Sensible Erection | Prometheus Spoiler Chat

Saturday, 14 July 2012

I noticed we never had a post-release chat about this film here so I thought I might kick one off, particularly as I've been thinking about it a LOT since I saw it. The link just goes to a blog where I have posted the text I'm going to stick in below before.

[art] [by radioelectric@1:39amGMT] [+5 Interesting]

Comments

radioelectric said @ 1:39am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Interesting]
Unless Ridley Scott set out to make a chaotic film (and he may have) an interpretation of what it’s supposed to mean has to incorporate all of the elements. I’m not offering this as an explanation or a puzzle solution, but I think the themes of the film can be tied together into a coherent whole.

Spoilers begin…

The film obviously hinges on various “parental abandonment” themes in there multiple incarnations (ranging from parent-child to God-man). The two key relationships we’re obviously supposed to find very similar are that between David and his creators (the humans) and that between the humans and the engineers.

David

I don’t buy that David is a robot and therefore he has no emotions, Fassbender was obviously playing David to have feelings. I think the character of David in this film taps into key questions about what it actually means to be a sentient being. It is deeply ironic (surely not unintentional) to have Shaw’s faith be an unusual thing in the film, but to still have the humans differentiate themselves from David by saying he does not have a “soul”. The treatment of David in the film reminds me of Gilbert Ryle, or other philosophers who take a very reductionist view of what makes a human mind. If you were constantly told that you understood emotions but did not properly feel them like real humans did could you end up believing it? If you were told that you were built without ethical restraints on your behaviour would you not do what you wanted? David’s behaviour is not “human” and he would be unlikely to end up in that exact state, but he’s moving towards something. It’s worth noticing that Weyland refers to Nietzsche in some of the viral material, saying that man is a bridge to the overman. David is an implementation of the Nietzschian Ubermensch (weirdly he is not Weyland’s implementation as Weyland seems to not hold much respect for him - maybe disputable).

Religion

You could mine the shit out of Nietzsche for things that might have a significant bearing on this film, for example:

“I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth may become the Overman’s.”

It seems to me that there must be two distinct types of Engineer. These might have been two competing factions existing at the same time, two castes in the same society, or a development from one to the other. One is religious and concerned with creating life. This is the one that seeded the earth and arranged the black fluid jars in a ritualistic fashion in a room with a huge (time-intensive) and presumably useless carved stone head. The other is more technological, less graceful (consider the movements of the sacrifice at the beginning), elsewhere in the film we see the same black fluid jars that were treated with respect earlier arranged into a cargo bay with no sentimentality at all. Maybe the Engineers were themselves created by the black fluid which they saw as somehow holy until they studied it in more detail? Perhaps that was when they lost whatever faith they had?

The other bit of Nietzsche that everyone remembers is the death of God, I am going to give you this in full below because I think reading the whole thing gives a huge insight into the film. Remember, the link to Nietzsche isn’t something I just came up with (though I do love Nietzsche), it was given to us at the end of the film. David wants to kill his creator because he desires the freedom that Nietzsche mentions (paragraph 3). He tells Shaw as much. This is not the mood that the humans have on visiting the Engineers initially, but as David says, what will they do if they are disappointed with the answer? Or if there is no good answer? (I think this is the source of his confusion at the end and Shaw is STILL in denial.) Think back to Blade Runner! I think the reason why the Engineers are afraid of humanity (why seek to exterminate something that you are not afraid of?) is that they know that the humans will want to kill them when they find out their lives are meaningless (remember Weyland’s last words to David?).

I have more to say, but I will only continue if some people are enjoying this. The Nietzsche Death of God bit will follow.

radioelectric said @ 1:40am GMT on 14th Jul
'Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!” — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? — Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars — and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”'
— The Madman, Friedrich Nietzsche

EPT said @ 3:09am GMT on 14th Jul
why seek to exterminate something that you are not afraid of?

Speaking as a descendent of the British who colonised the New World, destroying aboriginal cultures in the proces: competition for resources. Or it may be about dispassionately keeping things orderly. Or good old mental illness - 'some men just want to watch the world burn [for fun]'. There's not really enough exploration of the alien psychology to assign any motive other than 'they don't like us at the moment'.

is that they know that the humans will want to kill them when they find out their lives are meaningless (remember Weyland’s last words to David?).

I remember David being treated like a second-class emotional citizen by a few characters, but the stuff where Rapace's character says things like 'you wouldn't know, you're just a machine' are just terribly done. Fassbender did a decent job in this film, and was by far the most human and relatable character (barring for me the punk geologist), but all the 'android emotion' plot seemed to be declared by fiat rather than explored, if the scene involved any character but the android himself.

It seems to me that there must be two distinct types of Engineer. These might have been two competing factions existing at the same time, two castes in the same society, or a development from one to the other.

Only two? There are multitudes of types of humans, even of humans purporting to pursue the same primary goal (even in the related films!). This simplistic view of the Engineers is symptomatic of the clumsy presentation Scott has given.

black fluid jars
Another one for my dot points below: the black fluid that drives half the film never gets explained in any way. It's just magic fluid that does whatever is required - there's no internal consistency. Even 'midichlorians' was better than that. This just adds to my problem of trying to draw meaningful conclusions when the premise is faulty throughout - any conclusion you achieve will first require you to apologise for a hole in the film.

radioelectric said @ 1:34pm GMT on 14th Jul
Speaking as a descendent of the British who colonised the New World, destroying aboriginal cultures in the proces: competition for resources. Or it may be about dispassionately keeping things orderly. Or good old mental illness - 'some men just want to watch the world burn [for fun]'. There's not really enough exploration of the alien psychology to assign any motive other than 'they don't like us at the moment'.

I wouldn't make the colonisation analogy. If you look back to what happened during colonial times you would find out that there was actually a big popular sentiment against destroying aboriginal cultures completely. This turned into a weird "protecting their stuff for their own good" which now fills up our museums. If you look at the behaviour of the Engineer at the end it is consistent with somebody who is in a hurry to wipe out mankind. The only way I can come up with a motivation for that is if it was due to fear.

I remember David being treated like a second-class emotional citizen by a few characters, but the stuff where Rapace's character says things like 'you wouldn't know, you're just a machine' are just terribly done. Fassbender did a decent job in this film, and was by far the most human and relatable character (barring for me the punk geologist), but all the 'android emotion' plot seemed to be declared by fiat rather than explored, if the scene involved any character but the android himself.

Fassbender carries that character, but then it was his to carry. He manages to give the impression that he's always resisting the urge to respond when people call him "just a machine" etc. It's possible that he's aware that starting that argument might lead to him being destroyed (see the Geth in Mass Effect for example).

Only two? There are multitudes of types of humans, even of humans purporting to pursue the same primary goal (even in the related films!). This simplistic view of the Engineers is symptomatic of the clumsy presentation Scott has given.

At least two then. I would say that it looks like we are shown two cultures in the film and one Engineer from each.

Another one for my dot points below: the black fluid that drives half the film never gets explained in any way. It's just magic fluid that does whatever is required - there's no internal consistency. Even 'midichlorians' was better than that. This just adds to my problem of trying to draw meaningful conclusions when the premise is faulty throughout - any conclusion you achieve will first require you to apologise for a hole in the film.

It's not a total explanation, but my impression of it was that it drove a certain type of genetic mutation.

lalanda said @ 8:13am GMT on 16th Jul
"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,
They kill us for their sport." - King Lear

willrogers said @ 2:00am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
Or as I like to call it "Daddy Issues: The Movie"

radioelectric said @ 2:02am GMT on 14th Jul
Best suggested title I've heard for it was "Hey, don't touch that!".

