Prometheus - Spoilery thread of Spoilers

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Right, so here's a thread for those who have seen the movie and wish to discuss the plot and all that jazz.

If you haven't seen it, vamoose. Or don't. Just understand that I will not be using spoiler tags, you will be spoiled, and if you complain about that, I'll punch you in the face.

So anyway. Prometheus. I kind of wound up liking it, but that's mostly down to the impeccable craftsmanship on display. It's an utterly gorgeus movie, but it's also kind of stupid. And not stupid in a knowing Drive Angry kind of way. No, it's the worst kind of stupid; the one that's learnt a few big words and fails to realise that realise it's using them in service of nothing.

And that's all the more annoying because of the bits where it really works, like the opening sequences with David alone on the ship.

It's friday and beer o'clock, so this will be kind of rambly, but here are a bunch of thoughts, mostly kwetching ones:

  • Firstly, a personal pet peeve: Anyone going to von Daniken for inspiration after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull needs a good slap on the head. The whole ancient astronaut thing is condescending bullsh*t.
  • Actually, this leads me fairly neatly into the next complaint: Why does the starmap lead to where it does? If we accept Idris Elba's proclamation that this is a weapons factory on its face, which the movie seems to do, why would they point a Starmap at it? It's a f*cking weapons factory. By the way, how does he figure that out? I love Idris Elba, and he does a fair job at making me like a thumbnail sketch here, so I can accept that he is much wiser and knowing than most, but that still makes no sense. Why couldn't they have been invaded by some sort of hostile organism? As the audience, it's easy for us to accept, but we've seen David's shenanigans and he has not
  • Also, what the f*ck is up with David? David is easily the best part of the movie, and Fassbender's performance is great. But still. What the f*ck is up with him. How does he know to poison whatshisface? And why does he do it? Is he trying harder for daddy? Is he f*cking with everything to kill his parents? Both? Fassbender is so good here I'm sort of willing to embrace the mystery, but still. Some clearer motivation would've been nice.
  • There's a better movie somewhere here that tosses out the vapid gestures about faith that are - to quote badassdigest - spiritually {ableist slur} and focuses on the responsibilities of the creator towards the created/parents towards their children and is more tied to David's perpective, as he watches these people who are his creators desperately searching for meaning in their existance.
  • This movie has too many characters, doesn't know what to do with them, and tosses their motivations out on a dime. Take the geologists and the c*ck-worm attack. Now, it's a really well executed and gruey sequence in isolation, but it makes no sense in context. Why would someone who ran in terror from a sensor blip make kissy faces at an obviously scary c*ck-worm? Ridiculous.
  • The Yoga-Zombie-Geologist attack was pointless, except for killing of more characters the audience doesn't know or care about. It should've been cut along with the people it killed.
  • Also, am I supposed to be happy when Charlize Theron dies? Because that sort of stupid crushed to death sequence is the sort of demise reserved for the evil beurocrat that f*cks everything up, and her only crime is not liking the other people. in fact, she made only sensible decisions as far as I could tell. (Don't let the infected and obviously terminal character onto the ship, sleep with Idris Elba, etc.) Actually, I really liked her.
  • I liked the shot of her kissing her father's hand, and him clenching it into a fist in response. Not subtle, but nifty. But it's also one of those bits are good in isolation but with no payoff. Yes, it tells us something about Weyland and Vickers, but it's neither something that sets up future drama, nor informs past actions. In fact, it makes me symphatize more with her, which makes her stupid death all the more annoying. Bah.
  • "Don't be a skeptic." GAH. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SCIENCE OR A SKEPTIC IS YOU MORON.
  • Ahem. Might have hit on another pet peeve there.
  • Speaking of science, isn't Noomi Rapace some sort of archeologist? Why is she performing autopsies on aliens? Is she some sort of Bones-like polymath?
  • Also, the dialogue is kind of terrible.
  • This thing has far too many shoutouts to Alien. The ship falling down into the exact same position, David's head getting torn off in exactly the same way. Be your own own damn movie goddammit. The final shots were terrible.
  • Prometheus makes me think of how much better Warren Ellis' Ocean did the meeting your creators who turn out to be utter bastards thing.
Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Right, so here's a thread for those who have seen the movie and wish to discuss the plot and all that jazz.

Just to do it

I'll try to put my take on your items here and then in a following post I'll give you my guess as to what the movie is all about.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
  • Firstly, a personal pet peeve: Anyone going to von Daniken for inspiration after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull needs a good slap on the head. The whole ancient astronaut thing is condescending bullsh*t.

To each his own. What youre talking about came out at least a couple generations ago. There are whole armies of who I think are kids (weren't even born yet when the first alien came out) who really dont know much about it. Its just another take on a story like that. Do you hate all war movies? They're still about war. What about love movies? Still about love. Its just what he based this movie on but doesn't preach it (IMHO).

