Official "Ridley Scott's Prometheus" Discussion Thread (Spoilers)

[Viking Spawn]

I have no problem with not liking it but I'd love to know how it doesn't make sense? Man plays god, man's creations become better then him, man's creations kill him, one figures out what really matters is simply living and love with the precious time he's been given. The idea is that a replicant gained more humanity then the people who gifted it life. It's about the meaning of life, basically it's the same as Prometheus. The engineer saw this man playing God who built David, and who wants to live forever and kills him and his creation to punish him for his arogance and greed. The Engineer is then punished in much the same way killed by what amounts to his own arrogant creations. It's poetic justice and a reoccuring theme with Ridely.

Awesome post!

 

[Khev]

I have no problem with not liking it but I'd love to know how it doesn't make sense? Man plays god, man's creations become better then him, man's creations kill him, one figures out what really matters is simply living and love with the precious time he's been given. The idea is that a replicant gained more humanity then the people who gifted it life. It's about the meaning of life, basically it's the same as Prometheus. The engineer saw this man playing God who built David, and who wants to live forever and kills him and his creation to punish him for his arogance and greed. The Engineer is then punished in much the same way killed by what amounts to his own arrogant creations. It's poetic justice and a reoccuring theme with Ridely.

Not to jump on the bandwagon but I agree, this is a great post.

So now many of the same people who are saying Prometheus won't be considered a classic are now saying Blade Runner sucks? I rest my case.

 

[Devil_666]

LOL! I think this thread is lost!

Oh the irony considering who wrote this flick.

How do you, Devil, know that Arnold and his team are military/special ops?

Have you ever seen Predator!?

They make it crystal clear. Dillion is CIA and Dutch and his team are Special Ops. Dutch even asks the General why they don't use the "regular" Army for the rescue. That whole entire opening scene spells it out for you. Every single piece of dialog is there so you know Dutch is a big bad ass soldier and Dillion USED TO BE like that but is now a company man, behind a desk.

You don't need to speculate or fill in the blanks. Everything is stated IN-FILM. That's the exact opposite of Prometheus and what you've had to do numerous times to explain stuff in it.

 

[a-dev]

Only thing I like about Blade Runner is the music and visuals.

That is all. Thank you.

 

[DiFabio]

Only thing I like about Blade Runner is the music and visuals.

That is all. Thank you.

Great taste.

 

[greygoose]

Man plays god, man's creations become better then him, man's creations kill him, one figures out what really matters is simply living and love with the precious time he's been given.

Something like this:

[ame]https://youtu.be/KHGHkGmOmD4[/ame]

 

[isculpt]

Oh the irony considering who wrote this flick.



Have you ever seen Predator!?

They make it crystal clear. Dillion is CIA and Dutch and his team are Special Ops. Dutch even asks the General why they don't use the "regular" Army for the rescue. That whole entire opening scene spells it out for you. Every single piece of dialog is there so you know Dutch is a big bad ass soldier and Dillion USED TO BE like that but is now a company man, behind a desk.

You don't need to speculate or fill in the blanks. Everything is stated IN-FILM. That's the exact opposite of Prometheus and what you've had to do numerous times to explain stuff in it.

Yeh I thought he was reaching for straws too.

 

[Devil_666]

Yeh I thought he was reaching for straws too.

You gotta admire his tenacity though. He's determined to keep using that horrible comparison.

 

[Kiva]

I have no problem with not liking it but I'd love to know how it doesn't make sense? Man plays god, man's creations become better then him, man's creations kill him, one figures out what really matters is simply living and love with the precious time he's been given. The idea is that a replicant gained more humanity then the people who gifted it life. It's about the meaning of life, basically it's the same as...

I wouldnt bring prometheus into the realms of Blade Runner. It has alot more ambiguity.

See, the "baddie" replicants in BR made the movie. The main character was so cookie cutter and incredibly dry and void of character that it kills the movie for me. The only thing he has is " is he a replicant ? " and thats the only thing the movie has to hang its hat on after its finished. I love the concept but when the main character is the most boring thing in the movie AND we do not know is he isnt he then id call it a minus

 

[Reinhardt]

Honestly, what made Blade Runner brilliant IMO was the attention to detail, atmosphere, acting and story, and the fact that the film takes its time. No ADHD inducing editing, action or explosions.

