On June 10 2012 19:45 Hairy wrote: I wish people would stop posting that link to someone explaining what he thinks the film was about like it somehow makes everything ok:
A film should be able to properly communicate what's going on to the audience. If it cannot manage this, it has failed. If you need someone to explain why everything in the film was so clever, it is not clever. It's the equivalent of telling a joke to an audience, NOBODY LAUGHING, and then explaining (in length) to the audience why they should have found it funny.
The person who wrote that 'explanation' is just some random guy telling you what HE thinks happened, and what HE thinks the reasoning behind it was. He explains why the engineer in the opening scene drank the solution that killed him; the symbolic and special meaning behind this; how this sentiment/theme is echoed throughout the movie; and how this was all very, very clever. But it's just his interpretation of what he saw - it doesn't make it correct, as there's virtually no actual information to go on. It's actually a bit tenuous to say it's speculation - it's almost pure guesswork.
If I were to think the alien man was just a bit of an idiot and drank something he shouldn't, you have no way to prove me wrong because the film simply doesn't provide enough information to do so. And, honestly, if the alien man did just drink the solution because he was a bit of an idiot it actually would be incredibly consistent with with the rest of the film given the behaviour of many characters in the story.
Even if there ARE a lot of interesting sub-plots etc etc going on, there are so many nonsensical things that happen, and the characters in the film continuously do such stupid and idiotic things (sometimes completely contrary to previous character development), that it is hard for many people to take the film seriously. This is due to 'suspension of disbelief' being broken - we are all gamers here, so chances are that you will have heard this term thrown around in game reviews. Essentially, when being told a story we are all happy to accept the story 'universe', providing that the 'universe' remains consistent with itself, and that everything within it makes sense and can be explained logically. However, if anything jarrs uncomfortably out of place it will drastically (sometimes irreparably) destroy the believability of that story, and your enjoyment is lost.
When watching Lord of the Rings we accept that Gandalf can cast magic spells, that there are tiny people called hobbits, and that there are monsters out there in the world such as trolls and orcs and goblins. However, if Frodo decided he was bored of all this walking, pulled out a jetpack and flew himself to Mordor, this would break the suspension of disbelief entirely because it simply doesn't make sense.
For me, and many other people watching the film, some of what happens in Prometheus is as bad as Frodo's jetpack.
I think the more proper comparison would be this:
If most movies made logical sense, there would be no plot. For instance, I always like to use the Haunted House story: If two people walked up to a really spooky haunted house that obviously looked a little sketchy, they normally would not bother to go in. But this is a scary movie and requires a plot. It wouldn't be interesting if they just walked away; in fact our movie would just go strait to credits. Illogical events make things interesting.
Use your imagination! There is an explanation you can come up with!
You make me angry with the mental gymnastics you're having to execute to disagree.
You can always put characters into a predicament without hurting suspension of disbelief. Always. Read, Always.
"If most movies made logical sense, there would be no plot". Wow.
That's all the time I have to spend marveling at how you interpret script writing, back to Prometheus:
Look for subtlety all you want, great. Subtlety is awesome, artistic, leaves room for writers to express broader ideas. However, if your audience has to build up a large and complex world around your subtle hints alone, and fill in large parts of the plot of your story using this audience created vision (which will differ vastly from person-to-person), you've failed as a writer.
This was Fantasy-Fiction, when most people came to the theater looking for Science-Fiction. In Sci-fi things shouldn't be mystic and magical. I shouldn't have to read an article that tells me the engineers gave us Jesus and we killed him, to understand the plot.
The character development is also horrifyingly bad. Who are these 3 idiots going to commit suicide to stop the ship? Why do I care about them?
- When Rapace looks at the guy with a flame thrower and vehemently explains: "This is a science expedition! You can't bring that thing!" Really, lady? You're going to, for the first time in human history, contact an extraterrestrial life form, who may or may not still be alive, and you don't think you should, you know, bring a weapon? If you were exploring the great pyramids on earth, yeah, great, don't bring a flame thrower. But you're on an alien planet! One you've never been to!
- When the Geologist and Biologist decide to "go back to the ship because they don't specialize in dead bodies," and then they... just wonder the cave aimlessly, presumably getting lost? They had a full 3D map of the cave, and yet they somehow end up stranded inside, yet THEY LEFT FIRST. Wouldn't Rapace and Fassbender have passed them on the way out? Nope. Somehow the GEOLOGIST gets lost IN A CAVE with a FULL 3D MAP OF THE ENTIRE COMPLEX. Dumbest. Scientists. Ever. That would have been another great name for this movie: The Dumbest Scientists in the History of Ever.
- When the Biologist see's the strange snake like creature. This scene was freaking cringe inducing. He first pushes the Geologist back and informs him, "Hey d00d, I'm a Biologist, I got this!" Then what does he do? Suggest they keep away? Suggest they know nothing about this creature, that it could be poisonous? Nope. He tries to coddle it like it's a newborn freaking baby. Clearly, he should have kept his Helmet of +10 To Biology on. This was so, so, so stupid. It would be like if Bear Gryls stumbled upon a King Cobra, looked at the camera man, and confidentially said, "I got this," then tried to pet it while saying, "Oh, hey baby. Look at you! Aren't you precious little ange--AHHHH, AHHHHHHHHHH!" eath* I was so happy when he got his just rewards. I wanted everyone in this movie to die. Also, he tells the Geologist, "Be still!" even though the creature doesn't even have eyes.
