PROMETHEUS UNMARKED SPOILER THREAD!

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You share the same feeling as most of GAF here, only over time we've collectively added many more items to your list... MANY more. There are gaping plot holes in the story but if you think about it more, remember the shit editing and pacing? Think about scenes (like the final axe scene) that last 5 seconds instead of at a minimum of 1 minute to build suspense.

Shaw makes it to the medipod
Robot head, "Hey yo, engineer is coming for you.. watch out!"
Shaw grabs axe
Cut immediately within 1ms to Engineer busting through the door
Cut immediately to it charging Shaw in 1 second
Cut immediately to Shaw pressing a button to release a conveintly placed massive monster that was aborted from her in the 3rd act and remained in that room because the crew magically didn't give a shit about an aborted alien life form onboard their ship
Cut immediately to Mr Tentacle beating the shit out of the big bad engineer

Shaw runs away with a robot head who knows there are now many other ships and can magically fly one of them. Shaw and robot live happily ever after ...

Credi... oh wait, no credits yet.. <insert canned Xenomorph scene that does nothing but piss in the face of Alien fans>

Fin
The modified/cut/extended versions made a lot more sense.

It seems that the intention was to get the Engineer to chase after Elizabeth, but they decided to just put in the scene where she's running off and he just decides to turn back. They could have added a section to show what he turned around for, or something.

In any case, she returns to the pod, he goes after her (probably because he's still pissed -- though he could have easily ignored her and found and boarded another ship). From the extended clips, she grabs various things, she then gets the warning that he's after her, and she hides. The Engineer enters and looks around, and even looks at the video of the girl playing the violin.

She doesn't open the door to let the octopus out, in this case, it just sorta happens.



* * *

As for David, I think that he does what he does because of his father. He's told to get results at any cost, and he just goes with it.
 
That extended engineer chase sounds pretty good. Though I liked the shock of him just appearing instantly when David warned shaw. I imagined the engineer could run very fast if it wanted to :b
 
I hadn't thought of that before... interesting way to look at it.
I can't recall if it was another extended scene(s) or not, but after he acquires the black oil, David talks with his maker, using some kind of helmet. He seems to be somewhat pressured during the conversation. Afterwards, Charlize confronts him and asks what her dad said, and he gives her a vague answer -- something like to try harder. Finally, David talks to the scientist he's about to poison. He asks him if he would do everything he can in order to get some progress, and the guy says yes. In a way he's asking if what he's about to do, is justified by his victim.

Wait, so for the extended cut they cancelled the engineer attacking Elizabeth and how she unleash the facehugger against him?
No, he's still after her and attacks, but the face hugger is different. It's sorta anti-climactic that it just kinda grabs him, because she doesn't have anything to do with it.

The clip was on daily motion, but I don't have the link. It was previously posted here.
 
Really?

The movie is purely black and white in this regard. Science community leading communications with new species = harmony, exchange of ideas/culture/education, establishment of schools to further those goals. Once armed forces take over, results in child slaughter, home displacement, abandonment of communication, genocide. The science community is consistently shown as the one in the right, the voice of reason, the only people allowed to even stay on the planet. The PMC in the movie is spat on by Cameron in every which way. Dude isn't hiding his agenda, he never has.

Since when is the military not a product of science? And the military is there in the pursuit of a technological (and thus scientific) object.

Even ignoring that, Avatar is extremely primitivist. Scientists shedding their lab coats for a deeper spiritual understanding is anything but pro-science. The movie goes so far as to say that humans are spiritually deficient in their inability to commune with nature, and science is only useful as a means to reset button us into a more natural and non-rational state.

You may as well call Battlestar Galactica's finale pro-science.

[note: I agree that prometheus was anti-science, but it feels more accidental: a part of general scripting problems that they failed to convey one side of an argument they intended to show]
 
Just caught the movie and was reasonably entertained.

Is there any info that came out before or after the film's release that explains:

1.) Why the man in the beginning killed himself?

2.) Why original mankind wanted to kill Earth mankind?

3.) Why David put that biological shit in the one guy's drink?


