Blade Runner ended with as many unanswered questions as Prometheus don't you think?
In other words, Scott has a habit of making the viewer keep guessing after the film about the implications of the future.
PROMETHEUS - Grade and Discuss
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Blade Runner ended with as many unanswered questions as Prometheus don't you think?
In other words, Scott has a habit of making the viewer keep guessing after the film about the implications of the future.
I agree with you. Most films follow as noted below a standard story arc with 3 parts. Scott's films do not. The lack of resolution on major plot issues isn't a problem for me.
In a better film Shaw's infertility would have been mentioned way earlier, and I think in a better film her reaction to finding out she was pregnant would have been very different. Here's a woman who can't have children, who's religious, and who's just seen the man she loves horribly killed. Now David tells her she's pregnant.
I'm not saying there'd have to be any big long moral debate, no endless soul searching, and clearly she's going to want it out of her, but just a moment or two where Rapace showed a smidgen of indecision about what was growing inside her...that would have been character development.
But this is a film that went from infertility to sex to pregnancy to C-Section in the space of, what, 10 minutes? Character development was clearly never really on the cards.
The guy makes a lot of very good points (especially about the crew basically acting like a bunch of kids on a field trip), and there's no disputing that the writing doesn't really hold up well under scrutiny...... but what can I say? Despite the many flaws, the movie still works for me.
IMO there is nothing worse than overly picky sci-fi fans. Star Trek XI can also be nitpicked to death. I remember some of the complaints:
*Red matter that looked like red thick paint.
*Why would you build a Starship on planet earth v. in orbit?
*The character 'Nero,' - yea another poorly written Trek bad guy.
*Here we go again with another time travel paradox to solve plot problems
*Giant space drills - yea like you need a giant drill when you have anti-matter that can destroy an entire sector. Why bother?
*If you're oging to skydive to a space drill, wouldn't it be smart to bring a parachute along?
I could keep going.
I still loved the movie. And I still enjoyed Prometheus.
The difference is Trek was well paced, it was exciting and it had characters I could engage with in it, Prometheus had none of these things (aside from Fassbender) so since I didn't care about the characters, and since the film was so badly paced all I could do was see the glaring mess the script was in places!
I can get over plot holes, but there has to be something else to hold my attention, and pretty visuals alone ain't enough.
I'm not necessarily saying the characters couldn't have been better written - and [cough] Star Trek Nemesis [cough] would be one such Trek example - but IMO Prometheus was about the rise of the aliens as much as anything else. The rest is background noise.
We'll see if Scott makes another film. I'm doubting he will With the cult popularity of Blade Runner and his failure to follow that one up I'd say doesn't bode well for another film soon.
Both movies written by the same guy.The guy makes a lot of very good points (especially about the crew basically acting like a bunch of kids on a field trip
IMO there is nothing worse than overly picky sci-fi fans. Star Trek XI can also be nitpicked to death. I remember some of the complaints:
*Red matter that looked like red thick paint.
*Why would you build a Starship on planet earth v. in orbit?
*The character 'Nero,' - yea another poorly written Trek bad guy.
*Here we go again with another time travel paradox to solve plot problems
*Giant space drills - yea like you need a giant drill when you have anti-matter that can destroy an entire sector. Why bother?
*If you're oging to skydive to a space drill, wouldn't it be smart to bring a parachute along?
I could keep going.
I still loved the movie. And I still enjoyed Prometheus.
Red matter, destroys planets, and becomes a black hole and can be used to time travel.
Black Goo, turns worms into snakes with acid blood, turns people into zombies, causes people to get impregnated with alien squid.
Aka Lazy plots devices that do everything that your story requires them to.
I'll give it an A. It was a visually lavish and entertaining summer movie.
- I skimmed over a few of the reviews here and went in expecting a mess that didn't add up to much. The movie did seem to start off that way because of my preconceived ideas, but everything came together, and aside from a few plot holes discussed, the story made sense. The non-answers we got feels more like a set-up for a sequel than a copout. It's also nice that the movie has left much to be discussed and speculated on. I still want a sequel though, something that takes us to the engineers' homeworld.
- Not only did Guy Pierce's makeup look bad, but the engineers' skin looked like translucent rubber. It was just as fake-looking.
- It was odd seeing "Noomi Rapace" as the first name in the credits, but it looks like she was the breakout character. And yes, that cesarian scene was both gripping and gruesome. If there was ever a chance she could have kids before, she definately can't have 'em now. Who knows what that machine removed or damaged. And dare I say, she was just as easy on the eyes as Charlize Theron.
Now I'm off to read all those links that got posted. I don't know how the Jesus bit would fit in.
- I skimmed over a few of the reviews here and went in expecting a mess that didn't add up to much. The movie did seem to start off that way because of my preconceived ideas, but everything came together, and aside from a few plot holes discussed, the story made sense. The non-answers we got feels more like a set-up for a sequel than a copout. It's also nice that the movie has left much to be discussed and speculated on. I still want a sequel though, something that takes us to the engineers' homeworld.
- Not only did Guy Pierce's makeup look bad, but the engineers' skin looked like translucent rubber. It was just as fake-looking.
- It was odd seeing "Noomi Rapace" as the first name in the credits, but it looks like she was the breakout character. And yes, that cesarian scene was both gripping and gruesome. If there was ever a chance she could have kids before, she definately can't have 'em now. Who knows what that machine removed or damaged. And dare I say, she was just as easy on the eyes as Charlize Theron.
Agreed. But if it's a set-up for Guy Pierce to appear as young Weyland in a future movie then it makes sense I guess.
