Prometheus
Going to see it tomorrow. Few people already saying it wasn't great, I can't remember the last time I had seen a sci-fi film in the cinema.
Also should I watch it in 2D or 3D?
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Also Michael Fassbender will be great in this I imagine.
Again on the reviews I have read he has come off looking pretty good
I really love this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWmbqH_z7jM
3D,based on reviews it is all about the visuals rather than the story, which is a real shame
The visuals do look good even from the trailers.
I read somewhere that the soundtrack dominates the action also, not allowing the tense silences that worked for alien. Still looking forward to it, loud noises and ridiculous action can be great.
Yeah me as well, big fan of those silences in alien but he must be going for a different type of film
Shame for him it being sci-fi that it is always going to be heavily linked to alien. Just read a review of it in the Scotsman who was praising it so maybe the ones I read we're the typical cynical ones that try to get their voice heard first.
Still going to see it as it does look good
*were
True enough.
Probably best i'd say to stay away from reviews.
mrs knees has booked us tickets for sunday on the big dolby screen (ex imax)
in 3d
was/am really looking forward, please let it be great
The only thing that made this film look good
was the fact Ridley Scott directs it. Other than that I was unimpressed with the trailer in the cinema, especially being as they showed it twice and then a 'making of prometheus' clip. It looks average.
Watching this in 21 hours and 23 minutes
going on monday (my birthday - DinoMAN, take note)
2D, thankfully.
Happy birthday
I was really disappointed.
It feels like he tried to make a film both for people who knew Alien and people who didn't. The end result is an unholy mess of a film which is neither - disappointing for Alien fans and confusing for those who aren't. Visually stunning, quite gripping but lacking in the claustrophobia and overall tension that made the first two good. Noomi Rapace's character is beyond annoying. Bring back Sigourney and Ripley.
Fassbender, Theron and Elba are terrific though.
I don't want to give the impression it's poor - it's at least average, if not a bit better
But it really does not live up to or come anywhere close to the expectations.
Just read the Bradshaw review for the first time
I think he nails it, apart from what he says about Rapace. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may/30/prometheus-review
I liked Rapace
This sounds to me a bit like
Godfather Pt3 territory: a decent film but it can't hope to match what's come before.
I refuse to believe this is the real reason people don't like GF3
I didn't like it because it was incredibly tedious.
Tedious in parts
Fabulous final set piece though
Actually I'm going to revise that
On reflection it really is quite poor
I thouhgt it had some great scenes and was generally really good until
they started to try to explain things and then it became really stupid and made no sense whatsoever (it set it up for a sequel, but... hmmm, that's not what I was looking for)
by sequel, I don't just mean Alien
Boy that was not what I was expecting.
Think the Empire review sums it up pretty well,
"Buffeted by a lack of suspense, threadbare characters, and a very poor script, the stunning visuals, gloopy madness, and sterling Fassbenderiness can't prevent Prometheus feeling like Alien's poor relation."
But replace gloopy madness with unfocused half-baked trite. The script was consistently unintentionally hilarious. The Fassbender "zelda" moment was inspired.
Haven't read the thread just in case any has been a silly spoiler sausage
but my Facebook feed was full of disappointed people this morning- one described it as 'okay, basically The Thing guest starring in a Tool video though'.
Gonna see it tonight and make up my own mind.
it wasn't the Thing
the Thing has internal logic and consistency, has a great script and wasn't completely absurd
why is everyone so excited about this?
i know alien is an 'iconic' film or whatever but isn;t it basically just an action/sci-fi thing?
:|
care to answer rather than just posting a silly smilie?
:?
i have never seen alien, and what?
i know an alien bursts out of someones chest.
i don't like things set on space ships, apart from firefly.
lots of people do though
so?
i didn't suggest they shouldn't...?
i asked a genuine question.
from there though
it sounded like you were just saying "why do people like things I don't"
well i wasn't
i was just wondering what the big deal is.
Although it's set on a spaceship in the future, it's not really sci-fi
it's more a horror film in the best traditions of the genre. Very scary, and quite daring too for it's time, in a feminist sort of way
ah yeah
no i had thought of it as a horror film, a horror film set in space. i dont like horror films anyway (i like so-bad-it's-good 80's horror and love reading horror) so that + set in space is probably what put me off ever bothering to watch it.
That's fair
Your first post did make me smile though. If anything is going to stir up the indie fan-boys it's asking 'what's so good about Alien?' :oD
It's the angriest a post on this forum has ever made me
haha
really? im sorry! although at least now i've made a mark on the world.
I will not have Alien besmirched.
There can be no apologies. You're not just on the list, from now on you ARE the list.
i haven't seen it!
one can't besmirch what one hasn't seen!
shall i watch it then?
YES
Im amazed that Steve hasnt tied you up and made you, yet
watch Alien I mean
:D
why do you like Firefly?
and no other things set on space ships
joss whedon
and because it's brilliant!
i liked the oringal star wars films when i was younger, used to watch them with my big brothers but haven't seen one for years so can't really remember much.
i don't know why i dislike things set in space really, maybe i find the scenery boring/limiting (que loads of 'how can something set in space be limiting responses) the darkness maybe? i get annoyed with films/tv shows that are visually really dark, turn the light on!
Firefly isn't really sci-fi
It's pretty much a spaghetti western set in space.
the concept, or what ive read of it, sounds amazing
OK here goes
I saw alien when it first came out on the biggest screen in UK (europe?)
The Gaumont in birmingham (now sadly demolished where the weslyian building now stands)
Alien was filmed naturalistically so that the banter of the crew seemed genuine, the crew looked genuine, the ship....looked claustrophobic, both the grimy dark throbbing industrial corridors, and the stifling over sterile white crew sleeping quarter areas.
For the time the computers and electronics looked fine.....now of course they look horendously dated.
The dialogue and crews interactions with each other seemed ultra realist, no padding, no false filmic qualities.
