Ridley Scott to direct prequel to Alien!!!!!!....

[Randorama]

regarding the continuity problem.

Sorry to flog this one, but why is it a problem that the two stories do not perfectly align when the director has suggested they're not likely to?

It's not much of a problem, for me. I think that the team behind the movie had second thoughts on continuity, and when they added details to make sense of Prometheus as a prequel, they were very messy. They made an half-hearted attempt, and I really dislike half-hearted attempts.

There is overlap, yet incongruity, much like the Lovecraft mythos you alluded to. (wasn't ol' H.P. himself guilty of failing to be 100% consistent, yet we don't go and queue up to micturate on his grave about it). What we see with Prometheus is part and parcel of the 'reimagining' (urgh!) process, and if you stop obsessing about absolute logical consistency, then your problem vanishes.

See above.

I don't think it's automatically lazy of the filmmaker to allow the viewer to make up their own minds where there are explanatory gaps. Neither is it pretentious to be someone who enjoys doing this.

I do. I like when authors give all the clues to fill in the gaps, not when they forget to make sense. With a decent amount of focus, one easily figures out that Rosebud is the sleigh.

Prometheus had several of these Scott-patented gaps: visually appeasing shot that fills in for an inability to write a coherent two lines of dialogue. The kind of "deep stuff" that appeases the first year, hipster cinema undergrads. Scott and his buddies can't write shit, they just aim for the pretty graphics.

Which I actually liked a lot, mind you. I was disappointed that they opted to make the Jockeys like Dr. Manhattan, but it was a perfectly logical choice. Say, if we humans share the same exact DNA code with Jokeys, then Jockeys must really have our bone structure. I would have bothered to pay the ticket, if only for the visual style.

The key problem I have with this movie is that the authors attempted to cater to yankee teenagers, as Blackoak summed up nicely. That's a demographic whose tastes automatically irk me, so there was no hope that I could enjoy the content. Visually speaking, it had enough fanservice to make me happy, so I can call it even.

I wouldn't question that it is the best 2012 movie so far, even, as I am almost scared to look at the competition out there.

And yes, what the initial scene is supposed to represent?

I thought it was Earth at first, but now I believe it could just be any of the planets the engineers had aeons ago identified as habitable.
[/quote]

Yes, that was my thought as well. I need to say that I didn't understand the scene because I skipped the last 10 seconds or so, or whatever the time to turn and grab the drinks was.

Petting an Alien after seeing huge engineers running away like mad, and having been shit scared (rightfully) of any chance of meeting a lifeform just minutes earlier, and walking the other way from the reported presence

That's what a communist, godless darwinist biologist would do, of course! I swear, by this point I wanted to punch in the face the writers and anyone who would be unconsciously appeased by such a retarded scene. Had to read the wikipedia entry of Julian the apostate and the intro of Origin of the species, to calm down.

[Moniker]

Plus, ever since the trailer suggested it, I was thrilled at the prospect of an 80's-scifi-throwback-black-crewman-archetypal character...
I think they totally did it/him justice

Well, yeah Stringer Bell is there.
Justice? Nearly.

Ah that's who that was! I knew I recognized him from somewhere.

[Mischief Maker]

Prometheus had several of these Scott-patented gaps: visually appeasing shot that fills in for an inability to write a coherent two lines of dialogue. The kind of "deep stuff" that appeases the first year, hipster cinema undergrads. Scott and his buddies can't write shit, they just aim for the pretty graphics.

Are you implying that in Legend, when Devil Tim Curry said "You can't have light without Darkness!" that it wasn't a mind-blowing belief-shattering revelation that shocked the world out of its passive complacency and set the human spirit ablaze?

[Herr Schatten]

Watched it this weekend.

First half of the movie seems okay, despite the terrible dialogue. It sets the stage nicely and, as has been mentioned, oozes style. Visually, the movie is impressive. I particularly enjoyed all the straights and sharp angles on vehicles and machinery. Unlike other recent scifi-flicks, stuff doesn't look like it's been bought at an apple store. That's somewhat refreshing.

