there is a vast swathe of great science fiction out there.
It is only the lazy that watch only lousy shows or movies who would say such a thing.
Science Fiction is all about being faithful to science, once certain things are accepted at the start be it faster than light travel, telepathy or some other trope. The rest is letting human nature do it's thing, a feature that never changes, unless the subject is just that, a changed human nature, see the Culture Books, or Herberts The Santaroga Barrier stories.

krudler · 03-06-2012 07:08PM

true the landscapes did look lovely, the waterfall sequence in the opening looked gorgeous. actually about the opening, dafuq was that about?
and yeah the

rock protecting Rapace was stupid, stupid, stupid. in Alien when the Nostromo lands you see massive sections of rock being crushed by the weight of it, same thing should have happened here

oh and also

the jockeys have perfected interstellar travel, growing organic life from nothing but primordial goop, have constructed incredibly intricate ships and terraformed planets. yet the ignition key for their ship is...a whistle.

CiDeRmAn · 03-06-2012 07:09PM

Should be a T-Shirt!

"ALL HAIL MIGHTY SMALL ROCK!"

With a silhouette of a starship lying on top of a person with a rock saving her bacon!

youngblood · 03-06-2012 07:18PM

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Should be a T-Shirt!

"ALL HAIL MIGHTY SMALL ROCK!"
With a silhouette of a starship lying on top of a person with a rock saving her bacon!

Her ability to roll over 3 times also saves her life later on, most impressive

youngblood · 03-06-2012 07:25PM

Its also important to note that in the future we should all learn to

play the tin whistle/flute to activate and control our flying ships

Really????? a fecking

flute

! I knew the movie was done at that point!

pearsquasher · 03-06-2012 07:26PM

Ha ha... totally agree about the whistle ignition...Ridley must have been smokin a big one that day!

Also not mentioned yet...

The ship happens to land on the correct part of the planet to find the tomb/silo.

(oh wait, the star-maps on earth provided detail coordinates did they?) :rolleyes:

I've watched alien/aliens since i was about 12 at least once a year and it remains absolutely classic. Not just because of effects but...character, story, pace and sheer magic. Thats the same reason why so many non-sci-fi folks i know like them too

Pro-meh-me-ass doesn't doesn't have even .01% of that special something.

krudler · 03-06-2012 07:38PM

pearsquasher wrote: »

Ha ha... totally agree about the whistle ignition...Ridley must have been smokin a big one that day!

Also not mentioned yet...
The ship happens to land on the correct part of the planet to find the tomb/silo.

(oh wait, the star-maps on earth provided detail coordinates did they?) :rolleyes:

I've watched alien/aliens since i was about 12 at least once a year and it remains absolutely classic. Not just because of effects but...character, story, pace and sheer magic. Thats the same reason why so many non-sci-fi folks i know like them too

Pro-meh-me-ass doesn't doesn't have even .01% of that special something.

the landing conveniently near to the site thing I can forgive as its a staple of a lot of movies, otherwise they'd be flying about the planet looking for someplace to land.

pearsquasher · 03-06-2012 07:43PM

Off to watch Alien now actually.....again.........

I'm pretty sure the Space Jockey in it is MUCH larger than the ones in this one. We'll see in about an hour...

duckysauce · 03-06-2012 07:48PM

saw it today and loved it , don't know why everyone here is so negative about it , maybe I didn't read all the hype etc before going to it and wasn't expecting too much, thought Fassbender was excellent so was Rapace.

krudler · 03-06-2012 07:53PM

I wonder was Davids introduction taken from how Cameron had planned to introduce Bishop in Aliens, with the crew all asleep but him wandering the Sulaco endlessly, they talk about it on the dvd making of and thats from a good few years ago.

Fysh · 03-06-2012 08:03PM

Brendon Connelly at BleedingCool has some interesting discussions with Damon Lindelof about Prometheus (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) which are interesting. Not so interesting that he couldn't still do with at least a sharp rebuke or, better yet, a swift kick in the nadgers now and then, but probably still worth a read if you want some insight into the thought process that went into making the script for the film.

hightower1 · 03-06-2012 08:07PM

krudler wrote: »

the landing conveniently near to the site thing I can forgive as its a staple of a lot of movies, otherwise they'd be flying about the planet looking for someplace to land.

