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

didn't blink when it had to remove something twice as large as a baby and with tentacles
SCIENCE

anyway I love this movie too, saw it 3x in the theater and I'm sure I'll rent the blu-ray when it's available (my son's getting the 4 disc set for xmas shh don't tell him)

don't feel the need to defend it cuz I did at length upthread, the haters seem possessed by a compulsion to continue posting tho

latebloomer have you checked out the deleted scenes?

bookmarked the thread /= a compulsion to continue posting
any more so than you do really

it was a nice touch when the medipod wouldn't perform an operation on a woman, it musta been designed by congress

― space dokken (Edward III), Friday, October 12, 2012 12:05 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wish they had actually made a point with that, could have been pretty dark satire, as such it was just another dumb thing that happened

Why did Weyland's presence have to remain a secret on the ship? Because his company and the world think he's dead? Who cares?

OUR TAKE: That's one of those decisions where the only reason his presence is a secret is so it can be revealed to the audience. The dude is a multi-trillionaire. He built the ship. He paid for the ship. If he wants to be on the ship, who is going to say no to him? There's absolutely no reason for it to be a secret except so we can have a start-of-Act-III reveal. It serves no purpose within the plot, so we have to assume it was done for the sake of the audience only.

MY TAKE: weyland is treating First Contact like his own personal trip to Lourdes, of course he's going to hide it! what's he going to do, suit up with the crew and be like cool guys, thanks for helpin me live a couple more years, don't forget to cancel your cable service by the way, let's go Team Me

Is Meredith Vickers human? Is she a cyborg like David? Is she really Weyland's daughter?

wtf were you watching? she's obv weyland's daughter and obv hates david because weyland loves him more. she's only robotic insofar as she's emulating the object of her dad's affection

Why do they have Vickers go through the trouble of escaping the ship at the end just to have her die two minutes later?

OUR TAKE: So they could have two extra minutes of Charlize in the film

MY TAKE: i dunno, why go through the trouble of clambering up a ravine after a car accident only to be run over by a truck? cause life fuckin sucks sometimes, especially when you're an unsympathetic corporate harpie in a sci-fi movie

Why does the Engineer want to kill the humans?

OUR TAKE: That's the question the whole film hinges on, isn't it? The film goes out of its way to never give the Engineers any articulated motives, so all we can do is watch what they do and listen to the few clues that are dropped in the film's dialogue, all of which is still just speculation.

...

The last exchange between Weyland and David as they both lay broken on the floor of the chamber sounds significant in the film...

Weyland: There's… nothing.

David: I know. Have a good journey, Mr. Weyland.

… but the entire film is full of these cryptic pseudo-heavy exchanges that sounds good without actually saying anything.

MY TAKE: this is cryptic?? weyland like the other humans is terrified of what happens after death, wants there to be a meaning to it all, and david is just smugly above all that shit, cause he's a psycho robot. as far as why engineers want to kill the humans well.. that's right, we are never told explicitly. oh fucking noes!?!!

Why does the Engineer go after Shaw? Why not just go to one of the other ships and escape?

OUR TAKE: An excellent question.

MY TAKE: wrong, this is a stupid question and only something you would ask if you cared more about the writing process than watching a goddamn ALIEN movie. here's a hint, it is the last scene. the alien always comes back. if you really need a motivation, how about it was EXTREMELY PISSED OFF even before its entire ship was destroyed by these titanically selfish humans. how about it was just ANGRY and wanted REVENGE? no no, these 10-foot albinos have to have their own internal visio flowchart of logical intentions just moments after they've been immediately blasted out of the sky after waking up from a 2000 year old sleep. i mean how would YOU feel? the fuck outta here

There appears to be a minimum of three ships on the planet in the first longshot we see. One is destroyed and crashes. That's the ship (we think) that's explored in "Alien." The second takes Shaw and David off the planet. Why wouldn't the terraformers discover the third ship in "Aliens" let alone "Alien"?

i swear to god you need so much help

Why do Weyland, Vickers and their staff not react at all to a bloody Shaw coming into their quarters?

OUR TAKE: This is the beginning of a whole stretch of film where no one behaves the way we'd expect people to behave faced with these circumstances. Yes, it's a big deal that they're waking up Weyland, but when a half-nude woman covered in blood with a fresh surgical incision comes stumbling into a room, you would expect people to react. Nothing. Not even the slightest hint that this might be out of the ordinary.

