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

Was a very odd film. The visuals were amazing (I didn't see it in 3D) but as above there are so many things in the movie that didn't seem to make sense for me. I think the guys above have covered most of it but as follows:

* The whole Weyland/Vickers father/daughter thing. I think we were meant to be shocked/surprised by this revelation but it didn't add anything and I saw it coming a mile off.

* The reanimated geologist. None of the crew seemed phased by this- or even fancied a chat about it, surely that'd have been the point to say its time to leave?

* Post removing the alien from the main character, everyone else seemed happy enough not to mention what had just happened. She fought with two of the crew who were trying to put her in the cryogenic freeze. A few minutes later they were going with her to the temple without mentioning a think about what had just happened. Hell she even ran in to Weyland on her wander round the ship post operation and didn't seem to shocked that he was there, and then didn't seem to think it was wise to mention what had just happened.

* When you need an old man in a movie, why not case an old man? The make up on Guy Pearce was not good and really detracted from any scene that he was in.

Odd movie.
 
At the end, is the Alien that comes out of the Engineers stomach created by a mix of the Engineer and the Octupus? Does the octupus die on top of him and "merge" it's DNA into him to create the "first" alien?


rp2000
 
No1newts said:
- The pile of bodies part the Geo/Bio mention that "they look like they have exploded outward from the inside" or something along those lines. Suggesting that there has been some form of alien or squid or whatever else coming out from them... How? Why? and what happened to it?

- Why make a star map to lure people a planet were you are creating a facility to create weapons to destroy them?

- Why does the Engineer blokes head explode when they make it come alive again?

- A massive plot hole I noticed... when the Geo and Bio are left in the temple they are talking and they see the pile of bodies etc... they go on the radio to the captain who is sitting watching everything they are doing and ask him if he can see it, he says no you are braking up I cannot see anything. He says all this with a shifty look on his face whilst watching everything they do... why? What are his motives and what is the purpose? It was never even mentioned again.

- A minor point considering they are all plot holes but I had to put this in because it annoyed me. When the spaceship is rolling toward them why run in a straight line when they will NEVER get away from it in time when they could have ran to one side for a second or two and avoided it completely, as scientist woman does when she falls over and rolls about 30 centimetres to one side and completely avoids a ******* huge ship through this :rolleyes:
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Addressing these ones in order:

1. I took it that they had exploded from the mutation, like the head did, and been piled there by their buddies as they each succumbed to the outbreak.

2. This, to me, just invalidates the entire film. I mean, humanity reads the signs, get there after millions of years -- and the remaining engineer just goes ****nuts, kills everyone who has managed it and then takes off to nuke Earth with a bioweapon. Well... that was kinda pointless.

My wife has the theory that the planet was initially an outpost, and the Engineers had been possibly testing humanity's development by leaving the signs. Somewhere along the way they decided we'd let them down and they turned it into a weapons factory instead with the intention of cleansing our "weak" race and starting again. Essentially, we came too late and they were no longer impressed.

3. They kick-start the infection. The dude was already infected beyond help, they just helped it finish him off like it had the rest in the body pile.

4. He just wasn't interested/was messing with them.

5. I actually laughed out loud at that part. One of them falls, rolls roughly four feet to the side and manages to miss a gigantic ship. The other doesn't seem to even consider this as a course of action. Lazy, lazy, LAZY writing and staging.

Ekim said:
* When you need an old man in a movie, why not case an old man? The make up on Guy Pearce was not good and really detracted from any scene that he was in.
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To be honest, it seemed to me that they only went with that approach so they could use him without makeup for the viral campaign.
 
rp2000 said:
At the end, is the Alien that comes out of the Engineers stomach created by a mix of the Engineer and the Octupus? Does the octupus die on top of him and "merge" it's DNA into him to create the "first" alien?

rp2000
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Yep. Think of the squid as the Universe's largest facehugger. Once it's dropped its payload into him it dies just like the smaller ones we're used to.

What comes out is the next evolution towards the xenomorph from Alien and Aliens. How it progresses to the point we see in Alien, we'll probably never know. Perhaps this thing sets up shop in the temple, more Engineers come to check out the place, get killed/impregnated before one takes off in another of the ships on the planet (remember, David said there were many), but gets chest-bursted and crashes on LV-426. Cue Alien. One would assume that more human DNA would need to be introduced somewhere in between there, however, to make the iconic creature we know (it does, after all, harbour a human skull at the front of that head). How that would factor in is anybody's guess, and just another example of why they should have either thought the whole "prequel" business through properly, or just not bothered having it at all and keep Prometheus as a purely standalone entity.
 
