DEBATE: SPOILERS
Alien vs Prometheus or how we've lost the ability to make a good movie:

ALIEN: Opening sequence...Jerry Goldsmith's desolate score sets the mood in space.
PROMETHEUS: Sweeping landscapes and sweeping score. Am I watching BBC Planet Earth?

ALIEN: An unexplained signal pulls the Nostromo off course to have the crew investigate. Pretty straight forward.
PROMETHEUS: Explorers find cryptic symbols from different cultures giving them "a map" to come find this location. WHY?

ALIEN: Blue collar workers have to rouse out of sleep to slag some extra hours in something they don't want to do. Pale, bitter, low lives. Sigorney is a woman in a man's world.
PROMETHEUS: Pretty boy scientists gather together to actively invest trillions on a "hunch" from some cave drawings. To BOOT they don't even know how to do their job.
GEOLOGIST: Gets lost
BIOLOGIST: Approaches an unknown species like it's his long lost friend when obviously it is threatened/hungry.
SCIENTIST?: Who takes off his helmet in a foreign environment. Even HG Wells knew that aliens don't have the same resistances that we have on our own home world. And that was 200 years ago. As a side note: How does he have a perfect tan after being in suspended animation for 2 years?
CAPTAIN: Decides to have sex with his employer while neglecting a very real threat of life closing in on two of his crew members.

If they were going for the Michael Chriton Jurassic Park module. At least THEY KNEW HOW TO DO THEIR JOBS and didn't make stupid mistakes. What makes JP work is strong protagonists who you feel for because they are getting their asses handed to them by circumstance and dinosaurs.

Alien: 1 Creature. Terrifying.
PROMETHEUS: MULTIPLE confusing
DNA eater from the little Mary Kay Cosmetics pack the alien eats in the beginning.
SPACE JOCKEYS
BLACK OOZE CANISTERS which apparently makes zombies - never explained.
SNAKE THINGIES
BIG SQUID PREGNANCY THINGIES

Other unanswered treats:

Why would the murals change in the chamber? Why reference the "alien" if it hasn't even come to be yet? Why slip pretty boy the black ooze if you don't know the results. Could you have predicted that Pretty boy and Noomi would have sex? When she became pregnant why would the "alien" be a direct result of this....

Black ooze into pretty boy --- Sex with Noomi -- Resulting in pregnancy of squid thing -- Squid thing "impregnates?" Space Jockey -- resulting in ...."Alien" breed?

The very simple mythos of "Alien" is that they were bio-engineered weapons. The face huggers aren't "mating". They are transporting their egg into a host so it can feed. Much like a wasp laying it's eggs on a tarantula. So the idea of an alien coming from this makes nooooo sense whatsoever.

I'm going to stop here before it becomes the Great Wall of China of text.

TyrantII: DamnYankees: Surool: DamnYankees: Surool: It is not a separate question. He couldn't know what would happen. When he exposed Holloway, he seemed to be doing it for the hell of it... in spite of the mutagen not having anything to do with his primary mission and potentially killing everyone including the old man.

I don't think its fair to say this. We have absolutely no idea why David did what he did. But if you are allowed to assume he did it without a plan and without precaution, I don't see why I can't assume the opposite. We're both in the dark on that one.

They didn't show anything... it didn't happen. Don't be an apologist for filmmakers who take drastic shortcuts. If you let them off the hook for sloppy work, we'll never get to see a good movie again.

You are right. They didn't show anything. So why is your assumption right and mine is wrong? I think its extremely clear from the movie that David has hidden motivations for doing certain things, and is taking instructions we're not privy to. I don't think its a leap to tie that to the infection. You are making just as big an assumption assuming that a robot is doing stuff just for the hell of it, which strikes me as literally impossible. He is a computer, after all. GIGO.

Because you have an imagination and can draw from it, and autistic Steve over there believes if he didn't see it, then it never happened.

//Really, if you can't use your imagination to fill in the small details, just stop. You're dead inside, you're neurotic, and you won't enjoy any sort of art or entertainment. And stop trying to make others as dead and miserable as you!

This made my night :)

Fanboys are seriously the worst. What's amazing is how they will stick up for simple movies like The Avengers where everything is explained to the point where it's just retarded, vs a movie like Prometheus where if it's not explained, it's considered sloppy writing.

/Everyone is going to hate the new Batman movie

PanicMan: TyrantII: The rest were picked because of their ability to blindly do the things needed, and the fact that they were of questionable moral character if the need arise that Weyland needed to skip certain normal protocols to reach his goal sooner.

You might have assumed this, but it was never established in the movie.

Sure, there's no such thing as literary devices after all.

If it isn't spelled out visually, or said directly, it didn't happen.

Please. The whole point of a story is to use you imagination to connect the dots. Seems the internet is full of autistic manics that can not do so.

quiotu: Honestly my biggest complaint was that old man Weyland came along. Not only is that patently retarded thinking, going on a potential suicide mission with not only the CEO but his daughter as well, it left a ton of plotholes. Essentially, Weyland was a plot device.

Everyone was having issues coming out of cryogenic sleep, you're telling me this frail old man who can barely walk survived without issues? I only liked the issues being there at all because it shows they hadn't perfected cryogenic sleep yet.

So it explains a state of the art medpod on board and it being calibrated for men, but I'm supposed to believe this top tier medical pod can only be programmed to deal with one gender at a time? Really?