Anti-fuites said @ 2:25am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:5 Funny]

blacksun said @ 3:42am GMT on 14th Jul
-The problems with how long it took them to get to the planet. (not to mention, it would take years just to build that ship). Some say they would have needed to do 14 times the speed of light, other says 2 years ship time accounting for time dilation, but still faster than light. I lack the maths to figure it out. ( http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/7753 ) But, if so, I'm not happy with that. Prometheus is supposed to be a prequal to Alien. In Alien, correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole reason for cryo-sleep is to make the long haul. I don't know, Alien and Aliens, well, all the aliens movies actually, seem a little more rooted in the traditional rocket thrusters universe than the star-trek "magic-science" universe. I don't know, I just wish they would have said "90 years later" or whatever...

willrogers said @ 4:55am GMT on 14th Jul
Two things:

1. The logic could be that the Nostromo is towing ship and isn't necessarily fast as much as it powerful enough to tow a refinery and tens of millions of tons in ore, and the expense of making it as fast as the Prometheus would cut into the profits from mining and refining. Conversely, the Prometheus is a state-of-the-art and extremely expensive explorer, so it would make sense that it has the best and fastest tech possible.

2. I'm also kind of annoyed by the whole time and travel aspects of Prometheus. If I remember correctly, the ship traveled something like 35 light years in the span of just more than two years time so it was traveling more than ten times the speed of light, depending on exactly how many months the trip took (I'm not exactly sure about the numbers). I'm no physicist, but don't the principles of special relativity mean that if the Prometheus crew is traveling at the speed of light, time is going far slower for them than for humans on Earth and whatever life is on LV-22, i.e. time dilation?

How does time dilation work with something going many times the speed of light? Isn't time dilation at something like 99.999% the speed of light about 22 years? (isn't the dilation equation T=t/√(1-v^2/c^2) ?)

EPT said @ 5:44am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
How does time dilation work with something going many times the speed of light?

It behaves as your author wishes it to behave, as it is fictional in the universe as we currently understand it.

One thing that always puzzled me is that speed is relative to another obect - so if you have two objects each going 2/3rds of the speed of light in opposite directions (relative to a third point) and passing, how do they perceive each other? Someone once explained it to me that space would bend such that they wouldn't see each other going faster than the speed of light... I think. I really can't recall.

cache22 said @ 7:04am GMT on 14th Jul
I don't think they'd see each other at all.

blacksun said @ 2:37am GMT on 15th Jul
Yeah, I mean, they're fucking hauling ass

Omegaphobic said @ 8:27am GMT on 14th Jul
Relativistic speeds are not additive. There's a formula by which you can work out what speed they actually appear to be moving to each other, but I figure you can Google that as easily as I can. Suffice it to say that nothing can exceed C in any given frame of reference.

Just because both objects are perceived as moving at 2/3 C from the frame of reference of a third point doesn't mean that applies from each of their points of view. Remember that as your speed approaches C time slows down for you, but the speed of light remains constant to you. Therefore, from your point of view everything else is moving at a smaller proportion of C than it is from its own frame of reference. So you can never see something that appears to be moving faster than C.

I probably explained that really poorly but it's difficult to explain relativity in plain language.

bruceski said @ 8:39am GMT on 14th Jul
Lessee... if I recall it's warped by a factor of sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) so that would be sqrt(5/9) or approximately .75... so they would see each other going .99c (need to unapproximate the .75, if you treat it as 3/4 then it pops out 1 rather than .9938whatever).

Neophyte said @ 8:43am GMT on 14th Jul
If course they will see each other. Ironically, the reason it works out nicely and they don't exceed the speed of light even relative to each other, is due to the time dilation effect you dismiss so glibly.

Here's the formula, in case you're interested:
v´ = (u-v) / (1 - uv / c^2)

Where u is the velocity of person A, v the velocity of person B, and v` the observed velocity of person B as seen by the person A.

In your example, if we assume 70% of the speed of light instead of 2/3rds, that works out to
v´ = (.7c - -.7c) / 1 - (.7c*-.7c / c^2)
= 1.4c / 1 - (-.49c^2 / c^2)
= 1.4c / 1 - -.49
= 1.4c / 1.49 ≈ 0.94c

In other words, they will each see the other moving towards them at about 94% the speed of light.

EPT said @ 1:06pm GMT on 14th Jul
Leaning out and doing a high five at that speed is going to hurt, isn't it?

happiest_sadist said @ 6:46am GMT on 14th Jul
I didn't look it up, but let's assume that equation is the correct one. If it is, then when v=c (the "something" is traveling at the speed of light) then T=t/sqrt(1-(1/1), or t=t/0. Division by zero is undefined in mathematics, so the model using that equation can't predict what happens when v=c (or it can be said to be 'impossible', as the result simply makes no sense.)

GordonGuano said @ 2:23am GMT on 14th Jul
Spoiler: no boobies.

EPT said @ 2:44am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:5 Informative]
spoilers here too:

Sorry, the title made me twitch as the film is crap from start to finish. The visuals are pretty, but the 'deeper' parts are issued in a hamfisted way (eg: the "oh, I wasn't referring to your barren womb, honey" part), and it's clear that not only is the film the classic hollywood ignorance of actual professions, but that Scott has never actually talked to a real scientist in his entire life.

I lambaste EE Doc Smith's book 'The Galaxy Primes' because humjanity sets out to the stars on the first page, and on the second page humanity is found on another planet, and still on the second page, the captain of the ship reminds everyone not to have sex with the locals. There is absolutely no sense of the magnitude of the discovery and the excitement this generates among researchers, and the same thing happened in Prometheus.

In Prometheus, we have professions that in the real world get excited over pottery shards, but in the film find evidence of other intelligent life and they're bummed because they're not alive. I get that a real archeological dig procedure would make for dull mainstream hollywood, but the crap in this film is just not how interested people would behave when presented with extant proof of intelligent life elsewhere. It's just like another ho-hum day at the office.

It reminds me of the scene in Family Guy where the father is watching his daughter's primary school play and says 'I'm very aware I'm watching a play right now', joking about the suspension of disbelief required on the audience's behalf. The characters in Prometheus were so shallow, so lacking in care, so unidentifiable-with, that they would have been better off being portrayed as aliens. I can't even recall one of their names. Compare to Ripley or Bishop. Or Hicks or Newt.

So many stupid things kill the immersion and destroy cohesion:
- why even bother with having Theron's character, particularly her 'twist'. A featured character that is totally irrelevant to the plot
- Rapace's character was to be locked up, but instead shows up covered in blood to the room of people who wanted her locked up... and they don't bat an eyelid. Carry on as you were!
- people being told about their mission and introduced to their coworkers AFTER a two-and-a-half year cryosleep... wtf? do people 80 years in the future really just take on work where they lose two years of local time without knowing what they'll be doing or who with?
- 'get me a reading on that, I want to know if it's natural or artificial'. Um... it's a dome. With a face on it. Surrounded by a wall. In a line with other domes that you've already pointed out is straight and not natural.
- what's the point of the 'other villain' travelling secretly.... on the ship he financed himself? And boy oh boy, wasn't that character and his plot resolution interesting to watch!
- how the fuck does the party cartographer get lost in a circle?
- how the fuck does a bloke scared of a dead humanoid body then not feel scared by a totally alien tentacle emerging out of black goo?
- the part where the first thing the scientists do with the returned head is stimulate it with electricity made me actually laugh out loud and long in the cinema... and the other moviegoers didn't mind
- if their DNA is a match for ours, why did said had explode? Is there something that we don't know about electroconvulsive therapy?
- if 'he's not coming onboard' referrign to the contamination scene, why open the door for him rather that just say 'door is staying closed, put him back in the dome and come back'?
- running away from the rolling spaceship reminded me of b-grade horror flicks where the girl trips over running from zombies
- having worked with scientists who were also practising christians, they most certainly do not run around saying 'it's what I choose to believe about things other than matters of faith.
- the villain of the piece is just a demiurge, a powerful figure who moves the plot for unknown, unexplainable reasons. That happens in real life, but it makes for shitty storytelling unless handled very carefully to avoid the deus ex machina

As a result, I can't really see any meaningful discussion involving Scott's most recent work, as the moral questions it poses are as fake as the Saving Private Ryan "why send a dozen men to save one" question, which never actually happened. The milleau of Prometheus is so hamfisted and broken that any exploration can only be a cover-up or excuse rather than an exploration of potential depths. I saw the film on free tickets, and it was worth every penny.

