PROMETHEUS: Alien... Side-quel?

[fitz-hume]

The Upcoming (5/5):

"Possibly the best movie of 2012."

"The film is nothing short of a masterpiece."

"Prometheus has raised the bar high. One could say it has raised the bar to “intergalactic” heights. Watch your back Batman!"

http://www.theupcoming.co.uk/2012/05/31 ... e-of-2012/


This Is London (4/4):

"Ridley Scott triumphantly returns to space."

"The Alien series had declined into such utter tag-wrestling silliness with the two Alien v Predator films that it seemed unsalvageable. Well, here is its original creator, Ridley Scott, back after 33 years, to prove otherwise."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/film ... great-ride


Telegraph (4/5):

"In space, no one can hear you scream, the original 'Alien' memorably noted. Well, in 'Prometheus' the gurgling and yelling is loud and clear, and the sound will stay with you for a long time."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... eview.html


Enterteinmentwise (4/5):

"Prepare for a stunning journey into the gritty introspective world of science fiction."

"Shot in 3D it would be recomended to see it so, it more than puts the tepid 'Avatar' to shame with its imaginative contribution to a palpably grand universe."

http://www.entertainmentwise.com/review ... metheus-15


Huffington Post UK (4/5):

"Prometheus is repulsively awesome."

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/05 ... 58106.html

[King Of Nowhere]

Can we move this to reviews now?

as I've seen it

[Ribbons]

It's not a real movie until it's released in America!

But okay... I guess...

[Worst Part's Almost Over]

Right, so this evening I saw Prometheus in 3D and these are my initial thoughts. No spoilers, just my first impressions straight after seeing it:

Visually, the film is stunning. Scott has employed the perfect blend of actual locations, model work and CGi without the whole thing becoming a special effects mess. There are some truly wonderful images in the film as a result and the 3D (suprisingly) adds some nice depth to this instead of being distracting. The music is wonderful and I especially loved the recurring motif and the music plays a strong role in the film, keeping the atmosphere thick and mysterious. Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender turn in excellent performances and the best scenes in the film usually always feature the two of them. The same can't be said for the rest of the cast, who feel very lifeless and underdeveloped, which isn't helped by the run-of-the-mill dialogue they are given. All the best lines go to Rapace and Fassbender.

The story is weak, there's no getting around it - we start out with some big ideas and Scott does explore them to a point, but then the movie loses its focus. It feels very much like Scott wanted to make an Alien prequel, then went down another route instead but went back to the Alien prequel idea in the last act of the movie. The final shot of the film in particular feels utterly tagged on in order to satisfy the fans and, as a result, feels jarring. The story leaves plenty of room for a potential sequel though, so this might actually be the first of a trilogy or series. It feels very much like Scott has left unanswered questions for a reason.

But there's a down side to that. Although it was an enjoyable experience and I had fun watching it, Prometheus feels like a movie with whole chunks missing. The film is fast paced as opposed to slow and brooding like Alien was and that's no bad thing; this is not Alien, afterall, it's something different. But after a while the pace begins to harm the plot. One fantastic sequence involving Rapace's character Shaw (and a very sudden medical procedure) is a particular highlight of the film but the scene that takes place straight after it makes no acknowledgement of it. It's like there's a deleted scene where everybody else reacts to what just happened. And it's not the only one, sadly. Quite a few times I felt as though I'd missed something! Motives are also very poorly defined - you will ask yourself more than once why a character did a particular thing, only for there to be no answer offered up.

It's a good film and one I think a lot of people will enjoy, but it is also deeply flawed. And let me make it clear that it's nothing to do with the fact that it's not like Alien. On it's own merits, Prometheus is a 7/10.

[Worst Part's Almost Over]

For the record, when I said that there are questions unanswered and motives that are never explained, these are what I was refering to:

- Why does David deliberately infect Holloway with the contents of the ampoule?

- Why does Holloway willingly allow Vickers to kill him and why are her actions never commented on or followed up?

- Why did everyone except for Shaw know about Weyland being on board?

- Why does Fifield attack the others after his mutation?

- The best scene of the film involves Shaw performing a cesaerian on herself to remove an alien life form. But in the next scene it's never mentioned and nobody reacts to Shaw showing up covered in blood with her stomach stapled up. WHY?!

- Why does the Engineer kill Weyland and rip David's head off?

- Why is Janek (and his pilots for that matter) so willing to commit suicide rather than consider other options for taking down the Engineer ship?

The film never gives us any answers for these things and, as far as I can tell, that's just down to bad writing. All the same, I enjoyed the flick and I'm glad I went to see it. I'll probably even get it on DVD. But it's only a good film when I think it could probably have been a great film with a little more thought put into it.

[John-Locke]

I had all the same issues as you, it's all about motives and the feeling that things are brushed over or rushed, could have done with being 20-30 minutes longer. I still liked the film a lot though despite it's flaws.

[GothamAlleys]

Alien fans online seem to be pretty pissed off about the movie to say the least. Havent seen it yet and to be honest, the movie is still a blank page for me, I dont know what to expect

[King Of Nowhere]

Alien fans online seem to be pretty pissed off about the movie to say the least. Havent seen it yet and to be honest, the movie is still a blank page for me, I dont know what to expect

I think it would've been a much better film if they hadn't tried to link it so closely with Alien. It pretends to be about big questions, but turns into a re-tread of the original as soon as they enter the non-derelict.

Plot hoes asside, I would've enjoyed it more if the non-derilict wasn't sitting the exact same way as the one in Alien, the interior wasn't just copy & pasted with ampoules in place of eggs, the scene at the end didn't exist and, most importantly, if the engineer, who's supposed to be a massively intelligent being who's actions us puny humans wouldn't be able to understand, flat out HULK SMASH'd everything after he woke up.

