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The more time goes on, the more I think about it and realize how fucking excellent that film was...

Oh, not sure if anyone's posted this or not but an interesting read:

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

While Alien certainly used a lot elements from previous film and fiction, there are still some highly original elements.

Not the least of which is the uber disturbing life-cycle of the alien itself. The notion of a large egg which hatches, then a grotesque face hugger latches on and shoots a load into your mouth, that load then grows and has no where to go but through your chest, then grows to something truly hideous and menacing...

There had been fucking NOTHING even remotely close to that level of fucked-up-ness; all of which is of course wrapped up in highly sexual overtones. The closest thing might be any number of Lovecraft's creatures and scenarios, but even then it doesn't come close.

Also, most prior scifi movies and TV shows featured spacecraft who's interior were ultra clean white jewelboxes, lol (2001, Solaris, etc). The Milennium Falcon from two years earlier being the first noted exception, but Alien brought a brand new dimension: A workingman's spaceship that's fucking filthy, dank, dreary, dark, wet, and populated by a crew whom - with the exception of maybe Ash - couldn't give two shits about space or what's outside their window. They're only concern is their pay and promised bonuses. That was totally new to scifi flicks.

I'm reflecting now and with the extra insight, actually want to see it again... That said the dialogue is still dreadful....

Cheers
D

Time will prove Prometheus to be one of the most amazing and thought-provoking movies to come along in a long time. It's an instant classic. Aside from the jaw dropping visuals, and in spite of complaints about one-dimensional characters, it's what the movie didn't tell us that will fan conversations for months or years to come....and that's a good thing. So much for "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle" but a steady supply of that kind of shite should placate the masses who are pissed about not having everything spoon-fed.

I have a different take on the flick from most everything I've read. Here goes:

1. The underlying theme is about entropy. Good vs. evil. Dark energy vs. white matter. The positive and the negative. Heck, even Zeta-Reticuli is a binary star system where LV-223 exists and the two stars balance each other.

2. The creator who we don't know or see created the original engineers millions or billions of years ago, perhaps in his image, to seed organic life on planetoids in habitable zones, and not just Earth. Engineers embodied all that is good and pure (the positive). The seeding was done by a single engineer ingesting a liquid or "sauce" that denatured their essence into the base amino acids which would then re-combine into DNA strands to give rise to single and multi-cellular organisms. The sauce contained both the raw materials and the kick-start to spawn life. Time, climate change, and evolution would ultimately determine the species outcome but the end-game was certainly to create humanoids.

3. At some point, a faction of the engineers broke off and dissented from the original group for unknown reasons. They became corrupt and self-centered. These "dark engineers" would periodically appear on earth in the timeline of human history to essentially wreck the original seeding experiment by intervening and offering technology, etc. In exchange, they extracted worship from humanoids. Witness the well documented influence and meddlings of the Nephilim who had a very active agenda screwing around with humans. The cave paintings discovered were most likely depicting the dark engineers pointing to LV-223 in the Zeta Reticuli system - pointing to what would some day be the source of a "final solution".

4. On LV-223, the dark engineers setup camp and established a base from where they would take the original "sauce", and with their knowledge of genetic engineering, craft a potion "black juice" that would be used to ultimately transform humanoid subjects into something more sinister. The mechanism was most likely some type of mutation inducing virus which manifests itself into a shape/form shifting organism of a serpentine nature depending upon the source being infected. Even lowly LV-223 ground worms (what the hell did they eat to survive on?) mutated into hammerpedes (cobra-aliens;vagino-snakes). If Fifield and Holloway had been allowed to complete their mutation cycles, my money says they would've ended up looking like Puff the Magic Dragon.

The giant stone head inside the temple on LV-223 was most likely the original leader of the dark engineers who first orchestrated and led the breakout. One could even assume this stone bust might represent Lucifer/satan/the devil....or "the Negative", but certainly a being to be honored. Even the cargo ship they designed to deliver their black juice has an evil look to it compared to the saucer-like craft we saw standing watch over the original seed engineer. The murals in the temple were blueprints for the "final solution" which would be the wholesale conversion of humanoid races into serpent subjects through systematic transport and delivery of shitloads of black juice canisters into the atmosphere or water sources. We already know how humans infected by the mutation virus end up - there are larval and pupae stages, but we all end up looking like "Alien".

