Prometheus

Started by MacGuffin, July 31, 2009, 12:19:06 AM

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Kellen

Spoilers

So for the first 20-30 min I liked the film (besides the engineer opening/title sequence.)  I enjoyed the crew searching the engineer ship/caverns and finding the room which housed all the egg/jars, I thought that was really reminiscent of the first Alien film and I was starting to think to myself  "this is going to be great."  However, after that it pretty much turns into a dumb Hollywood flick.  I didn't feel anything towards the characters, Guy Pearce showing up in old man make-up was pointless, and Charlize Theron's dialogue with Weyland where she drops the father "bomb" was awful.  Fassbender was my favorite part of the film, and I loved his scene where he's the only one up on the ship and it shows what is daily routine/activities are.

72teeth

Quote from: Ghostboy on June 10, 2012, 10:33:16 AM
Lowered expectations helped.

Yeah, thanks to everyone who took that bullet for us after-the-weekend watchers

Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

RegularKarate

Yeah, I have spent the last month lowering my expectations for this movie and ended up enjoying myself.
The 3D was impressive and it was a pretty movie.
Enjoyable!

BUT... the screenplay was so goddamn bad. I think Damon Lindelof is just obsessed with planting seeds and making people wonder "what's this thing that this person is doing?" and "ooooh, this certainly is mysterious" and doesn't give a shit about making a real story happen while those seeds are being planted... we all know that he never pays out on all that seed planting either.

Chalk this one up as a fun 'L'.

DocSportello

Minor Spoilers

Why's everyone hating on the opening/first scene? I saw it after I had read some of the comments here so maybe I was expecting it to totally suck but got something that wasn't all that terrible so I thought it was alright. either way I found it strange that it stuck out to some of you as just bad. It was nothing extravagant but I thought some cool shit went down. The engineer looked creepy and I thought it was shot well with all the landscapes leading up to it. It definitely made me wonder where the ships were from and why he's carrying out that drinking ritual. all in all i thought it was a solid start. I liked the film as a whole too. I guess some of it seemed derivative but it looked great and it gave me much more satisfaction as a summer blockbuster than the avengers. this was a good time for me.

MacGuffin

**SPOILERS**




Prometheus Secrets Revealed: What Did David Say to the Engineer?
Source: Movieline

Of the many, many unexplained puzzles left untangled in Ridley Scott's Prometheus, one deliberately vague scene has had Prometheus-watchers scratching their heads and speculating for weeks — let's call it the "Lost in Translation" question. So what did Michael Fassbender's David say, in non-translated ancient alien-speak, to a certain you-know-who in Prometheus? Actual answers within!

Spoilers follow.

Over at The Bioscopist blog, Stu Holmes was wondering the same question when he managed to track down the real-life linguistics expert who served as consultant on the film, Dr. Anil Biltoo of London's SOAS Language Centre. Biltoo not only taught Fassbender how to speak in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language as the android David — seen studying ancient communication as the crew sleeps in the film's opening measures — he also appeared onscreen as the holographic linguistics teacher David learns from as he recites the real-life text Schleicher's Fable, a story created in 1868 in the reconstructed PIE language.

While Scott, Damon Lindelof, and Co. remain mum about Prometheus's many open-ended provocations, Biltoo revealed what it is that David whispers to the Engineer at the end of the film, setting off the being's violent rampage:

The line that David speaks to the Engineer (which is from a longer sequence that didn't make the final edit) is as follows:

/ida hmanəm aɪ kja namṛtuh zdɛ:taha/.../ghʷɪvah-pjorn-ɪttham sas da:tṛ kredah/

A serviceable translation into English is:

'This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life'.

Aha! So... according to Dr. Biltoo, David did as directed by Weyland, with no funny business involved. I'd entertained the thought that David had deliberately provoked the Engineer into attacking Weyland, but Biltoo sets the record, and David, straight: A loyal robot to the end. Kinda. The revelation also supports the idea that the Engineers were set on punishing humanity for their flaws and hubris, though why the Engineer then tore off David's head is still a mystery.