It reminded me of AI.

[bastard_robo]

So what you're saying is that the internet over hyped it's self on another film?


SHHHHOOCCKKKKing.


Let it be known.. I never cared for the Alien series to begin with.. but can see how they are beloved.



I always liked Predator more anyway

[King Of Nowhere]

I don't think the hype machine had much to do with it, i'd only seen some early trailers (before they got terribly spoilerish) and read the AICN interview with RS and DL. I wasn't actively browsing the zone or any other movie site during hype season.

Harry's review on the main site is exactly my problem with the movie. All i've seen is things like "oh, it's not really an Alien movie, don't think of it as that" when it clearly is. They go out of their way to have shit match the original. If any of you have seen the behind the scenes thing from the prequel trilogy DVD sets, Lucas talks about those being "like poetry, the beats: they rhyme" and whatnot, it's the same thing with Prometheus. Every big moment from Alien has been reproduced. The stuff that isn't copypasta is good, but they take two steps back for every one step forward.

It's not a slasher set is space, but it's not "hard sci-fi" either.

For the record, when I said that there are questions unanswered and motives that are never explained, these are what I was refering to:

- Why does David deliberately infect Holloway with the contents of the ampoule?

The scene where Vickers asks David something like "what was he saying" seems to hint that he was taking orders (or had maybe received them mid/pre-flight) from Weyland himself.

[ufoclub1977]

In great anticipation of "Prometheus" I post a relevant page from my ALIEN comic I drew 32 years ago. See four more pages by downloading this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/98025/1980%206t ... ic.pdf.zip

[Brit Pop]

So what you're saying is that the internet over hyped it's self on another film?


SHHHHOOCCKKKKing.

And I fell for it, been saying for the last few months 'The only thing I'm waiting for is Prometheus' etc etc...
Got my not-so-into-films friends whipped up into a frenzy, so a group of us went to see it last night...

They quite enjoyed it... I however was a tad underwhelmed, for many of the same reasons in spoiler text above.

Will go into more detail later once I have time to think about it.

But I felt it fell into the same trap as many franchise films (Police Academy Syndrome), I mean they worked out the bits from the other films that people liked and clunkily reproduced them for the new movie.

Ah well, I also dont need to see Spiderman now because, for some reason, they showed not one but two extended trailers for it which both pretty much showed the entire film... Hollywood is run by idiots - official.

[The Vicar]

Nutz.

[Brit Pop]

Well I've mulled it over... it seems to me, and its been the bane of many films, that if the underlying premise of the film makes the viewer think "now why the hell would they do that?!?" more than once... then its fatally flawed...

In spoiler text is what I pieced together as to the Engineers motivations...

So the engineers are a race of aliens who specialise in creating life on planets - they are not gods or magical beings as they require ships, spacesuits and technology... and they appear to suffer from bouts of mortality as we do.
They travel to lifeless planets, very magnanimously drink a potion that kills them, dissolves them, and spreads their genetic material around for lifeforms to grow.
Somehow, the genetic material seems to give sentient beings a picture of a star system in-built into their minds - possibly as an invitation by the engineers to go visit them when they can.
But the map takes you to a grubby, supposed bio-weapons facility. Now these omnipotent beings appear to be a bit thicker and less noble than originally portrayed, because they've all succumbed to mutated monsters created by their life-goo.
It also seems they like to create life, let it grow and evolve, then travel back to the planet many years later and expose the fauna to the goo again, which kills them and spawns nasty-ass xenomprph type creatures.

I can only assume this is all a metaphor for inherent duality or evil etc etc blah blah yakety smackety - maybe some of the enigineers are nice, peaceful creators... and the rest of them are belligerent corporate monsters who use the universe as a breeding ground for the next gen of alien nasty... aparently - you DO see aliens fucking eachother over for a god-damned percentage!

Their motivations confused me too much... so my brain kinda slipped into neutral about half way through.

Prometheus is a good, visually stunning, science fiction movie... but so was Event Horizon.
Prometheus tackles alien evolution theories... but so does Mission To Mars.
Prometheus deals with the soulessness of created beings... but so does AI, I, Robot, Blade Runner, Terminator... and Alien etc.

As a standalone movie, with franchise potential, Prometheus is a great movie...
But as Ridley Scotts aria that is his best work since Alien... it is not.

[TonyWilson]

For the record, when I said that there are questions unanswered and motives that are never explained, these are what I was refering to:

- Why does David deliberately infect Holloway with the contents of the ampoule?

Because he wants to know what it's going to do, the reason he picks Holloway is that he was needling him about not being real, it shows that David can display characteristics of malice even if he cannot feel the real emotion, it ties in thematically with creators and creations views on each other.

- Why does Holloway willingly allow Vickers to kill him and why are her actions never commented on or followed up?

He knows he's infected with alien shit and allows himself to be killed rather than rick infecting the rest, he action speaks for themselves and need no further comment

- Why did everyone except for Shaw know about Weyland being on board?

Pretty sure only David and some of the Weyland persoanl guards knew

- Why does Fifield attack the others after his mutation?

He's a mutated with an alien bio-weapon

- The best scene of the film involves Shaw performing a cesaerian on herself to remove an alien life form. But in the next scene it's never mentioned and nobody reacts to Shaw showing up covered in blood with her stomach stapled up. WHY?!

The next scene is of David and Weyland, they know what's going on with her and know they don't need to be concerned now they have found a living engineer.

- Why does the Engineer kill Weyland and rip David's head off?

