Poll: What Did You Think of ‘Prometheus’?

Among sci-fi fans and film buffs, Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ prequel ‘Prometheus’ (and don’t believe any of Scott’s misdirection that the movie’s not really an ‘Alien’ prequel – it so is) has been one of the most eagerly anticipated movies of the year. Now that it’s finally opened, it has also turned out to be one of the most divisive films of the year among both critics and audiences. Even here, Luke raved about the movie in his review last week. I had a different reaction, to put it mildly. If you’ve seen it, what did you think of ‘Prometheus’? Vote in our poll. (Warning: This post will contain spoilers. And profanity.)

As some of you may have seen me post in the comments to Luke’s review after I saw the movie on Friday, I hated hated hated fucking HATED ‘Prometheus’. I think it’s the worst movie I’ve seen in years. It ruins the original ‘Alien’ the way that ‘The Phantom Menace’ ruins ‘Star Wars’. Just as I can no longer watch ‘Star Wars’ without seeing bratty Anakin behind Darth Vader’s mask, I will no longer be able to watch ‘Alien’ without thinking of the idiotic chain of events that supposedly led into its opening. The movie may be prettier to look at, but it’s even dumber than ‘Alien vs. Predator‘, and that’s quite an achievement.

I know that Luke and Aaron are planning to write up a Critical Mass debate about the film. I don’t want to take anything away from them, but I need to dash off some of my own thoughts about the movie while they’re still fresh in my mind.

First, there are some good things in the movie. The production design is amazing, and the photography is quite beautiful. It’s a visually striking film. (I was less impressed with the 3D, however. After a strong start, the movie more or less stops being 3D in the second half.) It also has a good cast, especially Michael Fassbender, who’s terrific as the android David. I loved all of the early scenes where David finds ways to fill his time on the empty ship as the crew sleeps. There are stretches of the movie where I felt that it was very well directed, and one of the better things that Ridley Scott has made in the last couple decades.

That’s about it. That’s the extent of my being nice to ‘Prometheus’. What didn’t I like about it? Hoo-boy, where to start? Here are just a few of my complaints:

I knew that I was in trouble with the opening scene, when the goofy-looking alien (that we’ll later learn was one of the so-called “Space Jockeys”) drinks a potion and sacrifices himself in order to spread his DNA onto the planet (which was presumably Earth, but may not be). Why did he sacrifice himself? That’s up for debate, and I suppose you can explain it away as some sort of ritual, but it seems like an awfully inefficient method for a scientist of some sort to start this chain reaction. This “Chariot of the Gods” theory that mankind was created by ancient aliens is pretty idiotic on its face, but I was still willing to set that aside and go with the movie at this point. (A following scene where one of the supporting characters asks “You’re just going to throw out 300 years of Darwinism?” is pretty hilarious, because that’s exactly what the movie does for this cockamamie bullshit.)

Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her boyfriend Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) are just about the worst scientists ever. This is evident even in their introductory scene, where Shaw finds the 35,000-year-old cave painting, and blithely knocks down a wall and invites everyone else to come trampling in. There’s no scientific method to anything they do. This happens again after they travel halfway across the universe to a planet (or moon) and discover the first signs of alien intelligence. They rush right into the structure, making a huge mess of things, and barely stop to so much as look at anything (much less document and preserve it) as they run around searching for aliens.

I also love the way that Shaw sees a drawing of a tall guy pointing at stars and immediately pieces together that this is an “invitation” for us to go there. The invitation aspect of the plot makes no sense at all. If the Space Jockeys created us as an experiment, why would they invite us to visit a moon where they’ve established (as Captain Janek somehow intuitively figures out later) a military installation for the construction of biological weapons?

Oh, and the humans arrive on this moon and find one empty building, so Shaw instantly concludes that the entire species is dead. Really? How about you maybe look around a little more, you dumbass?

All of the character motivations are illogical at best, when they even bother to have consistent motivations. Why did David infect Holloway? How did he know what would happen, and why did he want that to happen? How did David and Weyland seem to know exactly what they’d find and what would happen when they got to the moon? (And why the hell is Guy Pearce in terrible old-age makeup in this movie if we’re never going to see a young version of his character? Why didn’t Ridley Scott just cast an older actor? You’d think that a 75-year-old director might understand that older actors need work too.)

Vickers (Charlize Theron) talks about having a secret agenda, but she never really seems to have any agenda, beyond being a bitch. She brings her daddy to the moon to get better, but she doesn’t even like her daddy and actually wants him to die. She tells the scientists not to touch anything or make contact, so what was the point of going there at all? Why not stay on Earth and rig the mission to fail so that her daddy will die and she’ll take over the company? (Everyone else except David already thinks that he’s dead anyway. What would she have to lose?)

All of the supporting characters are idiots, especially the two morons who get trapped in the cave. Hey, bozos, here’s a tip: If you’re afraid of getting killed, maybe you shouldn’t try to pet the penis-looking alien monster thing that just popped out of the goo and hissed at you. Just a suggestion.

Captain Janek (Idris Elba) has no concern at all for the welfare of his crew. Even though his equipment is constantly monitoring his men’s progress and has warned him that there’s other life in the cave near them, he decides to ignore them entirely so that he can go get laid. Is this a ‘Friday the 13th’ sequel all of a sudden?

