Prometheus

[[eR]Ekamo]

Discussion for the people who has actually watched the movie, read this thread at your own risk.

Two people were silly enough to post this in the wrong forum, but I'll quote them here before I delete their posts in that forum.
The Spoiler tag is there for a reason, please be aware of that.

Prometheus was the most spectacularly ordinary movie I've seen in as long as I can remember. I would be angry at Ridley Scott if he hadn't made Blade Runner as well.

Could.not.agree.more. *******************************************SPOILER ALERT******************************************

I can't believe that the movie let me down so much. Looking back to Scott's classics (Alien, Blade Runner): smart sci-fi that uses the future to look into a contemporary issue with depth and relevance. Those movies took social and metaphysical philosophy and made it WATCHABLE. Prometheus was extremely watchable, but that's basically where its virtues end.

1) The strongest character was David, the replicant (and even here I cannot escape Blade Runner's influence). Why was he so much more human and humane than the real people? he was the only useful and developed character in the movie. Why was he the only linguist, the only character able to speak across species, space and time? When his head lay beside his body he had a moment where a beautiful commentary - on the fading of a sentient being into death- was possible. Think of Kubrick's Hal2000 robot, fading while it sings its programming jingle, mumbling that it is afraid to die. David got close enough that I was drooling... Then the moment past and I felt a bit like a lobotomy patient.

2) Linguistics. The movie was beautifully set up to have intelligent discussion on the nature of language. Why can all humans speak? Why do we do it so differently? What can we learn by studying language origins? They were careful with the details, too. Hittite, Assyrian, Proto-Indo-European, are all real languages that were historically linked when you go far enough back. The reappearing star pattern in linguistic forms across all these cultures is incredibly interesting; it tells us quite literally to look to the stars to find the beginning of language. Remember the biblical story of Nimrod's Tower of Babel? He built a tower to the stars, and was punished by the confusion of the tongues. Prometheus finds humans at the cusp of understanding all of this, then the second half of the movie begins.

3) ********SPOILER**************** David speaks in Proto-Indo-European to the hominid at the end. This is a language the hominid could reasonably be expected to understand. Why would the hominid blindly attack David? A greeting was spoken, in the mother tongue, to an intellectually superior being, and the initial response is brain-dead zombie-esque violence? Would the movie not have been more fulfilling if our ancestors were able to speak and communicate, considering the movie calls them our linguistic ancestors?

4) The awoken hominid goes on a rampage to hunt the main character, shaw. Would it not make sense for the hominid to abandon her to her fate (she is on a planet she biologically cannot survive on, she is doomed) and go to one of the other alien ships that are littered around the area (as David proves at the end of the movie). Basically, the awoken hominid, after killing most of the prometheus crew, could have awoken the rest of his race in the other spaceships. Instead, he goes on a vendetta to hunt shaw, and quite literally feeds to the kraken at the end.

5) Why were the two crew members - whose character development was LIMITED to cowardice - suddenly so eager to put their hands on an extremely antagonistic alien snake-worm when they found out they were trapped in a tunnel? Why was their preservative cowardice traded in for bovine stupidity so quickly and inexplicably?

6) The tagged-on Alien scene at the end sucked a fat C*ck, and this is coming from an Alien fan.

7) I do not think a movie could be more beautifully shot and directed than Prometheus. It was staggeringly beautiful and the world Scott weaves is inspiring. That being said, I'm an undergrad and I could write better than the writers he hired.

8) Yes, I had severe problems with the writing of the movie. That being said, if you can manage to not compare it to Blade Runner, the movie deserves a solid 85%. In comparison to Blade Runner, that translates to.... 30%?



P.s. Pzky, if you like a smart sci-fi flick, check out "a scanner darkly" with keanu reeves, robert d jnr, wynona ryder, woody harrelson

So what did we think of the movie? Did it live up to our expectations? Any gigantic plot-holes that you just can't ignore? How does it fare against other comparable sci-fi movies?

I'll put in my thoughts later.

