Do not see this film if you plan to become a: biologist, archaeologist, geologist, surgeon, field scientist, lab scientist, spaceship captain, explorer, screenwriter or robot. Some day a field biology instructor will wearily remind you that no, when you encounter an unknown, large and suspicious snake-like creature then your first priority is not to poke it in what might be its eye. If you absolutely must poke at it then USE A STICK. Across the board the decision making in this film suggests that in the future everyone will have frontal lobe damage. The only real exception is Charlize Theron’s character, who shows fairly good judgment until (SPOILER ALERT!) near the end when she forgets that you run away from a rolling object at a tangent. Indiana Jones did not do that is because he was in a freaking cave.
What the heck happened? The space truckers in Alien made sense because they were following orders and operating way outside their job description. Everyone in Aliens did the best anyone could in a bad situation, except for Paul Reiser, and that was kind of the point. The rest of the Alien canon doesn’t count because shut up.
Do see this film if you plan to study theodicy or become a cinematographer.
BTW, to answer Sullivan, more significant spoiler below.
The Engineers died “about two thousand years ago” while prepping their murder boat for a trip to Earth. The movie’s running motif is faith, creation and theodicy. What relevant events happened about two thousand years ago on Earth? Hm.
Hazel Stone
But it isn’t about two thousand years ago in the movie, is it? In the movie it is hundreds of years after now.
Hazel Stone
Ah, nevermind, the Wiki says it takes place in 2089. Close enough.
Walker
This movie was essentially a teenage slasher in space. Even the characters in Cabin in the Woods made better choices.
Rex Everything
The same thing occurred to me. But Ridley Scott is probably smart enough not to make the Engineers-Christianity connection too obvious, so’s not to get yokels picketing every screening.
Rommie
I’ve seen a lot of eyerolling comments at the Morans on the crew, and how it’s terribul, just terribul writing and directing. I get the reasoning.
But maybe you just have to accept that Weyland hired a bad crew. You want Scott to cure stupid, and he didn’t. I can let that slide, as there enough other plot holes to make me not worry so much about it.
rlrr
@Rex Everything:
Getting the yokels to picket every screening is a good way to get free advertising. Which is why I look forward to someone filming Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man…
jon
I liked it, stupidities and all. Made hardly any sense, just like 2001. More concept than script. People will argue about it for a long time, and it could have worked better with less dialogue.
Some see religion, some parables to Babel and Pandora’s box, primal violence, vulvas and cocks, whatever. I saw a lot of mumbo-jumbo spectacle and liked it.
RP
I certainly didn’t mind sitting through the movie — the visuals are great and it’s fairly entertaining — but as soon as I walked out of the theater I couldn’t stop thinking about the 800 different things in the move that made no sense. I’m not even sure the title makes sense. The connection to the prometheus myth is pretty flimsy.
rlrr
I wonder why people in the 23rd century continue to use technologies which regularly fail in interesting and often ghastly ways (transporters and holdoecks, for example)…
zattarra
To see how the crew was trained you must watch this video. No spoilers.
SP
All these story issues fall squarely on the shoulders of Lindelof, the same hack who ran “Lost” right into the ground.
(Yeah, “Lost” was headed that way anyway, but all his superficial spirituality BS in the end was really the icing on the cake.)
He’s awful & ruins everything he touches.
Rafer Janders
Two thousand years ago from the year when the movie was set, which is about 2089? Oooh, I know this! The Roman war against Dacia and the revolt of Saturninus’ legions, both during the reign of the Emperor Domitian.
Chris
Yeah, I’m really not sure why they did that. Exploring the origins of one of the most popular sci-fi monsters ever is plenty interesting enough without adding all that “meaning of life,” “where did mankind come from” stuff.
Plus it’s kind of a rip-off to find out that the origin of humanity is that we were created by a race of Engineers, who’re… basically humans… only a little taller? It’s like finding out Boba Fett’s origin story is that he’s a mysterious bounty hunter who’s actually a clone of another mysterious bounty hunter.
zattarra
So apparently it didn’t want to insert the link. Trying again:
youtube.com/watch?v=yFYmv6t_Xyg&feature=share
Tim F.
@jon: The title at least made sense. Prometheus was a titan, who the Greeks described as intermediate between men and gods. The engineers are titans, and they get punished in the opening scene, by their gods in the round ship, for (I assume) bringing fire, the spark of intelligence, or whatever, to Man. Mythical Prometheus met a ghastly fate and it is safe to argue that the grey goo has a similar purpose. The titans’ crime, after all, is curiosity, and the goo, like the critter in the Sigourney Weaver movies, serves as a perfect Greek punishment for curiosity: too interesting to leave alone but lethal and impossible to contain once you start (cough) poking at it.
Ash
Few films have enraged me as much as this one has. I’ve never seen any of the original Alien films, so my feelings have nothing to do with those. They tried SO hard to make this some sort of deep, philosophical mediation on the existence and provenance of man, when all it really was f’n STUPID! I’ve never witnessed such idiotic and nonsensical characters and actions in my life. And I’ve seen lots of bad movies.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
The original Alien showcased some world-class stupidity, too. Everybody was nervously shooting up the hull of the ship (explosive decompression, anybody?), but have you ever noticed that until Ripley was the last survivor, nobody ever got off even one single shot at the Alien? Thalmus Rasulala had a chance, but Veronica Cartwright just would not get out of the way, and the Alien got them both. (I’d have given her two chances and then shot right through her, but that’s just me.)
4tehlulz
So nothing will change. Good to know.
K488
“This is a scientific mission – no weapons!” What more need there to be said?
JustMe
All these story issues fall squarely on the shoulders of Lindelof
Yup. I get the impression that Lindelof is a bad writer that writers all think is a good writer.
Seriously, if I were making a movie, I wouldn’t let anyone associated with Lost within a 2 mile radius of my studio.
electricgrendel
There is a ton of spoilers in this comment, so if you have not yet had your eye meats and need for narrative logic both assaulted by this “film”, then please skip over.
That said- I absolutely hated this movie. It was gorgeous, but really is that a feat anymore? Ridley Scott had better make a pretty movie. He’s been making them for thirty years, and with enough money you can hire the people to find pretty, weird locations and then fill them with CG’ed space ships. I am long past being impressed by pretty alone when it comes to movies.
But my GOD does this script not make any sense at all. First of all- this woman has a C-Section and then is running around and jumping between ledges like half an hour later. Could they have at least explained that beyond the whole “She’s injecting herself with something!” bit? Also- her boyfriend. So- he decides he could be infected and has to die. Maybe he could take off his helmet and breathe the toxic atmosphere to die? Instead of being roasted alive? And speaking of that atmosphere- if the Engineer wanted to KILL ALL HOOMAHNS then why did he not go get another ship (like- maybe the one she escapes on?) and go kill the hoomahns and leave her to die on a planet with no breathable atmosphere? Why go try and murder her? And what did the titanic sized face grabber eat after it was pulled out of her? Surely even aliens are subject to the notion of anabolism and must have building blocks for their growth?
