PROMETHEUS post-release discussion - Page 16

There was a good anecdote on Something Awful from one of the crew who mentioned that when they filmed the scene with the holo office, Charlize sat down on one of the chairs while Weyland gave his speech. Someone on set then pointed out to Ridley that this was a problem because obviously, you can't sit down on a hologram and his response was basically "Leave it, I couldn't give a fuck if someone sees that and gets worked up about it or not." It was later edited out anyway (only used as a promo pic now) but I wonder if that's just Ridley all over, a guy who just wants to create/frame his picture and visuals as he likes and honestly doesn't give a shit if things/little details don't quite line up logically or make much sense or anything.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/damon-lindelof-prometheus-vague-lost-sadistically-cool-334750

Not sure if this was posted, but it makes me mad Lindelof ruined it.

Dick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anyawatchin Angel 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/damon-lindelof-prometheus-vague-lost-sadistically-cool-334750

 

Not sure if this was posted, but it makes me mad Lindelof ruined it.

 

 

Dick.

Yep, "afterthoughts".  Why build upon a great movie that left us with great mysteries.  Let's not build upon that, let's make them afterthoughts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shan 

OK, just to lighten the mood a bit as it seems to be getting a bit serious in here, a bit of 6 degrees of separation (or something like it).

 

Damon Lindelof contributed to the script of Prometheus. Damon Lindelof worked on Lost. Jeremy Davies was an actor on Lost.

 

And for those of you who haven't seen it, Jeremy Davies' contribution to the Alien series when he was much younger ... (It really has to be seen to be believed).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT5IngAP_yk

1992 was an especially bad year for Jeremy Davies' commercial work:

It's like punk rock, but a car.

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Originally Posted by Nardo 
Uh, that red eye effect takes a 45 degree piece of glass that bounces a light into the actor's retina so it reads down the lens of the camera - it's not an accidental effect. It's a giant pain in the ass to achieve.

Right...  Because multi-million dollar special effects films never have goofs left in them... 

No biggie, believe what you like...  I'm just sayin', is all.  :)

That's not a goof, he's just replicating the error Jango Fett made.  It's George's vision, people, and it is infallible!

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Originally Posted by Dross 

 

This.  They could have done something really special with the hopeful character of Shaw entering this dark, bio-mechanical dungeon and finding nothing but hopelessness, but I never got the feeling she was particularly upset to find that her creators were all dead. 

That's what Holloway was for; Shaw was more interested in the 'where' and possibly the 'how' of humanity's origins. Holloway wanted the 'why' and was pissed that he wasn't going to get it.

Unfortunately this served to make an already smug barely likeable character outright annoying when he becomes a petulant child.

I dunno.  I liked the guy.  But then, that made his sudden shift into petulance pretty jarring.

Yeah,

but then he gets mutated into a space zombie and gets a face full of Charlize fire.  So it works out in the end.

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Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

I dunno.  I liked the guy.  But then, that made his sudden shift into petulance pretty jarring.

see, I didn't have an issue with that.  My mate (who liked the film) hated that but oddly enough I didn't.

He's super jazzed at the thought of being at the end of the trek to the point he makes them go out as soon as they land.  But he actually says "Is this just another tomb?" meaning he's come further than humans have gone before, but it's just a variation on what he'd seen before.  I'd probably hit the piss too if that was me.

The "does that mean I'm nothing because I can't create life (sob)" conversation was far, FAR more jarring for me and just too big a "guess what's going to happen to HER then!" (as well as horribly, horribly written)

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoolong 

Yeah,

 

but then he gets mutated into a space zombie and gets a face full of Charlize fire.  So it works out in the end.

Fifield -- i.e. acid-to-the-face-guy -- is the one who became a space zombie.

Did anyone read the Jon Spathis (sp?) screenplay. Was the 2nd half more coherent than this mess. I went in with reasonable explanations but the script was shocking terrible at times. Here are some of the big things that bothered me.

1. The two dopey scientists that et lost in a cave was just dumb and it really got silly. It got even more silly when they tried to pet the alien snake. Weren't they just whining cause they were scared?

2. The bizzare sequence with super zombie on the loading dock thats never mentioned again. Its edited clumsily and it feels like its from a totally other film. Also kills a bunch of nameless red shirts.

3. The surgery scene. Great scene but everything around it it bizarre. Why does nobody go after her or bother her while she's on the table. She recovers rather fast and seems to be okay with just leaving squid baby there. Nobody else seems to really care that Shaw escaped or had a squid baby. Suddenly Guy Pearce is alive. The cutting and pacing around this scene is nonsensical.

