And his co-writer on Prometheus also penned (his only other credit, in fact) the execrable invisible-aliens flick The Darkest Hour.

TyrantII: I really hope the people that didn't like the movie aren't going into TDKR expecting a good experience.

The general need to shut down the brain and accept huge suspension of belief, or the leap to conclusion mat that is all out in full swing in that movie. It's worse than Prometheus. Surprising, since Nolan's other batman movies were quite a bit tighter narrative wise.

notsureifserious.jpg

hubiestubert: Damon was the writer for Lost. And part of the exciting revolution in television writing that essentially relied on recon as the cornerstone of their style. Mining the Internet boards, his team essentially wrote not a coherent story, but to confound and confuse the audience with the twists--twists that often relied on knowing full well the audience's conceptions, and then deliberately dashing them with a fluid and entirely artificial secret plot element thrown in. Lost relied on it. Heroes relied on it. BSG relied on it. It was a brand of lazy writing that set out not to tell a coherent story, but to confuse and "reveal" elements from nothing.

I feel like I'm taking goddamn crazy pills seeing what morons consider "good television" or movies.

At least one person sees the complete and utter synthetic bullshiat this new group of pretend writers are putting out. Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman, Lindelof, they all produce this disingenuous garbage, and people eat it up.

Abrams can come up with a cocktail napkin concept or two that aren't complete shiat, but the morons he hands it off to use every trope and lizard brain exciting writing device in the book to make the great unwashed swoon. Its to the point where I just feel ashamed of entertainment produced in english.

Can the second one actually have a plot please? The first one was visually amazing but for the life of me, after seeing it twice, I have no clue wtf was going on.

Teufelaffe: featuring a cat in a Faraday suit.

bush league...

GungFu: Run sideways, you farking idiot.

That is all.

Honestly if it was me then I would realize I had no idea whether it was going to tip slightly to the left or slightly to the right or whatever, so I would try to wait until the last minute to decide. The blonde one fell down before she could do this, which is the fate of all blonde women that do not sleep with me.

hubiestubert: Lost relied on it. Heroes relied on it. BSG relied on it.

Heroes and BSG weren't quite so bad as to rely on it... Lost takes the cake for intentionally farking with the viewer and incoherently making shiat up, to keep ICP fans mystified with magnets. That's all it effectively did, attempt ramp up that sense of wonderment with silly tales.

Heroes and BSG did have that, don't get me wrong, there was plenty, it was just irksome in them because there was a lot of good in each series. A different proportion, if you will, than Lost had, in it's content to twist ratio.

Lost, though, was made almost entirely of that schtick. It's like M. Night Shamylan's (howeverthefarkyouspellit) twist endings. Not lazy perse, but incredibly shallow masquerading as deep subject matter. It's new common trend, even here on fark. A lot of people think they're being clever.

Micheal Moore is one of those people. Saw him on Piers Morgan the other night, and you could see the look on his face, you could tell he practiced that "clever" answer in the mirror, he'd get this smirk, and roll out the answer as if it were not only sustainable, but infallible logic. I'd call it smug, but it was a bit more creepy than that, a bit sadistic.(You know that fat retarded fark has a fark account)

Anyhow, Lost was like that, not just smug in it's twists and turns, but sadistic, power trippy, if you will. Conveyed not only the writers sense of superiority(we all have that), but their sick relishing of being in control(this is the abnormal part). What does it boil down to? The same stupid fark of a kid on the playground who keeps changing the rules of the game so that he can be the best or win or whatever.

As for Prometheus having a sequel. We all had high hopes for this first one, and we were let down severely by so much trope(ie don't separate from the group, don't try to hug the scary snake thing, don't do a bunch of other stupid shiat they all did). Can't blame that on merely the writing. From Director to Cast, there should have been objection to that crap all over the place. Made me lose faith in the entire industry really, a big budget film should not be doing that crap.

I've never seen people complain as much about a movie via easily answered, under-relevant questions that people pose to criticize Prometheus.

I saw it in IMAX 3D and liked it...until the next day, when all the loose ends, plot holes and unexplained nonsense started bothering me. By the end of the week, I was kind of pissed off at Ridley Scott. Will pass on the sequel.

Teufelaffe: I enjoyed Prometheus. Sure, it had issues, but they weren't bad enough to ruin the film for me. As for the people whose complaints involve any variation of "A real scientist would/wouldn't do X", I just have to ask, have you ever spent any time around real scientists? I have, and let me tell you, being a scientist does not mean you don't really farking stupid things.