I can’t even talk about Charlize Theron’s character. It was terrible. Though I have to say her death was totally cribbed from that part in Titanic where the smokestacks break free and crush that guy in the water.
The only interesting thing in the movie was the robot. He seemed rather soulful to not, you know, have a soul. Does sufficiently advanced technology appear to emote? And I want to know if he chose her boyfriend for the “big things have small beginnings” experiment, or was he told to choose him? He obviously has a robot boner for the main character, and if he was not ordered to kill her boyfriend then did he choose him to eliminate a rival? And of all the things that could make him human, isn’t it interesting that it is not just love that makes him human but also jealousy and murder?
Since the Engineer in the elephant suit does not end up with a split open chest while lounging in the captain’s chair, I most fear that this is meant to be part of a cycle of movies leading toward the beginning of the Alien franchise? Nothing would make me sadder, since this movie totally deserves being chained to a rock and having an eagle eats its liver every day.
dave
Video on the failed science of Prometheus, about this very point,
youtube.com/watch?v=FMoCSzwripM&feature=youtu.be
sb
Tim, not for nothing but how about putting the spoiler alert just below your name next time? Something like this: Warning: Spoilers might work.
The Moar You Know
@rlrr: OMG you’re kidding. THAT is being made into a movie? I have the original short (it’s not that short) in my “Nebula Award Winners of 1966” (or whatever year it was) collection that I picked up back in eighth grade.
Every other time travel story I’ve read has sucked by comparison. And it’s subversive as hell.
Soonergrunt
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: That wasn’t Thalmus Rasulala. That was Yaphet Kotto.
IMDB
jlow
electricgrendel
@JustMe: I am positively distraught that this guy is apparently getting his hands on the script for World War Z. If he ravages it as badly as he did Prometheus (which was an already completed script when he started “pitching ideas”, much as World War Z had a script written by J Michael Strazinsky and then rewritten by another fellow),then I am going to be very sad.
rlrr
@The Moar You Know:
There are currently no plans to film Behold the Man, I just think it would be a great idea. Watching fundies explode with outrage would be a great source of entertainment…
SteveM
I saw Alien a million years ago, agreed with the review that said it was like spending two hours in a Skinner box, and never went back for the sequels. But I’m digging the way this one is being trashed. (Julian Sanchez was especially nasty.)
I wish the idiot narratives of the right got picked apart this carefully, thoughtfully, and mercilessly by the rest of the culture.
mapaghimagsik
The movie sure was visually interesting, and its good to see that people are picking the hell out of things I picked on. Atmosphere has the right gasses to be breathable. Helmets off people!
The guys who are terrified of going into the evil chamber go into evil chamber when they get lost in a ship being patrolled by little robots that are MAPPING THE FUCKING SHIP.
“Aww what a cute little penis-cobra slime thing! Lets pet it- AUGH MY SPLEEN!”
No wonder the engineers were trying to destroy earth. They knew it would be like a dandelion, spreading seeds of stupidity.
Villago Delenda Est
Wrong answer.
The rest of the Alien canon doesn’t count because IT SUCKED.
Hollywood is quite good at taking something that was a pretty good, entertaining idea and beating it into the ground in the name of MORE FUCKING MONEY FOR TALENTLESS HACKS IN SUITS. You know, like Griffin Mill.
Walker
@electricgrendel:
He did not appear to do too much damage to the Star Trek reboot. But maybe the other writers on that project reined him in.
Howlin Wolfe
Tim F.:
run away “at a tangent” to the boulder’s path? why not perpendicular to the path? I guess perpendicular would be close to a very tight, small radius tangential curve.
jon
Spoiler alerts? If you’re stupid enough to read a comment thread about a movie you haven’t seen over a week after it has been released, you just need to keep your butthurt to yourself and grow up.
Some people choose a steady diet of disappointment with a supplement of blaming others for it. Other people grow up.
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
Transporters don’t fail very often. As in, next to never. This was a plot point in the Barkley transporterphobia episode of TNG.
As for Holodecks, some sort of anomalous external event is needed to get them to do wonky things. One of the best Holodeck episodes, DS9’s “Our Man Bashir”, it wasn’t a Holodeck malfunction that was the problem, it was using it to store patterns in an emergency while a program was running. Which basically gave Avery Brooks license to devour scenery as a Bond villain.
RossInDetroit
I won’t see Prometheus because of the bad press but I did see the previous films in the franchise. does this one look like it was filmed in a smoky closet with one flashlight like the original one? The number of completely dark or impenetrably fuzzy scenes in the original film was annoying. Like they spent all the money on latex suits and couldn’t afford lighting.
MariedeGournay
So wait. Our 2000 years ago or future 2000 years ago? Nevermind there was plenty else going on than in some backward Roman province.
Soonergrunt
@Villago Delenda Est: And I thought I was a Trekker-nerd.
electricgrendel
Oh! Oh! Okay. I forgot my favorite thing about this fail spectacle. So- I have a very gay friend who was once very drunk and watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. Now- RuPaul is still fabulous, but she’s getting a little up there in years so some times they use a softer filter to take off the edges. So my friend is watching it and, drunk, and blutters out: “RuPaul, girl! Why you so blurry!”
There I am, watching this film, and I see Weyland appear. He’s all old, desperate to extend his life, and totally at the helm of a massive, ponderous vanity project. And all I can think is: “Ridley Scott, girl! Why you so blurry!”
Villago Delenda Est
@Howlin Wolfe:
This one has a really easy answer.
Because if you ran perpendicular to the path you’d run out of the shot. Tangential at least keeps you more or less on camera.
Fouten
@Howlin Wolfe:
You are not factoring in turning speed. To change course and run perpendicular to your momentum requires slowing to a dead stop for just about everyone short of Devon Hester.
A curving path allows to you maintain speed while moving yourself away from the peril across two ‘axis.’
Rob in CT
@Walker:
Fun movie, but you could drive the Enterprise through the plot holes.
The Moar You Know
@rlrr: Awww shit you got my hopes up. Not fair. It really is the best time travel story I’ve ever read.
JustMe
As for Holodecks, some sort of anomalous external event is needed to get them to do wonky things
There was a list way back when passed over email with “the top 10 things that never happen on star trek.” One of them was something like, “The crew of the Enterprise uses the holodeck without malfunction or incident”
Villago Delenda Est
@Soonergrunt:
LOL.
One thing about Holodecks…in order to get them to do dramatic things, you have to override the safety protocols, to make the bullets actually harm you. This was yet another plot point, particularly on Voyager when they encountered that hunter species (the Hirogen) that, ironically, wanted to use Holodeck technology to get out of a recreational funk.
