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[Promeephus] This movie is bad and you should feel bad.
Atomika
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
http://youtu.be/sftuxbvGwiUPrometheus. The legendary Titan who made the first men from clay, and gave to them the knowledge of the Gods, which he stole at great cost. His reward was eternal damnation and endless suffering. Not a cheery moniker for Ridley Scott to select for the precursor to his own original space horror classic, Alien, but one that proves apt over the course of the film. Like the face-hugger said to your entrails, let's dig in!
First off, is this film any good? Well, yes. Yes it is. Very good. Except when it isn't. And yes, watch out for spoilers.
The film is worth the price of admission alone for the photography. Dariusz Wolski, previously of the Pirates of the Caribbean films and genre favorites like Dark City, turns in what will forever be his masterwork. This film is truly a wonder to behold, and Wolski's compositions are easily the best I've seen this year (no small feat); take a look for yourself:
Every frame of this film is a work of art and a clinic of informational efficiency, and I applaud Wolski's understanding that color palettes are not the same thing as color filters. I could probably watch the opening credits of the film on a loop for hours and never tire. As well, the presence of depth in the 3D versions of the film is superb, and by the middle of the film you feel so immersed in this world that its persistence feels wholly organic.
I also applaud Ridley Scott going to where he did with the story. Now, the script of this film isn't perfect, and I'll get to that shortly, but one thing that must be lauded is the fact that this film does not go for the easy hook. There's no doubt that Ridley Scott could have made Alien 0, marketed it as such, and rolled around in the forthcoming money silo; his name coupled with the brand recognition is a surefire hit. However, that well has been gone to. A lot. Like, four fucking times already, each one worst than the last. Similarly, Robert Rodriguez already did that with the sister franchise, Predator, by trying to remake the first film and that resulted in a film that limped into profitability and will be long remembered by no one. So kudos (and Kodos) to Ridley Scott for doing with a prequel what isn't the obvious, and exploring the world suggested by a prior film instead of just heading further down the same corridor in a bigger, faster, louder fashion.
Simply put, Prometheus is not a film I expected.
However, the film works best as a work of tone and visceral appeal. The questions and fears explored in this film are timeless: Why are we here? What is our purpose? Where do we come from? These are themes of existentiality that humans have been trying to satisfy for eons, and this movie counters those questions with the most feared results: What if we don't understand? What if the answer is something we don't like? What if our makers don't care about us? To seek the face of God is humankind's oldest quest, so what happens when we find him only to realize he's inscrutable and angry?
Unfortunately, this film is not built for tough scrutiny, and the story is remarkably kludged for a film about such heady topics with such a lengthy running time. The motivating points propel the story where it's demanded to go, but the film would probably ask you not to look into the details of those things too finely. The sudden complexity and convolution of the climax involving Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce is completely out of left field; Pearce's motivation is handwaved away with no inquiry into the many questions his appearance raises, and the revelation of the relationship between he and Theron is awkwardly hamfisted and completely irrelevant, exponentially so considering how quickly both of them meet their end not long thereafter.
The story's worst offense in my eyes is that it kicks the can down the street. The opening of the film promises a search into the answers of the universe, but then is immediately sidetracked by a different mystery that eventually devolves into the body horror and claustrophobia of Scott's original film in the series. However, at the finale, the film recommits to the promise of exploring the universe and seeking answers, but only right before the credits roll. It's a film that promises resolution from its first scenes, but not only fails to deliver, it actually raises new questions without any hint as to their solution. At best, the existential crisis posed by the film's protagonists is rebutted an insistence that the wrong questions are being asked. Though, I will admit, the ending of the film with Elizabeth and David jetting off for payback to the Engineer homeworld is the last thing I expected from this film, so full marks to Scott for managing to surprise me there.
I don't know if this film Scott's definitive cut of the film, and I would think not; for one, he's prone to having much lengthier director's cuts of his films, but in this specific instance there seems to be a great deal of information missing in the middle of the film, and that information unfortunately is what informs most of the major actions and brings the climax forth. I refer here to the subplot where David the robot suddenly turns malevolent and infects one of the primary characters with a fatal contagion: it's never made clear why David would do this, or what possible result he could be hoping for, or why one of the most important crewmen would be selected for infection instead of, say, one of the blue-collar dock hands. David had no way of knowing what the contagion would be capable of of, or if it would spread, or how quickly it might work. And then, quite suddenly at film's end, David reverts back to being helpful and benevolent as he was before.