I am amazed that so many people think it sucks, but then again Transformers 2 made almost a billion dollars...

I saw Prometheus again the other day, and enjoyed it even more this time. I know part of it was because some scenes which really bothered me the first time (Milburn and the hammerpede in particular) didn't bug me as much now that I knew it was coming. What did bother me is I thought they got to the planet way too quickly. I hope the blu-ray adds more content early in the film.

 

[DiFabio]

I am amazed that so many people think it sucks, but then again Transformers 2 made almost a billion dollars...

Transformers 2 sucks too. They're like polar opposites on the same scale of suckage.

 

[Frank]

Everytime I try to leave, they pull me back in!

I love Ridley (obviously) but this is definately one of his weaker films. I enjoyed it quite a bit but even Robin Hood is a far better, tighter movie.
I also see the questions here alot differantly then those created by Alien and the Space Jockey and I think the Blade Runner comparison is pretty insane. No way 30 years from now this will be in the running for best Sci-Fi ever.

The idea is that a replicant gained more humanity then the people who gifted it life. It's about the meaning of life, basically it's the same as Prometheus.

Not so much about life but sentience and the value thereof imo. It's not possible to simply take the idea behind the replicants and impute it to the humans (or androids) in the Alien series. We know way more about David than we do about our supposed "creators", which illustrates my earlier point that he is a complete distraction from what is supposed to be the main question in the movie: Who are our creators and why did they create us? Not "why did we create androids" or "do androids dream of electric sheep?" or "do old men want to live longer?" or "can white chicks get laid in space?" I didn't want to see a repackaged "I, Robot" or a hybrid "I, Replicant & The Blob".

The engineer saw this man playing God who built David, and who wants to live forever and kills him and his creation to punish him for his arogance and greed. The Engineer is then punished in much the same way killed by what amounts to his own arrogant creations. It's poetic justice and a reoccuring theme with Ridely.

Stop doing the writer's work for them!

That's just you making up your own version of how the story could have been. We don't know one thing about what these Engineers really care about. Not one thing. We don't know how they think humans are supposed to act.

Why would he give a ____ about androids?

Are we told/hinted/shown why the Engineer race should have pet peeves about robots or about humans playing "engineer" (since they're the real "gods" in this movie). Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

We can all copy and paste our favorite von Daniken theories onto this mess, but it won't make the movie stand on its own. The dude was just a big angry mute. He communicated nothing and acted without letting anyone in on his decision making. In other words, he was reduced to just another monster. We don't even know how they made the goop, we don't know why they felt the need to dissolve themselves to terraform other planets (over millions of years!). We don't know why they left (presuming they chilled with our ancestors) and we don't know why they got pissed at us. We don't even know if they made the goop. That's kind of important for such a sprawling subject!

But that's not different. That example is just far more obvious than the engineer/black ooze deal.
How do you, Devil, know that Arnold and his team are military/special ops?
...because based on what you've seen throughout the film, you're led to believe so. They arrive to a seemingly secretive base in the jungle by hellicopter. He's briefed on a mission by General Phillips. General Phillips calls Dutch "Major". Arnold's "My team always works alone" line...
You're ASSUMING. Based on what YOU'VE SEEN. Based on the HINTS YOU'RE GIVEN. That Arnold and co. are a military/spec-ops team.

Devil summed it up pretty well here, but I also have to ask if we saw the same film!

Predator had scenes that actually explained why he was attacking the humans. Prometheus didn't let us in on precisely why Groggy Jockey didn't appreciate the meet-and-greet. Pretending you're smarter than everyone else because you can see a 6 foot rabbit when noone else can (Donnie Darko doesn't count!) won't change that.

How is it important to the story to know what branch of the military Arnie's tropps were from? They go further than say it, they demonstrate it! You don't assume anything because you don't need to, these guys set up the action scenes with convincing military weaponry and tactics. The predator alien was the big mystery in that film, not the soldiers. At least they didn't act like complete morons!

