Prometheus (2012) (1 Viewer)

[robb1138]

I get both sides of saying that it is or isn't a prequel, but it feels a bit odd whenever I see people ranking it among the other 4 Alien movies, just because I can't imagine making direct comparisons between Prometheus and Alien Resurrection.
If I'm being honest, my reaction to Prometheus is probably about the same as my initial reaction to Blade Runner. As such, I'll be interested in seeing if Prometheus shows up on some "best of" lists in 2025.

 

[Greg*go]

I watched the film last Saturday with 2 other friends. I have been reading everyone's opinions in work throughout the week, but I haven't been able to comment due to my schedule. 2 of us, myself included, did not watch a single trailer. I knew Ridley Scott stated it was in the Alien universe but it is not an Alien prequel. I honestly would not have been able to tell you a single actor from the film, and my other friend only knew that Stringer Bell was in it. After watching the film, the 3 of us had a fairly decent discussion, and I thought we covered most of the questions regarding the engineers. Here's our take:
First, it never occurred to any of us that the black liquid in the first scene is the same as the black liquid that creates the face huggers. Aside from being black, there is apparently know other similarity.
Second, the Engineers created life on earth. Not just humans, but all life. This is evident from the first scene where we see the engineer sacrificing himself to create life on earth 3 billion years ago*. Therefore, evolution is not in question. We still evolved they way we thought we did. However, this movie seemed to answer the question of how life originally was created, which as far as our group of 3 know, is still in question by scientists today. Judging from the scene before the sex-scene, the creation of life from non-life also seems a mystery to the characters in the movie. One of us commented on how not only is our DNA 95%+ similar to chimps, but our DNA is 25% similar to dandelions. I looked it up afterwards, and it seems like my buddy was right. Since everything is created by the engineers, it makes sense that we share similarities with even the most basic life on earth.
Third, we were not able to figure out why ancient humans knew to draw diagrams to LV223. But, we figured the engineers decided to kill us because we are a "100% match" to them. They have no qualms about killing us, because to them, we're like an ant farm, or to put it in movie perspective, we're like David. The movie seemed to beat us over the head about this point. I've read comments on here stating otherwise, but you have to remember, to the Engineers, we're the product of their 3+ billion year experiment. I'd argue they have no way of knowing how their plan will evolve over 3 billion years. In Earth's instance, we became the sum, and since we're too similar to them, our makers, they decided to put an end to us.
Fourth, there is no correlation to the events that happen between this film and Alien. They could still theoretically show us how the events took place on LV426, and it would be a completely different movie not involving humans from earth at all. Didn't they reference how old the Space Jockey was in Alien? If I remember correctly, it was really old. So although the Engineers on LV223 might have had a similar problem that occurred on LV426, it is just that: Similar, but separate. At the end of this film, I was thinking they might try to tie it together, but I'm glad they didn't. I don't think Shaw's distress call could be the message received by the Nostromos, because then the Nostromos wouldn't have a problem understanding it. I watched Alien the week before Prometheus came out, and I got the impression the distress call was in an alien language.
Fifth, and I think this is the spottiest of our theories, the black liquid oozing has a 2-3 step process to create "Aliens." When it comes in contact with worms, it creates face huggers. Or maybe the worm bred an offspring like Shaw, which resulted in a facehugger. When it comes in contact with males, I figured it mutated them, making them crazy animals, and also making their sperm breed into a face hugger. Due to the lack of specifics, this only reached 2/3 agreement, and it's kind of a merge between our 2 ideas.
Questions do remain, like, even though thigns went wrong on LV223, why didn't the Engineers have a backup plans to destroy earth? But I don't mind... I choose to believe this version of the story
*I realize Scott stated it could be Earth, or any other planet, but when we talked about it, we treated it like it was Earth.

 

[Greg*go]

Yeah, it's clearly a prequel but I think when people say that it's not really a prequel, it's because Prometheus uses a few elements from Alien rather than Prometheus being Part One of a story and Alien being Part Two.

