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deftones1986
MemberOvomorphJul-05-2012 5:53 PMI'm not trying to be a know-it-all or an a-hole, but certain people who are criticizing this movie need to just take a second, and think.
The characters in this movie, had absolutely no idea what they where getting themselves into.
Did we as an audience know what was gonna happen?
Yes of course we did because most of us saw ALIEN, ALIENS, ALIEN 3 and ALIEN RESURRECTION
Remember, the events of PROMETHEUS took place B E F O R E all those other movies.....
There was no Ripley there to say to them "This is a bad idea, you better watch out for acid spitting, human impregnating, big black scary aliens and little scorpion face smothering creatures, oh and also watch out for any kind of android because they usually turn out to be evil and only do the dirty work for an evil corporation."
By the way, what did all the characters in the other movies do when Ripley told them all this stuff? They just kept on doing what they wanted anyway until it was too late... Go ahead and re-watch those movies and you'll see the same stupid ass humans defying common sense...
All the other characters where just there for paychecks, and thought that Holloway and Shaw where crazy besides Weyland, who was half asleep anyway, and he didn't give two shits about the expendable crew. He just wanted them to find what he was looking for, have David come tell him, and for all he cared they could all starve to death on Lv223.....
Not to mention the crew wasn't told anything before they left about the possibility of finding the creators of humans being the reason they where going to sleep for 2 years. Weyland knew that if he just informed them to come along on a trip with guaranteed X amount of money, they would do it. If he said "Yeah we're gonna find aliens." I don't think anybody would care to go, but then again money will make you do some crazy shit won't it?
So stupid characters or money hungry idiots hand-picked by Peter Weyland? You decide.
He're a hint.....if you where in the future and you where told "Come on a trip and I'll pay you lots and lots of money because I own the most profitable company in existence." Would you hesitate ? If you did, and especially if you asked questions....Guess what?
Mr. Weyland has decided to explore different candidates for this job, and is sorry to inform you that your expertise will no longer be needed, but thank you for your time.
So please stop complaining about the characters doing this or not doing that...
A
- I remember Fifeild and Millburn being told to stay put until the storm passed.
- They didn't listen.
B
- Vickers told Shaw and Holloway not to proceed any further until consulting her if they found what they came looking for.
- They didn't listen.
C
- David was told not to open the door.
- He didn't listen, because I'm about 90% sure Weyland told him to do whatever it takes, and screw the other members and what they say.
D
- Shaw told Holloway not to take his helmet off.
- He didn't listen.
E
_ Fifeild told Millburn not to get all close to the Hammerpede
- He didn't listen.
F
- The captian told everybody to just sit tight until morning when they first arrived, because night was closing in.
- They didn't listen.
Soooo
Nobody really took charge, Vickers was too scared to even leave the ship, Weyland did not care whatsoever about the crew (he told his goons to shut Shaw up when they confronted the Engineer) nobody listened to anybody elses common sense suggestions, so guess what happened........
To sum up this movie as far as what the damn ship (PROMETHEUS) was doing there in the first place, just think about the obvious!!!
- Weyland was told by Shaw that she knew where to find the creators of humans.
- He believed all of this, didn't stop to think as to if the beings would even grant him immortality, or he didn't care because he was the all powerful Weyland. So he assembled a crew of people he could care less about, including David...don't believe the whole "he's the closest thing to a son I'll ever have."
Yeah bullshit
- David did all the experimenting, opening doors, etc....did Weyland care AT ALL that during the process that a bunch of people where infected and/ or died? NO!!! All he wanted when he found out there was an Engineer alive was for everybody to get the hell out of the way so he could get David to talk to it, and give him immortal life.
Ridley Scott is trying to tell us something here and we all missed it by a mile, it's so simple.....
We all need to stop and think about what we're doing, THINK before you ACT.
1 - Why did we create nuclear weapons?
2 - Why did the Engineers create the black goo bio-weapon?
1 - Because we could.
2 - Because they could.
Did we ever stop and think that maybe something bad would happen if we messed around with atoms?
Yes, but we humans did it anyway.
Did the people who where involved with the creation of nuclear weapons listen to the people who told them it was a bad idea?
No
Did the Greek titan Prometheus listen when told not to give fire to humans?
No
The Engineers somehow wiped out their whole civilization with the black goo shit, and what is the biggest theory on how we're going to wipe out our own civilization?