In fairness it was the first goof I noticed myself. Silly really cause all it needed was a two min addition of

them scanning the surface of the planet and the computer to splash up a warning as it found non geographical shapes.

. It wouldnt have slowed the pace or increased running time dramatically it was an oversight, one that at the very start of the movie - the most critical point to some - that jars you out of the narrative.

nyarlothothep · 03-06-2012 08:08PM

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Well, no.
As a science fiction fan who has read a lot of books and seen his fair share of movies, I have to say you are way off base when you say "99% of science fiction is ridiculous".
Good science fiction is generally anything but ridiculous, using a handful of suppositions to create possible futures or pasts, to generate stories of interest about characters we can relate to.
To suppose that 99% is ridiculous is simply untrue.
Ridiculous scifi is bad scifi, and as a reader of modern masters like Simmons, Banks and Reynolds, as well as the 60's and 70's Blish and Brunner, not to mention the earlier genius of Heinlein, Bradbury and then back further to CS Lewis, Verne, Burroughs, Lovecraft and Conan-Doyle, it is plain to see that there is a vast swathe of great science fiction out there.
It is only the lazy that watch only lousy shows or movies who would say such a thing.
Science Fiction is all about being faithful to science, once certain things are accepted at the start be it faster than light travel, telepathy or some other trope. The rest is letting human nature do it's thing, a feature that never changes, unless the subject is just that, a changed human nature, see the Culture Books, or Herberts The Santaroga Barrier stories.

Meh, but that's the point I was addressing. Accepting stuff like ftl, telepathy etc is basically incorporating a pre-condition of magic into the universe, with some science tacked on. Yeah you have writers that laboriously try to make their novels as scientifically accurate as possible. I don't particularly care for that though. I read science fiction for the big ideas, not how accurate the science is, but a lot of sci fi isn't really based in adhering strictly to hard science and that doesn't lessen it in my view, the story and concepts are paramount, not how many scientific dotted Is and crossed Ts you have. Lovecraft isn't even sci fi, horror fantasy with some modernist existential philosophy thrown in is a more apt description though he did co-write In The Walls of Eryx.

Oh yeah, it's happening again...

Scanlas 2nd wrote:

Films don't need to be perfect logically, but they need to make enough sense at a minimum so that the viewer doesn't get distracted or annoyed with the nonsense.

As for so many plot holes that it ruins the film. Well maybe that's what distracted you and others because you wanted to fixate on those points but for me I was enveloped in the overall mood/ambience and momentum of the film to get hung up about it.

Chris_Heilong wrote:

not really, I just watched Alien again and with no rose tinted glasses and I tell you the acting, story science procedure and monsters are all more realistic and saticfiying the those of Prometheus, Prometheus needed a lot more character development and less of a hollywood blockbuster type script. Directors cut I will wait for but dont expect much difference, problems came from the script writer.

Ah, but how do you know that? For example when I watch BTTF I laugh at the parts I meant to laugh at moreso than in the past, smile in nostalgic bliss at some of the scenes, anticipate the lines/quotes etc even though I'm watching it in the present. In any case Alien is a different type of film, yeah it may be better, but Prometheus has done something novel with the series, it's freed it from being all about a monster in space and opened up a new universe. It seems to me that a lot of people were just setting themselves up to hate this film, and I'll admit I was completely non-plussed about it before going to see it, but I was convinced otherwise, that or there seems to be a lot of left brained people on here. Like I mean how many of these people if given the time to hone their film making skills and given a big budget would produce something on this level? There was an article I read about how criticism has kind of gone into overdrive in recent times. Now maybe that's because Hollywood in pumping out sh1t, or maybe it's because people are just going to hate something like this film, because it doesn't conform rigidly to their sense of how a film should be made. But for me I'm liberal about this kind of stuff, I'm quite a harsh critic and dislike 99% of popular culture but am not dogmatic either. Put it this way, if you want to criticise a sh1tty addition to a franchiseTerminator 4 was an offense against nature, it was the film that should not be. Prometheus is not that film. Star Trek was a film the nonsensicality of which overshadowed everything else and was like Transformers. Prometheus is not that film. I also liked the Mass Effect aspects with respect to the lighting, the planet terrain, the space suits and the vehicles.

Scanlas The 2nd · 03-06-2012 08:18PM

krudler wrote: »

pearsquasher wrote: »

Ha ha... totally agree about the whistle ignition...Ridley must have been smokin a big one that day!

