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[MilesB]

I saw this on Friday. Under normal circumstances I can go to a movie and like it or dislike it, enjoy the popcorn regardless, and walk away generally satisfied with the experience. However, I keep reading reviews of this and I feel like I've seen a completely different film.

I don't need to slag on it and leave a smoking pile of rant here, but if anyone wants to pick it apart, I'd be happy to trade opinions and have some of my ultimate questions answered.

I'll open with a plot point that won't stop needling my brain...

An alien race creates us. Okay. Later they visit us, they party with us, and they make sure that everyone that they throw down with leaves graffiti so that there is evidence, a map if you will, that we are intended to follow thousands of years later when we finally get our tech on. Got it. Thousands of years later, tech on, we do, only to discover that it's a trap - the aliens have invited us across the galaxy to find their WMD. A character in the movie asks why a culutre would create us only to turn around and destroy us? Another character throws out the proverbial omelet. Alright. Emergency action is taken, tragedy ensues, lives are lost and all to prevent any return to Earth, thus protecting the human race. And I'm just sitting there wondering why those aliens didn't bring a xenomorph in a suitcase all of those thousands of years ago and turn it loose on the unsuspecting primitives?

Did I miss something? I feel like I have because the movie even points this flaw out in a scene where another character asks "why travel across the galexy to get laid?".

I can't get this out of my head. Please help me before it gestates and bursts all over my keyboard.

[MarcW]

If it comes down to an alien race creating and then destroying mankind.... I prefer Douglas Adam's version.  In the mix, Douglas gave us the meaning of life..... 42.

And if mankind has to be destroyed.... per Douglas, the best reason would be nothing more than to clear the way for an intergalatic expressway.  Done by none other than rank and file, unionized aliens.

Such devastion to mankind could only be because of random or stupid reasons.  That would be a poetic end of sorts, or not.  After all, we are nothing more than hairless apes, of no particular or amusing consequence.

What was Promethius again?

[Saladyn]

I've had this argument on other forums. Die hard fans of Scott are saying that this is the great masterplan and I just don't get it!

From all weapons that can be created they've chosed biological warfare that mutates DNA. Superinteligent, advanced race forgot we share DNA. Brilliant.

And in the end it seems like they were surprised by the Squid thing. It seems like humans were important in creating xenomorphs.

One more thing: it seems like whole movie is set up in pre-alien era. But what about those murals on top of room with giant head? Looked like a queen.

I wonder how Scott and the crew will explain that to me. I think the only good explanation I've figured out is that it was about creating Xenomorphs in the first place. And humans were just by-product, perfect incubators. Maybe Space Jockeys are in the middle of civil war of some sort so they need to build and test weapon that will be efficient.

[MilesB]

I've read many possible explanations offered by folks who are trying to figure out the answers, but I'm looking at this from a storyteller point of view - how hard are you going to make your audience work to invent their own plausible explanation for what you've just shown them?

Suspension of disbelief is a vital aspect to all sci-fi, and I'm down with it - I want it. But when I keep getting pulled out of the story I just get annoyed.

I'm supposed to believe that we've created technology that allows an android to watch my dreams, but everybody forgot to implement a scanner that would pick up parasitic lifeforms in explorers returning to the ship?

Why is a scientist/space explorer watching a tentacle poke out from his eyeball and wave, and then decide not to tell anyone about it?

The guy in charge of the mapping tech gets lost on the way back to the rover? He doesn't even have a personal screen to see what his "puppies" are discovering?

My biggest eyeroll is during the "operation". Why have a machine only programmed to work on men (and I realize that it's a clue about weyland and the reason Shaw has to stay awake...I just think it's lazy pointing).  How does a woman have a 12 to 14 inch incision made across her abdomen, get a row of staples, and then jump back into action, occasionally holding her belly like she had a mildly bad shrimp?

These are just the first points that jump into mind, but the entire movie was like this for me. 

[Saladyn]

Yeah, that bit with two blokes, who left FIRST, getting lost and ending stranded in the alien structure. Stuuupid.