Everything single thing that happens in the movie after the Space Jockey wakes up is unbelievably, howlingly awful. The movie drops any pretense of having ideas at that point, much less answering any of the questions it tried to raise earlier. The plot makes no sense, and it’s stupid and cheesy as hell. The attempts to hammer home connections to the first ‘Alien’ movie are painfully forced. And the bit where the Space Jockey and the giant Facehugger wrestle… Oh my fucking god, this movie is terrible!! Ugh. It makes me sick.

You know what this movie really is? Do you remember Brian De Palma’s lame ‘Mission to Mars’? ‘Prometheus’ is an even crappier remake of ‘Mission to Mars’ built on the cosmetic features of the ‘Alien’ franchise. I can hardly imagine it being a worse piece of shit than it is. I wish I’d never seen it. In fact, I wish that I could build a time machine just so that I could go back in time and prevent Ridley Scott from making it.

Shame on Ridley Scott for directing this turkey. Shame on Damon Lindelof for writing it. Shame on all of the studio executives who saw a rough cut and didn’t immediately scuttle the entire project.

But maybe that’s just me. What are your thoughts on ‘Prometheus’?

What Did You Think of 'Prometheus'?

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198 comments

  1. Alexws

    I blame Damon Lindelof. His writing style is very shortsighted to put it mildly. All he does in all of his productions is setting up spectacular events or cliff-hangers that gets the viewer excited. But he does so in such contrived and dumb ways that everything else in the movie suffers. He tries to take the easiest route to every event. Evident when the mystical space jockey turns out to be a god damn human. So much for learning about a new exciting species.

    And then there’s the expository dialogue… The two side characters with their bet could just have been named “Exposition and comic relief device”, as that was their sole purpose. I cringed at the cliched banter between them. Or when Charlize spells out how the old man is her father, as if the audience was more senile than him. Or how Shaw starts crying when her boyfriend talks about creating life. What a subtle way to tell the audience that she can’t have babies! And everyone was basically a caricature from another (better) movie. You had “old-school captain”, “awkward scientist with glasses” and “unstable mohawk dude”.

    To sum it up: this movie was dumb.

    • Vince

      “300 years of Darwinism” line got me. (It’s 2091, right?) I think they may have been trying to fit a 2 1/2 hr film into 2 hrs. But all in all I enjoyed the experience,tho I can’t argue with the critics who didn’t.

    • JM

      Charlize Theron joined the film on the condition that she got to shape / expand her character.

      This is what happens when you let the actors write.

  2. JM

    You got it all wrong, Josh.

    ‘Prometheus’ is a parable about the dangers of masturbation.

  3. Kelly

    While I don’t begrudge anyone their opinion, I think people waste far too much time, and energy, hating things. What’s the point?

    • bob hickman

      Why hate it? Because it started out so interesting and turned into a huge turd… The last five minutes of that movie almost made me ask for my money back….

  4. JM

    ‘Prometheus’ is sci-fi made by a visual artist, not art made by a scientist.

    This is like complaining about the logic of the imagery in Heavy Metal.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      Prometheus is sci-fi made by a group of assholes who have no respect for their audience’s intelligence. You don’t have to be a scientist to recognize how fucking stupid this movie and its characters are.

      • JM

        Planetary scientist Kevin Hand of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab was a science adviser to ‘Prometheus.’

        “Movie makers have long imagined alien worlds, for example the double-sunned Tatooine of Star Wars fame, but the latest ones really listen to where science is headed today.”

        “We needed a world to explore that would be habitable, but with a somewhat toxic atmosphere, which was an interesting exercise.”

        “One idea central to the movie was the notion of aliens “seeding” life on Earth. We talked about that a lot, including the idea of conducting experiments with microbes on other worlds and what happens when experiments go ‘wrong.’ For similar reasons, NASA and Russia’s space agencies have carefully sterilized past missions to Mars, fearing just this kind of contamination.”

        “Although the filmmakers based their concept for the spaceship Prometheus, on NASA and European Space Agency designs, space travel sending humans in hibernation across light years to visit an alien world seems unlikely by 2089, the time-frame for the film.”

        “Instead of the four years envisioned in the film, travel times to nearby stars for people would still span centuries because of the speed limit set by light, which tops out at 5.9 trillion miles in a year. That’s something the movie evades with invented human hibernation couches.”

        “The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s ‘100 Year Starship Initiative,’ however, is investigating technologies needed for interstellar travel.”

        “Alien biology remains a little shaky in films. Any species that has to reproduce by traveling 50 light years to invade the chest cavity of another alien species looks a little dicey from an evolutionary-survival standpoint.”

        “On the other hand, I was inspired to go into science by some really bad science-fiction films from the 1950s.”

        • Josh Zyber
          Author

          Armageddon also had official science advisors from NASA, and that movie was still dumb as dirt. You know how a movie gets a science advisor? The producers pay NASA a flat rate, have an intern sit in a room with the scientist for half an hour, and then fire the intern immediately afterward.