- The helmets. Why in gods name would you EVER take off your helmet on an alien world? Yeah, maybe the air is breathable, but what if... there's a poisonous plant? Or life form? Of the atmosphere changes? P.S. IT DOES! Or some crazy space virus? P.S. THERE IS!
- When Rapace does the whole "emergency surgery" (This and the Sillica-Storm were the only good parts of the movie) thing, c-sections an alien, and then doesn't think to mention it to... anyone at all? "Hey, d00d's, I left an alien life form in Theron's room. Just thought I'd let you all know!" Hey, I have an idea, why don't you kill the thing? You know, while it's tiny? Sheesh. Again: Dumbest. Scientists. Ever.
- The Star Men DNA being a "perfect match" to our own. I could be wrong on this one but... wouldn't that mean they would actually be homo-sapiens? It clearly seemed like they had some differing traits. I don't see how they could look like that, yet be our exact DNA match.
- The Black Space Virus made the worms grow huge... yet it only made humans sick. Why didn't it make humans huge as well, or make the worms get sick but not huge? I could see it having a different effect on different creatures, but still, it's a reach.
- Why did the alien head explode? I still have no idea.
- What killed off all of the Star Men? While I was watching it, I was able to deduce that the Star Men had planned to wipe out life on earth, after they had created it. I then made the assumption that they hadn't because "something" had killed them all, leaving only one survivor in hyper-sleep. But later in the movie, Rapace says that they "changed their minds." So did they change their mind, or did they all die in an outbreak before they could carry out the plan? How was I supposed to know they changed their mind? How did she? Also, it seemed like Star Man was trying to go destroy earth again as soon as he woke up. This also led me to believe they didn't "change their mind," it was more like their plans had been thwarted somehow. Though I don't know how. What were all the holographic Star Men running from? What killed them off?
- At the end, when Rapace says she wants to, "Go to their world." I literally face palmed. Really? After all this, you haven't learned your lesson? Even though the first thing Space Man did when he woke up was rip a dude's head off? Let me guess, you're not bringing any flame throwers, either? Because, you know, you're doing Science. I hope Prometheus 2 is five minutes long, and it's just Rapace getting her head ripped off.
- There is not a single hero in this entire movie. Not a single one. I just kept waiting for someone to grow a pair, tape two guns together, and start massacring Star Men, Worm Monsters, and Super Mecha-Huge Face Huggers. But nope. Just a bunch of huge, embarrassing, stupid, wussy scientists. Even at the end, Rapace finally picks up that cool, scary Space Axe and I'm thinking, ohhhhh, yeahhh, finally getting a hero! Nope. Doesn't chop off a single tentacle. Just gets her wuss on some more, and gets lucky. The only character with even the remotest amount of bravery was the Captain, and he had like, ten lines.
- They all raise their hands at the end, when they're kamikaze-ing the Prometheus, like they're on a freaking roller-coaster. I can honestly say I laughed out loud at this part. I just want to know who's idea that was on the set.
- Fasstbender was the ONLY redeeming portion of this movie. I swear, every cool scene and good dialogue piece seemed to be reserved exclusively from him. This movie had one of the worst scripts ever. There was actually some good acting in it, but they had literally NOTHING to work with. So bad.
- Also, Guy Pierces make-up. Do I need to say more? Worst. Old-suite. Ever.
- Lastly, what I will truly never forgive it for. When someone unfamiliar with the franchise asks me "where the aliens came from," this is how I have to answer: Well, you see, there were these Space Men that created humans. And then they created a virus to extinguish humans. We don't know why, that's not important. Just hear me out. So this guy gets infected with the Space Virus, and then he has sex with his infertile wife. She somehow gets pregnant with a Space Baby, which is born slightly premature. Then the Preemie Space Baby impregnates a Space Man, and then the Space Man births the first Xenomorph. Yeah, that's where they came from... surprised you didn't know that."
As you can see, I hated it. And I'm an atheist, so I didn't think it was offensive to my faith. It was offensive to Science.
I'd go rewatch the movie if I were you since you seem to have mis-understood / missed a lot of it.
For example, the reason they raised their hands was because the captain shouted ''hands off'', since their current trajectory was going to result in a collision with the alien ship. The ''hands off'' was to make sure nobody would change their mind on the last second. You can see them raising their hands and shutting their eyes and breathing heavily, knowing this would be their last moment. Personally I liked that scene, and frankly I don't get how you get a ''rollercoaster ride'' feel out of it.
Though many of things you complained about are valid.
i liked the idea. i like it alot. someone created human life(maybe all life on the planet?). but it doesnt make sense to kill off the life with that type of biological weapon. you're replacing humans/ and all other animals with mutated space viruse creatures. great, now u have a planet full of super deadly mutations.
it seams more plausible that, being a biological weapons outpost, the purpose, was making better biological weapons. so u introduce life, come back x amount of years. introduce some aliens. and u get to see survival of the fittest make u some better biological weapons in the form of whatever thing is apex predator. but shit went south, had an outbreak. tough luck.
but knowing what she knows. i'd rather her go to the alien homeworld for revenge instead of trying to get answers.
- When Rapace looks at the guy with a flame thrower and vehemently explains: "This is a science expedition! You can't bring that thing!" Really, lady? You're going to, for the first time in human history, contact an extraterrestrial life form, who may or may not still be alive, and you don't think you should, you know, bring a weapon? If you were exploring the great pyramids on earth, yeah, great, don't bring a flame thrower. But you're on an alien planet! One you've never been to!
