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[Ashhong]

Um, you know the moon doesn't have an atmosphere or running water right? It is a big hunk of rock.

I didn't know all moons are the same

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.

Hm, I guess it both looked kinda similar. Ok so any "human dna" lifeform eats the goo and he disintegrates and seeds life? But wasn't this black goo meant as a weapon to kill humans?

 

[JB1981]

human drinks it, slowly transforms into something weird like a hulked out Engineer, but before doing so he has sex with another human and impregnates her with something that resembles a traditional alien but actually turns out to be a massive octopus-like facehugger which then impregnates the engineer and turns into what looks like a more traditional xenomorph

 

[Solo]

human drinks it, slowly transforms into something weird like a hulked out Engineer, but before doing so he has sex with another human and impregnates her with something that resembles a traditional alien but actually turns out to be a massive octopus-like facehugger which then impregnates the engineer and turns into what looks like a more traditional xenomorph

Black goo - it only does EVERYTHING

 

[Ashhong]

human drinks it, dies but has sex with another human and impregnates her with something that resembles a traditional alien but actually turns out to be a massive octopus-like facehugger which then impregnates the engineer and turns into what looks like a more traditional xenomorph

Well the facehugger you can attribute to the original alien fetus simply growing. Facehugger turning into a xenomorph was established in the original movie..so I don't see a big issue there.

 

[Grisby]

"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

Ha, my friend and I talked about a sitcom following Shaw and David's head as they go on their space adventures. They could watch old movies etc.

 

[BuddyJoeHooker]

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

I think that the acid caused his face to blister up and swell.

 

[Cheebo]

I didn't know all moons are the same

Well you called it "the moon"

 

[andycapps]

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.

I disagree.. That scene would have been out of place later in the movie, and served to show the point of how humans originated. The engineer put the building blocks necessary to create life into earth by drinking the cup and sacrificing himself.

If you launch the movie straight into the cave scene, and then credits, how do you do the "primordial soup" scene and then have it lead into present day? The way they did it was the better way to do it.

--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.

There were several characters, though I think some may be reading too much into the original Alien. Parker and Brett were pretty shitty characters that were just wisecracking and didn't care about anything but money. There were several good characters in Alien: the captain, Ridley, and Ash. The rest were just fodder. I love Alien and it's one of my favorite movies, but you can't say with a straight face that every character was subtle and weren't completely transparent in their motives.

--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.

I see this some, though it doesn't seem to offend me as much as some in this thread. If the movie had been more ambiguous than it was in it's intentions, you'd have more confusion than there currently is regarding what happened.

The writing wasn't perfect, and I'm looking forward to the director's cut to see what Ridley wanted to do that the studios wouldn't let him.. But I don't think the writing was as shit as most of GAF thinks it was. Lindelof and Spaihts may not have been perfect, but I think a lot of the gripes that GAF has are summed up in Lindelof having some enemies around these parts.

--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.

I'm assuming it's because the expedition is being run by a corporation. Corporations like reduncancy in case someone can't perform their duties. The people tending to Weyland seemed to be his bodyguards.

--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.

I don't remember him having a screen read out of what the pods were doing, or whatever they called them. He just released the pods and seemingly developed them, but they seemed to be networked back to Prometheus.

As far as why they decided to play with a snake like creature, they were running seemingly from something big, or so they thought. To see a snake creature coming out the water seemed to intrigue the scientist when he was presented with an undiscovered species coming right to him. The mohawk scientist was trying to get him to leave it alone, but obviously was too late. But honestly, with as strong as that eel like thing was, and with how many of them were in the room, it didn't matter what those guys did, they were going to die. They had no weapons, and they had nowhere to go.

--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.

I do agree with this. I wish that they'd explained the mission somehow back on earth before Prometheus left. The opening scene introducing David was fantastic though.

--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*

I agree with you on this, and yet with how they wrote her character, it only makes sense to me. Though I don't like how they wrote her character and how the audience had no relation to like her. I get that she resented David because Weyland liked her (his creation) more than he liked her. So she was jealous.

--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.

This seemed to me more like how the crew was constantly giving David a hard time during the whole movie and he just lets out that goofy smile because he can't (or isn't supposed to) show emotions, yet at this point it seems like she was joking with him in some way. I'm not exactly sure why he was helping her at this point though. I'm more curious on other people's opinions on that. Does David's character connect more with Shaw than the others? It seems like he did.