Aside from the stupid technology gaps, Weyland being there at least explains the why and how. Weyland personally funds a trip to find God and learn the secrets of immortality, bringing the two experts he needs and a bunch of morons who can do the job well enough, but are completely expendable and won't be missed if sacrificed. The only expert and essential on board is David, who is smart and amoral enough to finds the answers with or at the expense of every other crew member.

I can only figure he brought his daughter along because he hated her. Seriously, any Weyland rep could've led the expedition, but he brought her along just to prove her wrong and show just how much he loved David more.

It all sort of makes sense when you consider it was an old powerful megalomaniac who funded the expidition so his sociopathic ass could live forever.

UGH!

THAT WAS THE WHOLE FREAKING POINT OF THE WHOLE MOVIE!

Really people, did you watch the movie or talk on your cellphone about how stupid it was the whole time? Weyland was on a one way mission to find death or redemption, period. Everyone else was duped and simply along from the ride. Vickers wasn't even supposed to be there, but tagged along after Weyland went to sleep. David was the only one who knew everything from the start.

Daercoma: DEBATE: SPOILERS
Alien vs Prometheus or how we've lost the ability to make a good movie:

ALIEN: Opening sequence...Jerry Goldsmith's desolate score sets the mood in space.
PROMETHEUS: Sweeping landscapes and sweeping score. Am I watching BBC Planet Earth?

ALIEN: An unexplained signal pulls the Nostromo off course to have the crew investigate. Pretty straight forward.
PROMETHEUS: Explorers find cryptic symbols from different cultures giving them "a map" to come find this location. WHY?

ALIEN: Blue collar workers have to rouse out of sleep to slag some extra hours in something they don't want to do. Pale, bitter, low lives. Sigorney is a woman in a man's world.
PROMETHEUS: Pretty boy scientists gather together to actively invest trillions on a "hunch" from some cave drawings. To BOOT they don't even know how to do their job.
GEOLOGIST: Gets lost
BIOLOGIST: Approaches an unknown species like it's his long lost friend when obviously it is threatened/hungry.
SCIENTIST?: Who takes off his helmet in a foreign environment. Even HG Wells knew that aliens don't have the same resistances that we have on our own home world. And that was 200 years ago. As a side note: How does he have a perfect tan after being in suspended animation for 2 years?
CAPTAIN: Decides to have sex with his employer while neglecting a very real threat of life closing in on two of his crew members.

If they were going for the Michael Chriton Jurassic Park module. At least THEY KNEW HOW TO DO THEIR JOBS and didn't make stupid mistakes. What makes JP work is strong protagonists who you feel for because they are getting their asses handed to them by circumstance and dinosaurs.

Alien: 1 Creature. Terrifying.
PROMETHEUS: MULTIPLE confusing
DNA eater from the little Mary Kay Cosmetics pack the alien eats in the beginning.
SPACE JOCKEYS
BLACK OOZE CANISTERS which apparently makes zombies - never explained.
SNAKE THINGIES
BIG SQUID PREGNANCY THINGIES

Other unanswered treats:

Why would the murals change in the chamber? Why reference the "alien" if it hasn't even come to be yet? Why slip pretty boy the black ooze if you don't know the results. Could you have predicted that Pretty boy and Noomi would have sex? When she became pregnant why would the "alien" be a direct result of this....

Black ooze into pretty boy --- Sex with Noomi -- Resulting in pregnancy of squid thing -- Squid thing "impregnates?" Space Jockey -- resulting in ...."Alien" breed?

The very simple mythos of "Alien" is that they were bio-engineered weapons. The face huggers aren't "mating". They are transporting their egg into a host so it can feed. Much like a wasp laying it's eggs on a tarantula. So the idea of an alien coming from this makes nooooo sense whatsoever.

I'm going to stop here before it becomes the Great Wall of China of text.

You seem upset.

It's a movie, not a documentary you neckbeard autist

Neil deGrasse Tyson's tweet after seeing Prometheus: "Prometheus goes 35 light yrs into space, but CharlizeTheron gaffes "We're a half billion miles from Earth"- just past Jupiter"

You'd think film makers would just start asking him before including space facts by now.

Master of the Flying Guillotine: Main lesson of Prometheus: the scientists of the future lack common sense and are dumber than farking rocks.

Still, it was a pretty movie to look at, just incredibly idiotic, which undermines its headier ambitions.

See, people still seem caught up on the first contact / scientific expedition thing. We learn 2/3rds the way through the movie the mission is NOTHING of that sort. We realize these people are not the top in their field, do have their flaws, and have been 100% expendable from the start.

The mission was not to meet the creator, or gain scientific knowledge about our existence. It was for Weyland to either join with the creators, or be granted life everlasting. Remember, the only two that even had a clue about the "mission" were Holloway and Shaw. The rest were picked because of their ability to blindly do the things needed, and the fact that they were of questionable moral character if the need arise that Weyland needed to skip certain normal protocols to reach his goal sooner.

Did you guys really miss all that? It was the freaking whole last 1/3rd of the movie. Shaw and Holloway, and the rest of the crew, were pawns.

PanicMan: Oh, and what about the sensor that was detecting motion? What was it detecting, there was nothing moving down that hallway.

