1) Speaking of, how did they even triangulate the coordinates. I see they have 5 planets in a picture which would, by "Event Horizon" physics, would allow them to pinpoint a central point in space. But seriously, reaching a planet that distance would require insane amount of luck.
2) Why would you go into a possible hostile environment and not take an armored ship with you? Who discounted that possibility prior to leaving?
3) Didn't Weyland die in AvP? Just kidding. But seriously.
4) Why is it that Alien technology always looks more simplistic than ours?
5) Why would the Engineers need to create bio-weapons in the first place? What were they fighting against? Was there something worse than a Bio-weapon?
6) Why did the humans suffer from atrophy and threw up immediately after getting out of hyper sleep...yet the surviving engineer who had been asleep for over 1,000 years was fully capable of going balistic on everyone.
7) Speaking of, what energy source were they using to support life for that long? Tony Stark is looking for clean, sustainable energy like this.
8) Touch a snake -- NO
9) Continue surveying creepy pyramid during storm -- NO
10) Not verifying creepy alien baby is dead -- NO
10)

More gripes:

- This had to have been the most undisciplined crew I've ever seen in a exploration movie. For what was a trillion dollar project, you'd think they'd hire people smart enough to not a) take off their helmets, b) touch alien reptiles, c) leave crew members behind, d) adhere to captain's orders.

- Was anyone else annoyed by the fact that Elizabeth Shaw decided to go hunt down an alien planet on her own (well, with Fassbender's head along for the rid) after having watched her entire crew get slaughtered? She's barely standing after having self-aborted an alien baby and now she's going off on her own to who knows where in an alien ship with no weapons, crew, directions? WTF?

If anyone has seen Danny Boyle's Sunshine, it was a movie I kept thinking about when watching Prometheus. The crew dynamics were a little more realistic (for a sci-fi) movie. It's just bothered me to no end how unprepared they seem in Prometheus given the magnitude of their project.

The surgical pod was in Vickers' area of the ship, but was only configured for males. How does that make sense?

^Didn't even think about that.

Vickers is cyborg, pod configured for old man.

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"The surgical pod was in Vickers' area of the ship, but was only configured for males. How does that make sense?"

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All of that money that Weyland had, and he wouldn't spring for the Deluxe model......

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The surgical pod was in Vickers' area of the ship, but was only configured for males. How does that make sense?

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More evidence that Vickers is a robot and that it was only meant for Weyland.

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The surgical pod was in Vickers' area of the ship, but was only configured for males. How does that make sense?

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It doesn't, whether Vickers is an android or not. This is supposedly a money-is-no-object project, funded by a super-rich tycoon. We're supposed to believe that he couldn't afford the model with 32gb of RAM so that the female anatomy procedure details could be synced to it?

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- Was anyone else annoyed by the fact that Elizabeth Shaw decided to go hunt down an alien planet on her own (well, with Fassbender's head along for the rid) after having watched her entire crew get slaughtered? She's barely standing after having self-aborted an alien baby and now she's going off on her own to who knows where in an alien ship with no weapons, crew, directions? WTF?

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And no food, antibiotics or Motrin either.

I think a lot of you are getting bogged down by the minutiae and criticizing the film more than it deserves. I feel that most of you would be the types to complain about Gane of Thrones being different than the books.

I mean for ****s sake, they're Engineers who seed planets with life, who knows what kind of tech they have.

Charlie taking off his helmet made for an actually effective moment in the movie, don't tell me that his character didn't give off that type of reckless vibe the entire movie. David infecting him makes sense in a perversely curious android way. He won't suffer from biological degradation and asks permission to spike his drink in a roundabout manner anyway.

You also have to remember that Weyland Industries, the Corporation, is basically the equivalent of Apple on steroids in this universe. They've developed cold fusion, FTL travel, terraform planets, and mine in freaking space.

As far as the medpod goes, Shaw clearly states that there are only a dozen or so in existence. If Weyland is actually days from dying as he tells us, it makes sense that the pod is calibrated for HIS use.

Does the movie have big problems?

Obviously, namely its bystanders. A geologist who develops map orbs and can't follow his own maps outside, a biologist with no clue, and a crew that for all intents we have zero emotional connection with. The crash scene is an incredibly ham-fisted attempt at a "bro-moment". Theron gets flattened in the last few minutes for no real reason.

Scott has the visual narrative nailed, he just needs a writing team that isn't garbage.

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"I think a lot of you are getting bogged down by the minutiae and criticizing the film more than it deserves."

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Except that this wasn't something like a Transformers movie where you are SUPPOSED to turn your brain off. This was hyped for months by genre fans as a 'return to smart science fiction' yet it had more plot holes than the last Transformers film.

[This message has been edited by GiveEmHellBill (edited 6/11/2012 10:56a).]

Agreed Bill.


Also:

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they're Engineers who seed planets with life

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Only one part of the movie suggested that they did that once. The rest of the movie suggests that they are hostile and want to eliminate life on other planets.

[This message has been edited by AGSPORTSFAN07 (edited 6/11/2012 11:02a).]

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"I think a lot of you are getting bogged down by the minutiae and criticizing the film more than it deserves."

