39 thoughts on “Prometheus”

  1. I saw it last night and found it very enjoyable. I’d never seen a 3d movie before, and I’m told many 3d movies are crap, but this one wasn’t. It’s not really horror, though if you didn’t like Alien much, you might not be thrilled by this one either.

  2. The wsj says “Stunning Space, Careless Craft”; not exactly spectacular.

    Ridley Scott has been quoted as saying that fans of “Alien” will recognize strands of its DNA in “Prometheus.” They’re impossible to miss, both in the brilliant visuals and in some aspects of the plot. Yet his new film suffers from crucial chromosome breaks.

    As for Aliens, it was considerably different than the first one; more guns and more great lines (“I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure”, etc.) I’d recommend it for a rainy day when you didn’t feel like reading.

  3. I saw Alien with a girlfriend when it came out. She spent the whole movie buried in my armpit.

    They have no original ideas. They’re just trying to soak more money out of us.

  4. Given all that, I don’t blame you.

    (On the other hand, if you like action more than horror, Aliens is great.

    And this looks actually pretty good, for those who liked Alien.)

  5. Saw Prometheus Thursday night with my wife and a young friend who took us to the movies. First 3D movie we’ve seen and that and the special effects were great. I remember being very disappointed by the first Alien movie (see Leslie Fish’s “what shall we do with a hungry alien?” sung to the tune of “what shall we do with a drunken sailor?”)
    The plot of Prometheus had some serious discontinuities and I’m sick of the evil corporations and the people who run them, trope. Plus why do the people in the movie act so fucking stupid? A “scientific”expedition of a strange alien planet with artifacts run like a combat assault but without weapons? No clear chain of command on the ship or the expedition, which allegedly cost one trillion dollars(or credits , I forget which). Gratuitous scary monsters, each more vile and obscene than the last, which don’t add to the plot.
    A remake of all the bad 1950s “b”, scary monster, sci-fi movies done at vast expense with great production values.

  6. I really enjoyed it. Saw it on IMAX 3D. The 3D was very effective, the FX in general were well done (loved the design of the Prometheus deep spaceship), and I enjoyed the character development. It’s begging for a sequel.

  7. Rand, the second one was a balls to the wall action movie. It is a classic and worth you watching.

  8. I’m still inclined to see it, even though it looked very ‘Alien’like in the trailers and commercials.

    I’m a big Alien fan from early on. It seemed like a 50’s bug eyed alien flick on steroids so I saw it. Prometheus seems like an Alien movie on steroids in 3D.

    I can’t wait for the Prometheus on steroids in another 30 years!

  9. I didn’t care much for Alien either. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it all the way through in one continuous viewing. But Aliens was so friggin’ COOOOOLLLL!!! Seriously, when I got it on VHS I think I actually counted that I had watched it over 50 times. My favorite parts were worn out like any porno endearing classic should be. I can still annoyingly rehearse lines when I watch it.

    The 3rd movie was alright I guess. Too much trying to be like the first movie with a little of the 2nd. And the scene where Ripley resurrects Bishop from the trash heap s just dumb. I hate sequeals that just want to repeat all the same crap from the previous movie. Repeat the cast and premise, but stay away from recycling plot devices the way that George did with the craptastic prequels.

    The 4th movie was utter crap. It’s if Alien were trying to be told as a slapstick comedy. An alien bites the back of a guys head off and he just stands there, reaches around, and pulls out a piece of his own brain and just stares at it like, “Oh, whoa, is this my brain? Oh crap!” And the big bad alien dies by being blown out into space through a tiny hole in a window portal. So, he like liquifies and squirts out all his internal organs and bones out through this little hole. Because you see, like space ships are pressurized to 40,000 PSI and they have gigatons of air to blow out into space. So, when you spring a leak everything flies about like your in a category 5 hurricane and it turns anything that gets caught into hamburger. And space sci-fi movie writers always have to have a scene were someone gets blown out into space, “Oh No! Hull Breech! Whaaaaa!”

