Prometheus SPOILERS FROM POST 1538

al28283 · 09-06-2012 12:53AM

jcsoulinger wrote: »

I thought that was funny, David saying "your not pregnant in the traditional sense" in a completely deadpan expression like he was a robot or somthing:rolleyes:

But should it be funny? He's just having a laugh like when this hugely significant thing in this woman life, not to mention the whole history of mankind has just happened, and he makes a joke. STUPID!

Ash would have been hugely concerned to keep things calm and quiet and secretly do his best to keep the alien alive at all costs.

Goldstein · 09-06-2012 01:00AM

The comedy consultants should get a well deserved mention. It's like they were going for borderline parody at times.

A flute starting the ship - enough said there I think.

The Prometheus has touched down on the planet/moon a couple of minutes and the truck and go-karts come bombing it out the back of the ship at full tilt to unwrap alpha-scientist's presents (hope he liked them btw) - All that was missing was the stars and stripes flying from the back of it - Team WEYLAND, fu©k yeah! Comin' again to save the motherfu©kin' day, yeah! It's like they've just got the bus to the beach. There's just absolutely no atmosphere or sense of where they are or of its significance.

The 2,000 year old dead severed head - let's revive it with the magic of electricity - it's ALIIIVE!. More, more more, too much, too much, too much, Splat!

The Engineer Gods were running for their lives to take shelter from the killer black goo, by running where? "Quickly men, into the black goo warehouse, stat!"

The contortionist zombie scientist that randomly turns up and goes ape$hit.

The eye-gougingly awful scene to reveal she can't have children - at the first innocent and unconnected mention of anything creating life, our scientist turns into an emotional basket case.

The bickering over what question to ask their creator. Teacher, teacher, ME! ME! I can solve one mystery anyway - what David said to the Engineer - "Do you see what I have to put up with?". I would have tried to kill them too.

Then comes the big pay-off in our "big ideas" movie - the seminal moment of first contact wherein the singular motive for the entire film's events will be revealed. This is why we've spent a trillion (What a bargain btw - less than 7 times the cost of the ISS up to 2 years ago) Hush! here it comes...why did we come here

To paraphrase: "I'm old and I want to live a bit longer, can you sort me out?"

Taa-daa! There's your deep philosophical $hit right there. Zelazny would be proud.

And for the love of Engineer, can someone please tell me what was supposed to be happening in the opening scene? I assumed they're supposed to be creating all life on Earth - ergo it's 4 billion years ago. This wouldn't be too bad until it's revealed later that they're a 100% match for our DNA. Obviously early RNA/DNA equipped life did not resemble our DNA too closely, yet alone 100%. So I don't get what that first scene is supposed to represent. I have a feeling there are far more ridiculous ideas about this part. And before anyone tries to diminish the significance of this one by saying it's "knit-picking" - I remind you that the engineers creating us is the entire underpinning of the movie.

Oh and I assume the much publicised and marketed giant head was an ironic present from Mr. Burns

Dempsey · 09-06-2012 01:04AM

If I get Lindelof's email address, will you email him that?! :pac:

Drumpot · 09-06-2012 01:04AM

Dempsey wrote: »

Dave had his head ripped off, where was his super spatial awareness and reactions then! :pac:

She could have been programmed not to show super spatial awareness and reactions and be limited to reaction times consistent with humans. Dave clearly seemed to be going off on a tangent to his orginal programming, why not Vickers?

Look, i'm just providing a counter argument for discussion.

I do remember her sweating whilst doing the pushups, robots dont have this trait AFAIK unless she is a completely different design. I believe the attempt at ambiguity was pointless, there was no point to her character being like that. It would have been better and kept in line with the story if she was just uncompromising of the rules and ensuring that Weyland had their money well spent and were going to get a tangible return on their investment. She didnt need to be standing in the dark in random corridors and other oddball behaviour.

