EPT[Movie] Prometheus - Page 32
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Blackspell
United States80 Posts
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Mordiford
4448 Posts
So the geologist and the biologist are shit scared the moment they see a dead alien, then they're even more scared when they find some corpses and learn something might be alive and in the caves besides them, then for some reason they become inquisitive and curious when they see the snake monster. Why the fuck are these characters who previously wanted nothing to do with creepy shit super interested in this snake alien that they know nothing about? It was just a shitty setup to get them killed and made no sense for the characters they'd established. And once again, David poisoned Charlie for no real reason. Was he planning for the guy to have sex later that night before he starts oozing out of his eyes? Pretty short window to hope that he was horny. What was he looking to accomplish through that anyway? He just did it for no fucking reason. | ||
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Zooper31
United States5710 Posts
On June 09 2012 15:17 Blackspell wrote: Again, I'm not saying the movie didn't have it's faults. It did. But was it really that bad that people can say it was a horrible film? Not even close to being a horrible film. Sure there were some unaswered questions, but it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't more movies to come (granted we alrdy know this). The film was amazing and is a must watch for any Sci-Fi lover. | ||
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Belisarius
Australia6230 Posts
On June 09 2012 16:05 Mordiford wrote: Also... A lot of the characterization in this film was atrocious. So the geologist and the biologist are shit scared the moment they see a dead alien, then they're even more scared when they find some corpses and learn something might be alive and in the caves besides them, then for some reason they become inquisitive and curious when they see the snake monster. Why the fuck are these characters who previously wanted nothing to do with creepy shit super interested in this snake alien that they know nothing about? It was just a shitty setup to get them killed and made no sense for the characters they'd established. And once again, David poisoned Charlie for no real reason. Was he planning for the guy to have sex later that night before he starts oozing out of his eyes? Pretty short window to hope that he was horny. What was he looking to accomplish through that anyway? He just did it for no fucking reason. The geologist I could believe, he was pretty erratic. The biologist was really silly, purely because I doubt the first biologist ever to encounter alien biology would run away like a bitch the instant he encountered it. He should have been falling over himself to study it. And yeah, playing cutie with the worm thing after all that was pretty odd. David I don't have a problem with. His motives were always unclear and don't even need to make sense to us because of the whole robot thing. Personally I think his entire purpose was to find things for Weyland. The scientists were only valuable with respect to their ability to find stuff, and Holloway wasn't anything special. Especially after "anything and everything." I don't think he planned the alien baby. For David, in essence, I feel like everything is just "why not"? He was happy to try pretty much anything just to see what happened, and you saw that the whole way through the movie with him pressing buttons and opening doors in the complex. Regarding others talking about Shaw and David at the end... I didn't find it too surprising. They're the only ones left; they may as well work together rather than just die/lie on the floor of a crashed spaceship forever. Plus, she still doesn't know for sure he infected Holloway, and with Weyland dead David is more or less free and has no traceable motives. | ||
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Blackspell
United States80 Posts
On June 09 2012 16:05 Mordiford wrote: Also... A lot of the characterization in this film was atrocious. So the geologist and the biologist are shit scared the moment they see a dead alien, then they're even more scared when they find some corpses and learn something might be alive and in the caves besides them, then for some reason they become inquisitive and curious when they see the snake monster. Why the fuck are these characters who previously wanted nothing to do with creepy shit super interested in this snake alien that they know nothing about? It was just a shitty setup to get them killed and made no sense for the characters they'd established. And once again, David poisoned Charlie for no real reason. Was he planning for the guy to have sex later that night before he starts oozing out of his eyes? Pretty short window to hope that he was horny. What was he looking to accomplish through that anyway? He just did it for no fucking reason. I agree with your first point. That was something I found silly in the movie. As for David poisoning Charlie, Weyland wanted to know what the effect was. Everything David did was part of Weyland's sick idea of experimentation to find out how this Alien DNA affected humans, and overall to finding out how he could manipulate his findings to discover eternal life. Also I don't think that David had any intention or prevision of Charlie and Shaw having sex. I think it just ended up that way and David acted accordingly to the situation (freeze her in cryostat and study her on Earth) I think David acted similar to how Ash acted on the Nostromos in Alien. This is a really good debate by the way, and it may be a testament to the movie itself that it could spark this debate in the first place. | ||
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Belisarius
Australia6230 Posts
