blood reaper wrote:I went to see Prometheus last night, I had high hopes.

Spoiler:

After leaving the Cinema, my brain has fallen into a state of being unable to ask "Why did you make this?!?!?", I have yet to understand the boring, mind boggling bad plot, which seems to change every 30 minutes. It has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Alien one second, the next BAMM! Just went Bamby Buster on dis Space Jockey, also just as a way to ruin all established Jockey Cannon, Space Jockeys are now really advanced human beings. Wait what? OK, I'll get over that, wait what? Why did that happen, no, no, THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! NO!

Problem 1: Space Jockeys are now Human: Turns out that the Space Jockeys, wait, no, now they are named Engineers are human but are just really tall. They were just wearing armour, and created the Xenomorphs (I think) as an attempt as a Bio-weapon (I think) to kill the humans or create the perfect species (I think).

Problem 2: The film is not an Alien Prequel, no now it is: The film goes from plain out copying the Alien films, to deciding it's not. I honestly had no idea what was happening.

I'm not going to try and explain anything else, I'm too mentally tired to even try.

Please, just watch the trailer, don't go and see this horrid excuse for a film, I honestly tell you that the film is terrible. I have no idea what was going on, I doubt anyone would unless they where high or such.

Kovnik Obama wrote:What the hell dude. I have no clue what your complaining about. Could you rephrase? Are you mad because it's an Alien rip-off, or because it's an Alien prequel? Because it's been known since 2009 that it would take place in the same universe, but as it's own mythology...

blood reaper wrote:

Kovnik Obama wrote:What the hell dude. I have no clue what your complaining about. Could you rephrase? Are you mad because it's an Alien rip-off, or because it's an Alien prequel? Because it's been known since 2009 that it would take place in the same universe, but as it's own mythology...

I'm annoyed because the film is poor, borrows from Alien, ruins established canon and has a mess of a plot.

Kovnik Obama wrote:I haven't seen it. Care to elaborate a bit on that critic? If not, you've pretty much just piqued my interest and failed completly at your original intent of making me avoid it...

blood reaper wrote:

Kovnik Obama wrote:What the hell dude. I have no clue what your complaining about. Could you rephrase? Are you mad because it's an Alien rip-off, or because it's an Alien prequel? Because it's been known since 2009 that it would take place in the same universe, but as it's own mythology...

I'm annoyed because the film is poor, borrows from Alien, ruins established canon and has a mess of a plot.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

blood reaper wrote:

Kovnik Obama wrote:What the hell dude. I have no clue what your complaining about. Could you rephrase? Are you mad because it's an Alien rip-off, or because it's an Alien prequel? Because it's been known since 2009 that it would take place in the same universe, but as it's own mythology...

I'm annoyed because the film is poor, borrows from Alien, ruins established canon and has a mess of a plot.

What established canon? Where in Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 or Alien Resurrection was it ever established who the Jockey was, why it was there, what kind of being it was etc.?

Mr Hyena wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:

blood reaper wrote:

Kovnik Obama wrote:What the hell dude. I have no clue what your complaining about. Could you rephrase? Are you mad because it's an Alien rip-off, or because it's an Alien prequel? Because it's been known since 2009 that it would take place in the same universe, but as it's own mythology...

I'm annoyed because the film is poor, borrows from Alien, ruins established canon and has a mess of a plot.

What established canon? Where in Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 or Alien Resurrection was it ever established who the Jockey was, why it was there, what kind of being it was etc.?

It was only seen for about a minute in Alien, as the The Pilot fossil. It was never mentioned again after that, so there is no canon surrounding it (Unless you consider one or two comics in the expanded universe as canon).

Secondly, it is indeed very confused and I agree that for some sections of the film it appears to be going in a different direction to Alien and in other sections, it is very heavily informed by the 1977 film. It certainly doesn't bridge the plot gap between the two in a satisfying manner.

Ma55ter_fett wrote:Careful UK, bash these big hollywood releases much more and they'll stop giving them to you a week early

sebster wrote:I saw the thread title and got worried, as the reviews have been generally positive but still somewhat mixed, so negative response from a fan would be a bad sign. Especially considering tickets for me and the mrs are already booked for Saturday.

Then I saw the complaints given by the OP and was relieved. 'The plot was confusing' and 'I don't like how it changed the backstory from some comic spin-off' and 'I am confused as the relationship between this movie and another work by the same director' absolutely, 100% doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Looking forward to this movie even more now.

Pael wrote:Just saw it myself and it is full of the fails that any sequel/prequel will have unfortunately. My big question is how Shaw is able to run just after having an emergency c-section. In real life a woman is barely able to hobble let alone repel or move a body....

blood reaper wrote:

Kovnik Obama wrote:What the hell dude. I have no clue what your complaining about. Could you rephrase? Are you mad because it's an Alien rip-off, or because it's an Alien prequel? Because it's been known since 2009 that it would take place in the same universe, but as it's own mythology...

I'm annoyed because the film is poor, borrows from Alien, ruins established canon and has a mess of a plot.

warpcrafter wrote:I am hoping that this abomination of a film finally puts an end to the Alien franchise once and for all. Ridley Scott, in my opinion has gak on the memories of the previous movies (With the exception of Alien: Ressurection, which was its own flavor of horrible.) to a degree that even exceeds what George Lucas did to Star Wars. Granted, Michael Fassbender's performance was impressive, but it deserved to be in a much better movie.

Corpsesarefun wrote:The OP was wrong, that doesn't make it a good film.

It was terrible.

sebster wrote:

Corpsesarefun wrote:The OP was wrong, that doesn't make it a good film.

It was terrible.

Hmmm, bugger. Cheers for the warning, but the tickets are already booked so we'll have to see.

warpcrafter wrote: Ridley Scott, in my opinion has gak on the memories of the previous movies (With the exception of Alien: Ressurection, which was its own flavor of horrible.) to a degree that even exceeds what George Lucas did to Star Wars.

warpcrafter wrote: to a degree that even exceeds what George Lucas did to Star Wars.

Mr Hyena wrote:
It topped the charts in many countries. It isn't a failure to any degree.

Flashman wrote:
It isn't awful and is perfectly watchable in its own way, it just isn't in the league of Alien/Aliens, hence the disappointment. You should still have a decent night out

dogma wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:
It topped the charts in many countries. It isn't a failure to any degree.

Its also the sort of movie that anyone even slightly interested in science fiction was going to see, so that's not great barometer of success.

It would be more remarkable if it had bombed.

Hordini wrote:I'm still looking forward to seeing it, but Dogma's right. I would have been surprised if this film didn't do well, especially after all the hype.

dogma wrote:

Hordini wrote:I'm still looking forward to seeing it, but Dogma's right. I would have been surprised if this film didn't do well, especially after all the hype.

Its not a bad movie by any means, its just incomplete. It definitely feels like the first movie in a trilogy, but not in a good way. Most of the questions left unanswered feel like story arc questions that will crop up again in a sequel. If you can imagine Star Wars, but with the first Death Star battle as the intro to Empire, you get the idea.

Also, in regards for tying the movies together, if the jockey would have just walked back to the chair before the event happened it would have tied everything together more or less enough for me.

Necroshea wrote:After leaving the theater with a group of friends, it was funny. Everyone was complaining about all these minor details like what happened in what year, and how it's not like such and such, etc. etc.

I went into it as a casual watcher, just like I did the other aliens movies. I liked it. It was a solid sci fi movie, and I havent seen one of those in a while. There were a few things that we're stupid to me. Where did that ladder come from? Why didn't she just stop running in a straight line and not die? However, these didn't ruin the movie for me.

Also, in regards for tying the movies together, if the jockey would have just walked back to the chair before the event happened it would have tied everything together more or less enough for me.

d-usa wrote:
For movies like that it is the second week stats that are going to be an indication about how good or horrible it is.

Plenty of movies opened strong based on expectations, and then tanked on week 2 when word of mouth gets around.

Delephont wrote:After seeing the movie tonight, I have to say it was in the main quite good. I agree with some of the negative statements, I didn't really feel any connection to any of the characters, and when they died it was pretty much a clinical experience for me. I wish they would have done more to elaborate on the opening scenes, and why the Alien (Human) was seen to be intentionally poisoning himself....that really made no sense, and considering this was a film that was aiming to "answer" some big questions, giving us a context to the opening events isn't too much to ask.

Delephont wrote:The only thing that left me a bit disappointed though was the ending.....with the pilot lying dead on the floor with the first Xenomorph shaking off his intestines, who then was the guy in the pilots chair in the original Alien film?? I feel the scene where the Alien (Human) goes after the scientist to be almost comical with regards to tying the story-lines together. I think the writers could have gotten the characters to where they needed to be and still had the pilot dying in his chair....

d-usa wrote:
For movies like that it is the second week stats that are going to be an indication about how good or horrible it is.

Plenty of movies opened strong based on expectations, and then tanked on week 2 when word of mouth gets around.