Went to the movie twice to see if there were things I missed and because I enjoyed it (dont know why people pull up plotholes that arent really plotholes!). Everything doesnt have to be explained in one movie, sometimes its just something left to the imagination or open to interpretation (that seems to really annoy some people).

Missed your other arguments so Im not sure if you are just playing devils advocate or if you genuinley think she was an adroid . . She is clearly, undeniably not an android . . She is just somebody who is emotionally challanged and clearly somebody who resents daddy having more love for his created android then his child. . . I dont think the film can make that any clearer . .

She didnt want them to find "engineers" and wanted her dads "miracle" to be nothing more then the last desperation of her dieing father.
She demanded from David to know what he was instructed by Weyland.
She responded negatively to being asked if she was a robot by saying she would ride a guy.
She showed emotion and shock at killing somebody with a flamethrower.
She showed emotion at getting killed.
She showed emotion by trying to control the expedition (demanded that they dont engage with engineers, tried to stamp her authority, demanded that david keep her in loop)

Unless david was purposely not given any of these human feelings for no specific reason, I think its safe to say that she was very much human . .

Oh and david was playing basketball in a gym . . Why is it so hard to believe that there wouldnt be some sort of sports equipment to try and keep space explorers entertained on a 2 year trip!!!

al28283 · 09-06-2012 01:06AM

Goldstein wrote: »

The 2,000 year old dead severed head - let's revive it with the magic of electricity - it's ALIIIVE!. More, more more, too much, too much, too much, Splat!

OMG, i had forgotten about the stupidest part of the entire movie!

as for the rest of your post, its nothing but a big budget, bad ep of Stargate, with hints of The Mummy

I will never understand why moviemakers think it's cool for advanced beings live in pyramids or other ancient buildings, and why scientists in these buildings always wake something up

Eggy Baby! · 09-06-2012 01:16AM

al28283 wrote: »

Why is there a giant 4 toed statue on the island in Lost?

al28283 · 09-06-2012 01:17AM

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

I love how this meme has gotten to the point where it doesn't need any text!

Dempsey · 09-06-2012 01:32AM

Drumpot wrote: »

Went to the movie twice to see if there were things I missed and because I enjoyed it (dont know why people pull up plotholes that arent really plotholes!). Everything doesnt have to be explained in one movie, sometimes its just something left to the imagination or open to interpretation (that seems to really annoy some people).

Missed your other arguments so Im not sure if you are just playing devils advocate or if you genuinley think she was an adroid . . She is clearly, undeniably not an android . . She is just somebody who is emotionally challanged and clearly somebody who resents daddy having more love for his created android then his child. . . I dont think the film can make that any clearer . .

She didnt want them to find "engineers" and wanted her dads "miracle" to be nothing more then the last desperation of her dieing father.
She demanded from David to know what he was instructed by Weyland.
She responded negatively to being asked if she was a robot by saying she would ride a guy.
She showed emotion and shock at killing somebody with a flamethrower.
She showed emotion at getting killed.
She showed emotion by trying to control the expedition (demanded that they dont engage with engineers, tried to stamp her authority, demanded that david keep her in loop)

Unless david was purposely not given any of these human feelings for no specific reason, I think its safe to say that she was very much human . .

Oh and david was playing basketball in a gym . . Why is it so hard to believe that there wouldnt be some sort of sports equipment to try and keep space explorers entertained on a 2 year trip!!!

Im playing Devil's Advocate, I thought I was clear on that.

As I said earlier, Dave & Vickers could easily been different models of robots with completely different types of programming. These "emotions" could easily be programming subroutines. Dave is self aware, its conceivable that she isnt. Why couldnt there be 2 robots with 2 completely different objectives?

As for the bolded, when it comes to Lindelof's work I have huge reservations about what he leaves ambiguous and open to interpretation. He has been found out to be a pretentious hack of epic proportions before. Personally, I yet to any work of his where he set out big ideas/mythology/mysteries and actually able to follow through without it becoming an incoherent mess. He said he wanted this film to standalone if needs be, I dont think it does.

al28283 · 09-06-2012 01:44AM

Dempsey wrote: »

Im playing Devil's Advocate, I thought I was clear on that.