--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.

Well when you show the final engineer be orally "taken" by the alien-squid thing, the audience would know that he's going to then morph into something else, or something will grow out of him. So they could have either ended it ambiguusly and not shown what came out, but what happened worked for me. The xenomorph was finally shown that the engineers had apparently drawn on the mural.

--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.

I know I'm in a minority on GAF, seemingly, in that I actually loved the movie and I loved the score as well. *shrugs*

human drinks it, slowly transforms into something weird like a hulked out Engineer, but before doing so he has sex with another human and impregnates her with something that resembles a traditional alien but actually turns out to be a massive octopus-like facehugger which then impregnates the engineer and turns into what looks like a more traditional xenomorph

This is where I think that livejournal post hit the nail on the head. The black goo seems to take on some characteristics of the host and what their motivations, fears, aspirations are.

 

[Dibbz]

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?

My take is, the movie started with life being created through self sacrifice and the end of the movie life is taken to create new life. This, self sacrifice to create vs taking of life to create, theme runs through the movie so I feel it fits well.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Also the crew are extremely stupid bunch of scientists... I've only seen one film in which the crew was really logical and that is Sunshine which ended in a crazy note.

Seriously! They all decide to take off their helmets because the planet was breathable, fuck any foreign pathogens that might be in the air that they would have absolutely no immunity to.

Also, they're dissecting ancient human-like remains without any kind of medical mask on or anything. When archeologists are EVER dissecting or working on preserved remains, they ALWAYS wear protective gear because the preserved body parts are terrible for you to breath in, and full of pathogens.

 

[Chiggs]

I think David was a lazy fucking character, and its laughable to think he was better than Ian Holm or Lance Henriksen; those characters were consistent all throughout their respective films.

Towards the middle/end of the movie, David apparently gets sarcastic deviant upgrade, violating the tone. Look at how Scott handled Holm's freakout in Alien...that's how it should be done. Instead, we get stupid fucking one-liners as he tries to menace Rapace.

 

[Doikor]

So was that Earth then? I thought maybe it was the moon that they landed on, since it was so gray and such.

Well earth before any life on it would have been pretty grey and such. The trees, grass and flowers we have here are life too. Part of the same tree of life as we are.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

It was chilling when David called Shaw to let her know that Nemesis was out to kill S.T.A...her. Then you hear the door break. That scene could have been terrifying, but no, they had to end it quickly. :/

Good point. It could have been like Sunshine when they discover there's someone else on the ship.

 

[Foreign Jackass]

For those who posted this :

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1

My answer is : Wow. The guy is really perceptive. But he's also, like many people who go looking for symbols every time they read sci-fi (or any fiction for that matter), overreaching and borderline lunatic.

"So how did our (in the context of the film) terrible murderous act of crucifixion end up wiping out all but one of the Engineers back on LV-223? Presumably through the black slime, which evidently models its behaviour on the user's mental state. Create unselfishly, accepting self-destruction as the cost, and the black stuff engenders fertile life. But expose the potent black slimy stuff to the thoughts and emotions of flawed humanity, and 'the sleep of reason produces monsters'. We never see the threat that the Engineers were fleeing from, we never see them killed other than accidentally (decapitation by door), and we see no remaining trace of whatever killed them. Either it left a long time ago, or it reverted to inert black slime, waiting for a human mind to reactivate it."

Yeah... ok.

 

[Ashhong]

I think that the acid caused his face to blister up and swell.

I think you or I have the characters confused. Holloway was the Doctor boyfriend who died to the flame thrower. I was talking about how he looked like he was going to blow up. You are talking about the geologist I assume?

Well you called it "the moon"

Well, only cause I thought they were on a moon, weren't they? Or was that a planet. My bad =P

 

[Demoncarnotaur]

One thing that I'm not sure of is whether or not the engineers are biomechanical. I think they are.

They aren't, you see one during the prologue with no suit and he is just pale and muscley.

I thought the scientist guy was funnier in how he transformed from scene to scene with little in the way of transition. Dude's a scientist who doesn't want to see aliens, goes the other direction of where the alien lifeform is detected, then suddenly he can't keep his hands off evil alien snake. He wants to be BFF with it and shit.

To be fair, he seemed like a guy who didn't think things through too much and acts on a whim, also I believe he was more afraid of humanoid aliens and not animal-like ones. Still it was an idiotic move, but nothing I can't buy his shallow character doing.

