I am not going to be able to see it anytime soon so was wondering if its going to be worth seeing.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I hear its good, but yeah I'm still deciding whether to go see it.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
It's playing at the big old historic theater up the street, so I'm definitely catching a show. (I want to see it ... but playing at that theater is the icing on the cake for sure).
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
I saw it the other day and I'm still not sure whether I liked it or not. It's certainly not bad... It looks fantastic, it's well acted and the dialogue is good with the exception of one or two in-your-face expositiony lines. It's just the mythology that's a problem.
There's a lot to digest by the end and I'm not entirely convinced that the plot made sense, but since a sequel seems to be on the cards, it may well be that some of that ambiguity was intentional.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Saw it. Meh. It does neither itself nor Alien any favors by being so connected to it. And make no mistake, whatever you hear people (including Ridley Scott) saying...this IS an Alien prequel. The references are numerous and what is shown in this movie WILL affect how one interprets what is shown in Alien, and IMO not in a way that makes either more enjoyable.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Saw it, liked it, would recommend. YMMV.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
Ditto from Lucy and me. Saw it last week, noted the flaws, didn't care because it was entertaining.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
Oh, and the 3D is really not worth the extra £2 a ticket. Plus the extra quid for the glasses.
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
What the fuck is a quid. Damn limey's Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
About a buck fifty five. Bloody foreigners!
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
20 dollars here in Sweden, but the 3D was awesome. This is Scott back in the sci-fi game, not just visuals but plenty of subplots, hidden clues/secrets (visual and spoken).
Took 8 people with me and saw it, we all liked it, spent three hours after in a hotel bar, discussing it. Mmm, western decadence.
Here's an extremely dissecting blog post about the movie, discussing important and easily-overlooked cues and symbolism (as well as some open for interpretation). Don't read if you haven't seen it! It's meant to be watched with a blank slate.
Excerpt:
quote:Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot. I'd like to draw your attention to the use of motifs and callbacks in the film that not only enrich it, but offer possible hints as to what was going on in otherwise confusing scenes. Let's begin with the eponymous titan himself, Prometheus. He was a wise and benevolent entity who created mankind in the first place, forming the first humans from clay. The Gods were more or less okay with that, until Prometheus gave them fire. This was a big no-no, as fire was supposed to be the exclusive property of the Gods. As punishment, Prometheus was chained to a rock and condemned to have his liver ripped out and eaten every day by an eagle. (His liver magically grew back, in case you were wondering.) Fix that image in your mind, please: the giver of life, with his abdomen torn open. We'll be coming back to it many times in the course of this article.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
I liked RLMA's anal-ysis.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I'm always amazed at how much that guy's thoughts echo my own when it comes to this kind of thing.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Here's an extremely dissecting blog post about the movie, discussing important and easily-overlooked cues and symbolism (as well as some open for interpretation). Don't read if you haven't seen it! It's meant to be watched with a blank slate.
Excerpt:
quote:Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot. I'd like to draw your attention to the use of motifs and callbacks in the film that not only enrich it, but offer possible hints as to what was going on in otherwise confusing scenes. Let's begin with the eponymous titan himself, Prometheus. He was a wise and benevolent entity who created mankind in the first place, forming the first humans from clay. The Gods were more or less okay with that, until Prometheus gave them fire. This was a big no-no, as fire was supposed to be the exclusive property of the Gods. As punishment, Prometheus was chained to a rock and condemned to have his liver ripped out and eaten every day by an eagle. (His liver magically grew back, in case you were wondering.) Fix that image in your mind, please: the giver of life, with his abdomen torn open. We'll be coming back to it many times in the course of this article.
[/QB]
Sure. It's not because the name Prometheus sounded cool with test audiences. Fuck's sake, some people can (and do!) make a thesis paper out of any goddamn thing- I know several have been written on the Harry potter and Twilight books...and anyone that seriously thinks those subjects warrant a paper deserve to be barred from higher learning.
