Plot holes- why we are so picky?

Picky? Pointing out Plot Holes is not being PICKY. If your plot fails to make sense (and Prometheus' sure as hell didn't) then your movie is BAD sir!

Because we want to be told a good story, and a lot of us here were expecting something dark, sinister and scary, also there was a dearth of answers. We didn't start telling a story 30 plus years ago, Ridley Scott and co. did. We expected him to do better, in a nutshell. And then he hired Lindelof.

We expected dark, epicness........we got light, Startrekyness! We are not picky, our expectations were well founded because of Ridley's past mastery *waitin to be fried by flamethrower* :-D

......apart from the prologue, that was epic, that was Ridley......the rest of the film felt different, like another director....

I have to say I agree there Lone, it really did feel like that.

having said all that I have seen it 4 times....keep hoping I'm gonna get it!! LOL

So have I, and I'm more confused than ever actually.

Yes this film and these types of films get special attention because its sci fi set in the 'real world' as such and is serious! Its also made by probably the best sci fi maker ever so the expectations are high. Take men in black 3 for instance - its supposed to be a bit of fun and is a comedy after all - I saw it and actually enjoyed it more than prometheus unfortunately just because "it does what it says in the tin" as the saying goes - it achieves what it set out to do. Prometheus did achieve part of what it set out to do but seemed to mess up quiet badly in parts. A film like prometheus is also much harder to make of course...anyway hopefully its not over yet! And yes me too the prologue was one of the really goods parts for me too.

yes Crabfart.....I'm hoping there's a soon to be released P2 which was filmed back to back & will blow our minds! Call me crazy, but I think it's remotely possible????

Yes small chance but I think a TV series is more likely from viral vids...hats off to them if they covered up a part 2 that would be awesome of course!

I just checked my local cinema listings......... Prometheus haz gone!! No more viewings for me, need to wait for the DVD/Blueray to dissect.

If you're crazy then so am I Lone ;-)

HEHEHE I'm not 'lone then! :-D

I still dream Ridley is Sci-fi God & in dreams anything's possible!!!

I've been a Jedi, a Guyver, Link and a stormtrooper in dreams before.

.....I've been Jonsey, Ripley & the wife of Chewy!

I agree with Gun and Cypher. Plus, as cinephiles we want to be well served. Good story, good aesthetics, good mental work... not Plotholes and oddities and inconsistencies and whatever the Industrie feels like spitting in our face.

Agreed David. We pay good money for this shit.

Well you know what to do if nothing gets better...

BUT what I mean is.... Star Wars and BR and even Alien have massive plot holes. People gloss over them. Why not now?

Erm please tell me the massive plot holes in BR and Alien?

BR- massive issue with number of replicants they say escaped!!! Plot hole massive!! Alien- acid marks on derelict implies a xeno must have been there i the ship already. But the eggs were below metal. how could a facehugger have got the jockey?

As the real world becomes crazier,,escapement to movies create another world..perhaps a world more desireable.

BR- not watched it in a while so whats the problem? Theres 1 too many? I see on the internet they over dubbed the final cut so 2 got fried and its ok? Alien - We dont see lots of the ship and this part is ambiguous and unexplained the acid could of been from the chest burster or another alien the eggs below look like they were put there by the engineers as there is some kind of lazer mist covering them. The face hugger could of come from any direction or through a small hole outside etc. etc. . The SJ could of been infected and then walked back to the chair etc. etc.. Its not a plot hole because its not part of the main plot as such - you don't need to know exactly what happened to understand the story! And there are ways for it to make sense anyway!

@Vickers 8.....the difference IMO is that Alien & Bladerunner were not ruined by any plot discrepancies! :-D

I think the original script was intended for us picky buggers......then was 'dumbed down' for mass appeal, however it's debateable if even that worked! :-D

I really like Prometheus, however I can't help feeling let down because I believe something truly wonderful may lie on the cutting room floor!

