Prometheus (spoilers!)

[Zapranoth]

Hmm, I'm still mulling over what I thought of it.

It's definitely not a direct Alien prequel.  It sets up for a sequel that could become a direct prequel.. but the bio-weapons in this movie were clearly meant to diverge from the facehugger/chestburster cliches that have been set up.

It sorta worked for me, but as one reviewer put it, "there is less here than there seems to be," that sums up how I felt about this movie on the whole.  I feel as though if there were another hour of character development in there, the movie may have gone very much better.   The characters are pretty 2-D.  David is interesting but his character acts for mysterious reasons and you don't get a whole treatment of what is really going on with him.

Liked the captain in general.

Theron's character, bleh, rather a desultory effort.

Suspension of disbelief required was at times excessive.  I realize that with any invasive/body horror type movie that you have to have the characters impulsively discard rules about contamination and such, but still... could have been done better.  The two cannon fodder scientists cozying up to the little snake alien.. c'mawn.      Ridley Scott is better than this.

Visually *spectacular*-looking, makes me think about how far CG has come (that it is becoming less and less noticeable).   The 3d was also well done, not intrusive and just added depth.

Wanna find out what the whole agenda was for the Engineers.

I am not sure what on earth that large facehugger type thing at the end (that finished off the escaped pilot) really needed with creating any kind of chestburster.  It was big, nasty and plenty strong enough to kill off most anything else it encountered.  The alien it created didn't seem like a better piece of weaponry.  Who knows.

The surgery scene made me smile. 

I wasn't surprised that the old man was on the ship.

I would have liked to see a translation of what David *really* did say to the Engineer, before it ripped his head off.

If they make a sequel, I'll watch it, with guarded hopes.

[The Gravekeeper]

I just saw it today, and I gotta say...the surgery scene made me feel a little queasy. But then again, I actually have one of those, and the thought of something cutting into it is just...blegh.

[dean]

I'm in two minds.  I have to say overall I was disappointed, maybe it was the hype.  Its funny, I was engaged the whole time, was never bored and the movie generally hit the right spots but there were a few gaps where it felt like the film had been trimmed a bit too much in the editing room.

Some examples of moments which were a bit off:

The Engineer ripping Davids head off and generally causing chaos: did anyone feel like that scene didn't seem right?  Its like they just forgot to make it an important moment, even though it was a critical scene.  It felt like a wasted opportunity.

Noomi Rapace walking into a room covered in blood and nobody bats an eyelid.  I can justify it in my mind, but still.  You'd think people would be more concerned with the alien octopus born in the ship than leaving to go see a dude who isn't going anywhere.

Generally it left me wanting overall.  Wanting something more.  Wanting a better explanation, and the Alien part seemed a little shoe-horned and could perhaps have been much better without the overt Alien link.

So yes, still enjoyed the hell out of it, but I'll have to stew on it a bit as the jigsaw just felt incomplete overall.

[Kaseykockroach]

People, don't buy a ticket. You'll only be encouraging Hollywood to churn out more sloppily conceived, stylishly empty crap.

[skuts]

Congratulations, it's a squid.

From that point on, the movie was over for me.

[akiratubo]

This movie sucked ass.  It was pretty to look at and that's just about it for the "good" column.

Everyone in this movie was an idiot.  Hey, look, a four foot long snake thingie that is acting extremely aggressively toward me.  I should pet it!  There's a guy infected with some alien disease that I don't want getting back on the ship.  I should open the door to the ship and then tell him not to come in.  I have successfully impregnated one of the crew members with an alien monster, which was my intention.  I will sedate her and put her in cryo-stasis so I can take her home and study the parasite.  Just kidding!  I'll inject her with a mild sedative and leave her unattended for what seems to be several hours before telling someone else to maybe put her in cryo, if they feel like it.  Furthermore, I will make no attempt to stop her from aborting the monster with the medical pod she shouldn't even have access to.  And THEN I'll just leave the monster laying around instead of trying to preserve it, or anything.  I have just been awakened from cryo-stasis by members of a species that I was tasked with eradicating.  I won't question how they seem to be thousands of years more advanced than I think they should be, or where all my crewmates went, or why it seems like a few thousand years have passed, or attempt in any way to contact anyone of higher authority, I'll just blithely go about completing my mission like nothing at all is amiss.  A crashed ship is very, very slowly falling towards me.  Instead of running a few feet to either side, I'll keep running strai--SQUISH.  The evil robot that has been trying to kill me for the entire movie offers to help me get off the planet.  I'll trust him!  (Actually, I'll let that go.  What other choice did she have?)