- When the Geologist and Biologist decide to "go back to the ship because they don't specialize in dead bodies," and then they... just wonder the cave aimlessly, presumably getting lost? They had a full 3D map of the cave, and yet they somehow end up stranded inside, yet THEY LEFT FIRST. Wouldn't Rapace and Fassbender have passed them on the way out? Nope. Somehow the GEOLOGIST gets lost IN A CAVE with a FULL 3D MAP OF THE ENTIRE COMPLEX. Dumbest. Scientists. Ever. That would have been another great name for this movie: The Dumbest Scientists in the History of Ever.
- When the Biologist see's the strange snake like creature. This scene was freaking cringe inducing. He first pushes the Geologist back and informs him, "Hey d00d, I'm a Biologist, I got this!" Then what does he do? Suggest they keep away? Suggest they know nothing about this creature, that it could be poisonous? Nope. He tries to coddle it like it's a newborn freaking baby. Clearly, he should have kept his Helmet of +10 To Biology on. This was so, so, so stupid. It would be like if Bear Gryls stumbled upon a King Cobra, looked at the camera man, and confidentially said, "I got this," then tried to pet it while saying, "Oh, hey baby. Look at you! Aren't you precious little ange--AHHHH, AHHHHHHHHHH!" eath* I was so happy when he got his just rewards. I wanted everyone in this movie to die. Also, he tells the Geologist, "Be still!" even though the creature doesn't even have eyes.
- The helmets. Why in gods name would you EVER take off your helmet on an alien world? Yeah, maybe the air is breathable, but what if... there's a poisonous plant? Or life form? Of the atmosphere changes? P.S. IT DOES! Or some crazy space virus? P.S. THERE IS!
- When Rapace does the whole "emergency surgery" (This and the Sillica-Storm were the only good parts of the movie) thing, c-sections an alien, and then doesn't think to mention it to... anyone at all? "Hey, d00d's, I left an alien life form in Theron's room. Just thought I'd let you all know!" Hey, I have an idea, why don't you kill the thing? You know, while it's tiny? Sheesh. Again: Dumbest. Scientists. Ever.
- The Star Men DNA being a "perfect match" to our own. I could be wrong on this one but... wouldn't that mean they would actually be homo-sapiens? It clearly seemed like they had some differing traits. I don't see how they could look like that, yet be our exact DNA match.
- The Black Space Virus made the worms grow huge... yet it only made humans sick. Why didn't it make humans huge as well, or make the worms get sick but not huge? I could see it having a different effect on different creatures, but still, it's a reach.
- Why did the alien head explode? I still have no idea.
- What killed off all of the Star Men? While I was watching it, I was able to deduce that the Star Men had planned to wipe out life on earth, after they had created it. I then made the assumption that they hadn't because "something" had killed them all, leaving only one survivor in hyper-sleep. But later in the movie, Rapace says that they "changed their minds." So did they change their mind, or did they all die in an outbreak before they could carry out the plan? How was I supposed to know they changed their mind? How did she? Also, it seemed like Star Man was trying to go destroy earth again as soon as he woke up. This also led me to believe they didn't "change their mind," it was more like their plans had been thwarted somehow. Though I don't know how. What were all the holographic Star Men running from? What killed them off?
- At the end, when Rapace says she wants to, "Go to their world." I literally face palmed. Really? After all this, you haven't learned your lesson? Even though the first thing Space Man did when he woke up was rip a dude's head off? Let me guess, you're not bringing any flame throwers, either? Because, you know, you're doing Science. I hope Prometheus 2 is five minutes long, and it's just Rapace getting her head ripped off.
- There is not a single hero in this entire movie. Not a single one. I just kept waiting for someone to grow a pair, tape two guns together, and start massacring Star Men, Worm Monsters, and Super Mecha-Huge Face Huggers. But nope. Just a bunch of huge, embarrassing, stupid, wussy scientists. Even at the end, Rapace finally picks up that cool, scary Space Axe and I'm thinking, ohhhhh, yeahhh, finally getting a hero! Nope. Doesn't chop off a single tentacle. Just gets her wuss on some more, and gets lucky. The only character with even the remotest amount of bravery was the Captain, and he had like, ten lines.
- They all raise their hands at the end, when they're kamikaze-ing the Prometheus, like they're on a freaking roller-coaster. I can honestly say I laughed out loud at this part. I just want to know who's idea that was on the set.
- Fasstbender was the ONLY redeeming portion of this movie. I swear, every cool scene and good dialogue piece seemed to be reserved exclusively from him. This movie had one of the worst scripts ever. There was actually some good acting in it, but they had literally NOTHING to work with. So bad.
- Also, Guy Pierces make-up. Do I need to say more? Worst. Old-suite. Ever.
- Lastly, what I will truly never forgive it for. When someone unfamiliar with the franchise asks me "where the aliens came from," this is how I have to answer: Well, you see, there were these Space Men that created humans. And then they created a virus to extinguish humans. We don't know why, that's not important. Just hear me out. So this guy gets infected with the Space Virus, and then he has sex with his infertile wife. She somehow gets pregnant with a Space Baby, which is born slightly premature. Then the Preemie Space Baby impregnates a Space Man, and then the Space Man births the first Xenomorph. Yeah, that's where they came from... surprised you didn't know that."
As you can see, I hated it. And I'm an atheist, so I didn't think it was offensive to my faith. It was offensive to Science.