5. So, why were the dark engineers so anxious to deliver their payload to Earth and beyond 2,000 years ago? Well, not because of Jesus being crucified or anything like that. On the contrary, it was the failing and crumbling of the ultimate hedonistic, self-righteous, corrupt, blasphemous, anti-human-rights, promiscuous evil empire that mankind had ever seen....the Roman Empire. The dark engineers saw everything they had worked for going up in flames as Nero and Charlie Daniels did their duet. For this....worship of pagan god symbols falling to the wayside, the rise of Christianity and other organized religions, etc......a penance must be extracted.

One other thing of notable mention - did you notice how the elongated rocky protrusion from the temple rooftop actual looks like an alien head with discernable eye sockets and facial features? Spooky shit!!

LoopStationZebra wrote: Also, most prior scifi movies and TV shows featured spacecraft who's interior were ultra clean white jewelboxes, lol (2001, Solaris, etc). The Milennium Falcon from two years earlier being the first noted exception, but Alien brought a brand new dimension: A workingman's spaceship that's fucking filthy, dank, dreary, dark, wet, and populated by a crew whom - with the exception of maybe Ash - couldn't give two shits about space or what's outside their window. They're only concern is their pay and promised bonuses. That was totally new to scifi flicks.

Yeah that's been stated a few times in this thread, but that doesn't make it any less true.
Also, that's one thing missing from the new version, in that clip you posted a while ago, you could see greasy skin, and their helmets even weren't clean, the glass in smudged etc. The new version has little of that attention to detail in terms of grime etc. <--Prometheus the ship is a luxury vehicle compared to the ship in Alien, but still, everything is so dammed clean compared, people etc.

Let's not forget that HR Geiger is fully responsible for the alien and it's whole ethos. Scott glommed onto it and ran, but Geiger had been painting skeleton rooms, and creepy insect/bone/penis humanoid things for years.

In fact I would go as far to say that Scott got the plot right in Prometheus and the dialogue wrong, whereas in Alien it's a simple plot, but great dialogue and attention to detail.

I do like how the Engineer didn't give a shit what the fuck David was trying to say to him and started ass kicking. Could be read as very Lovecraftian in that humans - perhaps once filled with promise = are now mere insects to them.

He doesn't care what we have to say. He's got a job to do now and it's not going to be pretty.

Just back from seing it again. I enjoyed it better this time with all the plot possibilities buzzing around my head. Spider super strength zombie dude is still pointless and bad dialogue still grates but f*ck it.

ikeaboy wrote:Just back from seing it again. I enjoyed it better this time with all the plot possibilities buzzing around my head. Spider super strength zombie dude is still pointless and bad dialogue still grates but f*ck it.

Seems a bit like stolen from The Thing. I reacted the same way to it... But what the fuck, that black goo was freaky shit..

One thing that kinda surprises me is that none of you have mentioned the thematic similarities with Blade Runner?
David rationalizing a homicidal urge towards his creator, and the whole searching for your creator to ask them questions bit.

Machinesworking wrote:One thing that kinda surprises me is that none of you have mentioned the thematic similarities with Blade Runner?
David rationalizing a homicidal urge towards his creator, and the whole searching for your creator to ask them questions bit.

MW, nice one! Damn nice. Haven't seen that anywhere but your dead on.

What kind of fool does this:

This review in Forbes seems fair-minded and offers a negative view of the whole thing:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalv ... c-failure/

While I disagree that Shaw is not on par with Ripley I do agree with many of the points made.

I found my first viewing a bit disappointing, but very thought-provoking. After thinking about it for a day I saw it again and enjoyed it much more the second time. I took a day off and thought I was through, but it called me back again and I saw it for the third time and I still enjoyed it.

The magic for me is not so much in the story, but in the visuals. The characters don't act quite right, but they rarely do in any movie. That would be boring.