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • Actually, this leads me fairly neatly into the next complaint: Why does the starmap lead to where it does? If we accept Idris Elba's proclamation that this is a weapons factory on its face, which the movie seems to do, why would they point a Starmap at it? It's a f*cking weapons factory. By the way, how does he figure that out? I love Idris Elba, and he does a fair job at making me like a thumbnail sketch here, so I can accept that he is much wiser and knowing than most, but that still makes no sense. Why couldn't they have been invaded by some sort of hostile organism? As the audience, it's easy for us to accept, but we've seen David's shenanigans and he has not
  • I don't know why the starmap led to earth. It might not have (and I'll get to this in my follow up post) but if it did I think its just one of those movie coincidences.

    As for the weapons factory, thats just what Elba's character surmised. He (they) really dont know what this place was but it IS fairly obvious that they (the Engineers) are responsible for creating the goo, storing the goo and handling it poorly to such an extent that it "escaped" and infected/killed all the other engineers. As for what the goo really is, what it does, why and how... we don't know and probably wont. That's just the type of movie it is.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • Also, what the f*ck is up with David? David is easily the best part of the movie, and Fassbender's performance is great. But still. What the f*ck is up with him. How does he know to poison whatshisface? And why does he do it? Is he trying harder for daddy? Is he f*cking with everything to kill his parents? Both? Fassbender is so good here I'm sort of willing to embrace the mystery, but still. Some clearer motivation would've been nice.
  • This absolutely leads up to my follow up post so I'll just leave it for that. All I can say is Fassbender's performance was absolutely amazing. I don't think Shaw is the star of the story. I think both Shaw and David are.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • There's a better movie somewhere here that tosses out the vapid gestures about faith that are - to quote badassdigest - spiritually {ableist slur} and focuses on the responsibilities of the creator towards the created/parents towards their children and is more tied to David's perpective, as he watches these people who are his creators desperately searching for meaning in their existance.
  • Not sure what you're saying here. You liked the comparison between David and the crew with the Engineers and Humans or no? I think its a fantastic comparison and it leads up to my follow up post.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • This movie has too many characters, doesn't know what to do with them, and tosses their motivations out on a dime. Take the geologists and the c*ck-worm attack. Now, it's a really well executed and gruey sequence in isolation, but it makes no sense in context. Why would someone who ran in terror from a sensor blip make kissy faces at an obsiously scary c*ck-worm? Ridiculous.
  • Agreed there are so many characters and very little time to get them developed. One thing I really love about Ridley (in which he deviated from in this film) is his character development. You get to know most of the characters in his films and have some kind of emotional attachment to them by the end of the movie (or their demise). Hell, in the first Alien film, he spent a month just creating the backstory for every single crew member of the Nostromo and made the actors memorize them. None of that information was in the film but it rounded out their characters so well that it didnt matter.

    I think he did this w/ this film as you can see each character actually has their very own personality but I also think it suffers from not enough time. I honestly think if he directed this film the way he directs all his "successful" films this film would have been well over 4 hours long. So, we got what we got.

    As for dumbsh*t f*cking w/ the worm... it wasn't Fifield but Milburn who did. Fifield is mohawk dude who wanted to get the f*ck outta there. I think Miburn was actually trying to impress him by continually saying "its ok its ok!". Bear with me here:

    The second time I watched the film Milburn actually seems as if he's hitting on Fifield constantly. He tries to talk to him when they are eating. He sits RIGHT across from him in the vehicle and Fifield deliberately moves away. He thinks about whether he wants to stay or go with Fifield when Fifield says he's leaving and waits to say he will go until everyone else says they are staying. Its actually a very intricate scene w/ some intricate characters that we really haven't been introduced to enough.

    Was he f*cking dumb messing with it? Yes, but that wasnt the purpose of the scene. The scene is to show that the goo does crazy stuff to living organisms. When they first walk into that room w/ the vases and the statue head, there are little worms on the ground. I believe these are the same worms but mutated by the goo.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • The Yoga-Zombie-Geologist attack was pointless, except for killing of more characters the audience doesn't know or care about. It should've been cut along with the people it killed.
  • Again I don't agree with you as this whole sequence is to show that when the goo contacts any living organism it changes it and/or mutates it. Thats the whole reason for the goo as far as we know. One thing about this part (in the hanger when they are trying to kill mutant Fifield) is that in some of the early trailers many of the scenes were of the same height of a creature but its head was mutated into that of an elongated shape like the original alien. I think it was cut and/or edited out of the movie so as to try and distance more away from Alien.

