Prometheus (Ridley Scott)

[Stay Puft]

PROMETHEUS
Director: Ridley Scott

IMDb page

[Watashi]

Not since the atrocious Wall-E has one movie so thoughtlessly trashed a superior film. This time both David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and Steven Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence are dishonored through the characterization of an ominous automaton, David (played by Michael Fassbender who quickly has come to emblematize crap cinema).

Good ole' Armond White.

[megladon8]

Today while in line at Subway I heard someone talking about this new movie "Prah-Meh-Thoose".

Really? I mean...really???

[Adam]

Kinda distressed by the week's worth of shaky word of mouth, but this Glenn Kenny review is at least keeping my hopes up

[Morris Schæffer]

Today while in line at Subway I heard someone talking about this new movie "Prah-Meh-Thoose".

Really? I mean...really???

Hey man, match cut started this trend. Must have been a lurker.

[Morris Schæffer]

My fanboy wants to opt for a big fat "nay" but on an objective level, I have to admit this isn't bad. It's got things going for it.

[Ezee E]

Ebert gave it four stars.

[MadMan]

Good ole' Armond White.

Okay now he's not even trolling, he's just being a fucking moron. I haven't even seen AI but I know enough about that film to know that David has little to do with that particular film. The Lawrence of Arabia comparison actually struck me as Scott's little joke, as David Lean directed Arabia and thus he has a character named David in the film. Plus the fact that Lawrence and David do share some resemblance in being really cold, uncaring characters. That's where the whole thing ends, however. Maybe White should shock us all by not bashing a movie we expect him to bash, but that would require him to take his head out of his ass.

Anyways I'm glad I went to a midnight showing of this, it was great. Hopefully this and American Gangster are more of a sign that Scott is heading in the right direction once more. At least so much that he never makes another boring movie like Robin Hood again.

[Dead & Messed Up]

What was in this movie was good and occasionally great (Fassbender), but nothing in it improves on the mystery of the original film, and Scott no longer has the discipline to give the questions he's asking room to breathe.

This movie is probably worth seeing, but there was much disappointment.

[number8]

Unrelated but if you guys want to hate on Lindelof some more, he just wrote a Batman comic that was out yesterday that was absolutely god fucking awful.

[number8]

https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/211012881658023936

[Dead & Messed Up]

Blog review with spoilers.

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There's a moment in Prometheus when I nodded internally, thought, "So that's what a Space Jockey is," and then an overwhelming depression hit. Because now I know what a Space Jockey is. The original Alien featured an enormous room with a mysterious creature at the center, peering into a giant telescope. The scene offered grandeur, but more importantly, the scene offered mystery. What was this creature? Why was it carrying those eggs? Where was it going? With the concept design from H. R. Giger, it was even difficult to know where the creature stopped and its chair began. We never received answers, because the point was to slow down and inspire such questions. Now we have answers. How could they not disappoint?

In fairness, Prometheus makes its intentions clear from the opening of the film, which begins billions of years ago, with the intelligent design of life on Earth, and then flashes to the near-future, when scientist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) quickly and speciously concludes that ancient astronaut glyphs prove that humanity was engineered by otherworldly beings. This is a potential boon to her faith in God, although one might think that evidence for a faith destroys the point of the whole thing. Screenwriter Damon Lindelof approached this conundrum with frequency in the television show Lost, where the chief ideological battle was between show-me rationality and new-age feel-goodery.

There's some pleasure to be gained from a film that's willing to ask these questions, but Ridley Scott races through these ideas like a busy parent going through a checklist at the grocery store. Some themes, like the search for one's lineage and maternal desire, thread together successfully, but most feel cursory. Minutes after Shaw laments her inability to conceive, android David (Michael Fassbender) deduces that she's pregnant. This leads to a fantastically squirmy scene of body-horror, but after it's over, Shaw never gets a chance to recognize how horribly her infertility was mocked.

