Prometheus - Spoilery thread of Spoilers

BlackSheep wrote:

Technically, the goo isn't a weapon, but it is a life promoter. Unfortunately, nothing in sci-fi movies ever seem to sprout happy docile little creatures that are hell bent on being pacifistic to the human race.

This was pretty much my reading on the initial viewing. I'm frustrated by Sir Scott's "could be anywhere" remarks on the planet at the start, and think it makes things far too ambiguous, even though I'm already inclined to buy into "engineer DNA led to the basic evolution of more complex life on earth" take on things in the film's cosmology.

So I saw this movie, somewhat skeptical of all the claims of 'idiotic, unprofessional characters', and a connection to the Alien franchise that did more harm than good, and found myself agreeing with both opinions.

And I think I read somewhere Ridley Scott making a big deal about how the opening scene (with the Space Jockey giving life to the planet) didn't necessarily take place on Earth.

But yeh, I'd say I liked it more than Avatar, and I hope it does well because its success will result in studios taking more chances with alternative-genre blockbusters.

Oh, and the Imax 3D is pretty gorgeous, and one of the few times I haven't gotten a 3D-migraine.

Not a specific comment just something that caught my eye. In Prometheus-Movie.com concept art section there are some interesting thingies. One, that caught my eye is concept for opening scene. In it, there are two characters - the Engineer who sacrifices himself and an old wizened man, more human looking (just much older, sans all the puff?) who gives a blessing and the cup of goo to the Engineer. And again, the ship which is unlike the ship the expedition encounters.
The whole scene seems religious in nature which would imply that perhaps there has been a schism and in-fighting among our gods. Also, perhaps the flying saucer thing is a dissemination ship while the ship humans encounter is the bomber.

well..kinda random musings.. but the concepts section is worth checking out.

I think a lot of people are over thinking the plot. If we follow the legend of Prometheus and the movie gives it to us right in the begining of the film, the titan rebels against the gods by giving man fire and is imprisoned and tortured for eternity as punishment.

So to me, the implication is that the engineer that drinks the cup to jump start humans on earth is an outcast who is defying caution and his peers for his rash opus. It is not hard to believe how real this is in today's society. Do you remember the response to the guy who cloned Dolly the sheep all those years ago? Even among those who were amazed at the scientific achievement there was a healthy bit of doubt on whether it needed or should have been done despite the fact that we now could. And then there was a lot of outcry calling anything related to it an abomination.

So I see a very real scenario where say this guy that cloned the sheep tries to create a sanctuary for a flock of cloned sheep on a remote undefended and monitored island and some faction, religious organization, or country plans to wipe any trace of it from the earth. That is how I see the back story of Prometheus plays out.

In regards to David there is so much to say. Weyland got the son his genetics warranted, who was just like him except he was a daughter. So, he created the son he always wanted, David the android. A lot of things David did I got the feeling were direct orders from Weyland and much more than "Try harder." Still there was quite a bit of youthful curiosity beneath his actions. A lot of times he knew he could operate the alien machinery but he had no proof until he actually did it so the sense of discovery fueled more curiosity.

I am of 2 minds on what he said to the Engineer. One is that he told the engineer flat out what Weyland was looking for and it was seen by the Engineer as an ant asking for the keys to the kingdom. Or perhaps like giving hydrogen bomb technology to the ancient greeks.

The second is that David told the engineer to "kill us all". I have no doubt that David, even in the end wants to destroy his creators. He didn't want to fly the ship back to earth to go home, he wants to destroy it. He is already free of his parent but he wants to be free of the gods that throughly disappointed him. I suspect that Shaw and him are alike in this where if she does not like the answers when she reaches the engineer home planet, she will unleash the weapons they created to destroy earth on their home world.

I do think that while Shaw is the only one who survived to help David, he has some respect for her. Perhaps she is the only worthy god, due to her resilience, despite the fact that another of David's disappointments is the flaws and weaknesses of his creators. He was all too familiar with the physical and mental effects as we approach death through his relationship with Weyland. (yet he is forced into service) David is well aware of the dysfunctional parent/child relationship as exhibited by Vickers and Weyland, which could have sparked the "don't all children look forward to the death of their parents?" line.

And then there is the: if David could live forever and communicate and operate the equipment of the gods of his gods (i.e. overcome the limitations of his gods), does that make him the god of his gods too?

Movie suffers from cutting, I think. It was obviously cut to keep it 2h movie. I rewatched Alien yesterday. It's the same 2h movie but it does not have to tell nearly as much stuff. Which keeps the flow so right and tight. Prometheus sandwiches so many concepts and ideas and alien history in those same 2 hours and suffers for it.

I still liked it. Does that make me schizophrenic?

No. But, you might be a Replicant.
IMAGE(http://news.cnet.com/i/bto/20091109/rutger2_610x302.jpg)

OMG! That is what David said to the engineer:

"Time to die."

http://io9.com/5917639/10-things-you...

