21 December 2003
SMS dialogue between Noomi Rapace and an Engineer
(This was originally linked from another post that contained a massive spoiler warning, but since it's now being passed around on social media without that reference, let me emphasize that YOU SHOULD UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN PROMETHEUS AND INTEND TO DO SO AND DON'T WANT MAJOR PLOT POINTS REVEALED. The post is dated 8.5 years ago specifically because I wanted to make sure nobody stumbles onto it by accident.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
126 comments:
This is as brilliant as anything I've ever read.
Sure, I don't read much. In any case, <3
And why was Dave, an android, bleaching his roots at the beginning of the movie? Seems unnecessary. He claims he doesn't eat, therefore, I doubt he's growing new hair that needs bleaching.
Oh, and how did Noomi Rapace KNOW that ship was headed to Earth? No one told her that. Maybe Dave gleaned that from the star map when he first activated the bridge, but he was the only one who saw that map. Why would she jump to the conclusion that the ship's captain was headed to Earth? He might have been headed to the nearest Taco Bell (a fast "food" which I believe was the engineers' first attempt at earthly eradication which luckily we evolved to survive...until they fought back with the Doritos Taco...now we are doomed).
Woman's intuition.
Was ANYONE else concerned with the abrupt "WE GOIN INTO SPACE NAO ON THIS ALIEN SPACE SHIP" ending? She's a human and will eventually need her basic needs met. Sure she hastily grabbed some crap from that ship but who knows what that could have been.
Actually, the whole thing MAY make sense if you consider that the dude at the beginning and the ones on the remote planet are warring factions:
1) the "dude" is the last one of his family or something, so...
2) he spreads hid DNA before dying so that his descendants can avenge him
3) the descendants, us, track down the dude's "enemies", NOT KNOWING that they're enemies because Noomi Rapace and Tom Hardy's clone misinterpreted the message left behind
4) the enemies had been waiting the whole time because they somehow knew the dude would do that (maybe it's a common strategy among that alien race, I don't know...) but they didn't know WHERE he'd do it.
I know it's far-fetched but it's the only way I could make sense of this poor excuse of a plot that Damon Lindelof completely gratuitously insulted the audience with.
And we will never know.
I do believe Lindelof wrote under the lingering influence of LOST and deliberately let the audience question everything whilst HE had no real answers in mind to begin with.
amusing but the person that made this clearly didn't realize that they WERE going to go back to earth and drop the ordnance of black ooze on the planet. Remember the thousands of canisters in the ship's cargo hold?
No, I did realize that. The engineer says so at the bottom of the penultimate screen, and then Noomi sensibly asks what the point of the star maps was in that case.
Nicely done. I've included a link in my own piece on Prometheus:
http://alienatedinvancouver.blogspot.ca/2012/06/prometheus-wholly-engaging-and-utterly.html
Admittedly I am not an alien or lost superfan. I was born in '82 and got into lost after the fourth season. I did see aliens on hbo when i was 6, and probably never slept well again, don't worry I saw the fly too then but only by pretending to be asleep and then watching in horror behind the couch. After seeing prometheus in imax 3d I have no complaints, it was the visual spectacle I hoped for and was teased with by the trailers. Initially I got into the hype and read early screening reviews and realized I had to say no. Critics are critical, its their job, but I'm not, I'm a movie enthusiast, I want to watch good movies, and here's the funny part, I never see them in the theatre, but I sure as hell wanted to see this one in imax 3d, no other way. That alone makes me think "they" that made this movie did their jobs well, and the 3D didn't distract me or give me a headache unlike Avatar. It actually enhanced my experience, and my friend a first time imax viewer said yeah I hate to pay for 3D but you were right, Thanks! Some directors do well with 3D and so many don't, I really liked how it was used to involve the viewer and not jump in their face but only to highlight dimension and scope. Ultimately, Yes you should see it, it will leave you with questions and discussions amongst people who have seen it, and I've never seen sci fi so visual, so grand, so sci fi.
^ This. Absolutely.
Actually, Scott said in an interview that the engineers were keeping a watch on us. Then, around 2,000 years ago, "stuff was getting out of hand," so they sent their ambassador, Jesus Christ, who we then crucified, prompting the engineers to destroy us.
so jesus was 7 feet tall, ripped as shit and wore a wig.
Umm.. where is it said the ripped alien a the start of the movie was on Earth?
I notice similarities between the early green planet and the dead planet.
I was under the impression the Engineer that killed himself with the virus also caused the alien crap which ended up killing the other Engineers (and possibly all life on that planet)
Which is why the plot to kill everything on Earth didn't happen.
I may be wrong, but I don't remember any claims in the movie that Engineers set out to make humans. The guy kills himself, falls in the water, started evolution, and just let it happen. Humans just happen to turn out like the Engineers. Maybe everything at one point evolves into the Engineer/Human looking creatures when given time.
"And why was Dave, an android, bleaching his roots at the beginning of the movie? Seems unnecessary. He claims he doesn't eat, therefore, I doubt he's growing new hair that needs bleaching. "
Because despite not having emotions, he 'likes' very much the movie of Lawrence of Arabia (playing in the background at the time), and seems to adopt the mannerisms, countenance and speech inflections of Peter O Toole
.
It's a shame to say, but the above dialog was much better than the movie.
I loved Alien and Blade Runner. I was very excited that Ridley Scott finally was returning to science fiction and to the Alien universe!
Then, yesterday, I saw Prometheus. Despite how beautifully filmed it was (and it was gorgeous), if I didn't know better, I'd think it was written by George Lucas.
"Maybe everything at one point evolves into the Engineer/Human looking creatures when given time."
Aside from that being really, really bad science even for a SF movie as incoherent as this, they later on state that the Engineer DNA is a "100% match" for humans, so your explanation wouldn't fit.