    But all in all, Ridley has always said that the original ship was a bomber carrying something and going somewhere. I think its the goo and the goo destroys life by mutating life to destroy other life.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • Also, am I supposed to be happy when Charlize Theron dies? Because that sort of stupid crushed to death sequence is the sort of demise reserved for the evil beurocrat that f*cks everything up, and her only crime is not liking the other people. in fact, she made only sensible decisions as far as I could tell. (Don't let the infected and obviously terminal character onto the ship, sleep with Idris Elba, etc.) Actually, I really liked her.
  • Agreed. Why the f*ck don't people run perpendicular to something chasing, following or going their direction? sh*t, Shaw only had to roll 5 times on the ground to get outta the way. I think they had to kill off Vickers and I'll explain that in my next post but I thought it was a really sh*tty way to do it.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • I liked the shot of her kissing her father's hand, and him clenching it into a fist in response. Not subtle, but nifty. But it's also one of those bits are good in isolation but with no payoff. Yes, it tells us something about Weyland and Vickers, but it's neither something that sets up future drama, nor informs past actions. In fact, it makes me symphatize more with her, which makes her stupid death all the more annoying. Bah.
  • Agreed. This was a very good scene and really showed their personalities that I think were in other parts of the movie that were cut. Again to make it shorter for FOX.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • "Don't be a skeptic." GAH. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SCIENCE OR A SKEPTIC IS YOU MORON.

  • Ahem. Might have hit on another pet peeve there.
  • Meh... agree w/ you

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • Speaking of science, isn't Noomi Rapace some sort of archeologist? Why is she performing autopsies on aliens? Is she some sort of Bones-like polymath?
  • They never say exactly what type of scientist she is. Her father was an archeologist and she pursued his interests but I don't think thats all she was. Again, more character development we dont know about from the film but probably from the viral stuff they released about the film.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • Also, the dialogue is kind of terrible.
  • Disagree but again its personal opinion.

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • This thing has far too many shoutouts to Alien. The ship falling down into the exact same position, David's head getting torn off in exactly the same way. Be your own own damn movie goddammit. The final shots were terrible.
  • I dont agree w/ you here. Its about the same species that had something to do w/ the original alien from the original films. So yes, it has to have some shout outs to it but I dont think it was a bad thing.

    As for the ship landing in the same way, David's head being ripped off the same way... I'll talk about that in my next post

    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

  • Prometheus makes me think of how much better Warren Ellis' Ocean did the meeting your creators who turn out to be utter bastards thing.
  • Don't have an opinion as I never watched that movie.

    I have seen it twice now and things I missed were obvious. A big thing I didnt catch the first time is that the reason the "goo" starts coming out is from something Shaw said when she saw the ceiling mural start to decay. When they opened the door they changed the atmosphere. In the Alien mythos, there are "signals" to start things such as in the first film when Kane broke the mist barrier... that has been stated by Scott himself as being a signal to the "eggs" to start their process of doing whatever it is they do.

    I think when the oxygen hit the chamber (as when this stuff is introduced to an atmosphere) it makes the goo start doing its thing. I think the oxygen also f*cked up the chamber and caused the ceiling to start to disintegrate.

    Anyway, those are my responses to your post

    PAR

    Regarding David, and what is up with him: I love that we don't know what exactly is up with him. It presents some neat symmetry. One obvious running theme through the movie is that our creators may be mysterious, unknowable, and inscrutable, and David seems to be saying that our creations are no less so.

    SpacePPoliceman wrote:

    Regarding David, and what is up with him: I love that we don't know what exactly is up with him. It presents some neat symmetry. One obvious running theme through the movie is that our creators may be mysterious, unknowable, and inscrutable, and David seems to be saying that our creations are no less so.

    I thought he was under weyland control the entire time and was working under his agenda which turned out to be correct.

    Ok here is my take on the film. Mind you, I have been all over the internet for over a year now scouring as much info about the movie and its predecessors as I can w/out actually reading anything like leaked scripts or stuff like that.

    Warning, this is also very long and ONLY MY OPINION

    The original Alien was extremely complex and intricate and yet the story in the movie itself was VERY small. Just a small little incident inside an entire universe.

    I will say one thing about Prometheus. I think Ridley will do what Abrams did w/ Star Trek. I don't think he's "rebooting" it so much as fleshing things out a bit so that they make sense in his vision AND in the original story he wanted Alien to be. What I mean by this is what ALG stated as something that bothered him in the OP:

    This thing has far too many shoutouts to Alien. The ship falling down into the exact same position, David's head getting torn off in exactly the same way. Be your own own damn movie goddammit. The final shots were terrible.

    I think Ridley will change things from the original Alien movie. I now think its supposed to be the same ship as in the original film but in a different situation (or in the ORIGINAL situation that Fox wouldn't let him have the budget for in the original Alien). I also think its the same planet as in the original film even though they are designating it w/ a different name. What I think Ridley is trying to do w/ the story is to actually put in what he wasnt allowed to in the original Alien.

    Did you know they weren't supposed to go into a "derelict" but an actual temple in the original film? Yup... just didn't have the budget for it.

