Prometheus (2012) discussion - *SPOILERS!*

[Judderman]

So a couple of months ago we were seeing those awesome teaser trailers which looked very dark and Alienesque in style, and they clearly showed the link to the first movie. My expectations were raising that it could be a worthy addition to the series, especially with R Scott running the show. Then the trailer I saw a few weeks ago really brought my expectations down somewhat when I saw people like Charlize Theron running around shouting, and feared some nonsense plot with mindless hollywood action.
Well last night I watched the movie and did enjoy it. To some extent the plot was somewhat silly and a lot of the movie visuals, especially early on, seemed a bit bright for my liking. Not as gritty as I would expect. But to be fair it is an entertaining movie. The highlight was perhaps when the two engineers finally get picked off. In general when they were walking around the alien ship it was more interesting than the bickering back on their own ship. There were some novel alien types but too much concentrating on this idea of people being invented. There could of been some other explanation of how they reached/knew about the planet. What did others think?

Also I thought there were a few too many different types of creatures and that the face hugger could have more matched the classic type. Seeing the alien we know and love before the end would have been great. Maybe more in the sequel? 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.
Why was the jockey alien eating the substance at the start of the film? We didn't see any strange creature come out of the sea later.
The geologist came back as some super creature when it seemed he had an acid burn at first?

The characters weren't really as cool as in the other movies and the android wasn't disturbing enough. Seemed like he showed more emotion than the one in Alien (until it malfunctioned).

Overall good movie (better than Alien 4), but not quite as atmospheric as the other Alien movies so somewhat disappointing.

[PTeppic]

Saw it a couple of hours ago (in 2D). Still not entirely sure what I watched. Going back tomorrow to see it again, this time in 3D. Can't deny, as a movie it's stunning: cinematography, effects, CGI, etc. Just haven't a clue what it was about.

[Connavar]

Not a hard film to understand what it is about. It was just bleak,uneven story but it still good to see SF like that with stunning visuals because of the big budget,the stars.

I like the struggle of the aliens, the creators got eaten by their own creations.

The end was the weakest part and ruined little the overall story. I would also like to have seen more Aliens eating,killing humans. Great birth for the alien monster though.

I think it was too different compared to other Aliens films but better alien story wise than Aliens 3,4. Aliens 3 had much better female lead in Weaver though.

[mr kite]

Me ?
I loved it .
A lot of unanswered questions.. true .
But you got to admit it is well worthy for a sequel .
I guess R. Scott may pass on that and give it someone else to play with .
Didn`t do Cameron any harm .
As for the Alien that came out in the end , it would be a lot different from the origanal Alien film as that came out of a human .
Great visuals and it will be on my shelf as soon as it comes out on Blue Ray ..

If you cant` love the film , then love the ones you have .

[Connavar]

Yeah Idris Alba was awesome, that line cracked up people.

Who dislike the film are the ones who expect too much Alien like film. Apparently people didnt get the prequel part and that it wasnt much about THE Aliens.

I wonder about sequel only for those giant aliens who are foolish enough to create alien mosnters who ate them.

[PTeppic]

Originally Posted by mr kite

Me ?
I loved it .
A lot of unanswered questions.. true .
But you got to admit it is well worthy for a sequel .
I guess R. Scott may pass on that and give it someone else to play with .
Didn`t do Cameron any harm .
As for the Alien that came out in the end , it would be a lot different from the origanal Alien film as that came out of a human .
Great visuals and it will be on my shelf as soon as it comes out on Blue Ray ..

If you cant` love the film , then love the ones you have .

There will be a lot of discussion about the engineer bit (timelines and evolution etc.) but as for the rest.

Seems that they were great genetic engineers. Had created some fantastic weapons for destroying animal life by impregnation. Just like 4, it got away from them. The version we've seen was using squid-like impregnators (c.f. spider-like forms seen later) and chest-bursting almost fully grown with mouths not fully formed (compared to a much more eel-like form seen later).

But it does seem like a lot of effort when a "simple" virus might do the same job? Or would these xenomorphs work across multiple life-forms, which viruses probably wouldn't?

[JimBraiden]

Stuinning visuals, great performances- ruined because they were unwilling to spend a few bucks on hiring a writer who has even a basic degree of scientific literacy.
"we've traveled half a billion miles"!

[Moonbat]

LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!!