          I realize that you’re a huge Michael Bay and Armageddon apologist, Jane, so let me just put this out there for the rest of our readers: Prometheus has as much scientific accuracy and plausibility, and as much respect for its audience’s intelligence, as Armageddon did. For most people, that should be enough said.

      • Josh do you know how short movies would be if characters in Horror movies actually behaved like real human beings?

        The movie is no where near as bad as you make it out to be, and I think you went into it expecting an Alien movie, and not what you got.

        Everybody warned that this was not an Alien prequel, while it’s set in the same universe, it’s just not the same type of story. The man is in his 70’s for pete’s sake, so of course that’s going to color the movies he makes today.

        • Josh Zyber
          Author

          The characters in Alien behaved like real human beings.

          My only expectation was that I wanted a good movie. I could have dealt with some tampering with the Alien continuity or mythos (I actually have no problem whatsoever with the opening of Alien 3) so long as the movie didn’t insult my intelligence. Unfortunately, Prometheus not only insulted my intelligence, it took a baseball bat to it and attempted to beat it mercilessly.

  5. Kelly

    Can you just delete my comments? I feel hypocritical, because there are certainly things that I hate. I was going to make a broader point, but chickened out.

  6. Jackie

    I’ve never hated hated hated FUCKING HATED you (yes you Josh) more than I do right now. In case you were wondering I just read your unbelievably stupid review above the poll. You completely missed the point and I really hate you now more than I ever did before.

        • bob hickman

          The problem is IT NEVER MADE IT”S POINT! I loved the opening and then it completely fell apart with wooden characters (even the robot), and the same cast of characters on every bad sci fi spaceship.

          • It seemed like the script was made from ill-fitting pieces from other scripts.

            That being said, at the end of the movie, both humans and the alien/wmd things were created by a species whose lone characteristic seems to be haphazardly creating new forms of life that eventually turn on them. This concept would seem to demean both a cerebral human existence and a dog-eat-dog base alien existence.

            So in a movie where humans struggle against aliens, their creators, their android creation, their own mortality, age old questions of purpose and each other, the story concludes with a declaration of pointlessness.

  7. bob hickman

    It did pack some of the high tension that was the hallmark of the original Alien. The photog and 3d are excellent…. The story started outed as a bit of a mystery, one that I wish it would have pursued and delivered upon… The first scene at the waterfall, questions to be answered, who is the guy, why is he drinking this stuff, why does he fall apart, dna dissasembling and reassembling (yet later on the dna shows to be a perfect human match?).. Never once addressed.. This flick was good at posing questions, but I guess the writers so were lacking originality they could not think of any answers to give us so they turned it into a goofy alien blood bath and the ever present dorky cast of misfits on a trillion dollar flight to the answers of man’s questions…. Don’t get me wrong, about 20 minutes of this movie is excellent which is why the rest of it angers me so much. NEVER have I seen a movie that looked so good fall into a mess…

  8. Richard deSousa

    I haven’t seen the movie but I guess Scott picked the name with seemingly no connection to the Greek myth of Prometheus? It would have been better to retell the myth of Prometheus than to besmirch the myth with garbage.

    • JM

      The engineers represent Prometheus, the black goo is the fire they stole, and the human race is their monster.

    • Since you havent’ seen the movie I wont spoil it (although since your reading these posts it’s most likely already been spoiled) but the name is actually perfectly apt if you aren’t expecting Alien, over what the movie actually is.

  9. I feel the same way as Josh. It had promise but was so contrived at the end I was just wanting it to end. If I have to list the issues I had with the film they would be thus:

    1. Score. The main theme is too upbeat for such a violent movie. It never comes close to matching Alien or Aliens.

    2. Lack of accuracy in how science is presented. This is apparently how Hollywood believes scientists act and thus we get a representation that in no way matches the real world.

    3. It ruined the Space Jockey mythos. I didn’t want to know what the Space Jockeys looked like. I certainly didn’t care to learn that they’re basically super sized humans with a need for a tan. The idea is stupid and again science is just thrown out the window with the assumption that we came from them. The Darwinism line is almost a slap to the face.

    4. No sense of direction. Again, what were they here to do? Pretty convenient that they just happened to land on the one part of the planet with manmade structures. How did David and Weyland know what they knew? If you were going to just kill everyone and sabotage their mission why wake them at all? Just have David explore on his own, grab some samples, and then infect each in hypersleep and see how they respond. No change of failure in that case. Then wake up the space jockeys in a way that minimizes risk. To basically throw away a trillion dollars on a suicide mission seems idiotic and highly irrational.

    This doesn’t touch on the lame characters. I won’t go there because frankly they didn’t matter. The whole movie didn’t matter. It was space gore porn just like all the rest of the crap produced today. I don’t care if Ridley Scott directed it and it got an R rating, it was clearly produced for the lowest common denominator. What sucks more is like he said about Star Wars I won’t be able to watch the original Alien movies without thinking about this crap. *sigh*

    • I would compare it to watching the Terminator without thinking of Terminator Salvation, or watching the original Planet of the Apes without thinking of Tim Burton. Until Ridley Scott declares that this was really the story that was always intended and puts out a new version of Alien that has Prometheus edited into it, while retiring all previous versions of Alien, it really does not compare to a Star Wars level of revisionism.