    Also, did you know that in the original story it wasn't an "egg" either but some kind of cylinder that contained the thing that piqued Kane's curiosity and then exposed him to whatever it was that burst through his chest? Yup.. Fox changed it.

    Ok... so after that little deviation, here is my take on the film: This is a film about David. Shaw is just the catalyst to his actions.

    In many of the viral information about Prometheus, they made a HUGE deal about David being the first android w/ real emotions and real "self learning" abilities. If you watch his actions (such as the things he does to occupy his 2 years of idleness waiting to reach their destination), he isnt like any typical "human created" robot in what we take for "reality science fiction" (i.e. a science fiction movie that we can see as plausible in our own future). Most robots that I think about in a plausible universe are mindless things programmed to do things. So, for David to have "activities" during the trip (basketball and its variations, learning, watching dreams, etc etc) instead of just sitting straight in a chair for 2 years waiting for his programming to kick in, means he learns and makes choices all on his own.

    I think he not only has the agenda to try and help his creator (Weyland) attempt eternal life, but he also "learned" or "realized" that he CAN have his own agenda and this is exactly what happened in the film. The part right before they leave the ship to go wake up the last remaining Engineer he tells Shaw that when Weyland is gone he will be "free" and asks her "Doesn't every child want their parent to die?".

    If you think about everything that happened in the film (the holograph's coming up in the ship, the doors opening and making oxygen hit the ampule room, Holloway getting infected thus impregnating Shaw, etc) was due to David doing it. How he knows how to do this is just something we have to believe he has learned. If these "beings" created humans on earth and visited them such that the humans worshiped them enough to draw paintings and "all that ancient alien stuff", then deciphering their hieroglyphs in the temple and even learning their language isn't out of the realm of "plausibility" for an extremely fast and self learning machine.

    I think David's original mission was to find an engineer and see if they can help Weyland cheat death. That's the whole point of the mission. I think all the other stuff David did (take the goo container from the temple, open it up and contaminate Holloway) was all his own doing. He chose Holloway as an experiment due to Holloway constantly insulting and giving him a hard time throughout the entire movie but he also asks Holloway permission of such in the break room. "What would you do"... "Anything and Everything". He knows Holloway and Shaw are intimate... maybe he deciphered something in the temple that shows the goo's lifecycle (there is a huge amount of debate about the Alien lifecycle on the net... very interesting) and wanted to see what it would do in Shaw.

    But here is the final kicker (for me at least). At the very end when they wake up the engineer, the engineer seems somewhat benign after recuperating from his stasis and ONLY goes batsh*t after 1) Shaw gets hit by a mercenary to "shut her up" and 2) After David says something to him.

    What was it that David said? We have NO idea. Was it really what Weyland asked him to say or was it more like "Hey, these guys are trying to kill you and steal your stuff". I wouldn't put it past Ridley to do such a thing as David is his own "being" who has definitely shown he has his own interests such as "being free" of Weyland (also little hints such as his "favorite" film being Lawrence of Arabia).

    So, here we are where David no longer has a head and the Engineer is taking off. From the Starmap we see that he is indeed heading for Earth but we don't know "why". Could it be because that was what David programmed or last saw in the Hologram? Again, no idea but I can only surmise. As for David, he is still functional and now has self preservation in mind. This is why he helps Shaw through her ordeal at the end.

    Now, at the end David is at the mercy of Shaw or else he's done for. Since he learned how to fly the engineer's ship he can pretty much take Shaw wherever "he" wants to go. We can only guess its Shaw's actual destination and will only be revealed in a sequel (if there ever is one).

    Now, to the "Alien DNA" or "prequelness"...

    1) Beacon (warning)
    Shaw places a warning beacon somewhere near where everything happened w/ the message of who she was, what happened, where she was going and NOT to land on that damn planet. You hear her recording it as they take off in another alien ship.

    The Nostromo picks up a beacon (which is indeed a warning) but they are told to investigate it. I guess its possible in this universe since "the company" has always done unethical actions that they did something to the transmission prior to the Nostromo hearing it in order to distort it (maybe Ash did it?).

    I also think that the planet designation of LV223 was renamed to LV426 by the "company" for their nefarious reasons as well.

    2) The crashed ship is the same ship but Kane doesnt get infected in the Derelict but somewhere else. And infected by... #3

    3) The very very end shows Shaw's kiddo infecting the last Engineer. What results is a proto-type alien (elongated head, human like features etc). This is probably the nod to the original alien and what not. This thing is the "mother" of the xenomorph we know and love.

    In the Alien mythos (created by Dan O'Bannon, Giger and Ridley), the xenomorph impregnates a host (or turns a host into another egg which can then impregnate a host) and shares it's DNA. It basically "becomes like" the original host organism. The xeno on the Nostromo from the original film is a combination of whatever the egg originally infected and Kane... so it was very human. But not only that, it was very SMART. Another uncut (thank GOD cuz it would have ruined the whole movie) scene in the original screenplay to Alien was in the VERY end the alien actually bites off Ripley's head and sends out a distress signal in Ripley's voice in order to ... well do whatever it wanted to do. Yup, that was IN the screenplay but was overridden by Fox (again, thank GOD cuz that would have sucked).

