While our readers are already talking about this movie in the comments section of our Prometheus review, this is the place where you can discuss Prometheus spoilers without concerns about ruining the movie for folks who haven’t seen it yet.
If you’re posting comments here, assume that anyone in the conversation has seen the movie – if you haven’t seen the movie, we would recommend you don’t read the comments here until you have.
We’ve set up a poll below where you can rate Prometheus for yourself. Other than that, feel free to discuss the film and all its surprises! Still wondering about how – exactly - Prometheus connects to Alien? Read our ‘Prometheus – Alien Connection Explained’ Article!
For further discussion of the film’s connections from the Screen Rant team check out our Prometheus episode of the SR Underground podcast.
-
Loading ...-
Follow me on Twitter @benkendrick for future reviews, as well as movie, TV, and gaming news.
Prometheus is Rated R for sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language. Now playing in theaters.
‘Assassin’s Creed’ Gets Memorial Day 2015 Release Date [Updated] 
New ‘Anchorman 2′ Teaser Trailer: Brick Wishes You Happy Easter 
‘Game of Thrones’ to End in Season 7? 
Kevin Feige Talks Possible Movies for Marvel’s Phase Three 
Okay my question is about all the cave paintings. Did the creators come down every once in a while to visit and get worshipped? Were they checking in on us? How would the Mayans and the Sumarians know we were created by giants or about the constellations unless the creators were telling them about it? I am having a really hard time understanding this aspect of the story.
And David really bothers me. I think he looks more like a Kevin. Why was he dying his roots? He’s a robot! His hair doesn’t grow and therefore will not develop dark roots! Also while every body is in cryo sleep he’s walking around in flip flops eating and drinking. Why? Shouldn’t his feet be fine without any form of protection? Why is he eating? Doesn’t he just plug himself in somewhere and recharge? Grrrrrrr! This movie is so frustrating!
A super genius android that is given a protocol to learn everything would undoubtedly understand he is not human and attempt to make himself the same as his creators by adopting their mannerisms and traits. David wants to be equals with us just as we are seeking the same of the engineers. David is scary as he will act this way with the engineers as well and humans may be doomed or the creators may decide to come back and be friends but most likely they will perceive us as a threat to them because of David’s high level of intelligence.
the engineers have had 3 billion years to learn to fly their ships and not let their black goop out, but they still havent quite got the hang of it…
Or they have two political parties both vying for power and are technically in a civil war…sounds strangely familiar?
Hahaha – good one.
Davids poisoning of the doctor says what about David, did he know exactly what he was giving the boyfriend, did he know they would have sex, and was he prepared to deal with whatever was to emerge from Shaw’s embryo?
Perhaps following orders from Weyland? He has a communication with him.
I think he was testing it out on the doctor. I think he admired the Alien as much as the android in the original film did. Remember in the original, the android viewed the alien as a superior form of life and was trying to protect it.
I think when the creators made humans, the Alien turned out to be an unwanted byproduct-some form of symbiotic life form that needed human beings to carry their hatchlings-much like the gnats during the black plague. At first, the Alien was fascinating o them, but they found that could not control the Alien, so they abandoned the project altogether. The planet was essentially a junkyard, but they left a ship and a pilot behindto wipe out the Aliens (and humans)if they ever escaped. That’s why the ship was headed for earth-the creators foresaw the danger of humans ever coming into contact with the Aliens. In that sense, they were actually trying to protect Earth as well as themselves.
I think he was testing it out on the doctor. I think he admired the Alien as much as the android in the original film did. Remember in the original, the android viewed the alien as a superior form of life and was trying to protect it.
I think when the creators made humans, the Alien turned out to be an unwanted byproduct-some form of symbiotic life form that needed human beings to carry their hatchlings-much like the gnats during the black plague. At first, the Alien was fascinating o them, but they found that could not control the Alien, so they abandoned the project altogether. The planet was essentially a junkyard, but they left a ship and a pilot behindto wipe out the Aliens (and humans)if they ever escaped. That’s why the ship was headed for earth-the creators foresaw the danger of humans ever coming into contact with the Aliens. In that sense, they were actually trying to protect Earth as well as themselves.
The only thing that bothered me about this movie is that, on it’s own, it was a fantastic and imagination-provoking film that had awesome special effects and a lot of good possibilities in terms of plot. To go through the entire, fantastical adventure only to come back to the Aliens theme, in my opinion, wasn’t necessary. We’re all sick of the overplayed Alien movies. There’s a reason why nobody cared when the third and fourth films came out. They should have taken the film’s premise to something more creative.
I think he was testing it out on the doctor. I think he admired the Alien as much as the android in the original film did. Remember in the original, the android viewed the alien as a superior form of life and was trying to protect it.
I think when the creators made humans, the Alien turned out to be an unwanted byproduct-some form of symbiotic life form that needed human beings to carry their hatchlings-much like the gnats during the black plague. At first, the Alien was fascinating o them, but they found that could not control the Alien, so they abandoned the project altogether. The planet was essentially a junkyard, but they left a ship and a pilot behindto wipe out the Aliens (and humans)if they ever escaped. That’s why the ship was headed for earth-the creators foresaw the danger of humans ever coming into contact with the Aliens. In that sense, they were actually trying to protect Earth as well as themselves.
The only thing that bothered me about this movie is that, on it’s own, it was a fantastic and imagination-provoking film that had awesome special effects and a lot of good possibilities in terms of plot. To go through the entire, fantastical adventure only to come back to the Aliens theme, in my opinion, wasn’t necessary. We’re all sick of the overplayed Alien movies. There’s a reason why nobody cared when the third and fourth films came out. They should have taken the premise of Prometheus and done something more creative with it.
In reply to Dave Mowers
““if his DNA was exactly the same as ours, why wasnt he a human?”
Evolution.”
Doesn’t work that way dude. At all.
““why did archeologists lead a potentially dangerous, and certainly momentously historic space mission anyway?”
For the chance to find out our origins which they explained in the movie.”
You missed my point. I mean why are a couple of arechologists qualified to run a dangerous space mission?
In fact, they prove so dangerously incompetent, everyone dies…
What about my other questions? How can you get lost in a fully mapped ship? Why would you employ idiots like that geologist, not a crew of supersmart robots, or at least top flight human experts?
Why was the chief scientist lazily drinking during the autopsy of an alien head?
Why did the medical machine say it was only sey up for males, yet let a female use it?
Why did Charlize Theron who clealry ewxpected the mission to be a wile goose chase take 5 years out of taking over her fathers company in his absense to tag along and do nothing?
Why would David bring the alien aboard and poison and murder the scientist best able to help him research it, instead of just culturing it in a lab?
Why afte the terrible f*** up there did Weyland still think the black goop would be any use anyway?
none of it made any sense.
I totally agree, and why didnt something emerge from one of the guys attacked in the ship when the snake went into his mouth like it did the space jockey. why did the wrong guy returned to the ship (they guy with the melted Face shield)
how did the squid thing develop only after the poisoned or infected boyfriend and shaw had sex
Well I think I can answer a couple of question after seeing the movie in 3-D yesterday’
Hollingsworth was drinking because he was a dedicated Darwinist, bickering with Shaw about it….and whoops now there was a superior life form messing at least somewhat with all that Darwin stuff.
The medical machine program was set for males when Shaw initiated it, she then reprogrammed it.
David didn’t like Charlie who was always condescending to him so why not test the goop out on him…a real live guinea pig
@Hilodave
Doubtful if Hollingsworth drank because of this, unless you presume the sacrificed Engineer produced a human as we see today.
I think the sacrificed Engineer produced millions of different biological horrors only few resulted in insects/mammals/fish/fungi that we know of today.
Evolution (which I think you mean by Darwinist) still applies no matter who or what seeded it.
The drunk at the vivisection of the head still makes no sense.
Shaw’s reprogramming of the machine did not change the machine’s setting for males. She simply choose a procedure that came close enough for what she needed without dying. The machine operated on her as if she was a male with a foreign object in his guts. It’s amazing she didn’t die when the machine closed her up as if it was only closing her belly and not give her womb extra care. That organ needed closing as well.
David has been created not to care about people condescending him. It’s like saying your Alarm clock only works if you kiss it goodnight.
Unless we get to hear that the artificial humans have been created to have emotions, I’m going to follow what the movie told me.
The action of infecting Charlie was illogical since the outcome was completely unpredictable and thus could have resulted in a full spread uncontrollable infection which would completely eradicate the whole team including Weyland himself.
Unless this is a subtle hint that Dave was a flawed product, I’m just assuming that David’s role was just a cheap story element to make stuff happen. (Like that asshole in Blairwitch Project that throws away the map, srsly, If you can’t find a good way to make the problems happen in a story, let someone write it instead)
The dude drinking while the autopsy was going on made no sense, probably just to setup david being able to coerce an already drunk guy to drink with more booze.
I think the machine was setup for males because it was setup for weyland himself. Remember shaw said there were only ten in the world made so it was probably pretty expensive and in case anything happened on the planet, weyland would want to fix himself before anyone else.
As far as David himself, I don’t know if you felt this, but it seemed he teetered on the edge of human emotions and when weyland told him to try harder, he wanted to make weyland proud by trying harder, although he wasn’t able to rationalize that doing so in that way could jeapordize the mission.
If you watch davids reaction you clearly see it hurts him when “father” says he has no soul.
@ anna
If you watch the other alien movies all the robots ate and drank. If you remember david told shaws bf that he was made that way because humans wanted something like them, we dont know if davids hair grows or not simply because they dont show it, but if he eats and drinks its possible. Especially seeing as his skin had its own fingerprint on the finger.
He’s drinking because he’s bummed out that they went all that way and didn’t “meet their makers”. He was expecting something else other than what they found. I thought that was pretty clear.
Definitely agree about the pacing Dave, alien was so slow and creepy and then ON!!
this was uneven and didnt sustain its tension.
the abortion shouldve been at the end while the space jockey chased her down.
how he knew exactly where she was, and why he didnt kill earth billenia ago, well id be prepared to let that slide just if theyd used the ticking clock element less sloppily.
David infects Charlie to start the life process cycle of the virus to see what it does most likely on orders from Weyland. The virus then reside as a spurmatozoa inside the testes of a male and impregnate a female who then gives birth to the progenitor facehugger which implants an egg into other animals from which spout fully evolved xeno-morph aliens whose characteristics are similar in appearance to the organism they gestate inside until birth. The final organism that comes out of the engineer from his impregnation by the giant squid is a queen capable of laying face hugger eggs without the viral cycle. The purpose of leaving a star map in cave drawings on earth was part of the whole plan, eventually one later day humans would develop space travel and being inquisitive go to LV-223 and begin the process of the xeno-morph. They intended for us to come to that planet and be the vectors for the virus creating aliens. Everything is messed up in their plans due to one engineer in the beginning of the movies releasing the virus without the others knowledge.
…and yes, evolution does work that way when we are talking about the scene where David sticks his fingers into gooey blood from an engineer by the door that they first find. The blood sparkles with nanobytes, mini-machines engineered to to evolve these progenitors of the human species who were more advanced than us and left earth thousands of years ago into a super human type being. They caused their own forced-evolution by chemistry, biotechnology, breeding and machine engineering which by the way humans are trying to do, now.
Why would Weyland want supremely dangerous outbreak on his ship?
What kind of scientist would infect one of his colleagues when he could just use a lab rat?
Why didnt the Engineers evolve in the billions of years since the dawn of life on earth?
Evolution doesnt work that way and you know it.
If they were so advanced, why did the Engineers crash all over the place?
Weyland’s stature in human society suggests an answer as anyone capable of climbing that high on the social and monetary pyramid would have to be a clear-case, genius psychopath. Again ask yourself what did Weyland industries do first?