      Besides we’ve had years of Alien: Resurrection existing, not to mention knowing several characters’ paltry fates in Alien 3 whenever watching Aliens.

      • Alexws

        I disagree with this, in thinking that it does actually compare to the Star Wars changes. Just finished watching Alien again – literally a minute ago – and can’t ignore the way the space jockey was handled. In Alien it is very clearly not a suit we see. Decay is visible all over. We can even see through its eye sockets. The crew actually says that he must have been there for a very long time, and that it appears to have fossilised. Thus the skin have rotted away, and that it is in fact its bones we see, which the crew again comments “It has burst through the bones”. Yet in Prometheus, the bones are just some wacky ornaments to its ridiculous suit. To treat its audience like idiots to this degree is insulting.

        • Brian Hoss

          I agree about the whole established space jockey concept. Enough is explained in Alien to completely conflict with Prometheus. It is just much easier to dismiss it as a poorly concieved sequel/prequel than the last ten plus years of Star Wars mess.

        • Brian Hoss

          In fairness though, I have been dismissive of the movie since first hearing about it, and I really expected the worst. I am more dismayed by how Prometheus fails on its on merit, the character motivations and relationships do seem contrived. Somehow that Predators movie managed better charecterizations.

        • You are so wrong in comparing this to Star Wars. Ridley scott has not touched Alien other than to provide a Director’s cut in ADDITION to leaving the original exactly as it was 30 years ago. George Lucas has completely ass raped the original trilogy and other than some nice effects remastering has completely ruined the first 3 movies (the only 3 really in my book) and now made them completely unwatchable for me.

          I have very fond memories of Star Wars but George Lucas won’t release those movies, he insists they don’t exist any more. Ridley Scott has way more class, proven by the fact that not only did he re-release Blade Runner with the original cut but in a beautiful re-master that in no way removes anything but simply makes it better. While also releasing ALL of the other cuts, so no matter what the version you liked is in there and vastly improved in image and audio quality.

          You cannot compare Prometheus ( a semi Alien prequel at best) to what George Lucas did with the Star Wars prequels and how he’s bastardized the Original Trilogy. There is NO Comparison.

    • ok, gonna talk about your points.

      1. Jerry Goldsmith is dead, nobody is going to replace him any time soon. They did have pieces of music from the original alien but they were few and far between. They should have gotten James Horner to reprise music from the original and a mixture of new and his music from Aliens. That would have been better, but I didn’t really have a problem with the music, but the main theme was a little bit out of sorts with the rest of the music.

      2. Lack of Accuracy with regards to what, science that hasn’t been invented yet? It’s Science Fiction, I saw nothing that looked so out of place or wrong that it bothered me, but it’s a movie and I wasn’t looking to get a PHD, just be entertained.

      3. I actually liked how they handled the Space Jockey’s looks etc. Although I wish they could have explained a little more why the engineer was such an A Hole.

      4. What they were there to do was pretty obvious, to make contact with the creatures/beings that left behind the markers. Weyland was there as well for the same reason. Most were simply there to do a job and didn’t think they would find anything. As for just happening upon the structures, it was made pretty obvious by the end of the film that there were many many more of those structures on the moon and you can see two more in the distance behind the one they enter, so in fact your complaint there is completely incorrect. David knew what he did because of years of study of all of the languages on earth a point they made very early in the film, they just didn’t make it so obvious for people who don’t pay attention.Not to mention he’s an android with some advantages. Weyland knew because David figured that stuff out by himself without informing the others as he was ordered to do. David wasn’t sabotaging the mission he was experimenting on the crew, he just simply didn’t have any idea what would happen. It was a little silly that Weyland would take Shaw and Holly along only to screw them over in the end but eccentricity is not the most stable trait.

    • kalel1974

      This movie was borderline horrible. Everthing from the huge plot holes, to the god awful upbeat score, I mean… where the hell is the intense music from the trailers? I have never seen a music score ruin a movie more than this one. Did anyone else wonder why the Engineer just woke up and decided to take off and kill the human race all of the sudden. I mean why didn’t he do it before he went into cryo sleep?
      The movie made absolutely no sense.

  10. JM

    The ‘Alien’ franchise includes 7 films, 23 novels, 41 video games, and 9 comic series.

    ‘Prometheus’ only has 1 negative review at Metacritic.

  11. Josh, some of the things you ask/ complain about in the film are totally wrong, Shaw never says they’re all dead in fact, she somewhat debates it when Vickers asks her then states they’ve been dead for a millenia or two after the carbon scan, David’s whole poisoning Holloway was his effort to “try harder” and he had most likely had no idea what it would do, along with Weyland but David was probably also simply curious/ appreciative like Ash in Alien. I also doubt David or Weyland knew what they find, it was simply a last ditch effort by a rich old man. Also, those little “pup” droid things that fly around probably did all the minute hunting, pointing out the big interesting pieces for them to find which I feel the film articulates pretty well. While the movie was the masterpiece I was expecting, I think your nitpicking/ projecting what you think to be the worst possibilities onto the vaguer nature of parts of the film, theres actually a great interview with some hipster doofus and Damon Lindelof where he states he shies away from “the Architect” type scenes (in reference to Matrix Reloaded) where all answers are given. Also, the film doesn’t take place on LV 426, so this isn’t what leads up to the events of Alien/Aliens in anyway but rather showing that these engineers were both the constructors of humans and xenomorphs

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      I’m having this same argument on Facebook, so you’ll have to forgive me if I repeat myself. Regardless of whether or not this is the same Space Jockey on the same planet as the one on Alien, now we know who the Space Jockeys are and where the aliens come from. When you rewatch the first Alien movie and see the Space Jockey, you’ll know what’s under his helmet (although in the first movie it isn’t supposed to be a helmet at all) and what he was doing. So of course this movie ties directly to Alien.