I was not impressed by this at all. It looked so promising and failed so badly.
Most of all the redundant stupid points where covered above, one I just didn't see the logic too was David's actions.

---He is obviously communicating with the old man, however why was he hell bent on infecting someone from the ship. Was it the old man's orders? Since he had no knowledge of the aliens, he would not be assuming he was trying to make an organism to take home, a'la Alien, which is what it seemed when he tried to put the pregnant woman in status. Since he doesn't have emotions he wouldn't have done it through curiosity. The only thing I can see there being any reason for him to be doing that, is from the old man thinking that there would be a value in anything they find.

It felt as if they were trying to tie it in with the company in Alien, and the story arc but to me it seem like he'd have had to have known the future to have had this attitude.

---Also if the pods that where melting why? Was that like the egg sacks opening? Did those worm things come from inside? Because when David opens one, the content looks like a glass 4 piece container.

---Plus, the whole premis of the film made no sense. I was under the assumption from the way the original Engineer seem to disintegrate, that what he drank killed him and it was an accident that life started from scraps of his DNA, (so did he do it on purpose?) This can't have been the cases, because the engineers kept coming back, aka the cave paintings etc, but how did they know life had started on Earth. What was the point of that guy falling to bits?

--- Why did a guy who looked at first like he was being attacked by an original face hugger (aka the worm things) which proceeded to put itself down his throat, die. Yet a guy who had his mask melted onto his face, and acid sprayed on him, turn into a strange super strong monster? What was that all about??
 
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ChroniC said:
I was not impressed by this at all. It looked so promising and failed so badly.
Most of all the redundant stupid points where covered above, one I just didn't see the logic too was David's actions.

He is obviously communicating with the old man, however why was he hell bent on infecting someone from the ship. Was it the old man's orders? Since he had no knowledge of the aliens, he would not be assuming he was trying to make an organism to take home, a'la Alien, which is what it seemed when he tried to put the pregnant woman in status. Since he doesn't have emotions he wouldn't have done it through curiosity. The only thing I can see there being any reason for him to be doing that, is from the old man thinking that there would be a value in anything they find.
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David isn't explained too well but the idea is that he is supposed to be devoid of emotions, but he isn't, and can choose to do what he likes. He chooses to watch Shaw's dreams for no real reason, he has a genuine interest in learning things and expresses likes and dislikes that are formed naturally such as in film even though he is supposed to be devoid of emotion and only act in humans best interest, it's supposed to be spooky that he's not quite as intended.

He also chooses to infect (can't remember the blokes name); he avoids contact with the finger until he is angered and dips his finger in retaliation while also getting a semi-nod of approval by asking "how far would you be willing to go?"

Also if the pods that where melting why? Was that like the egg sacks opening? Did those worm things come from inside? Because when David opens one, the content looks like a glass 4 piece container.
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The worms just existed in the soil (they were mealworms), when in contact with the black slime they became the snakes as that is the form the slime modified their DNA into being. Inside the pods are just the resevoirs for the toxin to be stored, as one would store the chemicals inside a bomb :)

--- Why did a guy who looked at first like he was being attacked by an original face hugger (aka the worm things) which proceeded to put itself down his throat, die. Yet a guy who had his mask melted onto his face, and acid sprayed on him, turn into a strange super strong monster? What was that all about??
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Guy with worm down throat = dead, no contact with black slime infection and has something jump out of his oesophagus as he was killed by the white snake, but we don't see what jumps out of him, could have been the result of impregnation, could just have been the snake again.

Guy with acid and melting face comes back because he is in contact with the black slime.
 
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There were some massive plot holes in this as suggested. I'm also curious, not being massively up on the Alien films and having not watched them in a while, where do predators fit into all of this? I thought in AvP that they said the predators created the aliens to test themselves in battle? Should we just forget that was ever said in that film?

The main plot holes I picked up on were:

1) Why did the engineer at the very beginning drink that liquid (the toxin) and then die, seemingly with the same infection the rest of the engineers got? That pod looked like the top of one of the many vases on the ship, why was the engineer committing suicide?