And the planet.
If it's got a lot of male rape symbolism, and I hear it does, then it's in keeping with Dan O'Bannon's original script for Ailen and it's good enough to get me to rent it from the dollar machine at the holidays.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I definitely think it does tie in with the Prometheus myth, though. You know, the guy who created Man from clay and stole fire from the Gods for him bit. The opening in particular called this to mind. My main problems with the film are with the execution, (particularly the uneven characterization and the obvious shoehorning of Alien references into its structure) not with the conceptual underpinnings, which are very fertile ones.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Sure, but that quote is a critic trying to make a popcorn flick wih a recycled Chariots Of The Gods 1970's premise into Shakespere.
And no, I have not actually seen the movie- only watched an interview with Ridley Scott embarassing himself and all of humanity by giving credence to such flakery.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
That quote was not meant to reflect the entire article, it was meant to indicate what kind of angle he takes in dissecting the movie: very detailed. Your cynical conjectures are not helping you in any way in understanding the movie or the style of the presentation.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The point is that a lot of these critics try and read insane depths into whatever they are writing about, seeing patterns in every scene that supposedly have some secret meaning that only they can tell us...
I recall reading some reviewer droning on about how the writers of NUBSG "obviously had the entire series planned before the first episode was shot"- which was total bullshit as they made it up as they went (like lost and plenty of others).
It's worse when someone reviews a classic like 2001, but any "legendary" director gets the fawning treatment- go back and read some of the glowing reviews for the laughably bad AI.
Anyway, I'll have to dig up the link where Scott talks about how "there's a ton of evidence that life was seeded on earth by ailens". I keep hoping taht was just to hype the movie and he's not a total flake.
[ June 17, 2012, 03:07 AM: Message edited by: Jason Abbadon ]
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Jason:
quote:I recall reading some reviewer
Oh, so guilt by association, is it? First of all, this isn't a reviewer. He doesn't pass judgment on the movie, he doesn't use any phony grade-system or thumbs-ups. It's a guy who saw the movie and wanted to write about his thoughts on the scenes, and he's dead on in many of the cases, but you need to see the movie first, otherwise this is all academical.
I will say that this is the first sci-fi movie in years that actually managed to be confusing and engaging, not simply spoon-feeding easy answers and solutions like George Lucas would do. "How did Vader get his suit? Easy! He got the whole set in one moment, in the exact design he then wears for the next 25 years. Cape included. No incremental development here, like a Vader-ish helmet and metal chest-piece to, you know, just save his life for the time being."
I am itching to go back and watch Prometheus in the cinema again, but I have to wait two weeks until my broke-ass uni student friends get payday.
This all happened so fast, by the way, that I haven't even had time to process the actual ships, guys. Prometheus itself is a fucking work of art. I recently rewatched "Alien" (extended cut 1080p) with my nephew, had to educate him before we went to the cinema. I was astounded by the industrial beauty of the Nostromo. This was the first time I made the connection to scale, how frigging big Nostromo actually is. When you see Ash in the little viewport, waving to the rescue team on the ground. 350-400 meter ship?
The USCSS Prometheus borrows a lot of the design themes from Nostromo, but is slightly more manageable and light, due to being a science vessel and not a truck hauler. I was of two minds about the engine cowls doubling as landing gear, but the sheer VTOL-ness of it worked for me.
Unlike "Phantom Menace"'s ill-explained tech overlap compared to ANH, the sophistication of Prometheus (holograms, touchscreens), due to being a science vessel and Weyland Corp's flagship, worked for me. IMO they totally nailed the bridge/cockpit design similarities with the Nostromo, as well as the white/red hallways and hatching doors.
What to say about the alien craft? It was all I hoped it would be, and just being able to see it unbroken and in working condition, even doing a little engine-spurt speed jump when accelerating, was a real treat, a full 25 years after seeing "Alien".