Zagloba
Hey now, Aliens didn’t all-caps-SUCKED, it was just merely middle-of-the-road bad. The fun kind of bad. It had plot holes and perpetuated silly tropes, sure, but it wasn’t an insult to the viewer’s intelligence.
Rex Everything
OK—I gotta go on record as saying that IMO this movie was pretty rad, and the online obsession with “plot holes” is looking more and more like the purview of the slow kids.
The Red Pen
No, don’t.
My wife is a theologian and this movie made her want to go on a shotgun rampage. Prometheus raises issues of science, society, origins, faith and culture, puts them in a pile, sets them on fire, and pees on the fire.
It’s cool-looking, though.
Also, Idris Elba is British. Why did he use his “The Wire” accent as the ship’s captain?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Soonergrunt:
D’OH!
Villago Delenda Est
@Zagloba:
Oh, agree on Aliens. However, Alien 3 onwards was all caps with flashing neon fonts SUCKS.
Walker
@Villago Delenda Est:
They failed a lot in TNG, often serving as a lazy way (along with the holodeck) to make episodes. Heck, one season had multiple transporter accidents (my friends always called it the “transporter accident season”).
cmorenc
Visually, Prometheus is fascinating…PROVIDED you leave such massive amounts of your intellect at home that it’s doubtful you’ll remember how to drive your car to the theater. This is a colossally disappointing pile of dreck, where in classic teen-slasher flick form, the characters make the stupidest possible decisions at the worst times.
As to the mystery of what the Android David said to the giant humanoid in its own language? My vote is for “You are one ugly motherfucker and we Earthlings are here to kick your stupid ass”.
Keith
My biggest issue with the film is the black goo. I get the notion that it is a super-evolving substance that turns worms into hentai monsters, humans into super-destroyers, and even embryos into giant squids…basically turning nearly everything it touches into some form of a xenomorph. But why does it affect Engineers so differently (i.e. turns them into dust that eventually evolves into presumably everything on earth rather than a super-Engineer)?
The other thing that bothered me a lot is that the Prometheus Engineer was *way* smaller than the Alien Space Jockey. I know it was a fossilized suit, but Dallas had his head right there, and it was HUGE. Not to mention, the arms were about twice as long; put him in the suit from the first Alien, and he breaks his forearm at the suit’s elbow.
Steve in DC
I liked it. And let’s be honest, biologists have a history of doing stupid things and being killed by what they were studying. Scientists are not immune from doing astoundingly dumb ass things, in fact they are famous for it. Toss in the fact that they were obviously excited and it’s totally believable.
Most of the “LOL they are stupid” is just nerdrage. In which all scientists must be some mix of Lex Luthor and the Batman, instead of Martin from the Simpsons, though Martin is far more accurate.
As for the robot, he wasn’t “stupid” he was actively malicious and trying to screw with everybody. Which, if you are familiar with the Alien franchise tends to happen in every movie. It always goes to shit because someone isn’t truly part of the team.
Also Ridley Scott flat out said in an interview Jesus was an Alien and a whole bunch of other stuff that explains what happened. They just didn’t put it in the movie because people were worried how the Jesus nuts would react. That’s not really an excuse for the gaping plot holes, but maybe the directors edition clears it all up?
It still wasn’t bad, Alien and Aliens were better simply because they were far more violent and didn’t try to be theological. Though Prometheus is far better than Aliens 3 or Res, let alone the mental abortions that were the AVP movies.
Cermet
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: They didn’t have guns in Alien – just flamethrowers so no, there was no shooting up the ship; that was AlienS and it was on the planet in the power station. There they shoot the Aliens anyway and that was a critical plot device.
In this crazy movie Prometheus, as I understand it (never saw it so may be totally off base here) the viewer is led to believe that the “Engineers” started all life on Earth – so that was nearly FOUR BILLION years ago – like what have they been doing for, say, the last FOUR BILLION years. That is a LOOONNNNGGGG time to be chilling, waiting for something to happen. Or did the people posting about the Engineer’s get it wrong?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@JustMe:
Well now, I’d make an exception for Cynthia Watros.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
There are way too many episodes in all there various versions of Star Trek that hinge on holodeck or transporter failures to say they almost never fail…
Villago Delenda Est
@Walker:
I think we differ on the definition of “FAIL” here. They behave in strange ways sometimes, but there is one incident, one, in which a transporter fails fatally, and that was in the Motionless picture.
As Geordi LaForge said once “it really is the safest way to travel”, despite the opinions of Leonard McCoy and Katherine Pulaski.
Liberty60
@Rafer Janders:
Wrong!
The relevant event about 2000 years ago was The Battle of Ikh Bayan, a major expedition launched against the Xiongnu by the Han Dynasty in June, 89. The battle was a success for the Han under Dou Xian.
The director clearly is implying a link between the struggles of the Han forces and the Engineers.
Sheesh. Connect the dots, sheeple.
VincentN
Prometheus was basically a horror movie in space so the characters are inevitably going to do stupid things. While some of those stupid things infuriated me I actually liked the movie quite a bit overall for a summer blockbuster.
Gromit
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
The fact that it’s Yaphet Kotto has been covered, but besides that, the crew of the Nowtromo used flamethrowers, which never would have penetrated the hull of the ship. Are you conflating “Alien” with “Aliens”? Also, Lambert was petrified. It’s a common physiological reaction to being confronted by an 8-foot insectoid creature with two mouths full of needle-sharp teeth. Rather unlike trying to pet a hissing vagina-cobra.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
I would consider getting thrown into an alternate universe or split into two personalities both serious failures…
rlrr
@Gromit:
Why would there be flame throwers on a spaceship?
Steve in DC
@Cermet:
What was left out of the movie…
There is an engineer in a robe that looks like a priests robe when the first guy turns himself to soup. Though that planet is not earth, we are lead to believe this what engineers do, why is left unanswered. This was filmed but not included.
Jesus was an engineer and we killed him, thus the slime nuking they were prepping for. No clue if or what was filmed, but Scott flat out said that this was true and part of the plot and was canned along with some other things for various reasons.
As for Alien, which version (the ending changed drastically as have some scenes). But Alien was really a movie about a bunch of idiots trying to save a cat of all damn things and being eaten for their trouble. It also had more “forced stupidity to move the plot” moments than Prometheus. Though it’s good simply for gore, inherent rape joke built into body horror, and body count.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Steve in DC:
Living proof: Years ago, I watched a…NOVA, maybe…about the expedition that discovered the deep-sea vent communities. A guy stirs a beaker full of little gelatinous creatures with his bare finger and says: “Ooh—it’s a colony!” I’m going, “Jesus Fu¢k! Stick your finger in there, why don’t you?” Obviously, it was a colony, and I think colony, I think Portuguese man-of-war, I think Portuguese man-of-war, I think stinging cells, and I don’t stick my freaking finger in there!
nastybrutishntall
@Rex Everything: yup.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
How do we now transporters don’t actually kill the original and create an exact copy at the destination?