As I said earlier, Dave & Vickers could easily been different models of robots with completely different types of programming. These "emotions" could easily be programming subroutines. Dave is self aware, its conceivable that she isnt. Why couldnt there be 2 robots with 2 completely different objectives?

As for the bolded, when it comes to Lindelof's work I have huge reservations about what he leaves ambiguous and open to interpretation. He has been found out to be a pretentious hack of epic proportions before. Personally, I yet to any work of his where he set out big ideas/mythology/mysteries and actually able to follow through without it becoming an incoherent mess. He said he wanted this film to standalone if needs be, I dont think it does.

From what I gather, David was the most advanced android they had made so far. If Vickers was a droid she was far more advanced, also she was at leat posing as his daughter and second in line at Weyland so surely some questions had to be asked there. Either she's quite an old robot, replaced a recently dead real daughter or just showed up out of nowhere, but none of those things were hinted at in the movie. Only that she was his daughter, that was a big reveal or at least they hoped it was.

As for Lindelof, I enjoyed Lost for the most part but it did get messy in season 3-5. I think season 6 pulled most of it together, thought I doubt the season 6 concept was his idea.

The most I can say about him is that he is just lucky to know J.J Abrams. As they say it's not what you know it's who you know

kryogen · 09-06-2012 01:59AM

J.J didn't have much input into Lost after the first season, or maybe two I can't remember which, which is actually apparent when watching the show. Great concept, could have been amazing, was amazing in alot of parts actually, but let itself down.

Kilkenny14 · 09-06-2012 04:47AM

I would rate it as a 7/10 movie - it didn't go on too long but people' problems with the cast and script are ones I share. I thought Michael Fassbender did a great job, particularly with his Peter O'Toole impression.

I do have one question did they

explain all the dead bodies of the space jockey's in the temple/factory

?

pearsquasher · 09-06-2012 06:46AM

On my second viewing:
it makes sense that vickers is a prototype bot and wetland is a bit ashamed of it.

Remember ash doing a little sprint in alien? The pressups are a recharge thing maybe?

Also hallowway looks at a plinth that had some strange artifact embedded in it. Wtf is it? No one has mentioned it in nearly 140 pages.

The baldylads defo have a religious aspect and worship the xeno somehow.

Also as the ship falls bit are falling off it so they can't dive sideways. It's raining hot metal.

Hey I'm not excusing the ****ty vagueness but I did enjoy it a lot more just accepting it.....like having a McDonald's:)

Alien/aliens are 5* meals by comparison

cursai · 09-06-2012 09:33AM

Found this review on imdb. Think it sums a lot of things up nicely.

I'm really sorry, but this a major disappointment.

No, I didn't expect miracles or something close to the original Alien. I've been following Scott for 30 years - and it's clear that he has been on the decline since Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.

I liked a few of his later movies like A Good Year - but most have been rather flat and uninspired.

One thing I've noticed, is that he's gotten increasingly complacent with his own "point of view" in terms of historical facts and how things work in reality. It's like he has a complete disregard for plausible motivations or factual information about how things work.

Case in point - there's a scene in the movie where a certain character has to have an operation performed on her body - and it involves slicing directly through the skin and muscle-tissue of her Abdomen. After the procedure, she's simply "stitched together" by metal clips in like 3 seconds - and with a bit of local anesthetic, she continues to move and jump about with some moaning. Ehm, you CAN'T have any kind of normal movement with your muscle tissue completely severed - and there was absolutely no healing involved. Just one of a series of ridiculous events.

The plot is entirely juvenile and cliché stuff with "profound" questions like who created us. For some reason, the beings who created us also want to kill us - and it seems to involve incredibly elaborate genetic engineering that also happened to kill most of our creators in their remote "lab facility". They're CLEARLY much more powerful than we are - and they could just bomb the hell out of us, or do it in a thousand simpler ways. But no, they seem to want to utilise excessively elaborate and dangerous genetic modification or infestation -that they can't handle at all. At least, that's what I got out of it.

