2nd viewing

BLANDC, Prometheus is certainly not a perfect movie with a flawless story line, but it is a very unique movie that I found very interesting and enjoyable even with its minor flaws. None of the flaws were major in my opinion. Compare it to the rest of the movies that come out of Hollywood and it captured my imagination along with many other people's as well. It's a fun ride into an alternate universe that may have a kernel of truth in it regarding the big question it poses. At least it does ask some pretty important questions. And it does so in an entirely entertaining and visually captivating way. Look at all the stimulating debates that it started. This whole site is devoted to those of us who found the movie fascinating and wanted a place where we can discuss the questions and issues that it raises. But perfect it certainly is not. I happen to think very highly of Ridley Scott as a director and lets face it, even with a couple of flaws, he still turns out a hell of a science fiction movie!

I'd agree that there are definitely flaws in the whole way they've ran their campaign & made the movie. I was really expecting at least something on 10/11/12. Still disappointed that there wasn't a somewhat big surprise there. Some are real flaws you may find in any film, while some are simply loose ends waiting to be tied. People have offered all sorts of explanations for character motivations. Sticking to the evidence in the film and not its influences is tricky. Most things can be explained, although you have to find the answers for yourself because for now it's your interpretation that guides the experience. This is why people say you understand more when you watch it over again, new interpretations pop into your head. I almost think Ridley is making a statement about sacrificing some things for the bigger picture. Cutting certain scenes to leave us a little more in the dark about character motivations. Like Janek being in the military, revealed in the deleted scenes. Technically and legally its only false advertising if they don't consider that the answers are somewhere within the blu ray. They wanted you to watch it again and pour through it, come up with your own answers. Like Shaw we're almost supposed to choose what to believe at this stage, based on the evidence available. People here have done excellent work analyzing the mural and the room with the big head. We have to consider others' theories and work together to cover all of the available data from many angles... There are certain things we can pretty much establish now based on everything presented. One of those is that the form of the Alien seen in the movie isn't really a proto-alien like some originally thought. And the depiction in the mural is the older form of the Alien because the eggs and traditional life-cycle are seen. There's the very real possibility that the Engineers are not the original Jockey... Ridley knows this... The thing Shaw talks about when she says "then what created them"? There really could be different factions out there... dark angels, light angels and their creators. To go through that line of thought you need to start with Lawrence of Arabia and understand why David is quoting that movie. Why does he admire it? In the movie there are multiple warring factions that the character unites because he can speak the languages of the natives... Admiring it almost implies preference, he likes it more than other films for some reason. Could it be that it has a lot more significance than any other "clues" or seeds planted for the sequel? Does David think he's like Lawrence, a leader? What's David's trick all about? These are all questions one might ask that I know a couple of the possible solutions to. Not because I figured it all out by myself. Someone very close to me, close to Fox, has let me in on some of the plan. The truth is there is no one single plan at this point... Multiple plans developed, so some trails will quite possibly dead end... i.e. the subconscious revelation I'm talking about only comes about if they choose that plan. Things have been set up in such a way that we can't figure out the whole plan yet... You could come close and you could guess, but it would just be a hunch based on all the evidence. So far every path is still open and none are completely closed except by the movie itself i.e. the Deacon is somehow different than the original Alien. It could still become a queen, although I think they'll make it a king... This is Lindelof's one really good contribution to the process--all the story ideas come directly from Spaight's, Ridley, the Studio(Hill & Giler), and some focus groups working for the studio... Lindelof isn't lying when he said he basically took orders from Ridley. Ridley is interacting with the audience in a way, reflecting what gods/leaders/kings do. They often lead and deceive at the same time. Ridley mesmerized some with it, and split the audience by creating an instant aversive reaction to it at first. Until something brought them back to it and they had to watch it again. Maybe something didn't hit them until after they watched it a second time and slept. While watching it the subconscious is taking in all that visual/auditory info at once. Working overtime on it. And can suddenly bring insight to your conscious mind. Ridley is a master of thinking in pictures and looking at the bigger picture. The film may be designed to leave a hypnotic effect on the viewer that creates a slight desire to watch it again. Certain sounds and clues in the trailer cued us in that this was an Alien movie. It did this in a pavlovian way... We all saw/heard the familiar stimuli and reacted in certain ways. We were expecting something. And it's exactly this expectation Ridley may have set out to shatter. He's playing with the audience in a way that's never been