Prometheus (spoiler edition)

So since you're all over in the other thread oozing at the seams to talk about this film like a woman gossiping about the latest episode of Desperate Housewives, I thought I'd start this thread. . . .

Because I just saw it an oh my God it was sooo gooooooood!!!!! People were trying to say it wasn't a prequel, but it so totally was. Uh, the zombie dude near the end pissed me off though. It's like they were all, "zombies are hot right now, we need at least one in our movie", so they put one in, and it was lame.

The scene where she jumped in the emergency medical tube to cut the alien tentacle rape face head crab out of her was probably one of my most enjoyable single scenes.

I loved how they showed the ship and the bridge of the ship they found in the first Alien movie. It was awesome seeing the origin of that stuff.

One thing that I wish there had been more specific explanation on, or any explanation for that matter, was why there were three different forms of the aliens. What my friend and I determined, is that it is a virus that reacts specifically and differently to its host or conditions, and in Prometheus, the various stages of infection from the black shit in dude's drink, to conception, to the eventual incubation of the "Engineer", is what eventually evolved into the Xenomorph. We had a little debate: I say it was the queen that gave birth, who would eventually lay all the eggs on LV-223. He said no way because there was the carving on the wall in the chamber of what was clearly a xenomorph.

Man, what a rush.

My theory about the variety of alien threats is that the Engineers were intending to send a whole plague of various monsters to cleanse Earth of their human experiment. The xenomorphs were one such threat, while the snake, the octopoid thing and the werewolf/spider virus were all other threats. In the original Alien movie, just that one facehugger makes it off the planet surface, leading to a threat that spanned three more sequels.

Well the octopoid thing was essentially a giant facehugger, which seemed to spawn the first xenomorph.

And humans weren't an experiment we deduced, they were an accident. At the beginning of the film, the one dude drinks the black stuff on a GREEN PLANET. You see his dna dissolve. He falls in the water and all of a sudden you see new dna being formed. We decided this was the "accidental" creation of mankind as we know it, and that they were sending their biological weapons to fix their mistake.

Questions:
- David motivation?
- The girl had Caesar and no one seems to care?
- Baby bodyhugger not killed by decontamination?

Meanwhile:
cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html

What was David's motivation for infecting Halloway other than he is just a dick in general? Curious to see what would happen? He seemed completely uninterested in the fact that the previously pregnant-with-monster Shaw was no longer carrying the baby and that she was alive.

QPCloudy wrote: People were trying to say it wasn't a prequel, but it so totally was.

I think those people are getting hung up on semantics. It is not a prequel to the Alien movie, but it is unequivocally a prequel to the canon of the Alien universe.

QPCloudy wrote: One thing that I wish there had been more specific explanation on, or any explanation for that matter, was why there were three different forms of the aliens. What my friend and I determined, is that it is a virus that reacts specifically and differently to its host or conditions, and in Prometheus, the various stages of infection from the black shit in dude's drink, to conception, to the eventual incubation of the "Engineer", is what eventually evolved into the Xenomorph. We had a little debate: I say it was the queen that gave birth, who would eventually lay all the eggs on LV-223. He said no way because there was the carving on the wall in the chamber of what was clearly a xenomorph.

One interpretation of a xenomorph's appearance is that they resemble the host they incubated in. As in Alien 3 with the dog-like xenomorph, or the predator-alien in AvP: Requiem. The xenomorph at the end was what they look like when they come from Engineers. Since it looked the same as the wall relief in the head chamber.

Shellhead wrote: My theory about the variety of alien threats is that the Engineers were intending to send a whole plague of various monsters to cleanse Earth of their human experiment. The xenomorphs were one such threat, while the snake, the octopoid thing and the werewolf/spider virus were all other threats. In the original Alien movie, just that one facehugger makes it off the planet surface, leading to a threat that spanned three more sequels.

My friend had the following theory. The worms on the ground in the head chamber are the beginning stage. The black ooze fertilizes them and turns them into the snake-like baby facehugger. Not sure what the deal with the monstrous facehugger that Shaw birthed was though.

QPCloudy wrote: And humans weren't an experiment we deduced, they were an accident. At the beginning of the film, the one dude drinks the black stuff on a GREEN PLANET. You see his dna dissolve. He falls in the water and all of a sudden you see new dna being formed. We decided this was the "accidental" creation of mankind as we know it, and that they were sending their biological weapons to fix their mistake.

I disagree that it was a mistake. It looked pretty convincing that it was the deliberate seeding of Earth. The ceremonial feel of it, the worshiping of the creators by early humans, meaning further visits.
Edit - and there's this:

Is that first planet in the prologue Earth?

Movies.com got director Ridley to answer this one:

Ridley Scott: No, it doesn't have to be. That could be anywhere. That could be a planet anywhere. All he's doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself.

As for why they wanted to wipe out humans, I'm pretty sure that is just something they didn't bother to explain/forgot/intentionally left unresolved. Although it seems the answer is just that their creation was running amok and needed to be put down.

