LowParry
Member
Alien was very tense. Prometheus? Not so much. Maybe with the "abortion" scene but that was it.
PROMETHEUS UNMARKED SPOILER THREAD!
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Alien was very tense. Prometheus? Not so much. Maybe with the "abortion" scene but that was it.
Right. I was saying that Prometheus was marketed as tense scifi horror similar to Alien but it was not.
Uncle Rupee
Banned
Weyland was looking for a fountain of youth. Maybe when David told him he brought back one of the capsules, and that it contained a strange liquid, Weyland told him to test a droplet on one of the crew??
He never really gave a detailed response of what Weyland told him in the chamber.
I blame the shit Alien and Predator vs Aliens movies that came after Alien and Aliens. I think they really did want to make a prequel, all the elements are there for it, but the bad taste the shit sequels left people steered them away from getting categorized in peoples minds as "oh another alien movie, will it have predators?" , so they steered away from a true origins flick to this thing and fell right into the same trap they were avoiding.
Maybe the brand has been so sullied there is no rescuing it but with a reboot.
Maybe the brand has been so sullied there is no rescuing it but with a reboot.
I was curled into ball the entire second half of the film. Dunno, I found the film very tense. It doesn't build on itself the way Alien does (one of the most perfectly paced films in the way it gradually ratchets things up), but I was on the proverbial edge of my seat. Partly because I had no idea what the fuck was going on.
Agree. The whole time I was watching it, I kept feeling that it was "safe." The beginning was cool, but the Engineers looked like shit. And some of the sets were incredibly poor. I am thinking of the Space Jockey bridge/chair/music flute (that was just fucking dumb).
The cesarean section was fucking awesome, though.
Bring on P2 and tell me what happens to Shaw and the SJ on LV426.
Syph Medwes
Member
I believe Shaw said there was a med-bay or somewhere that Charlie could be isolated in but Vickers was just adamant about keeping him off-board in his infected/sick state.
I was trying to think why this movie felt so inert and lacking in tension.
There was no build-up to any threat. If something bad happened or was going to happen, it almost always got wrapped up within five minutes.
- Holoway gets infected, gets worse, and dies before he can do anything.
- Shaw is infected, does the surgery immediately after finding out, and is fine.
- Zombie Fifield comes out of nowhere, kills a couple crewmembers just because the movie needed a body count, dies almost as soon as he appeared.
- The ship takes off toward Earth, gets blown up almost immediately.
I will agree with this. I was tense due to anticipation "what is going to happen next" type of anticipation and curiosity more than anything. I wasn't sitting back in my chair, I was learning forward almost the whole movie, glued to the screen.
By the time the Prometheus crashed into the Engineer ship I started to tune out a little because I came to the realization that knew the whole story already. The Xenomorph-Engineer reveal at the end was laughed at at my theater
Chiggs
Gold Member
Alien 3: AC.
Net_Wrecker
Member
"DAVID DON'T TOUCH THAT"
"I JUST WANT TO SEE WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN"
*bang, crash, zoom, ancient civilization running wild*
Ohhhhhhhhhhh DAVID
David. In theaters June 65th, 2068
Uncle Rupee
Banned
The engineers maybe had too much subsurface scattering going on, but they meshed well with the real sets and actors. I thought the sets looked awesome, especially the Prometheus itself.
I can see how some people would think the flute was stupid, but I thought it was kind of cool. Maybe the ship requires a voice or sound authentication, and the space jockey decided to play something on his instrument rather than using his voice?
Alien 3 is more conceptually bad than Prometheus, but at least it's consistent and coherent as a whole. The problem with Prometheus is that it's basically an awesome movie that is interrupted every other scene by something numbingly stupid. Also, the Scottish actress, Kate Dickie, is absolutely stellar in just about everything else, but here she sounds like an assistant from a chip shop in Govan. "WHIT IS THAT?"
Agree 100%. I saw it last night and came out thinking it was just ok, but had the potential to be great.
evilromero
Member
Won't the sequel be concerned with the merger of Weyland and Yutani? And why did they get such a young guy to be the older Weyland? I hate when movies do that.
LowParry
Member
The Xenomorph-Engineer reveal at the end was laughed at at my theater
I heard so many mixed reactions with that scene. From the "what the fuck is that?", to laughter. I laughed too only for the fact that the xenomorph was almost the size of the engineer itself. I mean if that was the infant stage, that's going to be one big xeno.
I should clarify, not all the sets were bad, just the bridge. I guess if you think of music as a universal language then it would be cooler....