Then there's the stupidity of the filmmakers.  Why play coy?  Just give us eggs, crawlers, chest-bursters, and adult xenomorphs.  The half-assed attempts at making "different" versions of what we all really came to see were pointless.  (I think we were supposed to understand that the thing at the end was an immature Queen, who would go on to lay all the eggs the Nostromo crew found.)  About 1/3 to 1/2 the movie is a ripoff of the first AVP (only without As or Ps).  What?  Was Ridley Scott miffed that he didn't get to direct that one, so he decided to completely rip it off here?  The whole part with the indestructible zombie guy was STUPID.  That part ruined the entire movie.  Hell, that part brutally murdered the movie and jumped up and down on the corpse.  The whole thing with the impregnation felt like a ripoff of motherf**king INSEMINOID, of all things, with a dose of Creepozoids thrown in.  If you're ripping off Inseminoid and Creepozoids, you're not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, you've broken straight through the bottom and are digging into the pile of fermenting s**t the barrel was sitting on.  Oh, incidentally, why would the medical pod especially reserved for Vickers have been set up only for male patients?

Bad, bad, bad, boring, pointless, worthless movie.  This is another kick I'm going to give Ridley Scott in the nuts if I ever meet him.  (Another, much more violent one, is reserved for Black Rain.)

I felt bad for Noomi Rapace.  She was trying so hard, all for the sake of this worthless movie.

[Venomx73]

Not bad... but I was kinda hoping for more at the end.

[Jim H]

It's definitely not a direct Alien prequel.

More SPOILERS!!!



Yeah, that's true, but it definitely appears to be in the Alienverse and has the Space Jockey's race in it and shows the origins of what will be the xenomorphs.  I mean, it has Weyland in it.  It's certainly a prequel, just doesn't quite show us a ship crashing on LV426.  I don't get all the dancing around over this.

That said, the movie was a mixed bag.  Some scenes just feel kind of there and pushed out (the tone of the birth scene and the abruptness that goes into it made me think at first it was a dream sequence).  But the visuals are gorgeous.

Also, I'm not sure how many noticed this, but a HUGE amount of the sets and backgrounds were practical and they looked great.  That was refreshing, to see a big scale sci-fi movie with so many real sets and so much great production design.  But outside of the visuals...  Yeah. 

A lot of really stupid characters.  Also, the scene that's a sort of zombie attack seemed tacked on.  If you think about it, that scene could have been completely deleted without changing a thing.

I also quite liked David.  Interesting character very well-played.  Probably my favorite part of the film.

I dunno.  A weak 7/10 from me.

[LilCerberus]

Parts sound kind of like Survivor
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0187534/

Any Gratuitous t&a?

[Venomx73]

Well... You DO get to see how to how to cut an alien out of your own body!

If... that is... IF you have a trillion dollar med vac on board lol.

[Hammock Rider]

Well... You DO get to see how to how to cut an alien out of your own body!

If... that is... IF you have a trillion dollar med vac on board lol.

  Most of the movie was hit or miss but that Med Pod scene was pretty intense.

[dean]

Fassbender was awesome as always, and Rapace is a pretty good actress too.

Thinking about it, I really liked the way David was played out with his character arc.  By far the most interesting person on board.

[The Gravekeeper]

Oh, incidentally, why would the medical pod especially reserved for Vickers have been set up only for male patients?

Actually...I think she was a transvestite. Kind of makes the whole "the closest thing I have to a son is a soulless robot" line have a bit more weight. In my mind, it makes her character make more sense...Dad didn't love his transgender kid, so said kid worked their entire lives for his approval, even going so far as to go with him on what could very well have been an intergalatic wild goose chase to save his life, only to be told that he loves the android more.

[akiratubo]

Actually...I think she was a transvestite. Kind of makes the whole "the closest thing I have to a son is a soulless robot" line have a bit more weight. In my mind, it makes her character make more sense...Dad didn't love his transgender kid, so said kid worked their entire lives for his approval, even going so far as to go with him on what could very well have been an intergalatic wild goose chase to save his life, only to be told that he loves the android more.

Hmm.  You may have a point.  Perhaps the four-hour director's cut that I'm sure Scott will put out once Prometheus hits video will clarify things.

[Hammock Rider]

Actually...I think she was a transvestite. Kind of makes the whole "the closest thing I have to a son is a soulless robot" line have a bit more weight. In my mind, it makes her character make more sense...Dad didn't love his transgender kid, so said kid worked their entire lives for his approval, even going so far as to go with him on what could very well have been an intergalatic wild goose chase to save his life, only to be told that he loves the android more.

Hmm.  You may have a point.  Perhaps the four-hour director's cut that I'm sure Scott will put out once Prometheus hits video will clarify things.

  I'm thinking the Med Pod and the entire life boat was really there for Old Man Weyland. Alhough the fact that it couldn't handle both men and women seemed pretty lame. Was that suppossed to be a clue? if so we already knew Weyland was onboard so we didn't really need a clue. Plus, a state of the art Med pod can't service both men and women? i call sloppy writing on that.