Mannahnin wrote:That part seemed obvious. The sacrifice of a life to begin life could work as religious symbolism in almost any culture. It also parallels the myth of Prometheus, who sacrificed his life (was chained to be eternally tortured by the gods) to give us fire. An Engineer sacrificed his life in kicking off life on Earth.

Mannahnin wrote: The genetic match thing also doesn't explain their enormous size difference from us or their eyes.

Rbb wrote:Am I the only one who wants the captain's Weyland corporation t-shirt?

Delephont wrote:

Mannahnin wrote: The genetic match thing also doesn't explain their enormous size difference from us or their eyes.

Well, as far as I understand genetics, you can be quite different in terms of "surface" attributes, because these are mostly initiated by outside influence, but your building blocks can be the same!!

sebster wrote:I saw the thread title and got worried, as the reviews have been generally positive but still somewhat mixed, so negative response from a fan would be a bad sign. Especially considering tickets for me and the mrs are already booked for Saturday.

Then I saw the complaints given by the OP and was relieved. 'The plot was confusing' and 'I don't like how it changed the backstory from some comic spin-off' and 'I am confused as the relationship between this movie and another work by the same director' absolutely, 100% doesn't bother me in the slightest.

....

Mannahnin wrote:

Delephont wrote:After seeing the movie tonight, I have to say it was in the main quite good. I agree with some of the negative statements, I didn't really feel any connection to any of the characters, and when they died it was pretty much a clinical experience for me. I wish they would have done more to elaborate on the opening scenes, and why the Alien (Human) was seen to be intentionally poisoning himself....that really made no sense, and considering this was a film that was aiming to "answer" some big questions, giving us a context to the opening events isn't too much to ask.

Looked to me like a way of combining a ritual suicide with seeding a planet with life. He took a genetic cocktail which broke down his own body and DNA to create the initial building blocks for evolution to begin. That part seemed obvious. The sacrifice of a life to begin life could work as religious symbolism in almost any culture. It also parallels the myth of Prometheus, who sacrificed his life (was chained to be eternally tortured by the gods) to give us fire. An Engineer sacrificed his life in kicking off life on Earth.

This is the biggest plot hole/unanswered question for me, though, in how could it really work? Did they somehow kick off the entire chain of evolution, starting with primitive forms and somehow resulting in humans? The genetic match thing also doesn't explain their enormous size difference from us or their eyes.

Delephont wrote:The only thing that left me a bit disappointed though was the ending.....with the pilot lying dead on the floor with the first Xenomorph shaking off his intestines, who then was the guy in the pilots chair in the original Alien film?? I feel the scene where the Alien (Human) goes after the scientist to be almost comical with regards to tying the story-lines together. I think the writers could have gotten the characters to where they needed to be and still had the pilot dying in his chair....

Different planet. Different Engineer. Same style of ship/pilot's chair.

What I found really odd was the only time you see the whole crew together was the briefing. As the situation deteriorated there was no lets all get together and figuer out what to do scene, everything got bizarrely lesse fair and no one seemed at all concerned about ice queen murdering buddy. It was also odd that few people knew eachother and there was somehow no time for introductions before they all went into criosleep or whatever it is, I mean I get the whole "The pay is good, I won't ask questions" vibe but is wayland yutani like looking for people on craigslist for a freakin trillion dollar exploration team? Also, Charlize Theron was supposed to be the control freak ice queen corporate bitch and yet no one seemed to listen to her. Wayland seems surprised that she was there, I would think the head of a massive corporation would be a bit of a control freak himself. I did enjoy it, it still had some really bizarre plot holes though.

They didnt want to give us classic Geiger Aliens so instead they bored us with Tentacle/penis aliens... yawn:

Mannahnin wrote:I agree with Mr. Hyena on something! Except that last bit. The chestburster scene is a classic, unlikely to be equaled.

Mannahnin wrote:Yeah, then maybe life was already present, but humans/intelligent life was what the Engineers seeded. The same question is invited, then, about whether they were actually seeding the primates which evolved into us, or what.

What I found really odd was the only time you see the whole crew together was the briefing. As the situation deteriorated there was no lets all get together and figuer out what to do scene, everything got bizarrely lesse fair and no one seemed at all concerned about ice queen murdering buddy. It was also odd that few people knew eachother and there was somehow no time for introductions before they all went into criosleep or whatever it is, I mean I get the whole "The pay is good, I won't ask questions" vibe but is wayland yutani like looking for people on craigslist for a freakin trillion dollar exploration team? Also, Charlize Theron was supposed to be the control freak ice queen corporate bitch and yet no one seemed to listen to her. Wayland seems surprised that she was there, I would think the head of a massive corporation would be a bit of a control freak himself. I did enjoy it, it still had some really bizarre plot holes though.

I do agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense to have people be strangers on a mission like this, and not have the team be coached, coordinated, and compatible. Going back at least as far as Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, the importance of having a balanced and psychologically-healthy team capable of getting along and working together (especially when far from any assistance) has been recognized by Sci-Fi authors. That being said, it's consistent with how the Company operated in Aliens.

You could say of course that it's for better operational security and confidentiality by keeping the team in the dark, but then, they could have done the introductions and getting to know each other after they had departed and were no longer in range to communicate back to Earth and leak secrets. Of course, logistically the effect is similar- you've got the potential for personality clashes after the team has passed the point of no return. But you'd have more time to get over them. Of course, it's much more dramatic and effective in a story for that to be happening at the same time as arriving at the destination, as opposed to splitting the two up on either side of the trip & cryo-sleep.

The stuff you've raised about Vickers is legit, too. It gives me the impression that she had the authority to attach herself to the mission, but not really to commandeer it. Part of the ambiguity here is no doubt that the movie intentially leaves is in the dark about much of the larger context, which enhances mystery and actually makes the world feel a bit more realistic. OTOH part of it is probably what someone else said- the film being edited down and some exposition having been lost.

Kanluwen wrote:

blood reaper wrote:

Kovnik Obama wrote:What the hell dude. I have no clue what your complaining about. Could you rephrase? Are you mad because it's an Alien rip-off, or because it's an Alien prequel? Because it's been known since 2009 that it would take place in the same universe, but as it's own mythology...

I'm annoyed because the film is poor, borrows from Alien, ruins established canon and has a mess of a plot.

"Borrows from Alien"?

Borrows from Alien?!?!?

You do understand the importance of Ridley Scott returning to start playing again in the universe which he created right? Right?!

Flashman wrote:It isn't awful and is perfectly watchable in its own way, it just isn't in the league of Alien/Aliens, hence the disappointment. You should still have a decent night out

dogma wrote:It also explains...

Spoiler:

...why they're trying to kill us now. The first guy was an exile, and now the Jockeys are coming to kill his progeny.

That's just speculation, though.

Pacific wrote:What I was going to say...

Perhaps the only criticism I would have levelled at it, is that it suffers from Scott's usual problem of having films cut back drastically for the theatrical release.

sebster wrote:
But a lot of the script really, really let this movie down. As others have noted, most characters were pretty sketchily drawn, and the second half of the movie basically collapsed into a mess of subplots that didn't really tie together*. But ultimately, the biggest problem I had with the movie was the tone of the piece. This is a film about discovering our origins, and learning about an alien civilisation, and the people discovering these things are scientists who've jetted as far as anyone's ever gone, and yet most of the crew are very, very uninterested in this ancient race. This is not only jarring because it's frankly ludicrous**, it also really hurt the central theme of the movie - the dual nature of discovery - we were supposed to get a feeling of wonder, and in turn dread... but if half the crew barely cared about this wondrous species then why should we the audience?

**The geologist says he likes rocks and only rocks, and if people are just going to look at aliens who could very well be the ancient species who created us, then he's just going to go back to the ship. This is one of the silliest things I think I've ever seen someone try to put into a movie.

sebster wrote:

Flashman wrote:It isn't awful and is perfectly watchable in its own way, it just isn't in the league of Alien/Aliens, hence the disappointment. You should still have a decent night out

Saw it Saturday night, and while the film had some excellent elements, overall I think it was a fairly weak film.

The strengths were definitely in the production values, the effects and sets were just fantastic, and the action scenes were all well done. And I did enjoy the ambition of the film and it's willingness to try and tie science fiction and mythology together (I absolutely loved how the opening sequence tied these two things together).

But a lot of the script really, really let this movie down. As others have noted, most characters were pretty sketchily drawn, and the second half of the movie basically collapsed into a mess of subplots that didn't really tie together*. But ultimately, the biggest problem I had with the movie was the tone of the piece. This is a film about discovering our origins, and learning about an alien civilisation, and the people discovering these things are scientists who've jetted as far as anyone's ever gone, and yet most of the crew are very, very uninterested in this ancient race. This is not only jarring because it's frankly ludicrous**, it also really hurt the central theme of the movie - the dual nature of discovery - we were supposed to get a feeling of wonder, and in turn dread... but if half the crew barely cared about this wondrous species then why should we the audience?



