Prometheus - Ridley Scott's 'Alien Prequel' (or not)...
Discussion
Personally I enjoyed it as a 'mind off' experience.
It felt a lot more sci-fi, as opposed to horror with a sci-fi twist, that you got with Alien 1 - 3. It doesn't quite work as a stand alone film due to the story requiring a little background knowledge of the Alien franchise and it doesn't work as a tie-in because the stories/timeline just don't mesh.
I think people are being overly critical due to the films heritage. People wanted this to be amazing, they wanted Ridley to make a great Alien film just like the original. I think people are viewing the original with rose tinted specs though.
Alien wasn't great, not really. When it was first released it received quite poor to average reviews, but over time the 'chestburster scene' and follow on movies have elevated it to a very high level.
Think Star Wars. The first 3 were great, flawed, but good fun. Lucas makes 3 more that are not really any worse than the originals and they are viewed as the worst films ever. I actually quite enjoyed them.
Why did they get slated? Because they didn't have 'a moment'. That one point in a film that goes down in cinematic history.
Star Wars had Darth Vader, 'Luke, I am your father' and SFX way ahead of its time.
Alien had 'chestburster'.
The Matrix had 'bullet time'.
Blade Runner had the sunbeams speech and great SFX.
It needed 'a moment' to make it great and Ridley didn't bring that to the party, so it will never live up to Alien...
It felt a lot more sci-fi, as opposed to horror with a sci-fi twist, that you got with Alien 1 - 3. It doesn't quite work as a stand alone film due to the story requiring a little background knowledge of the Alien franchise and it doesn't work as a tie-in because the stories/timeline just don't mesh.
I think people are being overly critical due to the films heritage. People wanted this to be amazing, they wanted Ridley to make a great Alien film just like the original. I think people are viewing the original with rose tinted specs though.
Alien wasn't great, not really. When it was first released it received quite poor to average reviews, but over time the 'chestburster scene' and follow on movies have elevated it to a very high level.
Think Star Wars. The first 3 were great, flawed, but good fun. Lucas makes 3 more that are not really any worse than the originals and they are viewed as the worst films ever. I actually quite enjoyed them.
Why did they get slated? Because they didn't have 'a moment'. That one point in a film that goes down in cinematic history.
Star Wars had Darth Vader, 'Luke, I am your father' and SFX way ahead of its time.
Alien had 'chestburster'.
The Matrix had 'bullet time'.
Blade Runner had the sunbeams speech and great SFX.
It needed 'a moment' to make it great and Ridley didn't bring that to the party, so it will never live up to Alien...
The Beaver King said:
Think Star Wars. The first 3 were great, flawed, but good fun. Lucas makes 3 more that are not really any worse than the originals and they are viewed as the worst films ever. I actually quite enjoyed them.
Yes they are far worse than the originals. If they were even close, a large part of the fanbase could have forgiven (like the many faults of Prometheus), the awful acting, wooden characterisation, illogical part of the plot et al.
The Beaver King said:
Wouldn't work. Engineer alien would of had to be a queen to lay all the eggs on the engineer's ship in place for 'Alien'.
In Ridleys Alien Universe there aren't any Alien Queens, thats not how they reproduce. The Alien Queen was entirely a Cameron construct. Ridleys replication process in the Alien film was far more, well, 'Alien' than that.im said:
The Beaver King said:
Wouldn't work. Engineer alien would of had to be a queen to lay all the eggs on the engineer's ship in place for 'Alien'.
In Ridleys Alien Universe there aren't any Alien Queens, thats not how they reproduce. The Alien Queen was entirely a Cameron construct. Ridleys replication process in the Alien film was far more, well, 'Alien' than that.Zod said:
im said:
The Beaver King said:
Wouldn't work. Engineer alien would of had to be a queen to lay all the eggs on the engineer's ship in place for 'Alien'.
In Ridleys Alien Universe there aren't any Alien Queens, thats not how they reproduce. The Alien Queen was entirely a Cameron construct. Ridleys replication process in the Alien film was far more, well, 'Alien' than that.Guvernator said:
Which is yet more crap to be honest. Another ship were the aliens escape and then impregnate the Engineers in exactly the same fashion? As someone else said Ridley should have stopped all this stupid is it or isn't it an Alien prequel dithering and just done one or the other.