My mother was a research biologist for the University of Arizona, and I spent many an after school hour in one of her labs. I met a lot of scientists and got to see them do really stupid shiat. Like the one who decided to pipette hydrofluoric acid by mouth because he didn't feel like walking 10 feet to get a pipette bulb from the drawer. Or the guy who re-enacted the centrifuge scene from Outbreak by sticking his hand in while the thing was still spinning. Or, and this was my personal favorite, the lab director, a man with two PhDs mind you, trying to clean a sodium spill with water. Lucky for him and the lab, it was a very small spill.

Scientists are just highly educated people and, while they're less likely to be morons than most other professionals, they certainly still can be mind-bogglingly stupid at times. So, yeah, the stupid things done by scientists in Prometheus were quite believable.

I disagree somewhat. I too enjoyed Prometheus, and think it was good, but not great. But the scene where the biologist provokes a mysterious extraterrestrial creature was unbelievable. It wasn't a major flaw that diminished my enjoyment of the movie greatly, but I certainly thought, "what is this guy doing?!" I also agree that a couple incidents of people being stupid should not by themselves cause someone to declare a film bad. People DO do stupid things, often. Read FARK, for examples of this, for just one day.

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

Chunky Pumpkinhead: So the girl and the robot head get on a strange space ship to explore the universe? It's been done before and done better...

[patcoston.com image 294x440]

Props for picking the right actress.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: thornhill: And add to that the stuff scientists would never do, like remove their helmet on an alien planet.

The guy had already established himself as reckless. The rest of the team was yelling at him not to do it at the time, if you didn't notice.

But, on the other hand, the chances of another planet having some sort of pathogen that could infect humans is pretty damn low outside of Star Trek stories. If the air is breathable, chances are you're good.

Okay, here's the thing that would have made all of that make sense:

After someone made the stupid decision to take off his helmet, it could have been revealed later on there was something else in the air that (for whatever stupid reason had the ridiculous side effect of) for which all the humans in the area lower their inhibitions. That's why Stupid Biologist Guy reaches out and tries to pet an alien cobra thing, which, yeah, breaks his arm and penetrates his suit (which bugged me: why would the suit be so easily penetrable by anything, and why would any alien species with no sharp outer whatevers be able to do that anyway AND locate locate the chink in the suit in which it could have done that so quickly? Of course, my inner monologue probably said "crappy Government-regulated designs, go figure" at the time).

No excuses. Just sayin', even though I liked the creepy atmosphere of the whole thing, I really think that yeah:

Mentalpatient87: Prometheus II: Dude, Seriously, Don't Farking Touch That!

this really SHOULD be the title of the next movie.

steamingpile: I have never called anyone a retard for not liking this film but I will say dullards is a proper term

Pardon me, I'm an astronautical engineering major and writer who thought the movie sucked because it had plot holes so big you could ram a Space Shuttle through them sideways. It was awful writing. Period.

We got LOST'd by a hack writer who somehow turned his incompetence into a gimmick that works to keep rats pressing buttons despite getting no cheese. Seems to happen a lot lately (fifty shades of grey).

I went to the debut of Prometheus THRILLED and DECIDED on loving this flick no matter what ridiculousness they committed on the science of spaceflight, life support systems, etc. I happily suspended my knowledge of these walking into that theater; I just wanted a fun epic Alienesque sci-fi flick to guzzle popcorn to.

I eagerly drank every word, every turn, every action sequence... and then every epically stupid and inexplicable violation of characterization & behavior that happened. And every few minutes, like clockwork, my love of this flick felt further betrayed, like the trust of a catholic schoolboy in the presence of a relocated priest. And I mourned this because we get SO FEW epic sci-fi flicks that are as good as this one was promised and hyped to be.

So up yours, troll, for saying I didn't like it because I didn't pay attention, or couldn't comprehend the complexity of the philosophical cinematic undertones, or whatever other justification you are using to excuse a turd of a movie so as to pretend it was meaningful. It is a huge FAIL of a flick to murder my provisional love of it within 30 minutes, only to then rape its corpse repeatedly over the next hour or so.

BSG definately got weak in the last one or two seasons, but they told you right from the first episode God was involved. I've always scratched my head at folks who griped that "God did it."