2) What actually killed all the engineers in the facility/ship that they were searching? Presumably that thing that wraps itself around the biologist's arm and goes down his throat was the caterpillar that they showed one of them treading on in the burial chamber when they first found it? But where's the creature that killed all the engineers in the first place? They were clearly running from something in that hologram.

3) Why did David infect the male doctor in the first place? What did he hope to get out of that? He seemed to know what was growing inside the female doctor, did he maybe think she was going to give birth to something that would eventually turn into one of the engineers?

4) Why do characters in films always run in a straight line when running left or right would get them out of the way of impending death?!

5) What was that thing at the end? Was it supposed to be an early form of a Xenomorph? How does that then turn into the alien as we know it?

6) Why provide humans with a star-map to find the planet if your intention all along is to wipe them from earth with the toxin? Surely the toxin wouldn't wipe out human life anyway, it would just morph it into something worse?

I'd hope that any sequel to this that gets made would answer a lot of the plot holes that we've brought up. I'd probably go and see it if only to find out what's going on lol.
 
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Many points were already discussed, so I won't repeat most of the stuff one more time. Just one tiny repeated topic - I'm just going to add to the whole geologist malarky - guy dies from acid burns, his dead body then crawls back to the ship on all fours "The Thing" style to start smashing crew around. This makes no sense what-so-ever. If the "snakes" had ability to turn dead bodies into zombies there wouldn't be pile of chest bursted Engineers piling up by the walls everywhere, they would be stomping and dragging their headless corpses around corridors like it was Left4dead homage. And just why oh why would an entity designed solely to spend its entire short life at finding any possible host for stomach impregnation of its alien baby and then immediately die, that just lied dormant for 2000 years all of sudden waste multiple facehugging opportunities and instead turn a dead host into zombie and kill all possible hosts?


Script issues: This whole alien thing without alien. There is a moment in film, after all the multiple pod stems, snakes, squids, octopae, stem derived blood poisonings, not fully developed blood poisonings leading to pregnancies, but bizarrely enough facehugger stomach shaped pregnancies, when you realise, this is all completely unnecessary. Squids, octopae, frozen Wayland, why? Just why? Why complicate it?

Let's see how long it will take us to create semi-coherent story? Wayland is a dying man back on earth. Dying of cancer or multiple sclerosis for example. His daughter, the next in line to the throne at all mighty corp, under cover as captain of Prometheus is seeking Engineers, the universe wide DNA designers, for possible cure. Loving daughter you see. She wants cure. At all cost. David is programmed to take her orders. Which is why he will give crew member alien DNA, to see the result of such contamination. This would also tie nicely with Wayland Yutani century long policy of "bring back alien at all cost, crew expendable". Make the human head chamber full of pods with preserved old school eggs inside. Make the squids and octopae be old school face huggers, make the hibernated Space Jokey be the example of the flawed human like "succeed at all cost" corporate mentality of the master race, with orders to fulfill. Make him attempt to rescue some valuable engineered super weapon eggs from the arsenal room and attempt to lift off instead of chasing Girl With A Dragon Tattoo around holodeck medic chamber for no reason. Because the crew is already aware of face huggers they decide to prevent Space Jokey from spreading alien infestation around galaxy, kamikaze Prometheus hits Space Jokey ship and it crash lands on nearby LV-462 on the other side of the planet. Noomi takes the last rescue pod from holodeck and goes to sleep while the pod drifts away in space with half cut android next to her. Tie to Alien series. There. Prequel. Story looped. Less plot holes. WTF would you create all of the sea monsters, revengeful Engineers chasing relatively irrelevant crew mates across planet surface without space suits. Why zombies, why Saturday Night Live Coneheads alien at the end and other odd weird things.

It's like for whatever reason Ridley couldn't buy back alien image and alien elements from Giger Alien frenchise and just had to make due with "alien universe without alien" and create all this pointless malarky. They hint alien, they cant' show any part of original design. Even Wayland Yutani is renamed to Wayland and logo is ever so slightly changed. I'm telling you - it seriously looks like they are desperately working around a licensing issue!

Casting problems:
Noomi. With all due respect. Not Ripley. There is a medipod/surgery scene where she gets close, but even that is spoiled by her blobbing just hours before in bed. Charlize should have been the main scientist, she would be more believable in butt kicking, interplanetary revenge seeking role, and (sad to say) - we would care for her. As others mentioned. I'm not sure if I want to see sequel of what happens to Noomi and head of Dave in Space Jokey ship he can no longer pilot without body. She was kind of bleh if not annoying most of the time.

