PROMETHEUS - Grade and Discuss

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Roshi, May 30, 2012.

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Prometheus - Poll

Poll closed May 30, 2013.
  1. A +

    6.9%
  2. A

    11.6%
  3. A -

    13.8%
  4. B +

    18.5%
  5. B

    14.2%
  6. B -

    9.1%
  7. C +

    8.2%
  8. C

    3.4%
  9. C -

    6.5%
  10. D

    5.2%
  11. F

    2.6%
  1. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    I think it's more than a moot point. My Sims show happiness and glee when I buy them a new CRT TV. Are they really feeling happy?
     
  2. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Have you even listened to Dexter's internal monologue in social situations?

    "What do they expect me to do now/ look happy? I think it's happy... Show some teeth."

    Matt LeBlanc's character Matt leBlanc said something along these lines in his new series Episodes... "Special effects? I'm over it. You know how I was in Lost in Space, well I'll tell you a secret... I wasn't really lost in Space."

    The actor pretended that the character might be feeling emotion in a funny accent.

    But he's been programmed to not beleive that he has emotion, and he's been programed to reject that he has emotion even as he is experiencing emotion and exhibiting emotion...

    Data should have put his foot through Rikers face for lauighing at him when he was learning to whistle.
     
  3. TremblingBluStar

    TremblingBluStar Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well, obviously the smoke monster is a person... who was sucked into the glowing rectum of the island and turned evil, but who really wants to only get off the island. He can take human form, but instead of using this ability from the beginning thought it would be more fun to appear as L.A. smog and take actions that repeatedly block his chances of escaping the island... like killing the pilot... because he totally likes to be unpredictable.
     
  4. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The Smog Monster is explained in the second to last episode.

    Is his twitter feed still active?
     
  5. Sysyphyx

    Sysyphyx Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    l'm still trying to figure out why the polar bears were on the island. :confused:
     
  6. banzaiduck

    banzaiduck Lieutenant

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    It was explained in some Lost special "webisode" that followed the finale if I recall correctly. The thing of it is, I can't seem to remember what the hell the explanation was.

    BANZAI!!!!!!!
     
  7. trekkiebaggio

    trekkiebaggio Vice Admiral Admiral

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    They were shipped there from a DHARMA facility. I can't remember exactly why.
     
  8. roliver

    roliver Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Actually, even that doesn't make much sense. Prior to the launch of the mission the movie presents no information to even remotely suggest that the beings depicted in the cave paintings are our creators.

    Aliens from another world, yes, definitely, but not the slightest scrap or clue that these beings made us and have the ability to prolong human life.

    Someone, presumably Shaw, jumps to the conclusion that these aliens created us. She somehow manages to convince others of this, including Weyland. How I don't know, as she has no evidence. I guess she just chose to believe, and Weyland inexplicably chose to believe her.

    So perhaps it all makes sense. Weyland was a senile old fool who gathered together a group of clueless idiots on a fool's errand of epic proportions.
     
  9. Mach5

    Mach5 Admiral Admiral

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  10. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Weyland isn't a Senile old fool.

    He's doomed.

    I'm sure they said something like that his life expectancy was measured in days not months, and as long as he was in cold storage, he was the chairman of the board, till he got back and died minutes later, which pissed Vickers off since the old fart might outlive her, if the ship didn't come back quickly.
     
  11. Disruptor

    Disruptor Commodore

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    The next film in the series will be a Forbidden Planet remake with the engineers being the Krell and Robbie replaced with Robert, another android.

    One thing I thought of, who's to say the Engineers don't eventually succeed in their plans to bomb Earth with the goop? We never visit future Earth itself in the ALIEN movies (ALIENS is on a space station), it's referred to as a "shit hole" in Alien Resurrection. According to General Perez, the xenos were needed for "Urban Pacification". Maybe Earth is full of killer mutants?

    It's just common knowledge so no one says it outright in the films. Like the Stormtroopers being clones in the Star Wars universe. ;)
     
  12. Shurik

    Shurik Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I think there's an alternative ending to Resurrection where Ripley and the rest of the survivors land on Earth and it's a wasteland.
     
  13. Starkers

    Starkers Admiral Admiral

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    Which always made me wonder why everyone was so shit scared of Aliens getting to earth?
     
  14. Mach5

    Mach5 Admiral Admiral

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    Probably one of the reasons it got cut.

    I always pictured Earth in Alien universe as a Blade Runner style planet. Polluted, over-populated, dystopic (corporate owned), but still home.
     
