Movie Review - Prometheus (** MAJOR SPOILERS **)

[Gaillo]

Greets all!

Just a warning for you, in case you haven't seen this movie yet, this review will contain MAJOR spoilers, I'll alert you at the point in the review that the spoilers start below so you can stop reading if you want to see this movie.

Henny and I go to about 2 movies a year in theatres, usually "2nd run" or dollar theatres to save money. However, upon hearing about Ridley Scott's "Alien" prequel "Prometheus", we decided to make an exception and see it at a full-price theatre shortly after its release (we went yesterday evening). Ridley Scott has long been in my top 3 or 4 directors list, having made my all-time favorite sci-fi film... "Blade Runner". I also enjoyed "Alien" immensely, so when I heard he was returning to his sci-fi roots and making an "Alien" prequel, I knew I needed to see it RIGHT NOW.

Overall non-spoiler review of the movie:

Visual effects, cinematography: 11 out of 10
Acting and character development: 7 out of 10
Writing and Story: 1 out of 10
Pure entertainment value: 8 out of 10

Overall: 7 out of 10

**** SPOILERS BELOW ****


This movie is IMPOSSIBLY beautifully filmed. Ridley Scott has out Ridley'ed himself at what he does best... breathtakingly awesome science fiction cinematography. The visual effects are TRULY a "step up" for this kind of film, starting from the very first few frames. Everything is framed, composed, and CGI'ed to perfection. All other directors of this type of film need to TAKE NOTES... "Prometheus" is how it is done! The visual effects and beautiful filming ALONE are definitely worth the price of admission.

OK... now the bad (and there is a LOT of bad in this film!).

The writing, premise, story, plot, etc. is HORRIBLE. Seriously. You need to suspend your rational faculties BIG TIME to overlook plot holes that are big enough to drive a starship through, and that's putting it mildly. For those who know something about this film, the story is simple: Humanity was created by a group of aliens called "Engineers", who have left clues with ancient cultures about how to find them... a star cluster found in ancient cave paintings, megalithic carvings, etc. HOWEVER... the star map does NOT point to the Engineers home planet, but rather their bio-weapons "factory" planet... where they breed and stockpile super-killer "Alien" creatures as seen in the original film "Alien". This is where the story goes all hokey... WHY point humanity to their bio-weapons planet instead of their home planet? Why create humanity at all knowing that once they achieve space travel, they will be rushing to certain doom/death by following the star map to the bio-weapons factory? It gets worse.

The movie starts with the starship "Prometheus", a trillion dollar corporate exploration project to the planet pointed to by the ancient star map, in route. It is crewed by 17 men and women, all PC culturally diverse of course (The captain is black, co-pilot is asian, main scientist/archeologist is woman, geologist is a tattooed redneck ex-prison looking asshole with a mohawk, the android is obsessed with emulating the gay Lawrence of Arabia, etc. You get the picture). You would expect that a trillion dollar mission would pick the absolute CREAM OF THE CROP of scientists, engineers, and managers, but NO. This crew is about the most incompetent, idiotic, emotionally driven stupid bunch of future-trash assholes ever put together in a sci-fi film.

They all land, and IMMEDIATELY hit ground in a bunch of dune buggy ATV looking rover buggies, and what looks like a travel trailer on big-ass knobby metal tires for the main personnel transport. They all wear space suits with helmets about 13 sizes too large, even the android who doesn't need to (to make the crew feel more "comfortable" about him being "different" and not really needing a suit). Everyone but 3 or 4 crew members bail the ship IMMEDIATELY, rushing toward their doom (with no weapons, incidentally, after all this IS a "scientific" expedition! *puke*). The geologist and one of the Asians immediately grow bored with the alien hive, and want to return to the ship, geologist dumbass having come umpteen thousand lightyears only to have ZERO interest in actually looking at any rocks, and promptly get lost (even though the geologist is in charge of mapping and brings mapping robots with him). The rest of the crew are just as fucking retarded, the biologist showing no interest in the remains of alien bodies or taking samples, and EVERY fucking moron in the crew removing their helmet after figuring out there is oxygen being generated in the hive, without concern for potential pathogens or other airborn threats.