Still looked gorgeous and Fassbender is great.

Drew looks at THE PLOT HOLES.

A lot of stuff we also touched on earlier in this thread.

He's not wrong, he does get killed by Charlize.  I guess the only correction is that he almost becomes a space zombie.  Maybe?  Who's to say the same thing that happened to Fifield would happen to him with this magical goop.

So, 15 years from now, is Ridley going to tell us Vickers WAS a android? 

Something Drew didn't address, but is something of a plot hole:

How could Vickers keep it secret that she was that guy's daughter? Unless he fucked the maid and then took care of her, that makes no sense at all.

Also - as my friend Amy pointed out - the end has a human take off in a ship with no food or water.

They then landed ten minutes later and raided the remains of the shuttle for its 2 years of supplies.  And managed to kill the pseudo-alien too.

Or something.

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

Jesus Christ was a Representative of the Space Jockey race. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Dark Shape 

 

Fifield -- i.e. acid-to-the-face-guy -- is the one who became a space zombie.

Well he was all weird looking and pale, I'm sticking with almost a space zombie.

Looking at that Christ was an Engineer thing, I had a thought that's kind of baity...

Remember James Camerons The Abyss?  Remember how the aliens wordlessly showed Ed Harris why they think Earth should die, and remember how choked up you got when they spare us all because of Ed Harris's final message, "Always knew this was a one way trip...  Love you, wife."  Yeah, that was extremely good.  Jesus being an Engineer and the Jockey's being pissed when he kill him?  That's dumb and bad.   

I'm pretty surprised by the level of vitriol here. I was a little annoyed at some of the "dumb horror movie mistake" moments (and Patrick Wilson's dream cameo definitely seemed like it was trimmed down from a longer scene), but I certainly didn't think the characters were acting inconsistently that much, and I liked all the thematic stuff about faith, discovery, our existence, etc. Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron rocked it, as did Noomi Rapace and Idris Elba, and Sir Ridley still knows how to scare the hell out of us. That "abortion" scene was some white-knuckle shit.

I kind of loved it, honestly. I had pretty mid-range expectations, and they were surpassed.

I'm still thinking about this film which is a good thing. Someone asked me last Monday if I'd seen any movies over the weekend and I said "no" before remembering that I actually did see the Snow White movie.

Prometheus followed a lot of conventions I've come to expect in trite horror films. Certain characters you know are going to die by virtue of their role in the film. As soon as Milburn introduced himself to Fifeld I knew they were toast. As soon as Holloway went from confident scientist to drunkard (really that was a jarring switch) I knew he was not long for this world. Also the person who expresses faith in God (Shaw) lives and gets to have their faith vindicated while the one who expresses skepticism and is a nonbeliever (Holloway) dies. I'm sure the bible-thumpers in the audience loved the scene where Shaw asked for her cross  necklace back from David. It's like filmmakers are afraid to suggest there is no god so they have to leave that window open for the audience.

It bugged that there were loose ends left hanging. The most glaring being the lack of any kind of dialogue between Vickers and Shaw following Vickers torching Shaw's boyfriend. It just seemed like something needed to be addressed between them-- or anyone for that matter. Holloway dies, Milburn is found dead, Fifeld is missing and there is little to no grieving. Perhaps it is symptomatic of none of the characters really being tied to the others in any meaningful way save Shaw and Holloway and even Shaw has no grieving period.

I really want to know why David poisoned Holloway. This is the one instance where I wouldn't have minded some obvious exposition dialogue possibly from David himself. We never find out what the point of that incident was. Was it vengeance? Was it a covert experiment? The contamination would have been more relevant if Holloway's illness had been more drawn out and the scientists could study or biopsy him to get some answers but no. Holloway is poisoned, deteriorates in a day then gets burned and nothing comes of it.

Why did the engineer go beserk? I would've loved for him to engage in dialogue with David. It seemed pointless to give David the improbable ability to communicate with an alien life form and never have any dialogue take place between them.

 I thought that David let Vickers push him around because he was programmed not to hurt her, or he knew she wasn't a threat to hurt him, so he just let her push him around.

I kind of thought that David knew that Shaw and Hollaway would have sex.  Sort of a evil science experiment. 

I think the level of vitriol is because it's Ridley Scott and there shouldn't be such basic crap in it.

So:

even one word acknowledging the Shaw covered in blood with her stomach stapled shut

one statement stating they have a survey of the planet and "there's something here" as opposed to "fuck it was lucky the first place we looked had these things"

Something more believable than the "map" guy getting lost.