Taken as a whole, the film is a visual and visceral assault, rife with body horror and rape imagery and threats of existential nihilism, and it's no surprise to me that when the credits finally rolled the people in my theater exited slowly and with solemn faces as if from a funeral, or like they had just heard some unexpectedly bad news from their doctor. They were puzzled with what they saw, and upset in a way that did not include disappointment as they shuffled out of the darkened hall with downcast eyes and hands on their chins.
With Prometheus, Ridley Scott did not wholly satisfy me, but he did bother me, and he did surprise me. How can such an experience ever be counted as a bad thing?
Atomika on
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Dividing the two is sometimes easy. Sometimes not.
For instance
is fucking stupid.
Whereas,
Or hey what the fuck was that starting guy doing? He wears different stuff and has a different ship. Is he a different breed of Engineer? Are they at war? Did they change their minds about humans? Is that a different goo? Is he the titular prometheus, and the rest of the Engineers are the 'gods'? What about the Alien Queen in the tomb? Is she the gods, and are the Engineers the fire-stealers? Is that goo just 100% Alien DNA that can be transposed onto any organism? Did the Engineers make it wholesale?
seems to be more general mysteries and shit, right? Right?
Then there's stuff I can't tell is just shit writing/script or something I should actually fucking ruminate on. Basically I wish the stupid parts were less stupid, so I could spend my time considering the cool religious symbolism, and mythology, without it being fettered by poorly done shit.
Fuck you, Scott. But also thanks for that rad ship porn.
A sequel would probably be better since they'll have much greater focus.
Also, I think they're trying to combine the Blade Runner universe with the Alien universe. I wonder how long before they bring Terminator and Firefly into it. Cameron already inserted a "Hyperdyne Systems" easter egg in "Aliens."
Also, now that I think about it, why the fuck didn't the geologist and biologist ask for directions like 5 minutes after leaving the other guys? Or when they heard there was a storm coming? Ship-side they could see exactly where everyone was and where each tunnel went.
Why the fuck did they take their helmets off? So what if the air is breathable, are you gonna risk contaminating the site with your own germs, not to mention the obvious scenario of contaminating yourself with something a some point?
So, a giant space ship falls on someone from a few miles in the sky? Really? And then, not only does it retain its structural integrity, it rolls around? And the pilot guy survives, seemingly uninjured? I'm guessing none of the black goo spilled out, because it looks to be deadly to the engineers (judging by the holograms), and the pilot guy seems fine.
Speaking of the pilot guy, why exactly was he in the stasis chamber in the first place? He seemed pretty intent on flying the ship to Earth, so why didn't he do just that before going to sleep? Did seeing humans there really piss him off so much?
From the prologue, I got the notion an engineer sacrificed himself, using the black goo, to seed life on Earth. So this event would have been at least 3.5 billion years ago. Also, if that's what happened, there would have been absolutely no chance of a genetic match between modern humans and modern engineers. The original engineer would have seeded the first unicellular organisms, and that DNA would have shuffled itself a trillion times over.
The religious symbolism is all fine and dandy, it's things like this that kinda kill it for me. Maybe anyone can offer a different perspective on any of these points?
Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape,
But tonight, it's heavy stuff.
On the one hand I can overlook some of the dumb shit in Tinche's spoiler, on the other hand when you combine it with the heavy-handed religious symbolism it kind of falls apart.
Like, if I could just delete all the dialogue as well as the opening scene this movie would be a great horror film. It was beautiful, it had great cinematography, it had nice tension, and some genuinely creepy and scary moments. But every line was pretty much face-palmingly bad.
Like, when the archaeological dig scene ended and it went immediately to the ship, already in deep space, that was...abrupt. Although it may have been a nod to 2001 when the bone becomes the spaceship. It's actually kind of sad that we can say something about a story where we get there's gonna be a ship that will reach the thing, and the requisite crew of experts on board, all space-hardened and ready to pierce the stars and all that, and all that-the ship, the crew selection, anything about the earth itself-is all uninvolved. I do, however, feel that with additional viewings it will become possible to understand the structure better.
