The connections with the Alien franchise didn't bother me, but other things did.

That being said, you should probably watch it if you're swinging towards considering it. It raises som nice philosophical concepts and the visuals are stunning.

Thing is, you need to care/know about the canon a little if you expect the movie to make full sense. I definitely got the same sense I got from watching Lynch's "Dune" movie; it definitely feels more cohesive if you know the canon, but it's not totally necessary.

Okay, here goes...

I thought the film was okay. My gripes are mostly about the characters and story. The visuals were very nice, and I appreciated the minimalist use of CG and the beautifully designed sets (though they were more or less just rebuilding the ones from Alien). Good sound editing too.

The soundtrack was kind of... cheesy, and not in a good way. I was really hoping Scott would go very minimalist and creepy with the score like in Alien. No such luck. The soundtrack really screwed up the tone at times. It was fine during the horror scenes, but the rest of the time it was too upbeat and grandiose. It was like John Cage or Bernard Herrman composed one half, and John Williams composed the other. It did not harmonize.

Characters were all pretty eh, with the exception of David, as Joe observed. Two-dimensional, B-list nobodies acting like... well... two-dimensional b-list nobodies. Vickers (who, incidentally, I thought was an android from the start) was such a flat and lazy substitute for an antagonist. A bitch with a superiority complex who acts as if nothing is sacred. Real deep there.

Shaw and Holloway were all over the place, and I couldn't tell whether I was supposed to like them or think of them as the purpose-driven, crazed scientist types. Either way, I did not shed a tear when Holloway got infected and was reduced to a roasted marshmallow.

I was originally put off by Fifield's rote brusqueness, but I did like how eventually he and the nerdy dude he was such a dick to kind of became buds as they got their asses lost in the ruins. Too bad it was cut short by the Hammerpede.

While I like Guy Pearce, not only was he poorly cast as Weyland, but the age make-up they put on him was piss poor. They should have just gotten an actual old man. Maybe John Hurt, since he was in the first Alien movie. Or Lance Henrikson, since Bishop was supposedly modeled after the head of the company. Would have been a nice little easter egg for the fans. It's not like Lance would have said no, he'll be in fucking anything these days.


As everyone in this thread has said, there are parts that don't make much sense. One of the things that left me scratching my head was when Fifield crab-walked back to the ship as some kind of crazed zombie monster. What was the reason for that? It would have made more sense if it was the guy who swallowed the Hammerpede, because then you could pass it off as some kind of brain-controlling parasite or some such scifi bullshit. I mean, I assumed after Fifield got a face full of acid, he would have just fuckin' died, not come back as some rampaging maniac. On wikipedia, the reason provided is because he was exposed to the black fluid, but if that's it's effect, why didn't Holloway also go apeshit and start killing people after David put it in his drink? Not only would that have made more sense, but it would have still given Vickers an excuse to flambé his ass with the flamethrower. The whole "just kill me" thing was too theatrical, and had me rolling my eyes.

Why did David shut off his camera when he went into the Engineers' cryo chamber? I mean, Vickers was obviously in on it from the beginning, so why tune her out?

I also find it a little far-fetched that after Shaw gave birth to the squid baby (which also didn't make much sense), that the rest of the crew would have just left it in there to grow into that giant thing that looks like it could star in a hentai series. Am I supposed to believe that after Shaw beat the piss out of her two lab assistants and ran off to Vicker's quarters that nobody bothered to investigate?

And finally, the ending. If they didn't do a sequel, I think it would be a bit of a cop out, unless you want to accept David's reasoning that the Engineers' reason for wanting to kill mankind was irrelevant. I probably could have accepted that if the rest of the movie was more cohesive, but to tack on even more unanswered questions at the end just left me with huge blue balls.

As for the Proto-xenomorph busting out of the Engineer's chest, I think it would have been better if after his tussle with the Hentai squid, he wandered back to his ship dazed and wounded, going through the motions, sitting in the pilot's seat and then it busted out. That extra minute of film would have tied it to Alien with a nice big bow. Lazy storytelling, right there. Gah.

So yeah, those are my gripes. Surprisingly few considering how many I usually have with today's blockbusters. It's worth a watch if you want a big budget scifi/horror that isn't insultingly dumb and/or if you're a fan of Alien and Giger's work.

Wow, I wrote a lot more than I meant to. Sorry...

Edit: This image will be relevant to those who have seen it.

Just finished watching Prometheus myself. There were some finnicky bits, but I loved the ending, I loved the various aliens present, and I loved the actors who played the captain and his pals, the surgeon lady protagonist, and the robot. The robot was smooth like the oil of Oliviei.

Also that part where the dude gets his head crushed gave me the willies.

For all the David fans.

http://i.imgur.com/kVodv.gif

I liked the soundtrack, nothing seemed out of place to me. Gorgeous visuals pretty much every single frame of the film. To be honest, this is what I want when I see a movie.

Vickers was just badly written. She was basically like an evil version of Ripley, but done poorly. I didn't like any of the characters, except the captain bloke. He seemed the most sensible of the bunch. The rest were dumb.

Yeah I didn't get why they used old-dude make up. At least Back To The Future had the younger versions of Martys parents in the film, which makes sense to make them look older.

