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Promethus thread with PLOT SPOILERS


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... Like Dune and Flash Gordon - two films that are *brilliant* once you know what you're in for and how to personally enjoy them.

 

It doesn't work for every film, like for some reason I just can't make District 9 happen.

 

Yup. I fully understand that. To prove your point, I for one enjoyed District 9.

 

Different strokes...

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I was almost going to join in the discussion here and stick up for Ridley Scott. There are a few threads about Prometheus. Then I had some thoughts that are mostly illustrated by his work. I started a new thread "Poetry...Story...Bladerunner...Prometheus" in General Discussion section.

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=56599

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I saw it yesterday in Imax 70mm 3D on a 26 metre x 20 metre the biggest screen in G.B. Like others have said silly problems with the script certain things didnt make any sense , but i thought it looked stunning and the use of 3D was just right very subtle . I enjoyed it for what it is great entertainment

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I saw it yesterday in Imax 70mm 3D on a 26 metre x 20 metre the biggest screen in G.B. Like others have said silly problems with the script certain things didnt make any sense , but i thought it looked stunning and the use of 3D was just right very subtle . I enjoyed it for what it is great entertainment

 

I saw "deja vu" by his brother Tony on the iPlayer, 15inch screen on an ageing laptop.

It was a bit silly sometimes and certain things didn't quite make sense but it was kind of fun to watch and kept you interested. I loved the 2d, didn't have to wear glasses at all! I enjoyed it for what is was a bit of escapist fun entertainment.

 

Worked for me! :)

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So I saw this last night - opening day here in the US. I hardly ever go to an opening day showing, much less see new films in the theater (Netflix is much more my speed these days.) And Prometheus is the perfect example of why I don't go to the movies anymore.

 

As with every film, STORY is everything. And this one was horrible. I knew Ridley Scott was quite capable of making sub-standard stuff but I was hoping he'd kick it back into 70s gear for all of the fans of the original Alien. Instead, he sank to a new low. Not only was the story and plot completely disjointed, but he also made no attempt to develop the characters. It almost felt like he was in a rush to get to the end credits.

 

I was extremely underimpressed with the photography, as well. I can't think of a single shot that was memorable. The best visual for me was Charlize Theron.

 

And did anyone else notice the discontinuity at the VERY end of the film? The big guy who got impregnated by the giant squid is the same one that is supposed to be found at the cannon inside the crashed ship when the away-team from the Nostromo goes searching. Instead, the very first form of the aliens we know pops out of him inside the smaller of Prometheus's crafts and he dies right there.

 

REALLY disappointing. Ridley showed no loyalty to the fans of the original film. I know he said he wanted to make Prometheus somewhat "self-contained" with a story unto itself. But sometimes you just can't do that. When you know there are so many aficionados of the original film still out there, the filmmaker should feel an obligation to make a QUALITY prequel. I know I would.

 

It's time for Ridley to pack it in. His best work is behind him. I will say this: if he does make a sequel to Blade Runner, you can bet I will avoid that like the plague.

 

The planet they are on is marked LV 233 on their 'map' in the Prometheus bridge. The Alien planet is LV 426. David refers to many other ships, like the one him and Elisabeth leave in, so I think they meant to mean they're are many. Perhaps what happened to those engineers on LV 233 happened to the crashed ship in Alien.

That may be the only detail which made any sense in reference to the other films.

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Hello all,

 

So a few of is have seen this already, it was probably the most anticipated film for me in a loooong time (maybe since Return of the Jedi, honest).

 

I found myself trying to ignore parts that were bugging me from about 10minutes in - and regrettably they accumulated enough to register and take me out of the ride and well seated back into the cinema fiddling with my glasses and trying to overhear discussions among the hundreds of other 30+ males in attendance.

 

In the style of the film my questions and observations to follow will likely be ill-posed and ignorant but regardless, here goes:

 

 

... crickets chirping ...

 

I just don't know where to begin !