[[TCND]Scrubs]

thanks bud

[lol_u_mad]

Been a while since I walked out of the cinema thinking "meh". The movie was seriously underwhelming and had wasted potential written all over it. The actor's performances were top notch, especially David, but there were just so many instances of horror movie induced stupidity and lack of any interesting theme that was explored in significant detail. They picked up a large number of various themes but didn't carry any of them through. The movie doesn't leave you wondering about the story's implications, it leaves you guessing about the things it brought up but refused to explain. On the bright side, the visuals were really great, although the 3D was once again a complete lie.

[[TCND]Scrubs]

Agreed throughout. The movie would have made another director's career, but it simply is not one Ridley Scott's best.

What themes most interested you, lol_u_mad?

[[5]willdaBEAST]

I went in without any expectations and I think that helped significantly. I enjoyed it and didn't find much to complain about. I'm going to read H.P Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" now, it bears a lot of similarities to the story.

In terms of the engineer attacking the crew, you also have to take into account the context of where they are

a biological warfare facility

There's no way the engineers would let anyone live who had knowledge or were exposed to what they developed.

[[Loli]Gohka]

I actually really enjoyed the movie. I feel it lived up to the Alien universe well and did it without being a direct prequel to boot.
I really like how open ended it was and how it left things open to speculation.

Sure it may not be Ridleys best work, but he has an awesome lineup of movies to compete with. All around it was a movie I very much enjoyed watching and I plan on buying the Blu-ray when it comes out.


Also Xenopedia is in dire need of a serious Prometheus update.

[[HoNA]Food]

There was way too much unexplored content for me to enjoy the movie.

The green gem under the mural, the mural itself, the space jockey from Alien, what that black goo is actually, what the facehugger esque thing that attacked fifield and the biology guy was, what was chasing the Engineers, what the other door in the black goo room lead too, and other such things.

As the David point in the OP.

I read somewhere that David may have purposely provoked the Engineer, something along the lines of what he said when "Does everyone not want their parents to die?" to Shaw.

[[Loli]Gohka]

The green gem under the mural, the mural itself, the space jockey from Alien, what that black goo is actually, what the facehugger esque thing that attacked fifield and the biology guy was, what was chasing the Engineers, what the other door in the black goo room lead too, and other such things.

Keep in mind this is all speculation.

-The green gem was never explained, thought they made a point to show it existed.
-In my opinion the mural showed that they knew what the Alien looked like, probably because they had experimented with this sort of thing before.
-The original Space Jockey from Alien wasn't in this movie. Scott stated that it was not a true prequel to Alien, it was just set in the same universe.
-The black goo seemed to be some kind of micro organism that spread inside of a living host. When David infected Holloway the goo seemed to have infected his reproductive organs, impregnating Shaw. Much like the original Alien it starts as something small and grows to a very large size, though to more extremes in this case. I can only assume that the size will balance out with the Proto-Xenomorph revealed at the end of the movie.
-The worm Xenos were infected mealworms it looked like. Most likely the original infected worms had reproduced (like Holloway/Shaw) and broken apart, what we saw in the movie were the mutated offspring.
-The engineers created the Goo as a bioweapon, or so we're led to believe, to wipe out humanity. The bioweapon seemed to have escaped and infected the facilities staff, killing all but the pilot. It's important to note that the beheaded engineer was 2000 years old, meaning the Engineers did not always want to kill humanity, it's something they decided to do after humanity had developed quite a bit.

I never noticed another door in the mural room. Maybe I need to see it again. I would assume its just another entrance to that room.

[Hat_Truck]

Overall I really liked the movie.

1) The strongest character was David, the replicant (and even here I cannot escape Blade Runner's influence). Why was he so much more human and humane than the real people? he was the only useful and developed character in the movie.

I don't see how david was humane. He put that alien liquid into the male Scientist's drink, and he knew what would happen to him. That was probably the cruelest thing anybody did in the entire movie.

Why was he the only linguist, the only character able to speak across species, space and time? When his head lay beside his body he had a moment where a beautiful commentary - on the fading of a sentient being into death- was possible. Think of Kubrick's Hal2000 robot, fading while it sings its programming jingle, mumbling that it is afraid to die. David got close enough that I was drooling... Then the moment past and I felt a bit like a lobotomy patient.

