[MTUK1]

Could one of you last three posters have a quick look at my question a few posts above? It's been bugging me all evening! LOL!

[craggers]

Originally Posted by MTUK1

Quick question hopefully someone can answer,

Spoiler

Maybe I was confused or just being thick , but why did David plant the Alien stuff in the doctors drink? Was it intentional?

Very intentional

[MTUK1]

Originally Posted by craggers

Very intentional

Why??

[CJClarke]

Originally Posted by Wulfster

I saw it at the BFI IMAX in London this afternoon, and at the conclusion, a guy stood up several rows from me and had the following loud conversation with his friends;
"I am so f***ing p***ed off right now! That script was s**t! I'm going to stab Ridley Scott in the heart!"

Jeez! Only a film fella ... it's not as if it was George Lucas or somebody.

Even at it's worst moments (of which i didn't think there were many, apart from maybe the rushed ending), the script for Prometheus was a hell of a lot better than a lot of other big movies out there. I mean if you want to see a truly shit script then look no further than the recent Battleship movie, now THAT is a script to be ashamed of with paper thin characterization, terrible antagonists and a nonsensical plot (there must have been pages and pages of that script that literally just described a turret moving slowly to the left before firing and missing). By comparison Prometheus is a masterpiece.

I guarantee that the person who stood up and shouted that had made his mind up to hate it before even entering the cinema (i have a friend who does the same thing, but less shouty), he'll have read the Empire review and suddenly thinks that he's clever for mentioning how "shit" the script was...

Now i'm not going to say that the script couldn't have been better, because quite frankly it could have been (added characterization on some of the other minor characters, and a less rushed ending would have sorted it for me), but it was nowhere even near approaching an "abomination".

[TheFridge]

Originally Posted by Kapellmeister

Doesn't anyone else think it's weird that Ridley Scott can't spot a duff script when he sees one? Or the actors for that matter? They've all been trouping out recently saying how good the story was, etc. and yet one of the most consistent criticisms levelled at the film is that the script isn't very good. I've seen so many films which have been let down by a substandard script and you can't help but think 'Didn't anyone notice at the time??'

Ye i do , i haven't seen it yet and like the vast majority here love the Alien/Aliens films so am ( or was ) really looking forward to seeing this.

I can fully understand why people are pissed off/frustrated , this film had the potential to be the nuts , its so dissapointing to hear that the script is shoddy , its dissapointing Scott has let that happen, there really is no excuse for it at all.

[GARETH197901]

Originally Posted by TheFridge

Ye i do , i haven't seen it yet and like the vast majority here love the Alien/Aliens films so am ( or was ) really looking forward to seeing this.

I can fully understand why people are pissed off/frustrated , this film had the potential to be the nuts , its so dissapointing to hear that the script is shoddy , its dissapointing Scott has let that happen, there really is no excuse for it at all.

That could be the problem why its getting slated,as Mark Kermode said on Five Live today people are going into it expecting an Alien Prequel,but this is an Alien Prequel in the same way Phantom Menace is a Prequel to A New Hope,we are a good couple of films away from what happens on LV-426

[gds1972]

Originally Posted by MTUK1

Why??

Spoiler

I personally think it's a deliberate similarity between David and Ash from Alien in that the Android has it's own agenda with disregard for it's human co-workers with a desire to experiment without conscience or feeelings. Along with also trying to fulfill Peter Weyland's desire for eternal life.

Edit: Don't worry peon.glad we agree on why.

[peon]

Originally Posted by MTUK1

Why??

i gathered that....

Spoiler

David took directives straight from Peter Weyland, and his mission had been to find the secret of eternal, or at least extended life for the elderly man. after all, if the Engineers could create life, then they must surely have the knowledge of how to extend it at a cellular level. i think David just used Holloway as a guinea pig, to see what would happen before giving any of the stuff to Weyland

Edit: sorry gds above, it took me longer than two minutes to type that out on the iPad, you've already explained it.

[gds1972]

Post deleted

[Iggyman]

Originally Posted by CJClarke

Now i'm not going to say that the script couldn't have been better, because quite frankly it could have been (added characterization on some of the other minor characters, and a less rushed ending would have sorted it for me), but it was nowhere even near approaching an "abomination".

But are we sure that the aforementioned problems are down to the script - it does appear that the film has been cut down (no doubt ordered by Fox) to keep it to a 2 hour running time, so maybe if certain scenes/parts of scenes werre re-inserted might that improve matters?

[The Terminator]

What is happening to movie reviewing these days? Kermode's babbling monologue told me absolutely nothing of worth or substance about the movie, what it is about and whether or not it's the sort of thing I'd like.

