Prometheus (Post-release)

maybe oneye can share his meds with the rest of us and we can all enjoy the movie as much as he did :) :lol .........ooooohhh pretty colors :confused

That's it... it is on!
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The recordings followed the Engineers, not what was chasing them.

Toby, this planet was LV-223, the Alien/Aliens world was LV-426.

If there was an emergency wouldn't you want to record the problem itself instead of the beings running away from the problem? :facepalm

Seems kind of odd to me. Maybe the Engineers just like watching themselves.
 
Linkara did a quick review of Prometheus on his blog, and he actually shared some pretty good points on why characters acting incredibly stupid can ruin a movie.

Anyone remember PREDATOR? It features an elite rescue squad going into enemy territory and taking out a whole camp full of rebels. This team is resourceful, experienced and good with strategy. But more importantly, they're professionals who take their job seriously and don't resort to stupid decisions the first time they do something. The part that made the creature so intimidating was that it was 'outsmarting' them. You've seen this team in action and know that they're the best at what they do, and now they're being taken out by a foe that they don't understand. Their strategies aren't working and their moral is draining. This creature is winning. THAT is an effective way of conveying suspense and dread when you have smart characters being beaten by a smarter foe.

With Prometheus, all it would take to defeat the alien forces is for our characters to use common sense. If you want to leave, use the map on your arm that you used earlier to find your way around or contact the ship to guide your way out. Heck, if the characters' stupidity were consistent, everything would be fine. The two scientists who were so scared of a headless alien corpse should not find a slithering cobra like worm that hisses violently at them intriguing.

And who here would not immediately go for help after seeing something moving inside of your eye? Well, if you're in Prometheus, you strap on your suit and head on out like it was just a minor inconvenience.

Well the main problem with this analysis is calling the rescue team in Predator professionals. :lol
 
Yeah, you might be on to something there. Like he felt only the Engineers were supposed to create new (artificial?) life.
I got the impression he was more taken aback that David was completely artificial. They had built him out of metal and plastic instead of creating him as a living being, the way the Engineers do. Sort of a cheap knockoff.

Or rather, that humans were effectively recasters.. lol. That explanation should suffice rather well for people around here.. hehe.
 
They find a 2000 year old head. And then get it to move. Yeah right.

The biologist certainly isn't consistent.
They find alien bodies. Does he examine them? Nah. They're scary. But the cute worm thing? Awwwww. [and the 'open your mouth and stay still for the cgi' effect looked stupid.]

What happened to the creatures that burst out of those engineers? Was there any evidence of them or their eggs?

Did the Engineers create The Alien, or were they experimenting on it's DNA by making their own creatures?

And Hal, I mean David, is certainly weird. He purposely contaminates a crew member? Why? Are there no petri dishes and bacteria on board to experiment on? And who knows what might happen? It could kill the entire crew, including his boss.

They're on an alien planet, but the O2 is okay, so take off your helmet. How about unknown bacteria, Mr. Scientists?!

Everyone acts in a way that the script needs them to act, not like real people.
 
According to Scott in the HBO special, this is where Prometheus takes place.

Zeta Reticuli - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They find a 2000 year old head. And then get it to move. Yeah right.

It was in a "perfect state of preservation" as was everything else in the room until we opened the door. This is why they rushed to seal the head in a bag.

Everyone acts in a way that the script needs them to act, not like real people.

Spend a week with scientists. Really. They often don't act like normal people. Common sense is some times a foreign concept.

David was under orders from Weyland to "try harder" time was a factor. He needed to know what the black goo would do to a person, and frankly, I don't think he cared much for Charlie, so he chose the man who was making fun of him, and constantly giving him guff to see what that material did to a person.

Now, I would have preferred that they spent more time in the pyramid thing exploring, or at least spent more time studying the information the probes were sending back to the ship. No one seemed too interested in that, and I was suprised by that.

But, that was not enough to ruin the film for me. I still loved it.
 
They used a map.

Human nature. What's the first thing people do when they get lost. Ask for directions? Nope they walk or drive around passing the same point time and time again. I know many people who get even more confused looking at a map.

By the time the Captain communicated with the lost boys the storm prevented them from leaving anyway so directions would not have helped at that point.
 
Spend a week with scientists. Really. They often don't act like normal people. Common sense is some times a foreign concept.

Well, good scientists don't usually use religious faith as a motivation to find an alien race who they believe might have created them.
 
My only complaint would be that I don't understand Shaw's logic of going to the home planet. She says she wants to know what changed the Engineers' minds about deystroying the population of Earth. Is it just me, or is it fairly straight forward they never did stop wanting that? The crew of the instalation was killed by either the bioweapon or chestbusters ("They look like they expoloded"), and were unable to launch their ship and carry out the mission.

