Ridley Scott's Prometheus

Originally posted by Patient_Leech
Bollocks. Utter bollocks. Do you even like science fiction, dude? Cuz this is quintessential sci-fi. I don't care who you are..

A good question gets asked in the 18th minute of this interview (the rest is relatively boring)...

YouTube video

You're right, it is a great question. Shame it gets a childish flippant answer from the writer than is a complete lie because the question asked is never discussed either explicitly or implicitly during the movie. instead all we get is a surface thin plot device of a religious scientist wanting to meet the 'creator'. It's not deeply allegorical to any actual history. It's not the retelling of an ambient Greek or Christianity story. It simply uses shallow references to it to fool idiots into thinking it has deep meaning. I'd be impressed if it did have a unifying theme or allegorical significance though cos the more I think about it the less it seems to even have a remotely cogent basic plot. And then it gets nonsensical rubbish and patronizing 'scientists would think that's a great question' waffle for 5 minutes.

Why would the engineers create a star map/invitation across 10s of thousands of years on earth and over the entire surface of the planet in many different cultures to lead humanity to a planet that is basically the equivalent of the US Nevada weapons testing site? If the point was to lure humanity to their destruction then the time frame doesn't fit cos they were about to leave 2000 years prior to the discovery of the headless body which is 28,000 years after the Scottish cave drawings were made and it only takes a less advanced culture 2 years to travel there.

The more I think about it the more I dislike it. watch Red Letter Media's video on YouTube with another about a million glaringly obvious plot hole questions and inconsistencies that aren't addressed.

Originally posted by jaden101

Why would the engineers create a star map/invitation across 10s of thousands of years on earth and over the entire surface of the planet in many different cultures to lead humanity to a planet that is basically the equivalent of the US Nevada weapons testing site? If the point was to lure humanity to their destruction then the time frame doesn't fit cos they were about to leave 2000 years prior to the discovery of the headless body which is 28,000 years after the Scottish cave drawings were made and it only takes a less advanced culture 2 years to travel there.

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It annoys me...no, it baffles me when there's obvious inconsistencies or blatant plot-holes in movies.

I mean from Ridley Scott himself, down to the writers, the editors, the actual actors themselves no one stop to think, "Hey that doesn't make sense?" It's up the the paying audience to point out the mistakes & at the end of the day, makes the director look like a fool.

The "Nevada weapons testing site" could be in the same direction/nearby the original place they were invited to. *shrug*

Originally posted by Robtard

😆 I loled..

Originally posted by jaden101
Why would the engineers create a star map/invitation across 10s of thousands of years on earth and over the entire surface of the planet in many different cultures to lead humanity to a planet that is basically the equivalent of the US Nevada weapons testing site? If the point was to lure humanity to their destruction then the time frame doesn't fit cos they were about to leave 2000 years prior to the discovery of the headless body which is 28,000 years after the Scottish cave drawings were made and it only takes a less advanced culture 2 years to travel there.

Originally posted by Esau Cairn
It annoys me...no, it baffles me when there's obvious inconsistencies or blatant plot-holes in movies.

I mean from Ridley Scott himself, down to the writers, the editors, the actual actors themselves no one stop to think, "Hey that doesn't make sense?" It's up the the paying audience to point out the mistakes & at the end of the day, makes the director look like a fool.

Wait, I take that back. There's actually a much better answer. It's not a big plot hole. That biological black goo takes on the intent of whoever is wielding it. So our invitation to that planet would either make us or break us. The Engineer's hope was that we would make our way there with the proper intentions, to be self-sacrificing and to create new life as a result, the same way the self-sacrificing Engineer did at the beginning of the film. They were passing the torch to us (so to speak). But, the whole motive behind the mission in the first place was to seek eternal life. Mr. Weiland wanted to live forever! Whoops!! We f#cked that up... no wonder they wanted to destroy us.

Originally posted by jaden101
You're right, it is a great question. Shame it gets a childish flippant answer from the writer than is a complete lie because the question asked is never discussed either explicitly or implicitly during the movie...

