PROMETHEUS Reaction (((NO SPOILERS till June 8)))

[Tim Whitcomb]

wow, you guys obviously saw a different film than I did... so the guy petting the white snake thingy was somehow meaningful or just plain dumb? I
mean when Im in the woods and some creature Im not sure of looks cute I ALWAYS LEAN DOWN FACE FIRST AND PET IT.

puh lease people. this was popcorn movie that showed off all that is GREAT ABOUT the RED EPIC.... the imagery was stunning... the SOUND DESIGN at the imax I saw
it at left me rumbling as ships landed... but the story was beyond retarded and clearly lacked intelligence - cliched dialogue... and the ramming scene? yeah crew members
get all patriotic and shit... hokey as it gets.

I can find profundity in Big Top Pee Wee, but that doesn't make it a message movie. This was a big shiny dud for my $35.00 - but visually worth the price of admission
and Im happy for RED but this is now my least favorite Ridley Scott film... because it had NO SOUL... which is ironic if you think about it

 

[Bill Anderson]

Tim, the movie is a mixed bag. The ramming thing is likely a 9/11 catharsis. But we don't want to go there, do we.

 

[Alex Lindblom]

This one comes down to the age old saying -- show don't tell.

Like you I saw the film and heard the words, but it's just that, words. The film does nothing to show me a story about a women in a spiritual crises searching for the big answers, life death God, where do we come from, meaning of life and so on, I would have liked to see that movie, but that's not what we got.

Instead we get Nomi skipping along and says something along the lines of “I choose to believe” then random scenes follow, bad shit happens, more bad shit happens -- Nomi survives end of movie.

I know it sounds harsh but it's to keep it short.

To give you an example of film that did approximately the same thing but right. Take a look at Ridley Scott's own Blade Runner.

Blade Runner asks you: What does it mean to be a human?
Blade runner's Plot: Deckard needs to hunt down a bunch of replicants and kill them.
Simple clean elegant, and when that door closes at the end of the Director's cut, you have your ambiguity at it's best.

Prometheus tries to ask you: Where do we come from?
Prometheus plot: Shaw wants to meet the engineers and study them, maybe say hi?
See it's the plot part, where I think they went wrong from the beginning. Shaw's character has no real drive. They should have gone with Weyland, he is the one that wants eternal life, it's his expedition on his dime. If they had followed him instead, they would have had a natural story and a lot of the “internal story logic” issues would have gone away by it self. And maybe then, we had sen the question really being asked.

As it stands now since the story/plot doesn't work, the question is never really asked. If that makes any sense.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

@Alex. Agreed completely. Muholland drive was #()@ brilliant. It was layers upon layers upon layers with room for different interpretations. There was no depth to the story of Prometheus. People are mistaking confusion for depth. I'm sure you would get the exact same experience out of watching Transformers 2 with the assumption that an auteur of great mythological prowess has a deep message for humanity. The only meaning is that which you project on it--not what was intended or even suggested.

The death of her parents has created a lifelong crisis of faith for Shaw. She embarks on the Prometheus in futherance of her quest for God. At the climax she asks God "Why do you hate us?" Is that not a question posed by the film?

Why do random aliens hate us? Don't care. Why do the aliens in Independence Day hate us? Why does Megatron hate us? Because they do.

To paraphrase David asks don't all children wish for their parent's death?

To which she immediately replied "I didn't!".

Are there gods of flesh and blood similar to us?

Answered in the trailer.

Is God vengeful?

Vengeful for what?! If I had the foggiest clue why they were trying to wipe us out then I would know if vengence was a motive.

At what point does an aging parent become a selfish burden on their child? Is there a point at which it is better to leave them?

This is the only coherent message in the film and the execution was awful.

Is it better to have a parent that is more loving for a short period of time, or one that is less loving for longer?

I don't think that was in the movie anywhere.


Here's the problem, the aliens *aren't* Gods. They're just aliens. And their technology isn't particularly more advanced than our own. If the movie is about the Engineers it's a complete failure:

1) Engineer creates earth.
2) Engineer dislikes earth.
3) Engineer destroys earth.