Clearly the engineers want to kill humans and there's one right there next to his "creation" of course the engineer will kill both

- Why is Janek (and his pilots for that matter) so willing to commit suicide rather than consider other options for taking down the Engineer ship?

No other options, they have no weapons, but agreed that the decision to die was brushed over.

[fitz-hume]

- Why is Janek (and his pilots for that matter) so willing to commit suicide rather than consider other options for taking down the Engineer ship?

No other options, they have no weapons, but agreed that the decision to die was brushed over.

Not stopping the Engineer ship would mean the end of all their families, loved ones and the whole human race. Few would hesitate in such a situation. It makes perfect sense. And like Tony said, there were no other options.

[TheButcher]

/film Interview: Ridley Scott Explains How ‘Alien: Paradise’ Became ‘Prometheus’, Planning for a ‘Prometheus’ Sequel and More

[GothamAlleys]

I think the movie is absolutely terrific. It has heart and terror as well, as well as some pretty good depth. And Im not referring to the whole creationism thing, its actually the character's stories and pathos that made biggest impact on me. I dont know where to start, but if you havent seen the movie yet dont read further cause Ill be "spoilering" the whole thing.

The opening is great, the first notes of the music and the whole credits sequence sets up a great mood and sense of dread contrasted with beautiful and peaceful images. Davids sequences showing him as this harmless, lone guy watching movies and doing chores on the ship is excellent, very moody. Watching Shaws dream was also a nice touch, Davids a great character, he seems to innocent and sincere and yes, Fassbender did a great job with the character. Reading reviews I thought people must be seriously overdoing on praising his performance, but he definitely deserves all the praise he gets. First attack from the hammerpede was actually pretty tense and terrifying, I thought its gonna be a typical gory slasher scene, but it nicely created tension. One of the things I really liked was that Holloway was such an annoying douchebag and I hated the guy, then the movie successfully twists my feelings when he gets infected and I feel very sorry for him in that moment. The burning is a great emotional moment, but has a flaw in the movie's structure - it cuts away to soon, not leaving enough time to fully digest the drama of the moment. The abortion scene was phenomenal, and it wasnt the gore (there was barely any) or even the idea itself that made it terrifying, but it was Rapace's great, great acting. I mean, she does such a great job in selling the pain and terror that you really feel like its real and her fear and physical and emotional pain is contagious. The whole subplot with Weyland doing the expedition in hopes of prolonging his life was pretty sad, because everyone of us wants to live, and the shadow of death is right upon him. All he wants is just to live, yet he dies in such awful way, killed by a being that he thought would understand his fear and help him. It was also very sad that he still lived for a second after the hit, knowing that all was for nothing and that hes dying. His relationship with David was also interesting. The finale was grand and created genuine tension, something I dont feel during action sequences watching recent movies. It was great to feel the thrill of the action along with the tension again. The ending is one of my favorite scenes, Its very creepy and the creature itself is creepy as hell, sounding like a baby at first and with torso looking like that of a child and this horrific head and double jaw. It was also a nice classic horror ending

What I didnt like was the design of the squid, which was almost as awfully bad as The Thing 2012 designs. I didnt care for the hammerpede either. I didnt like the first explorations scenes too, they just felt bland. Shaw reuniting with David and both going to another world was meh

Whats also interesting is that the movie doesnt have a villain. Monsters appear very sporadically and briefly, engineer appears just at the end, and Vickers isnt a villain, shes just an cold character

Overall, Im extremely surprised by the movie, I expected a good movie and then hoped for one when bad reviews were coming in, but at the end it was better than I ever thought it would be. Definitely buying the DVD, and I think its a great addition to the franchise. 8/10

[Fried Gold]

I've seen it three times now and have sat there fairly engrossed by the whole thing each time.

Even though they'd been pressing quite hard to suggest it wasn't a straight-on Alien film, I was actually expecting it to be. So I was pleasently surprised by it, while it obviously does have that "connective tissue" with the Alien story to me it's nothing major and fits in fine with that universe.

The ambiguity of the story didn't bother me, that's part of the attraction. It makes you more involved. Some of the greatness of Alien was that a whole bunch of stuff was left a mystery and partly why 30+ years later, people were and are still talking about various aspects of it. I think a lot of people are annoyed because they didn't get the obvious LV-426 derelict prequel story.

Amazingly it had the suspense and tension I was after, still has that monster movie heart and those nice shock moments, but is laced with some ethereal texture. Shaw's ending was a surprise. The film obviously looks marvellous, the "3D" is an okay added bonus by not an essential feature.

If I do have one main issue with with it, it's the transition from the second to third acts. It's somewhat jarring and does feel a bit like a brief connecting scene is missing. Whether it was edited that way for a purpose I don't know, we might not know until the VHS release, but it just jogs you out of the film slightly. With a smoother transition to the final act, it'd be near perfect (and it might've stopped all the whining about the last part being just an Alien tie-in).

Now, I could go in to details about all of WPAO points above and show how he should've been paying more attention and how he appears to lack a human spirit. But I'll leave that for another time.

[Spandau Belly]

So I saw this and I think you guys hit on a lot of the same stuff I felt. It is somewhat mispaced and lacking in focus. And I agree that a longer, more fleshed out cut of this movie would probably appeal to me more.

The film does look great and the acting is generally very solid. Rapace does a standup job being able to sell the wide-eyed curiousity-driven explorer and also show incredible resolve during the abortion sequence. And it never feels like her character jumped too many gears and went from wimp to asskicker. She keeps it all within a reasonable range.