That one is easy, the SJ's heartbeat every hour or so, since he was a deep stasis.

A lot of the major complains can be explained away with either a closer second watch, or a little imagination I'm finding. There are some valid complaints, but not many other than "I didn't like it, I don't like the explanation, I don't want to assume or use imagination!".

For those complaining about poorly trained sci-fi extraterrestrial explorers, I present to you another crew who typically goes down without proper biohazard gear and dumb enough to put key officers in danger:



For those wondering why a robot would kill off the crew that's deemed expendable by secret higher-ups ... this machine did it first.



Well, to borrow a statement from a previous thread on the subject ...

This movie had a lot of Prometh.

/wooo ... wooo ... wooo ....

Daercoma: DEBATE: SPOILERS
Alien vs Prometheus or how we've lost the ability to make a good movie:

ALIEN: Opening sequence...Jerry Goldsmith's desolate score sets the mood in space.
PROMETHEUS: Sweeping landscapes and sweeping score. Am I watching BBC Planet Earth?

ALIEN: An unexplained signal pulls the Nostromo off course to have the crew investigate. Pretty straight forward.
PROMETHEUS: Explorers find cryptic symbols from different cultures giving them "a map" to come find this location. WHY?

ALIEN: Blue collar workers have to rouse out of sleep to slag some extra hours in something they don't want to do. Pale, bitter, low lives. Sigorney is a woman in a man's world.
PROMETHEUS: Pretty boy scientists gather together to actively invest trillions on a "hunch" from some cave drawings. To BOOT they don't even know how to do their job.
GEOLOGIST: Gets lost
BIOLOGIST: Approaches an unknown species like it's his long lost friend when obviously it is threatened/hungry.
SCIENTIST?: Who takes off his helmet in a foreign environment. Even HG Wells knew that aliens don't have the same resistances that we have on our own home world. And that was 200 years ago. As a side note: How does he have a perfect tan after being in suspended animation for 2 years?
CAPTAIN: Decides to have sex with his employer while neglecting a very real threat of life closing in on two of his crew members.

If they were going for the Michael Chriton Jurassic Park module. At least THEY KNEW HOW TO DO THEIR JOBS and didn't make stupid mistakes. What makes JP work is strong protagonists who you feel for because they are getting their asses handed to them by circumstance and dinosaurs.

Alien: 1 Creature. Terrifying.
PROMETHEUS: MULTIPLE confusing
DNA eater from the little Mary Kay Cosmetics pack the alien eats in the beginning.
SPACE JOCKEYS
BLACK OOZE CANISTERS which apparently makes zombies - never explained.
SNAKE THINGIES
BIG SQUID PREGNANCY THINGIES

Other unanswered treats:

Why would the murals change in ...

I haven't seen Prometheus so I can't speak to it's goodness, but holy cow, you seem like you over-think things way too much & probably suck the enjoyment out
of everything. When was the last time you had fun? Sheesh.

Promethius and Madagascar 3 are both mediocre movies. But I did not expect much from Madagascar. On the other hand Scott has created the most disappointing film since 300.

Who spends a trillion dollars sending a bunch of useless jerkoffs into space?

There was no training of the group before launching? Several had never met utill they reached their destination?

The space suits don't have gps? Those dudes get so scared they decide to fark with goo spilling objects and aggressive looking aliens?

Scientists see a weird black goo and the first thing they do is stick their finger in it?

Two charachters who know nothing about the aliens suddenly decide to heroically crash the ship Dennis Quaid style?

You have to provide your own anesthesia in the super medical machine?

I did like the production design.

ratagorda: You seem upset.

It's a movie, not a documentary you neckbeard autist


That's a stupid basis from which to dismiss his criticism.
It being a "movie" is no excuse for sloppy writing, which seems to be what he's describing and disappointed about. Because it's fictional it shouldn't make sense? How does THAT make sense?

Honest Bender: I'm a huge Alien/Aliens fan. Aliens is probably my favorite movie.
Prometheus was good but it left me with some big head scratcher questions:

1. Where did the predators get the aliens they used to hunt on primitive Earth? I mean, these are franchises that supposedly exist in the same universe... Is AvP just not considered cannon?

fusillade762: I thought of that too. Sorta blows the continuity of "Predator 2"

Hint: that wasn't the first xenomorph.

aiiee: Verbatim no directors cut:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylis t/ridley-scott-admits-he-cut-pro m etheus-for-ratings-but-says-there-wont -be-a-directors-cut-on-dvd-20120 604

And then verbatim, 20 min more version + extras:

http://www.prometheus-movie.com/news/233

Honestly, it seems he's trying to toe the business line for now not to undercut this studio version. Makes sense when you realize he desperately want to do a sequel, and sooner than later.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we only have David's say-so that the Engineers hate us and want us dead? He was the only one to see the star map and it didn't seem obvious to me that Earth was the destination or that they wanted to destroy us, just that it was one of many planets in their map.

Also, he was the only one to speak to an Engineer and who knows what he said. He could have threatened it. "These humans are here to steal your weapons and destroy your planet." Which is exactly what he manipulated Shaw into doing - taking the ship to their planet. It would certainly explain the Engineer's sudden violence.

