**** The Official Prometheus Spoiler Discussion Thread ****

They spent more time thinking about the viral marketing campaign for this film than the films plot/story itself.
 
NathanE said:
I think Lindelof is handling the criticism well. I think the film was hugely optimistic and okay it might not have struck all the high notes like everyone was expecting but it certainly struck several of them for many people. These sort of films tend to age well with the passing of time. And I remain convinced that the BluRay cut will be better.

The film presented ideas that are rarely talked about in public conversation. That's why people have been so confused over some of the bigger plot points. As they just aren't used to thinking about such things. A lot of it really is "original sci-fi" to a lot of people, not everyone but some.

TBH if you talk about this sort of stuff (ancient astronaut theories, jesus was an alien etc etc; all of which were first mooted decades ago) you just come across as a quack and a society doesn't like it.
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I agree, i actually like the idea of the story and what they were aiming for, the problem comes from the writing itself and how it was bolted together, and believe me it really feels like bolts were used in some scenes!
It annoys me that Lindelof fell into his usual rutt of "oh throw lots of stuff at the screen and hopefully everyone thinks im a genius", it's not genius when the audience have to fill in 90% of the gaps because you cant write it properly.
I think the premise and story were great, execution, notsomuch! Remember people, some of us love it and others are criticising it, to say some just dont 'get it' because they dont like the way it was put together is ridiculous, we are all on the same side and really wanted it to be the best sci-fi ever, it wasnt by a long stretch and it deserved to be.
 
Glaucus said:
I assume it actually says 500billion miles?mmust of missed that bit. Not that most people would know. But why not make bits like that realistic.

Is that 0.08light years?
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I swore it said the same as I though it was ridiculous and worked it out in the film to be less than a tenth of a light year!
 
The blonde bird said something like "If I wanted to get laid I wouldn't have traveled half a billion miles away from the nearest man".

The system they were in is about 37 light years away, which is over 200 trillion miles.

It was just an expression though by the character, I'm sure they gave the correct distance near the start of the film.
 
Alien doesn't need a prequel though. The mystery of that croissant should NEVER be fully explained otherwise it undermines a piece of film history.

Facehuggers, xenos, etc etc are boring now. A script involving just more of the same wouldn't have been enough to bring Ridley back to the genre.

Prometheus showed us what the guy in the chair looked like. That's all we need to know. Any more is too much!
 
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NathanE said:
Alien doesn't need a prequel though.
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And yet here we are.

Facehuggers, xenos, etc etc are boring now.
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And yet they're in 'Prometheus'. But sea monstery, pterodactile-y. Grotesque. Plasticky. Knock off like. Pastiche.

Prometheus showed us what the guy in the chair looked like. That's all we need to know. Any more is too much!
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And yet there will be more. Two more, if Scott has enough time.
 
Honestly I'd have been completely okay if Prometheus had no monsters in it (except the Engineer).

Monsters aren't needed when you've got a story as deep as Prometheus.

Slight problem though in that the film would never have got a $130mil budget from Fox if it didn't have at least a couple angry monsters in it. They are a necessary evil.
 
stulid said:
Whoever did the individual ideas, isn't it obvious? if you search hard enough I'm sure you can find out who did them if you really wanted to know.
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I know exactly who did them thanks. The distributor pays the agency to do as strong a marketing campaign as possible.

The agency has absolutely NO say in the quality of the production. That's the job of the director / producer / cast / etc

Are you saying they should have upped the production budget and spent less money on the marketing campaign?

Like I say...once the bums are on seats, they don't give a **** if the film doesn't meet your standards.

The marketing campaign both online and offline for Prometheus was fantastic. Hype is EXACTLY was a studio wants.

If you have a problem with the plot / narrative then it's Ridley Scott you need to take up your argument with, not the marketing campaign.
 
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NathanE said:
Honestly I'd have been completely okay if Prometheus had no monsters in it (except the Engineer).
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I'm with you there. That's the part I can't quite understand. Prometheus story could perfectly stand on its own. Stand alone, without being a prequel to anything Alien related or even remotely Alien adjacent. Crew goes to space to search for creators, but finds what they didn't bargain for. No sea monsters. No pteroxenos. No undersized Space Jockeys. Just goo, crew, droid and scientists. And what we do best as species - ef things up.

But since it was rolled through Fox' piggy bank on the back of Alien franchise - my question is - wouldn't it be better if instead of breaking Alien universe even further, with another hopelessly convoluted B-movie like mutation with its own semi broken illogical life cycle, instead of making up zombies and squids the script writer just followed the established canon. Crew still find vases, they still find pile of Engineer bodies, but where there are chests bursted, and sticky substance on surfaces, there always is evil, sleeping inside eggs. Makes sense in Alien universe, doesn't break big questions, doesn't protrude in Engineer story. But it explains much more of what we've seen in the background without entirely new zoo that doesn't fit anywhere. The universe is whole again.
For the cinema viewer, the choice would be relatively easy too - since it had to be released as nomen est omen Alien pre-quel-ish-adjacent movie - would you rather see bizarre squids and zombies or elements of old school, classic, proven, life cycle, perhaps NOT with dozens of rubber suited long headed drones, but like in the original - a bit of a silent passenger - presented carefully, without fully explaining or revealing what's actually taking the crew off one by one while hidden in the dark?