Rapace's character is so in awe of the universe's endless glory that she feels little need to pass judgement or have control, she's honoured just to be a witness to nature's glory. And Chuck Theron plays the perfect foil to her character as the cold bitter narrowminded control-freak. I feel like if the movie had maybe focussed more on the dynamic between these two it would've gelled a lot better. I don't know if I needed it to be as black and white as a good guy versus bad guy dynamic, but I feel like the film had a great setup for conflicting characters and then just jumped over the conflict. Their dynamic probably should've come to some sort of a head after Theron incinerates Rapace's sweetheart, but it just seemed like a bunch of other more important shit came up and kept these two from clashing the way they should've.

Fassbender is also outstanding. As a manmade creation, his character is put to good thematic use to consider the film's main question of creation. Does he do things because he was programmed to, or just because he's curious? He is a good flip on the human characters who are asking themselves the same thing.

All and all, I liked this film. I will definitely see it again and I expect it to grow on me. And maybe if Ridley Scott recuts this thing as much as he does his other films, I'll eventually get a cut that flows better for me. Who knows, they could probably use Patrick Wilson riding a unicorn in there somewhere.

[TheButcher]

Great Scott's go-to crew - Billion-Dollar Production Team: 'Prometheus'

In April 2011, when director Ridley Scott was a third of the way into principal photography on "Prometheus" at London's Pinewood Studios, the producers faced a critical decision.

With the Arab Spring uprisings spreading across North Africa and the Middle East, it had become too risky to shoot the film's alien landscapes outside Ouarzazate, Morocco, as planned. Just 125 miles away in Marrakech, a suicide bomber had blown up a well-known tourist cafe, killing 16 people. The advance team gearing up with local crew in Ouarzazate would have to pull up stakes.

For most film companies, this would have been the terrestrial production world equivalent of the poster tagline for Scott's original "Alien" (1979): "In space, no one can hear you scream." But the "Prometheus" team handled it with calm efficiency, moving the film's alien exteriors 2,400 miles to the north to the colder climes of Iceland.

"We were already filming, so we flew up to Iceland on one of our weekends with our department heads," says Mark Huffam, the film's executive producer, who was part of the eight-person scout team that also included Scott, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, production designer Arthur Max, first a.d. Max Keene and Fox creative exec Steve Asbell.

Using helicopters and "super trucks" modified to travel across rugged mountains and glaciers, they surveyed areas around the Mt. Hekla volcano and the Dettifoss waterfall.

"Five weeks later, we're shooting there," Huffam says.

The ability to turn a multimillion-dollar production around on a dime doesn't just occur by happenstance. Over the past decade and a half, Scott has cultivated a trusted team of regular collaborators -- including Max and editor Pietro Scalia, who have each worked on eight films with Scott beginning with 1997's "G.I. Jane," and costume designer Janty Yates, a veteran of seven Scott films since 2000's "Gladiator." All are equally adept at working independently, anticipating the boss' needs, sparking his imagination, and taking orders.

"One of the advantages with Ridley is he's incredibly well-prepared and knows what he wants and is very good at communicating that to everybody, so you're very efficient as a unit with him," Huffam says. "Often (when you go on location) it's 'let's take everything because we're not sure what's going to happen.' With Ridley, if you say, 'This is a very difficult location and we need …,' and he'll just say, 'Right. Well, we don't need this or that, but I do need this.' "

"Prometheus" does feature one significant new collaborator in d.p. Wolski, who was already familiar to Scott having shot 1995's "Crimson Tide" and 1996's "The Fan" for his brother and fellow director Tony Scott.

" 'Prometheus' was Ridley's first experience with 3D," says Huffam, "and Dariusz had already done a couple of films in 3D." The d.p. had shot 2010's "Alice in Wonderland" and 2011's "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."

"Prometheus" was a humongous undertaking even by Scott's epic standards. At the height of production at Pinewood, a construction crew of nearly 350 people labored on the giant sets spread across five soundstages and the backlot.

"It was the most challenging of all the things I've done, for sure," says Max, whose lone previous sci-fi experience was his first collaboration with Scott, a 1985 commercial for New Coke set in a dystopian future inspired by the director's 1982 film "Blade Runner." "(It was) partially because of the scope of Ridley's fantastic vision of the galactic realm, and also because of his preoccupation with the minutiae of everything."

As exacting as the filmmaker can be, Huffam says no one on his sets sports "I Survived Working for Ridley Scott" T-shirts.

"Yes, it's challenging and demanding, but it's a pleasant experience because everybody knows he appreciates what they do," Huffam says. "Even when there are newcomers, they very quickly become his crew."

Despite some hiccups -- including malfunctioning 3D camera rigs that caused delays early in the shoot -- Scott managed to finish "Prometheus" on time and on budget and lock the print well in advance of today's bow, a rarity for a vfx-heavy film these days.

"He is the most efficient director I've worked with, as well as incredibly creative, so it makes my job easy," Huffam says. "Or I should say easier."

[Ribbons]

I saw the movie last night and, while I enjoyed parts of it, found it vaguely unsatisfying on the whole. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on why at the moment, but there's certainly material in there that's ripe for discussion. I'm going to respond to a couple things my fellow Zoners have already brought up:

Why does David deliberately infect Holloway with the contents of the ampoule?

I think the end game in that case was actually impregnating Shaw with a viable specimen, since David didn't realize at the time that there were still life forms on the ship; Holloway was just collateral damage. A lot of screentime was deliberately given to David examining all the old runes that only he could read, which means he probably had a vague notion of what he could do with the contents of the ampoule. Why he and Weyland wanted to create alien life was never specifically addressed, but they could have thought it was their only chance to communicate with the Engineers or Weyland could have believed examining it would have scientific benefits. It certainly wouldn't be the first time Weyland-Yutani played with fire (well, chronologically it would).