This was, FX aside, a bad movie start to finish.
I agree, The main subtitle should be Suspend Disbelief, fuck fan logic, never make the movie unless its airtight. On that pretense it should have never been made, and it wouldn't according to plotters, ok, so don't watch the next one. Go home have a nice day.
Well now we know there aren't any abortion clinics in the future, could have saved that dudes life. Thanks Government.
Does this terrible film even deserve any type of discussion? Isn't this exactly what Damon Lindelof wants us all to do? Perhaps we shouldn't be validating him at all. He ruined any possible chance of the Alien franchise to recover from the damage that the Alien 4 and the AVP films did. If the guy who stated it all can't deliver a decent prequel, it's time to just let it be. Damon Lindelof sucks! I wonder if Ridley Scott even watched the last season of LOST? I wish people would just be honest with themselves and accept that Prometheus was a huge disappointment. I have to say that if Ridley Scott is still thinking about making a Blade Runner Sequel,he probably should walk away from the project while he still can. Clearly, he's lost the ability to deliver a decent film. Did he have a stroke or something? Maybe they should have let James Cameron make the prequel. I just don't know... but as much as I wanted to like Prometheus, I refuse to play the "The Emperor's New Clothes." Prometheus is a gorgeous steaming pile of celluloid crap. It just doesn't deserve any more discussion.
Fanboys, shut up! It is a movie. Who cares about the plot holes! They will be clarified in further movies. In the meanwhile enjoy the piece of movie magic that it is.
I got the impression that the planet at the start wasn't earth. A lot of the landscapes from the flyover at the beginning looked exactly the same as the landscapes when Prometheus is flying over the planet. Also the spaceship at the beginning isn't the same horseshoe shape as the engineers ship(s). Perhaps the guy who sacrifices himself was trying to wipe out whatever arrived on that ship?
A substance that kills or horribly mutates organic tissue doesn't seem a good choice to start creating life with.
Also, it wasn't meant to be a direct prequel to Alien...
Yes, it's set in the same universe/canon, but it's always been said that it isn't a prequel.
He does eat. They show them eating. And drinking. Still doesn't explain the hair.
And she knows the ship is going to Earth because David tells everyone that. When they first enter the bridge, he says the were leaving, is asked where to and answers "Earth." He is then asked why and replies "because sometimes to create you mist first destroy," whatever the hell that means.
Don't feel bad though. If you'd actually been paying attention, the movie would only have sucked that much more.
As far as I remember, the last star map was dated from around 35000 years ago? (Please correct me if I'm wrong here).
The star maps show the humanoids as benevolent father figures. But all of that changed "2000" years ago. And the film describes dates in terms of "year of the lord". And as far as I remember, somebody just throws the fact that it's Christmas when the Caesarean thing happens. So yeah, what could've happened 2000 years ago?
The liquid is sort of a symbolic mirror that probably amplifies the characteristics of the base DNA, although when all of it disintegrates, good luck with getting the same permutation..
Brilliant! I suggest you watch the movie a couple of times. I guess there are many more holes and ridiculous explanations that can provide at least two more hilarious SMS dialogs. I'll be watting for them.
The bioweapons weren't for humans; they were intended for the Annunaki that created the Igigi (space jockeys). As David said, the creation wants to destroy its creator.
The big saucer ship in the opening scene belongs to the aliens that created the space jockeys (to terraform planets I expect).
Darwanism isn't the only scientific theory out there. This film supports omega point theory; that DNA is programmed to move forward toward a evolutionary goal.
Didn't anyone realize that David was mimicking his favorite film Lawrence Of Arabia by dying his hair and quoting the dialogue?
Dudes. David was bleaching his hair because some piece of him wanted to be human, like the character from Lawrence of Arabia. It makes him interesting, this robot displaying this human characteristic.
A lot of the movie sucked but I thought David's bleached roots were the most interesting thing about it!
Since we're being so damned picky...
The last text from the 'Engineer' is cut off by Noomi's text. How does one cut off a text message mid-sentence with another text, exactly?
OMG THIS POST IS NOW COMPLETELY RUINED FOR ME EVEN THOUGH SOME PARTS OF IT WERE PRETTY DAMN FUNNY AND WORTHWHILE AND REWARDING IT'S STILL RUINED AND A WASTE OF MY TIME
I was wondering when somebody would point that out. (Tried it without the impossible interruption but it just didn't play as well.)
The film is called Prometheus.
The alien at the start is 'Prometheus', giving life/fire to earth.
The other aliens obviously didn't agree with that decision, and were going to kill the humans. Maybe the disruption 2000 years ago on the moon was caused by a group that didn't want the humans killed.
@AbbeAdam
Fanboy? I don't think that word means what you think it does. Just the fact that you're posting at a web site where fans are discussing a film, makes you a Fanboy as well. I suppose the difference is that you lack any sort of intellect.A true muscle head who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty, blindly following orders handed down from political pundits who see you as expendable. Thanks for keeping the country safe, space marine. If you thought Prometheus was a good film than you obviously have lowered expectations. You're the type of guy who puts catchup on spaghetti. You could watch Christian Slater in the film Mobsters and Al Pacino in the Godfather and find both films to be equally fantastic. You are no doubt the type of person that Hollywood loves to pander to because they know that they can sell you anything. Some people enjoy Godiva Chocolate, others love eating cotton candy. You Sir, clearly are unable to tell the difference. I'll take Fanboy as a compliment "shit for brains."
Besides everything mentioned above but wasn't this movie in the "same" timeline as aliens?
So according to this sometime in the future "The Alien" prob evolved from the alien that burst out of the engineers.
However if you look at AvP, the same aliens were supposedly around early ancient civilization...or am I missing something here?
@Anonymous from 12:17
And you're the type of guy who goes on lengthy tirades against people for being stupid and lowering the intellectual denominator for society even though you can't spell "ketchup" right.