Something more believable than two guys who are gibbering in fear, all of a sudden one is overcome with beauty and curiosity

less terrible dialogue (the whole "bet" thing is just pointless and leads to that clunky last line).

And honestly, none of the above (which is a smattering of the films problems) should have been that hard to iron out in the writing stage.

This film annoys me because I can't stop thinking about it, to iron out all the shit, and I shouldn't have to do that.  I should be thinking about it in other ways, not desperately trying to convince myself it was good, or that I've missed something obvious.

I think David poisoned Holloway because Weyland wanted him to experiment with the goo, which at that point they had to suspect had some kind of biological tampering effect.  Presumably Weyland wanted David to see if the goop could potenially solve his aging problems. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freeman 

I think David poisoned Holloway because Weyland wanted him to experiment with the goo, which at that point they had to suspect had some kind of biological tampering effect.  Presumably Weyland wanted David to see if the goop could potenially solve his aging problems. 

It seems they could have brought some gerbils or rats or something on the journey to conduct some tests before infecting a crewmember and risking contaminating everyone else on board. That's a really badly executed science experiment.

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Originally Posted by Damon Houx 

 

Also - as my friend Amy pointed out - the end has a human take off in a ship with no food or water.

Yes! That bugged me as well! They set up a shuttle with all the amenities that she could have used, and then instead she runs off in an alien ship to go lurching around the galaxy. What if there are medical complications from her staple-surgery (and all her leaning over and groaning sort of suggests there were?) What if there's only a week's worth of oxygen on board? What if the alien ship turns out to have engine trouble? What if the cryo-pod doesn't work on humans (because, remember, there doesn't seem to be FTL in this universe, so presumably she'd need to use it)?

So, so many stupid things about that ending. Again, Lindelof's characters seem to be reckless to the point of suicide--when they aren't literally suicidal, like Idris and his "Let's blow ourselves up for fun! Wheeee!" crew.

Sure, it's also dumb to pet alien snakes in the middle of a threat display and zap an ancient alien head with electricity.  Linelof is operating with whatever vague movie logic he wants to.  Not actual logic.
 

Honestly, the fact that almost none of this stuff occurred to me while I was watching the movie kind of speaks for itself. I didn't "turn my brain off" or anything, but I was wrapped up enough in the visuals, acting, and direction that any annoyance at bad logic was brief.

Then again, I have almost no experience with Lindelof as a writer, so that might have something to do with it.

I think good writing has you feeling smart when you stumble upon a realization or a epiphany exactly when the writer intends you to.  I don't think Lindelof is very good at it...
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Spider 

Then again, I have almost no experience with Lindelof as a writer, so that might have something to do with it.

Neither do I, and it makes me sort of wonder whether a lot of the hate is residual resentment from the apparently disappointing finale for Lost. Why else would people hate a guy for being so thoroughly mediocre?

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Originally Posted by JMulder 

 

Neither do I, and it makes me sort of wonder whether a lot of the hate is residual resentment from the apparently disappointing finale for Lost. Why else would people hate a guy for being so thoroughly mediocre?

I've never watched an Episode of Lost.  The closest I've come is The SImpson's "Stranded" piss take.

But also, I don't lay the blame at Lindelhof's feet either.  This was the Ridley Scott show from the get-go.  While L may be responsible for such groan inducing lines as "this doesn't mean the bet's off!" I think the illogic is all down to Scott.

The "fuck it I don;t care if someone notices she's sitting on a hologram chair" reaction posted earlier just cements that.

Also, I don't care if it was total fanservice, those last shots? Too cool for words.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Prankster 

 

Yes! That bugged me as well! They set up a shuttle with all the amenities that she could have used, and then instead she runs off in an alien ship to go lurching around the galaxy. What if there are medical complications from her staple-surgery (and all her leaning over and groaning sort of suggests there were?) What if there's only a week's worth of oxygen on board? What if the alien ship turns out to have engine trouble? What if the cryo-pod doesn't work on humans (because, remember, there doesn't seem to be FTL in this universe, so presumably she'd need to use it)?

 

So, so many stupid things about that ending. Again, Lindelof's characters seem to be reckless to the point of suicide--when they aren't literally suicidal, like Idris and his "Let's blow ourselves up for fun! Wheeee!" crew.

The shuttle didn't have a nice, tidy landing onto the planet.  It looked pretty damaged and it had an unwanted passenger in the form of that squid.  Plus, David Head said he could operate the ship.  He also could read the glyphs and more than likely, solve whatever issues an alien vessel may have.  