World War 3, which would include us nuking or being nuked and then just a domino effect, until ultimately the human race is wiped out, and something else emerges.
"The eternal recurrence of the same."
Play with fire and you get burned right?
79 Replies
Inquisitor Tremayne
MemberOvomorphJul-06-2012 8:01 PMLong post - can't read all the little tod bits. I'll just touch on the intro "beginning, middle, and end" - Alien - and it was fantastic!
deftones1986
MemberOvomorphJul-06-2012 8:32 PMLol I keep making my posts too long.
But in the last one I did on page 4, it talks about my theory that Ridley Scott is trying to tell us that Peter Weyland is the Anti-Christ......if you take the time to read it I explain it a little bit, but IF its true, what does everybody think about that spin, would you watch the movie differently next time?
sukkal
MemberOvomorphJul-06-2012 9:44 PM@deftones1986
I thank you for starting this thread. It has produced some very interesting points.
Re: The Antichrist. I don't agree with you that R.S. or Damon L. connected Weyland's character directly to the Biblical characterization of "evil incarnate." I also suggest that you read [url=http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/03/05/120305crbo_books_gopnik]Elaine Pagels’ take on [i]Revelations[/i][/url]. Weyland seems very much like a Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison or Jeff Bezos to me. They are all technically *great* men who do impressive things (which require evil things along the way, of course) for reasons (a personal drive?) that are often difficult for people without that kind of ego (pre- or post-success) to grasp. Pagels believes that that Nero was [i]The Beast[/i] in question. He probably suffered a few more character flaws than the rest of those I've listed above.
I have to agree essentially with craigamore. If this were a better film (with better writing and editing) it would have made $600 million dollars already. The WORST thing about it is the editing, and I feel FOX's hand in that mix. Ridley had to be at least partially complicit, though, of course.
I have seen this film 5 times in the theater. Real D once. IMAX 3D twice. 2D twice. I am quite the enthusiast. I believe that the story harbors thoroughly fascinating topics on an almost endless number of axes, but I also feel that Ridley Scott is *better* than this film (as we have seen it in theaters) is. It is a bit shocking to me that he has said publicly that he feels that THIS VERSION is the director's cut, HIS cut as its director. There IS a better cut of this film—theoretically. The better cut (if it is ever created and released) will reveal more about how and why the Engineers behave the way they do. It is NOT the black goo that is the crux of this film’s mystery. It is the Engineers as "a superior species." The goo is just one of their tools, in parallel (agreed) to our human relationship with intentional nuclear fission. [u]Powerful[/u] things (substances), processes, and ›››people‹‹‹ are inherently [u]dangerous[/u].
The brilliance of this film and its story is that it easily allows for all of the [u]diverse[/u] interpretation and speculation that's going on here . I choose to believe that David is an Oscar Wilde-like hero, while others choose to believe that he is the film's ultimate villain. The tragedy of this film is that the so-called scientists did not NEED to be so moronic (and, for me personally, that the Fitfield garage attack scene ate up budget and screen time that could have been spent on further exposition of the Engineers.)
In the end, it is what it is—and for me it's an imperfect, fascinating film and hopefully the beginning of even better things to come.
Rubirosa
MemberOvomorphJul-06-2012 10:00 PMYou are on point again @deftones 1986. You must really be an avid reader to bring all of these topics into a single idea. When it comes dowm to it the whole film is about human nature at its best, and at its worst.
deftones1986
MemberOvomorphJul-06-2012 10:22 PMYeah, I'm not saying that he was the anti-christ in the 100% literal meaning of it, but more on the side of the Revelations thing you brought up. Thank you for clarifying that for me because that's more what I'm leaning towards.
All in all there are a TON of different things going on in this movie with trying to tie it in with ALIEN, and the space jockey, what would they look like?, trying to come up with who the CEO of "The Company" would be, along with a back story, along with generating an android that would stand out from all the other movies, along with a Ripley-like main character, along with making the movie as a whole not seem like ALIEN with just updated CGI and different actors, along with trying to tie ancient alien theories, religious beliefs, greek myths, and so on and so on.
But that leads me to my next point and agreement with you:
I agree 1,000% about the editing and the way this film was put together.
It had to be what FOX wanted right, because they gave him the budget.
I guarantee that if Ridley was given 130 million dollars to make an independent film version with no worries about ratings or what is politically correct. We would have seen a masterpiece.
