auxien
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Posts posted by auxien
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been away for the weekend and come back to 5 or so new pages in here....after reading (scanning) through it, all i can say is this:
why the fuck are you people who HATED the movie still in this thread? i think you kids are posting more than those of us who liked it. Ridley Scott ruined the Alien universe for you, we get it. quit crying....or, as someone said a couple pages back, go watch Moonrise Kingdom or some other hipster-approved movies.
you people just don't make sense to me.
because it provokes discussion and discussion is the reason why i post on a forum.
naw, i get that aspect of things. but there's not much debate, and there hasn't been any seemingly intelligent debate in pages (read: hundreds of posts), so i know when i'm in similar positions (reading/discussing something i feel is lacking) there is a point where i quiet myself, quit bashing the creation and exit the discussion. it's when people (not necessarily you Hoodie, i can't remember your posts in particular) just keep posting their dislike for something over and over and over and over....THAT's what doesn't make sense to me. i guess it's just for attention? that is the root of all trolling, and that's what some of this thread is getting to now. ridiculous.
like Gordo said, it's the internet. i guess it's ridiculous of me to not expect it.
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been away for the weekend and come back to 5 or so new pages in here....after reading (scanning) through it, all i can say is this:
why the fuck are you people who HATED the movie still in this thread? i think you kids are posting more than those of us who liked it. Ridley Scott ruined the Alien universe for you, we get it. quit crying....or, as someone said a couple pages back, go watch Moonrise Kingdom or some other hipster-approved movies.
you people just don't make sense to me.
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a nitpick to most probably in this thread, but in the original Alien movie the Space Jockey is at least 25 feet tall. They filmed children doubles walking in front of the space jockey fossil set in the original movie. In Prometheus they appear to be 12 feet tall creatures at the most. I do believe that Ridley scott 'retconned' them so that he could write a back story about them being proto humans, and probably decreased their size to make it more likely we came from them
yeah, he definitely twisted what was to fit what he wanted it to be now. but it's not surprising to me....the first thing i thought when this prequel was announced a couple years ago or whatever was 'how the hell are they gonna have characters that are 20 foot tall elephant looking motherfuckers be truly characters and not just weird looking awkward aliens?' because that WOULD have been a serious issue to deal with, had he followed the space jockey from the original. just in making a movie watchable with characters so oddly non-human and strangely sized/proportioned...we would've ended up with some Thaarks or whatever from John Carter; pure CG, impossible to communicate with (until you drink a magic potion!) and kind of silly. wait, that's kinda what happened anyway. damn it.
i just watched the original clip and it's pretty clear that it's a basic ribcage that is exploded outward, not anything resembling a 'suit.' creative license was definitely taken. but screw it, i enjoyed Prometheus despite its faults. still a good movie. i could go on about 'what if _______ had been different' all day.
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This was pretty interesting to me.
yeah, i read that last night and forgot to put a link up here. it was definitely an interesting read.
i'd love to buy a copy of that book that keeps getting referenced, but i'm sure it's expensive and i never will. probably just drool over it next time i'm in a Barnes & Noble.
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to lighten the mood in here a little, an iPhone convo between Shaw and an Engineer. i mean, they'd totally have iPhones, they're super advanced, duh. http://enchantedmitten.blogspot.com/2003/12/reading-previous-entries-in-this-series.html
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yeah i saw that linked somewhere and read it last night. has some pretty level-headed interpretations and connections in it. unfortunately it doesn't 'answer' much, it just analyzes. but it's a pretty good analysis.
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i'm probably gonna see it twice Zaphod, so don't worry. i'll count one of those as if you went to see it!
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the criticizing of advertising for this movie doesn't much count, because Scott's own company did a large part (if not all) of the advertising. it's not like Scott handed over a gorgeous diamond and the big bad studio shit on it until it was worthless....Scott is part of the big bad studio here. like Lindelof said in that interview he did on The Verge, this movie is all Scott. he directed the writing in large part, and of course directing, producing, etc. he's to praise or to blame here, mostly.
Criticizing advertising always counts because the inherent structure of advertising/trailers does a disservice to the film unless its purely new content, like those viral videos which were cool. Just because Scott had control over the edit of the trailer doesn't mean he could have not made one.
