Prometheus / General scifi discussion

[Phigure]

Man, I wasn't even high when I watched it either. Different pages indeed!

HUGE SPOILERS

edit: I will say though,

A 10ft engineer gives birth to a 6ft xeno and he doesn't even have a lump in his stomach. It just comes out of nowhere. Same goes for Roomy, the size of the creature they pull out of here is ridiculous. And how has it continued to grow (without any one noticing again).

This one didn't even strike me as a problem. I just assumed they grew quite rapidly, and then burst out. The size to which that horrible thing came out of Shaw grew afterwards, I guess gives some confirmation. I don't see why they mightn't just explain it like that.

NA Matching issue? Are you kidding me? The movie turns around 300 years of solid darwinistic theory by presenting some goo and then gives the Jockey's 100% the same dna as humans, but let's them breathe on the surface of a planet that is inhabitable for men. (the jockey in the end IS NOT wearing a mask). Also, you mean to tell me the Jockey's haven't evolved ONE bit in BILLIONS of years.

I assumed that as a species they were extinct, they did mention that. That one was left which had been in some sort of preservation device told me that it wouldn't have evolved. Same concept of a human in cryo, it couldn't evolve 'cause it was in stasis. I don't find it rankles either that the film flies in the face of science and philosophy a lot. It makes a few other philosophical/scientific flaws when it talks about "mind and body" and the fact there's an AI which somehow has the capacity to feel. I guess that's just personal taste. A film's scientific or philosophical accuracy does get on my nerves a bit when it gets really contentious, but it's never decisive. The breathing outside might be a bit of a continuity error though yeah, when do you see it do that though? (I can't rememeber).

Fair enough though mate, I can't answer for every flaw but in the end I just don't feel like they take that much away from it - it still really moved me in a lotta ways.

doesn't matter if the space jockey wouldn't have evolved, the human race would have still been evolving since then. it's fucking silly

[joeki]

I only smoked one, about a half-hour in advance. 3d shit was pretty cool. The best 3D shit was actually this Bacardi commercial when a snake comes up and strikes at you, was the biggest scare I had all film (lol snake...oh irony).

Slight Spoilers


But the evolving part is Billions of years man. Remember, theres so many years between creation of life on Earth and the events on LV-223 (meaning the aliens killing their masters roughly 2000 years before the movie), they should have evolved between that period of time, not after the deadly events and cryostasis.

I moan a lot about the mistakes and confused script. But my main fault lies still with involving Aliens in this movie, which wasn't necessary. Yes they fucked up the Space Jockey, but now they also limited the Aliens to something pretty human. The space jockey's are simply human in everything they do, there's simply no sense of Alien, incomprehensible, fear of the unknown: that has all been taken away, the entire universe as presented in the Alien trilogy has in fact become human. I don't like that because it contradicts the first Alien movies (or at least the feeling they invoked) very much (in my opinion).
The fact that the movie is generating some discussion is a slight positive I guess. And as for the Jockey without Helmet, before he comes to kill Noomi, he's not wearing a helmet, the holograms are however, so it's simply a mistake in continuity.

[esfandyar]

brometheus

[AntlionUK]

the most important, significant thing in all films – I don’t give a sh*t whether it’s science fiction or a western or whatever – is the goddamn screenplay. Get the screenplay right and all this technology enhances it. But when the screenplay is weak… The technology is the means to the end, the screenplay is the end. If you get that right first, the rest is relatively straightforward.

[Ridley Scott] Today, if I hand you a script, your name’s going to be right across every page, so if it comes out and your page is there, you’re going to get your knees whacked in the carpark.

[Damon Lindelof] That’s not a euphemism.

[RS] We don’t f*ck about.

This one made me LOL.

She's not talking to Mr Weyland – she’d never meet Weyland, she'd never be allowed to, wouldn’t even meet the secretary – it’s like a HAL eye, she’s applying to a job to the eye, which in turn is being watched by a minion, who gets a secretary, and finally gets to Rupert Murdoch, then actually to Weyland.

That person at the beginning, if we are created by gods or monsters – and there’s no gods, it’d be singular, probably, because every religion today – which creates more problems for us today in the entire global system than any other single thing – they’re all actually worshiping one dude, really. I don’t give a damn whether it’s muslim or you name it: in theory, it's one person. I believe that we were pre-visited. It's ridiculous to think otherwise.

http://www.t3.com/features/ridley-scott ... rets-to-t3

Pretty good interview, has kind of swayed my opinion slightly.

[joeki]

Ah, I see so it was just a case of Scott going demented.