The design was basically stupendous. More than any other film I have seen, the design provided the central power of the film because it was so so strong, giger is a proper artist.
The direction is flawless, the pace is perfect for creepy growing horror, when i mean its perfect, i mean that the tension grows and grows (I remember after the film, thinking that I had relaxed after about an hour and then suddenly I felt my whole shoulder suddently relax......the tenseness was still in me.)
The chest burst is well known about and its a shame......after its come out, you are in a position where you can be (almost) relieved, cos its almost comical.......but the bit leading up to it.....well the actors were not told about the scene totally before hand so the shock on lamberts face is partly real.....she shelley duval wasnt expecting blood to be splattered on her face at that point.
Side note Lamberts portrayal of fear and scaredness is utterly fantastic (I especially like it when her panicyness spreads over the intercom to Dallas causing him to become rash)
Scott knows just how much of the fully grown alien he can film without it looking wrong (I've seen all the cut scenes (which actually contain more gruesomeness.....but were correct to be cut.....so i suggest that you do not watch these as they would interupt the flow....you just need to know that, yes, the alien does indeed do very horrid things even though there is no queen there)
The monster is the most perfectly beautiful Horrible monster.
again Giger tapping into unconcious perfectly.
The corridor scenes with Riply and the strobes and the steam and the sweat at the end are just soooo 'real' seeming.
It is entirely believable and plausible that Ripley (a woman) actually turns out to be the action hero of the film.....its not forced or arbitary or 'hey lets make a woman the fighty hero for a change' its in her character (and she is not just a macho woman (like Vasquez from the Aliens))
Oh she is also very very scared, she doesnt want to be a hero, but she wants to survive....but she does want the others to survive too...that is her heroism, its not foolhardy or unrealistic or bravado.
In the end she is fighting for her survival against the monster and the ship, which is just like house of horror films
It is the best.
Psycho and Alien are the best films that are also horror films.
it is a masterpiece, Im almost inclined to say that it is The best film.......but i wont
although in terms of direction of visuals (design, light and editing cut scenes) sound, pace, building tension, orchestrating it with shocks, fantastic acting and dialogue, great screenplay on realistic character interaction (ok you dont get to know much about them, but you see their interations with each other an it is perfectly realistic (they are employees doing work), cant be bettered
its not Shelly Duval like
ok....she's very good at doing worried and scared anyway
man no wonder the script was so fucking awful
it was written by Damon Lindelof and some idiot whose only other credit is THE DARKEST HOUR
jesus
Kermode review/interview with Ridley Scott
IMMINENT
i saw it
it was messy. some really good bits though.
when he sings love the one you're with :D
context aside,
is it a worthwhile way to spend a couple of hours? starting to wonder if i should even go see it now.
Yes.
saw this, thought it was great 10/10
barely even seems part of the alien franchise, but in a good not-a-knockoff way. I put it in the same camp as the The Thing prequel, ie great prequels.
Just watched it, better than i was expecting...
s prequel in the true sense.
Kermode interviewed Ridley Scott earlier
said this was the first of a trilogy, did you guys know that?
he also hinted at a blade runner sequel
More than a hint I'd say
I'm not sure about this. The only thing that gives me hope is that it's Ridley Scott so I can't imagine him trampling all over the original (a la George Lucas)
I've got grave concerns
Blade Runner benefitted from a couple of 'unscripted' occurences that helped make it a classic:
> Rutger Hauer writing his own lines for Roy's death scene - still one of the greatest soliloquy's of cinema
> Harrison Ford playing Deckard as emotionless (whether deliberately or not) giving his character the abiguity that worked so well
Will probably moan about this in more detail later
but for now ... This was pretty dire. So, so wanted it to be good.
SPOILER QUESTION
I liked it, but what bugs me is that the question is left unanswered of why the humanoids set out to destroy humanity if they are the ones that created us.
Spoiler theory.
Possible what David said to it? Mebs tying into his wanting to break free from his creators complex going on?
The film did basically turn into Aliens vs Predator at the end with the humanoid fighting the fucking starfish/octopus.
stunningly bad film.
felt like another phantom menace/crystal skull fiasco.
just...i mean. the script, the characters. they weren't characters really were they? cliches and stereotypes. i couldn't have given two shits about any of them. fassbender was amazing and in turn his character the strongest. but the rest.....
so muddled and clunky and just silly. Navigational piccolo? for fucks sake.
no tension. no action. no interest. no wit. no intrigue. no drive. no intelligence. no nuance. just dull. stupid. awful. awful.
the whole thing would've benefited hugely, for starters, by having this act as a prologue at the very start of the film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUxdAWrsag8
sets everything up really nicely. seeing as the entire mission was essentially just weyland's vanity project, it would've been nice to see his as a young man with a vision that basically sets up the entire film.
but hey. why do that when we can see one of the jolly grey giants dissolving into a river.
stephen stills' wheezebox.
Don't know how anyone could see the trailer of this and expect it to be a good film
Films like this are shit 100% of the time
films like this?
what, sci-fi films?
prequels?
?
Big budget sci-fi kinda stuff
Yeah
Star trek?
Inception?
spent pretty much all of yesterday thinking about this
can't decide whether it's a (ridiculously) flawed masterpeice or just plain shit
might watch it again
*spoiler*
y'know that moulded door thing that was in the big chamber?
it definitely had a xenomorph/alien pattern moulded onto it. how was this possible if they weren't to be invented for another 40 minutes?
this bad boy
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://cinemart-online.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/xenomorph.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cinemart-online.co.uk/2012/03/18/xenomorph-visible-in-latest-prometheus-trailer/&h=362&w=554&sz=16&tbnid=_Cl2RbjE2yHoiM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=138&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dprometheus%2Bxenomorph%2Bimage%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=prometheus+xenomorph+image&usg=__POwvqgbPXy8PtUGeA70aNQLa47I=&docid=-KjHayTQ5qr8uM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5W3KT7elO8Sm0AXRwuWwAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CF4Q9QEwAg&dur=765
am i missing something?