Why does Holloway willingly allow Vickers to kill him and why are her actions never commented on or followed up?

Holloway sacrificed himself because neither side was giving in and he saw the situation quickly escalating into a quarantine or outright massacre of all the other scientists, including Shaw. I do agree that the consequences of his death were not explored in a very satisfying way, especially for Vickers, who should have become the natural enemy of the crew at that point. Instead the very next shot is of Shaw waking up on an operating table when (unless I missed something) we never even saw her lose consciousness.

Why does Fifield attack the others after his mutation?

This one really shouldn't have to be spelled out, I think it was pretty obvious that Fifield was long dead and whatever claimed his body was making its own decisions.

Why does the Engineer kill Weyland and rip David's head off?

If we can assume that David is correct in saying that the Engineers have decided that life on Earth has not worked out the way they wanted it to and are returning there to destroy and experiment on whatever remains, then this particular Engineer was just getting a head start.

Why is Janek (and his pilots for that matter) so willing to commit suicide rather than consider other options for taking down the Engineer ship?

I don't know if there even were any other options, but if so, they didn't have a whole lot of time to consider them.

What I didnt like was the design of the squid, which was almost as awfully bad as The Thing 2012 designs.

I actually found the design of the squid to be terrifically disgusting, a continuation of the whole "space rape" motif that's been going on since the first film. That scene where it falls on top of its victim and basically swallows it makes me shudder just thinking about it.

They travel to lifeless planets, very magnanimously drink a potion that kills them, dissolves them, and spreads their genetic material around for lifeforms to grow. Somehow, the genetic material seems to give sentient beings a picture of a star system in-built into their minds - possibly as an invitation by the engineers to go visit them when they can. But the map takes you to a grubby, supposed bio-weapons facility. Now these omnipotent beings appear to be a bit thicker and less noble than originally portrayed, because they've all succumbed to mutated monsters created by their life-goo. It also seems they like to create life, let it grow and evolve, then travel back to the planet many years later and expose the fauna to the goo again, which kills them and spawns nasty-ass xenomprph type creatures.

I can only assume this is all a metaphor for inherent duality or evil etc etc blah blah yakety smackety - maybe some of the enigineers are nice, peaceful creators... and the rest of them are belligerent corporate monsters who use the universe as a breeding ground for the next gen of alien nasty... aparently - you DO see aliens fucking eachother over for a god-damned percentage!

Their motivations confused me too much... so my brain kinda slipped into neutral about half way through.

I agree, I think I slipped into 'neutral' a bit because so much of what was going on seemed either ambiguous or contradictory. However advanced the Engineers are, though, I don't know if they were ever portrayed as noble or infallible. It seems they have a long history of mucking about with things that blow up in their face. As for the map to a weapons facility, they might have somehow planted that information in the DNA of their creations in case they wanted any of their "worthier" subjects to find them so they could congratulate themselves/conduct further experiments/write a thesis and get tenure. Their lab would have probably looked a lot nicer if they hadn't accidentally killed themselves. But they also decided a long time ago that we were not particularly worthy of their attention, so it's also possible that whatever information was given to us by our creators was deciphered incorrectly. I don't feel the need to know any more about why they made us than that, but I found all the rituals to be impenetrably dense.

Rapace's character is so in awe of the universe's endless glory that she feels little need to pass judgement or have control, she's honoured just to be a witness to nature's glory. And Chuck Theron plays the perfect foil to her character as the cold bitter narrowminded control-freak. I feel like if the movie had maybe focussed more on the dynamic between these two it would've gelled a lot better. I don't know if I needed it to be as black and white as a good guy versus bad guy dynamic, but I feel like the film had a great setup for conflicting characters and then just jumped over the conflict. Their dynamic probably should've come to some sort of a head after Theron incinerates Rapace's sweetheart, but it just seemed like a bunch of other more important shit came up and kept these two from clashing the way they should've.

You're right, and I think this could have helped the story on a large scale. It's not that the script needed a villain, but Vickers and Shaw seemed diametrically opposed when it came to the mysteries of the universe, and what seemed like a relationship headed toward a natural conflict kind of just fell apart near the end.


...finally, I think the biggest question I had upon leaving the theatre was why they cast Guy Pearce as an old man instead of just, you know, an old man.

[so sorry]

Saw it last night (perhaps the same theater as you Ribs?).

I enjoyed it immensely, visually was stunning, but yeah, story was a bit thin IMO. Seemed like 10 different plots happening at the same time. That said, I did like it a lot, will be seeing it again in the theater.

And the last scene with the birth of the alien...I thought it was really creepy and loved it. Poor little thing has nothing to do on that barren planet!

And I hope we never see the continuation of this story as far as Shaw's mission to the engineer's home planet. I like the ambiguous ending.

Fassbender was superb. I would not be surprised if he got an Oscar nod for this.

[Ribbons]

Saw it last night (perhaps the same theater as you Ribs?).

Not bloody likely! ...unless you were at AMC Hamilton, in which case hi.

[so sorry]

Saw it last night (perhaps the same theater as you Ribs?).

Not bloody likely! ...unless you were at AMC Hamilton, in which case hi.

Hamilton NJ? Figured you were maybe at KoP IMAX. I felt kinda silly being there over an hour early (10th in line). By the time they let us in the line was redonkulous.mi was sitting dead fucking center!

[Ribbons]

Yeah, I'm not very close to King of Prussia anymore (about a 45 minute drive compared to my old 15). However, I might make the trek out there when The Dark Knight Rises comes out.

