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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

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

Ridley Scott should take this film and get rid of the dialogue and re-cut it with a heavy metal soundtrack.
Then he might have something for midnight showings.
 
Ridley Scott is the old man and the question between science, known facts and religion (in this case religion as in the christian religion represented by the cross necklace) is represented by the confusion these things create. I find that particularly important in older people who realise all the money on earth only helps you forget the inevitable; that we will die and we are mortal. Something toyboys should consider for themselves because that question is not going away. Anyone who realises the value of life does not want to be "entertained" Entertainment is something you want while you wait.

These are great themes to explore in a film.

But like the old man who dies in the film, his last hope at belief crushes him to his death and it is a result of that confusion which is his death. Likewise his sudden death and destruction of hope also is a reflection of and person who watches this film who still has a heart left.

I think though, science fiction... well good science fiction like 1984, Brave New World, Star Wars, 2001, Terminator and to a lesser extent Alien and Blade Runner, embraces the possibility of science and where it can go and how it can aid humanity and also how it can have the potential to enslave it.

Here Scott/ scriptwriters/ decision makers, take the tangent to include the nature of God in relation to science which is a brilliant subject to take on at this point in time and very relevant.

However, I feel the major disappointment here is it is subject matter which is left in the 80's and it just makes the whole story feel very immature in construct.

I say this more so with the internet fueling great philosophical debates and people generally these days are very up on the latest science.

It feels like the question posed in Promethius is like b grade 1940s science fiction.

We have quantum theory which is fast becoming well established. I mean that stuff is interesting. Where can we take that further?

Really, it answers Ridley's question and that is like 10 -20 years ago.


Same with robots/ computer intelligence. The fear is so 80's/ It was rehashed in 2001, alien and somewhat latter in artificial intelligence. I mean we live in 2012.

The robot character adds the whole what if robots get jealous of the one thing robots can't do and that is create life. Which BTW is the reason why the robot character impregnates the woman if no one picked it up. But we need to see how jealousy can be artificially created in a software written for a robot. Fair enough... a father would program this to make his child human like... but then his child would be more human like. I don't know i just didn't buy it. Maybe if there was more love between father and son?

To me what if aliens exist question asked in positive and negative ways by Scott in Alien and Spielberg in ET is just old. Sure they might.

I think Jung's idea for the collective unconscious (qued up with quantum theory) or Thor Heyerdahl's journey plausibly explain why pyramids occur in egypt and south America built before Columbus which the film tries to use as a pretext for such a massive mission. I mean its so 80s...

Does god exist or are we made by aliens seems so lame as a question posed when there are way better alternatives available, especially god as represented by religion as is done in the film. There are heaps of scientists like Paul Davies etc... who believe in the convergence between science, especially quantum theory and god.












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I was an English Lit major at UCLA with a minor in poetry writing (I wanted to study playwriting because I thought it would help me as a filmmaker, but I got into the poetry program instead)... anyway, I had a very good poetry writing teacher who taught us two important lessons:

(1) There is a difference between ambiguity and lack of clarity in writing. Often the student poets in class thought they were employing the first when they were actually employing the second. Ambiguity means that multiple interpretations are possible and allowed; lack of clarity means that there is one interpretation, one meaning... but it is hard to understand because it's been so muddled or confused in the expression.

(2) Being difficult to understand is OK if the reader's reward from figuring out the meaning equals the effort put into figuring it out. In other words, no one wants to spend a lot of time trying to figure something out only to discover a rather banal and simplistic idea is being presented in an obscured manner to make it seem more important than it really is.

Anyway, besides the problem with characterization and motivation in the film, what I see are a lot of ideas being tossed into the air, some good, without enough structure or coordination to give it more intellectual impact. Of course, "Alien" was even less "deep" as a movie -- Scott himself called it a B-movie story with an A-movie budget -- but it was a more cohesive and more satisfying. I don't want to beat up on "Prometheus" too much because I liked its high-minded tone, its ambitions towards myth and archetype, and I liked the android. I just wish it had been more developed and less sketchy.
 