There is a bit in Lindelofs email interview that brings me back to my original gut feeling about this movie:
"my job was to strip out the familiar "Alien" stuff and rebalance the plot mechanics so that stuff felt more like the RESULT of the story as opposed to the catalyst. "

I think he actually got it wrong. It's the other way. He created storyline of catalysts, without any results, short or long term. He runs through the story propelled forward by endless chain of unexplained "where did this come from" moments, leaving the best RESULT bits behind. Script makes crew find multiple pyramid mounds, destroys eco system of first one, doesn't bother exploring what is in the rest of them. Crew discover footage of crowd of running engineers, follow last one, don't bother checking replay of where the rest run off. Stumbles upon pile of bodies with bursts chests, doesn't explore what happened to the colony of xenomorphs that inevitably layed eggs somewhere in the corridors. Dave creates experiment that results in "not exactly traditional fetus" pregnancy, goes on to joke about it ("Didn't think you had it in you") but doesn't bother checking what was the final result of it. And so on, so forth.

But then there is the first part of that sentence - my job was to strip out the familiar "Alien" stuff. And seriously - take few steps back and look at the whole thing again. Not a single Alien franchise element. Not a single image, not a single copyrighted name, not a logo, not a part of lifecycle. Space Jockey resized, arms shortened and humanised, "skull helmet" changed, chair revised. Alien mural left shapeless and vague. Alien-adjacent creatures mutated enough (eg.giant hugger made into squid with tentacles rather than facehugger with scorpion like traits and jointed "legs") not to be anywhere in vicinity of the same "toy license" territory. This is allegedly Alien universe movie that doesn't use any part or small element of Alien universe construction set. It doesn't even refer to anything with old project or script names. It's not Alien prequel about corporation looking for Space Jockey. It's a movie about familiar sounding names searching for Engineers. It's almost like a movie budget of 125 million but license tactic of those B-movie "knock offs" that precede bigger releases by few weeks - you know - like "Alien vs Hunter" released a month before Alien vs Predator: Requiem. Or The Terminators released before Terminator Salvation.
 
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Not wanting to read through all the links and stuff I've missed.

The stuff they find here could have been mk1 of the "alien" like the first tanks that did just a good a job of killin their own crew as they did the enemy.

Hence the pots of highly volatile goop and not lots of eggs.

Brilliant by me, I've just saved the sequel, I'll get on to Ridley now.
 
stulid said:
They spent more time thinking about the viral marketing campaign for this film than the films plot/story itself.
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This content can be included on the DVD and Blu-ray releases. Perhaps that was the intent.

If it's done right, the Blu-ray could use the additional material to fill in some of the blanks of the movie.
 
atpbx said:
Not wanting to read through all the links and stuff I've missed.

The stuff they find here could have been mk1 of the "alien" like the first tanks that did just a good a job of killin their own crew as they did the enemy.

Hence the pots of highly volatile goop and not lots of eggs.

Brilliant by me, I've just saved the sequel, I'll get on to Ridley now.
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I don't think its that bud.

The eggs are a product of the Queen, and evolutionary point which rather than take a millennia, is staged through each reproduction. Goo > human (ala shaw) > squid > humanoid female (ala Ripley) > queen xeno > egg > hugger > adaptive xenomorph

Something along them lines is how the eggs are produced. How exactly that scenario plays out is anybody's guess since this film was not the story of LV - 426.

But what is certain, is that based on the steps seen in Prometheus and what we know from the Alien films, this is the logical and direct chain of evolution between black goo and the xenomorph from Alien.
 
Glaucus said:
Another vote for BR being rubbish. I just don't get why it's rated so highly. Seems to be one of those cult films, where even if you didn't enjoy it, you say you did.
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That is the beauty of individualism - we can all like and dislike different things.
The BR story is interesting and the visuals are just stunning.
The final cut definitively tells the story and what a wonderful story. As I said it is still my favourite film - maybe one day something will top it.
 
Spoiler

why would such an advanced civilisation use a flipping flute to start up the spaceship/computers system?

it would be akin to using a whip to try and start a modern motorcar. I mean i understand the idea of sentimentality but honestly, push button or something even bio print hand print or something would have been insanely more credible than a flute?!

Also, the buttons on the equipment looked about as robust as marsh mallow? they didnt look like they had been designed for 1million clicks plus lets put it that way.



I also have a few takes on the start sequence with the Engineer who destroys his body - could it be he was on a world with water that he had just terraformed/added life to and now wanted to destroy his body to remove all evidence?

or could it be that perhaps some alien type things had escaped from the black goo were on the loose and he had no where further to run - now sorrounded by only water he chose the tablet and to jump to kill his body so that any aliens couldnt get into him and spawn the xeno type alien from Alien?

This also kinda matches up with the Engineers fleeing that chamber in the rerun they were able to do. Perhaps the black goo had gone bad and was about to create some face hugger type snakes and then the engineers had all fled in terror to their escape room to avoid any of them from being impregnated with what would become the super alien thing we see at the end?

this would match up with my point on the start sequence i.e the engineers being determined to not let themselves be implanted and create that alien type being?

but of course this is pure speculation and interpretation.

Nobody bats an eyelid about shaw giving birth and her beating up some of the crew.
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The impregnated lady giving birth was where the film fell apart a bit. There was no realism in her response. Why dint she tell anyone? she didnt even warn anyone that there was this bad ting living in the operation machine? or tell them that she had just had a life changing experience? or that the robot was not acting quite right.


The tragic ending sequence was laughable, just run to the side you say, you dont need to keep running in a straight line agghj!!!
 
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