Watched it today and loved it, but there were a few bits I felt were wrong/silly

At the start it says 3.14 x 10 to the 14 KM from Earth, and then (as Jim mentions) Charlize theron says half a billion miles, by my calculations they were something 300 trillion km away, so that's a few orders of magnitude wrong.

When they landed, after 2 years of travel, they wouldn't wait a day to check things out before running off into the building? Ok I know they were keen to see it but come on, it was supposed to be a scientific study, they must have had plenty of patience to search the caves in Scotland, now they've travelled to a new star-system and can't waited a day to set up some basic security or fact finding.

Why did they take thier helmets off, people always do this in sci-fi and I don't think it moved the plot forward at all, the only plot part was the virus that infected the doctor they thought could have been air borne, but apart from that it was just pointless.


Lots of unanswered questions

- what was the black stuff - was it a biological weapon of mass distruction?
- what happened to the biologist who got a worm down his throat?
- will the alien that came out at the end (the xenomorph) actually become a queen and produce the eggs with face-huggers in?
- Why did David do what he did? Why did he want to kill Weyland, surely he was programmed to want to help him?

I thought some bits were really cool, we all agreed the caesaren section scene was a highlight. This film has really opened up a whole new tangent away from the basic Alien films, it gives the writers a lot more to explore. The engineers race, there must be a few sequels involved in that.

I do wonder why they cast Guy Pearce as Weyland, because apart from the TED teaser thing that had him at his real age, they had to make him up to be very old for the actual film.

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by Moonbat

LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!!



Lots of unanswered questions

- what was the black stuff - was it a biological weapon of mass distruction?
- what happened to the biologist who got a worm down his throat?
- will the alien that came out at the end (the xenomorph) actually become a queen and produce the eggs with face-huggers in?
- Why did David do what he did? Why did he want to kill Weyland, surely he was programmed to want to help him?

I thought some bits were really cool, we all agreed the caesaren section scene was a highlight. This film has really opened up a whole new tangent away from the basic Alien films, it gives the writers a lot more to explore. The engineers race, there must be a few sequels involved in that.

I do wonder why they cast Guy Pearce as Weyland, because apart from the TED teaser thing that had him at his real age, they had to make him up to be very old for the actual film.

1. The black stuff was some experiment going wrong and it must have meant to be a bio weapon since it was show that giant aliens wanted to destroy their creation,experiment that was the humans. They were some sick aliens that deserved to die by their weapons. They created a species that changed,adapted by getting inside other beings and becoming something new. That must have the bio weapon part since it changed all the time it went inside someone.

2. The biologist we saw clearly his dead body when the worm left inside him to attack Ford. When Charlie was dying in their return to the alien ship.

3. The whole film was a prequel to show how THE alien was created, it became the big monster we know and love when it finally changed in the end. The engineer aliens matter created their big black alien monster look. A big mistake created an unstoppable species of freaky monsters. It had its look already and only the queen left. It must have started with the alien at the end. He/she is the first and produced the others.

With everything it did before becoming the final alien look how hard is it to be able to breed more of itself.

[Judderman]

The fight between the engineer alien and the big face hugger (/squid) was great but why had it suddenly grown so much (after coming from the ladie's stomach in the usual small style we know?). Was it a big face hugger because it was the mother alien creator type? There wasn't one like that in Aliens. Though I suppose it could represent a change in how the species works when the Alien was born at the end.

In AvP hadn't the Predators engineered the Aliens?

Main issues I thought apart from strange story was 1) not enough excitement. There seemed to be a string of separate events divided by going back and forth to the human ship.
2) Not the cool/nasty characters we expect from Alien movies and want to survive/dislike.
3) The survivor's main character point of interest was just that she wore a cross??
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.

[PTeppic]

Originally Posted by Judderman

In AvP hadn't the Predators engineered the Aliens?

Can't remember if it explicitly says they engineered/created them. It's feasible they only found them, realised their great potential as training prey and captured a queen for that purpose. It could theoretically also fit the timeline, since LV-233 was abandoned for at least 2000 years. It could be "old" technology they were messing with there.

[Moonbat]

1. The black stuff was some experiment going wrong and it must have meant to be a bio weapon since it was show that giant aliens wanted to destroy their creation,experiment that was the humans. They were some sick aliens that deserved to die by their weapons. They created a species that changed,adapted by getting inside other beings and becoming something new. That must have the bio weapon part since it changed all the time it went inside someone.