Unless you think trailers enrich the film somehow, I don't see how my point of view on this is controversial. After ones sees the film, whatever opinion you have is valid, but one has to question how our culture of advertising negatively affects the experience... seems there is a trade off to ensure profitability.
i agree that with most sequels and the like, advertising by giving away the plot does a disservice to the film. the viral videos were cool, that would've been all i needed to see before the film and i'd have been guaranteed a seat in the theater. but most viewers aren't you me and the other million Alien franchise fans...at least some portion has to be newcomers. Scott knows that and the studio knows that. hence, the bombardment the week or two before release of 'normal' advertisements. of course it's not cool. i don't remember the last time i went and saw a movie based SOLELY on tv ads. seriously, cannot remember. but i'm not Joe Schmoe. they didn't have to try for your dollar or mine or any other franchise-fan....all they had to say was Ridley Scott is making a Prequel to the Alien Movies...we gave him 200 Million Dollars to do it, this is the release date. they could've sent me a text saying just that and i'd have enjoyed the film just as much, if not more. but that's not why they advertise the fuck out of it with plot points and pretty shots and loud BVVVRRRUMMMPPPSSS in the trailers. that's just how movies out of Hollywood are advertised. i try not to complain anymore because it does no fucking good dude. none at all. just watch the movie and enjoy it for what it is.
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He is not a troll Mirezzi. One of ,my friends from way back on here. His opinions are real not just antagonizing.
Whatever emotional investment you have in watching films, remember that when it's all said and done, we're all just assholes and sheep when we queue up. The producers have the last laugh. I fail to see how compson can criticize advertising but leave Lindelof et al. out of the line of fire.
i agree with the first part here; there's nothing we can do to change the movies at all once they're released....unless George Lucas is on this thread. he can change his movies at will, apparently, years after the fact. director's cuts and such are interesting different takes, but the most of us are just consumers. just get on the ride and enjoy it or get off.
the criticizing of advertising for this movie doesn't much count, because Scott's own company did a large part (if not all) of the advertising. it's not like Scott handed over a gorgeous diamond and the big bad studio shit on it until it was worthless....Scott is part of the big bad studio here. like Lindelof said in that interview he did on The Verge, this movie is all Scott. he directed the writing in large part, and of course directing, producing, etc. he's to praise or to blame here, mostly.
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just watched it and, wow, i have a lot to say.
first off, the pacing was atrocious. we barely get any exposition with the characters before people start dying off. way to cheapen the impact of those deaths, you know?
the characterization was also very, very poorly done. we're supposed to empathize with shaw and her boyfriend, but i found myself frustrated with their cocky, retarded attitudes. first, whatever-his-name-is (you can see how well the characters stuck with me) takes off his helmet in an area with potential biological contaminants. i admit, everyone else follows suit, so this is more poor writing than the character being frustratingly stupid. this brings me to another point: why is it that 90s tv has scully and mulder following contamination protocols better than supposedly high science fiction written and directed by INDUSTRY VETERANS? you don't have to respond--i know the answer. these writers aren't as good as they think they are.
anyway, back to my point about shitty characterization: let's keep using holloway as an example. what are the ways that his character is revealed to us in the film? the major points that stand out in my mind are the helmet removal, trashing david for just being a robot, and refusing to tell shaw that he saw a fucking worm in his eye (this is unbelievably stupid, no one would be like "welp, off to work" after seeing that). at no point is this character sympathetic, outside of his romance with shaw. so when he bursts into a ball of flames, i can't help but feel... nothing at all.
this is a systematic flaw in the film. the only characters i liked were david and the captain. vickers was ok too (at least she follows contamination protocols, goddamnit).
but besides the atrocious characterization, the thing that really stood out in this film for me was the plot holes (better known as "plot stupidity" in this film). they're numerous and exciting.
1. what's with the mission briefing in the beginning of the film? did these people really sign up for a two year trip into space without knowing what they were doing? i understand that the ship's crew would be kept in the dark, but the geologist and other scientist bro? what scientist is going to go on a two year mission to some random planet for reasons unknown? i know that this was an excuse for exposition, but why couldn't they have set the exposition prior to the mission? like shaw and holloway proposing the mission to weyland or something. would've made more sense, imo.
2. why did the geologist and other scientist guy stay behind in the ruins when they said they were spooked and wanted to go back to the ship? this wasn't very clear to me. also, if they were so afraid of alien lifeforms, why did they try to play with the proto-facehugger?