It gets worse. They take an alien head back to the ship, after stupidly nearly costing the lives of 3 of the crew in a "Silicon Storm" to get it there, where they probe it with an electrical stimulator of some kind until it blows up spewing green goo all over for no apparent reason at all. The ship's robot smuggles a vase-like vessel containing alien goo back to the ship, and for no apparent reason mixes it with a drink for the main scientist, making him "alien out" and die a horrible flaming death at the hand of a fellow-crewmember's flamethrower. The lost mapping expert/geologist and his idiot Asian buddy make it back to the "egg chamber" of the hive, meet a 4 foot tall white alien cobra, and I SHIT YOU NOT... try to pet it while cooing about how cute it is... at least until it fucking ATTACKS them, kills them, and turns ex-prison white trash dumbass geologist into a super-strength alien zombie. Riiiight... ::)

Back at the ship, the black captain gets it on with the white female ship's administrator, abandoning both of their posts and duties for a quick shag, just in time to miss all the VIDEO RECORDED feeds coming back from the chamber of horrors. After the crew figures out something is terribly wrong, they play back the recordings, right? Wrong. That would make too much sense... so instead they all head to the hive for more fun and games with the Aliens, right after BBQ'ing the geologist alien zombie dude (who's walked back to the ship for a snack of braaaiiiins...) with a flamethrower. They FINALLY break out a few handguns and a shotgun at this point... half the crew killed being about the right amount before some dumbass realizes they might be better off armed.

SERIOUSLY, I could go on all day about the overall IDIOCY of this crew and their decisions, but I'll bore you no further... the writer of this garbage should be sued for every penny he made insulting our intelligence with this crap... it's quite literally that horrible of a screenplay. The actors do the best they can with the load of horseshit they've been given to portray, but good acting NEVER saves a shitty plot - and this pile of shit stinks more than most.

Anyway, I still recommend the film for its sheer cinematographic beauty and breathtaking sets and CGI, but don't go in expecting an intellectual adventure... go in expecting to turn your brain OFF if you really want to enjoy this film.

Overall, "Prometheus" was entertaining, breathtakingly beautiful, and a whole lot of summer-time popcorn mindless fun... but DAMN YOU Ridley Scott for accepting that huge turd of a screenplay to build what should have been your finest masterpiece around! :(

[Buddha]

http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?61524-Anybody-seen-Prometheus-Yet-quot-Alien-quot-with-a-Dash-of-quot-Avatar-quot-by-Ridley-Scott

Better late than never I guess ;)

My take was: "I saw it, did not care for it. Very... cliche. "Oh a metro-sexual android, a black ships captain who fucks Charlese Theron, and aliens who have acid for blood." Wonderful art. Yessir, the first two to die were two white men (I guess the other was asian as General G said) who just couldn't help but "pet" the alien...... Also the main white guy gets his balls broken by Charlese Theron constantly who I mentioned fucks a black guy in the movie."

I didn't get the full effect of the CGI because I watched a CAM verson, I could see that it would be impressive. I hate when an entire movie is a Computer Generated Image however, I don't mind if it is used a bit but now days it's the whole movie. Shit acting, a poop plot, poor writing for screen, and multi-culturalism shoved down your throat combined with mind blowing acid trip CGI is the name of the game.

[gunDriller]

it sounds like the aliens are (from our point of view), confused.

but from their point of view, maybe it is logical to send the race that they created to encounter the alien/ cobra things - which perhaps they also created ?


yes, the human behavior does sound illogical. if a sci-fi movie makes you say, "this is SOOOO stupid", it's not doing it's job.

i would love to see you guys get a chance to put your questions to Ridley himself.


it sounds like a film with great cinematography and a double-(triple ?)-face-palm-worthy plot.

[Horn]

The lost mapping expert/geologist and his idiot Asian buddy make it back to the "egg chamber" of the hive, meet a 4 foot tall white alien cobra, and I SHIT YOU NOT... try to pet it while cooing about how cute it is... at least until it fucking ATTACKS them, kills them, and turns ex-prison white trash dumbass geologist into a super-strength alien zombie. Riiiight... ::)

Those damn white snakes will slay the shit out of you any chance they get.