2. The biologist we saw clearly his dead body when the worm left inside him to attack Ford. When Charlie was dying in their return to the alien ship.

3. The whole film was a prequel to show how THE alien was created, it became the big monster we know and love when it finally changed in the end. The engineer aliens matter created their big black alien monster look. A big mistake created an unstoppable species of freaky monsters. It had its look already and only the queen left. It must have started with the alien at the end. He/she is the first and produced the others.

With everything it did before becoming the final alien look how hard is it to be able to breed more of itself.

1. We only have the human's supposition that the black stuff was a bio weapon they don't really know that it was - they are guessing, also there was, engraved into a large wall or a chair, something near the big human head, a picture of the alien (xenomorph) before it ever came out of the engineer's body, so they must have known it was some kind of alien and that means the one at the end of the film was not the first one.

2. I don't think we did, I think that was the Geologist (the ginger guy with the tattoos on his head, and that was the same guy who attacked everyone at the ship.

3. Although the film is about the engineers creating the alien, I'm not sure that the whole film is about that, it is also about how weyland enterprises found the planet, how they unleashed the alien, and there is also a whole bunch of stuff about Shaw going off to hunt the engineers down.


Ok, some more points that bugged me last night.
The main one is a bad writing point, it is all about the matched DNA.
IMHO the first scene can be taken two ways
1, Earth had no organic life and the big marbled skined dude took some stuff (looked similar to the black stuff) which destroyed him and his DNA but then allowed the DNA to recombine and regrow and possibly seed life on earth.

2. Earth had organic life, but Humans didn't exist so the big marbled skined dude drank the black stuff to seed his DNA into the earth and so from that Human's evolved/came to be

Both of these scenarios have major flaws in what we (and the people in the film know/knew)

If there was no life on earth then how come the DNA matched so perfectly, because we, like every other living thing has evolved from the first DNA, why would we have such exact match, when other creatures (cucumbers, flowers, rats) have all evolved from the same DNA?

If there was life on Earth then it sort of does away with the 300 years of Darwinism that shows we are releated (genetically) to other apes and even all other life, so how does that work.

AND how can the DNA match, they are obviously different from us in that they are 10 foot tall and have marble skin, surely there must be some (even if it is only .5%) differences between our 6 foot lots of skin tones DNA and their 10 foot very white skin tones.

Not to mention the whole white/black thing, we know we evolved from black Africans into the plethora of skin colours today, yet the white dude was in Iceland (shot there but it could have been an ancient Africa I suppose!) so how did the DNA get all the way to the middle of Africa and black skin humans not white ones. Ok I'm getting picky now, but this is a sci fi forum and it was supposed to be a sci fi film.

Ok last bit, and this will only help if people have seen it once, read this and see it again (Pteppic) After Shaw gives herself emergency surgery and then meets David he says he is amazed by her survival instinct, at that bit both my fiancee and I thought we heard him call her Lisbeth (instead of Elizabeth) I'm not sure if it was just a poorly enunciated word or if it was a nod to Noomi Rapace's character in the millenium trilogy Lisbeth Salander, it would seem a bit of an odd nod to give in such a different film, but we both heard it and I'm wondering if anyone else noticed it?

[Judderman]

Good points Moonbat. The holes in the science are pretty big. Better to avoid storylines relating to present day people and evolution if they are not going to research the plausible ideas properly.
Surely that was just the way he said the name wrongly? Could also be he was getting amused by her and gave her a bit of a pet name. )

[Connavar]

Moonbot:

The Geologist got turned and came back to the humans in their ship and Idris Alba/the captain burned him. Come on watch the scenes again. The ginger geologist got turned and came back as a human monster while the biologist died directly we saw his body twice. The snake in his throat just ate him and attacked Ford. I saw the film less than two days ago. Rewatch the scenes. The nerdy biologist died clearly and never came back. You cant miss one of the few monster eating human scenes in the film.....

About 3: Weyland company have always been little side story as generic evil company. They have never been really important. It depends on what you find most interesting. I find the engineer aliens and the messed survivle instinct of the monster they created. Like Greek gods in mythology creating humans that can kill them.

Overall the strenght was we didnt know the answer for sure, some were answered and others were left to our imaginations. Thats a good thing. Otherwise it is too simple film.

There were some big holes in the science and in the plot that you cant over think. I like it was different film than just copying the horror feel of Alien films.

[Judderman]

Anyone got any comments on the actual characters? A bit weak?