*Noomi Rapace assaulted a medical team, escaped quarantine, performed surgery on herself, and then rejoined the crew and no-one seemed to care about any of that one bit. They even left the squid thing alone to grow in the medical lab. Near as I could tell the doctor she assaulted was never seen again in the movie.

**The geologist says he likes rocks and only rocks, and if people are just going to look at aliens who could very well be the ancient species who created us, then he's just going to go back to the ship. This is one of the silliest things I think I've ever seen someone try to put into a movie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dogma wrote:It also explains...

Spoiler:

...why they're trying to kill us now. The first guy was an exile, and now the Jockeys are coming to kill his progeny.

That's just speculation, though.

That's what I assumed, and thought it was a pretty cool idea just left in the background of the movie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pacific wrote:What I was going to say...

Perhaps the only criticism I would have levelled at it, is that it suffers from Scott's usual problem of having films cut back drastically for the theatrical release.

Honestly I think it suffered from the same problem as most of Scott's more recent movies - he just throws more and more stuff at the screen, either visual effects, themes or character elements, and doesn't seem to make any effort to control these ideas or meld them into a greater whole. As a result most films he's made in at least the last ten years have cases where the sum of the individual parts is much greater than the movie as a whole.

sebster wrote:

dogma wrote:It also explains...

Spoiler:

...why they're trying to kill us now. The first guy was an exile, and now the Jockeys are coming to kill his progeny.

That's just speculation, though.

infinite_array wrote:Actually, I think I can answer this bit. As the crew is assembling, you get the two pilots betting on what the nature of their mission is. As it turns out, most of the crew - certainly most of the scientists, if not the Corporation employees - had no idea what they'd really signed up for. As far as they knew, it was a scientific experiment and, if what the one pilot said is to be taken as a sort of 'norm', most likely a terrforming project.

When they're told they're here to fine aliens, they're understandably skeptical. And when they find the remains of one of the Engineers, the 'tough guy' ironically chickens out. I liked that bit. He didn't sign up for finding ancient alien civilizations that may have created humans. He just wanted to check out some cool alien rocks.

Oh! And as for the squid-alien-cesarean scene (which, ok, I gagged at a little). I could have sworn I heard either David or another attendant say something along the lines of 'You should see it, it's beautiful'. Now, either he was talking about the ship (more likely) or the alien (less likely, but it would explain why they'd let it grow). It could also be reasoned that, hey, Weyland's awake, listen to him. And as the selfish corporate exec he turns out to be, his first and only thought is to get to that remaining Engineer and somehow gain immortality. Bugger the chick and her squid baby.

Crablezworth wrote:I agree with a lot of what you've said. Especially the whole assaults a medical team, performs surgery and then rejoins the crew like its all good. The sub plots just float around willy nilly and it's really hard to guage time the way its edited, it just kinda jumps around. Even though it wasn't a military mission, the lack of any sort of command or organizational structure was really hard to ignore. In most crisis situations, there's usually that point where everyone gets together and decides on a course of action and in this everyone is either indifferent or incredibly calm considering all the circumstances. I like idris elba's character but he seemed way too calm and collected and towards the end, him and the two pilots accepted death way too quickly. I have no doubt that level of heroism and selflessness exists but it rarely comes in 3's. I really really hope that there's like 40 minutes more on the dvd and it fills all those plot holes and helps flesh out characters a bit.

sebster wrote:It just felt completely false, I just kept thinking to myself 'people don't act like that'.

Ahtman wrote:That or we are a failed experiment. Just because they are more advanced doesn't mean they are perfect in everything they do. Apparently they built a weapon even they couldn't really control, after all.

1. Why did it seem like David knew way more then he should have? He just walked in and started pressing buttons like it was just a normal day. Even studying ancient languages shouldn't give that quick of an insight. He also just grabbed a bottle of goo, ran it back to the ship, and used it an another crew member like he knew what it was. It was pretty hostile to everything else that came near it so how was he able to do it without being dissolved/infected?

2. What were the Engineers running from in that 'video'?

3. So they seed the planet then come back much later when humans have evolved just to show them the way to the weapon repository? Seems a bit of a strange thing to show everyone.

4. Maybe they were trying to find a better way to reproduce? I didn't see any female Engineers, and we do share dna with them and we have females. Plus there was a lot of penis/vagina imagery/creatures/references going on throughout.

5. We know the alien at the end that pops out isn't the first because we see it plastered on the wall inside the temple/ship. Is it the first to come from an Engineer I wonder? Even if it isn't I imagine it is the first to come from a facehugger spawned by passing from a human male to a female and then being 'born'.

Part of me wishes they had left out the proto-alien at the end. It sort of felt tacked on, and to a degree I wonder if I would have liked it better if it weren't trying to also be a tie in film.

Spoiler:

Biologist tries to pet an alien species
Geologist gets lost in a cave
Captain leaves his post to have sex
Archaeologist gets pissed off and drunk after not finding exactly what he is looking for.
Not using a containment unit on an alien body until seconds before it blows up.
Not recording video feed from the two lost scientists who obviously don't get along, then wondering wth happened to them.
Infection a crewmate with a biological weapon with unknown qualities and not isolating him.

Crablezworth wrote:I think that's the exact same problem I had. I can only suspend disbelief for so long. It's not easy having a big cast of characters and only a two hour run time but they packed so many different sub plots into it and did a really bad job of making it feel coherent. I also get the feeling that ridley scott didn't fight them on the 3d and probably agreed to cut it down if he could keep the R rating (they're trusting him with 120-130$ million and he knows damn well you don't do that unless you expect big returns and big returns means sequel). Kingdom of heaven had some really badly fleshed out stuff in the theatrical release, when I had a chance to watch the directors cut it was like a totally different movie, a way better one.

n0t_u wrote:This is Biff, he stole a time travelling delorean from the 1980s just to see you?

Ahtman wrote:Just out of curiosity, anyone else see it in 3D? I thought it was well done without being overbearing, and in a few scenes was quite awesome, like when the Astro-navigational chart popped up.

kronk wrote:I saw it in 3D. The chart was bitchin', as you say.

Spoiler:

Delephont wrote:Was anyone else surprised at how....well, unsexy Charlize was? I mean, not saying she didn't come across as an attractive women....but she just didn't get my engine revving.....in fact non of the female cast did anything for me.

Now, I know this wasn't a porn flick, and it's more important you focus on the character than their looks. But considering how, well, flat the acting was in general (apart from the Android), I kinda figured they put Charlize on set to help take our minds off the (lack of) dialogue.

Added to that point, I thought the part in the end where the Captain and crew decide to commit suicide to be rather lacking, I mean, hell, you're about to kill yourself, now would be a great time to show some emotion.....I guess they make them different in that time period.

Corpsesarefun wrote:

Delephont wrote:Was anyone else surprised at how....well, unsexy Charlize was? I mean, not saying she didn't come across as an attractive women....but she just didn't get my engine revving.....in fact non of the female cast did anything for me.

Now, I know this wasn't a porn flick, and it's more important you focus on the character than their looks. But considering how, well, flat the acting was in general (apart from the Android), I kinda figured they put Charlize on set to help take our minds off the (lack of) dialogue.

Added to that point, I thought the part in the end where the Captain and crew decide to commit suicide to be rather lacking, I mean, hell, you're about to kill yourself, now would be a great time to show some emotion.....I guess they make them different in that time period.

In a weird way she reminded me greatly of my GCSE history teacher, it worked for me

Manchu wrote:Prometheus is an excellent movie. But it's not really a sci fi picture, which creates a lot of frustrated expectations. Sci fi is fundamentally about technology and a significant amount of the plot of sci fi stories revolves around exploring the interaction between human experience and that technology.

Spoiler:

The audience expects this to be the case with Prometheus. First, we have the black liquid. The opening scenes of the movie show it doing one thing; subsequent scenes show it doing other things. Thinking it's a sci fi story, the audience becomes fixating on "figuring out" the technology of the black liquid. But the liquid is not technology in the sense of sci fi; it's "technology" in the sense of myth. The black liquid is the symbol of Promethean fire. It is a force that transforms things in ways that cannot be foreseen. Who would look at a campfire made by cave men and envision a city of skyscrapers? "Big things have little beginnings."

Speaking of David, his presence makes us think the movie will be about android technology. Frustratingly, we learn nothing about that technology in the film. Even Weyland speaks of David in metaphysical rather than technological terms ("he's the closest thing I'll ever have to a son but he has no soul"). But again, this is myth rather than sci fi. David is to us what we are to the Engineers: primitive but powerful, inscrutable, and fatally dangerous. And yet also innocent, compared to us. David is the answer to Shaw's questions to the Engineer: "what did we do? why do you hate us?" This is more about Hebrew than Greek myth, however, (hence the name David): Satan told Eve "God knows well that the moment you eat of [the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge] your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods." Upon deciding to expel Adam and Eve from Paradise, God says "The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever." And that is, of course, exactly what Weyland wants.