I agree. If I was asked, is this a prequel, I'd say no. I think the problem what is the definition of a prequel? For me, it's 2 things:
1: The events in the "prequel" take place before the events of the original film in the same universe. This is true for Prometheus.
2: The events in the "prequel" have a direct impact which lead up to the events in the original. This is the shady area of Prometheus. Obviously, Ash knew more than he let on in Alien. But Nostromos was responding to an real distress call, which didn't originate in Prometheus.
Obviously, opinions vary, but a prequel can't just be a film that happens in the same universe in an earlier time period. Would anyone call "Inglourious Basterds" a prequel to "Reservoir Dogs?"
edit: Plus we have the Director saying it's not a prequel. So there's that.

 

[Kevin EK]

I think it's pretty clear that Shaw's message is not the distress call the Nostromo receives in ALIEN. Her message is an English transmission, coming from LV223.
The transmission in ALIEN is a foreign one that takes that crew a bit of the movie to translate - and even that is only enough to say that it's a warning, not a distress call.
The novelization of ALIEN has Ash elaborate in his final statements that the Company had already translated the warning and found it to be a very graphic description of the alien and what it does. Special Order 937 in ALIEN fits well with this - in that the Company is well aware they are trying to bring back this life form at all costs - with all other priorities rescinded and the crew considered expendable if that's what it takes to get a sample back.

The main piece of information we get from this movie is to know what the ship was that crashed on LV426 and how the alien eggs got on board. This isn't the story of that ship, but it does tell us where it came from.

I still say that the alien eggs are just a different form of bioweapon from what we see in this film. I don't think that one mutates from the squid-like thing to a facehugger and thence to an alien. They're all part of the same kind of weapon - just that the alien egg works a little different from what we see happening hear with the worms and tentacles.

 

[WillG]

Prometheus had another solid weekend, pulling in another $20M domestically which was good enough for the number 2 box office spot (again behind Madagascar), but beat new Adam Sandler and Tom Cruise movies. Worldwide take at this point is $218M

 

[robb1138]

Prometheus had another solid weekend, pulling in another $20M domestically which was good enough for the number 2 box office spot (again behind Madagascar), but beat new Adam Sandler and Tom Cruise movies. Worldwide take at this point is $218M

Without knowing the marketing budget, I'd guess that $300m is the target to get a sequel.

 

[WinstonCely]

Without knowing the marketing budget, I'd guess that $300m is the target to get a sequel.

Sorry, I'm a little stupid when it comes to box office money, but would that $300m be just the US/North America receipts, or world wide total?

 

[SteveSs]

My Father's Day gift was my 22-year-old daughter taking me to see Prometheus! What a sweetheart. Great discussions here. My big questions revolve around David's duplicity. For instance:
1. How do we know that the Engineers were looking to de-populate Earth? Because David told us so. I get that the Earth is highlighted in the star map, but David is the only one with an explanation why.
2. I don't think we know what David said to the Engineer. Are we just assuming that David said "we are from Earth", and that's what set off the battle?

 

[Sean Bryan]

An interesting deleted shot/scene

 

[robb1138]

My Father's Day gift was my 22-year-old daughter taking me to see Prometheus! What a sweetheart. Great discussions here. My big questions revolve around David's duplicity. For instance:
1. How do we know that the Engineers were looking to de-populate Earth? Because David told us so. I get that the Earth is highlighted in the star map, but David is the only one with an explanation why.
2. I don't think we know what David said to the Engineer. Are we just assuming that David said "we are from Earth", and that's what set off the battle?