The second half of the movie is an inconsistent mess, a string of completely pointless scenes and events that don't make much sense, if any. It's almost as if they had started to shoot a half-decent (yet generic) scifi/horror-script, but then some guys in suits forced them to shoehorn in all those ties to Alien, neither of which does really work.

Btw, I was really amused by the fact that you could instantly tell which ones of the characters would be the first to die wretchedly, as soon as they spoke up at the initial mission briefing.

Oh, and the 3D did nothing for me. I think you can refrain from spending the extra cash for the 3D version without feeling you missed something.

[blackoak]

Are you implying that in Legend, when Devil Tim Curry said "You can't have light without Darkness!" that it wasn't a mind-blowing belief-shattering revelation that shocked the world out of its passive complacency and set the human spirit ablaze?

hahahahahahaa

[Randorama]

Are you implying that in Legend, when Devil Tim Curry said "You can't have light without Darkness!" that it wasn't a mind-blowing belief-shattering revelation that shocked the world out of its passive complacency and set the human spirit ablaze?

I would never, never do that! Can we settle this with a "90% of Scott's movies have terrible gaps, except for the mind-blowing revelations that save the rest of the movie"?

But mentioning Legend is really a cheap shot, my resolution wavers in front of this masterpiece of, of...something. I will have my revenge for this, MM!

I would add that I am happy to have seen this one in 2D, though. Something tells me that the quality of the aesthetical style was hampered down, in the 3D version.







I also realized that I never liked much of Scott's movies, not even Blade Runner or Alien. Too much continental european "style over substance" pap.

I liked the printed versions of the xenomorphs better, all in all.

[RGC]

Ah, you should have just said "I don't like popcorn movies" in the first place. No need to elaborate. We get that it's beneath you.

I also didn't get beardyman's attitude.

[Randorama]

Ah, you should have just said "I don't like popcorn movies" in the first place. No need to elaborate. We get that it's beneath you.

Well, I don't like popcorn movies with an intellectual pretense of some sort, lingering in the background. Say, I actually had fun watching the various Marvel movies, since they were wearing their cheesyness up their sleeves, and had some decent fan service. I loved the rendition of the Hydra troops in Captain America, for instance.

Another thing that Prometheus fails badly at, I think, is fan service. The scene in which they show the Jockey setting up the "navigator" chair is clearly fan service. It feels a lot like it was added in the post-production part, when some men in suits decided to add a random tie-in to Alien.

And, again, the religious overtones in the movies really make me want snap Scott and friends' necks, and burn some holy texts for good reason. No religion in my sci-fi, please. And yes, this means that I really abhor a certain '60s classic by a certain Stanley Kubrick, if only for this reason.

...just realized that it's been a while since I unconsciously started to avoid going to the movies. This movie reminded me why.

[mesh control]

[dave4shmups]

Doesn't sound like it's even worth buying a ticket to this movie. For the record, I LOVE Alien-but the characters are working-class stiffs that a lot of people could, and still can, identify with. They were real characters, not fakes, and when Kane died like he did, it's genuinely shocking and tragic. I'm sure there are some chestburster scenes in this movie, but do you even care about any of the characters dying? I don't see any of that with this movie. And the whole "We found teh cave drawings/hyroglifics that point to aliens!" has been done to death in Hollywood, and Scott new that going into this film.

[RGC]

[img]

Splendid troll attempt. Not great with words eh? I feel your pain. Keep em coming.

[Skykid]

And, again, the religious overtones in the movies really make me want snap Scott and friends' necks, and burn some holy texts for good reason. No religion in my sci-fi, please. And yes, this means that I really abhor a certain '60s classic by a certain Stanley Kubrick, if only for this reason.

Blasphemy!

2001 is based on Nietzsche's philosophies on evolution, specifically man and the superman. Not sure there are any overt religious overtones in the movie at all, really not sure where you got that from.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

2001 is based on Nietzsche's philosophies on evolution, specifically man and the superman.

These themes are present in Prometheus too, underneath all the Hollywood slush. Theres some blatant and obvious 2001 homages within the first couple of frames... nothing original here. I even saw a character from GI Joe.

[Randorama]

Ok, I concede that Nietzche may be the main inspiration behind 2001.