done before... I believe he will eventually be immortalized as a master of sci-fi once he blows people's expectations out of the water in Paradise. That's sort of the plan... Big things have small beginnings and all that. I think the plan is that once we see how big Paradise is, we'll completely understand and/or forgive Prometheus for being a small beginning. Not many people will see it coming, but most will see the film out of curiosity even if they disliked Prometheus slightly. They used Lindelof's tricks to create the sort of cliffhanger, and planted seeds. Although Ridley is a true creator and knows where his story's going. I have faith that he simply hired Lindelof to get his input on how to leave some dead ends, and went in a completely different direction Lindelof doesn't get. The studio does. They know some of the plans for the sequel. He made Lindelof a better version of David... And Weyland represents some aspects of himself. I think Ridley is also seeking to immortalize himself through film because we all viewed him as a god, a king, and he wanted to teach us. Eventually he'll redeem himself with Paradise, but it took a sacrifice and the set-up of Prometheus.... Just like T.E. Lawrence Ridley has to pretend that his tricks don't hurt. It's funny that Lindelof took all the blame, almost like he exposed some of Lindelof's flaws... Have you read the story of when Lindelof got hired?? To me it seems like the studio may have brought Ridley to Lindelof... Lindelof said something about ridley being the Emperor without clothes, however, Lindelof has exposed himself as the Emperor without clothes... Right now they've gained the notoriety that sometimes comes with being a leader, purposely made some mistakes to dramatize it/cut things/made compromises... He said he's a businessman... A creator and a businessman, as well as a god and king of sci-fi. They wanted it to do well enough but didn't want to give us too much just yet. It had to be good enough to succeed and lead into the next part of the story. From a business perspective Ridley sacrificed some things and gave Prometheus just enough to make it a financial success and received well enough to warrant the sequel. The truth is many seeds have already been planted. The advertising campaign became part of this. It was necessary to ensure success I believe, from a financial angle. This might be explained through the dialog that's it only the start of a journey, but Lindelof did a crappy job of it. David's lines talking to himself seem out of place. But he almost knows what he's doing with the goo, knows it creates something big. Knows that the things they just involved themselves with will lead to something much bigger... like Prometheus he almost has the power of foresight. Ridley's a better businessman than most, and Lindelof. He realized that the studio didn't want to do two movies like the original plan and found a way to force them into allowing him to do two movies... Prometheus changed to a standalone if need be. But many of the seeds were planted to lead into the next parts. Ridley has said many times that this isn't the prequel. The next parts lead into what happened to that original Jockey. From the puzzle we'll be able to completely understand the thing that burst out of her and the order of things. Once we find out more about what happened to the Jockey females. The original jockey really may be a female and it has something in common with Ripley, regardless of which other paths they take. It was a pilot working for an evil culture that had repressed the original jockies and forced them to carry the old form of the genetics. For a brief period there was a gender war, the females are a lot different from the males under the suit. An extreme form of sexual dimorphism going on in the species. For them David has it wrong... The smaller beings come from a bigger creations. The females/goddesses/original more alien jockeys are the true creators... we won't see the females, original jockey's, or true creators until the end because they're the same thing. That's what happened to the Engineers.They ditched their original creators, stole their tech. Found ways to reproduce without the females. To be a genetic match to us they must carry the x chromosome... They emulate and worship them only with their suits. This original pilot made a sacrifice by landing on LV-426 after it became infected. The females became the pilot class and are completely merged with their technology. The original Jockey was just a pilot like Ripley, caught up in something she had to take control of and tried to quarantine on that planet. Both forms of the fire are deadly, and the males thought they'd fight fire with fire. They no longer use the form the females uses, but it's even more uncontrollable. The females are completely biomechanical and the true creators of all the Engineers' and Elder's stolen technology. They reproduce everything because they're now in charge. Even the Elder males eventually lost their grip on the Engineer/servant class. Instead of deceiving for a selfish purpose he's misleading us and made Prometheus ambiguous on purpose... The campaign is mysterious on purpose and we're not sure where the answers were supposed to be but there's a lot of info to go over in the Bluray. Minus the Bladerunner reference which I now don't count because they've been pretty clear it was just a little thing for the fans. It in no way specifies that it's talking about Tyrell, that was just an interpretation we took. Even I was constantly misled and surprised by the news coming out along the way. I have to give them props for building the universe and such an expansive campaign, even though it's misleading just like the film. Some stuff was cut, and the movie was arranged the way it was because we're being cut off from the feed for now.