[noam]

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/fi ... news.reads

[wysockisauce]

I thought it was ok as a stand alone film. People just got way too hyped for it thinking it would be the next Alien (including myself).

3D and cg was fine, didn't find it distracting.

Acting and Directing was good. It didn't have a dark vibe like Alien did, but then again I don't think it was meant to.

SPOILERS

The story could have been better, I really think this movie tried to do too many things at the same time and ended up lacking direction. It took the origin of life on earth, the idea of evolution/mutation, Artificial Inteligence, the idea of mortality, biological/genetic experimentation/modification and the origin of xenomorphs and packed it all together into a 2 hour movie never really going into detail on any of these. As a result it was hard to draw any sort of conclusion on what the writer/director were trying to tell us. Still it is nice seeing these things being brought up in a movie today and I left the theater thinking about all of them which to me is a sign of a good movie.

It seems like they made the same mistake with the characters as they did with the story. 17 crewmembers on the prometheus, what the fuck? We never really got to know any of these characters because there simply wasn't enough time. I only really felt like I knew David at the end of the movie.

The whole Space Jockey portion was actually pretty good in my opinion.

We know they seeded the Earth with their DNA and that we are their direct descendants (carbon copies perhaps).

It is possible that they are at the end of their evolutionary chain which is why they havent changed much since seeding the earth (perhaps it is also the reason they seeded the earth?) Us being the descendants of an evolutionarily "finished" race could explain why our DNA is a match to theirs thousands of years later.

You can tell some things about the world they come from and their civilization based on their appearance. Theyre big and muscualr, meaning their world is probably massive and has a strong gravitational force. They're pale and have big eyes meaning either their world is has very little sunlight or that they spend very little time on the surface. The only real difference between us and them is skin tone and size both of which can be attributed to the environment on our planet.

As for the mysterious goo it could be one of two things, either a gift or a weapon which also ties into the reason for our creation. A labor of love or war?

They create us for fun, because they want to play god (ties a bit into david here). They visit us early in our development and tell us to visit a certain planet knowing by the time we are able to reach it our civilization will be mature enough to understand the "gift" they want to give us. The gift being a way to quickly mutate our bodies to adapt to environments we normaly couldn't survive in. Giving us the ability to colonize new worlds either for the heck of it or if something goes wrong on earth. (This ties into the theme of mortality and Weyland) There are some points against this. Why was the "engineer" so agressive towards the crew? Was it because of david? Did he think we strayed from the path by creating AI? Was he taking the ship and leaving thinking we weren't worthy?

They create us as a weapon. They visit us early in our development and tell us to visit a certain planet knowing by the time we are able to reach it there will be enough of us on earth to give good yields for their weapon. An army of quicky adapting, super strong, violent zombies (Fifield)? Again there are some counter points. Why would they leave the goo for us on the planet they told us to visit? They didn't think we would catch on to them and try to stop them after experiencing it's effects? Why take that risk?

The Alien bit at the end was amusing and more of a fan service than anything. I think it was stuck on there haphazardly and pointlesly though.

Some things I didn't understand. Why was there a pile of Space Jockey corpses? Why was one of them decapitated? Why were they running in the hologram? Why did his head explode? The only thing I can really think of is that there was a faction of "engineers" opposed to whatever the reason for the goo was.

By the way, I thought the scene where the "engineer" put his hand on David's head was beautiful.

[Phigure]

So I finally saw it and a lot of what you guys said was totally right.

I thought it was a really good movie on it's own except for a litany of gaping plot holes and a real lack of character development (except for David really). The special effects were great, the design and style of the whole movie was really cool, had some good horror and suspense moments, etc.

Definitely agree about it taking way too many directions and sort of failing at all of them.

It is possible that they are at the end of their evolutionary chain which is why they havent changed much since seeding the earth (perhaps it is also the reason they seeded the earth?) Us being the descendants of an evolutionarily "finished" race could explain why our DNA is a match to theirs thousands of years later.

That's not how evolution works. Evolution isn't a process that "finishes", it happens randomly, and it doesn't just "turn off".

You can tell some things about the world they come from and their civilization based on their appearance. Theyre big and muscualr, meaning their world is probably massive and has a strong gravitational force. They're pale and have big eyes meaning either their world is has very little sunlight or that they spend very little time on the surface. The only real difference between us and them is skin tone and size both of which can be attributed to the environment on our planet.

That's not how evolution works either. Yes, they very well may be big and muscular because of high gravity, and the may be pale and have big eyes because they live on a dark planet, but that would result in different DNA. Natural selection creates these changes in the DNA. Two genetically identical organisms will be the same regardless of the environment they live in.