Travel space or build super-intelligent androids?
How did Weyland’s company become so large as described on the website for Weyland Industries and why are they making fantasy sci-fi movies portraying themselves as fiction when we all know they are real and slowly taking over our world?
In evolution RNA or encoded information can be transferred or downloaded by organisms via viruses. The organisms then take the RNA code’s data that will help them survive or overcome in their environment. Environment plays a key role in forcing this relationship so by their act of traveling into space and into new, more hostile environments they have forced viral DNA to adapt by exchanging RNA with bacteria, molds, fungus, insects, animals, plants, viruses on those planets making themselves a harder, stronger organism. This IS how it works Google it, humans are using viruses as we speak to genetically-engineer plants that are resistant to microbes, bacteria, fungus and insects. That food we eat is changing our DNA, we are adapting to these genetic alterations and when those organisms we are trying to eliminate from attacking our food supply evolve, which they ARE doing now, their new RNA codes with those adaptions will be carried in the plants and our stomachs will absorb it, our DNA WILL ADAPT TO IT AND WE WILL BECOME ANOTHER ORGANISM.
The engineer’s did not crash anywhere they simply failed to recognize their own brutal desire to survive within less-evolved organisms and paid the price for it as we will one day soon due to genetic manipulation without absolute understanding of all the random probable outcomes.
what the hell are you saying dude.
Replying to pukey’s comment on how evolution works.
Retro viruses certainly can impact DNA. That is how I ended up with HPV related cancer in my tonsil and neck. I got a virus that interacted with my cells which turned them cancerous. But there was a pathway from the previous carrier to me. With the Engineer, there is no pathway from the river to pre-human simians. And if you are not sure that you are going to get the intended consequences, you certainly do not sacrifice yourself.
To assert than a group of apes (and I am not suggest that you are going to assert this) is immediately downstream and will drink the water, lets the filmmakers off the hook. They came up with the perfect 3 step plan: step 1, Engineer sacrifices himself; step 3, human beings. Who really cares about step 2. This is the level of thinking that goes into Saturday morning cartoons, and they are doing it as a joke.
Overall, the story of Prometheus seem to be one of incompetence:
Miss Vickers/Weyland was incompetent hiring idiots off the street for her trillion $ space mission.
Fifield was so incompetent even though he has just mapped the ship with his pups, he gets lost.
The biologist was incompetent enough to instantly get killed the moment he meets some exobiology.
David was incompetent murdering the missions cheif scientist and unleashing a terrifying bio weapon on his own ship for no reason.
Weyland was incompetent for making David such a nutter, and for going into the space jockey ship in person.
Holloway was incompetent for not being any good as a scientist at all and not telling anyone about his infection.
Noomi Rapace was incompetent for bring them to a giant trap which killed them all.
Captain Elba was incompetent by going off to f*** Vickers while he really should be on the bridge of his ship.
His pilots were incompetent in killing themselves but leaving the space jockey completely unharmed.
The Space Jockeys were incompetent for accidentally crashing at least two of their weapons ships.
Lindelof was incompetent writing such a stinker.
Scott wa incompetent hiring Lindelof.
I find it hard to believe that Scott even considered Lindelhof – despite his power, perhaps he came as part of the deal. These things work well beyond the comprehension of mere mortals like us.
What amazes me more is that the Hollywood Jockey’s haven’t seen through this guy – at this rate, his next turkey is going to make John Carter seem like good value for money.
let answer some stuff for you:
1: Weyland is close to death. His last hope for evading death is by sending people to a second earth where an advanced species may have the cure for death. He gathers some smart science people together in a hurry and sends them out, after all, he only really cares about himself. The crew just needed to discover whether or not The Engineers exist. Whether or not they are benevolent doesn’t matter. Weyland was going to die anyway and he doesn’t care about his crew.
2: Only people aboard Prometheus can view the map these pups have scouted out.
3:This part didn’t make any sense. As someone who specializes in understanding animal nature, your first reaction in that given situation is not to approach the ugly worm.
4: This did have a reason; Curiosity. First of all, you may remember Weyland told David earlier to “try harder.” I think Weyland thought this black goo could potentially be his cure all for death and wanted David to test the water. Or maybe David, with his innate desire to constantly learn and grow, especially under the circumstances for his creator Weyland, was just really curious. Besides, the head scientist was only an archeologist and hardly essential to the team.
5: Again Weyland only wants to be given life. He was going to die in a few days time anyway, why not sooner than later if there is no cure.
okay really, the overuse of the word “incompetence” is really killing me.
“Besides, the head scientist was only an archeologist and hardly essential to the team.”
So why bring him along then duh??
Agreed. It is getting to be a tired old story in science fiction. The incompetent characters. They are very hard to accept. When I think back to Alien, I have a hard time coming up with incompetence (although trying to shove a rolled up magazine (?) in Ripley’s mouth to kill her seems a little odd.
We want to see expert, competent characters that find themselves in over their heads, try their best to get out of the situation, and either fail or succeed. Maybe they make a mistake, maybe they have a motive for doing something unexpected (or evil). But freakin hell we should expect that they are probably smart or at least very good at their jobs and not plucked-off-the-street idiots.
After viewing piles of bodies the biologist decides its a good idea to grab the snake-lookin thing! Yeah. He doesn’t even have a net or collecting bag. What did expect? a massage?
Stories typically tap into a “What would I do in such a situation” part of our brains. I guess you could relate if you believe that you are in fact an incompetent fool.
I’ve seen a couple of comments on here about the life form that the scanners detect. People asking where this life form is (and where the xenos are that burst out of the chests of the Engineers that the two doctors find piled up).
1. David tampered with the scanners and then offered to go and “fix” them. This was his needed excuse to go off and explore the Engineer’s chamber.
2. It may seem like a cop out, but if this xeno breakout happened 2000 years ago and the Engineers are all either dead or in stasis, maybe the xenos have just moved on.
I actually thought the bio reading once every hour or so was the heart beat of the Engineer in stasis…
You are right at the cusp of understanding what the ship’s captain keeps seeing, a life-form moving being detected on the ship but no one sees it…why?
Alien 2 the same exact thing happens when they land on LV-426 and enter the atmospheric generator compounds. The “aliens” hide and wait, they are everywhere but no one sees them as they blend in with their surroundings.
Maybe the xenos are just waiting to pounce on us like they did the engineers.
No one seems to understand this – there are NO XENOMORPHS (aka Aliens) until the end of the film. The Alien seen bursting from the Engineer at end of the film is a Xenomorph Queen, and the very first Xenomorph to ever exist.
It seems likely that the creation of the Xenomorph was an accident.
I came to this conclusion because the cycle seen in Prometheus is so complex, that if it was a cycle intentioned by the Engineers, it would just be impractical, and the results would be far to difficult to predict.
The cycle I’m referring to is:
Black Viral Goo – Male Victim (Charlie) – Sexual Intercourse – Female Victim Impregnation – Release of Giant Squid/Facehugger – Impregnation via Squid/Facehugger into THIRD Victim – Release of Xenomorph
Doesn’t that cycle seem a LITTLE dragged out, impractical? Three victims and only ONE Xeno created. THAT’s why I believe the creation of the Xenomorph was an accident.
@Dan, there are definitely xenomorphs prior to the chest-burster that comes out of the Engineer at the end.
What else could have burst out of the chests of the pile of Engineers that the biologist and geologist find?
i was under the impression that their heads exploded victims of a chestbursting
They installed a carved relief of the final product, the alien on their ship. They know what the outcome is and that the alien will come from it.
Here is the most in-depth analysis I have read to date and this person agrees with my view that the holographic images of engineers running away from something implies that ALIENS are already alive and inhabiting LV-223.
Xenomorphs are there we just don’t see them in the film. They are obviously known because they are depicted in sculpture on the ship!
http://thewertzone.blogspot.in/2012/06/filling-blanks-tying-prometheus-to.html
Then explain the alien image on the wall?
If the Xeno at the end of the movie was the first to ever exist. How do you account for the mural on LV-223 in the caves/ship that shows a Xenomorph?
http://tubgoat.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/12-06-13-prometheus-muralxeno1.jpg
No one seems to understand this – there are NO XENOMORPHS (aka Aliens) until the end of the film. The Alien seen bursting from the Engineer at end of the film is a Xenomorph Queen, and the very first Xenomorph to ever exist.
It seems likely that the creation of the Xenomorph was an accident.
I came to this conclusion because the cycle seen in Prometheus is so complex, that if it was a cycle intentioned by the Engineers, it would just be impractical, and the results would be far to difficult to predict.
The cycle I’m referring to is:
Black Viral Goo – Male Victim (Charlie) – Sexual Intercourse – Female Victim Impregnation – Release of Giant Squid/Facehugger – Impregnation via Squid/Facehugger into THIRD Victim – Release of Xenomorph
Doesn’t that cycle seem a LITTLE dragged out, impractical? Three victims and only ONE Xeno created. THAT’s why I believe the creation of the Xenomorph was an accident, which is very interesting and, if intended by Ridley Scott and the producers, a great idea.
i agree with the accident conclusion but what i couldnt get over is this. Why did the filmakers have to make a pre-quel that used so many of the exact occurrences from the first Alien? i mean a disengenous alterior-motive android: a company person (Theron) ultimately concerned about money (Reiser: Aliens); scumbag Android attempts to get an alien into ship for potential return to earth AND then this alien tries to get out through the stomach AGAIN (Hurt: Alien). Whole group goes into an Alien lair only to get attacked: huge room of eggs but in this case cylinders with baby aliens inside (Alien) – this was worst movie i could imagine as there was nothing at all original about it.
They should have made it a direct prequel, that alone is the source of everyone’s anger with the film.
I think you’re partially right there, Dave, but I would argue that even if it wasn’t a direct prequel, people would be praising the exquisite storytelling with all its shocks and open joins to the Alien mythos.
As it is we’ve bought into another “Lost” with a meandering, pointless storyline with appalling character arcs and nothing of substance.
The prequel was so heavily hinted at in the marketing, I suspect that this may have amplified some people’s disgust at being lied to.
When LV-226 popped up on that big screen, I felt my heart sink a little; and it kept on falling from thereon in.
This is the prequel to the prequel to Alien. I think there were at least 3 dome things in the valley, which implies at least 3 ships. The first one is crashed, the second flies off, leaving the xeno behind. So the xeno could get onto the 3rd ship when it activates and goes flying off after the second, implant the Engineer on board, and then pop out of his pilot chair to create the Space Jockey we see in Alien.
Also, there is a wall mural in the caverns which clearly shows a xeno-like creature at the middle, so it may be that the Engineers need to interact with the goo, and the intermediate human interaction was not needed. In that case, Shaw could come upon a second planet, either the Engineers’ home world or an older installation. with xenos already running about. Someone gets implanted, gets in the chair, and you get the Space Jockey in that ship for Ripley’s crew to find.
REMEMBERRRRRRRR
The Engineers have the exact SAME DNA as us! This “accident” could have just as easily have happened to them 2,000 years ago! Also, I’m pretty sure that after 2,000 years without food, a lifeform will probably die. So… the Xenomorphs probably all starved to death before we got there. And that little “pup” that froze, froze right in front of a door. Maybe they’re programmed to wait until these doors are opened?
I understand it to be an “accidental” creation, and it seems that the xeno at the end was the final product that leads us to the first alien movie. What burst out of the chests of the engineers they found piled up then? If they were earlier prototypes of the xeno then the creation cannot be accidental (just inexplicably complex i suppose). And I just want to point out that the xeno is regarded as the universes “ultimate organism” that is supposed to be “perfect”.. How the hell does something like that “accidently” happen.. I dont think they did the xeno any justice in this movie – seems they got too caught up with the movie they were making and kept having to jump back and put in references for Alien enthusiasts..