      My problem with the movie isn’t that the script doesn’t provide enough answers. In fact, it’s that the movie provides TOO MANY answers, and they are uniformly stupid.

      • JM

        If engineers created humans, and humans created robots, who created engineers, and what will the robots create?

      • Josh if you were so worried about knowing things about Alien that you didn’t (obviously) want to know, then you shouldn’t have seen the movie.

        If George Lucas has taught us anything of use it’s that Prequels can giveth and they can taketh away.

        I really didn’t have any problem with the movie, I look at it as loose prequel at best that doesn’t change how I feel about Alien or Aliens.

        I don’t even see the Engineers as the end all of explaining Alien because in fact the Space Jockey in the original is HUGE compared to the size of the Engineer in this movie. If the Engineers can be such Aholes then they can easily steal technology from other races and I like to think that they either ripped off or were replaced by another life form later and LV426 is an example of that rather than just more of what’s presented here.

        It’s a huge universe, I think that Ridley Scott has shown that. Besides if it was just more of Alien then what would be the point.

  12. Josh Zyber
    Author

    Some abusive comments have been deleted. Please behave yourself, Jackie. People can have a difference of opinion without letting it get personal. If you want to talk about the movie, talk about the movie.

    • Jackie

      The same thing happening with Prometheus happened with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was ridiculous then and it’s ridiculous now, I am completely within my rights to get angry with this like I did back when Indy 4 came out especially when this is the best movie to be set within the universe it’s set in since Aliens. That and it’s every bit as great as Alien, and Aliens. I’ll admit that MAYBE I may have gotten out of hand, but what happened to freedom of speech anyway?

      • Josh Zyber
        Author

        Freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom from accountability for what you say. By law, you have the right to say whatever you want without fear of imprisonment. I have no authority or desire to imprison you. However, this is a privately-owned web site, and everyone has to play by our rules to participate here. If we don’t like what you’ve posted, we can delete it.

        I have no intention of censoring your opinion or anything you write about the movie. I just ask that you not be abusive to myself or other members. As I said, it’s possible for people to have a difference of opinion without letting it get personal. Keep your comments on topic and we’ll have no issues, regardless of how much we may disagree about this movie.

        • By LAW you have the right to say what you want in PUBLIC, but that’s not true everywhere, and this forum doesn’t count as the PUBLIC.

          Just like you can’t scream “FIRE” in a crowded movie theater, you can’t just say what you want ALL OF THE TIME.

          No?

      • Really dont see how you can compare Crystal Skull to Prometheus. Crystal Skull was trying to be another movie to fit in with the rest of a very VERY successful franchise all of which had been made by Lucas and Spielberg.

        Ridley Scott made the original Alien and moved on from there. Because he was originally making an ALIEN prequel people got over excited and held their breath for a new Alien film with the requisite action etc. This movie is OBVIOUSLY not a by the book ALIEN prequel, it is in the same universe and has some of the same imagery but it’s definitely not an ALIEN prequel.

        When these types of movies are made so far removed from the original (time etc) they simply are NEVER going to be as good as you remember the original to be. They made many choices to be in complete opposite of the original in fact.

        This movie was never meant to just fit like a glove into the ALIEN storyline it’s obviously many years before the events of Alien and while some of the things shown are related, a good writer could always come up with alternate explanations.

        This in no way ruins ALIEN for me and people who say that are silly, we have ALIEN in it’s original form in BLU-RAY and Ridley Scott hasn’t changed it so that the Engineers are in it, and then claimed that the originals don’t exist any more. So everybody BREATH DEEPLY and RELAX!!! It’s fine, if you don’t like Prometheus, don’t watch it. DONE!

  13. Count von Count

    It wasn’t as good as Alien, but it wasn’t as bad as Blade Runner (which was an awful train wreck). Also, regarding Shaw, she was obviously meant to be an extremely flawed character.

    • Blade Runner is an awful Train Wreck? Well I guess I dont need to read any further posts from you then 🙂

      As for Prometheus, loved it. Amazing movie from start to finish, the few questions it does answer really doesnt have any weight to all the new questions that were asked, knowing what the “Space Jockey” is really has no bearing on Alien or the rest of the franchise at all. NOTHING in this movie directly leads up to what happened to that ship or that Jockey in Alien, so I’m not sure what there is to get upset about in regards to the “connection”. I personally love what is shown and it makes me like the franchise and the universe as a whole, even more so now.

