So someone found a little slip up:

Oops. =P

And people thought it wasn't retro enough.

Now it seems spoilers are all the rage I feel safe in being a bit more specific about what I was hinting at earlier.

Reading this here blog review : 

http://alienseries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/prometheus-review.html 

It looks like Fifield's return played out differently. 

The blog writer notices that some shots in the trailers that don't appear in the final film suggest that Shaw runs over the mutant Fifield however in the film she is too busy with her pregnancy to even be there. 

Notice how Vickers is so steely keen to keep any infected crew from getting onboard the ship earlier and then later nobody does a spot check before opening the door for Fifield doing the old crab yoga routine? 

What if those two scenes were joined. 

The Fifield mutant could have hitched a ride on the roof of the bus, killed crew members before getting torched after Shaw runs over his head and then seeing Milburn similarly effected Vickers puts him out of his misery. 

Not only would it have made the crew seem more cautious about contaminating the ship but it would also have made Vickers seem less of a pantomime villain and more sensible. 

It would have made one possibly more exciting action sequence (with a tragic pay off) instead of two truncated scenes.

Sound plausible? 

Are there other instances you noticed where scenes might have been shuffled to death?

Tobar said:

So someone found a little slip up:

Oops. =P

Wow, I can't believe nobody noticed that.

I saw this today and was satisfied. Not the best sci-fi movie, but a good one. Flawed, most likely due to the script, but entertaining nonetheless.

Some people started leaving when the film faded out as Shaw was heading off the planet and leaving her message. As the final scene began, they were still walking out. I kept thinking, "Don't people want to see the whole movie?" Apparently not. These same people probably later complained that Prometheus didn't have the Xenomorphs (even if it's just at the very end).

Johnny Ringo said:

see you auntie said:

 

I had the same thoughts before I knew this, my not cast someone like Max Von Sydow, Christopher Plummer or Peter O'Toole... oh wait not him he's already in the movie, that would be weird.

why not Lance Henriksen? ;)

Why not Zoidberg?

georgec said:

I saw this today and was satisfied. Not the best sci-fi movie, but a good one. Flawed, most likely due to the script, but entertaining nonetheless.

Some people started leaving when the film faded out as Shaw was heading off the planet and leaving her message. As the final scene began, they were still walking out. I kept thinking, "Don't people want to see the whole movie?" Apparently not. These same people probably later complained that Prometheus didn't have the Xenomorphs (even if it's just at the very end).

 

There is apparently a pirated version doing the rounds where the pirate did the same leading to loads of comments from Americans before it was out there to that effect of "Why did the octopus stop eating the borg guy?"

Using the same sets and actors and much of the same set pieces here are my thoughts on how it could have gone.

The opening was beautiful, the scene on the Isle Of Skye was not needed but it didn't break the mood (it could have cut straight to Prometheus and lost nothing). The whole sequence with David awake while the crew sleeps is perfect. 

I would have David launch probes to learn as much about the planet and the building as possible before waking anyone.

The moment Guy-Guy Pearce turns up in his Hologram breaks the film. 
The make up is unconvincing and the sequence only exists to show us what Weyland looks like so we recognise him later, it could have been done with corporate artwork (paintings in the mess hall and Vickers quarters etc). 

The briefing exists only for us. 

The science team should already know what they are doing, the audience should have been teased into figuring it out with very little exposition. 
The scientists should have been cautious and the suits including David should be the ones getting in the way of their sensible caution (not the other way around). 

It would have made more sense if Fifield and Milburn are dismissed for being too cautious (perhaps there should be questions asked as to why they were included in the crew when David seems to be better capable of doing their jobs) and become lost because the building reconfigures itself to trap them. 

The attack on both men should be partially represented only by sound (they are being closely monitored back on the ship but the crew are powerless to help them because of the storm). 

This would build tension and make the few flashes of what we do see seem more horrific. 
The creature that attacks Milburn should implant something in his body which escapes to return later in the film (this could be our Xeno-variant instead of the thing inside Shaw). 

David infects Holloway but the worm eye shot should happen unnoticed by either party towards the end of their sex scene (this would turn a tender moment into a horrific moment).

