Horse Detective
Why the long case?
Harsh, but imo, true.
I agree with your thoughts on the visuals too. The Music did a lot for me as well. I think I am going to go see it again, this time in Imax/3d
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Harsh, but imo, true.
I agree with your thoughts on the visuals too. The Music did a lot for me as well. I think I am going to go see it again, this time in Imax/3d
Speedymanic
Banned
I absolutely did not expect to like this movie, but I really did. The cinematography was gorgeous, and the beautiful sweeping vistas made me wish I had seen the film in IMAX. There are some nice intense moments in the movie, and the Giger-inspired visuals and environments were fuck awesome, just like they were in Alien.
I have a sneaking suspicion that most people disliked the movie because it shit all over their Alien fan fiction/nerd theories.
Also, did any of you get a preview for the movie The Watch? There's a part in the trailer where a character touches some green goo and claims that it smells and tastes like cum. Needless to say, quite a few people in my audience laughed when Michael Fassbender's character touches a similar-looking liquid in Prometheus.
Out of interest, what were some of those theories?
The alien being a weapon/something created by other beings as an ultimate weapon was one, but that's pretty much the only one I've ever come across.
I absolutely did not expect to like this movie, but I really did. The cinematography was gorgeous, and the beautiful sweeping vistas made me wish I had seen the film in IMAX. There are some nice intense moments in the movie, and the Giger-inspired visuals and environments were fuck awesome, just like they were in Alien.
I have a sneaking suspicion that most people disliked the movie because it shit all over their Alien fan fiction/nerd theories.
Also, did any of you get a preview for the movie The Watch? There's a part in the trailer where a character touches some green goo and claims that it smells and tastes like cum. Needless to say, quite a few people in my audience laughed when Michael Fassbender's character touches a similar-looking liquid in Prometheus.
Theories aren't really a big part of Alien fandom. I didn't like it because I thought the pacing and characters were distractingly sloppy. I also thought the ending was embarrassing.
I would have honestly liked it more with LESS Alien ties, but no one was talking about the ties as we walked out of the theater. People were ending all their sentences with"...father"
Hell man, make it a movie about David betraying the crew in order to ask the Engineer to make him "real" and we've got a stew.
I really don't like it when people on the internet try to tell me why I secretly don't like something they like.
MickeyKnox
Member
What a terrible and insulting piece of shit.
It's like they took a handful of first drafts for some generic scifi films written by highschoolers, uncollated them, shuffled the pages and told some intern that has no interest in Alien to look through some fan Wikis so this can be marketed as a "prequel"
It's like they took a handful of first drafts for some generic scifi films written by highschoolers, uncollated them, shuffled the pages and told some intern that has no interest in Alien to look through some fan Wikis so this can be marketed as a "prequel"
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
How would you write this film?
MickeyKnox
Member
I'd give it a plot?
I'd give it more than one actual character?
I'd write it as a horror film?
I'd have scenes which transition from one to the next with coherence?
There are exactly 3 things about this film that aren't complete bullshit. The cinematography, the production design and Fassbender.
Clayton Bigsby
Banned
It had a plot.
I thought for such a big cast, there were several actual characters. But it wasnt really a character piece so whatever.
It was suspenseful. At least a bunch of people around me were jumping at several scenes.
Transitions were fine to me. But since it is your personal issue, ill give you that one.
Edit:
Also, they were trying to distance themselves from this being called a prequel. So you saying they were trying hard to call it one is kinda laughable.
Dude. That would take actual work.
TUROK
Member
No. People disliked it because characters do stupid things, unexplainable shit happens, and it muddles up what we KNOW about the Alien movies, not fan theories.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
You did not answer my question. You described things that happened in this movie, that you apparently missed. Put work into your criticism, otherwise it just sounds like fuckery.
How would you write this story?
I am not asking for a script or book. I want to know what you felt was missing, and not in this general terminology you have provided.
Feel free not to answer, it would prove an even bigger point, though I am genuinely interested.
You could just watch AI for that plot.