 

ahh fack it

 

It was just such a mess, I just don't care what happens when people are so random and incoherent as they were. If maybe Scott was extrapolating on what society and therefore a microcosm crew would be like if it composed of the children and grandchildren of the petulant 'me' generations of today then maybe he's on to something, but it just isn't enjoyable watching.

 

Too many instances of questions like 'um, er... but, so, why didn't so and so or at least someone spot/comment on/ponder the implications of what was happening all around them or too them'

 

>'hey guys I think I saw a worm come out of my eye'

>'hey everyone I think we should all regroup and figure out what is going on and come up with an action plan - put us all on the same page'

>'hey I think someone is having surgery next door, perhaps we could help"

 

Ok, so big white man has some mean strong herbal tea next to a water fall while an independence day saucer floats above - so he didn't know it was going to affect him ? (shocked look) and why not ? and it was meant to seed planet earth / or ? and how did these ancient civilizations get to know the local star system of the engineers and why draw it on a wall ?

 

So black goo in canisters has worms in it - that turn into cute little arm breakers - which then turn people into dead things with wormy things in them that jump at you, ooor you go all puffy faced and angry and try to kill people around you, but if you drink it, actually, no, not it, but the stuff in the ampoules in it, then you get worms in your eyes and ebola on crack, but you dont go crazy, you get horny instead and impregnate women unable to have children with the mother of all chest buster/ face huggers combined - which then makes a pointy alien after having face-hugged one of these tall men (any females in the race?).

 

So where did the derelict spaceship from alien come into this - assume its on the other side of the planet or off to the left ?

 

Why did they land the Prometheus on what looked like a god damned runway ?? real wise move

 

Vickers - inept blink.gif

 

Like someone pointed out online and I felt like screaming at the screen 'FOR EF'S SAKE RUN PERPENDICULAR TO WHERE THE DAMN SHIP IS CRASHING!'

 

Would have been more interesting if she had survived, perhaps wounded and had to go along on the ride to the sequel, maybe squeeze in some character development somewhere as opposed to the angry geologist/skeptic-voice of pragmatism-keystone cop/comedy relief-feral killing thing arc that we were offered instead

 

 

dang - battery is running low

 

film had many good moments - but it unfortunately swung downhill

 

your thoughts ?

Neil deGrasse Tyson said it best:

Prometheus: Two parts Cowboys&Aliens, one part Mission To Mars, one part The Day The Earth Stood Still. Blend in the abdomen.

 

also:

 

Prometheus goes 35 light yrs into space, but CharlizeTheron gaffes "We're a half billion miles from Earth"- just past Jupiter

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I think some of you are trying to read too much into the film. It's as if you're expecting a cerebal film on par with Kubrick and Tarkovskiy, but forgeting that what you're really getting is Ridley Scott (visual style over substance) and adjusting your expectations accordingly.

 

I went into this film with an expectation level of 4/10 and an anticipation level of 0/10. My anticipation was much higher until I found out the screenwriter for Lost was in charge of the story.

 

So, last night I sat back and just let the story tell itself to me. I found it to be a fairly simple story, certainly didn't feel the incoherence and plot holes people are talking about here and I think it's set up beautifully for a sequel. The story pretty much boils down to these questions: Why did you create us? Why did you change your mind and now want to destroy us?

 

My biggest complaint regarding the acting was Theron. I've found her acting to be excellent in other movies, but she sucks as a villain. It was the kind of performance I expect to see at a Pantomine. All she was missing was a comedic wacky flamboyant partner in villainy to play off her.

Edited by Pat Murray
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>'hey guys I think I saw a worm come out of my eye'

>'hey everyone I think we should all regroup and figure out what is going on and come up with an action plan - put us all on the same page'

 

I think if you see it again, you'll notice that everything happens quite quickly due to a series of unfortunate events, plus you have some conflicting agendas. One or two hidden. Making it difficult to regroup and as for the worm in the eye, I took that scene as the character not being sure if he saw what he thought he saw.

 

- The storm forces everybody to pack up quickly and leave

- David grabs one of the pods in the rush to get out without telling anybody

- The geologist and biologist get lost in the complex and are forced to spend the night and are unfortunate to encounter the "biological" weapons that were "activated" by the presence of the survey team.