This extends to plot developments too. One minute after someone says a storm is coming, the heroes outrace a gigantic cloud of dust. Ten seconds after somebody warns that a monster’s on the way, the monster arrives. The reveal of a looming human sculpture arrives almost casually in the background, decorative instead of mind-blowing.

Cursory works as a descriptor for most of the cast. The film features seventeen people in the ship's crew, but only a handful make an impression, and the remainder exist to be assaulted by unknown life-forms. A mohawked geologist does little geology aside from tossing radar-balls into the air, and a biologist makes the spectacularly moronic decision of petting a hissing extra-terrestrial cobra. Gruff pilot Janek (Idris Elba) is backed by two co-pilots who could be abandoned without any loss in drama.

The only sequence in the film that takes its time is an opening sequence where David goes through his daily routine. He plays basketball, wheels around in a go-cart, analyzes the people still in cryo-stasis, and watches Lawrence of Arabia. David has an affinity for Peter O'Toole, with his precise diction and blue eyes and blonde hair, and there's a similar mirth to Fassbender's performance that elevates every scene that features him. Indeed, the filmmakers love him so much that, even after he's crossed a moral event horizon, a character that ought to step on his synthetic little head essentially forgives and forgets attempted murder. Not a smart decision, but understandable, because David is just that charming.

Noomi Rapace and Idris Elba deserve some credit, too, for evolving into warriors of mankind by the end of the story, and, on the pro side, most of the special effects are impressive. There's an image in the film that shows Prometheus, tiny, zipping across a static star-field; it wonderfully communicates the loneliness of such a voyage. There's also a cute opening image that recalls the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a planet slowly sinking beneath the frame, and that was a film that also searched for big answers to big questions. Who made us? Where did life start? What is our destiny?

The difference is that 2001 relied on suggestion as much as possible, while Prometheus feels like that film's ADD-addled step-child, wondering the same things but allowing no time for consideration, reflection, or suspense. It's easy to put this at the feet of writer Damon Lindelof, who became a pariah of sorts after the conclusion of Lost, but most of those problems fall at the feet of Ridley Scott, who displays almost none of the discipline that made Alien such a tense and mysterious experience. What’s here isn’t bad, but it’s too quick to feel substantial, too informative to retain a sense of mystery. 2001 and Alien feel like full texts. Prometheus feels like Cliff’s Notes.

RATING: C+

]

[Sxottlan]

Looked great. Fassbender was very good.

Everything else? Meh. Script was pretty weak.

More later if I can.

[Henry Gale]

Well I liked it. A lot, even.

I absolutely have some issues with it, but at the same time I'm still trying to wrap my head around so much of it while even the next morning continuing to come down from the rush of taking it all in ― because above else, it's much more of a superbly crafted visceral experience (the 3D, the setting(s), the creatures, overall design of it, and all) than it is a particularly concrete, faultless piece of storytelling where everything gels narratively ― that I can't help but just give my gut reaction to it, which is definitely a positive (though not ecstatic) one, more than I can put together any real, articulate thoughts or arguments of it.

In the end, probably somewhere around a B+ for me. I'll try to elaborate more later.

[Saya]

Overall, I liked it. Just came back from it.

All in all, I wish the characters were more professional though. The incompetence of the crew bothered me. Especially taking into account that this was supposed to be a trillion dollar mission? Wouldn't you hire the best of the best?

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Some actions of characters (especially the biologist and geologist) bothered me. Just from the top of my head...

Why were these guys so hell bent on touching an alien life form?

Hey, there's a breathable atmosphere in in this alien ship here. Let's just take off our helmets. I understand why they would do it from a movie perspective, it just annoyed me that they were so careless.

Also, how did geologist and biologist guy get lost in the ship? They had audio/visual contact with the crew in Prometheus and they just had mapped that area with those cool looking flying devices. Did I miss anything on this part?

The part with the dead guy suddenly appearing at the ship and the crew just opening the doors without making sure it was safe bothered me as well.

Maybe I'm just nitpicking...