Here's some questions I have (I know I had more but I've forgotten because there's so many"

David is implied to be programmed by Weyland and exists to serve his wishes. Then why does David infect Holloway? How does he even know that it would infect him, and how does he know just one drop would do something? Wouldn't infecting him and endangering the entire crew go against Weyland's goal of meeting his maker and being saved? Also, it seems like he knew Shaw would become pregnant as well... How?

Why/how does the black goo create so many different forms of aliens? It all seems to be the same goo and it seems to have very different effects. There's the "new" facehugger that jumps on the "comedic relief guys" and turns one of them into a weird mutant human, there's the squid thing, there's the "new" alien that comes out of the Space Jockey (also it's fully grown and yet there's no bulging or anything on the SJ?). Then there's also the original facehugger and original alien, but they don't come from goo; they come from eggs. Then there's also the SJ at the beginning that drinks it, and doesn't mutate; he just falls apart and creates life on Earth. What?

It seems pretty clear that the pictograms were an invitation. Then why do they want to kill us? Why does the SJ react so violently to the humans (and David)? They created us, and clearly visited us at points in our evolution (up to a few thousand years ago). What made them decide to kill us all?

There's obviously multiple ships, and it seems like they're intended to go to different planets. Is it just me, or is it a giant coincidence that the first ship they enter is one programmed to go to Earth?!? This planet either has ships like this all over it, or they happened to come across the single "SJ airport" (which would also be a giant coincidence).

Some things I didn't understand. Why was there a pile of Space Jockey corpses? Why was one of them decapitated? Why were they running in the hologram? Why did his head explode? The only thing I can really think of is that there was a faction of "engineers" opposed to whatever the reason for the goo was.

This seems pretty obvious to me. This was clearly some sort of military base where they have all their ships and the cargo (the black goo, which they drop on planets to wipe out indigenous life). They had a security breach/outbreak and their own alien weapons turned against them and killed them. He was decapitated because the door closed on his head (you can see it in the hologram). I think his head exploded because he was infected with the goo (or simply because they fried the shit out of his brain and his weird biology just ended up exploding).

I don't get why there's holograms though, and if the space jockeys were wiped out, who made them?

[unwind]

Wow... Didn't think there'd be this much negativity about it!
I really enjoyed it... It's not often that I come out of a film thinking, "Wait... So what did that mean... How did they get there?... Why this? Why that?".
The fact that they left a lot of things open worked very well. You're not supposed to know the answers to everything. You're seeing it as a human, just like the crew of the ship. You know just as much as they do.

The way I see it... They came to earth and seeded it with their DNA, from which humans as in homo sapiens came about. Obviously we are not going to look exactly the same as them because our atmosphere is different, the length of day and night will almost certainly be different etc... We as humans are a result of their DNA manifesting in earth's environment.
My guess is... they seeded earth with their DNA... Probably one of many planets they have terraformed. Obviously they are monitoring it from a very long way away. They see that it's not going to plan, so they decide the planet needs to be purged... Either that or they were planning to genetically engineer us into a race of hyper intelligent killing machines.
Also on the DNA subject... Phigure said "Two genetically identical organisms will be the same regardless of the environment they live in.". Look at dogs. Labradors are among the same species as Great Danes. They both share the same DNA, but are different in size, colour and build. It's the same principal here I believe.

The Bio weapon to me seemed like it was effectively a virus that breaks down DNA and reforms it in a way that is probably dependent on the environment surrounding it? As you see in the scene at the very start, the 'engineer' drinks the liquid crystal stuff, which attacks his own DNA, breaks him down completely and then once in the water begins to reform his DNA. I think it's already established but I'm pretty sure that scene is on earth.

Also if they are at such an advanced state of existence how do we know they hadn't previously engineered their own DNA? How do we know that they hadn't engineered their own existence to it's highest potential and somehow inhibited evolution? Just a thought.

Also when they find the engineer's severed head they say that it's been there for roughly 2000 years, meaning the events that killed them obviously happened that long ago. 2000 years? Are you kidding me? Just an idea, but this to me says HEY, THIS HAPPENED AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME AS WHEN WE CRUCIFIED JESUS, WHO SAID HE WAS THE SON OF GOD. Engineers = God. Engineers made Jesus to go down to try to get humans straight after we started running around and killing each other a la Roman Empire and those before it. Before that, they thought, yeah they're doing alright, we could go and kill them whenever we want, but they're doing ok so let's give them a chance. We failed, therefore they got ready to come and destroy us, which is when things went wrong at their end. And strangely enough, they land on LV-223 on Christmas Day.