Hello ladies and gents. Dispite the numerous potholes this is what I gathered. The engineer in the beginning self sacrificed himself to forge a new species…man. They visited often, directing us where to one day find them when we ourselves traveled the stars. Hence the pictograms. Once we found them, they would teach us to become engineers like themselves,hence the genetic engineering site on planet #1. However during the thousands of years before our arrival, the engineers began experimenting with alien DNA. The alien pic on the wall meant this chamber contained viles with genetic alien DNA. In their effort to create the perfect being, they went to far and lost control. Some engineers ingested the new alien DNA and became a new species. Others were killed by their genetic monsters. Hence the piles of bodies bursting from within that were fossilized. The engineer at the end was a new species of engineer with alien DNA. Like the engineer before him he waited for man once we came the alien engineer determined he would create a new species out of one already created because man could now space travel an spread throughout the galaxy . So earth was already programmed in the ships tech as the place to go. Also I think robot boy told the engineer that he knew what he was now going to do. The alien engineer then went off. Since the alien engineer was alien,he needed no helmet.alco since we had our engineers DNA as far as size is concerned,that would explain the size of the mature squid. It has man an engineer DNA. Check out the feet on the alien that burst from the engineer…it had five toes like a man, it’s a new species of alien. Also on planet #2 where Ripley first meets the alien is the aliens home world. The engineers discovered it an could not control it they were forced to flee but not before retaining alien DNA. The fossilized engineer in pilots seat an crew were exposed an never made it off world. Either they gathered alien eggs an placed them in ships hull and were killed or were killed off by aliens an pilot was exposed an sent off warning beacon an died. And a queen layed eggs in hull later.Also the goo ingested in the beginning could not have been the same toward the end. There are now two types of alien on two different worlds.
NO NO NO NO NO and NO!!!!!!
Lol…no about what?
Why would he drink some form of corrosive acid stuff. Acid in my mind is used to not leave a trace, to complete destroy. they showed its DNA breaking down and deteriorating, what life could be made from this. and if its DNA was meant to begin life, then wouldnt some life forms mirror or imitate the DNA left behind. there would be some 10 foot super muscular bald big eyed bluish pale skin folks on earth
And SHaq and Yao Ming dont count
I think he drank it so he couldn’t become an alien. The alien species were obviously as terrified of the aliens as humans are. I found the role of the android to be extremely interesting, given that the android in the original Alien admired the alien.
Pitch Black was better and that cost about 50p and had Vin bleedin Deisel in it.
Why did the guy who made the map of the ship get lost? Why?
Ooo! Ooo! I can answer that one. It’s because the entire script is a load of pants from beginning to end.
It’s deliberately vague due to lazy writing which masquerades as something deep and meaningful so we all sit around and argue what it all means.
Chronicle was better than this drivel and it cost a lot less too.
Bingo
“Chronicle was better than this drivel”
‘Chronicles of Riddick’ was possibly the only Sci-Fi film which nearly matched the ‘Lord of the Rings’, in terms in dimension, scope, and vision for the first decade of the 2000s. Sorry Lucas, but the SW prequels didn’t cut it.
I mean the prior ‘Pitch Black’ was a spin on the ‘Alien’ thing but with a great central anti-hero/hero character and a perfectly dire planetary setting. In ‘Chronicles’, however, you step onto a total universe, as vast as either Middle Earth or the Wizards’ societies of Harry Potter. But instead of the movie being a lot of visuals & cultural voyeurisms, it’s a complete epic, blending Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, pick any Roman/Greek myth of antiquity, interstellar Conan the Barbarian, and a classic prison escape film.
Prometheus, aside from tossing money into the CGI fire, comes close to Chronicles. Riddick was a movie which more than delivered the goods. It was David Twohy’s masterpiece.
Actually, I was alluding to Chronicle (2011) not the Twohy’s stuff (which I also admire).
Chronicle was written by Max Landis (son of John) and is compelling viewing despite the change of direction part-way through.
“Actually, I was alluding to Chronicle (2011)”
I’ll check it out. It sounds like a blend of ‘The Craft’ and ‘Jumper’.
I totally agree. There were a lot of loose ends for me in this film, and all I can put them down to is a lazy attempt to mystify audiences.
The reviewer described every character as having a clear purpose. I couldn’t disagree more. I found Charlize Theron’s character completely superfluous, to the point where I think they just threw her in as an extra selling point.
The storyline with Weyland was also a waste of time. I would have been happier if David was acting entirely on his own agenda rather than following orders from that guy, a storyline which failed to develop or GO ANYWHERE.
Also, my opinion is, if you need an old guy for a movie, hire an old guy. Don’t hire 40-odd-year-old Guy Pierce and cover him in festy old man make-up.
I enjoyed this film, but would have liked to see:
a) a more intelligent crew;
b) more intelligent dialogue;
c) more emotion from it’s actors. If you want the audience to be afraid, the characters, and most of all the protagonist needs to be afraid.
U hit the nail on the head!!
totally agree!
I think everyone has had a case of “the emperors new clothes” with this movie.
No s***! Btw another thing re the opening scene. I don’t get it, but it would have made a great Tool video clip.
THAT was Guy Pearce? And he got such high billing too !!
The problem with Prometheus was not that it was bad, but rather that it was dumb. It tried to set itself up as a search for grand ideas, and then it was worse than a slasher film filled with drunk frat and sorority idiots. At least with those films, you know the people are stupid.
The first alien in the movie is obviously seeding life on Earth, and that could have started an interesting idea about ID vs. random evolution. The aliens are even called “engineers.” But what life did they start? We match their DNA, yet we bear only the basest resemblance to them. You could argue that environmental conditions make us smaller, weaker and more diverse (all the other aliens look very similar to each other), but that would mean that we were seeded long after life began on this planet. If not, then every creature would share the alien DNA. And if we are a designed species, from scratch, why do we share DNA with close relatives here on earth, like higher primates. These beings obviously kept visiting this planet, perhaps to guide development, but why stop? An opening like 2001, where the aliens come to a early primate group and feed them some of the black goop to speed evolution would have made so much more sense.
Why, when they discovered the cave painting, did they need to come running out of the cave to call to each other. Really, 60 or more years into our future and we have not gotten to the point where walkie talkies need to be reinvented? Are discoveries announced like they were in Indiana Jones? And as soon as she started to break down the stone wall and go into the room with the paintings, it was obvious she was not a real scientist, rather a fool hardy amateur, rushing headlong into new discoveries without a thought for documentation, preservation, or real science.
It was only fitting that the rest of the crew was as ill conceived and idiotic as she is. A geologist, and the one person who is in charge of mapping the site, gets lost. But he obviously has a map, since later he is able to tell the ship where he is.
Everyone touches everything. They have a technology to reanimate the dead and yet they can not run simple scans on the pods? The aliens have a holographic video log that just happens to replay only salient plot points? After pushing all the various buttons in the control panel, why does the one light up for David? Why do they need a flute to run the ship? Doesn’t the Prometheus have a scanner that can pick up the not dead ship’s power source? Was anyone surprised the old man was on the ship?
Was there a single thought provoking idea in the entire movie beyond the general question of, “why is this so stupid?”
I loved Alien. I though Blade Runner was one of the greatest movies of all time. Prometheus is such a disappointment.
totally agree. i listed all my questions here (see below) if youre interested, but you raised yet more i hadnt thought of, like suit radios only existing at some times and not others.
http://conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=54
You say it was dumb because everyone basically did everything rushed and unprofessionally, yet you don’t take into account “Prometheus”. The whole point is what happens when you rush headlong into what you desire, the overreaching and consequences thereof. The result was everyone got wiped out… horribly… painfully haha.
The title can lend itself to so many of your disputes with the film. Who knows why the Engineer at the beginning was there? Is he supposed to represent Prometheus as well? Rebelling against the other “gods” to create life? Was it actually Earth? Ridley stated that the ship in Alien was on its way to a world other than Earth, so perhaps there are many worlds where various Engineers have began life and the majority are systematically wiping them all out. Perhaps, since we are essentially Prometheus then by extension of the first Engineer turning into us, we are being punished eternally by their biological weapon that rips a body asunder?
The shouting from the cave was a little corny, I had that thought as well. But it’s so nitpicking that it didn’t matter to me. We all have cellphones, sometimes I forget mine at home. People do stupid things, you don’t know and it doesn’t need to be explained, it’s inconsequential.
The geologist, the biologist, everyone seems to forget what is most basic to them and it inevitably leads to everyone’s demise.
As far as the holographic video logs, David initiates them. How do we know he doesn’t engage it at the point he wishes to? Even if he doesn’t, it’s simply a plot device, the same as its been for hundreds of years. You use certain elements to push the main plot along, which in this case saves us from watching over 2,000 years of back logs. Improbable? Of course, but we’re watching a sci-fi movie, not the history channel.
The flute and the technology that seemed to be related to sound I thought was pretty awesome. It reminded me of Dante’s Divine Comedy where once you get to Heaven, music is essentially a language. Seemed pretty fitting in this situation.
Lastly, I don’t think Weyland was supposed to be a surprise to the audience. David was talking to him earlier in the film and it seemed implied pretty heavily when Weyland gave his introduction. Also, I don’t feel Weyland really cared about the crew or any aspect other than simply meeting the Engineer. He was dying regardless, he wanted to meet his maker and hopefully get a little extension on that thing called life. Unfortunately the Engineer he encountered wasn’t the nice, life giving guy we see at the start. It was stated right in the film the Engineers in that installment were soldiers, which is also a nice contrast between the extremes of the life giver at the start and the death dealer at the end.
So man’s desire shall lead to his undoing. The desire to find the Engineers has led all to abandon reason. Sorry, that only works for three people in the movie, the archeologists and Weyland.
It was their dream, and Weyland’s, that they contact these Engineers. None of the others on the mission had grand hopes or dreams. They were just hired hands, and not even enthusiastic about the mission. Why would the geologist and biologist get lost after they showed a real sense of intelligence in leaving the site. And then, when they are trapped for the night, away from any hope of help, would they then go exploring? Why would they go and try and touch an alien life form, especially after it started showing potentially aggressive behavior?
The early planet may or may not have been Earth, but if it was not, the implication is certainly that this is what they did on Earth, engineer human life. If you want to call that first Engineer Prometheus, a Titan who is giving us fire, nay life, then you could be correct, if there is another prequel to set that up. 2 minutes of opening credits is not enough to support you. And no, we are not all Prometheus by extension, just as not all humans were tortured for eternity to sate Zeus’ wrath. And finally, while the creatures are forceful in how they expel themselves, we are not kept alive for continued births. We are one and done, hardly the punishment of Prometheus.
Obviously David initiates the video log, but at no point does he study the tapes, fast forward to only the parts that matter. No, he turns the one on in the hallway and the aliens come running at them. Then he activates the one in the control room and it shows him how to run the star map and ship. No fast forward, no furrowing of the brow, nothing but a gracious tip of the hat for the “Spaceflight for Dummies” video tutorial.
If you want to use music as your language, use it in ways that make sense. Close Encounters is a perfect example. There is a back and forth using music. No where else in the movie, not in David’s study of ancient language, not in the operation of any other part of the ship, not in the Engineer’s opening moment, is music used as a communication or command device.
Weyland was obviously supposed to be a surprise. If not, he would not have told the crew he would be dead by the time they saw the hologram. We would have seen David interacting with his dreams during the journey. We would have seen his pod at some point with him in it. He was a surprise, an obvious one, but an intended surprise none the less.