...as for why Weyland is played by Guy Pearce in old-man makeup, [Writer Jon] Spaihts says Damon Lindelof's script showed the android David going inside Weyland's dreams while he was in hypersleep — and in his dreams, Weyland is a young man, on a yacht surrounded by beautiful women. These dream conversations got cut, but Pearce's casting was already locked in. Scott had originally wanted to cast Max von Sydow as Peter Weyland.

Now that would have been cool.

Just got back from seeing it. While it was flawed, it was what I wanted. The Space Jockey scene in the original Alien movies always stuck with me, and even if this movie was a little heavy handed with the explanations, I enjoyed watching it.

One of my friends that saw it with me actually went in not knowing at all that it was tied into Alien. His surprise and "aha" moment at the end was worth it.

edit: Question - and I'm starting to read backwards in this thread to see if it's been addressed, but: if the last engineer turned died and spawned the first xenomorph, who was the space jockey in the original Alien?

Michael wrote:

edit: Question - and I'm starting to read backwards in this thread to see if it's been addressed, but: if the last engineer turned died and spawned the first xenomorph, who was the space jockey in the original Alien?

Somebody else, someplace else. Prometheus's moon was LV-226 vs. Alien[s]'s LV-426. Apparently at one state they were one and the same but that changed. [Spark more sequel-itis Female Doggoing and "convoluted development" speculation here.]

Got it, I must have missed that somewhere.

ianunderhill wrote:
Michael wrote:

edit: Question - and I'm starting to read backwards in this thread to see if it's been addressed, but: if the last engineer turned died and spawned the first xenomorph, who was the space jockey in the original Alien?

Somebody else, someplace else. Prometheus's moon was LV-226 vs. Alien[s]'s LV-426. Apparently at one state they were one and the same but that changed. [Spark more sequel-itis Female Doggoing and "convoluted development" speculation here.]

Ridley and Lindelof stated they were two separate locations, actually.

ccesarano wrote:

Ridley and Lindelof stated they were two separate locations, actually.

But death of the author! [size=8]etc. etc.[/size] Most likely a gruesome death of the author in this case.

ccesarano wrote:
ianunderhill wrote:
Michael wrote:

edit: Question - and I'm starting to read backwards in this thread to see if it's been addressed, but: if the last engineer turned died and spawned the first xenomorph, who was the space jockey in the original Alien?

Somebody else, someplace else. Prometheus's moon was LV-226 vs. Alien[s]'s LV-426. Apparently at one state they were one and the same but that changed. [Spark more sequel-itis Female Doggoing and "convoluted development" speculation here.]

Ridley and Lindelof stated they were two separate locations, actually.

And this contradicts what I just said how, exactly? If "at one state" threw you, I'm talking about the process of the film's development, not any event in the story.

Montalban wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Ridley and Lindelof stated they were two separate locations, actually.

But death of the author! [size=8]etc. etc.[/size] Most likely a gruesome death of the author in this case.

Even discounting the WoG statements, the fact that the planets have two different designations should be indicator enough that they're not the same place.

ianunderhill wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
ianunderhill wrote:
Michael wrote:

edit: Question - and I'm starting to read backwards in this thread to see if it's been addressed, but: if the last engineer turned died and spawned the first xenomorph, who was the space jockey in the original Alien?

Somebody else, someplace else. Prometheus's moon was LV-226 vs. Alien[s]'s LV-426. Apparently at one state they were one and the same but that changed. [Spark more sequel-itis Female Doggoing and "convoluted development" speculation here.]

Ridley and Lindelof stated they were two separate locations, actually.

And this contradicts what I just said how, exactly? If "at one state" threw you, I'm talking about the process of the film's development, not any event in the story.

Sorry, I misread that. Mah bad.

ccesarano wrote:
ianunderhill wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
ianunderhill wrote:
Michael wrote:

edit: Question - and I'm starting to read backwards in this thread to see if it's been addressed, but: if the last engineer turned died and spawned the first xenomorph, who was the space jockey in the original Alien?

Somebody else, someplace else. Prometheus's moon was LV-226 vs. Alien[s]'s LV-426. Apparently at one state they were one and the same but that changed. [Spark more sequel-itis Female Doggoing and "convoluted development" speculation here.]

Ridley and Lindelof stated they were two separate locations, actually.

And this contradicts what I just said how, exactly? If "at one state" threw you, I'm talking about the process of the film's development, not any event in the story.

Sorry, I misread that. Mah bad.

Hey, it's cool, I wanted to make sure you and I weren't talking about two different things. This movie...

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Whoa, I totally missed that the zombie dude was the geologist. For some reason, I thought it was the burned up Holloway. I guess that was just because both the flamethrower stuff and the zombie stuff happened in the same area. I is a stupid. :)

We is a stupid together! I watched it today and I thought the exact same thing.

I really enjoyed it! I finally had a chance to see it this afternoon. Those Iceland shots were fantastic.

