Has anybody here seen Ridley Scott's "Prometheus?"

[Downtown Hound]

I recently did and loved it. It was one of the best and most though provoking pieces of sci-fi that I've seen in a long time. But man, it left me with a lot of questions, and my mind has been chewing on them ever since. Anybody here have the same reaction?

Note to whom it may concern: if you plan on seeing this movie, I recommend you see it without knowing ANY spoilers, because it will take you on one hell of a ride. If anybody is going to post spoilers, please label them in advance so you don't ruin the experience for anybody.

[warrior1]

1. Yes, but I had problems with a lot of it

check out this video someone made.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/cconnelly/everything-that-is-wrong-with-prometheus-s3x

[Downtown Hound]

2. LOL. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up

Although, to me, a lot of those aren't necessarily things that are "wrong" with the movie, but rather unanswered questions. I had the same thought about the guy taking off his helmet though, but I just chalked it up to Hollywood being Hollywood.

Guess we'll just have to wait for the sequel.

[cemaphonic]

19. My idea for the sequel:

You've got this traumatized woman who has lost everything traveling alone in a run-down vehicle through a remote and hostile wilderness. Her only traveling companion is a severed head in a sack.

Sequel's gonna be a glossy sci-fi remake of "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia."

[Downtown Hound]

24. I get it. You don't like the movie.

You can repeatedly stop letting us all know now.

[cemaphonic]

25. It was a joke

Ok, so maybe humor based on a semi-obscure 30+ year-old movie isn't the funniest thing ever, but I thought it might get a laugh from anyone who has seen both movies. And FWIW, if they *did* somehow make the sequel into a remake of "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia," I'd be there on opening night - even splurge for the IMAX.

And my only other post on this thread was more about how I dislike that "Jesus was an Engineer" theory, and would be disappointed if that was the creators' intent and not just some fandom theory. I guess I did kinda come down hard on the movie, but I don't really see how one sentence out of a grand total of two posts constitutes "repeatedly."

Besides, I didn't really dislike the movie that much, just found it frustrating (like half of the other people on this thread.) It looked fabulous. the actors did a great job with their material, and it was thematically ambitious in a way that science fiction movies rarely are. And I liked the recurring theme of everyone screwing up in their area of expertise (geologist and mapping programmer gets lost in a cave, biologist is killed provoking an unfamiliar and obviously agitated wild animal, captain is said to be a poor pilot, etc.) And the body horror stuff was really hideous and scary.

OTOH, the themes are shallowly developed, and there is too much about the scenario that doesn't really make sense, like pretty much everything involving the Engineers and there motivations, and Weyland putting together this extremely expensive and high-risk expedition, but cutting corners on the personnel and encouraging his pet robot to perform dangerous and uncontrolled experiments on the crew. And I am usually pretty tolerant of silly science in my sci-fi, and I love that von Danekin shit (as a fiction trope at least), but the implications of the opening scene and the human-Engineer DNA match pretty much invalidate everything we know about biology and the evolution of life on Earth, and it isn't even addressed.

[Downtown Hound]

26. Actually the things people are complaining about in Prometheus are some of the main reasons why I

liked it so much. It poses questions, and makes you think about the answers. It doesn't spell out everything in a nice neat little way. It creates a sense of mystery and wonder. When you're dealing with a topic such as the mystery of life and the nature of man, the answers shouldn't be so easily given and defined in my opinion.

All of the questions you pose are legitimate questions, but the simple fact that we're here talking about it to me is proof the the movie did its job. It's supposed to make you think and ask exactly the kinds of questions that we're all here asking. We don't know about the Engineers and their motivations, we're supposed to speculate on it. And the movie taunts you with just enough information to make you want to do it.

Well, that's my take on it anyways.

[warrior1]

3. this is pretty good too.

[Blue_Tires]

4. There was a long lounge thread earlier

Based on what I read there I'm more than happy to skip this movie....

[MrScorpio]

5. I saw it today and asked a question about it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018137881

[rug]

6. That was a damned good question.

[MrScorpio]

9. Thanks

But too bad that no one cares about it

[rug]

10. Well, I think you put your finger on the heart of the movie.

With one addition: it was the monster who ultimately homicidally hosed. He'd have to be to want to wipe out his creatures.