This.

Just for the record, the movie is chock full of cool ideas, amazing visuals, a cast to die for and some of the best audio design I have ever heard (outside of the miserably overwrought and unsuitable score elements).


But it is broken as shit. If you can't see that, and this is just the objective stuff, not the subjective, then you're delusional. ALL of the problems are right there in the script. ALL of them. Sure, Ridley is responsible for putting those elements on the screen - but they fail as written. If anything, the execution probably improved them.

The script is full of problems, but I don't think the film is fundamentally broken. It works for what its worth, its just pretty simple and filled with under-developed ideas and characters. As for its bigger story, I think it delivers.

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.

Same, I found the film incredibly tense. I was really sucked into it, despite it not being perfect and having some weird moments.

 

[BuddyJoeHooker]

I think you or I have the characters confused. Holloway was the Doctor boyfriend who died to the flame thrower. I was talking about how he looked like he was going to blow up. You are talking about the geologist I assume?

Yes got the characters confused because the geologist face did look like he was going to blow. Although with Holloway I thought he looked like he was going to disintegrate.

 

[Angry Fork]

I hope Red Letter Media reviews this I'd like to see what they think.

 

[LukeSmith]

Writing was bad. Not surprising considering who worked on it.

There's little point to searching for meaning in Prometheus or trying to make it seem grander than it is, because the execution at the character level is so deeply flawed - and borderline impotent. There's some long-ass entry on livejournal that someone wrote about the film and bringing up the whole Space Jesus element, interesting, but the film is too clogged with shit for that drain to actually clear reasonably.

It had a strong opening and completely wilted away. The characters didn't behave believably at all, but coming from one of the guys who worked on Lost this is a revelation to exactly no one.

Aesthetically the film is superb, it does a great job of feeling like a real place which really is Prometheus most (only?) redeeming non-Fassbender trait (he was, again, stellar). The production design was consistent throughout.

 

[Chatin]

Did we not like Rapace? After Holmes 2, I expected her Hollywood fare to continue to be awkward, but I thought she did a terrific job with what she had to work with. The operation scene was awesome.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

The geologist who goes apeshit was being controlled by the parasite, not the black goo. Sorta like ants and slugs infected by worms that are forced to climb to the top of leaves so that birds eat them, allowing the worm to begin the next phase in its lifecycle.

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

I actually thought she acted well. The entire C-section bit of the movie definitely stuck with me. Can't blame her for the shoddy writing.

 

[nyong]

Yeah... ok.

I like the theory.

It explains why the self-sacrifice in the beginning was necessary. And it explains why the goo was inert around the android, but active in the presence of other life. It could even explain the accident on the moon..the goo turned on the aliens when it sensed their destructive intent.

 

[BuddyJoeHooker]

I liked how sly the film is when introducing technology. The engineers had both terraforming and stasis pods, Weyland's got to come steal that. Also basketball in space, this film showed respect to the Alien series.

 

[Stinkles]

Also, Holloway was the most vacuous pretty boy in any alien movie ever. he seemed about ten years too young for Rapace and lloked like he came directly from the WB.

 

[Canuck76]

Reading this thread i think this movie just had too many unanswered questions that were part writing, and part editing within the movie.

It wasn't masterfully done. I still really enjoyed the movie but it just feels sloppy in multiple points and I'm sort of wondering why they made it in the alien universe if that engi ship is completely different than the first alien.

Also what answer will the engi's give us when we talk to them?

"Why did you make us?"

"Because we could"

Prometheus 2 right there. There's not a whole hell of a lot you can do in 2 that will add to this, unless you add another alien race that the engi's had to fight and that's why they made "alien". And they need help or some crap.

Also Lindelof clearly bungled this movie but what's with the lost hate peeps?

 

[Syph Medwes]

For those who posted this :

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1

My answer is : Wow. The guy is really perceptive. But he's also, like many people who go looking for symbols every time they read sci-fi (or any fiction for that matter), overreaching and borderline lunatic.

"So how did our (in the context of the film) terrible murderous act of crucifixion end up wiping out all but one of the Engineers back on LV-223? Presumably through the black slime, which evidently models its behaviour on the user's mental state. Create unselfishly, accepting self-destruction as the cost, and the black stuff engenders fertile life. But expose the potent black slimy stuff to the thoughts and emotions of flawed humanity, and 'the sleep of reason produces monsters'. We never see the threat that the Engineers were fleeing from, we never see them killed other than accidentally (decapitation by door), and we see no remaining trace of whatever killed them. Either it left a long time ago, or it reverted to inert black slime, waiting for a human mind to reactivate it."