This SMS dialogue is lame. I'm a big alien fan, have been for over a decade since I first saw it, this movie was great, better than both avp films and better than alien 3 and 4.
Also this:
"Actually, Scott said in an interview that the engineers were keeping a watch on us. Then, around 2,000 years ago, "stuff was getting out of hand," so they sent their ambassador, Jesus Christ, who we then crucified, prompting the engineers to destroy us."
Which could work, I mean these aliens could easily have the technology to create what humans at that time would believe to be immaculate conception, by basically putting what they wanted to be Jesus in her womb, and then they appear as 'angels' to the shepherds etc, and say follow that star (which was just their ship sat there in neutral with the headlights left on).
Actually, the biggest plot hole from the movie is this:
after Shaw gets the alien removed from her stomach, she stumbles around bleeding with surgical staples in her stomach. Yet no one ever questions, "Oh, hey, why are you stumbling around with surgical staples in your stomach?"
That wasn't Tom Hardy... looks like him, but it was actually Ryan's older brother from FOX's "The OC." http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1334869/
Wow, you are an angry little nerd.
Oh, and it is ketchup or catsup. you critical prick
"Fanboy? I don't think that word means what you think it does. Just the fact that you're posting at a web site where fans are discussing a film, makes you a Fanboy as well. I suppose the difference is that you lack any sort of intellect."
Who else thinks whoever posted that is 40 and lives in his mom's basement? :D
There's a difference between fact and opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion without people hurling factually-stated abuse at them.
I thought the film had a few obvious plot-holes (as do most scifi films), but all in all was a worthy Alien predecessor. And I thought that the Noomi / Engineer convo at the beginning of this post is hilarious :)
I had major problems with that. Shit starts to happen to Dr Shaw and no one notices and she doesn't tell anyone. Ridiculous. Then Weyland appears and no one says anything either, but I saw that one coming early on. What else was in that ship? I mean, this movie, or I should say the story, had people doing really stupid things. Why go halfway across the galaxy and do stupid things? Hey, it's a cute-looking alien snake cobra creature! Let's play with it.
I think the planet at the beginning is Earth, as it is shown at the very start of the movie. The LV-223 planet is actually a moon of a ringed planet.
And all this about Jesus Christ being one of them... Well, it's not in the movie and it better not be part of this movie and any sequels, cuz that's goona piss off a lot of people. Just like Lost was always about purgatory...
And I agree with the guy who made the AvP references. This movie negates the AvP movies (which take place in present day Earth) because the xenomorphs turn out to be a species that only came about after very specific DNA combination, i.e., human DNA (Dr Shaw's partner) + Dr Shaw's DNA + Engineer DNA + etc.
The xenomorph we get to see isn't quite there yet, so for a whole species to emerge from one creature, wouldn't that require a long time? Yet Aliens suggest that they are a real species with social hierarchies and so on, like insects, I guess.
This lone proto-xenomorph is gonna need to a way to reproduce, and to produce others like it, what other human hosts are left around in LV-223? Are there more dormant Engineers in the other mounds/spaceships that can be seen on the surface?
Unless of course, the xenomorphs have developed independently of this movie in some other location, and have been around for a very long time...
idiot
@Anonymous from 12:27 AM, 1:47 AM and 2:51 AM
I don't eat ketchup or catsup, so why would I need to spell it? Seriously, this is the best
that you can do? As I mentioned before, you have no intellect. I was hoping for a witty comeback
but I guess just no such luck. You may not appreciate my arrogance, but when one is intelligent,
wealthy, good looking and super successful like myself, it’s not unusual to give the laypeople some hell.
Just like the Engineers from Prometheus, we like to toy
with those of you who dwell at
the bottom of the food chain.
You, the fans who worship us; spending your time and hard earned cash on the fantasy that we feed you. While you're fixated to the screen hoping to escape from your miserable reality, the Engineers are slowly disassembling your society, devouring everything that
you've worked for like a swarm of hungry locusts.
Yes, from time to time, we have to bust your chops for shits and giggles. But sadly,there's no sport at this forum. Just pathetic. Suck it easy Fanboys.
You make me laugh. If you were as intelligent as you claim, you wouldn't resort to berating others on a public forum. That in itself is counter-intelligent. Arrogance is also counter-intelligent as it negates reason and discourse.
As for you referring to me as being at the bottom of the food chain: I have a masters degree in film, and am a published writer. But hey, I'm posting this as "anonymous", so I could just be another hack looking for a self-gratifying rant in a public forum.
Unanswered questions are not plot holes.
Also, RNA.
Also, over centuries, stars move relative to Earth and don't look the same.
I'm sure the director's cut will fix things. An intriguing half hour film about a synthetic person discovering the art of HR Giger.
You want answers? Fine: Life is a Super-positional Organism that created the Universe through change in possibility - and 'individuals' are just parts of the larger whole - insane and fighting itself.
:P
Ok, this is where it gets really stupid. Why does the top of the structure they were in, seemingly have a human face(skull)facade when the storm hits. If this is a tenuous link to the xenomorph from from Alien then this film completely fails. This also begs the question why all subsequent xenomorphs have no human face like heads.
He said Tom Hardy's CLONE.
Idiot.
What makes sense to me: The engineers seed earth, the initial and subsequent additions of DNA pushing evolution towards a species similar to them. After humanoid life develops, engineers visit again to continue steering the hominids towards technology (showing them fire - Thus, Prometheus, etc.) At this time they also encourage the cave paintings and check them for accuracy. Now for the attempted genocide: Humanity is anything but homogeneous in culture, goals, or whatever else you can think of, why would we expect the engineers to be? Another group of engineers decides to use the planet in the cave paintings as a bio-weapons testing ground, either because they know of the other factions plans for it, or it's convenient, or whatever. They find out that this distant planet has been seeded by the other faction and boom, now they have plans for coming after us. So then the predators come along and... :)
I think the movie was great and left questions that we are to answer bringing our own biases & beliefs. The only thing that bothered me was the Charlene & captain romance segue that I think Hollywood had to impose. Then again i'd love to watch it again & experience it on 3d.
