PROMETHEUS post-release discussion - Page 33

Film Crit Hulk always came off as a banner guy to me. 

 

...

 

Came across this pic, supposedly concept art for mutated Fifield.  Not sure where it would have fit into the movie, but it sure is unsettling.   

That's a much better space zombie design than what we got. Just as with the squid baby, it feels like this film pulled it's punches in places when it comes to creature design. Everything feels a bit pedestrian. Even if I like their skin and over all look, the reveal of the space jockey under the suit is a bit of a let down from the incomprehensible elephant / insect face we got in Alien.

Yeah, I'd love to know the reason why they ditched these ideas for the mutated Fifield we got.

I mean these are just creepy as fuck, and I know they made some versions of them at least.

 

 

 

 

some great ideas and even the start of an implementation.

 

and then we get this

 

 

which is, granted, fucked, but nowhere near as sever a mutation as the worms got.

This is a really sweet image. I assume it's the same or at least a similar design to the other shots you posted, but it looks really great here. They definitely should have used these designs for Prometheus*, it's a nice cross of the alien we know and love, and a human.


*and hell, this would have made a lot more sense for the newborn in Resurrection too.

Yeah, that alternate design, with the elongated head and limbs, makes it look like Fifield is actually transforming into a xenomorph.  Which (relatively) makes sense and (kinda sorta) clears up some of the ambiguity surrounding the goo and what it's actual function is.  So... two versions of the goo?  The goo that the jockey drinks, which serves as the building blocks for creating life; and then the goo in the canisters, which is essentially a weaponized version, based on xenomorph DNA?

 

And as wasted and nonsensical as it is in this movie, I do love that practical make-up job on Fifield.  Stellar work.  

Edited by fuzzy dunlop - 6/20/12 at 7:27am

Are we still talking about this worthless film?

Thanks for stopping by!

I don't mean to come off as an ass, but people keep saying how great the film looks despite the trainwreck of a script.  That would make it a really expensive and very long music video.  And I don't pay money to watch those.  Great looking films with a big middle finger to the audience in the form of an inept script is what I expect from your average Hollywood flick, not the guy who gave us the best this franchise has to offer.  I really thought we were gonna finally get this franchise back on track, and instead we got big ol' empty spectacle like 90% of blockusters.   Anyway, water under the bridge I guess.

YAWN.

Considering I pretty much hated the film, I don't disagree with any of that.  Still, I continue to be fascinated by all these unused concepts / behind the scenes pics / etc that are trickling out onto the net.  I guess I haven't reached the 'acceptance' stage of grief yet.  I want to believe there's a better version of this movie out there somewhere.

It's fascinating to see that the lone engineer from the beginning of the film originally was anything but alone. First there was one other older engineer. Then there were nine other dudes in the background. And in the most recent pic there is a whole shitload of them.

 

This is the internet: no one ever reaches that stage, they stay in 'anger' forever and ever and ever and ever.

So, if whatever drinks the weaponized goo becomes a xenomorph... what happens when a xenomorph drinks it? Nothing, because it's already perfect?

 

I would like that too, but I'm not holding my breath.  As others have noted, he lacks the conviction to even engage his own pet themes in a real way, and given that he can't get much more successful than he's already been with his half-baked approach, there's not a ton of incentive to shoulder the full criticism load in that way.

 

 

 

Sam Strange is an excellent satirist, and uses his gimmick to that effect.  Hulk is going for thoughtful, measured commentary, and his gimmick (imo) gets in the way of that.  I assume he has some sort of industry job or something that he wants to protect by maintaining anonymity, because it does not mesh with his actual writing style at all.

 

As for the movie, all the main points have been hashed out already.  Gorgeous visuals, great creature work, tremendous Fassbending, all undone by a script that's utter pigshit.  But one thing I haven't seen mentioned, was no one else totally utterly perplexed when David had the line to Noomi about how Holloway's death was so ironic because her father died the same way?  Was I really the only one who went "Huh?  Did I miss the flashback where her dad was poisoned by a robot then euthanized by a supermodel with a flamethrower?"

Edited by Schwartz - 6/20/12 at 11:16am

 

Well, there is that promised Director's Cut.

 

Claiming this for future band name/b-movie title.

 

True.   I actually expect the DC to be significantly better, because it's not like it will make the effects less impressive, or that it could possibly make the character motivations less developed or consistent.  Maybe it will even give Vickers something to do (totally agree that she and Shaw should've been one character, by the way).

