Prometheus (2012) discussion - *SPOILERS!*

[Dave]

Originally Posted by wonkishere

Nobody bothers to pick apart Independence Day, they generally come after movies like this one.

Yes, they do:
Independence Day (1996)
(but not until around page 6 and the lists of the 78 cliches it uses.)

I'm not sure why you keep mentioning Independence Day in comparison as that is hardly an intelligent film itself. Some films are easy to pick holes in.

Why not compare it with Inception? That plot was so complicated that you felt sure Nolan would have slipped up somewhere as they jumped between the levels of the dream, but it was difficult to find fault with it because he had obviously spent some considerable time making sure that it worked.

Why not compare it with 2001: A Space Odyssey? Now, there you have a film that is extremely difficult to follow, and incomprehensible to many unless they have read the book, but the narrative still follows some logic and the characters do not suddenly change tack.

[clovis-man]

Well, now that most of the heated discussion seems to be over, I can only offer this:

http://screencrush.com/prometheus-en...-dead-ringers/

[ghost8772]

Well, I've read some of the postings, skipped a number of others. I might express similar opinions of posts in the middle somewhere, if so, sorry guys, eyes started glazing over on some.

Anyways, I hadn't noticed anyone making a speculation that the "engineers" that were found on LV-233, or whichever designation that planet, excuse me, moon, is,were not the life forms that populated Earth, and maybe even a planet that spawned marble skinned nine foot tall human life. maybe its possible that the engineers had found the stash of primordial soup, and were starting to travel the galaxy, removing life forms, and replacing them with something else. I don't remember a sub title on the screen at the beginning that SAID the planet being shown was Earth, so it could have been a totally different planet being "populated" whatever.

Overall I found the movie was a 'one off' from being prequel, The moon landed on was not the one the crew of Nostromo landed on, the Ship that did leave the moon went right back down, and could not launch again. the ship Android and Doctor took, in all likelihood did not land on that moon, because the space Jockey is way different size, and I doubt they tried to wake a cryo frozen one on the new ship. very likely that ship had been lost for millennia etc... Also the Aliens we all knew previously had a decidedly male setup, back of their heads looked like shall we say male parts, where the altered worm looked remarkably like girl parts. the similarities in propogation do point that there is a similar start point, but the differences say a divergence in natural selection whatever from what was founf in Prometheus, and discovered in Alien.
Unfortunately plot holes, science skipped, etc... can only really be explained as "because it was in the script" after all Ridley Scott made the movie, not Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawkings, and Isaac Asimov, with a think tank helping with details.
of course if that was the case I'd avoid THAT movie unless I had insomnia.
personally I found the movie decent. Yeah a bit light on explanations and plot more closely resembling hopscotch at times, but for the regular masses, lots of horror, WEIRD aliens, death, zombies, etc...

[I, Brian]

Watched this on Saturday night.

What. An. Awful. Film.

Lovely visuals, but awful script with no continuity.

It was like watching one of those awful cheap zombie movies, where different people wander off just to die horribly, and nothing makes sense.

- taking their helmets off just because the air is breathable, with no concern of being infected by pathogens, or polluting the environment with their own?

- people wandering off by themselves for no reason other than to die horribly

- someone is burned to death, only to inexplicably become a rampant zombie to kill load of people

- the robot spontaneously decides to place a fragment of tissue in someone's drink, knowing it will enter his semen and impregnate his girlfriend with a squid monster

- said squid monster, in the space of a few hours confined in a lab, suddenly turns into a giant monster

- headless robot is fully aware of exactly what is happening to everyone else, despite no comms link, and is able to chat to them

- when faced with a deadly object rolling towards them, no one thinks to run aside, but instead to run along its direct path!

- too many little issues!!

Also, this film has nothing to do with Alien, except for a 30 second epilogue that was incredibly weak. Think they added that in because they realised they'd be accused of using Alien as an inspiration, even though nothing in the film relates to it, except that poor poor epilogue.

All in all, a very pointless film. Really can't believe Ridley Scott put his name to it, unless he's gone senile.

[glutton]

Poor Space Jockeys/Engineers. How the mighty have fallen, from glorious giant creatures of mystery to pro wrestlers with blue paint.

[Venusian Broon]

Well, I finally managed to get round to watching this over the Xmas break. I feel like the only person on the site to have not seen it till this late.

Thankfully I hadn't been enthused about seeing the film (too old and cynical to trust something that is described as a prequel), otherwise I would have been sorely dissappointed. Thus I can only muster an apathetic shrug. T'was incoherent and jumbled. I believe it was an attempt to explain the space jockey - but it just multiplied the questions and mysteries by two.