Why make snake pod room in giant Engineer weapons of mass destruction lab have giant face statue, why would all the 2000+ years old civilisations tell legends about Engineers from the stars if at that point Engineers were already planting oily pods with snake DNA for our demise? There is more, many more, but it's late and I ranted long enough for most of you never to read through it already.
 
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And another thing, whats with all this 'hologram' video, seeing all the old Engineers running around.

Is it like some futuristic CCTV. David pushes a load of buttons on the wall then all of a sudden the crew can see back thousands of years when the Engineers were running away and then in the map room, David knows to play that stupid little flute thing to start the star map.

I thought the whole hologram thing was just stupid, its not true 'exploration', its like explorers visiting a really old uninhabited place to find out how beings lived there etc and just saying, hey guys, instead of 'exploring' stuff, lets just watch this clever CCTV hologram thing and see what went on. WTF!?!
 
I want my £20 back, the plot would be ok as a stargate episode...

Nothing explained, just a series os almost unconnected random events and happenings that do not create a story...
 
Yeah I though the Hologram thing was stupid. I was hoping this film would build me suspense. It didn't for me, was just confusing, and it's plot just zigzaged.
 
I think that the Engineers start to make more sense if we think of them as Slavers ie Larry Niven style universe model.

At one point a character says (I think) that these Engineers have been there for about 2000 years. Does that have any 'significance'?
Now LV_233 had lots of other installations, apparently, so presumably Prometheus could have landed somewhere else on the planet and found some live Engineers? I am sure there are better ways to select a landing site on an unknown planet than flying down and picking a spot by eye.

Like, the reason they might want to destroy humanity is that they've seeded human life all over the universe * with the purpose of coming back and mutating it with their black goo into more 'weapons of mass destruction'**

Perhaps the trigger for the act of coming back to mutate humanity into alien weapons is the fact of humanity becoming advanced anough to go and visit the Engineers. Or, should that have happened 2000 years ago, when 'something' would have happened on Earth to draw their attention, if only they hadn't been killed..? Oh boy!


(by the way, the whole device of having a bunch of ancient civilisations all draw the same star map, the only thing that could top that would be Lance Henrikson showing up and winking at the audience)



* in their own image, if you like.

** what a jarring phrase, delivered in the movie as if the director was thinking, OK this is a 3D film so there's already stuff coming out and hitting the audience in the face, what can I do to top that?
 
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My new and (vastly) improved version of Prometheus;

- star map points way to mystery planet
- they go to mystery planet (world from original alien film)
- planet is an outpost for the engineers, only 1 structure on planet (the temple/ship) it is deserted.
- they investigate the temple, no bloody probes very suspenseful and creepy. Start finding the bodies and they have no idea what happened.
- David gets access to the computer and it tells the story of the weapons experiments they were carrying out going wrong, that the vessels contain snakey things which can effect people....
- at the same time they discover headless body and the stasis chamber. Snakey thing jumps man scientist and infects him. Lots of panic and screaming, they evacuate in haste so fast they leave geo/bio blokes behind.
- David knows what the snake thing can do but he wants to save Weyland so he decides to leave it to see what can happen...
- meanwhile scientists have sexy times...
- meanwhile the geo/bio explore further and they discover the chamber with the stasis pods, there are two occupied they open one, an engineer pops out looking rather ill and goes crazy they run and he chases for a bit before collapsing and a squid thing popping out. Squid thing gets 1 or the other of geo/bio.
- on Prometheus they get ready to head to temple from distress call from surviving bloke. Make scientist looking bad, Vickers learns David is trying to grow something in him so she toasts scientist.
- in temple an alien pops out of dead crew man (not shown clearly, all dark and atmospheric)...
- other crew bloke in temple legs it on foot for the ship after storm breaks...
- David discovers fast growing squid thing in female scientist so seeing it as another chance to use it to save Weyland he wants her put in stasis...
- cut to outside ship the survivor reaches ship but as he is screaming to get let in something ganks him...
- meanwhile female scientist escapes getting put in stasis as in film gets it cut out of her...
- meanwhile they open a door on the ship to see what has happened to survivor, all dark and atmospheric something runs in and kills someone, area only lit by gunfire. Lots of screams etc someone else ganked... Alien gets further into ship through air vents, mayhem ensues with alien hunting survivors down...
- she emerges from operation into blood covered death ship... All atmospheric etc...
- David fights Alien to save her and scares Alien off...
- only captain, Scottish bloke, chinese bloke, medic woman, David, Weyland, Vickers and female scientist left alive.
- big argument about Weyland being there, infecting scientist what is going on. David kills Chinese bloke as a result. Weyland in control..,
- from video feeds they have seen second occupied pod. Weyland wants to go see other Engineer. He goes leaves Vickers with ship to keep control (she plays along as good daughter) Weyland heads for temple taking David, scientist woman and medic woman with him.
- reach temple sneaking through to pod room all atmospheric...
- Alien picks off medic woman but they kill it at the same time (super David)
- release Engineer, convo with him through David he tells them all went wrong etc. that the pots contain weapon not the truth or life. Engineer explains they created humans and the star map was there "test" to show they were advanced enough to make contact fully with them. Next stage is him summoning more engineers to colony to meet them. He refuses because weapon loose, argument, David beats down engineer and hurls him in the pilot/jockey chair...
- David says he can get ship to the next world and find answers for Weyland also steal mega weapon pod things full of potential aliens, female scientist legs it...
- ship taking off Vickers just wants to go home now that Weyland will be buggering off, female scientist warns they are taking weapon too...
- female scientist gets on board Captain crashes into ship and it comes down...
- Vickers escapes in pod/liferaft...
- the end...