The team investigates what happened to the two men when storm ends they find Milburn's corpse but not Fifield. 
They have to return quickly because of Holloway's infection. 
Fifield, horribly mutated by the black goo and has climbed onto the top of the bus and kills a number crew members. 
Shaw runs over his head but he is ultimately destroyed by Vickers who noticing Holloway kills him too. 

David finds the alien ship but all the Engineers are dead. 
It's not a weapons lab but a biological research centre but something they were working on killed them all. 
He finds however that their technology is fully functional and an Engineer's suit can be adapted to fit Weyland. 
He is inserted into the suit and it rejuvenates him, but then begins to alter him.

It's always been a bugbear of mine that evil schemes are always thwarted instead of reaching fruition only for the schemer to find it's not the best thing in the world. 

Take for example Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs. 

He almost makes his woman suit but is thwarted near the end of his twisted scheme. 

It would have been much more interesting if he got the whole suit only to find he didn't emerge as a transformed being but ended up as man in drag wearing bits of dead women. 

Were does such a twisted mind go when it's anticipated power backfires? 

If Weyland got the power of a God he would still have the vanity and intellectual frailty of a twisted old man. 

That's why I'd have given him his moment of glory only to have the appendix of his vile form of humanity be his undoing. He gains telepathic powers absorb the empty unknowable mysteries of the cosmos and goes utterly insane (the engineers have no concept of a personal ego so they can wield the powers their technology gives them without danger to themselves). Weyland starts to twist the minds of the people in the room Lovercraft style.

David being a machine is beyond his mental control so Weyland decapitates him.

Shaw uses the confusion to escape his influence.

We would still see the 'ghosts' of the real engineers (and boy would I keep that flute, love the flute) but their motives and demeanor would remain mysterious because the ones that were there were as dead as the one in "Alien".

His egomania prompts him to wish to return to Earth and assume his role as God but as he straps himself into the controls of the ship the creature that emerged from Milburn crawls into the suit and infects him. 

After the crash he begins to mutate like Fifield coming to resemble a giant form of the traditional xenomorph. 

The transformed Weyland attacks the survivors but is defeated by the creature removed from Shaw both creatures are killed. 

David and Shaw take a ship to discover what is left of the Engineers. 
The idea of the space jockey's ship originating from the same place makes perfect sense so a passing reference to a missing ship would be welcome. 

Oh and someone should have words with the sound editor and get him to switch the music off now and then it was more distracting than mood building.

Saw it yesterday. Me and my little group really liked it. Can't stop thinking and talking about it. Will see this again very soon. Bring on Part 2!

A few inconsistencies stick out in comparing Prometheus to Alien. They are supposed to exist in the same universe, so it's a fair comparison.

For example, why does the Xenomorph at the end emerge from the Engineer's body as a human-sized being, when we've previously seen chestbursters to hatch much smaller than that?

It's not so much about things being "unanswered" as it is them simply making one wonder why create these inconsistencies. They don't ruin the film at all for me, but they drag it down a bit.

Lindelof's fingerprints are all over this. I'm curious as to how he continues to receive high profile work. It's mostly due to his relationship with JJ Abrams. But the guy simply isn't a very good writer.

Another question - how exactly did all the Engineers die? We're led to believe that their "weapon" turned against them. That's presumably why we saw the holographic recordings of the Engineers running from something. But if we assume it was either hugely tentacled creatures or Xenomorphs, what happened to those beings?

Maybe I missed something there, but it's disappointing that the more I think about the movie the more I question. LOL, Lindelof.

The creature was probably the equivalent to a chestburster implying that the fully formed thing would be about 14ft tall.

Saw it today. I wanted to like it. I really did. But I just didn't. I liked the beginning, pretty much everything until the first penis alien opened up to reveal its vagina mouth. Unfortunately it never recovered. From alien c-sections which barely phases the mother who doesn't tell anyone about it, to "shocking" reveals that I could have called from the first 10 minutes. Vagueness abounds, and even after reading theories (especially this one that pretty much says the Xenomorphs were made because we killed Jesus) I'm still not sure what the movie was trying to say. It certainly took a long time going nowhere.

And that was not a Xenomorph at the end, not phallic enough.*

I saw that blogger's theory on reddit. He is way overthinking the movie, just like people did with Lost.