MickeyKnox
Member
It had like a dozen different plot POINTS that either went nowhere or came from nowhere but that does not a plot make.
You don't have to be able to write a movie to know you hated a movie.
Also, I don't need to be able to make pickle flavored ice cream to know I don't like it or be able to give birth to know I dislike a person.
I generally agree the movie was a fucking mess.
Take Weyland out, maybe consolidate a few characters and focus on how the characters REACT to the situation they are in and we've got something I personally would enjoy better. When the characters seem barely affected by each disaster and the audience has no time to absorb them, I tend to not feel much tension.
After that, make the stupid geologist the one who touches the fucking alien, not a goddamn biologist.
Clayton Bigsby
Banned
Characters did stupid things in every god damn Alien movie. This also does not muddle up anything you know about the Alien movies. It only makes how the Xenomorphs were created complex, and slightly confusing. But it does nothing to confuse the Alien/Aliens mythology.
Really? I have seen the movie twice and never once thought "man, what happened to that plot point earlier?". The only real problems I had with the movie was the flute and they are intentionally vague about several things. But neither of those things detracted from my experience enough to complain as much as people in this thread. Is it because I had a lower expectation because the preceding Alien films did not have that great of mythology in the first place? Maybe.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
I don't criticize something without considering how it could be improved. And not in general terms. I want to know specifically what someone hates.
Though, I may have grown up in an actual productive environment.
Maybe I could, but not with the same execution. Plot is one of the least important elements to a film. Everyone in here could make a movie with the same plot and some would CLEARLY be better than others. Plenty of classics have lousy plots. Alien for example is a pretty basic and boring plot. David was the best thing in the movie, he would have made a better antagonist than an old man and blue dude.
Hindsight is 20/20, but there were too many characters and plot points. Too few emotions.
The most prominent Alien fan theory (or really, fan-fact, given what the first film explicitly shows) is that the xenomorphs were biological weapons. That was the only theory that could get contradicted, and it wasn't. Prometheus stayed true to that.
The problem is it made it much more complicated than it needed to be, to the point you see earlier in this thread people surmising that the black goo squid creates a proto-xenomorph which lays egg and then you get a situation like in the Alien film, which doesn't work in the slightest.
It's just needlessly complex, you know? Very LOST-like. Take a simple mystery with enough clues that fans can actually piece some of it together (seasons 1 to 3) then EXPLODE the thing with detail after detail that doesn't actually enhance the audience understanding but makes it even more confused.
I absolutely believe that not telling an audience everything is a good thing, but to do that you can't then bombard the audience with too many seemingly-unrelated/contradictory pieces of information then cry "show don't tell!"
Clayton Bigsby
Banned
I do believe that the whole creation process could of been streamlined and the film would of benefited greatly from it.
I will not argue the movie had character issues, but it does nothing to muddle the Alien movies. At all. And as beloved as they are, those movies also have flaws.
I'd say "messy". "Complex" might imply the writer had the details worked out, and I really wouldn't bet on it, here.
Freakinchair
Member
Nobody in any of the aliens movies did anything nearly as stupid as all of the characters in this film.
I don't either, and I have outlined a couple times why I think the film didn't work for me, but it doesn't suddenly make my opinion more valid than someone who doesn't know WHY they hated it. Most such conversations are mostly post hoc posturing rather than getting at the heart of the matter. For all I know my ideas would suck on screen too. I'm not a screenwriter, so I don't really know. It's just me stabbing in the dark at fixing something that possibly didn't even need to be made.
Not my job, and it's a shitty attitude when people (not you necessarily) blame the intended audience for their failures.
Oh, I don't doubt they had the details worked out. Scott is very much a details man.
But they didn't work out how to show it to the audience in a satisfying way.
PS I still think overall the movie was good.
Have a biologist who isn't dumb enough to think the appropriate first interaction with an unknown alien species is to reach out and play with it as if it's a stray cat.
Have someone, at some point, implement or at least think to mention that it might be a good idea to implement a quarantine protocol when investigating alien ruins.