Info on sexual dimorphism for those interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism It has examples of species where the other sex is larger... and different. In some species one sex is larger, differently colored, psychologically and hormonally different from the other sex, or generally a lot different and larger. This only occurs in certain species and has certain evolutionary implications. In humans sexual dimorphism is practically non-existent now and the major differences are under the surface, in our endocrine/hormonal systems, and psychological--how we think. it's controversial but gender differences within humans aren't so severe. On average, women are actually said to be more risk aversive based on how they think and their genetics... This relates to why Vickers likes to minimize risk. Men are more oriented towards taking risks because in our evolutionary history we sometimes needed to. We developed that way. Going back to the matriarchal idea there are many primates where the females are dominant. Sometimes the females behave in completely different ways... We've evolved past primates and shaped our culture the way we have, so we now have very little differences between male and females. It's based on averages. In our species males are still larger on average. This is not always the case with some species. Some species have sexes that are completely different. The reasons for this are complex and based on differing evolutionary adaptations. Genes that were advantageous and stuck around. There's a harvesting of genes idea involved in this as someone on this site has hit upon. Evolution allows for differences between sexes and related species, it hasn't been completely thrown out by the writers. The engineers turned out to be us, so they're just an earlier related group of primates who took a certain genetic path. They directed their own paths, and directed it away from the female side of their genetics. They adapted differently, and it's almost like they appear to be separate species now.. They're only displaying different phenotypes, they still carry parts of the same genetics. This is all related to why we have females all of the sudden and the Engineers/Elders don't seem to. Eve created out of Adam's rib and all that. To catch on to this you have to look pretty deep into things and factor in that they don't have nipples/proper bits and bolts. We're not supposed to know that gender will play a big role, but it's hidden throughout Prometheus and even in the King themes. In some birds and reptiles the coloration of the other sex can even be radically different. Morphology and the way the bones/organs develop can even be different. Ridley is trying to say they're the same thing, and they are. They just come in very different genders, which is echoed by the introduction of the King Alien. The chess board ending with David and Shaw still on the planet should have been the ending. It perfectly sets up the battle between the king and queen. You have to be able to accept that some of the pieces on the chessboard are pawns, and can be sacrificed. This is how David thinks... Sometimes in chess it's logical to sacrifice your pawns if you're going straight for a checkmate. David's thinking like a machine and he's not quite evil. he's been shaped by his father and the culture he comes from. Wants to lead and deceive... He knows that if he has a bigger goal in mind he can sacrifice some of the people he views as pawns. Weyland viewed the crew as pawns as well. Vickers understood that he was the king. Vickers and Shaw are Queens playing on different sides of the board; their pairing in the crash scene shows the difference between the two. The other King playing on the board is David. There's a reason things occur in pairs and opposites. Similar opposites. certain characters and even events are paired together... there's two Hammerpedes that we see side by side. Usually sexual dimorphism takes the shape of differences in size, which can lead to some primate species having females that are dominant... In the Engineer species they still have radical differences between their sexes. It's the opposite of humans. The repressed female genetics pass on to us and are allowed to be expressed. In the Engineer species the females are much larger, on average...and very different from the males.

BLANDC, I just went back and reread your response to the OP and to me where you wrote: irt. nostromo001: I'd disagree with your approach to responding to the OP. If a character does something 'stupid', 'out of character', 'in blatant service to the plot', it's usually a bad sign. Of course people do sometimes do 'stupid' things, which they wouldn't normally do, in some conditions. (Of which acute stress is one example) I responded to the OP frankly out of dismay. He or she expressed general dissapoitment with what I consider and many others consider a great film. Regarding the actions of most of the characters in Prometheus, Alien, and Aliens, the three best movies in this series imo, upon careful watching you can see many mistakes made by most of them including Ripley, but we forgive them because 1) they were under extreme stress, and 2) an understanding that sometimes in a story people just have to make mistakes to serve the story, An example would be Kane, played by John Hurt in Alien, stupidly looking into the egg while the viewer is forced to sit on the edge of their seats and watch to total anticipation knowing something bad is going to happen. If he had had an ounce of common sense he wouldn't have looked into the egg but the story would have gone nowhere fast. I even listened to Ridley Scott talk about that scene and it was designed for just that purpose to build tension and then explode scaring the hell out of the audience. This is what I was talking about and I hope you now understand more fully why I say that sometimes a protagonist must do stupid things for the motif to play out.