Lost I gave up pretty quickly. I didn't like the constant flashbacks though I do understand why they were there. When the Tailies(?) showed up and THEY started having their flashbacks, that's when I bailed. I did watch the last two or three episodes, pretty much collapsed like a bouncy castle with a fat kid in it.

Promethus was visually striking with mythic undertones and an epic scale, but the writing and editing just wasn't there. I was really looking forward to intelligent sci-fi and I got the opposite.

Any Pie Left: Casting Rapace and Fassbinder implied the plot follows them to the Engineer home world, where they
A: find them all dead and xenos running rampant, have to somehow kills them all.
B: find the Engineer world safe and normal and they have to plead for/deal for leaving Earth alone
C: Fassbinder tricks Noomi and steers the ship to near- Earth space, where Wyland-Yutani management looks it over at a hidden mining base. Hijinks ensue.

Question: Do we know what the state of Earth is in the regular Alien canon? It has been a while since I watched anything but 1 and 2 and I don't remember them stating whether or not its still okay. Maybe Ridley pulls a D) Jockeys set out to destroy Earth after meeting Rapace and Fassbender creating a paradox within regular Alien canon

Kaybeck: steamingpile: Dont get mad because you cant follow a plot, I have never called anyone a retard for not liking this film but I will say dullards is a proper term since people that miss the point cant follow along with all the alien films and ignore the shiat after aliens.

As someone that studies plot, story structure, ect., I can say with confidence that you have no idea what the fark you're talking about and berating the intelligence level of people that disagree with you is a poor way of trying to obscure that fact.

I see, so a film student doesn't like it. The expert has spoken. I thought I like it but I guess it sucked.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: I don't agree that Prometheus was that bad, but you're spot on about the "LOST" / BSG / Heroes writing style trend. It definitely ruined Tron: Legacy.

T L did not have the bestest of story lines, but I loved it's style, music, and visuals. I also liked the style and visuals of Prometheus, but in comparison when T L didn't cover something it was easier to accept and didn't throw me out of the movie. (afterall they were in a made-up digital world so relating to realworld rules was thrown out the window) Prometheus' character actions and general stupidity took the viewer out of the movie , not to mention that weird triumphant song that seemed to play at random moments.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: Which is, incidentally, why Donnie Darko was a crap movie until the director's cut, and even then wasn't that great.

I thought they showed everything in that movie other than the one event, which they nudged the audience pretty heavily at including all the character's emotions, conflicts, and how they fit in. I don't know what else you could be talking about.

As for Prometheus, It's not that we (the crowd that didn't like it) don't get it. The movie's religions and philosophical ideas are easy to pick up on. They just didn't add much for most viewers, and the rest of the movie just didn't cut it.

hubiestubert: toddalmighty: who?

Damon was the writer for Lost. And part of the exciting revolution in television writing that essentially relied on recon as the cornerstone of their style. Mining the Internet boards...

A modern twist on the cliff hanger, write an open plot point, crowd source possible solutions, do something completely different. Fairly bright idea. Not only do you engage the fan base but you can make money from the ads on the Official forum site. Of course we could start playing with the writers by getting enough people to propose insane solutions and let them try and out crazy the fans.

hubiestubert: toddalmighty: who?

Damon was the writer for Lost. And part of the exciting revolution in television writing that essentially relied on recon as the cornerstone of their style. Mining the Internet boards, his team essentially wrote not a coherent story, but to confound and confuse the audience with the twists--twists that often relied on knowing full well the audience's conceptions, and then deliberately dashing them with a fluid and entirely artificial secret plot element thrown in. Lost relied on it. Heroes relied on it. BSG relied on it. It was a brand of lazy writing that set out not to tell a coherent story, but to confuse and "reveal" elements from nothing.

It is a style that some folks liked, but I absolutely despise because it sets out to keep the audience NOT guessing, but actively deceived. In a film, it's harder to pull off--since you can't just pull up chat logs for a week and then write around where most folks are guessing the plot will go--and that lazy style bit Prometheus right in the ass--because Lindelof relies on giant plot holes as of late, and forgot that he wasn't writing a weekly series, but a feature film.

Scott is as much to blame for not throwing that piece of sh*t script out upon first read. Approval of that script has shaken my faith in Scott as a director. Good that Lindelof is gone, but the damage is already done...

I've noticed that I tend not to like things that are written for the sake of continuation. Call me crazy, but I prefer the writer to have an idea of the whole story when starting. I'm convinced that this is the reason the later seasons of most TV shows suck, and most sequels are bad. Of course there are exceptions.