The point is that not even the biologist or the geologist utilize reason. They rush off in the event of discovery just like everyone else. Were they thrilled at the start? No, they both stated SPECIFICALLY they didn’t believe there was going to be life. Then they found it and lost their heads. None of them opted to stay back at the ship even though the captain specifically cautioned against leaving.
Next, we are Prometheus by extension because the figure that represents Prometheus gave himself to become us. We suffer perpetually as a species, not as individuals. The liver pecking is one person to the next over a prolonged period of time. Prometheus gave life and technology. By extension, he would have engineered us as well, but your previous rant was regarding all living things on Earth. Fact is, the opening scene isn’t necessarily Earth. You’re right, it is only a few minutes of time, it’s supposed to provoke thought and speculation, not spoon feed you an exact locale. Of course, there’s no point discussing symbols if you’re going to take everything literally. Which in that case, documentaries may be more your style rather than Sci-Fi.
Further, David doesn’t need to study the tapes, it’s a plot device. He can read, just like you can read and zip through a 2,000 page book to page 1,000 or start a video and put it to the date you care to view without spending hours to do so. He’s a robot, if they showed him reading a book he’d probably flip through it in typical Sci-Fi fashion and have it memorized in 10 seconds. Either settle into the suspension of disbelief that he’s capable or stop watching. I don’t think it’s worth arguing the abilities of a fictional android.
Also, when he engages the one “musical” note control in the cockpit, he does stop and raise an eyebrow and then continues to activate the hologram where we see them viewing the Earth. Again, you either buy that he figured it out in typical Sci-Fi android fashion or not. But to me, the musical aspect worked. They could have very easily used typical touch screens and other cliche Sci-Fi controls to look advanced, but they were obviously instruments, organized almost like an organ and going so far as to display an actual flute. You don’t have to punch your audience in the face with it like they did in Close Encounters, it’s a subtle gesture to other iconic literature / symbolism. Music as the language of the divine as represented in such staple religious works as the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost. The whole movie is ripe with western religious undertones, from the fact they made landing on Christmas to the fact we were supposed to be wiped out 2,000 years ago, around the time of Christ’s crucifixion. If you take everything at face value, you’re going to lose out on a lot of what art offers.
Finally, while Weyland might have been a surprise to the crew, it was not a surprise to us. The crew isn’t watching the movie, we are. We see David speak to him, we’ve seen the viral marketing campaign and we’ve seen future aspects of the franchise and his company in the Alien series. We can infer his motives, the reason for the expedition, etc. where the crew does not have the advantages we do.
You certainly get more out of art that I do, seeing as you project onto the canvass what you wish to see, even though it is not there. Like modern art, which in general I also do not like, you are doing the filmmakers job for them, ascribing notions and ideas that are just not present.
David is specifically shown learning at a human speed, though with only one take. When he is studying language, he watches in real time. He could have been shown zipping through a lesson and stopping at a particularly interesting point, but he is not. He is shown learning at a human pace. I am more than willing to suspend disbelief. The way the ship entered orbit was silly. Has no one heard of momentum?
David also only sees the few salient points in the video log, as if that is all that was recorded. I can buy the scene in the hallway, maybe the video recorder was tripped by an alarm. In Serenity, we only get a recording of the very end of the investigation team’s report, but it is understandable, since that brief snippet was all that was in that entry. In the bridge of the alien ship, there was no reason for the log to be at that point. He is not shown zipping through the tape to get to a point. At least in Star Wars, R2D2 connect to the main computer and looks at several bits of information before letting everyone know the Princess is on the Death Star. If it were David, he would have told OB1 before he ran off.
At no point in the movie does music play any other role. They could have seeded the idea with a note to open the box at the start of the film. David could have learned about the role of music in ancient Summarian language. Nothing. Just a silly flute to run the ship, like piping to come to attention on a ocean going vessel. Except our piping serves no function. And if it is all controlled by music, why the buttons?
You want to say that world was not Earth, fine. But the obvious implication is that this is what happened on Earth, so again, this makes no sense. You don’t spill DNA into the water and create humans. If you want to engineer us, you give primates the DNA juice and let them evolve, unless you are going to argue that the Engineers remove the process of evolution completely from our history.
Weyland was most certainly supposed to be a surprise to us. Why else keep him hidden until the 3rd act. The did foreshadow his being on the ship, and in a very clumsy way, so when he did show up, it was not a surprise to anyone paying attention, but he was supposed to be a surprise. Which is how I know that all the other insight you list are not intended in the movie. They obviously set up the one surprise, but fail to do anything to seed the other ideas. If you don’t seed the possibility, then you are merely cheating the audience.
Fight Club did their trick in a clever way. With the girl, Norton and Pitt were never in the same room with her at the same time. They interacted with her individually in a very natural way, and there were scenes where one would watch the other with her, but they were never together as a 3 some. So when the big reveal came up, there was that shadow of an idea already built into the movie.
Christmas is also the wrong religious reference. The alien birth is certainly not of virgin origins. They use Christmas so she can use the line about opening presents. If you want to tie this to Christian mythos, you make it the time of Easter. Rebirth of the Engineer, exiting the cave 3 days after entering (it was only one, but if they wanted to, they could have made it 3 with no problems, they could have noted that the exit was the eastern one… They could have done so much to plant that Christian idea, but they did not. They never intended to.
One of my favorite little lines from Bloom County is “Foreshadowing, your key to quality literature.” My other is Binkley’s line “Some day when I have a wife, kids, a dog, and a Chrysler minivan sitting in the garage, I will say to myself, ‘Binkley, you poor, miserarble, bored yuppie, you never went for the gusto’”. – But I digress. Foreshadowing, that is my point. They foreshadow Weyland – poorly, the use of the surgical pod – poorly… but the things you want to be there, not at all.
You don’t read much do you? You also didn’t listen to any of Ridley’s interviews it’s obvious. I’ll leave you to your random quote on foreshadowing and you can debate with the AVP guys.
The second Star Wars and Fight Club became references I knew I’d wasted my time.
I read a lot. I don’t read much fantasy, but I have no problem with it, as long as it makes sense. LOTR was excellent (the movie, I only read the Hobbit). But Middle Earth was fully realized and well constructed.
Avatar was well realized. Eventually, the story was too silly, with the white man saving the natives and then joining them (Dances With Wolves anyone?), and heavy handed with a simple environmentalist message, but it was consistent and set up the fantastical elements. That is what makes the otherwise unbelievable acceptable.
Oh please.
Wishing that a movie was smarter does not make it so.
Every movie you reference is a movie some idiot talks about to try and look smart. They were popular because they explained complicated issues to morons in an entertaining way. Congrats, you got what Avatar was about. Please start talking about the Matrix next and how it changed your perception on reality there Plato. Because I’m really interested.
Do you even know how to read? Avatar was not a great movie, and it certainly was not thought provoking. But the science fiction world made sense. You buy into a few ideas and the rest of the movie is consistent. Prometheus requires a new suspension of disbelief every other scene.
The first Matrix movie was not a thought provoking movie either. There was nothing in it that was deep or consequential. But again, the premise of the movie’s world was well laid out and the rest of the movie lived within those rules.
Neil Gaiman creates interesting worlds with thought provoking elements. Terry Gilliam does it well. Guillermo del Toro can do it. Christopher Nolan does a good job with it, even if Inception was dumbed down so the average movie goer could follow it. Ridley Scott did it twice. So 2 out of 3 excellent science fiction movies ain’t too bad.
So jimmy, my take is that the reason why you liked the movie, more so than some others, is that you see the film as an enneagram of its underlying themes. Thus, where most viewers would see actions like taking off the helmet as being moronic, you’d see it as a depiction of the themes of faith, impulsiveness, etc, which then feedback into other actions, desires, belief systems, etc. Well, to some extent, sure, I concur. A movie can be a mosaic, in place of a linear sequence of predictable cause and effects. That mosaic, without necessarily fitting a perfect model, can have an impact and be a successful avant garde film.
Unfortunately, I believe many viewers were not expecting Sci-Fi with a Mulholland Drive sensitivity but a story which more adheres to traditional story telling, in a tighter framework. That was the original Aliens and this movie didn’t do it for me.
Here is my question. If the alien ship in Prometheus is supposed to be the same one that Ripley and her crew find, how does the engineer end up back in the ship with his chest ripped open?
Two different ships on two different plants, LV-426 and LV-223. It is not intended to be a set up for the first movie. The alien queen has to be born from a female and that female will be Shaw and her xenomorph will be a queen and it will be loaded on a ship with eggs and sent to earth and THAT will be the intro to the first movie as the ship will crash land on LV-426.
Pandora myth. Every female child of Pandora caused a war among mankind as they fought to possess them and the women were evil. Zeus gave us this as punishment for stealing his technology via Prometheus.
Thanks Dave. That makes sense.
Can someone explain to be why the Engineer Soldier wanted to wipe us out? Was it becasue we disturbed his sleep? and he woke up cranky and moody as hell?
David’s understanding of their language meant that we now understand their technology and represent a threat to them. The engineer wastes no time targeting earth on his holographic display, which means the engineers know about us, and then heading for our planet with the goo-filled amphorae. He intended to wipe us out.
When David entered the cockpit and activated it, note earth was already targeted. David said it to the crew
I will tell you without any doubt that Ridley Scott intends to show the engineers are FROM earth and are an earlier, more advanced species which discovered space travel and left, leaving a map for us of the star system they went to. That system looks identical to Pleiades which also figure prominently in Greek mythology. Scott has said he was influenced by Eric Von Daniken, the original Alien script included themes dealing with a prior more advanced race on earth, pyramids, ancient structures etc.
Then how come the doctor stated to David”I don’t want to go back to earth,but the engineers home world”
Shaw is nuts. Let me ask you this, if your mother is Alaskan and part Eskimo and your parents move to Oklahoma after you are born when people ask you as an adult where you are from will you tell them you are Alaskan or Oklahoman? Will you claim to be Indian or do you identify with those you grew up with? Does living somewhere later in life mean you are not from somewhere else?
If you can travel anywhere in space you have no home only the place you currently are at any one point in your explorations. David is taking her where they are now but I assure you they are from earth and are the Titans.
“if your mother is Alaskan and part Eskimo and your parents move to Oklahoma after you are born when people ask you as an adult where you are from will you tell them you are Alaskan or Oklahoman?”
This is a can of worms question, Dave.
If one had Inuit (Altaic race) features, it’s highly likely that the person will say Alaskan, because racial identity is a big part of how Americans see themselves. Thus, places like Alaska/Hawaii allow one to be ‘mixed’ and have a type of sub-nationality without necessarily being a something-hyphenated American. I know that this isn’t politically correct.
If the person is pretty much ‘white’, meaning indistinguishable from anyone of eastern European origin, then Oklahoman because one will be treated and seen as ‘white’ by everyone around him for all of those years growing up. And in Oklahoma, unlike some east or west coast diasporas, being of a particular ethnic group, like Italian, Greek, or Irish isn’t as important as simply being ‘white’. Thus, the homogeneity of the area kicks in the person simply becomes another Oklahoman.
If they are originaly from earth, then , when the opening scene suicide of the Prometeian character happens, why is there a flying saucer above that , after he swallows the black writhing ooze, tilts on it’s side and speeds off into space? Why would an obvious space visitor be from the planet it is visiting at the start of life? No these guys are from elsewhere and Shaw will go there in the sequel. Ptherwise the story gets too, too convoluted for a 2 hr. movie.
Ridley said the scene was there to imply the engineers are creating life on other planets with the black goo.
You are half right I think. The Engineers ARE originally from Earth. But there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing how humans evolved from earlier apes, primates and mammals. To be consistent with this then the Engineers must have evolved from humans, not created us.
