"Prometheus" -- a real disappointment

Regal Cinemas | 6/18/12 | Vanity

[tbw2]

Why did the android give the alien / “engineer” bio-weapon to the male archeologist? Why kill one of the two people who were the spirit of the expedition?

[RaisingCain]

Well, to be fair, the android poisoned the schmuck who kept insulting him throughout the film. I suspect the android was acting under orders, and was aware of what the Engineers were doing to a much deeper degree than anyone else.

[tbw2]

The daughter of the owner of the company may have chosen to have the prototype in her personal life pod in case she needed help and didn’t have a doctor.

[discostu]

2 reasons. He wanted to make life just like people, and the archeologist accidentally gave him permission when he said he’d do anything and everything for the mission. David probably didn’t think it would kill him.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I’m still going to see it. I like Ridley Scott’s stuff, but I have come to realize that I will likely see a “beautiful” movie, but not a “good” movie at the same time.

[RaisingCain]

As for why the Engineers wanted to wipe out human kind. I suspect they were developing a biological super weapon, hoping to use mankind as the basis for creating it, or at least testing it out. The alien always takes on the characteristics of the host it infects. Infect a bunch of dogs, they come out a little different. Infect a human being, it comes out adapted for human beings, with high intelligence. Of course, those were the latter Xenos, the end product. The messed up though in accidentally getting infected themselves. Probably on the Derelict that the Nostromo found, the weaponized DNA had gone its full course, leading to an Alien Queen who laid the eggs.

[31R1O]

Did you see The Fantastic Mr. Fox? I thought it was great. I know that some folks around here can’t stand George Clooney but politics aside he is a great (voice) actor in the film. It helps if you can appreciate Roald Dahl’s twisted sense of humor.

[dr_lew]

The movie would have you believe that in just 80 years from now we have corporations sending-out huge FTL ships bearing people who have been in hypersleep while traveling 500,000 light years in two years time.

Is the 500,000 figure from the movie? Our galaxy is 100,000 lys across. Perhaps a nearby dwarf galaxy ? Was this covered in the movie ? ( That's a joke. )

[Gen-X-Dad]

Best review I have seen explaining all the plot holes ...

Red Letter Media talks about Prometheus - SPOILERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0

By the way, it had a 70% box office drop off from week 1 to week 2. People were excited about it as far as an intelligent Sci-Fi prequel to Alien/Aliens and instead got migraine inducing plot holes with some cool A+ settings and eye candy. It is definitely being killed off by word of mouth and internet reviews.

[whd23]

It has been over 50 years since we landed on the moon

As a citizen of the future, do you have any good stock tips?

[PapaBear3625]

It has been over 50 years since we landed on the moon and I am still waiting for my flying car.

Then again, it was less than 40 years from the Wright Brothers (1903) to the first jet fighter (1942, the German ME 262)

[dr_lew]

Well, according to blastr, they were stated to be 300 trillion kilometers from earth, or about 31.7 lightyears. Then swiftfilm quotes Neil Degrasse Tyson ( a tweet I guess ) saying that Charlize Theron says they are "half a billion miles" from earth ... which is more like a light-hour, of course. I would guess that the 500,000 lys s/b 500,000,000 miles, and is based on this quote.

[Oztrich Boy]

The movie would have you believe that in just 80 years from now we have corporations sending-out huge FTL ships bearing people who have been in hypersleep while traveling 500,000 light years in two years time

1. Constrained by plot continuity, Aliens was set in 2179, 57 years after Alien.

2. 1790

1845

1876

[tbw2]

I thought it was related to the android’s comment of wishing to kill his “parents”, but that didn’t seem to fit since Weyland was his maker.

[DollyCali]

I too enjoyed it and for cinema think you just go to be entertained.

If you want perfection in data etc. Just go watch a documentary or read a history book

Sci Fi is that.. grown up fairy tales that take your imagination fun places.

I can’t disagree with the reviewer just think that super analysis can ruin a lot of things (including relationships!)

[publius911]

Bookmark

[Teacher317]

I almost walked out of the movie several times. What a joke. At the final insult to our intelligence is at the end... once I finally might have a shred of respect for a character... the lone survivor wants to travel, NOT back home to earth, but to the alien planet, to ask them WHY they want to erase humanity on earth... as if 1. they'll understand her language, and 2. care enough to answer even if they did. Those who seek extermination are not likely to take the time and trouble to answer their victims' whiny pleas of "why???"

(I really thought she was going to ask to go to the alien world to throw their weapons back at them, in a last great act of defiance. THAT I could have respected!!! Not once in the entire movie did a single character make a single decision that I could have agreed with or admired. Utterly pathetic writing.)

Dare I add in the spoilers of the trillionaire who assumes that "meeting his creator" will automatically result in his creator saving him from death, even though his creator created him to be mortal? How about the science crew that doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word "quarantine" on a foreign world? (This horribly bad re-hash of Alien seems to forget that each of the Alien movies had quarantine issues in them.)I vented to my siblings for an hour about the myriad of stupid scenes and lines... and Ridley Scott's promises that this is NOT a prequel to Aliens was squashed pretty nicely at the end when the Alien with a mouth-inside-a-mouth came out of the humanoid's chest cavity... UGH!!!!

[JoeProBono]

[Eye of Unk]

I still wonder why Caterpillar never actually made these in real life, I would think the military would go ape shit having these.

About the film, it was a slight disappointment but that was overshadowed by the stunning visuals. Not a bad movie, just a poorly written one.

Now Battleship was a fun movie, I liked it the same way I like cheese puffs, tastes good but you know you cannot live off them.

Hollywood is getting a bit leery of the social networks getting bad word of mouth out faster than they can teaser hype the film. They held back on the US release of John Carter because of bad reviews, but I loved John Carter and I have seen it at least three times now.

Now if you want a truly bad movie then look at Ghost Rider Two, now there is a film I saw, hated it and won’t buy the Blu Ray disc till its in the bargain bin. The movie just stinks of being made by a possible Russian mob trying to become the Hollywood of the Motherland.

Reviews of movies are getting to be like political polls, depends on who is paying for the reviews. And I hope to see more movie reviews here on FR.

[Norman Arbuthnot]

I did not think Prometheus was all that bad. It did not meet the high expectations that many sci fi fans had for it, myself included, but I still found it to be an entertaining film, albeit a flawed film. Prometheus was good, but not great imo. We have come to expect greatness from Ridley Scott, so it was a bit disappointing that this film did not measure up to Alien or Blade Runner. However, I think Prometheus is worth seeing on the big screen because of the outstanding special effects and production values. Scott did not disappoint in the FX dept. As many have noted, the plot has a lot of big holes in it, but the film moves along at a brisk pace, so I didn't think it was boring. The cast was strong overall and did a good job, given what they had to work with. Michael Fassbender, playing the android David, was especially good, although Fassbender is always good. I think the film tried to combine riveting action and spectacular special effects with high minded questions about the nature of man's origins and did not really succeed very well with the last part in my view. Scott and writers Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts may have bitten off more than they could chew with the last part. This film does not present the intellectual challenge of something like 2001: A Space Odyssey, but again, I thought it was an above average sci fi overall and fans of the Alien films in particular will probably find it interesting.