[GARETH197901]

Originally Posted by The Terminator

What is happening to movie reviewing these days? Kermode's babbling monologue told me absolutely nothing of worth or substance about the movie, what it is about and whether or not it's the sort of thing I'd like.

he says nothing because quite rightly with a film like this,its easy to spoil the plot,so he said nothing

[The Terminator]

Someone with his job should be able to inform people without spoiling. It's a very basic requirement.

[LobsterSandwich]

I have a few questions regarding the film. Hope someone can answer them.

Spoiler

1. Why did the space jockey at the start of the film decide to ingest the black stuff?

2. How did the captain figure out that the facility was a military site for alien weapons creation? (Perhaps there were defiantly scenes cut from the theatrical version of the film)

3. Is the film suggesting the space jockeys created the organic black stuff. So does that mean the alien that killed Fifield and the other guy was created and living among the black liquid? Or was it just an organism that happened to be living on that planet also?

4. The first hologram of the space jockeys saw them running away. But from what?

5. Why would these holograms have been record and allowed to be discovered as they were in the film?

6. In the later alien films we know that Charles Bishop Weyland is the head of the corporation, as he is also a model for some of the androids. How does he relate to Peter Weyland? Is Charles a descendant of Peter?

Thanks

[DJames99]

Originally Posted by LobsterSandwich

I have a few questions regarding the film. Hope someone can answer them.

Spoiler

1. Why did the space jockey at the start of the film decide to ingest the black stuff?

2. How did the captain figure out that the facility was a military site for alien weapons creation? (Perhaps there were defiantly scenes cut from the theatrical version of the film)

3. Is the film suggesting the space jockeys created the organic black stuff. So does that mean the alien that killed Fifield and the other guy was created and living among the black liquid? Or was it just an organism that happened to be living on that planet also?

4. The first hologram of the space jockeys saw them running away. But from what?

5. Why would these holograms have been record and allowed to be discovered as they were in the film?

6. In the later alien films we know that Charles Bishop Weyland is the head of the corporation, as he is also a model for some of the androids. How does he relate to Peter Weyland? Is Charles a descendant of Peter?

Thanks

Not sure on them all but.

Spoiler

1.)I believe the Space Jockey was left behind when the ship left Earth and killed its self or sacrificed its self for some reason. That scene didn't really answer a lot.

2.)Again I assumed it was just a guess as that was what they (the space jockeys) were working on but it does seem likely that some scenes may have been cut. To give a better explanation.

3.)I think when it shows you them enter the temple it briefly shows some little worm like things in the soil and then again shows them in the black ooze that's over flowing from the vases, I think this were the snake alien things came from.

4.) Yeah this bugged me a little because it was never really answered, again I assume something came into contact with the black ooze or an experiment got lose and attacked them.

5.) I guess it was just the surveillance mechanism of the Space Jockeys base.

6.) Him being a descendent would make the most sense

[DRAGON LANCE]

Lobster Sandwich-In a nutshell I doubt anybody including the director and writers of the film could answer them, although everything you say is a fair question. And that is the problem with the film, its just a load of nonsense. It asks lots of questions, answers none of them. It is why the film is so crap.

Some people on here seem to be wondering why the rest of us are saying it is crap. Well that is why. Its like one of the golden rules of a good script, if you are going to ask questions, you need to bloody well answer them. Prometheus doesn't, and doesn't even care that it isn't doing so.

Of course Alfred Hitchcock always said that all plot and motivation is just created by a "Mcguffin" and what really makes a film tick are the set pieces and emotions you create between the characters. Well, Prometheus doesn't do that either.

I think one of the worst things is it sets up a number if potentially interesting plot strands and then goes nowhere with them. Just when a character is getting interesting, uh, they die. Just when we're saying something interesting, uh, we dump that and go onto something else. Some may be resolved in a sequel, but again, I find that deeply cynical of Fox and it just strikes me they are stretching threadbare material out.

Also another thing that bugs me is how totally stupid the party are in general. In the original Aliens it was seen by Ripley as a MAJOR quarantine screw up when they brought John Hurts character back on board with the Facehugger attached to his face. Which it would be in real life. In this, despite being academics nobody seems to see any risks what-so-ever, which has totally predictable, inevitable consequences.

Indeed the word "predictable" would have been a better title for the film than Prometheus. As others have said all you have to do is watch the trailer and you have seen the film.

As for Mark Kermode his comments and positive review once again prove he is nothing more than a sci-fi/horror film fanboy nerd pretending to be a serious critic. I wish people would stop giving him any credibility, he's utterly useless.

[balthasar]

It felt as if someone was playing Jenga with the storyboard/ screenplay/ script.

