Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) - Alien prequel ... (Part 2)

Finally got around to watching this on BD this past weekend (two years after the release ). Didn't like the characters (too many of them; they were mostly useless) or dialog very much, though it did get me thinking about it afterward, which was one good aspect I suppose. Kind of meh.

 

I finally saw this. I wish I had my 2 hours back.

 

I guess I am in the minority.

I thought it was great and looking forward to the next if it ever happens. I guess I am easily entertained.

 

I didn't think it was great but I didn't think it was horrible either. But I am easily entertained as well.

It felt like a story left untold which is pretty much what it was wasn't? I wish he had worked on two parts simultaneously so he could continue the story sooner.

It holds promise and I'll watch the next ones if they ever get done.

 

Ridley Scott announced that the sequel will be titled Alien: Paradise Lost.

I haven't seen Prometheus yet. I'm normally not one to follow reviews, but this one has gotten so much negative feedback.

 

I think that the negative feedback is the fact people are wanting another "Alien" and Prometheus is certainly not that! It's a totally different type of film. It's not running and hiding from a superior killing machine but reflective about creation and the whole "why are we here" question. I for one loved it. Is it good Sci-Fi? Probably not because it is somewhat clunky but it is one of the few Sci-Fi movies that don't rely on action sequences to keep the audience interested. It is it's own type of film. More 2001 than Alien.

 

I like it a lot, the Blu-Ray is awesome!

 

No, it's really not about people wanting another Alien. It just isn't a very good movie.

 

I still don't get why so many think this. The cast was great and well directed. The effects were stunning (except for a certain actor's makeup) and the script presented us with a story with no pat ending or easy answers. The comparison to 2001 is right on the money. I caught it again recently on cable and got right into it again.

 

The cast was good, I'll give you that, but the story was disjointed, and the characters were, to put it bluntly, stupid. I'm not going to go through it all, but all of the criticism that has been leveled at it stands up to scrutiny - these people do not act logically, and that is not a plot-point in the story that they're simply acting out. The things they do just don't make sense. Michael Fassbender's David is probably the most consistent character - his motivations are pretty well plotted out and fulfilled. But everyone around him just does incredibly stupid stuff. Some of this would have made sense had this been a crew of non-scientists - like, say, a commercial mining crew - so their dangerously stupid behaviors might have been believable. But they aren't. They're scientists that, while curious, also know to be careful and safe, which means they wouldn't just take off their helmets because oxygen was present, or stick their faces in front of alien snake-things... etc. Would it have taken so much for Scott to have people act in believable ways? Wouldn't the story be so much stronger?

 

Yeah there were a few moments where I agree the people acted like idiots (the 2 guys lost in the cave in particular), but that to me is what brings the movie down a point -it doesn't ruin the whole movie for me.

 

Point taken. But if you think about, people act stupid or at least behave for the demands of plot convolutions in almost every movie.

There is a thin line between obsessively curious and recklessly stupid and I agree the characters crossed it several times. I thought the deeper themes of the movie didn't suffer too much of that.

 

Interesting title choice considering how Ridley Scott insisted that Prometheus was not an Alien movie.

 

I agree. I like Prometheus, but I like it despite it being a fairly bad movie. It is beautiful to look at (the home 3D is great), the effects and world-building are magnificent, the actors are all fine, but the script is atrocious. So many eye-rolling scenes where you want to throw something at the screen because the characters are acting like 1) no one in that position would, and 2) completely unprofessionally. The scene with a couple characters running from a tall falling object (trying to be non-spoilerish) instead of just stepping a bit to the side, unfortunately has become the movie's legacy, and has brought the film so much ridicule on the Internet. It was essentially its "jumping the shark" or "nuking the fridge" moment that will live on when people think about the movie.

 

Prefered it on second view.

 

Because, for all its visual glory (and damn it's a beautiful film) the plot became more and more incoherent not because we weren't presented with easy answers - but because not one of the characters behaved in a manner in which we could believe! Suspension of disbelief got hammered into the ground with every passing moment. Culminating when Vickers decided to outrun, instead of dodge, a falling spaceship.

The contrast in believability with Alien - possibly the grittiest, most realistic sci fi horror movie ever, made this all the worse.

I really wanted to love it. But yeah, it's meh.

 

Didn't mind it myself.

 

From metaphorically to literally hammered into the ground.

--Geoff

 

I wanted to like it so I bought the Blu-Ray set after seeing it at the movies, but it didn't improve on second viewing. All the Blu-Ray marketing afterwards saying 'we'll explain what really happened..questions will be answered' made me think that if the director couldn't do that while you were actually watching the movie, then it was doomed from the start. It was a lot like Alien 3, in that it felt messed up, incomplete and will remain a blot on a great director's body of work. Michael Fassbender seems to be the only one who walked away from it looking good.

 

"Prometheus 2 is now Alien: Covenant, and fully part of the Alien franchise"

I really wanted to see what Noomi Rapace's character was going to discover on the Engineer's home world, but now it looks like that probably won't happen.

 

What worked so well was Scott, the production design and atmospheric photography. Some great performances, lousy age make up (and with the elimination of the footage of the younger version of one character kind of unnecessary IMHO).

It wasn't as bad as many folks claim but not exactly a masterpiece. I don't blsme the script shortcomings in Damon Lindelof but on the original script itself which should have been jettisoned.

 

We will,probably hear about it. I was looking forward to her becoming like Ripley. At the end of the day, Scott was ultimately the problem with a Prometheus.

 

This movie was not well liked, and I think some reasons are:
Something bad happens to EVERY crew member in this film, even the remaining two survivors (Shaw gets implanted, and has to go through that surgery while conscious, and David gets torn apart, leaving only his head in a duffel bag). At least in Alien, with Ripley and the cat, you felt there was some sense of victory in the end.
This was also clearly not a standalone film, it was written with a sequel in mind, the ending was just left standing there with no real conclusion.

 

“Prometheus 1 was borne out of my frustration that on Alien 1 in 1979 – I only did one as I don’t normally do sequels. I was amazed that in the 3 that followed that no-one asked the question ‘Why the Alien, who made it and why?’ Very basic questions. So I came up with the notion of Prometheus 1, which starts to indicate who might have made it and where it came from. So I’m now going to the next one, which is the next evolution directly connected with the first one...When that’s finished there’ll be another one and then another one which will gradually drive into the back entrance of the film in 1979." So in other words, why was this space jockey there and why did he have an Alien inside him? And those questions will be answered."
-- Ridley Scott


What?

 

I never thought the "questions" about the space jockey were important. Seems logical that he and his crew were travelers who landed on the planet that housed the aliens - they got infected and game over, man.

Not sure there's an interesting back story to the aliens, either...