I don't think their answer was flippant or childish. They don't want to give answers away to the film, because that limits it (and at this point, the movie had not yet been seen by anyone, so they aren't wanting to discuss details anyway). I think the question is implied somewhat by the movie, but you have to dig a lot deeper and discuss this film. I think that's great. It makes for good conversation as opposed to the latest popcorn BS that you see one day and forget the next. I think one really has to read this gentleman's analysis to really start making sense of the movie...

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

...this is a much thicker, juicier story than Alien was. It's a meaty mythology. It just takes more time to get as much out of it. And as a result, I think it's much better actually. Well, not better necessarily, but it's just building onto the greatness of Alien.

Originally posted by Patient_Leech
Wait, I take that back. There's actually a much better answer. It's not a big plot hole. That biological black goo takes on the intent of whoever is wielding it. So our invitation to that planet would either make us or break us. The Engineer's hope was that we would make our way there with the proper intentions, to be self-sacrificing and to create new life as a result, the same way the self-sacrificing Engineer did at the beginning of the film. They were passing the torch to us (so to speak). But, the whole motive behind the mission in the first place was to seek eternal life. Mr. Weiland wanted to live forever! Whoops!! We f#cked that up... no wonder they wanted to destroy us.

That would make zero sense considering the Engineers had been planning on destroying humanity around 2k years ago and the obvious hatred that last engineer had towards humans.

Only way that could somehow make sense, if if the last Engineer wasn't hateful towards humanity until David spoke and said the wrong thing, but I doubt that's it.

Originally posted by Robtard
That would make zero sense considering the Engineers had been planning on destroying humanity around 2k years ago and the obvious hatred that last engineer had towards humans.

Um... I'm not seeing how that doesn't make sense. The emissary (Jebus H. Christ) was the straw that broke the camel's back. They sent him in to try to steer things in the right direction, but that didn't work and it apparently set off something that stopped them in their tracks... We just don't have the whole story yet... maybe there was some dissent amongst the Engineers, too... who knows...

The Jesus thing seems to be a wild guess though, granted, it could be true considering they did say "roughly 2k years ago" and I'd bet it wasn't a random number.

It doesn't seem that wild of a guess considering all the blatant biblical references in the film: Snake-like creature in the black goo, Christmas time, the "miracle pregnancy," etc...

I like the idea that the Engineers were sort of trying to give us a gift, a way of populating other planets... by inviting us to their biological black goo... lol

Speaking of that snake-thing, it seemed to be have been 'evolved' by the goo from the small worm-like creatures that were in the ground when the team first entered the crypt.

Originally posted by Robtard
The Jesus thing seems to be a wild guess though, granted, it could be true considering they did say "roughly 2k years ago" and I'd bet it wasn't a random number.

You mean just like Vickers saying she'd travelled half a billion miles not being a random number. which would put the planet just past Jupiter.

The entire 'Jesus was an alien and we killed him so the aliens want to kill us' is perhaps the most bizarre and nonsensical thing about that interpretation. none of it makes any sense either literally or as a metaphor. Complete and utter nonsense.

Originally posted by jaden101
You mean just like Vickers saying she'd travelled half a billion miles not being a random number. which would put the planet just past Jupiter.

Touche'. Though one seems to be a figure of speech while the other seemed [possibly] more specific to plot.

gonna see this tonight.

Originally posted by jaden101
The entire 'Jesus was an alien and we killed him so the aliens want to kill us' is perhaps the most bizarre and nonsensical thing about that interpretation. none of it makes any sense either literally or as a metaphor. Complete and utter nonsense.

That biological black goo takes on the intent of whoever is wielding it. So our invitation to that planet would either make us or break us. The Engineer's hope was that we would make our way there with the proper intentions, to be self-sacrificing and to create new life as a result, the same way the self-sacrificing Engineer did at the beginning of the film. They were passing the torch to us (so to speak). But, the whole motive behind the mission in the first place was to seek eternal life. Mr. Weiland wanted to live forever! Whoops!! We f#cked that up... no wonder they wanted to destroy us.

So in one paragraph you manage to say that the black goo takes on the intent of those wield it yet the engineers were supposed ro be creators yet it destroyed them (or did the black goo change its mind after the engineers wanted to destroy us so then it destroyed them?)

And then when human go to the planet it's out of scientific interest and yet it destroys almost all the scientists there and the only person who seems to have a dubious and bad agenda for the goo is Weyland who isn't killed by the goo...He's killed by an engineer.