More intriguing is what Dr. Biltoo shares about that scene: There was a full conversation in the PIE language between David and the Engineer. "We're all going to have to wait for the director's cut to see if the conversation between the Engineer and David — and there was indeed originally a conversation, not merely an utterance from David — yields any fruit," he said.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Brando

SPOILERS

I just got back from seeing Prometheus. I wasn't sure to expect after seeing article headlines about why it sucked then seeing another why it was great. I enjoyed Alien and didn't care for Aliens. If you're aware of screenwriting books, Alien and Aliens are described as being the only films that the original and it's sequel that are different genres. Alien is horror while Aliens is straight action. I felt Prometheus was a straight Sci Fi film. I really enjoy films that don't spell everything out so that's why I enjoyed this film so much. I was so interested to what was going on under the surface of the story or "why did they create life?" "why were they wanting to destroy it?"

Maybe David was right there wasn't a great answer to why they created life.  But I think it's in the Engineers nature of sacrifice and creation.  It's in their nature to create life.  While it's in human nature to destroy and for self interest. This is why they were planning to destroy earth.  The engineers died around 2000 years ago in the film.  That's right around the time of Jesus' sacrifice. Jesus who shares the engineers nature of self sacrifice and creation. I imagine the engineers didn't want their failure to find their invitation and then find them or continue to spread throughout the universe.



Quote from: MacGuffin on June 21, 2012, 03:22:09 PM


Aha! So... according to Dr. Biltoo, David did as directed by Weyland, with no funny business involved. I'd entertained the thought that David had deliberately provoked the Engineer into attacking Weyland, but Biltoo sets the record, and David, straight: A loyal robot to the end. Kinda. The revelation also supports the idea that the Engineers were set on punishing humanity for their flaws and hubris, though why the Engineer then tore off David's head is still a mystery.


My original thought, which seems supported by continued research on the film, was that the engineer, who at first seemed friendly, became hostile after realizing David is an android. The engineer was at first glad to see the humans have flourished becoming what they originally hoped.  Then the engineer realizes nothing has changed. They're only their for their self interests of longer life. And they are now able to create a life which is David. David as it was pointed out multiple times during the film is soulless. So humans have created life in our image or in the image of how the engineers sees us which is soulless.

That's why I enjoyed the film cause of all this reading into the story that i'm able to do now. 


UPDATE:
This guy has put a lot more thought into than I have or would.  http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html
If you think this is going to have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.

MacGuffin

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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picolas

spoils

the problem with this movie has little to do with ambiguous mythology stuff. i love ambiguity. i hate confusion. every character in this movie is confused. Prometheus fails as a Story.

- noomi's character cries about never being able to have a child and then immediately has to abort her new baby, which is the last remnant of her dead boyfriend. sure it's mysterious and a little suspicious, but she makes the leap to abortion without a shred of doubt or hesitation.
- her dead boyfriend sucks. terrible performance. he also makes big motivational leaps that don't make much sense like when he decides to get flamed to death. sure he was in pain but was he in worse pain that getting fucking FLAMED to death? was that really the better option? the fact that he can still calmly say "do it" suggests no. this could have been solved by the ridley on the day. "pretend like getting fucking flamed would be better than this."
- idris is charming as hell but there is nothing in the movie to back up the idea that this guy would suicide bomb an alien ship. don't get me started on those other two characters who join in who we only know through a boring recurring betting subplot that is paid off with a SPONTANEOUS SUICIDE PACT.
- noomi and charlize run in a straight line away from a crashing straight line. then for some reason noomi realizes that running at a right angle would be more effective. charlize does not.
- there is no motivation for charlize to say FATHER the way she does aside from prodding the audience with this astounding revelation.
- the geologist is crazy from the first minute. he has a face tattoo. why would you hire the only face tattoo geologist in the world? you have billions of dollars. why does the geologist feel the need to yell in noomi's face when he decides he doesn't like the cave? he was already on his way out. he could have easily just kept walking.
- damon lindelof has a really tough time writing interactions between characters that aren't somehow aggressive. everyone hates everyone else and wants to fight. no one can get along even for a moment. not even a robot. seriously almost every interaction in this movie is another person subtly or unsubtly lashing out at the other. even just before sexy times.
- the most obvious case of crazy motivation is the petting of the snakey vagina alien thing. that scene would have still been scary and made sense if he wasn't trying to pet it and make friends for no reason. not one person who has seen this movie thought the snake was going to be friendly.

