[Dave]

Okay, just seen it and read all your excellent comments. First off, I was very disappointed, but given all the hype, it was hardly going to live up to that sort of hype.

To me, it was just a remake of Alien with knobs on - (and some cheap, fake plastic knobs at that.) It didn't have the real unexpected horror of Alien (I saw the cinematic release without spoilers!) It also didn't live up to it's promise of an answer to the question of the jockey aliens.

Originally Posted by gully_foyle

...the Swiss Cheese plot, and everyone's stunned incomprehension about it, makes me conclude its a pretty crap film.

Originally Posted by iansales

Prometheus is to Alien what The Phantom Menace was to Star Wars.

That's very harsh, but probably true.

BTW Too many alien names now, what are we going to call these now - 'jockey aliens' or 'engineers' or 'gods' or the 'creators'? I'm going with creators.

So, let's begin at the start...

Originally Posted by cesarica

Nobody really discussed the opening scene?

I still haven't a clue about the opening scene. I don't think your explanations make sense (not your fault - the whole film didn't make much sense.)

Originally Posted by iansales

And if their DNA only resulted in humans... why do we share 98% of our DNA with a banana?

Originally Posted by Moonbat

Yet 100% of our DNA with the Engineers?

Precisely! That DNA match scene was completely bananas! Only identical twins match 100%.

Originally Posted by Welsh Andy

I don't get how the "half billion miles" gaffe was sarcasm?

That's just a poor attempt to cover their tracks.

Originally Posted by iansales

Plus, the five circles, described as a "galactic configuration", which is meaningless, are most likely a constellation seen from Earth. 35,000 years ago. But it's also there on artefacts that are 20,000 years old. Stars move, the Earth moves. The constellation would not be the same now and would not be the same at any of the periods during which the artefacts were made. Which renders the whole thing impossible.

Originally Posted by iansales

I'm assuming the filmmakers thought this language was taught to humans 30,000 years ago during one of the Engineer's many visits. In fact, it's a complete distortion of the idea of proto-indo-european, and ignores the fact that are many different and completely unrelated language groups.

Originally Posted by Moonbat

We know we evolved from black Africans into the plethora of skin colours today ...so how did the DNA get all the way to the middle of Africa and black skin humans not white ones.

Originally Posted by Welsh Andy

35,000 years? The earliest evidence we have for human activity in Scotland is from around 10,000 years ago on account that before that it was under a kilometre of ice!!!

Also. The cave paintings were supposed to look like the cave art from Lascaux in France. Which dates from around 17,000 years ago. The people then were able to paint these images on account of France not being under A KILOMETRE OF ICE!!!

A little harder for them to explain away those huge gaffes. I'd toss back the homework book with a D-!

Originally Posted by Phyrebrat

The alien cut out of Elisabeth somehow grows enormous despite being locked in a room with nothing to eat. [I'm glad someone else was bothered by this.]

Originally Posted by Phyrebrat

The original Alien grows incrementally, although you're right in that this is not explained in the film other than the finding of shed skin, and implied.

The lack of a food source is a problem. It is possible that it could also feed off pure energy, but the fact that it eats other organisms seems to discount that. As for growing to maturity very fast, I don't have a problem with that (Animals can be born already pregnant.)

Originally Posted by Aun Doorback

Although such a rate of growth is quite unheard of in Earth's fauna, we should bear in mind that this particular life-form is extra-terrestrial, and therefore not necessarily subject to conventional wisdom about growth and development...
Sounds like a get out of jail card when creating fantastical things

Indeed!

Anyway, moving on from nitpicking the pseudo-science...

Originally Posted by alchemist

The one thing that rankled the most were the cliched, stupid decisions the characters made; such as walking straight into the pyramid, removing helmets where there is a potential biohazard, and the "biologist" who pokes the alien snake creature.

Even Scooby Doo and Shaggy didn't make such stupid mistakes.

Originally Posted by TheTomG

Oh, not to mention Vickers running AWAY from a rotating wheel, rather than off to the side - and she'd seemed so smart and in control and willing to do whatever it takes to survive!

Yes, a very silly scene.

Originally Posted by TheTomG

10 things about the making of Prometheus explains the casting of a young person for an old man - there was originally going to be a sequence where he was a young man.

That is the most ridiculous reason. Was that going to be a flashback, or was he going to find the secret of eternal youth he was looking for from the Creators?

Originally Posted by TheTomG

Why wouldn't Weyland send David in to talk to the engineer and only be woken up afterward? After all he only has limited time to live, and the engineer may take hours or days of conversation to go over the possibilities of immortality. Maybe he'd need weeks or months to prepare whatever was needed to make him immortal. Why not stay safely asleep until all that was uncovered?

Also, makes little sense.

Originally Posted by Judderman

Also I don't think there was much need for the black organic substance. Couldn't they have used the same alien egg style as in Alien? Maybe with one other thing (weapon/creature) for variety.... The geologist came back as some super creature when it seemed he had an acid burn at first?

I agree, that there were too many new versions and larval stages of aliens introduced here. Much too confusing. I can accept that the Alien at the end was different because it had been incubated with a Creator and not a Human - that concept was introduced in Predator vs Alien but aren't the Creators 100% Human DNA???

While we are on the subject, in this film is the whole series still canon, Predator and all?