But I really can't stand much his philosophy, as it represents an overall deeply reactionary strand of continental philosophy that irks me to no end (and let's not even mention Heidegger...). To my eye, there is no difference between continental philosophy and religion, at least in their unbound passion for obscurely worded claims that cannot even be wrong.

Even worse, I can't stand that standard attempts to wage philosophical, in movies as well as in the arts, seem to stop to Nietzche. If I think that an exception is The Matrix, which builds on Baudrillard, then I suddenly get an outburst of righteous eugenic frenzy. I want Saul Kripke and Michael Leyton in my sci-fi, not some emo weaboo from the 19th century, dammit.

Ok, I'll watch Honneamise over the week-end to feel cleaner.

[RGC]

Naturally, you can present an irrefutable case proving that an analytic perspective is the correct method of approaching reality, not just the approach you prefer for reasons that cannot even be wrong, i.e. you fancy Kripke and want his babies. Closet continental sympathiser!

[mesh control]

[img]

Splendid troll attempt. Not great with words eh? I feel your pain. Keep em coming.

???
That Image is exactly what the film portrays.
Some sort of fucked up genome.

[trap15]

To those who enjoyed the movie:

Just because you like it doesn't mean it's objectively good. I like some things that I know are objectively bad, and I won't say they're not. It's one thing to say that you liked a movie, and completely different one to say that it was an objectively good movie.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Makes me wonder why the Prometheus flick was chopped down to it's 2 hours & 4 minutes running time when the upcoming Blu-Ray version will have an extra 20 minutes.

Wouldn't it have been better to have those extra 20 minutes of footage added to the theatrical version to better advance the plot along?

With James Cameron's Aliens flick, it too, was edited down for time (since it was said by the 20th Century Fox head honchos that they didn't want it dragging on too long). The extended version of Aliens that clocks in at a whopping 2 hours & 37 minutes is the version that Cameron originally wanted to show on the big screen back in 1986.

So if the proto Alien creature we see at the end, then the LV-223 planet would be the Aliens homeworld sharing the same DNA as that of the Engineers/humans.

Whatever happened to the Space Jockeys inside their ship over 2,000 years ago must have been quite something. Director Scott has said that when the humans killed their Space Jesus Messiah character (that the Engineers placed there to oversee how things were progressing along) over 2,000 years ago on Earth, he returned to extract revenge & all hell breaks loose on LV-223. Of course, this isn't shown in the film but does give an important clue as to why it happened.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Herr Schatten]

* spoilers ahead *



- If LV-223 is not the homeworld of the engineer guys, as is alluded to by the (terribbly tacked-on) ending, then why do the cave paintings point to LV-223 and not the real homeworld? A trap, set to snap shut 5000 years later? I don't think they've thought this through.

- Why does Robot Guy infect Dr. Smarmy with the black oil? Just to see what happens?*

- What's the point in bringing Moltenface Redbeard back?* I didn't get that scene at all. And, by the way, what happend to Snakeswallowing Darwinist?

- After Dr. Nicehips had her 'abortion', why the hell doesn't she walk up to the remaining crew, punches some faces and says: "Well, uh, I just cut this squid thing out of me, a task which none of you wanted to help me with at all, btw. How about we make sure it's dead and get our asses out of here?" Instead she just doesn't mention the incident at all, she just dons a spacesuit and goes: "Yeah, let's go for a stroll. Right into where all that deadly stuff came from? Alright, sounds reasonable, let's do just that." I mean, wtf?

- Why exactly does Really Old Guy think he'll find immortality in a giant storage of deadly biological weapons, of all places?

- Anyone else think a much better ending would have been something like this: Dr. Nicehips goes back into the alien spaceship bridge room and finds Engineer Guy dead. Without further ado, she puts her axe through Robot Guy's face, then sits down and waits for her spacesuit' oxygen to run out.


* My theory is that, originally, no appearances of 'real' alien lifeforms were planned, and that all the threat was supposed to come from the black oil/bioweapon stuff, which transforms its victims into zombie monsters of some sort. This would explain the return of Moltenface Redbeard, the decapitated engineer, and, to some extend, the exploding head.
I also think the original agenda Robot guy was supposed to act on might have been similar to those of Ash or Carter Burke: Find the weapon stuff and bring it back to earth. This would explain him infecting Dr. Smarmy as well as his interest in putting Dr. Nicehips back to sleep with squid thing intact.

