PROMETHEUS

[arachnaut]

...

That moment is treated almost as an afterthought. ...

I strongly disagree.

The space jockey set was built larger than life by Giger personally and must have cost a lot to make. Then they made 3 small space suits and put three kids in them to make the space jockey seem even bigger.

So you will have to grant that Ridley must have thought this scene important.

In a movie there's no sense of a time continuum when the scenes break, so would you have felt better if someone said - "Well now that we've spent 5 hours looking over this petrified alien, let's go down that well with the laser shield - at least it looks alive down there and there must be something important if that barrier is protecting it."

I think the general theme in Alien was to show as little as possible as quickly as possible and let your imagination fill in the gaps - Hitchcock also worked that way.

[arachnaut]

One more comment about Alien and then I'll drop it.

I saw Exorcist in 1973 and it was the scariest movie I ever saw. I saw Alien in 1979 and it was similar. My wife went with me, but she ran out of the theater after the chest-burster scene and stayed shivering in the car while I finished watching it.

There was no CGI back then.

Since that time I rarely see science fiction or horror movies that scare me - I know they are not real even if they appear to be realistic.

Prometheus did not frighten me, but it was intense.

Minor spoilers alert







I had two disappointments with the movie:

1) the Engineers gave up their life to make us, but for some reason they now had to terminate us? I guess the sequel will resolve that. They obviously visited us a few times because the cave paintings were from different eras. The decision appeared to have been made about 2,000 years prior based on carbon-dating - maybe it is related to the founding of Christendom?

2) the trailer soundtrack - the Judge and Jury mix with the original Alien scream - from Deus ex Machina by Audiomachine - was not in the film. The film soundtrack was more ambient and 'nice' not as intense.

I've never seen a movie hyped so much since the first Batman or Superman movie.

[Machinesworking]

You know I never thought of the engineer scene at the beginning as being on earth? funny, that just didn't compute to me. I thought it was a hara-kiri scene.

[Machinesworking]

This is a pretty cool interview, too bad it wasn't all this clear in the movie, but I'm excited about the prospect of a movie concerning the engineers planet!
http://www.fandango.com/movieblog/inter ... 16238.html

[Rampus]

Here's an interesting read on the movie...

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1

[arachnaut]

Here's an interesting read on the movie...

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1

That's very interesting.

I made it a point not to follow any film trailers or fan sites until after I saw the movie. But now I can indulge.

By the way, I got an advance ticket and was the first in the theater on opening day and I also went again the next day and was first in the theater again. I guess that makes me a fan. But actually, I just like all good science fiction.

[LoopStationZebra]

....I mean, they're kind of intrigued and caught off guard...but for some reason would rather just go crawling down that hole in the floor. I mean.....wtf? The GIANT FUCKING DEAD ALIEN SITTING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU ISN'T ENOUGH? Hey....this HOLE looks more interesting.
...

That's not the way it happened - the John Hurt character slipped down the walls into the egg pod area and after that he got zapped and they never had time to go back to the space jockey.

Wrong. Watch the movie again. He was lowered purposely into the hole via a tripod winch device. They discover the hole sitting 10ft away from the Space Jockey when Kane says "Hey Dallas, FUCK that dead giant alien and check out this fucking FANTASTIC HOLE.

ffs. I guess men will be men when it comes to the fascination with HOLES.

https://vimeo.com/13974940

[LoopStationZebra]

So you will have to grant that Ridley must have thought this scene important.

Uh. I'm not saying the scene wasn't important.

I'm saying the character reactions were fucking 'ho-hum', ridiculous, and completely unrealistic. Even if the CREW had known prior that there was intelligent life in space (which absolutely nothing in the dialogue supports, btw. quite the opposite), don't you think the discovery of a MASSIVE FUCKING ALIEN SITTING AT A HUGE WICKED COOL CANNON might elicite more of a response than 'wow, looks like he might have been here a long time.' ?