They also like to record recent events with some kind of holographic recorder device that is unable to render clear images, only some cool ghostly images that I bet Scott loved to play with. But they're quite polite in how they let you play recordings of their security procedure - so you can easily access their systems with zero effort.

Characters are completely void of personality and growth. They're REALLY REALLY stupid -and they like to freak out for no apparent reason, and they like to stay calm and playful when there IS a reason - like when encountering an alien species for the first time in history.

Among these people with zero personality - we have some willing to gleefully commit suicide by ramming an alien ship, because they like their captain, and they're required to do so because he "can't fly worth a damn" - despite him being the primary pilot hired by a billionaire to do nothing but fly the ship.

Then we have a religious scientist who concludes that she's found our creators, based on: "It's what I choose to believe".

Then we have people who decide to open the door to their ship with no thought process, despite having just faced complete chaos by extremely hostile alien forces - because one of their crew mates seems to be lying in front of the door. This while other crew mates have just been taken over by some kind of alien infestation.

Then we have the very same religious scientist look at an alien "head" they brought back -and she notices some "strange growth" on said head. She then spends 2 seconds thinking and concludes that this is obviously some kind of "foreign cell stuff" (impressive deduction, I must say) - and she decides (for kicks) to stimulate the cells with some kind of energy - just to see what happens. No research - no caution - no nothing.

Then we have the boyfriend of said religious scientist who decides that the air in a completely alien environment is breathable because his device tells him it is - and he immediately removes his helmet. A classic Hollywood scientist moment.

This movie is FULL of this kind of utterly implausible behavior and random decisions.

It has a couple of "for effect" gore scenes - but Scott manages to include ZERO tension along with them. As a result, they're mildly disgusting - but they have no lasting effect whatsoever.

The "aliens" that are a part of this movie all look like plastic - because of overly smooth and pale skin. They look like Lovecraft creatures without a much-needed paint-job.

Inexplicably, the "alien eggs" are now urns with something completely different from a face-hugger inside them. They're full of some kind of genetic modification "goo" technology.

We have Guy Pearce doing a pretty weak "powermonger" performance in pretty bad old-guy make up.

We have a horribly predictable twist involving Guy Pearce and a certain other cast member. Totally wasted and pointless twist, to make it worse.

We have an android, well-acted by Fassbender, who seems to be completely random in his decisions and motivations. I simply didn't get what he was about or why he did what he did. It made no sense in any context - not to me anyway.

The music was overwrought and didn't fit with the mood of the film, and it seemed like one theme being repeated endlessly. A surprise, given Scott's usual flair for good music.

I think Lindelof is a complete and total hack - who only got the job because he was the "yes-man" who could match Scott's ego. This is pretty obvious in interviews - where Lindelof always manages to publicly kiss Scott's behind.

1 Star for Fassbender's performance.

1 Star for the amazingly detailed visuals.

1 Star for how the above combine to form the excellent beginning.

The Black Oil · 09-06-2012 09:47AM

Saw it in 2D - the cinema was freezing!

So, the last Ridley Scott film I saw in the cinema was Body of Lies which featured some Big Talent. Prometheus is similar in this respect, so does it fair? Despite its flaws, I felt I may have enjoyed this a little more than Abrams' Star Trek, though for it you're generally just along for the hell of the hide.

I do think there were one or two early scenes that weren't really sufficiently earned, but that was sort of down to the rag tag make up of the crew. Also, the big sort of Life Philosophy stuff was simply heavy handed. The geology guy running scared quite early on after they find the decapitated body 'I only deal in rocks' (paraphrasing), etc was a bit daft and there was something else I don't think they earned, but I can't recall it now.

On the plus side, the action wasn't laid on too thickly in the sense of it not being typical crash bang wallop, fisticuffs, etc. Acting wise, I liked Fassbender and Elba the most, though Elba's character was a bit thin and he could easily have been a grease monkey as much as a captain. I liked Shaw enough I guess.