Just because he was the only one that understood the alien language, or that feared his death (he wasn't the only one that feared his death), it doesn't make him a humane character. He was a very selfish and confusing character, whose motives were extremely ambigious.

David speaks in Proto-Indo-European to the hominid at the end. This is a language the hominid could reasonably be expected to understand. Why would the hominid blindly attack David? A greeting was spoken, in the mother tongue, to an intellectually superior being, and the initial response is brain-dead zombie-esque violence? Would the movie not have been more fulfilling if our ancestors were able to speak and communicate, considering the movie calls them our linguistic ancestors?

The Engineers hated the humans, that's what the entire movie is about. When you ask why they hated them, you're begging the question. The only thing the little introduction David gave did was convince the alien that they were humans (he was probably a little woozy after a several thousand year cryosleep).

If you're asking why the aliens hated them, you missed the entire point of the movie. David even asked her at the end, "Why is it so important to you to know?" It's not important is it?

There could be a thousand reasons - political, it could be jealousy, it could be a smear campaign, the humans could have offended or hurt them in some unknown way. But why does it matter?

That was the point of the movie.

4) The awoken hominid goes on a rampage to hunt the main character, shaw. Would it not make sense for the hominid to abandon her to her fate (she is on a planet she biologically cannot survive on, she is doomed) and go to one of the other alien ships that are littered around the area (as David proves at the end of the movie). Basically, the awoken hominid, after killing most of the prometheus crew, could have awoken the rest of his race in the other spaceships. Instead, he goes on a vendetta to hunt shaw, and quite literally feeds to the kraken at the end.

Once again, the Engineer species had a deep hatred for humanity, to the point that they were willing to create a new kind of weapon just to destroy them.

It's not unrealistic to think he would put himself in danger just to take her out.

5) Why were the two crew members - whose character development was LIMITED to cowardice - suddenly so eager to put their hands on an extremely antagonistic alien snake-worm when they found out they were trapped in a tunnel? Why was their preservative cowardice traded in for bovine stupidity so quickly and inexplicably?

This was admittedly stupid.

6) The tagged-on Alien scene at the end sucked a fat C*ck, and this is coming from an Alien fan.

Agreed, I don't see why this was necessary.

I didn't really like Blade Runner, so maybe we just have a much different taste.

To me, this movie had a very deep and powerful message: What is our purpose?

The main characters were attempting to define their purpose through their perceived creators, and were willing to sacrifice anything to do so. The old man believed his creators could give him eternal life. They were validating themselves through "their gods", and when their gods turned out to hate them, it killed them from the inside.

The message is - create your own purpose, it does not matter who made you or where you come from. Seeking the answers to these questions will only bring destruction.

I loved it.

My biggest complaint was the apathy of the entire crew towards each other. I mean literally you've got the female doctor running around with monsters inside of her, bleeding and half dead, then gets an emergency C-Section from a computer designed for a man, and survives all of that - and nobody seems to give a ****.

I feel like they were missing a baseline character that established the reality of the movie. The person that was there even though he or she didn't want to be, but who genuinely cared about the others, just because they were part of the team.

The fact that the characters didn't react to one another in a human way really took away from it for me. Everybody just seemed to be out for themselves to an unnatural degree. Then at the end, the captain, who seems unsympathetic the entire movie (calling the daughter a robot and propositioning her for sex), suddenly cares enough about the human race to ram the Prometheus into the alien ship.

Maybe this lack of sympathy and human emotion was intended - maybe it was part of the message. I don't know, I just didn't see the need for it.

[[5]willdaBEAST]

Apparently the script originally used the 2000 year reference to coincide with the death of Jesus http://www.aintitcool.com/node/56327 who was sent as an engineer ambassador to Earth. I agree that it would be a bit heavy handed to include that in the movie, but it does provide a legitimate reason for the engineers to want to destroy humanity. Lovecraft's Cosmicism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism pretty much defines the philosophy of the the engineers in the movie. They created us as an experiment or a joke and our species is utterly insignificant in the context of the universe.

[[Loli]Gohka]

I love how he answered questions in the movie, but left even more mysteries. Things like this spark debate in the hardcore fans. I like that.

