Prometheus - new Alien film.

[Eight Times]

Seen it, it's excellent! Will get the steelbook if they release one (I'm a Blu Ray Steelbook whore).

I liked the cast in this, there wasn't anyone annoying, a solid group, just like in the first two Alien films (I don't remember the third one, and I've

still not seen Resurrection).

See, already I'm comparing it to the Alien films, when it really can be viewed as just a stand alone film.

 

[Maksimov]

I've still not seen Resurrection

May I suggest that you keep it that way...

 

[That Boy Brandinho]

Resurrection was just criminal. What's shocking to me is that Joss Whedon wrote the script and Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed. I'm really not sure how two incredibly talented individuals managed to sh*t out that awful movie.

 

[Maksimov]

Resurrection was just criminal.

One of the worst movies I've paid to see. I really can't see a reason why it was made, other than to cash in on a popular franchise. *Spoiler warning* It really should've ended after the third one and it was a terrible decision to bring back Ripley. And the way they brought her back was even worse. *Spoiler end* It was like a poor fan fiction story shot on a big budget.

 

[Arq]

One of the worst movies I've paid to see. I really can't see a reason why it was made, other than to cash in on a popular franchise. *Spoiler warning* It really should've ended after the third one and it was a terrible decision to bring back Ripley. And the way they brought her back was even worse. *Spoiler end* It was like a poor fan fiction story shot on a big budget.

Agree 100%.

 

[That Boy Brandinho]

So I finally got around to seeing Prometheus and...I don't know. From an aesthetic standpoint, it was impressive enough that I can't honestly say it was a bad movie. On an intellectual level, however, it was downright insulting. Some things that really bothered me (needless to say, major spoilers are below):

• The behavior of the scientists was absolutely ridiculous. You've got the biologist who freaks out at the sight of the first engineer corpse. He's a f**king biologist, what is he there for if he wants to pack up and head back to the ship the very instant he sees something biological for him to analyze? Sadly, that was downright rational compared to what he does next. He's in the chamber with the vials and suddenly a cobra-esque alien creature appears and begins sizing him up. Suddenly, biological life no longer frightens him and he wants to pet the f**king thing. It hisses at him and performs a blatantly obvious threat display and yet he still thinks it's cute and cuddly. Uh, buddy, you know nothing about this thing except that it's obviously hostile. Back the f**k up. Does he? No, because that'd be logical. No place for logic in science, right?
  
• Of course, he wouldn't even be in that situation if the geologist, who was seemingly in charge of mapping out the alien "ruins", didn't somehow get lost. He goes on about how his "pups" are telling him to go a certain way, but when he needs to find his way back to the ship, he's incapable of doing so. It's implied that he's high (the scene with the "tobacco") but this seems like a stupid trope that should be in a cheap slasher movie, not hard sci-fi. First, I've been high many a time and I've never lost the ability to read a map. Second, what the f**k is a scientist on such an important mission doing toking up a few hours after planetfall? It's f**king amateur hour here.
  
• So there are 17 people on the mission and seemingly only one of them has any sort of martial training. Why weren't there soldiers? You're spending trillions of dollars to go to a completely alien world that you know nothing about, you've got no clue if the inhabitants are hostile, whether or not there's dangerous flora or fauna, and yet you send one guy who has a throwaway line about being there for security. The rest are scientists who can barely handle simple firearms. How illogical. But wait, you say, this is the planet of the beings who created life on Earth and painted murals in caves showing us how to come find them. Surely they must be friendly, right? Consider this, we're a species that's constantly at war. We kill each other for sport. We're a reckless, violent lot. We drop atomic bombs on each other and commit genocides over perceived racial and ethnic differences. A man comes about who claims to be the son of God and we stick him on a cross (more about that later). Who's to say our creators don't share the same violent tendencies?
  
• So yeah, the space Jesus theory. Utter bo**ocks. If you're not aware, there's a theory going around that purports to explain why the engineers turned from seemingly benevolent life-givers to hostile fellows who wanted to kill off humanity. According to it, humanity was veering off course, so the engineers sent one of their own to put us back on the right path. We crucified him. Ridley Scott all but confirmed this in an interview prior to the movie's release. I'm not even sure where to start with this one. Apparently we're to believe that Jesus was a 7 foot tall, albino, Voldemort looking motherf**ker, muscled up like a Greek god on steroids and nobody saw fit to include such a description of him in any religious literature. We don't know what Jesus looked like, but I think it's safe to say we would if he looked like that. I don't mind the Christian symbolism in the movie, despite how ham-handed and tacky is was (the virgin birth, anyone?) but this is just too much.
  