[Mischief Maker]

With James Cameron's Aliens flick, it too, was edited down for time (since it was said by the 20th Century Fox head honchos that they didn't want it dragging on too long). The extended version of Aliens that clocks in at a whopping 2 hours & 37 minutes is the version that Cameron originally wanted to show on the big screen back in 1986.

With the exception of the gun turret part, every scene cut from the theatrical version of Aliens was an improvement. Showing up on a planet that went silent and having the audience piece together the details alongside the marines was a million times more tension-inducing than the surprisingly lame scene of Newt's parents (!) climbing inside the horseshoe ship only to come running out with a facehugger on daddy's face. Was Cameron afraid that while audiences could forgive Ripley risking her life to save the goddamn cat, they would never understand her risking her life to save a little girl unless they added some dead daughter subplot? Hudson's speech about how modern technology would make the space marines invincible against the Viet Cong, I mean the Xenomorphs, was ham-fisted whack you in the face with a 2 by 4 foreshadowing. The movie was so much better with all this fat trimmed.

Just like Terminator 2 was a better film without the drug-induced dream sequence where a weepy blubbering Sarah Connor can only find the courage to protect her son after a pep-talk from the ghost of Kyle Reece. You'd think after 12 years of doing that she'd be used to it by now.

I will say, however, that cutting the cocoon scene from Alien 1 was a massive mistake. The theatrical cut started with body horror, then kinda turned into a slasher with a sci fi skin. The cocoon scene, where you learn that adult alien doesn't kill its victims, but rather paralyzes them and turns them into new eggs, brings the body horror back with a vengeance.

From the thematic level, I would say that Prometheus is the only true sequel to Alien because of its focus on body horror. It's just a pity the screenwriter wasn't able to come up with a way to bring these themes into play without a whole wheel barrel full of idiot plot moments.

[CMoon]

Mischief Maker> Really agree with your take on Aliens (Cameron's films are always way too bloated and need editing.) Regarding the cocoon scene in the original Alien, this is a bit difficult since I'm not sure the scene is done particularly well. If they'd put more time into it or it had come off better I think it absolutely must be in the film, but I feel the omission was in part because the scene was kinda weak.

[BIL]

I'm a fan of Alien's eggification scene (poor Brett). Its concept is utterly invasive and alien. As fun as Aliens is, it turned the creatures into something very mundane. Angry insects inflated to giant proportions, like in a million b-movies. The original's is a monster that hideously appropriates its victims, more akin to Carpenter's interpretation of The Thing. It's weirder and scarier than a recognisably territorial bug. Lambert's dying shrieks and their implications unsettle me more than anything in the sequels, as do those of Ash's revolting reference to the creature as "Kane's son."

I feel the omission was in part because the scene was kinda weak.

I've read that Scott cut it to preserve the movie's pace as it drew to a close - not sure exactly where that info's from, though.

[RGC]

To those who enjoyed the movie:

Just because you like it doesn't mean it's objectively good. I like some things that I know are objectively bad, and I won't say they're not. It's one thing to say that you liked a movie, and completely different one to say that it was an objectively good movie.

No movie is objectively good or bad. Give me one example that cannot be reduced to a set of subjective claims. Was it too long, too tedious, didn't develop characters well enough, or plausibly, had ropey effects? All opinions which cannot be right or wrong, so it pointless arguing about it.

[Skykid]

No movie is objectively good or bad.

Every movie is objectively good or bad. Those who consider arbitrary objectivity to be a measure of quality don't have the ability to discern quality in the first place.

[burgerkingdiamond]

* spoilers ahead *



- If LV-223 is not the homeworld of the engineer guys, as is alluded to by the (terribbly tacked-on) ending, then why do the cave paintings point to LV-223 and not the real homeworld? A trap, set to snap shut 5000 years later? I don't think they've thought this through.

- Why does Robot Guy infect Dr. Smarmy with the black oil? Just to see what happens?*

- What's the point in bringing Moltenface Redbeard back?* I didn't get that scene at all. And, by the way, what happend to Snakeswallowing Darwinist?

