They're Remaking 'Alien' -- the 'Prometheus' thread

from what i can gather there aren't any spoilers unless you've somehow avoided all the trailers and promo gubbins

well there was the part where the alien ship rolls down the hill like a wagon wheel and noomi runs along the top of it like as the alien is chasing her

p. sure that the normal line in these situations is 'avoid the movie thread once the movie's released if you don't want spoilers'

but

SPOILER

the android did it

SPOILER

they fly at u face

SPOILER

this is shit

Another question: is this pretty much bad from the get-go, or does it only dawn upon you when the credits roll how terrible it has been? Thinking of "Lost" here, which for all its ups and downs could have gone either way until the last ep, which some folks (like me) felt invalidated and retro-shittified much of what came before it.

I'm hardly the Chief of Credibility Police w.r.t movies like this, but (REAL SPOILER ALERT if you care) those crunches Noomi has to do throughout the last quarter of the movie are kind of OTT considering her emergency C-section.

SPOILERZ

almost feel like they couldve just about gotten away with something if they'd had even the slightest bit of interesting dialogue with awoken titan guy at the end, but no, hulk smash, rip fassbender head off zzzz

ikr, so much mystique about Our Creators and it's just this giant monster. no ANSWERS even on the film's own terms.

also wtf @ saving Vickers and Shaw and then instead of that leading to, idk, some dialogue between two of the film's opposite poles...one of them just gets squashed.

the self-C-section scene was the most intense thing though.

the 3D bit i appreciated most was the shirtless-right-in-the-camera scene, quite glad they didn't have a full-on 3D sex scene though

Hah, I spent the whole movie wondering if I'd seen him in any other movies and, if not, why. Back curves in 3D were v nice.

Another question: is this pretty much bad from the get-go, or does it only dawn upon you when the credits roll how terrible it has been?

first 40 mins are pretty good, deserve a better what-seemed-like-300-mins

I would've absolutely hated it if they'd actually managed to get Into Serious Dialog with the titan. As far as it goes I thought he was perfectly reasonable - clearly none of you have ever seen me before my first coffee of the morning.

Also rmde at we have discovered that they have advanced holograms, which they seem to use mainly for exposition.

{David is awestruck. The wind picks up. In the air the huge image of the Space Jockey is forming from the clouds. He appears to be walking from the stars. The image is ghostly at first, but steadily gains color and coherence.}

Space Jockey: Humans ...
Michael Fassbender: Father?
Space Jockey: Humans, you have forgotten me.
Michael Fassbender: No. How could we?
Space Jockey: You have forgotten who you are, and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, human. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the Circle of Life.

HEY ROGER MEXICO STOP READING THIS THREAD NOW, MAYBE GO WALK IN THE PARK OR SOMETHING.

But yeah to go back to my first sentence, I did really enjoy watching it while I was watching it, it was very creepy in its own way (like all of the Alien films have been) - the revived head, the eye worms, the rippling fluids, the snake, the emergency operation - I might say it was very Cronenberg if I had, er, watched more Cronenberg.

It was really well *made* in general, and then there'll be something like a zombie for no reason.

Space Jockey - Hello, Noomi.

Noomi - Who are you?

Space Jockey - I am the Space Jockey. I created the matrix. I've been waiting for you. You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant.

it's odd how Ridley's career seems to reflect Lucas's - early groundbreaking success, followed by string of utter shit, eventual acceptance of franchise legacy, churns out successful yet shitty "prequels" in the interest of resolving "unanswered questions" from originals, legacy secured.

i remain stoked for the silliness

Ah no, I'd have said that Lucas is more early success - franchise me up! - string of shit prequels. His legacy would have stood up a lot better if he'd stopped 20 years ago - whereas even now, Ridley Scott's still the guy who made Alien and Blade Runner. No-one's wondering "what if he made more films", because he's made more films already.

nah Lucas was really bitter about being saddled with the legacy of Star Wars for much of the 80s/90s and he produced/wrote plenty of stuff post-Jedi it's just that all of it was fucking terrible. It wasn't until the mid-90s when he was finally like "fine, I guess this is what I was put on this earth to do, make Star Wars movies!"

Whaa? His movie writing credentials* from 84-98 are the middle two Indy movies, Willow and Radioland Murders. That's not really either overpacked or shameful (NB I have never seen Radioland Murders. Or Willow). He's executive producer on a bunch of stuff, but I'm not sure how much credit I'd give him for, say, Powasqqatsi.

* okay, from Wikipedia

Willow is great

The Dualists!