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
The shape of the alien ship was unmistakable. The moment Janek peeled back the layers of the scan and the shape appeared I knew we were dealing with the Space Jockeys. It had been a while since I saw Alien, so I didn't recognize the armour/biosuit right away. I had forgotten just how much bigger they were.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: I had forgotten just how much bigger they were.
In fact, the one in Alien is even bigger than the ones we see in Prometheus. The plan was originally to further enlarge them digitally ala LOTR, but Scott ultimately decided not to.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Yeah no shit. Fisticuffs would've been even more one-sided. But I would've liked it. A 4 meter tall demigod. With hands like the original space jockey, he could've easily done this.
Spoilers $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Even though I'm still nicely confused as to the whole new "circle-of-life" transpiring in Prometheus, I'm glad they went with the kind of impregnator they did in the ending, a regular little facehugger launching at an engineer probably would've gotten caught like a baseball in his fist and popped like a ripe tomato.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
$$$$$$SPOILERS$$$$$$$ Yeah, the black goo was the silliest compound ever made since red matter. It apparently creates a whole medly of creatures in addition to disolving you like an alka seltzer tablet, when it doesn't turn you into a zombie of course. How could the jockeys ever have thought they could use such a chemical whitout hurting themselves. While I'm glad I saw it, it does sort of over complicate the original Alien (although it can now be argued the xenomorph isn't technically an alien) film, and somewhat ruin the jockeys for me. I found the original jockey to be a tragic figure, a poor shmoe who picked up an egg on some distant world as a souvenir and ended up with a zerg poppin out his chest and laying eggs in his ship's basement. Nah, he was just some dick trying to exterminate humanity. I didn't care for the exoskeleton being a spacesuit either. Also I did notice in that one room with big head, depictions of xenomorphs. So did the jockeys know about em, I mean they were running from something. $$$$$$$$End of Spoilers$$$$$$$$$
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
I was actually happy and enticed to see the added sophistication of the Alien universe's "How Things Work, By Joe Kaufman". The other modern sequels went the other direction, needlessly simplifying and speeding shit up to the point of "Alien Vs Predator: Requiem", where one PredAlien could impregnate a person with 5-10 eggs that hatched within a few hours, turning the franchise into "Resident Evil".
If you want a little help in sorting the Prometheus-WhatGoesWhere out, $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$4 Here's a helpful guide. It won't be helpful to those that haven't seen the movie, as there are two objects in it that haven't existed in other Alien-movies.
Secondly, the causality of the chart might not be written in stone. The article I linked above reasons that the black goo acts differently on different subjects with different intent. I don't know what stock to put in it, but before the sequel is released it can't be disproved.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
$$$$$
My interpretation is that the black goo actually *is* the xenomorph in its earliest, purest, unbonded state. It is a lifeform that takes on different progressions of development depending on what other lifeforms it comes into contact and reacts with, but ultimately converging toward a certain inherent design, with certain overriding characteristics that inevitably present themselves in the process.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Wasnt black goo the ailens from X-Files basic form? They even called it "purity".
CROSSOVER TIME!
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
So I saw this on bootleg and, after laughing through it with friends the first time, decided to give it a second viewing because, hey, I did not like Blade Runner when I first saw it either.
Upon second viewing, I still thought it was awful- for many many reasons-
First, it suffers the bane of all prequels- it does not work with the later movies. At all. I mean...so much is wrong there- where is the pyramid(s) in thelater movies? Or the "many other ships"? You'd assume the colonists from Ailens would've noticed that- I mean, they did not just stick an entire bazilion dollar terraforming colony there without a basic surevey, right?. The crashed spaceship was driving distance from the colony after all, but I'm guessing Scott could care less about the movies after Alien.
Then there's the massive scale changes to the set where the Navigator/"space jockey" was found- in Alien, Ridley Scott wanted a bigger set than the budget allowed so he had three miniature spacesuits made up and put his children in them for the initial approach to the Jockey (seated pilot engineer) so everthing would be 2-3 times larger. In this movie, they just discarded the idea, making the set 1/4 the scale...which is odd considerig they had the budget and effects to do anything they wanted.
