Prometheus Review Thread (Spoilers)

[Duffy12]

Originally Posted by RocShemp

That's not the vibe I got from the film at all. I agree that the black oil was a WMD but I don't think the intent was to destroy us. Rather that the planet where the oil was made was a manufacturing plant and Earth is where their weapons are assembled. The key being the final scene with the quasi-xenomorph.

Engineers created Humans as hosts of the creatures created by the black oil to serve as gestation pods to grow xenomorphs. The final intended product are the xenomorphs that we see in Alien and Aliens. The ships that look like partially eaten doughnuts are like the delivery trucks from a manufacturing plant. They ship the oil to Earth where the "parts" (the oil and human hosts) are "assembled" to make xenomorphs.

Basically the whole "Made in China. Assembled in Mexico" type scenario.

However, the "plant" that the crew of the Prometheus visited had a major spill or a bad batch of oil was made (or both) and everyone but one Engineer died.

At least that's what I understood.

I like that. Pretty good.

However, why then did they leave maps back to this secretive highly classified place?

.

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by sgsalt

I think it's just vague as a concept, an adaptive black goo with very little or explicit law or rule, even within the context of the movie.

It comes across as lazy writing, whether they meant it or not.

The script is much more interesting to me because

[Show spoiler]The Alien is the WMD and there's even a few different types of monster they've developed.

This is a much more satisfying and natural origin in my opinion.

Yes on all counts. I dont want the Alien dumbed down in any way. I want it to be the expected result of their tests and creations. Dont just make them into some "science project gone bad" crap, weve had too much of that over the years.

One question my brother and I had about the Alien being a WMD though?

Once these Xenomorphs are released and take over wherever they are planted, what happens next? Do the Engineers go in and just kill them off and then take over themselevs? I always wondered exactly how the workflow goes when using the Alien as a WMD.

[RocShemp]

Originally Posted by Duffy12

I like that. Pretty good.

However, why then did they leave maps back to this secretive highly classified place?

.

That one bugs me. Perhaps some humans found some abandoned Engineer tech (like those holomaps) and interpreted them as a map to the home of ther "gods"? Hopefully the sequel will address that.

[RocShemp]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

Once these Xenomorphs are released and take over wherever they are planted, what happens next? Do the Engineers go in and just kill them off and then take over themselevs? I always wondered exactly how the workflow goes when using the Alien as a WMD.

I'd assume if a Xenomorph is a WMD, it'd be the equivalent of a nuke. You point it at your enemy as a means of deterence. You never want to use it since it's a final solution. But once you do, everything is wiped out.

[Duffy12]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

One question my brother and I had about the Alien being a WMD though?

Once these Xenomorphs are released and take over wherever they are planted, what happens next? Do the Engineers go in and just kill them off and then take over themselevs? I always wondered exactly how the workflow goes when using the Alien as a WMD.

That one is very easy.


Remember Ridley Scott's comment about the alien hiding aboard the shuttle and taking a nap?

He said that it was at the end of it's life cycle and was in the process of dieing due to it's very rapid growing spurt and it's perpetual loss of body fluids. If Ripley had left it alone it my not have even bothered her.

Just drop them on an inhabited planet and then a short time later EVERYTHING is dead...including the alien xenos. Its slicker then snot.

Now with James Cameron's alien queen, that throws a monkey wrench into that whole idea. However does Scott even consider that canon?

.

[RocShemp]

I guess you could view the Queen as an unexpected aberration. However, was the derelict ship keeping the facehugger eggs preserved or can they "hibernate" indefinitely. If the latter, there's still grave danger regardless of the presence of a Queen.

[Grumpz]

Originally Posted by BLUEGRASS

I finished reading the Spaihts script, and I've gotta say that I wish this script was the one that was used for the movie...it left out all of the confusing mess with the black goo.

http://www.prometheusforum.net/Alien-Engineers.pdf

Just finished reading the script. This, for the most part, SHOULD of been the movie that was made.

[Lacit170]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

[Show spoiler]
It's presumably the engineer's starting life on earth. Hence the DNA breaking down and then reforming in the water to spread around the world.

oh duh, yea that makes sense.... the start of the human race....

do we know what he drank to break apart like that?

[avecha]

Originally Posted by Duffy12

I like that. Pretty good.

However, why then did they leave maps back to this secretive highly classified place?

.

It was a star map that showed a system similar to ours. It never pointed at any plant in particular. They chose the planet to land on as it had a sun like ours?

[sgsalt]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

One question my brother and I had about the Alien being a WMD though?

Once these Xenomorphs are released and take over wherever they are planted, what happens next? Do the Engineers go in and just kill them off and then take over themselevs? I always wondered exactly how the workflow goes when using the Alien as a WMD.

I thought about this and the only thing I can think of is the Xenomorphs hatch, wipe out humans (they'd be poorly kitted out being two thousand years ago) then the xeno's just die off and the planet resets. Got to remember in the script the Engineer visitation cycle is 11,000 years. Plenty of time to format earth.

Just a theory...

[Talzin78]

I don't care for the creation scene in the beggining being a puposeful ritual.

I like to think that the Engineer was infected with the xenomorph and commits suicide rather than let it loose, and in the process accidentally creating life on earth. It reaches back to the Lovecraft Cthulhu mythos that humans are a cosmic joke and a mistake. That would then give purpose to the engineers wanting to destroy life on earth, being that it was an accident that must be remedied. Just my thoughts is all.

[Member-115369]

I think it was a purposeful ritual.

They're "engineers" after all.

Could have committed suicide anywhere. Didn't have to be dropped off on some lifeless planet to do it. They could have just blew him out the airlock etc.

The story only really makes sense if they deliberately created human life, became unhappy with it for some reason, and were going to unleash the horrors they created on earth to wipe out their creation for whatever reason.