Originally Posted by Judderman

In AvP hadn't the Predators engineered the Aliens?

That for starters, but it is really hard to reconcile everything that is supposed to have happened/ will happen. As someone mentioned already, they would have been better just going for a complete reboot of the Alien universe.

Originally Posted by Welsh Andy

I do kinda hope they make a sequel but I hope it begins with Bobby Ewing in the shower and Pam realising it was all just a dream...

Well, maybe written a little better than that was.

Originally Posted by TheTomG

And the throw-away connection of [Charlize Theron] being Weyland's daughter, which again added nothing. Surely she'd be a mite more peeved at her dad for choosing an android over her.

Well I wasn't convinced that Charlize Theron was really Wayland's daughter. Was she another Android? In the trailers, both her and David gave me the impression that they were ship's avatars rather than real people. Now I see why David gave that impression, but she still seemed distant. Not to mention...

Originally Posted by Judderman

4) There wasn't a huge point to Charlize Theron's character's amount of screen time other than having quarantine orders ignored. Could have had something interesting to do.

Originally Posted by Huttman

What a waste having Chalize in this film.What was the point, they already had a captain.

Exactly, the ship already had a Captain...

But then, she was the Weyland Company representative. However, Weyland was there himself. Then again, her argument with him about staying behind; not being in control until he had died tends to say she really is his daughter. Only, in that case, who was it they did leave running the Company? Confused!

Originally Posted by James Coote

Charlize's character is the most believable until she bangs the captain a bit too readily.

Did we actually see that happen? Unless, she was a superior model of android, that would certainly discount my idea.

Originally Posted by Phyrebrat

In Aliens we are told that the moon is LV426 yet in Prometheus we were shown LV223. What happened/will happen?

Now, I didn't see that as a mistake. They weren't the same place. It is a different Creator and a different Creator ship that is found by the Nostromo on a different planet. The Nostromo had secret programming to search another such ship.

Originally Posted by James Coote

Then we have all the stuff about David and can androids have souls, something that again isn't something you normally just chuck in there. And then on top of that you mix a bit of 'I can see your dreams'.

And then throw in some vapid shallow christian belief stuff.

There was certainly and Abrahamic theme to the film. Christmas and New Year. Crosses. Baptism in water. Sacrifice. Redemption.

Originally Posted by clovis-man

If you look at [Giger's] images carefully, you can easily see a quasi-religious symbiotic/parasitic relationship. A cult, if you will, which motivated the jockey/engineers to sacrifice themselves irrespective of any secular logic. The statuary and bas-relief (Giger again, it would seem) in Prometheus could easily (rather strongly) hint at that. And Dr. Shaw's cross could well be the counterpoint to that.

Is this film really that deep? I think we may be injecting more into it that the writers thought of themselves.

Originally Posted by James Coote

They decide to hole up in the room with the head and jars?

We were told that this was a stockroom - a cargo hold of sorts. The jars presumably held the weapons of mass destruction that they were developing on the planet. (Someone said that is only what the characters surmised, but are you really saying that they gave us a fake explanation - wasn't the film difficult enough to follow?) Anyhow, didn't the alien David gave Holloway come from one of those jars?

What, then was up with the Easter Island Head? Why were they sending this to Earth? Are these some weapon not yet explained??

Originally Posted by clovis-man

The cave paintings/Egyptian glyphs, etc.: Calling cards? Seems likely, but why an invitation to a military installation?

Originally Posted by TheTomG

"Space Jesus" apparently explains part of it - in some interview, Ridley Scott I believe said that the Engineers sent along an ambassador some thousands of years ago, and we killed him, so they got mad and decided to wipe out their creation. Originally, I guess this wasn't a military installation but a place of peace, love and was all cosy and stuff.

So, Jesus was an eight foot tall white man? I'm sure that would have been recorded.

Originally Posted by Warren_Paul

Clearly their bio-research project got out of control and turned on the Engineers, killing them all on the planet, before they could escape. Otherwise they'd already be on their way to Earth.

So, if I got this right, the Creators made us, then left clues for us to follow to a planet manufacturing weapons that would be unleashed to destroy us all? But, we took so long to come that the weapons instead turned on their creators and wiped them out? So, now we are off to find the homeworld of the creators in a sequel coming soon?

But why did the creators stop trying to send the aliens to Earth? If they failed on the first attempt, they had xx,000 years to try again.

Originally Posted by Warren_Paul

What doesn't make sense to me is that the Engineers don't appear to know the location on Earth until David plucks it out of the map, essentially telling the Engineers where to find the human race. If they had already been to Earth several times, then why did they need David to show them? And why leave it until now?

That wasn't what I took from that scene, but if so, then I would also agree.

Originally Posted by alchemist

I would like to think that the writers have answers to the questions posed here, however bizarre they may be (e.g. Q: why give directions to their military research planet rather than a homeworld? A: this was an "expiry date" for humanity. When you're advanced enough to develop spaceflight, you'll find the aliens and ensure your own destruction, hence preventing your destroying the galaxy with your warmongering ways), but I'm 99% certain they just haven't got a clue. The fact that Damon Lindelof was involved in Lost is telling; a series that disappeared up its own fundament.

That may well have been the problem. I expect Dan O'Bannon just turned in his grave.