ALIEN / PROMETHEUS / COVENANT - SPOILERS INBOUND!!

[YO303]

When i left the cinema there were two guys wearing Alien t-shirts that were angry and loud, fucking Ridley Scott off to hell.

 

-- --

 

I can't see Awe's facial expression but i assume his head is about to explode in anger because he is passionately criticizing a movie on a internet forum..you don't do that unless you are so angry that you need to blow off some steam.

Edited June 10, 2012 by YO303

[auxien]

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.

[FLA FUR BIS FLE]

Don't get the intro. What did that have to do with the rest of the film?

[Guest zaphod]

and hoodie im with you on being sickened by a bladerunner prequel, in fact now i'm sickened by any prequel to any good movie. Why on earth does hollywood keep making prequels? They are all terrible, they really are. About the only prequel i can stomach is Temple of Doom. I dont count Batman Begins a prequel, thats a reboot and its ok.

 

prequels are inherently flawed and i think the people who think they are doing a service to the original movie have too big of egos to realize how devastating what they are doing is.

 

if i hear one more asshole say the reason the new star wars prequels look super clean and shiny is because 'the empire ran everything down' later on i will seriously punch that person in the throat.

 

edit: also did anyone find as i did that the mysterious varieties of 'goo' coming out of the vases at the first interaction with them, was far more 'alien' and creepy than any of the actual fully manifested alien creatures? Ridley promised 'biomechanoid' but we got clunky plush like white buff dudes and slimey alien Ressurection style proto xenomorphs varieties, the only biomechanoid aesthetic was in that goo, and then it was over really quickly

 

while i agree with everything you're saying, there is one thing to note. they keep making this shit because you, the fanboy who gets his panties wet at every last morsel of info available before a movie even has a trailer, pays to see these films. i refuse to see prometheus after reading about it on this board and seeing the reviews. it sounds like shit. i'm not paying to watch that, and i absolutely don't want to contribute to the potential funding of any of these prequels, sequels or reboots that a creatively bankrupt industry continues to produce. i'll stay at home and watch aliens on blu ray, or read a book, or go out and interact with people whose lives don't revolve around consuming every last piece of product put in front of them that they can forget about as soon as next thing is released. the data gathering culture that seems to have sprung up in the last decade is mind boggling in its basic drive to consume everything in its path without a fucking clue as to how to be satisfied by any of it. maybe that's what happens when the nerds win and start running things. you get people like lindelof and jj abrams who are masters at self promotion and marketing, the tease of a childhood memory that can be exploited, but lack the artistic integrity and breadth of experience to pull it together into a coherent statement about anything that matters. or maybe it really is about a bottom line.

[gunnar]

the musical score was really disctracting. for me it was the biggest flaw of the movie. it felt generic and overblown.

[auxien]

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!

[FLA FUR BIS FLE]

well ok, i just read up on the intro on XENOPEDIA.

 

i guess i get it. whatever. how vague.

 

I just hope the sequel is basically Avatar. They are blue. Bet they have big muscle dicks. Noomi can show off her muscle boobs and we can see some muscle dick. Can't wait.

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2012 by thanks robert moses

[YO303]

Don't get the intro. What did that have to do with the rest of the film?

 

That's how they created the human race

 

.

 

?

[Danny O Flannagin]

Just watched the movie today with a group of friends. Very disappointed. Have never really been into horror movies and although some people don't consider the Alien franchise a non-horror, the characters in Prometheus just did really stupid shit.

 

It also just barely brushed on concepts like religion and what it means to be a human but ive seen these ideas gone much more in depth in better, more thoughtful, films. As a summer blockbuster-esque movie, it was pretty decent. Good effects and great acting by Micheal Fassbender makes me a bit more happy i saw it on the big screen.

[syd syside]

So might as well chip in with my thoughts on this.

Thought it was decent overall, the first half or right before anyone dies was well done and I was fully engaged with it. Beyond that point, there were some other exciting scenes with david and the old corporate dude, my memory sucks cause of the weed food atm. And there were a few nice bits of action though less enthralling because of some cheese execution of the alien craft explosion and the knowledge that the alien craft would explode from the trailers. Anyway David definitely stole the show and up until the part where the Engineer kind of killed David is when I started to get a bit confused on what the film was trying to say. I was thinking the whole point of everything set up was that so not a human but a more intelligent being would start a process of some sort to like examine this new intelligent lifeform and eliminate humans from earth. However despite this confusion, I never expected them to answer broad questions like the meaning of life etc... but overall the climax was anti-climactic (biggest flaw of the film). Other than that, the visuals and 3D were as awesome as I could have hoped, some scenes being pretty amazing.