In this interpretation Engineers are evil since they aren't Gods. In which case they are simply villains like in any monster movie. Not interesting.

1) Engineer create earth.
2) Engineers are selfless beings who decide to destroy earth since it is full of sin.
3) Engineer destroys earth.

In this interpretation you have to have a "perfect God". That's Noah and the flood. But the Engineers aren't perfect therefore if they destroy the earth for being sinful they are simply evil villains like in any monster movie. Not interesting.

1) Engineers create earth.
2) Man challenges Engineers.
3) Engineers destroy earth.

That's the tower of Babel. Except they decided to destroy us thousands of years ago, long before we had a chance to challenge the engineers.

1) Engineers create earth as part of weapons testing.
2) Man is an accidental unintended side-effect.
3) Engineers destroy earth.

Evil villains.... blah blah blah.

1) Engineers create earth.
2) Engineers (Parents) don't' want to 'cede' the throne. (see challenge)
3) Something about engineers not being willing to just die for us or something and give us our turn... or something..
4) Engineers destroy earth.

Engineers are just evil villains.

You can run every possible motivation and none of them result in the Engineers being more than 1 dimensional super villains.

I *do* think the film is about secession and inheritance. Among other things. But it's so badly filmed in that regard that it's not something I would bother mentioning. It's obvious from scene 1 that she's his daughter. It's clear that the film maker really he had some profound allegory between child and parent and inheritance as well as humanity and our 'parents'. There is a clear argument that the Engineers aren't "Gods" they're just our parents. So what's your relationship to your parents? That's an interesting question that the film doesn't actually handle really at all and it's not an interesting story when viewed in that light.

Engineers give birth to Humanity.
Humanity is a disappointing child.
Engineers try to murder their child.

How is that relatable? To ask the question "Why did they want to kill us" is like an abused wife asking "why does he hit me? It doesn't matter! The parent is wrong to try to murder their children. End of story.

Again, giving the film WAYYYYYY too much credit let's assume for a second that they were going for the mythological sacrifice of a child ala abraham and isaac or Agamenon. (There's nothing in the movie to suggest that we're a child sacrifice). Everything in the film suggests that the parent doesn't care about us in the slightests and would snap our neck for a stick of space gum so any mythological significance about sacrificing something you love is completely lost and that interpretation falls flat.

What this movie was, was a director who had a list of really big ideas he wanted to make a movie about... and then didn't. The writer and director tried to shoehorn and tack on significance to a monster movie but didn't manage to create a coherent story out of said ideas, they're just wall papered on and as a result are an in coherent mess like the cork board of writer trying to come up with an idea. It's just one random note card after another.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

Tim, the movie is a mixed bag. The ramming thing is likely a 9/11 catharsis. But we don't want to go there, do we.

I can say that Predator is a meditation of the unfairness of hunting deer with camouflage and superior weaponry... but thats not what was intended by the movie

 

[Bob Gundu]

What this discussion proves is that all the elements for a beautiful compelling film was there. Unfortunately, it just felt like a first draft. Too bad there wasn't any suspense or decent dialogue between characters.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Surely there is enough in dualism, the creation myths... to be getting on with. It's a movie for heaven's sake. And not a bad sci fi at that. I'd rather bask in the story myth potential than stew over how a geologist should behave after a two year sleep and a mission that is much more than he bargained for - or trying to paint a robot with one's knowledge of a robot's personality or learning curve, not to mention agenda. Eric is so far off course with his tack.

They also failed at the basic creation mythology.

In The Bible and Greek Mythology man is initially made perfect and then humanity's (woman's) lust for knowledge Eats the Apple or Open's Pandora's Pot/Box. From this act of curiosity comes evil. *That* works great with an alien movie. That would have made Prometheus work. People go to alien planet looking for answers about our origins, open pandora's box and suffer greatly in exchange for the knowledge.

But that doesn't work with Prometheus since.
A) They decided to punish us thousands of years ago, before we came to the planet.
B) We didn't really learn anything by going to the planet worth knowing. There was no Fire for Pandora exchange.