I guess they were the result of a random mutation about 4-5000 years ago and being of far superior intelligence reached the space travel stage in a handful of generations. They left to explore the universe occasionally returning to visit their slow developing cousins, us. Maybe they took some of us with them and we created or released the xenomorphs so they decided we were too dangerous, lacking morality as well as intelligence, and set up the facility to intercept us when we eventually developed space travel (hence the cave paintings to make sure we went there first). That would also explain why the Engineer who woke up was so angry and tried to destroy the humans – maybe David said something like: “Look who’s finally here matey?”
I believe that the title of the movie(Prometheus) tells us that Scott is drawing inspiration if not direct narrative from the Titan stories or myths. The vessels that dissolve into black liquid appear almost identical to Roman or Greek amphorae. To ancient Sumerians and Greeks as well as being actually described in the Dionysus myths these vessels carried literally the blood of the Gods; wine. Wine was sacred to them. The containers too me resemble Pandora’s Box which contained a black substance which when released caused pestilence, disease and death. The Titans had children with men, the Nephilim also as wells as Anasazi stories of star people coming down to mate with earth women. I feel that these tales describe an evolution and domestication of humans via interbreeding and selective breeding done by the giants or Titans. Take Chimpanzees and Gorillas if there were multiple species all with similar DNA you could do this as we have done in with Horses, Dogs, Chickens, Cows, Cats etc. Ridley Scott said in the original Alien script there were heavy Daniken themes from Chariots of the Gods that they removed but the story still contained them and parts of it are based on these concepts.
A fact about the Ancient Aliens theorists is they always discount actual history which describes another hominid race living at the same time as mankind that breeds with mankind and gives us most of the science and technology we have today. Where did they go? Where would you go if you had the ability to travel to the stars? There is massive evidence for large-scale mining being done before any human civilizations are known to have existed, perhaps earth had metals with properties as described by Plato(Oricalcum)but they were collected and used to make star ships. Is this not just as possible as aliens coming here? If humans were a threat to you why not retrieve all of the metal so humans can never follow you?
If you need metals from mining why not impart secret knowledge to humans in exchange for labor mining the metal? Is this not where we get the concept of money(coin) from? What good is silver in a round disk anyway, isn’t it crazy to collect it and do nothing with it but it in a box for safe keeping? Where did humans get this idea from, laboring to acquire something only to store it. It is insane so why have we done it for so long?
How can you even think that the Engineers are originally from Earth??? What, they just ‘discovered’ space travel and decided to ditch their home planet? Leaving no trace of their existence, cities, civilization, technology, transportation etc. LOL! Good one.
They waited for us, like a parent waits for a child to mature and become responsible. Only thing is it was a new species of engineer with a new motive. They determined upon our arrival, it was time for us to move to their warped next level.
David must have said” I am not human, man is my creator, they have become like yourselves, independant of you” I know what you intend to do to earth. That action is no longer needed. We are now like you and we shall surpass you.
The engineers intention was to later infect the crew with alien DNA and continue to earth to do more of the same. Remember the engineer was infected and a new species, new motives. But David pissed him off, it saw David as an abomination, and the crew as interfering with its plan to create man into a new species, a major threat to its intentions
The engineers intended for humans to infect themselves by coming to LV-223 and then they (engineers) would use the xenomorphs that sprouted from us as a bio-weapon against some other as yet unknown force. That particular engineer when presented with the threat represented by David’s ability to decipher his language took matters into his own hands and headed for our planet to stop us by dropping off the amphorae of doom which is itself a bio-weapon as it changes any organism it comes in contact with into other organisms by hyper-evolving them. This would mean utter chaos on a planet filled with life like earth which is why they were designing, building, creating or studying the weapon on LV-223; it was devoid of life. Or so they thought.
why is everyone saying that the Jockeys were trying to infect humans to mutate them to be a better or different spefcies? where does that logic come from?
and why is everyone mad about the scientists? are all scientist morally stupid and a scientist motto is curiosity over caustion. They care less about safety
Obviously you have no idea how science works. You can’t form your opinions on Superhero movies where mad scientists inject themselves with mystery serums.
Science is a very careful process. It is slow and painstaking. You document everything. You want to provide as good a record a you can to document and allow for repeatability. Scientists propose an idea, test it, refine it, and test it again.
They do not run willy nilly into a cave on an alien world and touch everything in sight.
Obviously you have no idea that directors and writers are not scientists and that Sci-Fi is an art medium. They write stories, not blueprints for your warp speed and star gates. Seriously… do you read fantasy books and do write-ups about how dragons don’t exist too?
It’s obvious this whole movie just whizzed over the top of your head while you were trying to evolve into Mr. Science.
Stupid writers have no idea how science works. And yes, most movies take massive liberties with science, but most of them also get some things right. Good science fiction generally only requires that you accept a few leaps or impossibilities, and then the rest of the movie makes sense in that construct. Even superhero movies are built that way. I have no problem with that. But when they require you to ignore every bit of common sense, then the movie just isn’t well done. It is lazy, sloppy, and silly. Alien was smart. The first two sequels were also smart and existed in a universe with consistent rules and sensibilities (let’s not talk about the last 2 sequels).
It is obvious that you are incapable of being treated like a thinking adult and need nothing more than visual eye candy and few gee wiz momennts.
Really? The guy whose greatest contribution is arguing about what an android can and can’t do and talking about foreshadowing like that’s the greatest contribution of literature… the guy who states that Christmas was used as a date of landing because Ridley wanted to use a one liner about presents… this movie? It went right over your head. Please go back to Choose Your Own Adventures instead of acting like you know anything about science because you took an intro course in college and watched Star Wars and Avatar.
Do you have a point to all this? Do you have a single example with which you would like to illustrate your arguments? Or do you just like to dribble on your keyboard and pretend to understand the cosmic significance of it all?
I have a friend who loved the movie, and I figured out that it was because it fetishizes Lawrence of Arabia. There has to be an equally silly reason why you would like it.
Yeah, I posted two really long responses to you previously that were focused on explaining things to you. Here was your awe inspiring reply:
“You certainly get more out of art that I do, seeing as you project onto the canvass what you wish to see, even though it is not there.”
Followed by some inane rambling about how you don’t like modern art and quotes from your favorite Sunday comic strip… don’t forget referencing Fight Club and Star Wars.
There is no point trying to explain anything intellectual to you. You ignore the points and focus on stupid arguments about what fictional androids can and can’t do and explain that Christmas wasn’t used because it’s an important symbol, but because Ridley wanted to use a one liner about presents. Really? Really?! Why am I talking to you?
I don’t imagine what I want onto the canvas, Ridley Scott, that guy who made the movie, talked about all the religious symbolism in interviews you too could have watched or read. But you would know better than him and apparently people making movies just glide a camera over some stuff and just call it good, ignoring the fact that Ridley is like one of the most compulsive, detail oriented directors out there. But you’re right, Christmas was meant for a one liner, no other significance.
Honestly, why are you still trying to debate anything? Go watch Avatar and copy / paste 90% of the critics who talked about how it was a lot like Dances with Wolves, because that will make you look smarter. Because again, this movie? SWOOSH, right over your head.
Wow, this is like wrestling with a pig. It is time consuming, you both get really dirty, but only the pig actually enjoys it.
I am guessing that you thought Avatar was profound movie making. You are absolutely correct in stating it makes no sense to argue with you. You provide no argument except to assert the other person does not get it. You point to nothing in the actual movie, or any other movie, as a supporting argument.
Your entire argument boils down to “David is an android, so he can do anything.” and “music was important in Dante’s work, so it must be important here.” That is definitely a cohesive argument.
And I would rather watch Avatar again. It was silly (please, ‘unobtanium’?); had a sophomoric (high school, not college) environmentalist message; and was insulting to indigenous populations like scores of movies have been in the past, relying on the white man to save the savages; but at least it made sense. There was little in it that made you say “wow, that was stupid.” Once you bought into the premise, the world of Pandora was believable. Not so with Prometheus.
You really are dense.
Honestly, I don’t care what you thought of Prometheus or Star Wars or Fight Club or Avatar or any of your comic strips or whatever. You can sit here and regurgitate old criticisms that EVERYONE has put forth toward popular films and continue to not impress anyone.
I actually detailed everything just fine above, you just ignored 90% of it and honed in on the inconsequential. Not everything in the movie was supposed to slap you in the face, which is basically your argument. It didn’t hit me, so that’s not how it is.
Ridley engaged in a lot of subtle imagery and subtle symbolism. He talked about the religious tones, he talked about some of the themes and some of the mythology. There is no doubt he referenced great works of literature that have stood as master works for hundreds of years and impacted culture much more than Bloom County… Just because you don’t know of them doesn’t mean he didn’t use them.
Read a book that isn’t Hardy Boys.
I too could not care a whit what you thought of Prometheus, since we obviously saw different movies. I might be interested in what you have to say about any other bit of art produced at any other point in history, but since you don’t talk about any of it, then I doubt I would care about your opinions there either.
Good luck to you Jimmy, it would be interesting to live in your world. Unfortunately, I have to live in a real one.
“Good luck to you Jimmy, it would be interesting to live in your world. Unfortunately, I have to live in a real one.”
Lol, k. A real world where we quote Bloom County and copy paste criticisms of popular motion pictures in our rambling sessions.
Yep, the real world. Where people consume media from a variety of course and viewpoints. Not where we imagine things are as we wish them to be. The real world, where I live…
Wouldn’t want to confuse the real world with the fake world where the director talked about stuff I mentioned that you proceeded to blow off because you hadn’t read or watched any of his interviews. Nah that real world where I get to read your rambling brain dead by-the-books review of Avatar in a Prometheus thread for some reason sounds much better (Unobtainium OH PLEASE SO EASY FOR MY BRAIN HUR HUR). You should talk about how mind blowing the Matrix was for you now too Plato just so I can hear more about how your only source of inspiration comes from blockbusters that are essentially the ABC books of philosophy to dolts.
Sounds like your real world is a lot like being 5 and trying to push squares and circles through the properly shaped slot on hollow domes.
Also…ah…Matt and Jimmy…LOL…LOL…if I were an engineer, u guys would give me a good reason to come back to earth with a cargo of goo! LOL!
What Ridley intended for the movie does not make a difference. Movies have been made since they became possible where the crew intended to craft a smart thought provoking film, and then failed. This was one of them.
how does someone like you even exist.
first, it’s not about what he intended, it’s what he put in it specifically. he put the themes, the imagery and the symbolism in it. you can keep trying to say it’s not there, but it is. you could switch gears, as you have like 5 times, and say it was poorly done to try and gain some traction. but your position that it isn’t there is blatantly wrong.
second, just because you didn’t get it doesn’t mean he did a bad job. your view on art and movies might change if you understood them. what Ridley has stated he set out to do and wished to convey i feel he did very well while leaving quite a bit of room for discussion and speculation. i understand that probably frustrates you and lots of other people.
third, the fact that over 70% of critics and the viewing audience enjoyed the movie and that it’s already $10M over what it cost to make in a mere week is testament to the fact that you are the minority. this was a movie that deviated from what most people wanted it to be and actually challenged people to think, discuss outside the film, draw connections to other works of art and still the majority enjoyed it. i think that speaks to Ridley’s capabilities more than yours for pointing out “momentum” and “futuristic android” concerns.
feel free to keep trying to back pedal, but it’s kind of pathetic how your comments get weaker and weaker.
You certainly make a compelling argument there. Big dollar box office receipts must mean it was a good movie. And with so many people liking it, they can’t be wrong. Heck 74% of the people who rated it on Rotten Tomatoes liked it. Of course, almost 60% of the people who rate Battleship liked that as well. By this metric, Twilight was a much better film, since 82% of the people who rated it liked it.
