Escape to the Movies: Prometheus

[daxterx2005]

Oh yeah and not using the newest design of Clyde.
Shame on you Disney, shaaaaaame.

Yeah yeah, people might not know who he is if they don't go with the classic ghost look, I understand that. I'm just nitpicking since they seemed to use all the newest designs for everyone else except Clyde.

/nerd rant

 

[wreade1872]

Loved this movie, no idea why. Seriously its actually bugging me that i can't figure out what it was about it. Thought Charlize Theron was a bit underused, in fact a lot of the movie seemed cut down from something larger and the overall story is pretty basic but still i just really enjoyed this. Buying the dvd, watching it everytime its on tv for the rest of time etc.
Not a big fan of Alien in the past more of a Predator guy, but someone got me the quadilogy as a present so its growing on me, Alien3 Directors Cut is surprisingly good.
But back to Prometeus, its NOT a prequel! Ok it is a prequel but when i heard prequel i thought it meant that it was on the same planet as the first Alien which its not, got a little distracting towards the end as i thought it was trying to match up with the original.

By the way, for those who have seen it, remember how old the dead body was, meaning the aliens were planning on doing what they were doing at this date, so think about what was happening at that time which could have influenced there decision. That thought should be really funny for those who can figure out what i'm talking about :lol.

 

[dfphetteplace]

I'm not really a person that goes to see movies, but I really want to see this movie. I think it looks good enough and I think I would enjoy it.

 

[Josh Currier]

I am going echo many people on this thread and agree that the movie was a large disappointment.
The story felt like fifty ideas that were never fully realized. Which makes sense with the sudden shift in story.

Characters switched between professional capability to baffling ineptitude to fit the story. The supposed archeologists had a total disregard for scientific studies. They spent the first part of the movie bumbling around like high school students. At no point did they carry tools or attempt any sort of excavation procedure. They opened doors and wondered halls without stopping to note anything of the writings or structures around them. In fact the robot had more scientific curiosity than the lot of them. We were led to believe that they had been on multiple dig sites all over the world and yet the movie showed no regard for logic.

They mapped the entire structure but the map was never viewed or discussed unless it directly related to the story. "It's a ship" Well why were you not looking at this before. Not to mention the geologist (remember the one who started the probes in the first place) suddenly gets lost and has no idea how to get out. Long before communications gets knocked out...

I certainly have more gripes about this movie but I will spare them for brevity and spoilers for later in the movie.

Overall I think the biggest issue with this movie isn't that it was over hyped but that too many people are willing to overlook poor story telling because of nostalgia, brilliant acting, and gorgeous set pieces.

If you want me to turn my brain off to enjoy this movie I am with that. But don't put in such large ideas and then treat me like an idiot.

 

[Jimbo1212]

Urgh, what a silly review.
Yet again, he reviews what he wanted rather than what was given. If Bob did not know about the changes made to the film (which are allowed as Ridley is you know, making the damn film), would he have mentioned them? Of course not.

 

[Luca72]

A lot of people are mad that this movie upsets the "canon", but it was meant to. Have you ever heard Ridley Scott talk about the Alien sequels? He isn't interested in any of them. And think about what we tend to get from Alien sequels:
Facehuggers, at least one exploding chest, aliens jumping out of the darkness and grabbing someone, an android, a scene about how "oh shit they're smarter than we thought", etc.

In other words, same shit over and over. AvP is bullshit, but I know I don't have to rail on that here. Even the expanded universe, which mostly takes an Aliens approach, is pretty derivative. A lot of the comics/books are okay, but they're all kind of ripping ideas off Heinlein and other better scifi writers.

What made Alien so effective was a good cast of characters that felt real, a realistically beat up and average space-tug, and an alien that no one knew shit about. Facehuggers aren't scary when you're expecting them, but when you're introduced to the concept, it's shockingly effective.

For all it's flaws at least Prometheus had the balls to make 180 turn for the franchise. No more Predators, no more action movie where thousands of aliens get mowed down. It's becoming its' own unique franchise. The way they depicted the alien birth at the end was enough to sell me on a sequel. Instead of trying to freak you out with gore and loud noises, it actually looked like the horrible, messy birth of a brand new lifeform. I like that there's a mystery to the xenomorphs' evolution again - in a Prometheus sequel none of us would have any idea what to expect.

 

[Draconalis]

See, this doesn't help make it any clearer. I keep hearing angry folks on the Internet harping that it sucks or is stupid or whatever, but never explaining why they think so in concise, concrete terms. I don't want to speak for people and invent my own reason for why the nerds are restless () but given the way the criticism of the movie is being expressed, it's hard not to.

Telling you here and now would only repeat what many people have already said within this very thread. Read pages 1-3 and you'll come across a number of people who actively describe all the reasons this movie was terrible.

What lore? The original Alien movie had absolutely zero concrete lore. Apart from the visual design of the space-jockey ship and a few other things nothing is given any real explanation. Ridley Scott was pretty clearly only working from his original film rather than the three that followed it and should be viewed in that context alone.

Events in this movie contradict the setting in the alien. That lore.



And it makes me cringe when I hear people describe this utterly retarded movie as "smart".

 

[internetzealot1]

Yeah, this movie isn't any good. Best part is Fassbender.

