[Movie] Prometheus

You know, that really awesome looking movie thats a prequel to Alien films? Hnngh.
Its got Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbinder, Guy Pierce, and Charlize Theron.

Its basically about a ship called Prometheus that has about 17 crew members that goes out to this star system to find what Rapace's character calls "The Engineers." She and her cohort/boyfriend believe that these guys, in fact, created the human race due to some historical ruins junk they found. They do find the planet but...things are not what they seem.

This movie is pretty damn cool. Its actually worth seeing in 3D for the gorgeous scenery and effects. The acting is pretty solid throughout the film and Michael Fassbinder's character is by far the most interesting. Despite being an artificial being/robot. Its a really good way to explain the Alien series because we finally get to know just where and why these things are even around. I recommend this film.

I've been hearing mixed opinions about this one. One side say its okay, others say its disappointment, and you get the idea. I haven't seen it so I can't judge, but has Ridley Scott deteriorated for some people or is he just hit miss lately?

Im...not even sure what people were expecting. I thought it was a nice return to Sci-Fi for Scott. Its not exactly Blade Runner caliber stuff but its a good movie and really nice to look at.

I definately want to see this, I'll probably check it out next wee; theaters are always packed opening weekend.

Saw it the other day with my Dad and sister. Overall I enjoyed it, but the dialogue was clunky at times, and the storyline was definitely a cluster♥♥♥♥. Visuals were gorgeous, most of the tense scenes were intense and I freaking loved David and have been on a Fassbender movie marathon since.

It's like they gave him all the best dialogue and character development.

I'm watching it again in 3D (saw it in 2D), 'cause I hear it's actually pretty decent and liked Fassbender's character + the visuals enough to watch it again.

Uh, I recommend not going into the cinema expecting it to tonally similar to Alien, however. If you do that I can guarantee you're gonna have a bad time.

I saw this last night, there were parts of it I quite liked, but a whole lot more I didn't. My resulting impressions are fairly mixed, but it's a solid enough sci-fi flick that I would say it's worth seeing if you're into the genre. Like eeks says, however, don't go in expecting anything more than the loosest ties to Alien, because this isn't much of a successor, spiritually or otherwise, to that movie.


The best part of the movie was easily the performances. Michael Fassbender was obviously the high point, his amoral android character being the most fascinating character to watch in the piece. Noomi Rapace likewise acquitted herself quite admirably, though Ripley she ain't. I had no idea Idris Elba was in this movie before actually seeing his name turn up in the credits, and it's always a pleasant surprise to see Stringer Bell show up in anything. His little scene with Charlize Theron where he talks about Stephen Stills was one of my favourites, despite the fact it had very little to do with anything story-related.

That said, the performances weren't uniformly good. Logan Marshall-Green was not doing it for me, it was a relief when his character got torched because, good lord was he brutal to watch. Also, as much as I love Guy Pierce and love to see the man get work, why cover a young actor in tons of make up and prosthetics to make him look old instead of just casting an older actor?? I mean, it's impossible that no aging star was available to shoot this movie.

Story-wise I agree with the common consensus that this was all over the place. The first hour draaaaggged on, though there was some interesting stuff in there. Then the bodies started dropping, which was a nice kick in the pants, but soon after that things began to fall apart, from small details (Really, nothing on the ship can perform an abortion? You're on a spaceship on another planet, but there's no coat hangers lying around?) to the fact that the movie ends having asked a bunch of questions they never give the answers to. It's really no surprise that Damon Lindelof, one of Losts head writers, was one of the writers of the flick.


Anyway, it was a moderately enjoyable movie if you're into the whole sci-fi thing, and as long as you're able to ignore some of the more glaring story issues and just enjoy the few great performances. It's really nothing like Alien, which is a horror movie first and sci-fi movie second, whereas this one is basically straight sci-fi with essentially no horror elements at all.

It is a really enjoyable film! I believe I was talking about it on the Film Chit-Chat thread a few days ago (I THINK!) There are a few spoilers and I've labelled them accordingly so if you haven't seen it yet and intend to DON'T' CLICK ON THE BLACKED OUT BITS!

Anyhow, I think a lot of people may have overworked themselves in regard to the film and expected some crazy, profound film that raises many philosophical question, but at the end of the day Prometheus is a huge budget film ($100,000,000+ apparently it's over ten times that of Alien!) And the film has a lot of plot holes throughout the entirety of the film. (i.e. how come the Engineer's head exploded? How did David know that the Engineers were playing to destroy Earth?)

Nonetheless, the film is amazing. The visuals are amazing, the Prometheus ship is probably the most spectacular spaceship I've seen in the cinema for a good few years. Michael Fassbender was as per usual, engaging. As was Noomi Rapace who previously played Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish version of the film. (I was thinking throughout the film "I know her face! Who is she?!) To be honest, the story does leave quite a lot to be desired. It's by no means bad but it is very predictable.