As soon as the remaining Space Jokey wakes up from his pod he tries to kill evryone, and immediately launches the ship, which is stock piled full of the black goo bioweapon. He's going to Earth with the stuff. DURRR. He still plans to kill everyone/thing there.

ALSO:

The first Space Jockey was either being punished, which it seemed that way for me, or was chosen to carry out the mission of seeding the earth. If he was being punished, he would either die from starvation,etc or drink the black goo. That would cause him to die from the crazyness it creates (like giving a person a gun to kill themselves with on a deserted island). If he was chosen to seed the earth, why drink the black goo, which deystroys DNA? It was only when he fell into the water that his DNA survived, which I doubt was planned by his friends up in the flying saucer.

The only thing would be why do his buddys come back and visit the unwarranted offspring every once in a while? That would be a point for the idea that they plan for him to populate the Earth. But why feed the guy black good,a bioweapon, which only causes bad stuff to happen? Also, why direct the lowly inhabitants to the most top-notch weapons you have? The United States hardly ever invites African tribes to visit the nuclear weapons stockpiles...


EDIT - Also, there was a rifle in the movie, because when the zombie is in the hanger, they use it then, and also when they wake up the Space Jokey. It has an orange/redish stock that may be similar to the Spyder MR2 stock.
 
This movie is my most anticipated film from the last couple of years and of course my expectations were high... then I started reading reviews, trying to avoid major spoilers. Seeing how bad the initial reviews were, I fully expected to hate it. Instead, I walked out LOVING it and this morning, having had more time to think about it, I am loving it even more!

For me, there are movies that try to be "deep" or a "thinking man's movie" but just end up a confusing, pretentious mess. On the other hand, there are movies that pose questions and possibilities that fire the imagination. For me, Prometheus squarely falls into the latter. I think back to movies like Alien and Predator and while I wouldn't consider either of those movies to have been purposefully created to make one think, they did indeed fire the imagination about the origins of these species... so much so that entire universes and mythologies have been created around them. I think Prometheus did an AMAZING job of expanding on the Alien mythology and expanded the Alien universe without boxing it in so tightly that there is no room left for our own imagination. If EVERYTHING had been spelled out in Alien, would we have loved it so much, or was it the unanswered questions that kept us going for decades? It certainly wasn't the characters that kept us going, but the creature itself and the mystery of the derelict and what was going on there. This movie expands on that, answers a few questions, but leaves us a lot more. Some seem very frustrated by this but my imagination at the possibilities has been rekindled by this movie and I thought it was amazing in that regard, even if it was flawed in other areas.

I want to touch on a few things that really interested me. The Aliens comics often had a heavy dose of spirituality/religion that we never saw in the movies, which I always found fascinating. This movie is the first time I saw those themes injected into a film about this universe and to me, it was injected in a larger way than many are talking about. To me, the opening scene had a very religious tone to it, not a scientific tone. The engineer seemed to be performing a religious rite upon himself, not performing a scientific procedure. The result may have been the same, but my interest is in his motivation. His action seemed to mimic the story of ****** suffering and dying to give eternal life, which of course ties back to the whole concept that the Engineers are our "gods" as well as our literal creators. This ties back to the comics in that in some of the comic stories, humans worship the aliens...

I also felt like you had two very dissimilar aspects to the Engineer's mound.. the chamber with all the canisters seemed to be very religious in nature with the huge idol in the center, the murals on the ceiling and the reliefs on the walls. Not only that, but when threatened, the engineers were running there for safety. This seemed to go in the face of the buried ship which DID seem to match the description of a military cargo ship, transporting the absolute worse biological weapons ever created. The great part about all of this is, it does have to make sense because we are dealing with an ALIEN culture that we know next to NOTHING about. It could mean ANYTHING! Maybe these engineers are religious zealots. Maybe this is a military installation or maybe it is a Divinity Church cult in space. Who knows, but isn't it fun to talk about and speculate about?

Again, this is where a movie like this shines for me. It makes us WANT to talk and guess and wonder. This movie is black goo for our imagination... a catalyst.

On to a few specific points. I know I will get crap for this, but I have NEVER liked the character of Ripley. She was a ***** for the very first movie. She was never likable in any respect, even before she became hardened by her experiences with the Alien. She also tried too hard to break the stereotype of the weak and helpless female... she overcompensated. You don't have to agree. That is just my take. I thought Noomi Rapace did an incredible job at being a MUCH more likable and believable heroine. She was strong without being mannish, bitchy, heartless or cruel. She was a survivor. I loved her and I desperately want to know what happens to her and David. I also thought her faith throughout this movie was interesting, especially considering the day and age in which we live. It made for an interesting twist on her character that diverts from the typical Hollywood stereotype.