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Except that this wasn't something like a Transformers movie where you are SUPPOSED to turn your brain off. This was hyped for months by genre fans as a 'return to smart science fiction' yet it had more plot holes than the last Transformers film.

[This message has been edited by GiveEmHellBill (edited 6/11/2012 10:56a).]

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Fans tripping over their dicks in anticipation, why am I NOT surprised. You should have seen the explosion in GRRMs A Dance With Dragons.

I trust Scott's vision with his narrative more than anyone else. He just needs better writers. Who knows, 10$ says there's a directors cut bluray that will help the movie narrative.

[This message has been edited by tremble (edited 6/11/2012 11:02a).]

Scott said there will be nearly half an hour's worth of deleted scenes on the Blu-ray. Will be very interested to see if any of that material helps...

I think they do both, create and destroy. As far as the details, I think some of you just enjoy picking things apart. I would imagine there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. If this was a book then you would have 800 pages of description, but it's a summer movie geared toward ALL 17-35, not just you fanboys.

As I pointed out, the DNA discovery was emphasized multiple times as a critical plot element. It doesn't qualify as minutiae. And yet it not only undermines the entire movie by making the opening creation scene completely unnecessary, but also isn't scientifically sound in any way. The genre is, after all, called "science fiction" for a reason. Even "identical" human twins can't have 100% identical DNA.

[This message has been edited by G Martin 87 (edited 6/11/2012 11:11a).]

Blu-ray likely coming out 10.11.12: http://www.whatis101112.com/


Probably alluding to the blu-ray (and Director's cut) release, but hinting to a work from Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Checking out it's Wikipedia reveals a ton! I've reread the following a few times and it becomes more and more Prometheus every read. I've added my [commentary]

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"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
"All beings so far have created something beyond themselves [see David the Android]; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood [the waterfall from the opening scene] and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm [worm! that's literally the worm that killed and infected the two lost scientists]. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.
"Whoever is the wisest among you is also a mere conflict and cross between plant and ghost [this describes exactly Peter Weyland]. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants?
"Behold, I teach you the overman! The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go!"
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue, §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann

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I don't think I need to even state who the overman is. Nuts.

Edit: Linkified.

[This message has been edited by israeliag (edited 6/11/2012 1:30p).]

Perhaps the alien's rage was sparked by the realization that the "undermen" has "created" life artificially by building a soulless automaton -- David. Maybe the aliens forbid thinking machines, like the Butlerian Jihad, or perhaps artificial life is strictly verboten and requires the horrific, painful extermination of any race that attempts it.

Nah. Maybe it's just a bad script written by a couple of hacks who read the Bible and Nietzche superficially.

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As I pointed out, the DNA discovery was emphasized multiple times as a critical plot element. It doesn't qualify as minutiae. And yet it not only undermines the entire movie by making the opening creation scene completely unnecessary, but also isn't scientifically sound in any way. The genre is, after all, called "science fiction" for a reason. Even "identical" human twins can't have 100% identical DNA.

[This message has been edited by G Martin 87 (edited 6/11/2012 11:11a).]

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This is science-fiction, not Hard science-fiction. There's a difference. The former doesn't need to explain the process behind FTL travel, or fusion, or biological vectors. It simply needs to be internally consistent.

Just because we don't know the rules by which the ooze plays doesn't mean there aren't rules. I do agree that they were skating on thin ice with how the goo works but there's clearly going to be another movie.

Don't you see that it isn't internally consistent? If DNA can be a 100% identical match, then the DNA altering properties of black ooze should also be identical between humans and aliens. And we're not discussing FTL drives or light sabers or even black hole theories. DNA matching is an established, known thing.

Who's to say that Black Goop #1 in the intro and Black Goop #2 in the movie aren't different strains?

As far as exposure to Black Goop #2 in the actual movie it seems that the effects are similar. Face begins to deform, body deteriorates. At least I got the impression from the resurrected head (silly) that it affected the Engineers similarly to how it affected Holloway.

Ooze came in contact with:

Engineer #1 via ingestion in opening scene and it deconstructed his DNA which then fed creation on some planet.

Holloway's via ingestion and took a long while to break down his DNA as well. Crumbling effect. He then impregnated Shaw with an extremely fast growing facesucker that would later drop a xeno into the gut of the Engineer that would later pop out.

2 earthworm looking things which morphed into suckerfish like snakes and climbed down the biologist's through and ate in inside out.

Geologist get's acid blood from morphed worm on his face and falls into the ooze, right? Then turns into a very limber and extremely strong zombie.

The first reference to WMD was by the captain, correct? Are we then supposed to believe this is the purpose of the ooze? Not sure. It gives life by breaking down but not destroying DNA in some cases, and it creates/transforms life via the mutations.

The resurrected head is odd. The Engineer in the opening scene didn't blow up, he crumbled. Could it be that like the mural paintings, introducing it to a different environment from which it has been preserved for 2000 years caused it to become unstable?

Or do yall see it as the head being infected by ooze? Did it have a hole in it's chest as well?

I like this guy's observations:

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Steering away from the obvious idiocy of the characters, I'd rather air a theory on the new life cycle of the creatures in the film that isn't really examined above.