[TheButcher]

From Comic Book Resources:


After "Prometheus," What's Next?

The story of Project Prometheus may continue after Ridley Scott's movie much sooner than you think... Maybe even within the next six months.

[Spandau Belly]

But the "Prometheus" team handled it with calm efficiency, moving the film's alien exteriors 2,400 miles to the north to the colder climes of Iceland.

Wow, during the opening scene where the alien chokes on the Reese peanut butter cup I actually thought it was Iceland. But then they cut to the scene with Rapace and Whoshisface in Scotland so I just assumed the previous scene was Scotland too.

Good to know my Iceland-spotting powers are still strong.

[so sorry]

Read an interesting theory from a talkbacker today (based on nothing but what he thought): the engineer in the beginning of the film sacrifices himself to create life withOUT consent from the other engineers (perhaps as a religious order kinda thing). So eventually the rest of his race discovers what he did and decides they need to go and "fix" it by destroying all life.

I thought it was an interesting idea. Its purely made up, but thinking back it could fit.

The more I rehash this movie in my head and read about other peoples questions and answers, the more I start to dislike it, sadly. A repeat viewing is in order, and damn fucking straight I'll be buying the inevitable extended edition BlueRay, but yeah, didn't turn out to be as good as I was hoping.

[Spandau Belly]

I choose to believe our entire existence is the result of a rotten piece of candy.

Remember to check those expirey dates!

[Ribbons]

An interesting comment I read elsewhere that I'm basically re-posting wholecloth:

I assured myself that I’d forgive any narrative flaws as long as there’d be big ideas to chew on. Turns out I was wrong. There ARE big ideas to chew on but the narrative flaws are impossible to be blinked away. Then again, that other article about the Space Jesus reading makes me want to rewatch the film. I didn’t think that possible when the credits began to roll.

So, why go along with the Jesus reading – even if, as you’ve said, this stuff isn’t actually explicitly in there? There’s lots of questions that go with that interpretation. First of all: Why Jesus Christ? Christianity was born out of quite a chaos of sects and small, scattered apocalyptic cults. The diverse eschatological beliefs of the antique were dynamic products of their respective societies. Why would the engineers look so carefully at all these beliefs, choose one of those sects, send them one of their own as a fulfillment of apocalyptic expectations and then consider this the final chance of humanity to redeem themselves? This is something the film should have explored in a way more explicit way if Scott and Lindelof really wanted people to get on the Space Jesus train, like indicated by this Scott interview.

Then again, you could look at it like that: There is a mysterious source or wellspring of a material universe. The ‘cosmos’, God, a truth ‘beyond the curtain’ like in Hinduism – call it whatever you want. Think of Yoda’s explanation of the force in EMPIRE. Out of that, life comes forth. Somewhen in the history of the cosmos, a certain species comes into existence – the engineers. After some time of evolution, they develop the technology or find the means to create life themselves, thus reaching a cosmic turning point in the history of their species. They themselves become the gods of a new lifeform now.

The most important point to see here is that the engineers themselves depend on myths to make sense of their existence. The artistic depictions of mythological acts inside their ships are a pretty solid indication for that. Plus: The movie opens with one engineer practicing a ritual self-sacrifice in order to fulfill some concept he must think of as divine. The engineers themselves are, in a way, ‘men of faith’. It’s no far stretch at all to say that a being who primarily deals in mythological categories imposes these categories on others. It’s what happens when children are educated in a religious fashion. And it’s what happens when the engineers send an emissary to earth.

They know that this is the appropriate ‘language’ to communicate with a deeply religious species that in their ‘antique’ state of development will be able to ‘get’ the message. And they get it. They just choose not to act by it. They act totally oblivious to the moral standarts of the engineers (shared by just a few scattered human beings) who are horrified not by the exact one crime of the crucifixion, but what it stands for. The bible tells of angel rolling away the stone covering the tomb of Christ. Why, this of course were the engineers getting their martyr away from this wretched place and lifting him up into heaven – because this is literally where he came from.

Meanwhile, mankind itself has reached their cosmic turning point – we too created new life (androids) and want it to act according to our moral standarts (e.g. not experimenting on poor crew members by infecting them with an obviously pretty dangerous substance). The engineers would look upon us with the same alienation with which we look at androids. Maybe they even doubt we have a soul at all. David’s seemingly irrational and cruel acts shock us as much as the engineers were shocked about mankinds treatment of their prophet. PROMETHEUS then tells the epic story of the constant process of alienation (pun not intended) between creator and creation – and that is just because of one simple fact: The ‘truth’ of the cosmos (God, the Tao, the lifestream, whatever) is so elusive life has to construct it’s own meaning.

The engineers as well as their children deal in mythological categories that aren’t ‘true’ by any means, they’re just everything we have. It’s ‘classic’ Lindelof: Jacob and the Man in Black (hey, look – he’s an engineer. He wants to harvest and use the primal cosmic force which cannot be tamed, which will lead to his downfall) didn’t have the answers either, just their interpretations of what exactly the Island was. The PROMETHEUS crew finds the gods of mankind but they won’t get any answers because the gods themselves are lost creatures, bound to very specific interpretations of their own existence. It’s a true tragedy and a story so very worth telling.

It’s not that the movie would be unmistakable about these things. But I do think the dots ARE there to be connected. It’s not that the engineers stay completely alien to us. We know that they are guided by myth. That’s some pretty important insight, I guess. I just wish all the weak character writing wouldn’t get in the way of loving PROMETHEUS for it’s philosophy/theology/cosmology. But it does.

