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In Reply to: RE: good grief, I've now watched this three times as well posted by user510 on November 10, 2012 at 11:53:27
Sci fi always asks the question "what if" and even when it's answered and tied up neatly at the end, you're still supposed to be left thinking of other outcomes/permutations--otherwise it's not good sci fi. The way some want this to be a mindless checklist of "answers" so they don't have to think too hard or interpret too much is silly--abandons the whole point of the movie. No, it may not have telegraphed an answer, but it sure hinted at some.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
Follow Ups:
I will concede that the movie has aroused enough curiosity to cause this discussion in this forum. Yet I remain a disappointed viewer. Probably because I was never that great of a fan of the Alien movies to begin with.
The glass is half empty. In an Alien movie, the glass is always half empty.
This movie,Prometheus, indicates that the monsters are actually living weapons designed for the depopulation of a planet. Ours. And that like us, the monsters were constructed by the engineers. But for some unknown reason, the monsters have turned on their creators at this remote installation and killed them all except for the one remaining survivor, who later is consumed by a monster and dies.
The Elizabeth Shaw character, the story's protagonist is, at the end, seen blasting off the planet in one of the Engineer's ships. She, along with the robot, David, are off to find the Engineers and have that talk with them that her dead husband originally so strongly desired to have.
Do I detect potential for the sequel to develop into a huge sweeping saga about planet Earth's desperate attempt to avoid extinction and find a way to defeat the Engineers.
Could we learn that there is something more that the monsters and us humans have in common? What did the Engineers learn that made them want to depopulate the Earth? Should we be? Or are their motives less than noble. Do they just covet our planet for their own population? A sequel could explore stuff like that.
But, having seen the other Alien movies I know it will be something downbeat. There will be corporate greed. There will be villainous, traitorous corporate officers. And actions that shows humans, by their own behavior, that they deserve nothing less than extinction. It will be depressing and demoralizing. Like all the other alien movies.
Compare it to 2001 where, at the movie's end, Bowman is rescued by the unnamed beings who left the monolith on Earth. The viewer then is allowed to see that Bowman grows old in comfort, dies, and then reincarnates into something different. And then the movie ends but leaving the viewer to wonder if the answers to life's biggest questions aren't about to show themselves.
I think we are putting too much thought into an "Alien" movie.
-Steve
If they just wanted to kill people there would be an easier way. Super scary monster creating black stuff is for tinkerers. They're just screwing around.
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I will concede that the movie has aroused enough curiosity to cause this discussion in this forum. Yet I remain a disappointed viewer. Probably because I was never that great of a fan of the Alien movies to begin with.There was only one Alien movie worth viewing--the first one--directed by Ridley Scott, who not coincidentally directed Prometheus.
The glass is half empty. In an Alien movie, the glass is always half empty.
The first Alien (again, the only one worth viewing and repeat viewing) is a brilliant visual poem exploring the human consciousness of "other". From design of set structures that conjured comparison to sexual organs to the juxtaposition of different races, sexes, species and indeed experiences.
This movie,Prometheus, indicates that the monsters are actually living weapons designed for the depopulation of a planet. Ours. And that like us, the monsters were constructed by the engineers. But for some unknown reason, the monsters have turned on their creators at this remote installation and killed them all except for the one remaining survivor, who later is consumed by a monster and dies.
That's just the outer layer. As you say, the question is "why". Why would the creators of life decide to snuff it out? Why would tools made of the stuff of creation not work as intended?
The Elizabeth Shaw character, the story's protagonist is, at the end, seen blasting off the planet in one of the Engineer's ships. She, along with the robot, David, are off to find the Engineers and have that talk with them that her dead husband originally so strongly desired to have.
Yes, but that conversation is like "talking about God"...you just don't do that in a movie script, unless you want to sound stupid. A good advertisement doesn't tell you "go out and buy some potato chips; it makes you feel--through words and images--like tasting them. That is exactly what needs to happen in films that dance around questions about the meaning of life and its origins. You don't go and show what happened, or have the creator sit down with the created for a cup of tea and a friendly chat. That just doesn't do justice to the gravity and importance of the question--and in the context of sci fi, establishing a mythology must remain mysterious in order to inform real life, in which the answers to these questions are unknowable.
Do I detect potential for the sequel to develop into a huge sweeping saga about planet Earth's desperate attempt to avoid extinction and find a way to defeat the Engineers.
I could just as easily dream up a narrative where Shaw is sucked up in a plot for the engineers to save themselves from their own creations. Or where they try to find their creator(s) to beg to be spared.
Could we learn that there is something more that the monsters and us humans have in common? What did the Engineers learn that made them want to depopulate the Earth? Should we be? Or are their motives less than noble. Do they just covet our planet for their own population? A sequel could explore stuff like that. But, having seen the other Alien movies I know it will be something downbeat. There will be corporate greed. There will be villainous, traitorous corporate officers. And actions that shows humans, by their own behavior, that they deserve nothing less than extinction. It will be depressing and demoralizing. Like all the other alien movies.
Well, so far Scott is slated to produce if not direct the sequel. So I hold out hope that it will not rapidly degrade into mediocrity like the Alien series. Certainly if Cameron gets involved it will become a joke.
Compare it to 2001 where, at the movie's end, Bowman is rescued by the unnamed beings who left the monolith on Earth. The viewer then is allowed to see that Bowman grows old in comfort, dies, and then reincarnates into something different. And then the movie ends but leaving the viewer to wonder if the answers to life's biggest questions aren't about to show themselves.