It's the Queen, right?
Favourite part of the movie by far was Noomi Rapace in space underwear stumbling down the clean Prometheus corridors splattered with blood after the surgery scene. It's good to see sci-fi gritty and the colour of blood, it's what Ridley does best I think. Fassbender as David was great too. That was enough for me to enjoy the movie.
I sort of agree, but I also liked how there was no bullshit exposition scene at that moment. I'm not sure what other way it could've went at that stage that wouldn't induce eye-rolling.
I sort of agree, but I also liked how there was no bullshit exposition scene at that moment. I'm not sure what other way it could've went at that stage that wouldn't induce eye-rolling.
is that the woman that was in GoT, breast feeding her 10 year old son?
Uncle Rupee
Banned
Help Me! said:
Well the cave paintings showed people worshiping the engineers, so its possible that they gave us music back in our prehistorical stage.
LowParry
Member
Possibly but we've seen a Queen exposed at the end of Alien 3 with Ripley. Just as small as other chest bursters.
Uncle Rupee
Banned
I doubt Ridley Scott cares about the established xenomorph biology post-Alien. Those weren't his films, and even Giger wasn't involved. What we think we know mostly came from James Cameron wanting to flesh things out. Scott and Giger probably have very different ideas about what the xenomorphs are. In my opinion all bets are off and you should just enjoy the film without trying to connect the dots to anything other than the first Alien film.
symphonask
Member
Could be a reference to Close Encounters? Tone of sound used to communicate and also control the ship.
I don't really have any problems with the big picture stuff in the film; I'm fine with all the lose ends flapping in the breeze. There's lots of stuff that didn't work though.
--The film would be stronger had the opening scene been the finding of the cave, starting the story small and building outward. Seeing the goo/Engineer early on spoiled later developments and adds little to the film on its own.
--Subtle as a brick to the head character work. Look at the way Alien handled developing its crew and their relationships. We had those with a mercenary, this is just my job attitude there in Parker and Brett, which was developed through very natural conversation and interaction with the crew. Here mohawk geologist tells rattles off his character profile in a couple sentences, telegraphing how he would behave later. Very lazy writing.
--Subtle as a brick to the head science versus faith "debate". Imagine if the entire set of obvious, dumbed down dialogue on the subject was gone, and we just had Shaw's boyfriend being direct and clear in his views, and we saw that Shaw had a cross, and that it was important to her. Push the issue into the subtext of the film and layer it into the way the characters behave, rather than telegraphing it in "THIS IS WHAT THE MOVIE IS ABOUT" dialogue. Again, lazy writing.
--Too many characters. It's clear most of them are just fodder, but the fodder sticks around for more than half the film, so that when a bunch of them get annihilated by angry mohawk guy, we have no idea who got killed. Why did the captain need two co-pilots? They were superfluous. Who where those guys tending to Weyland when we first see him? I have no idea. The ship was overpopulated by half.
--".....father." Yes, because we didn't understand their relationship by then. Good grief.
--How did the guy with the survey equipment and the ability to track his exact location and direction get lost in the caves? And why when running away from any hint of alien life forms did one of them decide to play with an obviously threatening alien snake-like creature? Dumb, inconsistent writing.
--So they go into cryo for two years, fly deep into space on a billion dollar expedition, and then wake up and get briefed on why they left? It would have been more plausible had they then been told the real reason they came, with their initial unseen mission having been a ruse.
--Charlize's death was so hilarious, and such a wasted opportunity. Why save her only to kill her off that way? The film was leaving only two women alive at the end, who had an antagonistic relationship and differing views of the issues the film presents. Could have been interesting to see them work together for a bit, you know? Nah. *squish*
--There's a line at the end where David's head says something, and Shaw replies, "that's because I'm a human being, and you're a robot." Gee, thanks for spelling that out, we didn't get that distinction and its implications by now.
--The film should have ended with the narration and the ship flying into the distance. The cut to the alien birth might as well have ended with a *dun*dun*duuuuunnnn* I think the score did some version of that, actually. Maybe save the ending scene for a credit cookie.
--The music score was wildly intrusive. There were many scenes of quiet conversation where this brassy theme is swelling behind the dialogue (such as the mission briefing, and a conversation between the captain and Shaw). Totally overplayed to the point of distraction.
Lazy, sloppy, obvious writing.
--The film would be stronger had the opening scene been the finding of the cave, starting the story small and building outward. Seeing the goo/Engineer early on spoiled later developments and adds little to the film on its own.
