Ridley Scott's Prometheus

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

I suppose 6.5 is probably over generous considering I won't be buying it when it comes out on Bluray and I do buy quite a few movies. I guess that's what's most telling because I've bought some pretty bad films over the years.

Visually it is one of the most stunning pictures I've ever seen, I'd get it just for that.

And that Fassbender's a cutie.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

And that Fassbender's a cutie.

Goldfinger may sing about Wayne Gretzky, I sing a similar song about Fassbender.

[trackercowe]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

I suppose 6.5 is probably over generous considering I won't be buying it when it comes out on Bluray and I do buy quite a few movies. I guess that's what's most telling because I've bought some pretty bad films over the years.

You'll likely be missing out then since Ridley Scott movies seemingly get much better when the Director's Cut is released. Look no further than Kingdom of Heaven, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and even Alien; all four were superior when the new cuts were released on video.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

You'll likely be missing out then since Ridley Scott movies seemingly get much better when the Director's Cut is released. Look no further than Kingdom of Heaven, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and even Alien; all four were superior when the new cuts were released on video.

I am a big fan of Ridley Scott and the difference between all the movies you've listed and Prometheus is that I actually enjoyed those films before he released a directors cut. It's possible that I may eventually grab it out of the bargin bin but it won't be a day one purchase.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

You'll likely be missing out then since Ridley Scott movies seemingly get much better when the Director's Cut is released. Look no further than Kingdom of Heaven, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and even Alien; all four were superior when the new cuts were released on video.

No such thing as a Gladiator directors cut.

Kingdom of heaven and blade runner ate directors cuts and good ones because the studios screwed with the originals.

Gladiator is a studio extended cut that just has deleted scenes spliced in.

[trackercowe]

Tomato, tomato. They all just mean that a better version was released after the movie hit home video.

[d_phaneuf]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

I've read a few explanations on this (and some pretty neat stuff that I missed); still a few things I don't understand:

- so what was the point of the opening scene?

- why do the Engineers want to destroy Earth? so it wasn't an invitation then?

- those attacking worms that first attacked the geologist, were the worms always there? or did it come on the ship?

- what cause the storm? was it David punching in that code into the wall the triggered the storm?

FTR : I didn't like the movie because I was confused.... I think they tried to cram too many plots at once. Some of the ideas (now that I read reviews on the net) are neat but I totally missed it.

seeding a planet to create life

I believe the worms were created when the goo reacted with the water

I think the storm just happened

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by diane_phaneuf

seeding a planet to create life

I believe the worms were created when the goo reacted with the water

I think the storm just happened

The worms were already in the soil. The goo simply mutated them.

[speede5]

Beefs-
Too many different aliens/creatures,
No real reason for the engineers to want to wipe out humans,
but most of all, NO suspense. I wasn't on the edge of my seat once, no jumpy, quesy, nailbiting suspense.

Visually it was great, the 3D was just right, and I can forgive some plot holes and bad characters but geez I was expecting to be scared!

And the whole zombie geologist, what the frack was that?

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by diane_phaneuf

seeding a planet to create life

By life, you mean those black parasite/seeds in those containers?

[MrMastodonFarm]

You know, the whole thing about leaving things unanswered is kinda weird. One of the biggest holes in Alien was the big alien pilot dude with a whole in his chest early in the movie.

That didn't ruin Alien it was just something that didn't need an answer at the time.

[Knalus]

I got an idea about the movie.

Remember the legend about Promethius, where he gives humanity the gift of fire to allow them to be the equals of the gods? Is it possible the first humanoid alien that we see was giving or modifying humanity with a gift that would not be allowed by the other members of his species? Which is why they felt the need to destroy us?

[Knalus]

I loved the movie by the way. It is at least an 8/10. The things that other people point out are flaws are true, but in short they are minor compared to the really cool questions and points that the movie actually makes. The biggest issues are wih the geologist and biologist but I just ignored that part i was able to put it out of my head, which is really hard for me to do. I guess I was able to do so because i found the rest of the movie that interesting.

I also find it interesting who likes the movie and who doesn't.

[d_phaneuf]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

By life, you mean those black parasite/seeds in those containers?

yes, it the engineers eating the black stuff and it disintegrating their body flowing in to the water to create life on a planet

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by diane_phaneuf

yes, it the engineers eating the black stuff and it disintegrating their body flowing in to the water to create life on a planet

I can't wait to watch this again, even for that amazing opening scene. I think I'm far too stupid to catch into all this the first viewing.

[octothorp]

I'm going to respond to this while the movie's fresh in my mind.

Originally Posted by Burninator

It's a trillion dollar mission and the only scientist they can find are ones "in it for the money" because those are the best scientists right?
Did they hire the right geologist for the job? Clearly not, but bad HR isn't a plot hole. Very big companies often hire precisely the wrong people (with the wrong motivations) to run very expensive projects.

5 dots leads them to conclude alien life created them? Five dots led three of the many people involved to believe that alien life created them. That planet would be an interesting-enough candidate for exploration, regardless of how believable the idea that it was linked to human origins was. But we also don't know the full state of scientific knowledge at in 2093. Perhaps there's other evidence that points toward exogenesis, and the five dots simply pointed toward the origin point.