I think he intended for the mission to succeed with everyone returning home. It would look odd if they didn't.
I thought the same thing. Maybe the surgery machine made use of organic matter stored somewhere and it consumed that.
And that synthetic son represents what he loves most... Immortality.
Now I'm off to read all those links that got posted. I don't know how the Jesus bit would fit in.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and my conclusion: Who says it has to be organic matter?
This thing is a living bioweapon with an insanely efficient metabolism. If it can bleed/spit acid like its' Xenomorph cousins (who never seemed to need to eat anyone except for the occasional brain matter), it can eat metal/plastic Brundlefly-style and metabolize that to build its' body. Remember where the original Alien 'grew up' from its' Chestburster stage - in an engineering/cargo area full of hanging metal chains and assorted mechanical tools/spare parts. In the Prometheus' surgical lab, there was that mobile tool cabinet from which Shaw doped herself up during her frantic preparations to give birth.
Or it could be as simple as that decontamination gas (liquid nitrogen, I'm guessing) being the Xeno equivalent of MiracleGro.
I think Ridley Scott dropped a lot of hints in the film, some more obscure than others, that point to ideas he had. In a sequel he's got some leeway to go one way or another depending on what he ultimately decides to do. In the meantime we can speculate to our hearts' desires about what is actually in this film, definitive and otherwise.
People are positing what they think it's all supposed to mean. They might be right or at least partially so. Then again someone can posit something entirely different that fits the hints and evidence just as easily.
In a way it's like a painting or sculpture that resembles something recognizable yet also has obscure elements to it. What does it mean? What is it saying? Different people will interpret it differently.
People are positing what they think it's all supposed to mean. They might be right or at least partially so. Then again someone can posit something entirely different that fits the hints and evidence just as easily.
In a way it's like a painting or sculpture that resembles something recognizable yet also has obscure elements to it. What does it mean? What is it saying? Different people will interpret it differently.
Just finished seeing. I've haven't gone through the entire thread, but I'm sure others have said it was well... twaddle. Twaddle, twaddle, twaddle.
It looks pretty, but really, I have never seen a crew more deserving of death. Who chose this crew? Would you really put on your ship a collection of cowards and people are not interested in discovering things? I have never seen a movie with more apathetic scientists... and yeah, I'm looking at Hipster Archaeologist dude... and YOU tattooed Geologist dude... I'm sorry you had to leave whatever musical Burning man festival you had to to come on this space voyage...
Oy.
I don't have to have LIKABLE characters, but compelling and non irritating would be nice.
I don't see myself rewatching this anytime soon.
It looks pretty, but really, I have never seen a crew more deserving of death. Who chose this crew? Would you really put on your ship a collection of cowards and people are not interested in discovering things? I have never seen a movie with more apathetic scientists... and yeah, I'm looking at Hipster Archaeologist dude... and YOU tattooed Geologist dude... I'm sorry you had to leave whatever musical Burning man festival you had to to come on this space voyage...
Oy.
I don't have to have LIKABLE characters, but compelling and non irritating would be nice.
I don't see myself rewatching this anytime soon.
Granted, it's the book and not the movie itself, but in the book for Alien, the creature broke into the food stores and gorged itself. They attempt to corner it in there and use the flame throwers to burn it. In fact, it's part of the whole discovery that the creature was using the Nostromo's air ducts to travel around and is the point where Dallas begins his travel through the air ducts to try to force it into the air lock. Like I said, this is the book, and not the movie, but it answers the question of how the Zenomorph grew.
Oh yeah, what happened with Vickers and Janek? Looked like she was inviting him back to her room "in 10 minutes", but nothing came of that.
No... they were having sex off screen. That's why the control room was empty when the Wonder Twins called for help.
^ I see.
They fucked. Presumably both came from it.
I don't think there was anything else to it. They fucked and that was that.
***
My biggest problem with Prometheus is actually not the questionable science -- though there is a lot of that. My biggest problem with Prometheus are the characters who behave in arbitrary manners with no discernible motivation or logic.
Y'know, it has occurred to me that, while opinions of this movie are highly polarized and colorful, it has garnered more discussion of any other film that I can remember in a while. I have over 300 thread subscriptions, and this one has consistently seen the most amount of play for a long duration. If it was Scott's intention to instigate conversations about his work, good or bad, it really is an epic win for him. I'll finally get too see it tomorrow night and I'm really looking forward to it.
I didn't keep a link to this interview, and I've read so many in the past several days that I can't even recall which website it was on, but...
At one point it was scripted that David would look in on Weyland's dreams, just as he did to Shaw, and Weyland would have been young in those dreams. By the time that part of the script was removed, however, Guy Pearce's casting had already been locked, so the production couldn't change direction and simply cast an old actor to play old Weyland.
Yeah, sorry... I muffed the editing of tags... it was RoJoHen who said it, and whom I was responding to.
I can mostly get behind the idea of hiring a younger man to play an old man. But, cripes, the makeup was just terrible. As I said above it looked like the old-man makeup you saw in "Too Short a Season" on TNG. It certainly could have been a LOT better done.
Yep. I just kept thinking... oh, this character is doing this because they need to ramp up the "conflict."
It was as arbitrary as one of them throwing a fit because there wasn't fresh orange juice on the ship or something. The person who put together this crew should be fired.
But the conversations I'm having is about the poor quality of the story telling not about the STORY or the IDEAS. I don't think that was his intention, to have poorly crafted characters doing dumb things in order to move the story along.