Visually pretty, and the 'puppies' were pretty cool.

EPT said @ 2:47am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
also forgot:
- finding a single outpost with dead aliens in it, the bummed-out scientists declare the entire race dead and gone. The known space-faring race. By the scientists that got there via cryosleep.

EPT said @ 3:17am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:3 Funny]
Ah, I get it now. We, the moviegoers, are the 'other villain'. We have financed the 'ship' with our own money. We are taken for a ride, our presence unknown to the crew who did the work. We expect that we will find out some interesting philosophical tidbit at the end of our journey, but instead we are clubbed into senselessness - by a giant oaf whose motivations are impenetrable.

Masterful!

kichijoii said @ 9:49am GMT on 14th Jul
I love this kind of joke. I really hope that one day it will really be a director's intention, except I worry that the execution will be too pretentious to be appreciable.

verycleanteeth said @ 7:41pm GMT on 14th Jul
Check out "The Cabin In The Woods".

willrogers said @ 3:25am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
I agree with a lot of your points but I want to respond to one:

"- why even bother with having Theron's character, particularly her 'twist'. A featured character that is totally irrelevant to the plot"

She's there as a contrast with David. They're both Peter Weyland's children, just in different ways. It's heavily implied that Peter created David as his chance at a true child because he was so disappointed with Meredith, but he's still unfulfilled with David because he's well-aware of David being artificial and, in his eyes, lacking in certain ways (e.g. genuine emotion). Meredith and David respond in opposing ways to similar expressions of disapproval from their father, both behaviorally and emotionally.

Meredith has this extremely jaded, ruthless, egotistical perspective on life while David is basically like a child, full of wonder, curiosity, and optimism. You can even see it in the way David sits attentively on the edge of his seat during the presentations after the crew is thawed out from hibernation, like an eager young child at a school assembly. Meredith is almost completely uninterested in anything related to Prometheus and the Engineers, viewing it as merely another delay in her assuming her birthright and being extremely skeptical about the whole endeavor. She really just cares about taking over Weyland industries and assuming the power, wealth, and influence that her father still maintains simply by being alive. She just considers Peter Weyland an obstacle to be overcome and has absolutely no interest in his approval or even any association with him. Her differing surname is a big tell, though it's uncertain whether this was by her own choice as a symbolic form of rejecting her father without rejecting his station or whether it was forced upon her by Peter Weyland to reject her legitimacy as his heir and she begrudgingly accepted it as long as she still held on to her inheritance, and possibly even embraced it as an affirmation of her independence from her father.

Conversely, David is still obviously seeking his "father's" approval and seems genuinely interested in the Prometheus' mission, but I'm unsure of how much of this is his own independent interest and how much of it is him internalizing his father's thoughts and feelings as a way of obtaining paternal acceptance. Regardless, David is willing to go to extremes to appease his father (e.g. purposefully infecting Dr. Holloway and rebuffing Dr. Shaw's pleas for help after she is subsequently infected through sex with Holloway) and achieving the mission he is given, even though it directly conflicts with the welfare and safety of the rest of the human crew. This is obviously an allusion/foreshadowing of Ash's character from the original "Alien" movie, as Ash also sacrificed the health and welfare of his human crew to accomplish a similar mission of making contact with and collecting a sample of the xenomorph aliens. What's interesting is that despite Weyland being obviously disappointed with David's artificiality, David doesn't take this as a motivation to distance himself from his father like Meredith seems to do, but rather takes it as a drive to become more human than ever, which is why he spends so much of his spare time while everyone else is hibernating to become more human, especially by spying on Dr. Shaw's dreams (well, at least hers, it's not revealed whether he does anything similar to the other humans other than using it as a means to communicate with Weyland).

EPT said @ 5:28am GMT on 14th Jul
It just feels to me that you're giving the film more credit than it deserves. If I read your paragraphs here before seeing the film, I would be really excited and eager for just that reason.

But the way the film is written, Theron's character doesn't drive anything, and feels like more of an afterthought. By the time the reason for her actions is explained, it's too late to evaluate her actions in light of that info. All we see is her be a bastard to people for no real reason. David we get to explore. We understand that he's part tabula rasa and that he's learning things anew, and how he fits in.

I guess you're right and the character is there for contrast, but at the same time, nothing is really achieved by that contrast, because for almost the entire film, Weyland "isn't there" to pass judgement or be appeased. We don't know that there's supposed to be this tension until well after the fact.

I wish they could take what you wrote and put it into the film skilfully - that would make it worth watching. Looking for subtle hints in the background to explain character motivation just doesn't work when the foreground is a total trainwreck.

Regardless, David is willing to go to extremes to appease his father

This part doesn't really work for me. We know he's artificial and designed to please his father. This is problematic both because dad may have put in a moral-override-on-my-orders type thing, and also being artificial, what are 'extremes' to him? Watching an old film seemed to be more extreme than infecting a colleague - given his emotional response, that is.

Unless you know for sure whether the designer of the artificial person did or did not include such an override, I find it difficult to theorise about turmoil and motiviations. In contrast, I think the replicants in Bladerunner worked better for looking at the human condition, because they were more like clones than robots. They are essentially humans, but with no past and a known expiry date, rather than an emulation of a human.

In hindsight, David's story was actually interesting on it's own, but it was heavily polluted by the other players in the game.

cache22 said @ 5:55am GMT on 14th Jul
Another one:

-Why on a mission costing trillions of dollars and accompanied with state of the art technology would you not record everything coming from everyone's helmet cam all the time? "What happened to those guys we left in the tunnel?" "Looks like their heart monitors are flatlined, let's rewind the tape to when that happened...WHOA! Not going back in there, thanks."

hellboy said @ 4:34pm GMT on 14th Jul
Just because they have FTL and artificial intelligence doesn't mean they have the technology to make small, cheap digital cameras.

Supreme_Coconut said @ 6:16pm GMT on 15th Jul
The storm outside interfered with electronics so they weren't getting signal from them. They couldn't communicate with them so obviously they couldn't get cam data which was probably streaming to servers on the ship rather than stored on the suit.

hellboy said @ 8:20am GMT on 14th Jul
Elsewhere online I read this brief review: "I don't want to spoil it for you, but just know that Lindelhof is a fucking incompetent hack and Scott is a fucking liar."

I couldn't agree more. I went in with pretty low expectations, and I thought this was the stupidest piece of shit I've seen in a long time. I honestly can't remember the last time I paid money to see a movie this dumb. This actually made Dances With Smurfs look like an intelligent movie, and I had to be stoned to get through that. No suspense, no surprises, no dramatic reversals, not a single original idea or genuinely scary moment. It failed as a horror movie, as an action movie, and as a science fiction movie. It had some nice set design and some good CGI, and a good cast. That's pretty much all you can say in its favor.