Never pet a white snake... friggin dickstabbers

Gaillo the major spoiler thing is overblown, you can't spoil the spoilt

[Buddha]

A bit long, but interesting

Jesus, the Engineer: http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html

Basically, it all boils down to the fact that the Engineers made us, and even gave us a second chance when we started showing our baser instincts (war, murder, etc.). That chance? Engineer Space Jesus:

From the Engineers' perspective, so long as humans retained that notion of self-sacrifice as central, we weren't entirely beyond redemption. But we went and screwed it all up, and the film hints at when, if not why: the Engineers at the base died two thousand years ago. That suggests that the event that turned them against us and led to the huge piles of dead Engineers lying about was one and the same event. We did something very, very bad, and somehow the consequences of that dreadful act accompanied the Engineers back to LV-223 and massacred them. If you have uneasy suspicions about what 'a bad thing approximately 2,000 years ago' might be, then let me reassure you that you are right. An astonishing excerpt from the Movies.com interview with Ridley Scott:

Movies.com: We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered?

Ridley Scott: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an "our children are misbehaving down there" scenario, there are moments where it looks like we've gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, "Let's send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it." Guess what? They crucified him.
Yeah. The reason the Engineers don't like us any more is that they made us a Space Jesus, and we broke him. Reader, that's not me pulling wild ideas out of my arse. That's RIDLEY SCOTT.

As for that black goo that is central to the film's terror, Cavalorn makes the case that it reacts to those it comes in contact with. Basically: Humans are evil, so we make it evil:

The black slime reacts to the nature and intent of the being that wields it, and the humans in the film didn't even know that they WERE wielding it. That's why it remained completely inert in David's presence, and why he needed a human proxy in order to use the stuff to create anything. The black goo could read no emotion or intent from him, because he was an android. Shaw's comment when the urn chamber is entered - 'we've changed the atmosphere in the room' - is deceptively informative. The psychic atmosphere has changed, because humans - tainted, Space Jesus-killing humans - are present. The slime begins to engender new life, drawing not from a self-sacrificing Engineer but from human hunger for knowledge, for more life, for more everything. Little wonder, then, that it takes serpent-like form. The symbolism of a corrupting serpent, turning men into beasts, is pretty unmistakeable.


He also notes (quite accurately, if you count how many times guts are spilled open) how it all comes back to the mythic tale of Prometheus, who was punished to have his guts pulled open for all eternity, after he gave humanity god-like power in the form of fire: Fix that image in your mind, please: the giver of life, with his abdomen torn open. We'll be coming back to it many times in the course of this article. The ethos of the titan Prometheus is one of willing and necessary sacrifice for life's sake. That's a pattern we see replicated throughout the ancient world. J G Frazer wrote his lengthy anthropological study, The Golden Bough, around the idea of the Dying God - a lifegiver who voluntarily dies for the sake of the people. It was incumbent upon the King to die at the right and proper time, because that was what heaven demanded, and fertility would not ensue if he did not do his royal duty of dying.
Now, consider the opening sequence of Prometheus. We fly over a spectacular vista, which may or may not be primordial Earth. According to Ridley Scott, it doesn't matter. A lone Engineer at the top of a waterfall goes through a strange ritual, drinking from a cup of black goo that causes his body to disintegrate into the building blocks of life. We see the fragments of his body falling into the river, twirling and spiralling into DNA helices.


Ridley Scott has this to say about the scene: 'That could be a planet anywhere. All he’s doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself. If you parallel that idea with other sacrificial elements in history – which are clearly illustrated with the Mayans and the Incas – he would live for one year as a prince, and at the end of that year, he would be taken and donated to the gods in hopes of improving what might happen next year, be it with crops or weather, etcetera.'

Can we find a God in human history who creates plant life through his own death, and who is associated with a river? It's not difficult to find several, but the most obvious candidate is Osiris, the epitome of all the Frazerian 'Dying Gods'.

And we wouldn't be amiss in seeing the first of the movie's many Christian allegories in this scene, either. The Engineer removes his cloak before the ceremony, and hesitates before drinking the cupful of genetic solvent; he may well have been thinking 'If it be Thy will, let this cup pass from me.'

