Prometheus (Post-release)

[Riceball]

When sending out the probes he very excitedly exclaims THIS WAY. And those were his surveyors, so him not being linked with them would be absolutely idiotic. But then again... he was an idiot... so... granted...

But wasn't that when his probes were still visible? By the time he got lost he was much deeper into the cavern and the probes had since moved on to other parts of the cavern and couldn't be seen anymore.

 

[CessnaDriver]

I invite anyone to watch the movie again and pay attention to the scene just before Fifield and Milburn's supposed "lost" scene, and who they talk to literally seconds later, then ask yourself again if you think they were lost?

Another baffling misunderstanding I have read over and over is that "they would have picked the best and brightest for the most important mission in mankind's history". The ship was not built and launched specifically for this mission. It was just Weyland's top of the line research and exploration ship. Neither were all of the workers hand picked specifically for this job, nor were they supposed to be the best and the brightest. Weyland's true purpose for this mission was a secret between him and his "son". Project Prometheus was classified, his own personal project. Vickers implied that she and the company were at odds with him about it. The contract labor and/or company union workers staffing this ship were for the most part expendable to Weyland. The only important people for this journey to him were David, who was really handling the mission as far as he was concerned, and his security people. His main goal was to meet his maker and ask for longer life, but unlike Blade Runner, the maker kills his creation this time.

Vickers obviously did not believe any of this crap. She hand picked only a few people. The rest were Weyland regulars in their respective fields. To 90% of the crew, this was not "the most important discovery mission in human history". This was just another routine job, and it is implied by their attitudes and dialogue that the kind of work they were about to do was pretty routine to them, at least until the point were they realized this was anything but. They finish one job, get thrown in "the old freezerino" and awake to be told what the next job is.

The crew come from the same corporate-run, routine, union-labor worker mentality that is completely consistent with the characters on the Nostromo in Alien. Two of them were not so bright, and met their fates for that reason.

It's beyond some of them just them being work a day Joe's.
The decisions made are beyond basic common sense!

Think of flight crews today, oil drilling rigs, skyscraper construction crews.
You have to use common sense and follow safety rules or you die.

 

[Kerr Avon]

I guess you missed the decontamination procedure they did just prior to examining the head, then again immediately after it started to change? They actually had more dialogue and actions regarding decon than in Alien in that scene.

You mean the decontamination they did to the outside of the helmet, but didn't do to the head inside, which was only exposed to air after they broke the hermetic seal of the helmet?

:lol

 

[Kerr Avon]

But wasn't that when his probes were still visible? By the time he got lost he was much deeper into the cavern and the probes had since moved on to other parts of the cavern and couldn't be seen anymore.

I can use my cell phone to look up anything on the internet from any place on the planet. Why would technology regress that they didn't have a data pad that linked them directly to the databases on the ship?

 

[AggieChick42]

Fifield was smoking weed. Perhaps that was symbolic.

:cool



Hey, welcome to the RPF by the way. Did you sign up just to chat about the most hated film in 30 years?

ROLMAO Hi, and no... I've been posting elsewhere and this isn't THE most hated movie of the year.... I enjoyed it along with many others but we're in America and opinions ARE allowed!

 

[letmebestormy]

It's beyond some of them just them being work a day Joe's.
The decisions made are beyond basic common sense!

Think of flight crews today, oil drilling rigs, skyscraper construction crews.
You have to use common sense and follow safety rules or you die.

Agreed. And even if we buy KitRae's explanation of all the stupidity - it's a stretch to think people will enjoy a movie about stupidity! Obviously, some people will. However, I think intelligence is a more widespread enjoyable attribute.

The biologist going from scaredy cat from a 2000 year old dead alien to cooing a very live alien was so freakin' jarring it was tough to reenter the movie after that.

