PROMETHEUS REACTION, OPEN DISCUSSION WITH SPOILERS

[[STARS]TyranT]

Okay folks, given that so much of this movie is on what we don't know going in, it's only fair we keep the reaction seperate until it's opened everywhere.

TO THOSE THAT HAVEN'T YET SEEN PROMETHEUS...... THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO TURN AWAY BEFORE OPEN DISCUSSION BEGINS, THERE WILL BE NO SPOILER WARNINGS FROM THIS POINT ON.....

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Go for it folks, I'm seeing it in 3 hours, I fucking cannot wait, can't recall being this excited for a movie in years.

[TheBatMan]

You'll be disappointed. I know I was. It wasn't terrible but it should have been far, far better than that. Has Lindelof's signature all over it in terms of so many questions and no answers. The engineers themselves were fine but the worm things and mutated Fitfield were not needed and were simply shoehorned in because they thought 'Right, time is getting on and we need a monster and a bit of action.' And that Octopus? Wtf? Looked like O'bannon's rejected design for the face higger and would have looked more at home in THe Thing Prequel. And the ending with Shaw and David was awful. Why do the company now need to go to the planetoid in Alien when they now have a documented mission to LV223 where there is an engineer weapons base? Why not just go there again? And the inclusion of Peter Weyland was pointless. It honestly felt like it was done just to show Paul Anderson that his film has no place in this universe. He is basically Spencer from Bio 5.

Also nowhere near enough characterisation.

And don't expect to be scared.

Some parts were excellent. Fassbender was great, it looked fantastic, especially on IMAX. Gonna have to watch it again to fully dissect it but right now i'd place it above Resurrection and below the other three.

[Mr. Spencer]

And the inclusion of Peter Weyland was pointless. It honestly felt like it was done just to show Paul Anderson that his film has no place in this universe. He is basically Spencer from Bio 5.

I don't know about you but this sounds awesome in my book.

[TheBatMan]

I don't know about you but this sounds awesome in my book.

Oh yeah, nothing wrong with anything that kills off AVPs validity, but in the context of this film there was no need for the character.

[Mr. Spencer]

If I can ask, what does he do in the film? And what does he look like?

[Rick Hunter]

Weyland? He just wants to meet his creators before he dies. And I've never seen such a bad make up for an old person.

This movie is a huge pile of incoherent mess. The crew acts like total amateurs who don't take their jobs seriously, very realistic for a 3 trillion $ expedition. Hey guys, let's touch this cute and apparently very agressive alien snake! Also let's remove our mask and breath the air in an alien environement!

The most stupid part of the movie might be when Shaw walks around full of blood her stomach half open, and nobody wonders why, nobody cares about what happened to the squid, we don't see the two doctors again...

This movie is sometimes like a patchwork of incoherent scenes who have no relations between each others, featuring pointless things like the snake thingie or the zombie guy. And all the alien references have no point plot-wise and are just here as easter eggs for the fans, since the movie is obviously not a prequel to Alien.

From a Paul Anderson movie, I would have understood and expected such a result. But from Ridley Scott? He's really become a very bad director.

Oh, and the beginning of the movie... 100% copy-paste from AvP1. Very original... THE disapointment of the year for me.

[Mr. Spencer]

Wow, that makes Weyland sound...underwhelming. I thought he would be an insane old man vying for power.

[TheBatMan]

Guy Pearce is good for the few scenes he is in but pointless. Yeah a lot of flaws. Two characters get lost in the pyramid and one of them happens to be the geologist who is mapping the damn thing! And they get told about a possible life form and so purposefully head in the opposite direction to avoid it and yet when they meet the snake decide to play with it.

[Mr. Spencer]

Does he come across as villainous as an old man? You mentioned a similarity to Spencer in BH5.

[TheBatMan]

Not villainous as such but he is a deluded old man searching for the key to immortality. That is why he is hiding on the ship. He believes that if the Engineers created humans then they can also make him immortal.

And if you wanted to push the issue you could say Vickers was his Albert and David his Alex.

[Rick Hunter]

But instead he gets bashed with a cyborg head and dies less than a minute later.

Epic end. RIP his awful 70's old dude makeup.

[Mr. Spencer]

Wow, what a letdown. Was hoping for Spencer-esque levels of old malevolence, much like how Palpatine looked so frail and weak yet wielded considerable power. Like appearances being a deception, someone may look weak but actually give off this aura of power, authority and villainy. Sounds like Weyland was more of a pathetic and desperate old man who WAS as weak as he appeared.

Really disappointed if that's the case.

[[STARS]TyranT]

And in a (somewhat predictable you'll probably think) counter-punch....

I absolutely fucking loved it, me and the chaps I saw it with have been talking about it non-stop since we came out and have continued to digest it since via FB/texting. Do you know how long it's been a film has stayed with me, and left so many unanswered questions opened to interpretation that I can actually do it? It's mind blowing!

Working out the agendas, the creatures and the life-cycles that this 'ooze' creates is really fun for me, and I loved seeing the evolutions and such of the creatures. The whole film, whilst in no way scary, gives a rather unsettling approach as the it's about getting under your skin and changing you. I'd of loved to see what Holloway or Fifield would of become had they not been killed off.