irt. [b]nostromo001[/b]: Hey, I loved the film too. There are flaws, but I don't really care. There's a good story in there, filled with intriguing potential, and I can't wait for it to continue. On Kane looking stupidly into the egg, I'm prepared to overlook that, on the assumption that no member of the Nostromo crew was trained in what to do in the event of meeting alien thingamajiggies. Human curiosity does the rest. Moving around sticking your head in strange places- hey, some people are like that. Do caving and you'll meet a few. Of course, real caves on Earth- particularly squeezy ones- are only home to things like tiny bugs and the occasional bat colony. Or so we think. Dun-dun-dun. irt. [b]Mala'kak[/b]: I commented earlier that archaeology is a 'tough' science, because the amount of data you have available is highly constrained, and you can't make new data (can't always design experiments in archaeology). I don't think there needs to be any conspiracy behind it all; the amount of red tape and petty bureaucracy one must go through to gain access to a site is enough to drive people crazy. One of the reasons why no, no, no, I'm not buying 4 PhDs, in areas requiring field work. Not before the age of 30. Not happening. That was a lazy writing crutch. Sorry, I do have my pet peeves.

I agree with you there BLANDC. Getting one PhD took me 6 years and I was well past my thirties when I got it (O Chem - a much harder science by comparision to Palentology, Anthropology or mimetics - a major that I am not even sure Oxford offers due to its highly debated nature, the word Memetics generally means cultural Darwinism). The idea that a kid of 17 achieved 4 even related PhDs is just bull sh*t. Each PhD requires a written dissertation of over 200 pages typically. A teenager capable of turning out that much work in a major like anthropology that normally takes 8 years to finish while also completing 3 more in the same time frame is just science fiction and not at all likely. Its a literary device right up there with the fabled truth serum and the notion that chloroform knocks people out in 3 seconds - both not true, chloroform would take about 30 seconds to a minute and may cause vomiting in the process, which could choke the victim to death, and truth serum was the holy grail of the OSS, CIA and the Nazis before. Sodium pentothal just knocks a person out and they never have found a reliable truth serum. That whole undertaking fell under the project known as MK ULTRA, and LSD was the favorite potential 'truth serum' of the CIA due to its ability to induce states of psychological dissociation and confusion. So claiming a protagonist has multiple PhDs, while it sounds plausible to those who never tried to earn one, is in itself ridiculous not to mention doing so at the age of 17. That would require an IQ so far off the charts that she would surpass David!!!

It's not even an IQ thing. It's about physical time not being enough, pure and simple. Requirements vary (page count usually isn't one of them; published/communicated papers often is). But those requirements, well, require, that actual work be put in, and that work takes time. I don't know how it is in O. Chem. (I'd expect the experimental side to take time in resource collection, experiment preparation and analysis). Heck, I don't know how things are in archaeology either, but that didn't stop me from posting something on my blog ('[url=http://blandcorporatio.blogspot.com/2012/09/on-fiction-this-bushel-of-phds-non.html]This bushel of PhDs nonsense must stop[/url]'). Setting aside the work needed to analyze findings on the field and write the papers/dissertation, one actually has to find stuff in the field, or gain access to the stuff locked up God knows where in museums. Lots of red tape for the latter, even more for the former, as important sites are access controlled and everyone wants to get there. (In comparison, getting a PhD in CompSci and related fields is a breeze.)

it was relevent to illustrating her characters nature PhD shows commitment to a subject area, you practically give up your life to it! that is why i think they stressed the number and variation of shaws PhD's to stress that the character had devoted her life to this quest of hers that she was obsessed not that she was necessarily wise or sane about it you have to be a bit mad in many peoples eyes (no offence nostromo) to give up a 'regular life' optimal income, free time etc to do that level of study.... it takes an almost spiritual commitment to stick with it.... i say this as i fill in applications for PhDs not really expecting acceptance on any of them and dreading an interview, i am no A grade student i struggle with distractions and lack the energy of my twenties, however i just cant imagine not continuing there are plenty of other careers i could do but i would always be thinking back about it... unless and totally unrealistic, i won millions of millions by chance and did a bruce wayne and could comfortably oversee a well funded R&D operation except for biomedical applications not flying cars etc..... see Kawhaaaayyyyzeeee!