The most damning thing about Prometheus has less to do with anything that actually happens onscreen, and more to do with the fact that it has turned out to be a very different movie than the one a lot of people half-imagined they'd be getting. And that's just a little bit too bad that something can be made and, because a lot of the audience didn't have a space somewhere in their head that can accommodate the shape of the movie, it has to be considered a failure.
Prometheus is not a movie that answers a lot of questions people are prepared to throw at it. There seem to be a lot of hammer-and-nails concerns going down the pike, such as the nature of what is possible or improbable in terms of surgical practices on a highly-advanced automated medical table that is so good at what it does, only five exist in the universe.
Things like the way people act in different situations and stuff, well...? You can have a problem with that, I suppose, if you don't buy it. I'm not telling you to. But I am willing to say that, these characters did these things, and sometimes they made some remarkably bad judgements. Like the biologist. But, whatever. People do dumb shit all the time. Especially in highly uncommon situations where the people involved are far removed from any sense of familiarity, where even their colleagues are basically unknown people to them.
The Space Jockeys are not made to be understood.
I feel like if I watched it again I could point out where deleted scenes would go. And at least one instance where the studio probably insisted on inserting a scene after audience testing (the dig site on Earth). And maybe the "FATHER!" scene, I can imagine test audiences not being bright enough to pick up on that by context clues.
Some things can't be fixed (such as some of the stupid moves by the scientists), but I can hold out hope that (much like Kingdom of Heaven) a directors/alternate cut could vastly improve the film.
I'm fine with not having all the larger mysteries answered, in fact I applaud it, but character motivations should make sense and the movie should flow smoothly, and once they find the vase room those two things stop.
And another thing about nitpicks I have seen multiple people make:
it was nice to see a high-concept sci-fi film make it into the cinemas
- Dr. Charlie Holloway, as played by Logan Marshall-Green, was terribly miscast. That guy was a zero-charisma douche playing the role of "serious science guy," and got his acting ass handed to him by legitimate AAA talent like Rapace, Fassbender, and Elba all movie long. A terrible casting decision that I lay fully at the feet of Mr. Scott; next time, don't go to the TV police-procedural rummage bin to cast the male lead in your space epic that costs $Texas.
- Peter Weyland. Why Guy Pearce? Guy Pearce is a good actor, but Guy Pearce is not a 90-year old man. You know who looks like an old man? Lots of actors who are actual old men. Robert Duval is an old man. So is Tommy Lee Jones, and Ian McKellan, Clint Eastwood, and Hal Holbrook. They would do a fantastic job of playing, "The Old Man," in your movie which has a character that is an old man. Next time, cast an old man to play the old man. Guy Pearce is good, but when Guy Pearce wears 14 pounds of latex to play an old man, he just looks like Guy Pearce in latex pretending to be an old man.
they were discussing other possible films in the same universe so they wanted a young actor who could play young peter weyland as well
Really I just have to ask, did you like the first Alien movie? You loved it enough to go see a prequel, and yet it does all of the same things people are condemning Prometheus for.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
That's not really a good excuse.
I can agree with this to a certain extent.
I'm struggling to recall a film that promised mind-melting profundity that actually delivered, but the key problem with Prometheus is that it makes that promise as its mandate from the very beginning.
I don't all the answers, but I don't want a handwaved diversion from those answers once promised. And I surely don't want my ultra-intelligent master race to suddenly become brainless murderbots.
Now, imagine a situation where your GPS was mapping out a new area for the first time, and you were freaked the fuck out and you thought you knew where you were going. Oh, and you're a stoner, and you brought your stash with you, and you also built the GPS so you know all of it's shortcomings.
There are plenty of legitimate problems with the film, most of which have been outlined gamely by AR, but I can't really see how this is one of them. It's really reaching, especially when several answers have been proffered and the only response in return is, "No, not good enough."
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Did the movie answer any questions at all?
Exploring the unknown doesn't mean humanity learns nothing from their experiences. They don't have to explain everything but enough to keep the audiences attention so they know what's going on.
I've watched Alien. I was never confused about what was happening during that. They explained enough to let the audience know the basics of the xenomorph. It being a wild animal there was no need to deeply explore it's "culture" since it had none.
plus it gave us the ted speech!