 

I don't want to beat the dead logic horses, though, so I will say that one other thing that disappointed me was how literal the sexual imagery was.  A million people by now have pointed out that Alien derives its creep factor from the rape subtext and phallic imagery.  But it wrapped those things in a vaguely plausible life cycle and didn't underline them in bold, keeping it on that subtextual level.  In Prometheus, instead of the facehugger attaching itself and us only gradually becoming aware of what it is doing, we actually see a big phallic worm jam itself down a guy's throat.  The facehugger itself looked both threateningly insectoid and vaguely vaginal when it was laid out for dissection, but Prometheus's facesnuggler has 6 actual vagina dentata literally snapping at the screen.  Kane was forced to incubate an alien creature against his will; Shaw gets literally pregnant with a squid.  Like, pregnant in her uterus, from engaging in vaginal intercourse.

 

It's probably unfair to blame Lindelof for all of this as well...but fuck it.  The guy's worst instincts are to taking things best left as thematic subtext and making them boring, obvious text, and weilding the sexual undertones of the xenomorph like a sledgehammer falls perfectly in line with that.

 

 

 

Edit: I expect at least 5 signed copies of The Supermodel Flamethrower Euthanasia Project's premier LP when it drops

No, this is not good design work.  It's boring and obvious and looks like it wound be more at home in a Wrong Turn or Hills have Eyes movie.  Especially disappointing when viewed next to those brilliant and terrifying earlier designs.  So Ridley rejected those in favor of "Hillbilly Cannibal Space Mutant"?

Maybe the budget cutting really hurt the movie?

BS. They should of budgeted better.

Considering how unnecessary Dolphin Head was, they might as well just taken the money from that to do a better version of Rage Zombie Fifield.

I like to think that someone went "hold on, even though the captain says "I'm getting something from Fifield's cam, this will confuse people, they won't know who it is.  So keep the beard/mohawk and then we're sweet"

 

The irony of course being that loads of people got confused as to whether it was Fifield or Milburn.

 

Reading some of the designers comments it seems that the "Alienesque" designs may have beena  bit too "on the money" and were rejected.

 

Which is rich given the needless fanwank of the fucking Deacon.

 

As Fuzzy Dunlop says, I have not much more interest in the finished product, but these designs are just fascinating.

Edited by Andy Bain - 6/20/12 at 2:23pm

What is the deacon?  The last shot?

Yes, because the alien's head is shaped like a deacon's hat apparently.

Oh well then, yeah, it's hard to imagine a more hollow bit of fan service.  Who cares that there's a "new" monster down there on the planet full of monsters?  It has no way of affecting our surviving characters, as they're millions of miles away already and it's not like the monsters can chase them.

 

 

I wasn't confused as to whether it was Fifield or Milburn. I was confused as to why Edris "Captain Safety" Alba decided to open the airlock when his dead crewman's helmet appeared outside the ship all of a sudden not long after they'd just crispified another crewman to prevent him from bringing contaminant onto the ship.

 

I have a theory that the crew have become unstuck in time, Slaughterhouse 5-style, which is why several of them seem to experience their character arcs in reverse (Fif and Milburn being scared of aliens before but not when they encounter them, Shaw having crises and reaffirmation of faith seemingly at random, not to mention not bothering to confront anyone after they either killed her husband or forced her into a back-lifepod abortion, Elba spontaneously knowing things he has no reason to, Holloway hating David for no apparent reason, the medic not caring that Shaw cracked her skull open).  

 

 

The right script and director?  I'd see that movie.  

 

 

 

"I dunno Paul, I thought I did a great audition. And what do the fuckers do? Go with the younger model!"

 

We now know what David said to the Engineer:

 

http://thebioscopist.com/2012/06/20/the-linguistics-of-prometheus-what-david-says-to-the-engineer/

 

 

‘This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life’.

 

Why that pisses the Engineer off so much remains unknown.

 

ETA:  Apparently, the exchange was longer, and cut from the theatrical release. The full exchange between android and Engineer may shed light on the Engineer's reaction.

David should just have said "He wants more life, fucker". Or maybe he did?

I honestly didn't have a problem with how the Engineers were handled.  I thought the design was a nicely realized blend of humanoid and otherworldly (I like how they seem to have an extra set of abs), and it makes a certain sort of sense that they would look like us if their DNA seeded life on Earth in the first place (although it helps there if you ignore basically everything we know about the actual evolutionary history of Earth).  And I'm good with never understanding their motivations re: creating and destroying humans.  That's an area where ambiguity actually serves the thematic purposes of the film, although it does also cut against creating a clear threat and building tension out of it, which is how we end up with the puzzling leaps on Elba's end of things in the third act.  I actually would prefer it if they never said what David told the Engineer, although this is the same Scott who just told everyone Deckard was a replicant, so I'm sure we'll get subtitles in the DC.