Regarding 1 & 2, I was kinda just assuming from the whole DNA destruction and creation in the very beginning that he was the source of Earth humanity by way of some strange biological agent he created. I was thinking maybe the other original humans saw that guy's Earth mutant human creations as an infection or disease in need of curing before we cause something bad (like Earthlings infecting the universe or some shit like the beings feared in the Alien films). But it's all just kinda conjecture. That theory didn't explain where those cave paintings came from, though. You'd think the cave paintings were from repeated visits, but if the original mankind was upset at the creation of new humans, they wouldn't have come back to hang out and be known. idk.

Regarding 3, I just assumed he did it because he didn't like him...but he never explained it. Not sure if he expected or intended that the girlfriend would get pregnant. I guess I'm just not clear what his motivation was, given he doesn't have emotions that one would traditionally link to angry, spiteful actions.

Everything else I could resolve. The only part that really irritated me was the first two dudes that got killed with the one guy sweet-talking an alien clearly in "Cobra, ready to bite you" mode. Otherwise, it was good enough.
 
Just caught the movie and was reasonably entertained.

Is there any info that came out before or after the film's release that explains:

1.) Why the man in the beginning killed himself?
I assumed that it was in order to create humanity.
2.) Why original mankind wanted to kill Earth mankind?
That's, as of yet, unanswered. We'll have to wait for the sequel.
3.) Why David put that biological shit in the one guy's drink?
Just to see what happens. It's implied that David has his own motivations apart from those of the other crew members. It's unclear whether or not this is due to orders from Wayland or due to his own volition.
Regarding 1 & 2, I was kinda just assuming from the whole DNA destruction and creation in the very beginning that he was the source of Earth humanity by way of some strange biological agent he created. I was thinking maybe the other original humans saw that guy's Earth mutant human creations as an infection or disease in need of curing before we cause something bad (like Earthlings infecting the universe or some shit like the beings feared in the Alien films). But it's all just kinda conjecture. That theory didn't explain where those cave paintings came from, though. You'd think the cave paintings were from repeated visits, but if the original mankind was upset at the creation of new humans, they wouldn't have come back to hang out and be known. idk.

Regarding 3, I just assumed he did it because he didn't like him...but he never explained it. Not sure if he expected or intended that the girlfriend would get pregnant. I guess I'm just not clear what his motivation was, given he doesn't have emotions that one would traditionally link to angry, spiteful actions.

Everything else I could resolve. The only part that really irritated me was the first two dudes that got killed with the one guy sweet-talking an alien clearly in "Cobra, ready to bite you" mode. Otherwise, it was good enough.
The movie gave me the impression that David might have his own motivations that are either his own or passed down from someone else. There are a number of times where he's simply too lifelike, which to me hinted that he might be more than just a regular android.
 
Just caught the movie and was reasonably entertained.

Is there any info that came out before or after the film's release that explains:

1.) Why the man in the beginning killed himself?

2.) Why original mankind wanted to kill Earth mankind?

3.) Why David put that biological shit in the one guy's drink?


Regarding 1 & 2, I was kinda just assuming from the whole DNA destruction and creation in the very beginning that he was the source of Earth humanity by way of some strange biological agent he created. I was thinking maybe the other original humans saw that guy's Earth mutant human creations as an infection or disease in need of curing before we cause something bad (like Earthlings infecting the universe or some shit like the beings feared in the Alien films). But it's all just kinda conjecture. That theory didn't explain where those cave paintings came from, though. You'd think the cave paintings were from repeated visits, but if the original mankind was upset at the creation of new humans, they wouldn't have come back to hang out and be known. idk.

Regarding 3, I just assumed he did it because he didn't like him...but he never explained it. Not sure if he expected or intended that the girlfriend would get pregnant. I guess I'm just not clear what his motivation was, given he doesn't have emotions that one would traditionally link to angry, spiteful actions.

Everything else I could resolve. The only part that really irritated me was the first two dudes that got killed with the one guy sweet-talking an alien clearly in "Cobra, ready to bite you" mode. Otherwise, it was good enough.

