Film Prometheus

[axl blaze]

^

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I was thinking that perhaps the black ooze does magnify its host's personality somehow, and uses these characteristics against all when it turns its host into the most perfect killing machine. so essentially, I think I am on level with your theory that you mentioned above. to expand upon this theory, I think it's important to note where the "Proto-Alien" came from - the Space Jockey (or Engineer), who was stopped short on his murderous rampage against all humans by being viciously and bloodily consumed by that huge "Proto-Face Hugger." so my point is that the Aliens that we all know and love were birthed from murderous rage and blood-lust, which I think allows us to view the monsters in their true light! re-watch the three Alien(s) movies that matter, after coming to this conclusion. I plan on it and I do believe that it will make me see the Xenomorphs in a more whole, albeit the same - light!

and just the fact that we can sit here and keep on discussing these points/counterpoints on this movie reminds me of the gravitas of Ridley's film. I really loved Avengers, but that movie didn't have me debating/theorizing/connecting/questioning for days afterwords like Prometheus did....

I realize that there are some instances as to where my suspension of disbelief was terminated, and some noticeable glaring plot holes... but because this film once again takes such a big bite out of the metaphysical/fantastical pie, I seem to be able to let these minor indifferences go, for the time being!

and I'm so pumped that you enjoyed the movie, Freddy. did you see it with anyone? I'm such a lucky dewd in that I saw it with my girlfriend, who is just as big of a sci-fi/Alien(s)/Star Trek/Star Wars nerd as me, and it was a real treat to be able to share the experience and to talk about the experience, afterwords. I firmly believe that this a movie that a fan should see with compatriots

 

[freddy47]

^Plot holes be damned this movie is fantastic in my book

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That is an interesting idea axl. I'm gonna go on an Alien marathon soon that will culminate in me re-watching Prometheus. But the big question remains. Why did the engineers want to exterminate life on Earth in the first place? Had the experiment simply run it's course? Maybe they wanted to take Earth for themselves? So many questions only partially answered and so many more questions asked. It is enough to drive a nerd like me insane 8(

Also about the cave paintings. Did you notice that all the cave paintings displayed were thousands of years apart? Which means to me that the engineers visited Earth sporadically throughout humanities history. Somewhere down the line something must have upset them. But then even the oldest cave painting gave the same invitation. Which could possibly mean that the engineers were planning the destruction of Earth since the very beginning!

and I'm so pumped that you enjoyed the movie, Freddy. did you see it with anyone? I'm such a lucky dewd in that I saw it with my girlfriend, who is just as big of a sci-fi/Alien(s)/Star Trek/Star Wars nerd as me, and it was a real treat to be able to share the experience and to talk about the experience, afterwords. I firmly believe that this a movie that a fan should see with compatriots

lol same here buddy. I am not as lucky as you unfortunately. I saw it with my mother (who saw the orginal Alien in theaters) and my younger brother. They liked it but I could tell they were not as into it as me. I mean I was always fascinated with the Alien universe. I read the comic books and followed every speculation about the nature of the space jockeys. So discussing this film with a fellow nerd such as yourself is awesome :D

 

[axl blaze]

I heard an interesting theory about why the want to exterminate mankind, I subscribe to it whole-heartedly:

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the reason the Engineers or the Space Jockeys wanted to destroy Earth goes even further than mankind being a sloppy, environmentally dangerous, war-mongering race. the Space Jockeys looked down upon Earth (during the reign of the Romans), and decided to send an ambassador of their race down to interject... meaning Jesus Christ. well, to make a long story short the Jockeys were appalled to see their ambassador, who preached nothing but love and forgiveness, tortured mercilessly and crucified upon a cross... so they convened and decided to eliminate Earth. there are a couple factors in the movie that can support this claim, such as an allusion to "2,000 years," but I can not remember all of them that the author stated. I like this theory... but then it still asks the question - why did the Engineers then decide to renege on their plans? a question that I'm sure will be answered to in the sequel

 

[EatMushrooms]

Wow was this movie great. I generally don't get out to the movies very often, but Prometheus was one that I just couldn't miss. I was thoroughly entertaining for the entirety of the movie. I can understand how some people might have been disappointed, but Prometheus had just about everything I could have wanted and more. 5 stars from me. Can't wait for a sequel if they plan to make one.