So here's hoping that by making Prometheus, he calmed down all the critics in the movie financing industry, and we'll get to see some real classics being made again, instead of talking cars that morph into robots, and aliens that put bubbles over our oceans, and aliens invading cowboy ranches or whatever the hell that movie was about........
deftones1986
MemberOvomorphJul-06-2012 10:34 PMYes @ Rubirosa
"Big things have small beginning."
It means that you can either simplify the meaning of the movie or write post, after post, after post, after post explaining it.
You can either say:
This movie is about the Good and Evil inside of EVERY intelligent creature.
Engineers came off as doing "good and bad" things
Shaw and Weyland came off as "good and evil"
David came off as both at different times, because he was created by "good and evil" aka "humans"
This particular story is in short, about what would happen if the "evil" part of humanity was to reach our creators first.......we saw first hand the result.
Now:
If the movie was to be twisted and reformed to where Shaw had control over David.....and he told the Engineer that they where here to meet them, and come to an understanding as to why they wanted to destroy Earth, and tell him that all humans aren't all bad, we're just curious but most of our intentions are good.
Would the results of the movie have turned out different? My guess is yes, it would have turned into a nice storybook ending.
But the real question is. Is that what we really wanted?
colonial soldier
MemberOvomorphJul-06-2012 10:34 PMSorry, the theory does not make sense. If you have to assume this for all the weak characters in the movie to fill in the plot holes for lazy screenwriters then have at it.
I was upset when Hicks and Newt died in Alien3. That was not the original story.
I even brought the ridiculous two-hundred years later cloning of Ripley. But to go with a prequel that is less tangible and comprehensive shows the latter (or former based on perspective) is not better than the former.
I don't care what your motivation is going on a two-year hyper-sleep but good writing will develop those motives through its characters; not rush it and make viewers make rash assumptions because they want a sequel. Let us be more better and intelligent than that please.
deftones1986
MemberOvomorphJul-06-2012 10:45 PM@colonial soldier
Because times have changed, the movie was rushed, and FOX told them what to put in the movie, and what not to put in, to have it make money. In the end Ridley did the best he could with the rules that where given to him in this changing age where kid friendly Sci movies are the only things allowed to be made anymore to bring in all the big money.
Plain and simple.
Some of us just chose to see that yes, there really was a story underneath it all.....it sparked our imaginations like a wildfire, so what if we had to spend months trying to figure it out, and so what if I'm wrong on every last letter of every last word that I put on this site.
In the end I had fun coming up with theories about it, that's what it's all about.
ZMAN3494
MemberOvomorphJul-07-2012 12:57 AM@deftones1986 [quote]In the end I had fun coming up with theories about it, that's what it's all about./quote]
Exactly, and like Ridley Scott said in a behind the scenes, all of the questions raised in the film are real life questions. Also, like someone said in this thread but I can't remember who it was. The movie also ties in Ancient Aliens, Greek Mythology, and popular religious beliefs very well in my opinion.
And thats the point, the questions raised in the film are QUESTIONS that don't have a concrete answer, just lots of theories. So of course they are not going to be answered in the film. Although maybe some of them will in sequels. For example, there was many questions after watching The Matrix and some got answered in it's sequels.
Nuck Chorris
MemberOvomorphJul-07-2012 1:21 AMif you are happy with a movie, of if you are disappointed by a movie, is only a question of EXPECTATIONS.
When watching a David Lynch Movie, you dont EXPECT conclusions, some answers. You expect some kind of "weird dream scenes" sticked together like a patchwork, but not much "logical" sense. More "dream" sense, as in dreams the strangest things are possible and seem to make sense in "dream logic".
But here we had an science fiction movie - which leads to DIFFERENT EXPECTATIONS.
You expect some exciting story about some findings you have never seen before, some BIG sense and ANSWERS.
Remember "the sixth sense" - this movie was a MASTERPIECE, and it HAD the answer at the end. WITHOUT the answer at the end, it would simply be "mystery crap" that could mean ANYTHING, and maybe by ACCIDENT some of the audience COULD come to the SPECULATION that this is about him and bruce willis has been shot and this was the time between the shot and him moving on to beyond...
THATs the reason for the disappointment MANY people feel about prometheus. Big pictures, hints here, hints there - but you never KNOW what it really should mean (if it does anyway have a meaning, i am not sure), so you are forced to leave it unresolved, or to SPECULATE.
