Official Prometheus Discussion Thread!!

I wonder if the script suffered from the same thing that Salvation did. I have read so many different things about this script over the years. I wonder if it was intended to be something else at first and over time with changing things became this.
 
[quote name='JasonTerminator']I thought it was pretty clear that the beginning was
The seeding of DNA for life on Earth.
[/QUOTE]
Not really.
In an interview, Scott said that it could be Earth or any other planet. The act itself is what was important; not the location. Turns out that there was cultural significance to the act
I did some digging after I read your post.

And as people have said,
you wake up from going on a mission to wipe out humans, only to see them right there, might have freaked him out a bit. The fact that David spoke their language might have scared him into thinking that they read their plans somewhere and knew what they were going to do.

Or was the engineer supposed to just ask them to get off the ship while he goes to wipe out Earth?
Click to expand...
This is a popular theory, but I don't buy it.
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']I think the point is that you can not simultaneously claim the movie is awe inspiring with such deep complex thought yet show the exact opposite the entire time. Its lazy.

For example....you just said they david speaking his language might have scared him? Just how the fuck did you come to that conclusion...beacuse what actually happened was he stared blankly for 20 seconds and then murdered everyone. Thats it..shut it all down...clearly than can be no performance better than this guy who played the space jockey...he managed to delivery all types of emotions without doing anything.


Now I am not knocking you for coming up with that. Maybe its because I work in TV/Film and I interact with script writers all the time but that is the lazies form of writing. Its like that guy everyone knows who has all of these apparent million dollar ideas but he can never get it off the ground. Part of directing is showing what your vision is...not throwing the lowest form of it out there and having the viewers come up with it.

I thought the movie was just going to be a pop corn flick but its clear that Scott wanted much much more....he was just either too lazy or the studio killed to much of it to finish.[/QUOTE]
I kinda agree with JasonTerminator in regards to
it's something that we just can't know
and it's one of the themes of the movie. The more I think about it and read about it, its subversive nature and existential nihilism becomes more clear to me. Obviously it doesn't make it a tighter movie in regards to storytelling, but it explains more thematically and the craziness that we're seeing as plot points are really irrelevant.
 
My main problem with the movie was much greater than faith to canon, or even nonsensical moments/plot-holes.

My main problem with this movie is that it has no idea what it is.

Several moments during the film you can see EVERYTHING CHANGE (from a genre standpoint). People argue that this movie is undoubtedly a Sci-Fi and in the long run it is, but then it tries to be an Action movie, and then it tries to be Horror, and then it tries to be Alien, and then it tries to be Avatar.

While I'm sure this last paragraph will get plenty of ire, (Cue: Fanboys explaining all of these elements can be in a Sci-Fi) I'm going to go into detail about the last two things this movie tries to be.

The minuscule bit I read about Prometheus before I saw it, portrayed it as a "Spiritual Prequel" to Alien. Going in I brushed this off, seeing it as something that would be more of a cameo or something putting Prometheus in the same universe as Alien.

So 2 Hours and 4 minutes later, I was sitting there with a big WTF on my face when
Mrs. Elizabeth Shaw full on rips off the ending of the original Alien shot-for-shot and there's a raptor of a xenomorph roaring at me in 3D

Soodmeg is right (Even though he's fanboying on Alien harder than anyone I've ever seen.) As an Alien Prequel even if it's Spiritual it's kind of an embarrassment. Especially to fans that love the franchise so much. However if you approach the movie as "just another film" it's decent, the effects are great, and the acting is pretty solid.

It's just difficult for fans of the franchise to watch this movie from the prospective of " just another film" when every five or so minutes they're shoving Alien down my throat. That's why it's getting compared to the greatest, and why it's hard to watch it as "just another film"

This movie is Ridley Scott's Avatar. That is one thing I had no doubt in my mind of, when I left the theater (From my perspective, I see it as Ridley Scott's Avatar not in the sense of plot as I'm sure people are likely to throw out I mean in both effects, and shooting style.) Unfortunately somewhere in the editing and possibly with studio pressure it turned into Ridley Scott's Avatar BUT WAIT THERE'S SOME ALIEN STUFF TOO!!!!!!!

I didn't hate the movie, I'd probably watch it again, but I'd much rather see what this movie was SUPPOSED to be and not what it turned out to be.
 
Yeah, I'd agree with that. The movie just has no identity, the plot is pretty straight forward, yet still manages to meander and have things come out of left field (likely due to things that were cut to get run time down to 2 hours) etc.

Worst of all, it was just mostly boring to me. But to be fair, that's just me. I'm not huge into sci fi, and don't have any interest in existential philosophical stuff about where we come from. If it hadn't had ties to Alien, it's not something that would have been on my radar of films to catch in the theater, and would have been a netflix at best. Especially since I haven't liked much Ridley Scott has put out over the past decade or so.
 