3. so, that dust storm. why couldn't the ship see a dust storm of that size while they were landing? moreover, why did the scientists refuse to leave the alien ruins? tomorrow is another day. rather than risk being stranded overnight in some inhospitable environment that possibly has alien lifeforms on it or, on the other hand, risk being caught in the storm by leaving at the last possible minute, the scientists simply could've said, "yep, will do, vickers," and packed up with time to spare. the alien ruins have been undisturbed for at least 2,000 years. they weren't going anywhere (well, technically they were).
4. why does david expose holloway to the contagion? listen, the most inefficient way to examine a substance is to stick it in a human being and see what happens. you're telling me an android, which most likely prides itself on being efficient and perfect, would want to do something like that? why not examine that stuff under a microscope and run some high tech chemical modeling programs in his high tech brain that can simulate what would happen when human tissue is exposed to it? on the other hand, it could be that david just hated holloway and thought he was a dick (who knows what david saw in his dreams). in that case, it's not a plot hole, just poor writing that doesn't make david's motivation clear.
5. shaw gets pregnant with a proto-facehugger. alright, that's plausible. i have a couple of nitpicks with the scene where the doctor chicks are trying to put her into stasis. they check to see if shaw is unconscious by pinching her cheek. this does not mesh with the high tech nature of prometheus. they have a machine that can see people's dreams. it can literally read their minds--and they don't have unconscious, alien-bearing shaw hooked up to some kind of machine to monitor her vital signs (which would reveal whether or not she is unconscious)? this makes no sense. some more problems come after this. shaw knocks the two doctors out and runs through the halls of prometheus and into vicker's medbay. why is vicker's room not locked? why is no one running after shaw? it takes shaw a very long time to successfully "abort" her alien baby. i'm surprised that no one found her by that time.
6. why is everyone so nonchalent around shaw when, moments earlier, she had an alien abortion? why does it seem like vickers has no idea that there's an alien-baby-thing in her med bay? also, CONTAMINATION PROTOCOLS. simply aborting the alien fetus/baby/thing does not ensure that shaw no longer has biological contaminants in her body. it seems like at some point the crew members just stopped giving a fuck about being exposed to infectious alien mutagens.
7. why is it that the captain doesn't put prometheus on autopilot when driving it into the alien's ship, so he can save himself and his crew? he says they have "one shot" and need to navigate carefully, but i'm missing the part where it's difficult to crash a space ship into another giant space ship. they just had to damage it sufficiently so that it couldn't take off and reach earth. that's actually pretty easy to do--you don't have to obliterate the entire thing. anyway, a sufficiently advanced on-board computer could've done it easily. i mean, it did pilot prometheus for two years by itself.
8. how does big alien guy survive and how does he immediately know where to find shaw? actually, scratch that--why is he so hell-bent on killing her? i guess this isn't a plot hole but more like a thematic question (why do the creators want to destroy the creation?), but it boggles my mind that the first thing this guy thinks of after his ship explodes is that he must find and kill shaw. his violence towards humans is not a lapse in logic or plot, in my opinion. i actually liked that concept. maybe he was disgusted by shaw's screeching and how the guards used violence and hit her. they may have seemed primitive and annoying to him. think about it: what if you woke up from a two-thousand year stasis to have tiny monkeys screaming and yelling at you, hitting each other? ok, you might not hurt them, but imagine that you were a space trucker with a deadline to make and planets to seed. you'd probably just swat them away. this concept, however, is entirely ruined by the alien's subsequent mission to annihilate shaw. why is she so special? why does he just have to kill her?
there are probably a couple of more, but it's late and i'm tired. these are just some immediate thoughts that i've had after watching the film, so pardon me if they're a bit unorganized and nonsensical. one more thing though: shaw's attitude toward david during the last scene upsets me. he asks her why it would matter why the creators want to destroy their creation and she tells him that he couldn't possibly understand because he isn't human. i hope david piloted her stupid ass into a star after that quip. such arrogance, even after seeing that humans aren't some special gift from god but rather primordial slop thrown onto the earth and made to grow.
also, i want to note that the plot holes in alien and aliens didn't bother me very much. you know why? because there were so few and they were so inconsequential that i could suspend disbelief. couldn't do that with this film.
i am now prematurely sickened by the blade runner sequel.
pacing was a little jumpy. that's exactly the kind of mistake Scott shouldn't make. it wasn't terrible, but i noticed it.
characterization was the biggest problem with this film. everyone knows it (all the positive and negative reviews i've read all call it out) so i don't know what the hell Scott was thinking in not recognizing it and fixing it. the fact that it made it to the final cut like this makes me think it may have been an editing room concession for the sake of time...but Scott should've known better. if it was writing though, it wouldn't surprise me. Lindeloff doesn't usually strike me as the best writer, particularly with making me care about his characters.