Big ideas, muddled script. What annoys me is that in interviews Damon Lindelof talks about preferring ambiguity vs spoonfeeding answers, but that only works if the script is done in such a way that multiple interpretations can be justified.

Look at Inception. You can conclude the ending is a dream, the ending is real, parts of the movie are real or not, etc. The script is well-formed such that these various theories can hold up.

This doesn't work with Lindelof because the guy likes to hint at big ideas but he has zero idea of how to tackle them. He uses the facade of "ambiguity" to rationalize his lack of clear resolution.

Anybody looking for deeper meaning in Prometheus is going to drive themselves crazy. It's a solid sci-fi thriller, but it's not the reinvention of the genre some people hoped it to be.

Honestly, the theories, debating, arguments, etc. that I'm seeing all over the web are identical to what happened during Lost. LOL, people need to stop looking for answers to life in some guy's movie script or tv scripts.

There are some really awful scientific fluffs in the film, like the distance from Earth and the DNA match stats.

And why when there are clearly multiple building do the obsess over the first one they enter?

Bingowings said:

There are some really awful scientific fluffs in the film, like the distance from Earth and the DNA match stats.

And why when there are clearly multiple building do the obsess over the first one they enter?

Laziness????

http://enchantedmitten.blogspot.com/2003/12/reading-previous-entries-in-this-series.html

Johnny Ringo said:

now I'm hearing there's an extended cut planned for the Bluray release - circa 20 minutes longer.

I wonder if that's just some sort of reaction to negative reviews?

I think that was planned all along, but Scott knows that if he says "My official version will be the bluray", box office numbers will plummet and people will wait for the home release.

Here's some info on the extended cut although Ridley's sort of vague:

Here’s the exact quotes from Scott on what will be on the Blu-ray and the deleted scenes:

SCOTT: This is fundamentally the director’s cut.  But there will be half an hour of stuff on the menu because people are so into films—how they’re made, how they’re set up, and the rejections in it.  That’s why it’s fascinating.  So this will all go on to the menu.

You’re going to do an extended cut on the Blu-ray/DVD.  Is it a lot longer?

SCOTT: Twenty minutes.

So there’s, like, twenty minutes that will be added back in for a longer version?

SCOTT: Maybe.  But I’m so happy with this engine, the way it is right now.  I think it’s fine.  I think it works.  It can go in a section where, if you really want to tap in, look at the menu.  To see how things are long, and it’s too long.  Dramatically, I’m about putting bums on seats.  For me to separate my idea of commerce from art—I’d be a fool.  You can’t do that.  I wouldn’t be allowed to do the films I do.  So I’m very user friendly as far as the studios are concerned.  To a certain extent, I’m a businessman.  I’m aware that’s what I have to do.  It’s my job.  To say, “Screw the audience.”  You can’t do that.  “Am I communicating?” is the question.  Am I communicating?  Because if I’m not, I need to address it.

But the pre-order for the blu-ray is already on amazon.com and there's no mention of a extended cut so who knows?

This article is unfortunately pretty spot on. I'm not in the "disappointment" camp, but the more I think about it the more this movie and the reaction remind of The Phantom Menace. I have a feeling that I'm currently rationalizing my fondness of the film based on Sir Ridley's reputation and my enjoyment of his other films, but in a couple of years I might view Prometheus more negatively.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/06/11/review-prometheus-is-a-visually-stunning-epic-failure/

I hope those extra twenty minutes is where they kept all of the characterization, or explained why "Checkov's" self-surgery pod existed and was only programmed for a man when it was in Theron's personal quarters. If it was for Weyland, why? She wanted him dead, no surgery could have saved him from anything anyway.

But seriously, most of the characters were just there. And not like a cheesy horror movie where they each had their cliche, they were just there. The captain of the Prometheus didn't seem phased by any of his crew dying, and ended up ramming the Space Jockey ship with volunteers I'm pretty sure had no dialog until that point. "Alien" managed to make you care about each character, even making you guess at who the main character is. "Prometheus" gives you the main character, who barely acts human, does things because they're symbolic, and is surrounded by people whose names we don't even remember.

By the way, I loved catching the first Sunday showing at my local theater. The wife and I were the only people in there, so we could talk like we would at home. "I'm sure that Theron's quarters are a life support pod will never enter into this again", mostly just "come on!"