Unreal Movie Review: Prometheus
2.5 out of 5 stars
“What if you got to meet your gods, and didn’t like their answers to your questions?”
That’s a central quandary of Prometheus, and one that I can twist into my own thoughts about the movie itself.
“What if a god of sci-fi returned to the genre, and you didn’t like his movie?”
It’s a question that pains me to have to pose, but truly, Prometheus is far from the science fiction masterpiece that Ridley Scott’s Alien was. It’s visually gorgeous, but plagued with issues ranging from casting to script to a plot with too many loose ends and canonical sins to count.
Elizabeth (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green) believe themselves to have made the discovery of a lifetime in 2089. They’ve connected a series of ancient artwork from Sumerian to Egyptian that points to a celestial visit from a very specific part of the galaxy.
Glad to see Serenity is still getting work.
Fortunately, NASA apparently makes great strides in the next eighty years, and a ship, Prometheus is commissioned by ancient trillionaire Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce in 200 year-old man make-up) to journey to the possibly life-sustaining moon in the far-away solar system.
The ship is captained by Janek (Idris Elba), managed by Weyland surrogate Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) and maintained by the android David (Michael Fassbender) who busies himself watching films from the 1960s while the rest of the crew lingers in hyper sleep.
What they find on the habitable moon cannot be discussed in depth without giving too much away, but suffice to say the “engineers” as they call them, purported to have hand-crafted the human race, had some secrets that are better left undisturbed.
The trailer is downright spine-tingling, but unfortunately that same feeling doesn’t translate into the film itself. While Alien was claustrophobic and terrifying, and Scott’s Blade Runner poetic and philosophical, Prometheus is none of the above. It’s almost too much of a blockbuster, extremely loud and flashy at times, but sadly, often a bit dumber and goofier than a film of this pedigree should be. It’s a frustrating collection of halfway decent pieces, but assembled in all the wrong order with a few that simply don’t fit at all.
Charlize Theron for Samus Aran.
Rapace and Marshall-Green seem immediately out of place as the two leads. They’re far outshined dramatically by Theron and Fassbender, but the script is doing them no favors either. A main issue that keeps cropping up is that people are constantly doing things and reacting in ways that don’t make a lick of sense. For example, Marshall-Green’s Charlie has just discovered the very first existence of alien life when he arrives at the moon and sees man-made structures. Rather than acknowledging the exceptional discovery for more than a few seconds, he gets drunk because the aliens are dead and can’t talk to him. Really?
There are just so many moments of bad scripting with Fassbender’s David switching between evil and good for no reason, or Charlize Theron’s Vickers being revealed as a superfluous character, and the treasured auto-surgery pod in her private quarters only works on males for story convenience. It’s matched by some pretty terrible sci-fi which includes the crew taking off their helmets as soon as they discover air with no worries about pathogens, and everyone touching everything at all times no matter how slimy, sticky or laced with fangs it is. Character motivations make little sense, and the plot creates more confounding questions than it answers by the end, and having a sequel on deck is no excuse.
The film doesn’t work from a canon perspective all that well either. Without saying too much about the monsters that are encountered, they’re such a wide spectrum of terrors that the threat becomes muddled and confusing. It’s never clear what the properties are of what’s being fought, and the film jumps across violent variants so quickly that more than one enemy type is never seen more than once.
Prometheus presents grand questions and ends with almost no answers. It’s kind of sad when Alien vs. Predator actually had a better explanation for the events of the first film than we see here. A few plot points could be forgiven if the film was balance by a solid script and great performances, but there’s nary a memorable scene to be found, and Fassbender’s David ends up being the only character with any sort of depth at all. The robot, mind you.
David would have actually made a better lead.
It’s not terrible, but it’s definitely not worth a thirty year wait either. It’s just the latest in Ridley Scott’s decade-long parade of lackluster films, movies that could have been great, but are just missing that intangible factor to propel them to true classic status like his past work. Prometheus burns up in the atmosphere, and it’s nothing a promised sequel will be able to make amends for.