Have a corporate rep/expedition leader who is, at the very least, present when a ninja zombie is killing everyone in the cargo bay whilst her lead scientist is giving birth to the end of humanity in said leader's quarters. Bonus points if you teach this person to run at right angles.
Or, failing that, just have the big bad kill everyone onboard Prometheus and shoot it back towards earth with a sticker on the front reading "Too dumb to live." in big, bold letters.
EDIT: Also, inserting the lines "Do not listen to this woman. Bring the flamethrower." at the appropriate moment would've been nice.
Clayton Bigsby
Banned
Really? The whole reason everyone but Ripley died in Alien was that they did the dumbest thing of all in breaking the rule and letting them back in the ship. I actually loved that Vickers basically said fuck you and flamed his ass. Also, besides the idiot rock lover and science guy wandering around, no one else did anything dumb enough to warrant such statements.
I think I agree with everything you are saying. I would bet that everything makes sense in Scott's head and he knows exactly how everything happened in regards to Xenomorphs and the things in this film. But that did not translate as well as it could have when they shot the film.
Current-day Ridley Scott, I'm not so sure... Those recent interviews often sound like muddled or downright incoherent ramblings to me...
Ditch the unoriginal Ancient Aliens angle.
Don't go stumbling into the origin of man trying to appear profound, unless you have something a bit more interesting to say than why did you make us or Jesus LOL.
Don't centre a film round a magic plot-device that does anything
Basically have a story that is worth telling, not something that has to be told vaguely to hide the problems and with nothing to drive the characters to do what they do
And people have already posted how they would have preferred to seen it done, myself included. Even running with the Ancient Aliens angle can be done a lot better.
The film is bad, straight up bad.
I agree.
However, I would also argue that if it had represented the situation, the terror and the characters better with a tighter film, it wouldn't matter. The abstract and the horror of being confronted with things that make no logical sense are a strong and common theme in fiction. They could have not answered questions, not tied to the mythology and made things rteally confusing and have still made an effective film.
It might not be a POPULAR one, but that's also not my problem.
I feel like we have something that tries to approach that theme without committing to it.
Did you miss the scene when all the scientists, aware of possibilities of unknown alien pathogens and bacteria all took off their MASKS to breathe in said unknown alien pathogens and bacteria, and hopped back on the ship..?
Zombie James
Banned
Seemed pretty self-explanatory to me... they were holographic recordings.
Clayton Bigsby
Banned
I think the Engineers are an interesting addition to the mythos, and hopefully if P2 gets made, it furthers itself from all the Xenomorph shit and becomes its own film.
In Alien:
Bring Kane with an alien lifeform attached to his fucking face into the ship. Ok, so the movie woud end right there if they didn't but we need a movie so keep going.
Walk into the infirmary to find the facehugger, with no biological (or any kind of) protection at all. The same people that wanted Kane in complete quarantine just moments ago.
Oh Kane woke up, he is fine! And he doesn't remember a thing, so it must be ok. Let's have dinner.
Fuck, Kane exploded and a screaming cock came out of him! We just got showered in possibly contaminated blood, but let's not worry about that.
Ripley manages to get into the lifeboat after dodging a murderous alien lifeform, forgets to close the door behind her but she didn't forget the cat!
And that's just from the top of my head.
Holographic plot-devices.
To jump us from one plot point to the next, like everything else that happens in the film.
Clayton Bigsby
Banned
I remember that their readings said the Air was cleaner than earth actually. I would assume if their readings had picked up any foreign pathogen/bacteria, they probably would have kept their helmets on until they could determine what they were.
Yeah, fans of Alien calling the characters in this one dumb is kind of funny.
smuldegspaj
Banned
Must say i was disappointed.
Nice visuals though.
Nice visuals though.
Zombie James
Banned
Hahahaa oh god. I love Alien, but this is easily the funniest thing I've read all day.
It's a beautiful trainwreck.