The Vickers character was largely wasted, off screen for a few chunks of time. Didn't hugely buy into her spraying around a flamethrower, despite it being a nod the original.

Agricola · 09-06-2012 10:21AM

cursai wrote: »

Found this review on imdb. Think it sums a lot of things up nicely....

"I think Lindelof is a complete and total hack - who only got the job because he was the "yes-man" who could match Scott's ego. This is pretty obvious in interviews - where Lindelof always manages to publicly kiss Scott's behind.
"

I wasnt aware of who the writers were but after listening to a podcast which named them and their previous work, its not surprising the way this film turned out.
Ridley Scott does have an impressive ego. It reminds me of the documentaries that went along with Gladiator. That film was originally envisioned as a straight up revenge / action flick with the single aim of getting teen boys into cinemas. It seemed Scott was quite happy with this development. But famously they started principle photography with only quarter of a script and made it up as they went along. Luckily they brought on board some quality scriptwriters and playwrights to craft something which had some soul to it. This design by committee approach really pissed off Scott (and I suppose for a director thats a legitimate problem) but the end result was a far more coherent film than would otherwise have been made.
Something similar really needed to happen with Prometheus. It didnt have to answer all our questions, it just had to work as a film in its own right.

opinion guy · 09-06-2012 12:22PM

Agricola wrote: »

I wasnt aware of who the writers were but after listening to a podcast which named them and their previous work, its not surprising the way this film turned out.
Ridley Scott does have an impressive ego. It reminds me of the documentaries that went along with Gladiator. That film was originally envisioned as a straight up revenge / action flick with the single aim of getting teen boys into cinemas. It seemed Scott was quite happy with this development. But famously they started principle photography with only quarter of a script and made it up as they went along. Luckily they brought on board some quality scriptwriters and playwrights to craft something which had some soul to it. This design by committee approach really pissed off Scott (and I suppose for a director thats a legitimate problem) but the end result was a far more coherent film than would otherwise have been made.
Something similar really needed to happen with Prometheus. It didnt have to answer all our questions, it just had to work as a film in its own right.

To be fair to them one of the actors did die during the filming of Gladiator and they had to make plot changes as a result

Agricola · 09-06-2012 12:48PM

Thats true but apart from the script changes needed because of that, there were a whole host of changes made to the original script and screenplay which were necessary to fill out the main character and the plot. Gladiator was very close to being a Jason Statham movie but for the work of two late additions to the writing team who introduced the whole concept of an afterlife and gave the main character a more rounded personality and a more impactful narrative arc.

PhiloCypher · 09-06-2012 01:18PM

To get us back on topic Another thing I'm wondering is , being that we hear David say he has studied the roots of all earth languages in the hopes of being able to communicate with the engineers ,are we to take from that the engineers took the time to teach us their mother tongue while all the while planting the seeds of our destruction with their star map trap ?

Dempsey · 09-06-2012 01:46PM

PhiloCypher wrote: »

To get us back on topic Another thing I'm wondering is , being that we hear David say he has studied the roots of all earth languages in the hopes of being able to communicate with the engineers ,are we to take from that the engineers took the time to teach us their mother tongue while all the while planting the seeds of our destruction with their star map trap ?

They found the same hieroglyphic in several ancient civilizations which would suggest that they've influenced people on earth on several occasions.

opinion guy · 09-06-2012 02:29PM

PhiloCypher wrote: »

To get us back on topic Another thing I'm wondering is , being that we hear David say he has studied the roots of all earth languages in the hopes of being able to communicate with the engineers ,are we to take from that the engineers took the time to teach us their mother tongue while all the while planting the seeds of our destruction with their star map trap ?