1. the mission briefing thing is sorta just part of the Alien franchise...not that it makes more sense because of that, but anyone familiar with the other films kind of expects those 'we're just doing this for the money/because it's our job' characters. it's kind of commentary on the future of exploration i think, but it's most likely rooted in just bad writing throughout the Alien universe.
2. they got lost. who knows why they tried playing with the cobra-alien. stupidity that was rampant among all these 'scientists' i'd say.
3. the only thing i can say to this is 'dude, it's a movie.' ...you kind of have to expect that sort of shit. it's a modern Hollywood film.
4. the experimentation and conclusion to get a crew member to ingest the goo was most likely done by David off-screen. which is dumb, because if so it could've been alluded to in a literally 10 second shot. i'm of the camp that doesn't think David has true emotions. he does ask Holloway specifically 'what would you do to find the answers' or whatever, to which Holloway says 'anything' and that was the sign-off that David seemed to need. in the other Alien films the androids are said to have a program built in that does not allow them to harm or by means of secondary actions allow to be harmed any human being....so either David was pre-that command, or he had some rudimentary form of it and that's why he needed 'permission' from Holloway for the likely-deadly infection.
5. yeah, that part is all a bit silly. the shit is starting to hit the fan right around that time, but someone should've noticed something and been after Shaw. maybe David was misdirecting them all off-screen in order to allow Cuddles to be born in the interim, not thinking Shaw could self-abort the creature.
6. i don't think they knew about the alien abortion. Vickers never went back to her quarters, i'm guessing. otherwise she definitely would've noticed the blood and huge growing alien squid. i think since they were obviously all idiots about everything from the beginning, we're supposed to suspend our disbelief about them caring about protocol except when it matters to the film-makers (e.g.; when Vickers torches that pussy-ass geologist).
7. see my response to #3.
8. like you said i think that's more a thematic question than a plot hole. the rage the Engineer expresses towards humans after David first speaks to him implies to me that David may have really said some bad shit to the Engineer, but that's just my personal idea. how he found her though? i have a hypothesis that David told him. or maybe the Engineer could sense life-forms like that? who knows.
i liked the movie, despite the flaws. wish Scott had done some things differently, but what can ya do? i'll enjoy watching it again, for sure.
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dude, it's not bad. it's not Alien. not in the least.
You got that right! Not in the same league by a long shot!
It's not trying to be Alien though. It's a sci-fi flick set in the same universe. I doubt it will be as important 30 years from now as Alien still is, but I'm honestly not sure there's ANY movie released these days that will have the impact of something released before the 90's. when there was an explosion of films pouring out of Hollywood. but that's a whole other discussion.
Prometheus is much more about revelations and origins and intellectual/psychological things that happens to be drenched in blood and monsters. emotions are few and far between. there are flaws but it's not bad. just go in as open-minded as possible.It's much more about ..... what the hell is it about!? It's pure Lindelof Lost style cock teasing! Questions answered with questions & more questions. Nothing makes much sense. You have to interpret the story however you see fit. So you leave the cinema totally perplexed & wondering what the hell it was all about. There is zero satisfaction from this film beyond the breathtaking visuals. Characters are dull, weak & then dead. The story is all over the place & it can't make it's mind up if it wants to be an Alien prequel or a complete new movie. In the end it's neither. It's a friggin mess of epic proportions. Most disappointed with a film I think I've ever been! It's like Phantom Menace/Lucas syndrome all over again. Except this is worse because this is Ridley Scott with his third film in a genre he really did define with Alien & Blade Runner.