In regard to her getting up and running after the surgery... I was actually VERY impressed with how this was handled, but only in Hollywood terms. How many times do we see someone take an inhuman beating or take a serious injury and minutes later it is as if it never happened. While I am in total agreement that Shaw's actions after the surgery are completely unrealistic, they did show multiple times that she was in pain from the surgery and I think that acknowledgement that she wasn't back to 100% was a pretty big thing considering that most movies would have acted like it never happened at all. I thought her holding her stomach over and over again was pretty impressive for Hollywood.

I am not a fan of Charlize Theron, but I thought she was amazing in this role. For not having a big part to play, I think she did a great job... and no, I don't think she was a robot. If she was, she would lose a lot of her appeal. I thought the whole sibling rivalry between her and David to be very interesting and to have likely been the primary factor for the kind of personality she expresses. David is trying to be human and she is trying to be David. Both were GREAT characters.

Something about David and his story reminds me of Sam Rockwell in Moon. I almost feel like we could have a whole movie just about David. For me, his character MUCH moreso than Bishop or Ash reminds me of all the Ray Bradbury and Philip K Dick stories that examine what it truly means to be human through the eyes of something that is not. This aspect of David brings a VERY old school style of sci-fi to Prometheus that I don't think we have seen handled this well since Blade Runner.

Anyway, I really liked the movie as a whole, even though it definitely had its issues, I think the wonder and the tickling of your imagination far outshone any technical flaw.
 
Also, for those feeling the "scientists" didn't handle things in a very scientific manner, I look at them more like archaeologists (think Indiana Jones) and would point you back to the people who uncovered many of the Egyptian burial chambers. They were not scientific at all and many things were ruined due to their desire to get to the "good stuff" as quickly as possible. That is what I saw here. These were people with PASSION going after answers, not the kind of scientific minds that are methodical and careful. Did they do stupid things? Absolutely. Would you possibly do stupid things in the excitement and enthusiasm of a new discovery? Probably.

For those criticizing David for opening doors without deeper investigation, I would ask you, if it had been Indiana Jones instead of David, would you be criticizing it? Those doors were standing between the team and the "treasure" they were seeking.

Would ANYONE try to nuzzle a cobra worm? OK, that one was probably stupid, no matter how you look at it.
 
Art, I couldn't agree with you more on most points. I have done nothing but think about that movie since I saw it yesterday. I love that!
 
I almost hate to discuss this because these are things people should figured out on their own, but this is a thread to discuss this. All of these clues were right there throughout the film. Consider all of the facts shown in the film, and consider each is there for a reason.

Milllennia ago we were created by the Engineers when they seeded the Earth with the building blocks of life, or if you prefer, they were sent here to create us by their creator. In this act, an Engineer sacrifices himself to create this life. They use a black substance they either created, or was given to them by their creator.

The Engineers wanted us to find them one day, hence the images they left pointing to the location of LV233's star scattered throughout history for us to find, all pre-dating the rise of the Roman Empire. Some of these images indicate people may have worshipped the large beings who point to the star configuration.

The five buildings on LV233 with the heads carved on the tops were clearly temples, meant for worship. The main chamber in was a sanctuary, with a giant Engineer head as the focal point, painted mural on the ceiling depicting an engineer with his arm around what looks like a biomechanoid creation, et cetera. There is also a sculpted mural depicting a biomechanoid being resembling the xenomorph we all know very well as a focal point in the temple. The temple is full of canisters of the black DNA altering substance. The intention was that humans were to come here one day, to worship the Engineers as Gods. The substance in the canisters was intended activate in their presence and and to change them into something else.

The Engineer ship in the hangar in front of the temple is full of these stacked containers, in various sizes. Call it a weapon now if you like, since that is now what they are. The Engineers brought these in those ships from somewhere.

2000 years ago mankind was at the height of civilization, and we were doing some very awful things in the Roman Empire, including the killing of ******. ****** was the one man who was trying to get us off the path we were on.

At this same time, the Engineers decided to take the black DNA altering substance back to Earth and destroy mankind (or were being sent to do so, if you like), or looking at it another way, to remake it. The black substance accidentally, or intentionally, infected the Engineers in the temple, killing most. Regardless of whether or not the Engineers created this substance, or were given it by their creator, they could not harness or control it. One of the Engineers made it to the pilot room and sealed himself in one of the suspended animation capsules to avoid infection. Over the years the temples were eroded and worn down, in disrepair, indicating no Engineers have returned LV233 since the incident.