2.5 out of 5 stars
it was a disappointment for you – no pokemons of any kind!
If I had to comment on one thing – it’s the script. It was god awful pretty much through out the entire movie. But the script is more often than not, the worst part of all Scott’s films. If you think for one second that Alien had a strong script you are not a valid movie reviewer. Alien was truly only successful due to it’s tension building and overall atmosphere … not the script. Go back and watch Alien, almost everything that Ripley utters is laughable not to mention the rest of the cast. (the only exception being the Android yet again)
There is a lot more to Prometheus than the overlay of what we see on screen. I think that Scott was doing something “deep” that might play out better with the sequel but who knows. I would give it a 3.5/5 at least or even a 4 … 2.5 seems extremely low especially paired with what else is out there now a days.
(side note, best part of the film was David, worst part was using Guy as a very old Weyland instead of just using a great old actor …no idea why they went that route)
I feel as though we watched completely different movies. Usually my opinions on film tend to mirror the reviews you post. I didn’t find the plot to raise “confounding” questions at all. Sometimes it’s best to leave questions unanswered in a film; it forces the general public to actually think while they’re watching. In fact, as a huge fan of the Aliens films, I found answers rather than questions. As for David bouncing back from good to evil, he’s an android, there is no good or evil, simply the most logical decision at the time. I also believe his character was meant to mirror that of Ash from “Alien” in terms of creating unease and an inability to trust an artificial intelligence. Also, I don’t think it was strange at all that Charlie got drunk after being unable to communicate with the Engineers. Imagine you had spent your entire life focused on a goal and ultimately found you couldn’t achieve said goal, wouldn’t you want a drink? I will agree with you in terms of Charlize Theron’s character though, she was superfluous. Also, as a Nurse, I have to say the “self-surgery” was quite outlandish and silly. All told, I think you were expecting this movie to be something that it couldn’t, and shouldn’t have been.
Extremely snarky review here: http://digitaldigging.net/prometheus-an-archaeological-perspective/
The script didn’t take itself seriously. The characters are simply absurd. A team of scientists on a mission this profound wouldn’t be such a motely group of childish A-holes. I’m thinking back to professors I’ve known… not one of them was this ridiculous. The reason they have a PhD is because they are able to take at least one subject in their lives seriously. I once had a college summer geology class and we took a field trip to a nearby rock quarry. The prof was a really nice guy and was excited about really boring rocks that are as common as… well… rocks. Now imagine a geologist on a different planet! They would be going nuts over every single pebble they encounter. These scientists, the ones specifically chosen to go to an alien planet, honestly don’t seem to care about anything. Not the rocks, not the archeology, not the atmosphere, not the black goo all over the place. Nothing. Even the two archaeologists seem to take the most important discoveries in human history in stride. No big deal.
How about when the two scientists, hand picked to explore an alien world, can’t find their way back to the ship with a 3-d map and a built in cell phone… absurd in itself. They meet an alien snake monster with big teeth. First, even most intelligent non-scientists would be awed at meeting an alien life form. These two clowns treat it like a cute puppy they just met. Then it acts precisely like a threatened cobra, clearly displaying aggressive behavior, and this “scientist” acts like every single dead horror movie actor ever. He has the classic “oh no, everything is fine, i’ll go into the dark basement alone and play with the face eating monster” personality that is so beneath what Ridley Scott should allow.
I couldn’t take the movie seriously because it couldn’t take itself seriously. The characters are just ridiculous. Even the captain… putting up a xmas tree for no reason, smoking in a spaceship, leaving the expedition unmonitored… I can’t keep track of all the behaviors that make no sense unless the characters were written by the same writers who do cookie cutter horror movies. These people don’t even behave intelligently, much less as explorers or scientists.
well i don’t want to talk about too many details but I do agree that David was just simply being an android making logical decisions, he appeared to me to be doing Weylands bidding of trying to find some solution to keep him living forever hence he experimented with Charlie to see how he would react to the alien substance.