Then there's stuff like the second sarcogaphus with another Engineer in stasis- never mentioned again or seen in later movies, and of course, those props are not in Alien at all.
And then there's the terrible junk science- like the abortion alien somehow gaining enough mass to fill that entire chamber- from what exactly? It grew super huge super fast on a steady diet of nothing. Maybe it was paper thin and filled with air.
And in the future it seems all pretense at professionalism or scientifc method has been tossed out the airlock- not to mention any shred of common sense when dealing with contanimation. The main scientist (whom I think of as "dumbass") starts right off by endangering everyone by removing his helmet- sure the sensors detected nothing bad...but why would they? If there was alien pathogens or viruses, there woulud be no baseline to compare against. And the bozo gets shitfaced after returning to the ship- because nothing is smarter than getting hammered on the ship with no leadership, where two of the eight "scientists" just told him they quit, the "Captain" abandons his post and the two losers stranded in the spooky alien pyramid- for some nookie...the other two bridge crew must have been filming it or something as they're no where to be seen. But hey, later on they happily sacrifice their lives for the captain- despite there being zero shown to establish any loyalty to him..
The scene where the mian scientist performs surgery on herself was so Ed Wood bad that me, my roomate and our dates all laughed- the part with the grabber taking the abortion/alien out made us all howl with laughter! It's exactly like the grabber novelty machine, only with a slimey pissed off squid instead of a stuffed toy....then she gets STAPLED up and is up and running around?!? Noooooooooo waaaaaay innnnn heeeelllll. She was held together with staples and fear, but she was opened up at the upper abdomen- you cant even stand up if that area is damaged, yet she's moving and grooving into her Spiderman(!) wet suit in minutes.
And, of course, no sci-fi monster movie would be complete without a flamethrower...having one on a spaceship is about the dumbest thing ever....except for the baby grand piano. Nothing beats that. In an escape pod that thing would be a 500 lb flying object in the cabin.
Possibly worst of all is the utter and complete rip off of the X-Files for the alien black goo- Ripoff checklist: Black goo is alien's purest form, moves by itself. Check Humans are the result of alien black goo? Check. Black goo when ingested causes massive changes and or unkillability? Check. Aliens plan on wiping out humand for....well, just because. Check.
And David the incredibly advanced android can not only read the language of the Engineers but he can somefuckinghow SPEAK AND PRONOUNCE THE LANGUAGE!!! No...just..hell no. And of course, since no one is in charge, no one demands he translate all that writing for everyone else..it's like a D&D party where everyone is trying to out-screw over the others.
Lastly, and it's not generally known, Dan Obannon, when he wrote the original Alien, wanted to make the men in the audience squirm on a psychological level so he filled the script with all sorts of oral rape, bloody births, etc and Scott and Geiger took it further with the vaginal openings all over the ship and the vaguely phallic look of the ship as it sticks up in to the sky. In this movie Scott has abandoned any pretense at subtelty and gone for the full hentai approach- tenticles shaped like penises shooting down guy's throats? Give me a break, Ridley.
If the budget was not so huge and you took Scott's name off it, it would be a Scyfi movie of the week- Sharktopus 2: the Origin.
After discussing this at length at the traditional pre-internet forum for such things, a diner, the consensus is that what was most lacking from the movie was characters you can give a shit about and any scary or suprising moments whatsoever. While the original Scott epic will be forever creepy and suspenseful, this was...it was bad. Real bad.
quote:Originally posted by Nim: If you want a little help in sorting the Prometheus-WhatGoesWhere out, $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$4 Here's a helpful guide.
Regarding this chart, it does not explain a few glaring plot holes- like why the black-goo containers turned into eggs with facehuggers inside them or where the laser tripwire John Hurt's character falls through comes from.
