Post by inrepose on Jul 7, 2012 16:20:46 GMT -5
I watched Prometheus last night and thought I would share some thoughts. I really enjoyed it and here are my quirky considerations and comments.
WARNING I spill the beans on the film here so don't read if you still want to watch it.
1/ What a rubbish old-man makeup suit. They should have used an old actor. I can only think that they had a scene planned where he started to get younger after eating some black genetic muck. So they thought use a young man in an old suit and then revert him to youth for one triumphant moment before his head explodes. My view - Fail on the old man suit because he looked constipated and rubbery.
2/ Alien humans not speaking clearly. I get the idea of keeping the mystery factor up but how about just one or two words before you squish the droid person.
3/ A bit of a cliche. Droid loses head. Just once it would be great if he lost an arm or something and did not end up decapitated again! But it is funny.
4/ Operating room. How did the squid grow from a small size to an elephant in the room. Perhaps there was a planned scene where it ate one or two people but clearly they decided it was not key to the plot, so it got bigger by just growing massively due to its magic genetics.
5/ Alien gestation - Looks like we have discovered that they go through two phases. Squid birth first, then stomach birth when they pop out as a traditional alien. However the genetic gunk can also make crazy super-strong zombies and snake creatures that can break an arm.
6/ Acting fail. The actor with the tattoos who launches the probes with the red lasers. He came over pretty poorly IMHO, especially that early dialogue where he says he is "There to make money". It was stilted and awkward in a bad acting kind of way and did not flow well. I found him and the buddy that got snake swallow to be both a bit poor - they deserved to die.
7/ Plot believability issues. On the surface of it I think these were the first aliens encountered by humans. Perhaps even the first planet visited? This was unclear but I did think that there appeared to be a total lack of protocol. The whole remove our helmets stuff which gave you a fear that something might infect them did not deliver much in the way of tension and was ultimately unimportant. There did not appear to be any fear of contamination and the plot allowed the other members to just wander off and get lost. I just found that odd? Fly to a distant planet, explore an alien base and just say "Cool" you can wander off. It was plausible that they would get scared but perhaps more believable if they got serious and stuck with the group and something else would split them up - perhaps they miss the last truck on the return rather than just the cocky scene exit which gave the tattoo scanner man another opportunity for stilted acting.
8/ First Contact clone? I was thrown back to First contact when watching it. The cancer ridden old man providing the funding and money for the alien adventure, with a desperate hope to live on. It felt a little derived and 100% predictable from his first entrance. This man wants to live forever speech. Actually there was a lot of predictable stuff, the droid man doing cold things to try and infect people. Perhaps if they included a "who done it" moment it could have added tension i.e. He finds out he is infected and a couple of people are potential suspects. I also think it touched a lot on the first release of the movie "The Thing", I think they could have started to step deep into Thing territory if the genetic stuff became a key infection plot.
9/ Technology problems - So the little ball sensor red laser things were Anti-Grav? There did not appear to be any anti-grav technology used on the ship or other kit. It was a handy plot device though and links back to the Aliens1 and Aliens2 films with scanners providing data and information.
10/ Elephant head. OK let me stick this needle in and his head will come alive, hopefully before it explodes? Clearly he was pre-infected with that genetic stuff but why would he re-life with some electrical stimulas? This felt a little fanciful to me and again the protocol of alien encounters seemed to fail and there was no one clearly in control so it felt a bit lost. I thought "What is going on here?" . They brought the head on with no regard for 30 years of sci-fi films where contamination issues were handled well and it would be quarantined before you start sticking needles in. I reckon we missed some scenes here, it was a bit of jumpy blur between a few scenes around that time.
11/ Very light and hard space ship. It looked like the alien space ship was very light and rolled well. I suppose they were trying to show that it was super-hard and the construction could withstand an epic fall and explosion. I did think "Laurel and Hardy" when they were running from it though as it came down and started to roll.
12/ I think the blonde might be in it again. See might have just got squashed a bit and might be a robot.
13/ Running around corridors. I wanted more from the scientist woman, who looked more and more like Sigourney Weaver, hot and sweaty in her pants after the operation. I wanted some more dialogue or some other actions. Instead she just runs around and finds herself back in that room with the old man. The action changed pace at this stage, slowing down again for prep to get back in and there were some good bits but it felt a bit lost and patchy.
14/ Monster that came back in his suit. This looks like another side effect of the genetics, you turn into a zombie killing monster that has some sort of awareness and ability to track down people. Perhaps his residual memory drew him back to the ship. I felt it was all unnecessary for the film and perhaps they could have filled that time with some suspense scenes or something to do with the squid getting bigger. If you knew it was in that escape ship it would have been some added suspense when she went back into the ship at the end.
15/ At the end the woman questions why they want to destroy us. Then an alien is born, perhaps suggesting that the gene pool payload delivered to earth would ultimately make more aliens. So I can only conclude that they wanted an earth planet sized army of aliens to use as a weapon? However it would make planting a genetic seed on earth at the beginning of history a bit of a long term plan with regard to growing an army. If you can create stuff that grows an elephant sized octopus in a day, you could probably cut evolution out as a slower growth method.
I read a big write up by the LOST writer Damon Lindelof who spoke about why he suggested a lot of changes to the original script to try and separate it from the original films and not use face huggers again to make it fresh. I think ultimately it is a good film and on balance a nice step forward with some good visuals. I think it does suffer a bit from some poor actors and over zealous cutting of scenes but is otherwise great and I will certainly be watching again! The visuals are stunning and at times it was tense.