 

[AggieChick42]

That's because it was an ad hoc team with what seems to be little to no pre-planning, hell most of the team didn't even know each other prior to waking up from hyper-sleep. Then once on LV-223 it seemed to me that Halloway was just so damned eager to get going that he didn't bother with any sort of meeting to go over protocols, just grab you stuff and go. Add to that there was no clear chain of command either; Janek was in charge of the Prometheus but his authority didn't seem to go far outside of its hull, Halloway and Shaw were in charge of the expedition but they didn't choose or assemble their team, that was done for them, then you have Vickers who seemed to be in charge of the whole show or at least had the last word in everything but she was neither an expert on the Prometheus or some sort of experienced survival or expedition leader.



This is probably one of the biggest misunderstandings of the movie next to the confusion of LV-223 for LV-426, the geologist did not personally map the complex himself, he merely sent off the probes that did the mapping. At no point was there any indication that he was able to view the data from the probes from where he was, it appeared that the data was beamed back to the Prometheus and could only be viewed there.

I will grant you that the lack of concern over them being lost did seem odd to me too. Janek's apparent lack of concern had me initially thinking that he was in on the real reason for the mission and was a company man through and through. Obviously he wasn't aware of the true nature of the mission and was definitely was not sort of company lackey which does make it hard to really explain his lack of concern over the two lost boys. Then again, they really weren't his concern in a manner of speaking, after all, the ground mission really wasn't in his purview, they were Shaw & Halloway's people essentially and as a result, their responsibility.


The biologist and geologist were soundly against going anywhere near an unknown life form. They purposely went East to avoid the 'life form' detected to the West. And who wouldn't? Alone on an alien planet in alien ruins surrounded by alien dead ANNNND cut off from the ship both in terms of distance and by communication. I'd go East. Can I see a show of hands of anyone who'd go West without sufficient safeguards while lost underground in the dark and subsisting on canned air?

Then...

...they got caught in the room of oozing pots and the giant head and a freakish, faceless, albino snake slithered right up to them to say 'hello'.

Suddenly, the biologist wanted nothing more than to give a large glistening, slithering, tentacle worm a hug. The hell...? Did his healthy respect for the unknown, and therefore potentially dangerous, go right out the window in a place with no windows? There are insects no larger than a freckle that can pass diseases to you and me on Earth, but this guy reached out to a tentacle in a posturing stance that just screamed dangerous. Had this 'biologist' never seen a cobra, timber snake, rattler, or any other creature I could name demonstrate predatory posturing? Never mind that it had no eyes and nothing that would have communicated 'safe to touch'. Never mind that it came right up to him, which is generally a sign of fearless disdain or hostility in an animal sense. Never mind that he had NO IDEA WHAT IT WAS! It could have been as harmless as an earthworm, but it was the size of a vacuum hose! How thin was the air in his helmet that he would suddenly switch from his 'East not West' policy? The geologist was stuck in a helmet choked with hash, but the biologist was...what? Bipolar in his respect for the unknown? Selectively careless in the case of alien cave snakes?

This one I'll grant you without argument, there is no real logical explanation for this one except for convenience of the plot. Of all of the so-called inconsistencies or plot holes in the movie this was the one that I couldn't understand or explain in any logical or meaningful fashion and was a definite WTF moment for me.[/QUOTE]

ROLMAO I was reading this entire posting and was laughing. I love the guy who was like WTF WHERE THESE IDIOTS THINKING? haha I see a lot of the points he was making... seriously who in the right mind would want to pet a freakish DNA twisted worm? I would of ran off screaming like a lunatic! Little on leaving the group? Really why. Because they were scared? Hell. No. I wouldn't want to leave the entire group. Even when I went to Iraq I stuck with a small group unless I absolutely HAD to travel alone and even then I found someone familiar and traveled with them lol

 

[Jeyl]

I guess you missed the decontamination procedure they did just prior to examining the head, then again immediately after it started to change? They actually had more dialogue and actions regarding decon than in Alien in that scene.

And before the decontamination procedure? They were still wearing those garments and surgical masks. Great preparation when if there WAS a contamination found on the head, they'd have to call the whole thing off and get suited up in the full body covered suits THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN WEARING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And how would the scanner know if everything on this "alien head" was perfectly save from contamination when it could contain harmful elements totally unknown to the scanner? It is after all ALIEN, yet nobody is taking the extra steps to ensure their own safety.

