PROMETHEUS was (Alien 0?) NOW NO LONGER SPOILER FREE. — Page 24

a 2 hour vignette for an online webseries..

Bingowings said:

If only the film was as good as these vignettes.

I'm going to go on record and say Prometheus was the best film I saw this year, as much as liked stuff like Avengers and Dark Knight Rises. Mark my words, this film is Ridley Scott's follow up to Blade Runner and it's basically being treated the same way, for every negative review I have ever read you could swap the titles and get the exact same thing, it's a bit uncanny. I imagine this will become one of the bigger cult sci-fi films within the next ten or twenty years.

But then I guess that depends tto some degree how Prometheus 2 is constructed and if Ridley Scott actually follows through with his silly Space Jesus idea...

Blade Runner made sense, had plausible characters and some proper science in with the fiction.

It wasn't an average cake, even for it's time but it had the textures and flavours of cake as well as some really good icing.

Prometheus is a stunt cake.

It's plaster of Paris icing over a vaguely cake shaped lump of papier mâcheté.

It may well become a cult classic but if it does Supernova (which makes just as much sense/nonsense and also looks good despite being stickish) does too. 

Oh come on! Blade Runner makes no sense. The whole Deckard-replicant thing was tacked on at the last moment and has absolutely no logic to it. Once you actually think about how it could be possible and the implications it raises the entire idea falls apart. Whatever answers you provide on your own are inevitably reaching and would be considered unrealistic and implausible in any other movie. In fact, most of the plot is utterly implausible, starting with the year 2019 and on through just about every element in the story. There are holes in that script big enough to pilot a spinner through. Plus the characters are rather thin and the acting is a bit stiff. Why do you think so many hated it in 1982?

But it's brilliant. It's brilliant because it's not about the plot or the characters in the sense of traditional drama, it's about ideas, philosophy, visuals, atmosphere and creating a world. That's why Blade Runner has any merit to it, and that's why it was misunderstood, because people thought the film was about detective Han Solo chasing robots in a trenchcoat. Go read the negative 1982 reviews of Blade Runner and you will be able to substitue the word "Prometheus" and magically end up with the same reviews as 2012. It's fitting since Scott admits that Prometheus is more a spiritual sequel to BR than Alien, since it deals with the same themes and ideas.

Sorry old bean but you are so wrong it's astonishing.

Blade Runner is all about the characters, the plot, the plausibility (if you can get passed the dodgy date setting) and tangible atmosphere.

If it had been made by the BBC in 1971 it would still be a classic without the special effects and the design.

Sure, Deck being a skinjob is only a barely hinted at bit of whimsy in the theatrical cut, so what?

It's still a film about identity and humanity.

Pris and Batty are still genius children with sexuality inside superhuman adult bodies (that comes from the performances not any special effects).

The speech Tyrell gives Batty about why he can't extend his lifespan is poor grounded science.

Prometheus is about nothing, the characters are implausible and the science is awful.

At times it does look nice though and that's all it has going for it.

Blade Runner has Pris and Batty, Prometheus has David, who I think is more interesting than them. The first five or ten minutes of the film when it's just David's life on the ship, trying to learn human behavior, is brilliant.

And just like Blade Runner, it's a film about identity and humanity. What does it mean to be human and where did we come from? And for David, this takes an extra twist in that he is not human, tries to be human, but ultimately goes beyond his flesh and blood counterparts who treat him as a tool.

Prometheus has almost no science to it, I'll give you that. But it was never really trying to. The life-cycle of the alien substance is biologically plausible and interesting, and that's about all the science there is to the film. Much like Blade Runner, actually, which shows science but never really explains how it works or anything (the Tyrel speech excepted). Again, that's because it is about ideas and themes more than plot and character, which are really just vehicles used to convey those ideas. I mean, who is Deckard? No, who is he? What are his interests, where did he come from, who is really inside? We never get any glimpse, his dialogue is mainly about the plot, and Ford played it pretty interior/deadpan. We get some hints here and there, and his performance has charm because it is Harrison Ford, but he is barely developed as a character, and other characters like Gaff are developed so subtly that it takes multiple viewings to realize there was any character motivation there at all. When you stack it against Prometheus' Vickers, David, and the performance of Noomi Rapace, I think we are on pretty equal ground.

And Blade Runner has had two directors cuts, by the way. The theatrical cut looks nice, but it's not the greatest film ever made, and it's bad in some places. Prometheus felt a bit rushed in places, but Scott is also working on a directors cut, so I think it's better to compare apples to apples for now.

