Escape to the Movies: Prometheus

[Luca72]

The barrage of stupid doesn't end there. After that, they check out the alien's DNA, and it turns out... It's exactly like ours! "But wait a minute", I hear you say - "Why is that stupid?" Well, it's simple. The aliens aren't quite like us, and if that were to be reflected anywhere, it's in their DNA. And it may or may not make zero sense on another level, depending on when the "seeding" of humans happened. If it were right at the edge of prehistory, fine, but the further you move back, the more change evolution would've effected on us. So if it happened something like 200,000 years ago, there would be quite some difference between the DNA of a human today and back then, which means the DNA of the alien and the human couldn't match on a whole 'nother level. And if it did happen right at the edge of prehistory, shouldn't it have happened many, many times to seed us to all the different places like Asia and Africa and Europe, given that we wouldn't be dealing with time periods as big as dozens of thousands of years?

I would like to call into question the whole idea of this human-only-panspermia without even taking into account all the evidence of evolution in the form of genetics and archaeological findings. And I'll do this in a single question, because this is already getting really ranty and TL;DR. How, exactly, is a creature being dissolved into genetic material (maybe not even that, because we see the actual DNA strands getting dissolved too, so who the fuck knows) going to create more creatures like it?

I'm not even going to address the complaints about scientists acting stupidly, because there's no excuse for it. This is yet another movie where the scientific method doesn't even fucking exist, and the characters all have "Doctor" plastered in front of their names to make them seem more interesting.

However, the DNA stuff in the movie isn't much of a stretch. Through modern DNA testing we know that evolution is an absolute, and can trace evolution down to the smallest biological elements. That element being DNA.

The mystery is why, in a universe where physical law dictates that everything falls apart and reaches a state of LESS complexity, would chemicals suddenly self-organize and do it in a way that codes for them to be able to do it again. This is the mystery of life we're still trying to figure out.

I guess Ridley Scotts' idea is that an alien race uses it's own DNA and some biotech to seed a new planet with DNA. At it's most basic level, DNA isn't going to just self-organize into something like a human. It's going to go through it's whole multibillion year evolution, and it's going to come up with things like bacteria, fish, insects, etc. It's going to adapt to it's surroundings. Finally, it produces a sentient creature, genetically identical to it's "parent" race. Remember, when we see the earth at the beginning of the movie, it isn't just before humans. It seems to be devoid of ANY life. Our best theories as to how DNA formed and life began on earth are basically "Extreme conditions forced molecules to combine in unlikely ways" or "DNA/Bacteria from another planet seeded life on earth". So Scotts' ideas on the subject aren't even that far fetched.

Also, as a slight defense of the ludicrously dumb biologist in the movie: look up Percy Fawcett.

He was an archaeologist who was an inspiration for the character Indiana Jones. The last time anyone saw him, he was going deep into the Amazon, asking local tribes to help him find the "Lost City of Z". He knew there were warring cannibal tribes in this unexplored portion of the Amazon, as well as the most dangerous animals imaginable, but he still did it. Immediately after he set off, he disappeared. Sometimes scientists do stupid, irrational things, and get killed by something they don't even understand.

 

[lostlevel]

I've got to agree with bob on this one, having just got back from seeing it.
I think it is almost as if the film serves to remind us how good the first alien movie is compared to the convoluted mess some of the sequels become.

I liked the movie,and that even though there were parts I expected to happen even scares I expected and they still startled me but between alien references and 3D glasses I found it hard to focus at points.

There are some good points raised here that I hadn't considered, and I've got to say it's not a bad movie. I enjoyed it, but I kind of want to see where a sequel could push some ideas further, however with grumpy creators that look like buff versions of the villains in Dark City it could be a bit predictable...

 

[Emiscary]

Really wish people would lay off of the sequels.

Yes, Ressurection was idiotic.

And yes, ALIEN 3 killing off Newt/Hicks/Bishop at the onset was stupid.

But ALIENS was one of the best sci-fi movies ever made. And the concept of a Xenomorph "queen" is LIGHTYEARS more interesting than any of the following:

A worm... thing that's effectively 1/3 of a facehugger.

A 4 limbed squid which grows into a *bigger* 4 limbed squid- that's actually a facehugger.

The Jockeys being bald albino humans on growth hormones.

And last but not least: the xenomorph itself- but more boring. In every way.

 

[gaiusimperator]

Argh, this is a Ridley Scott movie, you don't watch to point out plot holes. That is missing the Forest for the Trees.

You fill in the holes with your own ideas.

When you watch the movie, watch it like it is a standalone movie, not an Alien prequel. It becomes a lot better then, and has a lot of really good psychological and transcendental questions.

 

[jovack22]

Very good movie... don't know why critics feel the need to rip it up so hard. Is it perfect? no... but it's better than the other movies in the alien franchise.

This movie is not about xenomorphs... they are there, but many people miss the point that they arent the main focus... whatever, to each his own i suppose.

if you are a sci fi fan, go and see this

 

[Lupus80]

Can someone please, PLEASE explain why an advanced, futuristic robotic surgical-thing-a-magig was only programmed for [i/]male[/i] patients?