 

These set off a series of events that make it difficult to come together and regroup. Especially with some people wanting to head back soonest, whilst others wanting to try harder to find a living engineer and/or get answers.

 

 

>'hey I think someone is having surgery next door, perhaps we could help"

 

They covered that by knocking out the two people who came to get her, revealing earlier in the film that the only people who go into the surgery area of the ship without an invite are Miss Weylan and David and then later revealing after the surgery that those two were elsewhere with "daddy" Whelan.

 

Ok, so big white man has some mean strong herbal tea next to a water fall while an independence day saucer floats above - so he didn't know it was going to affect him ? (shocked look) and why not ? and it was meant to seed planet earth / or ? and how did these ancient civilizations get to know the local star system of the engineers and why draw it on a wall ?

 

I don't think he was shocked, I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Especially if you go by the myth of the Titan Prometheus. He was standing next to a water source on earth before humans and he created mankind on earth by sacrificing himself. Well, he got the evolutionary process started. This was either intentional or like the myth, a rogue move, which angered the engineers when they found it and is likely the reason why they developed the biological weapons to wipe out humans on earth. We'll find out for sure in the next film. I'm leaning towards the latter due to Mr. Weylands' erroneous retelling of the myth - that mankind was given equal status with the Titans and humans were punished for this. In the actual myth, Prometheus gives fire to humans (thus elevating them from savages to civilized) and only Prometheus is punished.

 

 

 

So black goo in canisters has worms in it - that turn into cute little arm breakers - which then turn people into dead things with wormy things in them that jump at you, ooor you go all puffy faced and angry and try to kill people around you, but if you drink it, actually, no, not it, but the stuff in the ampoules in it, then you get worms in your eyes and ebola on crack, but you dont go crazy, you get horny instead and impregnate women unable to have children with the mother of all chest buster/ face huggers combined - which then makes a pointy alien after having face-hugged one of these tall men (any females in the race?).

 

Again, from my POV, this isn't that confusing (whether or not it's believable is up to the viewer, of course).

 

The biological weapons (as theorized by the Capt of Prometheus) are (very rapid) evolutionary (IMO). The goo becomes worms, the worms become arm breaking snake like creatures who impregnant a host and become those face suckers from the original series, who in turn impregnant another host with the pointed headed killing machine we see at the end.

 

Between the spiked tea and the geologist doing a face plant in the black goo, it seems that if you get the black goo in your blood stream it'll turn you into a monster. A different evolutionary process. The pods might have something to do with guiding the black goo's evolutionary process towards the end goal of pointy headed killing machines wipping out mankind.

 

The puffy face anthropolist guy, IMO, was headed for the same transformation as the geologist who went on a rampage in the loading bay.

 

I don't think the black goo infection necessarily made him more horny all of a sudden. I don't need to be infected to want to make love to my wife. :D Although worth asking why she gets pregnant and he turns into a monster. There's a plot hole. You'd think with the passage of fluids, she'd get infected too and become a raging puffy faced monster.

 

 

So where did the derelict spaceship from alien come into this - assume its on the other side of the planet or off to the left ?

 

You're probably ahead of the story. Your answer is probably in the next movie or the one after it.

 

Why did they land the Prometheus on what looked like a god damned runway ??

 

 

I don't see the problem here. Runways are for landing and taking off on.

 

Somebody had mentioned confusion over the tall man trying to kill the humans as well as how would primitive civilizations know about the star system etc. The answers are in the theory that their creators had turned against humankind and were planning to destroy planet earth.

 

As for the "invitation", as stated by the biologists, the ancient pictures show "Engineers" standing amongst a human audience describing the star system. Indicating they came back and paid visits to their creation when humans were still primitive. Maybe its man's hostility towards each other that disappointed them and that's why they were planning on wiping out the human race? We'll find out in the next movie I suppose. The dead body of the Engineer was carbon dated to around the time of Christ. At that time life was particularly brutish between human tribes. Maybe the prequels will reveal themselves to be a kind of bloody Noah's arc analogy. Instead of a flood, it's acid blooded alien killing machines. To be continued....