Looking forward to the sequel.

]

[Watashi]

This whole movie was pointless.

What an awful final scene.

[Watashi]

[

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Why would the Engineers come and go throughout history to leave all these "maps" across Earth that only leads them to a... military facility? Also, Lindelof did it in Star Trek, and he does it here: have crew land on huge foreign planet.... right exactly to the place where the last surviving engineer is.

]

[Morris Schæffer]

This whole movie was pointless.

What an awful final scene.

Studio interference? Part of me likes to believe Ridley had nothing to do with these moronic decisions, but another realizes the man's output just hasn't been grand the last decade. In any case, this is a tricky project, always was going to be, I respect that, but the final product is so conflicted.

All this hoopla about "it's going to be/it's not going to be a prequel" seems to have thrown the makers themselves a curveball.

[EyesWideOpen]

I still haven't seen 4 but I liked this better then any of the other films.

[Pop Trash]

I still haven't seen 4 but I liked this better then any of the other films.

At this rate of wrongness, my money is on you saying Alien:Resurrection is the best in the series.

[Skitch]

I don't know, my friends are saying its only second to Aliens. Seeing it tomorrow. I'm guessing I'm gonna love it.

[Kurosawa Fan]

This was a bloated, corny, convoluted mess. Started with so much promise, and had some great scenes along the way, but what a completely wasted opportunity it turned out to be.

[Henry Gale]

Kind of interesting how this synopsis that Rowland posted last July was mostly correct in terms of the throughline of it, but with some major differences. I guess it's still spoiler-y to the final film for those that haven't seen it:

A possible, very detailed synopsis has been leaked. Read at your own peril:

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Earth. Year 2058.

Archaeological digs in Africa reveal alien artifacts that humans were genetically engineered by a advanced alien race (space jockeys). These “Alien Gods” also terraformed Earth in order to make it habitable for their human creations. Amongst finds are coordinates to the Alien God’s home-world, to Paradise. Months later the Weyland Corp launch the spaceship PROMETHEUS and his crew, into deep space to make first contact. Thanks to faster than light travel a few years later the PROMETHEUS enters the Zeta Riticuli star system. Humans are greeted by their makers, then transported further into space to a scary yet fascinating world. The Alien Gods are proud of their “children”, their first creation to reach such levels of intelligence.

As a reward they share bits of their astonishing bio-based technologies with the humans. But for one crew member of the Prometheus it’s not enough. In a treacherous act he steals the “bio-source code” to Terraforming, a technology at the origin of all Gods’ power, that could make humans equal to the gods. The Alien Gods may be scientists but are also ruthless conquerors, destroyers of worlds who will not accept humans as equals. They unleash on the escaping human crew their favorite bio-weapon, a creature used to “clean up” worlds before colonization. But something goes wrong in the process and humans manage to turn the bio-weapon against their makers. Giving birth to a smarter, nastier, bigger breed of gut eating creatures. Creatures that will be the demise of Paradise. What’s left of the Prometheus crew manages to escape the doomed planet.

On their trail a survivor Alien God in very familiar ship with one ultimate mission.

Bring the wrath of the Gods to Earth.

]

Most of all, I like the idea of more interaction and betrayal with the Engineers. Could this have been an earlier draft? Because it was definitely real, just with some big differences.

[Ezee E]

Boy, Lindelof's twists and use of villains really hurts an otherwise amazing first half of a movie.

Ridley Scott crafts his best work in quite some time, and in scenes of suspense, really gears things well. Loved Noomi Rapace, even though I don't really understand her point of being there...

But everything is all so convenient after 90 minutes.

[transmogrifier]

That plot summary posted by Rowland is so, so much better than what we actually got, which was frankly a huge mess of unanswered questions, thinly drawn characters and a rushed avalanche of random events masquerading as an ending.

What exactly was the point of Theron's character? She doesn't contribute in any way, shape or form to the story, and has one of the stupidest final scenes you can imagine for a character that is supposed to have half a brain.