This post represents a combination of things said in interviews with Scott and the writers as well as speculation that has been pretty well established in internet-nerd Prometheus discussions. I can elaborate further on any of these points if you want me to.

1) The opening scene depicts one of the Engineers sacrificing himself in order to seed life on an Earth-like planet. Scott and the-writers have said specifically that it was meant to be ambiguous as to whether this was earth or not in order to imply that the Engineers have done this repeatedly across the universe. Further, this scene is meant to show that the engineers' society/culture/religion values sacrifice a high virtue. They sacrifice their own lives in order to seed life on other worlds.

This is meant to directly contrast with Weyland. Weyland has reach an unnatural old age, to the point that he resembles an animated corpse. He leveraged the combined knowledge of mankind in order to mount his mission on the Prometheus simply in hopes of prolonging his life a little longer. These two contrasting worldviews are brought to a head in the scene in which the engineer kills Weyland. When confronted with this selfish old man the Engineer is disgusted and end his life. He kills of one of his people's creations, fittingly using Weyland's own creation as the means.

Another important note on the opening scene is that this is meant to depict the seeding of life in general (a sort of terraforming) and not specifically the seeding of man. It is separately shown in the first act of the film that the engineers had returned to earth many times (the cave paintings) to guide our path over the coarse of our early development and probably guided man's genetic evolution as well.

2) This is the central mystery that sets up the sequel. Shaw, a woman of faith, is left wondering why those who created mankind at somepoint decided to exterminate us after having previously guided our path. In interviews Scott has said that thematically this turn was meant to represent original sin or potentially even that this is revenge for the crusifiction of Christ. In terms of the actually plot and canon of the universe, whatever happened 'roughly 2,000 years ago' (hurr hurr) is a mystery and Scott has said that they very deliberately wanted to stay at arms length from directly tying this into human history/religion.

All you really need to know as a viewer is that the events of 2,000 years ago are still a mystery and this will be a large part of the plot in a sequel if it every materializes.

3) David is instructed to do this by Weyland, thus the scene is which Vickers yells at David to tell her what he told him. He only offers Vickers the cryptic reply of "try harder" but this is meant to be the direct catalyst for David 'infecting' Holloway. As viewers we don't know how explicit Weyland's instructions were but, regardless of what he said, this lead to David doing what he did. This ties back into what I said about Weyland in my first part of this post- his quest to extend his own life came with no regard for the lives of others.

--

I hope some/most of that made sense. I am obviously pretty far down the rabbit hole of Prometheus so I have no idea to what extent this will be digestible by anyone.
 
This post represents a combination of things said in interviews with Scott and the writers as well as speculation that has been pretty well established in internet-nerd Prometheus discussions. I can elaborate further on any of these points if you want me to.

1) The opening scene depicts one of the Engineers sacrificing himself in order to seed life on an Earth-like planet. Scott and the-writers have said specifically that it was meant to be ambiguous as to whether this was earth or not in order to imply that the Engineers have done this repeatedly across the universe. Further, this scene is meant to show that the engineers' society/culture/religion values sacrifice a high virtue. They sacrifice their own lives in order to seed life on other worlds.

This is meant to directly contrast with Weyland. Weyland has reach an unnatural old age, to the point that he resembles an animated corpse. He leveraged the combined knowledge of mankind in order to mount his mission on the Prometheus simply in hopes of prolonging his life a little longer. These two contrasting worldviews are brought to a head in the scene in which the engineer kills Weyland. When confronted with this selfish old man the Engineer is disgusted and end his life. He kills of one of his people's creations, fittingly using Weyland's own creation as the means.

Another important note on the opening scene is that this is meant to depict the seeding of life in general (a sort of terraforming) and not specifically the seeding of man. It is separately shown in the first act of the film that the engineers had returned to earth many times (the cave paintings) to guide our path over the coarse of our early development and probably guided man's genetic evolution as well.