David's motivations would seem to be the obvious area for any Director's Cut to expand. He's obviously under the influence of Weyland's programming, but his actions past that directive make no real logical sense. What he does with the black goo is basically no more than, "Hmm, I wonder what this weird shit will do. Maybe Dr. Holloway will become immortal. Maybe Dr. Holloway will shit himself to death. Maybe we'll all die horribly. Welp, bottoms up, chum."
And if Weyland is in cryogenic stasis to prevent his death, why would he come on the trip to begin with? Why not stay in stasis on Earth and have a crew of Davids run the whole mission with some damn monkeys in cages to test on?
2001?
Ego, obviously.
To leave THE EARTH and talk to God, and to come back reborn and bearing good news and all that.
Movie logic says it doesn't make sense that an elderly and frail billionaire would risk his fortune and health on the incredibly small chance that he could find God in outer space and learn the immortality cheat code when he could just safely wait it out on Earth, but we do already live in a world with Richard Branson, so there you go.
Meh. 2001 still kind of takes the shortcut of "it's too profound for words so instead here are a bunch of weird things!" approach to that question.
Which, admittedly, is more than Prometheus does, but still.
Prometheus explicitly broaches the questions of:
- Who made us?
- Why are we here?
- And who made our makers?
- Why did they abandon us?
. . . and answers only the first question in the most limited capacity possible.
Aside from Pearce palsy-ing it up with an old man schtick and maybe Green, I loved the actors.
Elba seemed the most natural. Rapace was the best at showing intense emotion without it looking silly. Fassbender was the opposite. (In a good way)
Theron's scene with Elba in the cockpit was fun. The two idiots (biologist & geologist) and the two helmsmen played off eachother superbly.
The redshirts were forgettable, aside from the scottish-sounding medic, which was her only memorable quality.
I feel like we really missed out by not having extended dialogue time with the crew while on board the ship.
Yeah, I really loved the bits of Altman-esque banter with the crew in the original Alien where they're just talking about day-to-day horseshit. Made it seem more lived-in.
I 100% disagree with your second paragraph, Prometheus failed to do well what Alien did so well
I would counter that when you're an elderly and frail billionaire, the risk to fortune and health become small concerns, especially weighed against the opportunity to do things no human being has ever done. There was probably very little left in the world that could impress Weyland at that point in his life, if he died doing it, so what? He was going to die anyway.
Yeah, it's not a huge hang up.
Mostly it just kind of made Charlize Theron's character seem really irrelevant.
Admittedly, that was the best scene in the whole film.
Gotta get a .gif of Elba playing that accordion as she walks out of the bridge.
I'm going to step in and say that no, Alien did not do the same things as Prometheus. Alien did not have all these heady existential questions about our origins and religion and what does it mean to be alive, etc., it was a moster B-movie given AAA treatment. It also had a much smaller cast.
I had a lot of post after this but honestly I was having trouble keeping it from rambling on too many points. The problems I have with Prometheus' plot do not stem from the motivations of the Jockeys or what exactly was in the canisters, but things like how the geologist can get lost in the place he was mapping with his own equipment, or why they all take their helmets off, things like that. I liked the film, but there are some big gaps in character motivation and reasoning that got progressively harder to accept.
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And they all took off their helmets because, I believe, David said it was safe.
Past that, why make the mohawk guy a geologist at all? He does nothing in the movie that involves rocks or the like.
He maps the place. Gets high. Dies/mutates. Kills some dudes. Dies again.
Just change his lines to "I'm a cartographer" or someshit and it will at least half solve the problem.
Or, just have someone else throw the scanners into the air and we wont have to think he's dumb as shit.
It's ok to like the movie despite its poor writing. I did! But hoooly shit was it not written well.
Was it safe for the Engineers? Apparently, they can breathe toxic nitrogen, too, judging by how the Space Jockey hunts down Shaw at the end of the film.
I think Theron's character was useful for two reasons:
1) Its a theme in all Alien movies to have a corporate type remind everyone that corporations are evil.
2)
Also, about the Elba/Theron scene:
This was also pointed out in the scene with the cocky scientist (can never remember his name) and David when cocky dude mentions that maybe David was created by Weyland "just because he could."
"Show Engineer get thrown from ship and land nearby escape pod in director's cut"