Prometheus Review Thread (Spoilers)

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by TylerDurden

I always was of the opinion that the alien queen in the movie Aliens was the creature that burst out of the space jockey/suit.

When would the queen have popped out of the Space Jockey? Thousands or millions of years before 2122? That makes for a long life cycle for the xenomorph queen. Where was the queen when the Nostromo crew was investigating the derelict ship? In Scott's words, the eggs were bioweapons created by the Space Jockeys, possibly to be used as part of their terraforming package to clear planets of indiginous life.

In Aliens, Acheron LV 426 had a colony for 20 years prior to the rescue of Ripley from the shuttle. The directive to the colony to investigate the coordinates of the derelict was sent by the company after Ripley's rescue and inquiry. Why wouldn't the queen hot foot it over to the colony to cocoon the colonists when they showed up 20 years earlier?

Maybe the Space Jockey, finding himself stranded on LV 426 in a damaged ship, went down to the bioweaponhold and stuck his face in an egg. Once the impregnation was complete, he got back into his biomechanical pilot suit and activated the warning? message that caused the Nostromo to land on LV426. Suicide by xenomorph?

[Show spoiler]Seems to me the final scenes of Prometheus will involve Space Jockey/Engineer/god hell bent for earth to reterraform and cleanse it of humanity because of the actions of Vickers on the Space Jockey home world. Vickers has a change of heart and teams up with Shaw to somehow disable the ship which crashes on LV 426. I wonder what happens to Shaw and Vickers? Maybe we will have to wait for Prometheus 2 to find out. I believe Lindelof is working on that screenplay based on Scott's comments during the Comicon 2011 interview.

[PointManification]

Alright noob question here and sort off out of the topic, forgive me but how the hell does a Xenomorph see? Do they just "see" by pheromones, or like bat's sonar?

[Trekkie313]

Originally Posted by PointManification

Alright noob question here and sort off out of the topic, forgive me but how the hell does a Xenomorph see? Do they just "see" by pheromones, or like bat's sonar?

The Drone from the first film had eye sockets under its dome.

[Valaquen]

Originally Posted by PointManification

Alright noob question here and sort off out of the topic, forgive me but how the hell does a Xenomorph see? Do they just "see" by pheromones, or like bat's sonar?

'Whether he [the Alien] could see, or simply sense like an insect, I didn't need ever have to answer that question.'
Ridley Scott, Making of Alien, 2003.

You're not really meant to know.

The Drone from the first film had eye sockets under its dome.

Which were absent eyes.

[Col. Zombie]

Here is a question...does the "Space Jockey" have another name? (e.g. Alien = Xenomorph, and Predator = Yautja).

I could have sworn I heard, or read, somewhere, a different name that was used for the Space Jockeys.

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by Col. Zombie

Here is a question...does the "Space Jockey" have another name? (e.g. Alien = Xenomorph, and Predator = Yautja).

I could have sworn I heard, or read, somewhere, a different name that was used for the Space Jockeys.

Mala'kak? The Space Jockey has been called many names:

http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Mala'kak

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by Valaquen

'Whether he [the Alien] could see, or simply sense like an insect, I didn't need ever have to answer that question.'
Ridley Scott, Making of Alien, 2003.

You're not really meant to know.

Also, "The creatures possess no visible eyes; Giger mandated this in his original design, because he felt that it made the creatures much more frightening if one could not tell they were looking at them.[7] In the original Alien film, the top of the creature's head was semi-transparent, with empty eye sockets of human appearance visible within. This element was dropped in later movies, but reused for the Predalien design, on the front portion of its skull." (AlienSpeciesWiki)

[Duffy12]

Originally Posted by Duffy12

.

New pic-

.

It appears that we are getting some homage to 'The Planet of Vampires' in those suite designs too.

[csdot]

Originally Posted by Duffy12

It appears that we are getting some homage to 'The Planet of Vampires' in those suite designs too.

hadnt picked up on that, but youre right.
which is interesting considering Planet of the Vampires has always been cited as an influence, whether it was conscious/intentional or not. great movie by the way! would love to have that on bluray some day.