However I wasn’t very impressed with the movie as a whole, id probably just raise it to 3 out of 5 though. It did have its good moments and its bad. The script was a mess but i wasn’t expecting a lot from that but there was just too much confusion in second half of the movie.
As far as the situation with Charlie getting drunk, it was rather ridiculous. Think of it from this perspective, you’ve spent a large amount of your life getting to this point, you’ve done tons of research, go to a new solar system, land on a moon that could support life, find the remains of an alien but its dead so you get wasted in the first 15 min? Did he even think of investigating the rest of the moon before concluding that ALL of the aliens died? Or even think of investigating the other structures that were in the valley? It was a little too fast to give up hope on the entire project from finding one dead alien.
I found ‘Prometheus’ to be very disappointing but I believe a lot of that had to do with how much I had built up the movie in my head over the past couple months. Like others have said it had some great moments but was populated by many more not-so-great moments. My biggest complaint isn’t the script or characters but he plethora of plot holes littered throughout the film. As disappointed as I was though, I couldn’t help but be entertained. After all it’s very rare now days to get an original work of sci-fi especially one dealing with such complex and deep ideas. Hopefully if there is a sequel it works out the kinks of the original.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but the only reason I would watch it is because of Fassbender. From the preview, I get the idea that they’re pushing the question of “where did we come from”. I don’t want to hear or see anything that deals with that, because half the time they say the stupidest things to prove our existence. Not only that but there are plenty of stuff out there to fill your head with that type of crap.
I mostly liked it, that being said…
You can definitely see Damon Lindelof’s (co-writer/producer of Lost) influence on the movie, and not in a good way. It’s one thing to leave some questions unanswered, it’s another thing to act like those questions were never asked. It’s frustrating to have so many story lines just sort of drop off.
It seems like this movie is a victim of its own need to be a blocbuster. There were several instances of scenes that just didn’t need to be in there. The fight scene in the loading bay, for example, was needless action that did not advance the plot in any way. And not very good action, either.
All, in all, the movie was okay, but suffered from bad science and being pulled in too many directions.
The reason the movie felt unfinished or not the best it could have been, is because in a few years Ridley Scott will release the Director’s Cut or Final Cut saying the studio didn’t let him do exactly what he wanted. Ex. Blade Final Cut and Kingdom of Heaven Director’s Cut
*Blade Runner Final Cut
Didn’t Alien take place in the year 2037? If this movie takes place in 2089, how is this a prequel to Alien then?
@steve2
Alien took place in 2123.
I really enjoyed Prometheus. You can focus on plot holes and characters with lapses in logic but I’ll focus on the ambitious ideas posed by the movie that are truly impressive. I do however feel the movie was too reliant on an expected sequel so the story as is feels incomplete. Which is different than leaving questions unanswered, I am a HUGE fan of unanswered questions in stories but I can’t help but feel we witnessed part 1 of an epic story.
@Steve2 … Alien takes place in the year 2122
Really don’t care who says what…I loved the movie and it brought back the memories of reading sci-fi novels on a summer night.
The movie is meant to be a 2 part there was a sequal announced after the credits
I loved it…. But don’t think I took it nearly as seriously as you did. I wasn’t watching the film trying to find flaws and/or half-answered questions. It was a delight on the eyes. But I will say it felt a bit “rushed” – like they tried to shoe-horn way to much into it.
I don’t think you gave this movie a fair chance because you clearly wanted it to be exactly like Alien, and it wasn’t.
As far as the script being bad and characters doing things that didn’t make any sense, can you honestly say that never happened in Alien? If you were stuck on a spaceship with a giant murderous Alien killing every single person one by one, how high of a priority would saving the cat be on your list? I imagine pretty low, yet Ripley risks her life to save Jones in Alien. Then when we learn the Xenomorph is on the shuttle with her at the end (one of the most frightening moments in cinema history) it reaches its hand out…but then just stays there. Why doesn’t it attack her? Instead it waits for her to put a space suit on and get comfy in the chair near the controls. Like it just wanted to rest in that cozy little space instead of kill things, which seemed to be its primary motivation throughout the rest of the film.