If they wanted to follow the Western creation story then they needed:

1) Creation.
2) Temptation of knowledge.
3) Consequences of knowledge.

#2 is clearly missing in the film.

What this discussion proves is that all the elements for a beautiful compelling film was there. Unfortunately, it just felt like a first draft. Too bad there wasn't any suspense or decent dialogue between characters.

I would go so far as to say there are enough elements "on the board" for 3-4 compelling movies. But instead of picking one they decided to randomly integrate ideas from all of them and you end up with a contradictory mess that accomplishes none of them. I suspect this is the result of Ridley taking over the project and then trying to make the movie about something that it wasn't originally written as. And using a writer from Lost who always used cliff hangers and promises of future answers to cover the fact that they had no idea what their story was about themselves.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Come on Gavin, you liked it WAY more than you're letting on. A closet Prometheus
lover. Free yourself from the chains. Let go. Open your heart and liver to the bliss of an infinite series....

 

[Nick Morrison]

I just saw Prometheus last night with my wife, and I loved it.

I loved the visuals, I thought the acting was superb, and I really responded to the theme: which for me was an Oedipal exploration of the tension between parents and children. When does one supplant the other?

That tension was everywhere, and I loved it. I also loved all the winks to Ridley's past movies, and to Sci-Fi in general. Both Fassbender and Theron look awfully like Replicants. The computer on the ship seemed to wink at HAL. The quest for humanity in the Lawrence of Arabia seemed ripped from Blade Runner.

Unlike say Crystal Skull, which felt like a terrible attempt by Lucas to cling to what made him successful 40 years earlier (so many bad remakes of old jokes)...Prometheus felt like a film made by an older, wiser Ridley with a lot more on his mind: questions of mortality, death, purpose.

I'm not going to sit here and say Prometheus hit me like Alien did, or say The Dark Night...but I still think it was a great movie. Compared to a lot of Ridley's recent movies, this had so much more thought, and planning in it. I saw his Robin Hood on cable last year and was appalled at the lack of attention (5 cameras rolling at once, all on zooms, all cobbled together in the edit, no style). This, on the other hand, was a meditation. I felt like Ridley Scott was channeling so much of what makes him great at sci-fi.

My take away will be the small things. Fassbender's acting. The mixture of orange and blue light in the suites. And even the final question of when do our parents start to FEAR US?

That's what I thought was going on at the end. The Engineers at first designed us in their image. Perhaps on a whim, perhaps simply because "THEY COULD" (much like Weyland made David, the robot.). But then..the Engineers must have realized at a later date...that their children could come back to supplant them. And they are right. Humanity arrives 2,000 years later on a starship of their own....the process has already begun...the children already nipping at their parents heels.

I totally understood the Engineer's fear, their instinct of self preservation. And I loved David's disdain for most of the human's around him, (how many Sci-Fi movies does he foretell...the angry robot...Terminator, Battlestar).

In short, I thought there was a lot going.

It also helped that I deliberately kept my expectations SUPER LOW, and didn't read ANY REVIEWS. My only hope...was that it please, please be better than Robin Hood....which it was....much

 

[Scott Crawley]

Wow, those are lots of thoughtful interpretations there Gavin. Thanks for the stimulating conversation. How can you see all of those possibilities and still call the film mindless and boring?

Gavin: Theron's character is the child of a wealthy man and has no love for him. She is just waiting for him to die and she is bitter toward him. She has no compassion for anyone. I conclude that she is sorely neglected, you might think she is a greedy brat seeking her inheritance. Both are likely true, but the film doesn't try and give us those answers. It allows us to form our own conclusions. As a result Theron can play her quietly and again allow us, no REQUIRE US to find the character for ourselves. We must fill in the blanks. I find the acting and character choices fascinating and brilliant.

Alex: Shaw finds and kills God with the help of her alien offspring, but only after aborting it all by herself. How does that equate to "skipping along" exactly? How is that just some "random shit" that happens to her? She has no real drive? She is trying to reconcile the childhood death of her mother with her faith in God. What else do you need? How much more conflicted does she have to be to register with you?