[Gaillo]

Buddha,
Even if that IS the intent of the film and its shitty writing, it does not excuse the largest plot hole - the completely incompetent and moronic crew.

What I would have preferred to see:

A fully competent crew, making all the right decisions and acting cautiously and rationally... yet STILL getting their asses completely kicked and handed to them by the aliens. THAT would be truly terrifying and awesome to watch... as it is, you see a bunch of retarded assclowns making REALLY bad decisions and ending up getting DESTROYED, which is the boring outcome that you would pretty much expect.

[Buddha]

Buddha,
Even if that IS the intent of the film and its shitty writing, it does not excuse the largest plot hole - the completely incompetent and moronic crew.

What I would have preferred to see:

A fully competent crew, making all the right decisions and acting cautiously and rationally... yet STILL getting their asses completely kicked and handed to them by the aliens. THAT would be truly terrifying and awesome to watch... as it is, you see a bunch of retarded assclowns get DESTROYED, which is the boring outcome that you would pretty much expect.

Yep, an intelligent, professional, ARMED crew knowing that they are going into the shit but going anyway... and doing it in a methodical preservation of life type style, but still getting killed in horrible ways would be awesome.

I think Serenity and Children of Men are my two favorite Sci-fi flicks. They all have what I described great plot, great acting, light on the multiculturalism, hell the black guy in Serentiy, Chiwetel Ejiofor is an amazing actor (He's in Children of Men too, though a smaller less dynamic role), and the CGI is tastefully done in both.

I'm Sci-fi addict as you can tell ;)

[singular_me]

Writing and Story: 1 out of 10

soooooooo happy I didnt pay for it... one of the worst ever

mind boggling that some screenwriters get paid so much for so little, really

[Gaillo]

...I think Serenity and Children of Men are my two favorite Sci-fi flicks. They all have what I described great plot, great acting, light on the multiculturalism, hell the black guy in Serentiy, Chiwetel Ejiofor is an amazing actor (He's in Children of Men too, though a smaller less dynamic role), and the CGI is tastefully done in both.

I'm Sci-fi addict as you can tell ;)

Agreed!

I'm a sci-fi addict as well, both books and movies.

Children of Men had some of the greatest action scenes ever put on film... the car chase and project building shootout scenes were both just plain amazing! I really liked the hippy and his hidden smokehouse too! ;D

Serenity (and the series "Firefly") are sci-fi libertarian classics... probably my favorite ever dystopian futurescape.

[Book]

a black ships captain who fucks Charlese Theron...



http://hollywooddame.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Charlize-Theron%E2%80%99s-Adopted-Son-Jackson.jpg

Meanwhile, in the real world...

:o

[Horn]

as it is, you see a bunch of retarded assclowns making REALLY bad decisions and ending up getting DESTROYED, which is the boring outcome that you would pretty much expect.

Babylon?

I think I might like it afterall.

[Buddha]

Ha! Great minds think alike.

Now I know you've read Dune, if you haven't......... God help you. I've been looking for more Sci-fi to read. I've been reading "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek and need something a little less dryer than the surface Mercury to break up the monotony. Any suggestions? I've read:

Entire Dune Series
Entire Foundations series + a few other Asimov books
ALL of Vonnegut
ALL of Heinlein
alot of Orwell (Even though he's really not a Sci-Fi writer per se)
Huxley
Bradbury

There's gotta be someone out there that I have not heard of. I remember someone mentioning a book called "Neuromancer" I believe it was either you or Shami. Any others that you really like? Because if I have to read another page about price ceilings or some shit I'm gonna go on a fucking rampage.

Anyway no more hijacking. I LOVE watching trends in society and what they find "hip" or w/e. I have noticed that in the last 5 years there has been an EXPLOSION of End of the world movies, "heroic" military movies that glorify the stone cold evil of the MIC on a GLOBAL level, movies/shows about Ancient alien type stuff. Also the Talmudvision is brimming with new shows about Americans going against their government (Remember Jerico?). Check this out: Also there are shades of the U.S.S. Liberty/Maine in this show. The guy's American sub is attacked by the U.S.S. Illinois, and the White House disregards it blames it on Pakistan, its @ 1:50 in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDSttA64KGU

It makes me feel uneasy. They are making these films in order to desensitize the masses, so that if something similar happens, people have been watching this shit for years. So does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? Is the "art" a reflection of what the American people are feeling at a gut emotional level, so it's popular. Or are they being conditioned for what is to come, so that the reactions are more... proper.