    So all in all, the nods to Alien and the xenomorphs in this movie are loosely tied to what happened in Alien and Aliens. Ridley has stated he doesn't think anything from 3 and on as cannon. But Alien and Aliens are only a side story to what happened originally in the movie Prometheus. The Alien/Aliens creature is a side effect of Shaw's baby impregnating an Engineer and then Kane being the unlucky bastard (and the terraforming colonists in Aliens) to feel its effects.

    As for this story... its up in the air. Shaw wants to go to the Engineer's homeworld to find out why she thinks they were going to destroy the earth (remember, it was David that said that was their destination... could he have lied?) and David just wants to be free. I have no idea if this movie will make enough to support a sequel or even if people WANT a sequel. For me, I like it and hope they do a sequel... but again everything above is my interpretation (or denomination ;)) and could mean diddly squat.

    PAR

    ranalin wrote:
    SpacePPoliceman wrote:

    Regarding David, and what is up with him: I love that we don't know what exactly is up with him. It presents some neat symmetry. One obvious running theme through the movie is that our creators may be mysterious, unknowable, and inscrutable, and David seems to be saying that our creations are no less so.

    I thought he was under weyland control the entire time and was working under his agenda which turned out to be correct.

    Partially. But why did he poison Holloway? That could have been Weyland's order, too, but Weyland didn't seem to care about the mutagen stuff, he just wanted to meet God. Intellectual curiosity, then? Petty, cruel revenge, since Holloway was such a dick towards him? Malice for the sake of malice? And why does he want to freeze Shaw? Again, is it because Weyland wants her parasite? But he seems to like Shaw. Is this his perverse and confused way of giving her a baby? I think David's opaque motives tie in nicely with the unanswered questions about the Engineers.

    Par wrote:

    To each his own. What youre talking about came out at least a couple generations ago. There are whole armies of who I think are kids (weren't even born yet when the first alien came out) who really dont know much about it. Its just another take on a story like that. Do you hate all war movies? They're still about war. What about love movies? Still about love. Its just what he based this movie on but doesn't preach it (IMHO).

    The thing I don't like about the whole Ancient Astrounaut thing -- and this is baggage I bring to it from other explorations of the idea; unlike Crystal Skull, Prometheus never explicitly states this, which is to its credit -- is that the underlying idea is that ancient civilizations couldn't possibly have been clever enough to construct the clever things they did. They didn't have phones! How could they possibly have been clever enough to construct pyramids if aliens didn't help them?

    It's the flip side of infantile worship of a mythical lost golden age, and they're both equally annoying. Ancient people were just people. They were just as clever and stupid as we are, just with different accumulated knowledge.

    I don't know why the starmap led to earth. It might not have (and I'll get to this in my follow up post) but if it did I think its just one of those movie coincidences.

    As for the weapons factory, thats just what Elba's character surmised. He (they) really dont know what this place was but it IS fairly obvious that they (the Engineers) are responsible for creating the goo, storing the goo and handling it poorly to such an extent that it "escaped" and infected/killed all the other engineers. As for what the goo really is, what it does, why and how... we don't know and probably wont. That's just the type of movie it is.

    No, you misunderstand. Not why did the starmap led to earth, but why did the maps on earth lead to the weapons factory? You're an alien race. You've seeded live on a planet. You've visited life as it develops. Why would you plant a map pointing to a weapons factory? That makes no goddamn sense to me. And the movie seems to take Elba's explanation at face value, given that Rapace supposedly takes off for the engineers' homeplanet at the end.

    Not sure what you're saying here. You liked the comparison between David and the crew with the Engineers and Humans or no? I think its a fantastic comparison and it leads up to my follow up post.

    I like the comparison, but I think it the movie muddled it with all its facile bollocks about faith. If all of that had a point -- Rapace's obsession with her father's cross, the flashback with her not-similarly-accented-Patrick Wilson father talking about the afterlife, "Because I choose to believe" - "don't be a skeptic." - "have you lost your faith?" -- it's in that they're looking to a parental authority figure for salvation. But given that all things point to the Engineers wanting to kill off the humans and generally being evil sh*ts, the movie as a whole seems to embrace David's quip at the end: it's best to kill your parents. The movie however is tied Shaw and ends with her still looking, still trying to find an answer.

    I think it's thematically wrong. The movie should've followed David, watching his creators search for their creators and finding only capricious evil sh*ts. And then he should've killed them to make himself free.

    You could kind of argue that this is what happens anyway, but by focusing on the wrong character and making David so inscrutable, its an uphill battle.