What about first recon inside? Computer said there is breathable atmosphere and one idiot removes helmet and rest do the same. Cool - we can breathe. What about other microorganism and germs that may be IN the air there?

I've saw two main characters at the dig looking at the painting. So they are archeologists. All of sudden Shaw is expert in biology and DNA. Niiice!

One person module also with such a big crew they have shitty defenses. Even that storm could damage their ship. In Aliens they've left mother vessel on orbit and deployed marines inside dropships.

There was a chance to do a nice link to ALIEN. So why in the blazes last Space Jockey dies in the corridor of escape pod? Who dragged him to the chair in which he was found by Ripley and the crew? They've uncovered huge alien ship and absolutely NO trace of debris left after Prometheus exploded?

[MilesB]

Yup. I was excited about this one, and the fact that Scott made it was a gaurantee that I'd see it oening weekend. And I'm just bummed.

There are some shiny parts to it, no doubt. But overall I was left wanting. It's funny how this movie will be recieved and will bank in at the box-office while John Carter is already repeating its original failure with a crappy DVD campaign. Oh well.

Good catch on archeologist/biologist/DNA expert Shaw. I didn't even think about that because I scratching my head over Holloway playing depressed-drunk-pool by himself after making the greatest discovery in human history...

[MilesB]

Also, while Im thinking about it, there really was no real reason this needed to be in 3D. There were a couple of nice shots, but the best part of my 3D experience was the bats that flew out from behind me in the Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter trailer.

[Lord Anubis]

Hmmmmm...

Just got back from this.  Really enjoyed it in the theater, but got more and more frustrated as I thought about it on the way home.

So much of this plot depends on dumb coincidences or characters acting without any motivation--or just being plain stupid.   

I feel like someone gave Ridley Scott a pile of money and resources and he used them to make a film about as mentally challenging as Friday the Thirteenth Part VIII.  There are just so many places where things don't add up and don't make any sense whatsoever.  It's a passable B-horror movie with an A-movie cast and budget.

Frustrating.  Definitely frustrating.

    

[Saladyn]

One more coffin nail that made me laugh (my wife too):

Tip for the future - when big ass ship is crashing down and it's shaped like a ring (but same applies to trees) put your thinking cap on, take 3-5 big leaps to left or right and roll! If you will try to outrun falling object in the straight line - you will be turned into 2D version of yourself
RIP Vickers!

[Wardog]

There's a thread on IMdB here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/board/thread/200177706?p=1
that made me go, "Really?" and then, "Hmmm, that explains that dumbass manueuver." Except Vickers, nothing explains how you can not run laterally from a linear falling object is besides me.

[MilesB]

I read a bit of that yesterday, but it didn't really matter to me. I'm not looking to decipher the film or to trace its influences, I'm just saying that the powers-that-be seem to have overlooked the tenets of basic storytelling and that I found it disappointing given the franchise and director.

I do think it's funny that given Shaw's strong Christian beliefs, she chose to fly off to the other planet instead of going home to warn her own, but that's just one more inconsistancy among the many others pointed out.

Now I'm just getting a kick from watching reviewers try to sound intelligent as they laud the "deeply philosophical nature" of the film.

[Lord Anubis]

Hmmmmm...

Apparently the one answer that resolves all problems is...

Space Jesus.

[Wardog]

Hmmmmm...

Apparently the one answer that resolves all problems is...

Space Jesus.

That is some funny shit.

[sgambino]

I'm finally going to go see this movie tomorrow.

[DreamingNeonBlack]

So I am reading the original script for this. They should have filmed this version instead of getting Lindof to twist it into the mess that was filmed. So many things made much more sense in the original script.
They seemed to have changed a bunch of stuff but somehow didn't realize the changes impacted basic logic. For example, the two characters who get lost were NOT the map maker and bio guy. They were simply crew. Small change but made a huge difference.
I'm about half way through the script and already much happier from a story stand point than I was with the film.