I still can't get over the sheer stupidity of certain things that happened in the movie. There were a number of really stupid things, but these stood out:

1. The expedition has this incredibly cool mapping technology that we the viewers can easily see and understand. And then the guy operating it... gets lost. HOW THE FUCK DOES HE GET LOST? He is in constant communication with the crew back on the ship, and they are obviously seeing real-time updates of the mapping progress and can see blips representing everybody in the alien ship. I understand that the story needed a couple of crew members to get separated and attacked, but this could have easily been handled by having them explore too deep into the place to get out in time when the storm warning was announced.

2. The scientists now have the perfectly preserved remains of an alien head, a priceless freaking specimen. Rather than preserve it somehow for careful study by more qualified scientists back on Earth, Shaw starts doing some bullshit weird science involving galvanic response on the alien's facial muscles. Did she fucking think that she was going to make it talk after being dead so long? And then she incompetently fucks up her stupid experiment and blows up the alien head. Boom. I wanted to reach up to the screen and slap the stupid out of her, but there are a number of reasons why that would be impossible, starting with her infinite supply of stupidity. And if Ridley Scott just had this cool image of the whole alien head scene and needed an excuse, they could have had that happen back on the alien ship due to some mysterious alien head-exploding technology, instead of relying on the bizarre behavior of the stupidest scientist in Hollywood.

3. Speaking of scientists, there is her significant other Holloway. Here he is, walking on a completely unknown alien world, and he can't goddamn wait to take off his helmet and inhale the local alien germs. What is wrong with this dumbass? Where the hell did he get his science degrees? In a gumball machine? Somebody needed to restrain that idiot and drag him back to the ship, but no, everybody else follows his dim-witted example. Again, I understand that this is a horror movie, so I figured they needed his helmet off so that something nasty could invade his mouth and throat. But no, that happens later when David spikes his drink.

4. Later, as Holloway is obviously very sick, an entire group of stupid people are trying to bring him on to the ship, apparently so he can contaminate their only safe haven in the entire solar system. At least this scene was rescued from complete stupidity by the cold-blooded and rational Vickers.

In the words of Ellen Ripley, "Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?"

You left out the zombie. Fuck the zombie.

Why bother dissecting the Alien life cycle? Do you think that the film makers actually had a developed background? I doubt it. It all is way to random and illogical. The Med Pod scene being the absolute culmination of idiocy. How the hell is she able to run around with the abdominal muscles severed and then stapled together? Does Shaw needs to be a clone of bad-ass Ripley/Alien hybrid? I'm willing to suspend disbelief only so much.

Why even have so many aliens in the first place? So you can have a cretin botanist getting friendly with an alien life-form like it was a fucking puppy? Or an over-sized octopus impregnating the jockey so we get a fan service scene of the most adorable xenomorph ever? I haven't seen Lost but from what I've read it seems like the writer was just making stuff up as he went. Was it that bad? Cause Prometheus script sure is fucking terrible. How about that completely pointless action scene with Fifield? Do we even care he kills all these guys we never seen before? What is he even doing on a science mission? You can tell he's a lunatic in the first scene he's in. No offense to anyone but facial tattoos would be a huge red flag for your average HR people. He can go fuck off to Xtreme games or whatever and take that moron Holloway with him. Taking off his helmet cause the air roughly matches Earth's? For fuck's sake is it a space mission or a day trip for mentally handicapped children?

The only characters that aren't complete morons or throwaways are David, Vickers, Shaw and Janek. That doesn't mean they are all that much better. I mentioned Shaw before. It took Ripley around three films to become full on bad-ass. She was determined in Alien but still fragile and vulnerable. Shaw rips the fucking umbilical cord from her recently sliced uterus cause it was getting in the way, somehow not blacking out from blood loss 10 seconds later. How bad ass is that? Vickers is a more of an idea than a character. Weyland being her father and David upstaging her as an heir is certainly interesting but it never goes anywhere. Is she set up to be an antagonist? Cause not letting that moron geologist back on board seems hardly evil. Someone has to take responsibility of this mess. Rivalry with David, awkward flirting with the captain made her quite a sympathetic character. Too bad she has to share screentime with her moronic crew. David is the strongest character and I must say I was quite impressed with Fassbender. He's quietly menacing and disarming at the same time. But this image of cold, psychopathic efficiency is completely shattered when he risks life of a crew member to find out more about aliens, only not to care one bit ten minutes later about the result. When Shaw escapes he just shrugs and goes about other business like nothing happened.

The interesting parallel Creator/Creature (jockeys/humans/androids) story is literally spelled out by the characters. Show don't tell is film-making 101. How hard can it be? Not to mention the whole relationship is conveyed by couple of throwaway conversations and left nearly unexplored. Like all the good ideas in Prometheus it is half-assed and undeveloped. Pompous bollocks is what it is.

Wow, Lucky, tell us how you REALLY feel lol

I haven't seen Lost but from what I've read it seems like the writer was just making stuff up as he went. Was it that bad?

Yes.

(Although it was pretty entertaining, up until the point when it became clear that he was just pulling everything out of his ass. And by that time, the show was over.)