I saw it 2 days ago so maybe I'm forgetting some stuff, but it seems to me David has manipulated the whole situation from the beginning.

oh, it's also on 1,000 less theaters than M3

yves0010:

The planet bothered me but I thought of two answers to the question. One is that it is a different planet, seeing the ground and such hints to it. Not many black sharp pointy rocks. And The names are different.

The other could be that it is the same planet but they changed the name. Who knows actually. We are all speculating about it.

It's not LV-426.

Scott seems to like to screw with his ALIEN fans, as he did make almost everything look similar. I think it led a lot of people (including me) to think it was set on LV-426 from the previews.

The big tip off is the ringed world we see in Prometheus has a rocky gray blue surface, while the ringed world in ALIEN is a yellow gas giant. The atmospheres of the different moons are quite different too.

DamnYankees: knumbersix: Except ... it can't sustain life.

Yes it can. Did you even see the movie?

Yes. I saw the movie where people were wearing space suits because they would die if they didn't. But the larger point is why were the Engineers inviting primitive man to their weapons facility?
And how did the SJ manage to make it across the surface of the planet and fight in the compromised lifeboat without a helmet? The engineers are supposed to be genetically identical to us, and they needed to create a breathable atmosphere in their ships. Why didn't the toxic atmosphere kill him?

TyrantII: Klivian: Bill Frist: TyrantII: Klivian:

A game I plan on playing with my friends as they see this movie is to ask them to tell me the name of the guy porking Shaw. I'll bet less than half can tell me without looking it up. Given that he is the love interest of the main character, and half the impetus for the events of the movie, that's pretty bad.

I think it's more a statement on what film viewers today are keyed into more than anything. You can no longer be subtle in movies, or the audience totally over looks things.

Holloway was called by his name multiple times and for 1/2 the movie was trotting around with his name stitched on his suit in a plainly visible area. I'm not sure what more you need.

seriously, what do you want? A video game-esque name display in every scene?

No, I want characters with motivation and development. Obviously not everyone is going to get development, but not a single character in this movie gets ANY.

Aside from Shaw, her husband, Weyland, Vickers, and David, WHY are any of them there? They didn't know what the mission was before they left, what made them sign up?

Shaw's husband: Why is he so morose that he can't talk to the Engineers? He's an archeologist, does he get sad that he can't talk to the ancient Egyptians? Them not being alive when they got there had to have been a very real possibility in his mind.

Horror movies of late make the mistake of packing in disposable characters, whereas the true classics of the genre did well with smaller casts, who you cared when they died. With the larger modern casts, you get forgettable characters, even in prominent roles, such as Shaw's husband.

You'll notice I'm not the only one in the thread who didn't track the names.

1) M O N E Y

2) Holloway was an anthropologist, Shaw was the archeologist. Holloway was a little bit Emo cause he was hoping to have a real life case study, vs relying on Shaws findings of dead things. Simple stuff there.

3) Tend to agree, but it didn't bug me to ...

Alien, was NEVER considered a B horror flick.

On Alien 3's aliens:

Didn't Bishop admit to Ripley he smuggled a few eggs back on company orders he couldn't override?

I really liked it. It's a Lovecraft story in space. People go searching for a cosmic truth and end up finding gods that are either indifferent or outright hostile to them. I don't need every detail explained to me.

Say you are the Engineers, with powerful technology, as if gods... and you have a faction within your society that wants to tinker and create new life, but it's been made illegal. Some members of the tinkering faction decide they are going to go to various planets and seed them anyway, against their government's orders. To do it, a number of the cabal's members volunteer to suicide themselves to make the raw material for what they want to bring forth. Explains the first scene, and the choice of title.

A few of their "cult" live on and make secret visits to the seeded worlds to tend them and observe progress. Explains the cave paintings.


Say some time later, the Engineer's government figures out what has been done, probably by catching one of the tenders,
and they decide this is a galactic abomination that must be sterilized. The bioweapons are devised to deal with this, but their development goes awry.
This explains why another ship is found on another world by the Nostromo, under similar circumstances. The differences in form of the xenomorphs, you can put down to the mutagenic material working with and changed by whatever is locally available. In one of the bad sequels, you saw xenomorphs mutated out of dogs, so there's your proof that a xeno from the planet with the miners, is going to have one shape, based on the human source material, and the one on the Prometheus planet will be different-looking, because it has a mix of human and Engineer DNA. I know in the movie they make a deal out of saying the DNA matches perfectly. I'm going to say that was a an over-simplification for the audience. You can have it real close yet still have variations.

This would also explain why the living Engineer that wakes from cryostasis gets pissed off by seeing humans and a human-made android. He's one of the enforcers trying to wipe out this heresy, and here the abominations have made it all the way to his world, clearly a threat and the proof his interrupted mission is vital to his homeworld's survival. It explains tearing off the head of David, and the frantic attempt to activate the ship to go finish the interrupted sterilization mission.

To me, this seems to tie it up pretty neatly. The rest is layered symbolism imposed on the human side of the story.

DamnYankees: She is Weyland's "child", just like David.
She is essentially emotionless, just like David.
She's never shows as being in cryo, and she seems to have suffered no ill effects from it, unlike the humans.
I don't believe she's ever shown ingesting anything.

I thought the wet footprints leading away from that empty and dripping cryo chamber were pretty obvious.

DamnYankees: Caeldan: Other is I'm convinced that Vickers is just another robot like David... But she honestly as people have said served no purpose.