Actually, were it not for Thelma and Louise and gladiator, I bet the lustre would have long faded.

Willow and Last Crusade are fucking horrible

and one of the reasons Lucas didn't make more stuff in that period (aside from being a talentless hack) was that he was paralyzed with fear about not being able to function as a filmmaker outside of the Star Wars universe. he definitely resented the shadow it cast over his career. success can be limiting.

I haven't seen Willow since i was kid. Last Crusade is perfectly enjoyable though

Nah, Shakey's right, Last Crusade is dull at best.

Oh lord no, Last Crusade is the second-best of them.

xp - but he'd already been setting up the universe and the franchise - he also wrote two Ewok movies for TV in the mid 80s, he didn't seem to be exactly conflicted about what it is he's known for.

i'm sure the Ewok movies are long overdue for re-evaluation

Guh, going to just start a poll on this to end the discussion once and for all.

look I'm just going by a) Lucas' actual track record, b) things Lucas has said publically and c) things people who work with Lucas have told me

Willow is great

d) things Lucas says to me in the mirror

jesus christ publically? what's wrong with me

Which of the Indiana Jones sequels is the best?

Admire Shakey's restraint in not blaming Spielberg for anything wrong "Last Crusade."

lol there's plenty of blame to go around!

Came to this as a fan of Alien, a massive fan of Aliens and with some love for both the others. I enjoyed it pretty much all the way through (7ish of 10 I guess), and if nothing else the immaculate fx, interiors and <cough> mise en scène lifted it above standard fayre. Wld agree with the sketchy characterisation and script being a let down, although Rapace and (esp) Fassbender gave it their all; the early stuff with Fassbender just padding about and bleaching his hair etc was terrific. It also felt nice to see an actual sci-fi film rendered with flair as opposed to horror/thriller/other masquerading as sci-fi - made me think that if any of the Iain M Banks' Culture (or related) books ever make it to the screen they could do much worse than give Ridley a shot, the look of this and esp. Chris Foss style vistas and ships would be a great fit for The Culture.

i have spent most of the last 24 hours talking about this movie and how dreadful it was- in a way that makes it better value than a movie i saw, liked and forgot.

― pet tommy & the barkhaters (darraghmac), Saturday, June 2, 2012 7:47 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this and lex's summary otm.

after a decent first 30 minutes it stumbles into cheap cider levels of incoherence. until by the end the script is laughable. favourite lol was the conjunction of noomi, the holdall and fassbender.

plot stuff happening for no discernible reason and having no relevance to subsequent events.

theron's character could be edited out and the film would make no less sense.

seeing this in 1.5 hrs, am nervous

it's okay man, just remind yourself aliens aren't real

but they are, they're US. woo mind blown

it's a very enjoyable film

it's pish.

there's a line in the trailer with one of the characters that is going to die at some point actually asking vickers "is there some kind of agenda you're not telling us about"

the question i keep asking myself about this is, how dumb would it actually have to be for me to not enjoy it

i mean, i don't really expect insight from big dumb object stories. i don't know that i necessarily need this to be any cleverer than 'cube', even.

"like a ride" actually sounds kind of hopeful

it's spectacularly dumb.

SPOILERY questions...

why would you *not* want to take guns into a completely unknown alien environment?

why were they so keen to breathe the possibly microbe or virus infested air?

why was the one guy in charge of mapping the one guy who got lost?

why was the biologist so keen to shake hands with an alien organism which he had no idea how hostile or dangerous it might be?

why didn't the ship have a self-contained quarantible med bay?

why would you make a state of the art med pod just for men?

why would you fit one into a part of the ship occupied by a woman?

basically why was almost everyone in this film inconceivably stupid, reckless, and foolhardy? i lost count at the number of times i rmde at someone's elementary idiocy.

what were we even supposed to think about the charlize and guy pearce big reveal-o towards the end anyway, like it was semi-obvious, had no bearing on the story really (perhaps the shallowest general analogy about man and his "creation" idk?) and in any case the characters were both so two-dimensional no one cared anyway

LINDELOF THIS IS ALL YOUR DIRTY MARK I WILL KILL U SOMEDAY 4REALS

otm, i was all "eh? is that a big reveal? are we meant to care?"

also did elba & theron get it on, or what?

also also why did fassbender do (the bad thing), or are we meant to wait for the sequel to find out?

elba as well, what exactly was his motivation for his (and his crew's) ultimate sacrifice beyond i am a cool black guy who listens to music

he barely even engages with rapace (and indeed the entire expedition) throughout the film and then suddenly gets noble heroic on her briefest say-so