I'd go rewatch the movie if I were you since you seem to have mis-understood / missed a lot of it.
For example, the reason they raised their hands was because the captain shouted ''hands off'', since their current trajectory was going to result in a collision with the alien ship. The ''hands off'' was to make sure nobody would change their mind on the last second. You can see them raising their hands and shutting their eyes and breathing heavily, knowing this would be their last moment. Personally I liked that scene, and frankly I don't get how you get a ''rollercoaster ride'' feel out of it.
Though many of things you complained about are valid.
I can't see how kellenr mis-understood/missed anything. He could probably add some more to that list actually.
Regarding the 'hands off' scene, I thought it was ridicules as well.
Its not because I do not understand why/how the scene works, but because the characters are underdeveloped, poorly written with no motivation, which makes the scene stupid. 'Yeah sure lets do what the crazy scientist says, I don't give a shit about my life because I have no personality -hands off!'
Its an extremely tense moment where the captain and his men decides to sacrifice themselves (and takes the rest of the crew's fate in their own hands...), yet the tone is weird. I would ague that if they had kept their hands on, it could have made the scene slightly stronger as showing their determination. Instead it feels like they throw their hands in the air, like they just don't care.
As a quick comparison look at the scene in Camerons 'Aliens' (spolier) when Gorman and Vasquez use a grenade, and kills/sacrifice themselves in an attempt to delay the aliens. The tone is clear and strong, we feel for the characters as they both redeem themselves -Gorman from his horrible lack of decision making, and Vasquez from her arrogance. Now think about the scene in Prometheus again... it kinda looks like a silly roller-coaster.
On June 10 2012 19:45 Hairy wrote: I wish people would stop posting that link to someone explaining what he thinks the film was about like it somehow makes everything ok:
A film should be able to properly communicate what's going on to the audience. If it cannot manage this, it has failed. If you need someone to explain why everything in the film was so clever, it is not clever. It's the equivalent of telling a joke to an audience, NOBODY LAUGHING, and then explaining (in length) to the audience why they should have found it funny.
The person who wrote that 'explanation' is just some random guy telling you what HE thinks happened, and what HE thinks the reasoning behind it was. He explains why the engineer in the opening scene drank the solution that killed him; the symbolic and special meaning behind this; how this sentiment/theme is echoed throughout the movie; and how this was all very, very clever. But it's just his interpretation of what he saw - it doesn't make it correct, as there's virtually no actual information to go on. It's actually a bit tenuous to say it's speculation - it's almost pure guesswork.
If I were to think the alien man was just a bit of an idiot and drank something he shouldn't, you have no way to prove me wrong because the film simply doesn't provide enough information to do so. And, honestly, if the alien man did just drink the solution because he was a bit of an idiot it actually would be incredibly consistent with with the rest of the film given the behaviour of many characters in the story.
Even if there ARE a lot of interesting sub-plots etc etc going on, there are so many nonsensical things that happen, and the characters in the film continuously do such stupid and idiotic things (sometimes completely contrary to previous character development), that it is hard for many people to take the film seriously. This is due to 'suspension of disbelief' being broken - we are all gamers here, so chances are that you will have heard this term thrown around in game reviews. Essentially, when being told a story we are all happy to accept the story 'universe', providing that the 'universe' remains consistent with itself, and that everything within it makes sense and can be explained logically. However, if anything jarrs uncomfortably out of place it will drastically (sometimes irreparably) destroy the believability of that story, and your enjoyment is lost.
When watching Lord of the Rings we accept that Gandalf can cast magic spells, that there are tiny people called hobbits, and that there are monsters out there in the world such as trolls and orcs and goblins. However, if Frodo decided he was bored of all this walking, pulled out a jetpack and flew himself to Mordor, this would break the suspension of disbelief entirely because it simply doesn't make sense.
For me, and many other people watching the film, some of what happens in Prometheus is as bad as Frodo's jetpack.
I think the more proper comparison would be this:
If most movies made logical sense, there would be no plot. For instance, I always like to use the Haunted House story: If two people walked up to a really spooky haunted house that obviously looked a little sketchy, they normally would not bother to go in. But this is a scary movie and requires a plot. It wouldn't be interesting if they just walked away; in fact our movie would just go strait to credits. Illogical events make things interesting.
Use your imagination! There is an explanation you can come up with!
You make me angry with the mental gymnastics you're having to execute to disagree.
You can always put characters into a predicament without hurting suspension of disbelief. Always. Read, Always.
"If most movies made logical sense, there would be no plot". Wow.
That's all the time I have to spend marveling at how you interpret script writing, back to Prometheus:
Look for subtlety all you want, great. Subtlety is awesome, artistic, leaves room for writers to express broader ideas. However, if your audience has to build up a large and complex world around your subtle hints alone, and fill in large parts of the plot of your story using this audience created vision (which will differ vastly from person-to-person), you've failed as a writer.
This was Fantasy-Fiction, when most people came to the theater looking for Science-Fiction. In Sci-fi things shouldn't be mystic and magical. I shouldn't have to read an article that tells me the engineers gave us Jesus and we killed him, to understand the plot.
The character development is also horrifyingly bad. Who are these 3 idiots going to commit suicide to stop the ship? Why do I care about them?
Stop being such a professional movie critic and enjoy. No, every little thing in the movie doesn't have to be explained. The silly illogical choices made by characters in the movie actually made the movie a little suspenseful and exciting at times. Lol, when the ship was rolling they could have just ran to the side and both survived but they didn't do that and I was on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen. It just adds a little excitement.
