fair enough that's just how I saw it. Its a matter of opinion as I said, having just looked at other things he's been involved in I've enjoyed quite a bit of it, and also he's just a co-writer, how do you know he is the only one responsible for the bits you don't like lol.
The Official Prometheus (Alien Prequel) Thread
- Thread starter SixTwoSix
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fair enough that's just how I saw it. Its a matter of opinion as I said, having just looked at other things he's been involved in I've enjoyed quite a bit of it, and also he's just a co-writer, how do you know he is the only one responsible for the bits you don't like lol.
Soldato
Because of this, basically. And because, as much as I enjoyed Lost, Lindelof's shortcomings are a writer are abundantly clear.
Caporegime
Rubbish. There are tipping points with these things. There is only so far that you can suspend disbelief before something becomes absurd. That point usually comes when the story becomes inconsistent in some way. Say there are too many twists and it gets convoluted, or it relies way to heavily on massive coincidences, or the characters behave out of character, or whatever. In Prometheus they act like utter idiots the whole way through, so it gets hard to believe. Never mind the fact that the whole thing is based around one scene in Alien that Ridley Scott was inexplicably fascinated by when no one else gave a toss - is it any wonder that it comes across as so cobbled together?
Soldato
Yup, studio brought in Lindelof to separate this film from the Alien franchise, poor decision.
Instead of getting a proper prequel as planned, we got a half baked, typical Lindelof story.
Say what you want about Lost, it's a decent show, but just as Prometheus, he presented a story that didn't fit together for the most part, you might be happy to overlook it, and so would the vast majority, but those of us who first saw the space jockey and asked the questions, got majorly **** on with this film.
Soldato
Watched this today on BR, not been so disappointed and angry with a movie for a while.
Half of it makes no sense and there's continuity errors all over the place, what a crappy prequel.
Half of it makes no sense and there's continuity errors all over the place, what a crappy prequel.
yeah i read that a couple days ago, and tbh i'm glad ended up the way it did and not the way it could have gone going by that article. I particularly dont like the way he was portraying david and think we ended up with a much more interesting character.
Incedently one of the things ridley says during the commentary on the film is that its not a prequel, rather the dna of alien etc is in the film but its not a prequel. I was never under the impression it would be either i remember him stating a while before it came out it wasnt a prequel.
Incedently one of the things ridley says during the commentary on the film is that its not a prequel, rather the dna of alien etc is in the film but its not a prequel. I was never under the impression it would be either i remember him stating a while before it came out it wasnt a prequel.
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Soldato
meh! if they all acted sensibly it would be a film 2 months long where a science team carefully studies every spec of dust on the planet, follows rigarous safety checks and fills out loads of paperwork, no one dies and they publish a really interesting white paper..nobel prizes all round and home for tea and medals
Well it's not a prequal for a start, so that solves most of the "continuity" issues.
It's not even set in the same universe as alien. More of a sideline universe, there's probably a proper word for it.
Soldato
It was originally a prequel, then the studio brought in Lindelof to step it back.
People don't seem to understand what has occurred, this was a fully fledged Alien prequel depicting the space jockey. Aliens, face huggers, everything.
Instead what we have is something Inbetween, but it also completely destroys any chance of us getting the Alien prequel it should have been. You can be happy with whatever you got out of, cool, don't mind that, but this isn't the film it was meant to be originally, John Spaihts confirms this.
But this was a poor hash, by a poor writer. Lost went on hiatus in s03 because the Lindelof and Cruse couldn't write for toffee and were getting 'lost'. They brought in Brian K Vaughn who wrote the majority of what occurred post hiatus, story wise up to the end of s05.
It's the studios fault in the end.
Alternate/parallel dimension?
Caporegime
There are ways and ways of doing things. It's not a simple dichotomy. It's not 100% by the book vs 100% retard, which is what we got.
thats a fair enough point of view, i wasnt aware of the early prequel stuff from the first time i heard about it, it was clear it wasnt a prequel but rather the other films were a tangent of same story. I'm glad they didnt stick to doing it that way, it isnt a case of being happy with what i got out of it, i just prefer what we ended up with than what some other people wanted. I'm not going to pretend to know who's decisions all these changes are, ultimatly its Ridley Scott's film and he seems happy with the end result and so am i, from reading the article by John Spaights there is nothing in there to say how he would have joined this up to alien any better than what we ended up with. There are also another two films to go before we get to the point of alien and personally i'm looking forward to seeing how those go.
Soldato
Absolutely.
Like I said, it comes back to verisimilitude. The true "reality" of any film lies in the consistency of the universe it takes place in, but when characters start act unnaturally that becomes broken, and we end up with rubbish films.
An example is: When you see an action film you know that the protagonist is going to commit some seemingly superhuman feats, and you go into the film with that knowledge in mind. You expect him/her to do things that are outside of the realms of what real humans can do, but his or her acts are consistent with the world the film exists within. However, when he or she suddenly has a massive attack of guilt about all the people he or she has killed in the film thus fur, the verisimilitude is broken, and the film then becomes unbelievable and falls apart.
We accept flaws or unnatural things in some works of fiction because we're aware of the tropes of the genre they exist in. The problem with Prometheus is that it is so badly written in places that characters start act in ways which are unbelievable or downright stupid. That, combined with some bad dialogue, dodgy pacing and a cast populated almost exclusively with one dimensional character is the reason why the film sucks.