The SJ attacked the humans that woke him because we were a futile experiment... All of the ships on that planet were designated to travel to earth to wipe humans off the planet. The SJ wakes up, looks at them and realizes what they are. He admires David as if to say "Aww, look what our itty bitty humans gone and done!", then destroys him and the rest of them because they are futile, and possibly something to do with us killing their space messenger.

In answer to a few of Phigure's questions:
About David - I don't think he necessarily knew it would infect Holloway. I think he did it purely to see what effect it had on living humans.

About the black goo. I think it's a synthetic organism that reacts differently according to it's surroundings or the DNA it attacks. Because it exists on a microbial scale, it's evolutionary process is incredibly fast. Myabe they designed it to react and adapt/evolve at such a speed? The thing is we don't know and probably aren't meant to find out what the engineers were actually aiming to achieve through it's use.
I think the squid thing is the result of shaw having sex with holloway - human DNA infused with black goo which impregnates a human egg. The thing that comes from that obviously grows incredibly fast and the concoction of DNA that makes it up was obviously never meant to infect an engineer. The result of which is the first 'Alien'. The reason there was no bulge in the SJ is because the organism doesn't take nutrition and grow from it over time, but rather consumes organic tissue and uses it to rapidly accelerate growth. So basically it eats everything inside the SJ and uses it to build it's own DNA structure. It's like a mutated form of the bio weapon they created for use on themselves - it was never intended to impregnate an earth human.

I think the holograms were there for any other SJ's that might have come to the planet after the incident. It would tell them the last things that happened.

All in all it's a film that makes you think. Really, really really makes you think. That's what I love about Sci-Fi. This one has made me think more than most, which is why I give it a strong 8 out of 10.

There are a few holes in the story, but I think that gives it added depth. The holes could be filled with any number of reasons, multiplied by the fact that we simply cannot comprehend what a race such as the engineers could be capable of. About the crew: I wasn't the least bit interested in the crew to be honest, apart from Shaw and David. The rest of them seemed to just be there for the sake of it. There were 17 members of the crew. You didn't need to know or become attached to all of them... If any of them... The real gem lies in the ideas of the story, and what could come from them. Who actually are the engineers? Where did they come from? Why did they create us? How did they create the black goo? What is the black goo? If they are so advanced, why did they not make the black goo more stable? Are they still only as naive as we are? Creating a substance capable of destroying and rebuilding worlds but carrying the risks that it does?

I can't type any more, my head hurts

EDIT: I just remebered the bit in the place with the human head monolith... There were maggots crawling around and you see them crawling into the black goo. Then the two comedic relief guys get eaten by giant worm snake things. To me that says straight up that the black goo is some sort of rapid genetic mutator. Explains alot about what happens to everyone and everything that comes into contact with it.

Edit again: after reading this it all makes a hell of a lot more sense. Read it. Seriously.

[wysockisauce]

Nice link unwind some interesting points in there. The only thing I don't agree with is the goo magicaly becoming tainted after we kill christ, unless the "engineers" taint it themselves to use it to wipe us out, although the goo itself doesn't actually kill anyone in the movie...maybe it's just a punishment? Heaven vs Hell ? Haha

@ Phigure
As for the evolution bit, sure thats how it works. A random mutation gives favorable traits that add to the possibility of survival and procreation which over many generations spread to the entire species. If mutation no longer aids survival and procreation in a particular environment evolution stops. This is also called natural selection as far as I know.

[garethom]

Thought twice about seeing this after all the negativity, but I actually quite enjoyed it!

[Phigure]

Also on the DNA subject... Phigure said "Two genetically identical organisms will be the same regardless of the environment they live in.". Look at dogs. Labradors are among the same species as Great Danes. They both share the same DNA, but are different in size, colour and build. It's the same principal here I believe.

actually, their DNA is different. their DNA is just similar enough that they can still cross breed

The Bio weapon to me seemed like it was effectively a virus that breaks down DNA and reforms it in a way that is probably dependent on the environment surrounding it? As you see in the scene at the very start, the 'engineer' drinks the liquid crystal stuff, which attacks his own DNA, breaks him down completely and then once in the water begins to reform his DNA. I think it's already established but I'm pretty sure that scene is on earth

fair enough, i can see how that makes sense. I also read a bit on the internet about how a lot of the engineer stuff is based off Sumerian legends. In the Sumerian legends, there's Gods and then theres gods, who function as their helpers. In the legend, the supreme gods sacrifice one of the demigods to create man. In the concept art for Prometheus, some sort of superior being to the engineer gives him the black goo and gets him to drink it and start that cycle. Which also makes sense because the spaceship at the beginning seems very different from the ones featured later in the movie.