Lindelof wasn't the problem with Prometheus.

Read the headline in James May's voice.

/Wonder how the new Dacia Sandero is.

PanicMan: http://chainsawsuit.com/2012/08/02/chainsawsuit-ruins-it-for-you-prom e theus-2/

OK, now I'm in pain from holding in huge amounts of laughter at work. Thanks.

hubiestubert: Orgasmatron138: hubiestubert: toddalmighty: who?

Damon was the writer for Lost. And part of the exciting revolution in television writing that essentially relied on recon as the cornerstone of their style. Mining the Internet boards, his team essentially wrote not a coherent story, but to confound and confuse the audience with the twists--twists that often relied on knowing full well the audience's conceptions, and then deliberately dashing them with a fluid and entirely artificial secret plot element thrown in. Lost relied on it. Heroes relied on it. BSG relied on it. It was a brand of lazy writing that set out not to tell a coherent story, but to confuse and "reveal" elements from nothing.

It is a style that some folks liked, but I absolutely despise because it sets out to keep the audience NOT guessing, but actively deceived. In a film, it's harder to pull off--since you can't just pull up chat logs for a week and then write around where most folks are guessing the plot will go--and that lazy style bit Prometheus right in the ass--because Lindelof relies on giant plot holes as of late, and forgot that he wasn't writing a weekly series, but a feature film.

Scott is as much to blame for not throwing that piece of sh*t script out upon first read. Approval of that script has shaken my faith in Scott as a director. Good that Lindelof is gone, but the damage is already done...

I've noticed that I tend not to like things that are written for the sake of continuation. Call me crazy, but I prefer the writer to have an idea of the whole story when starting. I'm convinced that this is the reason the later seasons of most TV shows suck, and most sequels are bad. Of course there are exceptions.

Some of the best writing for television has been for cable lately. Rome was brilliant, and should stand as an example of what script writers for television. Pullo and Vorenus are linking devices for all the other characters. They ARE plot devices, that turned out deeper and ric ...

My favorite example is the original Star Wars trilogy. Lucas had the story for all three movies (not the script, but the story) before filming the first movie.

I liked Prometheus -- it is a good summer movie.

However, the point of putting Guy Pearce in poorly crafted old man make-up is still lost on me.

Chunky Pumpkinhead: So the girl and the robot head get on a strange space ship to explore the universe? It's been done before and done better...

[patcoston.com image 294x440]

Zev was so hot. Much better looking than Xev.

hubiestubert: People are panicked and scared herd creatures, but these were supposed to be highly trained folks, who the head of a WY trusted with his life.

I would expectt he sceintists to panick. Not to try and pet a farking snake creature.

Great ... another chance to make a science fiction movie that is completely devoid of science.

Farking Canuck: Great ... another chance to make a science fiction movie that is completely devoid of science.

There was science! Remember when the alien started the spaceship with boiled eggs and a flute?

Phil Moskowitz: Teufelaffe: featuring a cat in a Faraday suit.

bush league...

[i.imgur.com image 333x500]

shiat, that cat exudes gravitas. Sign him to a 7-picture deal!

Mateorocks: I liked Prometheus -- it is a good summer movie.

However, the point of putting Guy Pearce in poorly crafted old man make-up is still lost on me.

As I understand it, the original script called for scenes of a young Weyland. By the time they were cut Pearce was already cast.

carnifex2005: Chunky Pumpkinhead: So the girl and the robot head get on a strange space ship to explore the universe? It's been done before and done better...

[patcoston.com image 294x440]

Zev was so hot. Much better looking than Xev.

Which is which? Original Bellringer ftw.
Well...once she got white hair...before that, eeww.

Farking Canuck: Great ... another chance to make a science fiction movie that is completely devoid of science.

Dude you can't have a robot abortion and recover in 30 minutes or less without science. A scientist had tentacles growing out of his eyes and didn't tell a soul FOR SCIENCE! A scientist ran away from an alien corpse but wanted to pet a very alive alien snake. FOR SCIENCE! A scientist just saw everyone slaughtered and prevented earth from being destroyed so she is going to track down the rest of these aliens....FOR SCIENCE...or revenge maybe..or maybe she just wants them to know that the whole destroy earth plan from their weapons factory planet didn't work so maybe they'll give it another shot or something...for science?