  15. Pingfah

    Pingfah Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Weren't they trying to crash the ship INTO the planet anyway? Can't have been that concerned about it.
     
  16. ManOnTheWave

    ManOnTheWave Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I may be over thinking this.

    However, when I watch movies like this where a crew boards a ship, goes to sleep for years, wakes up to do a job, and then goes back to sleep for years, I have to wonder who these people are and why they do it. The only film I recall even addressing the subject was Planet of the Apes. It explicitly states that everything the crew knew would be gone when they return to Earth. The motivation of the scientists: they were the kind of guys who'd "walk naked into a live volcano if he thought [they]could learn something no other man knew." Taylor had nothing but contempt for humanity, and wouldn't miss it if he never saw it again. In Alien, the characters are all stuck in contracts and hoping to make a share of the cargo's profits. How long were they asleep? Do their contracts account for inflation? If I sign a contract to do a job for a million dollars, what do I do if I wake up in ten years and find that million is worth less than the ten in my pocket now? I go back to work, I guess, like any indentured servant or share cropper. I think Fitfield and his lot were on that ship because they were already pretty much owned by The Company and The Company had a need for and expendable geologist, biologist, etc. and just assigned the ones currently in stock to the project.

    The bridge crew of The Prometheus bothered me slightly when at the end they all decided to stay together, because it felt like a cliche where brothers in arms stay together no matter what, even if it means death. Then it struck me; how long have they been a crew on a ship? How many missions? How many years asleep at a time? How old are they really? Are all of their families dead? Long dead? Are their class mates and contemporaries old? Long dead? Of course they stay together, they have nothing to go back to.

    That's who goes on these missions: Besides the occasional motivated specialist, it's people without options. People owned by The Company. People with nothing to go back to.
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2012
  17. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

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    It was an experiment to see if polar bears could be adapted to live in other climates, such as tropical islands and the desert. It was somehow involved with the frozen donkey wheel which would teleport Ben (and others) from the Island to the middle of the Tunisian desert. Charlotte found the remains of a polar bear there in Tunisia. Why they needed to test that on polar bears and couldn't just use any other animal is beyond me, other than they just decided it would be freaky to have polar bears show up on a tropical island.

    I can't believe how stupid that all sounds now typing it out.

    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnmMksVK8pY[/yt]

    A moot point from the perspective of others who can't tell the difference, not to David himself. If his use of emotion is so adept and used at appropriate moments that don't stand out as strange to humans, it might as well be real emotions from their perspective.

    Janek set his ship down on an unknown alien planet at the front door of a temple of an unknown alien species, all without testing the atmosphere, scouting the surface for good landing sites capable of supporting the weight of his ship or devoid of dangerous storms (like the one they encountered on their first day), or first trying to make rudimentary contact with the aliens using David's knowledge of their language. Janek abandoned his post to go on a booty call while two of his crew were stuck in the alien temple and there were anomalous life signs showing up. Janek comes across as competent because everything initially worked out and he made a brave and selfless sacrifice in the end, but he kind of sucked at his job too.

    It doesn't make sense for Weyland to have expendable idiot scientists on his crew, since they're going into a completely unknown situation where having a biologist and a geologist handy is a good safety measure. If you're going through underground tunnels, don't you want to know if they're structurally sound and if there are any dangerous elements in the rock? Don't you want your ship to set down on solid ground? Don't you want a biologist who will make sure the aliens you're going to contact don't have any weird diseases that might kill you? Don't you want to know if that space cobra is safe without trying to pet it?

    Holloway endangers the whole crew by taking off his helmet and potentially exposing everyone to unknown pathogens. Shaw and Ford endanger the whole crew by bringing aboard the alien head and poking and prodding it without being in a quarantine room (they eventually get it in one seconds before it explodes) or even wearing hazmat suits. The computer says "no pathogens," but you're dealing with a completely unknown situation that leaves it open to overlooking things - like exploding heads.
     
  18. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

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    I should clarify: it makes sense as a MOTIVATION to go... It's still a jump, but... as a desire, I get it.

    That doesn't mean they need to be stupid. People without options can still be GOOD at their jobs.
     
  19. TremblingBluStar

    TremblingBluStar Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Because they've seen the AVP movies and know that aliens on Earth is a surefire recipe for suckiness.
     
  20. Shurik

    Shurik Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    He also sat the ship down basically almost on a giant hangar bay door. If he'd sat it down a bit closer to the alien temple, his ship would've just fall down when the alien ship took off.