Amph On Earth, Everyone Can Hear You Scream: The Prometheus / Alien Discussion Thread (Romulus, Earth)

I revisit Prometheus about once a year, thinking maybe this time it'll "click" for me. But it hasn't.

I do think it says something that I continue to revisit it (maybe that I'm a masochist). I've seen several films since that I really enjoyed at the time, but I haven't had any interest in re-watching them (The F&F movies for instance). I guess, in this case anyway, I appreciate when a film aims high and misses more than when it aims low and hits the bull's eye. I don't have high hopes for the sequel, but I am curious and I'll be there opening day.

 

I liked Prometheus. Quite a lot in fact.

The slow paced style and notion of mankind being developed by an advanced civilization was really good; visually, the movie was awesome too.

 

I hope never to see that movie again. Really one of the worst sci fi movies I've ever seen. Wing Commander is more watchable. It has a wonderful, promising start, but from the midpoint through its final act it's Battlefield Earth bad.

 

The problem is that it floats a lot of these so-called "grand ideas," but then doesn't REALLY explore them. And then it degenerates into a glorified slasher movie in the third act. Also:

-The characters (aside from Michael Fassbender's David) are all complete morons. Seriously, the space truckers in Alien and the Colonial Marines in Aliens were all smarter than these so-called "expert" scientists.
-There are gigantic plot-holes.
-The explanation for the Space Jockey's is really lame.
-Stuff like Weyland faking his own death, or Vickers being his daughter, end up being pointless.
-You have great actors (Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, etc) that are horribly underused/underserved by the script.
-It's very wishy-washy about connecting itself to Alien, which just makes things confusing.
-Etc.

It was a mess. A pretty-looking mess with some good performances and one really interesting character (David), but a mess all the same.

 

Not really. The problems with the first film will still be there, it'll simply be a case of "we'll they fixed things for the second film."

 

The first act established a reasonably entertaining premise, but the moment the "expert biologist" begins whispering sweet nothings to a hideous alien snake-thing he's never seen or studied before and can have no idea how it behaves, the film flew off the rails of logic and plausibility. By the time the lead heroine is leaping around minutes after a self-administered C-section, I'm rolling my eyes waiting for the torture to end.

 

I received this movie as a gift back in February and have yet to open it. Maybe I'll revisit it soon.

 

I think the movie answered it's questions: where did the Alien come from? They were created by the Engineers. There's even that Alien mural Holloway finds at the back of the Big Giant Head room with the single "in case of emergency break glass" vase. Through various Black Liquid transfer wackadoole / Shaw's birth, they sort of eventually reach an Alien with the creature at he end. The Alien in the flicks is, as Ash said, "the perfect organism." That's the end of the chain.

Engineers did a whole lot of bad stuff, they died, the end result of their screwing around with evolution and bioweapons is the Alien. It's not the same planet as LV-426 but even David says "There's another ship" so aroundabouts there is the ship on LV-426 where pretty much the same chain of events happen (dead Engineer with an alien busted out through it's chest).

 

This was the movie that made me stop caring about sequels/reboots decades after related movies.
I don't even want to think about what I didn't like in this movie. All the positive reviews seem to focus more on how it looks, the concept, treat the film like a standalone movie, and ignore the film's place in the saga. Ridley Scott and the movie teased and didn't deliver what was teased, no matter how they try to explain it. All the wonder Ridley Scott mused for years of the Alien "space jockey" as it was called before all this engineers stuff was completely ruined. We, those of us familiar with the series and the connection, didn't go into it to see something appear to fall into place only to be told there *might* be sequels that lead to that point; this isn't that same ship. With time shifter Damon Lindeloff involved, I can only imagine how he intended to loop around after the supposed sequels to this and say "see, now it fits, right?" And that doesn't even begin to cover script details.

 

I suspect Scott is aiming for a new trilogy, i.e why some questions have not been answered at all. I don't know if it was the intention, or the audience was meant to ponder on possible conclusions, but I still found it quite interesting.

 

I very much enjoyed Prometheus. It completes my "Alien Trilogy" which also consists of Alien and Aliens.

 

They wanted to destroy us because we killed "Christ" (an Engineer sent to check on our progress). It's one of those things I wish I were making up...

 

I'm about to watch this for the first time after only seeing Alien. I'm also in the very odd position of having found Alien to be very similar to the critiques I've heard about Prometheus. I found Alien to be quite empty apart from Ian Holm's android character, but even he wasn't explained enough to make Alien the big deal I've heard about. Going into Prometheus hoping something will click.

 

Except that we see Xenomorph imagery in that very room, BEFORE everything goes down. So apparently they already existed in some form.

 

Alien is essentially a "slasher movie in space," and the characters are simple yet relatable. In fact, it's effectiveness is in it's simplicity. They're space-truckers thrust into a situation that they are in no way prepared for and have no defense against. And yet, they STILL make smarter (or at least more understandable) decisions/choices than our so-called "experts" in Prometheus.

 

Surprise! It's confusing and inconsistent!

 

I'll only see this one if Fassbender returns.

 

-How about the moron who was so scared of a millennia's-old fossilized alien body that's missing it's head that he's practically crapping himself. Yet this same guy later on starts playing around with a clearly dangerous alien penis snake that morphs into a clearly even more dangerous alien vagina cobra.

-How about Idris Elba abandoning two crew members (despite having just gotten a reading that something else might be in there with them) so that he could go and sleep with Charlize Theron. Granted, I don't blame him for wanting to sleep with Charlize Theron (at all), but that was not the right time.

-How about the idiots who agree to go on a FOUR YEAR expedition to deep space (and FAR away from any possible help if things go wrong) without knowing ANYTHING about the nature of the mission until their almost there (and far too late to turn back).

-Shaw and her BF's evidence being laughably flimsy, and her brushing it aside as "well I CHOOSE to believe it." Well honey, I could choose to believe that cheeseburgers will rain down from the sky tomorrow, but you know what, it's probably not going to happen.

-Taking their helmets off on a uncharted alien planet just because the "air is breathable." Hey idiots, that doesn't mean that there aren't alien microbes, bacteria, toxins, etc in the air that could still effect you.

-Everyone being a-holes to David for no reason, and ignoring the fact that he clearly DOES have emotions/feelings and could turn on them if pushed too far.

And the list goes on and on and on and on and on. It's almost maddening how much wasted potential that movie had.

 

That about sums it up for me, plus the implausibility of the protagonist going full-blown action heroine within minutes of receiving a C-section, and Theron running in a straight line from the ship that's falling on top of her, when all she has to do is make a right angle to escape it. I'm just so mad at this movie for failing to deliver anything intelligible or satisfying, when it looks so amazing, and I'm generally a fan of Scott's films (yes, even Robin Hood)!

 

I agree with your entire post, yet this is kind of a signature sci fi move, roughly on par with a Stan Lee cameo in a Marvel movie.

 

As far as I recall, the space-truckers didn't do it in Alien.

 

That's because in Alien, the characters behave as real human beings would behave, and the world of the film has logic, consistency, and plausibility. Prometheus has none of those qualities.