The only reason I think she's *NOT* a robot is Idris Elba would have noticed while nailing her. All other signs point to her being one.

She is Weyland's "child", just like David.
She is essentially emotionless, just like David.
She's never shows as being in cryo, and she seems to have suffered no ill effects from it, unlike the humans.
I don't believe she's ever shown ingesting anything.

Maybe she's fully functional, programmed in multiple techniques. With a broad variety of pleasuring.

BafflerMeal:

You seem to have a lot of love for this film. Good for you. I'm not willing to fill in the gaps and state as fact what was meant with the filmmakers by error or design did not.

I just think the course plotted to a semi-modern Earth that David encounters, and the reaction of the sleeping SJ was really all we needed to see to deduct that "Hey, these guys don't particularly like smart apes from planet Earth. The SJ studying David, then going full PO rage when realizing that we had created artificial life, kind of drives that point home.

I just don't need a SJ getting on a loudspeaker saying "T minus 10 hours until I bomb earth with whats in the cargo hold that made a mess out of both our species".

Truth be told, I was a bit confused when I first came out the theater. But the more I think about it, and the more I talk with others about it that haven't just written it off, the more I'm enjoying it. The ride came first, but deconstructing what was there is becoming the real treat IMO.

Others don't want that. They want a A-B-C-D-End story in space with ALIENS with super smart characters who don't make mistakes and writing that is 100% logical (In their opinion). You're not going to satiate many of those people, because all of them already went in with an idea of what they expected and wanted. Not being that, they've already written it off.

That's fine, but it doesn't make it bad. It makes it bad for you.

Case in point the abortion/C-Section. It's both foreshadowing Weyland reveal and also allegorical to other myths. Some people see the connection, but on the surface it was a bit absurd. But if you don't like it, it doesn't make it bad.

DamnYankees: More from that link:


The 'Caesarean' scene is central to the film's themes of creation, sacrifice, and giving life. Shaw has discovered she's pregnant with something non-human and sets the autodoc to slice it out of her. She lies there screaming, a gaping wound in her stomach, while her tentacled alien child thrashes and squeals in the clamp above her and OH HEY IT'S THE LIFEGIVER WITH HER ABDOMEN TORN OPEN. How many times has that image come up now? Four, I make it. (We're not done yet.)

And she doesn't kill it. And she calls the procedure a 'caesarean' instead of an 'abortion'.

Here's where the Christian allegories really come through. The day of this strange birth just happens to be Christmas Day. And this is a 'virgin birth' of sorts, although a dark and twisted one, because Shaw couldn't possibly be pregnant. And Shaw's the crucifix-wearing Christian of the crew. We may well ask, echoing Yeats: what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards LV-223 to be born?

Love it!

And other people HATE HATE HATE it.

Having to use your head in a movie is BS! warbargble!

Got a feeling once the trolling dies down, and people get to discuss the good stuff, this movie has some depth to it's mythology that's going to be very interesting.

BafflerMeal: One Bad Apple: The mission was to release the black death soup on Earth.

No one knows that. It was not expressed in the movie anymore than it was that it was a weapon. The only fan-service towards that end was when the pilot rushed in and said that's what he thought it was breathlessly and for no reason (after a relevant scene I'm sure was cut).


Guess you missed the part where David see's the gigantic star chart inside the spaceship with the course plotted to a geological modern earth? After they show you a weapons hold packed full of the strange goo casings?

They were going to earth with the stuff that caused a whole lot of hurt to the Prometheus crew. I don't think it's rocket science to deduct bad things would happen if that ship left and made it to earth.

I enjoyed it for giving another glimpse into the "Alien" universe, and for the high production values, but that's about it.

After watching it my son asked me my favorite scene, and I couldn't think of anything, there were some great visuals. I finally told him the scene in the med pod where she had the kraken cut out, because it reminded me of when he was born, (but with less tentacles)

He also asked my favorite character, and again, no one really stood out. I finally said David, I don't know what is says when the best character in the movie is an android devoid of emotion. I really didn't care about the other characters at all. That scientist guy seemed like a douchebag, and I was happy to see his drink spiked with alien goo.

Speaking of, I think David did that mainly because it was the quickest way to see it's effects on a human, and his mission was to find the "secret of immortality" for Weyland as quick as possible. I believe Weyland went along because how can you trust anyone to find this secret of life, and then bring it back to you?

Plus anyways, it was a bit of a homage to the first facehugger scene in ALIEN. Cinema has a long history of unwittingly "stupid" people letting curiosity get the better of them, to disastrous effects. At least I thought that was apparent.

toobsok: Take the biologist. A person who has any kind of brain enough to go through four years of scientific study and come out with a degree knows that you don't just go up to unidentified species that are in classic aggressive mode.

Why not have him have a modicum of intelligence and avoid the snake thing, only to have it get him anyway? Would that not have done the exact same for the plot and not have people hate the character for his actions? Even the dumbest of people would call this guy an idiot.

Like the Biologist in NC that almost killed himself trying to move an aggressive 300lbs alligator?

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/local_news/water_cooler/alligator-attack - video-on-today-show-north-carolina-biologist-fred-boyce-attempts-to-wr angle-gator

Again, this shiat really happens. People, in momentary lapses of judgment, really are this dumb. What make the real life thing above any different then the so-so biologist picked for the fictional Prometheus mission?