 

Chris, I'm not picking on you, please don't take it the wrong way. Yours was just the most detailed, so I just used your post to illustrate my point that the story is pretty much on par with dramas you might see on network tv at 10PM. Simple, not overly complicated and if you don't think about it too much, it'll make sense.

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Hey, rest assured that even before reading your last paragraph I wasn't taking it the wrong way... I think I need a review of the film ;) Got a flight in an hour, maybe it'll be on the plane - probably spring for avengers if it's available though ;)

 

As for what you've said, yes I can see some of your points but I think it's best I view it again before any direct reply.

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Hey, rest assured that even before reading your last paragraph I wasn't taking it the wrong way... I think I need a review of the film ;) Got a flight in an hour, maybe it'll be on the plane - probably spring for avengers if it's available though ;)

 

As for what you've said, yes I can see some of your points but I think it's best I view it again before any direct reply.

 

A second review might help although I should have added that I think you do have valid points. The movie does seem to sell itself as smarter than it is. Especially with the way the trailers were released. Not surprising if people thought they were going to be treated to a "generational" Science Fiction movie.

 

Plus, my POV is hardly flattering to the picture when I think about it. I'm basically saying it's Prime Time network drama/network movie of the week level stuff.

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I think some of you are trying to read too much into the film. It's as if you're expecting a cerebal film on par with Kubrick and Tarkovskiy, but forgeting that what you're really getting is Ridley Scott (visual style over substance) and adjusting your expectations accordingly.

 

No, I was not expecting a Kubrickian type of film at all. But your statement about Ridley - "visual style over substance" - is inaccurate. Blade Runner & Alien are perfect examples of the fact that he wasn't always like that. Both of those films were a perfect blending of style and substance.

 

THAT's why I was disappointed with the film. He has shown himself to be capable of much better.

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No, I was not expecting a Kubrickian type of film at all. But your statement about Ridley - "visual style over substance" - is inaccurate. Blade Runner & Alien are perfect examples of the fact that he wasn't always like that. Both of those films were a perfect blending of style and substance.

 

THAT's why I was disappointed with the film. He has shown himself to be capable of much better.

 

I've loved BLADE RUNNER from day one, but I've never found it to be a perfect blend at all. I'd say Se7en fits that description to a T, but BR succeeds because of score, ambiguity, cinematography and occasionally performance. The director orchestrates and chooses on all this, but I think BR's success is that there was too much good stuff to get it all messed up, especially when he had Rawlings cutting it damn well. The fact Scott didn't even seem to understand the material (what leaps to mind is when he misread a Peeples rewrite, taking a Deckard voiceover remark as being literal rather than figurative, and extrapolating that Deckard was a repllicant on that basis) makes me think the ambiguity is unintentional at times, contrived at theres, unlike, say, Kubrick with 2001, where any rethink was motivated by huge amounts of post time to reconsider and reconfigure.

 

It took me nearly a quarter-century to appreciate ALIEN, but that never stopped me from dropping huge coin for the fancy laserdisc in order to be able to look at it and more importantly, to be able to see much of the artwork generated for it that wasn't used. I honestly think that ALIEN's prime success is due to Hill's rewrite of Obannon, even though not all of it survived into the final. The fact that ALIEN (and to some degree ALIENS) was a movie that made me want to see a movie in that universe SANS any extraterrestrials (or at least sans the xenomorph) makes me think that it was more scripting and performance that I found compelling than actual filmmaking.

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The fact that ALIEN (and to some degree ALIENS) was a movie that made me want to see a movie in that universe SANS any extraterrestrials (or at least sans the xenomorph) makes me think that it was more scripting and performance that I found compelling than actual filmmaking.

 

Thanks for putting into words something I was thinking but couldn't quite push out.