Cermet
@Walker: That pile of steaming SH$T? You are kidding? That made the 60’s version look brillent!
Lee
I think you are making the assumption that the Engineers that died 2000 years ago are the same Engineers that seeded the Earth or that they seeded the Earth about the same time.
I did not make that assumption.
superking
Everything that’s wrong with Prometheus: youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
Both of which required anomalous external events to induce.
Even in the real world you can’t design to cover every possible circumstance, especially those you’ve never encountered before.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
So the Cosmo Christers in Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama were right?
Seanly
@Walker:
Didn’t do much damage? They wiped out all of the history after Kirk was born. I try to think of the reboot as an alternate timeline with cooler looking tech. A much more interesting story could’ve been told w/out the entire crew being newbies & relying on time travel.
Time travel is the worst crutch a screenwriter can use (Dr. Who & Quantum Leap being the exceptions).
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
Well, that is a particular point that they never addressed.
Because the REAL purpose of the transporter is to get our heroes into the action quickly, without a lot of boring flying around shit.
It’s a dramatic device.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
Both of which required anomalous external events to induce.
Anomalous external events which happen in about 5-10% of episodes…
Walker
@rlrr:
Amen.
Though I think the biggest problem transporters should face is copy degradation over time. No way the person reintegrated after transport is a perfect copy.
Walker
@rlrr:
Amen.
Though I think the biggest problem transporters should face is copy degradation over time. No way the person reintegrated after transport is a perfect copy.
Ash
@Cermet: As I understood it, they were only the ancestors of humans. In the prologue, I’m pretty sure there’s plant life…?
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s a dramatic device.
A dramatic device which fails when writers get lazy…
Rafer Janders
@Gromit:
This reminds me, I really need to give my ex-girlfriend a call.
Villago Delenda Est
A transporter is like a parking space in New York.
There’s always one right where the plot requires one.
rlrr
@Seanly:
They should have done a true reboot (like Battlestar Galactica) without attempting to reconcile with the original.
As it stands, time travel is way too easy in the Star Trek universe…
Cassidy
@electricgrendel: World War Z has already been hosed. From what I’m reading, it’s been turned into a ZA flick instead of the plot from the book.
Steve in DC
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Discovery, Animal Planet, are full of shows involving actual biologists, often the top in their fields that often show them in a hospital because reptile, spider, whatever, XYZ took a shot at them… because they were fucking with it. So scientists are fucking stupid, but that’s something that everybody knows other than people who refuse to admit that all scientists aren’t the damn Batman.
Beyond that, these guys were in space suits that could withstand a fucking sand and electrical storm, it wasn’t like they weren’t fairly well protected. And let’s keep in mind that the robot, who had all the sensors to detect any sort of toxic and biological matter, said everything was OK.
Outside of getting crushed by the spaceship, nothing was that out of the ordinary unless “but all scientists are a mix of Batman and Lex Luthor and nothing less NERD RAAGGEEE” which seems to be core motivation for most objections here.
Cassidy
The new Trek is better than the ones before it. I’d much rather see that series, which was fun, than most of the schlock that was Voyager, DS9, and the majority of TNG.
Yeah. I said it.
Cassidy
Fixed
Frankensteinbeck
@JustMe:
The way that works in Hollywood is that he’s a bad writer who studio producers, who are sure THEY’RE brilliant creative geniuses despite never creating anything, think is a good writer.
rlrr
@Cassidy:
Watching TNG, it’s not nearly as good as I remember it. It took like 3 seasons for it to hit its stride (the 1st season was pretty awful in retrospect). Looking back, there’s maybe a handful of truly good episodes, a lot mediocre ones, and a lot of bad ones.
In the original series the quality was pretty good for the first 1 1/2 seasons, but the suckage increased after that…
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
Agreed.
It was pretty obvious with Enterprise that a reboot button was built into the series in the pilot.
apocalipstick
@electricgrendel: Just doing World War Z as a stand-alone movie will ruin it. If anything ever cried out to be a limited-run series on HBO or AMC, it was WWZ.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
Enterprise had the most potential of the all the new Trek series, but it became clear it was going to be the same old stuff early in the first season..
Cassidy
@rlrr: I honestly have no opinion one way or the other. I just enjoy getting Trek fans riled up. :D
rlrr
@Cassidy:
Implying that Star Trek is nothing more than a sometimes entertaining diversion is enough to rile up some Trek fans…
Kevin
I would bet that Lindelof gets lots of work because he delivers scripts on time, is pleasant enough to work with, and his projects make money. Not speaking from personal knowledge here, but those things are way more important in Hollywood than whether the movie is well written.
rlrr
@Kevin:
Why does Joe Eszterhas have a career?
CraigoMc
Suffice to say that the vast majority of complaints about the film are from people who either weren’t paying attention, aren’t thinking it through, or didn’t bother to find out what the Prometheus myth was about before watching a movie entitled Prometheus.
Yes.
And watch that scene carefully: Neither character looks back to see the ship until they’ve tripped and fallen – probably because, you know, the fucking ship is falling out of the sky RUN.
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
You have not dealt with Trekkers. Those guys are so off the wall that they get riled if you call them a Trekkie.
Cassidy
@rlrr: Yup. And Han shot first.
Steve in DC
@Cassidy:
Oh for the love of god not this tangent.
I never got into Star Wars or Star Trek, for movies was always an Aliens and Predators type of person. Besides, my sci-fi geekery was confined to Warhammer 40k, which is it’s own barrel of insanity!
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy:
“Han shot first” is CANON. I don’t care what that Ferengi/Niemodian hybrid that is George Lucas, professional money grubber, says.
roc
@rlrr: There are flame-throwers because: 1. )bullets are a risk to the hull, as noted above. 2.) space herpes.
CraigoMc
I think of the cesarean section as a particular exquisite specimen of myopic nerdrage.
1. Human beings in 2093 have faster-than-light travel and artificial gravity, both of which are believed to be completely impossible as of today – but walking after a medical procedure is “unbelievable.” Because it’s an iron law of the universe that you must be in bed for at least 24 hours, absolutely no less.
2. You know what a person of 1912 would have thought was unbelievable about a self-cesarean? “Oh, she cut herself open and didn’t die of a horrible oozing infection? Stupid Hollywood.” Technology marches on; you’re playing Angry Birds on a device that’s smaller than a deck of cards and more powerful than the computers that sent men to the Moon. I’m pretty sure medical science of the late 21st century will be a little bit better than what we have now.
Cassidy
@Steve in DC: WAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!