Additionally, it's ok if the audience creates it's own vision on the movie. It's like a book; makes you think. You don't think writers of novels who leave parts of plot for the reader to formulate in their own minds are failures, too? Books like those tend to leave a lasting impression beyond the reading experience. Movies like that work in a similar fashion.
Lets not forget the Alien lore. Such lore goes far beyond that of a single movie. The movie doesn't have to explain all the lore. There are other mediums for that. Think of Star Wars.
Saying anything but the "rolling ship" scene was stupid is just... idk. That scene was laugh out loud horrible. How did Scott see that in the edit room and say "ya this is good to go."
this movie was great, just from being a fan of sci-fi it had everything I wanted and expected. I am just going to ignore the space jesus argument and go with a more sci fi approach to answer some of the unexplained parts of the movie.
- When Rapace looks at the guy with a flame thrower and vehemently explains: "This is a science expedition! You can't bring that thing!" Really, lady? You're going to, for the first time in human history, contact an extraterrestrial life form, who may or may not still be alive, and you don't think you should, you know, bring a weapon? If you were exploring the great pyramids on earth, yeah, great, don't bring a flame thrower. But you're on an alien planet! One you've never been to!
- When the Geologist and Biologist decide to "go back to the ship because they don't specialize in dead bodies," and then they... just wonder the cave aimlessly, presumably getting lost? They had a full 3D map of the cave, and yet they somehow end up stranded inside, yet THEY LEFT FIRST. Wouldn't Rapace and Fassbender have passed them on the way out? Nope. Somehow the GEOLOGIST gets lost IN A CAVE with a FULL 3D MAP OF THE ENTIRE COMPLEX. Dumbest. Scientists. Ever. That would have been another great name for this movie: The Dumbest Scientists in the History of Ever.
- When the Biologist see's the strange snake like creature. This scene was freaking cringe inducing. He first pushes the Geologist back and informs him, "Hey d00d, I'm a Biologist, I got this!" Then what does he do? Suggest they keep away? Suggest they know nothing about this creature, that it could be poisonous? Nope. He tries to coddle it like it's a newborn freaking baby. Clearly, he should have kept his Helmet of +10 To Biology on. This was so, so, so stupid. It would be like if Bear Gryls stumbled upon a King Cobra, looked at the camera man, and confidentially said, "I got this," then tried to pet it while saying, "Oh, hey baby. Look at you! Aren't you precious little ange--AHHHH, AHHHHHHHHHH!" eath* I was so happy when he got his just rewards. I wanted everyone in this movie to die. Also, he tells the Geologist, "Be still!" even though the creature doesn't even have eyes.
- The helmets. Why in gods name would you EVER take off your helmet on an alien world? Yeah, maybe the air is breathable, but what if... there's a poisonous plant? Or life form? Of the atmosphere changes? P.S. IT DOES! Or some crazy space virus? P.S. THERE IS!
- When Rapace does the whole "emergency surgery" (This and the Sillica-Storm were the only good parts of the movie) thing, c-sections an alien, and then doesn't think to mention it to... anyone at all? "Hey, d00d's, I left an alien life form in Theron's room. Just thought I'd let you all know!" Hey, I have an idea, why don't you kill the thing? You know, while it's tiny? Sheesh. Again: Dumbest. Scientists. Ever.
- The Star Men DNA being a "perfect match" to our own. I could be wrong on this one but... wouldn't that mean they would actually be homo-sapiens? It clearly seemed like they had some differing traits. I don't see how they could look like that, yet be our exact DNA match.
- The Black Space Virus made the worms grow huge... yet it only made humans sick. Why didn't it make humans huge as well, or make the worms get sick but not huge? I could see it having a different effect on different creatures, but still, it's a reach.
- Why did the alien head explode? I still have no idea.
- What killed off all of the Star Men? While I was watching it, I was able to deduce that the Star Men had planned to wipe out life on earth, after they had created it. I then made the assumption that they hadn't because "something" had killed them all, leaving only one survivor in hyper-sleep. But later in the movie, Rapace says that they "changed their minds." So did they change their mind, or did they all die in an outbreak before they could carry out the plan? How was I supposed to know they changed their mind? How did she? Also, it seemed like Star Man was trying to go destroy earth again as soon as he woke up. This also led me to believe they didn't "change their mind," it was more like their plans had been thwarted somehow. Though I don't know how. What were all the holographic Star Men running from? What killed them off?
- At the end, when Rapace says she wants to, "Go to their world." I literally face palmed. Really? After all this, you haven't learned your lesson? Even though the first thing Space Man did when he woke up was rip a dude's head off? Let me guess, you're not bringing any flame throwers, either? Because, you know, you're doing Science. I hope Prometheus 2 is five minutes long, and it's just Rapace getting her head ripped off.
- There is not a single hero in this entire movie. Not a single one. I just kept waiting for someone to grow a pair, tape two guns together, and start massacring Star Men, Worm Monsters, and Super Mecha-Huge Face Huggers. But nope. Just a bunch of huge, embarrassing, stupid, wussy scientists. Even at the end, Rapace finally picks up that cool, scary Space Axe and I'm thinking, ohhhhh, yeahhh, finally getting a hero! Nope. Doesn't chop off a single tentacle. Just gets her wuss on some more, and gets lucky. The only character with even the remotest amount of bravery was the Captain, and he had like, ten lines.