The film seemed rather uncertain as to what it wanted to be.

[Ginger Nut]

Originally Posted by DRAGON LANCE

As for Mark Kermode his comments and positive review once again prove he is nothing more than a sci-fi/horror film fanboy nerd pretending to be a serious critic. I wish people would stop giving him any credibility, he's utterly useless.

I've never considered him a sci-fi/horror nerd. Quite the opposite in fact. He only seems to like arty/worthy movies and anything popular or mainstream usually gets a trashing from him. He's not utterly useless though. Like a long line of critics before him, if you take the opposite view to him you're much closer to the truth.

[Wulfster]

Originally Posted by DJames99

Not sure on them all but.

Spoiler

1.)I believe the Space Jockey was left behind when the ship left Earth and killed its self or sacrificed its self for some reason. That scene didn't really answer a lot.

2.)Again I assumed it was just a guess as that was what they (the space jockeys) were working on but it does seem likely that some scenes may have been cut. To give a better explanation.

3.)I think when it shows you them enter the temple it briefly shows some little worm like things in the soil and then again shows them in the black ooze that's over flowing from the vases, I think this were the snake alien things came from.

4.) Yeah this bugged me a little because it was never really answered, again I assume something came into contact with the black ooze or an experiment got lose and attacked them.

5.) I guess it was just the surveillance mechanism of the Space Jockeys base.

6.) Him being a descendent would make the most sense

Spoiler

As regards point 1 ... I could be reading too much into it. or misunderstanding the logic, but I though that this may have been the catalyst for the creation of life on earth. You see the engineer's decaying body fall into the water, and then DNA strands and other symbols are shown. Also, although it is alluded to that they "created" humans, and our DNA is shared, that's the only evidence that they did anything to affect lifeforms on Earth. As to whether it was an accident, intentional or side-affect, I don't know. If it was an accident, or one characters intention, perhaps that's why they hate us so much. We're freaks or an abomination in their eyes. Having said that, it doesn't explain why they were apparently "worshipped" by early man or where the knowledge for the star-system reference came from. Maybe there's different factions of engineers? For me that's the mark of a good film and/or idea. It creates conjecture and discussion, despite what some people on this thread think ...

[CJClarke]

Originally Posted by Iggyman

But are we sure that the aforementioned problems are down to the script - it does appear that the film has been cut down (no doubt ordered by Fox) to keep it to a 2 hour running time, so maybe if certain scenes/parts of scenes werre re-inserted might that improve matters?

Hopefully this is the case, although apart from one poster on here i've not heard anything at all about this extra hour of footage that didn't make the final cut. Ridley Scott has said in interviews that the theatrical cut is HIS cut of the film and that there wont be any extended versions. I really can't see Fox having ordered him to cut it down, i mean look how that turned out for Alien 3, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson, not to mention Avatar (also a Fox movie) was 2 hours 58 minutes in it's theatrical form and went onto become the highest grossing film of all time. I really doubt that Fox ordered them to trim Prometheus to 2 hours. I hope that there is an extended version, but at the moment i doubt that there will be one.

Originally Posted by LobsterSandwich

I have a few questions regarding the film. Hope someone can answer them.

Spoiler

1. Why did the space jockey at the start of the film decide to ingest the black stuff?

2. How did the captain figure out that the facility was a military site for alien weapons creation? (Perhaps there were defiantly scenes cut from the theatrical version of the film)

3. Is the film suggesting the space jockeys created the organic black stuff. So does that mean the alien that killed Fifield and the other guy was created and living among the black liquid? Or was it just an organism that happened to be living on that planet also?

4. The first hologram of the space jockeys saw them running away. But from what?

5. Why would these holograms have been record and allowed to be discovered as they were in the film?

6. In the later alien films we know that Charles Bishop Weyland is the head of the corporation, as he is also a model for some of the androids. How does he relate to Peter Weyland? Is Charles a descendant of Peter?

Thanks

Spoiler

1) Presumably to create life on our planet (the planet at the start was Earth), the way i saw it was that when he began to disolve, that was the beginning of the "primoridal soup" that sparked life on Earth

2) I don't know, was wondering that myself.

3) It seemed like the Space Jockey's were trying to create a weapon on this planet which presumably took the form of this black liquid (at one point, a character actually says that they were trying to create a weapon but they weren't stupid enough to try and create it on their home planet), so i would assume that it was the Space Jockey's that created the black liquid with the intention of using it to wipe out life on other planets (i.e. Earth). The film seemed to make a point of showing the crew bringing those little worms into the "temple" on the bottom of their shoes, they later go on to contaminate the room with the black liquid by accidentally bringing those worms inside with them. To me it seemed like the black liquid contaminates anything living that it touches, so when the worms came into contact with the liquid it mutated them into the "baby facehuggers".