    The second time I watched the film Milburn actually seems as if he's hitting on Fifield constantly. He tries to talk to him when they are eating. He sits RIGHT across from him in the vehicle and Fifield deliberately moves away. He thinks about whether he wants to stay or go with Fifield when Fifield says he's leaving and waits to say he will go until everyone else says they are staying. Its actually a very intricate scene w/ some intricate characters that we really haven't been introduced to enough.

    You know, I really like that. He is courting the c*ck-worm as a means to prove his manliness to Milburn. (And thus proving himself worthy of Milburns c*ck-worm, hurr, hurr, hurr.) It just goes to show how little time it spends on those characters that I didn't pick up on any of that.

    Par wrote:
    Alien Love Gardener wrote:

    Prometheus makes me think of how much better Warren Ellis' Ocean did the meeting your creators who turn out to be utter bastards thing.

    Don't have an opinion as I never watched that movie.

    That'd be pretty hard, as it's a comic, not a movie -- although there was some talk about people looking to turn it into a movie a while back. It's jolly good.

    This thing has far too many shoutouts to Alien. The ship falling down into the exact same position, David's head getting torn off in exactly the same way. Be your own own damn movie goddammit. The final shots were terrible.

    I think Ridley will change things from the original Alien movie. I now think its supposed to be the same ship as in the original film but in a different situation (or in the ORIGINAL situation that Fox wouldn't let him have the budget for in the original Alien). I also think its the same planet as in the original film even though they are designating it w/ a different name. What I think Ridley is trying to do w/ the story is to actually put in what he wasnt allowed to in the original Alien.

    Unfortunately, Scott himself has scuttled that theory in interviews. You can go here for an example. (Also, Kermode and Mayo are great in general, it's one of my favourite podcasts). It's not the same planet.

    And, even if it were the same planet, the identical visual for Ash and David's decapitated bodies would bug me. It makes the world feel smaller when your androids only get destroyed in one way.

    SpacePPoliceman wrote:

    Regarding David, and what is up with him: I love that we don't know what exactly is up with him. It presents some neat symmetry. One obvious running theme through the movie is that our creators may be mysterious, unknowable, and inscrutable, and David seems to be saying that our creations are no less so.

    There's a symmetry there: we can't know our parents, we can't know our kids. Kind of ugly and solipsistic as far as messages go, and I don't think it's particularly true, but it's a theme.

    I don't really see the link between what happened to the Alien ship in this movie, and the ship found in Alien. Gotta be seperate.

    Simply because in this film, the Engineer got outta the chair, went out to the pod and got a face full of squiddy.

    In Alien they find the Engineer still in the chair, dead for several thousand years (Fossilised if I recall correctly) and with an baby alien escape hole in his chest.

    Or did I miss something?

    Goo wrote:

    I don't really see the link between what happened to the Alien ship in this movie, and the ship found in Alien. Gotta be seperate.

    Simply because in this film, the Engineer got outta the chair, went out to the pod and got a face full of squiddy.

    In Alien they find the Engineer still in the chair, dead for several thousand years (Fossilised if I recall correctly) and with an baby alien escape hole in his chest.

    Or did I miss something?

    Ok I need to be very clear, I was reaching =/ In my own head I was trying to figure out WHY Ridley would put the so-called creation of the xeno on this planet in this fashion instead of really doing it on the planet that the Nostromo landed on. Making it a somewhat "history rewritten" account of that would require that the ships being the same doesnt even matter.

    PAR

    Mate half the fun with these films is trying to find a way stitch that stuff together! (Apart from the c*ckworms. I don't think I wanna read too many theories on things they get up to in their spare time!)

    Only reason I even bought it up was I have read a few people on other forums with the same thoughts, and I was wondering if I'd really missed something!

    Wow you guys annualized this movie way more than I ever could. I enjoyed it but like some of you it also took me a while to figure out why exactly it wasnt "omg awesome". There are a lot of things in it that are a stretch and you guys have pointed that out.

    I have a question though. Why did the engineer in the beginning drink the goo? Was he sacrificing himself as a test? And why did he do it while the flying saucer was leaving?

    Also, a flying saucer? Really? That was the only un-awesome visual of this movie and damn was everything georgeous. I love the style.

    TempestBlayze wrote:

    I have a question though. Why did the engineer in the beginning drink the goo? Was he sacrificing himself as a test? And why did he do it while the flying saucer was leaving?

    Our take was that's the process by which they brought life to Earth--his genetic material became ours.

    So that was Earth and they put their DNA in the water? I guess that makes sense.

    I could have gone my whole life without seeing that surgery and died a happy man.

    SpacePPoliceman wrote:
    ranalin wrote:
    SpacePPoliceman wrote:

    Regarding David, and what is up with him: I love that we don't know what exactly is up with him. It presents some neat symmetry. One obvious running theme through the movie is that our creators may be mysterious, unknowable, and inscrutable, and David seems to be saying that our creations are no less so.