Yeah, I’m not a Treck or SW fan myself. I enjoyed the movies as a kid and for a while I felt nerd rage towards Lucas, but has slowly turned to amusement as I’ve watched him troll the nerd community. It’s okay, though. I have my nerdrage over other things and have been equally trolled. Don’t get me started on the X-Men movies.
Steve in DC
@CraigoMc:
Keep in mind they already stated that Weyland cured cancer and a bunch of other crap in the past. The only thing left is immortality.
Brachiator
The movie and book review podcast An Hour with your Ex did an excellent takedown of Prometheus, describing it ultimately as a shitty episode of Scooby Doo.
Given how creative the trailers and other promo material for the movie was, I was surprised at how disappointing, how stupid Prometheus actually turned out.
And I have no patience with fans of the film who protest that everything will be better when the director’s cut is released. Editing is the art of shaping a film, not just removing shit for the sake of time.
@CraigoMc:
No, the Chariots of the Gods premise of the movies was stupid, as was the idiocy of a scientist spouting “I choose to believe” nonsense, which is typical of a lame Hollywood mentality that insists that science and superstition are ultimately the same.
Having hobbled the film with a stupid premise, the film then doubles down with stupid plotting. Characters do stupid shit for stupid reasons, and tv soap opera level revelations are trotted out at the last minute to rationalize plot points.
Charlize Theron’s relationship to Weyland is irrelevant to anything that actually happens in the movie. Noomi Rapace announces that she can’t have kids just so the next piece of the plot can fall into place. The android can magically decipher the alien language, which makes the presence of the archaeologists unnecessary. Nothing that the engineers do make a lick of sense. Characters announce “I’m a geologist” or “I’m a biologist,” when what they really mean “I’m Redshirt Number 1,” and “I’m Redshirt Number 2” because their supposed occupations are absolutely irrelvant to anything that happens in the movie.
Aside from looking vaguely cool, the engineers don’t do anything that is interesting or makes sense.
Worst of all, Ridley Scott has promised two more prequel sequels. I’m now even dreading his promised follow up to Blade Runner.
Steve in DC
@Cassidy:
Was always more of a Blood for the Blood God type myself.
Though the best thing about Warhammer compared to other sci-fi universes is that it never tried to take itself remotely seriously. Being over the top, making no sense, is all part of the fun.
Keith
@Brachiator: I’m not as worried about Blade Runner simply because Scott has the good sense to have the original screenwriter do the script. I’d rather him pull the source material from some more Philip K Dick (his stort stories are PACKED with great ideas), but we can’t have it all.
Amir Khalid
I’m not nerd enough, or angry enough, for my own objections to Prometheus’ many, many flaws to be called “nerd rage”. It just annoys me somewhat that so many professional critics, who should know better, are praising or making excuses for a film as hopelessly illogical as this. This is a mediocre film at best, watchable only because of its awesome visuals.
Lee
@CraigoMc:
Exactly.
The other group are the ones that get all bent out of shape about the science. If you want real science, go to college and major in the field of your choice but don’t look for a science education in a &$(#& movie.
It’s a movie. It’s entertaining. It is NOT a documentary about how things were in 2089.
Get over yourselves.
Gromit
@rlrr:
Because Parker built them out of spare parts on the ship. They say so in the movie.
rlrr
@Gromit:
OK, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen it…
Citizen_X
@cmorenc:
I’m gonna go with, “My psychotic ancient owner dragged us all this way to wake you up so he could live forever; could you kill him, please? And that girl doesn’t like you, but she’s kind of got a point.”
Mayur
I don’t have a problem with the Caesarean either. She’s clearly dosing herself with all sorts of crap before, during, and after the procedure and the medipod is described as a “billion-dollar piece of equipment.” Inflation aside, I’d assume that means that it’s basically a magical device according to the Arthur C. Clarke quip.
Just rewatched Alien, and
SPOILERS FOR ALIEN
I have to say that it’s remarkably consistent and actually HUMAN compared to Prometheus. The characters react in totally believable ways (heck, Scott set up the chestburster scene specifically to shock the hell out of the cast), and there’s also a good explanation for pretty much everything that happens.
@rlrr: There are flamethrowers because they rig them up. It’s right in the script. Believe it or not, it’s very easy to improvise a flamethrower even if you’re in a suburban home with a few gascans and some tubing; not hard to do on a mining ship.
Steve in DC: Wow; you really think that anyone (other than Ripley) is doing anything stupid to save the cat? Harry Dean Stanton’s character goes looking for it early in the film when they’re not even convinced that the alien is much of a threat, and he’s pretty much just skiving off the duty of actually finding the alien anyway, which is pretty consistent with his character. Ripley doesn’t even try to pick up the cat carrier when she runs away from the alien in one scene. No one in that movie does anything as stupid as the morons in Prometheus do. The only character that gets out of the dumb-kids-in-a-slasher-pic mold is the robot, and that’s because his motives are pretty opaque anyway.
The only really inexplicable thing in Alien is why you would install a self-destruct mechanism on a spaceship. It makes sense in Star Trek where they’re all military technology that needs keeping out of hostile hands, but the idea that you’d put something on a commercial vessel to intentionally blow it up just seems preposterous.
Michael Bersin
@CraigoMc:
Probably, according to Nino, not for anyone who isn’t in the one percent, especially after this Thursday.
celticdragonchick
@Steve in DC:
The biologist wasn’t doing anything the “croc hunter” didn’t do a thousand times on tv. Come to think of it…he died as well…
I’m still wondering how he and the geologist got lost, though. Also, the geologists I know would have been excited and fascinated by finding the engineer body. Not our discipline, mind you, but I think almost every geologist worth their feldpsar would have stuck around to at least help take measurments. I certainly would have.
Mayur
@Michael Bersin: Well, to be fair, the medipod IS reserved for the trillionaire on board…
workworkwork
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Just a minor correction- you’re thinking of Yaphet Kotto, not Thalmus Rasulala (though by this time six other folk may have already pointed this out).
Amir Khalid
@Lee:
Aside from the Chariots of The Gods? archeology that sets up the trillion-dollar space mission, there’s really not that much science in Prometheus. There’s really more science fiction in it — faster than light drives, Hollywood misconceptions of biology and evolution, and whatnot — which I can live with. But the most serious flaw in the movie is the lack of behavior which would be plausible for scientists (or rational people in general).
handsmile
I was ambivalent about seeing Prometheus, but now having read through this thread, I gotta say: I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE IT! Thanks everybody!
One outta be grateful for this sine qua non of contemporary Hollywood!
@Villago Delenda Est: Hereafter I will read your comments with a new perspective. :)
@superking: (#70) Many thanks for introducing me to RedLetter Media. No small amount of comic genius at work there.
Mayur
@celticdragonchick: It’s still bad characterization. You have (a) one of the two panickiest characters in the film just suddenly decide that he’ll go all Steve Irwin; and (b) the guy in charge of mapping the place get lost. It’s a pretty awful double-whammy.