 

[Draconalis]

Mispost

 

[Draconalis]

HOW?

It's been pointed out to me that this planet isn't apparently the same planet as the one in Alien, so I digress, it's not nearly as lore breaking as I thought.

That being said, those two guys you've dismissed, break down every little idiotic event that makes this movie bad. Watching them is kind of annoying, but I agree with what they are saying, if not how.

It's a series of stupid events leading to even more stupid events. The events in this entire movie could have been avoided if even one person exercised any precautions. I whispered to my wife "These are the worst scientists ever" no less than three times.

 

[Emiscary]

Am I really alone in feeling like there was alot more planned for Fassbender and Theron in the film's conclusion?

I keep thinking about that T.E. Laurence reference early on, Charlize's introduction as a badass female, and that fancy surgical booth (and the associated surgical scene).

And the conclusion I keep reaching is that at one point Fassbender was going to wind up watching her "birth" the first alien whilst quoting Laurence of Arabia.

 

[Deacon Cole]

I just saw Prometheus and it isn't very good at all. It has two major problems.

The first is that it's a prequel. If the original film is like watching a Chess game between two masters, then a prequel is like watching the board get set up. This is why prequels should never be made. They do not get to tell their own story. They only get to show you how the circumstances came to be the way they were at the beginning of the original. It's not a good story and not a story worth telling.

The second problem is the spiritual nature of the story. It's about a group of people seeking the beings who created mankind. To find them and maybe learn something from them. This is the big idea stuff that encouraged Scott to change the script. It's just completely shallow. These are deep and meaningful topics and the movie just wears them on its head like a drunk wearing a lamp shade at a party. It doesn't explore these questions. it doesn't even care about these question. It mistakenly thinks that by just mentioning these questions it will look deep and meaningful. I am reminded of Star Trek the Motion Picture, which had similar big ideas handled without any interest.

Prometheus is a very disappointing movie, and it would be even if it wasn't tied to the Alien franchise. Nothing is accomplished in it. Nothing is worth your time. Even the film doesn't think so.

 

[Deacon Cole]

It's been pointed out to me that this planet isn't apparently the same planet as the one in Alien, so I digress, it's not nearly as lore breaking as I thought.

Really? That must be last minute excuse making unless those ships always land in exactly the same position when they crash.

 

[Draconalis]

It's been pointed out to me that this planet isn't apparently the same planet as the one in Alien, so I digress, it's not nearly as lore breaking as I thought.

Really? That must be last minute excuse making unless those ships always land in exactly the same position when they crash.

I never saw it, but apparently they did show the moon's name, and it's different from the one in Alien... which ultimately means this movie has fuck all to do with the Xenomorphs.

It was still a terrible... TERRIBLE movie.

 

[Tenzen]

I saw this movie today. I had to read the thread here to catch some of the subtleties, but even after that there are several things I don't get. Looking for someone to explain these to me (or commiserate with me in a giant "wtf".)

*** Spoiler related questions: ***

1. Why didn't they make the 2 idiots that got killed by the giant worms just normal grunts? Why make them scientists? They clearly weren't critical thinkers (i.e. scientists, though I realize none of the scientists acted like scientists). Just make them hired goons. Then it makes their idiocy slightly more believable. I guess this is likely due to the re-writes mentioned by Bob and others, but what were the writers thinking?

2. Why did David infect Charlie? That made no sense to me. Did I miss something explaining the reasoning? It seemed like David clearly had a plan in mind but it wasn't clear to me how he decided this was the right course of action. I guess he chose Charlie perhaps because Charlie was a total jerk to him, but why did he choose to infect any humans?

3. Why did Charlie get infected with goo and then proceed to just die, while the geologist turned into a super-human zombie that tried to kill everyone? They had previously established that the goo just seemed to kill the engineers. While I appreciate a bit of mystery and not hand-holding your audience through the movie, the danger is a seemingly arbitrary and random set of sci-fi "stuff" that does whatever the script writers want at any point in time. Put another way, if you aren't going to explain why the strange sci-fi stuff causes thing to happen, there needs to be consistency in how it effects the world so the audience can figure it out.

*** End Spoiler ***

There were several really big plot holes. I feel like Bob has reviewed better movies and given them a bad review, so why does he like this one? Maybe that is a case of the hype getting to him and altering his view.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Personally, I thought it was shit. Two hours or gaping plotholes, undeveloped characters, Deus Ex Machina story progression & a story/screenplay that frankly can be summed up as a greyer Mission to Mars with some Alien references thrown in whenever they wanted to remind me why I paid £11 to sit through it all. Oh, & there was an extended Spiderman trailer at the beginning that was so ball achingly bad I felt genuinely uncomfortable in the crotch area.

There weren't really any gaping plotholes, the movie just didn't spoonfeed you. Which is awesome, good movies should create a dialogue.

You have to think about it a bit, after a bit of discussion my friends and I figured pretty much everything out that we could.

The rest of the unanswered stuff was just annoyingly left unanswered.

Overall it was a really solid movie, I enjoyed it very much.

 

[gamegod25]

I think Bob is clearly being paid off for his reviews because from what I've heard this movie is well shot but incredibly stupid. And I trust them more to be unbiased then I do Bob.