On June 09 2012 16:02 Xxio wrote: The characters (and probably the audience) had a bunch of preconceived, romantic misconceptions about meeting their makers, and aliens. No, the Alien wasn't a wise, enlightened, or particularly "advanced" looking creature with humanistic benevolence or malevolence. I enjoyed the fact that Scott's world wasn't picture-perfect and stereotyped. Rarely do things work out that way. I liked the Alien's reaction because it wasn't what the characters - or the audience - expected. Sometimes Aliens don't act like humans and explain the meaning of life (deus ex machina). Sometimes you have to figure it out for yourself... Sure, I agree it was unexpected and I did appreciate that. But I feel like the stereotype actually goes the other way. The awoken alien always goes ballistic. The key feature of prometheus was that it convinced us that - just for once - the alien might not. And then when it did, that just tore down everything interesting they'd built. Sometimes screwing with the audience's expectations is good, sometimes it costs too much. | ||
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ELA
Denmark4608 Posts
On June 09 2012 16:03 Blackspell wrote: I hate to go into a completely different realm with this debate, but what's wrong with having a sequel answer questions? As an art form, why can't a movie be similar in vein to a novel, where one book sets up a story, and the next answers questions? In my oppinion, the very best books/movies are not the ones that gives me the answers, but the ones that make me raise questions. Don't get me wrong, I love the classic model with intro, drama, resoloution, but I think that 90% of all movies fall into that category already. I really like it when a story is able to make me raise questions and make me find the answers to those questions myself. Somehow, being told what the answer is from some supreme power (In this case the director/writer) that is 100% set in stone, some of the magic is lost. The exact morale of this film (to me), convinently enough :-) | ||
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Blackspell
United States80 Posts
On June 09 2012 16:32 ELA wrote: In my oppinion, the very best books/movies are not the ones that gives me the answers, but the ones that make me raise questions. Don't get me wrong, I love the classic model with intro, drama, resoloution, but I think that 90% of all movies fall into that category already. I really like it when a story is able to make me raise questions and make me find the answers to those questions myself. Somehow, being told what the answer is from some supreme power (In this case the director/writer) that is 100% set in stone, some of the magic is lost. The exact morale of this film (to me), convinently enough :-) And I agree 100% That's something I love about movies! I brought that point up only because it was a counter argument for people who seem to have a problem with not only leaving things up to interpretation but also leaving the answers for the sequel. | ||
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Esoterikk
Canada1256 Posts
The one thing that really bugs me though is at the start of the movie. + Show Spoiler + Why and what did he drink? Why is his ship different than the other engineer ships? Was their purpose to create humanity? There is no clear answer to why this was in the movie, or why they suddenly went to earth to create humanity then back to destroy it. It shows his DNA being destroyed but then it gets rebuilt, if we have the exact same DNA sequence why would his DNA get destroyed in the first place. | ||
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Belisarius
Australia6230 Posts
Unfortunately, it also didn't answer any of the small ones, and for a movie that billed itself as a search for truth, they could have done a lot more to satisfy their audience's curiosity. Simply fleshing out the world would have sufficed. | ||
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gh0st
United States98 Posts
dies This movie lacks everything that set the Alien franchise apart, namely a sympathetic female lead w/ Ripley, and pretty much rips off everything else. Not sure what makes this movie good in anyone's book unless you just like to keep tabs on what CGI can do nowadays. A great example of how spending tens of millions of dollars on amazing-lookinCog sets, CGI, top-shelf actors and effects does not make a great movie when the plot blows and the writing is lame. | ||
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Fourn
Greece227 Posts
Just look at David. Why do Human's build robots? Because they can The Engineers built us because they could and after having their little experiment, they decided they would destroy us since they saw we could possibly gain the technology to find them and possibly kill them. They do not care for humankind, we were simply their playthings. Hence why the Space Jockey tried to kill everyone when David woke him up. He was on a ship meant to destroy Earth and he sees humans. What else would you expect? Lol I thought it was pretty straight-forward and left no unanswered questions for me. The reasons people give for this movie being bad are a tad bit ridiculous IMO. | ||
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ETisME
12387 Posts
On June 09 2012 17:03 Fourn wrote: For people asking 'Why did/do the engineers want to create mankind/destroy mankind", the answer is right in front of you. Just look at David. Why do Human's build robots? Because they can The Engineers built us because they could and after having their little experiment, they decided they would destroy us since they saw we could possibly gain the technology to find them and possibly kill them. They do not care for humankind, we were simply their playthings. Hence why the Space Jockey tried to kill everyone when David woke him up. He was on a ship meant to destroy Earth and he sees humans. What else would you expect? Lol I thought it was pretty straight-forward and left no unanswered questions for me. The reasons people give for this movie being bad are a tad bit ridiculous IMO. the interesting thing is why they chose not to destroy us and got stuck in the planet? they have visited us several times (as recorded from those ancient civilizations) and certainly the technology we had were no way close to killing the Engineers. | ||
Xxio
Canada5565 Posts
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Quotidian
Norway1937 Posts