MY TAKE: well let's see smart guy, what do you say in the VERY NEXT SENTENCE of your brilliant answers

David knows full well what happened in the surgery machine.

i mean, it seemed pretty clear to me that he's in full-on crazy robot mode at this point, sort of like Ash and Paul Reiser rolled into one. when i was watching the movie i assumed he told everybody in the room something like "there's a crazy injured woman running around, don't worry about her, she's not dangerous, i'll handle her. just ignore her. everything is going to be fine."

Are Fifield and Milburn the stupidest scientists ever? Why would they go back to the one room that an alien was killed in?

a: yes. b: see a.

Is there no governmental authority on space travel? Wouldn't some body or agency need to know where this Weyland ship was going and why?

sorry i'm boring even myself now

pretty effed up that you actually have to get INTO your photocopier, must be a UK thing?

yeah we have this "pull printing" thing where you swipe an ID and go through menus and then it emails a PDF of your photocopy to you

where are those questions from, because those are pretty dumb questions, TRY ANSWERING SOME REAL ONES DOG

hit me i got answers

they're from some hitfix post that someone linked upthread

I still like the interpretation that all the characters belonged to some psychopathic Erich von Däniken cult of trillionaires

ok

i like the interpretation that this movie was fucking scary, that humans are no match for robots and aliens, and that smoking weed in the middle of an alien hazmat dumping ground is a really bad idea

yes.

also i never got the complaint about Charlize running the wrong way from the falling spaceship. not that i've been in that situation, but i imagine giant things toppling over while you are totally freaking out makes it hard to correctly gauge which way go to. it's probably pretty disorienting--she was just trying to get the hell out of there.

it's hard enough figuring out which way a rolling frisbee is going to fall

I think you are playing frisbee wrong.

i like the interpretation that this movie was fucking scary, that humans are no match for robots and aliens, and that smoking weed in the middle of an alien hazmat dumping ground is a really bad idea

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, October 12, 2012 12:59 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why cabin in the woods is 100000x better than this movie

don't hate, appreciate

there's room for love for both of those films, kids

or to not love either of them!

Tracer watches movies the way I do, sit back and enjoy!

it was a nice touch when the medipod wouldn't perform an operation on a woman, it musta been designed by congress

― space dokken (Edward III), Friday, October 12, 2012 12:05 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wish they had actually made a point with that, could have been pretty dark satire, as such it was just another dumb thing that happened

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Friday, October 12, 2012 12:24 PM (24 minutes ago)

I dunno, I didn't really need it spelled out, alien is a femme-centric series that gets mileage out of the trauma of motherhood and birth so the wry critique seems built in.

tho I agree cabin in the woods was quite the achievement, making 90s style meta horror as boring as it was in the 90s is not easy

smoking weed in the middle of an alien hazmat dumping ground is a really bad idea

you deal with being in an alien hazmat dumping ground your way, I'll deal with it in mine

sorry but I just saw that classic of modern horror a couple weeks ago and I want my dollar back

when i was watching the movie i assumed he told everybody in the room something like "there's a crazy injured woman running around, don't worry about her, she's not dangerous, i'll handle her. just ignore her. everything is going to be fine."

To which any right thinking persons response would be "jesus h christ what the fuck are you for real what the hell is going on holy shit"

it was a nice touch when the medipod wouldn't perform an operation on a woman, it musta been designed by congress

― space dokken (Edward III), Friday, October 12, 2012 12:05 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wish they had actually made a point with that, could have been pretty dark satire, as such it was just another dumb thing that happened

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Friday, October 12, 2012 12:24 PM (24 minutes ago)

specifically because they made such a big deal about it being Charlize's personal property--why would she have a medipod that she couldn't use?

because it was for the old dude duh

Haha, that was like THE CLEAREST THING IN THE MOVIE (ooooh, mystery, why is the woman's medipod set to BOYZ ONLY) and Scott apparently shit the bed with it.

tho I agree cabin in the woods was quite the achievement, making 90s style meta horror as boring as it was in the 90s is not easy

― space dokken (Edward III), Friday, October 12, 2012 2:09 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nice try, prometheus still sucks and now you are WRONG TWICE

i kinda love this thread for how far apart the pro and con contingents are.

conmetheus

prometheus is tearing this board apart

If I could press a button to make Prometheus completely cease to exist...

i am looking forward to the blu-ray because while i loved it in the theater lord knows i am not the best at following plots--maybe i'll actually notice the problems others see.

i dunno dude it's not like we're talking about subtle incongruencies here

lol

I bought the ultra-special-version on disc earlier this week (haven't opened yet) and the cashier asked, "I don't even know what this one is about, what is it?"