My bootleg ends where the credits start- is there some extra super-extra-extended scene showing the Engineer going back, sitting in the navigation chair and the chestburster pops out of him, lays a bunch of eggs, cleans up the frothing containers, sets the laser tripwire and the distres beacon, hides the human bodies scattered about, buries the crashed escape pod (with it's fucking piano) and then...er...hides out on the other Engineer ship we see female scientist and her pet severed head taking off to go find the engineer's planet of origin to...um...get killed there by them?
Man, they should have made a comic book miniseries to explain the plot holes like was done for Star Trek.
All abject disapointment aside, Michael Fassbender is excellent- truly evil while still being somehow hypnotic in his portrayal. He gets top grades in a class full of failures.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I agree with and share many of your criticisms about the film, but I would point out one thing: it doesn't take place on the same moon of Zeta Reticuli as Alien and neither of the ships we see are the one from Alien. The film takes place on LV-223 and Alien takes place on LV-426. But the movie went way over the top with the "RECOGNIZE THIS FROM ALIEN" moments so I don't blame you for not realizing that.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
quote:I mean...so much is wrong there- where is the pyramid(s) in thelater movies? Or the "many other ships"? You'd assume the colonists from Ailens would've noticed that- I mean, they did not just stick an entire bazilion dollar terraforming colony there without a basic surevey, right? The crashed spaceship was driving distance from the colony after all, but I'm guessing Scott could care less about the movies after Alien.
The planet in Alien/Aliens is LV-426, the Prometheus-planet is LV-223, they repeat it many times. The climate is different, the topography is different. Both are located in the Zeta II Reticuli star system, but since star systems are bigger than solar systems, they could be very far apart.
quote:Then there's stuff like the second sarcogaphus with another Engineer in stasis- never mentioned again or seen in later movies, and of course, those props are not in Alien at all.
Again, different planet, different ship.
quote:Possibly worst of all is the utter and complete rip off of the X-Files for the alien black goo
Yeah the X-files didn't invent that, it's a trope along with Men in Black, grey big-eyed aliens and shapeshifters. Furthermore, the stuff in the X-files is sentient and mindcontrolling, the Engineers in Prometheus use their liquid as a catalyst. Why it works differently in different situations is discussed in the article I linked before.
quote: And then there's the terrible junk science- like the abortion alien somehow gaining enough mass to fill that entire chamber- from what exactly? It grew super huge super fast on a steady diet of nothing. Maybe it was paper thin and filled with air.
Despite the fact that there are species on earth that live their lives without eating, just working with the sustenance present in their bodies at birth, growing quickly from birth has been an Alien staple since the first Alien-movie. None of the Xenomorphs eat, the reach adult size in one or two days and their anatomy is silicon-based! Any earth biology preconceptions can be left at the door.
quote:Regarding this chart, it does not explain a few glaring plot holes- like why the black-goo containers turned into eggs with facehuggers inside them or where the laser tripwire John Hurt's character falls through comes from.
The eggs and the cylinders are not the same objects. Alien queens lay eggs, the containers just stood in an antechamber. The eggs of "Alien" were laid in another ship's cavernous cargo hold or similar room. The biosensitive field covering the eggs wasn't a laser field, it was just created by lasers by the film crew, most likely it was a bioluminescent pheromone field or such, floating above ground due to being lighter than the gas surrounding the eggs. Lots of animals on earth create perimeter sensors in their habitat, allowing them to notice a change in air pressure or scent and attack the unlucky stranger.
quote:In this movie Scott has abandoned any pretense at subtelty and gone for the full hentai approach- tenticles shaped like penises shooting down guy's throats? Give me a break, Ridley.
That's been in the franchise ever since the first facehugger (Kane got dick in his throat too, Ash stares at the sonogram of it), and famously by James Cameron in Aliens. Anyway, "give me a break"? Are your sensitivities suddenly offended by sci-fi gore? My theater cheered at that scene, finally some crowd-pleasing, old-fashioned sci-fi shock stuff, like in "The Blob". You don't put a battle tank/whaling harpoon/tentacle monster in a room in a movie unless you mean to use it, and they delivered.