I've been allowing this film to stew about in my head.  First of all, visually:  goddamn stunner.  Mind blowingly good looking film.  A total exercise in visualization.  Okay, got that.  I saw it via IMAX 3D, and my jaw was on the ground throughout this film.  I'm still marveling about it's looks.  

Yes, the script was a clunker.  But there were issues that I could allow to slip by.  Holloway's sudden descent into a bottle of champagne, is one.  I got it.  And I liked Logan Marshall-Green's performance.  I don't think he was a weak link, at all.  I'd pass that onto the gal who was Ford.  She came off absolutely flat in all of her lines and thankful her role was very limited.  The opening sequences up until the crew awakens from cryo sleep, were awesome.  Especially of Fassbender/David wandering about the ship, alone.  I could watch a whole movie of just him, doing just that.  I do really wish it was Vickers who was the heroine.  That's a lost opportunity.  Her little moment with Janek was appropriate levity.  And Elba.  His one moment of exposition was actually okay.  I expected it, as throughout the earlier scenes, you could tell he was busy figuring out what he was seeing on the science team member's vid cams.  I've got mixed feelings for Rapace.  But why an archeologist was so involved, and even leading, the examination of the Engineer head?  Why wasn't it with David (science officer) and Ford (ship's medic); with Shaw observing?  That didn't make sense.  

The most egregious issue was yes, a biologist wanting to pet an obviously pissed off alien creature.  One that resembles a white, ultra-creepy, King Cobra, no less.  And with the geologist not even trying (that hard) to pull him away.  And why wasn't that geologist; who earlier, announced his love of all things rock, examining the rocky temple they were in?  Alien planet rock.  That was everywhere. Wouldn't he be wanting to out there, gathering samples?  Another issue?  If you have those glowy red "pups" (is that what they were called?), what's the need of immediately sending in a team of PEOPLE.  Why not use the orbs to make sure all is safe, first.  For a science team, there were a few moments of where they were being much more stupid than the group of miners on the Nostromo.  

I wonder how much better the story would have been if Fifield and Milburn survived their overnight stay. They were already two rather interesting guys, easily distinguishable characters; keep 'em alive a bit longer.   I would say that and lessen the number of people from 17, to say 10.  It's like, to quickly alleviate the film of all these people, they (writers) resorted to some lazy writing.  

I didn't mind the ending(s):  the one for Shaw/David and that other one.  ;)  Sorry for the choppiness of this post.  I'm just sorting through this stream of thoughts the same time as I type all this out.  It's great this movie has stirred up all this discussion/debate.  I just wish there weren't some huge glaring issues.  And that's the thing:  when there were issues - they were/are HUGE.  Granted, all enveloped within this beautiful visual feast and give him credit, Ridley Scott was still able to weave compelling moments with a sub-par script.  

ETA:  I've never watched Lost, btw.  Well, okay, I caught one episode and didn't finish watching a second.  But, that's it.  So consider this my first experience with a Damon Lindelof script.  

Arrow in the Head gave it 4 out of 4 stars.  That's all you need to know. 

Can I just say that despite the fact that I hate Lindeloff because of Lost that I find it funny anyone blames/credits him for certain aspects when you don't know what the fuck he wrote versus Spaihts? Just a thought.

Also, I happened to catch the huggers in this about an hour before this highlighted pic of it came out:

The funny thing is that squid design is 10 times creepier and more creative than the shit in this.

I thought it turned into something pretty nasty. I was not expecting Cthulhu's inbred cousin/facehugger on steroids to show up in this movie at all.

Oy vey.

The opening scene of this film is so staggering. Primordial Earth looks incredible, and the whole thing is infused with such wonder and weight. Then there's the scene of the Fass just being a weird child robot, doing robot stuff, and that's fascinating. 

And then Guy Pearce shows up in old man makeup. And things sloooowly unravel. And then they get to the room with the Olmec head, and everything starts to fall apart.

Think about this: the only thing that came of David poisoning Tom Hardy was an extreme roundabout way of creating a deus ex machina to save Shaw at the very very end. That's the entire story service provided by that thread. That's why Shaw goes through the worst abortion ever.

You could cut out the zombie rampage completely and absolutely nothing would be harmed. No one reacts to it after the fact in any way, shape, or form.

What's the point of that last shot? Is it supposed to be a surprises? Even if someone somehow was unaware that this was an alien prequel, there's the mural in the vase chamber. If anyone sees this before Alien, they're gonna wonder what the fuck the big deal is supposed to be. It can't pose a threat to Shaw; she's already left. There's no point to it whatsoever.