 

[crabra comander]

Actually, there are people who do this in real life.

Remember the guys who taunted a Tiger at the Zoo, then got mauled by it?

Also, that's a pretty basic plot point in, I dunno, a couple 1000 movies with monsters in them.

Now that I think about it, that really was just the stupidest thing. He just took a scene from a horror movie and recycled it.

 

[Scott Graham]

Some great discussions about the movie here! I agree that it's interesting that the movie is so thought provoking. It's really sticking in my mind. It had such an ambitious scope.

After all the talk of 223 vs 426 I'd like to think that maybe Shaw's mission was cut short and she ends up crashing on 426. Maybe what we haven't seen but are assuming about her going to meet them isn't necessarily what pans out. I DO hope for a sequel and to have some of this tied up, but the mysteries are so much more thought provoking. Would it really matter if all things in the movie were concrete and factual...not mysteries?

It's interesting how the endless human need for curiosity into "the creator's intent" whether it be Ridley or whoever else made humans in the movie will provoke so much discussion. Human behavior drives the movie and these discussions about it. Sure seems like a WIN! This is fun.

 

[Riceball]

I invite anyone to watch the movie again and pay attention to the scene just before Fifield and Milburn's supposed "lost" scene, and who they talk to literally seconds later, then ask yourself again if you think they were lost?

Another baffling misunderstanding I have read over and over is that "they would have picked the best and brightest for the most important mission in mankind's history". The ship was not built and launched specifically for this mission. It was just Weyland's top of the line research and exploration ship. Neither were all of the workers hand picked specifically for this job, nor were they supposed to be the best and the brightest. Weyland's true purpose for this mission was a secret between him and his "son". Project Prometheus was classified, his own personal project. Vickers implied that she and the company were at odds with him about it. The contract labor and/or company union workers staffing this ship were for the most part expendable to Weyland. The only important people for this journey to him were David, who was really handling the mission as far as he was concerned, and his security people. His main goal was to meet his maker and ask for longer life, but unlike Blade Runner, the maker kills his creation this time.

Vickers obviously did not believe any of this crap. She hand picked only a few people. The rest were Weyland regulars in their respective fields. To 90% of the crew, this was not "the most important discovery mission in human history". This was just another routine job, and it is implied by their attitudes and dialogue that the kind of work they were about to do was pretty routine to them, at least until the point were they realized this was anything but. They finish one job, get thrown in "the old freezerino" and awake to be told what the next job is.

The crew come from the same corporate-run, routine, union-labor worker mentality that is completely consistent with the characters on the Nostromo in Alien. Two of them were not so bright, and met their fates for that reason.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I think many of the critics are forgetting that this wasn't a crew that's been together for a long time, this was, for the most part, an ad hoc crew that was largely put together at the last moment. In a way it's safe to say that the crew was really more like 3 separate crews, you had the actual ship's crew who worked the ship and the vehicles, there were the scientists, and then there were Weyland's people. Keep that in mind and it explains a lot of the problems that people are complaining about, it's sort of like Lt. Gorman in Aliens, a green Lt. on his first mission with his new platoon.

 

[Clutch]

Who said the Derelict ship on LV-426 crashed? It was also emitting a warning message.

 

[Dave Ward]

Whether it's a joke or a movie, if you have to explain it, it wasn't very good.

Canon is what happens in the movie. So all these long 'read my brilliant explanations' don't amount to anything. Put it in the movie or STFU. They said the same thing about Terminator Salvation, or Predators, or AvPs. 'You don't understand our brilliance.' 'and then buy the extended version kiddies.'

The latest pics of Ridley Scott remind me of a befuddled tired old man. "Are you alright? Do you know where you live?"

Oh well. In July Batman and Spider-man will be out and this will be forgotten.

You mean if you have to explain it to me, or if I have to explain it to you? There's a difference.

 

[AggieChick42]

Some great discussions about the movie here! I agree that it's interesting that the movie is so thought provoking. It's really sticking in my mind. It had such an ambitious scope.