Either decide they aren't linked in which case leave the Alien birth scene out of Prometheus altogether or man the eff up and arguably give people what they really wanted and link this film directly to Alien. This would have made a lot more logical sense. Have the Engineer take off but then just as he is about to zoom off to earth, he starts to convulse, chest burster comes out and the alien ship crash lands onto LV-426 perfectly setup for Alien.
It's almost like Ridley didn't want to make this film but was forced or more likely lured into it by the promise of obscene amounts of money.
An interesting thought occurs. What if it was Shaw's ship (the one we see taking off at the end) that crashes on LV426. After all, who's to say that she (or rather David) was flying it? Perhaps she stumbled upon another 'still-alive' engineer... And we are assuming that she's actually on it. Would the timings work out for that?Either decide they aren't linked in which case leave the Alien birth scene out of Prometheus altogether or man the eff up and arguably give people what they really wanted and link this film directly to Alien. This would have made a lot more logical sense. Have the Engineer take off but then just as he is about to zoom off to earth, he starts to convulse, chest burster comes out and the alien ship crash lands onto LV-426 perfectly setup for Alien.
It's almost like Ridley didn't want to make this film but was forced or more likely lured into it by the promise of obscene amounts of money.
Dammit! I will not get drawn into speculating again. Not after this experience.
crazy about cars said:
Just watched this and I'm totally blown away! Not many movies can make me feel this way lately but this is definitely it. It's just something about the whole package that makes it a very enjoyable movie to watch.
Notsureifseriousjoker.jpegThe Beaver King said:
Alien wasn't great, not really.
Notsureifseriousjoker.jpegcrazy about cars said:
Think Star Wars. The first 3 were great, flawed, but good fun. Lucas makes 3 more that are not really any worse than the originals and they are viewed as the worst films ever. I actually quite enjoyed them.
Notsureifseriousjoker.jpegFundamental problem with Prometheus - it tries to be profound and clever.
It isn't. Not in the slightest.
Neither is it a 'shut your brain off' all out uber action flick.
If you're going to be a smart arse, ensure you're at least being smart. Otherwise you just end up being an arse. This film is unfortunately a load of arse.
Why do I believe this?
Because I choose to believe.
Raify said:
Red Letter Media just got the DVD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avXZVgzLP68&fe...
So you get different versions depending on whether you get DVD, blu-ray or 3d.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avXZVgzLP68&fe...
Wow that sucks donkey dicks.
Halb said:
Raify said:
Red Letter Media just got the DVD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avXZVgzLP68&fe...
So you get different versions depending on whether you get DVD, blu-ray or 3d.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avXZVgzLP68&fe...
Wow that sucks donkey dicks.
I thought any questions would be answered watching the movie, which cost us £12 per ticket. Do we now have to buy not only the BR, but the DVD too, to join and plot dots that make no sense in the original!
The next one I shall wait until it comes out on DVD, rather than spending a fortune to watch a half finished film at the cinema.....
(By implying 'questions will be answered', to me, this means that the film was a messy mistake in my book...)
swankBaton said:
Youtube has some of the delete scenes (catch them before they go down), they should have left the Engineers dialect / Davids translation in the original cut!
All the deleted scenes were cack (much like the rest of the film).Did anyone else find the scene where Prometheus crashed into the Alien ship comically bad? The captain's decision to commit suicide was made in a few seconds with little emotion, followed by his two co-pilots reacting to his suggestion with glee! It really did remind me of the end of Independence Day where the old Pilot flew into the Alien ship, destroying it.
Olivera said:
All the deleted scenes were cack (much like the rest of the film).
Did anyone else find the scene where Prometheus crashed into the Alien ship comically bad? The captain's decision to commit suicide was made in a few seconds with little emotion, followed by his two co-pilots reacting to his suggestion with glee! It really did remind me of the end of Independence Day where the old Pilot flew into the Alien ship, destroying it.
with their hands in the motherfDid anyone else find the scene where Prometheus crashed into the Alien ship comically bad? The captain's decision to commit suicide was made in a few seconds with little emotion, followed by his two co-pilots reacting to his suggestion with glee! It really did remind me of the end of Independence Day where the old Pilot flew into the Alien ship, destroying it.
king airOakey said:
Olivera said:
All the deleted scenes were cack (much like the rest of the film).