Also not mentioned yet...
The ship happens to land on the correct part of the planet to find the tomb/silo.

(oh wait, the star-maps on earth provided detail coordinates did they?) :rolleyes:

I've watched alien/aliens since i was about 12 at least once a year and it remains absolutely classic. Not just because of effects but...character, story, pace and sheer magic. Thats the same reason why so many non-sci-fi folks i know like them too

Pro-meh-me-ass doesn't doesn't have even .01% of that special something.

the landing conveniently near to the site thing I can forgive as its a staple of a lot of movies, otherwise they'd be flying about the planet looking for someplace to land.

Or the writers could actually use their inagination that they are paid for to make it plausible how they know the coordinates.

Fysh · 03-06-2012 08:23PM

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Meh, but that's the point I was addressing. Accepting stuff like ftl, telepathy etc is basically incorporating a pre-condition of magic into the universe, with some science tacked on. Yeah you have writers that laboriously try to make their novels as scientifically accurate as possible. I don't particularly care for that though. I read science fiction for the big ideas, not how accurate the science is, but a lot of sci fi isn't really based in adhering strictly to hard science and that doesn't lessen it in my view, the story and concepts are paramount, not how many scientific dotted Is and crossed Ts you have. Lovecraft isn't even sci fi, horror fantasy with some modernist existential philosophy thrown in is a more apt description though he did co-write In The Walls of Eryx.

Oh yeah, it's happening again...

The problem here is that you're being a bit daft and trying to pretend that science fantasy and space-opera can be treated in the exact same way as hard sci-fi. Taking something like a Peter Watts or Larry Niven or Robert Reed novel and trying to pretend that it's fundamentally the same as something like Star Wars is a fool's errand - part of the point with hard sci-fi is that you're attempting to extrapolate logically from known science and build from there.

Scott & co decided they wanted enough sci-fi to lend the story significance of a sort that they thought it might lose were it "just" science-fantasy or a straight-up space-faring adventure, but their chosen way of incorporating those elements into the story were atrocious, especially considering that Scott's own filmography has seen him work on films where those elements were handled in a more subtle and nuanced fashion.

It's also worth noting that while they weren't many of them, Lovecraft did write a few sci-fi stories - stuff like The Colour Out Of Space, From Beyond, Herbert West: Reanimator or The Shadow Out Of Time is infused with the same notion of an indifferent or outright hostile universe as the Cthulhu mythos, but it's more sci-fi than anything else.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

As for so many plot holes that it ruins the film. Well maybe that's what distracted you and others because you wanted to fixate on those points but for me I was enveloped in the overal mood/ambience and momentum of the film to get hung up about it.

Ah, but how do you know that? For example when I watch BTTF I laugh at the parts I meant to laugh at moreso than in the past, smile in nostalgic bliss at some of the scenes, anticipate the lines/quotes etc even though I'm watching it in the present. In any case Alien is a different type of film, yeah it may be better, but Prometheus has done something novel with the series, it's freed it from being all about a monster in space and opened up a new universe. It seems to me that a lot of people were just setting themselves up to hate this film, and I'll admit I was completely non-plussed about it before going to see it, but I was convinced otherwise, that or there seems to be a lot of left brained people on here. Like I mean how many of these people if given the time to hone their film making skills and given a big budget would produce something on this level? There was an article I read about how criticism has kind of gone into overdrive in recent times. Now maybe that's because Hollywood in pumping out sh1t, or maybe it's because people are just going to hate something like this film, because it doesn't conform rigidly to their sense of how a film should be made. But for me I'm liberal about this kind of stuff, I'm quite a harsh critic and dislike 99% of popular culture but am not dogmatic either. Put it this way, if you want to criticise a sh1tty addition to a franchiseTerminator 4 was an offense against nature, it was the film that should not be. Prometheus is not that film. Star Trek was a film the nonsensicality of which overshadowed everything else and was like Transformers. Prometheus is not that film. I also liked the Mass Effect aspects with respect to the lighting, the planet terrain, the space suits and the vehicles.

You're liberal about this stuff? GTFO, you're the guy who spent pages explaining how you basically hated Scott Pilgrim because you thought it was a film designed for hipsters. You have every bit as much a set of preconceptions about films you see as anyone else.

