Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012)

[Finch]

Final (?) International Trailer

[eerik]

Fox New Zealand has it in HD.

[HistoryProf]

I didn't think it was possible, but that final trailer has me even more excited.

[flyonthewall2983]

Fox: "Prometheus will be rated R for “sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language.”

[eerik]

I did the mistake of browsing IMDb forums for Prometheus. Those idiots are already complaining it is too soft R rating. ](*,)

[domino harvey]

It's the Drake of alien movies

[eerik]

New viral video Quiet Eye.

[mfunk9786]

First review

[flyonthewall2983]

Nope, nope. Not gonna click, not gonna click.

[Finch]

Avoiding the reviews like the plague as well. Watching Alien in prep for Prometheus midnight screening tonight. Excitement now mixed with increasing nervousness that the marketing could turn out to be better than the film itself.

[Roger Ryan]

I watched the first three ALIEN films in reverse order over the last week to prepare for this "sort-of" prequel (couldn't bring myself to watch ALIEN RESURRECTION again!). I know PROMETHEUS will be bigger and louder than it needs to be (the curse of CGI), but I'm hoping the ideas and characterizations will take center stage.

[Mr Sausage]

Since this is Ridley Scott, I'm actually expecting the style to take more precedence than the ideas, and for long periods of this movie to be devoted to suspense, slimy creatures, screaming, and a booming soundtrack. And I have no problem with that.

[colinr0380]

I couldn't resist peeking into that review. (Potential?) Spoilers:

Spoiler

It sounds promising that the review praises most highly the first section of the film involving the space trip to the alien planet. I hope that this means that Scott is doing something similar to the "nothing happens" section of Alien, where the horror plot takes a back seat to all of the sci-fi logistics of interplanetary travel and planet exploration, which is the finest section of that film.

The section of the review mentioning a self-inflicted Caesarian section sounds quite shocking, and maybe suggests that Scott is aware of some of the Alien rip-offs such as Inseminoid!

[lacritfan]

Prometheus-Coors Light tie in?
"Where will your thirst take you?" - Seriously?

[flyonthewall2983]

This is what we fanboys get for an R rating I guess.

[Finch]

Prometheus: 4/10. Awful mess. First half is halfway passable. Giger sets are lovely. Film announces interesting ideas around but doesn't think them through. Pacing in second half feels off. Script needed several more runs through the typewriter. One nice setpiece but never approaches the nerve-racking tension of the 1979 original's still great finale. Your mileage may vary (my friend liked it quite a bit better than me).

PS.: Blatant sequel-set up nature of the ending was offputting.

Spoiler

The more I think about this, the more angry I get at the numerous plotholes and stupid character behaviours. Perhaps the film's defenders could answer the following questions?

Why did an Alien race which we assume to be engineers revisit Earth many times over?

Why did they point the way to a weapons base on the other side of the galaxy?

How does one find the only building on a planet by coincidentally seeing it out of a window on a low flypast?

Why don't scientists study the most important find in history before walking right in to it?

How does an android know Alien language? Are these languages from cultures that never met each other from the Engineers? If so, is it all Sumerian?

Why does Weyland not screen the staff it is sending on the most expensive trip ever to filter out the idiots?

Why are there axes on a lifeboat ship?

How can anyone get lost in the pyramid when the bridge can see everyones position at all times?

Why does Holloway get flame throwered but mutant Fifield is let in?

How can dreams be watched? Can thoughts be read?

When searching for missing crewmen, why does no one rewind the camera feed to see where they lost transmission?

Why does Holloway take his helmet off just because there's oxygen in the temple? Has he never heard of airborne diseases?

Why do Engineers have Elephantine helmets twice the size of their heads?

What happened to kill the Engineers in the temple?

Why does no one bother to find out?

What are the snake things? Why don't they infect the host?

How did the giant facehugger make a proto xenomorph?

How does David know the motives of the Engineers?

How do you reanimate a severed head?

Why does the captain just accept Shaw's plea to fly into the spaceship when she says 'it's heading to Earth and carrying death'

[mfunk9786]

Excellent build-ups towards weak endings has become Damon Lindelof's personal trademark at this point.

[flyonthewall2983]

Please use spoilers for reviews.

[TechNoir]

Is Giger involved in this, or is it just others doing his style, or ideas?