When I saw this in the movie I laughed out loud at the riduculousness of it. It was a contrivance only to enhance the feeling of deperation for the scene- and it was ultimately useless since she got the space-octopus out of her anyway.

I really tried to like this movie. I tried to look past the bland characters that demanded to be ignored, or the multiple nitpicky things (like the one above) you could point out, but ultimately it was just too much.

I really do suspect there is more to this movie (which is par for the course for Scott and his director cuts), but I don't see how the bland, and stupid, characterizations can be saved.

 

[doubleohpsycho]

SPOILER WARNING

So I saw this today...found a metric crap ton of crap that didn't make sense. However, most people seem to have posted most of the holes, but this is a pretty big one for me and I haven't seen it posted yet...sooo:


SPOILERS:



Can someone explain to me why it was the biologist (the on with the arm incident) that the new-old-mini-snake-mouth-inserter-face-hugger went into, whilst the geologist who got a face full of plastic melting and melding to his face (which usually kills in past, well future, aliens movies) was the one that came back to this ship as some sort of zombie while the biologist that got impregnated just had the wormy thing inside of him just decide to sit in his esophagus and run away and then was forgotten about?

And the wormy thing didn't evolve or anything?

Sorry if it doesn't make sense, I'm trying to be clever at this late hour and failing miserably.

 

[Headbiter]

Can someone please, PLEASE explain why an advanced, futuristic robotic surgical-thing-a-magig was only programmed for [i/]male[/i] patients?

You know, I was bored last night and I actually thought about that. Obviously, a machine that performs all kinds of surgery but only for men would be an absolutely idiotic design. A machine designed for surgery that can only be performed on men, maybe (i.e. a....pff....anti-prostate cancer surgery?) but not this.

After some thoughts I came to the ultimate answer:

The machine is a dickhead.

Think about it: Since it can perform surgery on its own, it must have some sort of AI. Probably it is sentient to some degree and simply couldn't stand the little pseudo-religious dolt and when she came on, the machine was all like "Ugh, not that bimbo. Really don't wanna do this. How can I get out of this....oh yes *ahem* This machine serves only male patients"

And when she laid down anyway, it was probably like "Oh, I get it. I'm a machine, I can't tell a man from a woman, huh? 1010-bleep-bloop, right? Well, two can play this game, b***. You want surgery? I'll give you frigging surgery!"

Would also explain the completely fucked up surgery scene. ^^

 

[K84]

The exacts science things are way over my head, and if people say there are major flaws, i believe them, but aside from such nitpickery, this was a solid scifi movie.

I'm just one of those "happy to see a Ridley Scott return" guys.
Liked this movie, and i am actually more confident about a Bladerunner 2 because of it.

 

[adamtm]

It's exactly like ours! "But wait a minute", I hear you say - "Why is that stupid?" Well, it's simple. The aliens aren't quite like us, and if that were to be reflected anywhere, it's in their DNA.

"Exactly" may be an exagerration. Chimapnzees share what, 97% of human DNA? DNA doesn't say, "Hey, I'm going to make you 6 feet tall versus 10 feet tall." It merely encodes the chemicals that trigger hormones that will eventually make you 10 feet tall. It's entirely conceivable that this alien shares 99.95% of human DNA. You're essentially quibbling over a rounding error.

I'm pretty sure the thing said "complete match". That's either dumb, or directed at simpletons. Either way, it's wrong. Replace "Complete match" with "99.5%" match, and I'm fine.

The funny thing is, they wouldn't have needed to involve genetics at all if they wanted to direct this at an audience that has a brain.

For a viewer without knowledge about general science, it doesn't really matter what you say, its technobabble either way. They could have as well said the "photonic quantum signature" is an exact match, that viewer doesn't give a shit.

However, if you are involving "hard science" that people actually know about, you have to get it right, or else you are treating your audience as idiots.

All they needed to do really was to instead of bringing up genetic testing and DNA, to bring up chirality.

Life on earth is based on left-handed amino-acids, nobody knows why, or what the chances are for this to happen in other environments.

Additionally, chirality is amazingly easy to demonstrate visually, because its a three dimensional configuration, so they could have some cool special effects that they can throw at the viewer.

Both sides would be satisfied, because the simpletons don't care what you say either way, but the people that care wouldn't get pissed off.

I would even wager that it would have a beneficial outcome, as its good science and science that not everyone knows about, mentioning it would have an educational effect.

The whole movie is just a collection of movie-clichés.
If Prometheus wanted to be something more than a creature-feature it would needed to try harder.

Right now its up there wit The Core as "dumb fun".

 

[Emiscary]

The whole movie is just a collection of movie-clichés.
If Prometheus wanted to be something more than a creature-feature it would needed to try harder.

Right now its up there wit The Core as "dumb fun".

If you're judging it as a creature-feature, it falls massively short in that department. Like I said before, here's the list of "monsters":

Bald oversized humans who don't get enough sun.
A facehugger without the facehugging.
A squid.
& a step down from the original flick's monster.

All the really impressive visuals typically involved huge barren environments or microscopic close ups, not monsters.