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

Yep, I don't know when the Red Train comes (silence, dirty minds) in NY when I'm there; even with my sweet, sweet Android.

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."

I do agree that some people might have hoped for more of a sci-fi movie than what they got (though I've got my doubts that sci-fi is ever that far from myth anyway - the best sci-fi is always using technology as a metaphor for some modern concern). But while that might explain while some people didn't get the movie, it doesn't mean people who got the movie ought to like what they saw.

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.

Alien did deal with far less weightier issues, but ultimately presented it's concept with believable characters. I think that is why it has remained a classic for more than 30 years, while Prometheus will quickly be forgotten.

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.

Absolutely, and as I said in my own comment on the film I thought the myth elements of the story were by far its strongest parts. And I liked how those myths were tied into modern technological sensibilities. It's just that those things were diminished by the failings of the movie, and I believed diminished to such an extent that it is basically a mediocre movie.

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).

The problem comes that when you have your characters act in fundamentally unbelievable ways to symbolise a human failing, you end up undermining your own idea. 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.

This is not to say that such a scene is not possible. Consider instead that the scene was constructed over several scenes. Consider if the black goo was returned to the ship. There it was quarantined and studied under observation, but there were signs it was uncontrollable and likely to break quarantine. The biologist keeps pushing, though, hiding the dangers until eventually there's disaster and it kills him. All that would take more time, of course, but it would produce a believable instance of a reckless chase of knowledge, and so get the audience to believe that science can allow us to 'know too much', as you say.

And that's the key, you can't just show the idea, you have to get the audience to believe the idea, and to do that you need people behaving as people do. And when, in order to sell your ideas, if you need people to behave in a way that real people don't actually behave, then either you haven't sold your idea very well, or you don't have a very good idea for explaining what people are actually like. I mean, consider last year's Tree of Life - that's a film that was all about a big philosophical idea, and barely interested at all in telling a story (given it was happy to go wandering off to show the big bang and some dinosaurs eating each other) but the characters still remained grounded, and so the philosophy felt real, more convincing and more engaging.

I remember reading a review of Graham Greene's The Quiet American, which at its core is basically a story about two friends, who are basically a foreign affairs allegory about tired but wise Britain and lively but young America. Allegory can always feel very false, and so work only on an intellectual level and not actually convince anyone of anything, but Greene's a fine storyteller, so he gave the two characters depth, and gave their actions believability. The result is that you are convinced by his commentary on the world (it helps that it said 'the Americans will enter Vietnam and lose, and that he wrote that in 1955).

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

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 not being a good film.

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

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?

No. Not until someone has taken their point and beaten it into everyone elses face! This is the internet! There can only be one!

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

Lol

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.

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.

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.

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.


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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?

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.


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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?

I didn't hate it, I hate very few things in this world.

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

Mr Hyena wrote:The Alien isn't needed.

I think that's basically correct. Even when you look back to Alien, what did the xenomorph do thematically? Alien is a great film and all but it has almost no thematic content. It's just a horror film. Even if you wanted to scare people, the xenomorph is not going to do it 2012. Plus there wasn't much story to tell about the xenomorph itself even in 1978 -- so little in fact that James Cameron basically reinvented them for Aliens.


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

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".

Ok man, just bear that in mind next time a politics/religion/furries thread comes up.

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

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).

EDIT: As an aside, I agree with the below post. Scott and the producers knew the draw for Prometheus would be the Alien. They marketed and even presented the film in the same style as Alien. Prometheus can't escape the connection, regardless of what its about because the marketing of the film drew every connection it could.

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?

Quite. I didn't phrase my point correctly. I know it wasn't about the xenomorph, 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!

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.

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.

Yeah, there is a problem of some contradictory moves. But let's just take this one on its face and see what we come up with.

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.

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.

Not sure about number one...

As for number two, Aliens is the best action horror film in the Alien series, Alien is the best horror film.

And for number three, you don't have to trust the opinions of people on the internet. Go and see it and form your own

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.)

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!

While that marketing was going on, Sir Ridley kept telling us it was not another Alien. I posted months ago that the problem would be Fox wanting to bank on the connection and Sir Ridley desperately trying to fight that perception in interviews.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

Can't say I agree with you about it not being scary. If I were to show Alien to someone who had never seen it or those terrible AVP films then I will bet you that they would be scared.

The film doesn't have to tell you about the fear, it tells us what that fear is. Look at the film, who is the human character who survives? Ripley, the woman who has already faced the fear of giving birth when she had her daughter. 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:It uses the alien to reveal to the audience an unspoken fear, a fear which is written in people's very genes.

What's this about genes?

As for people who would be scared by Alien in 2012: the same people who would be scared by AvP.

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

You don't find out she has a daughter until the second movie, and the role is written for a male.

I always liked the mystery of the jockey, it lent depth to Alien and didn't need to be explored. Despite the flaws I did enjoy the film, but struggle to imagine how it will stretch to a trilogy without becoming increasingly absurd.

Seen it, enjoyed it for what it was.

Getting back to an earlier point was it not another ship rather than another planet that the original occurs in/on?
I believe david said that there are more ships on the planet. This would link up to the original better i think?
Would also explain the engineer at the end being the one in the ship in alien.
Didnt like Fassbender. Here`s why.

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.

Mistake? Showing that background and then moving on to tell the story of Alien is one of the most admirable, disciplined pieces of plotting in film.


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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".

Yeah, I'm quite enjoying the conversation. I guess corpsesarefun isn't, but then it's lucky not everything posted to the internet is purely for his pleasure.


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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.

Sure, it isn't that the scene made no sense, but the characters acted in unconvincing ways, given their apparent backgrounds. It is more that I found it unconvincing, that meant I found it didn't carry across the theme of humans endangering themselves with greater knowledge at all well. To make me believe such a theme, you have to make me believe in the actions of the people that showed that theme.

That to me is the real challenge of any film - not to simply have an idea, but to make the audience believe it because you present it in a convincing way.

There was an interview with the screenwriter or Scott in which it was mentioned that one of the ideas they were working with was that 'big questions* have unsatisfactory answers, or no answer', which usually isn't going to be a big crowd pleaser, and also difficult to execute as well.

*Not 'what did David say to the Engineer'** type questions, but 'why are we here?', 'what is the nature of god', ect ect.

** What did David say to the Engineer?


By the end of the film I had forgotten that much of it transpired on Christmas day.

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

I really hope some professor of ancient languages goes to see the movie, and tells everyone that what David essentially said was, 'Hi, I'm a robot and the old guy next to me is a massive jerk, so it'd be great if you could tear my head off, beat him to death with it, and then go on to destroy the human race. Also, nice outfit. Did your mommy make that for you?'.

I thought it was decidedly mediocre. Could be the start of a brilliant trilogy. I don't necessarily need a lot of character development in a single movie, but I would like characters that I actually like. Never in the movie was I like "Man, I hope X person lives"; except at the end when I wished old whatserface was crushed by the ship instead of Charlize Theron cause I thought it would be funny, and a big F U to the audience.

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

Michael Bay is attached to direct the sequel.