Yeah... ok.

That was definitely an interesting read.

 

[ncsuDuncan]

So disappointed in this movie. It feels like the writers had a pile of notecards with unconnected sci-fi ideas written on them that they assembled into a script.

- GIANT HEAD STATUE in a creepy room with MYSTERIOUS PODS and a GREEN CRYSTAL. Don't forget the ANIMATED MURALS OF DOOM.
- IMPOSSIBLE PREGNANCY leads to an ALIEN SQUID BABY that turns into a GIANT SQUID MONSTER that saves the day.
- REPLICANT that is secretly serving THE OLD MAN FROM SCENE 24, helping him answer THE ULTIMATE QUESTION by asking a GIANT ENGINEER GOD that is conveniently taking a CRYO NAP nearby.
- BLACK GOO that turns people into GARY BUSEY.

They really should have picked just a few ideas and fully explored them instead of trying to cram five different alien monster designs in while leaving out any explanation.

I'm okay with a movie having unanswered questions. "Why did they do that?" "What does it mean?" "What happens next?"

This movie, though, had too many questions about basic events. "What the fuck did I just watch?"

 

[symphonask]

I thought the plot and character motivations were mostly fine. Dialogue was clunky, yes, but I was satisfied with the film on the whole and I think it accomplished what it set out to do.


Here's what I think about the black goo. Massively destructive to the user but also has the power to engender life where there is none. The engineer sacrifices himself by ingesting it to create life. Also can be used to inseminate a previously infertile woman.

However if the black goo comes into contact with naked skin then the host is mutated and becomes a predatory creature. The snakehugger attacking Millburn; Fifield attacking his crewmates.

If you take all this, it's pretty easy to see what happened to all the engineers that died. Somehow, this black goo was released in all the compounds and some of the engineers got infected like Fifield and started attacking the others. We can see this via the decapitated head the crew bring on board - it had the black goo on it's head. They weren't running from xenomorphs or other creatures, they were running from mutated engineers. How did this happen? Maybe one of their own sabotaged them. Maybe they were careless. Who knows. I don't think it really matters.

Well that's my take on it anyway.

 

[Antiochus]

For those who posted this :

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1

My answer is : Wow. The guy is really perceptive. But he's also, like many people who go looking for symbols every time they read sci-fi (or any fiction for that matter), overreaching and borderline lunatic.

"So how did our (in the context of the film) terrible murderous act of crucifixion end up wiping out all but one of the Engineers back on LV-223? Presumably through the black slime, which evidently models its behaviour on the user's mental state. Create unselfishly, accepting self-destruction as the cost, and the black stuff engenders fertile life. But expose the potent black slimy stuff to the thoughts and emotions of flawed humanity, and 'the sleep of reason produces monsters'. We never see the threat that the Engineers were fleeing from, we never see them killed other than accidentally (decapitation by door), and we see no remaining trace of whatever killed them. Either it left a long time ago, or it reverted to inert black slime, waiting for a human mind to reactivate it."

Yeah... ok.

Once upon a time, perhaps as recently as 8-10 years ago, such mystical, esoteric overtones would have been at best mind altering excursions into the possible depths fiction can go, or at worst brain teasers that sharpens and relaxes the mind. Nowadays, with studio viral marketing and sequel pushing around the clock, such purposeful setups and invitations for those "mysteries", "ambiguities", and "deep analysis" should not and cannot be taken so charitably and unthinkingly anymore.

 

[Solo]

In space, no one can hear you scream*






















*(about plot holes, non-existent characterization and a complete lack of internal logic).

 

[we.are.the.armada]

I'm having a blast talking about the pointless inconsistencies and plot holes of this film with my colleagues. Wow, what a stinker.

This is the Star Wars prequel of the Alien franchise.

 

[BuddyJoeHooker]

Black goo - it only does EVERYTHING

So this black goo has gaf figured it out?

 

[Angry Fork]

Calling it star wars prequel is way too far imo, but yea it does have issues. Star Wars prequels retroactively demolished the logic and point of the original trilogy, it made the most important bits meaningless and you have to pretend you never saw the prequels as if they're not canon that's how bad they were. Prometheus isn't like that at all it presents a lot of cool stuff I just wish it did a better job of connecting it to Alien 1 and went full blown prequel rather than it's own thing.