WARNING I spill the beans on the film here so don't read if you still want to watch it.
1/ What a rubbish old-man makeup suit. They should have used an old actor. I can only think that they had a scene planned where he started to get younger after eating some black genetic muck. So they thought use a young man in an old suit and then revert him to youth for one triumphant moment before his head explodes. My view - Fail on the old man suit because he looked constipated and rubbery.
2/ Alien humans not speaking clearly. I get the idea of keeping the mystery factor up but how about just one or two words before you squish the droid person.
3/ A bit of a cliche. Droid loses head. Just once it would be great if he lost an arm or something and did not end up decapitated again! But it is funny.
4/ Operating room. How did the squid grow from a small size to an elephant in the room. Perhaps there was a planned scene where it ate one or two people but clearly they decided it was not key to the plot, so it got bigger by just growing massively due to its magic genetics.
5/ Alien gestation - Looks like we have discovered that they go through two phases. Squid birth first, then stomach birth when they pop out as a traditional alien. However the genetic gunk can also make crazy super-strong zombies and snake creatures that can break an arm.
6/ Acting fail. The actor with the tattoos who launches the probes with the red lasers. He came over pretty poorly IMHO, especially that early dialogue where he says he is "There to make money". It was stilted and awkward in a bad acting kind of way and did not flow well. I found him and the buddy that got snake swallow to be both a bit poor - they deserved to die.
7/ Plot believability issues. On the surface of it I think these were the first aliens encountered by humans. Perhaps even the first planet visited? This was unclear but I did think that there appeared to be a total lack of protocol. The whole remove our helmets stuff which gave you a fear that something might infect them did not deliver much in the way of tension and was ultimately unimportant. There did not appear to be any fear of contamination and the plot allowed the other members to just wander off and get lost. I just found that odd? Fly to a distant planet, explore an alien base and just say "Cool" you can wander off. It was plausible that they would get scared but perhaps more believable if they got serious and stuck with the group and something else would split them up - perhaps they miss the last truck on the return rather than just the cocky scene exit which gave the tattoo scanner man another opportunity for stilted acting.
8/ First Contact clone? I was thrown back to First contact when watching it. The cancer ridden old man providing the funding and money for the alien adventure, with a desperate hope to live on. It felt a little derived and 100% predictable from his first entrance. This man wants to live forever speech. Actually there was a lot of predictable stuff, the droid man doing cold things to try and infect people. Perhaps if they included a "who done it" moment it could have added tension i.e. He finds out he is infected and a couple of people are potential suspects. I also think it touched a lot on the first release of the movie "The Thing", I think they could have started to step deep into Thing territory if the genetic stuff became a key infection plot.
9/ Technology problems - So the little ball sensor red laser things were Anti-Grav? There did not appear to be any anti-grav technology used on the ship or other kit. It was a handy plot device though and links back to the Aliens1 and Aliens2 films with scanners providing data and information.
10/ Elephant head. OK let me stick this needle in and his head will come alive, hopefully before it explodes? Clearly he was pre-infected with that genetic stuff but why would he re-life with some electrical stimulas? This felt a little fanciful to me and again the protocol of alien encounters seemed to fail and there was no one clearly in control so it felt a bit lost. I thought "What is going on here?" . They brought the head on with no regard for 30 years of sci-fi films where contamination issues were handled well and it would be quarantined before you start sticking needles in. I reckon we missed some scenes here, it was a bit of jumpy blur between a few scenes around that time.
11/ Very light and hard space ship. It looked like the alien space ship was very light and rolled well. I suppose they were trying to show that it was super-hard and the construction could withstand an epic fall and explosion. I did think "Laurel and Hardy" when they were running from it though as it came down and started to roll.
12/ I think the blonde might be in it again. See might have just got squashed a bit and might be a robot.
13/ Running around corridors. I wanted more from the scientist woman, who looked more and more like Sigourney Weaver, hot and sweaty in her pants after the operation. I wanted some more dialogue or some other actions. Instead she just runs around and finds herself back in that room with the old man. The action changed pace at this stage, slowing down again for prep to get back in and there were some good bits but it felt a bit lost and patchy.
14/ Monster that came back in his suit. This looks like another side effect of the genetics, you turn into a zombie killing monster that has some sort of awareness and ability to track down people. Perhaps his residual memory drew him back to the ship. I felt it was all unnecessary for the film and perhaps they could have filled that time with some suspense scenes or something to do with the squid getting bigger. If you knew it was in that escape ship it would have been some added suspense when she went back into the ship at the end.
15/ At the end the woman questions why they want to destroy us. Then an alien is born, perhaps suggesting that the gene pool payload delivered to earth would ultimately make more aliens. So I can only conclude that they wanted an earth planet sized army of aliens to use as a weapon? However it would make planting a genetic seed on earth at the beginning of history a bit of a long term plan with regard to growing an army. If you can create stuff that grows an elephant sized octopus in a day, you could probably cut evolution out as a slower growth method.
I read a big write up by the LOST writer Damon Lindelof who spoke about why he suggested a lot of changes to the original script to try and separate it from the original films and not use face huggers again to make it fresh. I think ultimately it is a good film and on balance a nice step forward with some good visuals. I think it does suffer a bit from some poor actors and over zealous cutting of scenes but is otherwise great and I will certainly be watching again! The visuals are stunning and at times it was tense.