- They all raise their hands at the end, when they're kamikaze-ing the Prometheus, like they're on a freaking roller-coaster. I can honestly say I laughed out loud at this part. I just want to know who's idea that was on the set.
- Fasstbender was the ONLY redeeming portion of this movie. I swear, every cool scene and good dialogue piece seemed to be reserved exclusively from him. This movie had one of the worst scripts ever. There was actually some good acting in it, but they had literally NOTHING to work with. So bad.
- Also, Guy Pierces make-up. Do I need to say more? Worst. Old-suite. Ever.
- Lastly, what I will truly never forgive it for. When someone unfamiliar with the franchise asks me "where the aliens came from," this is how I have to answer: Well, you see, there were these Space Men that created humans. And then they created a virus to extinguish humans. We don't know why, that's not important. Just hear me out. So this guy gets infected with the Space Virus, and then he has sex with his infertile wife. She somehow gets pregnant with a Space Baby, which is born slightly premature. Then the Preemie Space Baby impregnates a Space Man, and then the Space Man births the first Xenomorph. Yeah, that's where they came from... surprised you didn't know that."
As you can see, I hated it. And I'm an atheist, so I didn't think it was offensive to my faith. It was offensive to Science.
I'd go rewatch the movie if I were you since you seem to have mis-understood / missed a lot of it.
For example, the reason they raised their hands was because the captain shouted ''hands off'', since their current trajectory was going to result in a collision with the alien ship. The ''hands off'' was to make sure nobody would change their mind on the last second. You can see them raising their hands and shutting their eyes and breathing heavily, knowing this would be their last moment. Personally I liked that scene, and frankly I don't get how you get a ''rollercoaster ride'' feel out of it.
Though many of things you complained about are valid.
I can't see how kellenr mis-understood/missed anything. He could probably add some more to that list actually.
Regarding the 'hands off' scene, I thought it was ridicules as well.
Its not because I do not understand why/how the scene works, but because the characters are underdeveloped, poorly written with no motivation, which makes the scene stupid. 'Yeah sure lets do what the crazy scientist says, I don't give a shit about my life because I have no personality -hands off!'
Its an extremely tense moment where the captain and his men decides to sacrifice themselves (and takes the rest of the crew's fate in their own hands...), yet the tone is weird. I would ague that if they had kept their hands on, it could have made the scene slightly stronger as showing their determination. Instead it feels like they throw their hands in the air, like they just don't care.
As a quick comparison look at the scene in Camerons 'Aliens' (spolier) when Gorman and Vasquez use a grenade, and kills/sacrifice themselves in an attempt to delay the aliens. The tone is clear and strong, we feel for the characters as they both redeem themselves -Gorman from his horrible lack of decision making, and Vasquez from her arrogance. Now think about the scene in Prometheus again... it kinda looks like a silly roller-coaster.
I absolutely could add to this list. I didn't even cover the whole, take two steps to your left to avoid being crushed by the massive spaceship part, or the most laughably wuss-tastic flamethrower in the history of Hollywood.
See: When Ripley torches all of the alien eggs in Aliens... now THAT'S a flamethrower!
On June 10 2012 19:45 Hairy wrote: I wish people would stop posting that link to someone explaining what he thinks the film was about like it somehow makes everything ok:
A film should be able to properly communicate what's going on to the audience. If it cannot manage this, it has failed. If you need someone to explain why everything in the film was so clever, it is not clever. It's the equivalent of telling a joke to an audience, NOBODY LAUGHING, and then explaining (in length) to the audience why they should have found it funny.
The person who wrote that 'explanation' is just some random guy telling you what HE thinks happened, and what HE thinks the reasoning behind it was. He explains why the engineer in the opening scene drank the solution that killed him; the symbolic and special meaning behind this; how this sentiment/theme is echoed throughout the movie; and how this was all very, very clever. But it's just his interpretation of what he saw - it doesn't make it correct, as there's virtually no actual information to go on. It's actually a bit tenuous to say it's speculation - it's almost pure guesswork.
If I were to think the alien man was just a bit of an idiot and drank something he shouldn't, you have no way to prove me wrong because the film simply doesn't provide enough information to do so. And, honestly, if the alien man did just drink the solution because he was a bit of an idiot it actually would be incredibly consistent with with the rest of the film given the behaviour of many characters in the story.
Even if there ARE a lot of interesting sub-plots etc etc going on, there are so many nonsensical things that happen, and the characters in the film continuously do such stupid and idiotic things (sometimes completely contrary to previous character development), that it is hard for many people to take the film seriously. This is due to 'suspension of disbelief' being broken - we are all gamers here, so chances are that you will have heard this term thrown around in game reviews. Essentially, when being told a story we are all happy to accept the story 'universe', providing that the 'universe' remains consistent with itself, and that everything within it makes sense and can be explained logically. However, if anything jarrs uncomfortably out of place it will drastically (sometimes irreparably) destroy the believability of that story, and your enjoyment is lost.
When watching Lord of the Rings we accept that Gandalf can cast magic spells, that there are tiny people called hobbits, and that there are monsters out there in the world such as trolls and orcs and goblins. However, if Frodo decided he was bored of all this walking, pulled out a jetpack and flew himself to Mordor, this would break the suspension of disbelief entirely because it simply doesn't make sense.
For me, and many other people watching the film, some of what happens in Prometheus is as bad as Frodo's jetpack.