PanicMan: TyrantII: If it isn't spelled out visually, or said directly, it didn't happen.

Events in movies have to be motivated to make them believable. They have to have a reason for happening, and fit with what we know of a character. It's the job of the director to give us enough information for us to draw the conclusions he wants.

We have no information about Weyland or how he picked the crew. That doesn't mean you get to decide they were all picked because of "questionable moral character".

Look at their actions. Look at the mission stated, and the real mission revealed. Instead of writing them off as stupid, realize they are Weylands pawns, hand picked, to be used to his own ends.

Seems pretty logical to me. You say stupid, I say easily manipulated and expendable and thus useful. Truth is they were both, and that's kind of the point.

Weyland corp through the franchise has regularly picked people to unwittingly be their pawns. I don't see why it's different here. Sometimes they pick wrong (Ripley/Shaw).

TyrantII: Klivian:
Biologist: Gee, look at these rocks geologist guy.
Geologist: Hmm, looks like obsidian to me
Biologist: But this is sedimentary rock

Bam, geologist is an idiot who was brought here because he was expendable, not because he was a leader in his field. Also wouldn't drag the movie down as you can do it while the rest of the crew is giving us our wide shots of the area they're exploring.

Smoking in his suit, not particularly wanting to be near dead bodies and, and having a mohawk / face tattoo didn't do it for you? Just because he wasn't your idea of a farkup, didn't mean he wasn't my idea of a farkup. farking up his map reading skills sort of was the point in addition to all that.

As for the Biologist, he seemed to think the damn worm was a cobra or something. Biology was his thing, so maybe he got overexcited and push the envelope too much. It's happened before, it's a very human trait.

I just think a lot of this "well I would have never done that" line of argument is damn silly. It's Monday morning quarterbacking at it's worst.

Fire up youtube and check out how damn stupid our species can be each and every day. It's there for everyone to see, captured on film. And none of us are immune to lapses in judgment that could have horrible consequences. We might just be lucky enough that no cameras were rolling to record it for all of history.

So yeah, to me that sort of stuff can be explained away as human freaking nature. It's convenient for the plot, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Especially when you know this isn't the mission they thought it was to be.

Not wanting to be near dead bodies seems pretty reasonable to me, especially on an alien planet when unarmed. Something killed them, why stay there? Stupid haircut != stupid. Other people don't have to conform to your style.

Smoking in the suit, sure, stupid. But 1 out of 3 doesn't make someone expendable, especially since it seemed to work until he got acid on his face.

Klivian:
Biologist: Gee, look at these rocks geologist guy.
Geologist: Hmm, looks like obsidian to me
Biologist: But this is sedimentary rock

Bam, geologist is an idiot who was brought here because he was expendable, not because he was a leader in his field. Also wouldn't drag the movie down as you can do it while the rest of the crew is giving us our wide shots of the area they're exploring.

Smoking in his suit, not particularly wanting to be near dead bodies and, and having a mohawk / face tattoo didn't do it for you? Just because he wasn't your idea of a farkup, didn't mean he wasn't my idea of a farkup. farking up his map reading skills sort of was the point in addition to all that.

As for the Biologist, he seemed to think the damn worm was a cobra or something. Biology was his thing, so maybe he got overexcited and push the envelope too much. It's happened before, it's a very human trait.

I just think a lot of this "well I would have never done that" line of argument is damn silly. It's Monday morning quarterbacking at it's worst.

Fire up youtube and check out how damn stupid our species can be each and every day. It's there for everyone to see, captured on film. And none of us are immune to lapses in judgment that could have horrible consequences. We might just be lucky enough that no cameras were rolling to record it for all of history.

So yeah, to me that sort of stuff can be explained away as human freaking nature. It's convenient for the plot, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Especially when you know this isn't the mission they thought it was to be.

DamnYankees: Surool: DamnYankees: Surool: It is not a separate question. He couldn't know what would happen. When he exposed Holloway, he seemed to be doing it for the hell of it... in spite of the mutagen not having anything to do with his primary mission and potentially killing everyone including the old man.

I don't think its fair to say this. We have absolutely no idea why David did what he did. But if you are allowed to assume he did it without a plan and without precaution, I don't see why I can't assume the opposite. We're both in the dark on that one.

They didn't show anything... it didn't happen. Don't be an apologist for filmmakers who take drastic shortcuts. If you let them off the hook for sloppy work, we'll never get to see a good movie again.

You are right. They didn't show anything. So why is your assumption right and mine is wrong? I think its extremely clear from the movie that David has hidden motivations for doing certain things, and is taking instructions we're not privy to. I don't think its a leap to tie that to the infection. You are making just as big an assumption assuming that a robot is doing stuff just for the hell of it, which strikes me as literally impossible. He is a computer, after all. GIGO.

Because you have an imagination and can draw from it, and autistic Steve over there believes if he didn't see it, then it never happened.

//Really, if you can't use your imagination to fill in the small details, just stop. You're dead inside, you're neurotic, and you won't enjoy any sort of art or entertainment. And stop trying to make others as dead and miserable as you!