(As a side note, David has a further significance in Christian myth. The Jews expected the messiah to descend from David; David, therefore, prefigures the awaited savior but is not the savior himself. As Shaw says at the end of the movie, "I'm a human being and you're just a robot.")

But back to the Greek myths: It is significant that Shaw, who ultimately stands for humanity, is a woman beyond simply re-treading the feminist ground that Ripley already blazed. The myth of Prometheus does not end with the titan bringing fire to men and being punished by Zeus. Men are punished, too. Zeus sends Pandora, the first woman, whose name means "all gifts," with a jar containing misery -- which she opens. So it becomes significant that the Engineers are (to our eyes at least) all males. And they're all images of classical (in the sense of Greek statuary) male perfection, at that. Shaw opens the jar and unleashes misery. But as with Pandora, there is also hope in the jar: Shaw takes a ship, presumably also laden with black liquid jars, to find the Engineer homeworld -- thereby, becoming Pandora to the Engineers (presumably, this is what the Engineers sought to avoid by wiping out humanity) but simultaneously reaffirming the hopeful human search for meaning.

In Hesiod's telling of the Prometheus myth, Zeus has not only withheld fire itself but in so doing has "hidden from men the means of life." This is somewhat strange because we know that men are already alive, even seemingly in the absence of women. Hesiod is not talking about procreation but about knowledge (similar, again, to the Hebrew myth). With this fire of myth, "you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste." In other words, men would obtain industry -- which is indeed exactly what the mastery of fire accomplished.

One of the most notable aesthetic aspects of the Aliens franchise is "biomechanical" design. This is explained in Prometheus by conflating Hesiod's phrase "the means of life." Shaw, who is barren, becomes impregnated thanks to the Promethean fire. She therefore becomes a Pandora to herself and her own body is the jar of misery. (It is significant that David removes her cross before she performs the C-section on herself: not only is Shaw going to experience a sore test of faith but later we will find that what remains in "Pandoran jar" of her body is hope -- symbolized by her putting the cross back on.) The black liquid, the Promethean fire, has given her "the means of life" (contrast this with Weyland, who has failed to understand that life is a matter of siring offspring), and she delivers the jurassic facehugger and, eventually, the unity of mechanical and biological, the proto-xenomorph.

So the movie is actually quite good if you get over trying to figure everything out as mere technology in the sense of a kind of coherent schematic. Even the most distressing thing, the numerous bad decisions of the crew (who, one would think, would be very well trained and skilled) makes more sense once it's situated as the work of "mortals" in the mythical sense rather than ultra-competent technicians in the sense of the imminently rational and imperialistic science.

Delephont wrote:Was anyone else surprised at how....well, unsexy Charlize was? I mean, not saying she didn't come across as an attractive women....but she just didn't get my engine revving.....in fact non of the female cast did anything for me.

CT GAMER wrote:

Manchu wrote:Prometheus is an excellent movie. But it's not really a sci fi picture, which creates a lot of frustrated expectations. Sci fi is fundamentally about technology and a significant amount of the plot of sci fi stories revolves around exploring the interaction between human experience and that technology.

Spoiler:

The audience expects this to be the case with Prometheus. First, we have the black liquid. The opening scenes of the movie show it doing one thing; subsequent scenes show it doing other things. Thinking it's a sci fi story, the audience becomes fixating on "figuring out" the technology of the black liquid. But the liquid is not technology in the sense of sci fi; it's "technology" in the sense of myth. The black liquid is the symbol of Promethean fire. It is a force that transforms things in ways that cannot be foreseen. Who would look at a campfire made by cave men and envision a city of skyscrapers? "Big things have little beginnings."

Speaking of David, his presence makes us think the movie will be about android technology. Frustratingly, we learn nothing about that technology in the film. Even Weyland speaks of David in metaphysical rather than technological terms ("he's the closest thing I'll ever have to a son but he has no soul"). But again, this is myth rather than sci fi. David is to us what we are to the Engineers: primitive but powerful, inscrutable, and fatally dangerous. And yet also innocent, compared to us. David is the answer to Shaw's questions to the Engineer: "what did we do? why do you hate us?" This is more about Hebrew than Greek myth, however, (hence the name David): Satan told Eve "God knows well that the moment you eat of [the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge] your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods." Upon deciding to expel Adam and Eve from Paradise, God says "The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever." And that is, of course, exactly what Weyland wants.

(As a side note, David has a further significance in Christian myth. The Jews expected the messiah to descend from David; David, therefore, prefigures the awaited savior but is not the savior himself. As Shaw says at the end of the movie, "I'm a human being and you're just a robot.")

But back to the Greek myths: It is significant that Shaw, who ultimately stands for humanity, is a woman beyond simply re-treading the feminist ground that Ripley already blazed. The myth of Prometheus does not end with the titan bringing fire to men and being punished by Zeus. Men are punished, too. Zeus sends Pandora, the first woman, whose name means "all gifts," with a jar containing misery -- which she opens. So it becomes significant that the Engineers are (to our eyes at least) all males. And they're all images of classical (in the sense of Greek statuary) male perfection, at that. Shaw opens the jar and unleashes misery. But as with Pandora, there is also hope in the jar: Shaw takes a ship, presumably also laden with black liquid jars, to find the Engineer homeworld -- thereby, becoming Pandora to the Engineers (presumably, this is what the Engineers sought to avoid by wiping out humanity) but simultaneously reaffirming the hopeful human search for meaning.

In Hesiod's telling of the Prometheus myth, Zeus has not only withheld fire itself but in so doing has "hidden from men the means of life." This is somewhat strange because we know that men are already alive, even seemingly in the absence of women. Hesiod is not talking about procreation but about knowledge (similar, again, to the Hebrew myth). With this fire of myth, "you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste." In other words, men would obtain industry -- which is indeed exactly what the mastery of fire accomplished.

One of the most notable aesthetic aspects of the Aliens franchise is "biomechanical" design. This is explained in Prometheus by conflating Hesiod's phrase "the means of life." Shaw, who is barren, becomes impregnated thanks to the Promethean fire. She therefore becomes a Pandora to herself and her own body is the jar of misery. (It is significant that David removes her cross before she performs the C-section on herself: not only is Shaw going to experience a sore test of faith but later we will find that what remains in "Pandoran jar" of her body is hope -- symbolized by her putting the cross back on.) The black liquid, the Promethean fire, has given her "the means of life" (contrast this with Weyland, who has failed to understand that life is a matter of siring offspring), and she delivers the jurassic facehugger and, eventually, the unity of mechanical and biological, the proto-xenomorph.

So the movie is actually quite good if you get over trying to figure everything out as mere technology in the sense of a kind of coherent schematic. Even the most distressing thing, the numerous bad decisions of the crew (who, one would think, would be very well trained and skilled) makes more sense once it's situated as the work of "mortals" in the mythical sense rather than ultra-competent technicians in the sense of the imminently rational and imperialistic science.

I think this movie indeed hoped to be all these things, but it even failed at this, becaue the messgae was lost in the bad acting/character development/plot holes and cliched tropes.

It could have been so much more...

Jihadnik wrote:space jesus

Manchu wrote:So the movie is actually quite good if you get over trying to figure everything out as mere technology in the sense of a kind of coherent schematic. Even the most distressing thing, the numerous bad decisions of the crew (who, one would think, would be very well trained and skilled) makes more sense once it's situated as the work of "mortals" in the mythical sense rather than ultra-competent technicians in the sense of the imminently rational and imperialistic science.

Ahtman wrote:Just out of curiosity, anyone else see it in 3D? I thought it was well done without being overbearing, and in a few scenes was quite awesome, like when the Astro-navigational chart popped up.

Jihadnik wrote:...space jesus?

sebster wrote:Good productions will set their plays in environments where strict social heirarchies still exist, like highschools, or crime families, or they'll tweak the behaviour of characters just enough so they fit the modern setting, while still remaining true to the original concept.

Manchu wrote:The film wasn't 10/10 but it's a heck of a lot better than a lot of people here are saying (I'd give somewhere around a 7 or 8/10).

As for the "plot holes," it seems to me that people are trying to look at this film like it's non-fiction rather than a myth. Anyone who doesn't get that this film is a mythological story (hint: it's called Prometheus) and is fooled by the Fox marketing hype directing you to expect Alien 0 (hint: Sir Ridley said about a billion times it would not be that) will find it hard if not impossible to enjoy the film. Taking it for what it is and trying to understand it, however, reveals that the movie is actually very fulfilling at the conceptual level and I think we'll only need a few changes to make (all of) its characters really shine, too.

LordofHats wrote:Now now Ahtman.

Spoiler:

Not only did someone get lost in a cave, they got lost in a cave while having access to advanced mapping technology. That's a royal screw up.

Manchu wrote:The film wasn't 10/10 but it's a heck of a lot better than a lot of people here are saying (I'd give somewhere around a 7 or 8/10). The idea that the film was filled with bad or boring acting is just absurd.

dogma wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Now now Ahtman.