I really liked it.
It's far from perfect but for almost all of 123 minutes I was totally into it. A couple of great performances and some really interesting ideas too. We were talking about it solidly for about two hours afterwards and I can't remember the last film that happened with.
this
i also want to talk about it for ages after.
Like all the lawrence of arabia references that applied to David.
I liked it a lot, of course its not like Alien or Aliens, it doesnt try to be.
It exists in the same reality that is all, and yes we see the previous bits to the engineers genetic engineering.
Its a beautifully shot film, beautiful, and I love Davids amorality, which Is NOT quite amorality as he IS looking for guidance in what he does......for instance Charlie seals his own fate by the way he behaved, David was looking for a sign and Charlies verbal cruelty gave that sign to him.
I think some peoples expectations are too high.
Stunning visuals.
Great performances from Fassbender, Rapace, and Elba.
Some clunky dialogue (Explaining the theme too much)
8 out of 10
Go see it.
Also I never realised it is a different planet to the first 2 films.
Absolutely...
People are expecting too much because of the hype... it was never going to be the film that some are expecting.
It's flawed in places, but generally reasonably involving and entertaining and doesn't get too ridiculous or outlandish at any point - 7/10 for me. Certainly not an Indy 4 style clusterfuck.
After the last four Alien-ish films, I went into the cinema
with hope, not expectation. I don't think the hype influenced me too much- it just genuinely hung together, despite a few good elements, quite poorly.
have you been to bed yet, DanielKelly?
Yes.
HAVE YOU?
many, many times
It does get ridiculous and outlandish though, that's the point.
The plot disintegrates into loads of half finished vignettes.
Disagree...
although I'd have left out the stuff with the old chap stowing away on Prometheous. That was unnecessary.
this........sort of.......
but if you look deeper then the old guy being on board, then it illustrates another base reason for humans doing all this wonderful exploration.....for something as down to earth as to, just to want to live longer......which in a way is a jokey turnaround on Roy in Bladerunner cos when he meets his maker he 'wants more life' in this film a human asks his maker to give him more life (maybe) but via an android/replicant.
so it is a filmatic directorial self reference, which is what all cult films have a duty to fullfil, put stuff in there that reward people who are prepared to see the oblique references to other works
But back to just the film.....without other external references......the old mans base desire (other people were in it for the money, or just their job role)
Shaw and David genuinely just want to explore the possibilities, to learn, they were the only two genuine explorers, theirs were the only pure motivations.....if the old man were dead, then his motives would also have been pure, cos he was just altruistically enabling exploration and learning.
So yeah, on the immediate level the old man on the ship is a bit of a drag, but for these reasons (plus the David/Vickers sibling rivalry bit - ok its only small, but why wouldnt humans start to have issues with androids being shown more attention from their parents.....plenty of people now moan about people giving more attention to 'the cat' or 'the dog' 'than me' .....imagine, it would be worse if the other object of affection looked human as well
i.e. it enables a sci fi
postulation of an idea of the possibilities of the future....ok it was brief, but I havnt seen a film before where the human has become more robotic and insular because of parental love/affection diverted to a robot......maybe there is a film that brings this up, i hant seen ti though.
It is the job of sci fi to throqw out ideas and concepts of the future, it doesnt matter that this was brief, someone e3lse can now expand on it.
A batshit crazy masterpiece, and an uncompromising vision of the director.
Sacrifices character development and in some cases, logic, in order to achieve the cool bits that Ridley Scott wanted, and that's enough for me to consider it a 10 out of 10 film.
I go to the cinema about twice a week, and with the exception of Avengers this was the first time in about a year I've been totally flabbergasted by a film. It was just completely mental and I loved it.
But it's not good enough as a stand alone (too referential)
and too poor as a prequel. It's a horrible halfway house. The plot and the script are an absolute mess as a result. Too many references to Alien which go absolutely nowhere. Pretty badly paced. The more I think about it the more I hate it.
Also: strong characters?
You are shitting me, right?! They're all awful. You cannot empathise with any of them about from the Captain. Rapace is a whimpering fanatic who is completely unlovable and the rest are all variants of neurosis. Alien relied on flawed, but strong characters who were actually loveable - notably Ripley. By the end you don't give a shit about Rapace because she's so 2-D throughout, which is a real problem.
Some more coherent thoughts, maybe. Possible SPOILERS.
As I said above, I had plenty of hope but little expectation going into this- I don't think so many people have been disappointed by this because they let the hype get to them- it's just a bad-to-average film.
Fassbender's character and performance were pretty good, but even he was let down by a trite, trope-heavy plot. Initially I thought his fascination with life and its creation, despite being an android and most of the 'live' characters being more interested in other things (rocks, for example) was an interesting plotline. But it didn't develop or go anywhere, and it turns out he was just doing the bidding of a shit cliche character. When Vickers informed us all that Weyland was her dad after (what was supposed to be) a pregnant pause ... Good grief.
Replied too soon ...
The score was absolutely terrible- might seem a minor point to some, but scores are vital to setting a tone for the film. Rehashing the quite, emotionally trumphant music at the end of Gladiator and using it in virtually every fucking scene isn't going to work.
Rapace wasn't good- granted she had little to work with. Elba barely had any lines to impress with.
The opening scene was completely fucking pointless- a vanity scene which looked impressive but did absolutely nothing for the story, in fact confusing it even more.
Really didn't do it for me- despite Scott's insistence that it wasn't a true prequel, its ultimate failing for me is that it just didn't hang together as a stand alone film. A mish-mash of ideas.
Yes, agree with your point about the score.
Badly misjudged.
talking of pregnant pauses and that scene...
it was almost embarrassing when they tried to crowbar in some emotional depth clichés for the lead characters
'hey guys...if we include lines about how she can't have kids and how that dude is actually her daddy, that gives them depth right?'
'sure....sure. Now, back to gadgets....what if the tracking light that the round balls emit is actually red instead of white?'