Edited June 10, 2012 by compson

[Atop]

Didn't mean to sound like I was telling Robbie to be better than Ridley Scott, or need 100 million dollars to be able to make a film. I was thinking purely. If the story or ideas are sound enough, a great film can be made for not that much money. Some of my favourite films were made on a limited budget, yours being some of them Mirezzi.

 

I hope to someday make a film that I can be proud of.

 

and the first scene?

 

It was an engineer committing suicide because of the their failed attempt at creating a genetic distortion weapon right?

 

[Squee]

and the first scene?

 

It was an engineer committing suicide because of the their failed attempt at creating a genetic distortion weapon right?

 

 

 

I thought what we saw was the creation of life on Earth. Didn't that scene end up with strings of DNA flowing around in the water

 

[Atop]

and the first scene?

 

It was an engineer committing suicide because of the their failed attempt at creating a genetic distortion weapon right?

 

 

 

I thought what we saw was the creation of life on Earth. Didn't that scene end up with strings of DNA flowing around in the water

 

 

 

That could be it. Then again it is a bit weird that one of them would sacrifice itself to create life. They seemed not very selfless. They are superior to us though, androgynous, and an "all one" type of race. Who knows how they would work out their feelings on life and death? They seemed like pure scientists, experimenting being their main goal.

 

[beerwolf]

Don't get the intro. What did that have to do with the rest of the film?

 

Yeah good question. Not sure if it is like a sacrafice to plant dna into an environment? Or something like that.

 

edit: sorry I just read the above spoilers, I think we are on the same wavelength with this.

Edited June 10, 2012 by beerwolf

[Squee]

and the first scene?

 

It was an engineer committing suicide because of the their failed attempt at creating a genetic distortion weapon right?

 

 

 

I thought what we saw was the creation of life on Earth. Didn't that scene end up with strings of DNA flowing around in the water

 

 

 

That could be it. Then again it is a bit weird that one of them would sacrifice itself to create life. They seemed not very selfless. They are superior to us though, androgynous, and an "all one" type of race. Who knows how they would work out their feelings on life and death? They seemed like pure scientists, experimenting being their main goal.

 

 

 

Yeah, it seemed really weird. I bet it's tough as fuck to flesh out and explain everything about a whole new race of beings in little over two hours, but their behaviour didn't make any sense. They created mankind (as far as I could tell), and when mankind woke them up from whatever hyper sleep they were in they fucked them up. It would be the same if I planted a seed in the ground, watered it, watched it grow, and as soon as it was about to bloom I would bite its head off.

 

[syd syside]

and the first scene?

 

It was an engineer committing suicide because of the their failed attempt at creating a genetic distortion weapon right?

 

 

 

I thought what we saw was the creation of life on Earth. Didn't that scene end up with strings of DNA flowing around in the water

 

 

 

That could be it. Then again it is a bit weird that one of them would sacrifice itself to create life. They seemed not very selfless. They are superior to us though, androgynous, and an "all one" type of race. Who knows how they would work out their feelings on life and death? They seemed like pure scientists, experimenting being their main goal.

 

 

 

Yeah, it seemed really weird. I bet it's tough as fuck to flesh out and explain everything about a whole new race of beings in little over two hours, but their behaviour didn't make any sense. They created mankind (as far as I could tell), and when mankind woke them up from whatever hyper sleep they were in they fucked them up. It would be the same if I planted a seed in the ground, watered it, watched it grow, and as soon as it was about to bloom I would bite its head off.

 

 

 

they were making explosives or whatever to kill humans because they had found a superior dna (xenos). Then an outbreak happened before they could destroy Earth, the dude who's head fell off was a suicide. The few survivors go into hypersleep or what not, to await maybe a rescue engineer ship, but no one comes and 2,000 years later, we get far enough along to figure out their plans/location, we wake one of them up, the engineer either is insulted by david (unclear what he says) or realizes the extent of humanity's progress. he attempts to continue with original plan to destroy earth despite risks involved with leaving the main bridge, ie safe pod or whatever, contrast with charliez safety home place lol. anyway the engineer fucks up etc etc, and the black stuff that had infected those insects worms things had evolved super fast, just as xenos in original alien grew to full size in the matter of hours... and then that thing gets big and plants the new species egg inside the engineer, where it becomes a version of alien, but not the one we know from the originals

 

 

Edited June 10, 2012 by compson

[syd syside]

[sunshine recorder]

i really enjoyed the movie despite its nagging flaws,i think its a delibrately vague story which could go in numerous directions in inevitable sequels,and i think this was the plan all along,hence the marketing campaign and the fierce hollywood style editing of the actual movie which does cause problems but gives them the summer blockbuster the studio needed,also i think this film like ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER will get better with time,a lot of subtle details will eventually be discovered by repeat viewings which will alter future perceptions of the movie,therefore creating the new franchise/fan-base they desired all along

cool DNA gif compson!