Honestly I got a lot of answers from this thread, and on some level I feel like the movie is satisfying once you know what was going on, but on another level I feel intense disappointment and I can't explain why. I know the characters being horrible is the main thing but in terms of alien mythology I can't quite explain what I'm feeling and why the movie feels like dead weight compared to Alien 1. I wish the movie was an hour longer or something.

 

[symphonask]

So this black goo has gaf figured it out?

I just wrote what I think about the black goo 4 posts up!

Here's what I think about the black goo. Massively destructive to the user but also has the power to engender life where there is none. The engineer sacrifices himself by ingesting it to create life. Also can be used to inseminate a previously infertile woman.

However if the black goo comes into contact with naked skin then the host is mutated and becomes a predatory creature. The snakehugger attacking Millburn; Fifield attacking his crewmates.

If you take all this, it's pretty easy to see what happened to all the engineers that died. Somehow, this black goo was released in all the compounds and some of the engineers got infected like Fifield and started attacking the others. We can see this via the decapitated head the crew bring on board - it had the black goo on it's head. They weren't running from xenomorphs or other creatures, they were running from mutated engineers. How did this happen? Maybe one of their own sabotaged them. Maybe they were careless. Who knows. I don't think it really matters.

Well that's my take on it anyway.

 

[GhaleonEB]

I agree with everything you stated, and yet I can't help but say I enjoyed the film as a brilliant spectacle.

Oh, so did I. Overall I enjoyed the film greatly, and I'm planning one, possibly two return trips, both in 3D. But the script clearly needed some additional work, and it really holds the film back from being as great as it could have been.

Aye.

When I saw here, my first thought was, hey. She left Eyrie after all. She'll probably regret it.

 

[BuddyJoeHooker]

I just wrote what I think about the black goo 4 posts up!

Your take is good but I don't think it matters if the black stuff is ingested or makes skin contact. Fifield could have contracted it through his eyes or mouth. And didn't the pile of dead engineers have their chest ripped open, I think it was mentioned. They could of had a xenomorph outbreak, but what makes this movie bad is none of these things are definitively answered.

 

[symphonask]

Your take is good but I don't think it matters if the black stuff is ingested or makes skin contact. Fifield could have contracted it through his eyes or mouth. And didn't the pile of dead engineers have their chest ripped open, I think it was mentioned. They could of had a xenomorph outbreak, but what makes this movie bad is none of these things are definitively answered.

Why should an outbreak that happened 2'000 years ago have a definite answer? The dead engineers armor being broken could signify that they were the ones that mutated, that their suits could not contain the transformations.

I don't remember them mentioning that they had their chests ripped open, though. Just that their suits were broken. Maybe I'm misremembering.

 

[la flama blanca]

This thread makes me not want to watch this movie lol

 

[malfcn]

I was a little disappointed. I need to watch Alien, or at least more of the origins to appreciate this movie? I felt there was little substance to the story. It wasn't bad, but it could have been a lot better. And what gore? There was nothing really that fucked up in the film. The abortion was kind of messed up.

And fuck David.

 

[54-46!]

The movie lost all credibility when the guy in the white hoodie started cuddling with the white snake alien in the cave...

"Here little baby, Oh aren't you cute? give me a kiss!"

Meh.

 

[DancingCactus77]

What is the purpose of the transforming mural and the purpose of the giant head? Is the entire room some kind of worshipping area like a church?

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

He doesn't seem to understand that it's one thing to have hope in something but it's another to do ridiculous things in the name of faith, without evidence. Who in the world would spend a trillion dollars to go to deep space based on cave paintings?

A man close to death and willing to take a longshot. He can't use the money when he's dead.

It doesn't shit on Darwinism. One of the characters offers Darwin as a challenge to the idea that humans were created, but the movie doesn't for one minute suggest that the engineers came down from space and made us from spare ribs or something... In fact, one of the popular readings of the films introduction is that the engineer destroyed himself to seed the planet with his DNA. It's perfectly possible that all life we evolved from came from elements of his matter in the ocean. In that case, the engineers and Darwin co exist.

Pretty much. Evolution is evolution; whether life on the planet came from elsewhere or is all local abiogenesis is a whole different can of worms.