[Spandau Belly]

The more you get into aliens sending agents to walk amongst us and influence us, the closer you get to THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU. PROMETHEUS may not be a great film, but I never actually pitied what I was watching the way I just felt embarassed for THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.

[Ribbons]

I don't know how much I buy into the Space Jesus stuff either. I do think they were sort of coyly tap-dancing around the idea; the film takes place on Christmas, the Engineers set their course for Earth roughly 2000 years ago, and religion is a not-too-subtle motif in the story. But they wisely chose not to pull on that thread, because it would have been stupid for a lot of reasons (for starters I'm pretty sure there would be some mention in the Bible of Jesus being a freakishly large alabaster man). Even if you don't go in for the whole space cops manipulating earthlings angle, the consequences are more or less the same, which in this case are the Engineers' feelings of rage and betrayal at their creations for taking on lives and confusing belief systems of their own. That much they definitely were going for, because it echoes down through all the relationships in the film, from Engineers to humans, from humans to their children, from their children to robots. Then again, I don't know where the xenomorphs fit into that equation. They're like the trickster god that is equally deadly and incomprehensible to all of them.

I should note that I still don't like the movie all that much, but it's fun to talk about.

[fitz-hume]

Charlie Rose - 'Prometheus' with Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace
8 June 2012

Interesting interview with Fassbender and Rapace. Click the link below for the video.



http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12397

[tapehead]

There are problems with the storyline, but I also think that Ridley Scott is clever enough to have purposefully orchestrated an instant cult classic sci-fi horror. There's a real lunatic edge to Prometheus that I enjoyed a lot. The first half hour is riddled with 'Chariots of the Gods' style notions of Alien intervention into human evolution, or indeed it's very creation. We see a Xenomorph crucified in the Head room's art, and hear that the Engineer's facility coincides roughly with the time of Christ on Earth. It's possible to plot the Engineers and the Black goo as Apollonian and Dionysian sides of a Creator / Destroyer coin as Scott transmogrifies his own HR Giger Alien Iconography into into the set and props for a new story. It's all pretty barking mad, but no less so than Event Horizon, Stalker, Blade Runner (and that one has launched a nerd cult of endless online discourse) and any number of Philip K Dick's, or Heinlein's or Bradbury's or Vonnegut's science fiction. ALIEN was no Citizen Kane either, in cas you're misremembering it. I had no problem with the plot, but I agree the structure is a bit fractured as the story approaches the final act. I can't wait then, for an inevitable revised version on Blu Ray - I really hope there's more from Ridley Scott like this to come.

I admit completely that I thought that the character of David, the Production Design (both the Giger-revisited space Jockey pad and the 'spaceship-by-Apple' stylings of Prometheus itself) and the excellent 3D in this movie were worth the price of admission alone. I'll go see it again while it's in cinemas.

[Ribbons]

NOW WITH POLL

[so sorry]

NOW WITH POLL

Now with answer!

I can't help it...as much of a mess I think Prometheus was, I would still pay to see more...

[Ribbons]

I keep waffling on the idea.

On the one hand my immediate reaction at the end of the film was that I wanted to see what happened next; on the other hand there's a good chance I might not like the answer. Plus it sort of works as a standalone story. But if they do end up making a sequel I'd be down for some more.

[so sorry]

I keep waffling on the idea.

On the one hand my immediate reaction at the end of the film was that I wanted to see what happened next; on the other hand there's a good chance I might not like the answer. Plus it sort of works as a standalone story. But if they do end up making a sequel I'd be down for some more.

Ditto. I think what this comes down to for me is that Prometheus wasn't the movie perfection that I had hoped for. Therefore, my brain is telling me I'd be willing to see more to see if he can improve on it. If Prometheus was something that gobsmacked me across the face in amazement, then I'd probably be screaming to leave it alone.

[RogueScribner]

I'm on the fence on whether to see this movie. There doesn't seem to be much of a consensus anywhere. Some love it. Some hate it. Some are mixed. If I'm going to be disappointed, I'd rather it be in the comfort of my own home and not trapped inside a movie theater. Hmmmm. Decisions, decisions...

[fitz-hume]

'Prometheus' Sequel Could Be Called 'Paradise', Says Ridley Scott
13 June 2012



Sir Ridley Scott has revealed details of a potential follow-up to Prometheus.

The Oscar-nominated director said that the sequel to the recent sci-fi could be called Paradise, which was Prometheus's original title.

"From the very beginning, I was working from a premise that lent itself to a sequel," Scott told The Hollywood Reporter.

"I really don't want to meet "God" in the first one. I want to leave it open to [Noomi Rapace's character Dr Elizabeth Shaw] saying, 'I don't want to go back to where I came from. I want to go where they came from'."

The director also teased that the paradise of the film's possible title would not be as heavenly as the name suggests.

"Because [the Engineers] are such aggressive fuckers, I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God," Scott explained.

"I'd love to explore where [Dr Shaw] goes next and what does she do when she gets there, because if it is paradise, paradise cannot be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous."

Damon Lindelof, who co-wrote the film, suggested that any follow-up would be less concerned with building up to Alien and would instead go in a different direction.

"[Prometheus] has two children - one of these children grows up to be Alien, but the other child is going to grow up, and God knows what happens to them," he said. "And that's what the sequel to Prometheus would be."

Rapace recently expressed her hope for a sequel to the film, which also starred Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Idris Elba.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news ... scott.html

[Spandau Belly]

The idea of a sequel seems like a bad idea to me, or I guess I should say that when I think about where this story can go, I think the odds are against it succeeding.