Edited June 10, 2012 by sunshine recorder

[coax]

Yeah great gif.

 

I have only seen the movie once in the theater so some details are gone now, but I do remember thinking the movie had a kind of eerie realism. When one character says 'big things have small beginnings', that's exactly how I felt this movie was. It wasn't a spectacle in an unrealistic sense. The planet was gray and empty and the effects and events were 'small'. Prometheus felt like this small beginning.

I also reacted to how much advertisement there was, because I was afraid it would just be a money cow, and in some ways I think it was, but I also think there were a lot of things with depth.

 

I have to give it repeat viewings to really straighten everything out in my head, but if I overlook some obvious scripting flaws I can view this in a very positive light.

[BCM]

Shaw gets pregnant with squid baby which turns out to be a proto-facehugger (which they made grow to a huge size, obviously for plot reasons. I think it would have worked better had they kept the squid/proto-facehugger small and nimble so at the end it's not all huge and thrashing about in the medical room, but rather she goes in there thinking it's way dead and then hears a skittering and something gets knocked over and you get a glimpse in the corner of your eye of a small creature scuttling about, then suddenly it's jumps out of nowhere and wraps itself around your head a lᠴraditional facehugger but with tentacles instead of legs. this still could have worked as a way to dispatch the engineer also, and impregnate him with the proto-alien).

 

but anyway, all facehuggers come from eggs laid by the queen alien, so in effect Shaw is taking the role of the queen in this instance - ie humans originally (if unknowingly) created the alien creature that subsequently terrorises everybody in the later films. a human woman was the first queen, the first incubator.

 

I was confused as to when the proto-alien comes out of the engineer at the end as to why it's fully-formed and not a chest-burster (or a proto-chestburster). these things start off small and shed their skin etc as they grow as far a I remember, not just pop out ready for action. also if the final alien that comes out of the engineer is the first incarnation of the creature that then spawns the things we know and love surely the proto-alien thing should have been a queen (with queeny elaborate head-shell etc). the thing that pops out of engineer dude just looks like a soldier/worker type alien which don't lay eggs etc and can't create life.

 

I dunno, too many holes.

Edited June 10, 2012 by BCM

[oscillik]

 

but anyway, all facehuggers come from eggs laid by the queen alien, so in effect Shaw is taking the role of the queen in this instance - ie humans originally (if unknowingly) created the alien creature that subsequently terrorises everybody in the later films. a human woman was the first queen, the first incubator.

 

 

Interesting theory, but the planet in Prometheus isn't LV-426

[Squee]

I don't know if we should still use spoiler tags for plot details, because the movie is out and if you walk into a thread called Prometheus you're bound to get something spoiled, but for safety reasons I've just added a couple of spoiler tags to the last couple of posts.

[coax]

Well was that really the first facehugger? It was so developed it would have to have brought an immense amount of genetic material, and it was originally conceived by two humans (one which was infected). I thought it was actually a later version and that whatever infected the dude who impregnated shaw (dont remember his name), was way too evolved and would have come from somewhere else?

Edited June 10, 2012 by coax

[syd syside]

 

Well was that really the first facehugger? It was so developed it would have to have brought an immense amount of genetic material, and it was originally conceived by two humans (one which was infected). I thought it was actually a later version and that whatever infected the dude who impregnated shaw (dont remember his name), was way too evolved and would have come from somewhere else?

 

 

 

and the xeno wasnt technically full size yet

 

[BCM]

@osc:

 

not sure that really matters - lots of ways you could explain this. there are lots of other ships on LV-223, looked like there might be a couple more engineers too so alien could potentially have got off-world that way.

 

or it could be as simple as they renamed LV-223 to LV-426 for whatever reason (probably something to do with all the shit that happened and covering it up).

 

or LV-426 could be where Shaw and David end up at when they head-off at the end.

 

Or it could be LV-426 is another installation like LV-223 where the same thing happened and there are already aliens on it in the same timeframe we just haven't encountered them yet...

 

I dunno, loads of possibilities, like I say don't think it's actually that important about the LV-223/LV-426 discrepancy.

Edited June 10, 2012 by BCM