 

 

 

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It took me nearly a quarter-century to appreciate ALIEN, but that never stopped me from dropping huge coin for the fancy laserdisc in order to be able to look at it and more importantly, to be able to see much of the artwork generated for it that wasn't used. I honestly think that ALIEN's prime success is due to Hill's rewrite of Obannon, even though not all of it survived into the final. The fact that ALIEN (and to some degree ALIENS) was a movie that made me want to see a movie in that universe SANS any extraterrestrials (or at least sans the xenomorph) makes me think that it was more scripting and performance that I found compelling than actual filmmaking.

 

Well not just the script and performance but also the set designs and cinematography too surely?

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Yeah absolutely, those are usually pretty much givens in his pics. I had huge issues at first with ALIEN just because of the Vietnam era tech (toggle switches everywhere), but after a few years I accepted this is what people consider 'future real' -- just like blinking light computer panels were 'it' in the 60s and reused through the 70s (and probably just as inaccurate as sound in space, which very few folks have dared to deal with outside of Kubrick and Whedon.) But there's a viewpoint in the design, I grant that. And it looked better in most senses than films that tried to extrapolate a future and wound up boring your ass off (I'm looking at you, Harold Michaelson on STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE.)

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Well not just the script and performance but also the set designs and cinematography too surely?

 

Script, performance, set design and cinematography. Those are four major elements of "actual filmmaking," folks.

Edited by Bill DiPietra
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I've loved BLADE RUNNER from day one, but I've never found it to be a perfect blend at all. I'd say Se7en fits that description to a T..."

 

While I think Se7en is a very good film, I disagree with your choice of it being the perfect blend of story and substance, but to each his own. In any case, I was referring solely to Ridley Scott's work.

 

If we begin discussing the whole of cinema, Scott and Fincher don't even close to the master filmmakers that I mentioned in previous posts.

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Regarding master filmmakers ... I agree with you, totally. I think the way I marvel over Se7en isn't Fincher-specific at all, more due to the confluence of Fincher, Daruisz, and Andy Walker, plus Shore, plus ... well, it all just gelled. But nothing else in Fincher's resume is anywhere near as good (I really like THE GAME and much of FIGHT CLUB, but not in the same way I love Se7en and JFK, I can let wash over me time & again, the way other people feel about the first couple of GODFATHERs.)

 

I remember thinking Fincher was getting too Hitchcock previs-minded around PANIC ROOM, which I thought really stunk. From interviews, it seemed like he was really interested in solving ALL problems prior to shooting, which, while it worked for Alfred, is I think a little limiting for others, and sometimes just a plain-out bad call when you have talent capable of inspired improvisation.

 

There aren't many people who can work like Kubrick, or even if they could, that they could afford to work that way. Same for Malick. Warner seemed to trust Kubrick and indulge him and that was a good working relationship between the two (at least until Kubrick died, and Warner dicked off about reissuing 2001 theatrically in more than a token way in the year 2001)

 

I always wonder how it could have been for Welles if he had a studio underwriting him for a guaranteed tiny budget, sort of like Woody Allen had at UA in the 70s.

Edited by KH Martin
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YOU FORGOT THE SCORE.

 

 

Well, you don't always need one of those. CHINA SYNDROME only has source music outside of what passes for a title song, and several Lumets in the 70s don't need it either. Maybe SOUND would be a better added category. Along with editorial.

Edited by KH Martin
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  • 3 weeks later...
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I seem to be the only one in my group of friends that actually really liked it. It ends with unanswered questions, but I like that. And I think I know where they're going, if they're doing a second one. Wolski is stable hand and I've always loved his work, from day one. Nice to see him use so much LED lighting here. Makes for a different quality.

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I seem to be the only one in my group of friends that actually really liked it. It ends with unanswered questions, but I like that. And I think I know where they're going, if they're doing a second one. Wolski is stable hand and I've always loved his work, from day one. Nice to see him use so much LED lighting here. Makes for a different quality.

 

Great to hear a different view on things.

 

Is there something about the L.E.D. lighting that is recognisable in the movie or did you already know it was shot with LED lighting units? I think that's an interesting aspect.

 

love

 

Freya

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