Look at Prometheus NOT as a story detailing the creature as we know it, or it's events leading into the events of Alien. That beastie may already well exist by the time of this film - the derelict ship from Alien may already be crashed there on LV426, waiting - Dallas says of the Jockey in the chair that it appears to be fossilised, the same as the Engineers we see strewn about the temple in Prometheus.

In my thinking, the Ampules of black gloop contain the raw building block DNA of the Xenomorphs we already know, which the Engineers create in their pure form for use as a weapon.
That's why, behind the giant stone head in the chamber, there's a mysterious tomb like object and the Giger style carving of the Xeno on the wall. It's literally a sign saying 'this is what is contained in this room!'

If the goo is the raw infectable DNA of the Xeno's this would explain the homicidal nature of the mutated worms that turn into the snakes, and swollen headed Fifield when he returns outside the ship. In the film, these events seem perfunctory and without any reason at face value, but if you take them as a demonstration of the transforming nature of the substance, and the fact that that substance IS Alien DNA, the encounters are far more interesting.

In relation to the Squidhugger and subsequent 'infant' - again, it's showing the transforming nature of the DNA. These aren't random designs, they're a mixture of the creature's DNA with human elements (in effect bettering the Newborn from Resurrection).
The small squid clearly looks like a mutated sperm when it's born for example, and it begins to course correct back to the nature and life cycle of the Xeno during the film - hence Squidhugger and the eventual Human/Engineer/Xeno hybrid in the final shot of the film.

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Did anyone assume that the evolutionary timeline as we understand it got thrown out the window with the film while at the same time was trying to be preserved?

They don't depict the human race as being evolved from trillions of years of evolution. And the Xenomorph took a matter of a day or two to evolve. That's fast.

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It doesn't, whether Vickers is an android or not. This is supposedly a money-is-no-object project, funded by a super-rich tycoon. We're supposed to believe that he couldn't afford the model with 32gb of RAM so that the female anatomy procedure details could be synced to it?

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The film mentioned that the medical device was brand spanking new technology -- only 12 existed. Maybe the technology for females was not yet matured (after all females do have more complex biology) or maybe the device was really only intended for use by Weyland. My overall feeling is that many of the "inconsistencies" in the film will be explained in the sequel.

[This message has been edited by mallen (edited 6/11/2012 2:20p).]

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maybe the device was really only intended for use by Weyland

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This is correct. When you're watching the movie the first time you don't know yet that Weyland is on the ship; therefore, you're supposed to think, "hmm, I wonder why it says that?"...I think this is a fairly typical style of writing for Damon Lindelof..."Let me write something really cryptic and ambiguous that will make you go hmmm, and then distract you from it with more action so you don't think about it anymore, but when you re-watch my movie you will realize it right away."

Liked it. Thought it was beautiful. Plot didn't make a damn lick of sense.

And the space jesus hypothesis is incompatible with the WMD hypothesis which seems more likely.

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Gripe: small boulder stops entire ship from crushing Ellie. Run perpendicular to large falling object not parallel in the objects path. This is a pet peeve in many movies and shows.

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This +10000000000

That's what you must do to escape a rip current at the beach too.

Swim parallel to the beachfront to cross and escape the narrow rip that's carrying you out to sea.

Then swim to shore.

We may have saved some lives tonight.



Gig 'em, FAST FRED '65.

Before the world wide web, village idiots usually stayed in their own village.

Two other really nerdy things that bothered me:

1) The radio carbon dating wouldn't work on an alien planet without taking a bunch of atmospheric samples and recalibrating the ratio of C14. Plus, since the engineers were in space suits you would probably have to calibrate it for the environment where they actually accumulated most of there carbon mass, which could have been the the modified atmosphere of the ship hanger, their ships, or their home planet. No way you can just jab in the instrument and get a reading on how long the guy has been dead.

2) The DNA thing. How freaking hard is it to get this stuff right? How far is Westwood from Hollywood, 5 miles? If we had exactly the same DNA as them, we would look just like them. If they populate planets by melting themselves with goo, their DNA gets torn up (which was actually shown in the opening) and thus we don't get any big chunks of it. Also, DNA changes over time, so even if we started as exact clones our DNA would be different by however much time had passed. And why would they want clones? They could have just moved onto Earth themselves. Under no scenario does it make sense (plot wise or scientifically) to say that our DNA is a perfect match. Here is something that would have been much cooler (and much more believable):

Hot science chick: They have DNA

Other person in the room: So?

Hot science chick: DNA should be unique to earth.

Other person: Not if life didn't start on earth.

Hot science chick: (stares at screen, mouth agape) My GOD.

Other person: What is it?

Hot science chick: I just ran a genome scan and checked against the database. Their Smock12 gene is an exact match to ours.

Other person: Help me out with what you're saying.

Hot science chick: The Smock12 gene is unique to humans on earth. As far as we can tell, it is the main gene that gives humans intelligence.




[This message has been edited by amercer (edited 6/12/2012 1:16a).]

Red Letter Media strikes again! This is short (compared to their past efforts), but may very well be better than the movie itself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0&sns=em