See, I thought those kinds of things were rather silly and undermined the importance of the subject matter.
I think we are putting too much thought into an "Alien" movie.
I don't think you can put too much thought into something produced by one of the greatest working directors who worked on the film for over a year at the cost of about $125 million. I think what bothers many sci fi fans about Prometheus is the way it is largely an anti-scifi film, the way Unforgiving was an anti-Western. If we take Prometheus at face value, scientists are the retards. Faith in God is the saving grace of humanity. This conclusion alone is worth meditation.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
Edits: 11/11/12
"If we take Prometheus at face value, scientists are the retards. Faith in God is the saving grace of humanity."
If we take Prometheus at face value, we get a botched screenplay with nary a trace of intelligence, wonder, discovery or even basic continuity, written by a couple of hacks (Lindelof, in particular) with unbelievably rushed and disjointed pacing, two-dimensional placeholder characters and a few pretty (mostly recycled) set and effect designs.
The "scientists" showed no hint of their calling because the writers were dumbing-down (assuming they had anywhere else to go) to a juvenile, instant-gratification, generation-video-game audience. Hint: actual scientists employ the rigorous painstaking discipline known as scientific methodology; so "retarded." On the other hand, shoehorning in a smattering of phony Bronze Age spiritual hokum fit this train wreck of a story perfectly, as it was a transparently forced attempt to add the illusion of depth where none existed.
If anything, the message I took away was that blind selfish grovelling to fantasy thunder gods--recall the enraged reaction of the giant gray bodybuilder when asked for a boon--continues to plunge an unenlightened mankind into darkness and ignorance; a failed experiment and time to sterilize the Terran petri dish and start over. IOW, we can take away anything we choose from a story that has nothing to offer in the way of narrative substance.
I loved the original "Alien"-- that was a study in deliberate pacing and the slow buildup of tension--but the rest of the franchise provided varying degrees of awful. Has Ridley Scott done anything of value beyond "Alien" and "Blade Runner"? If so, it eludes me.
If we take Prometheus at face value, we get a botched screenplay with nary a trace of intelligence, wonder, discovery or even basic continuity, written by a couple of hacks (Lindelof, in particular) with unbelievably rushed and disjointed pacing, two-dimensional placeholder characters and a few pretty (mostly recycled) set and effect designs.I'll address this at the end.
The "scientists" showed no hint of their calling because the writers were dumbing-down (assuming they had anywhere else to go) to a juvenile, instant-gratification, generation-video-game audience. Hint: actual scientists employ the rigorous painstaking discipline known as scientific methodology; so "retarded." On the other hand, shoehorning in a smattering of phony Bronze Age spiritual hokum fit this train wreck of a story perfectly, as it was a transparently forced attempt to add the illusion of depth where none existed.
It wasn't a mistake or shortcoming of the screenplay that the scientists were cast as imbeciles, and it wasn't to dumb down the movie. Plenty of dumbed down movies cast scientists as geniuses. Prometheus was a refreshing change. If you think scientists are smart--most of them are not. They're like chefs, but without creativity. More like prep cooks. They're also cut-throat, elbowing each other out of the way for grants in a system of cronyism and elitism that is not conducive to the best researchers or research. We live in a time when the human genome has now been sequenced and uploaded to PubMed Central. We are told this will unlock the key to curing all kinds of horrible diseases and retard aging.
If anything, the message I took away was that blind selfish grovelling to fantasy thunder gods--recall the enraged reaction of the giant gray bodybuilder when asked for a boon--continues to plunge an unenlightened mankind into darkness and ignorance; a failed experiment and time to sterilize the Terran petri dish and start over. IOW, we can take away anything we choose from a story that has nothing to offer in the way of narrative substance.
The story had a beginning, middle and end, and I understand you didn't like any of it, but it wasn't empty or devoid of a narrative. Mankind, as portrayed in the film, is not unenlightened. The movie made a distinction between those who act purely on "scientific methodology" as you say, with no hint of ethics or faith to guide them, vs placing faith above empirical knowledge. Granted, you would rather take away "anything you choose" from what the movie actually points toward, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a narrative substance--it just means you choice to ignore the substance because you refuse to accept the concept that science may not unlock all the secrets after all.
I loved the original "Alien"--that was a study in deliberate pacing and the slow buildup of tension--but the rest of the franchise provided varying degrees of awful. Has Ridley Scott done anything of value beyond "Alien" and "Blade Runner"? If so, it eludes me.
I agree that Alien was a more masterful study in old fashioned suspense, horror and pacing. But Prometheus was no lighweight fare and didn't dial in any of the scenes that erupted in violence. There was very good build-up to the abortion scene in particular. And Prometheus had things that Alien did not--namely a totally masterful performance by Fassbender, who tied in Lawrence of Arabia in a brilliant way. Did you miss the connection? Do you know what LoA says about humanity? Because it's not that mankind is plunged into darkness and ignorance--it's a bit more complicated than that. I also disagree with you that Scott has not done anything of value besides Alien and Blade Runner (ironically, I didn't care for that one but more power to you if it was your cup of tea). I think Black Hawk Down was one of the greatest war/combat movies ever made, and Gladiator was about as close to Shakespeare as Hollywood can get.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
Edits: 11/12/12
I don't get this business of being unhappy because we're never told why the world is round. Just live with it and realize that we'll always have questions. That's how life is; yet we expect movies to be otherwise.
It's a better movie because of the hanging chads.
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