Unless you are insinuating the goo can somehow deduce all of humanity's history of war and destruction (and, of course, killing Jesus, by simply interacting with one person...Which is silly.)

I'll take the entire stupid interpretation one step further...The engineers created life and Jesus and after Jesus got killed by the people the engineers decided to kill the people but the REAL God (Prometheus) didn't want that so killed the engineers because he passed the black goo on to them (gave them fire) and rocks and livers and crows and virgin births and Judas (David) and Mary Magdellan (the wiggly eye worm guy) and shooter Mcgavin and El Burro from the original GTA and Sharky and George, crime busters of the sea sailed away on a new boat after Malcolm Reynolds crashed Serenity into the horse shoe game from Red Dead Redemption which rolled like the big wheel from Ghostbusters and so the black goo was ectoplasm.

The end.

It's science fiction, brah (a particularly symbolic and ambiguous brand, granted, but that makes it interesting because it brings out more of the viewer's personality by what they get out of it). And it hasn't even been fully fleshed out yet. Sci-fi is meant to create a world of the seemingly impossible for the purpose of discussing deep and difficult topics. So you're going a bit overboard with your "logical analysis." You might as well pick apart those flying red-light mapping balls and how impossible they are. If you want perfect literal sense, go watch a boring, ordinary Romance or Drama or something.. f#ck.

Originally posted by Patient_Leech
It's science fiction, brah (a particularly symbolic and ambiguous brand, granted, but that makes it interesting because it brings out more of the viewer's personality by what they get out of it). And it hasn't even been fully fleshed out yet. Sci-fi is meant to create a world of the seemingly impossible for the purpose of discussing deep and difficult topics. So you're going a bit overboard with your "logical analysis." You might as well pick apart those flying red-light mapping balls and how impossible they are. If you want perfect literal sense, go watch a boring, ordinary Romance or Drama or something.. f#ck.

1. You're not getting anything out of it based on your personality though. You're just stating someone else's ridiculous analysis.

2. I'm not asking for perfection. I do, however, expect a plot that actually makes sense. I do expect that when I pay to go see a movie I at least get a fully fleshed out story that regardless of deep or non existent underlying themes or allegorical meaning, is at least entertain and makes sense on the basic levels.

This doesn't. Even for sci-fi the level of suspension of disbelief required to ignore some of the massive PIS is just staggering. It's like as soon as they landed all these geniuses turned into complete idiots. There's nothing in your rehashed nonsensical analysis that compensates for that.

Alright. 😐

Well, I for one don't mind Ridley injecting some steroids into his Alien universe. But you're not a fan. Okay, got it.

Here's another way to look at it. Say everything you mentioned from that link is truer and it all binds the story and gives it meaning. Why should it be necessary for the viewer to know about ancient Greek mythology and Christian symbolism in order to understand the film? Because evidently the film makes no sense on the face of it. That's what I think has driven that terrible analysis. The writer has clearly wanted to love the film, seen that it made no sense and was not good so has rewatched it. Taken the name Prometheus and then went scraping the barrel for anything that looked vaguely religiously symbolic in the film to try and justify the weakness of the actual plot.

Um... that's of course one possible explanation, but you know: writers/filmmakers do sometimes incorporate these sorts of references to classical literature into their own material. It's not uncommon, and it's not that far fetched. Especially when they work on the thing for months and months and months (as they claimed to). I don't see a filmmaker of Ridley Scott's caliber wasting $140 million on something that is as precious to him as the Alien universe without fine tuning it a bit. So I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on some of the stuff that went unexplained, especially because the film was so f#cking intense and entertaining. I'll grant you: this film is a little disappointing and a huge tease in some respects if there is nothing else to come. But they have another film planned. I think I read that they did their best to make this film stand on its own in case it has to, and I for one still find it extremely enjoyable, but yeah, it does demand a sequel rather blatantly.

But, supposing the whole "Jesus Christ as an emissary" thing is true and 100% intended, you can see how they might not want to come out and say it explicitly. That would be a bit too controversial and would result in some extremely bad press. So, I think it's pretty brilliant to slip it under the radar like they seem to have. QUITE brilliant. Sometimes ambiguity is not only interesting and artful, but discreet as well.