PROMETHEUS - Grade and Discuss

[Pingfah]

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

[ManOnTheWave]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Ultimately, one has to twist and twist in order to make sense of THIS CREW... this is a failure of the writing. Characters doing stupid things in order to advance the plot.

Weyland's desire to meet the aliens, to ask for more life, THAT makes sense... but why hire these people? That makes NO sense, unless one twists and twists.

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.

[Locutus of Bored]

trekkiebaggio wrote:

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

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.

Shurik wrote:

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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.

Trekker4747 wrote:

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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?

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.

Nightowl1701 wrote:

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The whole crew wasn't expendable. Just Shaw, Holloway, Millburn and Fifield - aka the non-Company freelance associates who were kept out of the loop about the real mission.

"Barely capable of getting him to an alien planet?" Captain Janek and his men (plus David) got the Prometheus down on LV-223 just fine.

With the exceptions of Millburn & Fifield, who had no clue what they were in for when they signed up, and loose-cannon Holloway (and let's face it, they're the only ones we're complaining about), the crew of the Prometheus was "pretty damn good."

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.

[Professor Zoom]

roliver wrote:

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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.

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

ManOnTheWave wrote:

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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.

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

[TremblingBluStar]

Starkers wrote:

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

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

[Shurik]

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.

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.

[Professor Zoom]

Shurik wrote:

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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.

Though, to be fair, he didn't know that. How could he? It's not like it was labeled.

[Disruptor]

What keeps anyone from going back to that planet? The curiosity of what happened would eventually bring humans there, warning or not.

Where did Shaw leave her end recording at? We know she didn't go back to the lifeboat or she'd have met Sharky the proto-xenomorph. (Though the idea of it being benign and her taking it with her as a pet is amusing.)

[Shurik]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Though, to be fair, he didn't know that. How could he? It's not like it was labeled.

They had a geologist, he could've at least checked where they landed after the landing or take soil samples around the ship or the temple or something. Which boils down to how completely useless the geologist was. They could also scan the landing area before the landing ...

Fuck this, I'm thinking about it way too much. If Lindeloff didn't care for such small details, why should we?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Shurik wrote:

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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.

Paris, yes. Not necessarily the whole planet (which I believe is described as "beautiful" in a line that actually appears in the film). And isn't Paris' condition explainable by the simple fact that the Auriga crashed into it?

[Saul]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Paris, yes. Not necessarily the whole planet (which I believe is described as "beautiful" in a line that actually appears in the film).

Don't remember that line but I do remember the "Earth, what a shit hole" line.

[Locutus of Bored]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Paris, yes. Not necessarily the whole planet (which I believe is described as "beautiful" in a line that actually appears in the film). And isn't Paris' condition explainable by the simple fact that the Auriga crashed into it?

No, as Saul said the line was "Earth. Man, what a shithole."

Unless Paris was relocated to South Africa, that's not where the Auriga crashed. Speaking of which, I think the fact that they were perfectly okay with vaporizing most of the southern part of Africa (not to mention the worldwide after-effects of that massive explosion) doesn't bode well for there being a lot of people alive on Earth.

[flcat]

Well, maybe it's not so far-fetched having such stupid people on the scientific team. The dude who tried to pet the alien-snake thing reminded me of touchie-feelie nature-lover types who think you can walk up to a bear and pet it and then end up being featured in a volume of Faces of Death.

[Professor Zoom]

flcat wrote:

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The dude who tried to pet the alien-snake thing reminded me of touchie-feelie nature-lover types who think you can walk up to a bear and pet it and then end up being featured in a volume of Faces of Death.

You mean the same dude who ran away from a dead body, that has been dead for 2000 years, that same dude? Maybe if they had been CONSISTENT with the stupidity maybe it wouldn't have been noticeable.

[MacLeod]

Disruptor wrote:

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What keeps anyone from going back to that planet? The curiosity of what happened would eventually bring humans there, warning or not.

Where did Shaw leave her end recording at? We know she didn't go back to the lifeboat or she'd have met Sharky the proto-xenomorph. (Though the idea of it being benign and her taking it with her as a pet is amusing.)

Couldn't it have been transmitted from the suit mic to the lifepod?