      Not once did I feel that anyone was doing anything stupid or way out of context, sure the guy trying to pet the snake out of the black goo was a bit obvious, but all of the Alien flicks are full of that kind of stuff, nothing new here, but everything else you mention Josh, to me, is just nitpicking and putting too much thought into whats happening on the screen, I’m honestly amazed you can watch anything with that mentality.

      Needless to say I definitely dont agree with you and I’m in the camp that this was amazing Science Fiction and its right up there with Scott’s other Scifi greats, like Blade Runner and of course the original Alien and its definitely the best movie he’s done in a long long time.

      • Josh Zyber
        Author

        Chaz, honestly, I can’t imagine how we could have seen the same movie. Are there two radically different cuts of Prometheus circulating in theaters? Is this all a cruel joke by Ridley Scott? As good as Blade Runner? That’s madness. It’s not even as good as Alien vs. Predator, and AvP sucked.

        • Josh your welcome to your opinion but I think you built up in your mind what you wanted this movie to be, and instead of just enjoying it or not you instead set the movie up to fail before you ever watched it.

          It’s ok, I’ve done it, we’ve all done it. But to claim that everybody else is wrong, is also in itself wrong.

          We have our opinion of the movie and you have yours, just can’t see how someone who claims to love Alien (I assume you do or you wouldn’t be so invested in this movie having been good) could hate this movie so much even with it’s faults as they are.

        • What does that have to do with this movie? So what if I enjoyed Transformers 3, I can certainly gauge the difference between cheese popcorn brainless action and smart Scifi, my opinion on that (which is a completely different type of film) should have no bearing on my opinion for this.

          And yes Josh we saw the same movie, just so happens that opinions get in the way, preconceptions get in the way, what you have in your mind about the Space Jockey and the ideas you’ve stuck with for so long wont let you accept what Ridley has done with them, to me its a connection that brings everything together while still raising tons of questions. I have no issue with stupid scientists, its been a staple of the genre forever, its like dumb teens in slasher movies, I guess you expect Scifi like this to just be so smart and so amazingly written that this is inexcusable. Guess you havent been watching Scifi long enough 🙂

          • Josh Zyber
            Author

            “preconceptions get in the way, what you have in your mind about the Space Jockey and the ideas you’ve stuck with for so long wont let you accept what Ridley has done with them”

            Chaz, cannot the same be said for The Phantom Menace? We have in mind what Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker and the Force are supposed to be and can’t accept what George Lucas has done with them? The thing is, even judged independently, The Phantom Menace is a total crap movie. So is this, IMO.

            The characters in Alien weren’t morons. Whether bad writing is a staple of other sci-fi movies or not, Ridley Scott set a standard with his first movie that he has utterly failed to live up to with this one. This is much closer in quality to Alien vs. Predator than it is to Alien, and I’m not going to give Ridley Scott a pass on that just because the movie is pretty to look at.

          • Josh Zyber
            Author

            Both are equally awful. The film starts with an idiotic premise, and then proceeds to present us with moron characters and nonsensical plot turns. It’s a lousy movie through and through.

            Jane, have you actually seen the movie yet? From your comments, I can’t tell whether you’ve seen it or you’ve just read a lot of spoiler-filled articles and interviews about it. As I recall, you don’t typically run out to theaters very often.

          • JM

            I watched ‘Alien’ recently, and didn’t find it very well scripted.

            I’m a bit late to the Lovecraft party, and I’m trying to come at this from the perspective of the content creators. I’m a bit of a sci-horror virgin.

            So I’m reading and watching all the source materials, and I like the art, but mostly I’m finding the ideas more interesting than the executions.

            My impression is that your hate comes from the ancient astronaut premise, which is inflamed by your intolerance for stupidity. And that Luke is blinded by Lindelof love, as I can be blinded by Bay or Mamet.

            I think I can safely rent the blu-ray when this comes out, because the franchise is not something I hold sacred. I just hope it’s less boring than ‘Moon.’

            But I like reading all the speculation. It seems to be the only fun part.

          • Josh Zyber
            Author

            The “ideas” that you may read about on the net are mostly not actually present in the movie. The movie has gigantic plot holes, which people are mistaking for intentional ambiguity. Since this is a spoiler thread and you’ve already read plenty, I might as well just tell you that the plot comes down to a big pink muscle-bound dude wrestling with a giant squid monster. As much as some people will choose to read that as “Lovecraftian,” it plays more like bad fan fiction.

            All of the religious subtext that has been cited comes down to a vague reference to something happening 2,000 years ago and one brief mention at the end that it’s Christmas day. Everything else is purely invented by people who want to read more into the script than is really there.

            Absolutely nothing comes of the title’s reference to the Greek myth of Prometheus. That has no relevance to anything, except, again, what people choose to read into it that isn’t actually there.

          • JM

            Do you think Ridley is talking up ‘Paradise Lost’ to drape himself in the illusion of artistry, or do you think he wedged it into the film for subtext?

            Tom Rothman named it ‘Prometheus’ after the script was locked, because ‘Paradise’ is a stupid title.