Spoiler:

Not only did someone get lost in a cave, they got lost in a cave while having access to advanced mapping technology. That's a royal screw up.

Ever seen someone get lost with GPS?

sebster wrote:It kept my interest throughout, and should be admired for its ambition, but it needs to be recognised that it ultimately failed to live up to its own ambitions.

CT GAMER wrote:I think as sci-fi fans we are too quick to make excuses for movie's like this because we so desperately want it to be good.

dogma wrote:Ever seen someone get lost with GPS?

LordofHats wrote:
Come now Dogma, is that really an excuse

Manchu wrote:I disagree based on the film being very clear about its own ambitions or rather intentions as something pretty different from the expectations of a certain audience segment. I also think the proper attitude of criticism is to ask "what is the point of X?" rather than a justification of the assumption that "X is pointless." So instead of insisting that the movie should have been about a crew of competent professionals, we should instead realize that the characters are primarily "mere mortals" who stand for the concerns, anxieties, desires, etc, of "mere mortals."

Alien was a much tighter story, even disregarding its "halo" as foundational to the genre establishment, but it's also a much less meaningful story.

A myth on the other hand is an appeal to an image to communicate the ambiguity surrounding an important experience or phenomenon. The Greek myth of Prometheus, for example, does not answer for us the question of whether the titan was right or wrong to give humans fire. That is for us to ponder and its "ponderability" is what makes it relevant despite being ancient.

I'm not attempting to excuse its faults but just looking for plausible explanations of why aspects we might consider to be faults were left in the release version by thoughtful, intelligent folks like Scott and Lindelhof. Generally, I think that if you are going to have your characters make bad decisions then you need to give them good reasons to do so. At first, it seems that Scott and Lindelhof are not giving the Prometheus crew good reasons to make their interminable bad decisions. It's especially hard to get outside of that viewpoint if we insist that these people should be ideal versions of us (a lot of people have said they lack even "common sense"), doing "what we would do." A key example:

Spoiler:

The thing that the biologist Milbrun is trying to pet has its closest visual Earth analog in a king cobra. No (sane) biologist would attempt to pet a threatened king cobra. If this was supposed to be a literal portrayal of a biologist then the scene just fails. I think the scene is actually a parody of modern attitudes about science. Milburn represents the blithe arrogance of man armed with materialism. Fifield represents the fear that science allows us to know "too much." Nature, the object of the lens of scientific scrutiny, is apprehended by men through that lens as variously beautiful and terrifying. The debate obscures reality and tragedy ensues in the meantime. The scene is even self-consciously comedic, as I recall, up until Milburn's arm snaps.

In that scene you can see that the characters might not be discrete human beings so much as symbols for certain ideas. When individuals are made to stand in for ideas, the individuals act as irrational as the ideas themselves. We find this sort of thing going on in mythology all the time. We didn't find it in Alien or Bladerunner, however, and I don't think people are really used to dealing with mythology in the cinema (or really even in literature, apart from poetic metaphors -- and this film is not a metaphor but rather the thing itself).

Corpsesarefun wrote:Manchu, really liked the film for it's mythical doodads and sebster thought the film was OK as it had promise but that didn't make it up for it no being a good film.

That is the entirety of the last 2 pages, can we go home now?

Tauzor wrote:Give a few years and people will see it for the masterpiece it truly is.

Delephont wrote:I like Manchu's thinking on the film.....but....that's great if it was made by the BBC for an Open University (made for Sunday morning 2:00am) T.V audience.

This was a film that was aimed at the masses, that's everyone from Phd students to football hooligans......in which case, it would be a fail.

I'm not sure that I agree with the sentiment that this wasn't about the Alien....no matter what Ridley Scott says. Can you imagine the response if someone made a film based in the Marvel Universe, but there were no Marvel super heros in it......that would be...what? pointless.

Corpsesarefun wrote:That is the entirety of the last 2 pages, can we go home now?

Delephont wrote:I'm not sure that I agree with the sentiment that this wasn't about the Alien....no matter what Ridley Scott says.

Manchu wrote:

Corpsesarefun wrote:That is the entirety of the last 2 pages, can we go home now?

You've hated it for 5 pages. By all means, go home.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Delephont wrote:I'm not sure that I agree with the sentiment that this wasn't about the Alien....no matter what Ridley Scott says.

Well, you saw the movie. You know that it's not about the xenomorph. Unless I am misunderstanding your point?

Mr Hyena wrote:The Alien isn't needed.

Corpsesarefun wrote:However when a thread devolves into two diametrically opposed posters repeating the same rhetoric for two pages they are normally locked

Alien is a great film and all but it has almost no thematic content.

Manchu wrote:

Delephont wrote:I'm not sure that I agree with the sentiment that this wasn't about the Alien....no matter what Ridley Scott says.

Well, you saw the movie. You know that it's not about the xenomorph. Unless I am misunderstanding your point?

Sebster wrote:That is, if I'm sitting in the audience thinking 'that's silly, no human, let alone a biologist would ever act like that, especially one that voluntarily walked away from a dead alien in the last scene' then I'm not going to feel that modern science has been parodied at all.

Shredsmore wrote:1. The Phantom Menace is the best Star Wars.
2. The only really outstanding movie in the "Alien" series is Aliens
3. It's a shame that this movie didn't live up to expectations, as I was wanting to see it.

LordofHats wrote:Well, thematically I've read the film is about femininity and male rape, but that's kind of a creepy theme (the rape part not the feminine part).

LordofHats wrote:They marketed and even presented the film in the same style as Alien.

Delephont wrote:I guess what I was trying to say is that perhaps the movie was a bit of misleading in the marketing of this movie, and even though R. Scott maintains that it's not about the Alien, that was always going to be the main draw for any audience, and those guys knew it!

Manchu wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Well, thematically I've read the film is about femininity and male rape, but that's kind of a creepy theme (the rape part not the feminine part).

Assuming that rape is the theme of the movie (I don't think it is), what does the film tell us about rape? That it's scary? (BTW, Ripley was not even written as a woman.)

A Town Called Malus wrote:Ridley Scott said that a main theme of Alien was the male fear of giving birth, something as alien to a man as the xenomorph itself.

Manchu wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Ridley Scott said that a main theme of Alien was the male fear of giving birth, something as alien to a man as the xenomorph itself.

Even then, what does the movie tell us about that fear? That it's scary? This is why Alien is just a horror film. A good one, a tightly written one, a visually interesting one, but not a very meaningful film. And not even scary anymore. What people like about Alien these days is the world it occurs in rather than the horror.

A Town Called Malus wrote:It uses the alien to reveal to the audience an unspoken fear, a fear which is written in people's very genes.

A Town Called Malus wrote:Ripley, the woman who has already faced the fear of giving birth when she had her daughter.

Mr Hyena wrote:He is correcting the mistake he made in Alien: Introducing and then immediately ignoring the Pilot. With the Xenomorph spent now...its time to explore the Space Jockies. The Alien isn't needed.

Manchu wrote:Devolves? Devolved from one-liners like "more plothole than plot"? This is a discussion forum, not facebook. Sebster and I may not disagree but at least we give reasons. As it turns out, I'm interested in his view and if you read carefully, you'll see me concede points to him and vice versa so there isn't even a "lock".

Manchu wrote:So you have some characterization that explains these things. It's not perfect but it's not as simple as the scene making no sense whatsoever. And when the characters are looked at as kids or, as I put it earlier, "mere mortals" in the mythic sense, you can start to see that their actions have mythic, symbolic dimensions rather than just the literalism of something like Alien. In Alien, Ripley is the XO, simple as that, not a symbol for anything (unless you count her being a POV character as symbolic of the audience). This is not true at all for the crew of the Prometheus, who are all doing more for the story than just being scientists and pilots and mercenaries and robots, etc.

Ahtman wrote:
** What did David say to the Engineer?

Ahtman wrote:
** What did David say to the Engineer?

dogma wrote:

Ahtman wrote:
** What did David say to the Engineer?

Michael Bay is attached to direct the sequel.

Bromsy wrote:
No, he's too busy filming his TMNT movie...

Bromsy wrote:...and Dinoriders...

dogma wrote:Best show ever, only Centurions approaches it.

He is correcting the mistake he made in Alien: Introducing and then immediately ignoring the Pilot. With the Xenomorph spent now...its time to explore the Space Jockies. The Alien isn't needed.

Ahtman wrote:

dogma wrote:Best show ever, only Centurions approaches it.

dogma wrote:You watched it on broadcast, didn't you?

Ahtman wrote:Here is another interesting and probably totally bogus theory but it amused me so I will share it.

The Engineers are basically David. Some other alien lifeform created them. They are very old biological machines that have no way of reproducing. A single engineer, or possibly a group fo them, tries to find a way to reproduce and we are the end result. We share much in common with Engineers but can make new people naturally. Some may not have liked this and so were planning on destroying us, considering a male/female version of themselves as perversions.

sebster wrote: It taught me to not go watching my beloved children's shows, because the reality is very likely to crush my happy nostalgia.

