Prometheus - Ridley Scott's 'Alien Prequel' (or not)...

[Halb]

Raify said:

Nostromo was a knackered commercial towing vehicle, Prometheus is a "multi trillion dollar mission". It's not the biggest leap of faith in the film.

Prometheus is the first ship to travel FTL, Nostromo comes from an era where that is normal. Where is it described as 'knackered'? I think it is a big stretch (best if it's just ignored) if following ships are derivatives of Prometheus. Especially considering the value of the cargo.

[JonRB]

Halb said:

Where is it described as 'knackered'?

It isn't. That's why I said you'd have to retcon it.

[Raify]

Halb said:

Where is it described as 'knackered'?

Yaphet Koto and Harry Dean Stanton spent the entire film trying to fix it!

[JonRB]

You could also retcon the idea that fancy-dancy touch screens proved to be too fragile for prolonged use in space and clattery keyboards & CRT monitors were better suited (and cheaper) for workhorse commercial ships like the Nostromo.

Anyway, we all know that the real reason is that modern audiences expect to see whizzy touch screens and would have scoffed if the Prometheus had been shown with clattery keyboards and CRTs so this is really rather a silly discussion.

[Oakey]

Or just tell yourself that they had the highest level of technology available at the time the movies were made.

[Halb]

Oakey said:

Or just tell yourself that they had the highest level of technology available at the time the movies were made.

Did you retcon that?

[otolith]

What is the service life of a vessel like the Nostromo? It could already have been old when the state of the art research ship Prometheus was built. Maybe all that robust ancient tech was all that would work in earlier FTL ships. Or maybe we just have to accept that it's fiction and visions of futuristic technology are made in the light of the current state of the art.

[pidsy]

So... Prometheus is still hanging on at the top of the box office.

Has it been a finacial success? Has it covered its costs?

[Halb]

otolith said:

What is the service life of a vessel like the Nostromo? It could already have been old when the state of the art research ship Prometheus was built.

Prometheus was the first FTL ship.

[paulmon]

pidsy said:

So... Prometheus is still hanging on at the top of the box office.

Has it been a finacial success? Has it covered its costs?

If these figures are accurate then it would appear so.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&amp...

[DrTre]

Another nod to a previous film (Aliens) must be:

"No weapons, this is a scientific expedition"

"Good luck with that"

Clunky isn't it?

I enjoyed the film but I was hoping the spoilers that I've deliberately not read on here, and various other places, would fill in the blanks that were left in my mind. It appears not!
It started at the SJ hologram recordings which were a bizarrely clunky exposition device, and I'd say was bordering on deus ex machina.

I'm very happy with ambiguity in films, whether it be morally/spiritually/emotionally/whatever, but where a story is so obfuscatory in its telling, either deliberately or through general lack of direction, or things happen that just don't make logical sense then it just jars me out of the suspension of disbelief that I enjoy when watching a film.

That's what happened here. It's as if there was some bet to be as enigmatic and clever as possible and the consequence was that the actual coherence of the plot fell apart. That the writer of Lost was involved isn't a surprise; clearly he's a brilliant idea generator, it's just someone should rein him in.

It just doesn't hang together well.

What could have been a great film is merely OK. Having said that, the CGI was absolutely amazing and that takes a lot for me to say that. Some of the performances were really good, the overall idea is OK, I just wish it had been better. The critical parallels drawn with the Star Wars prequels aren't far from the truth for me.

[JonRB]

DrTre said:

Another nod to a previous film (Aliens) must be:

"No weapons, this is a scientific expedition"

"Good luck with that"

Clunky isn't it?

Also, don't forget how they crow-barred in "We are LEAVING!"

[Halb]

DrTre said:

Another nod to a previous film (Aliens) must be:

"No weapons, this is a scientific expedition"

"Good luck with that"

Clunky isn't it?

Struck me as a nod to Alien³.

[DrTre]

Ah.
Both perhaps then?
I thought it was alluding to the "Holster your weapons, no firing"/"What are we meant to use? Harsh language?" under the reactor.

I thought the last shot was really cheesy too tbh.

However, I really hope there's more to come.

[Halb]

I know it probably shouldn't but it still irritates me that when Ripley says', "you mean we have no weapons of any kind," and you can see she is stressed/miffed about it, the fact that they had no weapons was because Sigourney was so anti-weapons after the second film!
Still irritates.

[dtrump]

My final conclusion 'Meh, cannot be arsed to think about this sorely disappointing film any longer'

I mean this thread is dead now, nobody is posting......oh wait...uh oh

[crofty1984]

JonRB said:

crofty1984 said:

...And another thing!
In Alien it was CRT screens and clickety-clack keyboards, in the film set before that, they have flat touchscreens. Doubleyou tea eff?

You could rationalise that by simply retconning the Nostromo to be a museum piece.

Although Ridley Scott's official justification is "meh. Deal with it".

AND! There's aliens!
For the record I totally agree with Mr Scott's justification.

I saw Alien properly for the first time a few weeks ago and noticed the 70's retro futurism. Was just something I noticed. Didn't mean to spark a debate!

Edited by crofty1984 on Thursday 5th July 19:50

[paolow]

JonRB said:

It isn't. That's why I said you'd have to retcon it.

Interestingly enough the Narcissus is described in the Aliens book as thoroughly knackered - patched up and with worn out componentry with only single level or no redundancy for systems where primary and secondary ones had failed.
Granted it wasn't the Nostromo but existing in the same universe one would have thought that economy would dictate that the Nostromo would have been 'run on a shoestring' even more than a military vessel.

As an aside - witness how fragile the landing craft was from having a very slightly rough landing where the crew were all adept at repairing systems that were damaged. Does suggest they were well practiced at doing that....

[Halb]

I read up on the Nostromo, seems it was a sort of a tugboat, and shift the ore by push/pull.
It depends whether or not you'd think a greedy company like Weyland would risk the valuable cargo on an old barge.

[JonRB]

paolow said:

Interestingly enough the Narcissus is described in the Aliens book as thoroughly knackered - patched up and with worn out componentry with only single level or no redundancy for systems where primary and secondary ones had failed.
Granted it wasn't the Nostromo but existing in the same universe one would have thought that economy would dictate that the Nostromo would have been 'run on a shoestring' even more than a military vessel.

Narcissus was the lifeboat that Ripley escaped from the Nostromo in. When you say "more than a military vessel" do you mean the Sulaco?