I agree that David's true allegiances are one of the vague things that the sequel needs to answer. I took his comment about "doesn't every child want to kill its parents" and his efforts to create the alien (you know, the thing that the Engineers were supposedly creating to annihilate the humans) to mean that his ultimate goal might be to complete the work of the Engineer crew on LV223.
For the earlier question about box office, I meant that the global total would probably need to be $300m. It looks on-target to hit around $130m in North America (pretty disappointing since I would have given it an outside shot to get around $225m when the buzz was at its peak a month or two ago).
Does anyone think the Engineers might just be a really evolved form of humanity, rather than a "parent" species? Maybe they created the humans as a way to try to start things over and reconcile for their own shortcomings as a race. Afterall, the evidence of them trying to create more lifeforms and create lifeforms for destructive purposes isn't really the sci-fi archetype for the superior, benevolent aliens. Their science has clearly reached a pinnacle if they can engineer new species, but they've just used that to try to find bigger and better ways of killing each other. The Engineer may take the Prometheus' presence and them asking him for "answers" as a sign that mankind is spiraling down the same self-destructive path that thinned out their own race.

 

[robb1138]

My Father's Day gift was my 22-year-old daughter taking me to see Prometheus! What a sweetheart. Great discussions here. My big questions revolve around David's duplicity. For instance:
1. How do we know that the Engineers were looking to de-populate Earth? Because David told us so. I get that the Earth is highlighted in the star map, but David is the only one with an explanation why.
2. I don't think we know what David said to the Engineer. Are we just assuming that David said "we are from Earth", and that's what set off the battle?

I agree that David's true allegiances are one of the vague things that the sequel needs to answer. I took his comment about "doesn't every child want to kill its parents" and his efforts to create the alien (you know, the thing that the Engineers were supposedly creating to annihilate the humans) to mean that his ultimate goal might be to complete the work of the Engineer crew on LV223.
For the earlier question about box office, I meant that the global total would probably need to be $300m. It looks on-target to hit around $130m in North America (pretty disappointing since I would have given it an outside shot to get around $225m when the buzz was at its peak a month or two ago).
Does anyone think the Engineers might just be a really evolved form of humanity, rather than a "parent" species? Maybe they created the humans as a way to try to start things over and reconcile for their own shortcomings as a race. Afterall, the evidence of them trying to create more lifeforms and create lifeforms for destructive purposes isn't really the sci-fi archetype for the superior, benevolent aliens. Their science has clearly reached a pinnacle if they can engineer new species, but they've just used that to try to find bigger and better ways of killing each other. The Engineer may take the Prometheus' presence and them asking him for "answers" as a sign that mankind is spiraling down the same self-destructive path that thinned out their own race.

 

[TravisR]

For the earlier question about box office, I meant that the global total would probably need to be $300m. It looks on-target to hit around $130m in North America (pretty disappointing since I would have given it an outside shot to get around $225m when the buzz was at its peak a month or two ago).

I think $225 million was staggeringly optimistic because that take would have made it the 7th highest grossing R rated movie ever made. If it hits about $130 million, it will be one of the 50 highest grossing R rated movies of all time and in the top 10 highest grossing R rated movies of the last 5 years (a list mostly consisting of Oscar nominated movies and The Hangovers). If an R rated movie pulls in $130 million today, I think it should be seen as a pretty big success.

 

[robb1138]

I think $225 million was staggeringly optimistic because that take would have made it the 7th highest grossing R rated movie ever made. If it hits about $130 million, it will be one of the 50 highest grossing R rated movies of all time and in the top 10 highest grossing R rated movies of the last 5 years (a list mostly consisting of Oscar nominated movies and The Hangovers). If an R rated movie pulls in $130 million today, I think it should be seen as a pretty big success.

That's probably why so few movies that cost $125m are released with an R rating.
I meant $225m as the ceiling if it had great word-of-mouth (as some of us thought it would based on how good we thought it would be). I thought $180m was pretty reasonable though for it to be a hit. All in all, I think the total gross will seem underwhelming mostly because of how high it opened. If it had opened at only $40m and gone on to do $130m, that would be considered okay.

 

[Sam Favate]

I'd be willing to bet the movie gets a sequel. It's been reasonably successful and has had fairly good word of mouth, and the DVD/blu-ray sales are still to come.

 

[Felix Martinez]

Saw it in the large IMAX 3D format and it was an exquisite experience. I have a lot of probs with some of the character motivations and the structure of the story, but the ideas are big and bold enough to sustain the experience.