Ahtman wrote:I learned that lesson with Voltron.

Kaldor wrote:It seems a lot of people's ire stems from the fact they wanted everything spelled out for them and all their questions answered. How boring.

sebster wrote:
I should have learned that lesson with Voltron.

Kaldor wrote:It seems a lot of people's ire stems from the fact they wanted well rounded characters, who they can feel connected with, and whose actions are believable.

dogma wrote:Well Aus is always behind.

Also, you're both old.

dæl wrote:

Kaldor wrote:It seems a lot of people's ire stems from the fact they wanted well rounded characters, who they can feel connected with, and whose actions are believable.

FTFY

Kaldor wrote:

dæl wrote:

Kaldor wrote:It seems a lot of people's ire stems from the fact they wanted well rounded characters, who they can feel connected with, and whose actions are believable.

FTFY

Some of us aren't so emotionally needy that we need to 'connect' with the characters in order to enjoy the story

dæl wrote:So, first of all you claim people boring because of some imagined slight, then, when corrected on what a lot of people's problem was, you claim them emotionally needy because they want believable characters acting in believable ways to maintain a suspension of disbelief.

Now of course it is sci-fi and deals in symbolism, but the best of it's genre acts as a mirror to ourselves, this failed at that. It was by a country mile the most badly written character I've ever seen Idris Elba play, and the captain was one of the better characters.

Kaldor wrote:

dæl wrote:So, first of all you claim people boring because of some imagined slight, then, when corrected on what a lot of people's problem was, you claim them emotionally needy because they want believable characters acting in believable ways to maintain a suspension of disbelief.

Take it easy sweetheart. Did I touch a nerve?

Now of course it is sci-fi and deals in symbolism, but the best of it's genre acts as a mirror to ourselves, this failed at that. It was by a country mile the most badly written character I've ever seen Idris Elba play, and the captain was one of the better characters.

The characters were scared, stupid, shortsighted, selfish and egotistic. This is an excellent mirror for humanity.

dæl wrote: The characters were stupid, like really stupid, and this is supposed to be the team put together to investigate the most important discovery in human history. They were not characters, they were caricatures, if this is your experience with humanity you have my sympathies.

sebster wrote:

Ahtman wrote:The Engineers are basically David.

That's a really cool idea.

Kaldor wrote:I cant help it if some people need to feel attached to a character in order to enjoy a movie. Maybe those people would be happier watching twilight.

Kaldor wrote:

dæl wrote: The characters were stupid, like really stupid, and this is supposed to be the team put together to investigate the most important discovery in human history. They were not characters, they were caricatures, if this is your experience with humanity you have my sympathies.

No, the characters were human. Humans often act stupidly or irrationally. They were an excellent mirror for humanity as a whole.

kronk wrote:Had the corporate chick been given 100% control, some decisions would not have been made, but then the movie wouldn't have been what it was.

Manchu wrote:The audience's response to this blasphemy is to attack their very validity: the are "undeveloped characters" portrayed with "bad acting" and are "not relatable." I mean, who wants to relate to a flawed human being who makes seriously bad decisions seemingly all the time? Bit too close to home, I suspect..

sebster wrote:
So very old. I don't even know what Herculoids is.

Manchu wrote:Can you give me an example of a character being underdeveloped?

dæl wrote:

Manchu wrote:Can you give me an example of a character being underdeveloped?

Y'man that gets whatshername pregnant, he's an archaeologist who would be used to uncovering truths bit by bit and has come there after years of optimism and probably scepticism from his fellow professionals and yet after looking in one room which he doesn't even study to see if there are clues leading elsewhere (another star chart, or another structure on the same planet for example) or waiting to see the structure mapped out and scanned for life decides that all is lost and he's wasted his time.

in fact the only character that really had depth was David with his Machiavellian manipulation of the situation, and he was the most inhuman. As has been mentioned maybe the full cut will give some of the characters the depth they lack, but this cut feels forced.

Kaldor wrote:People who want to see the story of a plucky young scientist overcoming his history to 'find himself', people who want a character they can 'identify' with, are going to be bored and confused by the characters in this movie.

Thankfully, those people are stupid, so we shouldn't concern ourselves with what they think.

Kaldor wrote:

dæl wrote:

Manchu wrote:Can you give me an example of a character being underdeveloped?

Y'man that gets whatshername pregnant, he's an archaeologist who would be used to uncovering truths bit by bit and has come there after years of optimism and probably scepticism from his fellow professionals and yet after looking in one room which he doesn't even study to see if there are clues leading elsewhere (another star chart, or another structure on the same planet for example) or waiting to see the structure mapped out and scanned for life decides that all is lost and he's wasted his time.

Have you never heard of anyone having a dummy spit? Jesus, I mean, this guy has spent his entire life holding onto the belief that he'll get to meet these aliens and all he finds is a tomb? No wonder he has a bad day and hits the bottle. It happens to the best of us. If anything this indicates he is a multi-facted, fallible and human character.

in fact the only character that really had depth was David with his Machiavellian manipulation of the situation, and he was the most inhuman. As has been mentioned maybe the full cut will give some of the characters the depth they lack, but this cut feels forced.

dæl wrote:Once again, anyone who doesn't have the same opinion as me is stupid.

I wanted a good film, a piece of art that stands on its own merit, this failed, it wasn't in the same league as Blade Runner or the original Alien, and it makes me very wary of the new blade runner being made.

So he goes into the first room of the first structure they stumble across on a vast planet and thinks this is all that is left of an entire civilisation that was powerful enough to create the human race. Doesn't make sense, feels forced, not the natural behaviour of someone who will have dealt with massive scepticism trying to find funding for the mission.

And the point of quoting this was...

Kaldor wrote:

dæl wrote:Once again, anyone who doesn't have the same opinion as me is stupid.

Yes.

I wanted a good film, a piece of art that stands on its own merit, this failed, it wasn't in the same league as Blade Runner or the original Alien, and it makes me very wary of the new blade runner being made.

I disagree.

So he goes into the first room of the first structure they stumble across on a vast planet and thinks this is all that is left of an entire civilisation that was powerful enough to create the human race. Doesn't make sense, feels forced, not the natural behaviour of someone who will have dealt with massive scepticism trying to find funding for the mission.

Nope. It's an accurate representation of someone being presented with a huge disappointment.

And the point of quoting this was...

Formatting error.

dæl wrote:The characters didn't feel like people, they felt like devices to move the plot along,

LordofHats wrote:
Good luck trying to convince anyone who doesn't care about that sort of thing though

LordofHats wrote:Here's a lesson about artists. Most of them don't know anymore about art than the typical member of the audience.

I wrote a short story once for a fiction class. I mostly just threw the plot together cause I didn't care about it. I wanted feedback mostly on my writing style cause that's the part of writing I've always been unconfident with. The peer reviews however turned up mountains (not an exaggeration) of symbolism in the plot I didn't even intend to be there. I didn't even see it until it was pointed out to me.

Most symbolism is imaginary on the audiences part. Now, maybe that's part of art, maybe its not, but no one should ever pretend artists have great insight by nature. Many of them just don't and lots of it is not intentional.

LordofHats wrote:Here's a lesson about artists. Most of them don't know anymore about art than the typical member of the audience.

I wrote a short story once for a fiction class. I mostly just threw the plot together cause I didn't care about it. I wanted feedback mostly on my writing style cause that's the part of writing I've always been unconfident with. The peer reviews however turned up mountains (not an exaggeration) of symbolism in the plot I didn't even intend to be there. I didn't even see it until it was pointed out to me.

Most symbolism is imaginary on the audiences part. Now, maybe that's part of art, maybe its not, but no one should ever pretend artists have great insight by nature. Many of them just don't and lots of it is not intentional.

dæl wrote:Unless there is some sort of character flaw people who have given their life to a work tend to be in the "no, keep looking, it will be there" mindset.

Ahtman wrote:The audience, of course, represents a penis.

I think you will find that there is quite a lot of character development.

LordofHats wrote:

I think you will find that there is quite a lot of character development.

There really isn't.

Manchu wrote:

Strangely enough, it is David who is underdeveloped and almost undeveloped. We know basically nothing about him. We aren't even sure if he likes Lawrence of Arabia or if he was programmed to (clearly, his programmer is a big fan of the movie). I say this is strange, because you and others who think the film has problems with character development often cite him as the exception.

Ahtman wrote:For a smart guy to pretend two non-scientists flirting with each other is a technical conversation that requires absolute scientific rigor is, frankly, pretty dense and silly.

Manchu wrote:There really is. You even cited some of it in your bizzare argument for its non-existence. Maybe it's a confusion of terms? When we throw around the term "character development" we are actually talking about characterization, i.e., conveying information about characters. Calling a character "underdeveloped" simply means that we don't know enough about a character in order to understand their role in the story. Not all "developed" characters need to go through dramatic changes. But even if that were the case, Holloway would still qualify as we see him go through several crises. Indeed, by asking Vickers to take him out, we can tell that Holloway has "grown up" quite a bit (it was a painful but clearly necessary decision; his first and last good one in the movie, too).