[Talzin78]

I disagree if they are such great engineers why would they have to destroy themselves for this creation, when they have obviously created other life without utterly destroying themselves. The first Alien was heavily inspired by Lovecraftian mythology with O'Bannon, Scott, and especially Geiger.

[csdot]

Originally Posted by Talzin78

I disagree if they are such great engineers why would they have to destroy themselves for this creation, when they have obviously created other life without utterly destroying themselves. The first Alien was heavily inspired by Lovecraftian mythology with O'Bannon, Scott, and especially Geiger.

the opening scene takes place MILLIONS of years before the events of the film. its logical to assume that they would have advanced greatly by that time since they were already far beyond human beings at that point. also there really isnt much Lovecraftian influence in Alien, unless you mean visually.

[dp1890]

Originally Posted by Talzin78

I disagree if they are such great engineers why would they have to destroy themselves for this creation, when they have obviously created other life without utterly destroying themselves. The first Alien was heavily inspired by Lovecraftian mythology with O'Bannon, Scott, and especially Geiger.

I wouldn't go as far as to say they're destroying themselves if all they need to do is sacrifice one single engineer to terraform a planet with humans. From the engineer's perspective, I think the original purpose for terraforming was for experimental reasons to see how humans could be used as a resource. At some point in their research they developed the black goo which infects engineers and creates xenomorphs, and rather than using their own species they saw the potential to use humans instead, which is why I think they intended to go back to earth at the end of the film. For this reason, I think the black goo in the opening scene is different from the one we see later in the film.

[Talzin78]

Regardless this is all speculation. Until some more concrete answers are given in the sequels. Reminds me of the whole Blade Runner Replicant argument. In the source book for BR there is no way he's a replicant however Scott later makes mention that he is, sparking years of arguments.

[csdot]

there are concrete answers, you just apparently arent privy to them. like with Blade Runner, Scott has said what is going on in the movie so there isnt really any room for debate. theres a ton of extras with the blu-ray theres no need to speculate.

[Talzin78]

Obviously your idea of concrete and mine are completeley different things. And as for the "Not Privy enough" comment. Come on.
Blade Runner was based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in which there is no doubt that he is human.
Ridley Scott is one of those great artist that let his fiction run wild in his head and spout out IDEAS and THOUGHTS during commentaries and interviews. An idea or thought can change by the time you put it on paper then evolves more by the time its filmed. Ridley Scott is a fantastic storyteller with a wonderful imagination, but like any writer or artist his ideas and thoughts will of course evolve before they are solidified.
Do you honestley think that the Alien on the Derelict ship back in 1979 was meant to have a Humanoid faced Engineer under a helmet in 2012, and not something so alarmingly different from human features to raise questions about its origins?

[Zvi]

Finally managed to watch it. It was still fun to watch and visuals were amazing IMHO. As for the rest.
If there are "concrete" answers they are well hidden, outside of the movie, in best traditions of the Lost I suppose Lindelof's handiwork... Mysteries for the sake of mysteries, nothing gets answered or explained in the movie, I figure that's because Lindelof wanted to avoid ruining experience.

Aliens as a WMD was stupid, I mean as it was in the movie. The engineers got wiped out themselves, in rather large numbers, in their own installation, I assume they did have some safety precautions, but still got wiped out by their own lab rats. What's the point of infecting any planet if they can't go down there later? If they can sterilize planet infected by those things, then why bother with such a dangerous WMD anyway, just sterilize as it is?

Although, gotta give credit where it's due - consistency! Engineers descendants, visiting the place 2000 years later seem to be just as boneheaded as their creators, apparently, that runs in genes...
One scientists takes off the helmet the moment O2 levels are ok, who cares about any other gases or bacteria or whatever. The geologist never picks up a single rock, and even though he's supposed to be ok with field trips/long journeys, manages to get lost in a building which was already 3d mapped, while being in (or at least being able to) radio contact with the ship's captain who has the 3d map in from of him with their location?! The botanist or biologist or whoever it was, petting the snake thingy, got what was coming to him, just like predecessors. And on a trillion dollar expedition, primary decontamination protocol is "open cargo bays and I'll do a pass with a flame thrower", like really, really seriously? Even the android is psychotic, and bunch of other things happening/people acting weird(like running straight on the path of the rolling spaceship) for who knows what reason.

[BLUEGRASS]

Asked by Collider if he's penning a second "Prometheus," Lindelof says:

"I am not. Ridley [Scott] and I talked at great length during the story process of the first movie about what subsequent movies would be if Prometheus were to be successful. And I think that the movie ended in a very specific way that hinted at, or strongly implied that there were going to be continuing adventures worthy of writing stories.

What those stories would be would not necessarily usurp or transcend the Alien franchise as we saw it because we know that the Nostromo hasn’t come along yet. So the idea was to set up a universe that… Is it a prequel? Okay. If that’s what we want to call it, sure. But the sequel to this movie is not Alien. The sequel to this movie is this other thing.

The thing about Prometheus was it was a rewrite. Jon Spaihts wrote a script and I rewrote it. And still it was a year of my life that I spent on Prometheus, kind of all in. The idea of building a sequel to it—from the ground up this time—with Ridley is tremendously exciting.

But at the same time, I was like, 'Well that’s probably going to be two years of my life.' I can’t do what J.J. [Abrams] does. I don’t have the capability. I’m usually very single-minded creatively. I can only be working on one thing at a time. So I said to him, 'I really don’t think I could start working on this movie until I do this other stuff. And I don’t know when the other stuff is going to be done.'

And he was like, 'Well, okay, it’s not like I asked you anyways.' He and I are on excellent terms and it was a dream come true to work with him. But much to the delight of all the fanboys, I don’t see myself being involved in Prometheus-er."