PROMETHEUS - Grade and Discuss

[Bob The Skutter]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Exactly. If you were disappointed, who knows WHEN that might happen... it could be at the beginning, it could be in the middle... who knows...? But because someone was disappointed, doesn't mean they went in HOPING to hate it...

I went in to it hoping for a good film. I certainly didn't go in expecting to hate the film and I came out very disappointed in the film and then got more and more disappointed and liked it less and less the more I thought about it.

[Starbreaker]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Exactly. If you were disappointed, who knows WHEN that might happen... it could be at the beginning, it could be in the middle... who knows...? But because someone was disappointed, doesn't mean they went in HOPING to hate it...

There's a difference in being disappointed and nitpicking though. I didnt like the plot.vs. I didnt like the font choice on the computer screen. Epic Fail Flop!

[Bob The Skutter]

Starbreaker wrote:

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There's a difference in being disappointed and nitpicking though. I didnt like the plot.vs. I didnt like the font choice on the computer screen. Epic Fail Flop!

Who nitpicked fonts? No-one. People nitpicked all sorts of things but I don't think a lot of it was to do with effects or design.

[DarthTom]

Starbreaker wrote:

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There's a difference in being disappointed and nitpicking though. I didnt like the plot.vs. I didnt like the font choice on the computer screen. Epic Fail Flop!

Meh. Not on the same level that Star Trek Nemesis was - at least for me. Prometheus had a lot of problems as some have said - notably the bad acting from virtually everyone save the Robot. But as least they didn't cast what appeared to be a French runway model to play the younger version of Captain Picard and try to write a script making him and his sidekick Remen protege [who BTW can mind read and simulate rape Diana] the bad guys in the most unbelievable and poorly written Trek film/show since Voygers Treshold or TOS Spock's Brain

[Starbreaker]

I used the font as an extreme example. stj said he couldn't make it past two scenes because of a DNA graphic and a futuristic dating tool that is literally seen for 15 seconds.

[DarthTom]

Starbreaker wrote:

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I used the font as an extreme example. stj said he couldn't make it past two scenes because of a DNA graphic and a futuristic dating tool that is literally seen for 15 seconds.

The problem for Scott IMO isn't that Prometheus is such an epically bad film - measured against some epically bad films as I noted with Nemesis - but rather that he has to compete against his own masterpieces and people's expectations that he produce a masterpiece every time.

Blade Runner and Aliens for many sci-fi fans [like myself] were ground breaking films by any metric. So when Prometheus came out and it had some issues people conflated that with making the film an 'epic failure,' etc.

I didn't love Prometheus - and as others have said the visuals in the film were stunning - but I didn't hate it either. But to hold Ridley Scott to crank out the same masterpieces every single time the film rolls, is IMO an unfair expectation and one that he inevitably would have failed at regardless.

[Starbreaker]

After listening to the screenwriters' commentary, I like this movie a lot more. Apparently, Ridley cut several scenes explaining David's motivations. He was experimenting with the organisms hoping to find something that would extend Weyland's life at the expense of everyone else.

And there was a scene cut where dumbass snake guy explains his love for xenobiology.

[Professor Zoom]

Starbreaker wrote:

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There's a difference in being disappointed and nitpicking though. I didnt like the plot.vs. I didnt like the font choice on the computer screen. Epic Fail Flop!

Things like font start getting nitpicked when the rest of the movie is shit. By the time I start complaining about the font, its because its on the LIST of complaints. If a movie has really disappointed me, I eventually get around to complain about small things.

I'm willing to forgive the small stuff if the overall stuff is worth the price of admission.

[Shurik]

I went to this movie with very high expectations. I didn't read the reviews, I didn't read spoilers (which is rare for me because I'm a spoiler junkie), all I knew is that it was some sort of an Alien prequel and that Ridley Scott was directing it.

It turned out to be the most disappointing movie of the year and it's high on my list of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's definitely the worst movie I've paid to see in cinema, beating even Matrix:Reloaded.

[The Mirrorball Man]

Starbreaker wrote:

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After listening to the screenwriters' commentary, I like this movie a lot more. Apparently, Ridley cut several scenes explaining David's motivations. He was experimenting with the organisms hoping to find something that would extend Weyland's life at the expense of everyone else.

Well, he did cut them. I can't have an opinion on a different version of the film when none exist. As it is, Prometheus is a disappointing mess, and I don't really care if Ridley Scott had good intentions.

[Base_Delta_Zero]

^Yes, this! to both the above posts. I wanted this movie to be awesome. I was ready for it to rock me. Anything that even hints of connection to the Alienverse grabs my attention.

Then my dream of another Ridley Scott homerun became a horrible nightmare that looked really pretty and well made technically (except for the old Mr. Weyland Riteaid Halloween mask), but poorly acted and scripted with one WTF moment after another. The cut scenes may very well explain some of the rampant stupidity of the theatrical release, but that won't change the fact Scott fucked things up royally for me. The only movie I can think of that I walked out of more depressed and disappointed at the wasted opportunity of reinvigorating a franchise was The Phantom Menace.

I prayed that Scott had been forced to do really stupid things to the final cut by studio pressure like with Kingdom of Heaven and that another director's cut restoring lost plot lines and story beats could turn a disastrous theatrical release into a DVD masterpiece. That doesn't seem to be the case, though.

Oh, well. More's the pity. I'm over it.

[Scout101]

Just screwed up such obvious things, like translating what David said to the Engineer that resulted in the entire disaster at the end. Without having that translation on screen, he just goes nuts for no reason, everyone dies, the end.

Yeah, I've seen the summary of what it was supposed to be, and what they meant by it, but why the hell wouldn't you SHOW some of that in the movie, so people could maybe understand why things ended like they did? Just random horror-porn without it...

[Triple-F]

DarthTom wrote:

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The problem for Scott IMO isn't that Prometheus is such an epically bad film - measured against some epically bad films as I noted with Nemesis - but rather that he has to compete against his own masterpieces and people's expectations that he produce a masterpiece every time.

Blade Runner and Aliens for many sci-fi fans [like myself] were ground breaking films by any metric. So when Prometheus came out and it had some issues people conflated that with making the film an 'epic failure,' etc.

I didn't love Prometheus - and as others have said the visuals in the film were stunning - but I didn't hate it either. But to hold Ridley Scott to crank out the same masterpieces every single time the film rolls, is IMO an unfair expectation and one that he inevitably would have failed at regardless.

Can't argue with that.

[Professor Zoom]

Triple-F wrote:

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Can't argue with that.

I can. This wasn't about someone who in the past has made a masterpiece and didn't live up to the bar that he set for himself. This was a poorly told story.

[internet nerd voice] Brett Ratner could've done better. [/internet nerd voice]

[Flavius]

The 3D blue-ray just arrived today. I going to watch it for a second time this weekend. I don't think, though, that my opinion about it is going to change much - one of his weak films, with some serious flaws and stunning visuals, some great moments and a story that was basically left on the cutting room floor.

IMHO, it's still a must see for SCI-FI and Ridley Scott fans.