    1. The “alien/human-hybrid-sucked-through-the-pinhole” scene was a metaphor for women who obtain abortions for the sake of career. Ripley cries “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry!” as her alien spawn is vacuumed away.

      1. LoL, that’s funny. Though I wouldn’t recommend the alien/human hybrid for an anti-abortion poster.

  11. Alien was, ahem, lightyears ahead of Aliens in terms of artistry.

    I mean, H.R. Giger. How can you go wrong?

  12. Rand, the comments about the second movie – Aliens – are spot-on. The corporate issues are more incompetence, ignorance and one bad apple rather than inherently evil. And, I still catch myself ranting occasionally about “a day in the Corps is like a day on the farm – every meal a banquet, every paycheck a fortune, every formation a parade – I LOVE the Corps!”

    BTW, if the President is reading this … it’s pronounced, “CORE”.

  13. Saw Alien with a carload of friends from high school. Laughed all the way through … The sequel was okay, the other two sucked. AVP was another B movie.

  14. AS a fan of B movies, will someone PUH-lese explain to me using that term as something bad.

    B movies weren’t bad movies, they were made for less money, with less accomplished stars, often stars on their way up (ever seen any Singin’ Sandy shorts starring Duke Wayne?) and often were written by A movie writers to keep them busy on the payroll, instead of them sitting idle.

    And for those of you who are Entertainment History deprived, one thing and one thing only killed the B movies, TV.

    Instead of making B Movies, the studios started TV Branches and moved many new stars, older stars and many other folks to creating TV shows. And I’m not talking Cheers or Ally McBeal or modern TV crap.

    I’m talking all the classic TV of the 1950s. Many many, many of the people involved were people fresh off of making B movies. And while there was bad TV then too, much of it was great.

    Not as good as an A movie of the day perhaps, but better than many A movies made today.

    1. B movies weren’t bad movies, they were made for less money, with less accomplished stars, often stars on their way up (ever seen any Singin’ Sandy shorts starring Duke Wayne?)

      A couple quibbles.

      First, B movies were not shorts. They were full-length movies that played as the send half of a double feature. A movie ticket bought a full evening’s entertainment in those days — two features, which were always preceded by several shorts including a cartoon, a newsreel, a documentary, and a travelogue.

      Second, Wayne wasn’t considered to be “on his way up” at that point. Quite the opposite. He had already starred in The Big Trail, one of the largest A features of the time, which used a widescreen process a decade before widescreen films became common. The Big Trail did about as well as John Carter, and no one except the low-budget B’s would touch the Duke for a long time after that.

      That’s one of the stories people ought to keep in mind when they have career setbacks.

  15. It wasnt particularly scary or suspenseful, and it did have a science fiction plot behind it. The only two irritating things about it is that all the characters have lights inside the helmet.. it must blind the users.. plus the first thing the main character does is take his helmet off because the air tested breathable inside the alien ship.

    Successful corporations are evil, I’m not sure why everyone is so surprised about that.

  17. 12 angry men was a movie considered too low budget for theatrical release.

    Aliens, the first sequel didn’t have nearly as much of that cold and ever dangling suspense of Alien.

    Alien3 and Resurection kinda sucked, but tolerable, AVP was trash, HOWEVER! The source material, the comic was actually pretty dang good, but the movie seemed more influenced by the lousy game.

    And one of the best things about the second one, Aliens, was the fact it was a military operation, and, though it was cartoony, It wasn’t THAT far off.

    Paxton made that movie hiliarious AND intense.

    1. It wasn’t THAT far off.

      Indeed. Cameron, the enviro-pacifist he is, must have had some well-qualified military script advisers. During one of the fire-fights, when the lieutenant is trying to radio-communicate with his senior NCO, the NCO can’t hear him clearly and asks for a repeat: “Say again, all after [xxx]”. Exactly how it would occur in reality.

  18. Alien was a great date movie – the girl really wanted to hold the big strong man close, close, close. Disagree that it’s a horror movie – it’s a suspense movie. Yes, there’s some blood and guts (literally guts), but it also is extremely effective at getting your heart pounding with no visible gore at all – e.g., the sequence where the monster is chasing Dallas (won’t give away details in case there’s somebody who wants to see it). Great claustrophobic atmosphere. And the original art design by H.R. Giger is masterful. I don’t get why some people don’t like it, but then again, they probably don’t get why I do.