I think the more proper comparison would be this:
If most movies made logical sense, there would be no plot. For instance, I always like to use the Haunted House story: If two people walked up to a really spooky haunted house that obviously looked a little sketchy, they normally would not bother to go in. But this is a scary movie and requires a plot. It wouldn't be interesting if they just walked away; in fact our movie would just go strait to credits. Illogical events make things interesting.
Use your imagination! There is an explanation you can come up with!
You make me angry with the mental gymnastics you're having to execute to disagree.
You can always put characters into a predicament without hurting suspension of disbelief. Always. Read, Always.
"If most movies made logical sense, there would be no plot". Wow.
That's all the time I have to spend marveling at how you interpret script writing, back to Prometheus:
Look for subtlety all you want, great. Subtlety is awesome, artistic, leaves room for writers to express broader ideas. However, if your audience has to build up a large and complex world around your subtle hints alone, and fill in large parts of the plot of your story using this audience created vision (which will differ vastly from person-to-person), you've failed as a writer.
This was Fantasy-Fiction, when most people came to the theater looking for Science-Fiction. In Sci-fi things shouldn't be mystic and magical. I shouldn't have to read an article that tells me the engineers gave us Jesus and we killed him, to understand the plot.
The character development is also horrifyingly bad. Who are these 3 idiots going to commit suicide to stop the ship? Why do I care about them?
Stop being such a professional movie critic and enjoy. No, every little thing in the movie doesn't have to be explained. The silly illogical choices made by characters in the movie actually made the movie a little suspenseful and exciting at times. Lol, when the ship was rolling they could have just ran to the side and both survived but they didn't do that and I was on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen. It just adds a little excitement.
Additionally, it's ok if the audience creates it's own vision on the movie. It's like a book; makes you think. You don't think writers of novels who leave parts of plot for the reader to formulate in their own minds are failures, too? Books like those tend to leave a lasting impression beyond the reading experience. Movies like that work in a similar fashion.
Lets not forget the Alien lore. Such lore goes far beyond that of a single movie. The movie doesn't have to explain all the lore. There are other mediums for that. Think of Star Wars.
You don't have to have characters making stupid decisions for it to be "suspenseful." Just look at Alien and Aliens... plenty of suspense, few stupid decisions. I'll tell you my exact thought process as I watched that scene: "Oh, cool, I wonder who's going to live and have access to the life-pod! This is quite the sticky situation! *Rapace trips and rolls out of the way* Oh, wow, that was, wow... Charlize just... Charlize! Were you not paying attention?! Left! Go left! No right! Just pick a direction, other than your current one, and you will be--*smush* Well good. That's what you get for being a big fat idiot."
That's how I felt during every death scene: Awesome, another idiot down! I'm not sure, but I think I'm supposed to actually care about the characters when they die. Tell me, were you sad when Rapace's boyfriend got fried by the most wussy flamethrower of all time? Were you sad when the Geologist and Biologist died? How about Charlize Theron? Or Wayland? Nope. Could have cared less about the whole lot--except Fassbender. I was genuinely sad when he got his head ripped off. Also, notice I keep referring to them by their actual names? It's because I can't remember anyone's name from the movie. Not a single one. But I sure remember Apone, Hicks, Hudson, Ripley, Vasquaz, Frost, Newt... and I cared when/if any of them died. These are actual characters you can root for. This is an actual script, with a coherent plot.
An easily escaped situation is not scary. Just look at Bruce Willis jumping off of the roof in Die Hard with that fire-hose tied around his waist. Now that's suspense. That's a hard to escape situation. If he had just taken two steps to his left, and survived... I would have felt silly. A hard to escape situation is always going to be more suspenseful than an easy to escape one. Sorry.
You can't just use "the audience has to make inferences" as an excuse for a movie not making sense and having a terrible script with awful, stereotypical, archetypal, cardboard cut-out characters.
this movie was really bad. BAD BAD BAD, its been a long time since I have been that disappointed, gotta go all the way back to War of The Worlds for that. Characters are so stupid it hurts, I know people dont make the smartest choices in "heat of the moment", but some of these guys go out of their way to fail. "Oh, that thing looks cute, hey baby, let me pet you"!
I really wanted this movie to be good, the trailer looked really cool, but oh well.
On June 11 2012 04:08 Poyo wrote: Ridley should retire. I was hoping Prometheus would redeem him of his latest failures, but unfortunately that did not happen.
He lost his magic touch that's the only way I can explain this.
The best cast in the world couldn't save Prometheus from its disaster of a script and storyline.
I'm a massive fan of the Ridley's older work and Alien specifically, other than being visually stunning, this "half prequel" was a complete failure.
My 2 cents.
Could you please explain "recent failure" to me? I mean, when you look at the American Gangster, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Body of Lies, Kingdom of Heaven or even as far as G. I. Jane you can't really say they were bad movies (BHD remains one of my most favorite movies to date and I even enjoyed his Robin Hood).
The problem is, you can't really make a cheesy sci-fi movie any more to really appeal to the hardcore fans who remember the classics and hold them dear (I've just re-watched Johnny Mnemonic and found it outstanding, even though the acting was atrocious and plot was pretty shallow). It's harder to accomplish than in the 80's or 90's for sure, but it can still be done. I'm still waiting for the movie industry to adapt and wish for at least one good interpretation of a good sci-fi book.
On June 11 2012 04:08 Poyo wrote: Ridley should retire. I was hoping Prometheus would redeem him of his latest failures, but unfortunately that did not happen.