Strangely enough, it is David who is underdeveloped and almost undeveloped. We know basically nothing about him. We aren't even sure if he likes Lawrence of Arabia or if he was programmed to (clearly, his programmer is a big fan of the movie). I say this is strange, because you and others who think the film has problems with character development often cite him as the exception.

Manchu wrote:Prometheus invites you to interpret rather than commands you to react.

Manchu wrote:

LordofHats wrote:

I think you will find that there is quite a lot of character development.

There really isn't.

There really is. You even cited some of it in your bizzare argument for its non-existence. Maybe it's a confusion of terms? When we throw around the term "character development" we are actually talking about characterization, i.e., conveying information about characters. Calling a character "underdeveloped" simply means that we don't know enough about a character in order to understand their role in the story. Not all "developed" characters need to go through dramatic changes. But even if that were the case, Holloway would still qualify as we see him go through several crises. Indeed, by asking Vickers to take him out, we can tell that Holloway has "grown up" quite a bit (it was a painful but clearly necessary decision; his first and last good one in the movie, too).

Strangely enough, it is David who is underdeveloped and almost undeveloped. We know basically nothing about him. We aren't even sure if he likes Lawrence of Arabia or if he was programmed to (clearly, his programmer is a big fan of the movie). I say this is strange, because you and others who think the film has problems with character development often cite him as the exception.

Character development may refer to:
The change in characterisation of a dynamic character, who changes over the course of a narrative.

Corpsesarefun wrote:You keep using that term. i do not think it means what you think it means.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_development

Character development may refer to:
The change in characterisation of a dynamic character, who changes over the course of a narrative.

Wikipedia also wrote:Character development

A well-developed character is one that has been thoroughly characterised, with many traits shown in the narrative. A well-developed character acts according to past instances provided by its visible traits unless more information about the character is provided. The better the audience knows the character, the better the character development.

Manchu wrote:Now you're using a new word, "engaging," and you seem to contrast it against characters just being plot devices.

First, all characters are plot devices first and foremost. Characters are elements in a story that help drive plot and drama.

Also, could please list some things that we learn about David in the film?

A well-developed character is one that has been thoroughly characterised, with many traits shown in the narrative. A well-developed character acts according to past instances provided by its visible traits unless more information about the character is provided. The better the audience knows the character, the better the character development.

LordofHats wrote:Because good characters tend to be engaging for the audience to watch, read about, etc.

No. That's bad writing. Real people do not exist in the immediate moment. They have history, future hopes, etc etc all that good stuff. Character's who are well written and engaging, exist beyond the plot. They are in the plot, are driven by it or drive it, but they don't exist solely for the plot's convenience. The characters of Prometheus do not exist beyond the immediate needs of the plot, so its a double whammy. They do what the plot needs them to do, and nothing else. They are not their own entities within the plot. Hence, poorly written, boring, and unengaging.

LordofHats wrote:Because good characters tend to be engaging for the audience to watch, read about, etc.

This is of course now debating literary theory, which no one will ever agree on.

Also, could please list some things that we learn about David in the film?

Its mostly the actor (imo). The way David is played, there's this undercurrent of hostility (especially notable with Charlie). He's very passive aggressive. Since he's also related to major plot points, the context of his exact behavior constantly changes, but that's partially why I say he develops. Trying to figure out David's motives is engaging for the audience because they constantly need to watch to even attempt to understand.

Charlie doesn't fit this in the slightest. He's the exact opposite. He displays extremely erratic behavior (from rash and excited, to arrogant and brooding, to self sacrificing) with no real explanation at all for why he behaves the way he does.

LordofHats wrote:Real people do not exist in the immediate moment.

Ahtman wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Real people do not exist in the immediate moment.

That is the only place real people exist.

Kovnik Obama wrote:Learn2Husserl

Kaldor wrote:Define 'engaging'

lol, you've got the cart in front of the horse here. If the history, future hopes and 'all that good stuff' do not serve a purpose in the story, then what purpose do they serve?

Manchu wrote:That's the same as saying "good characters are good" but changing one of the "goods" in that sentence to "engaging."

It's not actually a matter of opinion.

Saying a plot-driven story is not good because it's not a character-driven story is a bad argument. Preference is not the same thing as criticism.

That is not the same as knowing things about him. Wasn't it you who just criticized people for reading things into the character?

This does not express an accurate account of the film.

LordofHats wrote:

Manchu wrote:That's the same as saying "good characters are good" but changing one of the "goods" in that sentence to "engaging."

No. Engaging characters keep an audiences interest through action and their development through a story. A character who does not develop does not engage the audience because they appear to just be going through the motions (which most characters in Prometheus do).

Most academics consider plot-driven stories to be bad stories.

Charlie has a very erratic character, and his erraticism is never explained in any manner. Baffling in the same way David's is, but without the actor giving any sense of depth to a rather depthless character.

Manchu wrote:That's much more clear. A "good" character is one that interests LoH. If Manchu is interested but LoH is not, the character is still not "engaging."

LordofHats wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Define 'engaging'

I would think that's a word that doesn't need to be defined.

They serve to make the character real (and typically explain actions and behaviors).

LordofHats wrote:

Manchu wrote:That's much more clear. A "good" character is one that interests LoH. If Manchu is interested but LoH is not, the character is still not "engaging."

If that's the way you want to look at it then more power to you.

Manchu wrote:

LordofHats wrote:

Manchu wrote:That's much more clear. A "good" character is one that interests LoH. If Manchu is interested but LoH is not, the character is still not "engaging."

If that's the way you want to look at it then more power to you.

That doesn't even make any sense.

Manchu wrote:You defined "engaging" as "interesting" in response to me objecting to your previous definition (of "engaging" as "good") as being a tautology. I haven't just dismissed your point as a whim. I addressed it as another bad argument.

Manchu wrote:This all goes back to you saying that "character development" is about characters being "engaging."

You refuse to answer the question, "what makes something engaging?"

When I asked you to do it, you said that we know a character is engaging because the audience is interested in them. Being interesting means exactly the same thing as being engaging, hence a tautology. And the question remains: what makes a character "engaging" or "interesting"?

He wrote Works and Days nearly three millennia ago, so he must have had some engaging characters given that we're still talking about it. And if you can tell me what is engaging about Hesiod's Prometheus, maybe we can see if that same characteristic applies to and of Sir Ridley's characters.

LordofHats wrote:Prometheus survives because he is 'novel' and engrained into popular culture. He doesn't have to be engaging.

There is nothing remotely novel about the movie Prometheus.

Manchu wrote:"Character development is what makes a character engaging."

Okay, we're back to character development.

Spoiler:

(1) We are introduced to Halloway on an expedition where, in contrast to Shaw, he is not the one working to make the big discovery.

Shaw and Halloway are after virtually the same thing. There is no contrast.

(2) Halloway and Shaw give their presentation. Halloway is unexpectedly contradicted by Shaw. It seems that he has a more superficial understanding of their work than Shaw.

(3) But we know that he is passionate. He demands to go to the structure as soon as the ship lands. We realize that he is not very cautious.

He just travel light years to find aliens. We already know hes passionate.

(4) He is also condescending to David. He seems to get along okay with everyone else.

Which is strangely odd given his enthusiasm and optimistic demeanor. Why he dislike's David is unclear, and really only seems to be there for the sake of being there, or dare I say, make us sympathize with David poisoning him and hate David a little less when he does? Damn Holloway sure makes things convinient.

(5) In the structure, Shaw takes a big risk by taking his helmet off while everyone else sensibly objects. Again, not very cautious and contrary to Shaw's more professional approach. (She later informs him that they have changed the atmosphere in the main chamber, too)

(6) Halloway throws himself into the storm to save Shaw, obviously with no clear plan as to how he will do it. Again, he's not a cautious person. This is contrasted to David, who has ropes attached to him and ends up saving them both. Shaw thanks David. Halloway does not.

(7) Back on the ship, Halloway is so despondent about the discovery ("this is just another tomb") that he is not even examining the Engineer head. This is just like him not being the person making the discovery in the cave at the beginning. And again the person who is doing the work is Shaw.

This behavior is radically erratic. The man believes we were created by aliens, travels light years to a planet on a ship funded by a billionaire, and just because the first site show'd no results, he collapses into self introspection and depression? The man was widly enthusiatic just before this, and he's an archeologist! Finding 'nothing' on the first try is standard procedure. He collapses into depression for no real reason. Its not a believable behavior.

(8) David asks Holloway what he would do to make his discoveries. Holloway, who is not a cautious person, says "anything and everything." David gives him the tainted glass and Halloway become infected.

That scene says a lot more about David than Halloway. Hell it seems to contradict Holloway, who has for no substantial reason, just given up, when he claims he'd do anything and everything.

(9) In their quarters, Halloway insensitively talks about his disappointment, making Shaw cry about being barren. Once again, he is a thoughtless person but he is passionate. He tries to comfort her and they have sex.