Why did the engineers create mankind? as has been stated already, because they could. But I like the idea that it might've been a religious exercise for them Why did they then decide to destroy / infest mankind? Scott has stated repeatedly that what the Derelict ships is all about is bio warfare, so my idea goes against that.. but considering the mural/relief of a xenomorph-looking thing inside the pyramid, I like to think that what they're doing with the human>xenomorph project is attempting to bring back an ancient race of gods... and the Engineer narrative could be that this project went terribly wrong and wiped out most of their species. They might view the xenomorph as their creators, and in the movie you have humans trying to find/communicate with their creators - so you have these interlocking narrative loops that are pretty interesting to think about Where did they get the specimens in the jars they were transporting, did they make them? we're probably over-analyzing purely visual elements here, but the jars are inspired by Egyptian burial chambers, so again - there's a ritual/religious aspect to everything These are the questions that drove the actions of the characters and are most intriguing to the audience I don't think these things drove the actions of the characters at all. Shaw wanted to find/explore/understand the creator race, eventually she started asking some questions ("why kill us?" basically - which she sets out to find the answer to at the end of the movie) Her boyfriend wanted to find living engineers and became despondent when he thought they were all dead. David's entire purpose was driven by Weyland's agenda, which was eternal life. | ||
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sorrowptoss
Canada1431 Posts
I've never watched Alien (1979) so my opinion might be a little undernourrished and I'm looking forward to watching it since people have been telling me that Prometheus and Alien are inseperable... I however really enjoyed the movie. Some scenes were quite gross, but I guess that's how Ridley Scott likes it. The acting was great! I loved David, the robot. He was a fascinating character and I think that, ironically, he has much more of a soul than Vickers, the actual human daughter of the boss guy whom I've forgotten the name. Everything was amazing. The visuals were mindblowing. The story was mindblowing. I might seem like a naive filmwatcher but I honestly really liked it. Some things were a little ambiguous (like at the end when the giant octopus thing attacks the alien guy when Shaw opens the door of the "medic" room) but otherwise, very cool movie. | ||
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Belisarius
Australia6230 Posts
On June 09 2012 18:04 Xxio wrote: Interesting analysis of the plot here: http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1 That is interesting. I'm fairly sure he's reading several layers deeper than what was actually there, but hey, if some of that is going to come out later I wouldn't mind. Except space Jesus, because that's really stupid. | ||
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baldgye
United Kingdom1092 Posts
On June 09 2012 16:02 Xxio wrote: The characters (and probably the audience) had a bunch of preconceived, romantic misconceptions about meeting their makers, and aliens. No, the Alien wasn't a wise, enlightened, or particularly "advanced" looking creature with humanistic benevolence or malevolence. I enjoyed the fact that Scott's world wasn't picture-perfect and stereotyped. Rarely do things work out that way. I liked the Alien's reaction because it wasn't what the characters - or the audience - expected. Sometimes Aliens don't act like humans and explain the meaning of life (deus ex machina). Sometimes you have to figure it out for yourself... Yeah I do agree with you on that. I have to say, having been a HUGE Alien fan for a long time I had my own idea's about what the Space Jockey would be if they ever did an Alien prequil and I'm really happy with Scott's direction, though the identical DNA bit seems kinda goofy, I love there design, tech and how he reacted. And the more I think about the movie, the more I like it. It really is quite similar to Blade Runner, only it dsn't suffer from having a lost narative in the same way as BR. I think for me the only part of the movie that lets it down, is the zombie scene, it just confuses and spoils the pacing of the movie (least for me). Though I'm going to read through that blog you linked while I'm at work | ||
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Makra
Australia50 Posts
On June 09 2012 16:12 Belisarius wrote: David I don't have a problem with. His motives were always unclear and don't even need to make sense to us because of the whole robot thing. Personally I think his entire purpose was to find things for Weyland. The scientists were only valuable with respect to their ability to find stuff, and Holloway wasn't anything special. Especially after "anything and everything." I don't think he planned the alien baby. For David, in essence, I feel like everything is just "why not"? He was happy to try pretty much anything just to see what happened, and you saw that the whole way through the movie with him pressing buttons and opening doors in the complex. Regarding others talking about Shaw and David at the end... I didn't find it too surprising. They're the only ones left; they may as well work together rather than just die/lie on the floor of a crashed spaceship forever. Plus, she still doesn't know for sure he infected Holloway, and with Weyland dead David is more or less free and has no traceable motives. Exactly what I think. Someone above already posted this, but I'm posting it again because it really is a good explanation, especially as it includes some direct quotes from Scott about specific stuff. http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html# | ||
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Quotidian
Norway1937 Posts
On June 09 2012 18:04 Xxio wrote: Interesting analysis of the plot here: http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1 I think he's overreaching quite a bit there, but it does nail down a lot of concept the movie is working with that might slip by if you're sitting there and getting annoyed by dumb characters doing dumb shit. And I really dislike the idea of "space jesus" on pure principle, but I guess it's not my story to tell or influence, so it's a take it or leave it kind of thing.. very, very tangential, but Prometheus gave me a craving for more hard sci fi. I picked up Leviathan Wakes. I've only read the introduction, but it has horror elements, derelict space ships and space goo as well. Anyone read it? | ||
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