I was fine with the ambuguity of PROMETHEUS because it was enough of an adventure in itself, but if we went into a sequel I would start to move into that camp of people who want detailed answers spelling out the relationship between man and engineer. The problem is that anything up until we get those answers will feel like stalling, and the answers are likely not going to be satisfying in themselves. The way to make those answers meaningful is to show their effect on the characters; for us to see how man's perception of himself changes. Rapace is the only human character left, so we would have to see these answers give her some sort solace or empowerment or elightenment or sense of closure that will then compell her to do something that the audience will find rewarding to see. All of this requires a really great screenwriter.

Oh, and if Fassbender doesn't want to come back for the sequel, I suggest they hire David Fincher to have Rapace accidently flush Fassbender's head down the toilet during the pre-credit sequence.

[Ribbons]

I feel like Shaw's character is moving past the point of no return as far as the rest of humanity goes. Considering she's the only person left alive from their original expedition (and even David is just barely functioning), the odds that she'll make it back to Earth are incredibly slim. Then again, who's to say the Engineers' homeworld isn't some marvelous planet full of miracle technological doo-dads? And is Patrick Wilson there? I don't know. These are all things that may not have even been taken into account when this story was being written. But I think I'd like to see what they come up with anyway.

[so sorry]

http://www.prometheusforum.net/discussion/2118

Tons of behind the scenes shots of the Engineer make up effects.

Great to see the use of practical effects. I honestly thought they did it mostly CGI.

All I was thinking when looking at these photos was what if that actor had to pee or poop?

[John-Locke]

SPOILERS!

So I watched the film for a second time yesterday, a few thoughts and observations...

The Engineers on the moon seemed to worship the Xeno's, perhaps life on Earth was only seeded so they could create a shit ton of them.

Why are there no female Engineers?

When the Cryo-Pilot Space Jockey goes after Shaw he's got similar skin lesions to the infected head and Fifield, maybe he was just infected which is why he goes ape shit when they woke him up (although it could just be a burn from the Prometheus attack).

[Ribbons]

I was trying to figure out whether the Engineers actually worship the xenomorphs or if that wall in the spaceship was just their way of saying "this is what will happen if you use that black goo, so be careful." But if creation through destruction is a kind of religion with their species, then the xenomorphs are pretty much the embodiment of that, so it's possible.

[John-Locke]

And it's also possible that in their minds it would be the evolution of their species that would become the Xeno's, the perfect organism, they aren't engineering us as much as they are themselves.

[doglips]

So I watched the film for a second time yesterday, a few thoughts and observations...

I watched it last week, really enjoyed it despite the obvious flaws. Plenty of solid story to discuss, even if the middle came up short. The 20 mins either side of the helmet bong were just too much....

The Engineers on the moon seemed to worship the Xeno's, perhaps life on Earth was only seeded so they could create a shit ton of them.

I agree with that - earth is just one large xeno colony waiting to happen.

I guess my take on the whole thing revolves around the enormous disk ship seen in the prologue - certainly not one of the horseshoe ships, so is some other species in there?
I thought the engineers may be clones (maybe why are there no female Engineers, JL) or at least a bred organism, coerced by hokey religion and used to seed life on other planets by some beings we have yet to see - something playing at gods.
Are the engineers on LV-223 a rebel faction or xeno terrorists if you will, who are meddling with (and getting caught out by) the life giving ooze in an attempt to create the fabled xeno? Once the ooze is mastered they can then infect the planets that their peers suicide bombed/seeded? The xenos could then be used in a conflict of some sort - Shaw may be about to end up in the middle of an intergalactic religious rebellion. The fact the LV-223 engineers had giger bio armour made me think they might have adapted themselves and possibly enhanced the interiors of their horseshoe ships with exo skeleton, much like the hive in aliens.

Man, that makes about as much sense as the plot itself.

[caruso_stalker217]

I was going to write a review of this stupid movie, but I guess I don't have the energy to go through all the stuff I thought was bad. Mostly I'll say I had hoped this would be an intelligent science fiction film that might have some interesting things to say. It wasn't and it didn't. We won't be getting a magic director's cut that solves the "narrative flaws." If there were scenes filmed for this movie that made the story and the characters' motivations make sense they would've been in the movie. The bad scenes like the rampaging super-powered zombie punching people would have been cut while they were still writing this nonsense. If they needed to cut some shit for time, why not drop the scene where Idris Elba and Theron hook up? Served no purpose and went nowhere. Even the alien squid baby scene feels completely superfluous. When the best sequence in your film is also the dumbest scene in the film, there is a problem. I don't know how much Young Guy Pierce footage ended up on the cutting room floor, but I doubt it's enough to justify all the bad old man make-up. Just cast an age-appropriate actor for the part. And why did they keep him a secret anyway? What reason could they possibly have for pretending he's dead? Because this is what happens when somebody writes a bad script and has nothing interesting to say. They tack on some shit like that to try and trick an audience into thinking that something important just happened. Same with the "big" reveal that Charlize is his daughter. Wow, really added a new layer to that character. Good work, guys. And could she have paused any longer before dropping that melodramatic "Father"? Fuck me in the ass. And the entire ending is just crap. So some dude wakes up after 2,000 years and the first thing he does is going on a kill-crazy rampage for no reason, only to be raped in the mouth by something out of a Lovecraft story. And that pathetic stinger right at the end brings this mess right into horror schlock territory.

Ridley Scott had a really good opportunity here to give us a film that isn't just pretty to look at but is also smart and asks some interesting questions. Obviously, that's what he thought they were doing here and they failed. This film does nothing that hasn't been done before and better. I'm not even interested in discussing this failure because I wasn't given an opportunity to give a shit.

[so sorry]

I think you should stop beating around the bush and tell us how you really feel.