Maybe they just gave us a genetic memory with the relevant info ? You know millions of years ago when they seeded life and somehow managed to control aeons of evolution whilst not evolving themselves and sticking to this cockamany plan only to change their mind 200 years ago

:rolleyes:

Dublin_Gunner · 09-06-2012 03:01PM

Finally have the chance to go see this. On the way for a 4.30 showing in 2d hopefully devoid any teenage aliens to detract from the spectacle.

Wish me luck!

SuprSi · 09-06-2012 06:40PM

Saw it during the week and enjoyed it, but thought it could have been so much more. I think I've read through most of the most recent pages and one question I haven't seen mentioned is why the Engineer who gets face-hugged at the end is dead when the alien pops out of his chest? Surely for the alien to incubate it needs a living host?

Dublin_Gunner · 09-06-2012 07:29PM

Well I'm back, and I'm left wanting.

The engineers were completely pointless, and we know no more about them really than before.

How did the captain figure out this was some sort of outpost for the creation of weapons for the 'engineers'??

Why did noone care about possible bacterial infection, until AFTER they've already pranced about with their helmets off?

What was the point of half of the cast? Agree totally about Fifield and the other twat - completely pointless characters that acted no more like scientists. In fact, the part where Fifield threw a wobbly and wanted to leave, was EXACTLY where I'd expect the other guy [as a biologist] to be fascinated!! But no, he decides to feck off with that punk/knob/geologist.

Shaw - ok, she gets impregnated by an alien being, goes through absolute hell to get rid of it from her body, and then completely forgets it ever happened?? Odd.

Vickers - another android obviously, but this was never explored.

The snake type things are obviously a primitive facehugger creature, definitely related somehow.

Is the film trying to state that the Alien / xeno we all know and love actually evolved from both us and the engineers?? Complete BS and I'm not falling for that one!

I don't know. To me it seems like a film where most of the scenes to explain the **** ones we were left with were cut. Directors cut better be twice the length.

The main failure being - Weyland / Prometheus never gets explained really. 1 minute were in a cave in Scotland, next were in space. Bizarre.

The whole film had even less to do with the Alien universe then I hoped. I really wanted more connections to bring the films together but was left wanting.

I could go on here and write a bloody essay, but I'll leave it with the feeling that this film just doesn't seem finished, or never got to where it should have.

Oh - and the effects were utterly shockingly bad at times.

al28283 · 09-06-2012 07:42PM

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

Vickers - another android obviously, but this was never explored.

No she wasn't

Dublin_Gunner · 09-06-2012 07:45PM

al28283 wrote: »

No she wasn't

She was IMO. She called Weyland 'father', yet he seems WAY too old for him to be her father. And I think its done purposely to reflect the fact he called David his son (in a way). She also seemed incredibly strong to be able to lift David up against the wall.

al28283 · 09-06-2012 07:52PM

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

She was IMO. She called Weyland 'father', yet he seems WAY too old for him to be her father. And I think its done purposely to reflect the fact he called David his son (in a way). She also seemed incredibly strong to be able to lift David up against the wall.

well that's like saying Sarah Connor was a terminator but she didn't know and it never came up in the movie, and oh yeah, she was a new type of terminator who can have kids. Doesn't make sense

Overature · 09-06-2012 07:57PM

is the planet in prometheous the same one at the start of Aliens? LV something or other

jcsoulinger · 09-06-2012 08:04PM

Overature wrote: »

is the planet in prometheous the same one at the start of Aliens? LV something or other

no

Dublin_Gunner · 09-06-2012 09:02PM

al28283 wrote: »

well that's like saying Sarah Connor was a terminator but she didn't know and it never came up in the movie, and oh yeah, she was a new type of terminator who can have kids. Doesn't make sense

No, it's not.

Chris_Heilong · 09-06-2012 09:07PM

one of the eairly drafts for the script Vickers was a Robot, but the script writter wanted to do the whole Decker thing from Bladerunner and have a load of people debating was she/wasn't she and by the last few pages it looks like a few of you have fell for it. She wasnt even an intersting character so who cares.

Prometheus *SPOILERS FROM POST 1538*

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Prometheus SPOILERS FROM POST 1538