It is a bit of both, but more-so of the latter IMO.

Edit: To Book, I saw that article/pic before I saw the movie. Then I see she's even having sex with a black man in that movie..... Now I'm not as hardcore as some about here about this stuff, but come on, you're white, get a white child and do us all a favor. Sheeniewood will corrupt any way it can. They take the hottest white women in film and have them fornicate with anyone but a white man, a blackman/woman, Asian man/woman/ Latino man/woman, even a white woman, but no white men allowed. Then in reality, even if they are married to a white man, they adopt ANYTHING but a white child, and if they do have white children they will be fueled with sugar rather than gasoline. (Sugar in the tank, get it? HAHAHAHAHA)

[Gaillo]

Buddha,

Yes... I've read the entire Dune series, and seen all the screen adaptations of them.

"Neuromancer" is a book by William Gibson, who (in my opinion) has come the closest to ACCURATELY predicting what the future will probably look like. He is, from what I've read, a technophobe who collects antique clocks and watches as a hobby... and writes his books on an old manual typewriter. Quite the lifestyle for the guy who invented the word "Cyberspace" and accurately forsaw what the internet would look like and evolve into! All of his books are worth reading.

Other authors/books I recommend:

"Nova" by Samuel Delany. Drugs. Interstellar civilization. Space kings. Overall madness. HIGHLY recommended.

Anything by John Varley - wierd author, even wierder books... very libertarian. Gaia trilogy (Titan, Wizard, Demon) are some of the strangest sci-fi books I've ever read... and some of the most unforgettable.

"Islands in the Net" by Bruce Sterling. Cyberfuture awesomeness.

Most books by Greg Bear. FREAKY shit... the guy has envisioned a world with functional nanotechnology and BELIEVABLE aliens. Highlights: "Blood Music", "Queen of Angels", "Eon".

Anything and everthing by Roger Zelazny - particularly "Lord of Light" and "Donnerjack" - sci-fi meets mythology meets the author who writes the most convincing characters I've ever read... even better characterization than Frank Herbert.

A lot of the "Darkover" books by Marion Zimmer Bradley are good too, some are hit and miss. I particularly liked "The Bloody Sun" and "The Winds of Darkover". These books straddle the line between fantasy and sci-fi, but explain everything scientifically... so I included them on the list.

"The Diamond Age" and "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson. Both excellent, with shitty endings. This guy would be one of the greatest sci-fi authors EVER if he could figure out how to write a good ending to his books.

That ought to get you started...

[Buddha]

Awesome Gaillo and thank you, I have never heard of any of those authors/books, and probably never would have otherwise.

""Neuromancer" is a book by William Gibson, who (in my opinion) has come the closest to ACCURATELY predicting what the future will probably look like. He is, from what I've read, a technophobe who collects antique clocks and watches as a hobby... and writes his books on an old manual typewriter. Quite the lifestyle for the guy who invented the word "Cyberspace" and accurately forsaw what the internet would look like and evolve into! All of his books are worth reading."

Whoa..

[Gaillo]

""Neuromancer" is a book by William Gibson, who (in my opinion) has come the closest to ACCURATELY predicting what the future will probably look like. He is, from what I've read, a technophobe who collects antique clocks and watches as a hobby... and writes his books on an old manual typewriter. Quite the lifestyle for the guy who invented the word "Cyberspace" and accurately forsaw what the internet would look like and evolve into! All of his books are worth reading."

Whoa..

Yep. Read "Neuromancer" - it will blow your mind.

[skid]

Nice write up Gaillo. You could do that for a living...

[Gaillo]

Nice write up Gaillo. You could do that for a living...

For a VERY select audience, I'm sure! ;D

[Twisted Titan]

Thank you for saving me the coinage........... any reviews for Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter??

[messianicdruid]

"Anything by John Varley - wierd author, even wierder books... very libertarian. Gaia trilogy (Titan, Wizard, Demon) are some of the strangest sci-fi books I've ever read... and some of the most unforgettable."