there's definitely some Lindelof cock-teasing going on. i enjoyed about 1/4 of Lost, i personally think a lot of it was shit television. there's a LOT of stuff that makes sense. there's a LOT of story that is shown in this movie. there's also a lot that wasn't revealed, which is fine by me. the (what we now know is an) Engineer in Alien was never explained, never touched on in all the sequels. huge bit of information that is left unanswered. how the hell was there a face-hugger that impregnated an animal AND Ripley in the events before Alien 3? who knows, it's one of the many mysteries left unanswered, and is most likely unanswerable. they're just horror/sci-fi flicks man...they're enjoyable, and whatever needs to happen to keep the story going happens. whatever the director or writer wants to happen will happen. Prometheus is just a fun decently done movie that is a vehicle for the story, unfortunately. the characters fell to the wayside, and there's nothing we can do. it's done, the movie is still good despite it, in my opinion.
i think a lot of what the reviewer (and you, it seems) has problems with are preconceived notions. it doesn't have to be an Alien prequel or an entirely new movie; it can be both. i think it succeeded in that regard. there's an entirely new feel and storyline and atmosphere, and it overlaps with the Alien universe. and in my opinion it works.
sucks you didn't like it, but i don't work for Fox or Scott, so i don't really care. that 'review' was shit though. that's my point. reviewer went in biased and walked out unhappy. going into a movie like that with preconceived notions will guarantee disappointment. unfortunately, the film was flawed despite my going in with an open mind, but that's okay. nothing's perfect, i still enjoyed a lot of the movie.
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I'm going to see this tomorrow, because who am I kidding?, and while I haven't read any real reviews/spoilers posted yet in this thread, I am now adjusting my expectations to: slightly more competent than AvP.
Do I need to adjust downward further? Getting pretty close to the filmic nadir, there.
dude, it's not bad. it's not Alien. not in the least. tone and characters and story are just entirely different....comparing the two isn't relevant. AvP was a monster beat-em-up, with a thrown together story to set up the fighting, we all know that. Prometheus is much more about revelations and origins and intellectual/psychological things that happens to be drenched in blood and monsters. emotions are few and far between. there are flaws but it's not bad. just go in as open-minded as possible.
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Empire review pretty much sums it up for me;
your agreement with the review isn't my target here, but the review itself. so don't take it personal when i say the reviewer was full of shit. snarky 'it's not alien....it's not what i loved. it's different. it's not alien.' shit he pulls and begins flooding the paragraphs with is sad and pathetic. he sounds like an 11 year old boy. a dumb childish one.
it's not alien by any stretch of the imagination. i can see now why Scott and everyone he had his hooks in went out of their way to make it clear to the millions of fans of the original Alien and/or its sequels that it is not the same movie and don't go in expecting it. you'll be disappointed, as this reviewer obviously was. the film had plenty of flaws (some of which he points out and i agree with) but at the end of the day, the review just came across as whiny and childish, and that's sad. boo that review/reviewer/points off to that site for publishing it.
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Do you have some sort of build up in your brain of like anger and hate and when something doesn't go your way entirely you must release it like a river of diarrhea onto masses, so that they know how upset you are gonna be when you watch the film?
the last 15ish pages of this thread have been exactly this. no clue why i'm still reading it, honestly.
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don't listen for at least 2 months.
I already tried this. A couple times. Didn't help. Although kryLon isn't as terrible as I first thought. Not very good but not terrible.
There are bits in here I get stuck in my head but never any whole tracks, and actually I find more of these bits in Move of Ten than Oversteps.
try putting it down indefinitely. i've done that with albums (AE even...Incunabula, Anti EP, LP5); not listened for 6 months, a year, whatever. and when you think to one day out of the blue, give it another shot. you may never love it, and that's fine. but it doesn't hurt to try an album again once every year. you're not missing out on an Oversteps party or anything...speaking of, how long is this thread gonna be pinned here? til a new album gets announced?
i don't love LP5 like i did when it first came out, probably never will. but i can appreciate it and enjoy it again now. i really didn't care for Incunabula at all for a year or two after i first purchased it (about 4 years ago i'd guess) and finally started enjoying it this year.
just set Oversteps down for now, who knows what may change. no loss if not!
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i find it funny that he compared he made it sound like LOST ended somehow stronger than x-files though.