--Subtle as a brick to the head character work. Look at the way Alien handled developing its crew and their relationships. We had those with a mercenary, this is just my job attitude there in Parker and Brett, which was developed through very natural conversation and interaction with the crew. Here mohawk geologist tells rattles off his character profile in a couple sentences, telegraphing how he would behave later. Very lazy writing.
--Subtle as a brick to the head science versus faith "debate". Imagine if the entire set of obvious, dumbed down dialogue on the subject was gone, and we just had Shaw's boyfriend being direct and clear in his views, and we saw that Shaw had a cross, and that it was important to her. Push the issue into the subtext of the film and layer it into the way the characters behave, rather than telegraphing it in "THIS IS WHAT THE MOVIE IS ABOUT" dialogue. Again, lazy writing.
--Too many characters. It's clear most of them are just fodder, but the fodder sticks around for more than half the film, so that when a bunch of them get annihilated by angry mohawk guy, we have no idea who got killed. Why did the captain need two co-pilots? They were superfluous. Who where those guys tending to Weyland when we first see him? I have no idea. The ship was overpopulated by half.
--".....father." Yes, because we didn't understand their relationship by then. Good grief.
--How did the guy with the survey equipment and the ability to track his exact location and direction get lost in the caves? And why when running away from any hint of alien life forms did one of them decide to play with an obviously threatening alien snake-like creature? Dumb, inconsistent writing.
--So they go into cryo for two years, fly deep into space on a billion dollar expedition, and then wake up and get briefed on why they left? It would have been more plausible had they then been told the real reason they came, with their initial unseen mission having been a ruse.
--Charlize's death was so hilarious, and such a wasted opportunity. Why save her only to kill her off that way? The film was leaving only two women alive at the end, who had an antagonistic relationship and differing views of the issues the film presents. Could have been interesting to see them work together for a bit, you know? Nah. *squish*
--There's a line at the end where David's head says something, and Shaw replies, "that's because I'm a human being, and you're a robot." Gee, thanks for spelling that out, we didn't get that distinction and its implications by now.
--The film should have ended with the narration and the ship flying into the distance. The cut to the alien birth might as well have ended with a *dun*dun*duuuuunnnn* I think the score did some version of that, actually. Maybe save the ending scene for a credit cookie.
--The music score was wildly intrusive. There were many scenes of quiet conversation where this brassy theme is swelling behind the dialogue (such as the mission briefing, and a conversation between the captain and Shaw). Totally overplayed to the point of distraction.
Lazy, sloppy, obvious writing.
timetokill
Banned
I went to the IMAX 3D midnight opening showing, and goddamn was I disappointed.
Gorgeous visuals combined with completely stupid characters and poor dialogue.
Fassbender was good as always as well as Rapace and Guy Pearce (it took me a bit to realize it was him!)
The opening scenes were good but pretty much every decision devolved into the characters doing the stupidest thing possible, with no hint of even basic scientific thinking.
The two guys get lost in an incredibly simple structure. They see a pile of corpses and comment that it looks like something out of the Holocaust. They get word that a lifeform is down the hall, and they go the other way. Great, right?
Oh wait, the next time we see them, they've decided that camping out in the creepiest spot in the entire place is a good idea. You know, the one with black goo flowing everywhere. And their fear of lifeforms apparently disappears as they see a weird snake-like thing pop out of the black goo. I guess at this point they've totally forgotten about trying to avoid lifeforms, and they've pushed the corpse pile out of their minds.
So much that when they see a creature acting pretty much exactly like a fucking COBRA, they keep going, "oh hey let's touch this thing!"
That's just one example. I'm fine with crazy scifi ideas. I didn't even flinch when the android watches people's dreams. But "scientists" acting stupidly is too much for me. It's not scary, it's just boring.
Gorgeous visuals combined with completely stupid characters and poor dialogue.
Fassbender was good as always as well as Rapace and Guy Pearce (it took me a bit to realize it was him!)
The opening scenes were good but pretty much every decision devolved into the characters doing the stupidest thing possible, with no hint of even basic scientific thinking.
The two guys get lost in an incredibly simple structure. They see a pile of corpses and comment that it looks like something out of the Holocaust. They get word that a lifeform is down the hall, and they go the other way. Great, right?