I thought you might be talking about John Crowley and his "Three Novels" {The Deep, Engine Summer, Beasts}. More wierd out there than I knew.

[madfranks]

Most books by Greg Bear. FREAKY shit... the guy has envisioned a world with functional nanotechnology and BELIEVABLE aliens. Highlights: "Blood Music", "Queen of Angels", "Eon".

After reading your recommendation, I downloaded Blood Music to my kindle last night, so far so good! I'm on chapter 13 right now... :)

FYI - I recently discovered a great sci-fi writer on my own, his name is Christian Cantrell, he wrote a great sci-fi novel called "Containment". I'd highly recommend it, it quickly became one of my favorites.

[Gaillo]

After reading your recommendation, I downloaded Blood Music to my kindle last night, so far so good! I'm on chapter 13 right now... :)

FYI - I recently discovered a great sci-fi writer on my own, his name is Christian Cantrell, he wrote a great sci-fi novel called "Containment". I'd highly recommend it, it quickly became one of my favorites.

madfranks and messianicdruid,
Thanks for the recommendations. I read an average of 2 books per week, so I'm always looking for good new reading material. I'll check out both of those authors!

madfranks - Blood Music. Nice choice - and again, FREAKY shit! I still remember most of that book, it comes out of a REALLY bright and twisted mind. I actually envy anyone who is reading it for the first time! ;D

[madfranks]

madfranks and messianicdruid,
Thanks for the recommendations. I read an average of 2 books per week, so I'm always looking for good new reading material. I'll check out both of those authors!

madfranks - Blood Music. Nice choice - and again, FREAKY shit! I still remember most of that book, it comes out of a REALLY bright and twisted mind. I actually envy anyone who is reading it for the first time! ;D

Good Lord man, you weren't kidding! I'm about 3/4 through the book and it's quite disturbing. I'm not sure how easily I'll be going to sleep tonight!

[Buddha]

Good Lord man, you weren't kidding! I'm about 3/4 through the book and it's quite disturbing. I'm not sure how easily I'll be going to sleep tonight!

Sounds like my kind of literature! Ordered, along with Neuromancer and Nova

Edit: If you ever come across an author named Ben Bova, don't read it. I bought a book of his called "PowerSat" at a local used book store. Sounded ok, an entrepanuer (fucking spell check) is sending up experimental space craft based on alternative fuels, disaster strikes and it appears to be sabotoge by big oil companies/government.

Well 10 pages into it you find that the "Big oil conspiracy" is a bunch of leaders from M.E. countries, who are made to be completely inept, but control the oil and can't let this happen. Oh more scary Muslims......

I shit you not, I lit the book on fire and threw it out of my window into the rain so that it could never be read. Perhaps I'm not wrapped too tight, but I'm tired of propaganda, I just want to read sci-fi books that will make me think, not shove contemporary political beliefs down my throat.

[mamboni]

My daughter and I watched Prometheus on VOD last night. I was both entertained and let down. I'll give Scott 10 for special effects and 7 for the soundtrack: the musical score was rather prosaic and bland with an excessive reliance of ultralow bass rumblings which, like the large gong, can be thrilling if used sparingly and strategically. I was totally let down by the [lack of] story and primordial screenplay. This is sad because with better writing and a screenplay that provided more of a real plot and story, I think this could have been a much better movie experience. I read what Gaillo and Hatha wrote. I totally missed the 2,000 year connection and Christ - I was paying attention. That could have been a could kernel to a compelling story line. The opening scene with the Engineer on the waterfall made absolutely no sense. First of all, the movie never satisfactorily explained it. Second, for a scene's actions to be interesting and thought provoking , it has to make sense and be based on a modicum of scientific facts. Otherwise, it takes on the quality of voodoo or black magic, which is how this mysterious black goop came off to me. This is really lame and IMHO laziness on the part of the writers. And the Engineer having to disingrate himself himself in order to "fertilize' the new world is absurd on it's face if you have even a rudimentary understanding of DNA and how it works (i.e. one cell or two would have been more than enough). What advanced civilization would design a program of life dissemination throughout the galaxy based on the explorers having to self-immolate? Volunteers anyone? This is where overdependence on the mythology aspects undermines the plausability of the storyline. The writers seem to have forgotten that mythology is losely based on and is an exaggeration and distortion of the original reality - corrections are requires to the myth. In general, the screenplay never provided the contextual framework for the movie's story - it left the viewer guessing and filling in far too much of the plot. And the mysterious black goop was a total plot copout. Good science fiction devices of magical and awesome powers must be provided with some believable and understandable details of their operation in order for the viewer to be drawn in and fascinated by them. You cannot simply plant a black box in the middle of the scene and say "this box can create life from discarded banana peels, and teleport people across lightyears in seconds." It will not work - too fantastic, too implausable, and impossible to think on.

