Prometheus: Doomed from the start?

@Shatterhand you also forget the other two major factors that doomed the film, an R rating and a staggered release date. Unless you are promising tons of scares and cheap thrills or sex and crude humor, you are taking a huge risk when releasing an R rated film. Especially when you want to deny yourself that huge opening weekend when most of the reviews have not come to light and audiences are excited to be the first to see a film.

My REAL questions are: 1) Why NOT make a more direct link to Alien? Why be SOOO afraid? It doesn't make sense...unless the whole intent was to build a series from the get go... 2) Why NOT have Giger's art more DIRECTLY influence this movie? I don't like the amorphous critters, the blue-grey's of everything, the "symmetry" that is in the structures of this movie, when we coulda had sooooo much more "Giger"....

The movie may/will ( hopefully ) succeed - there are no indications as of yet that it will not be a hit. I really do want a sequel as I like the overall premise, if not the execution. I think the plan for any sequel is to move further away from ALIEN into its own set of stories. Lindelof said the sequels will 'tangetialize' further from Alien. My fear is that they will not be so brave, and they will straddle between telling a truly original story and keeping the settings and creatures to what we're familiar with, for fear of 'alienating' the audience.

We dont know how the movie will do.... It has had a lot of hype sourounding it especially with Sci Fi, Alien and Ridley fans.... If the movie sold 100'000 tickets in one county, that would not tell the full picture of that those 100'000 loved or hated the movie... or as many something between its not a case of hate/like. As far as destined to fail..... Well to a degree yes, by that i mean not so much fail as much as in the movie has a very very big shoes to fill. Alien was great and so was Blade Runner some other Sci Fi movies was great like Star Wars EP 4, or ET yes all different kinds of Sci Fi inc The orginal Thing... But movies like these set a very high bar and its really hard to match those movies, its also really hard to do something ground breaking. To be fair to Ridley he had a go at making something thats more orginal than the standard Generic invaders from Space... i mean is Battle Ship and Battle Loss Angles really any different to a Indepdance Day? District 9 was different... but that because Petter Jackson is a genius. Ridley Scott is likewise... sometimes who they pick to work with them can have a massive effect on the movie, and it does leave me to wonder what if Lindelof had not so big a influence... I think overall Prometheus will do well, it may not be a ground breaking movie, it may well at a latter date get a cult status because dont forget Alien did not come close to Jaws when it came out and the Thing also did even worse... But latter both movies became cult hits and IMO better movies than Jaws ever was....

In hindsight.... I do feel had Ridley decided to completely drop the Alien Universe and thus make a orginal movie that has nothing to do with Space Jockeys, Derelict or Weyland Yutani etc..... Just as say Blade Runner is not set in Alien universe... Then if they took their idea... replaced Weyland and his Corp by some other company thats made up, and keep the idea of large Humaniods in Space Suits who created us with magic Goo... But then have their ships not look so much like or suposed to be the Derelict ships from Alien or their Space Suits look like Space Jockeys. Then maybe the movie would have had more of a chance... taking away the then need to hint at Alien links, and allow more time to rely on the creators and their stuff. I think the movie could then have had a better chance.... It would not have had those big shoes it has to fill as far as Alien, it would not have upset those who wanted more or less Alien links.

I think it will do well on opening weekend, It's had enough hype. Much as I disliked this film, I hope, with some better writers, they can make a good go at the sequel, aiming heavily on smashing up the WMD labs of these space jockeys and not leaning so much on wishy washy religious hokum. I'm hoping that will be part of Shaw's character development, that she depends less on belief and more on us humans getting out there and struggling for ourselves. If they raise the game on the dialogue, and make a decent plot, I'd be willing to go see it, (subject to a good review from someone whose opinion I'd trust seeing it first - otherwise, DVD rental).

@Otto 1) I think they are making links, and we just dont know how they would follow that up, a Prometheus 2 could have planed to link Alien more, or steer even further from it.... Now depending on reviews and views of the public etc, what ever plans they had may change to maybe have more of a link if Fox feel that will make more money... Or maybe Ridley in protest to any negative comments could go the route of avoiding anything with Alien in a Prometheus 2 we just dont know. I do feel if Ridley wanted to avoid doing the Xeno as its done to death, well sadly another movie with Squid Face Huggers and Femamine looking Xeno hybrid Organisms would look pretty much very simular to the done to death Xenos. I think a better way would had been to have done a Flash Back scene att the end... like the Water Fall Creation/Sacrefice scene. But one where we see a Derelict in space that then is forced to land on a moon... we then see a Egg Chamber and a open Egg... Thats it, they dont have to say when this happened in time, or where it would be obvious it would most likely be years before Prometheus and it would be on LV 426...... We would not see no Xeno, Face Hugger or Chest Buster, a Cargo of Eggs on the ship with one open is good enough.... We would not need to know how they was created, or why..... We could devulge that information from maybe what ever caused the Engineers to be killed off, and running away from combined with the Mural. The above ending that i would have chosen would had given them a chance to do a movie with no Xeno Life Cycle apart from the Eggs on a ship set at a time in the past and we know what happens next. And thus Ridley could truely 100% close the door on Alien, the fans get their link and are happy. The rest get a movie that can explore the Engineers etc in Prometheus 2. Win/Win.... But for some reason that was not the case... 2) I think that they have toned down some of the Bio Elements and Ridley did say that how he saw it was that the Bio-Tech looks more Mechanical while its alive and when it dies it takes on a more fossilised and thus Organic look.