    Now, Aliens is another kettle of fish. As others have said, it’s a slam-bang action movie, maybe even James Cameron’s best movie (although I’d probably have to go with one of the two Terminator movies if I had to pick one). One very cool thing is that, just as the original Terminator drew serious inspiration from Harlan Ellison’s oeuvre, Aliens draws heavily from Heinlein – specifically Starship Troopers. “Is this another Bug hunt?”, the powered exoskeletons, the whole attitude is drawn from that novel, and much more faithfully and effectively than the pile of steaming crap that Paul Verhoeven’s version was. (that’s a subject for another rant…) You should certainly give Aliens a try, even if you don’t like Alien.

  19. Hey guys I’m not knocking B movies in general. I did say bad B movies. I enjoyed B movies as a kid on Saturday afternoon at a local movie theatre.
    I agree about 1950s TV series. Maverick and Have Gun Will travel come to mind as excellent.
    The spacesuits in Prometheus were excellent. Looked like skinsuits. There were also hardsuits in the suit room. Pity about the plot. Now if they got somebody like Greg Benford to write the story or took an old Poul Anderson story they might get somewhere.

  20. Another great line from Aliens, one of the best put-downs in fiction IMHO:

    Random (male) Marine: “Hey, Vasquez, anyone ever mistake you for a man?”

    Josie Vasquez: “Anyone ever mistake you for one?”

  21. Alien is worth watching if only for the expression on Yaphet Kotto’s face when John Hurt has a really bad case of indigestion. They didn’t tell Yaphet what was about to happen, that’s pure fear right there. It sure didn’t hurt Ian Holm’s career either – somehow he managed to look older in Alien than he did in LOTR 25 years later.

  22. This analysis of Prometheus is very different from newspaper reviews of the movie – it casts the story in a completely different and much more interesting light: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/board/thread/200177706
    The article reveals everything, so it is only for people who have already seen the movie, or who have no intention of seeing it. The newspaper reviews make the movie sound like the SF plot doesn’t make any sense, whereas the article at the link makes it sound like something Rod Sterling would have written.

      1. Doesn’t make any sense. If it’s all about dying and sacrifice, then Jesus dying should be good — Mission Accomplished! You’d think the Engineers would be happy he did his job per the standard mythos. Also, why does the karmic black oil create a horrible toothy-vagina-monster killing-machine in the heroine? Shouldn’t it be another space Jesus?

        While we’re at it — isn’t it time that hypocritical mythos died to make way for new ones?

    2. Hrm… That review indicates that I should watch it a second time for the Christian sci-fi meanings, like a robot delivering the alien baby via C-section on Christmas day.

      I watched it the first time just because it starred Charlize Theron. I even watched “Young Adult” because she was in it (a surprisingly enjoyable movie), and of course having her cell phone hacked by Funny or Die was genius.

  23. One problem with the original Alien movie was the fact that they tried to hunt it when it was a known danger. All the geeks at the movie were saying, “let it eat vacuum.” So they try everything else first.

  24. Rand, you may not like the movie but you might enjoy a early trailer.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb7gspHxZiI

    “TED Viral Clip starring Guy Pearce as tech industry tycoon Peter Weyland giving a TED Talk in the year 2023. “The fire that dance to the end of that match was gift from Titan Prometheus, a gift that he stole from the gods””

    1. And Cameron didn’t see fit to acknowledge Heinlein in the credits for Aliens, when he did give a shout-out to Harlan Ellison in the Terminator credit roll. Maybe Cameron’s inherent assholishness was starting to become ascendent…

      1. Heinlein didn’t take Cameron to court. Ellison did, hence the credit.

        (Ellison argued that Terminator was a rip-off of his short story Soldier.)

  26. Now having seen Prometheus, I can say you need only be familiar with the first, just possibly the second movie in the Alien franchise, to follow what’s happening. No further ‘alienation’ required…

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