..just like in Prometheus.
Forget all of the other "plot holes" right now and focus on this one.
You're assuming based on what you've seen, that the engineer isn't going to be entirely friendly to them when they wake up. Or maybe he will. You don't know for sure yet, but you've been given some pretty obvious, in-your-face reasons as to why he won't be friendly with them.
What have you learned? They were supposed to go to Earth two-thousand years ago. The ship they were taking is filled with thousands of ampules containing a deadly bioweapon. And here is the big one. RIGHT BEFORE they awake the last surviving engineer, when Elizabeth asks David why they were going to Earth (or somthing like that), he simply replies... "To create, one must first destroy" or somthing along those lines.

How is this a plot hole? It's a bit more vague than the Predator situation. But that's it. It's the same deal, the same thing..it's just a tad more vague. You have to think more, pay more attention to it...but the answer is there.
You are given reasons to believe the engineer is not going to be so friendly. Just like you're given reasons that Arnold and co. are a spec-ops team.

WHY ELSE would David say "To create, one must first destroy". He's OBVIOUSLY implying that the engineers were going to destroy us, right? Why else would he say that?

Because he, the android, wanted to?

I think most of us assumed that Prometheus wasn't going to be an alien buddy film. Okay, so the last of the Engineer Mohicans is a murderous jitbag... would it kill you to show us his motivation? It's not like he's just some alien we don't know anything about! I also expected them to possess some crazy technology and we got some grainy holograms and a flute.

"But what about the goop?" you say. Well then, where in the movie does it show that the sacrificial goop consumed by the first Engineer we saw in the movie is any different from the goop these dummies got ahold of? We know the bodies of the dead Engineers were approximately 2,000 years old, but how do we know that the live Engineer in the spaceship was even from the same crew? There's plenty of room for an interesting story here! Time and time again we're given these trailing threads of information which aren't allowed to develop.

Example:

If these guys were the last of their species, wouldn't the bigger story be what happened to them? Was there an ancient Engineer Jimmy Jones who had all his worshippers drink the kool-aid flavored goop? If they weren't the very last of their species, wouldn't there be more of them to carry out the Earth mission? Or was it a rogue offshoot?

But no, we really needed to see that scene with David bleaching his hair and riding a segway.

Speaking of David and segues...

Tell me where he touched you Lar'ja!

 

[ExMem-LarjaThwei]

Shaw questions David about where the engineers were heading, or about why Earth was the destination (can't remember the exact question)..and he answers with "To create, one must first destroy". Or somthing like that.

I thought, based on that and Janek's theory, that it was obvious that the engineers had changed their minds. Which Shaw even questions the engineer about. That they were going to wipe us out two thousand years ago, but they ran into some problems while preparing to take off and the last surviving engineer got in the cryotube thing for safety.

...and based on that, I could understand the engineer wanting to toss us aside and complete his mission. Notice he doesn't care enough to go after Shaw when she gets a head start.

I apologize, I thought it was obvious that he wasn't going to be friendly with them.

I understand now just how many senseless plot holes were in the film, and I suppose I subconsciously hid them from view because I wanted the movie to be perfect.

 

[Khev]

Prometheus is like Blade Runner if BR had been originally released without Ford's commentary throughout. He "did a lot of the writers' work" by filling in details throughout the story. Then years later when the commentary was removed we realized it was just as cool/cooler to come to our own conclusions on certain characters' motivations and how things would play out. It's not a bad thing.

 

[Devil_666]

Just because a movie has plot holes, plot inconsistencies, errors, etc. doesn't mean you can't enjoy it and still like/love it. God knows I like me some crappy movies sometimes.

 

[gotham_collector87]

Finally go a chance to see this today and I have to say I really enjoyed it.

 

[CelticPredator]

Just because a movie has plot holes, plot inconsistencies, errors, etc. doesn't mean you can't enjoy it and still like/love it. God knows I like me some crappy movies sometimes.

And everyone knows I do.

 

[fosing]

i wondered how come none of the engineers bothered to check up on their mission progress. 2 thousand years of delayed wait. i mean, nobody bothered to check up on earth? or that moon base? for that long.lolz

 

[CelticPredator]

Dude was asleepy. He was a lazy ____.

 

[fosing]

Dude was asleepy. He was a lazy ____.

i mean his superiors. the one overlooking that project maybe from their home planet. or maybe this was a secret mission in a secret moon kinda deal. lolz