The characters were unsympathetic, unbelievable, and stupid. I've never met anyone with a scientific education who behaved like any of those people. And we're supposed to believe a major corporation capable of creating intelligent robots paid a trillion dollars to send these nitwits two years into space (or to another "galactic system" or whatever idiotic Hollywood mumbo jumbo they used)?

Saying there were plot holes would imply that there was a plot; they basically just slapped together a bunch of references to better movies and called it a story. I've read fan fiction with more narrative sophistication and imagination than this garbage. We were laughing at how bad it was, and so were a lot of other people in the theater. It's hysterical once you realize it's supposed to be a postmodern comedy. The self-surgery scene would fit perfectly in a futuristic version of The Hangover.

And then there's the Alien Space Jesus nonsense...

radioelectric said @ 1:24pm GMT on 14th Jul
The Scientists
having worked with scientists who were also practising christians, they most certainly do not run around saying 'it's what I choose to believe about things other than matters of faith.

The impression of science that is given in this film is the same one that Nietzsche gives. Scientists are the new mythmakers who are here to give meaning and explanation for our existence.

Vickers
why even bother with having Theron's character, particularly her 'twist'. A featured character that is totally irrelevant to the plot

I think we're supposed to wonder whether or not Vickers (who Theron plays) is human or an android. Some scenes favour human (her emotional vulnerability) but other clues favour android (the medical device in her room is not programmed to work on women, she pushes David around easily, her rapid recovery at the beginning, the weird pre-sex scene with Idris Elba). I think given more time this might have been worked up into an exploration of something but as it is it just fizzles out.

The Head

the part where the first thing the scientists do with the returned head is stimulate it with electricity made me actually laugh out loud and long in the cinema... and the other moviegoers didn't mind

The device they used was some sort of (ridiculous) synapse-restorer. It was mentioned in the ARG around the film. (I didn't follow the ARG, but I heard that explanation from someone else.)

if their DNA is a match for ours, why did said had explode? Is there something that we don't know about electroconvulsive therapy?

The head they found was already infected (like Fifield) by the black goo. In order to save himself the pain he chose to die by cutting his own head off with the door. Reactivating the head brought the goo back to life.

Other
people being told about their mission and introduced to their coworkers AFTER a two-and-a-half year cryosleep... wtf? do people 80 years in the future really just take on work where they lose two years of local time without knowing what they'll be doing or who with?

Fifield gives the impression that they were getting paid a lot. Vickers being on the ship would have persuaded them it wasn't a suicide mission so why not agree?

Rapace's character was to be locked up, but instead shows up covered in blood to the room of people who wanted her locked up... and they don't bat an eyelid. Carry on as you were!

I got the impression that they all knew and didn't care (David makes a joke about what happened). They were all on their way to go wake up the "last" living Engineer and Shaw's character is just no longer relevant to their plan at that point.

what's the point of the 'other villain' travelling secretly.... on the ship he financed himself? And boy oh boy, wasn't that character and his plot resolution interesting to watch!

That was done quite badly, and gave me the impression they were expecting to have a lot more time than they did.

how the fuck does the party cartographer get lost in a circle?

I didn't get the impression that they were seriously lost, they couldn't leave because of the storm and they would probably want to try to find somewhere that felt safe to hole up.

EPT said @ 4:38pm GMT on 14th Jul
I've already waffled a lot, so I'll keep it short (hopefully). The main thing is that you're doing a lot of explaining to make up stuff that should have been shown in the film. But some specifics:

Scientists are the new mythmakers who are here to give meaning and explanation for our existence.
"It's what I choose to believe" is the definitive antithesis of science. Seriously. Scientists may indeed be the folks who tell us what the story is these days, but they don't make it up that way. It's like casting a white man to play a black woman - possible only if you're playing it for laughs.

Fifield gives the impression that they were getting paid a lot. Vickers being on the ship would have persuaded them it wasn't a suicide mission so why not agree?
Humans just do not work this way, not unless they're under duress. Exploration expeditions of old did not recruit specialists saying "I'm not telling you what we're doing, but you'll be away a long time and paid a lot". People who leave their homes want to know why, and in scientific and engineeering circles, they map out every step of the way that's possible. Look at all the detail for sending an unstaffed craft to Mars.

Would you expect an astronaut to agree to "We're going to put you into a space shuttle, but we're not going to tell you where it's going, what you'll be doing, or how long you'll be away. You'll be paid a lot, though". And especially with people at the top of their game, they want to know details. This mission was the first of its kind - would it really be staffed by folks dredged up from the gutter, so desperate for the money they're not interested in finding what they do?

Would you take a job offer like this: "We need your skills. We're taking you to isolation in deep Siberia, and you'll be cut off from the outside world completely for a number of years. We're talking so isolated that it's not just no communication, but no rescue, either. No, we're not going to tell you why we need your skills, but we will pay you a lot of money, a hell of a lot. Who are you going with? You'll find out when you get there. And of course it won't be dangerous, travelling in this new technology and doing something that's not been done before!"

I got the impression that they all knew and didn't care

The events were minutes apart. They turn on a dime in minutes? And if they knew what was going on, wouldn't they be at least a little concerned that she might fuck up daddy's medbay?

I didn't get the impression that they were seriously lost, they couldn't leave because of the storm and they would probably want to try to find somewhere that felt safe to hole up.

They left well before the others, intending to go straight back to the ship because they were scared (which also doesn't explain why they decided to set up camp in Spookyville later on)

The problem is that if it's left for us to invent the plot mechanisms (rather 'left for us to find'), it's a poorly written plot. I think the film is a poor vehicle for exploring the human condition, because humans do not act in the way portrayed. It'd be like making a judgement on a cariacature.

(so much for short :)

graham said @ 3:09am GMT on 14th Jul
this came out already??

MrZeroPing said @ 3:20am GMT on 14th Jul
I was in the subway the yesterday and there was a big movie advertisement for it and at the bottom of the poster was 8.24. I got so made I almost slammed my lunch box into a pillar and yelled. I know there isn't so much love for the movie but I still want to see it so bad.

blacksun said @ 3:21am GMT on 14th Jul
I had a feeling Prometheus was going to suck, then I saw it, and it did suck. People got all excited, "ohh Ridley Scott's directing it. He directed Alien etc.." and all of a sudden everyone's in line to suck Ridley Scott's dick like he's hand's down God's gift to film. Directors have good movies and bad movies. Many directors lose their touch as they get older. Also, a film's success rides on many other factors like screenplay, casting, ACTING, and yeah tons of shit. Frankly, the writers of the screenplay, Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts deserve most of the blame, (or praise?).

With all due respect to radioelectric, (I do like, and agree with your thoughts on it, above) and whoever else liked it, I feel like it's getting way too much attention. People want to rip it apart like it's a lost biblical text. In my opinion there are many many other movies that are unknown and passed over that are far more deserving of the attention.

EPT said @ 5:38am GMT on 14th Jul
I feel like it's getting way too much attention

Don't worry, it'll pass. Not all that many films have active criticism last more than a month or two. It's just the 'big promising film de jure'.

happiest_sadist said @ 6:56am GMT on 14th Jul
s/de jure/du jour

Unless you actually meant de jure, in which case I'm curious as to what that means in context.

happiest_sadist said @ 6:57am GMT on 14th Jul

curses

EPT said @ 7:15am GMT on 14th Jul
even worse, I originally wrote de jour and corrected it to de jure...

radioelectric said @ 1:03pm GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
There aren't so many movies that appear to be deliberately opening themselves up to interpretation. You might say that the movie was just badly written in order to be confusing and make people assume it had a deep meaning behind it (HELLO LOST WRITER!) but any sort of analysis requires first making the assumption that the film might have something interesting to say.