I submit to you the following:

The fact that so many people just don't get it, or anything at all from watching it may be a sign of it's failures. I agree with you that it is not perfect.

I could take each of those scenarios you present and draw completely different conclusions for each. I do. The fact that the film allows for so many interpretations and stirs so many ideas is to it's credit IMO.

As a result of viewing the film huge numbers of people are considering and discussing all of these philosophical ideas. That makes it a success in my book.

In just about all religions that I'm aware of, The Creator is God. The Engineers may or may not be the creators of mankind. The film doesn't take a position on that really. for that it is infinitely more interesting.

Any parent that chooses to kill it's child is not "just a villain" and is anything but boring. That individual may just be the embodiment of true Evil. That person is conflicted to say the least; Not boring.

A death conflict between parent and child is the stuff of pure, timeless drama. Not boring.

Man seeks God. Man finds God. Man kills God. That is the stuff of legend, the stuff of myth. If it were boring why would all of mankind be telling that same story for the entirety of their existence?

I'm happy for you that you have strong feelings about the film and the desire to discuss it. Again, thank you. I am sorry for the folks who see none of these themes in it's story, and wish for them a more considered and vibrant life. ;-)

Cheers,
Scott

 

[Bob Gundu]

I saw the attempt at all those themes. But it felt like a bad school play trying to make sense of it.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Gavin, "they" did NOT fail at the "basic creation mythology": the mythology must take on a new slant given the revelations of alien engineers. My, how rigid can one be? Everything is up for grabs, reinterpretation. Myths are just that, story creations.... constantly evolving, constantly being recreated, and reassessed as technology and knowledge grow.

 

[Chris Harless]

Wow.....when i walked out of the theater dazed and confused... I thought is was just me.

Bottom line...Beautifully Photographed. Incredible Visual Effects.

Script and pacing ruined it.

 

[Alex Lindblom]

Couple of quick points Scott.

Well first of all Theron's character, may very well be an android, “father” doesn't have to mean biological father at all, but that's neither here nor there just an observation.

When I said skipping along and the rest of that paragraph I was referring to the movie as hole, and not Shaw's character only. But yes the abortion scene is the best one in the movie. But she certainly heals fast doesn't, she but ok I can go with that.

Now you are telling me again that Shaw was on a quest to kill God. But that was not what I was shown, she's looking for the engineers yes, but she has no animosity towards them, its only when her life is threatened, when she is forced to taken action and kill them but that's in self defense, and by that point we are basically back to a rehash of Alien 1 but without any suspension since the film did not build to it.

Again I could have gone with any type of story they wanted, why not a Kill Bill against God, could have been good.

But they give me nothing, in the end all we get is a long long set up, a "travelog" with a lot of "story inconsistency",which in the end turns it to your of the shelf survival horror, and we get the final girl, and that's it -- roll credits...

 

[Scott Crawley]

I didn't say she was on a quest to kill God. I said she was on a quest to find God and reconcile her mother's death... Have her questions answered... Find enlightenment. As it turned out she had to kill God in self defense, but she didn't set out to do it.

The android hypothesis is welcome, and one I had not considered. With David for a "brother" it makes sense. I like it. Now I'm itching for a sequel.

Was she wearing a helmet in the open hangar bay? I can't seem to remember.

Couple of quick points Scott.

Well first of all Theron's character, may very well be an android, “father” doesn't have to mean biological father at all, but that's neither here nor there just an observation.

When I said skipping along and the rest of that paragraph I was referring to the movie as hole, and not Shaw's character only. But yes the abortion scene is the best one in the movie. But she certainly heals fast doesn't, she but ok I can go with that.

Now you are telling me again that Shaw was on a quest to kill God. But that was not what I was shown, she's looking for the engineers yes, but she has no animosity towards them, its only when her life is threatened, when she is forced to taken action and kill them but that's in self defense, and by that point we are basically back to a rehash of Alien 1 but without any suspension since the film did not build to it.

Again I could have gone with any type of story they wanted, why not a Kill Bill against God, could have been good.

