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Promethus thread with PLOT SPOILERS


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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 ?

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I just don't care what happens when people are so random and incoherent as they were.

 

This was a big part of what took me out of the film as well. If these characters were two days off a meth binge I would accept their illogical and at times idiotic actions. If you subtract all the 'he/she wouldn't have done that in that situation' and 'but that couldn't have happened because" instances the crew never would have left the ship that first day and there wouldn't be much of a story. It was all fairly stupid.

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The 'running away along the axis of the crashing/rolling ship' thing is just in keeping with how wrong everything in this movie plays out. Before it came out I was afraid it might be another EVENT HORIZON, but after seeing it, I only WISH it had been EVENT HORIZON. At least that aimed low and missed while displaying great miniature effects and art direction, whereas this aimed ... someplace way in the air I guess? ... and barely managed a couple or three adequate moments. Elba should have had his own movie, as should Fassbender. The rest ... blechh!

 

If this is the way LOST was plotted, I'm sure glad I skipped that series and stuck with TWIN PEAKS and THE PRISONER on reruns instead.

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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.

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This was always going to be a difficult one for Ridley! He set the standard for this genre. Then goes back after 33 years of veneration.

You almost wonder why he did it, I think the maverick in him has melowed and the demographic has the upper hand.

This is a film for the demographic.

Ticks all the boxes and leaves the old fans wanting more. I saw this film with my 16yr old son Tristan. when the titeles came up

and we stood to leave I said " so what did you think" he said "awesome film! just awesome!"

 

 

 

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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.

 

Really? come on Bill you might be disappointed by Prometheus but when you calm down you can't stand by that statement can you?

He's just a filmmaker like you!!!

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Agree re. confusion between chest busted white guy being in the Prometheus auxiliary ship vs. being found by nostromo crew inside a crashed engineer ship. I only assume it's a different scene/area, but why have the confusion?

 

Agree re. Fassbender - 'I didn't think you had it in you' - great line :) I like how he is still alive, albeit zipped up in a bowling ball bag.

 

Elba, yeh, certainly not one of the worst characters, although I did get a little mixed up as to the motivations around both the mirth and then the sly glances around that volumetric/holo display, especially when the other life form blipped into reality.

 

I found myself almost putting my 'interest' into him - but in turn his relative lack of interest in the aliens took me away and left me with David, can't say why I didn't side with the protagonist and chose an android instead.

 

I liked the engineers in terms of design, but the aliens/nasties were a bit AVP/sunshine toasted man. (hey, we even had a crew member from sunshine).

 

Event Horizon... Yes, and another more recent sci fi also, I forget the name but it's a 'generation ship' style story fused with kind of hyper space zombies (sounds horrible huh, wasn't quite as bad as it sounds, Prometheus beats it for sure, don't get me wrong there) um, anyone?

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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.

 

Hmmm, maybe he is not the same guy?

I should point out that Prometheus is not set on the same planet as Alien either.

Theres often some confusion about that.

 

I don't mind the film leaving some things unresolved and there being lots of questions (after all David Lynch does this great). I also don't mind it being complicated, this is also fine, but I'm getting the feeling from people that the film is genuinely a bit incoherant which is definitely not good.

 

love

 

Freya

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I forget the name but it's a 'generation ship' style story fused with kind of hyper space zombies (sounds horrible huh, wasn't quite as bad as it sounds, Prometheus beats it for sure, don't get me wrong there) um, anyone?

 

Pandorum, which I thought was kind of okay for a low budget sci-fi film.

Definitely not as bad as it sounds.

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Elba should have had his own movie, as should Fassbender. The rest ... blechh!

 

*ouch* You know this was the feeling I was getting from the trailer, that Idris Elba and Mr Fassbender were going to be good and there might be some mediocre to poor performances elsewhere. Not a good sign that you are confirming by unspoken feelings from just the trailer.

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Hmmm, maybe he is not the same guy?

I should point out that Prometheus is not set on the same planet as Alien either.

Theres often some confusion about that.