Soldato
The point is that we're told very early on in the film that the people who are on the ship are the best of the best, they're some of the brightest minds of their generation. We can't watch the film with that knowledge only for the writer to make it so that they start acting dumb pretty quickly.
The reality of the film is fractured, it stops making sense, it becomes a bad film.
Like I said in the post above; we watch certain kinds of films with assumed knowledge about how they're going to play out based on the genre they fall into. You suspend you disbelief as soon as you know what kind of film it is your going see, however the reverse of that is that no matter how well you suspend that disbelief, if the characters start to act in ways they shouldn't, you've got problems. Even more so when the film lies about their supposed intelligence...
What's more is that in Prometheus this issue is compounded because although we know the characters start to panic and become scared, there's no sense of tension to allow you to feel that. Further to that is the very idea that pretty much all the character's are so painfully one dimensional that we struggle to care about the peril they find themselves in.
But hey, we're going round in circles in this thread; it's all been said before. No one's changing anyone's mind here.
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not being funny, just interested to see your opinion as you seem one of the more verbose posters in this thread critiscising prometheous, and i'm not trying to pretend it is without critiscm i just dont think much of it really matters that much given the scope of the film is bigger than the other films. Anyway, I really havent seen aliens in years so i could be completely wrong about this but as i pointed out earlier arent we told the same thing about the marines in aliens, yet they turned out to be a pretty unproffesional and undisciplined bunch, like leaving the drop ship door open and unguarded for no reason, running directly away from the drop ship when it crashes instead of off to the side, and leaving getting the second drop ship until its almost too late, hudson seems scared of everything and gorman is just rubbish for the best of the best, i'm sure there are more questionable bits but i'd need to watch it again. We can make allowences for these things and fill in the gaps for some things but prometheous seems to be given no allowence. The marines in alien are hardly any more believable as marines than the scientists in prometheous are as scientists, thats if you want to pick it apart, incidently i love aliens, i wore out video tapes of it when i was young, and i like it for very different reasons than i like prometheous, despite it also having potential plot holes and questionable character behaviour, its still one of my favourite films.
One of the things i dont like is that it doesnt take enough time to get you invested in the characters, although i'm not entierly convinced its unrealistic for someone to be a great geologist, but also at the same time a complete idiot, i've met some incredibly clever idiots before lol, but as i said the scope of the film leaves less space for these kind of things so i can forgive it that and enjoy it overall.
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You say that the geolgist was an idiot. I think there was more to him that just being an idiot, and this is down to crap writing in my opinion. I get the impression that the 2 years of hypersleep, and the character himself being a bit unhinged, may have caused serious psycholgical issues. But as you say, there's no time for character development.
Lindelhof changed the film significantly, and then it was badly edited. One deleted scene is of Milburn discovering a large worm/slug-like creature. You can see he has no problem whatsoever in picking it up and storing it in a container. It clearly explains why later on he has the same attitude when approaching the Hammerpede alien.
Because the scene was cut out, people didn't get why one second he was crapping his pants, the next he's had a change of heart.
I do hope for a directors cut, ala Kingdom of Heaven.
Lindelhof changed the film significantly, and then it was badly edited. One deleted scene is of Milburn discovering a large worm/slug-like creature. You can see he has no problem whatsoever in picking it up and storing it in a container. It clearly explains why later on he has the same attitude when approaching the Hammerpede alien.
Because the scene was cut out, people didn't get why one second he was crapping his pants, the next he's had a change of heart.
I do hope for a directors cut, ala Kingdom of Heaven.
yeah that was the one scene that stuck out to me as possibly being one that should have been left in, i didnt feel i needed it but i can see why it would help, i actually find fifield quite funny, he really likes rocks lol, also milburn points out how unproffesional he is lol.
Caporegime
I really hope they release an extended edition of this film.
I think it's brilliant but flawed and hopefully a longer running time with addition content would help sort this out.
I think it's brilliant but flawed and hopefully a longer running time with addition content would help sort this out.
Soldato
Really can't agree with that at all. The marines were picked for their ability to blow stuff away. The mistakes they made were all down to being too overconfident and cocky, and also being led by somebody with no experience as well as somebody from "The Company" double-crossing them. I don't remember any behavior in Aliens that was as jarringly stupid as it was in Prometheus. It was a very good depiction of a military operation gone wrong.
I defended Prometheus in this very thread, but I just can't do it anymore. It was a mess. A bloody mess. I really, really, hope Sir Ridley gets his act together for the Blade Runner sequel (and keeps Lindelof well away) or he won't be far behind George Lucas on my hit list!
Overconfident and cocky in the same way millburn is overconfident and cocky when it comes to the snake? or a different way. Anyway, surprisingly no one has picked up on my mistake, it isnt mentioned that the marines in aliens are the best of the best, its not even mentioned why they were chosen at all. In the same way that the scientists in prometheous arent the best of the best, or the best of their generation or whatever, there is no mention in the film as to why they are chosen, do you think the greatest minds of a generation would sign up to years in deep space when they havent even been told what they are going for? seems unlikely. Weyland simply refers to them as his employees, and fifield makes it clear he's only there for the money.
Soldato
All I recall was Vickers' statement in the briefing that she hired some of the crew personally.
Given her stated unbelief in the point of the project, you might assume that she wasn't too choosy when picking her crew members.
(And in Aliens, it could be read either that the Company underestimated the threat, or all along had no intention to rescue the colonists, or something in between)