I agree that the movie would benefit greatly from Giger's direct involvement. And as for Ridley's statement that the classic Xeno is done to death, how about tentacle monsters (Kraken, PIRATES movie, CLASH OF TITANS, Cthulu art), or a bald-headed superhuman (WATCHMEN, JOHN CARTER, DARK CITY etc). Giger must be employed for the next movie. A Must! And he doesn't have to stick to the classic Xeno, they could ask him to design new creatures.

I agree, there does seem a deal of re-written compromise between the original concept of direct prequel & new franchise which does the plot no favours. As far as I can gather, in the early stages of writing, this film was originally pitched as a direct prequel to Alien, but as time went on, RS wanted to change direction and distance the plot from this, however it seems that various elements from the original direct prequel concept were kept in the re-boot franchise compromise that is Prometheus, so the crashing SJ ship that just so happens to land on a deserted moon in more-or-less the same position as the alien derelict which would have dove-tailed into the first Alien is now another derelict on another moon, just behind the same / a similar ringed gas giant? hmmmmm...

@Hadley's Hope Thats a great point and i think one of the downfalls of the movie. There was a good story that they wanted to add to the Alien universe... This was that the Space Jockey created or played a part in the creation of life on Earth, and added Mythos etc.... This added onto what the Engineers really looked like, and that aswel as potentially creating or modifying the Xeno, the kinds of experiments and creations that may be created via the building blocks and tech that they have. Their Fire/Black Substance. They then also had to add Weyland Corp and a story behind the creator, of that corp and Andriods, aswell as its CEO or high corp figure in Vickers. Ontop of the different views on creation between Shaw and Holloway and the findings they made in the gave and its Significance. Add that to finding a Engineers Sandbox/Outpost and the Temple, its contents. Add to that what potentially happens when that Black Goo in the Urns comes into contact with Organisms and Humans. And then also try and explain some links and hints to Alien.. It was sadly too much going to fit into a movie thats only 2 hours odd long... Prometheus 2 can thus take away a number of those elements and thus have less things to explore and thus allow a more detailed movie based on certain aspects left from Prometheus... Be that say soley.... What David and Shaw find when they go looking for the Engineers why they created us, why they wanted us dead etc.... and hence no Proto Xeno, no Weyland etc... Or be that what happens when Yutani or Weyland send out a mission to LV 223 to find out what happened to Prometheus/Vickers etc.... and thus nothing much to do with the Engineers or Shaw etc.... but what happens when they come across the Urns or run into the Proto Xeno etc..

I had no problem with the Tentacle monster... It was a nod to the creature from the Orginal Alien Script Star Beast...

More H.P. Lovecraft, than H.R. Giger though..

I think that the reason for the negative sentiment is that the trailers revealed and spoiled everything ! There was no surprise to me after I watched the whole movie. I really don't understand why the marketing people didn't take any precaution to block at least some of the essential scenes such as the fate of the engineer, Shaw's cesarian procedure or the crashing of Prometheus on the alien ship.

You see i think i have the answer for you..... Why was it even mentioned that the movie may be a PG-13 and not a R from day one? Why has Ridley come out and said some gore/graphic cuts was made so as to pass for a 15 in UK? Easy so that Fox can tap into more of a market for potential viewers. Fox knows that most Alien fans and Ridley fans would go to see the movie, regardless of how spoilerish the Trailers was... The Trailers showed and spoilt a lot for the Alien fans.... but then they showed more to potentially get the general public to see the movie more... Pure and Simply Marketing the movie to attract the none Ridley/Alien fans at the expense of spoiling some parts of the movie for them in the Trailers.

It might do reasonably well in the box office, but I highly doubt it will do well enough to offset the astronomical budget. And word of mouth hasn't exactly been stellar. And the "we'll explain it all in the sequel" move at the end is pretty... alienating.

something like Prometheus has a big hill to climb, even with Ridley Scott directing and a whole lot of money the alien franchise is nothing to shake a stick at and doing a project like this (especially after the last two AVP and AVP:R) is going to touch people on a very personal level, especially if it ends up disappointing I truly think this movie would have been better off with half the marketing it has had. We have seen a whole lot of footage before any release and now it appears that trailer footage was some of the best there was so we are left to "suck it". The staggered release dates are just dumb. I know the UK has to wait and the U.S. gets some first but come one and just release them at the same time. I really don't think that separate release dates help this film.

If Prometheus had opened June 1st worldwide it would have had a Rottentomatoes score of 92% going into its first weekend. Rottentomatoes score going into opening weekend in the US is now 77%. That is money down the drain for nothing.

I wish so strongly that Sir Ridley Scott had done one of two things: 1. Completely dissociated this movie from Alien. No Weyland Industries, no space jockey, no xenomorph, nothing. Instead, he could've gone for a totally new universe from which to tell his story. It would've been risky for sure, but with solid writing and a good cast (the latter of which he already had), it would've had a fair shake. Unfortunately, I think Scott suspected the movie wouldn't have a prayer against other blockbuster movies without the Alien connection, which leads me to the alternate idea: 2. He should've fully embraced the tie-in to Alien and run with it. Some could say he did just that, with Weyland Industries, the Space Jockey, etc. but he put all of that in the movie while still maintaining this needless smoke-and-mirrors routine as to whether this was actually an Alien prequel. Why bother with the half-hearted rodeo-clowning? It doesn't matter what people think of the Alien franchise because of the dreadful AvP movies or Alien: Resurrection; it's Ridley Scott, taking us back to the universe he helped create! We know it's going to be far superior to any of that other stuff. He could've come out and said, "You're going to get more light shed on who the mysterious "Space Jockey" was; you're going to get a look at the possible creation of the xenomorph species", and fans would've devoured it.