Almost all of them agree to be frozen for two years with no idea what the mission actually is.Freezing is commonplace in the Alien universe. It seems to be an accepted fact that if you want to travel through space, you're going to be in freezing. Several of them were pretty ho-hum about it, I'd imagine they've done it before. The characters in the original Alien film were agreeing to be frozen for what was basically a grunt labour job. Presumably, these are people who either want to travel through space, or don't have a lot of reason to stay home. Just because it's the future doesn't mean a lot of people don't want to get as far away from home as possible. Just look at the number of people willing to volunteer for that Mars reality show concept.

The biologist refers to evolution as Darwinism (nit pick for sure, but they could have made a phone call to any scientist about this one).The meaning of darwinism has changed tremendously over time. It's not unrealistic to think that in 80 years, it could be treated as a synonym for evolution. Lots of people use it that way today.

They figure out the atmosphere is oxygen so they remove their masks with complete disregard for pathogens (better looking to not have masks on, fine) Agreed with this one.

Masks are internally lit for some reason and have condensation (looks cool, fine) agreed, but I'm not going to second-guess any of the art-direction of this film.

The biologist sees alien life for the first time and even though it's been dead for 2000 years he is scared of it and the room, leaves.We know that the geologist is afraid of a nine foot tall, decapitated humanoid body, moments after having a hologram of that same body seemingly chase them down a dark underground corridor on an alien planet. Not unreasonable for him to be afraid. We don't know specifically that the biologist is afraid of the body, only that if the geologist is going back to the ship, he wants to go too. Not unreasonable, given the circumstances. It seemed to me that it was more the cumulative effect of things than the dead body.

The biologist and geologist who as far as the movie goer can tell are in constant communication with the ship that has a 3D map, manage to get lost. I don't think they're in constant communication. Parts of the structure seemed to block the communications systems. I've been hiking with guys who can get lost with a map and GPS equipment. I imagine that this is far worse an issue in spelunking, with your only guide some guy on a radio telling you which way to go.

The rest of the crew, without thinking, leave them behind.The geologist and biologist said they were going back to the ship. The rest of the team had no reason to think they were still inside, and were running from a huge storm so they had bigger things to worry about.

The two of them go back to the room that they were too scared to go into in the first place to sleep! Buh?! The only landmark where they knew where they were. Not shocking that their fear subsided over time, and presented with the threat of life-forms in other unexplored areas, apparently dead things would seem less frightening. Again, I think they were as much spooked by the holograms as the body.

The biologist, who apparently is a scientist, sees alien life (second time) tries to coax it toward him like a puppy. How very scientific of him. He is scared of dead alien life but not alive ones? Wah? Is this their first time that anyone's seen alien life? Do we know that lower-intelligence life has not been discovered elsewhere in the universe? I'm not sure if that's been answered. Perhaps he's seen lots of lower forms of life. Is it shocking that a giant decapitated humanoid is going to be a little more frightening than a snake-like creature?

They stimulate the head and it explodes for some reason.Agreed, this seemed to be a gratuitous explosion.

The DNA match is exact even though they are 9' tall. Pygmys are gentically human, yet display some properties that give them a different stature than the average human. Natural selection can shape the characteristics of populations in only a few generations while maintaining compatible DNA structure, so it's not really shocking that one population would grown nine feet tall on a particular planet, while another would average between five and six on earth. Just look at dogs, for example. All are genetically the same species, yet the differentiation is incredible.

The guy scientist finds alien life and is a brooding a-hole about it for no clear reason.Maybe you missed that bit of dialogue, but this was addressed pretty clearly in the film: he expected them to still be alive, and that he would be able to talk to them. One of the first things he did when he got out of freezing was ask David if he had researched enough that he would be able to talk to them.

The alien snake thing turns the geologist into a zombie with super human strength for some reason. Fair enough, but this is the sort of nitpick that falls into the category that just because they don't bother to explain something to you doesn't mean it's a plot hole. The exact behaviour of the alien DNA and why it reacts to different circumstances in different ways has never been explained.

The guy scientist has a snake thing in his eye and tells no one (guess he doesn't have to, you would think a scientist would) He thought he imagined it. There was a noise, he looked away, looked back, and it was gone. Only after he starts to feel sick does he realize it was real.

Charlize's character doesn't want the infection guy on board so she opens the biggest door on the ship.carrying a blowtorch. She seemed pretty confident that she'd be able to eliminate the threat. How many times in the franchise has someone done something similar when they probably would have been smarter to lock it down? Lots. Her character is pretty confident in her abilities of self-preservation.

The infected girl is in quarantine, knocks out some dudes who never show up again.Pretty sure that was the same crew that were later attending to Weyland.

The medical pod in Charlize's personal quarters which is tailored for her and is a separate ship, is only for men (I guess it's for the old guy then).Only a few of them were ever made, as explained in some other part of the film. If they were just a prototype that never made it in to full production, it wouldn't be surprising that they only made male versions. Perhaps Vickers thought it was better than nothing. Perhaps she had never had a situation come up where it said it was intended for male use.

