YAPD (Yet Another Prometheus Deconstruction)

Just finished reading the whole thing. I got the sense that the writer got more and more irritated by the movie as he was writing it, but then had to write a hopeful conclusion to wrap everything up nicely. He kept noticing problems with the movie (and I think he missed some from a film and story-telling perspective).

Yes, I think I may have glossed over some of the "plot holes" because they've been covered elsewhere. I guess I was trying to say "here is what I noticed" about the film and my thoughts as to what would have made it a better experience (at least in my eyes). Thanks for reading it, in any case.

Oh, YOU wrote it! Duh, I should have read the forum post as closely as I read your blog. Sorry 'bout that. Did you find it odd that when Shaw is about to be put into hypersleep to preserve her "fetus" for the return trip home, that she wakes up, attacks 2 crew members and makes it to Vickers' lifeboat to perform her "abortion" with no one stopping her? Without David realizing that she's up and walking around? Without Vickers' asking, "Hey, what are you doing in MY ROOM?" Without any security personnel wondering what's going on? And after the "abortion" no one seems to care what happened? No one is upset that Shaw attacked them?

Good points, Xenotron. Yeah, I wondered about that as well, but they were mentioned by Red Letter Media and other sites which have analyzed the film. I should link to them in my post, or at least mention them. But yeah, you raise an interesting question. I assume that there's a reason for it, and that's because of the forward movement of the plot. If anyone had stopped her, presumably it would have widely diverged from the final ending. It would literally have been "game over" for Shaw and planet earth (perhaps). The med-pod was a Deus Ex Machina (literally-- see what I did there? :P), to help her remove the "fetus" and carry on with her quest. We presume that while she's in the course of extracting the trilobyte baby that the other members of the crew are "busy" doing other stuff, don't we? At least, I think that's what was at the back of my mind during the sequence. But yeah, it's a bit of a glaring plot hole that she rushes in, sees Weyland and no one seems to care. Maybe David hadn't told Weyland what was going on. Since Weyland wasn't looking to get pregnant with a tentacled fetus, he thought the visit to the Engineer was more important. Or he knew the outcome would be grisly and sought to hurry it along so he could be "free". But yeah, you'd think the Scottish woman (Ford) would at least have been a little upset or have something to say on the matter. Maybe it ended up on the cutting room floor. Only time will tell.

I know why they did it: it was so that they could leave the Trilobite quarantined in Vickers' lifeboat to grow so they could release it on the Engineer later on in the movie. I just feel like the scene would have been a lot more tense had at least Ford gotten back up to chase Shaw and yell to the rest of the crew that Shaw was escaping. Shaw makes it to the lifeboat and the surgical pod and locks the rest of the crew out. David gets there with Ford and they're both pleading with Shaw to open the door, but she keeps refusing while sticking needles in herself. Heck, you could have David lie to her and say things like, "You'll never survive the procedure." At least have Vickers there to be angry; Shaw's actions were tantamount to taking a massive alien dump in Vickers' toilet and forgetting to flush. At the end of the scene, the surgical pod removes the "fetus" and everybody finally gets the doors open, but they're so freaked out, they decide to lock it in the room. Vickers would want to destroy it (going off her character that had been established earlier in the movie) only to have the alien escape and crawl in a hole somewhere. Follow it up with a scene where everyone goes looking for it, but they don't find it. Or, just have the surgical pod not in Vickers' lifeboat at the very least. I just feel that there were so many wasted opportunities with this movie.

I love your re-write, Xenotron. And I'm totally with you-- it could even have made some more tense moments in the late part of the film (and perhaps could have replaced the need for the "rolling ship" gag). I agree, but I guess the reason we have the film under a microscope is we care enough to do so? I know the people I saw it with seemed to be largely satisfied. I'm all for taking creative license with the plot and verisimilitude, but it has to make sense as part of the larger film and milieu. There are too many inconsistencies for me to really enjoy it as it is. And I have a feeling the DC, with 20-30 minutes of extra footage won't really solve some of the film's problems. Still, if they do make a sequel, I'm curious to know where they go with it.