Also, my Croc Hunter viewing is spotty, but I’m pretty sure that Steve Irwin was (a) dealing with creatures with whose behaviors and biology he was already reasonably familiar and (b) not doing absurdly stupid things like ignoring threat displays. I have a friend who spent his boyhood catching rattlers; I’m pretty sure that he explained in detail how to do it, discouraged anyone without experience (like me, when I hiked with him through rattlesnake habitat) to do it, and didn’t do things like approaching angry young rattlers from the front within easy biting range.
celticdragonchick
@CraigoMc:
That has been discussed to death at a lot of different forums. I happen to agree with a lot of other people that human instinct is to run directly away from a threat and not tangent to it. Everone like to think they would calmly make the correct choice in the same situation, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
celticdragonchick
@Mayur:
You need to watch the episode where Steve is fucking around with a spitting cobra. One the damned stupidest things you can imagine (and wearing only sunglasses…so he still gets venom spat into his eyes and has to stagger to a nearby village to get his eyes cleaned with fresh water!)
I was thinking of that episode when I watched that scene in Prometheus. Otherwise smart people can do really stupid shit when they think they control a situation.
Cassidy
@Steve in DC: I love reading the stories about Chaos, but playing them wasn’t for me. I always felt they were no different than Space marines but with more sharpy and bitey things.
Citizen_X
@celticdragonchick: Plus, the geologist was clearly the one in charge of the geophysical mapping/remote sensing methods, and he clearly enjoyed doing that work. So he runs off because he’s not being used (and he’s never seen a horror movie before)? Nuh uh. And then he gets lost? He doesn’t have any access to the map his probes are making? No.
But the weed/vaporizer in his suit (“You have tobacco in your suit?” “Sure. Exhale. Tobacco.”), that I believe.
celticdragonchick
@Steve in DC:
The Inquisition wants to have a word with you for suspected daemon contact.
For the Emperor
Jenal Felistran
Ordo Malleus
Mayur
@celticdragonchick: “…when they think they control the situation” being the operable clause.
You have a guy who is too fucking scared to examine a 2000-year-old corpse, lost, and terrified out of his wits suddenly turn into a foolhardy bravo when confronted with an alien animal. It’s just not convincing characterization. Maybe I’d feel the same way if I watched that Croc Hunter episode, truth being stranger than fiction and all that.
Cassidy
@celticdragonchick: I’ve got Sisters for your Inquisition.
Ash
@cmorenc:
Actually this was already answered. All he does is say something lame like “This man (Weyland) doesn’t want to die, help him.”
celticdragonchick
@Cassidy:
I stick with Dark Angels space marines. (probably close to 20,000 points worth, but I started collecting nearly 20 years ago).
I have a huge Chaos army as well, but it is basically for friends to play when they come over. My spouse won’t have anything to do with 40k beyond playing an Eldar fleet in Battle Fleet Gothic.
celticdragonchick
@Cassidy:
Heh!
It would be nice if GW released a real updated Codex for the Sisters…!
It would also be nice if the Sisters had new models, come to think of it.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Michael Bersin:
Probably, according to Nino, not for anyone who isn’t in the one percent, especially after this Thursday.
Actually, speaking of the sequel to Blade Runner (aka Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), I’d like to see someone make a movie of the Alan E. Nourse novel they bought the movie title from. You could set it in 2013 without a bobble.
Steve in DC
@Cassidy:
I started off with Chaos and then moved to Blood Angels, of which I still have 10k with of points, and that’s not including the forge world items.
I’m currently building up 10k with of Eldar…. and trying to resist buying one of these….
forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Titans/ELDAR-PHANTOM-TITAN-BODY.html
I’ve been playing since 2e though… and I have a friend that works for GW.
joeytomato
Yea it’s a pretty dumb movie but some of the special effects make it almost worth watching.
I thought the Charlize character was one of the weakest of all. I also though the part was completely wrong for her. But that is just one of many many problems with this ridiculous movie.
celticdragonchick
@Steve in DC:
Every Eldar player needs a Revenent Titan. :)
I actually have one of the old Armorcast Warhounds that still comes out for Apocalypse games.
Steve in DC
@Ash:
Put yourself in the engineers shoes though. You’ve been in cryosleep for 2000 years and your mission was to destroy someones science experiment. Then you wake up and they are all over your spaceship pushing buttons and asking for immortality… I’d have swatted them as well.
Steve in DC
@celticdragonchick:
I’ve got two revs, that’s the phantom!
DRickard
There is no rest of the Alien canon. In a rare case of art winning over commerce (and contrary to what Internet trolls persistently say), there were only two films in the Xenomorph verse–Alien and Aliens–prior to Prometheus.
Anyone who talks about “Alien vs Predator” movies has suffered a psychotic break and should be involuntarily committed for their own safety.
Steve in DC
@DRickard:
AVP the video games and AVP the comics are cannon though. And keep in mind that Weylands technology came from the Predators, that’s cannon as well.
celticdragonchick
@Steve in DC:
My bad.
Wow! I have never seen an actual Phantom titan on a battlefield, and I have seen games with 100,000 plus points on each side. A Phantom titan would be a nightmare to face.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Of course, the “Nino” line in my # 131 should have been inside the blockquote. FYWP! ATHYRIO!
Citizen_X
@Ash:
Then why go to some sub-arctic place to spread your DNA? Why not visit an ape band in Miocene East Africa?
Answer: because then it would be exactly like 2001, instead of a lot like it.
I took the beginning as being set on Archean Earth. (Yes, then the bits of grass or moss we see flying over would be a mistake, but how many people will know that?) One of the Engineers sacrifices himself to begin all Earth life.
Which leads, for me, to the biggest plot hole: 3.7+ billion (or even 5 million) years of evolution from these guys, and we get a DNA match? That’s the opposite of how evolution works.
Todd
Can we have a “gayest nerd thread ever on Balloon Juice” as a rotating tag?
Did nobody here appreciate the Klingon civil war episodes on TNG?
Rafer Janders
@CraigoMc:
Technology advances, yes, but human bodies remain human bodies. Our bodies today are no hardier or able to heal faster than bodies 2,000 years ago, and our technology is far more advanced. Now maybe in the next hundred years some technology will be invented that will give us all super-fast healing powers, but if that’s the case, the movie should mention it.
Vernon Westphal
Prometheus = “Spaceship of Fools”. Apparently people really are getting dumber every year, and the process accelerates in the near future. Hasn’t anyone heard of ROBOTS? Mechanical doohickeys you send into potentially dangerous situations?