I mean maybe he's technically correct, that LOST went on for a shorter time so was a tighter show in some regards, but LOST got no where even close to the creativity and acting quality in the X-files. LOST did a wonderful job cultivating mystery and suspense but the actual payoff was weak. With x-files there wasn't really a 'hard' payoff so to speak, it just kind of fizzles out and by the time they do end it you just dont even care.
for me the x-files ended on the last episode of Season 7
it should have ended there too, just as elegantly as TNG did, returning to the very first episode of the show going full circle
yeah, i'm a pretty big X-Files fan too...and i agree that the end kind of fizzled out. certainly wasn't as revelatory and epic as the finale of Lost; Carter or Manners said in one of the commentaries that the reveal in season 6 (i think?) was kind of like an ending in a way...and i agree. there was that reveal of truth they'd been digging for for years, then another 3 and a half seasons of that not being enough truth? just odd, and not very interesting....
the last two seasons of X-Files are good in places, like plenty of other seasons, but i really think they should've taken it even farther away from the conspiracies presented and partially resolved with Mulder/Scully. those two characters ran their course (Skinner as well) and should've been abandoned and a whole other perspective taken with Doggett and Reyes. but the series is very over, doubt there'll even be another movie at this point. let's just hope there's more interesting sci-fi television to get produced in the coming years that takes influence from the good aspects of X-Files, Lost, TNG, and all the other shows/movies of the genre. there's so much room for exploration and stories, yet sci-fi is dwindling on TV. doesn't make sense to me.
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wow, that Damon Lindelof interview was very inspiring. Even though i hate LOST i can't help but have huge admiration and respect for this guy. I want to hate him, i really do, but i can't.
kind of my thoughts as well. he's got conviction, at least. and his ego can't be TOO inflated to have those kind of discussions about Lost. i generally disliked the show...it had it's moments, but overall it was just over the top. whatever though, he's got skills with making things tie in and remain interesting. Prometheus should be good no matter what. like Lindelof says, this is Ridley Scott's project. i don't think he'd ruin this.
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i actually like Coors, for the record. but that commercial is ridiculous.
also, this interview is interesting. an hour with Damon Lindelof about Prometheus, Lost, and a little about Avengers/other shit. http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/21/3034664/damon-lindelof-extended-interview-On-The-Verge-episode-006
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more so about Hubbard.
supposedly.
ALL of the songs they have ARE about anal sex.
fixt
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Why spoil a big set piece on the poster? Sure it's official?
the crashing alien ship set piece has been in at least one of the trailers, and i wanna say almost all of them since maybe even the very first 'full' trailer. not double checking, but it's been seen.
i kind of like the poster...it's definitely an 'artist interpretation of' the movie, not a specific scene. more akin to if it were novelized, that would be the cover; very reminiscent of sci-fi novel covers, "old school" as BCM says. if anything i'd say they should've made it more stylized and have more of that retro kitschy feel even.
i dunno if it's Scott or someone else attached to the project, but there's a LOT of fun being had in the marketing for this movie. it's staggering how much, really. i'm not sure i've seen any sci-fi movie promoted with this much vigor and in interesting ways.
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i read The White People the other night after hearing a few raves about it. definitely good, has some awesome moments in it.
don't be mistaken, Hill of Dreams meanders...the meandering becomes more more interesting eventually though. not sure what the end of the novel will bring however.
heard a lot of good about The Great God Pan. definitely on the list for the next from Machen. i enjoy his writing thus far.
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Arthur Machen's "The Hill of Dreams" which was at some point called by the much better title "The Garden of Avallaunius." it's a nice semi-autobiographical novel that occurs mostly in the narrator's head as he struggles to write, but is mostly lost in fantasies from childhood and whatnot. overall it has a few parts that kind of trudge along, but what novel doesn't? the second half is really picking up, got about another 16% according to my Kindle.
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i used to regularly lurk t.d.n. as well, and post occasionally; much like i do here. how many of us fuckers are here that were also on t.d.n? watmm/tdn sub forum request? okay not really. but shit, there's a few apparently.
i can't even remember what name i used back then on there. it's been so many years.
ALIEN / PROMETHEUS / COVENANT - SPOILERS INBOUND!!
in General Banter
Posted
my personal theory is David told the Engineer where Shaw was, or was likely to be if he did not in fact know. but the other way, where the Engineer told David he was going after her, is also possible. but the Engineer didn't seem too talkative really. we may never know, they're purposefully obfuscating details like this in set-up for a sequel seemingly, so it may forever be unanswered.