I'm not trying to endorse piracy here, but the retail DVD is now out online. I'll be buying the most deluxe version of the release they offer, but I wanted to take a better look at the film on video, and it also has 50% of the deleted scenes, plus one more that was leaked online. Some of the deleted scenes are useless, but some of them are quite good, including an incredible scene between Vickers and Weyland that should have never, never been trimmed down and is easily the best performance scene in the entire film. Not included in the leak, but available in part form elsewhere is an extension of the scene where Weyland meets the Engineer, and the Engineer speaks...and we find out what it was David asked him. The engineer's reply is still not explained in the clip online, but we do find out that David said to the Engineer that Weyland wanted to live forever. I'm glad to see Idris Elba as Janeck gets a couple of really nice extended scenes, as I felt he was the most underrated character in the film. Like Gaff in Blade Runner, he grows on you the more you get the chance to study his performance, he portrays a fairly solidly developed character if you acttually take notice of him. The deleted scenes also answer a few lingering questions, like perhaps what the engineers were running from in the video recording. There's a ton of visual clues you can pick up on when watching the film again in this quality. Waiting patiently until October when I can see this in HD and get all the extras.

Oh brother, the Engineers sound like Klingons.

That voice will need changing come the inevitable fanedits.

It would have been better if Weyland rebuked David saying something like, "I didn't ask for that I just wanted to live a bit longer!" (suggesting that David calculated the provocation).

This scene has to go back in though.

Why Weyland looks like a crap Halloween mask.

The more I read of Lindelof (please let this be a satire) the more I conclude he should never be allowed near a film or television script again.

So Weyland forms The Company so he can bang birds on yachts forever???

This is his dream.

What an undemanding God he would have turned out to be.

How was this scene even considered?

World War Z seemed so promising when everyone was praising the leaked script.

Bingowings said:

Oh brother, the Engineers sound like Klingons.

That voice will need changing come the inevitable fanedits.

It would have been better if Weyland rebuked David saying something like, "I didn't ask for that I just wanted to live a bit longer!" (suggesting that David calculated the provocation).

Hmmm, I know what you mean...as the 'Engineer' suddenly took on a kinda 'Trek villain-of-the-week' vibe for me when he spoke in that deleted scene. :D 

Maybe it was his 'angry gesturing' rather than his voice that gave me that impression, but I think I may prefer him to remain silently enigmatic and 'controlled' right up until the point he rips David's head off.  However, I guess I'll just have to wait a little longer to see how that *whole* deleted scene eventually plays out, before I decide 100% on how I feel about it.

Anyway, here's a couple of short clips from that particular 'DAVID/WEYLAND/ENGINEER' scene that are online at the moment, for anyone that hasn't seen them yet - 

1st clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK684Ti1KyI

2nd clip -http://uk.ign.com/videos/2012/09/18/prometheus-extended-scene

The thing is, although we now hear David saying "I told him you wanted to live forever" to Weyland (which kinda confirms what the movie's linguist revealed at this link here, that David had initially said "This man is here because he does not want to die.  He believes you can give him more life" to the 'Engineer' just beforehand in the 'Theatrical' cut - http://thebioscopist.com/2012/06/20/the-linguistics-of-prometheus-what-david-says-to-the-engineer )...NOW we don't know what the hell the *'Engineer'* himself is supposed to have said, as there's no 'subtitles' for him either!

I outlined a few early potential editing preferences of my own for the movie back on page 22, but at the moment, until I see how this *full* deleted scene plays out, I'd rather the alternative possibility of using just *some* portions of the deleted footage, while *removing* the shots of the 'Engineer' speaking to keep him silent and enigmatic.  

So the shots of the 'Engineer' speaking and gesturing angrily, along with Weyland then asking "What did he say?, what did he say?" could be removed altogether, and we'd instead immediately cut at the point where David has finished speaking to the 'Engineer' in the 'Theatrical' version, and then go directly to the portion of the deleted scene in the 1st clip above where David says "I told him you wanted to live forever"...and then cut to the rest of the footage shown in the 2nd clip above where Weyland then tells the 'Engineer' about how he created David and how he reckons he's superior and worthy of longer life etc., just before the 'Engineer' continues to study them *silently* before ripping David's head off.  