Did anyone else find the scene where Prometheus crashed into the Alien ship comically bad? The captain's decision to commit suicide was made in a few seconds with little emotion, followed by his two co-pilots reacting to his suggestion with glee! It really did remind me of the end of Independence Day where the old Pilot flew into the Alien ship, destroying it.
with their hands in the motherfDid anyone else find the scene where Prometheus crashed into the Alien ship comically bad? The captain's decision to commit suicide was made in a few seconds with little emotion, followed by his two co-pilots reacting to his suggestion with glee! It really did remind me of the end of Independence Day where the old Pilot flew into the Alien ship, destroying it.
king air
See now you've done. just thinking of that whole crash scene and the way the characters just willfully fly to their deaths for no fking reason.
Nobody says "captain what the fk are you doing get off that control panel or I will tt you"
Pay me on the other fking side.
I'll not sleep now.
king reason.Nobody says "captain what the f
k are you doing get off that control panel or I will tt you"Pay me on the other f
king side.I'll not sleep now.
Some interesting ideas in this http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&...
I kept away from the cinema and waiting until this was released on bluray...
Overall i was highly disappointed. Sure i enjoyed the action and the cgi, but the story, the plot, the characters and most of the acting was very poor and the film left me feeling disappointed when it ended (much like the matrix sequels) so much so that i decided to immediately watch the deleted scenes in order to gain explanations into some of the glaring omissions in the final cut and get closure.
It became clear quite a few important things allowing the plot to flow from A-B-C were removed in the interests of keeping the final cut around 2 hours, but the result being far to many WTF moments with the plot jumping from A-C or even just straight to C.
I appreciate the film is sci-fi so you have to suspend reality for parts of the film, but these are the questions, queries, contradictions, holes and thoughts that immediately came to mind during and after the film -
How come different civilisations on earth thousands of years ago all had drawings apparently pointing to the same place? Some more back-story and explanation of the circumstances would have been good. As it stands "we found some ancient paintings with uncanny similarities" translating into a multi-trillion dollar space mission to find our creators isn't well enough explained.
Why did the engineers apparently lure humans to their military installation?
I appreciate the "god doesn't build in straight lines" point, but it seems awfully lucky that they managed to fly straight down to the planet and near-instantly find the engineer hive.
David seemingly knows what he's doing in order to create the engineers-running-away hologram, i understand he could read and understand the language, but the reasons about how or why the hologram was there were never explained, or what they were running away from. Just feels incredible contrived.
Why were the engineers running back to the room filled with the black goo that apparently put an end to them?
And the murals on the ceiling that changed only when the room was opened. Why and what relevance did this have?
Why did the black goo react to them entering the room and bubble over?
How did the pile of dead engineers occur? If it was some kind of alien-form created by the black goo going wrong, where did they disappear to?
Fifield getting lost despite supposedly having the mapping kit handy.
The bio guy trying to pet the clearly aggressive wiener-snake - somewhat explained in the deleted scenes.
Holloway getting into a sulk after not finding humans creators after just 1 day at the planet, despite there clearly being life.
Janek apparently not knowing that the team waiting on the ground had encountered problems despite their radio messages... it seems incredibly far-fetched to believe they wouldn't have recorded the conversations at least.
David found the entrance to the alien control room whilst heading to repair the damaged mapping probe that had stopped and was reporting alien life every few hours. Now i fully suspect that David offered to go and fix the probe with an ulterior motive (hence finding the control room), but the point about the life form the probe was detecting was never explained. If it was the engineer in the pod, how was it detecting it, and why only every couple of hours? Was the door opening/closing?
The point around Fifield being mutated wasn't made clear enough IMO, i thought this was Holloway who'd been killed by Vickers and left outside the ship. The fact it could have been either and was inconsequential either-way makes its own point.
Janek knowing that part of the complex underground structure contained a ship, and that the planet and installation was an engineer military base - again explained in the deleted scenes.
Shaw beating colleagues around the head to escape, having the operation and leaving the squid thing she removed in the medipod... only for nothing more to ever be said or questioned by anybody.
The engineer waking up and immediately entering a killing-spree - kind of explained in the deleted scenes.
Shaw running around having fights with engineers despite having a c-section and having her stomach stapled together.
Shaw and Vickers runningaway from under a rolling space ship.
If there were loads of ships left on the planet, why didn't the engineer launch one of those to (apparently) destroy earth after the first one crashed? It was clear this mission was of utmost important to him.
If the film isn't a prequel to alien, then why the scene at the end?
In contrast to alien/aliens the plot just didn't seem believable for the most part, despite the inconsistencies pointed out in aliens, i don't remember thinking "wtf that's just ridiculous", the story just worked, whereas in Prometheus i didn't stop thinking "wtf this is ridiculous".