'red would be so awsome!'
'so awsome'
I'd forgotten about that bit.
So horrible.
I really wanted Prometheus to be good. 7/10 would have felt like 10/10 to me.
:(
favourite scene in the movie:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4zl5iF2Ra1qfwv22o1_500.png
Just seen this. (Spoilers)
An absolutely incoherent total fucking mess. It was written by two screenwriters and it really did look like they had shot sequences from two separate scripts and then cobbled it all together.
Fassbender, Theron and Elba aside, the acting was really poor. It made no sense at all to cast Guy Pearce as a ridiculously unconvincing old man. Unless the idea was that at some stage he becomes 'young' again. Which he doesn't.
I cannot remember the last time I was so disappointed in a film.
in fairness to the actors...
it wasn't like they were given much to work with
elba, theron and fassbender were the only ones given anything resembling extended dialogue.
quite sad to see kate dickie reduced to uttering complete mash about the weather and sticking an apparently life-giving syringe into an alien's disembodied head, after i've been so amazed by her performance in red road when she got the chance to play an actual human being.
i know she didn't have a huge role, but still....that sort of supporting player doesn't need to be so paper-thin and redundant.
and the boyfriend. jesus.
'hey baby...it's ok baby...i'll beat this virus baby....we've found our creators baby...this is so amazing baby'
glad he got torched.
How was Kate Dickie so bad?
She is brilliant in Red Road. In this, I couldn’t help but laugh at her line delivery, she was close to Dean Learner levels of woodenness.
there are some lovely little bits that i got after
Like David wearing the 'native dress' (spacesuit) (like lawrence wearing arab garb, despite the dissapproval of some other british)...david not fitting into either camp exactly - like lawrence
......david being able (particularly exotically) being able to speak the lingo - like lawrence
and it is a very very pretty film
very open - no claustrophobia unlike alien films, people should be seeing it as a contrast, not expecting it to be the same
fantastic piece of trivia I saw
the Androids are alphabetically named
Ash Bishop Call David
Worst film I've ever seen
look dont be stupid
I'm not even slightly joking
No redeeming features
tell that to people giving it 10/10
Sub thread:
How many good films has Ridley scott made?
Personally I'd make the count, 1. But I'm guessing the response will be in the region of 3..
Dunno what film you guys watched, I thought it was great.
Plot holes aside - (the two guys who said they were going back to the ship and got lost - how??? They were communicating with the captain all the time, he could have led them back with the 3D hologram map thing. That was stupid.)
The 'abortion' scene = brutal.
I really liked it though, good characters (Elba, Fassbender, Theron, the bloke who played Holloway). I liked Rapace as well, not quite action girl enough to be a full on Ripley, but at least she had the sense to roll sideways when a massive fucking ship is falling on you.
Additional: it was better than both those shitty AVP films.
Additional 2: I saw a trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines, which isn't out til Feb 2013. FUCKING WHAT. It looks finished.
Additional 3: Needed Bill Paxton.
This is shucks, last survivor of this post.
I'm with you
i thought the abortion scene was amazing, it's things like that that make the film what it is, which is an excellent prequel. It doesn't do what you expect.
I thought that that scene was amazing too
I loved the way that it managed to keep her absolute panic at wanting it away, throughout the entire scene, despite what was happening to her.
it wasn't an abortion.
don't forget they didn't have the technology to make female specific operation robots.
*NO PENIS...DO.NOT.COMPUTE. NO PENIS...DO.NOT.COMPUTE'
SPOLIERS
i loved the way she could run around straight after having her abdominal muscles sliced up.
I like the way the surgery pod used the same technology as arcade stuffed toy grabbing game machines
alantoin (extracted from comfrey) speeds up cell division.
given the fact that at the moment we are meant to be on the verge of using
nanobots for surgical procedures, and given that weyland actually mentions advances in nanobots.
why is it so inconceivable that repair nanobots and smarter subtances than alantoin were used to do quick healing (remember it is an aim to close up as soon as possible to prevent infection so it would be something that medical research would want smart substances and nanobots to do.....the staples maybe are to give added strength until it fully heals......It baffles me why you dont want to imagine that in addition to the BIG visual improvements you can see, there are smaller microscopic improvements too? Scott could have done a scene like at the beginning where he shows double helixes breaking down and maybe show lots of quick healing aided by nanobots.....but that would have totally spoilt the dynamism of the scene, perhaps that will be in the directors cut for people who......
or else maybe the medipod should have announced
"quick tissue repair nanobots now being applied" "smart cell division enhancer substances being applied"
except other knockers of the film have slagged it for explaining too much
jfc what do you people want? more or less explanation? there is no happy medium.
Perhaps Scott was just being too ambitious and putting too much in for people to follow?
Better than Alien vs Predator?
That's probably how they pitched it to the studio.
just got back from seeing this, it was pretty shit
not really a fan of any of the alien films so I didn't even have particularly high hopes going in.
All the characters were terribly written, with the exception of fassbender. Complete 2D cliche to the point of parody. (the fucking ginger guy who was a complete prick the whole time, 'I only like rocks' - seriously?) Also strange that for quite a long film it felt like none of the plot ideas were finished, just kind of hashed together.
probably a 3/10
oh and SPOILERZ I guess
the bit at the start with the guy necking the black liquid then disintegrating into the river... was that meant to be the aliens creating human life?
well derrr..... even my youngest got that
just wondering why he had to kill himself in a really horrible way
in order to do it. looked quite sore.
couldn't he have just swabbed the inside of his cheek and flung it in the river?
because it was beautiful
and this made him a god
...and it gave Scott an excuse for some OTT semi-psychedelic visuals.
its really getting a kicking from the crits
but hey so did Blade Runner (and Alien?).
geniunely the worst film I have ever seen
to be fair if I dont like a film i'll stop watching it but that didnt feel like an option in the cinema, so maybe just the worst film I have seen in the cinema.