And so the milk of the Alien franchise gets a little more sour and lumpy. But, like every other disappointing, "by the numbers" Sci-Fi movie that's cloned every cinematic and plot device since the original Alien, it just leaves me wondering if a Ridley Scott or a James Cameron will ever tackle, respectfully, Childhood's End, which Prometheus, in it's sexy dullness owes more to than any other installment of the Alien (now) soap opera.
I've got another question:
If the canisters contain weapons of mass destruction to destroy earth...why the hell is there a "temple" (the room with the giant head and all the canisters arranged in front of it) inside the ship?
As the captain said, you don't build weapons of mass destruction in your own backyard. Similarly, you don't build them and then keep them in the backseat of your car.
its like an alien landing on our moon and seeing a boat full of roman guards and crosses headed to their planet. Not only have we moved way passed that killing technique but the romans now mean nothing to us as rep of our civilization.
I dont think Ridley necs. wants those 20 or so aliens from 94AD to rep their home planet in the 2094.
This is terrific. Thanks for posting it.
And what was the point of the Lawrence of Arabia bit? Oh yeah, to "humanize" David. Right. Why not give him his precious photos like Leon? Wasted opportunities. My anger at this film grows by the minute...
I got the feeling that the initial "suicide" wasn't seeding earth.
It was someone killing himself (the prometheus fable) to bring low the gods and give man a chance. Ie, he wasn't on earth, he is the reason all the engineers died before they could bomb earth.
Mankind was made by the engineers on earth for a different reason, the horror is that reason. They created man for the same reason man created androids. Human life has no great purpose or destiny, its insignificant.
ie.) "At the Mountains of Madness" which is what started the whole "ancient astronaut" thing in the first place. Replaced "Elder Thing" with engineer, "Shoggoth" with black goop, and Antarctica with a far off planet.
Haha... I love that, out of everything that is horribly wrong about his post, you point out the misspelling of catsup.
+1 Internet for you!
Maybe the giant human face is like a marker that like these weapons are effective against these guys should they get out of hand. They are biological like us since we made them so oops these weapons wrecked us too. Darn seals were kinda shoddy.
I definitely felt "Lost-frustration" with this movie, it seemed more questions were asked than answers provided but I guess I wasn't as hung up on the various plot holes that I saw in the story as much the overall science involved. And I understand it's a movie and they're allowed to bend the rules a bit but I think I spent more time trying to connect the dots in Prometheus' biology rather than in it's story. I mean, did anyone understand the origin of that first Xenomorph at the end? Can anyone explain this to me?
1) They showed at the beginning that the black goop tears apart your DNA and you just disintegrate (which I don't think would happen.. any scientists out there?), but at least we know how that weapon was supposed to be effective. but the difference between downing a mouthful and drink a drop of it is pretty substantial for some reason.
2) In that room where they found the canisters full of the biological weapon, they showed little worms or grubs or whatever crawling around in the goop. They then grew into the snake thing ...because of the goop? Am I remembering this part wrong?
This had nothing to do with the birth of that first xenomorph however. Instead, the origin seemed to diverge when...
3)David takes a microscopic sample from the goop and slips it into the one guys drink. This slowly makes him sick so they torch him up, but not before he can slip in a quickie with Shaw. This somehow transfers that organism to her, but instead of her getting sick too, it impregnates her (???), and this process somehow caused it to grow into a squid looking thing instead of the snake looking thing we saw before (?????).
4) Now, after Shaw removed it from her womb, I can accept that it didn't die, but why did it continue to grow into that huge thing at the end? I mean, doesn't it need some sort of nutrients to grow? Either way, from here it was the typical Alien logic. The squid version of the face-huger blasted a load into the engineer which grew the Xenomorph.
To me that was more distracting than any of the plot holes. That and the fact that human DNA was a 100% match with the engineer's, even after thousands of years of our own evolutionary growth on earth.
I liked the ending of the SMS BECAUSE her text interrupted his. It's like a Farside cartoon.
just in relation to the assumption some people have made that the xenomorph at the end of the film was a "proto-alien" or the origin of the species as a whole, if you've seen AvP it would be fairly obvious that this goes against previously stated canon that aliens have been around for at least millenia. Also the argument that it "looks" like an alien but still has as evolutionary way to go, ie its large secondary mouth( not sure what the term in use for that is)is fallible because it is known that there is many types of alien castes(?) with many differences between them and even then aliens differ in appearence depending on the birthing host.
also if the engineers were "protectors" of earth, which i doubt, then why would they allow predators to use our planet as a ritual hunting ground??? remember that this was happening before our apparent fall from grace two thousand years ago
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1686988/prometheus-surgery-scene.jhtml
I found this article that kind of explained the Shaw pregnancy thing. Apparently it was originally written that she's surgically removing a baby xenomorph from her chest before it can bust out. Which makes a lot more sense. Then good old Damon "Lost" Lindelof says, 'hey, why not make her pregnant instead'
Lol at this tool trying to sound intellectually superior and then spells ketchup catchup. Wow. The internet is incredible
Just double checking, but wasn't the inventor's dead corpse supposed to be in that big chair like it was in Alien at the end of the movie? Because he instead dies in the frickin escape vessel.
I dont eat dog shit but i know how to spell it. Please try harder lame.
Here's an elaborate explanation making the rounds:
http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html
It leans heavily on mythological/Christological tropes, and by finding a Ridley Scott interview excerpt, lends some evidence that the movie had really grandiose ambitions. Anyway, the explanation didn't convince me that the movie was at all successful/effective in coherently conveying its mythological message, but it does help one much better understand what Scott and the zany screenwriters might have been trying to do.