I have no opinion on either of these, since I have not seen them. But you probably have.
But then, the viewing public are sheep. Critics are much *ahem* smarter. Prometheus received a 6.9/10 based on 231 reviews. Twilight was 5.5. Star Wars was an 8.2; The Matrix a 7.4; Avatar 7.4; Fight Club 7.3; Blade Runner 8.5; Brazil 8.6; Alien 8.7. Hell, even Minority Report received an 8. Independence Day was rated a 6.3/10 for Pete’s sake. At least that movie was fun.
And you are right, it is not about what he intended, it is what he put on the screen. And he failed to get his vision on the screen. Now, please don’t tell me you are into that Space Jesus mumbo jumbo. If you are some sort of Christian fundie, then your arguments finally make sense. You don’t see the problems with how the scientists behave because you have not got the foggiest clue how scientists behave. You must think that the Discovery Institute is filled with the greatest minds on the planet. Please don’t tell me that I have wasted my time arguing with a person who has the intellect of a week old piece of chewed gum. I would rather believe that I have waste my time arguing with someone who is capable of tying his own shoes, but just can’t understand how ideas are supposed to be presented.
Lol, really? Really? Space Jesus mumbo jumbo. Really?
You sir, are most certainly a waste of time now. You just solidified you have no idea what he was insinuating or why religious symbolism is so very important in art. HINT IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE A CHRISTIAN!
Wow, just wow.
Lastly, the scientists did stupid stuff because THAT WAS THE POINT. If you didn’t notice, the fates that befall each individual correlates SPECIFICALLY with their specialty and WHY they should have executed CAUTION. Every individual seemingly forgets exactly what should be MOST basic to them and is punished horribly in ironic fashion.
Seriously, go back to Dora the Explorer. Hahaha. Christian symbolism for Christians. You sir… I tip my hat to you.
Oh, also, the ratings from critics and audiences just solidifies whether the feature was successful on what it was trying to achieve. I’m sure Battleship was a fine popcorn flick and I’m sure Twilight is an excellent chick flick. In this instance, people appreciated an intelligent Sci-Fi film. I’m glad simple things confuse you so, it makes me smile right next to Space Jesus mumbo jumbo. Oh man, read a book. Really.
Does it perturb you to be so stupid? You argued that critical success and box office receipts mean that the vast majority of folks agree with you. I am just pointing out how silly that argument is. But then, so are the rest of your arguments.
Seeing religious symbolism in art does not mean you are a member of a particular group. Stretching that to see this silly flick as great art with deep philosophical and religious underpinnings means that you are either vacuous or have a deep seeded need to see that iconography. I am leaning toward the latter, but can’t rule out the former.
You are borderline downs. Really.
It perturbs me that someone like you actually exists and is allowed to speak publicly… even if it is on a forum. Space Jesus mumbo jumbo lol. Really. Books? What are they? Haha.
Write again when you get into high school. That will give me a good 2-3 years of peace without having to see your drivel anymore. Maybe you will come across a decent teacher who can inspire you to educate yourself. I doubt it.
lol pretty sure my education blows yours out of the water. keep going though, you’ve got some pretty SWEET insults.
you need to go back to icanhazcheezburgers.com where all the other fat women hang out. lol
I am quite willing to bet the opposite.
And don’t insult that web site. Or fat women.
Jimmy, seriously, get off your high horse simply because you have read a few more books than the average person, it is irrelevant to the actual discussion. It seems that basically you are ignoring Matt’s points simply because he originally made points about some of the scientific inaccuracies of the film, and the unrealistic behaviour of the scientists. You are right to point out that these sorts of inaccuracies can be justified if artistic license is employed to communicate more interesting ideas but really this is a question of suspension of disbelief.
The problem is that the behaviour of these characters is just so gorram unbelievable that they become unbelievable as characters and remain simplistic one dimensional caricatures which serve to convey a few symbolic ideas. This is not good writing, it breaks the suspension of disbelief as these characters behave in entirely unrealistic and unbelievable manners and suspension of disbelief is vital for really enjoying fiction. Good writing has characters that all behave in believable ways and hat you can believe are actually real people with different desires, histories etcetera and that based upon a realistic sort of personality behave in certain ways yet the fact remains that the “scientists” in these films do not behave like such. I certainly do not envy the task of a writer trying to write about scientists (especially in future setting with “future science”) but it can be done well, has been plenty of times, and is not done well here.
This above is the discussion we should be having, and feel free to disagree with me, but it seems the “dialogue” between you and Matt has broken down, and it seems to have happened because you reacted very badly to the mention of certain franchises and it sort of paints the picture of you as a bit of a snob. Simply making points or comparisons between Prometheus and Avatar, Fight Club or Star Wars really seemed to push buttons. Did these films do something to offend you personally or is it just because they are so popular that you hate them?
You bet all you want :]
In “Avatar”, it is the planets “Mother”,Not the white man that saves the day.
I wished i never watched Prometheus and just watched the trailer over and over again. I was certain it was going to be an amazing film from those trailers. “WE WERE WRONG… WE WERE SO WRONG!!”
“WE WERE WRONG… WE WERE SO WRONG!!” — this bit added after the studio suits saw the Lindelof’s screenplay and realised they had no chance but to shoot it as it was.
Prometheus = LOST in space
I had that feeling as well. Remember, it’s not about the mysteries, it’s about the characters….
There is a lot open in the movie for interpretation, and to a degree, I don’t agree that people should have to go to a wiki, review, or screenwriters notes to continue the experience they went into a theater for. I find myself in the middle of enjoyment of the film. It neither was great as some contend, nor horrible. It was beautiful shot, but the logic and process of most of the characters was busted to me. So many of them making flawed decisions contrary to their training and/or job title that it pulled me from enjoying the themes presented. If the script had cast the events around them with situations beyond their control even using utmost scientific and/or military care, I could see the end results unfolding without creating a face palming experience. As for understanding the story, it’s understood for the most part, but a lot of people seem to point out greater relevance is found in online research and knowing the writers history/intent which frankly wasn’t handed out in a booklet as I entered or left the theater. To each their own.
This
Please take the time to read this outstanding post
http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1
After reading this I believe if you want to understand Prometheus read a Bible. I believe Prometheus is the retelling of the creation of man by God. We don’t see God, and we don’t see Lucifer, but I do believe we see a bunch of angels, good so far and no fallen ones yet
Lots of good questions and answers. A few more:
Don’t we send probes anymore to investigate distant planets and moons?
What is with the size and luxuriousness of the Prometheus. That’s a trillion bucks on a lot of unnecessary space – beds? cook-tops? Where’s the olympic pool and golf-course?
Actually was it a trillion dollars or credits invested in the enterprise, I mean what is the common currency for these adventurers given the bet between the navigator and number one officer?
What’s the point of a lifeboat that can’t be guided safely to ground?
Why don’t Vickers and Shaw run perpendicular to the ship wheeling towards them (ever noticed how Wile E Coyote does the same thing)?
How does the face-hugger extracted from Shaw gain so much mass (not volume but mass)? (I had the same difficulty with the original Alien which didn’t seem to eat or drink despite killing the crew and appears to have an impervious skin)
Why do the Engineers need helmets at all in an environment they created?(Unless I suppose they are like a multifunctional device)
So you’re an Engineer and you’re super smart, strong and very well travelled and you create a dangerous organism without a failsafe and as someone has observed really shoddily made containers?
Why didn’t the screen writers give the surviving Engineer the chance to answer the question and THEN decapitate David?
How come in the video log there are four Engineers getting into the stasis pods and only one survives (or am I recalling that incorrectly?)
I made a comment elsehere on this sight about Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus. Maybe he wrote the script.
I really did not like the movie, but I can still answer some of your questions:
Don’t we send probes anymore to investigate distant planets and moons? – Weyland wanted to meet his maker, he could only do that in person, and he needed a team.
What is with the size and luxuriousness of the Prometheus. That’s a trillion bucks on a lot of unnecessary space – beds? cook-tops? Where’s the olympic pool and golf-course? There probably was a virtual golf course. Prometheus obviously has an advanced propulsion system. Once you take power out of the equation, you can build a space ship as large as you like.
Actually was it a trillion dollars or credits invested in the enterprise, I mean what is the common currency for these adventurers given the bet between the navigator and number one officer? _ was not paying that close attention, but you can have both.
What’s the point of a lifeboat that can’t be guided safely to ground? – It was meant to help survive in space. It does not have the controls to operate close to the planet.
Why don’t Vickers and Shaw run perpendicular to the ship wheeling towards them (ever noticed how Wile E Coyote does the same thing)? Panic
How does the face-hugger extracted from Shaw gain so much mass (not volume but mass)? (I had the same difficulty with the original Alien which didn’t seem to eat or drink despite killing the crew and appears to have an impervious skin) – This one is a major bother for me and all I can say, is this is one of the dumb things about the movie. It needs to consume mass to get bigger. It is a universal law, conservation of mass. They seem to not worry about it.
Why do the Engineers need helmets at all in an environment they created?(Unless I suppose they are like a multifunctional device) – only part of the environment is safe to breath.
So you’re an Engineer and you’re super smart, strong and very well travelled and you create a dangerous organism without a failsafe and as someone has observed really shoddily made containers? The movie itself talks about this. The plant was not the Engineer’s home world. This is a remote facility.
Why didn’t the screen writers give the surviving Engineer the chance to answer the question and THEN decapitate David? Why would the Engineer answer David’s question.
How come in the video log there are four Engineers getting into the stasis pods and only one survives (or am I recalling that incorrectly?) – Lazy writing. Though 3 of the pods could have failed.
I made a comment elsehere on this sight about Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus. Maybe he wrote the script.
Agreed on all points matt.
Thanks for that. Still I wonder…
On the size of the Prometheus: unless its Weyland’s personal fortune (possible) investors, designers and engineers would probably advise against this sort of opulence, from a pure construction and build point of view the more features the longer the build time and complexity to fail. I am struggling to think of any modern earthbound explorer from Scott to Byrd who would have had so much “baggage”. (I also wonder if Pearce was chosen because he’s Australian just like…aha Rupert Murdoch! But then he speaks in an English accent…an Englishman with that much money…even in the far future…must be fiction).
Currency – yes could have both but they seemed to be talking with the same accent to me – indicating a common currency would be a good idea. Mind you I am from New Zealand and we have some trouble interpreting American English.
Lifeboat – yes sustains life in space but I was assuming would also eventually return to the ground. I mean a powered/rowed lifeboat also returns you to the shore not just floats around aimlessly.
Shaw and Vickers prone to panic? Shaw performs a cesearean on herself (aided by tech) and Vickers is the proverbial ice queen…panic? really?
Gaining mass: perhaps they have discovered the antidote to “Biggest Loser” lol!
Atmosphere – the Engineer who runs over the lifeboat has no helmet on. A human friendly atmosphere also seems to pose no issues. Seems everywhere is safe for them to breathe.
What I am getting at with a failsafe is a “backdoor”, “autodestruct” or even a lockdown protocol – maybe that was how the Engineer lost his head as part of the lockdown?
Why answer the question? Politeness? haha. It would have been a neat way to tie up some questions. Logically it would have demonstrated that David was understood and added to the premise that humans had become a threat.
Yeah I’m not sure if it was four or even whether they got into the pods or went somewhere else. There are at least what must have been Engineer suits at the entrance to the bridge, unless four of them died standing upright?
“But then he speaks in an English accent…an Englishman with that much money…even in the far future…must be fiction”
Well technically, within the following decade, 2012-2022, Weyland scores his big patents, as a child prodigy, and starts bank rolling a huge portfolio. Thus, it’s not so far in the future until Weyland’s an old man. Not everyone needs to live in Silicon Valley.