4) Considering that they later find that pile of dead Space Jockey bodies with their chests blown out, i would guess that they were running away from an alien of some kind. They all seemed to be running towards their ships so it stands to reason that there was an outbreak and they were abandoning the planet.

5) Probably as a warning to any visitors.

6) Just guessing here, but Charles Bishop Weyland could possibly be his grandson? (if you take into account that Prometheus is 30 or so years before Alien and then Ripley was in hypersleep for 57 years until the start of Aliens then the Charles Weyland that appears at the end of Alien 3 is more likely to be Peter Weyland's grandson rather than son). Although Peter made a point of stating that David was the closest thing to a son that he'd ever have, so considering that Vickers (his daughter) is now dead, maybe it will turn out that Charles is a clone of Peter or something? I would imagine that the sequels would cover this, because i can't see them making such a big error in the continuity.

[Wulfster]

Originally Posted by DRAGON LANCE

As for Mark Kermode his comments and positive review once again prove he is nothing more than a sci-fi/horror film fanboy nerd pretending to be a serious critic. I wish people would stop giving him any credibility, he's utterly useless.

Why is it a bad-thing to be a "fanboy nerd", and why does that prevent you from being a "serious critic"?
I would sooner have somebody like Kermode critique some films, who has in-depth knowledge of the Alien films and Scott's history, than some plank in the Daily Mail or some toffee-nosed twonk in the Telegraph, who will either look down their nose at populist
science-fiction and/or horror or just write it off as rubbish before they even see it.

I don't always agree with Kermode. I make my own opinions.
But I do respect his knowledge and some of the work he's done.
He was almost soley responsible for The Exorcist being re-released on VHS/DVD when it was pretty much impossible to get hold of in the UK, and being evaluated for it's achievements, as well as being a major contributor to the recent release of The Devils

[DRAGON LANCE]

My dislike of Kermode is purely because he seems to get held up as some great standard of critic by a lot of people, and he himself comes across as just as pompous and patronising as the Telegraph and Mail critics. He's like an inversion of them, his taste is the opposite to them but he's just as full of himself. Just like the Telegraph and Mail critics he can slate perfectly good films for no apparent reason and praise things that are bobbins. Like them he is not objective and just does things on a basis of whether it ticks the boxes he think should be ticked.

One person here says how he praises art films, I don't really think he does, he just jumps on bandwagons as far as that's concerned. I think at heart he's always been a horror/sci-fi boy. He'll always rate something like Inception as best film of the year before something genuinely artistic.

Sure, he's not all bad, I went too far in saying he's utterly useless. He's done some nice interviews, documentaries and things on TV, and he is if nothing else a character who is genuinely interested in what he loves. I think I'm just fed up of hearing "Well Mark Kermode says..." off various people on the web, likes the film arts messiah has spoken. He's just a bloke off the TV for gawdsake!

[Noiseboy]

Originally Posted by CJClarke

Hopefully this is the case, although apart from one poster on here i've not heard anything at all about this extra hour of footage that didn't make the final cut. Ridley Scott has said in interviews that the theatrical cut is HIS cut of the film and that there wont be any extended versions. I really can't see Fox having ordered him to cut it down, i mean look how that turned out for Alien 3, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson, not to mention Avatar (also a Fox movie) was 2 hours 58 minutes in it's theatrical form and went onto become the highest grossing film of all time. I really doubt that Fox ordered them to trim Prometheus to 2 hours. I hope that there is an extended version, but at the moment i doubt that there will be one.

Actually on Kermode and Mayo's interview, Scott did heavily suggest a longer version is likely. Not sure how many problems it will solve - totally agree with the poster who said the crew were uncommonly stupid, for example - but it might help for sure.

[Matt D]

I saw it last night.

I didn't love it, but I liked it. I don't think it's as good as Alien, but it's certainly better than Alien 3 and Resurrection.[And of Scott's own films, it's a hell of a lot better than Robin Hood]

Very interesting expansion of the universe, backstory...

Reviews are spot-on about Fassbender. Great performance, owning every scene he was in. I didn't think much of the rest of the cast, except for Elba.

Definitely think it needed to be longer. Hopefully there will be a DC at some point...

[peon]

Originally Posted by DRAGON LANCE

I think one of the worst things is it sets up a number if potentially interesting plot strands and then goes nowhere with them. Just when a character is getting interesting, uh, they die. Just when we're saying something interesting, uh, we dump that and go onto something else.

you didn't watch LOST then?

Lindelof got away with that for six seasons or so of LOST. i think he's a terrible writer.