Not an alien fanboy or anything either. It had so many half baked ideas, the main womans lost father, her faith, inability to have children, were all really under developed, as was the old mans fear of mortality, and the completely pointless I am your daughter bit, none of that had any kind of resonance and just seemed shoehorned in to give the film some themes.
No tension, maybe because I actually wanted them all to die so it would finish and I could go. effects and action was just boring (like the storm trying to get the head and back in). plot just didnt seem to make sense, why would the robot infect the main guy, why would the main alien after waking up knowing everyone he knew was dead still be intent on thousand year old mission to destroy earth, also the main link between this and the alien film the space jockey in the gun thing, they showed it but then he left to go and try and kill her after the space ship was downed, therefore breaking the only bit of continuity between the films, how did he get back to the gun thing for alien 1.
Also all the small characters were awful, too comically british, it was like watching red dwarf or something.
awful film
Alien (1) is set on a different planet.
even though it shows the same space ship, same gun thing, and has xenomorphs on?
Yes
They had more than one spaceship.
The spaceships had the same gun thing.
well that just makes it even less satisfying, the dead space jockey crashed space ship and escaped xenomorph all happening again on another planet, just completely pointless
This is the first film of a trilogy
It's not supposed to lead directly to Alien.
that may be the case but it doesn't make it any more satisfying, all the events of this film could have led directly to alien but they decided not to, to string it out for two more films, if it wasnt the plan to lead directly to alien then they probably shouldnt have used up all of the established elements
christ on a bike
ok......vickers revealing shes the daughter is more relevant to why vickers has been acting negatively towards david (jealousy)...also to show that self centeredness might be hereditary (genetic?...ok im stretching here).....vickers is robotic like david indicative of what? dunno? that old man weylands selfcentardness meant that he was emotionally ok to have robot children
.....vickers and david seem a bit bro and sister
why do you need character developement for all? it was about the events, the discovery.....there were only a few people on the trip that were really interested in really finding out, yet that is really all that was being portrayed by the film...finding out........
why would th robot infect the main guy - charlie? well because david also wants to find out - to learn....David is no corporate drone, he may be amoral, but he is not against shaw....if he were he would have kept it secret about what was in shaws belly.....he seems amoral but he isnt, he DOES have feelings, but doesnt have a context to put them in.....he also need direction on how to act (like tossing a coin to decide, almost.....charlie gave david the clue, david could have poisoned the glass at the beginning, but only did it AFTER Charlie had been cruel to david
with his comment on why humans made david - 'because we can' Davids reply 'how would you feel if thats what your creators (the engineers) said that?" shows that he not only can understand human feelings, but that he actually has them himself.....how else can he? unless he actually feels something himself about Charlies comments that somehow hurts him (otherwise he would just persue an intellectual argument....here he is actually asking Charlie to empathise with HIS (David the robots) position when told something hurtful.....i.e. charlie was cruel, and ist toward him because he was different from him, so there was something that impelled david to poison him.....he wanted to find out, and charlies unpleasentness presented David with the rational to chose him.
you ask why does the main alien want to destroy earth....well we dont know, but thats ok, because the film acknowledges that that is an outstanding question, because that is why shaw wants to go an find their home planet to get answers
and your last bit about the space jockey and continuity woith the gun thing seat.......well obviously it is a different one.
A the 'jockey' in this one has a much more massive chestburst than the one they can see in the fossil jockey in Alien.
This is a different planet from that in Alien. Thye actually expkain there are lots of such sites/ships
I understand the vickers bit I just think it was done really badly and didnt have any kind of impact. the motivation for the poisoning is really unclear, david was shown to be secretly up to something with the old man so it is logical to think it is linked to his secret mission rather than a robots curiosity but ok. Fair enough there may be good reason for destroying earth that we shouldnt know yet.
If it was another planet then I just think it was really stupid to use all the three elements that make it a prequel, chest burst space jockey, abandoned ship, and a xenomorph for it to turn out to not be a prequel
and I know he has always been clear it wasnt a prequel
but to make a film where everything that happens could be a prequel but then change it very slightly so it is not just seems like a total cop out
thought about it some more
these films can either go off on a sideways tangent, or they will lead up to alien 1 (think ridley has said the former)
if these films go off sideways then there was no reason to not have these events be the events that are the prequel to alien if they arent going to revisit it again, if these films do lead up to alien then a very similar sequence of events are going to have to happen again on the correct planet. neither option works
another stupid thing
how happy all the crew were to die, such a cheesy film cliche, when done well you can get behind their self sacrifice you see how they have bonded and what they have been through and believe they would act in that way (like the character in alien with the grenades or something I vaguely remember), in this it was just a bunch of guys you dont really know anything about being unrealistically chipper about crashing their spaceship and suffering a fiery death
you should probably watch some more films
Not even the worst film I saw this weekend
damn you people who convinced me to see Top Cat and MIB3!
my god
are you the person who saw top cat? that one guy!
:'(
Why? So I can see more bad ones
Ehy not just stick to seeing a few I think will be good and be occasionally be disappointed with the likes if Prometheus rather than actively seek out badness
What a colossal waste of time and money.
Looked alright visually and Fassbender is a class act but the whole thing is just utterly pointless and incoherent.
It cost £85 million.
...but is predicted to recoup that in the first 3 weeks of release....so not a waste of money....
I can't argue that it was/wasn't a waste of your time.
Mate I don't think that Ridley Scott needs to do a sort of Alien prequel to make a shed load of money.
He obviously wanted to do this and I really don't know why. It's an utter mess.
The most damning thing I can say about this film is
I realized that I just refuse to take on any of its explanation for the Alien Universe or what the ‘Space Jockey’ is supposed to be.
When I watch Alien and Aliens again, the information learnt in Prometheus will have no bearing, because the explanation was so poor; I’d rather keep the mystery.
The whole film is essentially void as far as I concerned.
*I'm
I'd turn that around.