I still would love to see PROMETHEUS in 4k. Jim, any chance you guys could do a screening?

If anyone knows a theater with 4k for this in LA, please toss me a line.
 
Will Keir said:
I still would love to see PROMETHEUS in 4k. Jim, any chance you guys could do a screening?

If anyone knows a theater with 4k for this in LA, please toss me a line.
Click to expand...

Will, It was a 2K DI so there is no 4K master.... Therefore, even if it's played through a 4K projector it's still only 2K...
 
Did someone muse about an extended Director's cut? (rhetorical question) http://www.aintitcool.com/node/56336

In the linked interview he states that the 20 or so additional minutes may be action sequences and the like. He stands by the released version and says it is essentially his cut, and he feels it works well, communicates well.

I believe he referred to Director's cut releases as a gimmick. He goes on to say that the only one of his films that he felt was better represented by the Director's cut was Kingdom of Heaven, which is interesting to hear after the many versions of Blade Runner and the surrounding controversy.
 
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I did have one thought that makes me want to revisit the film....

Pretty much every piece of info we are fed about the engineers comes from David, the robot. His motivations do not seem to be for the good of the crew or even his creator... So perhaps he lied about the engineers wanting to destroy earth? David is clearly a very divisive character in the film, but perhaps he is far, far more important than we realise?

In the film we have 2 clear creators of life... The engineers creating humans and, in turn, humans creating AI robots. There is also another creator though, by combining the black goo with a human, David creates a new life form. He may also have conned the engineer into getting on board the spaceship containing his new creation.... providing it with the vessel that will ultimately create the xenomorph.

Unfortunatly, the idea that David created the 1st xenomorph is ruined by the inclusion of the mural of the alien on a cross.

Anyway... I must admit to having enjoyed debating this movie more than actually watching it, so it must have some merit!
 
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Just to get back to this for a moment... If you compare and contrast the lives and characters of Shaw and Meredith Vickers you too may begin asking questions about the quantity/quality of the parenting they received. As a parent of two young people, these things are foremost in my mind.

Gavin Greenwalt said:
I don't think that was in the movie anywhere.
Click to expand...

It's a good question, eh? Considering the fact that the only clear motivation that David expresses is to destroy his creator or "parents", and that is a repeated theme in the film I think it is obvious enough that David wants the engineers to return to earth to destroy the human race.

Jason Sinclair said:
David clearly wants the aliens back on earth but why?
Click to expand...
 
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So I loved the opening scene, for this alone it was worth watching.
It started, built up, but then crashed and tore off....
 
Jason Sinclair said:
David clearly wants the aliens back on earth but why?
Click to expand...

Probably the same reason why the Weyland androids work to capture these creatures in the later films, to turn them into bio weapons of some kind for the Weyland Yutani Corp. My guess is that David is working directly under the direction of Weyland himself. It was probably Weyland who had Charlie poisoned to see how the goo affected humans. Weyland also called David the closest thing he had to a son.

I also had a suspicion that Vickers was an android as well but its more a hunch and I don't really have anything solid to back it up with other than her totally out of character reaction to the captains comment about her being a robot. She also called Weyland "father" but why is her last name different? Why does David call her "mom"? (yes, I know that is used sometimes to describe female superiors but it is still odd). I know, its probably highly unlikely that she was an android but it would be cool if she was. I like how she got herself up out of hypersleep but everyone else needed assistance. Plus the android in the first Alien film went through hypersleep so there would be no suspicion that he was an android. Is is possible that Weyland only trusted his "creations" to run the program. David and Vickers seem to be the only ones capable of making rational decisions. Finally, Vickers seems awfully young to be Weyland's daughter considering that he is 103 years old. Vickers DOB is unknown but she appears to be in her mid 30's (Theron is 36) so Weyland would have been in his 70's when she was born. She also throws David around with relative ease and androids are shown to be quite strong in the Alien universe.

Finally, I am not totally convinced that David is incapable of having emotions so Vickers more human like tendencies could be part of her programming.
 
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OK... Firstly, David didnt want the engineers back on earth he wanted the aliens who completely would destroy the human race if let loose.

