"Prometheus". Member review.

Originally posted by Noinoi
The most devastating moment for me:

"Better fire up my space ship! Where's my flute? oh here it is".
>Plays 1st bar of an enya song<

edit on 7-6-2012 by Noinoi because: (no reason given)

i havent seen many recent movie theater movies but "prometheus" was one of my favorite movies ive seen in a while.... the subject matter, questions, those opening landscape shots, the technology and aesthetics of the ship,, the deep one liners, and I think theres a decent chance there may be truth to the notion this film depicts... I liked the showing of the style of the uber advanced aliens technology, their holographic maps of the universe, think about it,,, there are probably millions of diverse species of advanced life doing similar things, zipping around the universe creating histories.... i didnt mind the flute,, at first i questioned it, but then thought maybe it is showing a primal connection to mans adherence to beauty and harmony, propertion,, which can be found in music,,,, something that can link us to advanced beings,, they progressed all that way and still have an appreciation for the controlling and ordering of vibrations of sound........

also I wasnt sure about why the advanced alien dude was so quick to be brutish and violent.... but i later thought that either, yea he didnt care and just wanted thee pests off his ship...... or i thought could it be that whatever was in those containers was in possession over that supreme alien,, i got the idea remembering his eyes are black,,, and how that black ooze can posses people like the other 2 dudes from Prometheus ship........also i think this leads into thoughts of dynamic forces,good and evil,.... the black goo stuff turned into ugly and violent creatures, like the alien the chick gave birth to... and something did happen to jeopardize the human like god like planet seeders,,, it shows some type of conflict,,, whos right or wrong? or does the winner take all?

near the beginning of the movie i think david asks the chick how much she would give up to find her answers,,, cut to a few days later everyones dead, and she went through birthing an alien..... still longs to go on......

also i noticed the theme of birth and death, reproduction, father son......... the old guy and cherlize theron, talking about the natural order a king reigns and then dies..... the chick who gave birth to the alien..... her alien child saves her life which i thought was cool,,,, the guy in the begginig who sacrifices himself into the waterfalll,,,, this reminded me of the ancient creation myths of gods getting killed by their children and other weird imagery.. gods sacrificing themselves for their creation,,,, a father sacrificing his time and energy for his succeeding son...

I believe i gathered more from the film as well these are just some quick things i can think of now, but if youd like to further discuss the film id be down, for i truly enjoyed it and had me thinking the whole time.

reply to post by ImaFungi


Thats a nice review, fisrt good one i've seen here.
I'm wondering if others had high expectations to really see some strong links to Alien and were let down by the fact this is a lot further back than Alien and it seems we haven't got to the point were it all links up and you see the big picture. As it is it's very loosly tied to it.


I still want to see it pretty bad, but I don't think i'll be spending mega bucks to see 3D.

reply to post by Chukkles


yea i didnt see it 3d,, i dont really like any 3d movies or have a desiree to seea film in 3d....


there deffinitly are some cheesy and not so great parts of the movie,,,, but it definitely is thought provoking ......


yes people wanted conclusions and resolve,,,,, but i didnt even view this film as if it was a work of fiction,,,, but more the creator of the movie trying to explain his perception of truth...... i believe the resolve and lack of conclusions in the movie are equal to our perception of truth as it is now,,,, same questions,,, same longing for answers and conclusions..

reply to post by Chukkles

I'm wondering if others had high expectations to really see some strong links to Alien and were let down by the fact this is a lot further back than Alien and it seems we haven't got to the point were it all links up and you see the big picture. As it is it's very loosly tied to it.

The disappointment for me is same with a lot of movies; its from a lack of planning, or vision, lack of plot, story, and/or character development. How come movies from the 70's were so much better than the crap Hollywood is producing today when they had so much less advances in film, cameras, etc? It's because when there wasn't all this high-tech stuff writers and directors relied on the characters and plot to carry the movies. Everyone is too distracted by high-def and 3D. Instead, we should be focusing on the plot, the ties the entwine the characters and character development. IMO

The 70's did have the best movies hands down. From the end of the 60's to the beginning of the 80's (with They Live and Ghostbusters) and pretty much everything in-between - modern films just can't compare in most cases.

There was plenty of let-downs or 'typical movie crapola' that sholdn't have been in Prometheus. A scientist trying to pet a freaky looking worm creature with a vagina-dentata for a face? Bad idea. He was the biologist too! The creature was obviously not in a playful mood either. I had to roll my eyes at these parts along with everyone else. I don't know if these scenes were just typical Hollywood gags every filmmaker uses for a cheap thrill or what. I just wish they had gone another route, like when Luke was dragged under the garbage water by the worm-thingy in Star Wars. He didn't try to play with it.

But anyways, the reason I'm posting again is that I found an interview with the writer for Prometheus, Damon Lindelof of LOST fame, or infamy, depending on if you like his brand of story-telling without actually telling you anything.

You mentioned the danger of searching out answers, and I was wondering, how does that apply to you as a storyteller? When you’re raising questions, like with this film, what do you see as making for satisfying answers?