This would mean that we'd still get to see Weyland and Shaw getting to know what David *says* he said to the 'Engineer', even though the big guy stays *silent* up until the point where he reacts badly.  (*NOTE* - personally, I also like the possibility of David's words saying "This man is here because he does not want to die.  He believes you can give him more life" being added in 'subtitles' when he speaks to the 'Engineer'...but this particular edit of the scene would *still* work fine even if they're not.  And importantly, the background music cues can still work quite seamlessly together with the particular shots I've mentioned)  

However, I'm still hopeful that the complete deleted 'talking Engineer' scene will play out nicely when we see it's *full* version eventually.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that a lot of the scenes are unlikely to fit into any future edits *seamlessly* quality-wise judging by some of the screenshots and comments over at avpgalaxy.net currently, as it looks like there's some unfinished stuff on them - http://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=45595.0

For instance, there's some incomplete greenscreen work during the Janek/Vickers conversation scene, and the extended fight scene between Shaw and the 'Engineer' *doesn't* have the 'Engineer's burns/scarring effects included on his face from his crash, unlike the 'Theatrical' footage.  So big continuity flub there, dammit!

Also, while I'm certainly gonna buy the blu-ray of this when it's out in my region come October, I've already had a squint at a reasonable quality 'preview' source now, and it looks very 'blue-tinted' to me overall...*SHUDDER*.  I reckon 'ol Ridley has been messing about with it's colour-timing since it's 'Theatrical' release, as I don't recall those particular hues on the Fox logo from the cinema showing I originally went to!  So I have a feeling that the deleted scenes may have a different colouration to them compared to the actual blu-ray release, when it comes to edits. :( 

I sure hope I'm wrong about that.

There's a few new interesting snippets been put up here from the forthcoming commentary by the PROMETHEUS writers Damon Lindelhof and Jon Spaihts, about how the movie could have originally looked - http://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=45642.0

Exactly as I imagined it would have been.

A classic case of a good idea screwed by over thinking.

Bingowings said:

Exactly as I imagined it would have been.

A classic case of a good idea screwed by over thinking.

I'm sure gonna be interested to hear the *complete* commentaries eventually...

I see in the summary that we were originally going to see a 'Derelict'/'Juggernaut'-style design for the 'Primordial ship' at the beginning, but that Ridley ended up thinking it would be 'cooler' to have a different design.  Fair enough, but I'm kinda disappointed that he didn't get H. R. Giger to come up with the concept for that, rather than give us a generic, run-of-the-mill 'saucer' design...as I'm sure he'd have come up with something less pedestrian.

Giger's wonderful 'Derelict'/'Juggernaut' design is a truly 'alien', 'organic'-looking creation, and I'd have loved to have seen what he'd have come up with for an equally 'otherworldly' variation along those lines to better tie-in with it's look.  (Of course, I'd have also preferred that Giger had been commissioned to design the actual 'Deacon'/'Proto-alien' that came out of the 'Engineer' at the end too, but c'est la vie! unfortunately)

Anyway, I came across this unused 'Derelict/'Juggernaut'-influenced pre-production design recently, and while it's not a patch on what I'd imagine Giger could have come up with, it certainly hints at a different look to things in the movie, compared to the 'standard UFO'-shape we ended up with at the start -

Crikey! The giant space ankh looks much more interesting and true to the Alien series than the giant space plectrum.

Though me, I would have had that crash instead of the giant space croissant.

I would have had the Alien an ingredient of the black goo and not the creation of the black goo and the engineers while making the stuff for their priest caste had an accident.

They would then try and ram the Prometheus to stop it from going home not the other way around.

That way the ship in the 1979 film can still be thousands if not millions of years old.

The Alien is an Alien.

The Engineers didn't make us but adapted us and are on the whole not mad insane mummy men.

The lost potential for this film is almost as tragic a loss as Vincent Ward's Alien 3.

Personally, I'm glad they didn't tie it in with Alien as much. It makes for a more unpredictable and therefore more interesting story.

The UFO design may not be as cool as a Giger inspired one, but there is enough Giger in the film as it is so it's not like we are missing anything, and the UFO shape is very much that way on purpose. Plus, it is only two shots of about four seconds each....

A purpose written story with the Space Jockeys and no Aliens would have been fine but this is an Alien prequel with the Alien replaced by a cheap looking knock off that serves no narrative function other than just being there.

The Hammerpede, Zombie Fifield, the Squidbaby and Coneheadosaur have no defined purpose and yet they are also so similar to the Alien life-cycle stages that they might as well have been them.

The proposed scene of Shaw paradoxically safe in her medpod, forced to watch powerlessly as her 'child' kills her collegues sounds like the stuff of classic horror cinema.

