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. Saul

    Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Actually wasn't it the other guy? The dumb scientist guy who thought alien snakes he's never seen should be touched? At first I thought it was Shaw's bf returned.

    Just shows how confusing the film can be in some places.
     
  2. The Evil Dead

    The Evil Dead Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I give it a C. Mostly for how amazing the technical aspects were. The 3D visuals were unparalleled. For the most part I didn't like the story or the characters though. I thought I'd be walking out of it ready to watch Alien but it feels like they want me to go see at least one more movie to setup every thing. I'm surprised by how incomplete the film feels.
     
  3. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I was particularly impressed at the beginning we see a clip from MASH which is done in 3D. Yeah, it's not that big a deal, but I tought it was cool all the same.
     
  4. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Sounds alot like Star Trek (2009).

    These people were the first humans to ever make contact with aliens, I would expect some irrationality to seep into their decision making.
     
  5. DarthPipes

    DarthPipes Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The 3D was better than most films but not at the level of Avator or Hugo. Those two films were true 3D.
     
  6. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    *looks up who wrote the script*
    Ah!
     
  7. Admiral2

    Admiral2 Admiral Admiral

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    No, what they were probably thinking was "We can breathe, we can save suit air and we're going to decontaminate in the ship later anyway" so they did it...and thus saved us from five extra minutes of dialogue about airborne pathogens, "parts per million" and atmospheric testing devices.

    Nobody but Shaw and David got any kind of samples, which was impressive considering how quickly things went downhill after they entered the Space Jockey ship.


    The drones hadn't completed the map at the time they got lost, and the storm was messing with the comms before it completely enveloped the complex, and they didn't collect samples on the way out because their imperative was getting outta Dodge. Would you stop to collect rocks and mud if you thought you'd be attacked by a rabid pit bull at any second?
     
  8. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Just got to watch this. Had to wait a week since all the good seats at the theatre up to yesterday were taken.


    That's about how I felt. I was a bit disappointed. The first two Alien films took you in at the start and then spit you out, even if you tried to watch it without paying too much attention, they would still keep you at the edge of your seat until the end. Even Alien 4 got me excited quite a bit in a number of scenes (the number 1 through 7 scene, Brad Dourif vs. the Alien to name a few). Prometheus didn't do a lot for me. It was a great film, but not as exciting as I expected.

    The thing that I felt most disappointed about is the fact that they
    killed off Meredith Vickers.

    The whole thing was just a giant set up for a one big confrontation between her and Elizabeth. And I don't understand why they didn't use the opportunity. Sure, the film would have been longer, but it would have been worth it.

    It was kinda sad that no character shined with anything that didn't feel a bit forced. No character ever felt complete. No one to even begin to challenge Ripley. It's a shame. David went furthest for me.

    Vickers and Shaw felt as if they cut off their defining scenes from the script. Vickers got away by dying, Shaw got away by the two bad things running in each other's ways. And that's it?

    I would have liked it more even if it ended with Shaw and Vickers ending up together in the small emergency spacecraft with two years to leave and hate each other.

    Still, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron were all fabulous.

    I might watch it again since I have a feeling that I somehow missed something really great somewhere, and I might catch in on a second viewing.
     
  9. Pauln6

    Pauln6 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Lol - did you SEE their decontamination procedure? Given the choice of roasting or having a time-limited visit on my first day, I think I'd keep my helmet on until after we'd tested our impetuous volunteer.

    Plus later dialogue suggested that they didn't screen them after they came back. Rapace suggested they run bloodwork only after one of them started showing symptoms. It's a bit late to quarantine at that stage.

    Given how inane some of the dialogue was, I think I'd have been more than happy to cut some of drivel out and add in a bit of common sense science.
     
  10. Briquettes

    Briquettes Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 5, 2003
    A-

    I thought it was a pretty good movie. The effects were beautiful, Charlize Theron was beautiful, and Michael Fassbender stole the show.