I finally understand why Lost's understanding of religion was so weird and askew: it really does come from Lindelof. I don't know the guy's religious background, but he comes off as someone trying to engage the idea respectfully while having no idea of any of it. How do you "choose" to believe? Good grief.

Asking big questions doesn't make your movie smart. I don't really care about the motivations of the Engineers, or getting answers to their inscrutable actions. You don't have to give answers, but you have to somehow engage the questions. Asking them over and over isn't engaging them. It isn't smart. It's nothing.

Ah, well.  At least we'll always have ALIEN LOVES PREDATOR, in which Alien Abe and Preston Predator are bickering roommates in Manhattan.

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Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmerica 


I guess, but we're facing a sequel that's going to spend potentially a long time in the Engineers world, which have shown to be character designs that are not that interesting. I don't know, it kind of reminds me of Avatar but with only two human actors.
To add drama there'll have to be differnt engineer factions, etc etc. Just doesn't sound like a very fun movie, I'm also sure they'll have other life form experiments to fill in more of the monster nonsense.
But who knows, maybe they'll surprise us and the engineer plane has been overrun by xenomorphs. I'm just not sure how compelling a sequel will be.

Let me be clear, my comment wasn't meant to say that I'm looking forward to a Prometheus sequel.  I'm saying I would have much preferred Prometheus be about actually meeting and questioning the Engineers than the vague haunted spaceship nonsense we got.

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Originally Posted by Fafhrd 

That's what Holloway was for; Shaw was more interested in the 'where' and possibly the 'how' of humanity's origins. Holloway wanted the 'why' and was pissed that he wasn't going to get it.

After spending a few hours exploring one building after waiting two years to get there.  He sure gave up pretty quickly.  I have to believe he had some scenes cut from the final edit that explained his abrupt turn to guzzling all the champagne on the ship.

Of course, the fact that the building was topped by a GIANT SKULL might have been a clue this wasn't the most friendly of places.

I'm also curious as to why Theron is painted as a bad guy and gets the traditional Bad Guy Horribly Exaggerated Death.  She's probably the one person in the film with the most common sense.  "If you find any alive, don't make contact with them."  "Don't let that obviously infected crew member back on board." (Which is exactly what our hero Ripley wanted Dallas to do in the first film, BTW).  "This mission has gone to shit, we need to leave.  NOW."  Maybe she's a little no-nonsense, but it's just another character who behaves as the plot dictates.

And maybe I missed it skimming the thread, but has anybody considered how this kind of retcons Alien?  It's now reasonable to guess that the reason the Nostromo was diverted to LV-426 -- the "organism" they were to return at all costs -- wasn't the xenomorph, but the dead Engineer whose distress signal they picked up.  Even with Weyland dead, the Company is still looking for their creator.

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Originally Posted by kingfan 

Did anyone read the Jon Spathis (sp?) screenplay. Was the 2nd half more coherent than this mess. I went in with reasonable explanations but the script was shocking terrible at times. Here are some of the big things that bothered me.

 

1. The two dopey scientists that et lost in a cave was just dumb and it really got silly. It got even more silly when they tried to pet the alien snake. Weren't they just whining cause they were scared?

 

 

2. The bizzare sequence with super zombie on the loading dock thats never mentioned again. Its edited clumsily and it feels like its from a totally other film. Also kills a bunch of nameless red shirts.

 

3. The surgery scene. Great scene but everything around it it bizarre. Why does nobody go after her or bother her while she's on the table. She recovers rather fast and seems to be okay with just leaving squid baby there. Nobody else seems to really care that Shaw escaped or had a squid baby. Suddenly Guy Pearce is alive. The cutting and pacing around this scene is nonsensical.

 

Still looked gorgeous and Fassbender is great.

 A friend of mine I was sitting with in a theater is a Registered Nurse,and she was yelling out about how stupid the surgery scene was. I don't care how advanced the surgical techniques are..and cutting open a chest is still cutting open a chest even if done by a computer.....you are not going to just go running down the hallway after a Caeserean.

Accordgin to my friend, even if she was under a local anesthetic she would still be in a state of shock when the surgery was over with all the blood she lost. I am amazed that a director as good as Ridley Scott let something that outrageous get by.

And the film is full of plot holes,but I will have to see the Director's Cut before making a final judgement. But as it stands, it's a film with great visuals, good performances and some great individual scenes that is badly damaged by a mess of a script.