If all the Engineers did was seed life on Earth, and said life evolved from there through natural selection, it sure is astonishing that one species ended up looking like them and "having the same DNA" (whatever the movie means by that). What were the odds?

But yeah, this is fair to say too.

Even the most logical person on the ship (Charlize Theron, albeit the biggest asshole) ended up dying. I like how she was painted as an evil witch for not wanting the rest of the ship to be contaminated by that guy (I won't go as far as to say she cared about the crew though, it's obvious she only cared about herself).

Really reminded me of (surprise) Alien, when Ripley is made to seem coldhearted for not wanting to let a guy equipped with a facehugger onboard.

 

[BuddyJoeHooker]

Why should an outbreak that happened 2'000 years ago have a definite answer? The dead engineers armor being broken could signify that they were the ones that mutated, that their suits could not contain the transformations.

I don't remember them mentioning that they had their chests ripped open, though. Just that their suits were broken. Maybe I'm misremembering.

Someone else needs to clarify because I'm the same. I reason I believe in a outbreak is because of the tomb. The mural looked like a xenomorph (queen?).

 

[ncsuDuncan]

I was a little disappointed. I need to watch Alien, or at least more of the origins to appreciate this movie? I felt there was little substance to the story. It wasn't bad, but it could have been a lot better. And what gore? There was nothing really that fucked up in the film. The abortion was kind of messed up.

And fuck David.

I don't think watching Alien will improve this movie at all. If anything, Prometheus kind of tarnishes the quiet, dead atmosphere of the derelict ship in Alien. It takes a little mystery away from the Space Jockey.

You should definitely watch Alien though.

 

[~Kinggi~]

Lol, so i kept myself on blackout for this movie and finally saw it today. I really enjoyed it. I thought the performances were great. Everything looked fantastic. Some tense and uncomfortable scenes. I liked how they explain the creation of the first alien hybrid. The giant alien men worked really well.

So enter this thread and 'lol movie sucked!!' Go figure.

But im not an Alien lore obsessionist, and I dont remember the other movies as well as others. So maybe that's why i enjoyed it more.

 

[maharg]

It's weird how so many apparent fans of Alien get up in arms about this film asking more questions than it answers. Alien answered basically nothing about the questions it posed, and that's actually one of the absolute great things about it. To me picking on Prometheus because of this is just looking for problems to explain unarticulated reasons you didn't like it.

Where this film is extremely weak compared to Alien, to me, is characterization. David is awesome, Liz Shaw is pretty good, but everyone else is incidental or forgettable. Alien had a small and tight cast where, even though most of them were basic archetypes they still felt like real people. This movie had about 17 people who didn't matter, had no clear motivations, and weren't interesting. The two pilots who stick with the captain at the end? Who cares. I'm pretty sure one of them barely spoke a line before that.

There's a good movie in there somewhere, but I think the flaws lie in the script and not the premise or the mythology. To me this was a much much better expansion of the mythology than Aliens was. Where Aliens forced the outwardly focused grand mystery of Alien into a little bottle of corporate greed and resource acquisition (a common Cameron trope), this one gave us a glimpse into that wider universe. It just needed a better script and a smaller cast.

And an old man playing the old man. WTF were they thinking with that awful makeup?

Really reminded me of (surprise) Alien, when Ripley is made to seem coldhearted for not wanting to let a guy equipped with a facehugger onboard.

Yeah that was clearly a callback to Ripley's attempt to keep the facehugger off the ship. I think it's pretty interesting, actually, how they turned the "Strong Commanding Woman" trope Alien basically invented on its head by having the closest character to Ripley in this movie die while the less obviously strong willed woman is the one to survive. Kind of feels like an answer to some of the criticism of that particular archetype that's come about recently, actually.

 

[BertramCooper]

I was a little disappointed. I need to watch Alien, or at least more of the origins to appreciate this movie? I felt there was little substance to the story. It wasn't bad, but it could have been a lot better. And what gore? There was nothing really that fucked up in the film. The abortion was kind of messed up.

And fuck David.

Watching Alien will just make it seem even worse by comparison.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Why are there vials of black goo in the tomb, laid out like in a ceremonial room, when there is a cargo hold full of the stuff anyway?

Anyway I hope Plinkett reviews this.

 

[zoukka]

Why are there vials of black goo in the tomb, laid out like in a ceremonial room, when there is a cargo hold full of the stuff anyway?

Maybe it was a ceremonial room.