[raygendreau]

O'Bannon wrote the original screenplay for Alien in 1976. I just finished reading it and the preface, also written by him, which includes information about what provided the inspiration for various scenes. Wikipedia got it right here: "In writing the script, O'Bannon drew inspiration from many previous works of science fiction and horror. He later stated that "I didn't steal Alien from anybody. I stole it from everybody!" The Thing from Another World (1951) inspired the idea of professional men being pursued by a deadly alien creature through a claustrophobic environment. Forbidden Planet (1956) gave O'Bannon the idea of a ship being warned not to land, and then the crew being killed one by one by a mysterious creature when they defy the warning. Planet of the Vampires (1965) contains a scene in which the heroes discover a giant alien skeleton; this influenced the Nostromo crew's discovery of the alien creature in the derelict spacecraft. O'Bannon has also noted the influence of "Junkyard" (1953), a short story by Clifford D. Simak in which a crew lands on an asteroid and discovers a chamber full of eggs. He has also cited as influences Strange Relations by Philip José Farmer (1960), which covers alien reproduction, and various EC Comics horror titles carrying stories in which monsters eat their way out of people."

A bit of trivia:
Here is the "warning" message from the original screenplay that caused the Nostromo's investigation of LV 426

LIMTIS\LIMTIS\LIMTIS, R'O'NNIBLAS AI BREX PH'NGLAI ZUR GDOMASTION R'ZEDRO VETON FHTAGN. AI REN, TRE HORTH LIMTIS LINIK CEVNOGLOGNER,SUTIDES AI THOROLAST, GLES, GLES, GLES.

Later in the screenplay, the computer is able to translate only three words:

"WARNING TRAP AVERT or "TURN ONES EYES AWAY"

The screenplay can be found on Alien Anthology, Disk 6 (Alien Anthology Archives)

[csdot]

the connection to PotV is more than just the skeleton. its been a couple years since ive seen it, but im pretty sure the reason they end up on the planet is because they retrieve a mysterious distress signal. theres also a derelict ship along with the giant skeleton.

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by csdot

the connection to PotV is more than just the skeleton. its been a couple years since ive seen it, but im pretty sure the reason they end up on the planet is because they retrieve a mysterious distress signal. theres also a derelict ship along with the giant skeleton.

Yes, there is a distress signal involved in PotV, but that is a common plot device so it is a stretch to attribute it as an inspiration for the alien warning (not distress) signal used in O'Bannon's original screenplay. In his preface to the screenplay on the Alien Anthology Archives (disk 6) he only attributes the skeleton in PotV as an inspiration for the Space Jockey in Alien.

PotV synopsis here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059792/synopsis

[csdot]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

Yes, there is a distress signal involved in PotV, but that is a common plot device so it is a stretch to attribute it as an inspiration for the alien warning (not distress) signal used in O'Bannon's original screenplay. In his preface to the screenplay on the Alien Anthology Archives (disk 6) he only attributes the skeleton in PotV as an inspiration for the Space Jockey in Alien.

PotV synopsis here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059792/synopsis

its not a stretch when he admits taking other elements of PotV, just because he only mentions the one doesnt mean its all there is.

[bluearth]

One sure fire way to ruin this movie is to end it within 5 minutes of the space jockey ship crashing

I'd much rather have the space jokey ship crashing scene saga happen early in the movie or midway through

I hate knowing what the final scene of a movie will encompass

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by bluearth

One sure fire way to ruin this movie is to end it within 5 minutes of the space jockey ship crashing

I'd much rather have the space jokey ship crashing scene saga happen early in the movie or midway through

I hate knowing what the final scene of a movie will encompass

I would speculate that the ship falling over in Prometheus takes place toward the end of the movie. Not sure if it would precede or follow an epic battle between the protagonist(s) Shaw and Vickers?and the Engineer antagonist; ala Alien and Aliens. It seems likely that the chronology of the teaser trailer would tend to follow the chronology of the movie.