Putting aside for a moment some of the inane characterizations, motivations, and dialogue, here are some structural changes I would have done:

I would have moved up the reveal of Weiland to the beginning of the second act after "first contact" at the temple and have his interchange with David be personal. The "try harder" and infection directive for David would then carry additional dramatic weight. Vickers at this point can begin losing control of the mission, and the trademark "Alien" paranoia would begin infecting her, as Weiland confides more and more with his "son," David.

The earlier introduction of the Weiland character would then provide the voice and additional info for theories about who the Engineers are. Shaw could take a more spiritual counterpoint, and a good, brief scene could serve as a platform for a philosophical discussion about what this all means. It can also serve as an exploration of linear/non-linear thinking as a metaphor for linear/non-linear evolution - ie, Darwinism vs. Panspermia theory. Vickers and David represent linear mindsets - ie achieve objectives via established cold-logic linear protocol, and Weiland, in his own corrupted way, can bridge that with Shaw's oblique spiritual views.

This could be the equivalent of the "comparing scars" scene/reprieve in Jaws - the calm before the storm. It can also serve as preface for Vickers not able to see things other than linearly - ie her boneheaded run in a straight line at the end.

Shaw's Ceasarian should have been moved late into the 3rd act, to compound the climax - David should not have told her what was inside her, but it should have been clear he's obviously holding something back.

Shaw's action during the third act could have revealed a slowly deteriorating physical state as that something which is growing inside her is beginning to affect her physically. But the ridiculousness of physical action and pole-vaulting crevices post-Ceasarian procedure would be eliminated. And the increased physical activity brings on the "birthing" pains. Shaw makes it back to the escape pod and discovers what is growing inside her and she does the procedure then. The final tete-a-tete with the Engineer could then be with a physically incapacitated and bleeding Shaw, relying on her wits to outsmart the engineer with the wonderful ability of human beings who have nothing to lose to risk death for survival (a counterpoint to the theme of accepting death for other life), and the baby/alien-worm/facehugger thrown into the mix as a smaller, more nimble threat to the participants. Her ability to think non-linearly and risk her own life is the determining factor of the final confrontation. Ultimately she is left alone, to die a lonely death, but accomplished her mission. She can even take her life, but it would be on her terms.

Just my quick $.02

 

[Kevin EK]

I agree that the movie looks likely to generate a sequel, based on the business both in the US and worldwide, with the Blu-ray sales in the 4th quarter looking to be very large, given that many people who saw it in the theater will get the disc to see the longer cut.

The thing about successful R-rated films is that we need to adjust the earlier big R hits for inflation. If you adjust Beverly Hills Cop or Fatal Attraction, just as a couple of examples, you'll get a number that's on par with many big hits. There were certainly some voices that tried to sound alarm bells that Prometheus wasn't cut down to be a PG-13, the idea being that R-rated movies don't make that much money and Prometheus was way too expensive to risk on the rating. I think the box office we've seen shows not a problem with the rating but issues that people have had with the logic gaps in the movie.

 

[Diallo B]

An interesting deleted shot/scene

i definitely am interested in seeing a director's cut.

 

[David9Hester]

Ok I saw the film over the past weekend and being one of the more sane posters on this forum. Here is my take on the film.
I was expecting a lot more depth coming from a Ridly Scott film but it seems that in his past films the movies he has made. Have become rather dumb down and not deep anymore. And the film's ending what was I suppose to be feeling? Oh wow, an alien queen has been born out of the Engineers stomach after having in digested whatever that squid like creature put down his throat. Am I suppose to believe that that creature was the first of its kind? No. What happened to the others and to the eggs that they lay? Overall, the film was terrible except for its graphics.
1.5/5

 

[Brian Dobbs]

Whyyyyyy.
[VIDEO]http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/VIDEO]

This is hilarious.

 

[Coressel]

Those Red Letter Moron videos are about a hilarious as a colonoscopy.