Fer fucks sake. The movie was far more simple than you people are making it out to be. Its like when some asshole put a tire on a stuffed goat and calls it art, and then some other asshole says its a critique on neocolonialism of the arab world by industrialized nations.. I know you want more we all do but its as simple as this.
1) our creators left us a clue too the origins of our species to take credit for their work.
2) the goop was used at the beginning of the movie to commit self immolation by the alien gods.
3) the alien gods created that goop as a weapon or some other reason we can NEVER know.
4) stupid ass Noomi went looking for the aliens which were creating a biological weapon to kill something we will NEVER know.
5)Noomi brought that shit on her self via going off to space.
6) the alien attacked them beacuse david said something hostel due to the fact that he resented his creators lack of empathy and also was jealous of their life force, hence the actions of david in the movie (trying to play god with that alien baby thing, and dying his hair+ the pool table conversation)
Interesting points being discussed here but there is one explanation that addresses ALL of the plot holes and discrepencies many have mentioned: sloppiness as a result of hurrying to meet the studio's deadline.
I'm guessing there was quite a bit of, "we'll sort that out later" going on here.
Dave bleached his hair to match the actor in the movie.
The world would be a better place if those movies didn't exist, so maybe they're writing them out of the canon because who cares anyway.
Sounds like a deleted scene to me.
I suspect the reason nobody says anything about Shaw being there once that's revealed is because everybody but the scientists knew about it from the start anyway.
Thank you! I've been repeating this over and over. There are a few holes, some of which may be explained by deleted scenes, but not every question needs an answer. That's not a "Lost" gimmick, that's a scifi convention as old as the genre. Seriously, if every single thing about the movie and the universe the characters inhabit is explained dumbly to the audience the universe starts to feel a lot smaller than it really is. The possibilities of many more stories beyond just the one being told is what makes Scott's scifi movies so interesting for a lot of people.
def some holes but... (spoiler alert)
They didn't plant vague directions to draw humanity in, their weapon backfired on them and they were nearly destroyed before they could reach earth. then the dumbass old man woke the final engineer from stasis and... there you have it.
They didn't plant vague directions to draw humanity in, their weapon backfired on them and they were nearly destroyed before they could reach earth.
Noomi: Then what was the point of the star maps?
this conversation, while hilarious the way it is, would have made a ton more sense if texted between an engineer and meredith. noomi's character was an annoyingly naive, hollywood sci fi "scientist" type, aa pie-eyed joke of a character. her bs character never would have questioned an engineer with that kind of logic. in her universe, magic > logic. which is a seriously pathetic portrayal of a scientist, even if it IS fiction.
meredith on the other hand -- hell, ANYONE besides the two dumbassed protagonists, really -- had far more the rationale necessary to pull off that many connections of dots, comparatively.
as you can tell, i have a very negative opinion about the way "the good guys of science" versus "the bad guys of science" are portrayed in the movies, when ultimately it's those same "good guys" who fuck everything up with their wanton disregard for anything remotely resembling a thought process.
"and I've never seen sci fi so visual, so grand, so sci fi."
ive you've never seen sci-fi this sci-fi, then quite simply you have not seen enough sci fi :/ this was faux-sci through and through. this was the 'avatar' of 2012...without the excuse of "oh it was just a cartoon."
the film make a lot more sense if its read as a version of At the Mountains of Madness!
'Guillermo del Toro was around 11 years old when he first read H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Originally penned by the legendary horror writer in 1931, the story tells of an Antarctic expedition which unearths the presumed long dead bodies of strange, starfish-headed creatures—only for the specimens to wake up, slaughter their discoverers, and dissect one of them like a laboratory rat. By the tale’s conclusion, a pair of surviving expedition members has found out that these scientifically-inclined “Old Ones” are members of an ancient alien race who were responsible for creating our simian ancestors as well as even more dangerous beings called “Shoggoths” which, the narrator fears, may yet emerge from their subterranean lair with apocalyptic results.
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/06/10/prometheus-ridley-scott-guillermo-del-toro-lovecraft/
"Then what was the point of the star maps?"
It's what the Engineers used to navigate the universe. When the hologram first pops up it depicts the universe in big-bang form (a giant circular mass of stuff). My assumption is that even the engineers need a map? If they need a ship they need a map. They go into stasis too just like humans. I don't think they're supposed to be "god", they're just a superior race that realized their creation was an abomination.
Recall in the chamber with the giant head that one of the murals on the wall was what appeared to be a xenomorph or a xenomorph queen or something...and if the inhabitants of that structure died 2000 years ago it stands to reason that the chamber and the mural are at least that old as well. Speculate what you will on what this may mean for some of the other mysteries of the movie...
Ridley Scott made a huge mistake by hiring Lindelof, and every night he looks in the mirror and then slowly puts his forehand on his hand. It's really not more complicated than that.
Confusing movie is confusing.
It oddly didn't make the whole experience any less enjoyable.
So, the island was really a metaphor for Hurley's bong?
I may be biased because I liked this film a great deal. It was refreshing to me that it asked more questions than it answered. My sympathies to those who expected to emerge from the theater with the satisfaction of having experienced a neatly packaged story with no loose ends, but I can't help but remember that life itself just doesn't work that way. So why should art? It may be simpler to boil things down for easy mental digestion, but that is seldom as interesting to me as wrestling with a Big Question.
I can think of a several possibilities that fit within this story line that might require a bit of imagination on the viewer's part. What if the aliens were using earth as part of a farm system to create hosts for their bioweapon as part of some larger war effort?