The old guy is not dead for some reason. Certainly no good reason, because they don't provide one.The question isn't why he isn't dead, it's why did he let the crew believe he's dead. Need-to-know basis? He's the most powerful guy on earth. So he's allowed to be a little bit of a Howard Hughes sort of reclusive nutjob, or perhaps he thought it would affect how others wanted to do their job. It's said at one point that he wanted Shaw onboard because he wanted a true believer. I don't think that refers just to God. I think that's also that he wanted someone who believed in the absolute nobility of their mission (which would change if she knew that the mission was some guy's fountain of youth project).

It makes no sense why a younger guy plays an old man. The makeup is so awful it took me out of the movie. He is barely in the movie, they should have just used an old man.Agreed. Easily my least favorite thing in this movie. So many elder actors would have been a much better choice. Not a plot hole though, just bad casting/make-up.

They no longer care about her being infected and/or why she has a giant scar.Most powerful man in the world is telling them that they're going to go meet a sentient alien who created life on earth. Who cares about the girl with a scar. Again, a more well-cast actor might have conveyed that better, but I don't think it's unreasonable.

She can run around and lower heavy bags of stuff with seemingly little pain despite having abdominal surgery moments before. (she grunts a few times, oh right) agreed.

The old man is Charlize's father which the movie makes out to be this big reveal. But everyone saw it coming, doesn't care, and it didn't matter.Maybe, though I didn't think it was made out as a big reveal. Agreed that it didn't matter, but I think Charlize's character was a huge missed opportunity overall.

The working class ships captain who is only "in it for money" and doesn't care about the science in the mission, has a change of heart and decides to sacrifice himself to take down the ship.I could be wrong here, but did he ever say he was in it for the money? I think only the geologist said that. He said that he didn't care about the answers, when Shaw asked him. When asked if he cared about anything, he said he cared about the people on the ship, and then something about not letting it back to earth. Unless I'm mixing up the dialogue, I don't see the contradiction.

While that was boarder line in terms of believability, the reason the other two go down with the ship was because of a side bet! A side bet! Insanity. Did you really believe that was the reason they were going down with the ship? Subtext seemed pretty obvious to me. I mean, it's like the scene in one of the Lethal Weapon movies where they agreed that they were going to go back and ask Jet Li how he dodged a bullet.


They run away from a falling doughnut like idiots (duh)Yup, and people are idiots. Just watch youtube and see how a lot of people react to dangerous situations that they could easily avoid. Again, I thought Vickers was really underdeveloped, but it was an important point that Shaw changed directions (as she did in the larger story, adapting to the situation and destroying the thing she had wanted to find), while Vickers - who was more interested in self-preservation than anyone else through most of the film - couldn't turn from her path.

The main actress talks about her Christianity a lot, but the only thing Christian about her is that she wears a cross. They could have done more with this.
I'm glad they didn't go too far in that direction, beyond a little bit of talk about belief. The idea that she believed in things was the only element that was relevant to the story. Impossible to say what Christianity is going to be like in 100 years, better not to get into any real discussion of theology. Normally I hate films that go too heavily into theological significance, I thought the balance was okay here. There's lots of subtext about science and religion that you can read into it if you want, such as the importance of adapting your beliefs when contradictory evidence is presented, but not throwing out everything you believe in. Not really deep, but it's there and I'm glad they didn't feel the need to throw it in the face of the audience.

Wow, that's a horrific wall of text. congrats to anyone who actually bothers to read through it.

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I'm going to respond to this while the movie's fresh in my mind.

...

The medical pod in Charlize's personal quarters which is tailored for her and is a separate ship, is only for men (I guess it's for the old guy then).Only a few of them were ever made, as explained in some other part of the film. If they were just a prototype that never made it in to full production, it wouldn't be surprising that they only made male versions. Perhaps Vickers thought it was better than nothing. Perhaps she had never had a situation come up where it said it was intended for male use.

Wow, that's a horrific wall of text. congrats to anyone who actually bothers to read through it.

I understood this to be for two reasons. One it was a foreshadowing of the fact that the old guy was on the ship, because the device was almost certainly there for him and not for Vickers, and the second one was to add time and difficulty to one of the better scenes in the movie.

[sevenarms]

I was going to write up some counters to Burninator's post but octothorpe did a fine job.

What I would like to add is to the helmet nitpick. Who wants to watch a movie whose character have their helmets on every second their off the ship. Had they kept their helmets on I'm sure many people would be complaining that we couldn't see the actors faces well enough. It would be tough from a filming standpoint and I know I'd find it distracting.

[killer_carlson]

I had low expectations going in and never saw the trailer that I can remember, or if I did, it was non remarkable to me.

However I enjoyed the film. Genuinely creepy at times. A few plot holes but hey, it is a sci if film so you have to expect that at times

[Mr.Coffee]

NSFW, language

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse....theus_nutshell

the above link is a hilarious review, but mind you I haven't seen it yet.