i'm sure there are dozens of things i'm forgetting... this movie feels like a dream someone had and then they transcribed it into a movie. it has nifty elements and textures but it is in no way ready to be a movie.

MacGuffin

SPOILERS


Quote from: picolas on June 25, 2012, 01:22:11 PM
spoils

- noomi's character cries about never being to have a child and then immediately has to abort her new baby, which is the last remnant of her dead boyfriend. sure it's mysterious and a little suspicious, but she makes the leap to abortion without a shred of doubt or hesitation.

She's pregnant 3 months along after unable to bear children, 2 years in hyper sleep and having sex 11 hours ago... I think that's more than "a little suspicious." Plus, I think she was able to see the screen with the "fetus" despite David hiding it.

Quote from: picolas on June 25, 2012, 01:22:11 PM
spoils

- her dead boyfriend sucks. terrible performance. he also makes big motivational leaps that don't make much sense like when he decides to get flamed to death. sure he was in pain but was he in worse pain that getting fucking FLAMED to death? was that really the better option? the fact that he can still calmly say "do it" suggests no. this could have been solved by the ridley on the day. "pretend like getting fucking flamed would be better than this."


He's sick. And he knows he's sick in an abnormal way. Burning himself isn't a pain decision. The easiest way to prevent the spread of the virus he has is by fire.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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picolas

SPOILS

Quote from: MacGuffin on June 25, 2012, 02:01:30 PMShe's pregnant 3 months along after unable to bear children, 2 years in hyper sleep and having sex 11 hours ago... I think that's more than "a little suspicious." Plus, I think she was able to see the screen with the "fetus" despite David hiding it.
all good points. i'm not saying she shouldn't have come to that Conclusion, but the way she arrived at it, and the urgency of her behaviour rang false. she still has a considerable amount of time before the thing hatches at the rate it's going. probably a day.

Quote from: MacGuffin on June 25, 2012, 02:01:30 PMHe's sick. And he knows he's sick in an abnormal way. Burning himself isn't a pain decision. The easiest way to prevent the spread of the virus he has is by fire.
but flaming is the most painful thing he could do. why not just ask someone to shoot him? another storm will send his corpse across the planet. he's already exposed noomi etc. it's just soooo rash. he's sick "in an abnormal way". agreed. does that mean he has to be destroyed immediately? he has no idea what's going on.

MacGuffin

#55
SPOILS (admin edit)

Quote from: picolas on June 25, 2012, 02:21:32 PM
but flaming is the most painful thing he could do. why not just ask someone to shoot him? another storm will send his corpse across the planet. he's already exposed noomi etc. it's just soooo rash. he's sick "in an abnormal way". agreed. does that mean he has to be destroyed immediately? he has no idea what's going on.

But he does know what's going on. He was present to see the head explode after they revived it.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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picolas

SPOILS

how does he know that's the same thing? the head explosion didn't kill anyone. maybe he caught it from that? in which case everyone is probably already infected or immune. on top of that it's still really rash to ask someone to flame you to death when you could just as easily be shot.

MacGuffin

Jon Spaihts Confirms His Leaked 'Prometheus' Script, Titled 'Alien: Engineers' Is Legit; 6 Things That Changed In The Original Script
Source: Playlist

There are two types of "Prometheus" fans: those who are huge fans of the "Alien" franchise and thus have poured over every ounce of the amazing bounty of extras in the "Prometheus" Blu-Ray, and those who are more casual, who want to know a bit more, are perhaps a bit puzzled and intrigued by the Damon Lindelof-penned, Ridley Scott-directed sorta-prequel to the 1979 film. We'll assume you're in the latter camp.

