cmcpress wrote:Beautiful film. Great visuals. Terrible, terrible script and story.
It almost seems like the writer didn't know what movie they wanted to make. It started off great - with the creepiness of David 8, but quickly degraded into a confusing, tensionless muddle. It didn't know whether it wanted to be a horror movie, a philosophical sci fi or a hollywood action movie - and ended up being a daft sequence of illogical events happening to people you really weren't too bothered about.
SPOILERS!
For example - the best thing - David 8 changes within the space of moments from a creepy robot to a combative manipulator to a bad guy and then to a good guy at the very end - inconsistent character writing. The things he does have no reason - he spikes the guys drink - why? to allow the film to have a death - it makes no sense. Charlize Theron goes from a cold, corporate ice queen to a sexual predator with the ship's captain - that whole scene didn't make any sense and was completely out of character.
The dialogue was laughable and sophomoric "I didn't come here to make friends,". "yes, FATHER." Plot threads dissappear into nothing. Why the fuck do a team of trained scientists take off their helmets and risk infection? Because the plot demands it. Totally nosensical. The ship's captain, obviously a homage to Yaphet Koto's original from Alien simply reminds us that whilst the first film had a sense of direction, this is a complete fucking mess.
Noomi Rapace goes from stapling her stomach shut to running away from a huge ship as it takes off without really showing any signs of being injured apart from a few groans.
The inclusion of peter weyland in unconvicing makeup doing a bad impression of jasper from the Simpsons was ridiculous. oh right, so an old man close to death, steals himself aboard a spaceship on the off chance there may be aliens that helped build the human race and give him a bit of extra life.
The tacked on pompous cod-religiousity of Noomi Rapace's character too was completely groan-worthy.
I really wanted to like this film. I really wanted it to be good. I don't care that it wasn't an Alien-horror movie. I wouldn't have minded if it had been a dumb hollywood action fest. I loved the idea that Scott was taking a different tack on the alien franchise. The visuals and production design were mindblowingly beautiful. The attention to detail on the ship was amazing - it's just a fucking crying shame they couldn't have spent a little longer on getting the story right rather than shitting out this jumbled abortion of a film.
Just my own thoughts on your points.
I allowed David to be a bit opaque in his motives and Rapace asking him what would he do after Weyland was dead seemed to hint at him having better control of his destiny which would of allowed him to make the choice to help her. Perhaps Weyland wanted a live experiment with the black fluid to see if it would save his life so they choose the most expendable crew member?
The Vickers character shagging stringer bell? We'll we all got needs, perhaps it was to throw him off the scent that she was an android hence her referring to Weyland as father just as he had referred to David as his son. This would explain why, if Vickers was biological daughter, it wasn't out in the open.
Taking off the helmets- dumb dumb dumb
I liked Weyland being on board, I thought it added an interesting thread.
Yeah I also thought the challenges to Rapaces religion was way too explicit and laboured.
I watched Alien last night and the supporting cast crew had way more dimension to them but Idris Alba was a cool bastard and natural. Stupid intense geologist dude? Who signed him up for a clostrophobic space journey? WU HR need to get their shit together. Also Rapaces hot shot boyfriend was a pain.
I would buy a big glossy hard back book with all the sets and technology detailed in it, amazing.
The engineers? Jason stetham shouldn't have spent so long soaking in the bath, he's gone all pale and puffy, bless!
Will you go again to see it in the cinema?