 

[aanallein]

Replying to axl:

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Yeah that's basically what Ridley Scott said during his interview and is very vaguely implied by the movie itself.

Here's the evidence from the movie:
Scientist chick is Christian and wears a cross. She is asked several times about whether or not she "believes still". You can take this to mean believing in a creator when clearly the engineers created humans given the evidence but she herself is ok with that so I think the cross is a direct arrow about her belief specifically in Christ as a redeemer. The dates support this notion. The year is 2094 and ~2000 years earlier the Engineers were clearly (from the holograms (which are INCREDIBLY convenient and unexplained/unexplainable btw) about to go to Earth to destroy the entire Earth ecosystem (not just humanity) - aka, a reset button via the mutagenic ooze combined with the xenomorph dna.

Btw in case people have missed this plot point, the black ooze is a super mutagen that can either heal (as we saw when it interacted with her womb), bring back to life (like we saw with Fife), mutate-advance (like we saw with the worms), or kick start an ecosystem when combined with engineer dna (like we saw in the opening scene). While the xenomorph dna is completely different. It was stored within the glass vial inside of the vases. This, when combined with the mutagen, is a weapon.

Anyway, it's sort of clear that we, as a species, failed their Jesus test and they were going to wipe us out. The characters seem to think "they changed their mind" which isn't clear. What is clear is they were just about to go exterminate us when they had a sudden (planet/species wide?) outbreak of mutagenic shits (xenomorphs optional) which put their plans on hold for 2k years.

It is also possible that they HAD changed their minds or something and something David said caused the Engineer they woke up to go on ultraBerserker mode. who knows.

Don't know how the Engineers made a human Jesus redeemer.. or if the movies will try to say he was an engineer and that fact was somehow covered up. Who f'ing knows at this point. : \

 

[Belisarius]

Saw this last night. Verdict: Mindblowing. From the very first scene. Amazing visuals (no better Visit Iceland! ad has been filmed), a haunting soundtrack, and--surprise, surprise--characters I actually cared about. This is the first film I've seen Noomi Rapace in, and her projection of her character's strength and quiet dignity thoroughly impressed me, while Fassbender steals every scene he's in despite being (supposedly) emotionless. Not quite a five-starrer, but celluloid dynamite nonetheless. I would watch it again in first-run, and that's saying something; if you want to include it in the Xenomorph universe (I do), it's better than any flick in the series since Aliens. It's also the first movie I've seen in the theaters that I regretted not seeing in 3-D the first time, which I've got to remedy.

If you go into this expecting a straight-up Alien prequel, you'll be disappointed. If you go in with an open mind, though, expecting a kind of spiritual companion piece to to Alien, I don't think you'll be at all disappointed, though in retrospect it bears more resemblance to Carpenter's The Thing.

Here's a spoiler graphic that I think explains some of the more seemingly contradictory aspects of the film:

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[HoneyRoastedPeanut]

Am I the only one who got to the end and thought:

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When David and Shaw are blasting off to find the Engineer's homeworld I was thinking "now THAT'S the movie I wanted to see!"

Honestly, it was good but not great, and it was hard for me to ignore the obvious parallels in cinematography and scene progression to Alien. Great concept behind it all, though, and I loved those glorious first shots where you're not sure if it's an alien world, or Scotland.

 

[change-jug]

I just saw the movie last night with my girlfriend. WE both loved it and had a great conversation about it on the ride home. I was 98% happy with it but a few things nag at my mind.

Spoiler

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Ok,here`s a few things that had me wondering(in no particular order)
1) Is Charlize Theron really a dude? She has a med capsule off of her living quarters that`s calibrated for a guy only. Kinda weird. Also,it`s not 100% that she fucks the captain of the ship(or he`s into future Trannies?)maybe due to her being a guy? Also the way Wayland says that David is the closest thing to having a "son" and the way Theron interacts with David leads both me and my GF to think Theron is indeed a dude.
2) Maybe I remember wrong but in the first Alien movie don`t they find the Space Jockey in that chair with his rib cage burst? And they sure as hell didn`t find a bunch of human corpses laying around either. I thought for sure that the movie would end with the Jockey staggering back into the chair only to get that giant squid face hugger`s baby(egg laying xenomorph) to burst out and kill him. Thus making it a complete circle to the 1st movie.
3) Will we ever know what David said to the space jockey? I`m not shocked that the jockey went nuts and killed everyone. I`m grumpy as hell when I get up from a nap,I can only imagine how pissed I`d be from a hyper nap.
Thoughts?