 

True, true. That was LV-426. But then why would Ridley have the ship crash land into same position as the one on LV-426?...

 

Weird.

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Pandorum, which I thought was kind of okay for a low budget sci-fi film.

Definitely not as bad as it sounds.

Ah yes, that's the one - a few tweaks (well, a heap of them) and it could have been quite a goody.

 

Different planets huh? Ok, shows I'm not such a fan that details like that go in one eye and out the other.

 

So how long had the living engineer been in hypersleep for? There were likely others in all the other ships?

 

Was it a military base that had reached an eventual equilibrium state of death/destruction after it had gone haywire with an alien whoopsey? I don't quite recall the mechanism that triggered the volumetric display reenactments the crew and then david got to watch.

 

Many other planets were visible in that little show, I wonder if we go down that/those paths in the sequel?

 

So engineer guy is woken up by bionic creepy Australian dude channeling Benjamin Button, has a short think about where he's going to get his coffee from then proceeds to squish and rip body parts off all and sundry after being screamed at by a woman with a hole in her guts and Laurence of Arabia presumeably mangles 'good morning my fine fellow' in a language he picked up from um, *earth* ??

 

Why was he such a mean spirited butt? Completely devoted to something we don't have a clue about...

 

Or do we? Please inform

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Really? come on Bill you might be disappointed by Prometheus but when you calm down you can't stand by that statement can you?

He's just a filmmaker like you!!!

 

His last gripping film was Black Hawk Down...back in 2001.

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I can't really disagree with any of Chris Miller's breakdown, I had a lot of the same thoughts. The worst problem were the characterizations -- why are we supposed to care that two characters hardly established decide to nobly join the captain in a kamikaze attack on the alien ship? I was even confused as to whether the two main characters were lovers or brother & sister until later in the movie. And it made no sense for all of them to be told the mission after they arrived to the planet, and the plot involving Weyland waking up to meet the Engineer went nowhere.

 

But on the positive side, I was glad to see a science fiction film again that wasn't just an action movie with a sci-fi backdrop, the way that the latest "Star Trek" movie was (which I enjoyed anyway). The last semi-cerebral science fiction movies I saw like this were "Sunshine" and "Moon". I liked the slower pace, the slow build-up (which unfortunately went sort of nowhere.)

 

I liked the visuals and the efx, it didn't look like it was all shot against a green screen, it looked like they built sets and they went out on location.

 

But it didn't have the same visual impact as "Alien". I remember reading an article on "E.T." where Spielberg said that he watched "Alien" with Allen Daviau in preparation for the movie because "Alien" was the ultimate in lighting textures, from extremely hard to extremely soft, from extremely bright to extremely dark, etc. I'm hard-pressed to think of a lighting effect that wasn't in the movie at some point. "Prometheus" didn't have that level of extreme lighting textures. But it looked really good, though there were a few efx shots that looked like uprezzed HD with artificial sharpening artifacts. But in general, the Red Epic did a great job, especially on the landscape shots like in the beginning.

 

I kinda feel like I have to go back and see it in 2D now because I never feel I can appreciate the image quality in 3D presentations, my eyeballs are being too bent out of shape for two hours, by the time I get used to the 3D effect and stop thinking about it, then I wonder why I'm watching it in 3D because I've stopped noticing the effect... and still my eyeballs are having trouble focusing on things (it may be because I wear glasses with the 3D sunglasses over that.) I wonder if the IMAX 3D system is better than the Real-D system I saw it in.

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But it didn't have the same visual impact as "Alien". I remember reading an article on "E.T." where Spielberg said that he watched "Alien" with Allen Daviau in preparation for the movie because "Alien" was the ultimate in lighting textures, from extremely hard to extremely soft, from extremely bright to extremely dark, etc. I'm hard-pressed to think of a lighting effect that wasn't in the movie at some point.

 

In a cinematography class I took at NYU, my professor did exactly the same thing (and that's most likely where he got the idea.) We watched the entire film from beginning to end and only then did I see the complete evolution of the lighting style.