MickeyKnox
Member
I'm not going to waste even more time on this thing by laying out the metric tonnage of specific criticisms I have against the film, but hey, if you're that interested in what I have to say about it you can feel free to jump into the GAF mumble server one of these nights and I will talk your head off about it.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
This, and the various biological anomalies that occur in the first film are making me warm up to the idea of abandoning the established set of steps for the Alien life cycle.
The Alien franchise stopped being convoluted when the Queen was brought into play. Before that, who knows how this stuff works. The idea of the Chestburster roaming around in the ship, somehow growing larger than a human in and of itself is confusing, yet people still try to argue, "Oh, it was eating the metal in the air shafts", or "Oh, maybe it was eating the crews food", and every single explanation comes to the same conclusion, that it still doesn't make sense for the thing to become that large so fast.
I honestly feel embarrassed for having tried to explain things from Prometheus on past pages.
They were miners. These were scientists. Also, Ripley tired to maintain quarantine as 2nd in command but the evil robot who was conspiring against the crew let them in anyway. After that, they handled the situation somewhat logically. At least it had an internal logic.
Also, these fools took their helmets off.
They were willy nilly with that "preserved head" they found
The villain thought they could strut up to an alien god and ask for eternal life
The guy with the high tech mapping devices couldn't access that info on his HUD
Furthermore, the guy looking at the 3d map with location points for everyone was pretty fucking useless to the people trapped inside
Homeboy was obviously infected, but told no one like a character in a zombie movie
The scientists were operating off blind faith
One guy gave the, "I'm not here to make friends speech" for no discernable reason (not really dumb but boy was it silly)
I don't actually think that these things make the movie bad, but they certainly damage my suspension of disbeleif when I'm watching a film. Otherwise, I generally don't care if something is "realistic" if I also enjoy it. However, lets not pretend that the crew in Alien acted as dumb as these turkeys who are supposed to be the smart ones.
I totally agree. and yet, because the movie is good, I don't care. This is what I keep saying. Films with strong characters, set peices and atmosphere can get away with being dumb. It's a standard tactic in horror.
Doing a big philosophical action movie though... makes people ask questions. If you don't want people to ask questions, don't present a mystery.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
What I loved about that bit is that the second they hit the caves, he becomes best friends with the dude he gave that speech to. Those two are hilarious. You know, till they die.
Jack Scofield
Member
Wow, some people are defending the stupidity in Alien with the argument "the characters are stupid, therefore they are allow to do stupid things in the movie"?
Time to hang it up, guys.
Time to hang it up, guys.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
I love that this movie introduces questions. I don't like that the amount of unanswered questions is leading to criticism of the films quality.
Discussing these things is fun, but not if the end game is saying, "All right, that makes sense. This movie is better now."
Clayton Bigsby
Banned
The only really dumb thing, as I have said numerous times, was that scene of the geologist and the other scientist getting lost. An easy way to deal with that would of been to say the storm fucked with the signal so they could not possibly know which way to go. And honestly, they should of just stayed put in one place, since they could not actually go back to the ship in the first place. But beyond that, I understood every characters action, even if I didnt agree with it.
The biggest question Prometheus introduces is why they went in this direction for the film.
The rest are plain dumb or the result of bad writing and editing.
I liked the idea of cocooned victims turning into eggs, personally. But then, Aliens happened...
An earlier script did have it eat the crew's food. It's not in the final movie, but it's a possibility.
You'd expect a particularly expensive scientific expedition to be a lot more cautious and prepared than space truckers confronted with something completely unexpected.
And yet, they're even worse.
I think that, when you are trying to tear down one of the greatest horror films of all time to defend something that is AT BEST a pretty good movie, perhaps you should hang it up.
I don't have the energy to explain to people that rough necks not being worried about quarantine when their friend's chest suddenly explodes and a monster escapes onto the ship is probably normal human behavior. Or that they DIDN'T even break quarantine in Alien, the fucking villain did. If people aren't going to make serious arguments, why bother.
Anyway, if the people in Alien are stupid and so are the people in Prometheus, I don't know how that suddenly makes people who didn't enjoy it wrong.
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