The crew didn't want it to grow, they wanted to freeze her to be ready for when she got back home so they could present it to the company.

Why do people complain about Prometheus not being a 100% direct link to Alien, in the sense that the last thing you see in the film HAS to be the first thing you see on Alien... yet when people see The Matrix Reloaded or Star Wars II/III, they don't care that a timeskip has been used. Timeskips happen in films people!

It's miles above AVP2 and better than Alien 3. I'd rather watch Prometheus again then the original Alien (which is also very good), which is a testament to how much I like the new film.

I really enjoyed Dune. I think everyone should watch that film.

STRINGER BELL!

"Gentlemen, ain't no aliens give a shit about a 40 degree day!"

I actually re-watched the original Alien that night when I came home. It's so much better. It really is. Prometheus has all the problems a modern, big budget film has; sterility. Everything feels like it's had its character thoroughly scrubbed away.

People have been telling me "It's not about the characters, it's about the circumstances they're in". Yeah, I get that, but it was the same with Alien, and they still managed to make the characters feel more real and less rote.

I totally agree with this. To expand what I said in BM's blog; the action and horror scenes felt like they were inserted as an afterthought and the side-cast was built up around them. It all felt so contrived.

I mean, look at Alien.
Utilitarian ship covered in filth, bare bones. No fancy 3D display monitors, no pristine captain's quarters with a fucking grand piano. I understand that this was mostly a product of the limitations at the time, but it worked so well.

The crew consisted of scientists that look like scientists and feel like real people, ie not perfectly symmetrical, well-toned 20-somethings that look elegant and choreographed even while being murdered by aliens.

Watched episode 3 of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Pretty good show. Interesting use of comic book style blood and core, slo-mo and extreme language. I quite like Gladiatorial things (the Gladiator movie by Ridley Scott, Gladiator Begins on PSP, etc)

I love Spartacus because of how incredibly over the top it is. oh and the sex scenes of course :tard: I just finished watching Vengeance. Really good.

I don't know if you know that the guy who played Spartacus Andy Whitfield died before they could film season 2. it was a real shame hearing about it.

I love Spartacus because John Hannah.

Vengeance was damn good too though.

Spartacus is just gore and sex, with somehow, a tonne of story crammed in too. I love it.

Yeah, apparently he had to back out due to health reasons and then he died about a year after he backed out. Sad, since he was the best part of it. (Besides John Hannah of course, Mummy for the win)

I still haven't figured out yet if Manu Bennett is a really good actor or a really bad actor.

He's something for sure.

I haven't seen Brave yet, but I just read a review that said it lacks the heart of other Pixar films. It goes on to very vaguely give reasons for this. At one point the reviewer states that it just can't sit at the top shelf of Pixar films like Toy Story, and Cars. This was when I stopped reading the review.

Yeah, I've heard a few first impressions of it and I gotta say I'm not exactly ecstatic to see it anymore. For shame. I'll still end up seeing it, but I can't help but feel skeptic.

I thought the trailers looked really good, too.

Oh, and anyone who think "Cars" is on the same level as Toy Story or other great Pixar films obviously has something wrong with them mentally.

I still think Brave looks kind of shit.

I'm especially surprised you like Wall-E, OANST. That movie was a disjointed turdfest that used every "tug on your heartstrings" cliche in the book.

It may have used some cliches, but it used them cleverly. The entire first half of the film was done without dialogue, and was one of the most endearing things I've ever seen. It takes balls to put out a kids movie where you don't get dialogue for 45 minutes.

Wall-E was incredible. And remember, I'm a teenager. I normally hate good things.

Wall-E was awesome, but did run on for a bit too long. I felt like there should've been more Earth shenanigans and less fat people.

I also loved Wall-E

So the moody teenager, the two artsy farts and the anime fan all agree.

Chris is more hipster than our powers combined.

Shut the fuck up, I'm not "moody"! I can be artsy too!

WHY DOES NO-ONE LISTEN TO MEEE

*Sob*

I actually agree that the first act of the film was great, but the second they got into space they started to lose me. It just went downhill from there, and by the end of the film, I was so put off by what I saw that I forgot the beginning entirely.

It felt like one of those movies that would have been more effective as a short film.

The second half wasn't as good, but it was nowhere near bad enough to make me forget how much I loved the first half.

I too loved Wall-E. I thought it was a very charming film.

Plus Wall-E looks like R.O.B. and I love those things. :)

So I finished watching the sixth season of Futurama, I had only seen one episode of it before. I honestly did really like it and unlike the Simpsons, it hasn't really gone to a wrong direction in my opinion. My personal favourite episodes were the bone vampire one and Benderama, both were really good. The only one I really just didn't find good was the last one, Reincarnation, I thought it was boring.

I also watched the two new episodes from the seventh season that started 3 days ago, I found both very enjoyable, especially the second one (the one about the Martian calendar). Really getting back into Futurama.

I saw that episode of the Simpsons recently where Homer puts on weight to get on disability. Back in the day when 300 pounds was actually considered a disability and not just status quo for America.

I watched The Devil's Double. It was staggeringly, unquestionably, inphallicly okay. Nothing stands out. It was shot very well, and Dominic Cooper did a cool job as in the whole duel-role bit, but overall too much time was spent with him just sitting around looking disapproving about things happening around him.