(10) Holloway hides not feeling well despite seeing the weird thing in his eye. Here he is being consistently incautious yet again.

(11) Everything goes to gak, including Holloway getting extremely and terrifyingly sick. We see him go from being self-deceptive about not being sick to insisting that Shaw tell him what he really looks like and how bad it really is. In the face of death, he is having to come to terms with the consequences of his actions.

(12) The party gets back to the ship and Vickers insists Holloway cannot come in. Shaw gets angry but Holloway realizes that his lack of cautious has led to all of this. Shaw says she won't leave him so he sacrifices himself so that the other can be safe from whatever is wrong with him.

Holloway doesn't clearly realize anything. He just goes up and says 'do it.'

So there you have it: a complete character arc that plays exposition and consistency off of dynamic crisis to a resolution of personal growth.

LordofHats wrote:

Okay, we're back to character development.

No, I never started there. That might be where the conversation began, but its not where my train of thought for what makes good character began.

By all means, give a coherent account of your position.

Manchu wrote:He completely changes as a person, which development costs him his life, all of which is a significant component of the overall theme of the movie. That is the opposite of "cannon fodder."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordofHats wrote:

Okay, we're back to character development.

No, I never started there. That might be where the conversation began, but its not where my train of thought for what makes good character began.

By all means, give a coherent account of your position.

LordofHats wrote:If you want to read in the change, go for it, but nothing directly from the film supports an resolution of any personal growth, because he doesn't really grow at all.

I have. Thrice in fact. Unfortunately, you keep demanding I give one.

Manchu wrote:- Man begins with devil-may-care passion.
- Man ends allowing someone else to end his existence because it's better to be safe than sorry.
- LoH tells me man did not change.

So, again, by all means post a coherent statement of your position.

LordofHats wrote:You speak of some revelation he apparently had that must have been off screen.

I'm afraid the 'please explain it to me again' retort is unbeatable, and I choose to withdraw rather than continue to waste my time.

Manchu wrote:- Going into the structure on trip 2, he pretends to himself and others that he is okay, disregarding everyone's safety

I am not asking for it again because I don't believe your assertion that you have done it yet.

LordofHats wrote:The guys probably scared, or in denial. Hardly irregualr behavior for any human being. If anything, his constant back and forth between disregard and regard is only evidence of his inconsistency. He cares when Shaw gets tossed in the storm, doesn't care right before trip 2, and then goes back to caring?

Manchu wrote:

Ahtman wrote:The audience, of course, represents a penis.

In some cases, I would agree.

dogma wrote:

Manchu wrote:

Ahtman wrote:The audience, of course, represents a penis.

In some cases, I would agree.

Wrong kind of theatre.

Bromsy wrote:I guess I just get tired of movies that hinge on the fact that none of the characters have ever seen a movie of that genre.

LordofHats wrote: No. His 'resolution' is to be the plots canon fodder. Everything he does and says is done with the sole purpose of advancing the plot.

dogma wrote:Ever seen Funny Games?

Kaldor wrote:I cant help it if some people need to feel attached to a character in order to enjoy a movie. Maybe those people would be happier watching twilight.

Manchu wrote:I think one of the good things about the film is that you can argue it both ways. The characters make extremely bad decisions. That is indeed what we find people doing all the time. But we expect scientists aboard fancy pants spaceships to be the best and brightest (thanks, Star Trek) so it really irks us that these people are so "dumb." To me, this shows us that the story of "great scientists saving us with technology" is very important to us in 2012, almost religiously so. The notion that these scientists could be overcome by fear, greed, wonder, etc, and lose control of the situation strikes us as blasphemous. The audience's response to this blasphemy is to attack their very validity: the are "undeveloped characters" portrayed with "bad acting" and are "not relatable."

Kaldor wrote:Have you never heard of anyone having a dummy spit? Jesus, I mean, this guy has spent his entire life holding onto the belief that he'll get to meet these aliens and all he finds is a tomb? No wonder he has a bad day and hits the bottle. It happens to the best of us. If anything this indicates he is a multi-facted, fallible and human character.

Ahtman wrote:The audience, of course, represents a penis.

LordofHats wrote:Prometheus is typical of the modern Hollywood block buster (and most modern media in general actually). All flare no substance.

sebster wrote:

Kaldor wrote:I cant help it if some people need to feel attached to a character in order to enjoy a movie. Maybe those people would be happier watching twilight.

You're confusing 'acts like human beings act, and in doing so create some kind of pathos' with 'like', and you're doing this on purpose, to pretend that the characters in a movie you liked were plausible, good elements. If you stopped playing stupid word games you might learn something about how movies work.

LordofHats wrote:Free market principles. Why should Hollywood bother making excellent movies when a decent one will do just fine

Manchu wrote:I'm not so sure people can even tell the difference, or care for that matter. The prevalent attitude seems to be that you pick your position and defend it. The a priori mode of opinion is sacrosanct; reconsideration is tantamount to suicide. Films like Prometheus need to be explored. With Alien, you could just react. That won't be satisfying regarding Prometheus, which doesn't make it a mediocre film.

dogma wrote:Problem is that genre savvy characters are necessarily the smartest men in the room, good examples are Tyrion, Varys, and Littlefinger. Deadpool basically exists to be this.

Kaldor wrote:Anything that any character in any narrative in the entire history of story telling has ever done, is for the purposes of 'the plot'. Obviously excluding accidental/unintentional characterisation.

sebster wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Have you never heard of anyone having a dummy spit? Jesus, I mean, this guy has spent his entire life holding onto the belief that he'll get to meet these aliens and all he finds is a tomb? No wonder he has a bad day and hits the bottle. It happens to the best of us. If anything this indicates he is a multi-facted, fallible and human character.

I've never heard of anyone having a dummy spit after discovering proof of an ancient alien race that created us, no.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that such a thing is one of the silliest things I've ever seen in a movie. And I only say 'one of' because there were other parts of Prometheus that were sillier (I like rocks and not aliens so I've lost interest . Well, and the entirety of Transformers II was a bit sillier. But after those it's right up there

Kaldor wrote:Then you've obviously not spent much time with people.

People are stupid. When confronted with something scary they freak out and don't act rationally.

It's perfectly reasonable for two scientists to go "This is very scary and confronting, and I don't want to be here".

Holloway obviously had certain expectations, and those were not met. He encountered a setback, and as people do when they encounter setbacks, he became sullen and grumpy.

Totally plausible.

sebster wrote:It's an absolute absurdity to agree to enter into a field dedicated to learning, fly further than anyone has ever gone before, and freak out when you see a dead body lying on the ground. It's even dumber when that same character, just seconds before was carefree enough to remove his helmet because another character took a couple of breaths without dying.

And even stupider when one of the characters that left is showing the most ludicrous indifference to personal safety just minutes later when he sees an alien creature.

Just no. Absolutely not. A conversation about the characters being plausible is something that just can't happen. It's too stupid. There are many interesting parts to Prometheus, that can be discussed. There are strengths to the movie, and there are a lot of interesting parts that didn't quite come together. We should be discussing those things. Spending time in which people try to invent reasons in which the character's actions could be explained is not one of them.

Holloway obviously had certain expectations, and those were not met. He encountered a setback, and as people do when they encounter setbacks, he became sullen and grumpy.

Yeah, a guy who goes gets a corporation to fund a trillion dollar expedition would not have developed any means of dealing with minor setbacks. Or the ability to see past the one thing he hoped for, and recognise that he'd just accomplished the greatest achievement in the history of the human race.

This is from the guy who thinks everything a character has ever done in the history of story telling was to advance the plot. The guy who think character studies are something that was written by some other human race.

sebster wrote:You have to very careful, in examining a film, that your theories aren't building on top of themselves to create an interpretation that isn't actually there in the original work. I've read a lot of stuff about Prometheus, and some of it is really interesting, but it all has the problem of being stuff people have made up in their own heads - none of it is in the original work.

Kaldor wrote:They're not bright young starry-eyed geniuses, brave and bold and completely rational. They weren't even chosen because they're the best in their field. They're just guys chosen to fill a quota by some corporate suit who is only setting the mission up because she's told to, not because she thinks it will succeed.

kronk wrote:It's just funny to me that this particular film, which might rate a C for me, has had 9 pages of discussion.

Happygrunt wrote:From what I have heard, it's "Let's touch gak we are not supposed to: The Movie".

Ahtman wrote:

Happygrunt wrote:From what I have heard, it's "Let's touch gak we are not supposed to: The Movie".

That describes most Sci-fi, Horror, and teen comedies.

Manchu wrote:Including Alien.

Happygrunt wrote:unacceptable for trained biologists.

kronk wrote:Wow. I can't believe this much back and forth over a movie no one will even remember in 3 years.

It was a fun summer movie. gak died, stuff exploded, people had sex on a distant planet, and a woman had a mother fething c-section birth to a squid. What the feth else do you people want?