PROMETHEUS - Grade and Discuss

[Tom Servo]

This film has succeeded in a big way already regardless of box office. It has people talking from both sides of the fence. And they're talking a lot.

So what is your point? The EXACT same thing happened when Star Trek XI came out.

 

[Goji]

I'll echo what everyone else has really been saying. It's a nice looking film, and a total shame about the characters. I'm inclined to like Michael Fassbender because of how totally awesome he was in last year's X-Men prequel, but everyone else was constantly irritating and stupid. Based on subject matter and genre alone, I'm more likely to enjoy something like this over the original Alien, which for all its style ultimately boils down to a murderous monster bumping off the cast one by one. Not really my thing, more often than not. I liked the parts of this movie that seemed to be trying to be more than that... but it really didn't succeed.

 

[MacLeod]

In myth, Prometheus makes man from clay, sides with the gods against the titans, and steals fire from the gods and gives it to man, only to be condemned for it. So, I suppose the "Prometheus" we see at the beginning of the film is part of one faction of engineers that creates and guides human life, against the will or law of their race, while the ones we see at the end of the film are part of another faction seeking to destroy their works. Their enemies. If the "good engineers" gave us fire, that is technology 2000 years ago, perhaps the "evil engineers" are out to destroy the perceived threat of us. Or maybe to them, all or them, Earth was just a petri dish that served its purpose, and now goes to decon.

Just a guess.

Oh, and A-. It was great.

That is a reasonable explanation. And I agree this is the best sci-fi flick IMO since Trek XI.

Regarding box office totals the film brought in $50 million in the US.

And, worldwide its brought in $141 million

It cost Fox and estimated $130 million to make the film and as pointed out 1/2 the cost The Avengers did.

However, Avengers is up to over $1 billion in box office receipts worldwide so at this point Prometheus has just barely paid for itself.

Comapring Prometheus to Avengers Assemble is not a fair comparrison.

Avengers Assemble is rate 12A in the UK (PG-13 in the states)

Prometheus is rated 15 in the UK and R in the states.

So in countries where the rating is absolute like the UK. No one under 15 is permitted entry to see it. You lose some audiance numbers.

It's true comparisson would be against other R rated films

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic/mpaa.htm?page=R&p=.htm

NB: Figures are US Domestic only

I would expect Prometheus to come in at around the low US$300m mark. In worldwide takings.


Though intersting to see some films like "The Kings Speech" given an R in the US whilst it only got a 12A in the UK.

If anyones interested you can see the original BBFC classifcation report for "Alien" here

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/_featured/2012/05/from-the-archive-alien/

 

[Relayer1]

It's going to turn a decent (if not spectacular) profit, it's rebooted a profitable franchise and it's generated a lot of coverage and discussion. Although the grades are impressively varied, 'we' generally like it, at least in part.

It's got (as they say) legs. There will be more - and hopefully better written - installments.

Let Cameron do the second one !

 

[banzaiduck]

It's got (as they say) legs. There will be more - and hopefully better - installments.

Let Cameron do the second one !

If there will be future installments, let us hope they bring in a reputable writer.

I'd love to see a Nolan interpretation of the Aliens universe.

BANZAI!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kirkman1987]

I'm actually kind of bummed that they chose "David" for the name of the android. Ash and Bishop both had "SH" in their names, which I always thought stood for "Synthetic Human". Would have been a nice bit of continuity if they followed that pattern, but that's just me...

The names go alphabetical.

Ash
Bishop
Call
David

 

[MacLeod]

Anything above around US$350 worldwide I think will green light a sequel. At bare minimum I think it has to do US$300m worldwide for a sequel to be even considered.

 

[Trekker4747]

Spoony, who I often agree with when it comes to movies, hated Prometheus and basically characterized it as the dumbest, most offensive cinematic experience in existence. However, from the comments it appears that many of his complaints were due to him not really paying attention to the film.

I watched (most of) Spoony's review/recap of the movie. (Mostly skipping the point-by-point part as watching him rant for over an hour didn't sound like fun.) And really I think him and (his brother?) were a bit off on their criticisms of the movie. Many of the mistakes and such they pointed out where things that could easily have been solved by thinking outside of the box and realizing the movie did not (and should not) give us all the answers. Why was the surgical bed programed only for males? Because obviously Charlize is an android and the bed was made for her father.

During the escape pod scene, seemed to me there wasn't time for her to get to the escape shuttle so she had to get to it on foot via the escape pod.