Or, what if the aliens created the humans as subjects to worship them, but decided to eradicate them once they saw them worshiping other gods? The timing of it seems plausible since the aliens in that ship died while making preparations for invading earth about 2000 years earlier, right about the time that Christianity was spreading around the world.
Or how about the role of the "black goop"? It looked like the same stuff that the alien drank in the beginning of the movie. It seemed to effect Noomi's character's boyfriend in a similar way, only to a lesser degree since he didn't consume nearly as much. But that led him to plant an alien organism into Noomi's character's womb. All throughout the Aliens franchise, it has been clear that the aliens assume characteristics of their hosts through intermingling of DNA. So it also seems possible that the goop puts whoever ingests it into a highly mutable state in addition to the darker effects it seems to have on the host.
Of course, we'll have to see the next film to have those questions answered. Maybe Scott will botch it up and leave us hanging. And yes, that would be inconvenient. But I think the questions are more important than receiving the answers before having a chance to wrestle with them a bit. That's my opinion anyway.
Great potential, awful execution. Perhaps needed someone like Cameron to pull this off?
@ anonymous who said "And why was Dave, an android, bleaching his roots at the beginning of the movie? Seems unnecessary. He claims he doesn't eat, therefore, I doubt he's growing new hair that needs bleaching."
David is a bio-mechanical android. his skin is real, he grows hair, and he CAN eat, he just doesn't see a logical point in it, seeing as he doesn't need it to survive.
He is bleaching his roots because he has a small obsession with Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, mimicking his speech patterns, shaping and dying his hair the same color, etc.
Back to the subject of Dave bleaching his hair. Why would they even add hair bleach to the ship's supply manifest? "You know Captain, there is a distinct possibility the sight of brunette hair will send the aliens into a murderous rage. Better throw some hair bleach in there just in case." Of course, maybe they keep a ready supply of raw molecules on hand which can be recombined into various compounds, such as peroxide. Still, seems pretty dumb to me.
Either most of you guys commenting on this are 12 or you seriously lack basic comprehension skills.
If you can't understand why a robot obsessed with "seeming human" would dye his hair to look more like his favorite human pattern, or why a spaceship would contain a chemical capable of bleaching hair (aside from cleaning and medical supplies?) then you have absolutely no hope of understanding the more challenging bits and you should probably just give up on it before you hurt a brain cell.
So I know why the people who didn't understand any of it didn't like it... aside from the typical plot-holes (it's a MOVIE people) but do people who got it like it? I thought it was quite clever and sometimes brilliant. In case you guys missed it, a few important points:
1. The guy in the beginning IS the Prometheus of legends who sacrificed his life with the "gods" for the greatest gift to humanity, it's existence. We weren't "created" by a plan, but were an accidental side-effect of his suicide. Obviously that's why the Engineers want to wipe us out... we are a cum stain.
2. The planet in the beginning is primordial Earth and there are plants in the landscape, so life is already going. The reason humans evolved to look like the Engineers is because the black stuff is still in our DNA rearranging it. The genetic memory of the Engineers in the archeological record could be spawned by that connection. Remember how a cloned Ripley still contained fragments of alien DNA in Resurrection? This black stuff stays with a species, changing it generation after generation.
3. The bit about humans depicting the gods as two or three times our size until about 2000 years ago is completely true. Christians began worshipping a god in human form instead of an oversized god. There's also quite a bit of interesting stuff in the whole ancient astronomer mythos about the connection between over-sized humans re-engineering human DNA, and an obsession with stars and star charts and what that means... but the oversized beings and ancient star-charts are real stuff. This isn't new territory, go watch the original Star Gate.
4. Noomy is the mother of the modern xenomorphs. From the jar to Micheal, into her uterus, and then into the last surviving Engineer. Her human DNA mixed with the Engineer precursor DNA is the trick that perfected them. Also, why Christmas, why the cross, the xenomorph crucifix in the "temple" why all of the Christian allegory? She was infertile, she couldn't have a child... so the xenomorph is her miracle child... her immaculate conception so to speak. She's the virgin Mary.
5. See how quickly the organism changes form in each iteration? This is obviously meant to explain why the xenomorphs look different in every Alien movie. Every different path through different organisms leads to a slightly different xenomorph, this was already well established in the fanverse. That's exactly why the xenomorph in the end doesn't look like the one we see in the first Alien film... because it hatched out of an Engineer. Next that create will lay some eggs, which contain facehuggers (which are an evolved form of the huge thing Noomy gave birth to right?) and then after going through another human host it will change again into the xenomorph we see in the original film.
And those are just the BASICS. And remember that Scott is planning on a second movie... which could easily explore themes like what the hell IS the black stuff and did the Engineers create us on purpose or by accident?
Oh yeah and:
6. It's David who wants to bring this stuff back to Earth. He's the one who said god-knows-what to the Engineer. He's the one who PROGRAMMED the navigation for Earth. THAT is what he meant by "sometimes to create you must first destroy". You know the robot motto: KILL ALL HUMANS.
Of all the questions, the hair one bugs me more than any. Consider yet that his body mimics the human body and it's (non-waste-related) functions? Like hair growth? Gah! Such a stupid criticism considering how many others could be leveled at this film. Sorry. Not sharp.
Many humans in the movie had different motivations for their actions, why is it so hard to think that maybe the Engineers did as well? I think the Opening and Closing scenes were meant to mirror/contrast each other in many ways.
The weapon on the ship seemed to be something that was capable of mating with and adapting to any life form in order to destroy others like it. But, I think the opening scene suggests something different in terms of usage.
My theory is that the Engineer on Earth was someone so awestruck by the beauty of Earth (hence the grand sweeping camera work), that he allowed himself to be destroyed to create life. The Engineer at the end was obsessed with death and destruction. The film states that they were "going back" to Earth, probably because the 1st guy went rouge, did something he wasn't supposed to do, and the others were cleaning up the mess. Why would they want life on another planet that was capable of someday being equal to/surpassing them?