[[eR]Ekamo]

There are waaaaaay too many plot-holes and scientific errors for me to appreciate this movie fully. Initially I was in awe over the space vessel because it was so extremely well made and realistic and took everything I could think of into account (except artificial gravity, or lack of such, but w/e). The slow introduction instantly got me caught in the movie with touching scenes involving David, and just small details such as the lights turning on and off as he walked through the ship thoroughly impressed me. I am very much about the details, and those things can make or break a movie for me.

But after the somewhat amazing beginning it was unfortunately the details that made the movie fall flat_

• They entered the planet and instantly found what they were looking for, without first scanning the planet's surface. Seems likely.
• The SCIENTISTS, the people who were going on the most important mission since the moon landing were stupid beyond belief, and ignored all scientific standards and logical approach. "What is this? A head? Let's electrocute it and see what happens." No further analyzing. No nothing. Just acting on whim, the way Hollywood wants science to look like.
• The alien in the medical facility grew tenfold, with no available material to grow from? (maybe inbuilt photosynthesis without the sun as an energy source?) Seems legit.
• The geologists who has the map gets lost instantly.
• The biologists avoids contact with the first encounter of an alien life-form (or remnant of one) when they find the decapitated body, but yet welcomes the first alive creature they meet.
• From the ship they can monitor every crewmember down to their every heartbeat, but yet no one has a clue what is going on with people as they go missing.
• The one in charge of security of the ship opens up the door to the ship the second they see something outside after two people got slaughtered by aliens without second thoughts, resulting in a zombie killing of several crew members.
• No explanation what so ever of the relationship between slimy snakes, giant squids, small aliens, and black goo, but instead we're supposed to deduce that from the extremely lacking explanations.
• Why would the jockey chase after Shaw after his first ship crashed rather than just going to one of the other bases and taking one of those ships?
• No interesting characters in the crew, and more so no character development what so ever except for David and Shaw.

This was just the first ones that popped up in my head several days after the movie, but I knew I had so many other things in my mind right after the movie.


I thought it was a beautifully directed movie with great actors and stunning effects, but the writing was severely lacking, and that made the movie so much worse for me. If it doesn't make sense, even after analyzing the movie for hours after the credits, it is a bad movie. The end.

Also:
Can someone explain the connection between aliens on the walls of caves all throughout the world and the initial scene? Because for me it seemed like they died BEFORE (or more so actually caused) the first humans, something which makes interaction (and thus cave paintings) impossible. This might more be stupidity from my part than an actual flaw in the story.

[Hat_Truck]

I agree with you that character development and character realism was by far the movie's weakest point, and is what prevented a good movie from becoming great.

I still enjoyed it in spite of the fact that most of the characters (including david and elizabeth) were pretty dry/selfish/unbelievable, but if they had put that extra effort into improving that aspect of it, it would have been a masterpiece.

[[5]willdaBEAST]

Also:
Can someone explain the connection between aliens on the walls of caves all throughout the world and the initial scene? Because for me it seemed like they died BEFORE (or more so actually caused) the first humans, something which makes interaction (and thus cave paintings) impossible. This might more be stupidity from my part than an actual flaw in the story.

Well based on the link I posted where Jesus was originally supposed to be an engineer, it's not unbelievable that the engineers occasionally checked in on Earth.

[[eR]Ekamo]

Well based on the link I posted where Jesus was originally supposed to be an engineer, it's not unbelievable that the engineers occasionally checked in on Earth.

Completely disregarding how far-fetched that theory is: THEN THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXPLAINED IN THE MOVIE! I don't mind being intellectually challenged by a movie, and I actually enjoy not being hand-held all the time through movies, to an extent. When you are forced to fabricate parts of the movie in order for it to be a functional story, then you know that something is wrong. I don't want to make up my own story that that seems plausible when watching a movie, that is the writer's job.

[orbitalx]

There was way too much unexplored content for me to enjoy the movie.

The green gem under the mural, the mural itself, the space jockey from Alien, what that black goo is actually, what the facehugger esque thing that attacked fifield and the biology guy was, what was chasing the Engineers, what the other door in the black goo room lead too, and other such things.