I think the whole story is strongly connected to the myth of Prometheus, that human's have become too powerful and advanced that they in a sense now defy the gods, or the people that created them, so the Engineers created a substance that would kill them. But at the same time, that same substance (seen at the beginning) also creates 'us' in the first place. So their agenda is very murky in that respect.

I can't wait to see it again, and may go again this bank holiday if i've the time, and try and see it with a couple of new people to get their interpretation.

I can, however, see the issues that people have, and though they don't bother me so to speak, i'm not going to fight that opinion at all. I do know however if you go in, expecting the latest installment of the Alien franchise, you will be absolutely let down. It's not an Alien film at all, to the point where I don't consider it as part of that series, it stands on its own, even though it's the same universe. The appearance of the Alien at the end, was actually pretty unnecessary for me.

Couple of things:

Though the film is obviously leaving it way open for a sequel, my mate pointed out it's nicely bookended where it began, with Shaw searching for answers. And thinking about it like that it didn't feel quite so 'TO BE CONTINUED' as I first thought.
Guy Pearce was odd, and as much as I didn't mind Weyland being in it, it's a very similar appearence to Henrikson in AVP. Ridley's Weyland is a fuckton a better character though, and describing him as Spencer isn't too far away a description, they've a lot in common.
Charlize Theron's character jettison'ing to the planet at the end, only to meet a very quick timely demise was disappointing. Some we spoke to after the screening aren't convinced she's dead though.

Nice to see most of 'that' script leak being proved at bollox though, in that 'leaked' draft Charlize was supposed to be infected and become what the fans were effectively describing as a Star Beast, and when I saw the trailers and saw the tentacled creature, I thought for sure it was her. Nice to be surprised by it not happening


EDIT: Just read a fantastic theory - that the Engineer we see at the beginning of the film is 'Prometheus' and he, in giving us life creates what the Engineers see a false race, so create this ooze, to exterminate this insult to their 'deity'.

[Rick Hunter]

I think the whole story is strongly connected to the myth of Prometheus, that human's have become too powerful and advanced that they in a sense now defy the gods

Sadly 2000 years ago we were neither too powerful nor advanced, the luckiest of us were just peasants.

[[STARS]TyranT]

And yet we seem to possess better technology than the Engineers showed in the film, bar some snazzy holograms.

I'm actually now on the idea that Prometheus is the Engineer at the beginning, escaping the race and starting life on earth. The ship we see at beginning is odd, it's certainly not an Engineer ship as we know such as the derelict. This would also lead into the Engineers apparent disgust when he is awoken by the humans, and why he chaces Rapace down to kill her. They utterly loathe the abomination that their rebel 'Prometheus' created in his own sacrifise.

Forgot this in my initial post, but my mate who loves a lot of sci-fi - actually pondered the idea that with the Engineers having a decorative murial of Giger's Alien, (the wall that Holloway discovers behind the huge head) that they actually see that species as their 'god'.

A heavy criticism levelled which is right on the money, is that during the storm evac, Janek and Vickers would of seen from the probes that Fifield and the other chap weren't on the transports back - yet seem none-the-wiser when they quiz Shaw as to where they are. Distracted by the storm? I guess that's the only answer.

[Rick Hunter]

The ship we see at beginning is odd, it's certainly not an Engineer ship as we know such as the derelict.

Of course not. The derelict is a Juggernaut class warship, it's a biological bomber.

This would also lead into the Engineers apparent disgust when he is awoken by the humans, and why he chaces Rapace down to kill her.

His missions was to destroy humanity, and he's woken up by humans. Kinda normal that he wants to finish them off.

They utterly loathe the abomination that their rebel 'Prometheus' created in his own sacrifise.

If that was the case, why would they visit humanity during thousands of years and guide them through the process of evolution?

[[STARS]TyranT]

If that was the case, why would they visit humanity during thousands of years and guide them through the process of evolution?

That's never implied, in the same vein that what i'm suggesting, is never implied either. I simply don't have an answer as to how those pictograms end up in those caves...

But I cannot wait to discuss how they came to be.

Do Engineers.... Birth Alien Queens? I ask because the Proto-Xeno at the end, has a head within a head, exactly like the Queen. This would work very well with Alien, in that a queen would emerge from the Jockey, and create a hive in the lower parts of the derelict, which obviously Kane stumbles across.

[Rick Hunter]

Not the same planet, not the same ship sadly. No connection to Alien except references.

[[STARS]TyranT]

No I appreciate that - what I'm saying is, did a similar thing happen to that Jockey on LV-426, and as a result births a queen. Was showing what emerges from a jockey at the end of Prometheus a way of showing us, indirectly what will happen on LV-426.

[Rick Hunter]

No idea. The one in Prometheus isn't chestbursted, not the same process so...

And there's one more incoherence that comes to my mind. The engineers leave star coordinates to the humans to finally meet again someday. Why would those idiots give them the adress of a planetoid who's sole purpose is to produce biological weapons to exterminate life on other worlds? If you meet indians in the Amazone forest, are you gonna give them a map to area 51? That makes no sense.

Lindelof should stick with TV shows and stop writting movies, seriously.