[MichaelB]

Is Giger involved in this, or is it just others doing his style, or ideas?

He gets a very prominent end credit (in that I spotted it before leaving the auditorium, so it must have been one of the first), but I think it's just to acknowledge his work on the original film.

[reaky]

I agree with Finch - more holes than a knitted tea-cosy - but my biggest question is this:

Spoiler

Since the entire film is meant to lead up to the point at which the Nostromo arrives on the planet and find our space jockey in his seat with erupted chest, how is it they didn't in fact find him on the floor of the crashed Weyland lifeboat, which is where he is left, not to mention the wreckage of both the entire Engineer craft and the Prometheus, with accompanying human corpses? Are we to suppose the freshly-born alien did a bit of a sweep-up and tidy of the entire planet?

I have to say I lost all faith in the film at the point of Shaw's auto-caesarian (she's mightily spry for someone post-surgery): the most preposterous bit of medical recovery since James Bond performed defibrillation on himself mid-coronary in his car in Casino Royale).

[MichaelB]

Spoiler

I have to say I lost all faith in the film at the point of Shaw's auto-caesarian (she's mightily spry for someone post-surgery): the most preposterous bit of medical recovery since James Bond performed defibrillation on himself mid-coronary in his car in Casino Royale).

Spoiler

I saw it with my wife, a midwife-ultrasonographer who's been directly involved with hundreds of actual Caesareans. She actually enjoyed that scene, but more because it was so hilariously implausible than for any other reason.

[Forrest Taft]

I agree with Finch - more holes than a knitted tea-cosy - but my biggest question is this:

Spoiler

Since the entire film is meant to lead up to the point at which the Nostromo arrives on the planet and find our space jockey in his seat with erupted chest, how is it they didn't in fact find him on the floor of the crashed Weyland lifeboat, which is where he is left, not to mention the wreckage of both the entire Engineer craft and the Prometheus, with accompanying human corpses? Are we to suppose the freshly-born alien did a bit of a sweep-up and tidy of the entire planet?

I have to say I lost all faith in the film at the point of Shaw's auto-caesarian (she's mightily spry for someone post-surgery): the most preposterous bit of medical recovery since James Bond performed defibrillation on himself mid-coronary in his car in Casino Royale).

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure this is meant to take place on another planet than the one in Alien, LV-bla bla in one of them and LV-Something Else in the other. I really loved the surgery scene myself, but like others I was put off by the plot holes, and random things that made little or no sense to me. Why did Fassbender put the liquid in Holloway's glass? Where did the gigantic Face Hugger come from? If Guy Pearce was in cryo-sleep, then who was Fassbender talking to when he was wearing the yellow sunglasses? Maybe I missed a detail or two, and I'm guessing all of these answers can be found in a shitload of deleted scenes, and that all will make sense when Scott comes out with the obligatory Director's Cut. But this is pretty sloppy storytelling.

[reaky]

Except that:

Spoiler

The distress signal Shaw leaves at the end of the film is the one the Nostromo receives (though they only decode it late in the film); plus, at one point the Engineer actually hauls himself into the seat, lowering his helmet and, thrillingly, the telescope/viewer, replicating that iconic shot in the original. If the entire purpose of Prometheus was not to take us to this point, then what on earth was its point?

I'd also like to know what was going on in the prologue, with the Blakean Engineer at the waterfall.

[A man stayed-put]

Except that:

Spoiler

The distress signal Shaw leaves at the end of the film is the one the Nostromo receives (though they only decode it late in the film); plus, at one point the Engineer actually hauls himself into the seat, lowering his helmet and, thrillingly, the telescope/viewer, replicating that iconic shot in the original. If the entire purpose of Prometheus was not to take us to this point, then what on earth was its point?

I'd also like to know what was going on in the prologue, with the Blakean Engineer at the waterfall.

Spoiler

I also took it that the 'space jockey' was a different one to the one they find in Alien but didn't pick up on the distress signal being the same. Odd lack of join-up if that is the case.
I took the prologue as the creation of life on earth. The engineer splitting himself into the starting point of humanity
Was overall quite disappointed by the film and concur that, much like Kingdom of Heaven, an extended, better paced, more coherent version will probably turn up on DVD/Bluray eventually