So, opening represents how life, when inspired by beauty, can create marvelous wonder. The end shows how life, when obsessed with destruction, breeds more violence and death. The scenes represent a metaphor for living, and what we can be capable of in a society.
It's odd to see how the audience arrogantly wants definitive and complete answers to "life" the same way that the scientists did in the movie.
(Also, in terms of Dave's hair - wanting to bleach your hair to look better is just as human an action as the act of doing it).
Now now, no reason to resort to ad hominem. I think it's reasonable to assume that most of the people here who didn't like the film both 'got it' and are most likely older than twelve. And the old "it's a movie, people" defense should seriously be retired. It is a logical fallacy. Under that line of reasoning, no movie should even bother to maintain any internal consistency because after all, 'it's just a movie.'
The whole movie should have started in the third act. That's really the start of the movie, the first 90 minutes is gibberish of things introduced that are never really explained. This is a sci-fi movie and you gotta think that sci-fi fans are smatter than the average bear.
You sir, are an arrogant little tit. You can't relax and enjoy life because you are too consumed by your own false "intelligence". You are not successful or smart, you are a wanker.
It's not the ship that the temple is on. It's like an installation which has its own "garage" with a ship stored underground. The big structures we see are not the ships, they are just buildings built on top of the ships.
You may wish to hear an "intellectual comeback", and I could easily come up with one, but the truth is that i can't be bothered to waste my time on a sweaty sock like you. You criticize people who are "less privileged" than you (though if I woke up one morning and found out I was you I would not hesitate to immediately kill myself to rid the world of your stupidity). This is a forum about Prometheus, not I site to bitch about friendly people. You are probably some 40 year old nerd, but I am 15 and I know that there are more important things in the universe than putting others down for no good reason.
Only a 13 year old without pubic hairs or the capacity for critical judgement could love this movie.
It really is a movie written by and for the mind of a confused tween.
This is not good sci-fi, its not even a good movie.
But pimple faced goober cant tell the difference.
He just likes the imax 3D.
Why does ingesting weird alien goo always turn you into an alien? Why don't you just, you know, get sick or something? So annoying.
So it's "bad science" to suggest that human DNA can be broken down and ultimately evolve back into human DNA (with slightly differently results), but it's "good science" to suggest what current evolutionary theory basically suggests? Help me understand this.
Nobody is gonna be fucked explaining evolutionary theory to a dumb creationist troll. Hows that for an explanation of why you won't get an explanation?
Great movie BTW. Nonsense, but only later when i had time to think.
I think it's a nice touch that the only character to object to the ridiculous impossibility of the genetics thing is quickly killed off for being a completely incompetent, utterly pointless idiot.
"So it's "bad science" to suggest that human DNA can be broken down and ultimately evolve back into human DNA (with slightly differently results), but it's "good science" to suggest what current evolutionary theory basically suggests?"
Yes it's bad science, and no it doesn't suggest that.
It makes no evolutionary sense to say that human DNA can be "broken down" and then you get micro-organisms that eventually evolve back into what you started with. Evolution is a one-way trip, bounded and shaped by very specific historical contingency: the stuff in modern cells is at the end of a very long, tortuous path of ancient cells adapting and changing and accumulating new, datable changes that are molded to adapt to particular environments (which also change over time). There's not a complete copy of Promethian beings hiding in the DNA of every single creature on earth just waiting to jump out, and it makes no sense to imply that there even could be.
The movie, of course, makes it even worse by implying that humans are RECENTLY descended from the Promethian beings, as if we're just another very recent offshoot branch like chimpanzees are to the rest of the great apes. That makes no sense at all to the fact that all life is derived from Promethians.
Of course, it makes it even, even worse by saying we're a "100%" match. While it might be possible that there are environmental things that can be done to the same genetic code that will result in a Promethian being vs. a human being... it's still daft.
But... I still thought it was a pretty good flick. Gorgeous. Just not something you can think too hard about. Like I said, I think that's why they kill off the biologist in such a stupid way, just to basically give a middle-finger to anyone raising obvious objections.
" Remember how a cloned Ripley still contained fragments of alien DNA in Resurrection? This black stuff stays with a species, changing it generation after generation. "
This is actually a pretty good way to write things out of the basic problem: the black stuff is a microscopic alternative to regular DNA, shaping and guiding it over time. It doesn't really resolve all the other problems, but it certainly provides a plausible explanation.
Too bad the screenwriters didn't provide more basis for it onscreen. But maybe they will in "Prometheuses."
Doesn't the star maps question have a pretty easy answer?
There are factions of engineers who decided to create humanity. Hypothetically, an engineer or engineers drank the black stuff and died. And then later on other engineers influenced the creation of the cave paintings.
They shared a map to their home planets with the human race. But by the time some humans actually made it there those planets have been relegated to use as a weapons storage facility, possibly by virtue of the fact that they've been contaminated with the organisms the engineers have created as weapons.
So, perhaps the engineers did live on those planets at the time the star maps were created but at the time Prometheus visits they don't.
There's actually some great potential for further exploration into the engineers. Everything they create kills them (the xenomorphs in their various forms, humans (when they kill Jesus :), when Shaw offers the engineer up to the xenomorph)), they don't know who made them, either, and they've had even more time to become frustrated with the answers they don't have about life.
It's not "plot holes" that I object to in this movie; a hole can always be filled in a subsequent story. It's flat-out foolishness that cannot in any way be made to make sense. Like sending out a 3 trillion dollar ship with a tiny crew of people *who have never met each other before*, let alone worked together learning how to fly the 3T ship, which also has -- some kind of secret Fifth Avenue apartment for a secret passenger complete with a secret (? WTF?) support crew in their own uniforms that nobody has noticed through anomalies in instrument read-outs. Like "scientists" who find a monster head lying in an alien structure and respond with, "Quick, let's zip it up in a big ol' plastic bag and take it back into our ship with us"? WHAT? There's just not an ounce of sense in anything these characters do; that's not a "plot hole". It's a big, fat, irreparable fistful of fail.