That movie was crapping out science all over the place. Logic and a rational storyline, well that is a completely different story.

thornhill: The plot holes and ambiguity really didn't bother me. When you're in the moment watching the movie, I really don't notice them or care as long as the movie is able to hold my attention.

Basically, in defending the film you're conceding Prometheus was just a really pretty screensaver. I'd agree. The moments in the film I enjoyed most were the exploration scenes; it was a very visually pleasing film. That said, I think I've had my lifetime fill of seeing dudes getting deepthroated by albino snakes. I honestly don't know if Scott thinks gay hentai is scary or he gets off on it, but next time I'd rather see more of Charlize Theron.

adammpower: TyrantII: I really hope the people that didn't like the movie aren't going into TDKR expecting a good experience. The general need to shut down the brain and accept huge suspension of belief, or the leap to conclusion mat that is all out in full swing in that movie. It's worse than Prometheus. . .

notsureifserious.jpg

There's every reason to believe that comment is serious. TDKR was an awful film. The brawl at the end was as silly as the one in Blazing Saddles, and "silly" is not a word I should ever have to use to describe a fight scene in a dark Nolan film. I seriously wonder if he trolled his fans, knowing they'd be stupid enough to defend his movies no matter how ridiculous they got. This is the same guy who made Memento FFS; whatever you think of TDKR it's pretty clear he stopped WAY short of the best he could do.

Teufelaffe: As for the people whose complaints involve any variation of "A real scientist would/wouldn't do X", I just have to ask, have you ever spent any time around real scientists? I have, and let me tell you, being a scientist does not mean you don't really farking stupid things. My mother was a research biologist for the University of Arizona, and I spent many an after school hour in one of her labs. I met a lot of scientists and got to see them do really stupid shiat.

That there could be your problem. Let's just say that if a company invested a trillion dollars sending scientists to a distant planet, they'd be much smarter than the ones you'd find at any school where the mascot is a "wildcat". The scientists I've known are wicked smart.

hubiestubert: I can get around some of the bad science, but the incomprehensible character actions bother me.

THIS. The premise was silly but even as a physics major that really didn't bother me; I expected a fantastic film. But even if we made the utmost effort to suspend disbelief and rationalize the characters' inexplicable decisions, they didn't even act professional. They were melodramatic, panicky, reckless. With the sole exceptions of the blondes (go figure) they pretty much behaved like a bunch of teenagers camping near Crystal Lake, which is not what I want to see in a serious film about a bunch of "professional" anything. Even Michael effin' Bay knows when to give a "professional" character at least an illusion of self-control.

Mugato:

But keep being snarky, it's very becoming.

No...

Old rule of thumb for a long time was 2X budget if you didn't know marketing and/or other fee's and costs. Somehow in lala internet troll land it's been inflated to 3.5-4.5X to even turn a profit. Snopes really needs to debunk this BS.

If a movie can recoup double it's cost, everything else is gravy. Period. And that's a conservative estimate.

Rev. Skarekroe: [farm7.staticflickr.com image 600x347]

Yup, this thread only proves there's a lot of people out there that would drive me to skewer myself on hot iron rods rather then befriend them.

The smug, fart sniffing, nerd superiority is strong among them.

Check back next week to find out why Trek 2009 isn't really Star Trek, or Dune is the BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME.

dragonchild: THIS. The premise was silly but even as a physics major that really didn't bother me; I expected a fantastic film. But even if we made the utmost effort to suspend disbelief and rationalize the characters' inexplicable decisions, they didn't even act professional. They were melodramatic, panicky, reckless. With the sole exceptions of the blondes (go figure) they pretty much behaved like a bunch of teenagers camping near Crystal Lake, which is not what I want to see in a serious film about a bunch of "professional" anything. Even Michael effin' Bay knows when to give a "professional" character at least an illusion of self-control.

Well, it never really bothers me. We do after all find out the "scientific mission" was a sham, and we early on find out everyone but Shaw, Holloway, and Vickers had signed up for a 4 year mission, with no briefing or understanding of the mission, payable upon return. What kind of day laboratory scientist are you going to get with that craigslist ad? Surely not PHD's at the top of their fields.

Plus when you get down to it, they played their role in the film. Arrogance and hubris defined them. They were sloppy, and uncaring. To me, there seemed to be a conscious decision to play and act them that way in contrast to Shaw and David. These people actually thought they were going to talk to "God" on their terms and fantasy.

Prometheus was pretty clunky, some of the casting was great, some was freakin awful.