And you’re honestly going to complain about how far the technology has advanced in what you perceive to be an insufficient period of time? May I remind you that 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1968 and predicted we would have an absurdly advanced space program 11 years ago. Is 2001 a bad movie because of that? Or it’s lack of perfect answers to huge thought provoking questions? (to be clear, not saying Prometheus is on par with 2001. I’m just saying you need to be careful about the things you complain about)
I also don’t get your complain about why it doesn’t work as canon. What part of Prometheus couldn’t fit into Alien?
Plus, if you took a few moments to actually think about the movie you might find you get more out of it. It seems you want to be spoon fed answers, rather than coming up with answers for yourself. Maybe Theron was…wait for it…A ROBOT! I mean, this is actually brought up in the film. So what? Because she says no you’re gonna believe her? Remember Blade Runner? Scott sort of has a history of using robots who don’t know they’re robots or who hide that fact from others. If she is a Robot than it makes sense for her med pod to be calibrated for a man because it was probably for Weyland himself (along with the rest of the life boat). There are plenty of other issues you might be able to find solutions for if you just do a little bit of thinking for yourself. I found that reflecting on the movie afterwards made it so much better because I was able to think about what questions I had and see if maybe there were answers that were hinted at that maybe I missed. Does it work for every question I had? No, but it did for a lot of them.
Plus, if you still have lingering questions, David (or more accurately, his head) sort of answered them for you anyway. The answer is irrelevant. Sort of a call back to the whole, what if you didn’t like the answer thing, wouldn’t you say? It’s not the most satisfying answer, but it is deeply existential when you consider the question he was answering (and Damon Lindelof is nothing if not awkwardly philosophic).
Was Prometheus a perfect movie? Absolutely not. But 2.5 out of 5? That’s being completely unfair.
I Disagree. I thought prometheus was better than Aliens. Not alien but still.
100% agree with the review
some good, some bad…for the price of admission, id recommend awaiting netflix
Typical review from someone who needs all the answers spoon-fed to them.
I liked it amazing sound and spectacular visuals and atmosphere. Saw it in Imax 3D. I got so caught up in the suspense leading up to the end of film that my mind came back to the story being flushed out in the first half of it after I left the theatre. I thought about the story for like 2 or 3 hours after seeing and I must say I like how it finished. It’s cool when movies leave things up for interpretation. If you come through with clear cut answers for everything in a movie like this it ruins it. The Last time a movie left me thinking about it for a long time was Inception. Both are great movies. Both have plot holes. But it’s sci-fi that’s how she goes. The main character also goes through a really cool transformation.
I think some of those Diablo 3 hacking article fans followed you over to this review…
Ridley Scott said on BBC Radio 5live that there are 2 more movies till we get to the point in the chronology of his saga where “Alien” takes place.
Guy Pearce was chosen for the part because they shot scenes with a young Peter Weyland, that might be included in the inevitable “Final Director`s Anniversary Special Edition Cut”
At least it made less money than Madagascar 3, and will soon fade into obscurity….where it belongs.
What an incoherent mess, with foolish, one-dimensional characters. Just one giant “who cares!” no matter how you interpret the pseudo-scientific quasi-religious plot.
I think the movie was decent, not great by any means. To fully appreciate it you can’t think of this movie as an “Alien” movie. Separating yourself from what you already know makes it not as bad.
I think the biggest reason people aren’t jumping up and down is because it was hyped so much. The script was campy and didn’t make sense at times, but I would like to point out a couple of the bad scripting moments that you mentioned.
1. David’s flip-flopping. It didn’t make sense why he was switching from one extreme to the other until the very end. He had an ulterior motive the whole time. He wasn’t programmed to help the crew, he was programmed to make sure Weyland survived/gained eternal life. Granted that plot point was weak, but looking back on it, it gave David motivation that he wouldn’t have otherwise.