Also if they are at such an advanced state of existence how do we know they hadn't previously engineered their own DNA? How do we know that they hadn't engineered their own existence to it's highest potential and somehow inhibited evolution? Just a thought.

I guess, but I think there's almost always going to be room for improvement

Also when they find the engineer's severed head they say that it's been there for roughly 2000 years, meaning the events that killed them obviously happened that long ago. 2000 years? Are you kidding me? Just an idea, but this to me says HEY, THIS HAPPENED AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME AS WHEN WE CRUCIFIED JESUS, WHO SAID HE WAS THE SON OF GOD. Engineers = God. Engineers made Jesus to go down to try to get humans straight after we started running around and killing each other a la Roman Empire and those before it. Before that, they thought, yeah they're doing alright, we could go and kill them whenever we want, but they're doing ok so let's give them a chance. We failed, therefore they got ready to come and destroy us, which is when things went wrong at their end. And strangely enough, they land on LV-223 on Christmas Day.

ooooh now, THAT is interesting.

About David - I don't think he necessarily knew it would infect Holloway. I think he did it purely to see what effect it had on living humans.

Isn't that a bit irresponsible if the eventual goal was to try and make Weyland immortal? Let's just take this weird goo that might be very harmful and also contagious, and give it to one of the crew members. Nothing could go wrong! I think androids are a lot more logical and don't just take silly risks on a whim, so I think you can either look at this as a plot hole or a flaw in the character - either way it's kind of stupid.

About the black goo. I think it's a synthetic organism that reacts differently according to it's surroundings or the DNA it attacks. Because it exists on a microbial scale, it's evolutionary process is incredibly fast. Myabe they designed it to react and adapt/evolve at such a speed? The thing is we don't know and probably aren't meant to find out what the engineers were actually aiming to achieve through it's use.
I think the squid thing is the result of shaw having sex with holloway - human DNA infused with black goo which impregnates a human egg. The thing that comes from that obviously grows incredibly fast and the concoction of DNA that makes it up was obviously never meant to infect an engineer. The result of which is the first 'Alien'. The reason there was no bulge in the SJ is because the organism doesn't take nutrition and grow from it over time, but rather consumes organic tissue and uses it to rapidly accelerate growth. So basically it eats everything inside the SJ and uses it to build it's own DNA structure. It's like a mutated form of the bio weapon they created for use on themselves - it was never intended to impregnate an earth human.
I just remebered the bit in the place with the human head monolith... There were maggots crawling around and you see them crawling into the black goo. Then the two comedic relief guys get eaten by giant worm snake things. To me that says straight up that the black goo is some sort of rapid genetic mutator. Explains alot about what happens to everyone and everything that comes into contact with it.

good points as well, I think it all makes a bit more sense now

I think the holograms were there for any other SJ's that might have come to the planet after the incident. It would tell them the last things that happened.

I just think they're far more advanced, and should be capable of leaving better records than some silly, vague holograms that last for a few seconds.

[d-T-r]

will just leave this here





Not seen it yet but will do soon, even if i already know its a hijacked piece of communication to make people eve more scared of Aliens (mixed with entertainment of course.)

in before;
tin foil etc

[notdecidedmusic]

Check out the name of my tune. (Alien related)

[AntlionUK]

wut da fuk

[DRTY]

just saw it, and don't rate it.

[joeki]

The whole "leaving you with questions it doesn't answer" = interesting bit I don't agree with. There's good ways to do this (within this franchise, see Alien 1: they did it well and it's the reason this movie even exist). And then there's a contemporary way of doing it: They way the writer from lost did it. It's stupendous.

But again, that's not even the problem for me, for me they gave TOO MANY answers and as a result, despite it being a stand-alone movie, it has simply completely contaminated the Alien franchise with Human bullshit.

That's the problem and it has little to do with whether the movie was entertaining or not, the script was good or not, the plot-holes put you of or didn't bother you at all, you liked the soundtrack or you didn't...<= I personally think all of that is debatable, my first point raised isn't in my opinion though.

And the expectations bit gets blamed too often on the viewers. But it is really only the fault of the creators and promoters of this movie. Despite whatever claims Scott may have made during or after the production. They applied too many marketing techniques for that straight out of the manual. I didn't go in expecting an Alien prequel, but it sort of turned into one anyway, a bad one for me.

[NiGHTS_24]

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html

an interesting read.

[OfficialDAPT]

Just saw it and it was pretty average....

[AllNightDayDream]

110% agree with joeki. Complete shit. Was flustered afterwards. However, I thought the 3d effects were pretty neat, even though they only lasted for about the first half hour.