The point here is that a bunch of folks, myself included, have a variety of issues with the film, chiefly to do with some appalling dialogue and script issues as related to character expression and development.

Saying that those issues didn't bother you because the spectacle was so engrossing is a different thing to saying those issues weren't present (as some other posters seem to be saying). I agree wholeheartedly that the film was visually and aurally spectacular - had it not been so successful in that regard I would have been outright bored and fed up during the film. Instead I kept finding myself noticing elements where steps where missing in the progression of events on screen, and characters that I had been explicitly told were not just intelligent and knowledgeable but amongst the finest in their respective fields all started to behave like complete idiots.

But then I like a number of films that are flawed. Acknowledging the flaws doesn't detract from them, but in the case of Prometheus I found that the banality of dialogue and repeated idiotic behaviour required of the characters took a film that, visually, was magnificent, and instead managed to reduce it to Yet Another Hollywood Sci-Fi Film. Which is a shame, because for all that Lindelof & Scott wanted to address these big themes, they could have done so much better with some minor changes to the script.

Also: I don't see it as any kind of intrinsic merit to have "rescued" a franchise. If you keep watching franchise films and complaining that they're crap, you should kick yourself in the nuts as you're the reason the damn things get made. If the studio wanted to refocus the franchise to try and get fresh blood into it then fair enough if they've got the rights, but there's nothing special about the idea and it certainly doesn't make up for the other flaws in the film. Frankly I don't see Prometheus as being any better a follow-on from Alien/Aliens than AvP, because both films involve far too much plot-required stupidity to be seen as good in their own right. TBH I think Prometheus shows that really, outside of games, the Alien franchise (and probably the Predator franchise too) should be left alone. The fact that there are other even crappier franchises out there doesn't elevate this one - the doctrine of relative filth doesn't have a place in this conversation.

Speaking of games, I did think it was interesting that Metroid Prime appeared to have been an influence in terms of the ancient relic worked and how the humans got information from it.

Bad Panda · 03-06-2012 08:38PM

Just back from seeing it. I thought it was excellent.

I wasn't expecting an awful lot from it, maybe that's part of the reason.

This discussion, as with many in the film forum, has descended into a joke.

People banging on about what's plausible for a sci-fi movie etc to these levels is ridiculous. Some people here seem to think know more about scriptwriting/film making than the actual scriptwriters/film makers of this world, yet what have you achieved in th industry? Nothing. That's what.

Nothing wrong with having an opinion or disliking something that's not to your taste or even suggesting what might have made a film better, but the constant criticism is quite frankly laughable coming from some posters.

I'm off to watch Alien and take notes on what Ridley Scott should've done.

spankmaster2000 · 03-06-2012 09:03PM

I quite enjoyed it.

I was probably hping it up for myself a little bit too much, so wasn't quite blown away, but it was quite good.

Question:

If the Engineers "planted" their human DNA on earth; where did the likes of dinosaurs etc come from?
And sure; you could say that they injected human life into the middle of the earth's existing wildlife population; but, didn't David make a point of it that they need a "clean slate" before starting fresh?

Also; it's not strictly a prequel to Alien; is it?
i.e.

the Space Jockey doesn't die in his ship - where he should be as in Alien.

Giruilla · 03-06-2012 09:08PM

shootermacg wrote: »

I enjoyed it, but I think I'll enjoy the director's cut even more. Definitely the best aliens film since aliens.

Not the toughest competition!

My fears that Lindelof's influence would ruin this film were entirely correct...
Whats his obsession with mysterious black substances as plot devices??
Lost: Stupid black smoke
Prometheus: Stupid black liquid

Not sure if they could have picked worse music for this film. Seemed more like some political drama than a sci-fi thriller!

I really didn't care about all the implausible details people are talking about here... the film was just laughably awful apart from that. Something about the pace of the entire movie that was just off.

nyarlothothep · 03-06-2012 09:09PM

Fysh wrote: »

The problem here is that you're being a bit daft and trying to pretend that science fantasy and space-opera can be treated in the exact same way as hard sci-fi. Taking something like a Peter Watts or Larry Niven or Robert Reed novel and trying to pretend that it's fundamentally the same as something like Star Wars is a fool's errand - part of the point with hard sci-fi is that you're attempting to extrapolate logically from known science and build from there.