I didn't feel that Prometheus was supposed to directly shed light on any of the plotlines or themes in Alien or Aliens, but I did feel that Prometheus made little to no sense in its own context- that you needed to have seen Alien for Prometheus to have any resonance, rather than Prometheus offering another dimension to Alien.
Poor-metheus
Pr-"meh"-theus?
Fassbender was great!
The rest sucked big big big salty balls! Would someone please dispatch a bounty hunter to 'retire' the replicant Scott before he dumps a vat of bum gravy over the rest of his sci-fi legacy with the threatened Blade Runner sequel. Don't Ridley. Just don't.
I thought it looked great (if perhaps a little bright) and the cast all performed well enough
but there was no suspense, no sense of danger or drama and a lot of it felt underconnected from other elements within the movie.
Couldn't settle between being a big baggy Chariot of the Gods movie and a tie-in (though unconnected) part of the Alien universe.
If it had gone wholeheartedly for either thing and dropped the other parts it could have been decent enough.
But so many half-baked or pointless bits - the guy coming back as a super strong space-zombie, the whole Guy Pierce strand, the impregnation thing not being fully explored, the returning Engineer, the relationships between the crew, scientists and corporation was barely touched upon.
I think some of those plotholes, deadends and tangles could be more forgiveable if the movie as a whole had been more coherent it isn't vision. I also reckon it could have benefited from not being sold by the marketing people as as closely related to Alien as it was. Ridley has been talking it as a more sideways development than a direct prequel but the promotional material like the trailers brings that link (stylistically as well as in terms of plot) more to the fore and had people expecting something much more tightly wound, dangerous and intense than the final film was intended to be.
The more I think about this piece of shit the angrier I get.
Nah. I didn't think it was ground breaking.
And a lot of the ideas didn't really flesh out - a big messy mess.
But then someone on Twitter said something and it reminded me that since I saw it on Saturday I keep coming back to it, thinking about the strands and the plot and stuff... so I think there is a few good things there. It was like a mythology grenade went off and the plot was a line joinced between the things that Scott wanted to tell.
I just wish it had been more coherent. I actually think that the film felt like Part 1 and Part 2 of a story. Surely the film would've been intense if after the Prometheus crashed into the ship Shaw, Vickers, David and at least two other crew members survived? Or somethinig?
Anyway, the fact we are all still discussing has to give it some credit...
I keep thinking about it because I can't believe how incoherent the whole thing was.
i am in denial
I'm at a stage of grim acceptance.
Thinking about it, I really disliked the opening scene, it would be much better if it was shrouded in mystery and gradually revealed instead they just showed we were made by giant blue people within seconds
I think I liked it.
I'm still not sure though. I definitely remember thinking towards the end of the film that I'd enjoyed myself. But then the film finished and I thought back over all the plotholes. It's weird that none of them annoyed me at the time though. I must have been blinded by the visuals.
It's worth noting that I love sci-fi and that I normally have an inflated opinion of sci-fi films.
Quite enjoyed it actually
Was quite a strange watch as I was pretty aware of all the things that were wrong with it but they didn't really seem to bother me too much.
Certainly didn't have that big action sci-fi blockbuster feel to it (which I think a lot of people were expecting) and most of the set pieces were underwhelming, for me it was the setting and ideas it presented (even if they weren't fully developed) that carried it. One of those films which has had me thinking about it for a while, which is usually a pretty good sign.
Interesting to see people wondering why the engineers were set on destroying humanity, I would have thought that the big question to ask before this is why they created humanity in the first place? Wouldn't be surprised to see this addressed in #2 with a crushing revaltion on humanity's importance/success (or lack of)
Scott's films often tend to come with much more expansive 'director's cuts' down the line, wonder if we can expect to see a fuller version of this at some point which might flesh out some of the more thrown-away plot points?
If there is a directors cut that explains why you'd ever try and pet what is obviously a dangerous snake thing then I'd like to see it.
^ worst. scientists. ever.
Oh I know let's just poke it with a stick until it explodes. Oh hello pretty snake let me touch you even though I don't know what you are.
I presumed he was supposed to be mesmerised by it
The other guy wasn't.
Also when the other guy turned into the super strong Zombie, do you think that was just because they forgot that it was Spall who took a snake to the throat? Even know just thinking about it I'm getting cross.
The other guy got gunged though.
My understanding was that the goo makes you into a space zombie.
Just to do a quick count on the amount of menaces in this ship then?
Snakes who just force themselves down your throat for no reason.
Black goo that turns you into a well hard space zombie.
Sleeping with somebody whose been infected with some other black goo that turns you into dust but means that you get a massive octopus in your stomach.
rock hard humans dna things that are trying to send all of the above to your home planet.
this was one of the most stupid lazy bits of writing
Already established scared scientist,
In a threatening unfamiliar alien planet,
surrounded by DEAD humanoid beings,
and some black gloop (traditionally black stuff is seen as pretty bad, symbolic of disease and decay)
and then a SNAKE thing comes out of the gloop - (snakes generally having fairly negative connotations,
and he decides to have a little play with it?
A child could have written a better scene.
OK you are being literal
and so I will be too. Are you familiar with cobras? ....well it was reminiscent of a cobra......are you familiar of humans sitting in front of cobras trying to charm them (almost like they are being charmed themselves?
Utter nonsense.
imagina a a a tion
Terrible, stupid , incoherent arguement.
Great South Park reference. Assuming this is a South Park reference.
of course
please see the other thread for the cobra.......I was not even ATTEMPTING and argument, if you notice I just say, it was reminiscent, the other thread puts what I meant into context, you will there see that i was not using it as an explanation, but as a signpost by scott that there is something going on here, and is therefore a license to have the guy act differently
are you trying to tell me that the western scentist was also a
practitioner of snake charming?
thing is - there's no need for the inconsistencies
they could have made him a more gung ho wild card character who is ordered to go back to the ship instead of attempting to go back voluntarily - then when he's fucking about with the snake thing i'd be all like, fair enough, bit silly but perfectly in keeping with his don't give a fuck attitude.