Don't expect Aliens, because Aliens, it ain't but what it is, is a engaging if a little generic film with visuals that are absolutely out of this world. but I really recommend that you go see it in 2D as opposed to 3D though, the first time I saw it was in 3D and whilst the opening montage looked good the rest of the film really does your retinas in because for about half an hour the scenes flick between underexposed scenes and overexposed scenes and I don't know whether it's my old age but it really did hurt my eyes. When I saw it a second time we saw it in 2D (By the way, I didn't go too see it by myself! It was with different groups of friends not that I'm complaining I really enjoyed it both times) and it was a much more comfortable experience so.. beware!

7/10 by the way

Originally Posted by Toby

the Prometheus ship is probably the most spectacular spaceship I've seen in the cinema for a good few years.

I liked the ship as well, mostly cause it looks like a Firefly-class transport with two more engines.

Originally Posted by Toby

7/10 by the way

Yeah, I gave it a 7/10 on imdb, and then I was promptly logged out. SCANDELOUS.

Am going to have to agree that Noomi was great, though I liked Charlize's performance as well, despite her general motive being odd*. I forgot about how weird and uncanny valley Guy Pearce's prosthetics were. I'm going to be very shallow here and say that I didn't notice Logan's clunky acting, 'cause his face was uh, distracting. In a good way. Though that being said, I didn't find his performance memorable either, besides his completely random jabs at Fassbender's character.

Oh! The two pilots and their bet threw me off as well; I completely missed what the actual bet was about, so all their scenes sailed right over my head.

@Toby: I think David was so aware of the situation because he could read all the glyphs the Engineers left behind.

*Vickers was the only sensible character though.

Well, I loved Prometheus. Saw it at midnight the other night. The connection to Alien is very much there, with the Space Jockeys being the focal point of the film, and all the references they made to the original film were a great touch. Everything from the homage to Alien's opening titles, to the Alien Theme when Weyland shows up, and the Derelict Spacecraft. It was fanservice to a fan like me.

I think there are a few flaws with the acting and script, but I think it was near-perfect. It did its job perfectly, and its job was to spark discussion. According to many, there are tons of questions upon finishing the film, but do we really want to know everything? I didn't have many questions however, I got all my answers. That's part of what made Alien so great, and made it have a long-lasting impression. It had questions that were left to the fans to answer for themselves, which I find rare these days.

The performances... Rapace and Fassbender were great. The others were okay, but Logan Marshall Green was just pretty bad. Easily my least favorite role and part of the movie. It may have had its flaws in that department, but it more than made up for it with the rest of the film.

For those who set the bar too high for themselves, comparing to Alien and Aliens, do you want another film that's exactly like one of those? I love them and I didn't want that. I had very high expectations, but closer to the release, I had seen some reviews and lowered them a bit. But, after seeing it, I feel I didn't need to lower them, because I absolutely adored it. 2 1/2 years of excitement for me bursted out in one night. It was the first film I walked out of with a feeling of shock.

Finally, a science fiction film that treats its viewers like they have intelligence to ponder what they saw and the ideas expressed within. The last sci-fi film to effectively do this was in my opinion, Duncan Jones' Moon. And also, finally a film that was disturbing in the right ways. That's hard to do.

As far as visuals go, it was flawless. The engineers were the perfect blend of looking human, but far from it, which made them unsettling to look at. The reason why everything looked so good was that it was all real. Nearly everything in the movie was made by hand, everything down to the creatures. Cgi was used for touching up and tightening the presentation, but everything was first created without the use of a computer. I'm a huge fan of practical effects.

Anyway, being a huge fan of Scott's earlier Sci-Fi films, Alien and Blade Runner, I found it to be everything I wanted and more. Because of my hype, and it living up to it, I think it is easily one of the best films of the past 3 decades, and is sitting in my top 10 movies list at #1, tied with the original Alien.

My score 10/10.

Originally Posted by deimos-remus

It did its job perfectly, and its job was to spark discussion. According to many, there are tons of questions upon finishing the film, but do we really want to know everything? I didn't have many questions however, I got all my answers. That's part of what made Alien so great, and made it have a long-lasting impression. It had questions that were left to the fans to answer for themselves, which I find rare these days.

Well, when the very fundamental question of why did the "engineers" want to destroy humans when they created them? isn't answered, I think that's a problem.

When the whole movie follows the arc of Crew gets to alien planet > crew discovers aliens are dead > crew realizes aliens were killed by weapons they designed to wipe out humanity that question of WHY did they want to wipe out humanity in the first place? is a pretty fundamental piece to be missing, especially when you have all the what's, where's, when's, and how's.

To me it doesn't lend itself to lots of fun fan discussion and speculation, it lends to a feeling of having watched an incomplete story.




as an aside, my own score for this movie would be about a 6/10.

Originally Posted by Galedeep

Well, when the very fundamental question of why did the "engineers" want to destroy humans when they created them?