• The science, oh god, the bad science. Look, I'm an artistic sort and I'm not one to usually nitpick a movie and complain about technical inaccuracies. I understand that entertainment supercedes getting every little detail correct. However, in a hard sci-fi movie, there's a bit more of an onus to not have so much absurd junk science. To begin with, there's a statement about how the atmosphere contains 3% carbon dioxide and that it'd kill humans in under 3 minutes. Sorry, but nope, it wouldn't. The most it'd do is create dizziness and shortness of breath. Next, once we've established that the atmosphere is different to that of Earth's, we find the crew using flamethrowers, a weapon calibrated specifically to function in Earth's atmosphere. If combustion can't occur, then the weapon would be useless. Also, it seemed a bit strange me to that we've discovered faster than light travel and can construct such advanced artificial life, but we're still using primitive small-projectile based handguns? Both of those are relatively minor compared to my next point, sadly. When the scientists touch down and discover that they can breathe without their masks, they take them off. What? Scientists should know that in doing so, they're exposing themselves (and in turn, exposing any life on the moon) to bacteria. Surgeons in an operating room don't need masks to breathe, but they wear them for a reason. Same principle. Bacteria from the moon could have infected all of the humans and bacteria from the humans could have infected any living thing they encountered. They discarded sterility for comfort, which is beyond idiotic. Finally, the worst bit of all - the surgery. Shaw has her belly cut open whilst a laser cuts through her abdominal muscles and uterus before pulling out the alien fetus and then giving her a quick staple job to hold it all together. She's then able to immediately run out of the room, put on a spacesuit, go for a sprint, battle an engineer and do it all without getting disemboweled. Sorry, but no. No no no no no. Ridiculous. She'd have bled to death before she left the operating room.
  
• There are more flaws but honestly, it's just getting me angry thinking about them so I can't continue. This movie had so much potential and it was largely undone by a pathetic f**king script. The visuals were great. The acting was great. Michael Fassbender, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong...these are really great actors. When you assemble a cast like that, with a budget of nearly $200,000,000 and have Ridley Scott at the helm, you should have an all-time classic on your hands.This movie should have been amazing, but instead it's so highly flawed that I don't know what it is. It's obviously not a bad movie in spite of these issues but it's not really good either. God damn you Damon Lindelof, wasn't ruining Lost enough? You had to have a go at the Alien franchise too?
  

 

[ace]

Saw it tonight, luckily with my girl's family so the ticket was free. Didn't really care for it, was hoping for much more. TBB does a good job of pointing a lot of what bothered me.

 

[Westway]

Agree with Brandinho about the ludicrous science but there is also the problem of where Prometheus fits into the Alien saga. Ridley Scott has already said there will be two more films which will eventually lead up to the original Alien so Prometheus is his Phantom Menace and what a pile of poo that was, I just found Prometheus an incomplete film which doesn't stand up as a stand alone movie experience, the original Alien is like an elephant in the room in every scene, I thought the acting was wooden, I just didn't connect with the characters or care enough what happened to them.

 

[Maksimov]

I just found Prometheus an incomplete film which doesn't stand up as a stand alone movie experience...

This is something that has bugged me about some recent movies and television series. A single episode or a movie is just something to stir up enough interest so that they can move on to make the next installment. They don't even bother if one part doesn't work as a stand alone as they expect that people will watch the whole franchise or series. Maybe it will all be tied together when the other movie(s) come out, but as it is, it's a bit of a mess.

...I just didn't connect with the characters or care enough what happened to them.

Couldn't agree more. Most of them were so very forgettable and/or just not very believable and like I've said before, I thought they tried too hard to make Noomi Rapace's character the new Ripley.

 

[moi]

I'm so grateful to you, Maks, you save me lots of time and money by vetting films for me. It's like kings of old had food-tasters to make sure they weren't poisoned.

I hereby appoint you official film-taster to moi.

 

[Maksimov]

It's like kings of old had food-tasters to make sure they weren't poisoned.

I hereby appoint you official film-taster to moi.

You do know those tasters weren't always reliable? Sometimes they got indigestion for eating too much. I think it was in Asterix where it happened to the food-taster of Cleopatra...

 

[moi]

Ah but your skills are well honed, Maksimov! "In Maksimov I trust" is my motto.

 

[dkw]

Finally got round to watching this on blu ray, and though it wasnt an epic or as good as Alien/Aliens it was still pretty entertaining. Ive heard plenty of bad things about it but I enjoyed it, though it didnt really answer much but I suppose thats the way they start a new series of films.

 

[The Moos]

I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn't been associated with Alien. On it's own it's a pretty good sfi-fi movie, but as a kind of prequel to Alien it is far from good enough.

 

[Arq]

I thought it was pretty disappointing. The actors/actresses are some of the best but the storyline was just average especially with it being essentially the prequel to Alien (even though not necessarily called as such).

With that said, God I love looking at Charlize Theron...

 

[dkw]

I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn't been associated with Alien. On it's own it's a pretty good sfi-fi movie, but as a kind of prequel to Alien it is far from good enough.

I thought that before the film came out, they were on a bit of an hiding to nothing. But it seemed a bit of a scene setter of a film to me, hopefully the next one will move on from this one and answer some of the questions.

 

[Zeta]

It was watchable, but only if you turn your brain off and don't really pay attention. Otherwise, the whole thing is so unoriginal and cliché it borders on the ridiculous. When that woman revealed the old man to be her father I nearly turned it off. That was such a shocking and original revelation wasn't it? And it was so relevant to the rest of the plot....

4/10 but i'm being generous.

 

[Eight Times]

I thought that perhaps she was one of his creations? rather than a child?

 

[Zeta]

No idea, doesn't make any difference really as far as the cliché goes.

 

[The Moos]

It was watchable, but only if you turn your brain off and don't really pay attention. Otherwise, the whole thing is so unoriginal and cliché it borders on the ridiculous. When that woman revealed the old man to be her father I nearly turned it off. That was such a shocking and original revelation wasn't it? And it was so relevant to the rest of the plot....

4/10 but i'm being generous.

I agree. And can someone please tell me why they got Guy Pearce for that part? Wouldn't it have been better to get an older actor to play that part, instead of getting Pearce and put loads of make-up on? It just looked so wrong.