Re: Paradise (Prometheus Sequel)
^^^ Definitely all over the place. Maybe it was the pressure of making a "Sci-Fi Blockbuster" and he felt he had to out do everything preceding this movie, but aside from looking amazing it felt... off.
My first thought was "how can we [humans] have advanced so far technologically but still be so stupid." This is where you can start shooting holes in the story and characters left and right. Like the biologist afraid to stay at first, but then wanting to play with an alien snake. A geologist that gets lost even though he's the guy with the mapping tech. A scientific expedition that disregards all safety measures related to quarantine and contamination. A period of time where androids can run everything, but they still send crew of humans to a place without knowing the potential dangers.
The overall story (pick one... there were so many different arcs) was what exactly? Ever since Alien people have been wanting to know more about the "space jockey". I think I read somewhere that Scott really had no back story to it and never expected the demand for it to be hashed out. So that was really the whole point of making this movie was to explain a prop on the set. I think they could have accomplished this a lot simpler and still have had it be very entertaining.
I kind of feel like they're somehow retconning the way the xenomorph is always looking different in every movie... which is unnecessary.
One of the best things about this movie was Michael Fassbender's performance. I did like Charlise Theron (mostly because she's the hottest woman on the planet) and I thing Idris Elba is cool as hell. Beyond that... I'm glad everyone else was just red-shirt fodder.
I can't even begin to imagine what this next movie will be like.
Here's my awesome story idea:
Once the Prometheus went into collision mode it sent out a distress signal to Earth, specifically to Weyland Industries. The message Shaw sends out is also received that Weyland and Vickers are dead.
This sets the gears in motion for the merger Weyland Industries and Yutani Corporation (I'm pretty sure in the first Alien movie the company was Weyland-Yutani).
The new stockholders send a team consisting of two parts. The A team is a scientific team. They are sent to the planet to investigate the incident, collect data, technology and specimens, and return to Earth. The B team is a squad of prototype androids programmed for paramilitary operations on hostile worlds where humans can't effectively fight due to atmospheric conditions. Their job is to 1) protect the science team and 2) track Dr Shaw to her destination and conduct extraction/rescue operations. The science team collects multiple black goo urns, the remains of an engineer from the tunnels, and they find the remains of Vicker's liffeboat and take the large tentacle "face/bodyhugger as well as capture/contain and the xenomorph.
During this time Shaw has reached her destination and has met the passive/benevolent "engineers" from the first [cut] scene of Prometheus. While there she learns all about the nature of the black goo, the xenomorph and it's intended purpose.
The B team eventually tracks Shaw down to the engineer planet, gets into a small melee with some of militant engineers (proving they aren't Gods and can be killed by human's "creations"... kind of a Gods killing Gods message if you want to get all deep and philosophical... or just making for some cool alien on robot battle action) and eventually finds her and explains the operation. David has been more or less reconnected to his body (not exactly seemlessly, which might look pretty cool). While Shaw talks with the B team, David links up with B team's ship computer, and learns there is an A team that's on it's way back to Earth with samples that will eventually destroy the planet. They immediately depart in the engineer ship taken from the last movie to pursue them. This ship is faster than Earth/Human-built ships so it catches up with the A team right around the time it's near LV426.
David makes contact with the A team ship and finds out that the artificial biology of the androids is adequate to cause a form of "artificial evolution" as well as sustain gestation of the xenomorphs. During the elapsed time one of the androids was programmed to conduct tests on the others which yields the evolution of a (more consistent with the appearance we've seen in later movies) xenomorph egg laying queen. The Giger biomech appearance is actually the result of how an android would loo if turned inside out.
David is able to remotely take control of the the A team ship and docks with it in orbit over LV426.
The young queen enters the engineer ship and somehow causes it to crash. During the crash the A team ship comes disconnected from the engineer ship and burns up on re-entry. The oxygen/atmosphere is lost in the engineer ship and the only way Shaw can survive is to get into the space jockey suit (which is obviously too large for her but she can still close herself in it) and lock into the seated position we see in the first Alien movie. Once the ship settles the queen sets up camp and starts laying eggs in the navigation room of the engineer ship.
The last thing we see is David receiving a message from Weyland-Yutani ordering him to broadcast an "SOS" signal from the planet. The signal is sent and the monitor shows
"Distress vessel.... Message received.... USCSS Nostromo en route to location... Science Officer Ash"