After all the talk of 223 vs 426 I'd like to think that maybe Shaw's mission was cut short and she ends up crashing on 426. Maybe what we haven't seen but are assuming about her going to meet them isn't necessarily what pans out. I DO hope for a sequel and to have some of this tied up, but the mysteries are so much more thought provoking. Would it really matter if all things in the movie were concrete and factual...not mysteries?

It's interesting how the endless human need for curiosity into "the creator's intent" whether it be Ridley or whoever else made humans in the movie will provoke so much discussion. Human behavior drives the movie and these discussions about it. Sure seems like a WIN! This is fun.

I posted a link earlier about Ridley Scott's interview about a sequel... He wants to make one and so does his crew. They want to call it Paradise. It's pretty interesting. I'm curious to see where Dr. Shaw and David end up!

 

[Kerr Avon]

Agreed wholeheartedly. I think many of the critics are forgetting that this wasn't a crew that's been together for a long time, this was, for the most part, an ad hoc crew that was largely put together at the last moment. In a way it's safe to say that the crew was really more like 3 separate crews, you had the actual ship's crew who worked the ship and the vehicles, there were the scientists, and then there were Weyland's people. Keep that in mind and it explains a lot of the problems that people are complaining about, it's sort of like Lt. Gorman in Aliens, a green Lt. on his first mission with his new platoon.

But still a group of professionals who are experienced in their fields, if not at the TOP of their fields. Why would Weyland get anything but that when his very life was on the line, and his entire motivation has been about extending his life, not throwing it away?

So why does the experienced mapper get lost with his own super mapping orbs? Why does the biologist want to run away from the first sign of life on another planet? Then decide he wants to pet a Cobra that's threatening him, a change of heart that happens in only 10 minutes? Why do they take their helmets off only on the basis of atmosphere, when biological or chemical pathogens are likely to be a threat?

These guys are poorly written cliche'd characters and written like they don't have a clue about anything. Or that's just Scott or Damon shining in their own ignorance.

 

[blipper]

Despite my love of Alien and Blade Runner...oh lets not even go there. Despite the fact that these are now considered untouchable classics, there are clunkers a plenty in both films...especially Blade Runner. I well remember those discussions with my fellow sci-fi fanatics.

I am genuinely interested to hear what "clunkers a plenty" appear in both those movies. I can barely think of any minor clunker let alone the level of WTF? that pulls you out repeatedly as in Prometheus. The amount of mental gymnastics people are doing to cover the flaws in the story-telling is staggering.

<snip>
you probably see all that as 'bad writing' as well

For whom? Not for those of us who see that it is a finely crafted intelligent film. It is not perfect, but I have yet to see a perfect Ridley Scott film. This ranks among his best, and compared to about a dozen other top sci-fi films from the last 20 years or so, this makes my list.

Alien and Blade Runner *are* two perfect Ridley Scott films. There. I said it.
Made when Scott was much more about pushing a vision and not compromise. You listen or read recent Prometheus interviews where Scott brings up how commerce and art have to be given equal billing. He didn't even want to do Prometheus originally, preferring to let his son-in-law take the reigns until Fox reminded him who was boss.
So Fox is desperate to re-ignite the Alien franchise, the only way to get people to take it seriously is to get Scott helming it, Scott is desperate to turn around his movie fortunes after the disastrous Robin Hood (and would much rather be getting on with The Forever War) so takes on the Alien gig and a hot-shot writer who's specialty is gimmick.
"We're going back!" he tells a million awestruck cinephiles "and this time I'm focusing on the Space Jockey, the xeno has been played out! it's boring!" So what the heck was a xeno doing right at the end of the movie? Creating a rod for Scott's back I suspect if he ever gets round to Prometheus 2.

The original Space Jockey set was pretty much Scott sneaking in a very expensive brief scene behind the producers back, but he knew the necessity of adding such provocative detail, not sweating the risk - and see how the studio now cashes in on something they originally would not have approved of.
Both Alien and Blade Runner are ostensibly two very small stories: space truckers unwittingly pick up a monster, and gumshoe tracks a fugitive. Prometheus on the other hand is unashamedly a big story - MAN GOES TO MEET HIS CREATOR! - and yet the level of depth and philosophical sophistication that effortlessly drips off Alien and Blade Runner by comparison appears clumsily hammered on by a muppet in big bold letters all over Prometheus.