OR - he could see the snake thing, the shock of seeing it makes him trip over, snake thing attacks.
that's giving it 30 seconds of thought. I'm sure a well paid script writer could come up with some other alternatives as well which actually MAKE SENSE.
yeah, this bit was one of the worst
this was the same dude who was adamant about going the opposite direction from the movement on the sensors 5 minutes ago, right? now sticking his face right up to the scary space sex snake.
David pretty much said why they wanted to destroy humanity, didn't he?
Not sure what there is to wonder.
An enjoyable, frustrating, spectacular mess
The script is the culprit: it failed to contextualise many of the events, or even just to explain what was going on at some points. That wouldn't be so problematic if there wasn't so much going on, but here it made the film seem more random and disconnected than it all needed to be.
Spoilers from here!
One problem was that questions that were meant to be left open (such as why the engineers had changed their minds about destroying human life) weren't actually highlighted as ambiguous, so the viewer wondered whether they had missed something along the way. Why would the one they wake from stasis suddenly want to take up that mission again? If we're not supposed to know, fine; but tell us that we're not supposed to know this.
This is compounded by the odd leaps of logic and reasoning: for example, how did Stringer Bell work out that the cannisters were 'WMDs' (ugh)? It's an important turning point in the film, and all it would have taken to flesh out would have been an extra 30sec or so of good exposition/conversation between him and Shaw.
The frustrating thing is that there's an elegant and rather great story in there based on the idea of the engineers being both creators and destroyers. The science team (and audience) assume that all we see in the film is about creating life, and that creation is the purpose of the cannisters (like the substance we saw used during the opening scene). But no, they also have mastered the use of a substance that weaponises life and turns it on itself, and it's the use of this stuff that creates all the film's 'monsters.' (It also suggests that this is what leads to the creation of the xenomorph, the universe's bestest weapon and that.)
It's absolutely beautiful in parts, stuffed with ideas, and bursting with failures. The medipod scene is striking and bloody well extraordinary; I think it's nearly up there with the first time I saw the chestburster scene in Alien. And you can see why the scene works: the subtle setup by David (it isn't a.. conventional fetus), the anticipation of what you're going to see, the confined space of the pod..
I'd assumed Mission Kill All Humans was interrupted rather than aborted
I didn't have the impression that there was ever a change of mind from the engineers about killing us all, simply that the mission wasn't completed due to them all being killed off. So when the one in stasis was awoken he simply tried to complete his mission.
That would work too!
It raises other questions (why did they want to at all, and why was it so important that he get back on it immediately after being woken up after god knows how long?) but it's fine as an explanation. The sensible thing would have been to highlight this in the script.
I thought it was reasnably clear, but can't remember what led me to that conclusion
Why do they want to kill humanity is the big sequel question, to do it properly I think they need to explain why they created us in the first place though.
Why did he wake up and get straight on with his mission? He's being professional.
Engineers: the most loyal workforce in the galaxy
someone on another forum called the big mean one who they woke up 'the mad wrestler.' stuff like that is really difficult to unsee
Another thought:
could the reawakened engineer have had a change of heart based on whatever it was David had said to him? Whose words did he relay: Weyalnd's or Shaw's? Or did he just say 'hey man these humans said your ma is a dang SLUT'
Im glad yo have highlighted that, because for me that is the biggest tantaliser
what did david say to the engineer, what weyland said or what shaw asked?
great points
oh oh oh
another big spoilery point here. One of the things that was distracting me as I watched was how the film might lead into the events of Alien and the creation of the xenomorph; the probable answer is that it doesn't. But it does show the mechanisms by which those gits were created, and why.
The Alien-universe xenomorphs are a result of the weaponising process: the black serum is designed to build xenomorphs over successive iterations. The engineers had already made them (they have images of them on their murals), and the fossilised LV246 craft had them onboard (which is discovered only a few decades after the events of Prometheus). It seems unlikely that the proto-thing that pops out of the mad wrestler is a 'lineage' that leads to the other xenomorphs. If there are sequels though I hope we see more of it, because it was pretty fucking creepy. (Did anyone else notice the egg laid next to it, too?)
You make a lot of good points
I don't think I really hated it I was just frustrated by it like you said. It is far too ambiguous and in a bad way. Agreed on medipod scene. Only time in the film you feel genuine terror.
You see, all the interesting things that you say here
are exactly why it was such a poor film imo- there was so much to work with, so many interesting ideas to explore, and they alluded to many of them ... Just in a really clumsy, cack-handed, clusterfuck way. It's almost more deserving of scorn than Alien vs Predator: The Bloodening- that film knew what it was, at least.
I do see what you mean
but I don't think it was all done badly.
I also think there's a bit of blue balls going on in that it's so very 'almost but not quite.' All the good stuff in there becomes so very frustrating because it isn't properly held together by the script. That's why I think it's infinitely better than the cynical, brain-dead-but-still-twitching AVP films.
(More than that actually: it's the first film for years which has managed a proper protracted scare scene for me. One with no monster jumping out of a cupboard going BLEURGH, and one with the lights on. That alone wins it a lot of points)
Top posting, j_r
well put!
Anyone who says this was "the worst film ever"
clearly hasn't seen Alien Vs. Predator 2
For my money, it was entertaining if thoroughly silly sci-fi gubbins. It was riddled with plot-holes, Guy Pearce was the least convincing old man since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and I still don't understand why Charlize Theron couldn't run sideways. But it was visually stunning, Fassbender and Elba were great and it kept my attention for almost two hours, which is all I really ask for from a blockbuster CGI-fest. 3/5
"I still don't understand why Charlize Theron couldn't run sideways"
Amen brother. As soon as that started it was a serious FFS just roll away. I think the director got carried away with the FX rather than thinking about logic...
I thought it was well known that acting like an Ice Princess
means you only have the ability to move forwards and backwards. You have to stop and turn deliberately if you want to go in another direction.