    I thought he was under weyland control the entire time and was working under his agenda which turned out to be correct.

    Partially. But why did he poison Holloway? That could have been Weyland's order, too, but Weyland didn't seem to care about the mutagen stuff, he just wanted to meet God. Intellectual curiosity, then? Petty, cruel revenge, since Holloway was such a dick towards him? Malice for the sake of malice? And why does he want to freeze Shaw? Again, is it because Weyland wants her parasite? But he seems to like Shaw. Is this his perverse and confused way of giving her a baby? I think David's opaque motives tie in nicely with the unanswered questions about the Engineers.

    David asked the doctor why they built him and his answer was because we could. So I got that David did all that he did because he could, and in a way he became a creator too.

    Brizahd wrote:

    David asked the doctor why they built him and his answer was because we could. So I got that David did all that he did because he could, and in a way he became a creator too.

    Another very compelling reading. Maybe he really doesn't have any understanding or ethical grounding, so he's a particularly dangerous child. Seeing all these different takes is really great, I think. Like him watching Lawrence of Arabia. Some critics I quite like said he was learning to be more human by watching it, but that wasn't my take at all--I just think he liked it.

    I have no proof other than links to various sites stating that its possible that Ridley actually filmed this as a 2 parter at the same time.

    Just rumors but some early 2010 interviews with him definitely show that was his original idea. And w/ the viral link of the http://www.whatis101112.com/ website being shown after the credits, its actually an interesting rumor.

    PAR

    The sequence between David and Holloway was the heart of the film. That scene fully elaborated the creator/created relationships. I think it's important that David didn't infect Holloway until *after* he was given vague permission to do so.

    Goo wrote:

    I don't really see the link between what happened to the Alien ship in this movie, and the ship found in Alien. Gotta be seperate.

    Simply because in this film, the Engineer got outta the chair, went out to the pod and got a face full of squiddy.

    In Alien they find the Engineer still in the chair, dead for several thousand years (Fossilised if I recall correctly) and with an baby alien escape hole in his chest.

    Or did I miss something?

    We just saw the movie tonight. There's a point where they show one of the screens on the ship, during their arrival to the planet I think, and it says LV 223 or something. I forget the exact number. I just know it's not LV426, which is the planet from Alien and Aliens.

    This wikilink shows them as 2 different moons that orbit the same planet. It is a wikilink so take it for what you will.

    I skimmed a bit, but had a couple thoughts:

    -David's attempt to cryo-freeze alien baby inside mom and take them back to Earth, along with his suggestion at the end that they should fly the other alien ship to Earth, make me think he would be happy bringing the virus back to Earth and wiping everyone out. Surely there are more of those canisters in the second ship. Somehow I feel like that became a possible goal of his.

    -So the Xenomorph is actually the offspring of a human and virus love-child that has infected an Engineer and burst from his chest? Got it.

    -The actress playing neo-Sigourney Weaver must have taken a look at the script and choked. Husband roasted alive, discovers she's pregnant with an alien, cuts herself open, discovers her creators are d*cks, her child spawns the new Alien and she gets to set off on an interstellar journey with only a severed head and its body for company.

    Just got back from watching it. I really like reading all your takes.

    My thoughts are that it was an 8/10 movie turned into a 6/10 because it couldn't focus. There were too many characters and shifting motivations that diluted a cool premise.

    I wanted the ending to be the Engineer in another ship heading toward LV426 when his chest starts pulsing once. Twice. End.

    The other thing that bothered me was that I was expecting more of a suspense/thriller/horror movie like Alien and got a movie that provided no anxiety that was well founded. The only times I was anxious was because I was anticipating something that never came. Everything that did come was so telegraphed that I was never concerned. The cockworm scene, the "father!" twist, the facehugging at the end, etc. In fact, the only real surprise was the guy whose face should have been melted off with acid showing up needlessly and killing a bunch of nonames.

    This is one of those movies where the more I think about it, the less I like it.

    Montalban wrote:

    -The actress playing neo-Sigourney Weaver must have taken a look at the script and choked. Husband roasted alive, discovers she's pregnant with an alien, cuts herself open, discovers her creators are d*cks, her child spawns the new Alien and she gets to set off on an interstellar journey with only a severed head and its body for company.

    Yeh. Now you mention it, it is a little dark!

    Goo wrote:
    Montalban wrote:

    -The actress playing neo-Sigourney Weaver must have taken a look at the script and choked. Husband roasted alive, discovers she's pregnant with an alien, cuts herself open, discovers her creators are d*cks, her child spawns the new Alien and she gets to set off on an interstellar journey with only a severed head and its body for company.

    Yeh. Now you mention it, it is a little dark!

    She was the Swedish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, so I wager she regarded the healthy relationship and consensual love scene as a refreshing change of pace.