What's likely old hat for you right now is that Spaihts -- largely known as the go-to guy for space thrillers after his sci-fi romance "Passengers" hit the Black List (Keanu Reeves had hired him to write the script) -- was tasked to write a more or less direct prequel to "Alien." This meant following the familiar beats including xenomorphs, face-huggers, etc. -- all the traditional elements of an "Alien" franchise film. Somewhere in that development process Ridley Scott changed his mind and felt he needed something less direct.

He asked Damon Lindelof what he thought, and the screenwriter candidly told him they needed to go in a more autonomous direction with less direct lineage to "Alien," and the result is what you see on screen with "Prometheus," which both enraged and thrilled fans with its mysteriousness (something that we should all realize has been completely revealed/solved by Ridley Scott in various interviews, including the commentary on the "Prometheus" DVD where every character's intention is spelled out in big, bold letters).

Over the weekend the screenplay "Alien: Engineers" leaked online, and despite a lot of skepticism, Spaihts himself verified its authenticity. So what changed from Spaihts' draft to Lindelof's? Well, considering Lindelof was hired to deconstruct it somewhat and dial back its connection to "Alien," quite a lot.

Here is what we learned from reading the script and paying deep attention to the commentary track featuring Spaihts and Lindelof.


1. One version of his script had the explorers discovering a star map under water.
Though Spaihts says there were several versions of this scene, his favorite was cut for budgetary reasons: it was a submarine expedition in the Mediterranean, at a sunken city. On the commentary track he explained they found a giant tablet with a starmap on it. Another version had the starmap found on Mars. This version of "Alien: Engineer" has the underwater scene in it.

2. Mars factored in more than once.
Spaihts reiterates in the commentary that the the biggest changes in his version of the script were the shying away from xenomorphs and chestbursters, and structural differences, placing similar types of information in different places, or rewriting them in different ways. In one of Spaihts' original drafts, there was 20 minutes of Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) pitching their trip to Weyland, and similar info that was eventually delivered in the starmaps exposition scene in the final film. One scene had them visiting Weyland in a space station above Earth, much like the one in "2001: A Space Odyssey." Another scene had them visiting Weyland on Mars where his house had a view of the terraforming taking place on the planet.

3. Shaw was originally called Watts, and the relationship between her and Holloway was different.
Shaw was Holloway's younger student in Spaihts' drafts and then they got together. It was a sort of "inappropriate" age difference, he said on the commentary, but that changed in Lindelof's script. There's some evidence of that in "Alien: Engineer" -- Holloway says she was his student specifically -- but it appears to be a backstory that Spaihts had in his head.

4. Spaihts Explains why Milburn and Fifield were such idiot scientists in the film.
One of the biggest complaints in the film is how the scientists Milburn (Rafe Spall) and Fifield (Sean Harris) are complete idiots. The geo-tracker Fifield manages to get them lost, and the biologist Milburn essentially plays "here kitty kitty" with what looks like a deadly alien snake. "Milburn and Fifefield, for two people scared to death, do an enormous amount of poking around," Spaihts admitted on the commentary track. "You and I in this scenario would run as far away as possible." Spaihts explains that Milburn, however is a xenobiologist, and he's very excited and interested in this creature. He also laments the loss of dropping a previous scene (present on the DVD extras), where Milburn is extremely excited about finding evidence of life in a very harmless looking worm (the entire team is elated and practically do high fives). "It really showed how excited Milburn was by experiencing any extra-terrestrial, sophisticated life. That sort of explains why he's acting like a complete utter moron here. The last thing you do when you see a snake in the wild is get your face really close to it and start smiling and extending your hand like you wanna pet it."