Secondly, the sister wasn't an android. She states it, has sex to prove it and by the relationship with her brother tries to be like one because the father gives more attention to her constructed brother than her. I think david calls her maam and not mom. Which makes sense because the old man would have programmed him to get along with his sister.

But if Weyland corp can make an android like that which can have sex i would certainly like to put down a down deposit...

... as long as i have access to the source code.

Her motivations seem to be clearly to get the inheritance. Which BTW now she is dead will go to David. Which considering he cannot die probably explains the original Alien movie because he would have sent that crew there for the same purpose as this film to bring back the aliens to earth.

The big questions I now have are why do the engineers have biological weapons? Why does the engineer at the start of the movie seem surprised when he drinks the formula which kills him... and what is that scenes relevance? It appeared to me that was early earth. It appears to suggest that his dna would somehow survive and create life on earth. What are the engineers running from?

The other really interesting thing about this film is the use of different types of human groups. I think the first use of the word "Alien" was used by Hitler in Mien Kamf in relation to the Jews, and is often used as word which explains outsiders. In fact it could be argued that an alien in popular modern mythology is a representation of that. I find it interesting that the Engineers are Norman like in features. When i say Norman like i mean the haplogroup genetic strain of vikings which now predominates genetic variation in Europe and of course the USA . I find it interesting to have the main protagonist as euroasian, the mapper as celtic, the captain as African american, the engineers as Norman and the children as Scandanavian. I think this is just an interesting deeper angle. No doubt the ship and crew represents the USA and the stronger diversion in gentics than Europe and also the close relationship it has with china. Considering too Scott is a very strong Norman family and have a history of being story tellers of Norman history (Sir Walter Scott) and the founding fathers of the US were all Norman, In other words the "engineers" of modern American society, what is Scott trying to say?
 
Jason Sinclair said:
OK... Firstly, David didnt want the engineers back on earth he wanted the aliens who completely would destroy the human race if let loose.

Secondly, the sister wasn't an android. She states it, has sex to prove it and by the relationship with her brother tries to be like one because the father gives more attention to her constructed brother than her. I think david calls her maam and not mom. Which makes sense because the old man would have programmed him to get along with his sister.

But if Weyland corp can make an android like that which can have sex i would certainly like to put down a down deposit...

... as long as i have access to the source code.

Her motivations seem to be clearly to get the inheritance. Which BTW now she is dead will go to David. Which considering he cannot die probably explains the original Alien movie because he would have sent that crew there for the same purpose as this film to bring back the aliens to earth.

The big questions I now have are why do the engineers have biological weapons? Why does the engineer at the start of the movie seem surprised when he drinks the formula which kills him... and what is that scenes relevance? It appeared to me that was early earth. It appears to suggest that his dna would somehow survive and create life on earth. What are the engineers running from?
Click to expand...

They are running from a Xenomorph or from the black goo itself... They obviously have encountered them before because there is a painting of it depicted on the ceiling in the chamber.

They have biological weapons to destroy humanity. One of them must have been infected by the goo.... That must be what they are running from as the one who was decapitated was infected as well.

He seems surprised when he drinks the goo because he was the first one to test it. He was a "sacrifice" but surely didn't know what the stuff entailed. Yes humanity was created from his DNA.
 
Matt Ryan said:
He seems surprised when he drinks the goo because he was the first one to test it. He was a "sacrifice" but surely didn't know what the stuff entailed. Yes humanity was created from his DNA.
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Maybe the experience was not entirely what he expected, like maybe he didn't think it would hurt so much. Maybe he saw something in death that surprised him. Maybe he was enlightened. Maybe what you saw was not surprise, but rather overwhelming fuckin' pain. I don't know.
 
Scott Crawley said:
Maybe the experience was not entirely what he expected, like maybe he didn't think it would hurt so much. Maybe he saw something in death that surprised him. Maybe he was enlightened. Maybe what you saw was not surprise, but rather overwhelming fuckin' pain. I don't know.
Click to expand...

exactly. I'm sure he expected it to be peaceful...
 
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