My main issue with the space jockeys are they look nothing like thie thing in the chair. If you google space jockey, all of the images that are there are similar to other in their depictions yet slightly different. The last thing they look like are 10 foot tall blue people on steroids.
The Jockey in the chair of the first alien, its arms are long and thin in proportion to its body, unlike the jockey in this movie. and in most alien novels these jockeys are telepathic.
Yes, I understand these novels are not what from ridley scott, he’s been out of the loop since Alien and it showed in this movie, in fact, he enlists the aid of the most disappointing writer in Hollywood.
yep
I think i am one of those fans of the franchise who woukd say “Screw ridleys interview, he doesnt know what he’s talking about”. So what he gave us Alien, he’s been away from his own material for so long that he forgot the origins. there are so many books, comics and off stories of the Xenos that there are some better ideas that whay Ridley himself has. and if this is a prequel to alien, which was about the Xeno itself, not the space jockey than thats what these movies should be about.
They have already messed up the Space Jockey in its physical form and tried to steer us away from what we already know about this series. So it would be safe to say that the fans know more about this franchise than Sir ridley himself
Yes, the ‘Lost’ writer is clearly mediocre and needs to stick to incoherent TV melodramas than big motion pictures.
Cracking good photo on the Prometheus forum site under `Human and face hugger in Alien Mural`
“there are so many books, comics and off stories of the Xenos”
Yep but they are produced and licensed by Dark Horse and if Ridley wants to use their ideas he has to pay royalties hence the unnerving lack of continuity in Scott’s version.
I’m with you, the problem with osme of these writers and directors are their visions are lame as crap and their egos wont allow them to enlist help. I would pay darkhorse to put the story i want on film. “Steel Egg, Earth Hive, Nightmare asylum & Female war, are very good stories. Even if they wanted to go with a Predator: South China sea, which I thought was epic. They need to put their pride aside and make it happen instead of failing at their lame, 6th grade visions
You seem stuck on the Dark Horse books and don’t realize that the movie Studio Fox clearly never has had any interest in doing the material from those comic books and novels. The Alien vs. Predator films didn’t even address most of the ideas from the comic books, so why would this one? And O’Bannon was the writer for the original so the initial ideas came from him, and the design was Geiger. The comics were done years after Aliens and the makers of those films might not have seen any of that stuff or know what they did.
You didn’t like Prometheus clearly and if there is a sequel you probably won’t go see it. But to keep hanging on to this idea that is was going to have anything to do with themes from the books is just you aggravating yourself. Dark Horse comics and stories were fun, aren’t exactly “canon” for any of the properties they use.
I just want to say that it’s been 5 days since I’d seen Prometheus… and with each passing day, I liked the movie, less and less.
People, this has almost never happened to me before. For a movie to be a dud, it’s usually delineated within the first day or two.
What’s occurred is that my suspension of disbelief has been completely unveiled. This movie is a mishmash of poor writing (vis-a-vis dialogue), general poor acting (sans David), cheap trick/b-horror gore, and too many plot holes for a major motion picture. At best, this should have gone straight to cable w/o a major theater release. Only the special effects makes it a cinema film.
Sorry, but this is Ridley Scott’s worst creation. I hope he doesn’t retire with this monstrosity as his swan song.
As bad as it is, this is still better than Robin Hood.
‘Robin Hood’ was merely another throw away, medieval snooze flick. It was pretty much coped out to be a failure from the get-go. Fine, it’s forgotten. It’s kinda like an ‘Alexander’ (which I’d stopped watching after the 1st hour) but it slid into its own mythology than sticking with the old storyline.
‘Prometheus’, on the other hand, took the ‘Alien’ mythos, possibly the greatest film of all time, and completely neutered it with a completely preposterous pseudo-prequel.
This is much like season 3 (& more) of X-Files, where no UFO-based story had a coherent middle-or-end; it was a never-ending chain of chasing one’s tail, ad infinitum, until it finally dawns on everyone that Chris Carter had no idea what he was doing with the show. Well, that’s exactly how ‘Prometheus’ felt and the sinking feeling got worse over time.
After reading a few posts around these Internets about the mysteries in the film, I came up with my own take. The thing I kept coming back to is that in Blade Runner, Scott meant for it to be obvious that Deckard is a Blade Runner. With Prometheus, it’s all based on religious mythology, and the over-analysis of details creates things that just aren’t there.
Here’s my blog posting on the subject. It’s a two parter.
http://tubgoat.me/2012/06/13/prometheus1/
Someone else claims that Prometheus is a “great” movie because it’s made so much money. This is true but it’s a fallacy (appeal to … something, I forget which).
It’s the marketing (which has been top-notch) that got the bums on seats. We won’t really know WHERE it stands until some time from and certainly not until the DVD/Blu-Ray releases are counted.
A fair number of critics have been seriously underwhelmed and I suspect that long-term analysis is going to have this down as a fail; like Transformers II was a fail, despite making loads of money.
This is the sad part of it – studios don’t give a fig how “good” a movie is, they just care about the bottom line. Take, for instance, Hellboy II – brilliant, funny and even profitable. BUT nowhere near profitable enough to make third.
Halo – same story only that folded before it got started because everyone wanted too much money to make it viable.
It doesn’t matter if Prometheus has a garbage script. Blade Runner, which I saw in a busy theater upon release, was a box-office disaster – yet its now considered one of the finest SciFi films of all time.
Looking at Ridley’s other work, I’m beginning to think he’s not a great director – but that he’s had some top-notch scripts and (to his credit) produced some awesome visuals that few have matched.
Take Alien 1979 – Ridley provides wonderful visual misse-en-scene BUT it’s the prop guys realising Geiger’s work that make the film so groundbreaking. Ridley himself marvelled at the detail in the Alien head which made those ultra-close ups possible.
For Blade Runner, he had the assistance of Syd Mead for much of the futuristic look – but his tell-tale light-filtered-via-smoke is there just as it was in Alien; as is the dripping water. Blade Runner even takes a few computer screens from Alien’s un-docking sequence.
Yet perhaps the greatest part of the film – Roy’s death scene – was written by Rutger Hauer, if I recall correctly. I think he even suggested the “dove” release although I could be mistaken on that.
Music is vital too – Alien and Blade Runner have superlative scores – both still stand well even 25->30 odd years later.
The effect of Prometheus is not going to be felt for some time; although UK audiences are not as affected, I gather it’s dropping off quite quickly in the US charts.
If it makes a shedload of money – expect more of the same vacuous crap for some years to come; we won’t get decent stories until we stop paying to see the crap.
Which is why I prefer independent cinema these days; they have nothing to prove so they work for the art. But who am I kidding? Given the chance would I stay like I am writing/directing indie or move to Hollywood and make loadsa money with high-grossing, commercialized tosh?
Let’s put it this way – the passport is by my front door.
I had to go back to read your previous posts – now I see your indie passion and background. I think you’re on to something; that is, I was hoping Ridley Scott would have retained that indie-like passion (e.g., The Duelists, Alien, Blade Runner) and refresh the franchise, but you remind me that big studio oversight and string-pulling does not lend to independent thinking and writing. In other words, the studios prefer to satisfy the masses. And for a good many, it appears they have succeeded.
Friends if you want to understand this movie you may read this blog. I don’t know the author..sort of an author,i guess, but he gives a lot of of intellectual interpretations which are really relevant and precise.
http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html
You want to buy into Space Jesus as well? Watch the video blog at the bottom by Akira the Don. It is much more interesting, compelling, and informative.
understanding things that aren’t spelled out for you is hard amirite matt? lol space jesus mumbo jumbo listen to this guy he thinks he’s smart because he avoids knowing anything about a religion that has defined western civilization for more than 2,000 years. congrats son! you’re pretty smurt! (UNOBTAINIUM PLEASE!) hahahahahahaha
I am more interested in the religions that have been defining Western Civilization for more than 3,000 years and are the basis for the ones that came after.
So you are a fundie. Oh, that explains so much. Is there going to be another prequel with an 7′ tall pale blueish Jesus with a square jaw? Maybe they could get Shaq to play him with the right make-up.
And if you are correct, if the Space Jesus thing is the key to all of Scott’s intentions with this movie, then he picked the wrong holiday. It should have been set at Easter. Like I said so many rants ago.
you’re not kidding anyone you don’t know anything about those religions either lol you need to go back to icanhazcheezburgers.com where all the other fat women hang out. lol you need to go back to icanhazcheezburgers.com where all the other fat women hang out. lol you need to go back to icanhazcheezburgers.com where all the other fat women hang out. lol
seriously read some faulkner, hemmingway, joyce, anything. just anything and have someone explain why the christian symbolism is important cause you won’t get it lol
I know why Christian Symbolism is important. I just wish that folks like you would stop drooling whenever anyone uses it in a mainstream movie. You are worse that an Ayn Rand nutcase.
I like Hemingway, don’t care for Joyce, skipped Faulkner, enjoyed Dostoyevsky and Dickens, didn’t really care for Hardy, keep putting off Dante, and have really developed an appreciation for Shakespeare now that I am decades removed from being forced to read him.
But none of that is relevant to the discussion at hand. Scott made a stupid movie. Just because he put in religious references does not make it a deep film. Idiots argue that the Matrix is deep and filled with rich religious undertones and meaningful references to great works of literature. They are wrong as well. You are just too tied into your restricted world view to see the larger truth. I am sorry for you. I really am. I don’t mean to pick on you or be mean, when I should pity you. This is like talking to a small child. I am not even sure if you can understand some of the larger words I use. Thankfully, you can use an online dictionary to help you out.
If you feel you’ve used a big word somewhere in there, it’s no wonder we aren’t on the same level. Haha.
Also, don’t give yourself credit. I really haven’t taken any of it to heart, haha.
“Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot.” – http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html
Sorry mate. It’s just crap.
For example, The Bible is filled with similar amounts of incoherent, inconsistent storytelling and people read pretty much anything they want from it.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to pay to go see that.
If the combination of Christian proselytizing on the one side and bashing on the other continues I will shut down this comment thread.
And I’d really rather not have to do that.
Vic
Thank you for stepping here, Vic. I wonder…is this the most commented discussion you’re run in a long time?
Pretty, much, yeah.
Vic
Sorry – thanks for stepping IN.
Matt and jimmy, this site is for artistic expression…please stop and join the UFC
Haha i was gonna say, Jimmy is throwin’ verbal elbows around. Some pretty hardcore arguing
I have no issue with Christianity though I do not believe in it.. If Scott did a decent job in crafting a movie supported by it, that would be one thing. I just think he made a terrible movie. I am trying to understand what people liked about it.
Then, presented with an opportunity for a wee bit of verbal fencing, I embraced the opportunity whole heatedly. I only have a couple of friends whom I may insult with such relish.
Jimmy’s defense of Prometheus reminds me of the time in 1961 when New York’s Museum of Modern Art displayed Matisse’s “La Bateau” and patrons admired and praised it for 47 days until it was realized that the painting was displayed upside down.
We still talk about 1979′s Alien. I doubt we’ll be doing the same with Prometheus.
Jeff,
Dude, that is an AWESOME story. 8)
Vic
I scanned through posts but found it difficult to weed out content between Beavis & Butt-head aka Matt & Jimmy. Did anyone notice any proof that the engineer in the beginning of the movie was possibly infected and committed suicide intentionally? The idea he took goo to create life doesn’t fit well as the movie showed it breaking apart and destroying his DNA. He didn’t seem surprised to me as much as just in obvious agony.