 

Alien and Blade Runner both depict such meticulous work by master craftsmen. They just look far more real and gritty than the slick and glossy-looking films that are being made today. Those are two sci-fi films that any digital production has yet to top.

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Thanks for that link, I certainly don't agree on everything said but it contains actual comments from Ridley - so "Prometheus" actually relates to Christianity by purpose?

But still, I also think it's not a well-designed story that has to revealed by hardcore-viewers but a fundamentally lacking script and cut - it's at least 10min too short, IMHO

 

P.S. sorry for all the spelling and grammar issues in my last posts, I'm too slow typing on my touchscreen and therefore too slow for the editing function... :-()

Edited by georg lamshöft
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But on the positive side, I was glad to see a science fiction film again that wasn't just an action movie with a sci-fi backdrop, the way that the latest "Star Trek" movie was (which I enjoyed anyway).

 

True true, I agree with your points also, but grew weary of typing, they would have been brought had I the energy. I watched Star Trek again just yesterday and found it much more enjoyable than first time round (and it wasn't that bad first time). I think I was critical of Sunshine straight out the cinema with the genre flip being too much of an ask at the time, but again upon rewatch (multiple ones) it's grown on me. Alien Resurrection and Pandorum tonight... Others that spring to mind... Hmmm, Soderburghs Solaris, Event Horizon (borderline), 2010. Perhaps Prometheus will be the same, with my expectations well focused and therefore out of mind I can enjoy the bits I missed/didn't concentrate on previously. Yes, the CG was great, and I absolutely love almost all competent sci-fi production design. Seeing what is kept from the present - basically restraint - is important, even Tron managed that. Prometheus was no exception. Question is, do I go 2D, or wait until I can see it on my laptop.

 

Bucking the trend I didn't like Moon so much or District 9 *at all*. Moon will get another crack though ;)

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I could point out all the problems with the film but instead ill leave it at, "emotional journey" or lack there off. I did like some of the scenes at the end (not to say it had a good ending) the operation scene was my fav.

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I think I was critical of Sunshine straight out the cinema with the genre flip being too much of an ask at the time, but again upon rewatch (multiple ones) it's grown on me. Alien Resurrection and Pandorum tonight... Others that spring to mind... Hmmm, Soderburghs Solaris, Event Horizon (borderline), 2010. Perhaps Prometheus will be the same, with my expectations well focused and therefore out of mind I can enjoy the bits I missed/didn't concentrate on previously.

 

I was speaking to one of the film's executive producers on Friday and he said there was a lot of expectations on Prometheus. It could come down to people accepting it for what it is, rather than what they expect. Blade Runner took a few years to build up. They didn't go wild on the streets when 2001 came out, it was getting sold on the "ultimate trip" aspect.

 

I haven't yet seen it, so I'll hold judgement on Prometheus.

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This will be the third 'Prometheus' thread I've posted on.

 

It grates me how some people think this film will "grow" on viewers the same way as 'Blade Runner' or 'Alien' both did several years down the line; I doubt I will be changing my mind about it. At their heart 'Blade Runner' and 'Alien' are very simple in their storytelling and it is more of how they are told. 'Prometheus' suffers from a hodgepodge of ideas that masquerades as a story which is boldly presented but badly told.

 

On another note, they're not Engineers. I like Space Jockey better.

Edited by Chris D Walker
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The "hodgepodge of ideas" can be something that arrives through the script development process. What started out as a clear and simple story in the early drafts can end up becoming confused because of too many people throwing in material to "improve" the script.

 

If this film has legs in the future and people will "grow" to like it, only time will reveal.

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If this film has legs in the future and people will "grow" to like it, only time will reveal.

 

We're not talking about something like Tree of Life here - a film I only liked for the visuals the first time I saw it and now I watch it whenver it's on cable. That's more of a film which by its very esoteric nature takes time to unearth itself in the viewers' minds. Prometheus is much more "what you see is what you get" and the filmmaker gives no incentive for the viewers to figure out whatever missing pieces there are in the plot.

 

As others have said, it's just bad storytelling.

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