 

[Belisarius]

^
My two bits:

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1.) I never thought of it that way, though now that you mention it, it *was* extremely bizarre that that unit was calibrated only for males. Perhaps it was meant for Peter Weyland?
2.) Scott and company have billed this movie as not being a direct predecessor to Alien, and didn't set it on the same planet (though the geek in me notices that they simply halved the first and last digits of 426).

3.) I think it was a stroke of brilliance to not translate what David said, and ties in with the ambiguity of the movie as a whole. Did he say something badly? Did he say something that purposefully stoked the Engineer's fury? Did he say something neutral or friendly but, the Engineer simply had no tolerance for humans or androids to begin with (especially if they were initially en route to destroying humans)? This is a case where what you don't know is more interesting than what you do, IMO.

 

[change-jug]

Hazaa! I didn`t know that it took place on a different planet(although I thought that number was a bit off).

 

[axl blaze]

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yeah the planets are different, but that was confusing because they both start with LV. I feel like as an Alien geek I should know this, but what does LV stand for? surely some sort of acronym for a planet that has yet to be explored/colonized... and also, I was expecting the Space Jockey to get infected by a facehugger, only to be crawling slowly back to his space-viewing chair, and then taking his seat JUST AS the xenomorph chestbuster pops out... but I feel like that would have just been too easy for this movie. and also, R. Scott has pretty much all but confirmed a sequel, so I'm sure we will see something like that in the follow-up film

I like not knowing what David the Droid says.... but come on. we know it wasn't good. chances are he was in fact asking the Jockey one of Weyland's questions. and once again, Weyland and his Android had to be just about the worst visiting representation of the human race, to a species of aliens that had decided to already exterminate us! I am accepting this answer to your question, because I it makes sense to me that is why the Engineer raged so hard after being woken up...

 

[L2R]

i enjoyed the characters a lot, particularly the pilot. i really loved the complete lack of cartoon heroes, like one finds throughout most space based films, especially james cameron stuff. the only elements that really rubbed me the wrong way were:

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the fife-zombie.

the complete lack of any immediate follow up on the alien removed from repace's guts.

and

after all the build up about the last surviving alien, the old guy and crew ask him the meaning of life, and he replies with...

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hulk smash!

 

[axl blaze]

two quite awesome pics of the Engineer!

this one is from an unused scene, from the beginning of the film, when that Space Jockey does the thing that he does which makes the world do the thing she does

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people are implying that the "Elder" Space Jockey was sacrificing the first, in the beginning of the this film...

and here is a behind-the-scenes Space Jockey, during construction!

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[L2R]

having slept on it now, i think my main gripe is that there is a different between being creatively vague and surreal, and being unnecessarily convoluted and puzzling. this film was arranged too much like a puzzle, imo.

still voted 4/5. had the above been more of the former, it would have been 6/5.

 

[Psymask]

recon this is worth a watch in 3-d on a normal screen or is it imax every time??

i was contemplating ganning to the regular cinema, but if 3d dont do it justice then i think i'll imax it

 

[axl blaze]

this was the best 3D movie I've ever seen. the monsters and the hard sci-fi and the other worlds were fabulous in 3D

 

[L2R]

yeah the 3d was heaps better than avatar for sure

 

[tambourine-man]

Spoiler: Prometheus Review

A couple of admissions:

• I'm a massive Alien fan, went through a deep HR Giger phase when I was younger and generally love the dystopian sci-fi theme. Any film that offers additional insight into the xenomorph and Weyland is an easy sell for me.
• Other than "Ice Age 3 - The 4D Theatrical Experience", this is the first 3D film I've seen (in case you're interested, the fourth dimension was provided by a custom-built cinema with a bubble/foam machine, wind turbines and an under-seat compressed air canister that blew rubber pipes against the back of your legs... which could have been fun for Prometheus, but I digress).
• I'll go on record that I'm generally a bit confused about why this 3D fad (and it is a fad) is so popular.