It's also quite obvious by Ripley's later conversation with Ash that Weyland Industries knew about this planet and the plan was for the Nostromo to go there the entire time and check it out. Did they know about intelligent life and the Space Jockey and eggs? Hard to say. Now that we have Prometheus, however, I'm guessing they knew quite a bit.

[LoopStationZebra]

I took the entire beginning of the film to be set on Earth, with the alien almost as a Christ-Like figure...sacrificing himself for the start of new life. He's even wearing an acolyte-type robe.

Genius.

[LoopStationZebra]

2) the trailer soundtrack

The latest TV trailers are using 'twinkle twinkle little star'...which is fucking painful because that's what Alien Resurrection used.

[arachnaut]

Wrong. Watch the movie again. He was lowered purposely into the hole via a tripod winch device. They discover the hole sitting 10ft away from the Space Jockey when Kane says "Hey Dallas, FUCK that dead giant alien and check out this fucking FANTASTIC HOLE.

Yes you are right, re-watching it, it does look like they should have spent more time investigating the chamber they were in before moving on - they didn't seem worried about the air supply.

Ridley's narrative track on the DVD I have says that this chamber was where the signal emanated.
Veronica's characters says - I wonder what happened to the rest of the crew.
Then Ridley says that so far nothing has happened at all in the movie.

I watched the 1979 original and 2003 director's cut - there are no differences in this spot.

However, this still doesn't really bother me too much - the ship is huge and there's lots of stuff to explore. But they don't see the blue barrier until they get down to the cargo hold and that's when Kane slips.

Veronica Cartwright was the only sensible one - she wanted to get the hell out of there... Ridley called her character the voice of the audience.

[LoopStationZebra]

Hey arachnaut, have you ever seen that book entitled The Book of Alien? It's available on Ebay usually for a good price. Fascinating look at the making of the film.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Book-Of-Ali ... 2c65d4258e

There's lots of Giger shit in there I've never seen. What's cool is that the original scope of the film was going to be much bigger - with journeys over to a huge pyramid type structure where they discover more shit. In fact, quite a few concepts made their way into Prometheus from those early drawings/ideas. It's great.

I agree though about the Space Jockey seen...it doesn't really bother me in the larger context of 'it's probably the greatest scifi film ever', lol. I was only mentioning it because folks are really focusing on 'gaffs' in Prometheus.

[arachnaut]

Hey arachnaut, have you ever seen that book entitled The Book of Alien? It's available on Ebay usually for a good price. Fascinating look at the making of the film.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Book-Of-Ali ... 2c65d4258e

There's lots of Giger shit in there I've never seen. What's cool is that the original scope of the film was going to be much bigger - with journeys over to a huge pyramid type structure where they discover more shit. In fact, quite a few concepts made their way into Prometheus from those early drawings/ideas. It's great.

I agree though about the Space Jockey seen...it doesn't really bother me in the larger context of 'it's probably the greatest scifi film ever', lol. I was only mentioning it because folks are really focusing on 'gaffs' in Prometheus.

I saw that book when it first came out, but I never picked it up. I had some books on Giger artwork at one point, but no longer. I've gone through several stages of book 'burning' in my life - giving them away to the local library - so I don't even remember the stuff I have. much of which remains unread.

He who dies with the most unread books...

[arachnaut]

Speaking of gaffs... The scene where the big storm comes in seems unnecessarily melodramatic. I suppose it is a plot device to move the story on and get them out of the chamber.

But preceding that was the scene where the murals starting shifting and Shaw says that they are affecting the atmosphere.

Some fans are saying the 'goo' itself is semi-intelligent and gets its 'cues' from the psyche of the beings around it. So the original Engineer at the start got his decomposition and the rest got their monsters - all from the ID. Now where did I hear that one before? Perhaps the whole planet is sentient.

[Machinesworking]

I took the entire beginning of the film to be set on Earth, with the alien almost as a Christ-Like figure...sacrificing himself for the start of new life. He's even wearing an acolyte-type robe.

Genius.

http://www.fandango.com/movieblog/inter ... 16238.html