I thought the movie was great. Did it have a few plot holes? Sure, but it was still an amazing sci-fi movie. Beautifully shot, great performances by a well put together cast. I seems like people are just trying to find reasons not to like it. The only major problem I had was if the engineer died in the escape pod, how did he end up in the space jockey chair in alien. Other than that, I enjoyed it thoroughly

StrikitRich: NeoCortex42: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: And if the planet was just a military testing site, why couldn't any of the other engineer ships/planets destroy earth?

What, testing goes wrong on ONE planet 2000 years ago, yet no one ever comes back to check on them?

And how was the engineer in hypersleep for 2000 years without anyone ever coming to get him? Ugh so stupid

Also, the engineers obviously had some kind of containment breach (the holograms running away and the pile of bodies), so why was there no sign of what attacked them? No skeletal remains of whatever facehugger/xeno/zombie chased them around? And it had no problem leaving the one engineer sleeping peacefully in cryo on the bridge without attempting to get to him?

SPOILER - My impression was that the Engineers were exposed to some kind of contagion based on the recovered head. It wasn't until that substance was ingested by Holloway and then impregnated into a female, Shaw, that beings started to form. I think the grubs in the Face Room simply mutated and no xenomorphs were came from the idiot biologist or geologist. It was the hugger that came out of Shaw that implanted the first xenomorph in the surviving Engineer.

There was no way that the engineers and humans were a 100% match in DNA and how did the creature in the med capsule get so big? What could it have fed on?

The mutigen in the movie also seem different than the mutigen in prologue on Earth. Back then it broke down the body and recombined the organic material with the elements of the homeworld, but it wasn't a bioweapon.

Something similar happens with the mutigen in Prometheus time, but it also seems to be infused to trend towards the ultimate being, the xenomorphs. So from Holloway and Shaws human DNA we get the earth, squid like proto-hugger, and then a much more organic proto-Xeno. There was a reason the damn thing was smiling at you before the final curtain dropped.

They didn't replace it's iconic metal chompers with meat and human like teeth for no reason.


There also was the mural of the true Xeno in the vial chamber. We know they were bioweapons use by and possibly turned against the SJ's. The story board of the prologue also shows a 3rd species flying the giant craft, which ties things together a bit better. I really hope they shot the original storyboard for the DC.

lousyskater: Surool: Surool: In Prometheus they landed on LV-223. In Alien/Aliens they were on LV-426. IT IS NOT THE SAME PLANET.

repeated for emphasis

Seriously. It feels like the people complaining about plot holes weren't paying attention to the actual movie.

The other thing is that much like the definition of what constitutes 'trolling', many people cannot differentiate between actual plot holes and unanswered questions.

Prometheus has a lot of unanswered questions; not so much the plot holes. I also contend that, like Alien, it's less about its science fiction trappings and more about its horror roots. Alien was a haunted house story, Prometheus is 'At The Mountains of Madness' - to the point that Guillermo Del Toro has all but scrapped his project.

dalbuc: Carth: Prometheus missed it estimates by 5% and had a huge drop off. Say good bye to big R rated sci-fi movies for another few years.

Say good bye to crappy "R" rated sci-fi movies. The problem isn't the "R" but everyone in the theater when leaving the 11:00am showing (yeah for a partially wasted day off) on their cells calling friends to say that the film ranged from "meh" to "sucked donkey testicles" helping suppress the evening shows. Prometheus just wasn't a good movie.

Yeah somebody must have missed the entire scene there.... jeesh. David not only showed, often might I add, that he tended towards action when faced with a problem or question; but also in dialogue got permission from Holloway to infect him.

"What would you do to know the truth about [the SJ's]" "Anything, Everything!" (Also a long discussion on why David was created... because humans could.)

That scene was one of the best in the movie. Yet people seem to be stuck on Emo anthropologist, or David infecting him.

ZantiMisfit:
Is this a joke people are playing on me? It's clearly the same planet as in Alien. In both movies, they're shown going to a moon orbiting a ringed planet.

I mean, I guess it could be a different planet that looks exactly the same as the planet in the original movie, but what would be the point of that, besides needlessly confusing the viewer?

Alien/Aliens: LV-426
Prometheus: LV-223

Not a joke. Different Planet. Big crashing ship: different ship. Ugly baby alien at end? Not one of the 'Alien' aliens.

Other than a sideways back story to try and fill in some details about the universe, this film in no way directly connects with Alien(s)

darkedgefan: I am amazed that these 3-d movies make so much money. Don't people realize they just need to buy tickets to a cheaper movie like Battleship or the Dictator and then 'pick up' a pair of 3-d glasses outside of the screen playing the 3-d movie.

Or just pay for one 3-d movie and keep the glasses. Be sure to get a few different types of 3-d glasses for the different formats. Yes, I have a least 3 or 4 sets of 3 or four different types of glasses.


I'm amazed scumbags like you can live with yourself.

Spoilers!

Maybe I don't get out enough, but that was the best use of 3D I've ever seen. The whole movie was very visually pleasing, even stunning in many places.

The reveal of Weyland beig Vickers father was painfully obvious from the minute she accosted David after he interacted with the 'mysterious' man in stasis that wasn't at all mysterious.

David infecting Halloway - Handsome Bob says he would be willing to do anything and everything to get the answers to the questions that drove him here. Between that, Handsome Bob utterly crushing/insulting David ('because we could'), and Weyland telling David to 'try harder' (presumabley to find a way to grant him life with all this unknown alien tech), combined with David's own 'natural' curiosity ... I understand the motivations.