You can treat any text like a "lost biblical text", and doing this sort of analysis is fun. My favourite was a whole serious of literary theory lectures that applied the techniques and schools of thought they came across to a children's book (Tony the Tow Truck).

blacksun said @ 2:43am GMT on 15th Jul
Yeah I see what you are saying. And I am interested in the intended meanings and metaphors. I guess for me it's like the invitation was made to analyze the film, but here I am still mad about X, Y and Z, so, no thanks. (You want me to fuck you after THAT?)

user420 said @ 5:24am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Underrated]
The movie was fucking terrible.

Worst
Explorers
Ever

I mean seriously, for a bunch of scientists and shit they make horrible decision after horrible decision. My suspension of disbelief was gone after the first 15 mins of the movie, no one picked to go on a space exploration like that could possibly be so incompetent.

swiggy said @ 6:52am GMT on 14th Jul
I've heard it described as "a sci-fi movie with horror movie characters," which makes a great deal of sense to me, as horror movie characters do nothing but make shitty decisions that get them killed.

hellboy said @ 8:03am GMT on 14th Jul
If by "sci-fi" you mean a Roland Emmerich movie, and by "horror movie characters" you mean stupid teenagers in a slasher film, then yeah, that's pretty accurate.

swiggy said @ 9:03am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Informative]
that is exactly what I mean.

damnit said @ 3:35am GMT on 15th Jul
What is Alien, Alex?

Mr. Langosta said @ 5:41am GMT on 14th Jul
I think it's a quite good horror film dressed in sci-fi trappings -- like a haunted house in space -- sound familiar?

I don't share these sci-fi peccadilloes that I've since seen all over the webs. Furthermore the Alien franchise is not sacred to me. I've seen them, I enjoyed about 50% of them, and there's a little bit to think about re: rape themes etc., but not too much -- nothing literary. They earned my eight bucks this time around, and I picture Scott like his Maximus bellowing, "Are you not entertained!?"

Yeah, entirely. I got my money's worth. I don't need or expect 'nothing to ever be the same again' from a good genre movie. Ditto Avengers.

mrcucumber said @ 12:16pm GMT on 14th Jul
8 bucks? You pay 8 bucks for a movie?

It costs around $13 in nyc, and that's not for 3D movies, which are more.

And it's $4.50 subway round trip if you aren't within walking distance of your preferred movie. My partner and I spend close to $35 fucking dollars for a (close to two hour) movie. Throw in dinner and it's generously over $100(no, not pizza or micky d's). Needless to say I've been much more selective over the last 5 years.

I don't see movies in the theater much anymore, and when I do I make sure it's worth it. It astounds me that families spend that kind of money(add up popcorn, candy, and drinks) on taking their kids to the movies.

Based on the reaction here, it seems Prometheus isn't going to make my list. Unless of course my 40" flat screen won't be good enough for the special effects.

Mr. Langosta said @ 3:58pm GMT on 14th Jul
One of the few perks of living in the midwest. No subway, pick-up truck. And I didn't go out to eat, I took a bag of jerky that I cured and dehydrated from a deer I shot and butchered myself.

themanwhoeatslettus said @ 2:10am GMT on 15th Jul
And making what captain CUCUMBER makes in a 10 years because live outside NYC.

Mr. Langosta said @ 5:44am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:5 Funny]

kichijoii said @ 6:13am GMT on 14th Jul
I didn't watch this movie because I knew that from the moment it was announced that it was going to be a piece of shit. I have been told two things about this movie: it was a piece of shit, and a guy's head exploded. Now I really want to see this movie... with a Rifftrax treatment.

radioelectric said @ 1:00pm GMT on 14th Jul
The film has flaws, but it is not The Phantom Menace.

kichijoii said @ 10:36am GMT on 17th Jul
Now that I've seen it, I can say that I think it is almost as bad, just in different ways. It certainly wasn't a let-down of the same proportions as Menace.

Mr. Langosta said @ 6:14am GMT on 14th Jul

kichijoii said @ 9:56am GMT on 14th Jul
Is that a Scott Pilgrim reference? That movie sucked.

damnit said @ 3:57pm GMT on 14th Jul
Prometheus reference...

Mr. Langosta said @ 3:59pm GMT on 14th Jul
No.

swiggy said @ 6:31am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:3 Funny]
I suppose this is a good spot for it.

My own random thoughts on the movie:

~
Biologist:
Hey, got a quick question for you.

Geologist:
Fuck off.

Biologist:
We're both colorful, yet somewhat poorly defined characters with little or no backstory or importance to the overall plot.

Geologist:
That's right.

Biologist:
We're...we're going to die, aren't we?

Geologist:
Oh yeah. Horribly.

Biologist:
That sucks. Wanna be friends?

Geologist:
Absolutely not. By which I mean yes.
~

- The engineers seemed to be universally male and identical in appearance, even lacking any sort of military insignia or outward variation in their suits, which upon further reflection reminded me a great deal of the xenomorphs themselves, which are mostly just the hive's drones, working around and for the queen.

- "hey, wanna fuck?" "No." "Are you a robot?" "Okay, we can fuck." - THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER.

- The Engineer in stasis's neck seemed to flow directly into his suit. pretty sure the suit was a part of his body, grown or mutated on or out of him. The suit is the basis for the xenomorph exoskeleton.

- This is about as much as I could glean from the movie that has anything directly to do with the alien canon:

The Engineers' technology seemed to be based heavily in bio-tech (conductive mucousal wall goo being a good example), with DNA recombination factoring in somewhat heavily. Since the events of Prometheus don't even take place on LV-426 (unless weyland -Yutani pulled a Ceti-Alpha 5 on the Nostromo), we can only assume that something similar happened on LV-426 that eventuated in a lone Engineer trying to fuck off with the ship, unknowingly carrying a chest burster that would likely become the first xenomorph queen. Fast forward a few years, and what little info Weyland-Yutani has of the whole snafu (which might even ONLY be "alien bioweapon facility") causes them to throw the Nostromo at the moon to see what's what, kicking off the series.

swiggy said @ 6:48am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Funny]
a few more:

- Saw it with a friend and some other folks, and the part where they introduced Checkov's Lifeboat made us both simultaneously turn to the other with a "you're fucking kidding me" expression. Funniest part of the movie.

- The Alien series has some of the most unscientific scientists I have ever seen:

"Hey, we think this star sign we're seeing everywhere is an invitation to tea." "Uh...why, exactly, do you think that?" "BECAUSE SHUT UP THAT'S WHY. I'm a SCIENTIST, I don't NEED to back up my hypothesis with evidence!"

"Grrr I am a geologist and I am hard as fuck - OH SHIT! A body that's been dead for thousands of years, I'm fucking OUTTA HERE. You coming, biologist that's totally not my friend?" "Fuck yeah I am, biological samples creep me the hell out."

"Cool, a creature that's doing something ALMOST EXACTLY like a cobra doing a threat display. I'mma poke it."