And thats what we do here for month.
I dont like that.
Nuck Chorris
MemberOvomorphJul-07-2012 6:57 AMNot everybody must be satisfied - but the MAJORITY of the audience.
And it is not satisfying to stop in the middle of each sentence, and the listener has to "think" how the sentences "could" end.
Inquisitor Tremayne
MemberOvomorphJul-07-2012 8:59 AMIf RS has to work with what he's got - $130 mil, time constraints, and possible ratings issues, then you work the best film you can within those parameters. I just don't believe that that RS did. I believe the mind of Lindelof helped warp what would've otherwise been a good film! Everyone agrees it is poorly edited and a good number of people believe the characters were stupid and not believable. Why continue seeing the movie repeatedly to answer its high-brow questions if it is mediocre (good) and has poor editing, pacing, and character development - especially when this particular movie was not designed to answer questions. Would you date a hot enigmatic woman that constantly required your cash for a peak but never delivered? You're a fool to do so when there are plenty of great movies (girls) that do deliver and not at a financial cost or a mind fuck!
sukkal
MemberOvomorphJul-07-2012 12:31 PM@Inquisitor Tremayne —
I am MARRIED and to a MAN, so your allegory of dating enigmatic women in order to get them into bed is not particularly effective on me if I am the proverbial "fool" to whom you refer.
I saw the film originally in each of its native market varieties in order to contrast them. I'm interested in film making and market delivery (for valid personal reasons that are quasi-professional in my particular case). I then saw it two more times with two separate friends because we wanted to have discussions about the film both from film-making and philosophical perspectives.
I have not seen the movie repeatedly to answer any "questions" that are not answered in the first viewing. I have seen it repeatedly to (a) appreciate the differences between the three different presentation formats and the visual detail that IS present on screen. (The speck of detritus that David picks up off the floor pre-arrival is not visible on a small screen. It's perfectly clear in IMAX.) And, (b) to share social experiences with dear friends that have led to new mutual opportunities for intellectual discussion. I had similar discussions during and after SETIcon II and the film itself was mentioned more than once during the conference. Regardless of the imperfections in Prometheus, it is a good catalyst ("mind fuck?") for stimulating discussion re: the ramifications of our becoming aware of the existence of non-human intelligence.
We seem to be in agreement that it is not Ridley at his finest.
My needing to be categorized as a "fool" in order for your core point to be valid... not so much agreement there.
PS: Lindelof—for all of his apparent inability to keep track of and tie up the loose ends that he himself creates—doubtlessly created at least half of the enigmatic content in this film that is so fascinating to the audience that likes it. For that he will be valued if financial expectations are met or exceeded; and derided and dismissed if they are not. Such is the business of filmmaking.
Inquisitor Tremayne
MemberOvomorphJul-07-2012 9:39 PMMy you use a lot of big words and speak so eloquently!
I caught the flick (that's what it is - not really film worthy) at an IMAX and covered all my basis in the first sitting! Sorry you had to view multiple times on the big screen to catch every little nuance that will be available on blueray in the not so distant future at about half the cost of your viewings.
About my dating anology: I thought most would ignore it or just simply think me making another asinine comment. If I'd known I was going to touch someones sensitive heart, I may have listened more closely to my internal monologue and truly thought about the multitude of differing auduiences I may or may not be appealing to.
You have schooled me on both Prometheus and allegorical references! I'm glad you are impervious to such things!
Why so serious???
sukkal
MemberOvomorphJul-07-2012 10:07 PM
Why so serious?
Simply because in my book (and apparently for my 'sensitive heart') the business of calling someone you don't know a 'fool' is a rather serious one.
I assure you I'm not [u]impervious[/u] to anything.
Have a nice day and best of luck with your inquisition.
Indy John
MemberOvomorphJul-08-2012 3:28 AMHow can a viewer be watching a movie and asking/answering questions at the same time? I mean if the movie experience is to be experienced,,,,having your mind work overtime to analyze each scene.. each charactor,,,leaves little time to actually 'experience' the movie presentation.
Afterwards.. yea .. I can see the discussions ..concerns..critique start....but during the movie,,not so much,,,
Be choicelessly aware as you move through life
Inquisitor Tremayne
MemberOvomorphJul-08-2012 7:55 AM@sukkal - thanks for the luck with my inquisition!
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