To each their own. The original script sounds pretty bullocks to me. I'm very happy with the film we ended up getting.

The life cycle shown in the film may serve no "purpose", but then what purpose would any life cycle serve? To show us the alien lifecycle? Either way it exists to exist. That's not really an argument against what we got, other than you preferred more Alien tie-ins. As the film isn't set on LV426, doesn't contain the ship or specimens seen in Alien or any other film in the series, and actually modifies many of the ones that appear similar, this isn't much an Alien prequel, and I guess that is why so many Alien fanboys have so many hangups with the film. Just enjoy it for what it is.

I'm trying but from where I'm standing the film doesn't even work as a film, let alone an Alien film. It's just not a good film, doesn't make sense and the characters are not plausible.

Blaming that on me being an Alien 'fanboy' is a bit like saying the PT is fine and it's just my nostalgia for the OT that's spoiling my enjoyment.

I'm not saying that, I'm just responding to your specific criticism that the alien lifecyle we got doesn't work because it's not the alien life cycle you wanted. Don't confuse the two.

From where I'm standing the film works just fine as a film. As I said, it doesn't have anything missing that couldn't be said about Blade Runner. And like Blade Runner, it would be in some way nicer if the characters were more realistic and relateable like they were in Alien, I miss Parker and Brett, just like I miss their equivalents being absent from Blade Runner. But, like Blade Runner, it's not the same kind of movie as Alien and works fine without that element being there as strongly. It has other goals in mind.

Also, this isn't like comparing the PT to OT. Those are a continuous saga, and one is a direct prequel to the other. This is not a direct prequel, nor part of a saga, and barely classifies as even taking place in the same universe as Alien, which was the point I was making about expectations. As I said, take it for what it is, and not what you wished it was. You'll find a very original and stimulating movie is in there underneath all the confusing "is it or isn't it?" Alien connections.

Once you get over that confusion and just accept the film on its own terms you don't have to worry about whether it works as an Alien film because it doesn't have to, it's not Alien Zero it's just Prometheus. And I think once you cease having that backlash about it not working as Alien Zero you won't be harsh on the film compared to other movies where you would let the same sort of things pass (again, Blade Runner being a great example).

I think Prometheus will be regarded in years to come as a sci-fi classic and I respect Ridley Scott's bold move away from the predictable and expected.

The only negative thing I can honestly say about the film was that the film was slightly out of focus in the cinema I saw it in.

J

Did you see it in 3D or 2D?

Because I've heard the same from a lot of people who saw the 3D print (I noticed the same myself) yet the 2D print looked really crisp.

After all those disappointing Alien sequels I had no expectations I just hoped for a good film.

Which I didn't get.

Happy as always for everyone else.

Yeah Bingo, it was the 3D....I was thinking it was the Cinema's fault, but maybe not.

I'm getting fed up with seeing movies on a data projector, if I want to see movies that way I can bring a projector home from work.....I could see the chicken wire on the Batman movie.

I absolutely hated all the Alien movies after Aliens, now after seeing Prometheus I feel there's hope again in the series.

J

Bingowings said:

 

The characters in Blade Runner have very little detail attached to them but what we do see rings true.

For me there is nothing in the film that I have to let pass.

The characters in Prometheus (David being the possible exception but some of his scenes are scuppered by the rest of the crew) make no sense but nonsense.

What I meant by comparing the creatures in this film to the alien life cycle is in the 1979 film they made narrative sense to be the way they were in that film.

In this film they are just less interesting stand-ins for we have already seen but they are only there because the actors need some object to respond to, there is no narrative requirement for them to be the way they are, they could have looked like anything and acted in any way.

The problem for me isn't that it isn't a straight Alien prequel (though with the current story elements that would make more sense) rather it's too much like a straight Alien prequel only with the alien replaced by something a bit like the things in the Alien films only not as interesting.

They should have gone with the straight Alien prequel or written a totally new film this is the same half way watered down mishmash that Alien 3 (Ward's space monks plus Twohy's prison planet) was and it's not even as good a film as that.

Like the PT it's full of implausible characters doing stupid things in a story that doesn't make sense.

This is true even if you try to ignore it's not an Alien prequel which is a hard task because everyone is going through such hoops to remind me it is one.

 

Bingowings said:

 

The characters in Blade Runner have very little detail attached to them but what we do see rings true.

For me there is nothing in the film that I have to let pass.