2. Vickers’ auto-surgery thingamabob. I noticed this right away in the theatre, thinking, “Wait… but… Vickers is a…”. To be honest it didn’t make sense until I read this post. That auto-surgery machine was never Vickers’, it was for Weyland the entire time. At the beginning, when asked about the machine, was sort of stand offish. My theory is that she might have had one on earth, but the one on Prometheus was intended for Weyland the whole time. If it was hers though, whose to say David didn’t mess with it during the two year voyage to LV-223?
All things considered I’d still give it a 3.5 out of five, better than average, but not perfect by a long shot. If they make a sequel to Prometheus, it should be a direct prequel to Alien, like Prometheus started as. Maybe a bridge between the two would answer questions that this one seemed to raise.
The movie was bad overall. Most of David’s scenes (particularly the one where he’s playing around with the hologram of Earth) were excellent in terms of script, directing etc., but the rest of it was bad.
Whilst it is possible to make some sense of the story, you will have to do a fair amount of digging to find out all the necessary info, which is admittedly quite fun and interesting to read. But in all honesty, you shouldn’t have to do that – that’s the movies job.
This coupled with the serious lack of characterisation (yes I get the Vickers/David rivalry/jealousy thing, which was one of the few good bits overall. But hell if I don’t understand the rest of the characters motives…) really makes me wonder what I actually just watched.
Yes the movie asks a lot of profound questions, even daring to take on science vs. religion but it makes NO attempt to answer any of them (sound familiar?).
There are two reasons for this:
A) It doesn’t want to step on toes; If you don’t want to step on toes, don’t raise the issue in the first place. If you want to tackle that issue and the natural conclusion is science (or religion for that matter), let that be the conclusion! Leaving it wide open, hiding behind this “ambiguity” nonsense is a cop-out.
B) They don’t know (see: lost)
So, the story is weak, the characterisation barely exists and although plenty of questions are asked absolutely nothing is resolved (the movie sequel baits BIG time). I’ve finally realised what I just watched: a 2 hour trailer for Prometheus 2…
Prometheus – Biggest disapointment of the year.
i just don’t understand what questions were left unanswered that you are all complaining about. the only loose end was the one necessary to make it a sequel.
i give it 4 out of 5 stars and thought it was fantastic.
@ Chelsea
Here’s a couple of questions they raised but didn’t answer (and SHOULD have!):
1. Everything to do with the engineers: who are they, what exactly is their motive? Why exactly does this motive change? (Shaw actually asks this herself…) As far as the audience knows, this is the planet of the engineers, so you’d expect stuff like this to be answered.
2. The actual planet LV-223. The film itself states this planet is important, hence Weyland himself visits it (in hope of finding a cure, and also because he wants to meet this new life form). As far as the audience is aware, LV-223 is the engineer’s home planet. That is until the captain concludes, somehow, that this planet is actually for weapons testing. Shaw then later states they should go to their “real” planet to find out the “real” answers…
That last one is the biggest crime in the entire film: you’ve basically had 2 hours of your life as well as 10 bucks robbed.
I actually really liked the movie..
There are indeed characters doing things you wouldn’t expect, but then again, people also tend to do that.
And as far as David is concerned.. he is neither good or bad. He is simply doing what he was told to do by his “father”. Also, we all know from the Alien franchise that Weyland corp. will go to great lengths in acquiring alien lifeforms/weapons. I think that was another reason behind certain things David did.
“and the treasured auto-surgery pod in her private quarters only works on males for story convenience.” I don’t think it was for story convenience, I mean how much did it affect the story to have her slightly change what she had to tell it to do to make it work for her? It was a clue that the old man was still alive.
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.
@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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
@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?”
I was going to answer to Electrohead but lol took the words out of my mouth.
And by the way… IT IS A PREQUEL (and I don’t need to be an intellectual to know that… to see that… to understand that)! And I don’t even need to think about it.
Note: “this sucks because I don’t want to think deeply” – All of these comments prove the opposite, because all of these people took time to “think” about it (even though the movie doesn’t even deserve it).