Just because his body broke apart didn’t cause his DNA to be destroyed; it just sped up the process of distribution within the waters that much more quickly. I’m not sure if the goo was a different mix from that found within the ship. Did the initial goo contain enough DNA to help define a multitude of species or was it just a potion that quickly disintegrated the engineer’s skeletal and muscular framework for quick dispersion? What if the goo was the same as that found in the ship and contained the larval stage of the aliens? Does that mean that planet was going to be used as terrarium for aliens to be harvested later? If so, why would an engineer be required to host – couldn’t that species survive on its own since its host only lasted mere seconds?
I see plot holes. Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I see your point but it wasn’t his physical body breaking apart that got my attention. The movie zoomed into what looked like a DNA double helix being completely disintegrated, not replaced or mutated. Disintegration doesn’t = speed up distribution to me.
What are your thoughts in relation to the part where a dna helix was reconstructed from the black stuff that once was a dna?
As you point out, the DNA both breaks apart and recombines, so the movie was clearly trying to show that the Engineers were seeding life. But one in recombines, it is left I the water, and lone strands of DNA do not spontaneously form living entities. Ingesting it does not do the trick either, else I would long ago have developed gills from all the sushi I eat. Even superhero movies where the hero”s DNA is altered uses a few esoteric mechanisms to make it happen.
There is no tie between the DNA from the engineer and humans, or if thesis notEarthhumanoid creatures. The clear kntention is to say that thisis howtheEngineers created us. But unless the DNA leads to humans and humans alone, there is no way our DNA matches the Engineers’.. Every animal that evolved from the seed would match DNA, and that is obviously not the case.
years ago david attenbourgh did a BBC nature prog called `Life on earth`.The last part of episode 1 shows him wandering about in this coral and he is saying that these tiny organisms would demonstrate to an alien passing by earth that life had truly begun. I think the Hollywood/Scott premise is that the Engineers kick started that moment.
Except that makes no sense. Remember, the archeologists were so excited by the fact that the Engineer’s DNA matched our’s. If the Engineers seeded all life on Earth, the all life on Earth would share the same DNA, and this is certainly not the case. We share the same amino acids, that make up DNA, but that is not worthy of a grand discovery. The implication in the film is that we were both engineered and guided through out our early development. Seeding a barren Earth with DNA is not how we would be engineered.
I know it is just a movie, but there are simple ways to get the proper point across without taking up any more time or adding a Blade Runner type voice over. 2001 did a beautiful job of showing how the monolith sparked evolution. Prometheus could have done the same. Instead of the Engineer dissolving himself into the water, he dissolves himself around a group of primates. As he oozes across the ground and come in contact with them, we see their DNA mutating and fusing with the Engineer’s DNA. Scott could have even had the Engineer walk past an apple tree as a symbolism of the Garden of Eden. It takes no more time, it makes sense on a scientific level, it seeds the idea of Intelligent Design and it ties in a Biblical reference.
Isn`t the case that these Engineers are running about the Galaxy sacrificing themselves, a bit like millions of sperm and in a few cases bingo ! they hit the egg.By this I mean the amino acids you were talking about need that little push, which is a rare phenomenon, and once that `spark`begins they keep coming back and checking and in a few cases wow ! on this particular planet life has actually developed so that the DNA matches.Then they go to the stage of pointing out how we can reach them.
“Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.”
That made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
It wasn’t a movie promoting Christianity. You. Are. Dense.
Let me spell it out for you, because he said it DIRECTLY in his interview. Religions cause 99% of all our problems. We were going to be wiped out 2,000 years ago, guess what, that’s when they crucified Christ. Whether he was insinuating that the Engineers were the man we would call Christ or whether they just had had enough of the violence, that’s when they were going to end us. He said it, it’s not me just pulling it out and tossing it at your face. End of story is we were not what they intended.
Guess what, they land on the moon on Christmas and they all get wiped out. Just because he used mythological and Christian symbols doesn’t mean he’s promoting a religious agenda. Whether you want to fess up to it or not, religions have shaped our cultures, they have been the reason for the majority of our disputes and wars and violence and the imagery is identifiable and steeped in meaning (believe it or not, you can use that meaning ironically too, BLOW YOUR MIND!).
You don’t have to be a Christian, Muslim, Jew or whatever to have read and appreciated the works. You don’t have to believe in any of it, I haven’t been to church since I was a kid. But if you’re going to call yourself an educated person, you should probably do a read through of the work that’s defined us for nearly 2,000 years. Just saying. If an artist uses those symbols and themes in their piece to convey a point, it’s not their fault you don’t get it. In the words of James Joyce, “It took me 10 years to write it, it should take you 10 years to read it.” Do some homework or get out, no ones loss but yours.
Jimmy – give it a rest! Take a breath, let it go. Quit reading the damn update notices in your email….
Vic warned you guys, please listen to him.
Allow me to try again. The use of the Christ story in this context is fine, as long as it makes sense, and is supported by the evidence in the film. At the time of Christ, the world was real actively peaceful. There as a bit of tension between the indigenous population in the ME and the Roman occupation, but it was not that big a deal. For a vastly superior race to choose that period of history as the one moment in time to decide to wipe us out makes no sense. We were not technologically advanced. We were not at war, deciding to wipe I solution the time of Ghengic Khan would make sense, that was truly the first World War.
There are others who argue that Christ was an Engineer who came to Earth, was killed, and thus precipitated the events. But the Story of Christ includes his birth, his travels, and his return to Palestine. Sure, there were a few holes, and sure, it is conveniently set up to match the prophesies in the Old Testament, but it is a relatively flushed out Story. No where in the writings of the time do we get an 8 foot tall guy pointing at star maps. But every earlier instance of the appearance of an Engineer in the “historical record” shows him as freakishly tall, and all of them sow him pointing to the star map. If Scott intended this connection to be in the film, then he did a very poor job of including it. And no, I do not need to be beaten over the head with the ideas to accept that they are in the film.
Scott also alluded to AvP in his interviews. This takes place decades prior to Prometheus, but yet there is a fully formed xeno here on Earth. I didn’t see the movie, but if this is part of the
canon, then, how can there be a fully formed xeno some 80 years or so prior to ma’s first contact with the pods that will become xenos?
If I had the chance to speak with Ridley Scott and his writer, I would have said “James Joyce was a friend of mine, and Ridley, you are no Jame Joyce.”
It’s not that those of us who criticize the movie do not recognize art, it’s just that we recognize the lack of craft in the writing.
I had a problem with the laurel and hardy scientists and Scott could of had anything he wanted from those actors so he okayed the scene. It didn`t work for me (neither did the bottle swilling while an examination was going on scene work).But to keep the film alive I thought maybe a way of reading is that science is somehow corrupted. The scientists just talk about money there not that interested in the amazing place they´ve arrived at. They are hypocites (`I love rocks`-never see an examlpe of that), cowards, stupid (pretty alien worm etc),arrogant and lazy.They kind of symbolize the ignoble traits of humans whereas Shaw consistently demonstrates the opposite.
People can go around in circles about this, but you know 90% of the time with this type of movie the characters have to do things that push them further into whatever conflict is supposed to occur. If they didn’t do dumb things movies would be pretty short and uneventful.
As for the lack of sense from the scientists, well one has to consider someone who is book smart is not always “street smart” so to speak. It is clear the crew in this movie were not some highly trained crack team and may have just as easily been killed on Earth somewhere.
People have a view of what they think space travelers are supposed to be like, but just because people manage to figure out space travel does not mean they will be any smarter than they are now. I mean if you look at it even the beloved Star Trek was a text book on what not to do. They sent their senior crew members down to unknown situations with security that always managed to get killed in about two minutes. Not exactly a well oiled-machine.
For me it`s true that people do dumb things and so forth but there is a kind of `believability gap` which allows a viewer to kinda of think `yea thats what I would or would not do` etc. Take for example when young Anakin in `Attack of the clones`leaps out of his speeder and falls through all that traffic and times it so that he lands on the changer`s speeder, I mean, yea he`s a jedi and so forth but I think you`re pulling the `believability gap`so much it snaps.
Well Star Wars drifts into the cartoon area of what is believable, so I take most of that with the smallest grain of salt. But in films like this there is almost always that tendency for the writers to play dungeon master so to speak and just walk people into situations that given some thought most people would avoid. It is the rare sci-fi/horror type script where the characters really are actively avoiding certain death or injury, and this movie surely wasn’t one of them.
Granted if the characters had of of followed some proper chains of common sense the movie would have been robot probes examining the ruins, assessing the dangers, calling for back-up, etc. But for the sake of moving things along they used various plot devices that pretty much can be boiled down to curiosity killing damn near everyone.
Funny thing is as I have watched Aliens over the years, a movie I loved growing up, some of what they did in that movie seems dumb when you look at it enough times. Leaving a whole ship floating around in space unattended, committing all of your troops to an unknown situation, not knowing the layout of where you were going, the classic moment when they took most of the ammo (they should have just shot themselves right there), how they left the door to drop-ship open and let one of those things sneak on (where the hell was that other Marine when that happened?), and Ripley not figuring out the Aliens were crawling around the air ducts when that is exactly how the first one got most of her original crew. It’s all suspension of disbelief, the suspension just breaks down faster for some people in some cases.
Thanks for bringing us back to Aliens, I suppose being older and more `knowing`can make even that pop classic problematic at times. However I think we all could imaginatively paper over those cracks you mention. I agree with the idea in these type of movies charaters are being kind of set up as plot fodder but I`m not sure I agree that curiousity killed them all.David murdered Hollaway in a sense.The captain sacrificed himself with his buddies to save humanity…another crushed to death because so frightened/pigheaded couldn`t figure out to run to the side or perhaps thought she could outrun the ships length.etc.etc. I liked the way certain characters were given choices so to speak and because of anger/stupidity/ignorance they got themselves into deeper trouble (I mean it wasn`t like they were being chased,picked off one by one sort of plotting.
For me, some parts of the film were much better then others. There were plenty of awesome moments, like running over the infected guy with the APC (hell yeah), and while I really enjoyed watching the tense and visceral action scenes like Dr. Shaw’s rush to get the tentacle-alien-foetus-thing out of her, some of the parts in-between felt unneeded or just plain silly.
For instance, the geologist getting lost – earlier in the film he guides the others through the structure while looking at his wrist, which presumably has a display of the map on it, yet later he gets completely lost, and none of the people on the ship even try to help, despite the fact they can see where everyone is inside the structure and could tell the two how to escape.
Actually, the captain and other people on the bridge are completely rubbish for most of the film – leaving the bridge completely unmanned to go have sex? I mean come on dude, you’re the captain of a perilous mission on an alien world with two crew members in danger, do it in the bridge if you have to do it at all. Jesus.
The biologist’s death was also a little aggravating, but it’s important to remember that in the ‘Alien’ universe, the ‘Alien’ series of films don’t exist, so for him it might not have seemed like the stupidest thing to do – how was he supposed to know that the water-snake looking thing was strong enough to break his arm through his space suit, had acid blood, and would kill him. After all, he was a biologist, so it’s his job to investigate biology.
The scene where Shaw and Vickers are running away from the ship is also frankly pathetic – just run like 10 meters to the left or right, for god’s sake! How can these characters be so strong earlier in the film, and yet struggle to keep moving and not fall over when running away in this scene.
Those are just the bad parts though – overall, I would give it maybe 7/10 – call me over-generous if you want, but I think it was an exciting movie with lots of ‘Alien’ references that made me get all happy and proud when I saw/noticed them. It could have – nay, should have been much less complicated though, as to be honest a lot of it felt rushed and shoved in and didn’t contribute much, so I think it would have been better if they’d focused more on a few parts rather than try to put everything in.
how was he supposed to know that the water-snake looking thing was strong enough to break his arm through his space suit, had acid blood, and would kill him.
Big frigg’n pile of corpses with chests burst open.
Just putting that out there.