But they give me nothing, in the end all we get is a long long set up, a "travelog" with a lot of "story inconsistency",which in the end turns it to your of the shelf survival horror, and we get the final girl, and that's it -- roll credits...

edit: The more I think about Meredith Vickers the less plausible the Vickers as robot hypothesis seems. There are too many clues to suggest that she is human, I think.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Wow, those are lots of thoughtful interpretations there Gavin. Thanks for the stimulating conversation. How can you see all of those possibilities and still call the film mindless and boring?

Cheers,
Scott

I can fill in holes with all manner of story. We're story tellers. If you give redusers a picture of a guy sitting in a chair reading a news paper some people will come up with a story that he's contemplating the cancer he's dieing of. But that doesn't mean it was *in* the movie. That's just making shit up and projecting onto a blank canvas. I hate blank canvases. It's lazy.

I can do this with Transformers too or any movie. But that doesn't mean it was part of the movie. Stare at clouds long enough and you see pictures. String a couple cloud images together and you'll probably be able to 'make sense' of that random noise. That's not storytelling that's just the joy of the human mind doing what it does best.

 

[Bill Anderson]

The canvas isn't blank. Interpretations are what keep art alive. Some are worthy, others are not. Seeing images in clouds, and plumbing the depth of them is a very valid approach. We project. "Beasts abstract not".

 

[Scott Crawley]

I can dig that.

As a side point, (Just to be a PITA) did you see The Cutting Edge? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0428441/ In it they show an editing example of juxtaposition. They show an actor with a blank expression and intercut disparate subjects or objects. When polled audience members claimed to see different emotions in the man's face when juxtaposed with different footage. It shows the power of editing, the power of film making and the value of a blank canvas.

It is a large part of the reason why we can each see the same film and see two different things. It can be the playground of the subtle craftsman and the proving ground of a hack. I am in awe of the blank canvas in the right hands. Whether or not Prometheus does any of that effectively is up for debate. I'm not yet asserting that is the case. I'll have to see it many more times before I try and claim that. ;-)

I can fill in holes with all manner of story. We're story tellers. If you give redusers a picture of a guy sitting in a chair reading a news paper some people will come up with a story that he's contemplating the cancer he's dieing of. But that doesn't mean it was *in* the movie. That's just making shit up and projecting onto a blank canvas. I hate blank canvases. It's lazy.

I can do this with Transformers too or any movie. But that doesn't mean it was part of the movie. Stare at clouds long enough and you see pictures. String a couple cloud images together and you'll probably be able to 'make sense' of that random noise. That's not storytelling that's just the joy of the human mind doing what it does best.

I have to reconsider this. The opening segment seems to suggest that the Engineers did create man. They could have been terraforming any planet, but in juxtaposition to the rest of the story it is reasonable to infer that it was Earth.

The Engineers may or may not be the creators of mankind. The film doesn't take a position on that really. for that it is infinitely more interesting.

 

[Bill Anderson]

If one believes that a man reading a newspaper is contemplating the cancer he is dying of, one usually puts forth one's reason for the belief. It is only then that we accept or reject the line of reasoning. Not because he believes, but why he believes. And is Prometheus akin to the simplicity of a man reading a newspaper? Is that a valid analogy?


What are we to make of a Kasemir Malevich black square painting? Do we see only a black square? Laziness? Or do we see it as being the foundation of radical shifts in art? Shifts that have enlightened us to the power of non objectivity and abstract art and so much more? All these ideas and forces born from a painted black square.


Does it seem unreasonable to imagine that ages ago we sat around a campfire and pondered life, and, observing how vulnerable and how quickly newborns perish without care, we concluded ( having no knowledge of the theory of evolution) that the first human must have been born of an otherworldly "parent", "God", in order to have formed and survived the first days? This is not any more sound a line of reasoning than concluding that a man reading a newspaper is thinking of cancer. But it is far more reaching nonetheless.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Scott, I haven't seen the Cutting Edge, but the method is known as the Kuleshov Effect, after Lev Kuleshov experimented with the idea of montage, in the 1920's. Sergei Eisentstein put his own genius touch to the idea, in his film "Battleship Potemkin".