Just got back from seeing this movie, and I loved it...

Not going to add a whole lot to this conversation (I am stupidly tired), but one thing that I have noticed that alot of people take issue with is the alien at the end. I see no reason why it couldn't be a young queen, especially since in the very last shot when the head fully forms and the bottom part slides out (for lack of a better term) the front of its head is the exact same shape as the queen (if you notice, the normal drones do not have that elongated "face" area).

/shrug
 
I think what you have to keep in mind is that Prometheus takes place within the Alien/s universe and it isn't the story of how the actual LV426 space jockey got to LV426 or an exact origin story. It's just a side story that explains some shit, but not everything.

You really have to go into the movie forgetting how they marketed it and just take it in as it's own self-contained story because that's what it really is. If you go in with the expectations that people had with Lost with profound explanations, you're going to be pissed and disappointed.

You don't have to turn your brain off if you don't want, but if you don't, you really have to examine the the film as a whole and not break it up by plot devices. You're quite literally beat over the head with it and almost to the point of breaking the fourth wall.

tl;dr: Ridley Scott just trolled the world out of a billion dollars.
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']Other than the fact that Alien take on the traits of the people they burst out off. Big Homey was albino without an extra set of teeth....not pitch black with a cone like head.

Again....its just another thing that goes so completely against the franchise that it feels toss into there just to say its linked to Alien. Its fucking lazy.

If you wanted to link them in some way at least do the work and change it so it makes any sense. You already changed the Space Jockey...why didnt you just have them have 2 sets of teeth so it makes sense? Why didnt you have them black in color so it makes sense? I still havent found out why if 2 humans get together they produce a giant squid?[/QUOTE]

Maybe one of them had herpes. Man + woman + herpes + black goo = giant squid.

While I did enjoy the movie overall, I wonder what could have been. It really seems like this movie was intended to be either A.) a prequel to Alien or B.) a new attempt at a sci-fri franchise, but somewhere in development the two different ideas got tossed into a blender and we ended up with was a movie that doesn't really know what it is.

I'm interested in seeing all the cut material but I really doubt that material will make much of a difference in terms of the overall flow of the main story.

I would like to see a sequel due to the fact that so much was left unanswered, the story could be saved through further development.
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']I still havent found out why if 2 humans get together they produce a giant squid?[/QUOTE]

You really don't get that? Or are you being obtuse on purpose? If anything, you should question why a sterile woman who couldn't produce eggs would be able to fertilize anything - human or alien. The only way that works without being over-convoluted is that Shaw actually ovulated and produced eggs, just the eggs themselves were infertile for human reproduction. But super black goo sperm from the infected Holloway = alien baby making time because infected sperm made that infertile human egg work in a different way.
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']Other than the fact that Alien take on the traits of the people they burst out off. Big Homey was albino without an extra set of teeth....not pitch black with a cone like head.

Again....its just another thing that goes so completely against the franchise that it feels toss into there just to say its linked to Alien. Its fucking lazy.

If you wanted to link them in some way at least do the work and change it so it makes any sense. You already changed the Space Jockey...why didnt you just have them have 2 sets of teeth so it makes sense? Why didnt you have them black in color so it makes sense? I still havent found out why if 2 humans get together they produce a giant squid?[/QUOTE]

Right, because the xenomorph in Alien looked just like Kane...skintone and all...:roll:
 
[quote name='BillyBob29']Maybe one of them had herpes. Man + woman + herpes + black goo = giant squid.

While I did enjoy the movie overall, I wonder what could have been. It really seems like this movie was intended to be either A.) a prequel to Alien or B.) a new attempt at a sci-fri franchise, but somewhere in development the two different ideas got tossed into a blender and we ended up with was a movie that doesn't really know what it is.

I'm interested in seeing all the cut material but I really doubt that material will make much of a difference in terms of the overall flow of the main story.

I would like to see a sequel due to the fact that so much was left unanswered, the story could be saved through further development.[/QUOTE]

That's what I'm starting to think. I have read so much over the past 2 or 3 years about the film that it all seems like the film was changed to be different things over the writing phase.
 
What is official when it comes to the backstory? I have only seen the movies and only count Alien and Aliens as even being made. I know their are comics but what makes any of them official? I would just like to know that way when I get the time to start on some of the comics I know what I'm reading is cannon and why. Does anything other than the movies and comics even exist?
 
[quote name='sendme']What is official when it comes to the backstory? I have only seen the movies and only count Alien and Aliens as even being made. I know their are comics but what makes any of them official? I would just like to know that way when I get the time to start on some of the comics I know what I'm reading is cannon and why. Does anything other than the movies and comics even exist?[/QUOTE]

There is a bunch of novels too, but I have no idea which ones could be considered cannon or not... My personal favorite of the bunch (comics or books, that is) was Earth War, but those couldn't be considered
cannon by any stretch of the imagination. I haven't read them in literally ten years though at this point... which reminds me, I gotta go check the prices of the Alien Omnibuses. :lol:
 
I looked for books on Amazon once before but didn't see any. Odd how I just typed Aliens and I was able to find them.
 