    Sure, there were some problems. Most of the characters did stupid things and the Charlie character annoyed me so much that I was hoping he'd die the minute he stepped off the ship. Still can't say I was disappointed, though. Then again I never really thought Alien was the masterpiece everyone makes it out to be. :shrug:
     
  11. cbspock

    cbspock Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The movie still sucked. She staggered a little but had no problem running and jumping when the plot called for it. The movie looked great the characters and plot were stupid. She pretty quickly forgot David was the one who wanted to freeze her to take the alien home ala Burke from Aliens.


    -chris
     
  12. Flavius

    Flavius Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'd like to take my 12 year old son who loves SCI-FI - are the Aliens anything like the ones from 'Alien'? - he couldn't go in case.
     
  13. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It depends on the individual, obviously, but this has an R rating. If you don't want your son seeing Alien, you definitely don't want him seeing Prometheus; it doesn't want for gore or scary stuff.
     
  14. Saul

    Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Parts are graphic but it's nowhere near as scary as anything from Alien or Aliens. I think at 12 he could handle it.
     
  15. Nightowl1701

    Nightowl1701 Commodore Commodore

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    She'd literally gone straight from the surgery to discovering Wayland (with David being nice and putting a coat over her), then less than a minute later learning "One of [the Engineers] is still alive - and we're going to meet him." Yeah, I'd be pretty distracted myself at that point.

    And again, that scene made it pretty clear that Wayland, not David, was the one pulling the strings and calling all the shots. And she considered David a mere machine with no free will of his own who HAD to follow his creator's orders. She accepted David's aid at the film's end because 1) she had no choice if she was gonna live (and vice versa with David) and 2) She was now David's master and he had to follow HER orders.
     
  16. Nightowl1701

    Nightowl1701 Commodore Commodore

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  17. WarsTrek1993

    WarsTrek1993 Captain Captain

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    I actually enjoyed it! I'm a fan of the first two Alien movies, and I thought this film made up for the godawful third and fourth movies.

    I'm in the minority for this, but I say the Aliens are as scary now as they were in the earlier movies!
     
  18. SalvorHardin

    SalvorHardin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  19. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    I do think it felt more like a reboot than an actual prequel.
     
  20. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

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    It's exactly the feeling I got from the
    first words with the space jockey. He was calm and ready to hear what the humans had to say, and Shaw's insistence on the first question was obviously a foreshadowing for the fact that the question is important. Then he went into a mad rage when we heard what selfish thing we had to ask. The rest seems to follow from there.

    But I still think that the whole premise is a bit... over the top. I'd much if prefer a story depicting sentient beings to have them acting rationally and reasonably, which the whole premise implies they didn't. Instead there is a lot of symbolism that works pretty well, but doesn't feel to have a tangible reason for being there in the first place. For starters, the whole attitude of the Engineers appears to be pretty racist – meeting the Wayland moron or having your emissary killed by a few Roman morons doesn't translate to exterminating the entire race. Especially when you have obvious disagreement in front of you. And the surviving Engineer going after the one who disagreed? Way to go fella, that's totally unbecoming for a godlike creature.

    The whole notion that a sentient alien jumps and starts killing en masse doesn't work well for me, no matter how much symbolism you put to tie it together. Unless there's a very good reason for it, but it has to be either depicted or hinted at. Otherwise it's just another version of “hey, aliens want to come and kill us all”. You didn't need to make them sentient to go there, the original killing machines did it well enough.

    The endangering their installation part works, but going to Earth? You are afraid we might come again, pal? Why don't you just pull a self-destruct trick out of your hat if you're that much into self-sacrifice? Instead you waited for us to self-destruct you! All the humans that were crawling over your military base and had watched Star Trek knew better.

    Gods always seem to have an awful lot of issues.

    And I agree that it felt like there was an awful lot of cutting. Sometimes everything felt so rushed as if an hour had been cut in the middle. I think the Director's cut will definitely be better. Unfortunately, that won't be shown in cinemas, so I'd miss the spectacular visuals in the good version.