            At the end of ‘Alien,’ the man-in-a-rubber-suit falling into space looked pretty lame, and the chestburster looked like an H. R. Giger dildo…

          • Josh Zyber
            Author

            Prometheus has a scene where an albino penis hisses at two of the characters. It’s not just a phallic image that looks like a funky dildo. It’s a penis.

          • Alexws

            Well, that fact tells me that you and me watch movies differently, and thus your attempt at converting me – and the other people who disliked the movie – seems pretty futile. You seem to judge movies on a more superficial angle, and can therefore enjoy many movies despite indisputable faults within them.

            Now don’t take this as an attack of any kind. Having that ability is actually something I envy, as I imagine you enjoy many more movies than I can, and thus has more pleasure from watching movies alltogether than I could ever hope to have. One should not be so concerned about the negative connotations surrounding the word superficial. Look instead at how one such feature can actually enhance your life, and forget what other people may or may not think of you for doing so.

            Should it really anger you that someone disagrees with you and can argue for their opinions? Should one rather hope to be smart than happy?

          • Not once have I tried to “convert” anyone’s opinion here, I have simply stated that everything Josh sees, I didnt. Plain and simple, but lets explore the fact of the plot holes you so hate. How do you know that all of this wasnt written intentionally? You dont, but you just have to tell people they are mistaken about the ambiguity. There is no mistake unless you can prove that Scott didnt have this setup from the get go.

            IGN has a great interview with Lindelof,

            http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/11/the-secrets-of-prometheus-with-damon-lindelof

            Where he explains about putting into script form what Ridley wanted, this is all Ridley’s baby and I would tend to think he’s better AND smarter than you are giving him credit for, but if you want to see this as all Plot Hole stuff instead of ambiguity and to get the fans talking and theorizing, then you go and do that and have fun. So far you are kind of in the minority when it comes to hating the movie this much, I’ll enjoy talking with other fans about the questions this movie rises about the Alien universe AND some of the possible answers it gives 🙂

          • Josh, while the original Alien is as close to a perfect movie as you can get, Aliens is as well, I would definitely not put Prometheus in the same class as either of the AVP movies. Those movies are just horrible and I really hope that after you’ve had some time to think about it that you can’t really say Prometheus is as bad as those.

            Even the second AVP movie which is far superior to the first is the worst Aliens movie by far maybe with exception for Resurrection.

            I would say that Prometheus for me is the 3rd best Alien movie behind Aliens. But I will say that All three of those movies, Alien, Aliens and Prometheus are completely different movies. But that’s just my opinion.

  14. It seems they used Guy Pearce for the TED Talk promotional video, in which he is much younger. It still seems a bit of a waste if that was the only reason they cast the younger actor.

    That and, I suppose, the crummy makeup is an allusion to the final act of 2001.

  15. Alex

    I read this review last night and I’ve been following the discussion all day. I have to say it’s been very entertaining, and a bit frustrating.

    Josh I think your review is right on. Prometheus was a giant piece of horse shit and I was physically sick while watching it. I read your review when I got home after the movie and it really picked up my spirits. Just to know that there are others out there who are really pissed that this amazing opportunity to make a legendary sci-fi film was so wasted.

    My wife and I watched the directors cut of Alien on blu-ray the night before and it was amazing. The character development, the score, the sets, the build-up, the unseen terror, the heroism. It really blew my mind.

    So the next day we see Prometheus you know the rest.
    I wanted to contribute a short list to help those who think they saw a great film but may have trouble with basic math.

    Our scale will be from 1 to 10 points.
    Each yes is a point.
    10 being a superior,classic film etc.
    1 being a waste of the film/hard drive it was put on.

    1. Are the characters believable, do they perform tasks,speak,act in a manner that mimics their real life counterpart?
    2. Does the character dialogue let the viewer come to their own conclusions? (or are they spelled out for you like you’re 5 yrs old)
    3. Are the actors talents fully utilized? (or are they there merely to add celebrity weight to a flat film)
    4. Do you care about what happens to the characters? (has the film done enough to make you feel a connection/sympathy for the characters)
    5. Does the plot make logical sense? (when you review it in your head do people make decisions that in any way resemble logic)
    6. Does the musical score match the genre of the film?
    7. Is the movie visually captivating?
    8. Does the gore in the film serve a purpose other than its shock value? (or is it there so people talking to the screen can say “Damn, that was some freaky shit”)
    9. Does the film stand on it’s own? (or does it rely on other films to fill in some of the plot holes?)
    10. Did you learn anything? (about the human condition, science, the universe, superstition, archeology)

    That’s it.

  16. Kevin

    I, for one, loved it. I admit, I’m not a “die-hard” fan of the “Alien” franchise, but I have seen and own all the other films on Blu-Ray. For me, it was easily the best film in the series since 1986’s “Aliens”. And no, I’m not part of the “lowest common denominator” or anything like that (to the people who dislike this or any other film who throw that gem out there, I’d just like to say screw you). I just found it to be a very good, suspenseful, sometimes creepy, and yes, I’ll admit, sometimes cheesy (why do people always act like that’s a BAD thing?) sci-fi/horror flick.

  17. William Henley

    I am going to go see it Friday morning. I am off Fridays, and next Friday is payday. So I am not even going to read this thread, as I don’t want to risk spoilers.