[MrScorpio]

11. There were lots of unintended consequences to the act of creation...

Man creates androids that turn out to be completely fucking psychopaths.

The Engineers create man who show's up unexpectedly at his secret bio-weapons lab after a failed attempt to wipe mankind out.

Human scientist with an unwanted alien squid growing in her womb fails to kill it after it's removed and it goes on to be THE progenitor of the xenomorphic race.

Engineers figure out that the human race that they created millions of years ago has evolved into a highly fertile race of mass-murderers who should never leave their wet, blue ball, so they've created a highly toxic and not as smart bio-weapon to wipe out humanity two thousand years ago… Unfortunately the new bio-creation cause more problems.

If anything, the Engineers are quite the example that technology can outpace practicality, morality and decency.

They should have stayed on their own little world and not engineered anything at all.

They only thing that they knew how to do is engineer problems.

[Downtown Hound]

14. I'm not convinced that the xenomorph you saw at the end was the same thing as the one from Alien

For starters, there was an engraving of a xenomorph on the cave wall where the black goop was being stored, implying that they had already been created many thousands of years ago. And the xeno on the wall looked more like the one we all know, much more so than the one at the end of Prometheus.

Second, the dead engineer in the derelict spacecraft in Alien seems to have been there a LONG time. Much longer than the time frame that elapsed between Prometheus and Alien. It had been fossilized and grown into its chair.

My thinking is that it was the xenos that wiped out the Engineers, who were in turn attempting to wipe out humanity. The planet in Prometheus was LV-233, whereas the planet in Alien was LV-426. They're not the same planet, but they are in the same vicinity. It's possible that during the xeno outbreak on LV-233, which I think is what we saw in the holographic projection where all the Engineers were running, one ship escaped with Xenos on board, and this crash landed on LV-426 only to be discovered thousands of years later by Ripley and her comrades.

[MrScorpio]

17. Those are good points

Of course, Ridley will probably never give us all the details… EVER

[Hayabusa]

27. Same here

My personal theory is that the whole thing was a "Hey, we used this species so long ago to great success (and I hear those Yujas have been using them, too...) why don't we make 'em BETTER!"

[Xipe Totec]

7. Sadly, yes

Excellent production values.

Stunning 3D effects.

Charlize Theron is stunningly beautiful.

The plot is boring, formulaic, repetitive, predictable crap.

I yawned through most of the movie, except when Charlize was on the scene.

[rug]

8. I thought it was pretty good. (Spoilers.)

1) The Scottish drawings were 35,000 years ago and appeared to be an invitation.

2) 2,000 years ago the aliens determined to destroy their creatures with biological weapons of mass destruction.

3) What happened 2,000 years ago?

4) Why was she wearing a cross all the time?

My take? They were mightily pissed.

[Downtown Hound]

12. Jesus was an engineer?

[rug]

13. He was sent by the Engineers.

[Downtown Hound]

15. Fascinating theory.

I'll guess we'll have to wait and see if it's true. This is why I like this movie so much. It gets me thinking, and that's something I find very rare in movies these days.

[Son of Gob]

18. This blog does a good job at trying to explain that theory.

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

[Downtown Hound]

20. Hey, that's awesome. That helps a lot.

The only thing I'm not sure of is the opening scene with the Engineer. It's possible that he was sacrificing himself to create life, but it seemed to me like he was genuinely surprised at what was happening to him when he began to disintegrate. Kind of like, "Hey wait a minute, this isn't what's supposed to happen!"

Oh well, like I said, guess we'll just have to wait.

[Son of Gob]

22. Here's a link to photos of a deleted scene from that opening

http://www.prometheusforum.net/discussion/2118/first-look-at-the-elder-engineer-update-new-pic-shows-9-engineers/p1

[cemaphonic]

16. 2000 years ago was a pretty busy time

Maybe they're Space Jews angry about the destruction of the Temple of Solomon. Or maybe they're Roman Republicans that didn't like the Caesars turning to Empire. If that "Space Jesus" theory is what the creators had in mind, it makes the movie even worse in retrospect.

[chemenger]

23. Eric Cartman, is that you?!

n/t

[AsahinaKimi]

21. I have come to the conclusion

that I don't want to see this movie. Who wants a bunch of questions where there are no answers to? I was just gonna watch it for Noomi Rapace. She has recently become an actress I like! But..I will skip the movie..and focus on her stills