- After Dr. Nicehips had her 'abortion', why the hell doesn't she walk up to the remaining crew, punches some faces and says: "Well, uh, I just cut this squid thing out of me, a task which none of you wanted to help me with at all, btw. How about we make sure it's dead and get our asses out of here?" Instead she just doesn't mention the incident at all, she just dons a spacesuit and goes: "Yeah, let's go for a stroll. Right into where all that deadly stuff came from? Alright, sounds reasonable, let's do just that." I mean, wtf?

- Why exactly does Really Old Guy think he'll find immortality in a giant storage of deadly biological weapons, of all places?

- Anyone else think a much better ending would have been something like this: Dr. Nicehips goes back into the alien spaceship bridge room and finds Engineer Guy dead. Without further ado, she puts her axe through Robot Guy's face, then sits down and waits for her spacesuit' oxygen to run out.


* My theory is that, originally, no appearances of 'real' alien lifeforms were planned, and that all the threat was supposed to come from the black oil/bioweapon stuff, which transforms its victims into zombie monsters of some sort. This would explain the return of Moltenface Redbeard, the decapitated engineer, and, to some extend, the exploding head.
I also think the original agenda Robot guy was supposed to act on might have been similar to those of Ash or Carter Burke: Find the weapon stuff and bring it back to earth. This would explain him infecting Dr. Smarmy as well as his interest in putting Dr. Nicehips back to sleep with squid thing intact.

good point about the cave paintings pointing to LV-223 instead of the home planet.

[Udderdude]

I haven't watched the movie and don't plan to, but here's some text from another internets location that I visit .. that I didn't write, either.

Sans spoilers, As someone who followed the development of the movie from fairly early on, I think the ultimate blame for this lies somewhere in the decision to edit lots of stuff out of the film, but keep in a whole bunch of shit that didn't need to be there. Basically, here's the short story: The film was originally going to be a very straightforward story about humans meeting the Space Jockeys and things going wrong resulting in the creation of the xenomorph from Alien, and it was going to be a very definite prequel.

Somewhere along the line, it was decided to jazz up the film with all sorts of unsolved mysteries and questions and balloon it outwards to explore the possibility of it being turned into a new 20th Century Fox franchise with 2 or three films stemming from it. Since it was already into production, Ridley Scott had to change the movie quite a bit, and then go tell interviewers how cool it was going to be that it was no longer a prequel.

As a result, the film has a lot of weirdness and no longer actually functions as an Alien prequel, although it was obviously intended to be one. I still think it's a good, entertaining sci-fi film, and it'll be great to see a slightly extended version on DVD, but I think what could have been a true masterpiece was basically ruined somewhere along the line by studio greed.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Yeah, Its been said that the 1st draft was a straight-up Alien prequel with eggs, facehuggers and xenomorphs running around by the end. I guess Lindelof was brought in to use find-and-replace to change "facehugger" to "snake", "chestburster" to "squid" etc, etc.

[CMoon]

I'm a fan of Alien's eggification scene (poor Brett). Its concept is utterly invasive and alien. As fun as Aliens is, it turned the creatures into something very mundane. Angry insects inflated to giant proportions, like in a million b-movies. The original's is a monster that hideously appropriates its victims, more akin to Carpenter's interpretation of The Thing. It's weirder and scarier than a recognisably territorial bug. Lambert's dying shrieks and their implications unsettle me more than anything in the sequels, as do those of Ash's revolting reference to the creature as "Kane's son."

Man, now I want to rewatch Alien. I mean, who doesn't love the sequel, but goes from being true horror (perhaps even one of the best horror movies) to a sci-fi adventure flick with some gore.

[CMoon]

Would I be derailing to ask if someone could actually recommend some good horror? Films like Alien and The Thing works because of what they managed psychologically, but I think also because what Mischief Maker is calling Body Horror. I really haven't seen a film that disturbed me in a long time, but am not just looking for a gore fest or something like Cannibal Holocaust. Need to rewatch The Shining, though I never was really scared by it. Just want to enjoy the moving steady cam shots again.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

^most Cronenburg?