- I had originally missed the whole "they arrive at christmas, thing's been dead for 2000 years" thing. When I made the connection I nearly broke my nose from the collision with the hamfist.

bruceski said @ 8:45am GMT on 14th Jul
My brother missed that too.
"So I guess we did something to piss them off?"
"2000 years ago, we killed space-Jesus."
"..." *sound of head hitting table*

hellboy said @ 4:32pm GMT on 14th Jul
And then there's the Immaculate Conception...

damnit said @ 6:40am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:2]
This was a really good read on What Prometheus was about and the direction Ridley Scott was going for...
http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html

Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot. I'd like to draw your attention to the use of motifs and callbacks in the film that not only enrich it, but offer possible hints as to what was going on in otherwise confusing scenes.

Let's begin with the eponymous titan himself, Prometheus. He was a wise and benevolent entity who created mankind in the first place, forming the first humans from clay. The Gods were more or less okay with that, until Prometheus gave them fire. This was a big no-no, as fire was supposed to be the exclusive property of the Gods. As punishment, Prometheus was chained to a rock and condemned to have his liver ripped out and eaten every day by an eagle. (His liver magically grew back, in case you were wondering.)

Fix that image in your mind, please: the giver of life, with his abdomen torn open. We'll be coming back to it many times in the course of this article.

The ethos of the titan Prometheus is one of willing and necessary sacrifice for life's sake. That's a pattern we see replicated throughout the ancient world. J G Frazer wrote his lengthy anthropological study, The Golden Bough, around the idea of the Dying God - a lifegiver who voluntarily dies for the sake of the people. It was incumbent upon the King to die at the right and proper time, because that was what heaven demanded, and fertility would not ensue if he did not do his royal duty of dying.

Now, consider the opening sequence of Prometheus. We fly over a spectacular vista, which may or may not be primordial Earth. According to Ridley Scott, it doesn't matter. A lone Engineer at the top of a waterfall goes through a strange ritual, drinking from a cup of black goo that causes his body to disintegrate into the building blocks of life. We see the fragments of his body falling into the river, twirling and spiralling into DNA helices.

Ridley Scott has this to say about the scene: 'That could be a planet anywhere. All he’s doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself. If you parallel that idea with other sacrificial elements in history – which are clearly illustrated with the Mayans and the Incas – he would live for one year as a prince, and at the end of that year, he would be taken and donated to the gods in hopes of improving what might happen next year, be it with crops or weather, etcetera.'

Can we find a God in human history who creates plant life through his own death, and who is associated with a river? It's not difficult to find several, but the most obvious candidate is Osiris, the epitome of all the Frazerian 'Dying Gods'.

And we wouldn't be amiss in seeing the first of the movie's many Christian allegories in this scene, either. The Engineer removes his cloak before the ceremony, and hesitates before drinking the cupful of genetic solvent; he may well have been thinking 'If it be Thy will, let this cup pass from me.'

So, we know something about the Engineers, a founding principle laid down in the very first scene: acceptance of death, up to and including self-sacrifice, is right and proper in the creation of life. Prometheus, Osiris, John Barleycorn, and of course the Jesus of Christianity are all supposed to embody this same principle. It is held up as one of the most enduring human concepts of what it means to be 'good'.

Seen in this light, the perplexing obscurity of the rest of the film yields to an examination of the interwoven themes of sacrifice, creation, and preservation of life. We also discover, through hints, exactly what the nature of the clash between the Engineers and humanity entailed.

The crew of the Prometheus discover an ancient chamber, presided over by a brooding solemn face, in which urns of the same black substance are kept. A mural on the wall presents an image which, if you did as I asked earlier on, you will recognise instantly: the lifegiver with his abdomen torn open. Go and look at it here to refresh your memory. Note the serenity on the Engineer's face here.

And there's another mural there, one which shows a familiar xenomorph-like figure. This is the Destroyer who mirrors the Creator, I think - the avatar of supremely selfish life, devouring and destroying others purely to preserve itself. As Ash puts it: 'a survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality.'

Through Shaw and Holloway's investigations, we learn that the Engineers not only created human life, they supervised our development. (How else are we to explain the numerous images of Engineers in primitive art, complete with star diagram showing us the way to find them?) We have to assume, then, that for a good few hundred thousand years, they were pretty happy with us. They could have destroyed us at any time, but instead, they effectively invited us over; the big pointy finger seems to be saying 'Hey, guys, when you're grown up enough to develop space travel, come see us.' Until something changed, something which not only messed up our relationship with them but caused their installation on LV-223 to be almost entirely wiped out.

From the Engineers' perspective, so long as humans retained that notion of self-sacrifice as central, we weren't entirely beyond redemption. But we went and screwed it all up, and the film hints at when, if not why: the Engineers at the base died two thousand years ago. That suggests that the event that turned them against us and led to the huge piles of dead Engineers lying about was one and the same event. We did something very, very bad, and somehow the consequences of that dreadful act accompanied the Engineers back to LV-223 and massacred them.

If you have uneasy suspicions about what 'a bad thing approximately 2,000 years ago' might be, then let me reassure you that you are right. An astonishing excerpt from the Movies.com interview with Ridley Scott:

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.

Yeah. The reason the Engineers don't like us any more is that they made us a Space Jesus, and we broke him. Reader, that's not me pulling wild ideas out of my arse. That's RIDLEY SCOTT.

So, imagine poor crucified Jesus, a fresh spear wound in his side. Oh, hey, there's the 'lifegiver with his abdomen torn open' motif again. That's three times now: Prometheus, Engineer mural, Jesus Christ. And I don't think I have to mention the 'sacrifice in the interest of giving life' bit again, do I? Everyone on the same page? Good.

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. When the severed Engineer head is temporarily brought back to life, its expression registers horror and disgust. Cinemagoers are confused when the head explodes, because it's not clear why it should have done so. Perhaps the Engineer wanted to die again, to undo the tainted human agenda of new life without sacrifice.

But some humans do act in ways the Engineers might have grudgingly admired. Take Holloway, Shaw's lover, who impregnates her barren womb with his black slime riddled semen before realising he is being transformed into something Other. Unlike the hapless geologist and botanist left behind in the chamber, who only want to stay alive, Holloway willingly embraces death. He all but invites Meredith Vickers to kill him, and it's surely significant that she does so using fire, the other gift Prometheus gave to man besides his life.

The 'Caesarean' scene is central to the film's themes of creation, sacrifice, and giving life. Shaw has discovered she's pregnant with something non-human and sets the autodoc to slice it out of her. She lies there screaming, a gaping wound in her stomach, while her tentacled alien child thrashes and squeals in the clamp above her and OH HEY IT'S THE LIFEGIVER WITH HER ABDOMEN TORN OPEN. How many times has that image come up now? Four, I make it. (We're not done yet.)

And she doesn't kill it. And she calls the procedure a 'caesarean' instead of an 'abortion'.

(I'm not even going to begin to explore the pro-choice versus forced birth implications of that scene. I don't think they're clear, and I'm not entirely comfortable doing so. Let's just say that her unwanted offspring turning out to be her salvation is possibly problematic from a feminist standpoint and leave it there for now.)

Here's where the Christian allegories really come through. The day of this strange birth just happens to be Christmas Day. And this is a 'virgin birth' of sorts, although a dark and twisted one, because Shaw couldn't possibly be pregnant. And Shaw's the crucifix-wearing Christian of the crew. We may well ask, echoing Yeats: what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards LV-223 to be born?

Consider the scene where David tells Shaw that she's pregnant, and tell me that's not a riff on the Annunciation. The calm, graciously angelic android delivering the news, the pious mother who insists she can't possibly be pregnant, the wry declaration that it's no ordinary child... yeah, we've seen this before.

'And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.'

A barren woman called Elizabeth, made pregnant by 'God'? Subtle, Ridley.