"Well, have you seen Alien? It's kind of in that line, but I'd really recommend seeing that. I really think part of this movie was bad and I am kind of a glutton for punishment so I'm going to probably sit through all of this"

specifically because they made such a big deal about it being Charlize's personal property--why would she have a medipod that she couldn't use?

― WARS OF ARMAGEDDON (Karaoke Version) (Sparkle Motion), Friday, October 12, 2012 11:26 AM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because it was for the old dude duh

― congratulations (n/a), Friday, October 12, 2012 11:28 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha, that was like THE CLEAREST THING IN THE MOVIE (ooooh, mystery, why is the woman's medipod set to BOYZ ONLY) and Scott apparently shit the bed with it.

OK I feel pretty dumb. Mission accomplished, Prometheus!

"there's a crazy injured woman running around, don't worry about her, she's not dangerous, i'll handle her. just ignore her. everything is going to be fine."

To which any right thinking persons response would be "jesus h christ what the fuck are you for real what the hell is going on holy shit"

well on a NORMAL mission sure but this is hot on the heels of a decapitated alien face coming back to life and then exploding, among other things; bloody bandage girl is kind of small potatoes in a world where your crewmates' faces have melted off and become impervious to bullets

i mean seriously i did not question that scene at all! i know that i get swept along by movies more than most, though. for instance i NEVER guess twists, even the most obvious ones

still not real clear on the black goo though. is it a bioweapon? or is it some kind of life-genesis creation juice? i guess both? it started as the latter, maybe, then they realised it couldn't be controlled, would always hyper-evolve into something pitiless and supreme, which is why they stored it in the equivalent of a bunker for radioactive waste. and i guess the "invitation" was from the days when they still thought it was good? i like the idea that the "invitation" was just totally misconstrued, it was actually a warning, like they're pointing at this one particular star system and saying "NEVER go here, NEVER" and the prehistoric scribes are nodding and writing down "ALWAYS go here, ALWAYS"

so why does the re-woken engineer wake up and want to kill them

nothing in this movie makes sense unless you make up fanfic explanations for like 70% of the shit that happens

did you guys watch that x-files movie fight the future? that had some black goo stuff as well, and also indeterminately motived aliens.

have you ever woken me up from a nap? I kill people, too

yeah totally, i don't understand this desire for rigorous logic all the time, especially when applied to an ALIEN SPECIES?? why can't the engineer just be PISSED OFF at the fact ALL HIS FRIENDS ARE DEAD and these puny humans are begging for impossible shit and getting in his way? or whatever the engineer version of "pissed off" is, some german-style portmanteau that encapsulates a feeling we don't even have a phrase for

like, that's not making shit up to explain things, that's just the surface-level reading of that scene, and like, that's totally enough? ANGRY ALIEN is ANGRY

your explanation for all this stuff seems to just recount what literally happened in each scene in all caps

to be fair, that is what the script was

ENGINEER WAKES UP AND IS _PISSED_

xxpost because the whole movie encourages you to ask questions about these engineers, who they are, what makes them tick, and then they're just stupid lumbering grunting guys....i appreciate that they deny clean answers but it's just dopey to go "we're asking deep serious questions" "oh all the enormous plot holes are because it's a cheesy horror movie and that's what the stupid not-deep, not-serious characters in cheesy horror movies do"....this didn't offend me mind you, it was just dumb

if this was just a balls to the wall action movie with some unexplained stuff i'd let most of it go but its called PROMETHEUS and very pompously claims to be ABOUT STUFF and it has characters making big stupid lost-like pronouncements about FAITH so give me a break. also it has a scientist who finds the most incredible find in human history and then goes off and sulks because there wasnt a maitre d' to greet him in the first building he went into