If they had played that theme dramatic theme song one more time during the film, I would have screamed and flipped off the screen. Every single trailer before the film was amazing. The alien at the end didn't have a tail, did it? I don't remember if the "worker" aliens had tails, but I know the queen did. Also, I'm still confused why all those other engineers were running all over the place, and piled up near that door when the two human dudes found them. Were they running from whatever was in the containers? If so, wouldn't the creatures from the containers still be inside the structure? What happened to the other 3 engineers in the cockpit of the ship? There were 4 pods, but only 1 engineer in the pods. And was the very beginning of the film supposed to have been a future scene of an engineer infecting a planet?
 
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[quote name='Soodmeg']Ummmmm......the Alien were already created there buddy. Again, this is the problem when pretending that you are doing some strange origin story, the xenomorph in alien could have been a communist space monkey..it doesnt matter because the back story was unknown at the time.

The Alien look the way they do because and their home world is dark and covered in webbing.

Again....you probably dont know about Xenomorph Prime (the Alien Homeworld....where they come from....because they were not created as a bioweapon...because that would be retarded) and going off this mash up of randomness.

30 years of official backstory already exist its clear that a lot of people dont know about it which is fine but thats where I am coming from.[/QUOTE]

We don't know that they weren't already created in Prometheus.

Also the generally accepted rule for most franchises is that expanded universe material isn't considered canon unless specifically stated as such. I haven't come across anything specifically stating that it is for Aliens. That shouldn't take away from your enjoyment of said material but you can't hold the movies accountable for not staying true what has been depicted in the comics.
 
Seeing how they show a quick evolution of the xenomorph in Prometheus I'm going to say they were created in it. I don't know this for sure but that is what the movie lead me to believe.
 
I forgot all about them. I wonder why they showed what looked to be the evolution. The more I read what people say and the more I rethink about the movie the more I realize that it wasn't planned well. The quick evolution is the biggest part for me. Still not a bad movie if you shut your brain off.
 
Just saw it.

I enjoyed the movie, but agree with all the stupidity people have accused it of. I mean, mind boggling stupidity in this movie at every minute. But I'm a simple guy, so that self-surgery scene was entirely worth the price of admission for me.

And I don't know how to feel about the religious material used in the movie. Why is she so devout when her passion seems to be all about finding answers outside of the bible? I didn't think of her as the faithful type.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']And I don't know how to feel about the religious material used in the movie. Why is she so devout when her passion seems to be all about finding answers outside of the bible? I didn't think of her as the faithful type.[/QUOTE]

The answer is clear when she says something along this lines of "But who created them?" referring to the engineers. It seems her faith is in line with what the Catholic teaching is (and possibly other Christian denominations): Evolution, science, etc. is all good and wonderful and is how things work. But there is still a God who set this "plan" into motion and who is the ultimate creator of the Big Bang or whatever you want to say.

So why did the Engineers create us and want to destroy us? Who created them? What does that being think of what the Engineers want to do to us? Those questions aren't necessarily out of line with believing in God.
 
Ehh that's still silly logic for a scientist. Trillion dollar mission and all they have to say is "Because I believe!"

I really enjoyed her performance, it's just a lot of stupidity throughout the cast and premise that kept the movie from being amazing.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']Trillion dollar mission and all they have to say is "Because I believe!"[/QUOTE]


I don't think believing in a higher power and seeking out answers to questions they wanted was silly. But just believing they'd find SOMETHING there was silly. I mean they spent 2+ years traveling super far from Earth in a mission that cost trillions of dollars.... and they weren't even sure they'd find anything there. It was just a blind belief, a hunch, a guess. There were like 5 stars or something like that and they picked one moon of one planet because it was similar in size to Earth and close to Earth's position to the Sun. It's a huge gamble. For all they know, there was a full flourishing civilization on another planet around a different one of those stars and they missed it by looking for an Earth-clone. That whole idea is silly. Just send a satellite craft or robot or something. That's like what, a 5 year delay of the manned mission given their level of technology? For being scientists, nearly every action the took was damn near unscientific.
 
It's a much more enjoyable movie once you stop trying to make any sense of it. I mean shit, it had the same writer as Lost and Scott is trolling the hell out of everybody.;)
 
I hope we can see the full conversation in the DVD with David and the Space Jokey. I'm also wondering what all that was cut will be on it. If it does not have a directors cut it will not be worth getting to me. Even if it has deleted scenes it is still not worth a buy.
 
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