[TheWildWhelk]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

I would speculate that the ship falling over in Prometheus takes place toward the end of the movie. Not sure if it would precede or follow an epic battle between the protagonist(s) Shaw and Vickers?and the Engineer antagonist; ala Alien and Aliens. It seems likely that the chronology of the teaser trailer would tend to follow the chronology of the movie.

If that is indeed the same ship from both films, then it jars, as the location doesn't look anything like the surface of LV426. I'm just not buying it. Scott is going to use the same locations in Iceland for both the Dawn of time and LV426? Nah. Ain't happening. Scott has said again that the xenomorph's DNA will be seen in the film, not the creature, so if that is indeed the same ship, what they going to do, keep the cargo of Xenomorph pods hidden until the last minute!

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by SonOfTorah

If that is indeed the same ship from both films, then it jars, as the location doesn't look anything like the surface of LV426. I'm just not buying it. Scott is going to use the same locations in Iceland for both the Dawn of time and LV426? Nah. Ain't happening. Scott has said again that the xenomorph's DNA will be seen in the film, not the creature, so if that is indeed the same ship, what they going to do, keep the cargo of Xenomorph pods hidden until the last minute!

As I noted before, there is more than one location used in Iceland. Please take a few minutes to reread this post. https://forum.blu-ray.com/movies/108...ml#post5647602 Be sure to click on the links to see the images of the other Iceland location.

Keep in mind, the xenomorph pods/eggs/bioweapons? are not the xenomorph. The DNA comment by Ridley could be referring to the biomechanical overtones seen in the Space Jockey/Engineer which can be clearly seen in the Prometheus teaser trailer when the Space Jockey chair rotates up out of the floor with the Engineer shown on the right.

Obviously I am speculating, but I think it is a plausible extrapolation of confirmed data.

[TheWildWhelk]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

Keep in mind, the xenomorph pods/eggs/bioweapons? are not the xenomorph. The DNA comment by Ridley could be referring to the biomechanical overtones seen in the Space Jockey/Engineer which can be clearly seen in the Prometheus teaser trailer when the Space Jockey chair rotates up out of the floor with the Engineer shown on the right.

Obviously I am speculating, but I think it is a plausible extrapolation of confirmed data.

There is mention of the Elder Gods unleashing something on the crew of the Prometheus and them able to 'turn it back' on it's creator, so i begin to wonder if that would be some kind of Proto-Version of the Xenomorph that we all know. As for the iceland thing, a bit of fudging and some of those locales could 'possibly' fill in for LV426. What the crew of the Prometheus is doing on that planet after visiting Elder God Central and the Beginning Of Time is yet to be revealed.

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by SonOfTorah

There is mention of the Elder Gods unleashing something on the crew of the Prometheus and them able to 'turn it back' on it's creator, so i begin to wonder if that would be some kind of Proto-Version of the Xenomorph that we all know. As for the iceland thing, a bit of fudging and some of those locales could 'possibly' fill in for LV426. What the crew of the Prometheus is doing on that planet after visiting Elder God Central and the Beginning Of Time is yet to be revealed.

The LV 426 scenes in Alien were shot on set at Shepperton Studios. The scene showing Vickers and Shaw running from the falling Space Jockey ship in the Prometheus teaser trailer appears to be a CGI ship with Charlize and Noomie on location in Iceland. When that occurs in the movie is not clear.

Regarding the placement of xenomorph "eggs" on the Space Jockey ship: In the original screenplay by O'Bannon, there was only one egg which was found next to the Space Jockey in the pilot room. The main cache of eggs were in a pyramid located some distance from the ship. That is where the Nostromo crew member is infected/impregnated. Giger had created a frieze of the Alien lifecycle which was on the wall of the egg chamber inside the pyramid. Images of those sets can be seen on some youtube videos featuring Giger's work.

I see you have recently acquired the Alien Anthology. Have you had an opportunity to look at disk6/7 archive info?

[Blue Bull]

Greetings and sorry if this was answered in an earlier post, but is Prometheus a single story or is their going to be a sequel or trilogy planned?