Comments on: Unreal Movie Review: Prometheus

By: lol

lol — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:33:42 +0000

@Electrohead
The criticism it gets has nothing to do with Alien or that it forces me to think, because it doesn’t. This is just not an intellectual movie. Primer is an intellectual movie, this is a standard bad horror movie where every character is legally retarded and is randomly slaughtered one bye one. Sprinkling some existential questions on top of that does not make it good.

It actually forces it’s watchers not to think. Like when they meet the engineer. This is a godlike creature who knows the purpose of life. Except it’s not. It’s the fucking incredible Hulk. Or with the dead engineers. What could have killed such advanced and powerful creatures? Turns out they somehow killed themselves with their own weapon. Further proving that even the engineers are morons the last survivor runs around trying to kill humans although it knows there are monsters out there that can easily kill it.

But maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s all related to some existential question like: “What if every living creature in the universe were idiots? What would sci-fi movies look like then?”

By: Electrohead

Electrohead — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 19:16:51 +0000

I really do not feel like writing an essay right now (it’s finals week) but I just want to point out that this is not a “prequel” or really a film for fanboys at all, it’s a film for the intellectuals. No, Scott didn’t need to answer where the makers come from and no he didn’t have to have a perfect “plot” because this movie isn’t about the plot per se, it’s about the metaphor. Why do you think this movie is called Prometheus? It’s a cross between that myth and Shelley’s “A Modern Prometheus,” better known as Frankenstein. This film and Matrix Reloaded were both scorned by fanboys despite surpassing their predecessors simply because the story wasn’t the greatest. This is a legitimate complaint, but when something is so philosophically rich that it bends the confines of technically sound story telling, well, it can be acceptable.

I know the narrative isn’t what you people wanted, but didn’t you read the article on this site that was about what is NOT a plot hole? Because your complaints about characters acting irrationally follow those lines…

I recognize that not only is this a film not everyone gets, but its message is something that not everyone will care about. This is a sad truth, an alienation that existentialists face all the time, but you can’t be wrong about what you don’t like. If you don’t like the topics this movie tackles, fine. But ease off on the “this sucks because I don’t want to think deeply” rage. Please…

By: Ibrahim

Ibrahim — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 16:53:40 +0000

Brilliant review. Pretty much checks off all the problems I had with the movie.

It was incomprehensible how a crew of people, on finding one of the greatest discoveries imaginable, went about being such frivolous buffoons soon after. At least in Alien, the ship and its crew was never expecting nor meant to engage in the kind of experience it found itself in. Prometheus was purposed with finding a new world, the world from where visitors planted life on earth. For the near infinite range of possible things that would meet or confront them, they had this sorry bunch of amateurs, two of which thought it absolutely reasonable to pet and play around an alien snake monster on discovery.

And only a fool (well, fools, given multiple comments here supporting the film) could think any of this made sense. Why would David test alien goo on a member of such a small crew, with such a small number of people trained for this sort of discovery, other than malevolence? Why was the crew kept in the dark about their mission? Why did old Weyland have to hide on his own bloody ship? Why was nobody monitoring the two lost members in that alien labyrinth?

Pretty much as the ending credits rolled, I felt the need to ask Scott and everyone involved, just how it was that they stitched together such a clearly carelessly crafted narrative, put it to film, and market it, without being concerned about these obvious problems.

I’d give the movie a 2 out of 10. It’s a movie that marketed itself as being smart, of being about fundamental human existential questions and what not. It provoked the most curious aspects of our minds, and then betrayed it totally. Screw it, 1 out of 10.