The short answer is: I’ll let you know when I figure it out. This is going to be, sort of, the bane of my existence. I’m very quickly finding myself branded as the guy who asks questions he’s not particularly interested in answering. I don’t look at myself as that guy, but when I take a step out of my body and look at my work, I go, “Oh, yeah, of course, that’s completely fair to categorize me that way.” At the same time, that’s just the storytelling I’m drawn to. Some people might think that it’s ambiguous storytelling or not clearly defined, but, for me, it’s… I get very excited and categorized by stories where I have to fill in the blanks. It’s sort of like Mad Libs, in a way; it’s custom made, for the viewer.

When you go and look at a piece of art you’re going to take something away from it that’s entirely different from the person who was just standing in front of that canvas five minutes ago, and I think that’s the kind of story I want to tell. I do have an intention, and I’m not just throwing stuff out there in an arbitrary way and don’t have the answers for those questions. I have answers for all those questions, but I don’t want to force my answers on the viewers, as if they’re the only possible answers. At times, that’s going to blow up in my face, and that’s the price I have to pay. I won’t say I’m glad to pay it, but I will say, I am willing to pay it.

I agree with his interpretation that art is a subjective experience which is probably why I'm not disappointed at being left with more questions rather than easy answers.

“Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.” – Nathanial Hawthorne

I liked this movie , but it does leave you hanging more then it should. One thing I did catch , when Shaw does the carbon dating on the SJ head she says it's like 2000 years old....maybe they wanted to destroy us because we killed Jesus. Maybe it was a good thing to leave everything unaswered so we can find out own answers with repeated views...but still I think it was just lazy writing.

no idea what you're all on about.
imo the movie was pretty good.

*Spoilers*

as to the alien at the end of the movie confusing some because it on a different planet to the movie "alien". the same kind of conditions can be replicated. why does it have to be the same planet.
maybe the double mouthed alien at the end is slightly different to those on "alien" because of the human DNA.

i think its the expectations that ruined the movie for you all. it's not "alien"
its in the same universe but completely different set of events.

the robot reminded me of this.

couldn't stop myself laughing in the cinema with memories of art attack head.

reply to post by Noinoi



Good Review. You would think that with all the wonderful CGI tech at their disposable they could at least not
waste it on a goofy contrived story with actors just going thru the motions.

I would much rather see a low budget film with believable characters, solid script and good directing like "Winters Bone" than a big budget pretentious blockbuster like "Prometheus".

I'm sick of the trailers being better than the actual movie!!

Originally posted by simon2k7
I liked this movie , but it does leave you hanging more then it should. One thing I did catch , when Shaw does the carbon dating on the SJ head she says it's like 2000 years old....maybe they wanted to destroy us because we killed Jesus. Maybe it was a good thing to leave everything unaswered so we can find out own answers with repeated views...but still I think it was just lazy writing.

According to Ridley Scott himself, you're absolutely right:

Movies.com: We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered?

Ridley Scott: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, "Let's send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it." Guess what? They crucified him.

That quote as well as a pretty good explanation for the main themes of the movie can be found here.

So how did our (in the context of the film) terrible murderous act of crucifixion end up wiping out all but one of the Engineers back on LV-223? Presumably through the black slime, which evidently models its behaviour on the user's mental state. Create unselfishly, accepting self-destruction as the cost, and the black stuff engenders fertile life. But expose the potent black slimy stuff to the thoughts and emotions of flawed humanity, and 'the sleep of reason produces monsters'. We never see the threat that the Engineers were fleeing from, we never see them killed other than accidentally (decapitation by door), and we see no remaining trace of whatever killed them. Either it left a long time ago, or it reverted to inert black slime, waiting for a human mind to reactivate it.

The black slime reacts to the nature and intent of the being that wields it, and the humans in the film didn't even know that they WERE wielding it. That's why it remained completely inert in David's presence, and why he needed a human proxy in order to use the stuff to create anything. The black goo could read no emotion or intent from him, because he was an android.

Shaw's comment when the urn chamber is entered - 'we've changed the atmosphere in the room' - is deceptively informative. The psychic atmosphere has changed, because humans - tainted, Space Jesus-killing humans - are present. The slime begins to engender new life, drawing not from a self-sacrificing Engineer but from human hunger for knowledge, for more life, for more everything. Little wonder, then, that it takes serpent-like form. The symbolism of a corrupting serpent, turning men into beasts, is pretty unmistakeable.

Refusal to accept death is anathema to the Engineers. Right from the first scene, we learned their code of willing self-sacrifice in accord with a greater purpose.

That explains why the Engineer wanted to wipe out the humans. Besides being a horribly flawed experiment obsessed with immortality to the point of creating androids, their very presence in a black-goo factory would create untold horrors at an epic level.

On a side note, I just realized that the self-sacrificing Engineer on ancient earth was affected by the black-goo at his thigh, which separated his leg causing him to fall into the waterfall. The wounded-thigh is the symbol of the 'fisher king' or sacrificial king would had to die at his appointed time after a year or a more symbolic 40 years. It represents the waning virility of the king.