So, you should bear this cynicism in mind when I say that I thought the 3D for Prometheus was pretty underwhelming. I can't really say that it added anything to the film, apart from the scenes where there was on-screen holography that lent itself to a noticeable depth of field. I occasionally switched between using my polarised glasses and the traditional eyeball method of watching the film, and it was notable that many scenes could be viewed perfectly well without any noticeable blur. It was actually preferable to do so as polarised glasses seem to dampen the on-screen contrast.

I think, perhaps, I would benefit from viewing the film in 2D to see what I'm supposedly getting for my extra £3, but it was only showing in 3D at my local cinema. Anyway, this film is the reason for my first visit to the cinema in about four years so, 3D or no 3D, the draw must have been quite alluring!

Regarding the films central theme, the comparisons to 2001 or Contact are largely lost on me. Contact was drenched in Sagan's optimism and the lightness of Zemeckis, which made it so refreshing amongst the sci-fi stable. While 2001 was steered by Clarke's technical and logical detail and delivered with Kubrick's fondness for distance and sterility. Prometheus has none of these qualities. It's the pure bio-mech awfulness that makes the Alien franchise (well, at least the first three) so appealing, visually distinct and conceptually terrifying. This instalment is no different in that regard. The only real similarity to the aforementioned films is that they tell a similar story of extraterrestrial origin and that's really where the similarity begins and ends. To compare the films any further would be unfair. I do agree that the film is unnecessarily convoluted in its handling of this theme, and can't help but feel that some of the method flew well over my head as Scott scrambled to organise a story of humanity's origin, link it with the Alien franchise, while keeping the film brooding with intent.

But compare this to other films within the Alien eco-system. The AvP films added in some preposterous historical backstory to justify their existence, and most of that crap was dealt with in the first 10 minutes. I like the fact that Scott avoided this and attempted to weave the bigger themes into the movie, developing it as the extremity of the situation became apparent. I don't think it entirely succeeded as so much was left unsaid, but I'd happily take a faltering Scott sci-fi production that's guilty of attempting to do too much and explain too little.

I must admit that the graphic posted by Belisarius has helped me apply some retrospective understanding. However, I still don't really understand...

• why David chose to deliberately infect Holloway?
• if it was in the hope that it would create a specimen, then to what end?
• why (as someone else said) Janek chose to leave two of the contractors - Fifield and Milburn - to their own devices? Tom Skerritt would have had none of that shit.
• where it was determined for sure that the Engineers wanted to wipe out Earth?

I thought Idris Elba played Janek well, even with the poor characterisation dealt to him. Charlize Theron was delightfully hard-nosed and corporate, while Noomi Rapace was a strong lead. Her scene in the auto-medipod was breathtaking. I would agree that Michael Fassbender stole the show entirely. He was quite perfect in that role.

I may well have to re-watch this soon.

 

[Belisarius]

^
My op, in response to your questions:

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*I think a key point that David emphasizes repeatedly in an ironic fashion is that he feels no emotion, which I think his actions give lie to. He infects Holloway because he wants to find out what it does, and who better to experiment on than Holloway? The man has needled him from practically their first meeting. He implies that he wants Weyland dead, along with that chilling statement that everyone secretly wants to kill their parents. He exhibits curiosity in the alien ship, about Shaw's dreams, and much else.

*To satisfy a curiosity untamed by ethical concerns, which turns up in the Alien franchise itself (in both the movies and in print) again and again.

*There was the storm, at first. When there wasn't, I think the point was to show that the crew really had no attachment to each other, that they were there strictly for a paycheck. In Alien, by contrast, the Nostromo's crew was on the planet as side mission, and that they had a kind of camaraderie born of common hard work; note also the unifying "character" of the ship's cat, Jonesy.

*I think this was strictly reading between the lines; Earth was prominently listed in the star projection, and each ship presumably carried an enormous cargo of these lethal vessels. What the movie doesn't explain, is what exactly went wrong on the ship(s) to abort their mission, since it must have happened on *all* of the ships at the same time.

 

[jasonmccarthy5]

This is my fave film of the year so far. I do find it frustrating but at the same time kinda mystical that it doesn't answer all the questions. I'm not too sure what I think of a sequel though, if Ridley isn't doing it or Cameron or someone badass, I don't want to see it.