    SpacePPoliceman wrote:
    Goo wrote:
    Montalban wrote:

    -The actress playing neo-Sigourney Weaver must have taken a look at the script and choked. Husband roasted alive, discovers she's pregnant with an alien, cuts herself open, discovers her creators are d*cks, her child spawns the new Alien and she gets to set off on an interstellar journey with only a severed head and its body for company.

    Yeh. Now you mention it, it is a little dark!

    She was the Swedish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, so I wager she regarded the healthy relationship and consensual love scene as a refreshing change of pace.

    I didn't even realize it was her until an hour in. Her hairstyle made her look so bubbly.

    I think there's a director's cut somewhere, waiting to be released. It looked as too cut-up, as if there were dialogues, little scenes, little things that didnt make it into the final cut. Movie is 2hours long, I`d guess that it had material for 2 and a half, even three.

    What bothered me was the complete disregard for safety. The air is breathable, let's ditch the helmets! Could it be possible that it's full of microorganisms and viruses? Nah.. Not mentioning that humans could actually contaminate the planet with their own viruses and wipe out the creators with some stupid flu.

    Most wrote:

    What bothered me was the complete disregard for safety. The air is breathable, let's ditch the helmets! Could it be possible that it's full of microorganisms and viruses? Nah.. Not mentioning that humans could actually contaminate the planet with their own viruses and wipe out the creators with some stupid flu.

    This was my first complaint to my wife as we exited the theatre and she turned to me and said, "It's an Alien movie! Duh!"

    Most wrote:

    I think there's a director's cut somewhere, waiting to be released. It looked as too cut-up, as if there were dialogues, little scenes, little things that didnt make it into the final cut. Movie is 2hours long, I`d guess that it had material for 2 and a half, even three.

    http://www.avpgalaxy.net/2012/06/04/...

    Apparently cuts were made, but just cuts to violent parts to lower the rating it would receive.

    So now that I've had the night to sleep on it, I wish I'd never gone to see it. I would have rather the origin of the Engineers and the Aliens remained a mystery. It just created more questions than answers to me.

    When they found that first Engineer body, they did a carbon test and found out it was about 2 thousand years old. Why did the other Engineer have to go into stasis for so long, and when was he supposed to come out of stasis? What was the point of that?

    Why do they hate humanity?

    Why did this ship have those urns with the goo that could change creatures into monsters based around the xenomorph, but in Alien the derelict had eggs in it?

    What was up with Charlize Theron's character? At one point I got the feeling that Scott was trying to make you think she was an android too. When she turned down the captains advances he jokingly accused her of being an android and then all of a sudden she wants to have sex with him. Maybe I'm looking too deep into it, but she also had blonde hair like David, and I got the feeling they both hated Weyland, but David was better at hiding it.

    Why was whatever killed all those Engineers not still in the area? When the two scientists find the pile of bodies they mention that something had burst out of them.

    When this movie was first announced Ridley Scott mentioned that he wanted to make two movies. Are we going to get a second movie, or are we just supposed to assume that Shaw and David traveled to the Engineers homeworld and destroyed them?

    Edit:This also ties into my question of whether there will be a sequel or not. How did the company know the derelict was on LV-426? I'm pretty sure that the planet in Prometheus was not LV-426 since the two planets looked nothing alike.

    Prometheus was LV223. I'm betting that LV426 is where they wound up, although in light of what Ridley's been saying(that a sequel would be more tangential) that doesn't make much sense either.

    Agree with pretty much everything stated in the original post. This was a movie that had some interesting ideas, but just flailed around for two hours throwing them against the wall and trying to see what stuck. Guess what? Not too damn much stuck. Characters run around doing things for no reason. David poisons bland-archaeologist-boyfriend. Why? Because he's a dick for no reason. The Engineers created a weapon they couldn't control and then decided to kill humanity with it. Why? Because they were dicks for no reason. Weyland hired a bunch of random chuckleheads to make first contact with an intelligent alien race instead of a team of experts, and then didn't tell them that's what they were doing or that he was even aboard until they were there. Why? Because he was a STUPID dick for no reason.

    I watched the first two Alien movies a couple weekends ago to gear up for this, and if there's one thing I can say about that first Ridley Scott movie, it's that it had FOCUS. It took place in a limited space over a limited span of time with a limited cast of characters and it accomplished everything it wanted to accomplish within that span. All that body-horror children-as-parasites psycho-sexual subtext was there if you wanted to look for it, but it was where it belonged: in the SUBTEXT. If it left more to the imagination than it explained, it was because explanations weren't what it was about. It was about ohgodohgodohgodit'sinmychestgetitoutgetitoutgetitout*burst**splat*.

    Prometheus so desperately wants to have deeper themes and meanings and it fails at that on every level. It's the very definition of a movie writing checks its ass can't cash.

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