Over all, Prometheus could have been a much better film if the writing wasn't so lame and uninspired.

2 stars.

[Horn]

Over all, Prometheus could have been a much better film if the writing wasn't so lame and uninspired.

2 stars.

Again having the option to buy a fine copy of the movie and case at the local Chino store for $2 makes viewing rather enjoyable.

The problem with this movie was the characters remained completely undeveloped, the base of the story was there, but not approached.

Most likely it was cut short due to the eugenics content.

[gunDriller]

My daughter and I watched Prometheus on VOD last night. I was both entertained and let down.


And the Engineer having to disingrate himself himself in order to "fertilize' the new world is absurd on it's face if you have even a rudimentary understanding of DNA and how it works (i.e. one cell or two would have been more than enough).

Over all, Prometheus could have been a much better film if the writing wasn't so lame and uninspired.

2 stars.


sometimes i see shows and i feel like i'm watching some super-talented computer graphics guy show their technical abilities - which is very different than telling a good story.

NCIS-LA is like that. obviously, they are very good at GIS (Geographic Information Systems) because they are always zooming in and out at the city block size scale. it's like it's run by some obsessed geek who is in full-on interview mode who wants to show off his GIS/ CGI skills.


the scene with the engineer disintegrating - OK, they have some OK-but-not-great zoom into the DNA molecule, followed by the CGI imagery of cells dividing.

if it had been me, i would have put the DNA on an asteroid - frozen block of ice - and shot it into the lake, then have the imagery of the cells dividing.


since they are trying to show off their CGI, i will respond by critiquing the CGI. body hair has been a staple in CGI since at least 2004, when Maxim had a 100% CGI centerfold, including Ye Olde CGI model Les Pubic Hair.

The Engineer at the beginning scene, where he drinks the crap and it kills him - zero body hair ? Zip zero zilch ? their DNA maps to human DNA 100% - making them mammals.

so what other mammal has Zero Hair ?

(gratuitous reference to "Shaved Asians" magazine :) )

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081014171307/aliens/images/2/26/SpaceJockey.jpg

anyway, that is the extent of my criticism. i thought they did a great job of the Prequel to Alien - they show how the Alien creature came to be, one of those parasites in the womb of the anthropologist, the result of her having sex with her infected husband. it is removed prematurely in the Do-it-Yourself Alienoid-ectomy machine, then grows to gigantic size and she uses it to kill the Engineer. the Engineer has an embryo implanted, Shake and Bake, out pops an early model Alien with the trademark one-and-only double/telescoping jaw.

also, the story is not ended. there are obvious question marks left hanging. as the anthropologist jets off with the robot who infected her husband, right at the end, in the Engineer's spaceship - well i imagine the sequel to Prometheus will pick up there.

since i'm a long-time Alien fan - the only one i haven't watched more than 10 times is Alien 3 - i'm glad they decided to continue the franchise.

the image above is from Alien 1. it shows the chest-bursted Alien which is in the C-shaped space-ship they find, next to the chamber with all the eggs in it. so the Engineer's space-ship cockpit in Prometheus has some design continuity with the Alien imagery from about 30 years ago.



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

it's better than a 3D version of Blazing Saddles. well, probably.

[messianicdruid]

I am looking forward to the next one. Some other thoughts:

http://sci-fiworlds.blogspot.com/2012/11/reflections-on-ancient-astronauts-in.html

[zap]

I miss Gaillo