Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) - Alien prequel

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Solaris, Dec 22, 2011.

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  1. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    This is another example of why this movie was so off-track. WHY line up those goo containers just like the egg containers in Alien? To futher confuse viewers? For the sake of, let's give them the echoed shock of a recycled idea? Let's give fan boys something to talk about for months? Just another dumb decision. Today I was thinking about Weyland's daughter torching the geologist only to have him pop up like Freddie Kruger later. Talk about taking the audience "outside the movie" as someone else here has called it. Why establish a character as dispatched only to have him jump up again. That idea is ANYTHING but original or fresh and the movie pulled it off completely lamely and clunkily. Okay, but him in stasis and have him mutate there or something. But burn him up and then have him regenerate. Please.
     
  2. Dude, if you haven't seen the movie, I can't take any of your comments seriously. Sorry! Then again, perhaps this is one big joke to you and you are having fun with this thread. Not my idea of fun, but to each his own.
     
  3. Post-coital scene in the 2D version? Not in the film that I saw.
     
  4. jriems

    jriems Audio Ojiisan

    Um, I thought she torched the lead chick's boyfriend, not the geologist. The geologist got lost, got infected, then showed up outside the Prometheus cargo bay all zombified.
     
  5. Yup.
     
  6. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    :confused: But isn't that the signal they picked up in "Alien?"
     
  7. 80sjunkie

    80sjunkie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, Texas
    I don't remember that either.
     
  8. jriems

    jriems Audio Ojiisan

    Ditto.
     
  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    It's left open to interpretation. But that makes sense to me.
     
  10. ynnek4

    ynnek4 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Florida
    Entirely different planet/moon and ship in Prometheus!
     
  11. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    Agreed. Containers disposed all over the floor was odd. Some standing on the floor, and thousands of others neatly arranged in banks up the walls. To keep the plot logical we have to assume that the engineers were in the process of stacking them but didn't finish before they were wiped out.

    I saw it as the torched boyfriend/archeologist who came back to like, not the geologist, who I thought died after the snake attack.

    If the heroine and android set up a warning signal, it surely would have been in a form/language that Earth dwellers would understand. In "Alien" the signal that was picked up by the Nostromo was not clear to them. A distress call? Ripley realized that it was a warning. So the ship in "Alien" is not the one in "Prometheus". As I said earlier, the space jockey in "Alien" was the victim of a chest buster and must have hit the warning button before he died.
     
  12. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    The script makes it more clear that something on the planet was extremely dangerous. The entire mission from the evil Weyland Corporation was to retrieve whatever the dangerous creature was and figure out a way to use it as a weapon. Dan O'Bannon, the original screenwriter, commented on this in 1980s interviews after the movie was released. I think the novelization also elaborated on this.

    One question is whether the Space Jockey was himself evil, had ulterior motives, or was good. It's an interesting creative choice that Scott chose to go in the former direction, but the Engineers' overall motives are still suspect. Good, evil, or beyond our understanding... you be the judge. I told a friend of mine the other day, "if you created a synthetic dog in your lab, let it live for a few weeks, then decided it wasn't working right and killed it... would this make you evil?" Not an easy answer.
     
  13. These are the kinds of questions that the movie raises that are worth talking about.

    Other stuff we have spilled numerous pages of digital ink on--such as inconsistencies with the other films in the Alien franchise--are a waste of time talking about. Why? For two reasons: 1) the Prometheus script was re-written so the movie would not be a direct prequel to Alien. Therefore, there are certain similarities to the Alien movies (the stuff that was retained from the original script) and things that are different (changed purposely so that the film would not be a direct prequel); 2) certain elements that evoke the look and feel of Alien (such as the positioning of metal containers in a similar way as to the facehugger pods in Alien) were artistic decisions done as an homage to the original film. Again, this is not a direct prequel (even if it started out as one) and faulting the film for not being a direct prequel is silly.
     
  14. JETman

    JETman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Knowing
    I haven't followed this thread from the beginning, so please excuse me if I'm being redundant. Why exactly did Ridley Scott NOT want this to be a direct prequel?
     
  15. Quadboy

    Quadboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leeds,England
    MONEY!!!
    he says he has to put bums on seats.
    it is a direct prequel,but only the first half/third of one,before we reach Ridleys original.
     
  16. JETman

    JETman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Knowing
    That still doesn't answer my question, unless you're saying that admitting it's a direct prequel cuts the potential audience down to only those left who have actually seen 'Alien'?
     