5. Ridley Scott had the idea of the ship ramming another ship in the climax.
Here's possibly a good example of what screenwriters have to face in Hollywood sometimes, especially when working with a well-known director. Spaihts said Ridley Scott conceived of the idea of the Prometheus ship ramming itself into the Engineer's Juggernaut ship. Why? It was Spaihts job to discover that, to "justify it and build a ramp to that moment and figure out how your hero can survive that and how the plot will allow for it. "

6. Spaights invented the horrific caesarean section scene and more.
Spaihts said he wrote 5 drafts in total, with the first one tied to the derelict ship in "Alien" very directly, and in which the crews would move back and forth between these ships. But things soon evolved. The juggernaut ship was the primary location in Spaihts first draft, but by the last one, it was just something hidden within the larger pyramid framework as you see in "Prometheus."

The medpod and caesarean section scenes were all his idea. Spaihts said he thought what got him the job in the first place was pitching the idea of the heroine getting impregnated by a facehugger/alien and then surviving it via a medical process. Spaihts' version also had Fifield (Sean Harris) come back as a mutated creature, but in his version, Fifield killed Vickers.

Recorded before "Prometheus" hit theaters, the screenwriters' commentary track is worth listening to, at the very least to hear Lindelof seemingly acutely aware of just how much audiences might hate him for the final version of the film (he apologizes often) and to hear Spaihts mildly complain about what's missing in the film from his drafts.

Best Quotes:
Lindelof: "Or you hate me. One of the things I love to do in my writing is not answer things definitively. As frustrating as this is I rely much more on the human imagination and your ability to theorize what may have happened. Although that may be frustrating, it's what makes people talk about movies when they're over."

Spaihts: "That is the thing I miss most. David deliberately exposing our heroine to a facehugger, and her knowing, having seen what happened to her lover that she had hours to bloodily and painfully save herself."

Read Spaihts script, or at least one version of it, here. If this just scratches the surface of your nerd itch, go to AVPGalaxy for more differences in the screenplay.

http://www.prometheus-movie.com/uploads/112142280-Alien-Engineers.pdf
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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pete

Quote from: MacGuffin on November 12, 2012, 06:18:45 PM
Jon Spaihts Confirms His Leaked 'Prometheus' Script, Titled 'Alien: Engineers' Is Legit; 6 Things That Changed In The Original Script
Source: Playlist


Best Quotes:
Lindelof: "Or you hate me. One of the things I love to do in my writing is not answer things definitively. As frustrating as this is I rely much more on the human imagination and your ability to theorize what may have happened. Although that may be frustrating, it's what makes people talk about movies when they're over."


can we all agree that this is just the new thing that hacks say now?
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

socketlevel

Quote from: pete on November 13, 2012, 03:02:26 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on November 12, 2012, 06:18:45 PM
Jon Spaihts Confirms His Leaked 'Prometheus' Script, Titled 'Alien: Engineers' Is Legit; 6 Things That Changed In The Original Script
Source: Playlist


Best Quotes:
Lindelof: "Or you hate me. One of the things I love to do in my writing is not answer things definitively. As frustrating as this is I rely much more on the human imagination and your ability to theorize what may have happened. Although that may be frustrating, it's what makes people talk about movies when they're over."


can we all agree that this is just the new thing that hacks say now?

That was my initial reaction as well. Though, on the other hand I do hate it when movies are tied up with a nice bow. So I think my real issue is formula, and not that I'm against formula, but moreso I dislike it when I can see it and/or it's self aware. Lindelof is essentially presenting his method by approaching it the exact same way as the inverse. He is talking about the effects of revealing something or not revealing it, and in turn so do the storytellers he is trying to separate himself from. Ironically he is creating a cliche of vagueness. You can see this as early as Lost; the red herring for the red herrings sake.

It is much more challenging to write something well and not beat it over the audiences head, but in a sense not beating it over the audiences head is exactly what Lindelof is beating over our heads. It's poorly motivated.

So ya, I more or less agree on a case by case basis.
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