Maq wrote:

I really don't get the complaints. I'm yet to come across a plot hole mentioned that bothered me.

Why did David test the stuff on Holloway? The clue's in the same scene - it's the central thesis of the whole film - Because he could.
Why did the Engineers create life? Because they could.
Why did they want us to find them if they only wanted to destroy us again? They had 35000 years to decide we were a mistake and try to correct it.
Why did they want to destroy life again? As David said - Sometimes to create you have to destroy.

The film asks the same questions David posed to Holloway: What if you could meet your God(s) and ask why you were created? What if you didn't like the answer? What if you were just an iteration of an ongoing experiment and your God(s) had no higher purpose for you?

The Engineers were the Prometheus of the title: They created human life then, for reasons that are acknowledged as unknown in the film, decided it was a mistake. Why did they want us dead? We don't know. We don't know why God created us as mortal either. That's the point.

Y'all need to stop being such nerds and hook into the fact this is a classical greek myth redressed as classic 19th century gothic sci fi. I think it succeeds admirably.

Just got back from watching this and I agree very much with this.

I liked the pacing, I liked the loose ends and what some people see as flaws I see as strengths. The lack of explanations and apparent inconsistencies all serve to make the movie feel like it takes place in a messy, real universe, rather than a nice neat universe designed specifically to pander to the movie. At some points it even felt documentary or news-reel like.

But then what do I know, I thought the end of Lost was fine...

*edit*

Went through the thread a bit more. I'd go to a sequel day one. I'd prefer if Shaw was going with the intent to wipe the Engineers out rather than drop to her knees and scream "WHHYYYYYYY!!?" though.

Hypatian wrote:

A friend of mine sent me a link to this summary of the movie.

That is most excellent.

Heretk wrote:

So I am guessing that this film completely disregards the existence of the AvP movies? The timeline presented in those, regarding xenomorphs, does not jive with Shaw's baby being the first face hugger.

Plus, Weyland died in AVP when he got uppity with a Predator.

NSMike wrote:

It amuses me to think of Prometheus's Xenomorph as Aperture Science, and Alien's Xenomorph as Black Mesa. Since one used those weird containers, and the other uses eggs, it almost seems like two different "companies" were contracted to produce the Xenomorph and came about it via different methods.

I thought that the way the Aliens' eggs are laid out might be based on some sort of genetic memory, since the first one came from the Engineer at the end, whose group laid out their vases in the same arrangement.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

*edit*

Went through the thread a bit more. I'd go to a sequel day one. I'd prefer if Shaw was going with the intent to wipe the Engineers out rather than drop to her knees and scream "WHHYYYYYYY!!?" though.

Yeah, when she first said "We're going to their world" I got all giddy, because if that sh*t just happened to me then my plan would be to drop some gooey death on them from above.

Then she was all "To ask questions" and I was like "D'oh!"

I assumed she meant to append "ask questions" with "and then f*ck up their world."

WipEout wrote:

I assumed she meant to append "ask questions" with "and then f*ck up their world."

Awwwww yeaaah!

WipEout wrote:

I assumed she meant to append "ask questions" with "and then f*ck up their world."

You're probably right, maybe she assumed it was too obvious to actually mention. Like another one of those hanging threads the movie was full of.

Her questions could be followed by "and if you don't answer me I'll dump black goo everywhere."

Yeah, let's create a WHOLE PLANET of whatever monstrosity happens when you infect Engineers with black goo. That sounds like a REAL bright idea.

Just nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I feel mixed on the whole thing. I really liked the concepts, the symbolism and the overall narrative. And there were certainly a few moments that had me on edge.

But I can't deny that a lot of the characters seem to behave irrationally for seemingly no other reason than to move to the next plot point. A plot point which will be discarded as irrelevant soon afterwards

If feels like they shot a 3 hour movie and then decided which scenes to take out by randomly throwing darts. Literally 30 seconds after having an alien abortion, Shaw is having a discussion with Weyland, where it is immediately revealed that he is still alive but no explanation is given for why he had to lie about that in the first place. It seems weird to hurry that stuff along, but give a corny scene where Vickers offers sexual intercourse with the pilot all the time in the world to breathe.

That said, I really liked seeing it and thinking about what it was presenting. Really don't understand why people are tearing apart this movie when films like Inception that also try to touch on greater philosophical themes but are filled to the brim with just as much illogical nonsense are apparently given a free ride.

Saw it yesterday. Didn't like it. The bad outweighs the good for me. I take the surgery scene with me as amazing, together with the visuals, but overall, not on-par with what I was expecting from Scott, or the franchise.

So here is the Podcast episode I recorded with Atomicvideohead. We mostly covered a bunch of material already discussed here.

Atomicvideohead - You may notice a lot of conversation was cut out at the end. I decided to remove just about every time we went off topic so it could be more focused. Of the final ten or fifteen minutes we spoke at the end of the recording, only one or two minutes were about Prometheus.