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

btw

Your Amazon.co.uk order of "Prometheus - Special Editi..." has been dispatched

I think with the exception of people I mentioned the competence level was inversely proportional to the amount of time they spent on screen

it was a bit shit how easily she went down when abortionee lady clocked her but i guess you don't fuck with Mom Rage

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.

― Ward Fowler, Saturday, October 13, 2012 8:39 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

long xpost -- I feel like I've done overtime qualifying my enthusiasm for this film precisely so that I could compare it to films of actual quality without insulting anyone, but evidently not enough, because there's nothing in your post I disagree with. though perhaps I don't watch much television to realize that the unbelievable incompetence of the dialog & acting is more commonplace and less spectacular than I take it for

after the '100% DNA match!' scene made me and my friend laugh out loud in the theater, I turned to her and said "this is a film that can do absolutely ANYTHING it wants' -- at that moment everything I'd been holding against the film sort of inexplicably slid into the plus column. contenderizer's post upthread ending with "i honestly had to believe that every single character in the film had simply gone insane" -- that's a concise description of maybe 2/3rds of all my favorite movies.

that being said: rented the DVD this weekend, watched the deleted scenes, and they were all so uniformly terrible that it discouraged me from watching the actual film again -- just watched the opening & the starmap & returned it, there is only so much

i could kind of respect it if this film's defenders just went all-out in calling it a modern camp classic or something... though this is no showgirls

what do you guys think of that relatively recent hitchhiker's movie in comparison to this? they have a really similar aesthetic, and touch on similar themes.

Yeah I loved it when Slartibartfast tore Marvin's head off.

Head the size of a planet, and some wastrel just tears it off

trillian did seem kind of dumb for a scientist.

yet oddly pixie-like

her drowning was unrealistic imho

i like milton's posts in this thread. agree w/this:

Totally understand and respect why people can't get over this film's misfires, but... the film I can't forgive myself for not walking out on this summer was that Batman movie -- for me, that is the definition of meaningless, uninspired, rote journeyman direction and autopilot acting. Give me unpredictable batshit insanity over competence any fucking day of the week.

― Milton Parker, Friday, October 12, 2012 4:58 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

the endless reiterating of the film's failures of science and character motivation etc... im not necessarily disagreeing with it but i find it tedious i guess.

thing is i agree about batman, which was just a solemn gray turd

yeah, i hate lots of stuff

i'm also tired of repeating the same arguments, was even thinking of... *makes solemn face* removing bookmark from thread

That is grounds for stuffing your disembodied head into a duffel bag.

bag stuffed to full decapitacity

http://www.impawards.com/1997/posters/eight_heads_in_a_duffel_bag.jpg

if impawards is one of those image blocked sites sorry, not sure the joke was worth checking that first tbh

this thread has been like

poster a: prometheus was kinda dumb, the science was shit, character motivations were bizarre, and it had huge plot holes. in spite of all that, it was enjoyable in a batshit way, I dug it.
poster b: this movie is dumb! didn't anybody notice the science was shit, character motivations were bizarre, and it had huge plot holes?
poster a: uh yeah. I still liked it.
poster b: but this movie is dumb! the science was shit, character motivations were bizarre, and it had huge plot holes! alien alien!
poster a: yup. still liked it tho.
poster b: [fake deleted scene]

granted the fake deleted scenes are the best part of the thread

I like the movie AND the thread.

you are poster C

wormhole ensues

t/s: prometheus vs avatar

Prometheus by like a billion miles

two essentially stupid movies w/ tons of eye candy, but prometheus at least had david?

avatar was so boring and long as shit. I was having a blast throughout Prometheus and was sorry when it ended. No contest.

the dumb unrealistic behavior was only the most obvious terrible thing abt the movie, but lots of other things were bad too, the pacing the dialog the having any point and making you care abt anything thats happening in it, so its fine to be all I know it sucked but I liked it anyway but its just not a v realistic reaction

ts: humans are stupid, watch the universe fuck them over vs. humans are stupid but blue indians are cool

the dumb unrealistic behavior was only the most obvious terrible thing abt the movie, but lots of other things were bad too, the pacing the dialog the having any point and making you care abt anything thats happening in it, so its fine to be all I know it sucked but I liked it anyway but its just not a v realistic reaction

― --bob marley (lag∞n), Monday, October 15, 2012 11:33 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

basically

im giving you guys an out with the camp classic thing

we can all walk away and save face here

lol

the pacing - actually think pacing is one of its strong points! it's not like it drags anywhere, even on my first go-round when I thought it was totally ludicrous I was never bored
the dialog - this is like a 50/50, most of the stupid dialogue goes hand in hand w/ the bizarre motivations, david's dialogue is uniformly excellent, and I can quote a whole lot of dialog from this so it's at least memorably terrible
the having any point - humans are stupid, watch the universe fuck them over
making you care abt anything thats happening in it - realizing the film holds a kubrick-like disdain for its characters helps. I recoiled from the unlikable holloway until I figured out the second time around that we're not supposed to like him.

so its fine to be all I know it sucked but I liked it anyway but its just not a v realistic reaction

we were SO wrong

I wish I knew how to quit you s1ocki

but I can't walk away

also it's a damn good-looking film too

is there something to the camp angle? maybe? vickers is like a drag king in space I guess. it's prolly my fave theron performance, even better than monster which means she should win an academy award for this.

u r literally insane

I'm starting the campaign now, give her a statue, hell give er two, this perfomance is better than monster + north country put together

i don't think people like their apple store in space secret origin of mankind scifi campy or funny, otherwise hitchhiker's would have gotten more love.

re: vickers -- charlize theron looks too much like charlize theron to register as anyone but charlize theron. (weirdly, same problem with guy pearce even under all that weird makeup)

she was born to play the part of a performance-driven ice queen who makes bad decisions, I mean did you see reindeer games

ok y'all we really just need to have a poll to resolve this at this point - - - possible answers:

* prometheus: the second coming of space jesus, all lapses are intentional to intensify space madness, possible camp classic
* prometheus: the worst, most disappointing movie of 2012, depending what you thought about the dark knight rises
* prometheus: some nice effects, but actually kind've a crap film

others?

*a good to very good sci-fi that is, as Edward notes, sneakily misanthropic and a very intriguing creation myth both for mankind and the alien films. Plus scary and gorgeous looking.

prometheus: not as bad as phantom menace, not as good as twin peaks: fire walk with me

re: being born to play a part, michael jackson could be born to play captain EO but if they put captain EO in prometheus, it'd be just "hey that's michael jackson!"

Sticking with my "david is dead set on destroying humanity" interpretation. As such, movie is pretty fucking awesome

this is a movie where a traumatized woman climbs inside a surgical robot to forcibly remove a parasite alien from her uterus, then afterwards an android says to her "I didn't know you had it in you uh sorry poor choice of words"

ZIIIIINNNGGSSSS IN SPAAAAACCCCCCEE

Excited to rewatch this and see if that holds up throughout actually, but chucking all the special features on bluray which I have not given a fuck about yet makes me all HULK SMASH so it might be a while.

Totally happy to reexamine the whole Ridley Scott catalog with the humans are a disease theory, it sure works for blade runner