The waterfall was amazing but I put that down to the waterfall being amazing, rather than any skill of the film makers.
― Jesu swept (ledge), Friday, 8 June 2012 15:50 (eleven years ago) link
yeah iceland* is a real place guys
*nb not the supermarket, tho that is real too
― DG, Friday, 8 June 2012 15:58 (eleven years ago) link
Just watch Sigur Ros music videos.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 8 June 2012 16:00 (eleven years ago) link
I have been to Dettifoss and stood almost exactly where Potato Head stood when he drank whatever it was.
― Jeff W, Friday, 8 June 2012 16:38 (eleven years ago) link
You then shivered into a million pieces and created life.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 16:39 (eleven years ago) link
I try my best.
― Jeff W, Friday, 8 June 2012 16:39 (eleven years ago) link
One thing I liked about that opening was that it wasn't clear whether it was a willing sacrifice or a punishment or something else going on. (Obviously SEEMS like a willing sacrifice but...is it? But again, doesn't need to be explained either way.)
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 16:42 (eleven years ago) link
Ugh. What a shit sandwich this was.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:31 (eleven years ago) link
another odd thing: alien is such a patient, suspenseful movie but even scott's knowing nods to it here are all wrong. like the sequence of discovering and entering the engineer's base (I've had lunches at drive-thrus take longer) or noomi being attacked in the shuttle by the engineer (you're breaking in? I'll just dispatch you in seconds!).
― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Friday, 8 June 2012 17:32 (eleven years ago) link
At least we know the answer to the question "What if Schick Sunn Classic Pictures had a quarter-billion dollar budget?"
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:33 (eleven years ago) link
Ha, I was wondering what your reaction would be and figured it would go either way.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:34 (eleven years ago) link
this was somehow better than i was expecting, yet exactly what i was expecting. it's a gorgeous movie, scott hasnt made a movie this good looking since the 80s. at times its a pretty good horror movie. but its terrible sci-fi. lindelof's insipid fingerprints are all over it, and he doesn't have a single idea rattling around in his skull. i didn't hate it though, it was tense and cool-looking. c-section scene and the build-up to it is seriously fantastic
Which is funny, because you can see so vividly where he was ADDED to it. It's got the most visible rewrite seams of anything maybe ever! All the daddy issues/cheeseball faith vs. science spirituality stuff (stop trying to push this theme in sci fi!!!!!!!)... etc. etc...
― Walter Galt, Thursday, June 7, 2012 10:29 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark
otm
that awful scene with patrick wilson = first bad sign
the scene where tattooskull and glassesguy are first talking right out of cryosleep = the anti-Alien, which never needed dialogue like "i don't want to be your friend" to let you know everyone on the nostromo hated each other's guts
the pearce/theron reveal was classic lindelof, by which i mean a horrible horrible horrible scene
i got a lot of 2nd rate jurassic park vibes out of this, from the phony sense of wonder & themes of scientific meddling to the nedry scene where glassesbro is trying to entice a giant snake monster to sniff his hand for no discernable reason
― Hungry4Ass, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:37 (eleven years ago) link
meddling to the nedry scene
Well I have my place in the universe and all but...
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:38 (eleven years ago) link
― Jesu swept (ledge), Friday, June 8, 2012 11:50 AM (1 hour ago)
I dunno, that's kinda like saying the opening of the shining is impressive because the rockies are beautiful. this movie's indefensible on the whole but let's give credit where credit is due.
― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Friday, 8 June 2012 17:41 (eleven years ago) link
I got some lolsome "ghost adventures" vibes from that scene where glasses guy and mohawk dude are wigging out in the cave
― fancy poodle (latebloomer), Friday, 8 June 2012 17:56 (eleven years ago) link
for a recently terrified biologist, he sure was eager to have his arm ripped open by a penile vagina fish
― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Friday, 8 June 2012 17:58 (eleven years ago) link
Maybe that's what he always wanted.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:59 (eleven years ago) link
yeah whoever was doing the psych evaluations for prospective crew members must have had a cruel sense of humor
― fancy poodle (latebloomer), Friday, 8 June 2012 18:01 (eleven years ago) link
sometimes scenery really does do 90% of the work though. the icy mountainscapes in game of thrones are absolutely gorgeous, jaw-dropping, some of the most beautiful imagery i've ever seen in a television drama. but the rest of the show is quite pedestrian, visually speaking. now it may be that the DP for the iceland-shot stuff is just way better than anybody else holding a camera for GoT, but i suspect the location itself has a lot to do with it.
― spextor vs bextor (contenderizer), Friday, 8 June 2012 18:01 (eleven years ago) link
In that Lindelof interview linked upthread (maybe?) he seems to be subtly distancing himself from some of the more batshit elements, basically saying he came in at the last minute to put a polish on a mostly complete script/idea. Maybe so. Or maybe that is just bad false modesty, since he has a history of doofustry.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 8 June 2012 18:12 (eleven years ago) link
but there are other moments in the film besides the opening that get "big nature" right - like the dust storm on LV-223, which as far as I know had no second unit DP shooting footage
xp
― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Friday, 8 June 2012 18:13 (eleven years ago) link
Saw a review somewhere that compared this, unfavorably, to DePalma's "Mission to Mars," which iirc had a giant sentient sandstorm in it.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 8 June 2012 18:14 (eleven years ago) link
Ok it was shot well, I'll give it that. Xp.