The new "Total Recall" remake with Colin Farrell is nice and PG-13 now, director Len Wiseman copping out from (and diluting) the Verhoeven-legacy at every turn. Guaranteed to offend no one.
The choice of actors was poor for the supporting cast in "Prometheus", and Charlize Theron shouldn't even have been there, she just hogged the camera and chewed scenery, likewise they could've done more with showing engineer culture or showed other species that came looking and failed, but I hope they make a sequel that delves more into that. I liked Fassbender, but he took most of his cues from Ian Hurt and Lance Henriksen, especially after his "accident". The synthesized, hollow voice was almost a perfect imitation of Ash's "You have my sympathy"-speech.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Funny, I thought it did take place on the same world as Alien, what with the crashed space jockey ship looking how it did in Alien. And Jason, in the secret super ending, a full grown Alien xenomorph ends up coming out of the dead space jockey's body. It looks a little different from how it appears in the later films, but its still recognizable as the good ol' Alien from the Sigourney Weaver films.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Mars, I have since seen that "missing scene" online- which begs the question of "where is it?" later on- I always wondered as much of the obvious chestburster from the original alien....I also think Scott has some disdail for the Cameron and later Alien franchise movies as nothing in this can work with those later films- no Alien Queen laying eggs, etc.
Why a fully grown alien emerging from the Engineer? That's too stupid- I mean..'comon Ridley Scott! People KNOW it's an goddamn Alien movie already- no need to dumb it down further by not making what burst out a 'you know, chestburster. It's only one of the most memorable scenes in movie history....and YOU MADE IT!
Also, since my long winded rant, I have talked about this train-wreck of a movie wih another friend an she pointed out that, as with most sci-fi/horror movies, they set the ground rules at the begining- and where good movies stick to them, bad movies break them. In this case, they say very clearly that the atmosphere outside is unbreathable, yet Theron's character boldly walks outside with a goddamn flamethrower to kill the infected Professor Moron. They even go to great lengths to show that no, she was not an android, just cold and bitchy.
My friend said the crew made all the "Scary Movie" horror movie cliche' mistakes- splitting up,having sex, etc- in this case it's more the android David that plays the villian but that's no different than movies where some monster or machine or haunted house is used as a weapon to kill everyone off.
Still, NOTHING is worse and more blatantly ignorant than David being able to speak and pronounce the engineer's language. I mean...fuck's sake...are moviegoers really so stupid? Is Ridley Scott? Did he suffer head trauma sometime in the past few years or something?
Nim's right on Fassbender's voice- a great vocal match for the other androids- I'm sure he studied their performace. Such an interesting voice too- I'd buy any audiobook he nararated.
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: I agree with and share many of your criticisms about the film, but I would point out one thing: it doesn't take place on the same moon of Zeta Reticuli as Alien and neither of the ships we see are the one from Alien. The film takes place on LV-223 and Alien takes place on LV-426. But the movie went way over the top with the "RECOGNIZE THIS FROM ALIEN" moments so I don't blame you for not realizing that.
I dont buy this argument- I'd go so far as to think that the change is in fact an error on the moviemaker's part- it's WAY too much coincidence that the Engineer ship crashed exactly like the one in Alien- same everything- even the damage looks to be a match- and I've built that goddamn model.
quote:Nim Wrote: Despite the fact that there are species on earth that live their lives without eating, just working with the sustenance present in their bodies at birth, growing quickly from birth has been an Alien staple since the first Alien-movie. None of the Xenomorphs eat, the reach adult size in one or two days and their anatomy is silicon-based! Any earth biology preconceptions can be left at the door.