Oh wait, the next time we see them, they've decided that camping out in the creepiest spot in the entire place is a good idea. You know, the one with black goo flowing everywhere. And their fear of lifeforms apparently disappears as they see a weird snake-like thing pop out of the black goo. I guess at this point they've totally forgotten about trying to avoid lifeforms, and they've pushed the corpse pile out of their minds.
So much that when they see a creature acting pretty much exactly like a fucking COBRA, they keep going, "oh hey let's touch this thing!"
That's just one example. I'm fine with crazy scifi ideas. I didn't even flinch when the android watches people's dreams. But "scientists" acting stupidly is too much for me. It's not scary, it's just boring.
Uncle Rupee
Banned
I agree with everything you stated, and yet I can't help but say I enjoyed the film as a brilliant spectacle.
Aye.
As the biologist was interacting with the Xenocobra, my thought was whether they would believe the suits were thick enough that a bite wouldn't puncture through. Obviously the biologist did not expect the creature to break his arm and then somehow burrow into the suit. The creature didn't seem very menacing, at a glance.
Regarding suspension of disbelief, I will say that when the suit alerted Shaw that she only had two minutes of oxygen left, I found it awfully convenient that she was able to stumble back to the pod in a minute thirty. Especially over a distance that seemed a bit further than that had she been running.
Regarding suspension of disbelief, I will say that when the suit alerted Shaw that she only had two minutes of oxygen left, I found it awfully convenient that she was able to stumble back to the pod in a minute thirty. Especially over a distance that seemed a bit further than that had she been running.
Same here, can't disagree with any of that even although I've found myself defending the film.
Uncle Rupee
Banned
Speaking of suits, they never did get around to using the really cool red ones. I guess those were for space walks?
BuddyJoeHooker
Member
I think it was more of the missing link of the xenomorph species.
I had expected Shaw to hide in one. Forgot all about them, immediately afterward.
Yup, nothing menacing about a slimy alien cobra. Was as cute as a Mogwai.
Elvin Atombender
Member
They looked like the suits in the Pixeljunk Shooter games!
BuddyJoeHooker
Member
The biologist was just excited it was first contact with an alien life form.
Edit: Living Life Form.
Oldschoolgamer
The physical form of blasphemy
I really find it hard to believe that they thought it was non-threatening. The creature reared it's head back the exact same way snakes do when they're ready to attack or defend themselves. Curiosity is what got the guy killed in Alien. Being an idiot is what got that guy killed in this.
So what was the point of the chest burster at the end? Just a nod to Alien? And this thread is too big to read through now...what was it that the Engineer in the beginning was doing drinking the black goo?
You should watch Sunshine.
You should watch Sunshine.
He wasn't excited he was acting like a retard.
timetokill
Banned
He was creating life on the planet. Seeding it, basically. At least that was my take.
So was that Earth then? I thought maybe it was the moon that they landed on, since it was so gray and such.
It isn't like he was interacting with the creature with his bare skin. He was wearing the suit, complete with helmet. If they believed the suit was thick enough to resist puncture from a cobra bite, then it would give him the confidence to interact with this creature.
timetokill
Banned
It could have been Earth, or some other planet. I don't think Earth was the only one they seeded with life, based on the drawings and such.
Like I said in my post, these guys had JUST come from a giant pile of corpses and decided to HEAD AWAY FROM THE LIFE-FORMS. They literally had a whole scene of, "oh shit, there's life forms down that way? let's go the other way then!"
...
"OH HEY LOOK AT THIS CUTE LIFE FORM!"
BuddyJoeHooker
Member
Regardless it killed him so the Geologist would get infected, it progresses the plot to find out what happens with prolong exposure to the black goo.
i don't think that encounter progressed the plot really ... the biologist died there and we never saw him again. and the geologist just hulked out later on.... but it didn't tell us anything other than the black goo being bad or something
Oldschoolgamer
The physical form of blasphemy
Rewatching Alien and damn. It's ridiculous how they managed to lift certain scenes/concepts from it and make them worse in Prometheus. Lol
Then I guess this is why so many people are upset with the movie: Now I question, why did he seed the planet?
Black Goo:
Engineer eats it - disintegrates and seeds the planet?
Human eats it - "possibly" blows up? (Holloway looked like he was about to blow up like the head earlier)
Worm eats it - turns into a snake
Eh? The moon doesn't have an atmosphere or water. It is a big hunk of rock. Would be odd to seed life on the moon and then have no life there, especially when we know they seeded life and visited Earth based on the cave paintings.
Holloway likely would have had the same result as the engineer. Just a lot slower since he ate way less of it. He was starting to have his skin disintegrate.
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