― Jesu swept (ledge), Friday, 8 June 2012 18:16 (eleven years ago) link
(waves hand royally)
:O
That is one of the worst movies I've ever sat through. Fucking Jerry O'Connell.
― I found him in a Bon Ton ad (Nicole), Friday, 8 June 2012 18:17 (eleven years ago) link
There are sone bones of a good movie here, but to work it would need to have been lower budget (I kept thinking that Duncan Jones would have been a far better director). Prometheus is so wrapped up in in trying to fill every frame with spectacle that you never really get involved and by extension, it seems that no one: actor, director, or crew was really involved with the movie either. Actually, that's not true... Damon Lindelof is definitely engaged here and that's to the detriment of everyone. There's always been an implied cynicism that sci-fi fans will go see any sci-fi movie regardless of quality and that's exactly what you get here, but the execution is so WTF that the closest movie I could think of was Mission To Mars (even down to the once good director)
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 8 June 2012 18:29 (eleven years ago) link
x-post
To put it another way, Battlestar Galactica remake's final episode was far more engaging.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 8 June 2012 18:31 (eleven years ago) link
Gawkerville has two pieces up:
http://io9.com/5916778/the-best-part-of-prometheus-isnt-the-aliens
http://deadspin.com/5915878/it-feels-like-the-first-timealmost-prometheus-reviewed
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 18:51 (eleven years ago) link
Would've been better if it was just David pottering around the space ship for two hours.
― jel --, Friday, 8 June 2012 19:00 (eleven years ago) link
Like "Silent Running" with aliens.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 8 June 2012 19:01 (eleven years ago) link
BTW, isn't the black oil substance in this lifted directly from The X-Files?
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 8 June 2012 20:21 (eleven years ago) link
haha yeah point 10 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/jun/08/prometheus-ten-key-questions
pretty much everyone over there hates it too
― DG, Friday, 8 June 2012 20:30 (eleven years ago) link
A few of those misgivings are valid, a few are nitpicky.
I actually liked this, though it would have been vastly superior as a standalone, no-franchise-ambitions, no-Alien-connection flick.
― Simon H., Friday, 8 June 2012 20:51 (eleven years ago) link
And yeah basically everything shitty about it can be traced back to Lindelof.
― Simon H., Friday, 8 June 2012 20:52 (eleven years ago) link
re those Guardian points
1. yes2. clearly been visiting, and at some point changed their mind - whatever happened in the cave/pyramid thing was about 2,000 years ago3. money4. this is fair - and muddled, though in regards to Holloway vs. the guy that went nutso...Holloway had a single drop infecting his system, the other guy planted face down in a flowing stream of the good5. I assumed for sequel purposes, because otherwise, yes, it makes no sense6. Presumably Weyland doesn't want anyone know his motives and the fact that he's probably got David running around using the people as guinea pigs to see what effects if any there are to whatever they find7. see #68. because the plot needed her to9. that's the question they explicitly ask in the movie and explicitly state they are going to fly off into the sequel to try to find out so why that's a question her i have no idea10. yeah, it is a bit.
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Friday, 8 June 2012 21:25 (eleven years ago) link
good=goo*
Meanwhile, v. good Rich Juzwiak take (unsurprisingly).
http://gawker.com/5916932/what-is-the-meaning-of-life-and-other-questions-prometheus-fails-to-answer
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 21:26 (eleven years ago) link
thought this was overall good, but a lot has to do with expectations and what to expect from a Ridley Scott film since 1982 (i.e. not much). can understand derision but i think that misses out on some good stuff. Not sure why Ebert and Glenn Kenny thought it was super mega awesome, other than it has a decent stab at "old school sci-fi" for a little while
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Friday, 8 June 2012 21:27 (eleven years ago) link
i think the "dude who told them where to go was a rogue" theory is pretty good since it's called prometheus and all that
― the late great, Friday, 8 June 2012 21:30 (eleven years ago) link
So I was vaguely curious who was playing all the engineers -- turns out it wasn't just one person:
Daniel James = 'Sacrifice Engineer'
John Lebar = 'Ghost Engineer'
Ian Whyte = 'Last Engineer'
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 21:43 (eleven years ago) link
thought this was overall good, but a lot has to do with expectations and what to expect from a Ridley Scott film since 1982 (i.e. not much). can understand derision but i think that misses out on some good stuff
I'm OK with movies trying to reach out a bit and failing. For example, I thought that Contact was ridiculous, clumsy, and hokey in how it handled its subject, but completely entertaining as a movie. By the end of Prometheus, I was ready for the Engineers to full-tilt gnostic and destroy all life on earth for evolving the ship's crew.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 8 June 2012 21:43 (eleven years ago) link
oh my fucking word the flutes
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Friday, 8 June 2012 21:55 (eleven years ago) link
Oh Aqualung
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 21:56 (eleven years ago) link
The Hound!
― Simon H., Friday, 8 June 2012 22:16 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.fluterock.com/
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 22:17 (eleven years ago) link
best review title?
http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/failien-prometheus/Content?oid=2236713
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 9 June 2012 00:20 (eleven years ago) link
btw in that still twinky Fassbender looks like Herbie the Elf.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 9 June 2012 00:24 (eleven years ago) link
He's going for O'Toole in Lawrence
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Saturday, 9 June 2012 00:29 (eleven years ago) link
All right. Strapped into my IMAX seat awaiting takeoff. I inoculated myself against disappointment by watching COWBOYS VS ALIENS. After that anything should seem awesome.
― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Saturday, 9 June 2012 02:14 (eleven years ago) link