The characters in Prometheus (David being the possible exception but some of his scenes are scuppered by the rest of the crew) make no sense but nonsense.

 

Well, I can't say much when it comes to opinion. But for me there isn't much difference. Don't get me wrong--I agree that Blade Runner has better drawn characters overall. But in terms of the ones that matter--David, Vickers, Shaw,  Janick, even Wayland--they are on equal ground. The side characters in Prometheus are more anonymous, in Blade Runner Gaff and Bryant are much more memorable, and behave more consistently, and I agree about Millburn treating the cobra alien like it's a cat when it's clearly behaving in a dangerous way; the writers built themselves a nice excuse, because he is high, but come on that's a bit much, I'm high right now and I would never do that. Overall though, I'm not necessarily trying to suggest Prometheus is a better film, but the difference is much less pronounced than you are making it out to be. The core cast is on equal grounds, and since the background players--Millburn and Fiefeld excepted--are pretty anonymous anyway, the core cast amounts to 95% of the performances in the film. But I do agree that Blade Runner overall has better acting, I just think it is only so by a little bit and not some unacceptable chasm as you propose.

What I meant by comparing the creatures in this film to the alien life cycle is in the 1979 film they made narrative sense to be the way they were in that film.

In this film they are just less interesting stand-ins for we have already seen but they are only there because the actors need some object to respond to, there is no narrative requirement for them to be the way they are, they could have looked like anything and acted in any way.

The problem for me isn't that it isn't a straight Alien prequel (though with the current story elements that would make more sense) rather it's too much like a straight Alien prequel only with the alien replaced by something a bit like the things in the Alien films only not as interesting.

They should have gone with the straight Alien prequel or written a totally new film this is the same half way watered down mishmash that Alien 3 (Ward's space monks plus Twohy's prison planet) was and it's not even as good a film as that.

Like the PT it's full of implausible characters doing stupid things in a story that doesn't make sense.

This is true even if you try to ignore it's not an Alien prequel which is a hard task because everyone is going through such hoops to remind me it is one.

I was going to respond to most of your specific points, but I think I can do it in a more general sense. And that is, that most of your arguments here--at least as they apply to the design--are pretty much the same thing as I said before, they are prejudiced because it's not the Alien Zero you keep being reminded of. And that's fair enough, it's pretty understandable, as I said one of the biggest things about the film is that it's not an Alien prequel yet it still sort of is, only it isn't, only it is. So do you judge it in context of an Alien prequel, or not, or let some things slide but not others? It's a very peculiar film in this sense, and it's hard to frame, because criticism must depend on context. I fucking love the Godzilla films, but of course they are terribly made, but they get away with all of that because they are Godzilla films. But this is what I realized with Promtheus, and I guess this is hard for people to accept, and I don't hold that against them. Prometheus is not an Alien prequel. It's not the same type of film, and there is pretty scant evidence outside of Weyland to even suggest it is in the same universe, so if you like Alien you won't necessarily like this. But it's really not like Alien, other than borrowing design concepts. Should Battlestar Galactica be held to be consistent with Star Wars, as it rips off everything and has the same effects crew? But at least Battlestar is in a similar vein, but Prometheus is closer in spirit to Blade Runner than Alien.

So, basically, at the end of the day, I asked myself: "would I rather have a Ridley Scott original sci-fi film that based it's design and some of it's concepts off Alien, or the same thing without any influence of Alien"? And my conclusion was that yes, I would like an original Ridley Scott film that re-uses ideas and imagery hinted at in Alien. Because I fucking love Alien, Alien is my favourite film other than Star Wars, and I believe, whatever it is they could come up with, whatever alternative designs and deliberately-different ideas--they would be worse. They would not be as good as Alien. So I would rather have an original film that revisits some of the concepts and touches upon or includes some of the same visuals and designs as that film. Because I wouldn't want a prequel, but at the same time I kind of am curious where Scott would take things. And I think Scott has the same feeling. So, to me, it was the best of both worlds. I loved the film, then was confused about the film once I thought deeply about it, and then I loved the film even more for the more unconventional hybrid path it took. I understand why that throws people, because for a moment it did to me too, but IMO once you don't have that "is it or isn't it?" question in your head the film is very, very well made, a few big flaws aside. You say it's not about your prejudice as to whether it's Alien or not, yet most of your argument and closing statements are complaints about how it was visually cluing you in to being an Alien prequel but then not following up. As I said, I don't fault you for this, but I still do think that many of your hangups with the film come from it's unconventional pseudo-sequel nature.