I recommend any intelligent person to commit themselves to a PhD program if for no other reason than to increase the numbers of educated citizens out there! You would be surprised how committing yourself to a concentrated area of study with lots of reading and writing can improve your ability to critically think. Its a bit like lifting weights but for your brain. The more you exercise it the larger your glial cells become and you reinforce the intraneural wiring. Glia provide nutrition to the neurons analogous to how exercising muscles increases nutrient filled blood flow to the muscle cells. I found that problem solving as in working Calculus or Differential equations and getting the right answer gives you a boost of endorphins and other neurotransmitters to the pleasure centers and that drives you on to want to solve more just like a rhesus monkey pushing a lever for a reward in a Skinner box. Another thing caenorhabhditis, my chemistry professors when I was an undergraduate told me that they find that students that are A students in the lecture section of class tend to in general do less well than the B students who are better in lab when it comes to success in grad school. My cummulative GPA going into grad school was only 3.3 because I started out as an art major and switched after my first semester, which caused me to have to learn good study skills and my semester averages steadily climbed from a begining semester ave of 2.6 until I transferred to a university by which time I was getting 4.0 semester averages - the highest that the school offered. So if you plotted my GPA over time it climbed with a steadily increasing linear slope so it averaged out in the middle but I found out that entrance committees like to see a climbing GPA slope more than a straight horizontal high slope because it looks like you tried increasingly hard and that shows character and motivation, the very attributes that they look for, so don't sell yourself short. I applied to 5 schools and got accepted to one and once I was in the department paid for my tuition, gave me a salary and with student loans to help out I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was like being paid to play with your chemistry set as a kid. It was more like a hobby and I had fun solving problems and making my research work. I have no regrets about my decision to go to grad school and I wholly recommend you go. Are you a bio-related major? PS I still draw and paint and occasionally have shows. Here is a self portrait I did using ball point pen: [img][img]http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/259885_10150219439035745_2316685_n.jpg[/img][/img] That goes for anybody reading this. If we all become Doctorates perhaps we can be the next generation of Sci Fi characters in a new Ridley Scott directed movie fighting some aliens or Engineers!

Thanks Nostromo! i needed bucking up a bit. I'm not sure but i think our honours an extra year on your degree is th equivalent to your majors? mine was Applied Bioscience and my Masters will be Biomedical science its heavily focused on Genetics of disease and Molecular Genetics. love your self-portrait, Why does no-one ever smile much in self portraits haha its like we dont want people to think were narcissistic

Cool bike and I dig the hat :)

Ha! I think it was because I was concentrating on getting a good rendering:)...and I guess you are right and i wanted to be taken seriously if someday someone finds this. PS I went back to school in my forties , yes I am a vampire and am therefore immortal. lol. I remember being a bit insecure going back to school later in life thinking all those sharp kids were going to kick my ass but it was the other way around and I would ask questions in class that they never had the time to have a passing knowledge of simply because I had lived on this world a longer time and had absorbed a lot of info generally. One of them even asked how I knew all that extra stuff that wasn't even in the text and my professor, who wound up being my undergrad research director said I don't know how he knows that stuff. So going into grad school older is a major advantage and I am sure you will do better than you would have if you were younger. Genetics and cell culturing will definitely land you a job when you get out of grad school. Do go for a PhD though. In America in a lot of schools you can get your Masters on the way of working on your PhD.