Captain putting up a [highlight]Christmas[/highlight] tree.
Reference to a defining event [highlight]2000 years ago[/highlight]
Weyland having his [highlight]feet washed[/highlight]
multiple references to a [highlight]crucifix[/highlight] and [highlight]faith[/highlight]
A barren woman ([highlight]virgin[/highlight]) giving [highlight]birth[/highlight]
The [highlight]crucified[/highlight] xeno alter piece
The goo [highlight]serpent[/highlight] that came from the pursuit of [highlight]forbidden knowledge[/highlight] that attacks Millburn
The Engineer that [highlight]sacrifices himself for man[/highlight]

And now we understand that Scott left out a direct ***** reference because he thought it might be a bit too "on the nose"!
Well he may have left the nose alone but he's firmly punched it all over the rest of the face.

 

[crabra comander]

Damnit, if the Engineers are our 7ft tall *****, I will be upset.

 

[letmebestormy]

 

[ghostryder]

Prometheus visual breakdown - FX guide TV #149 - YouTube

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.403920239646688.88409.304949236210456

 

[AggieChick42]

I am genuinely interested to hear what "clunkers a plenty" appear in both those movies. I can barely think of any minor clunker let alone the level of WTF? that pulls you out repeatedly as in Prometheus. The amount of mental gymnastics people are doing to cover the flaws in the story-telling is staggering.



Alien and Blade Runner *are* two perfect Ridley Scott films. There. I said it.
Made when Scott was much more about pushing a vision and not compromise. You listen or read recent Prometheus interviews where Scott brings up how commerce and art have to be given equal billing. He didn't even want to do Prometheus originally, preferring to let his son-in-law take the reigns until Fox reminded him who was boss.
So Fox is desperate to re-ignite the Alien franchise, the only way to get people to take it seriously is to get Scott helming it, Scott is desperate to turn around his movie fortunes after the disastrous Robin Hood (and would much rather be getting on with The Forever War) so takes on the Alien gig and a hot-shot writer who's specialty is gimmick.
"We're going back!" he tells a million awestruck cinephiles "and this time I'm focusing on the Space Jockey, the xeno has been played out! it's boring!" So what the heck was a xeno doing right at the end of the movie? Creating a rod for Scott's back I suspect if he ever gets round to Prometheus 2.

The original Space Jockey set was pretty much Scott sneaking in a very expensive brief scene behind the producers back, but he knew the necessity of adding such provocative detail, not sweating the risk - and see how the studio now cashes in on something they originally would not have approved of.
Both Alien and Blade Runner are ostensibly two very small stories: space truckers unwittingly pick up a monster, and gumshoe tracks a fugitive. Prometheus on the other hand is unashamedly a big story - MAN GOES TO MEET HIS CREATOR! - and yet the level of depth and philosophical sophistication that effortlessly drips off Alien and Blade Runner by comparison appears clumsily hammered on by a muppet in big bold letters all over Prometheus.

Captain putting up a [highlight]Christmas[/highlight] tree.
Reference to a defining event [highlight]2000 years ago[/highlight]
Weyland having his [highlight]feet washed[/highlight]
multiple references to a [highlight]crucifix[/highlight] and [highlight]faith[/highlight]
A barren woman ([highlight]virgin[/highlight]) giving [highlight]birth[/highlight]
The [highlight]crucified[/highlight] xeno alter piece
The goo [highlight]serpent[/highlight] that came from the pursuit of [highlight]forbidden knowledge[/highlight] that attacks Millburn
The Engineer that [highlight]sacrifices himself for man[/highlight]

And now we understand that Scott left out a direct ***** reference because he thought it might be a bit too "on the nose"!
Well he may have left the nose alone but he's firmly punched it all over the rest of the face.

Here! Here!