By: Gorgeousninja

Gorgeousninja — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:44:59 +0000

Have to completely agree with the reviewer.
Am a huge admirer of Ridley Scott, and have been waiting ages to see this movie, but the whole time the characters were being such complete idiots it just didnt make sense.
To be on an alien world and then act so dumb and disorganized just in the end made me root for the ‘aliens’.
The movie looks amazing but there is no atmosphere, precious few ‘jump’ moments and the claustrophobic fear of the original is replaced by big bangs and flash effects.
It felt like the movie is targeted purely at people who think Michael Bay movies are clever.
So many plot-holes and sad wtf moments.
Deeply disappointed by someone who has been such a fantastic influence in movie history.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:19:16 +0000

The surgery pod being male only is not “story convenience”, it’s obviously there for old Mr. Weyland, NOT for Charlize Theron’s character (who is probably a robot like David, but doesn’t know it like Decker in Blade Runner). I fear the subleties and nuance of this movie were largely lost on you, as your review is obtuse and misses much of what this movie was really about. Why did they create us? Did they even create us, or are we just an evolutionary arm of an older species? Did they decide to wipe us out over the rise of Monotheism on earth, which didn’t fit their “world” (universe) view? Humans are fallible, which is why they make so many stupid mistakes. This contrasts gods. But these guys are mortal and thus not gods. Were we just an experiment? And on and on. Watch it again and think globally and tangentially.

By: Roy

Roy — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:52:41 +0000

To jfry: It’s not about answered questions. It’s about things that don’t add up. Like the warning message in the first alien (that they took a lot of time to decode). In Prometheus she (Shaw) warns people in plain english (if U send a warning would encode it or dou you make as simple as possible). The message was not from Shaw but (probably) from the aliens themselves (the elefant people – that was not an helmet! That was their faces!)! And about the technology… They went back? They went from “air” projections to bulky monitors (Unix style)? Really? It was just desapointing, Ridley was desapointing, and I wasted good money watching it (I will NOT see a sequel!).
By the way. In the first movie the Alien didn’t try to catch Ripley because he was spleeping and didn’t notice her (I agree with the cat thing, but sometimes we do some unreasonable things) as U can see when she is suiting up.

By: Seantheartist

Seantheartist — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 07:52:36 +0000

All of these comment are proof thi film i amazing.
it’s creating debate, making people talk about it, instead of forgetting about it and moving on.

I loved it and i like that it created more questions then answers, give me a smart movie any day!

By: Dantes

Dantes — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 02:44:42 +0000

It’s not just ‘unanswered questions for sequels’. There’s about 6 elements per scene that don’t make sense! On the level of pure logic, character logic, plot logic, canonical logic or any ole kind of logic! And simply saying “Oh I just choose to not look at all that stuff” does not make this a good movie!

By that logic ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ is a good movie too…

Shaw just ‘chose to believe’ that these engineers created us and invited us over? Okay, but the point is, what on earth made her draw that conclusion to begin with? Just those primitive drawings? I can just as easily conclude that the giant figure was Peter Pan pointing to never never land. Why would I think that? Well, I just choose to believe it! No, wait, the giant figure is a giant transformer who made the earth but not us! And he points just to say that that’s his turf! Why do I think that? I just choose to believe it! Moronic…

And ohh, the med pod was a hint that Weyland still lived. Why was that hint there? It wasn’t even treated as a revelation since apparently half the crew already knew it and even Shaw barely acts surprised when she sees him. (Nor does anyone care that she sees him) Best part: why would he pretend to be dead?? It was his ship, his expedition and everyone was on his payroll. What was the damn purpose other than Lindelof thinking he now had a ‘Grand Revelation’ at the end??

Seriously, this was stupid…not even bad or inept, but literally stupid from top to bottom.

By: Chelsea

Chelsea — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:01:50 +0000

@Pakman

If they answered all those questions in this film, there would not be a trilogy to work with.

If Harry Potter killed Voldemort in the first movie, the rest of the story wouldn’t have been defined and advanced in the next movies.

What part of this movie being the first in a series is so difficult to understand?

By: XenoIrish

XenoIrish — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 15:29:06 +0000

The movie seemed more like they came up with ideas for special effects and set pieces, and then framed a loose story around it.

I expect more from Ridley Scott…..as for Damon Lindeloff this was pretty much par for the course.