2) This is the central mystery that sets up the sequel. Shaw, a woman of faith, is left wondering why those who created mankind at somepoint decided to exterminate us after having previously guided our path. In interviews Scott has said that thematically this turn was meant to represent original sin or potentially even that this is revenge for the crusifiction of Christ. In terms of the actually plot and canon of the universe, whatever happened 'roughly 2,000 years ago' (hurr hurr) is a mystery and Scott has said that they very deliberately wanted to stay at arms length from directly tying this into human history/religion.

All you really need to know as a viewer is that the events of 2,000 years ago are still a mystery and this will be a large part of the plot in a sequel if it every materializes.

3) David is instructed to do this by Weyland, thus the scene is which Vickers yells at David to tell her what he told him. He only offers Vickers the cryptic reply of "try harder" but this is meant to be the direct catalyst for David 'infecting' Holloway. As viewers we don't know how explicit Weyland's instructions were but, regardless of what he said, this lead to David doing what he did. This ties back into what I said about Weyland in my first part of this post- his quest to extend his own life came with no regard for the lives of others.

--

I hope some/most of that made sense. I am obviously pretty far down the rabbit hole of Prometheus so I have no idea to what extent this will be digestible by anyone.

sweet, I'm all clear now. Thanks for your time on the matter.

I'm much more satisfied than I was, and I was already satisfied.

I'm still mad the first two guys that died were trying to coddle that fucking alien, however.
 
This ties back into what I said about Weyland in my first part of this post- his quest to extend his own life came with no regard for the lives of others.
Because contaminating the crew with an unknown alien agent couldn't possibly endanger Weyland in any way, of course.
 
sweet, I'm all clear now. Thanks for your time on the matter.

I'm much more satisfied than I was, and I was already satisfied.

I'm still mad the first two guys that died were trying to coddle that fucking alien, however.

In addition to that, right before David puts the goo in the drink he asks Holloway: "How far would you go to get what you came all of this way for -- your answers? What would you be willing to do?"

To which Holloway replies: "Anything and everything."

In a way, Holloway gives him permission. Only after this exchange does David put his finger in the drink.
 
sweet, I'm all clear now. Thanks for your time on the matter.

I'm much more satisfied than I was, and I was already satisfied.

I'm still mad the first two guys that died were trying to coddle that fucking alien, however.
Yeah I have no defense for that lol. At times the movie could not help falling into horror movie tropes.

In addition to that, right before David puts the goo in the drink he asks Holloway: "How far would you go to get what you came all of this way for -- your answers? What would you be willing to do?"

To which Holloway replies: "Anything and everything."

In a way, Holloway gives him permission. Only after this exchange does David put his finger in the drink.
Right. One can interpret that as a way out from the 1st law of robotics (or whatever version of the three laws of robotics David is programmed with).
 
Yeah I have no defense for that lol. At times the movie could not help falling into horror movie tropes.

Right. One can interpret that as a way out from the 1st law of robotics (or whatever version of the three laws of robotics David is programmed with).

Well, definitely not the three laws at all because the second can't override the first. Frankly if David had anything like the three laws he'd have ground to a halt within the first half of the movie, probably.
 
Well, definitely not the three laws at all because the second can't override the first. Frankly if David had anything like the three laws he'd have ground to a halt within the first half of the movie, probably.
I had actually started to write a longer post but then I decided to ignore the 2nd law and just write "or whatever version" instead.

The three laws clearly don't exist in the other Alien films, though I assume that they have something to prevent other Davids from becoming murder bots.
 
Well, I think in the alien universe android behaviour could be explained as simply being a rather naive use of only the second law. Do what the most authoritative human says to do. With that you could have a quasi-first law by designating Wayland Corp the highest authority and ordering them not to hurt or kill. Asimov would be very sad, though.
 
I watched The Avengers recently and was underwhelmed by it and had heard that it was better than Prometheus so my expectations for the latter were in the pit of the pits.

Is that why I was able to like it?

Yeah too much room was made for Alien series mysteries that didn't need solving, and not enough for character investment. Loved Fassbender but there was too much David and what was left wasn't enough to go around. Perhaps there simply were too many characters.