  18. But Josh, most scientists (especially anthropologists) are idiots so that can’t really be a fault in the storytelling. I mean, ancient Egyptians BURIED their loved ones in the Pyramids to be their final resting place — not to be put on display as future science projects. Yet anthropologists from all over have the gall to go trampling inside these burial grounds and disturb the dead by opening tomb after tomb saying, “Hey, lookie what we have here! Mummified remains! Innnn-teresting!”

    Seriously, it bugs me to no end that these people think this is actually an okay practice “in the name of science.” When in fact, it’s really no different than me grabbing a shovel and digging up some anthropologist’s grandmother for research on a book I might want to write about the dead. It’s the same damn thing. However, I’d probably be arrested and these grave robbers get a free pass under the guise of “anthropologists.”

  19. Brent Umina

    WARNING – SPOILERS:

    1. The jockey on Earth knew that the biological substance contained in the cargo hold would destroy his race. Henceforth the self sacrifice to prolong the genetic code.

    2. LV-226 is not LV-426 from the Alien franchise. There is a point where the original Alien goes back and infects the rest of the space jockey race. If you pay attention, you’ll catch the slight important detail.

    3. Weyland had military weapons on his mind from the get go and so did his daughter. She didn’t want the team getting friendly or violent so more ships could come and freeze and research what they found for future developments on Earth.

    4. This movie was awesome – pay attention and it makes perfect sense.

  20. Just saw it, and personally I thought it was pretty great. Not perfect, but as good if not better than I had hoped. I thought they answered enough, but more importantly didn’t answer too much, and left me eager for sequels. I can understand disliking the design of the engineers/space jockeys (although it didn’t really bother me) but I’m surprised to see this many of you so bent out of shape over it.

  21. Josh Zyber
    Author

    How many of you who liked Prometheus also thought that Battlefield: Earth was a truly great and underrated movie?

    C’mon, ‘fess up. Show of hands. Be honest now.

    • Kevin

      How many people who hated Prometheus are also being insufferably condescending about it?

      C’mon, ‘fess up. Show of hands. Be honest now.

      And here I thought the levels of condescension from people who hated J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” movie were bad.

    • bob hickman

      I forgot about Battlefield Earth. But since you bring it up, well, at least NOTHING was good about that flick….. this one at least had potential.

    • rzg

      You are wrong Josh,actually this crap is more related to Dreamcatcher than anything else.Indeed is worse than Mission to Mars,indeed it is as bad as AVP(but lets not mention AVPR,that one is very alone on its own league)and indeed Scott should be ashamed,I mean,if it had been “directed” by Emmerich it would be just as bad,right?(or Fuqua,or Paul WS Anderson,or George Lucas,or Renny Harlin or even William Shatner for that matter)Scott just killed the franchise and then spat over the corpse.

  22. Brent Umina

    Battlefield sucked – there is no comparison. Now that I think back on Prometheus – did anyone else catch the hint that the space jockey race developed the aliens? I think it was an experiment that backfired. The drawings on the wall depict the alien as some sort of powerful beast that perhaps the space jockies worshiped or created to purge other planets for take over and in the end, they found out that they couldn’t control it (henceforth all the images of them running from something). Upon this discovery, one last space jockey goes to Earth and sacrifices himself to prolong his race on another planet anew.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      The hint? You mean the part where Janek explicitly tells Shaw, “This is a military installation. They were building weapons to destroy us, but the weapons got out”? Is that the “hint” you mean?

      • You can blame that on Modern Audiences, not Ridley Scott. If thing’s aren’t clearly explained then it usually doesn’t make it to the theater.

        Everything is dumbed down these days. It seems that Nolan is one of the few directors that doesn’t succumb to that now. At least not yet.

  23. I had little problem with the plot. I had a problem with the tone bouncing back and forth between campy sci-fi horror and a shaggy God story. Doing so made it efficient at neither.

    Going in, I was really hoping that it could have struck that delicious middle ground of cosmic horror that Lovecraft pioneered.

  24. Oscar

    I just watched the movie and really enjoyed it. That said, the flaws in the plot and character development were obvious, anyone doesn’t see that is just lucky enough to be so enchanted by the movie that they’re blind to it.

    I agree with all of the points Josh made, but I don’t come to the same conclusion he did. I thought it was a great movie, despite its many flaws. It’s just too bad they didn’t fix the issues, because it could’ve been a fantastic movie without much more effort.

  25. Two small notes, one for and one against the movie:

    I believe that the character says “three centuries of Darwinism,” which is different than 300 years and technically not inaccurate. It’s not precise, but Darwinism has been around in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries; this constitutes three centuries (if that is indeed what kill-offable scientist #2 says).

    One of the big problems I had with Alien carried over into this film too, and that’s the violation of conservation of mass. How does Shaw’s baby squid grow into a heaving kraken in a medlab with no apparent nutrition to grow it? The alien in Alien grows from a small, snarling phallus into a man-sized beast seemingly without eating anything.

  26. Lone_gunmen

    I agree with Josh. I even assured myself, “It’s okay, it’ll get better” and IT NEVER DID.