Anyway. If it weren't already clear enough that the central theme of the film is 'I suffer and die so that others may live' versus 'you suffer and die so that I may live' writ extremely large, Meredith Vickers helpfully spells it out:

'A king has his reign, and then he dies. It's inevitable.'

Vickers is not just speaking out of personal frustration here, though that's obviously one level of it. She wants her father out of the way, so she can finally come in to her inheritance. It's insult enough that Weyland describes the android David as 'the closest thing I have to a son', as if only a male heir was of any worth; his obstinate refusal to accept death is a slap in her face.

Weyland, preserved by his wealth and the technology it can buy, has lived far, far longer than his rightful time. A ghoulish, wizened creature who looks neither old nor young, he reminds me of Slough Feg, the decaying tyrant from the Slaine series in British comic 2000AD. In Slaine, an ancient (and by now familiar to you, dear reader, or so I would hope) Celtic law decrees that the King has to be ritually and willingly sacrificed at the end of his appointed time, for the good of the land and the people. Slough Feg refused to die, and became a rotting horror, the embodiment of evil.

The image of the sorcerer who refuses to accept rightful death is fundamental: it even forms a part of some occult philosophy. In Crowley's system, the magician who refuses to accept the bitter cup of Babalon and undergo dissolution of his individual ego in the Great Sea (remember that opening scene?) becomes an ossified, corrupted entity called a 'Black Brother' who can create no new life, and lives on as a sterile, emasculated husk.

With all this in mind, we can better understand the climactic scene in which the withered Weyland confronts the last surviving Engineer. See it from the Engineer's perspective. Two thousand years ago, humanity not only murdered the Engineers' emissary, it infected the Engineers' life-creating fluid with its own tainted selfish nature, creating monsters. And now, after so long, here humanity is, presumptuously accepting a long-overdue invitation, and even reawakening (and corrupting all over again) the life fluid.

And who has humanity chosen to represent them? A self-centred, self-satisfied narcissist who revels in his own artificially extended life, who speaks through the medium of a merely mechanical offspring. Humanity couldn't have chosen a worse ambassador.

It's hardly surprising that the Engineer reacts with contempt and disgust, ripping David's head off and battering Weyland to death with it. The subtext is bitter and ironic: you caused us to die at the hands of our own creation, so I am going to kill you with YOUR own creation, albeit in a crude and bludgeoning way.

The only way to save humanity is through self-sacrifice, and this is exactly what the captain (and his two oddly complacent co-pilots) opt to do. They crash the Prometheus into the Engineer's ship, giving up their lives in order to save others. Their willing self-sacrifice stands alongside Holloway's and the Engineer's from the opening sequence; by now, the film has racked up no less than five self-sacrificing gestures (six if we consider the exploding Engineer head).

Meredith Vickers, of course, has no interest in self-sacrifice. Like her father, she wants to keep herself alive, and so she ejects and lands on the planet's surface. With the surviving cast now down to Vickers and Shaw, we witness Vickers's rather silly death as the Engineer ship rolls over and crushes her, due to a sudden inability on her part to run sideways. Perhaps that's the point; perhaps the film is saying her view is blinkered, and ultimately that kills her. But I doubt it. Sometimes a daft death is just a daft death.

Finally, in the squidgy ending scenes of the film, the wrathful Engineer conveniently meets its death at the tentacles of Shaw's alien child, now somehow grown huge. But it's not just a death; there's obscene life being created here, too. The (in the Engineers' eyes) horrific human impulse to sacrifice others in order to survive has taken on flesh. The Engineer's body bursts open - blah blah lifegiver blah blah abdomen ripped apart hey we're up to five now - and the proto-Alien that emerges is the very image of the creature from the mural.

On the face of it, it seems absurd to suggest that the genesis of the Alien xenomorph ultimately lies in the grotesque human act of crucifying the Space Jockeys' emissary to Israel in four B.C., but that's what Ridley Scott proposes. It seems equally insane to propose that Prometheus is fundamentally about the clash between acceptance of death as a condition of creating/sustaining life versus clinging on to life at the expense of others, but the repeated, insistent use of motifs and themes bears this out.

As a closing point, let me draw your attention to a very different strand of symbolism that runs through Prometheus: the British science fiction show Doctor Who. In the 1970s episode 'The Daemons', an ancient mound is opened up, leading to an encounter with a gigantic being who proves to be an alien responsible for having guided mankind's development, and who now views mankind as a failed experiment that must be destroyed. The Engineers are seen tootling on flutes, in exactly the same way that the second Doctor does. The Third Doctor had an companion whose name was Liz Shaw, the same name as the protagonist of Prometheus. As with anything else in the film, it could all be coincidental; but knowing Ridley Scott, it doesn't seem very likely.

QUICK EDIT: Just noting down some of the other Christian symbolism I missed, with thanks to those who pointed them out: David washes Weyland's feet, and I'm told that when Janek and his co-pilots sacrifice their lives to save the Earth, they apparently stand in the form of crucifixes, their arms held out. ('Hands up'?) So you have three 'crucified' guys, one in the middle higher up, the other two on the sides, lower down. All a bit Calvary. However, I don't remember that bit very clearly myself, so I'll have to go see it again.

EDITED 10 JUNE 2012: I'm amazed that so many people are reading and discussing this. I'd like to make some sort of response to your various comments here and elsewhere, but it may take a while as there are loads. Feel free to follow me on Twitter (@Cavalorn) and tell me your thoughts in the meantime, if you like.

EPT said @ 8:13am GMT on 14th Jul
shortened my original screed to the following:

Half the stuff in that monologue is not in the film, or expects us to make stupid assumptions (like the action of one individual means everyone does the same thing).

The symbolism may have intended to have been referenced, but it's either poorly done or not even there. A clear example is the linked image of the 'torso ripped open'. Check it out. Click it and zoom in. The torso is intact.

It is academically interesting to read about the intended symbolism, but the execution left a poor product.

damnit said @ 2:04pm GMT on 14th Jul
I actually enjoyed reading this more than the movie itself. Now if only they actually intended to show all these...

kichijoii said @ 10:12am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
Thanks for this. The lesson I take away is: copying something and repeating it over and over again doesn't make your story deep or symbolic in any meaningful way. Not all that rhymes is poetry.

ckfahrenheit said @ 6:41am GMT on 14th Jul
for once I'd like to see a 'prequel' purposely shot on rougher film stock than the original. Prequels are always so shiny and sharp and stereo and CGI'd. It just don't convince me, no sir. Oh never mind. Carry on

sua_sponte said @ 7:13am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]

moriati said @ 7:53am GMT on 14th Jul [Score:3 Funny]
The greatest trick that Damon Lindelof ever pulled was to get his audience to write most of his work in their own heads.

Crysallis said @ 11:15am GMT on 14th Jul
That was going to be my contribution; the movie, like LOST before it, doesn't mean shit. It's all superficial trash tossed together by Lindelof with absolutely no thought, purpose, or meaning beneath the surface. Aggravating.

Omegaphobic said @ 3:45pm GMT on 14th Jul
Thirded. At least it was pretty to look at, though.

strangeffect said @ 11:57am GMT on 14th Jul
Well I thoroughly enjoyed it.

radioelectric said @ 2:04pm GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Good]

radioelectric said @ 2:04pm GMT on 14th Jul

chold_numa said @ 2:28pm GMT on 14th Jul
There's a few things about the movie which I liked, and a few I didn't. Firstly, the plot and the characters were terrible. On the other hand, the themes and the set pieces (robosurgery, ghosts of the Engineers running through the corridors, big head reveal, donut chase, meeting the Engineer, David starting the navigation system) were brilliant and well shot. The set design was excellent.