First no nothing anywhere ever grows without consuming mass- I know that in the original Alien movie (but not book) it does not seem to eat anything but we also dont see it for most of the movie, but by way of mouth and teeth, it obviously consumes something- something living, if you can scrap Promeheus' idiotic premises and view the Aliens from Cameron's movie as a unique and self sustaining species (even if modified or engineered long ago). Also, if the alien-squid-baby was made by the black goo changing the DNA of a carbom based daddy and a carbon based mommy and then "facehugs" a carbon based Engineer (and he'd certainly have to be to have seeded life on earth) then how would we get the scilicon-based critter from the 1978 movie? Senseless. even for "it's a popcorn movie" kinda Chronicles of Riddick" kinda movie, which I expected this would be better than.
Despite my snarky posts prior to seeing this movie, was was pretty psyched to see it- friends were over and I had sold watching this over my bootleg copy of the Avengers or something else. But we had fun anyway- in a MST3K kinda way.
I still blew ten bucks on this disapointment though.
quote:ALSO by Nim: The eggs and the cylinders are not the same objects. Alien queens lay eggs, the containers just stood in an antechamber. The eggs of "Alien" were laid in another ship's cavernous cargo hold or similar room. The biosensitive field covering the eggs wasn't a laser field, it was just created by lasers by the film crew, most likely it was a bioluminescent pheromone field or such, floating above ground due to being lighter than the gas surrounding the eggs. Lots of animals on earth create perimeter sensors in their habitat, allowing them to notice a change in air pressure or scent and attack the unlucky stranger.
So the laser was not actually a laser now? tha's a pretty huge stretch (and reminds me of the old -and lacking- "laser is not a laser Deathstar Laser defense)- and it being a laser tripwire that "alarm" for the eggs made alot of sense- to alert the crew if anything escaped or was not secured- say in a crash. Too bad the crew was busy being dead, but hey.
SO, to be clear- your supposition is that there was in fact an Alien Queen somewhere else on board, and an egg chamber, but it's...just coincidence that the thing that burst out of the Engineer looks just like a blue Alien?
Okay, I'll do your movie defense for you here and say that the Engineers capture naturally occuring Aliens from somewhere and distill the Alien's essense to use as a bio-weapon: possibly the black goo is some kind of "royal jelly" secretion that naturally makes an asexual or bi-gendered drone into a Queen when no female eggs are present to continue a hive (to bring Earth bees into the comparison). That would kinda make sense- and would explain the general shapes of the giganto hugger and final Engineer-alien.
But daaaamn that could have been easily shown! They could have had the initial search pass through a chamber with an alien queen, dead and dried out, along with dozens of eggs on a conveyor of sorts leading to some extraction device and the chamber with all the cylinders... That would have taken up what? Five minutes? I guess they needed to show the sex scene with the two idiot doctors more than anything story related.
I really wonder what the test audiences were like on this- what kind of feedback was given...or if anyone watched the movie prior to it's release at all.
[ August 16, 2012, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: Jason Abbadon ]
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
quote:Mars, I have since seen that "missing scene" online- which begs the question of "where is it?" later on-
Script and dialogue says that LV-223 is not LV-426, whether you like it or not. Barring a return to LV-223 in a future movie, we're probably not going to see that particular individual again, the scene was just a courtesy for us, an expensive bonus scene to make us fans happy, and most of us appreciated it.
quote:Why a fully grown alien emerging from the Engineer? That's too stupid- I mean..'comon Ridley Scott!
You're wrong, it is not fully grown, it's a newborn chestburster, just larger than human-spawned equivalents. It's still stunted and lacks a tail. If you are going to continue claiming that the Prometheus-alien is too developed to be a newborn, here's the newborn Rottweiler/Cow-alien from Alien³.
quote:I also think Scott has some disdail for the Cameron and later Alien franchise movies as nothing in this can work with those later films- no Alien Queen laying eggs, etc.
It's obvious that the "queen" role in Prometheus is filled by Shaw, negating the need for an egg stage in that particular incident. Shaw-facehugger/engineer-protoalien. That doesn't preclude future queens from other sources.
quote:Still, NOTHING is worse and more blatantly ignorant than David being able to speak and pronounce the engineer's language.