 

My issues are all with the nuts-n-bolts of the storytelling.  It's not that the ideas are unsound, or that I have a burning need for answers to every question the story begs, it's the sorry excuse for a script's staggering incompetence at building character, tracking motivation from scene to scene, and in diffusing tension and focus by slathering on unnecessary characters, unnecessary settings, unnecessary monsters, and unnecessary (not to mention thuddingly obvious) "twists".  There are too many characters, only 2 of which have anything to do (neither of which is the protagonist), too many different, inconsistent threats for us to feel much of anything about what's happening.  

 

This is where I want to post a clip of Donnell Rawlings on The Wire shouting "FOCUS, MOTHERFUCKER! FOCUS!!!" but youtube is failing me.

Edited by Schwartz - 6/21/12 at 9:50am

I think I would have been happier with the film if that first scene was completely cut out, and we learn that the Engineers were simply arms manufacturers and dealers. Interstellar weapons makers who created the xenomorphs, which ended up being too much for them to contain (as evidenced by the chest-burster victim jockey in Alien).

 

That would have the engineers as a parallel to the Wayland Yutani company, which I find more compelling than a race of aliens playing god. And it would have given us a sufficient backstory for both the engineers and the xenomorphs, and still left them both mysterious. I could have really done without all the half-baked bullshit about faith and reasons for existence.

 

I guess what I'm saying is, I would have liked this movie more, if it were a different movie.

It's not my joke, but I liked it better when I thought that David said Weyland just wanted the Engineer to give him a little head.

So, the initial premise of Prometheus was to be a straight ahead prequel to Alien. A script by Jon Spaihts got written. After a number of years goes by, Ridley decides to merge that story and the 'Chariots of the Gods' ideas with help (?) from Lindelof.

 

Anyone know....is there a draft of the Spaihts script/outline floating around online because I would be really interested in reading what could have been?

Perhaps the opening sequence would have been better if there were more Engineers?  Showing them surveying and then choosing "the one" who gets to drink the black goo and thus, kickstarting the evolutionary process.  I think I'd rather have seen more activity with the Engineers.  It seems like such a loss of opportunity to not really flesh them out just a bit more.  

 

And maybe I'm thinking this way now since all the other characters were so drab and one dimensional.  

 

Also, if ingesting/soaking in that black goo produces varying results, why not different creatures evolving from the Engineer ingesting goo and then "melting" into a big water source.  For one, I would think there would have to be some form of life already to have to sip water and then...evolve.  Or something.  Geezus, thinking about this movie is making head. hurt. 

 

Count me in with wanting to read the original script.  I could see the remaining bones in the movie, though. 

 

I'd rather see "Space Zombies!" after seeing this picture:

 

Tell that's not fucking amazing!  I double dog dare you!  This simple concept image is so incredibly evocative.

 

 

Engineer: Would he, like to be upgraded?

David: He has in mind something a little more radical.

Engineer: What, what seems to be the problem?

David: Death

Engineer: Death, ah, well, that's a little out of my jurisdiction.....

David:  He wants more life, fucker! 

 

This.  Plus as I was watching the film all I could think was "there's too much talking".  Which sounds dumb as I type it.  But there's so much exposition it's painful.  Especially as a good half of it is pointless.

Fuck this spin, David said "It's true, this man has no dick"

 

Talkiness is usually not a problem I have with cerebral sci-fi, which is clearly what Prometheus fashions itself as.  The problem is, this is written by Damon Lindelof, whose idea of engaging with weighty philosophical issues is to have the characters repeatedly comment on how weighty these philosophical issues they are dealing with are, and the best way to create ambiguity is to have one character ask "what's going on?" and another answer "we CAN'T know!  Because it's ambiguous!"  

 

And the other problem, which I'm not going to attribute to anyone in particular, is that even with all that exposition, we don't ever really know what's going on even on the monster movie level.  There are too many ill-defined characters to keep track of, and too many different creatures, none of which appear in the same form for more than one scene, for us to ever get our bearings long enough to build real dread.

Edited by Schwartz - 6/21/12 at 6:40pm

what david said to the engineer

 

http://thebioscopist.com/2012/06/20/the-linguistics-of-prometheus-what-david-says-to-the-engineer/

Congratulations, you win a Late Pass.

Edited by JacknifeJohnny - 6/21/12 at 5:02pm

 

Hi!

 

 

 

you know what is worse then someone posting the same news story twice.

 

and twice as worse as multiple people pointing it out

 

someone who comments on the people commenting about the repeated news story. 

 

 

 

 

Oh fuck!

Asylum's Prometheus/Paranormal Activity cash-in mash-up? That's one way to reduce costs, rip two things off at once.

 

Fifield, a.k.a. H.G. Blob