Scott & co decided they wanted enough sci-fi to lend the story significance of a sort that they thought it might lose were it "just" science-fantasy or a straight-up space-faring adventure, but their chosen way of incorporating those elements into the story were atrocious, especially considering that Scott's own filmography has seen him work on films where those elements were handled in a more subtle and nuanced fashion.

It's also worth noting that while they weren't many of them, Lovecraft did write a few sci-fi stories - stuff like The Colour Out Of Space, From Beyond, Herbert West: Reanimator or The Shadow Out Of Time is infused with the same notion of an indifferent or outright hostile universe as the Cthulhu mythos, but it's more sci-fi than anything else.

You're liberal about this stuff? GTFO, you're the guy who spent pages explaining how you basically hated Scott Pilgrim because you thought it was a film designed for hipsters. You have every bit as much a set of preconceptions about films you see as anyone else.

The point here is that a bunch of folks, myself included, have a variety of issues with the film, chiefly to do with some appalling dialogue and script issues as related to character expression and development.

Saying that those issues didn't bother you because the spectacle was so engrossing is a different thing to saying those issues weren't present (as some other posters seem to be saying). I agree wholeheartedly that the film was visually and aurally spectacular - had it not been so successful in that regard I would have been outright bored and fed up during the film. Instead I kept finding myself noticing elements where steps where missing in the progression of events on screen, and characters that I had been explicitly told were not just intelligent and knowledgeable but amongst the finest in their respective fields all started to behave like complete idiots.

But then I like a number of films that are flawed. Acknowledging the flaws doesn't detract from them, but in the case of Prometheus I found that the banality of dialogue and repeated idiotic behaviour required of the characters took a film that, visually, was magnificent, and instead managed to reduce it to Yet Another Hollywood Sci-Fi Film. Which is a shame, because for all that Lindelof & Scott wanted to address these big themes, they could have done so much better with some minor changes to the script.

Also: I don't see it as any kind of intrinsic merit to have "rescued" a franchise. If you keep watching franchise films and complaining that they're crap, you should kick yourself in the nuts as you're the reason the damn things get made. If the studio wanted to refocus the franchise to try and get fresh blood into it then fair enough if they've got the rights, but there's nothing special about the idea and it certainly doesn't make up for the other flaws in the film. Frankly I don't see Prometheus as being any better a follow-on from Alien/Aliens than AvP, because both films involve far too much plot-required stupidity to be seen as good in their own right. TBH I think Prometheus shows that really, outside of games, the Alien franchise (and probably the Predator franchise too) should be left alone. The fact that there are other even crappier franchises out there doesn't elevate this one - the doctrine of relative filth doesn't have a place in this conversation.

Speaking of games, I did think it was interesting that Metroid Prime appeared to have been an influence in terms of the ancient relic worked and how the humans got information from it.

Lol, you just had to insult me didn't you, that's the fast track to getting dismissed/ignored as I regard it to be primitive behaviour. I would also say that this isn't the point I'm addressing at all. For example metal/rock it's all along a spectrum in the set of metal/rock, I hate it when people try to set up discrete little categories with impenetrable boundaries, it's a form of pedantic detail orientated thinking which ties into the era of specialisation and expertise. Ditto for sci fi, it's all along a continuum. But that wasn't my point. My point was that sci fi doesn't need to have a hard science basis to produce thought provoking scenarios. It can have any number of ridiculous scientific explanations but the overall, global import of the scenario/situation is what matters.

I'd disagree fundamentally with your characterisation of Lovecraft, those stories are more like horror than anything else with modernist/sci fi elements.

As for Scott Pilgrim, no, if I watch The Birth of a Nation it offends me much in the same way Scott Pilgrim did, the mentality behind both films is offensive. Also I'm totally open minded, if there is a hipster film made that is actually good, I will say so. I will happily go a hipster film and if it blows me away I will admit it, hell I'll proclaim my love for it. Scott Pilgrim was just a bad film and it displayed a preening hipster ideology which is a damning inditement of my generation. I envy Gen X and the baby boomers, not such much the Punk/post-punk generation, because they produced mostly rubbish music, although some of the style trends were cool and even they were better than the hipsters. Also I never went to see any of the AvP films except the one made in 2009 with the gore. It's not a case of relative ****tiness, just that I'm reading people going hysterical OMG! I HATE THIS FILM SO MUCH IT'S NOT ALIEN WWAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!! and decided to give examples of real sh1t. As for the visual/aural aspects of the film they were spectacular but that isn't what I'm referring to solely. The direction the film is headed in, the opening up of a new universe not dependent on the xenomorphs, the whole mystery angle which is so promising, rise above the obvious deficiencies of the script.