You have no way of knowing that. What we saw was David using his best guesstimate and approximation in a foreign language he'd studied on paper and in theory, then getting his head ripped off. Whether he insulted the engineer's mother, we'll never know.
An aside: that scene, gritty as it was, would've been 150% better if David's head, when all action was over and the room quiet again, had said "Whoops".
quote:if the alien-squid-baby was made by the black goo changing the DNA of a carbom based daddy and a carbon based mommy and then "facehugs" a carbon based Engineer (and he'd certainly have to be to have seeded life on earth) then how would we get the scilicon-based critter from the 1978 movie?
I'm gonna take a stab and say that the black goo provides the silicon blueprint/framework, which laid dormant until needed. The black goo is the macguffin, (see "Heisenberg compensator"), it does whatever is required of it, and is so far removed from calculable, measurable data as to be indistinguishable from magic at this point.
quote:Jason has the NERVE TO CONTINUE: So the laser was not actually a laser now? tha's a pretty huge stretch
Not at all, you beast. Kane calls it "a thin layer of mist, that reacts when broken", not a forcefield, not an electric barrier. To audiences of 1979 (go Nim!), laser-smoke effects were still a pretty big deal, but it was just meant to be funky. I think it's organic, you see smoke puffs coming from the floor (to make the beam visible, of course, but narrative-wise could be emitted from the dormant eggs). Hell, you have a primitive version of that covering your own skin, a few centimeters above the surface. Sit in a draft and lose that layer for long enough and you'll sneeze. Coincidentally, Kane did say it was "like the goddamn tropics in here". I say it's an organic biosensor, perhaps so the egg doesn't attack tumbleweeds?
quote:SO, to be clear- your supposition is that there was in fact an Alien Queen somewhere else on board, and an egg chamber, but it's...just coincidence that the thing that burst out of the Engineer looks just like a blue Alien?
No, I never claimed any queen or egg(s) exists in Prometheus' engineer ship. Quite the opposite, the intricate and bewildering mode of development in Prometheus precluded an egg stage, except for the one Shaw provided from her own broken babymaker.
quote:Okay, I'll do your movie defense for you here and say that the Engineers capture naturally occuring Aliens from somewhere and distill the Alien's essense to use as a bio-weapon
No, don't! That's oversimplification, the movie leaves it ambiguous which is chicken or egg or invented egg in "Prometheus". The canister-room has a mural depicting an Engineer "harnessing", sculpting or subduing an alien-like creature (without the Giger-headpiece), suggesting the engineers either stumbled upon them , made them or are their cousins, in some Jekyll/Hyde relationship. I prefer to think they scratch-built them, since the engineers are shown to be able to break themselves down into primordial soup at will. Even if just to get away from the office.
quote: possibly the black goo is some kind of "royal jelly" secretion that naturally makes an asexual or bi-gendered drone into a Queen when no female eggs are present to continue a hive (to bring Earth bees into the comparison).
That would kinda make sense- and would explain the general shapes of the giganto hugger and final Engineer-alien.[/quote]
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for hypotethizing about these kinds of things, that's Flare at its best to me. In the case of the goo, it's a macguffin and does whatever is needed of it, otherwise they would've stuck in a scene where Shaw and David looks at a holocomputer and discusses the goo in detail, other than the sweeping "it reacted to our entering the room" statement, which is kind of exotic to me anyway, almost sexy.
No, if Scott wanted to pander to the uber-fans he would've released a flow chart with goo-parts, obviously he doesn't put as much importance in that element of the mythos, any more than George Lucas indulges fans who ask how the lightsaber "blade" actually works (hint: Lucas calls them laserswords in work lingo, that's his level of commitment to that piece of the saga). I don't blame Lucas for some of his stances. I would punch any fan who came up to me and asked what Luke's favorite genre of "jizz" would be, if he had any?
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