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

To me one of the more salient themes of the original is this idea of contamination--it's the closeness of the alien that represents its greatest terror--that in some fundamental sense its mechanical/mindless nature is ours, or something we risk succumbing to. That's why the androids keep recurring, that's why the alien in its voraciousness is so fascinating and repellent. Its this otherness to ourselves. To me Prometheus stays pretty true to those themes (we have the same creator, etc) and even calls into question the kind of humanist naïveté of the two archeologists. That's my read anyway.

And Prometheus even goes one better by suggesting our creation was technological, accidental, and regretted. We're an unwanted, dangerous and out of control machine, not unlike David, ash, etc.

but are we? all we know is that dude gets mad and starts beating up humans. the movie doesn't give us anything, really, except a lot of hand-waving. it's exactly what LOST did... throw a lot of what-ifs in to get your attention but not really give a shit about thinking them through. you can string people along like that for a while if you're writing a TV show, but it's just a shambles in movie form

Do you think if Shaw was wearing her crucifix when she met th engineer dude if he would have been cool with her?

lol i forgot about her precious crucifix and her dream of her dad talking about heaven

all that stuff was so misbegotten... like if the movie is an allegory for faith, it fails pretty hard, but if it's supposed to be the opposite, it's pretty squirmy and half-assed about it

http://i.imgur.com/uRe8E.png

i get the floor-model complaint for 2001 but there's something super-naturalistic and compelling about it

Sure no-one's hating on 2001 in this thread* but going from "it is compelling" and "it has characters" to "the characters are compelling" is just falling into s1ocki's trap.

* but this is ILX, someone will probably be along in a minute...

slocki's diabolical trap

afaic it's ok to like or not like prometheus. all good brah.

feel like my earlier stridency is just some variation on like, if you watched the presidential debate and followed the thread at the time it was disappointing but obama had some good moments and romney did some weird things, whereas if you come in a week later things have solidified and it's just this huge disaster... I'm sure my first post-viewing comments on this thing had to admit slightly more room for liking it, it's just after this many months i can no longer mentally process people taking joy in seeing this for the first time, this is my problem and not yours but it is insane that this thread can have 3,197 responses...

hahaha yup, my first comments:

Honestly my only enduring beef with this is going to be in the editing/pacing; I thought tons of aspects of the plot/characterization were DUMB but basically admired their refusal to make anything like the creepy suspenseful Alien prequel promised by the trailer, which would have been mediocre but basically acceptable to everybody.... but boy was the pacing of this thing weird. Half the time I was convinced my theater was running the film too fast, particularly in the opening flyover montages.

― Doctor Casino, Monday, June 11, 2012 12:21 AM Bookmark

...whereas it turns out in reality my only enduring beef with Prometheus was going to be "everything in the movie except fassbender"

I think for me it was definitely a case of "Holy shit this is a new Alien film by Ridley Scott and it has McGregorFassbender and Rapace and Theron and Pearce and Elba and the trailer looked amazing and the bad reviews seemed to dislike it on a philosophical level which isn't what I am looking for from it" and then I saw it and enjoyed watching it and got more annoyed about it afterwards as it dragged me up to it's own level and then honked all over me.

So yeah I can definitely see that if I'd read this thread first (or rather the thread a week ago) and gone to see the films expecting it to be 90 minutes of Ridley Scott punching me in the balls, I'd probably quite enjoy that.

But it's like they say, you can't throw yourself off a cliff into the same river twice.

do not compare this film to quatermass and the pit xpost.

MP already responded and you walked this back yourself, but yeah, my opinion is right, as is the opinion of the ppl who thought it sucked, this is science fiction, not science.

Man, if you are gonna have two scientists in a movie say "Our DNA is IDENTICAL to theirs," then science-fiction be damned, you'd best be explaining why we don't look exactly like them.

do not compare this film to quatermass and the pit xpost.

otm.

xp

a chihuahua and a st. bernard have identical dna iirc

Feel like if I give it another six months people on this thread will start hating on this dog again. Will wait with baited breath.

think plenty of us haven't stopped hating on it but i'll admit it's a pretty and car-crashily entertaining pile of wank. it might play better with all the dialogue removed.

For sure, if every terrible movie were as well made as this one, the world would be a better place.

The right-before-credits reveal of the xenomorph-lookin' dude popping out of the engineer corpse has to be one of the most groanworthy moments of modern cinema

>do not compare this film to quatermass and the pit xpost.

Ha! Ok I will stop comparing this deeply flawed mess to one of the top 10 science fiction films of all time now. Duly chastened.

I'll just start comparing it to Lisztomania

milton yr music post are one of the only reasons i keep reading ilm, so yr rabid enthusiasm for this piece of shit is just baffling to me - i mean, you were already REALLY reaching when you started comparing it to zulawski, never mind nigel kneale, or ken russell. ridley scott has never been in their league even when operating at his creative peak... 30 years ago! prometheus is just SUCH a lumpen hodgepodge of v v old and tired generic material - like, i recently saw Forbidden World, which is this great early 80s roger corman-produced Alien knock-off, and it's 100 times more lively fun. i guess i'm trying to say - prometheus is very very commonplace.

BTW - I do think Pandorum was better than this, although I understand it was generally panned? That's one where I could accept the "yeah, kinda corny, twists are obvious, but it's a fun dumb space action movie with some creepy monsters and attempts to mess with your mind, man" argument.

I remain with Milton/Edward on this one. I'm planning on getting the freakin' 4 Blu-Ray set when I can, I care not what you think.

lmao cannot believe how many people have taken their helmets off itt

i will spend money and time on a bluray of this when it is confirmed that all dialogue will be replaces with an attenborough commentary

all dialogue replaced with Beavis and Butthead singing "Breaking the Law"

special non-director's cut with 25 percent more helmets

ginat white guy workout routine + diet book

special 'uncircumsized' bluray with non-cut helmets

Seinfeld slap-bass riff at the start of every scene

'behind the scenes' doc where it is revealed that guy pearce just looks like that

commentary by licensed psychologist explaining why a person would possibly behave the way any character did in any scene in the movie

good luck getting a licensed one

giant white dude supremacist propaganda movie

new ending where giant white dude walks out of a shower and the whole Alien franchise turns out to be a racist nightmare he had

nc-17 version w/giant white dude cock shots

franchise crossover where giant white dude fights giant blue dude from watchmen w/cocks

deleted scene where giant why guys boss tells him he has to kill himself on earth so that there can be humans and he mutters something under his breath and his boss says what and he says nothing

alternate ending where guy pearce dies before they get to the planet so they give up and go home

deleted scenes featuring future space richard dawkins who spends the whole trip arguing with noomi rapace and stealing her sodas out of the communal fridge

guy pearce's character outed halfway through mission as the '4th man' in the radio 4 groping scandal, venture cancelled

deleted scene where the crew think its p fucked up that wayland would hide the fact that he was on the ship the whole time so they have a crew only meeting abt it, cut to charlize being all dad you know you made my job so much harder for no real reason

director's commentary reveals Prometheus is the name of the delivery guy at Ridley's favourite kebab shop

guys why is this thread 3000+ posts

we took our helmets off

because this movie is 30+ mins

deleted scene where the giant white guy wakes up and the first thing he does is a funny rap

deleted scene where the giant white guy wakes up rubs his eyes stands up looks around sits down rubs his eyes again runs his hands over his head smacks his lips opens his eyes real wide then closes them a few times and asks wait so who are you guys