I spent more time listening to the music the third time, and I like it a lot more now. It doesn't get in the way or call much attention to itself, the visuals don't need that. It is a bit like some other movies - the Star Trek Motion Picture, for example. It is lofty, swelling, and somewhat intricately composed and orchestrated.

The story line is OK, perhaps a better writer would be good. What some of the actors do is baffling - especially Fifield - the geologist and that other guy - the biologist entranced by the snake-thingy. And there were a lot of red-shirts demolished by the transformed frenzied Fifield.

There are a few things that still bother me: the dust storm seems uncalled for and unnecessary to the plot. It takes a bit of time away from the story without adding much except to show that Shaw would do anything to save that head and David is really helpful when things get tough. It introduces the idea of self-sacrifice for the crew.

The behavior of Holloway and the other scientists (except Shaw) seems wrong. They are in too big a hurry to go into the unknown. If you compare what NASA does with its robot explorers on Mars and Vesta, for example, you see the extreme care and patience they use and the awesome aversion to risk.

David's character is splendidly acted and written, but he is often shown eating and drinking alone in the beginning of the movie and we know that is not necessary. The first part could be tightened up and the ending could be filled in more without straining the 2 hour format.

There is a lot of unnecessary violence - Fifield's rampage is too inexplicable. The Engineer wakes up from a 2000 year stasis and immediately gets medieval - he doesn't even bother to wait for David to finish talking to him. And why are Fifield's bones so cock-eyed that he looks like a spider, but gets up and runs around like a regular human body might move? Gratuitous creepiness, I think.

And the biggest mystery is what happened to the installation 2000 years ago? Why did these people go berserk? How did they lose control of their technology? And why do they want to destroy everything they've created? Is life that cheap to them that they can create and destroy on a whim?

The final scene of the crash is both stunning and laughable - but on the other hand, if one really is in a state of panic it is quite normal to run directly away from the thing - the mind does shut down and adrenaline takes over.

It is quite remarkable visually, with completely seamless 3D CGI, but it looks like Ridley wanted to put the alien ship in exactly the same repose as the one that crashed on LV-223 in Alien.

Since I enjoyed the movie so much, it is easy for me to ignore these things - it is really hard to get everything done in a 2 hour format, and the more one attempts to do, the harder it is to fit everything in.

And if one wants to quibble or find fault, very few movies will survive unscathed. Just how hard you want to be depends on whether you like the movie or hate it.

I think Ridley will be successful because he will draw out the lovers and haters and make us all think and talk about it. It won't be ignored like, say, 'Cowboys and Aliens'.

Here is how I would change things:

After waking from a 2 year sleep, I would spend some time in orbit and scan the other parts of the star system. I would run those pup-thingies through all the 'pyramids' - there are a few others nearby - before going inside. I would not take off my helmet or touch anything. The technology is so evolved that we can scarcely imagine what does what or how things work. Extreme caution is required. And I would send David in to do all the dirty work. He seemed the best suited to do everything. But that movie would be too boring to watch - movies need to pull the viewer into them and get them involved. Especially modern movies seem to have scene changes every few seconds - the action format is pushed to the limit of human perception.

I don't expect as much from movies as I do from novels, I just want to be entertained and visually stunned - and Prometheus does this with class.

Good post, arachnaut. I'd urge you to read that blog post from AICN:

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

It really does explain everything, and I think answers some of your issues below. That's not to say they are apparent in the movie, but the guy nails it. What happened 2000 years ago? The Engineers were on Earth, something baaaad happened, they came back to LV-223 to ready the bioweapons but they carried with them something foul from Earth - a nasty version of the goo, no doubt, born from the violence they just witnessed. The blog explains it all, lol.


I rather liked the Engineer going medieval. Humans obviously mean nothing to him at this point - he was on his way to exterminate us - so he wants to get down to business.

arachnaut wrote:This review in etc etc etc- and Prometheus does this with class.

Yup! and I second LSZ's idea about reading that post. The storm developed as soon as they started effecting the atmosphere in the throne room so it could be a defense mechanism. Shit movies don't get talked about like this i think.

ikeaboy wrote:Shit movies don't get talked about like this i think.

Apart from The Matrix of course.