Anyway, I could go on about the flaws but I still liked it. Shaw having surgery done on herself was an awesome callback of sorts to Ripley. I thought the score was superb. I liked the foreboding and I didn't find the answers to the riddles disagreeable. Yeah questions remain unanswered but that's archaeology.
That last moment was completely unnecessary fanboy fodder. Don't show the alien actually burst out and certainly don't show a lengthy closeup of it. Just show the corpse move a little, show the stomach stretch a little AND END IT ALREADY.

Ahem, where was I? Oh yes, I liked it. Thumbs up.
 
Haters gonna hate. I have yet to hear a legitimately damning criticism of the movie that doesn't hinge on how the movie ties into the Alien franchise.
 
Okay, who was the protaganist of the story? Explain their character arc.

Who was the antagonist in the story? Explain his motivation.


That is storytelling 101 and should be right out in the open.
 
Okay, who was the protaganist of the story? Explain their character arc.

Who was the antagonist in the story? Explain his motivation.


That is storytelling 101 and should be right out in the open.

the hell? art isn't a science formula. you can't just say it has to have this, this and this or else it's not good. Why don't you tell me why it's not a phenomenal movie.
 
Shaw; she wants to find out who created us only to find out that the things that created us want to kill us. Now she wants to find out who created the engineers.

So she changed from being curious to being curious?

Weyland; he wanted to live forever.

Weyland wasn't the one preventing Shaw from achieving her desires. He facilitated them.



Dantefox said:
the hell? art isn't a science formula. you can't just say it has to have this, this and this or else it's not good. Why don't you tell me why it's not a phenomenal movie.

A movie (such as this one, is attempting to tell) a story and all good stories follow basic conventions.
 
Haters gonna hate. I have yet to hear a legitimately damning criticism of the movie that doesn't hinge on how the movie ties into the Alien franchise.

Then you haven't been looking hard enough. The script was riddled with lazy writing (black goo can apparently do whatever the plot requires), the characters were inconsistent, never felt believable and (outside of David) were uninteresting and impossible to care for.

Those are two fundamentals in good storytelling/filmmaking that have been pointed out countless times as flaws of the film, and neither has a thing to do with the greater Alien franchise.
 
wow... i watched this last night.. i dont really watch "new" movies as i think most are full of shit.. i havent even seen avatar, but i really enjoyed this...

imo it could have used another hour as it definitely seemed a little rushed... cant wait for a sequel
 
Saw it recently and after looking up some answers on the internet I still have two questions left unanswered.

1. Why did no one take care of the alien/human thing in the med bay? You might wanna think that someone might at least be a little interested in it. It was already weird that the characters around Shaw went from "SHE'S INFECTED" to "oh, hi there" but that no one apparently even bothered to take a look at the med bay was a little too much

2. What happens to the guys that escape with the truck from the Zombie guy? They just drive off and are never seen again. I assume that the rest of their scenes was cut?
 
I think some people view what's her face's never-wavering religious faith -- in the face of scientific discovery -- as somehow having the film giving way to there being a creator (god) and not a random evolution.

I thought that part was more than a little unrealistic. Whatever about still believing in a god, but to believe in the truth of the bible in the face of all existing evidence to the contrary and the discovery of the real creator of the human race; definitely raised alarms for me. She's also meant to be scientist, so the odds of her being a theist have already been greatly reduced.
 
imo it could have used another hour as it definitely seemed a little rushed... cant wait for a sequel
Absolutely.

People may not think of this like a natural 3 hour movie but it definitely in my opinion would have been improved by a longer running time.

And the visuals are so gorgeous that time just flies by even though the story is Lindelof.
 
A movie (such as this one, is attempting to tell) a story and all good stories follow basic conventions.

Even before getting into arcs, I'd settle for characters that exhibit semi-rational behavior. You can go scene by scene through this film and observe genuinely strange, often alarmingly stupid people doing things that defy logic and common sense.
 
Even before getting into arcs, I'd settle for characters that exhibit semi-rational behavior. You can go scene by scene through this film and observe genuinely strange, often alarmingly stupid people doing things that defy logic and common sense.

No joke. Half the movie is just plain idiotic behavior by these so called educated people.
 