There were a LOT of things they went over that could easily be explained. Now some of the criticisms they made were, in fact, valid like the stupidity of the crew (again, the guy treating the alien snake vagina/penis monster as a puppy) the lack of any quarantine or procedures on the ship to separate the crew from any potential toxins outside. And so on.

But, really, many of the things they harped on can be explained away. (The surgical machine could have sewed up/take care of any internal injuries when we weren't looking or simply we can figure it happened but rapid editing cut it out.)

Yeah a lot of his complaints really seemed to come from him not paying attention or not thinking outside of the box and wanting to movie to explain everything to him in a nice little package. Hell, I've even got a good explanation of why The Engineers look so different than humans do in spite of the two of us having the same (or very similar) DNA.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I do not think Vickers is an android. I think she is Weyland's human daughter who is hurt that her father prefers his synthetic son to her. But I do think you're right that the bed (and the whole lifeboat probably) was intended for him and that's why it's calibrated for males.

 

[Sci]

Glad you like it. Now go back and watch ALIEN which, according to its writer, had characters that were deliberately not super well-rounded because his only concern was how they reacted to the monster that got thrown at them, and that was the movie Scott shot...and it's considered the seminal movie of the sci-fi-horror genre.

And Prometheus was created in that same vein. It's not perfect, but no way in hell is it worse than Aliens.

The problem is that you can justify the former: They're working-class people who may not be well-educated and certainly aren't in a profession that should have trained them to deal with contact with new life-forms.

But the crew of the Prometheus consisted of highly-educated, well-trained scientists. They should have already been well-trained in how to explore and gather data in a manner that's both rational and safe.

But I'm sure that training didn't include horny snake aliens, horny squid aliens, giant humanoid aliens bent on genocide, oily black multipurpose ooze, two seperate corporate agendas and freak weather on an alien moon. The notion that any non-Vulcan scientist can go through all this and still do his job in a methodical manner is asinine.

I strongly disagree. There were any number of incidents in which the scientists and crew of the Prometheus made irrational decisions long before they came under attack from any of the alien bioweapons or the Space Jockey. And there were some very basic precautions they should have trained to take long before leaving Earth -- such as having a quarantine suite in place -- that they failed to take.

I issue the same challenge to you that I issued to Pauln6: I defy you to collect samples in a methodial manner while you're being pursued by rabid pit bulls.

No one's asking them to collect samples while under attack. But there are any number of irrational decisions made throughout the entire film, from beginning to end.

They don't make Prometheus a truly bad film. But they do keep it from living up to its potential.

 

[Trekker4747]

Really the dumbest thing was removing the helmet. It reeked of: "You know, wearing these things sort of looks silly and isn't cinematicaly interesting. So we need to remove them so people can see our faces!"

Yeah the air may have been breathable and "free of contaminates" but that doesn't mean that you can just breathe it willy-nilly. Hell, some lip-service to them having been given extensive rounds of antibiotics and antivirals would have been enough. But there really should have been a decon chamber between the entry of the ship and it's main habitable volume.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

The other thing I've noticed is that Trek fans (or, sci-fi fans in general), at least from what I've experienced on this BBS, don't really subscribe to the "Ancient Alien" theories and seem to have a hard time being tolerant of others who do.

You don't have to subscribe to the theory to be fascinated by the possibility or entertained by fiction that explores the concept or ramifications of it being fact.

We are, after all, talking about a concept that is part of a great many wonderful scifi franchises both in film and print. Star Trek, 2001... Mission to Mars!

Let Cameron do the second one !

Uhhhggggg! Only if you want a syrupy and insultingly bad love story and major grammatical errors.

 

[doubleohfive]

Saw it in 3D at the Arclight in Hollywood, after spending most of the previous day watching all the Alien and Predator movies in a marathon with a bunch of friends.

I was middling on Prometheus when I left the theater, ranking it at about an 8 out of 10.

Today, after reading the following review and discussing with co-workers, I'll up it to a solid 10. I don't need it to be a perfect film, but there's enough food for thought here (thanks to the lengthy explanation/theorizing of this review) for me to be generally satisfied with the film. Yeah, it's got plot holes and there's a lack of logic by some of the characters and their actions, but on the whole, I quite liked it.

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html

 

[Shanndee]

I was coming here to post the above link but doubleohfive beat me to it!

A friend of mine sent me that link and I've been thinking about the reviewer's points since I read it. It is definitely food for thought...and it does increase my appreciation of the film (which I had at about a B, now its an A-)

 

[Pauln6]

Really the dumbest thing was removing the helmet. It reeked of: "You know, wearing these things sort of looks silly and isn't cinematicaly interesting. So we need to remove them so people can see our faces!"