This did peeve me off a bit as well, but apparently Mr. Ridley Scott is intending to turn this into a series from what he's said in press conferences, like he said "If we're lucky, there'll be a second part. It does leave you with some nice open questions."

In most cases nice open question are fairly minor things, but in Prometheus I think every in the cinema wanted to know exactly [I]why[/I] the Engineers wanted to eradicate there products after destroying them.

Originally Posted by Eeks

I think David was so aware of the situation because he could read all the glyphs the Engineers left behind.

Ah, I hadn't thought of that! Nice one. Good to hear it sounds like you enjoyed it as well though!

And yes, I do speak in Barcodes.

I think the reason they never answered that was they wanted it open, so the viewer could find out in a sequel. I'm sure there's going to be at least one. The film has already made 90% of its budget in the box office.

Oh and to answer an earlier question...

Originally Posted by darkbeastganon

I've been hearing mixed opinions about this one. One side say its okay, others say its disappointment, and you get the idea. I haven't seen it so I can't judge, but has Ridley Scott deteriorated for some people or is he just hit miss lately?

I think Ridley Scott's best films are Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and for me, Prometheus. All of his other films have kind of fallen flat. Some are decent like Black Hawk Down, but others weren't very good at all, like A Good Year and Hannibal.

He is a very hit or miss director lately, but when he's directing a Sci-Fi, he's definitely in his element, as that's what he does best. This is only his third Sci-Fi movie, the last one being made exactly 30 years ago.

Originally Posted by Toby

This did peeve me off a bit as well, but apparently Mr. Ridley Scott is intending to turn this into a series from what he's said in press conferences, like he said "If we're lucky, there'll be a second part. It does leave you with some nice open questions."

Originally Posted by deimos-remus

I think the reason they never answered that was they wanted it open, so the viewer could find out in a sequel. I'm sure there's going to be at least one. The film has already made 90% of its budget in the box office.

Maybe it's just me but "we're saving it for the sequel" is not exactly a good excuse to have an incomplete and unsatisfying resolution to a movie.

Originally Posted by Galedeep

Maybe it's just me but "we're saving it for the sequel" is not exactly a good excuse to have an incomplete and unsatisfying resolution to a movie.

I agree completely, it is just a cop out on behalf of the writers and the director. The price of going to cinema (excluding transport) is getting ridiculous now. Not sure how much it is over in Canada-land but paying £9.50 for a film that despite all the positives has a incomplete story is a joke.

Nonetheless I still really enjoyed the film

I was just thinking that the Engineers may have spread their DNA so that when there planet came under a danger of some kind they had Earth to go too, they would know Earth was habitable and advanced enough for them to make Earth their new home world when the Humans finally managed to contact them. Just a theory but it makes sense in my opinion.

I like that they left that particular question unanswered. I think its because i enjoy speculation. My theory is that once they created humans and found them deeply flawed and wanted to end all humans. Like a failed experiment. Or some junk.

But i agree with deimos, i found the film to be excellent with the answers we did get.

I also like how they left it up to speculation. One really interesting theory was something Ridley Scott actually said was a possibility they explored, but changed it later on. He said The reason they hate us is that many years ago, they sent a representative of theirs to earth to straighten us out, and we crucified him. This is referring of course, to Jesus. It kind of defeats the purpose of the biblical story though, that God sent him down here, knowing what would happen to him. Why would he try to destroy us for an event that needed to happen? Very interesting idea though.

Originally Posted by deimos-remus

I also like how they left it up to speculation. One really interesting theory was something Ridley Scott actually said was a possibility they explored, but changed it later on. He said The reason they hate us is that many years ago, they sent a representative of theirs to earth to straighten us out, and we crucified him. This is referring of course, to Jesus. It kind of defeats the purpose of the biblical story though, that God sent him down here, knowing what would happen to him. Why would he try to destroy us for an event that needed to happen? Very interesting idea though.

That would have been hella cool though. Hard to work with though. Like without offending hordes of people. ;P

The focal point of the movie wasn't why they wanted to wipe out humanity
It was how they went about doing that, and how the Alien was born.

For me anyway.
And the movie did a great job of answering that question for me.

So thanks Ridley, I needed this movie, and you gave it to me!

9/10

I'm a big fan of the first two Alien movies, so I was very excited for this and I didn't find it as disappointing as most people. The script was fairly mediocre and dialgoue was sometimes annoyingly bad in the first 30 minutes, but after that it either got better or I was just so enthralled by the visuals I stopped noticing it. There were a couple of scenes that got on my nerves too like the part where Rapace and Theron were trying to escape when the ship was crashing to the ground. Why did they not just run to the side? but it was a pretty suspenful movie, sometimes to the extent where I couldn't watch. The acting was generally good, especially from Michael Fassbender, who steals the show by a longshot. The best movie Ridley Scott has made since Gladiator IMO. I'd give it an 8/10.