VKW
celticdragonchick
@Citizen_X:
There would not have been enough free oxygen in the atmosphere for an engineer to breathe. He would need a respirator for pretty much anything in terms of pre-Cambrian time. Pre-Cambrian oxygen content was on a roller coaster ride as agae would pump it out to where it reached a critical threshold and then the O2 would get yanked by all the iron cations in the seas (creating banded iron formations)or by exposed sediments on dry land. It took a long time to finally play this cycle out to where free oxygen could stick around for other things to metabolize.
Steve in DC
@celticdragonchick:
It’s the nastiest thing there is an official model for. I’ve seen one in action and it shot up all sorts of crap and then CC’d a reaver titan.
games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m680513a_NES_GW_Wakefield_-_Grey_Knight_Titan_-_popup
That’s nastier though…
Paul in KY
@Mayur: Maybe if the vessel (while still connected to the giant refinery thing) was going to uncontrollably crash into an inhabited planet, you might want to self destruct it before it went to deep into the gravity well.
Steve in DC
@Rafer Janders:
The viral marketing kinda did. They had an ARG with fake Ted Talks and all sorts of crap from what I recall. Cancer and AIDs were cured by Weyland. According to cannon the reason Weyland was so far ahead was because of stolen Predator technology.
A fair amount of their technological status is explained provided you paid attention to the viral marketing and know the cannon creation for the Weyland corporation.
This is sort of a failure on their part, they weren’t exactly obvious about it, and at the same time claimed they were hand waving away a bunch of stuff that was cannon without being exact.
Also keep in mind that the Predators are on a similar technical level to the engineers and also visited earth in the past. Weyland got access to their space, medical, and weapons technology, but it was never clear just how well we understood it. Both the predators and the engineers are far more advanced than we are. So if we look at chimps when they bumble around with our technology and think “oh isn’t that cute” the predators and engineers probably get a similar chuckle out of our half assing predator technology.
The Aliens universe has a lot of “a wizard did it” type plot explanations for why stuff works the way it does.
Paul in KY
@Mayur: Steve Irwin would antagonize animals for dramatic effect. When he was killed, I gave a little Nelson Muntz laugh. Did feel sory for his daughter, though.
celticdragonchick
@Steve in DC:
Dear God…
A Grey Knights titan.
I want one.
Now.
Oort Cloud
@Villago Delenda Est: Excellent book! Good movie, too.
Steve in DC
@Paul in KY:
It’s not just Irwin though. Animal planet has a lot of actual PHD types. All of them have horror stories about getting bitten by all sorts of crap. They had one snake guy who had been bitten so many time he was immune to venom, and then that other dude who landed in the hospital for messing with a rattle snake.
History if full of scientists doing stupid shit and killing themselves. It sort of goes with the field. Also insane doctors using themselves as a test platform for various items and dieing.
Which is why the nerd rage over “a scientist would never, nerds are smart” is laughably incorrect. Curiosity kills more than cats and we are far to curious for our own good.
Brachiator
@Keith:
Sometimes a filmmaker should just move on. The universe of Blade Runner was exiting, brash, something new. But getting the old band back together for another run does not necessarily result in anything more than a wan exercise in nostalgia.
I’m curious about a new Blade Runner movie, but after the dull disappointment of Prometheus, I can’t really say that I’m excited about the idea.
@celticdragonchick:
But apart from issues of human instinct, it was a dumb plot contrivance to have the space ship fall on them. A trillion bucks and millions of miles and things end with a freaking space ship falling on somebody? Talk about yer anti climax. And since the Charlize Theron character really didn’t do much of anything, I didn’t particularly care about her. It would have even made more sense to have her get back home.
Rafer Janders
@Mayur:
The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to be believable.
Steve in DC
@celticdragonchick:
That’s a custom build, there are rules for it… 40k custom pron I guess time
Warlords/Warmongers
small.furryspider.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/warlord.jpg
media.photobucket.com/image/recent/Cainman/Games-Workshop%2520Pics/chaostitanx.jpg
Those are the same class as the Phantom
Imperator
images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2009/9/28/55895_md-Games%20Day,%20Games%20Day%202009,%20Imperiator,%20…
s10.photobucket.com/albums/a118/Gagoc/Gamesday/?action=view¤t=Gaming_Imperator_b.jpg&…
People sell them, I’d hate to think of the points sink though…
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
Most large ships today have some sort of provision to scuttle by opening the seacock valves. I recall in Alien that the self destruct for the Nostromo was also referred to as “scuttling”.
Rafer Janders
@Steve in DC:
Well, but I’m not going to pay attention to that, and neither is 95% of the film’s paying audience. If the characters’ actions and capabilities only make sense in terms of knowledge outside of the movie that the vast majority of the viewers won’t have, then the movie is in part a failure.
Citizen_X
@celticdragonchick:
I know; another big plot hole.
celticdragonchick
@Brachiator:
Having a huge assed spaceship getting blown out of the sky and falling on you can be described in a great many ways, but anti climactic isn’t one that comes to mind.
celticdragonchick
@Citizen_X:
Only assuming the engineer was showing up on Pre-Cambrian Earth. If he was present in the Silurian or Devonian, he would be fine and we could also explain the terrestrial mosses and lichens around him. I do not recall offhand if there was any evidence of glaciation in those eons, nor what latitudes the continents were at. It’s just a movie, after all.
MattMinus
I think a lot of commenters are missing the point of body horror. In a franchise based on being killed by our genitals, a creator that wants to kill us is kind of the logical next step.
As far as “plot holes” go, there weren’t as many as the internet pile on suggests. Most of it is really just “something wasn’t explained and I can’t process that”, which in many cases was exactly the point.
Also too, scientists are complaining about details because they think its the only way anyone will pay attention to their horrible nerd talk. I still don’t care about your time to lightyears converdions
karen marie
@Steve in DC: So Jews are space aliens or just the one Jew?
celticdragonchick
@Steve in DC:
I always thought the Imperator class looked like a walking cathedral. I have considered scratch building one of the larger titans, but I balk at the cost and time involved. Right now, I am in the middle of a huge-ish Reikland castle for Warhammer Fantasy. The upside with that is that you can stick with foamboard and balsa wood for most of the build.
The largest scatch vehicle I have built is a Praetorian class command/transport for the Dark Angels. Not quite as large as the Imperial Guard Levianthan, but still pretty big That was made from commercial aviation floorboard, 2024t3 aluminum, and the twin turbo lasers (same as on a Warhound) are made from large hydraulic tubing.
artem1s
@Mayur:
well, one could argue that its not so much a self-destuct mechanism as an evacuation warning that is occurring once Ripley sets the reactor core to melt down. It’s something she would know how to do as part of the regular maintenance of the engines. I’d have to go back and watch it again to see whether the language suggests one over the other. It’s pretty in line with her character though as she comes to the same conclusion in the second film too…It’s the only way to be sure…
youtube.com/watch?v=2s1MspmfEwg
Brachiator
@celticdragonchick:
In the context of this movie it was. It was as though, a dumb, clumsy screenwriter said, how do we tie up loose ends? And this is what they came up with.