Yeah the air may have been breathable and "free of contaminates" but that doesn't mean that you can just breathe it willy-nilly. Hell, some lip-service to them having been given extensive rounds of antibiotics and antivirals would have been enough. But there really should have been a decon chamber between the entry of the ship and it's main habitable volume.

If Holloway had been the only one to take off his helmet a lot of other stuff would slip into place. They could have put thim through decon only to inexplicably show symptoms later, leading to a mystery for the characters to work together to solve. His demise could have been a lot creepier and evoked a lot more emotion if it had been edged out over a longer period. Spending the night trapped in the ruins could also have been a lot creepier if they had split the team in two with a few more cast members together. Showing less is more - something that most horror directors have forgotten in the age of CGI. They're marginally gross but rarely scary. Let our imaginations do most of the work.

Overall, the set pieces were rushed, with David being the only character to show any satisfying growth. Vickers almost got there but she was given too little to work with.

And yes, a montage of them setting up a perimeter and a quarantine suite/mobile lab should have been scene one on the planet. Very silly.

 

[shapeshifter]

After subtracting 1 point (3 points for each letter grade) for everything which bugged me during the film my vote ends up an A-.

I only read 3 pages so please bear with me if I am repeating something but my final impression of the work is: it's a Reboot! It's the only logical way to reconcile all the discrepancies between what we see here and within Alien. That explains R. Scott's statement of it not being a prequel.

I recommend you fence sitters forget all the mudslinging here, leave all the Alien and its sequel baggage at home & go see it with the idea of it being a modern reboot in mind. ;-)

 

[Warped9]

Why does it have to be a reboot? I don't see anything in Prometheus thats inconsistent with Alien.

 

[roliver]

And yes, a montage of them setting up a perimeter and a quarantine suite/mobile lab should have been scene one on the planet. Very silly.

No, scene one should have been an extensive survey of the planet from orbit. Instead they just kind of head straight down and get lucky. This sets the tone for the slapstick "exploration" that follows.

And while were on this topic, why was Halloway depressed that the Engineers were all dead when they had explored just one structure? We clearly could see other temples when they landed, but they were never mentioned. There isn't the slightest hint that the crew has thought beyond the one temple they entered.

Perhaps they landed in the seedy neighborhood and the really nice Engineers were a few temples over making tea?

 

[PsychoPere]

[...] Weyland clearly didn't pick the best and the brightest for this mission.

I have doubts as to how many people, beyond Holloway and Shaw (and Vickers and David, of course), that Weyland was even involved in hiring. At the beginning of the briefing, Vickers led off with "For those of you I hired personally, it's good to see you again." Combined with her later line about Weyland wanting "a true believer onboard" (i.e., Holloway and Shaw), I'm thinking Weyland went into cryosleep shortly after approving the expedition, and thus the actual make-up of the team was decided by others.

I was coming here to post the above link but doubleohfive beat me to it!

Good ol' doubleoh wasn't even the first to post it - at least two other people posted it before him too. It's clearly making the rounds!

[...] R. Scott's statement of it not being a prequel.

Scott has actually referred to it both ways - as not a prequel, and as a prequel. I believe that his intention was much the same as Lindelof's distinction; Prometheus wasn't intended to be a prequel that would exactly set the table to lead directly into Alien, but rather is a prequel that takes place in the same universe, occurs chronologically prior to the events of the previous films, and has some connections to those films.

It's a very wordy distinction and probably one that most people here wouldn't have ever needed, but both Scott and Lindelof have been careful to temper expectations that "the sequel to Prometheus would not be Alien," to quote Lindelof from numerous interviews.

In any event, it's definitely not a reboot.

 

[roliver]

I'm thinking Weyland went into cryosleep shortly after approving the expedition, and thus the actual make-up of the team was decided by others.

This is likely, yes, but why did these "others" hire a bunch of blithering idiots? If they really thought they were travelling to meet a highly advanced alien civilization, shouldn't they have had some ambassadors or something? Someone trained to handle the amazingly important task of making first contact?

And, if they really thought they were going to meet their makers (in spite of there not being the slightest shred of evidence to suggest this) would there not be religious leaders or priests or....someone?

If the true purpose of the mission was to try and acquire alien technology to save Weyland, why did they have a geologist on board? I honestly can't make heads or tails of the composition of the Prometheus' crew. It doesn't match the mission.