  17. Well if you believe Damon Lindelof in an interview he stated that the plans for the second movie would take it further AWAY from the original "Alien". I think that like a lot of Scott's films he used the material he found, took what he liked to investigate his own themes that he wanted to tackle. He's in his 70's and the question of why were here, who we are and where we came from would preoccupy someone who is closer to the end than the beginning in many respects (although that's not to claim those of us who are younger don't think about those questions).

    The fact that he wanted to adapt "Chariots of The Gods" and put it in the "Alien" mold for commerical reasons (i.e., to get the money to make the movie, etc.) is another thing entirely. Having said that, the fact that he's taking that concept to investigate our origin isn't necessarily bad or good...it's what he does with the material.

    Even the silliest idea if handled properly can fly.

    You can pick apart any film and, yes, the script IS compromised as is the cut but Scott needed to deliver something that would dazzle audiences AND be the right length for multiple showings

    Oh, the the reasons the containers were all neatly arranged is because it looked cooler. Is it logical? No but just as having an airplane buzz over Cary Grant while the pilot tries to shoot him isn't logical either but it looks cool. Does it detract from the film? No and, in fact, it's one of the most famous and iconic sequences in a film.

    Film is as much about sensation (like the real world) as it is about telling a story logically.
     
  18. Solaris

    Solaris a bullet in flight Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Orleans, LA
    I would cite Armageddon as one of many films that negate your thesis. There have always been stupid movies. There is no halcyon age of great filmmaking where every single movie was brilliant and perfect.
     
  19. Goratrix

    Goratrix Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Slovakia
    Armageddon did not pretend to be (in the words of Ridley Scott regarding Prometheus) "all about everything". There's the difference. Yes, there have always been stupid movies. But not stupid movies pretending to be intelligent, both by the authors, and by a part of the audience. NO ONE claims that Armageddon has "big ideas" in it. And that's what's changed.

    Also, I consder Armageddon to be one of the turning points (and a good example of this quality decline when compared to The Rock), although not as bad as later Bay stuff. It was made in 1998 and I said "at the end of the 90s".
     
  20. GentleSenator

    GentleSenator what if

    Location:
    Aloha, OR
    Why do so many Europeans seem to hate this movie?
     
  21. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    That's a good question. My thinking is that the reasons are either legal, monetary, or creative. Legal: you'd have to give more credit to the original screenwriters of Alien. Monetary: you'd have to pay them a bigger share of the profits of the new movie. Creative: maybe Scott felt it was more interesting to try a completely different perspective, but "inspired" by the same ideas.

    Either way, I think a direct prequel would've been more entertaining, and probably more satisfying for fans, but that's me.

    The movie has done well, financially, and I think it'll probably make a reasonable profit (getting close to $270M worldwide). Not a blockbuster hit, but still a success.
     
  22. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    That's me too.
     
  23. Agreed. I would have enjoyed a "direct prequel" more, but I found Prometheus entertaining nonetheless. I have not been inspired to think too deeply about the "big questions" that ostensibly were raised by the film so I guess that's saying something. It was an enjoyable popcorn flick to me and really not much more. Come to think of it, just like Alien and Aliens were IMHO.
     
  24. Lonson

    Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

    I think this movie made a nice connection to the original Alien, and also allowed a storyline of its own that moves it beyond the claustrophobic monster menace level. And yet it still dished out the creepiness and inevitability of a science fiction horror film. The "big ideas" in this tickle my fancy as I've enjoyed learning of the historical elements for some years on and off, but I don't look for "depth" in what is just an adventure movie with hopes of a few films to follow. Just as I never cared much for in-depth analysis of Alien, wherein I see people reading a lot of things in that really just stem from the weirdness of Giger as an artist/designer/personality and some embellishment of possibly ambiguous bits in the film.

    It did its job, and I'm on board for the next one, especially if the same crew are taking part.
     
  25. docwebb

    docwebb Forum Resident

    Finally took the wife to see this today. She didn't like it at all. I was also somewhat disappointed and couldn't quite put all the pieces together. For example it made no sense to me why the robot did what he did to Holloway. I tried going through posts here - but 55 pages!
    I found a theory at this link which makes sense to me....sorry if it's already buried in the 1084 posts. (Many theories in this link....I like Dave's post on page 7)
    http://screenrant.com/prometheus-movie-spoilers-benk-175803/
     
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