Thanks BLANDC! Ya gotta have style:)

[b][quote]db73, since you are so extremely disappointed with the movie, I gotta ask what parts or aspects of it bothered you so much?[/quote][/b] Christ, where to begin! So much wrong with this film. To many questions not enough answers (Lindelof has got a lot to answer for), hopelessly flawed characters impossible to empathise with, weak script and dialogue .... It goes on. I guess the big problem here is that expectations were very high and difficult to meet. But coming from RS, the man behind two of the most pivotal Sci-Fi films ever made, I don't think it was a big stretch to expect big things. Visually the film is stunning. No doubt about that. It's beautiful. Sadly its let down everywhere else. The film has got people talking. That's not a bad thing. But we're trying to make sense of the story when what we've been given to go on is pretty ambiguous. You can make of it what you will, and people are doing this. People are also looking ahead to a sequel for answers. I don't think a film, even if it's part of a series, should have you needing a sequel the instant you leave the cinema. There needs to be something tangible to get your teeth into and with Prometheus i don't think we had this.

db73 I understand that some people like to have a movie answer questions and sew up all the lose ends but I actually like ambiguity in a movie that forces people to think for themselves. To make an analogy, its like in the field of art, abstract expressionism compared to photo realism. Both have their places and its a matter of taste. Look at how much fun all of us here at this site have had trading ideas and working on the questions raised by the movie together as a devoted community. I am having a blast geeking out along with my geek brothers and sisters. Sometimes its better to not answer all the questions and leave the interpretation up to the viewer's perception just like in art. This movie is related to art in another way as well. RS is an extremely visually oriented director to the point of being an artist's artist/ director. Sometimes I will just watch the movie to see the exquisite visuals like the holographic map for example and a million other examples. Regarding the acting, I couldn't disagree more when it comes to the performances of Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, the actors who played Idris Elba, Sean Harris and Guy Pierce, although they had changed their mind and had planned on using him as a younger man too. Fassbender is one of the best actors out there today and many, many people will agree with me there. Same for Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace. I also had absolutely no trouble emphasizing with the characters except for Millburn. The script, not in spite of its ambiguity but rather because of its ambiguity was in the end, after much evolution an excellent script. If you read Jon Spaihts script which I believe you did, how on earth can you argue that it was better than the final collaborative script? It was just childish, derivative to the earlier alien movie franchise including a damned xenomorph loose on the ship AGAIN! another chestbursted crew member and David's one dimensional all evil programmed character. It was just another slice and dice movie set in space before Damon Lindelov came along and shifted the focus onto the Engineers and asked the big questions. I loved the final version of David where all of his comments had double meanings and were full of equivocations. You never knew what he was thinking or what he would do next. Finely it was a conscious decision to leave out scenes that gave too much away and were too 'on the nose' as RS put it. There are clues that Damon Lindelov said are clear enough such that if you had to guess at them you would probably come up with the right answers that the writers and director had in mind. The fatal event on the Engineer's ship happened 2000 years ago. What does that bring to mind? If the writers . director made some direct tie in about Christianity then nothing would be left to the imagination and the movie would wind up just sh*t. This way the movie is about what 'may be out there' according to Scott, not what IS out there and in the end it is left to your imagination instead of everything spoon fed to the viewer. I don't know about you but I would rather think about a movie rather than have it all layed out as plain as day.

[b][quote] I don't know about you but I would rather think about a movie rather than have it all layed out as plain as day[/quote][/b] I agree. I like movies that give you plenty to think about. But with Prometheus you're not thinking about it because it's profound. You're trying to make sense of it - why did this happen? What did this mean? Why were most of the crew complete numpties? Why? Why? Why? A lot of good stuff in Prometheus but a lot of stupid stuff as well. It's a flawed movie that didn't live up to its potential. I think the blu-ray's tag line of 'questions will be answered' speaks volumes about the realisation, on the part of the film makers, that they simply posed to many questions, ultimately leaving audiences confused and baffled by this film. I'm interested to see were on Earth (no pun intended) they go with a sequel. I'm kind of over the whole thing now but I think they've made too much of a mess of the first film to make anything coherent in the second. It's job now will be to make sense of the first film. Not an enviable task for RS and whoever is on writing duties (I hear Lindelof is out. No surprise there). EDIT: Watched the film a third time on YouTube. I'm over some of the stupidity now. Guess I know it's coming so less concerned. Enjoyed it more this time but ........ Ah, still so disappointed ultimately. I guess it's just not for me. Have to accept that and forget about it. No amount of discussion or comment is going to make the film any better.