Not even sure what you are asking about for the first couple, but I will answer things to what I believe, or what rather just seemed obvious.

4. Black Goo - Bio engineered weapon. The moon they were on was a military base, where they chose to hold such. I believe they were seeking out other planets that could sustain their life forms, and using the black goo to eliminate any threatening life force already present on the planet. I am unsure why the Engineer at the beginning purposely swallowed the black goo, but it was in the process of destroying his body. However, he fell into the water and a piece of his DNA broke free and had a chemical reaction with the water before it was destroyed.

This plays onto the idea that man originated as a tad pole type organism that eventually made its way to land, and turned into monkeys, then humans, ect... Theory of Evolution. Obviously the engineers returned to earth, and discovered humans, however at the time they were so primitive that the engineers did not find them as a threat. However, as man evolved and because to grow smart, and create weapons; Probably just the same as the Engineers did in their own evolution, they decided mankind would eventually turn into a threat and wanted to eliminate them. However, things went wrong and those plans never hatched.

Also as a side note, the black goo seems to have a transformation, or chemical reaction effect if its taken in small doses. Not enough to kill you, but rather alter you.

5. The thing that attacked the biologist and the geologist was a mill worm of sorts. If you remember, when they first walked into the room, there was two little worms in the dirt that they stepped on and smashed further into the dirt. That same area became saturated with the black goo only moments later. They worms came in contact with the goo, but did not take enough to kill them, it altered them and that is why later they were able to freely move in it without being harmed.



6. My guess would be they were running from the black goo itself. There was some kind of accident and a containment leak. But I guess no one really knows.

[orbitalx]

Here is a nice article to - http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Prome...ons-31317.html

[Lethe]

decent movie, I thought the plot was rather weak...as others have mentioned, no 'smart' person could be that stupid. Fassbender's acting though was simply superb.

[Apostate]

I think in general film bashing is a fairly self-indulgent and useless vice.

I was entertained by Prometheus, hugely. It was suspenseful, grotesque, beautiful, and well acted by the chief characters. I thought it was a worthy compliment to the Alien legacy, expanding upon the ideas of motherhood, fatherhood, and origins in general.

Fassbender was simply fantastic. David is such an odd and tantalizing character, always leaving us wondering--yet I felt a pang of sorrow when his head was ripped off, and a rush of relief when I heard his voice over Shaw's intercom. His most fundamental motivations are completely unknown to us. Even in conclusion of the film we still are left speculating whether he is an agent of order or chaos, with really a fair case for both sides. His complete ambiguity makes him utterly intriguing.

The movie is god damn beautiful, with very artful and consistent coloration and themes. Set design and cinematography along with excellent computer graphics make it a wonder to behold.

The movie explores deep and meaningful themes in relation to parenthood. The profoundly feminine qualities of Alien shone out again in Prometheus, but were additionally compounded with explorations of fatherhood, immortality, and origins.


The one main disagreeable characteristic of the film from my point of view is the host of shallow and unrealistic characters that fulfill the classic role of cannon fodder and minor assistance/detraction from the agenda's of the primary characters. The movie asks a lot of its audience in terms of suspending disbelief over all of the questions it already raises, and it might have been pushing it too far to have characters like the mohawked, completely nonacademic geologist, or the rest of the team that was for the most part ridiculously unscientific. This is, however, rather true to the Alien legacy to begin with. I didn't have a huge problem with it, but sorting through the possible scientific and logical problems that might be inherent to the plot makes unraveling the intended mysteries more difficult. All in all not as huge a detractor as it's being blown up as.


I completely disagree with the idea that a film necessarily has to "make sense" to be a good movie. This is a sloppy and frankly stupid assertion to make. I think the lack of answers is a well utilized device in this film. Prometheus is not an example of a film with "plot holes" or "loose ends" that are just there to keep us wondering with absolutely no follow up at all. Properly understanding it requires prior knowledge, simple as that. This isn't a flaw, it's a design choice, and one that most fans generally appreciate.


I'll say more when it isn't 4 in the morning.

[Hat_Truck]

I liked it too, even with all the bad design decisions and plot holes. The setting and visuals were fantastic, as well as the importance of the questions it raised.