Didn't even line up with Alien that well, and is effectively a re-boot of the Alien franchise that kinda pushes the excellent sequel Aliens into non-canon/discord/alternative time line, which is a shame as Alien/Aliens made sense.



Anyhoo, Happy new year everyone and hope Crimbo just been has been a lot of fun.

[SpanishMill]

My comments in Bold...

Originally Posted by Warren_Paul

The 'Engineer' seemed pretty happy to kill everyone he saw. Here is my take on it:

The very beginning of the movie, where we see an Engineer watching the ship leave I believe was on Earth, and was facing some sort of punishment.
Taking the drink was some form of suicide, I think, but when he fell into the water, there was an adverse reaction. He broke down into molecules, which we saw floating in the water. Through evolution, those molecules eventually formed the human race. Hence, the 'we were created by the Engineers' theory.[I think that's idea they were trying to get across... pleasing bible readers "God created man in his image" / evolutionist "Life evolved in from the sea" / ancient alien believers "The Engineers".... I think it's a scene everyone can live with....]

The Engineers clearly came back and discovered the human race developing on Earth and figured out what happened. They decided to create a bioweapon of mass-destruction to destroy the human race. [Bible reference to God becoming angry with his creation. Genesis 6:7 "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth"...]


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? [Well, the fact that the earth was already on the map tells me they obviously knew where was...]


There is a possibility that the Space Jockey in Alien isn't actually an Engineer at all. They drew a lot of attention to the periodical cramping spasms Elizabeth got. The pain came and went, not consistent with the constant pain she would have every time she moved from the c-section. It is possible that she, through the pregnancy, became infected and had an alien growing in her. Being female, that alien would likely be a queen. What if it was Elizabeth controlling the ship, the alien burst out of her, and she crashed on the planet from the first movie? She would look like a Space Jockey because you have to wear the armour to control the ship. Any message she left, using the technology of the alien ship, could possibly be garbled, or come out in the Engineer's language, or deteriorate with time, or is altered from wearing the suit.[I tend to agree with Elizabeth being what was in the Engineers suit in the original film and that she produced a queen...otherwise how did all those eggs get there in the original film???...]

It's just a theory, but makes sense to me... [We think alike... ]

[Venusian Broon]

Hi SpanishMill,

I struggled for a day or two with a lot of inconsistencies with the movie but after having a look through the interweb and having a look at what Ridly Scott has said, the reason it's all over the place makes a bit more sense.

Someone mentioned the Golden Compass in the thread and the comparison is apt. RS definitely has a sequel to Prometheus in mind, (Elizabeth's journey to the home of the engineers, paradise), but I believe he wasn't sure that he could get a green light for that one. So he tried to make Prometheus as standalone as he could. Furthermore I believe he has stated that to make a bridge to Alien, he'd have to make another sequel on top of that - thus making a trilogy. So perhaps we have another film like the Golden Compass which is part one of a trilogy that may never be made.

Originally Posted by SpanishMill

an Engineer watching the ship leave I believe was on Earth, and was facing some sort of punishment....

RS states that the planet at the start is not necessarily Earth - which could explain any problems we have with our billion year fossil record and the sudden appearance of humans. It's just somewhere else. (Or perhaps a very, very long time ago - maybe after the KT extinction event when life was struggling after the asteroid hit, so they came along and decided to seed new life to help the ecosystem along...)

But the scene is there to show what the engineers do - which is spread life among the planets of the universe. RS talks about Aztec/Maya creation myths/practices where kings or princes were all powerful for a year but then were sacrificed to the gods to sustain vegetation/life as his motif or thinking about the engineers. Here he protrays it literally - the engineer altruristically sacrifices himself to kickstart life on the planet (whatever planet that happens to be).

Originally Posted by SpanishMill

...Bible reference to God becoming angry with his creation...

I believe RS's original idea, that in the end he just hinted at (clue, look at the timeline) but didn't spell out was that Jesus Christ was an engineer that they put on Earth to try and pacify our war-like and nasty population and teach us to be good. And then we crucified him. So they were going to wipe us out for being naughty boys and girls.

Originally Posted by SpanishMill

[I tend to agree with Elizabeth being what was in the Engineers suit in the original film and that she produced a queen...otherwise how did all those eggs get there in the original film???...]

Apart from the fact that this would be finally explained in Promethesus III so really anything probably goes, I'd disagree with this - David was the only one that could fly the ship and he ain't tasty for chest bursters. Plus I'd have to go back to Alien to see the original space jockey, but from memory his chest bursted ribs are shown, which are clearly not human sized