I suspect much of how this film is viewed in the future will depend on the sequel in the same way the solid Aliens film reinforced Alien, but for now i'm not convinced and feel Ridley Scottcould should have done a far better job.
Sonic score: 6/10
Overall i was highly disappointed. Sure i enjoyed the action and the cgi, but the story, the plot, the characters and most of the acting was very poor and the film left me feeling disappointed when it ended (much like the matrix sequels) so much so that i decided to immediately watch the deleted scenes in order to gain explanations into some of the glaring omissions in the final cut and get closure.
It became clear quite a few important things allowing the plot to flow from A-B-C were removed in the interests of keeping the final cut around 2 hours, but the result being far to many WTF moments with the plot jumping from A-C or even just straight to C.
I appreciate the film is sci-fi so you have to suspend reality for parts of the film, but these are the questions, queries, contradictions, holes and thoughts that immediately came to mind during and after the film -
How come different civilisations on earth thousands of years ago all had drawings apparently pointing to the same place? Some more back-story and explanation of the circumstances would have been good. As it stands "we found some ancient paintings with uncanny similarities" translating into a multi-trillion dollar space mission to find our creators isn't well enough explained.
Why did the engineers apparently lure humans to their military installation?
I appreciate the "god doesn't build in straight lines" point, but it seems awfully lucky that they managed to fly straight down to the planet and near-instantly find the engineer hive.
David seemingly knows what he's doing in order to create the engineers-running-away hologram, i understand he could read and understand the language, but the reasons about how or why the hologram was there were never explained, or what they were running away from. Just feels incredible contrived.
Why were the engineers running back to the room filled with the black goo that apparently put an end to them?
And the murals on the ceiling that changed only when the room was opened. Why and what relevance did this have?
Why did the black goo react to them entering the room and bubble over?
How did the pile of dead engineers occur? If it was some kind of alien-form created by the black goo going wrong, where did they disappear to?
Fifield getting lost despite supposedly having the mapping kit handy.
The bio guy trying to pet the clearly aggressive wiener-snake - somewhat explained in the deleted scenes.
Holloway getting into a sulk after not finding humans creators after just 1 day at the planet, despite there clearly being life.
Janek apparently not knowing that the team waiting on the ground had encountered problems despite their radio messages... it seems incredibly far-fetched to believe they wouldn't have recorded the conversations at least.
David found the entrance to the alien control room whilst heading to repair the damaged mapping probe that had stopped and was reporting alien life every few hours. Now i fully suspect that David offered to go and fix the probe with an ulterior motive (hence finding the control room), but the point about the life form the probe was detecting was never explained. If it was the engineer in the pod, how was it detecting it, and why only every couple of hours? Was the door opening/closing?
The point around Fifield being mutated wasn't made clear enough IMO, i thought this was Holloway who'd been killed by Vickers and left outside the ship. The fact it could have been either and was inconsequential either-way makes its own point.
Janek knowing that part of the complex underground structure contained a ship, and that the planet and installation was an engineer military base - again explained in the deleted scenes.
Shaw beating colleagues around the head to escape, having the operation and leaving the squid thing she removed in the medipod... only for nothing more to ever be said or questioned by anybody.
The engineer waking up and immediately entering a killing-spree - kind of explained in the deleted scenes.
Shaw running around having fights with engineers despite having a c-section and having her stomach stapled together.
Shaw and Vickers running
If there were loads of ships left on the planet, why didn't the engineer launch one of those to (apparently) destroy earth after the first one crashed? It was clear this mission was of utmost important to him.
If the film isn't a prequel to alien, then why the scene at the end?
In contrast to alien/aliens the plot just didn't seem believable for the most part, despite the inconsistencies pointed out in aliens, i don't remember thinking "wtf that's just ridiculous", the story just worked, whereas in Prometheus i didn't stop thinking "wtf this is ridiculous".
I suspect much of how this film is viewed in the future will depend on the sequel in the same way the solid Aliens film reinforced Alien, but for now i'm not convinced and feel Ridley Scott
Sonic score: 6/10
Bedazzled said:
They should do a paint-by-numbers version for some folk. I like movies with open-ended plots! 
Despite the smiley, I think this is rather supercilious. The fact that people can make very well reasoned and structured objections to elements of the film does not make them stupid, as you seem to be implying. On the contrary, it shows that they have really thought about it. One could counter-argue that the people who find nothing wrong with it are the ones who haven't thought sufficiently.
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