Over 2000 years later, the Engineers creations finally arrive at the temple, lead by Shaw and Holloway, intent on meeting their maker. David discovers that the Engineer ship was going to return to Earth with the containers. The containers in the temple room are activated by their presence and start to release their contents. The worm like organisms on the floor are altered, or an new organism grown inside them, creating the ass-flower snakes. They in turn impregnate the humans with another organism.

The holographic images showing the Engineers running through the hallways 2000 years prior seem to indicate one engineer was running from the others, to the temple room. This one could have sabotaged the black substance allowing it to infect the others, they could all be running from the contagions to the ship for escape. They could all be running from something else, but there is nothing to indicate this. Regardless, they were clearly infected in different ways, some dying from the organisms growing in them (piled in the hallway), some infected with the virus that changes them into something else (the virus in the Engineers head that caused it to explode). A member of the crew (the Captain as I recall) proposes that these temples were really some kind of a military installation holding weapons of mass destruction.

I wont get into Weyland's, or any of the individual characters motives, as they are very clearly defined in the film, and they cover the range of imperfect human behavior and motives, as well as the better qualities indicated by the sacrifices several of the characters make to save the others. Their individual fates are also tied to the action each character takes. Note that each person who is infected by the black substance is also altered in a different way, related to their character.

When the Engineer in the ship is awakened he sees this group of humans, his own kind's creation, before him. He then finds the one who speaks to him in his own language is not one of his creations, but an artificial being made by his creation. He destroys it and kills the man responsible for its creation, then attmepts to destroy the rest, as he was going to do anyway by going to Earth. He is clearly disgusted with them, what they have done, and what they have become.

Creation vs creator themes are scattered about the film. The Engineers created life, or were given the tools to create life (the black substance). Their creation turned out to be flawed in their eyes, so they decided to destroy it. Weyland is directly responsible for creating a new life with his self aware replicant-androids. David, who clearly resents his creators, has flaws in his character directly related to the flaws in them (ala Roy Batty and Tyrell). Shaw is barren and cannot create life, but the black substance causes the Cthulu-facehugger thing to be created in her, which then turns on the Engineer responsible for her creation. This in turn causes a new being to be created from him in his destruction, the only other one shown in the temple mural. We already know what the purpose of that being is. The Xenomprph exists only to destroy ALL of these creations.

Note Shaw is a woman of some faith, specifically, Christianity. It is important to note that they arrive on LV-233 on Christmas day, and everything ends on New years day. Shaw asks the question about the Engineers near the end of the film that anyone would ask - "who created them?". It is also interesting to note that David put Shaw's father's cross in a jar on the Prometheus, but at some point he took it out and kept it with him. The fact that she took her cross back implies that she clearly still believes that there is the possibility of a creator (her sign-off voice over is "...last survivor of the Prometheus, in "the year of our lord" 2094, still searching), does not necessarily think it was the Engineers, and she wants to know why they changed their minds and decided to kill us. That answer should be obvious to her, but she still wants to know all of the answers, which leads us to the next chapter...


I loved this movie.
 
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Kit Rae, your interpretation of the events and the motives behind the events is why this movie is awesome! That was a great read!
 
The fact that she took her cross back implies that she clearly still believes that there is a creator, does not think it was the Engineers, and she wants to know why they changed their minds and decided to kill us.

Why does she still believe though? I don't recall seeing any moment in the film where it was implied that her faith helped her out of a situation, or that there was any sign that the Engineers believed in a similar god. There's nothing in the movie outside of "I'll just continue to believe" that motivates her to stick with her beliefs, which is no real development.
 
When it comes to the David character I think we have to take a few things into account.

Number one obviously is the fact he's not human. He is an artificial creation who was created by an extremely powerful man who's arrogant enough to try to cheat death. Who knows what Weyland ordered him to do in his quest for immortality.

Number two David is clearly very curious about everything. He seems to be very eager to learn and experience everything he can. It doesn't appear he sleeps and is probably absorbing everything around him to a far greater degree than we simple humans. He may not have the mental safeguards that humans have sort of built up over thousands of years to judge what should be attempted and what shouldn't be.

Number three I got the impression David was conflicted between serving his creator and freeing himself from him at the same time.

Number four is of course the "Ash" effect. Ash was not quite stable and he was probably a later model than David. Mentally David might just be a loon.
 
I never got the impression Shaw was a person of faith but a person who is willing to keep her mind open to the idea of creation and faith. I think she kept the cross because of her father and his comment about choosing to believe.
 
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