No debris, no concussion shock, just essentially a big rock falling from the sky to squish one character no one much cares about. It was like the house falling on the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz.
@MattMinus:
I wasn’t much interested in the idea of a creator, or in the idea that anyone beside the archaeologist had a burning need to find the creator. That a creator would want to destroy us is dumb. The movie failed to make these themes interesting or compelling. The first Alien was a serviceable horror movie. One of its strengths is that it didn’t have to explain anything. Prometheus fails because the supposed questions it wants to ponder are not particularly interesting, and the demise of the various characters happens just to rationalize what will happen down the road with the first Alien movie.
No. It was that what happened as a story was dumb and disconnected.
jake the snake
@Chris:
“My name is Baba Fett, you killed my father, now prepare to die”???
jake the snake
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Have you seen Sam Fuller’s “Forty Guns”. It is worth it to see Joan Crawford fondling Gene Barry’s gun and the real ending, not the tacked on coda.
Subtlety was never Fuller’s strong point. For example, the homoeroticism in “I shot Jesse James.”
Steve in DC
@celticdragonchick:
Sounds like a cool project, honestly though Forgeworld needs to come out with some more Dark Eldar and Necron stuff, those selections suck as of the moment. Hell the Tau have more, that big ass plane!
Joel
When was the last great Ridley Scott movie?
Gladiator was good, I guess.
Is it Blade Runner? I think it is. Ridley Scott has made an entire career living down the expectations created by two great movies.
katie5
@Walker: It’s snowboarders in space.
Citizen_X
@Brachiator:
Yes, but it’s a common trope in religion/mythology. As is a god that sacrifices himself for the world. This movie has both.
@Joel: I really liked American Gangster. YMMV.
katie5
@Ash: @electricgrendel: Something about this film also provoked enormous anger in me. It wasn’t just that the science was terrible at the same time the movie cloaked itself in a mantle of science. It was the sheer disrespect of science as only the best of the science haters can show. I read in Michael Chabon’s book, Maps and Legends, that this is a hallmark of the post-apocalyptic writers like Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy. These authors, who eschew the label of science fiction authors, are avowedly anti-science as they demand spiritual answers to how we got into the (futuristic) predicament we find ourselves in.
The Red Pen
The predicaments we get in are usually the result of blinkered moral decisions aided and abetted by science and technology.
Let’s say that there are a billion more people than we can feed on the Earth. One solution would be to grow more food. Another solution would be to exterminate a billion people. Science doesn’t tell us which decision is “better” — perhaps it could suggest which one is easier (unfortunately, probably the latter). Morality — even in a purely secular context — is a spiritual exercise.
katie5
@The Red Pen: Fair point. Leaving aside the technocratic conflation of science and values (“we’re scientists! we know best!”), moral questions don’t obviate the need to consider science-related reasons how we got into the mess we’re in and the weighing of scientific solutions, palatable or decidedly immoral.
katie5
@SteveM: Loved the link, especially
Jamey
Batman is a scientist!
The Red Pen
What do you mean by “science-related reasons”? Do you really mean “knowledge-related reasons”? (e.g. “When we started the industrial revolution, we didn’t realize that we could break the climate.”
I always go back to the fact that in the first couple of decades of the 20th century, a popular plan to eliminate mosquitoes (and malaria et al) in the U.S was to drain all of the wetlands on the continent. This would have been a humongous disaster, but we didn’t know that at the time. Luckily, we failed to enact this plan before we knew better.
Perhaps you are talking about things where we did know better, but ignored the evidence anyway?
seehear
@SP:
Agreed 100%.
seehear
@electricgrendel:
Jon Spaihts is no Aaron Sorkin, either. The script was doomed from the start.
Brachiator
@Citizen_X:
RE: That a creator would want to destroy us is dumb.
But here’s the thing. I don’t find any of this remotely interesting.
I can suspend my disbelief about the stupidity of religious mumbo jumbo, the paranormal and psychics when the underlying stories are creative and interesting, as with most of The X Files. But it’s still a high hurdle that has to be overcome.
Prometheus served up “Chariots of the Gods” bullshit in a pretty wrapper, but then faltered with a nonsensical narrative with paperboard characters.
ETA: Agree that American Gangster was very good.
Rafer Janders
Oh, I disagree. I disagree strongly. A movie about Frank Lucas in 1970s Harlem? Brother, that should have had some funk. It should have had style. It should have popped with sound, with music, with Seventies style oranges and greens and browns and purples.
But instead it was a cold, cool movie about a cold, calculating man, shot almost entirely in blue and gray.
Brachiator
@Rafer Janders:
RE: American Gangster.
Exactly. A great description, by the way, that exposes Lucas for the calculating criminal that he really was.
jake the snake
@Villago Delenda Est:
Actually, Roddenberry came up with the transporter because
he didn’t have the special effects budget to do a landing for every episode.
Rafer Janders
@Brachiator:
No, I agree that that’s what he was doing, and that’s what he achieved. But I would have preferred to have seen a take on the story done by a looser, more impressionistic director. (Though you do run the risk of sentimentalizing Lucas, who was indeed a monster).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Also so much to offend everyone anytime Hollywood bumbles into the science version faith thing. All the scientists are strawmen, the script writers can’t even be bothered to read a wiki article about evolution. As for religion it’s beyond unspeakable; what is exactly is the point of asking “what if Jesus was homicidal space alien?” beyond it would be irresponsible to not to speculate. If God isn’t perfect then God isn’t worthy of worship after all,..
rlrr
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Or make a movie actually based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, many people won’t recognize it as having much to do with Blade Runner…
rlrr
@Joel:
I think Blade Runner is overrated…
rlrr
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
“what if Jesus was homicidal space alien?”
Silly, everyone knows Jesus was a troubled time traveler…
Alex SL
Haven’t seen the movie, so cannot comment on that, but as a career scientist I find it interesting to see Steve in DC pontificate on my and all(!) my colleagues’ presumed stupidity based on the attention-seeking exploits of a few guys who earn their money with TV shows.
Bill D.
Light-years are a unit of distance, not time. You can’t convert time to light years any more than you can convert seconds to miles.
And your speculations about the motives of scientists are pure ignorance.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rlrr: Silly, everyone knows Jesus was a troubled time traveler…Perhaps, but I say teach the controversy. What if the Sermon on the Mount Really was “Blessed be the Ass Kickers! Christ! SMASH! ARRRGH!!!” Discuss,…
There is an argument that Weland’s daughter is really another robot. Makes some sense.
The argument “the science doesn’t have to right because it’s a movie” is utter rubbish. One of the big problems with our country is the Idoticarcy doesn’t understand the basics on many thing and Hollywood just spews out the same lies over and over again.