Hair bleach was brought on-board for Charlize Theron's touch-ups.
I keep seeing people describe the creature that comes out of the engineer at the end as the first "Alien", but there was a mural depicting one in the Big Stone Head room, so they were already around.
I thought the whole Jesus connection was just something the creators of the film agreed was an interesting argument that you could make, as opposed to the actual story they were trying to tell.
The Hawaiian star map also post-dates the aborted attack from 2000 years ago, so either that's a very important piece of info, or an incredibly sloppy oversight in production.
There was a whole dialogue between David and the Engineer which didn't make the film. Maybe that will explain a lot, although F Ridley Scott of we have to pay to see the film, and then pay to see the Blu-ray for it to make sense.
Or how about the fact that the creature she removes from herself is so much larger, and seemingly heavier, later on, despite not having had food to consume from which to add that mass.
There are pictures of the xenomorph on the wall of the stone head room early on in the film. The one at the end isn't the first.
The xenomorph was depicted on the wall of the room with the jars and stone head, and that room had been built at least 2000 years ago.
The one we see at the end is not the first.
This depends on how much faith you have in the director/writers. If you think the unanswered questions are part of a whole which makes sense when all is revealed in the sequel, then they aren't plot holes. If, however, you think a lot of the story was half sketched and not completely thought through, and that it's contradictions and unanswered questions are just the result of a script that was not subjected to rigorous editing before being filmed, then they are plot holes.
This was the same argument that Lost fans had to wonder about for years, and in the end we learned that the writers were just making it up as they went along.
It seems like it would be infinitely easier and cheaper to get the script right than to get the visuals so perfect, and yet that never seems to be the case in any movie involving the least bit of a sci-fi element. I truly wonder what it must be like to be on the set of a film where dozens of crew have spend massive time and money to prepare a certain scene, and the director has no explanation as to why they are shooting that scene or what is going on other than it looks cool.
It actually makes a lot of sense that Engineers would test their bio weapons on us, since we have the same DNA. However, all of this factional talk is completely read into the story by Internet commenters. Is it possible, given the boundaries set by the film? Yes. Is it even close to being suggested in the film? No.
Why was there a big stone head at all? If there was some outbreak in the building which the humans just happen to have walked into, what happened to the engineers in the many other identical buildings we see near it as the Prometheus is landing? Did anyone making this film know or care? Or did it just look cool?
While I prefer your idea that the engineer in the opening scene was actually trying to sabotage the mission 2000 years ago, Scott has already stated that it was an engineer seeing a planet which was not necessarily Earth with life. In deleted shots from that scene, there are many other engineers standing around watching this ceremony, many of hem visibly older looking than the ones we see in the rest of the film.
It's not the same wreck, just the same species wrecked on a different world.
They also ret-conned the engineers a hell of a lot smaller than the "space jockey" was in Alien. They were like 9 feet tall instead of 20.
She's asking what the point was of the maps depicted by ancient cultures which gave the location of LV whatever. She's not asking why the Engineers have holographic cartography on their ships.
Scott has already stated this is NOT an ALIEN franchise bit. It nods at the franchise, but is NOT a prequel.
@sean Sebastian
Sorry... Wrong person. This wasn't a reply to your comment. Although, your opinion gives pause for thought.
Seriously! Did no one pay attention to when he was EATING while watching LOA?!?
What I don't understand is why your alluding that we are simpletons and don't get the movie?! You're really stretching it here.
You contradict yourself in your first point. Prometheus creates life intentionally,thus it's planned not accidental. Study your mythology.
Ridley Scott said this is any planet. The fact is these Engineers are seeders of life on other planets.
And FYI, depictions of The Christian God are based on Zeus - human like form which is oversized. So we still worship an oversized God.
For the last time, Scott stated Prometheus is NOT related to ALIEN. it's not a prequel. They're not related at all. They're simply nods to his ALIEN franchise.
Lastly, Dr. Shaw is not the virgin Mary baring the start of the xenomorphs. Their existence pre-dated 2093. There's a statue of them in the "temple".
I don't know where you're getting the rest of this stuff.
You appear to be making this movie deeper than it is. Really stretching here. Brilliant...hm...that's a stretch as well. It leaves questions unanswered and seems to lack cohesive thinking, but the videography and special effects are good.
I do agree with the bit regarding David's hair etc. and the bit about the sequel(s) answering possible questions, but I truly am having a hard time seeing your completely off base plot viewpoints.
For someone who argues "this is just a MOVIE" you are certainly giving it much thought.
Here, here!
Earth wasn't the only planet that the engineers seeded. There were hundreds even thousands of planets that they seeded. Time to time they checked on each one comparing them to each other.
They were not happy with what they found on Earth. War, politicans, car saleman, etc. They sure as hell didn't want us to contamiate their other worlds so they decided to clean house on Earth before we invented interplantary space travel.
They planed to infect us with enought xenomorphs to kill off 7 billon humans. That was plan A. For some reason they went with plan B. Less risky I imagine.
Plan B was to kill off all human life on Earth another way. They made a Sun, named WR204 which was 8000 light years from Earth to go nova. When a Sun goes nova one of two things happens. It eithers becomes a gamma ray generator or it doesn't.
Gamma rays cannot be stopped. They goes through everything. Lead, stone, dirt, water everything. It also kills all life. Its like a microwave oven.
WR204 gamma rays are going to hit Earth on 21 Dec 2012 the same day the Mayan calendar ends.
My question is, How in frack did the Mayans know this?
Have a nice day.
Post a Comment