The black goo seemed to just be a random mutagen breaking down and reconfiguring DNA. The maggots got awoken from some sort of hibernation by the crew opening that door and disturbing the environment. Why Shaw got a squid fetus I'm not sure (Handsome Bon's DNA breaking down plus possibly some 'base' DNA in the goo (from it's makers if engineered or home planet if natural).

I was a bit surprised at the reaction of the Engineer until I remembered he's a soldier. He had a mission to carry out and had no way of knowing if these earthlings are enemy forces or explorers. I was surprised he decided to go after Shaw when there were other ships available, but I guess he wanted some revenge.

Don't know where the xenomorph got that huge pyramid head, but it was cool if obvious.

I think a lot of the people ragging on it tend to forget just how rough the classics of old are. I mean, we're not exactly at a Bay film here.

Having said that I wish the studios would let the true talent tell their stories with no meddling or time limits. I'll watch a 3 hour movie if it's good but I won't watch a shiat one at all. I am very glad I saw this on the big screen (again, visually stunning 3D) but I'm anxious for the directors cut for the complete story.

/tl;dr

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: Carth: Prometheus missed it estimates by 5% and had a huge drop off. Say good bye to big R rated sci-fi movies for another few years.

Good. Prometheus was nothing but a gore-fest. Ridley Scott disappointed me. I had such high hopes for it, given that it was placed in the Alien universe. I'd love to see a return to Sci-Fi films that don't rely on things like a five minute up-close-and-personal surgery scene to generate tension.

That surgery scene was hardly Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and nothing like the chest burster scene from the first one(?) And you must be trolling me because the "Alien Universe" started to suck starting with A3. I keep reading the Alien vs Predator movies aren't even worth the time to watch.

As a matter of fact, when hasn't the Alien been gory? It impregnates other beings and has a violent birth, followed by the need to massacre anything in it's path. Were you expecting Downton Abbey or something?

It could have been better, it should have been better, but it was still pretty damn good. And if you watch TV, the only thing they censor in the original Alien is the dirty language. The F-bomb is somehow worse than the chest burst or Brett getting his head bitten.

Prometheus sucked. Im done with movies for a while.

T.M.S.: Promethius and Madagascar 3 are both mediocre movies. But I did not expect much from Madagascar. On the other hand Scott has created the most disappointing film since 300.

Who spends a trillion dollars sending a bunch of useless jerkoffs into space?

There was no training of the group before launching? Several had never met utill they reached their destination?

The space suits don't have gps? Those dudes get so scared they decide to fark with goo spilling objects and aggressive looking aliens?


Galactic Positioning System?

Main lesson of Prometheus: the scientists of the future lack common sense and are dumber than farking rocks.

Still, it was a pretty movie to look at, just incredibly idiotic, which undermines its headier ambitions.

I have this gut feeling that there is a much better version of this movie out there, and it is going to be released as a Directer's Cut on DVD in about a year.

Carth: Prometheus missed it estimates by 5% and had a huge drop off. Say good bye to big R rated sci-fi movies for another few years.

Say good bye to crappy "R" rated sci-fi movies. The problem isn't the "R" but everyone in the theater when leaving the 11:00am showing (yeah for a partially wasted day off) on their cells calling friends to say that the film ranged from "meh" to "sucked donkey testicles" helping suppress the evening shows. Prometheus just wasn't a good movie.

Damon "Medium Talent" Lindelof strikes again.

I do think the trailers for Prometheus gave away a little too much. It's a solid film, though, even with a couple of minor plot holes in it, and a perfect prequel to the other two (and only two) Alien movies.

How many movies would never get made, if people kept suit discipline?

"I want to open my helmet and sniff the alien world. You?"

"No, I'm good. You breathe this stuff, I'm not letting you back in the ship."

"Party pooper".

"I will live to deal with that."

More spoilers for Prometheus

I just felt like they failed with the existential hope/excitement/despair/anger sequence that they seemed to be going for. "They changed their minds, I want to know why." You sent out the video equivalent of an intergalactic personal ad, got no response, then came to a planet, got infected by Aliens, and have a clear incessant need to poke shiat you don't understand. And you were stupid enough to all take your helmets off. And you invented a supercreepy Fassrobot. That's not a good enough set of reasons?

Fassbender was the creepiest thing about that movie, and he was farking creepy.

Hmm. . . let's see. . .

A horror/sci-fi flick vs a Kid Friendly animated flick. . . . which would I take my family to see. . .

/Do people seriously wonder how movies like that make money?
//Who honestly thought Prometheus would rake in more money than Madagascar?

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: Carth: Prometheus missed it estimates by 5% and had a huge drop off. Say good bye to big R rated sci-fi movies for another few years.

Good. Prometheus was nothing but a gore-fest. Ridley Scott disappointed me. I had such high hopes for it, given that it was placed in the Alien universe. I'd love to see a return to Sci-Fi films that don't rely on things like a five minute up-close-and-personal surgery scene to generate tension.

The movie was visually beautiful though. I like that they answered some questions raised in Alien but the story just wasn't strong enough. it was like they knew they wanted a sequel to Prometheus so instead of making a really tight narrative they tried to make it really big.

Prometheus missed it estimates by 5% and had a huge drop off. Say good bye to big R rated sci-fi movies for another few years.