@Vickers 8: [i]"Why is the average cinema goer so much more bloody picky nowadays?"[/i] Because it's the Facebook & Twitter Generation, where any tosser can shoot off his mouth! @Crabfart: (in relation to Blade Runner) [i]"you don't need to know exactly what happened to understand the story"[/i] Now that's really funny, because many of Prometheus' detractors don't like the bits that they don't understand!

"..lie on the cutting room floor..." That cutting romm floor must be 10 feetr deep if it wants to answer the various thread on this I think another viewing(armed with info from various posts) is in order, Perhaps my mind would be more open to the informatin presented,,and make the storyline understandable at the end,, A satisfying movie experience is all I ask..

@zzplural Yes the difference is alien has one or 2 of these moments prometheus has a billion BIIIG DIFFERENCE!!!!

I respect the opinion of others. I am not expecting anyone to agree with me, we are having a discussion here & that's great & what this site is all about! I am in fact a fairly quiet person & I don't 'shoot my mouth' off willy nilly! :-D

@ Indy John...agreed! Probably an entirely different movie lies on that proverbial floor!

Truth is......we are or I am so picky because I expect more of filmmakers than we often get. There is a clear line that a filmmaker chooses to either cross or not when he or she chooses to respect or not the intelligence of moviegoing audiences. I my self am no genius, but I've lived my life viewing the silver screen, so-to-speak, and expect a certain attention to detail, to logic that either makes or breaks a film. Cypher mentioned that we expect a good story and as it goes, good storytelling demands a certain level of attention to detail and an appreciation of the audience's intelligence. Clear lapses in tha attention to detail, lapses in logic and lapses is respect for our intelligence as moviegoers comes off as an insult. The filmmaker is putting together a story they expect us to pay money for and when a story lacks those details and it fails to unify itself in the telling of that story as a result, it can, not always, but often can come across as an insult to the movie going public. I am picky because I expect that any world created within the confines of story being told will follows its own rules as establihed, will follow a logic we as an audience can follow without having to make excuses for it, will unify itself in a meaningful way and will NOT insult my intelligence by failing to do any of that.

As to the number of replicants in [i]Bladerunner[/i], this is from an article in the BBC, [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/825641.stm]Blade Runner riddle solved[/url]: "In Channel 4's documentary On The Edge Of Blade Runner, Scott discusses the scenes and asked what they mean, [Ridley Scott] confirms with a grin: 'He's a replicant'. Another hint in the film comes from the number of replicants which Deckard is hunting. We find out that six had made their way to earth, one of whom was killed. Deckard is looking for four, begging the question: 'Who is the fifth replicant?'.

@Craigamore.......very well said!

Oh yes and @zzplural quote "@Crabfart: (in relation to Blade Runner) "you don't need to know exactly what happened to understand the story" Now that's really funny, because many of Prometheus' detractors don't like the bits that they don't understand!" 1. I was talking about alien 2. It is the ones that fully understand prometheus that dont like it so much. The ones that think its really deep and its all cool and mysterious and other people are missing something are actually the ones that DONT understand it in its entirety! 3. Just look at all the people agreeing - even staff! 4. Prometheus has holes in the main story line and lots of them! Not just side storylines! 5. +what the others said ! :D

