
Prometheus Unbound: What The Movie Was Actually About  - mirceagoia
http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html
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InclinedPlane
Yes there is a lot of depth to Prometheus, this makes me only hate it more. If
Prometheus were just a silly horror film or a comic book movie then I'd be ok
with it being mediocre.

Instead, they poured an immense amount of design skill into the sets and
backgrounds to make a wonderfully beautiful movie. And they built up this
tremendous premise and a fantastic universe. And they populated it with
several truly deep and rich and wonderful characters. And they had those
characters acted by outrageously talented actors (Charlize Theron, Michael
Fassbender, Idris Elba, Guy Pierce).

And then they pissed it all away with a shoddy plot and incompetent direction.

Spoilers follow:

The engineer turns out to just be a dime store monster. Nobody's actions are
interesting, meaningful, or seem to flow from any significant motive other
than to conform to the plot. One of the most dramatic scenes in the movie
(when Janek decides to commit suicide by ramming the engineer's ship) comes
off as completely anti-climactic because it comes out of nowhere. Similarly,
the major revelation of the movie of the planet being a biowarfare research
station comes out of Janek's mouth but it is so out of place and out of
character that you can almost hear the clanking boilerplate of dreaded
exposition falling into position. Perhaps the most interesting character of
the entire movie, David, remains nothing more than an automaton throughout the
movie with only a gnat's whisker of a hint that he is anything more.

Prometheus the fictional spaceship is a "trillion dollar" mission which is
unaccountably staffed by a handful of incompetents, fuckups, and pseudo-
villains who throw away their lives for the silliest and least meaningful of
reasons. It is an apt metaphor for the movie itself.

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TobiasFunkeMD
I completely agree. The movie was absolutely beautiful, but the plot towards
the end seemed really forced.

Spoilers:

It seemed to go downhill as soon as Elizabeth found out she was pregnant and
escaped the room she was in to have that machine remove it. Shortly after,
Janek is telling Elizabeth about the planet being a research station without
acknowledging what happened to her at all. From what I can remember, not one
person mentioned it. She even had to knock out people to escape the room, if I
remember correctly.

~~~
vannevar
For me it was even earlier, when they casually re-animated a 2000-year-old
mummified head with what appeared to be a Taser, then promptly forgot they had
that technology for the rest of the film.

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InclinedPlane
That's the thing about this movie, they do things like make first contact with
the only alien life mankind has ever met or reanimate a centuries old alien
head and each event is about as monumental as reading the morning paper.

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snowwrestler
Have to disagree with this. It's an interesting attempt at criticism, but I
think it's stretching too far.

What Prometheus is "actually about" is sucking dollars out of moviegoers'
wallets.

For many years Ridley Scott resisted the calls to revisit the "Alien"
universe, and when he finally gave in he produced a shallow, overly-marketed,
slickly commercial film that looks great but lacks a soul. We've seen this
before: the Star Wars prequels (which disappointed fans also tried to analyze
and criticize into something more meaningful).

Prometheus was a dud; let's just accept that and go watch "Alien" on Blu-Ray.

~~~
mirceagoia
Production cost: 130 millions. Worldwide boxoffice so far: 217 millions

That's a good "dud".

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mirceagoia
Prometheus seem to be that kind of movie you need to see several times to
understand it.

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ktf
I got the sense that things were left intentionally vague -- not so much to
make the movie a mind-bending philosophical exercise, but more as a
storytelling cop-out and a way to guarantee a sequel:

[http://www.movies.com/movie-news/ridley-scott-prometheus-
int...](http://www.movies.com/movie-news/ridley-scott-prometheus-
interview/8232)

So I wouldn't count on understanding _too_ much more on multiple viewings...