No......it's more simple than that.
She was portrayed as a 'bad' character so she was disposed of in an unpleasant way.
Screenwriters think the audience like that.
saw this yesterday
feel tempted to write a massive post detailing my feelings but really everything has already been covered.
A massive missed opportunity, such a terrible script...
FATHER
saw this at the weekend
and don't actually remember much of it. Visually it was lovely, and there were some nice sci-fi touches. Fassbender was great too. The main think I remember though is that I was very nearly sick during the 'abortion' scene. Never felt that ill in the cinema before - I was proper dizzy and faint and very nearly puked. I know it wasn't especially gory, but I think it must have been the realism of the thing, plus Rapace is great at doing Peril and Fear and Stuff Like That.
Anyway I don't remember much after that as I wsa a bit out of it, but from what I recall it didn't make a great deal of sense and I didnd't care about any of the characters dying. Oh well - maybe there'll be an awesome directors cut in a couple of years...
some people let out a little laugh of relief at the end with the staples
because of the total extremeness of the scene and the quick stapling was like a little 'light?' relief at the end cos the scene was so ridiculously frantic and ott (I say OTT in a good way, thats gotta be one of the most extreme scenes filmed, and yeah its not just gore, its about panic and 'getitout getitout'
What happened to Pete vs Life's body?
I've been assuming he was implanted with a xenomorph after that snake went down his tract, but like a lot of things it was never referenced again.
hmm
i also wondered what happened to him, as only the other guy came back after black goo infestation. maybe this guy was still 'incubating' another chestburster last time we saw him, as i guess events progressed quite quickly. i dunno though.
i enjoyed the film, despite the numerous questions (which at least keep you thinking about it afterwards) and a few ridiculous/irritating scenes and plot holes.
I missed that bit too
because there was too much other stuff going on, what with Shaw shoutuing out cos she was noticing CHarlie getting a lot worse, but I remember that something shot out of his eye socket....will have to watch again to see what happened to that
they probably just forgot about him
there are a lot of loose ends in the film - why would the guy who had his face melt come back but not the potential implantee
Who would have thought Alien 5 would turn out to be a bit shit?
Did anyone else find Idris Elba's accent hard to follow?
He sort of went a bit cockney in places and I couldn't hear what he was saying half the time because he was mumbling. Is it just my ears? I was about to say that I'd best invest in some Ovex, then remembered that that's for if you've got worms. Then I realised that after watching this film, it might be a good invest in some Ovex.
A dumbed-down Alien, was sadly my overall impression.
That said, despite my inner critic telling me "this is a bit shit, isn't it?" it still didn't instill in me Michael Bay levels of hatred, which possibly says more about the state of big budget blockbusters in general these days.
I refuse to believe this is the 'worst film of the year'
There must be worse gubbins that has been released in 2012? Surely?
nowhere near the worst film of the year obviously
it just wasn't very good
http://www.flavourmag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/TH5-rihanna-battleship-movie-poster-0305.jpg
I'm looking forward to the sequel:
http://i.imgur.com/dU5gS.jpg
timeline question
Alien is set in roundabout 2122
Aliens and Alien3 in 2179
Alien Resurrection in about 2380
Prometheus is set in 2089-93
That means that the boneship that the Nostromo discovers on LV-426 was there long *before* the events of Prometheus - the space jockey is said to have fossilised - so if they are to fit into the existing continuity without too much retconning then they must be read as almost parallel and not (even in sequels) a direct lead up to the original film as there simply isn't the time to fit it all in.
Yes?
yes
although I think that the when dallas(?) says its fossilised, in alien, that doesnt actually make any sense, because I think that when we describe dinosaur bones as being fossilised, dont we mean that they have become like stone, because they have had minerals piling up in sediment around them and the minerals have leached into the bone and then the bone has become 'stonified' whereas in Alien there was obviously no sediment or mineral build up on the 'navigator' .....perhaps the crew of alien said fossilised, because of the helmet seeming to be inorganic....but they didnt realise it was a helmet, because they were not examining it with such sophisticated tools as in Promethius (perhaps they hadnt examined the chestburst bones as closely as the head so hadnt noticed that those were indeed 'bone')
Ridley Scott should pay me for this really
He should have paid you to write the script as you've put far more thought in than anyone involved.
I think that's a bit of a slippery get out
as the space jockey in alien looks as if it was built as a more alien head with trunk and mouth rather than the helmet which seems like it is an addition of Prometheus to create a link between the space jockey the engineers and humans
http://www.fmtaccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Ridley-reveals-Space-Jockey.jpg
Also:
TENTACLE RAPE
I have not been near this thread because I still haven't seen it.
This pic is great though, no spoilers.
http://i.imgur.com/oDzET.jpg
Expected it to be shite
It was alright, maybe just scraping a 6/10 although I reckon it'll be one of these films that I gradually get more and more annoyed about. Looked amazing. The script was a disaster and overall the ideas were a muddled mess.
Sunshine was a far, far, far better film.
I enjoyed it
mostly because of Fassbender and it looked soooo fine.
Among the multitude of things-that-made-no-sense, what about when they leave the tomb/spaceship for the first time? David, Shaw, Holloway and Kate Dickie leave on the quad bikes and in the distance you see the ATV. I assumed that Rafe and angry-tattoo rock-lover were on that but then we find out that they actually got lost. Who was driving that? A re-watch may reveal that there were some more characters in the tomb initially but I don't remember any.
Could it be that Ridley Scott used an initial shot of them all leaving and then changed his mind (or had the studio tell him that more action was required) and then had Rafe and angry-tattoo rock-lover get into a scrape which makes no real sense whatsoever? I think so.
http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/uswn1/prometheus_everything_explained_and_analysed/
So we're all agreed then, Fassbender is the fucking man?!
still haven't seen this yet
why hasn't it been torrented in decent form. come on crimnals please do it soon
It was OK
Eddie Murphy thinks so: http://bit.ly/LuVTba