I am a huge fan of most of Ridley's work - Alien, Blade Runner and Prometheus. Many forget, ALIEN and Blade Runner all had massive plot holes and left you with so many questions. Like Alien, they discover this Alien ship, find an egg of some sort, gaze into it without considering if it could be dangerous, then BAM facehugger latches on Kane's face. Then the film ignores the Alien ship for the rest of the film, they never went back to investigate further, they ended up focusing entirely on the Alien itself - a VERY closed aspect of the universe which was explored more deeply in Prometheus. Now, am I going to say Prometheus had no plot holes and was perfect to the core? No. But I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'm GLAD it wasn't. The plot holes mean there's more to come and the film is more successful and powerful because we think hard for our answers. Something films just simply don't do anymore. Or at least it's very rare to find one that does. Prometheus felt a lot like Alien in the sense that there was so much mystery left unsolved - just like in ALIEN. Most film goers are so used to getting all the answers in one go and then the sequels get worse and worse as they go on. Prometheus defied this "trend" and posed more questions than answers while still answering enough for you to form intelligent theories which "could" prove true in later sequels. The plot holes were done on purpose. There is a bigger picture which I think a lot are missing. But you know, not liking aspects of the film and having all those plot holes allows for us to speculate and dissect more of the film - which is also great. Ridley and crew stated for years that this was NOT going to be a direct prequel, that there WOULD be more questions than answers and that it was made in mind to extend into 2 sequels. I enjoyed Prometheus because I read the interviews and knew what Scott and Lindelof were going to do. I knew the plot would be ambiguous and I knew I would have more questions coming out than going in. I didn't expect a close ended film. I actually anticipated it would be ambiguous as I personally love having to dig for my answers and really brainstorm possibilities. I think I've gone on enough now, haha, but I guess what I'm trying to say to those who didn't like it is - I understand why you didn't. But I think you should focus on the bigger picture, and not dwell on little details which were more and likely set in place for a reason, to throw you off. Think bigger.

Nobody understands Prometheus fully. A bit like what Feynman said about Quantum Mechanics: If you think you understand it, you don't! That's one thing that I [i]really[/i] like about it. Someone mentioned a problem with the number of replicants in Blade Runner earlier. Didn't RS fix this with an overdub in the Director's Cut? Along with a few other mistakes (most notably the bit where Deckard was only pretending to be handling a computer in Tyrell's room, doing a bit of Marcel Marceau).

Thanks The Lone Gunwoman. As to the supposed plot hole in [i]Alien[/i] with the acid burned hole in the floor.........How is it a plot hole that we see evidence of acid in a film about an alien creature that bleeds acid? How is this a plot hole when this evidence is found on a ship carrying those creatures? How is this a plot hole when this evidence is discovered, presumably, thousands of years after the event took place? What I'm getting at is that you have a team of people happening upon the aftermath of an event that took place long before any of them was even born. The particulars of that event, just like any archeological discovery on earth, are not always going to be clear from the immediate evidence, nor do they need to be for a coherant story to be told. In this case, the how of the SpaceJockey being infected, the how of the acid burned hole into the cargo hold, the particulars of that event are not known and do not need to be known to logically present the story told in [i]Alien[/i], other than to simply suggest the highly dangerous nature of the egg cargo. Also, we know that the facehugger can utilize its acid to burn through a helmet to get at its prey. It can easily be said then that there's no reason to believe it can't do that same thing to get out of the cargo hold or that an adult drone can't also use acid as it likes to burn through barriers. The adult, having been born of the SpaceJockey, could have burned its way through to the cargo hold if it wanted, we don't know, but what we do know allows for that possibility, which DOES NOT CONTRADICT anything we already know and thus IT IS NOT A PLOT HOLE. People throw about the term 'plot hole' all the time without really understanding what it means. As it goes, a lack of information regarding a plot point is not necessarily a plot hole. This is what we have in [i]Alien[/i], a lack of information that begs questions and creates mystery, but also, [i][b]never[/b] contradicts established facts of that story[/i]. A true Plot Hole is a piece of information or lack there of that does [i]contradict[/i] or refute established facts, basic logic or plot points made in the telling of a story. That's the difference here. A true plot hole would be something like the alien being vulnerable to fire in one scene, but not in the next or Ripley being able to survive in a vacuum, as she does in the climax of [i]Aliens[/i].

Actually you can survive in a total vacuum for a while : [url=http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2008/06/how-long-can-you-survive-in-vacuum-of.html]see here[/url] but I dont think she was in a total vacuum was she? I cant remember but never mind...