He lost his magic touch that's the only way I can explain this.
The best cast in the world couldn't save Prometheus from its disaster of a script and storyline.
I'm a massive fan of the Ridley's older work and Alien specifically, other than being visually stunning, this "half prequel" was a complete failure.
My 2 cents.
Could you please explain "recent failure" to me? I mean, when you look at the American Gangster, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Body of Lies, Kingdom of Heaven or even as far as G. I. Jane you can't really say they were bad movies (BHD remains one of my most favorite movies to date and I even enjoyed his Robin Hood).
The problem is, you can't really make a cheesy sci-fi movie any more to really appeal to the hardcore fans who remember the classics and hold them dear (I've just re-watched Johnny Mnemonic and found it outstanding, even though the acting was atrocious and plot was pretty shallow). It's harder to accomplish than in the 80's or 90's for sure, but it can still be done. I'm still waiting for the movie industry to adapt and wish for at least one good interpretation of a good sci-fi book.
LATEST failures refers to Body of lies and Robin hood, the latter being actually terrible.
American Gangster was his last successful movie in my opinion, everything since went steadily down hill.
I was really hoping its just a little stumble on the road, but Prometheus continues the downward trend.
Hopefully he bounces back with his next project, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
On June 10 2012 19:45 Hairy wrote: I wish people would stop posting that link to someone explaining what he thinks the film was about like it somehow makes everything ok:
A film should be able to properly communicate what's going on to the audience. If it cannot manage this, it has failed. If you need someone to explain why everything in the film was so clever, it is not clever. It's the equivalent of telling a joke to an audience, NOBODY LAUGHING, and then explaining (in length) to the audience why they should have found it funny.
The person who wrote that 'explanation' is just some random guy telling you what HE thinks happened, and what HE thinks the reasoning behind it was. He explains why the engineer in the opening scene drank the solution that killed him; the symbolic and special meaning behind this; how this sentiment/theme is echoed throughout the movie; and how this was all very, very clever. But it's just his interpretation of what he saw - it doesn't make it correct, as there's virtually no actual information to go on. It's actually a bit tenuous to say it's speculation - it's almost pure guesswork.
If I were to think the alien man was just a bit of an idiot and drank something he shouldn't, you have no way to prove me wrong because the film simply doesn't provide enough information to do so. And, honestly, if the alien man did just drink the solution because he was a bit of an idiot it actually would be incredibly consistent with with the rest of the film given the behaviour of many characters in the story.
Even if there ARE a lot of interesting sub-plots etc etc going on, there are so many nonsensical things that happen, and the characters in the film continuously do such stupid and idiotic things (sometimes completely contrary to previous character development), that it is hard for many people to take the film seriously. This is due to 'suspension of disbelief' being broken - we are all gamers here, so chances are that you will have heard this term thrown around in game reviews. Essentially, when being told a story we are all happy to accept the story 'universe', providing that the 'universe' remains consistent with itself, and that everything within it makes sense and can be explained logically. However, if anything jarrs uncomfortably out of place it will drastically (sometimes irreparably) destroy the believability of that story, and your enjoyment is lost.
When watching Lord of the Rings we accept that Gandalf can cast magic spells, that there are tiny people called hobbits, and that there are monsters out there in the world such as trolls and orcs and goblins. However, if Frodo decided he was bored of all this walking, pulled out a jetpack and flew himself to Mordor, this would break the suspension of disbelief entirely because it simply doesn't make sense.
For me, and many other people watching the film, some of what happens in Prometheus is as bad as Frodo's jetpack.
I think the more proper comparison would be this:
If most movies made logical sense, there would be no plot. For instance, I always like to use the Haunted House story: If two people walked up to a really spooky haunted house that obviously looked a little sketchy, they normally would not bother to go in. But this is a scary movie and requires a plot. It wouldn't be interesting if they just walked away; in fact our movie would just go strait to credits. Illogical events make things interesting.
Use your imagination! There is an explanation you can come up with!
You make me angry with the mental gymnastics you're having to execute to disagree.
You can always put characters into a predicament without hurting suspension of disbelief. Always. Read, Always.
"If most movies made logical sense, there would be no plot". Wow.
That's all the time I have to spend marveling at how you interpret script writing, back to Prometheus:
Look for subtlety all you want, great. Subtlety is awesome, artistic, leaves room for writers to express broader ideas. However, if your audience has to build up a large and complex world around your subtle hints alone, and fill in large parts of the plot of your story using this audience created vision (which will differ vastly from person-to-person), you've failed as a writer.
This was Fantasy-Fiction, when most people came to the theater looking for Science-Fiction. In Sci-fi things shouldn't be mystic and magical. I shouldn't have to read an article that tells me the engineers gave us Jesus and we killed him, to understand the plot.
The character development is also horrifyingly bad. Who are these 3 idiots going to commit suicide to stop the ship? Why do I care about them?
Additionally, it's ok if the audience creates it's own vision on the movie. It's like a book; makes you think. You don't think writers of novels who leave parts of plot for the reader to formulate in their own minds are failures, too? Books like those tend to leave a lasting impression beyond the reading experience.
No, I haven't read a book that required me to read an article to explain all the plot holes. Please, share with me some of the books you have been reading.
Yes, movies and books should make you think. But they shouldn't make me think "This is stupid."
EPT
eath* I was so happy when he got his just rewards. I wanted everyone in this movie to die. Also, he tells the Geologist, "Be still!" even though the creature doesn't even have eyes.