The problem is, they started off with all these "wouldn't it be cool if..." bits and then tried to gel them altogether with theme and characterisation. Unfortunately, they failed terribly. The writer needed an editor/script doctor to kill off the superfluous bits/characters to get a coherent storyline and a few dent, relatable characters. Really, the only two characters that were even partially developed were David and Shaw. Even then, they basically have little interaction until the end of the movie.

Mad March Harris said @ 3:59pm GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
I just want to say that I'm amazed at the thorough scorn this movie has drawn from so many corners. Personally, I thought that it was an excellently designed (visually) horror movie that carried with it all of the shitty "stoner dies first" "people make irrational decisions in front of monsters" tropes and I just accepted that. It's not very well written and I don't plan on buying it but it is literally almost the same movie as Alien just with more characters, bad sound direction, and worse writing (and Alien doesn't have amazing writing).

EPT said @ 4:58pm GMT on 14th Jul
The problem lies in that by using the symbolism they do and in the ham-fisted manner they apply it in, it's clear it's meant to be more than merely 'a horror flick'. People are generally happy if a film lives up to the expectations it sets itself.

damnit said @ 3:38am GMT on 15th Jul
I like discussing stuff like this. That's what the DVD commentary is also used for or behind-the-scenes feature.

Sixth Sense and Unbreakable had tons of materials.

Silent Hill 1, 2, 3 also had these things.

EPT said @ 5:05pm GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
Also, it's fun to commiserate on lost potential. People do it all the time - especially when their sports team loses a close game.

bltrocker said @ 4:06pm GMT on 14th Jul
Low expectations here. I enjoyed it, even though the much discussed shortcomings exist. I just took the whole thing in as some kind of AAA B-movie paradox. Fassbender ruled and it was pretty as hell. Interesting things happened, and I tried to ignore the mistreatment of science and scientists. The one thing I couldn't get over was the makeup on the Weyland character.

I might have missed it in the comments, but I found this post prom the faux-perspective of Captain Elba pretty funny: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/prometheus-captains-log/

hellboy said @ 5:03pm GMT on 14th Jul [Score:2 Funny]
By far my favorite ex post facto reinterpretation of the movie comes from these comments on io9.com:

What exactly did David say to [REDACTED] in Prometheus?

lightninglouie: My theory is that the Engineers are basically all-powerful Homer Simpsons, all-powerful but basically rageoholics who panic when things are going wrong. I mean, they fly around space in ships that look like donuts with holes bitten out of the side…

Eridani: Mmm, space donut….

lightninglouie: When I saw the disintegrating Engineer plunge into the waterfall at the beginning of the movie, I instantly flashed on Homer falling repeatedly into Springfield gorge.

Eridani: haha, oh man. I can’t unsee that.

lightninglouie: You know the inevitable HOMETHEUS parody on “Treehouse of Terror” is going to be awesome.

lightninglouie: Consider:

The Engineers are bald men with googly eyes.

The ones we see in the movie spend all their time sleeping peacefully or running around in panic or blind rage.

Their spaceships look like donuts (or cookies, like the one seen in the prologue).

They seem to screw up a lot, especially when it comes to running facilities with toxic byproducts.

They really hate miserly old billionaires.

Also: Mr. Burns’ assistant Smithers’ first name? WAYLAND.

[IMG]http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h314/robotchas/Hometheus/hometheus-with-doughnut.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h314/robotchas/Hometheus/3292727206_4abbc0cdf1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h314/robotchas/Hometheus/chestburstcoming.jpg[/IMG]

hellboy said @ 5:06pm GMT on 14th Jul
grr images

EPT said @ 5:18pm GMT on 14th Jul [Score:1 Underrated]
And because I can't leave well enough alone: I just watched Harold & Kumar go to White Castle, and I noted that I found the idea of two adults riding a cheetah through nighttime woodlands near Newark to be more plausible and immersive than the actions of the crew of the Prometheus.

Just sayin'.

ahPook said @ 11:15pm GMT on 14th Jul
I think I might have posted that after all the Prometheus pre-hype on this board there was never any follow-up so thanks radioelectric. This was all interesting read. I don't even personally have a lot to say about Prometheus, but as a Lost fan (there must be more than just me!) it's hard to compare something which ran for 6 years each with 24 hour-long episodes with a 2 hour movie. I thought Prometheus barely scratched the surface and I did my share of eye-rolling but let's be clear who the auteur of the work was! I'm incredulous at reviewers who seem to think Ridley Scott was responsible for the visuals (which were great) and Damon Lindenhof was responsible for the story (which was frankly disappointing). Scott had final cut. It's his movie. He hired Lindenhof to write it. If he didn't like the shooting script he could fire him and hire another writer. End of story.

That's also not to say Lindenhof could't turn in a poor script. Lost had a team of writers that he was in charge of, that's a very different setup to writing a screenplay in collaboration with another writer and the director/creator.

the9thcircle said @ 1:13am GMT on 15th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
I just thought the point of the black goo killing the Engineers was to show that they too were fallible, and not gods, although they created humanity.

The philosophical problem for the main character then becomes, "if our creators are no all wise and all powerful, where do we draw our dignity and meaning form? What type of religion can we embrace once atheism has essentially been proved as correct??

I think the answer Scott hinted at was that meaning comes from within. The intentions of the engineers stopped mattering after human beings became sentient. Humans can create their own meaning. they have dignity and a right to life even when their creators decide to kill them. their Gods are not gods at all. The truly divine spark at the heart of religion is not outside of man, up in the stars, but within man's capacity to understand and act for himself.

structured_spirits said @ 5:05am GMT on 15th Jul
I didn't see the movie based on this review which I found quite informative
http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/2012/06/09/god-is-dud/

I'll probably download it when the dvd comes out.

mwoody said @ 11:09am GMT on 15th Jul [Score:1 Funny]
Hunh, I enjoyed the movie. So Weyland-Yutani has a really shitty HR department; you gotta cut corners somewhere!

Kat said @ 6:58am GMT on 16th Jul
Pictures are pretty.

Android is intriguing.

All else is crap.

Excited Corpse said @ 1:36pm GMT on 16th Jul
What the fuck was up with that fucking Space ZOmbie?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Excited Corpse said @ 7:00pm GMT on 16th Jul
really, why did the geologist turn into a super powerful zombie? it didn't fit with anything else that happened in the movie at all.

pleaides said @ 1:39pm GMT on 16th Jul
I can't believe that after all these lengthy comments nobody's mentioned the rather startling fact that Lyssa Arryn was in space.

chold_numa said @ 8:56pm GMT on 16th Jul
No breastfeeding.

Also, Stringer Bell in space.

kichijoii said @ 10:20am GMT on 17th Jul
After watching the movie, I wrote out 100 complaints addressing individual elements, plot holes, shitty characters, and nonsensical events. I can't say anything about the graphics because I watched a shitty cam vid. But that's okay, because I watch movies for the stories. I will never understand how people can apologize for a shitty movie because it had ~~nice~~ expensive graphics. If you want "pretty" animation like that, why don't you just go play a video game?

EPT said @ 2:20pm GMT on 17th Jul
As cool as games are (I am a heavy addict), their graphics are nothing compared to big budget CGI where animators have access to servers upon servers all rendering their frames, taking as long as necessary.

That being said, it's almost always not worth shelling out movie money if all you're going to see are graphics.

EPT said @ 2:23pm GMT on 17th Jul
case in point: there is no game that is actually photorealistic, where you can't tell the difference between cgi and live action, whereas in film it's getting to the point of ridiculousness in terms of what they carve out to be replaced by animators.