I'll never understand the "movie is stupid" complaint, I dont see it, seen the movie four times and it is IMO (which is the only one that matters really, make your own mind) a sci fi masterpiece, I dont cringe when Fifield and Milburn are lost, or when Milburn wants to cuddle the hammerpede (he's curious, I'm curious, I would try to touch it, dont see the problem), the movie doesnt explain certain things for the sake of mystery (and Scott wanted people to talk about the movie after seeing it, goal achieved again and again), what is the problem with that?


Other movies have plot holes or else, and I dont see those getting as hammered.

It is beautiful, visuals, score, art direction, acting, direction, sure, it could linger on a few scenes, the deleted scenes are great but were removed for a good reason (check out the wonderful 3h50 making off on the 3D release), I see none of the flaws that all the haters are seeing, I just dont get it and never will.

It's like people bitch about every single aspect here.
 
The most diappointing thing for me were the boringly shitty characters.
I'd like for once a scifi with tension and suspance, that yet doesn't rely on idiotic over the top characters like this one.
Alien, 2001 etc, had good professional crews (Alien's was raw-er, but they weren't actually astronauts like 2001's, so it's ok).
Here you have the usual illogical crazy lunatics of these B grade horror scifi, couldn't roll my eyes enough times at basically anyone in the cast.

But pretty much everything is hamfisted, i couldn't believe how awkwardly the religious themes were displayed, i was definitely expecting a much more mature film.

Visually it was amazing, too bad, what a waste.
 
The most diappointing thing for me were the boringly shitty characters.
I'd like for once a scifi with tension and suspance, that yet doesn't rely on idiotic over the top characters like this one.

icarus-crewgeacq.jpg


Great crew or greatest crew?
 
icarus-crewgeacq.jpg


Great crew or greatest crew?

Sunshine's crew had color, without going overboard absurd, like Prometheus does (from the very beginning, basically).
Too bad in the second part they got dragged down by a stupid plot twist, but that is to say that it's not like i want something extremely realistic, akin to 2001, it's ok to have more colorful characters, when we're talking about a more tongue in cheek experience with monsters and shit, but there's a limit.

At least Event Horizon embraced its b-grade nature. :\
 
icarus-crewgeacq.jpg


Great crew or greatest crew?

This was by far, the most disappointing aspect of Prometheus. Every single character was just completely unrealistic. I remember the one thing I enjoyed the most about Alien was that the crew was and felt like a natural group of people acting normal. With prometheus it's a crew of unrealistic, typical shallow characters who act entirely unrealistic. It the one thing that I will never be able to forgive.


Sunshine appears to have had the crew that was very similar to that of Alien. I love realistic characters doing realistic things.
It also had Rose Byrne.

I want Rose Byrne in the next blade runner.
 
What was great about Sunshine as opposed to Alien's crew, is that they're a bunch of experts who act like experts. I mean, Alien's crew don't really act out of character either, but they're space truckers acting like space truckers. Ripley is pretty much the only one who is adamant about protocol when the shit hits the fan though.
 
I dont cringe when Fifield and Milburn are lost, or when Milburn wants to cuddle the hammerpede (he's curious, I'm curious, I would try to touch it, dont see the problem),
That scene actually made a little sense to me when you consider that he was wearing a space suit. A human snake would probably have done zero damage to him.

What bothers me more is that no one bothers to take care of the alien monster in the med bay, or that they're running away in a straight line from the donut.
 
That scene actually made a little sense to me when you consider that he was wearing a space suit. A human snake would probably have done zero damage to him.

What bothers me more is that no one bothers to take care of the alien monster in the med bay, or that they're running away in a straight line from the donut.

What bothers me is how little everyone cares about people dying on the ship. You'd think Prometheus was written by Albert Camus.
 
What bothers me more is that no one bothers to take care of the alien monster in the med bay, or that they're running away in a straight line from the donut.

The running thing doesn't really bother me because it's a matter of perspective. We see the exact size and everything, we're the observers-- but if you were one of them all you would be able to see is some big gigantic fucking ship about to roll over top of you.

I think rationale would go right out the window, personally. Panic is a bitch.
 
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