- cuts back to Vickers in liferaft happy as party sending out a distress call etc... She opens med part of pod being injured and gets jumped by squid boy.
- the end...

- cut back again at the end for alien emerging from Vickers (Queen) and creeping off toward the crashed ship with the space jockey in who she implants and then everything is hunky dory for the start of alien.



That took me five or so minutes and is infinitely better than the dross we were offered. It makes sense, everything ties in and it would actually have some real suspense horror (as Alien films should) as well as all the rest!

TaDa! Kiss my arse Scott I'm better than you!
 
jeeez why do you kids need everything explained all the time

what happened to a bit of mystery ?

maybe they will explain more if they make another film, they seem keen on a second one, so wrapping up everything into Alien would prevent that?

people seem to grasp at straws and get all confused with the outcome

p.s the snakes were not in the vase things, they were just plain old worms that got into the black goop stuff that mutates dna and became the snakey things
 
gettothechopper said:
jeeez why do you kids need everything explained all the time

what happened to a bit of mystery ?

maybe they will explain more if they make another film, they seem keen on a second one, so wrapping up everything into Alien would prevent that?

people seem to grasp at straws and get all confused with the outcome

p.s the snakes were not in the vase things, they were just plain old worms that got into the black goop stuff that mutates dna and became the snakey things
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Calling people kids on the Internet whilst insulting them? Oh the irony! :D

I don't need anything explained to me. I however expect a coherent story from a film which makes at least one iota of sense.
 
Fair enough but it would need to be one fantastic film which would need to be even longer than the first to fill in the vast plot holes that the first left gaping.

We'll see I suppose but as a first part of a potential series it really does stink! :p
 
v0n said:
Casting problems:
Noomi. With all due respect. Not Ripley. There is a medipod/surgery scene where she gets close, but even that is spoiled by her blobbing just hours before in bed. Charlize should have been the main scientist, she would be more believable in butt kicking, interplanetary revenge seeking role, and (sad to say) - we would care for her. As others mentioned. I'm not sure if I want to see sequel of what happens to Noomi and head of Dave in Space Jokey ship he can no longer pilot without body. She was kind of bleh if not annoying most of the time.
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Charlize was offered the lead role and turned it down due to a scheduling conflict. She then became available and the role of Vickers was expanded for her.
 
gettothechopper said:
jeeez why do you kids need everything explained all the time

what happened to a bit of mystery ?

maybe they will explain more if they make another film, they seem keen on a second one, so wrapping up everything into Alien would prevent that?

people seem to grasp at straws and get all confused with the outcome

p.s the snakes were not in the vase things, they were just plain old worms that got into the black goop stuff that mutates dna and became the snakey things
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There's a bit of a difference between mystery and lazy writing. This film is a case of the latter.
 
Visually it was stunning, Fassbender was the show stealer.

Overall a brilliant film, okay it wasn't a 'by the numbers' Sci-Fi that spoonfed the story for easy viewing instead it thundered along leaving you thinking wth was that all about?!!! ;)
 
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