Dr Nic · 03-06-2012 09:14PM

Saw it last night - enjoyable enough but nothing really happened did it?
Plenty of holes to poke in it too in terms of plot etc.

And who was the very first alien at the start? What did he drink, why did he drink it and what did it do to him? Who was in the ship and why didnt they help one of their own?

krudler · 03-06-2012 09:34PM

also, did anyone see the space jockey and immediately think of one of these?

opinion guy · 03-06-2012 09:41PM

pearsquasher wrote: »

Off to watch Alien now actually.....again.........
I'm pretty sure the Space Jockey in it is MUCH larger than the ones in this one. We'll see in about an hour...

yeah I saw it last night and thought that too. But like so what. I wouldn't consider that a big problem.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Meh, but that's the point I was addressing. Accepting stuff like ftl, telepathy etc is basically incorporating a pre-condition of magic into the universe, with some science tacked on. Yeah you have writers that laboriously try to make their novels as scientifically accurate as possible. I don't particularly care for that though. I read science fiction for the big ideas, not how accurate the science is, but a lot of sci fi isn't really based in adhering strictly to hard science and that doesn't lessen it in my view, the story and concepts are paramount, not how many scientific dotted Is and crossed Ts you have. Lovecraft isn't even sci fi, horror fantasy with some modernist existential philosophy thrown in is a more apt description though he did co-write In The Walls of Eryx.

Its not about being strict to actually science really.
I can't remember where I read this, but it was some article I read years ago about scriptwriting. Anyhow basically - there is a concept of internal consistency with any story, movie, etc. And basically there is a limited number of times you can ask the audience to 'suspend disbelief'. So in sci-fi you are asking them to suspend disbelief at ftl travel, or at telepathy or whatever. But there are two important things about this:
a) once you ask someone to suspend disbelief about a topic - you must maintain consistency within the story with regard to this particular topic
b) you can't continually ask people to suspend disbelief every five minutes.

The more you break these rules the more audience you lose. Now obviously to tell a scifi tale you have to break a few of the rules, but its generally best to set out your rules early on and try to stick to them. If you don't you lose people.

Lost is the perfect example of this. The first season was critically acclaimed and had people intrigued. By the end they were loosing people hands over fist because they kept making it more ridiculous as time went on. People will only suspend disbelief so far.

I think the reason people are on here complaining about Prometheus is because the required suspension of disbelief went awfully close to that line where people tune out.
First the cave paintings, then the helmet coming off, then them all being idiots, then the running around with a freshly stapled stomach...etc etc

Personally I thoroughly enjoyed it as I felt the overall experience covered it up - but I can see why people are having problems.

Giruilla wrote: »

Whats his obsession with mysterious black substances as plot devices??
Lost: Stupid black smoke
Prometheus: Stupid black liquid

:eek:
I didn't even cop that lol. Well spotted.

Pyongyang · 03-06-2012 09:43PM

Dr Nic wrote: »

And who was the very first alien at the start? What did he drink, why did he drink it and what did it do to him? Who was in the ship and why didnt they help one of their own?

I saw it this evening, absolutely loved it.

I interpreted the opening as a sacrifice where the alien body disintegrated in to bacteria and the bacteria is where the human race evolved from. This is in reference to the later DNA match scene.

At least that is my humble opinion on the opening scene anyway.

don ramo · 03-06-2012 09:45PM

i think scott would have been better off saying this was gonna be a reboot, he tried saying it wasnt a prequel at one stage, but it clearly was, it wouldnt matter at all except for the fact that its clearly a lead into alien,

as a stand alone film i thought it was pretty good, david and shaw were both brilliant characters,

and i would love to see a sequel with the both of them in it,

, as a prequel it just didnt add up to the other films,

uberalles · 03-06-2012 09:45PM

I'd give it a 6 out of 10. Not great.

If I was Scott I wouldn't be happy with it compared to his previous work.

Prometheus *SPOILERS FROM POST 1538*

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Prometheus SPOILERS FROM POST 1538