'Prometheus' (2012) - Ridley Scott's 'Alien' prequel.

[solidguy]

[SPOILER="space"]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Spoiler for spoiler:

Which has some pretty disturbing implications. Cause for all the hoopla about emotion being what separates us from David...the emotionless robot was the only sympathetic character in the entire movie. Every other human character who was supposed to personify emotion and faith were utterly unlikable jerks.

Emotion and faith in this movie translated into "Act like a smug asshole to anyone who doesn't agree with me". David approaches Charlie with some personal perspective about the entire affair, as an artificial being made in much the same way that the Space Jockey's created humans. Does Charlies *emotion* allow him the empathy to see how he and David is similar? No. His smugness and self of superiority makes him disdain the robot, thinking that somehow he is more special than David is.

And while many people question the meaning of life, only a religious UFO nut would think that the answers lie in Aliens. Even IF you had quantifiable proof that the aliens bio-engineered us, you are being incredibly stupid to project such sappy and soft headed notions onto them without having even met them. If a bunch of aliens made us, there's almost no chance it'd be for reasons that would answer that queezy feeling in our chests.

Ok first off I agree with every thing you stated. The film has many shortcomings, many wasted opportunities and alot of unanswered questions. Although most of them were intentional on Scott and Lindelof I highly doubt they expected such a negative reception, and to be honest this reaction baffles me. I dont know why people are taking the idea of ancient astronaut theory and basing the films merits off the probability of its truth. ITS A MOVIE! Prometheus is a fictional story used to represent ideas people may identify with or read themes not intended on the part of production. A quote from V for Vendetta comes to mind: " ...artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie, but because you believed it, you found something true about yourself". I for one really enjoyed the existential questions raised, albeit in fun-size amounts, so much so I forgive the film for its flaws. But im that kinda person who looks at the artsy fartsy stuff in movies so its perfectly understandable if you view it as ruined

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by james0246

Actually, I do not know that. In fact, I know nothing about the technology or the organism (decontamination procedures/devices are given almost magical abilities in film, just look at any number of movies about outbreaks/pandemics). Consequently, I, and I assume most of the audience, am more than willing to accept that Elizabeth thought the creature was dead (obviously I (we) knew it was going to come back, but I did not know this because of any scientific explanation, I simply used horror movie logic to determine that the creature would come back).

Except even a dead alien should be an exceptional concern to the rest of the crew because of fear of contamination. A crew member just came back as a super zombie because of contamination and killed 3-4 different people. And they want to leave a rotting xenomorph and placenta on the ships only autodoc?

But I guess you're right. It's not THAT spectacular of a oversight compared to every other D grade horror movie mistake that the characters made. But Ridley Scott has really fallen if all he can manage in his sci-fi movie plots nowadays is Z-Grade SyFy channel original movie plots.


I take offense to the director making a movie that's supposed to make me think, but requires me to suspend my disbelief over nearly everything the characters do.

Originally Posted by solidguy

Ok first off I agree with every thing you stated. The film has many shortcomings, many wasted opportunities and alot of unanswered questions. Although most of them were intentional on Scott and Lindelof I highly doubt they expected such a negative reception, and to be honest this reaction baffles me. I dont know why people are taking the idea of ancient astronaut theory and basing the films merits off the probability of its truth.

I have no objection to a sci-fi film running with an ancient astronaut creator plot line. It's sci-fi afterall.


My issue is that aside from Shaws delusional UFO cult beliefs, there's nothing in the film that suggests the Space Jockey's actually made us. Shaw's entire thesis for this theory is "I LIKE THE SOUND OF THAT!". Considering that Shaw/Halloway have been proven wrong in their conjecture before("IT'S AN INVITATION!"), why should I take any unsubstantiated conjecture on their part seriously?

There IS such a thing as unreliable narrator. And what does Ridley Scott want for this film? An intelligent audience that critically examines the movie he made? Or an audience of sheep that mindlessly accepts accepts everything at face value?

If he wants the later he should have just made a straight space monster movie.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

I take offense to the director making a movie that's supposed to make me think, but requires me to suspend my disbelief over nearly everything the characters do.

I completely agree. Despite my liking the acting, the characters, and the events that surround them, are constantly without context. I do not mind preserving the mystery of the Engineers for a later date (it's annoying, but whatever), but not creating characters with definition is awful, especially considering how good the acting is and the sheer potential of the story.

[Roger Rambo]

....wait a minute.

If the Space Jockey is basically human...

And the inside of the Space Jockey ship has an earth type atmosphere inside it...

...how did the Space Jockey get from the crashed Space Jockey ship to the escape shuttle Shaw was in without having a space suit?

[Renegade334]

Well, there's those helmet thingies that are probably lying around...

Spoiler:

And while we're talking about those helmets...if the first Engineer they found in the artificial structure was decapitated roughly two thousand years ago -and despite the fact that the planet probably did not foster any native bacterial flora of its own...how come the said Engineer's head did not decay? I mean, Shaw and that woman with the Scottish (or was it Irish? can't remember) accent stuck some sort of electric apparatus in the ear to stimulate the nervous system, which means that the said NS is almost perfectly intact...which, in turn, I find hard to believe, considering that even bodies stuck in airless environment still deteriorate to a certain degree (less so, with low levels of moisture). Do these guys have a completely different bodily chemistry from our own or what?

If the Engineers had a DNA highly similar to ours as stated in the movie, then, some time after death, the enzymes present in their bodies should start breaking down the surrounding proteins and lipids to produce acids and gasses (the infamous bloating effect)...and yet the head remains largely intact for the little freak show scene back in the bioanalysis room.

And the habitat is shown to have some humidity, so it didn't mummify... So what gives? My suspension of disbelief, already under duress, crashed like a wingless 747 when David removed the helmet from the Engineer's head.

Also...

Spoiler:

What's up with the Engineer at the beginning of the movie? Did he sacrifice himself for the sake of seeding Earth? That's quite some commitment there, especially if you know the odds of a new organism/ecosystem successfully/quickly rising in what could be a practically lifeless planet (I believe I saw some greenery in the landscape during the opening sequence, though).

Or...was it some sort of outlaw Engineer sentenced to be forever marooned on Earth and given a small cup of black fluid to commit suicide if he so desired?

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Spoiler for spoilers:

....wait a minute.

If the Space Jockey is basically human...

And the inside of the Space Jockey ship has an earth type atmosphere inside it...

...how did the Space Jockey get from the crashed Space Jockey ship to the escape shuttle Shaw was in without having a space suit?

Spoiler for spoilers...:

Someone said you could survive 2 minutes in the planet's atmosphere before dying. So, presumably the Engineer simply took a big gulp of air while on the ship, and then ran to the escape pod. (How he/it knew there was someone in the escape pod is a mystery.)

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Well, there's those helmet thingies that are probably lying around...

Pretty sure the Space Jockey didn't have a helmet when it came thundering into the escape shuttle.

Originally Posted by james0246

Spoiler for spoilers...:

Someone said you could survive 2 minutes in the planet's atmosphere before dying. So, presumably the Engineer simply took a big gulp of air while on the ship, and then ran to the escape pod. (How he/it knew there was someone in the escape pod is a mystery.)

Probably some external sensors or something.

Spoiler for spoiler:

But they said you could survive two minutes and not die. Not perform high speed sprinting while trying to oxygenate 800 pounds of muscles with poison air.


And THEN hoping that the ship has a self contained, breathable atmosphere in it, that hasn't been breached by the crash.

And THEN hoping that there aren't any humans inside wearing pressure suits, who could kill you by simply venting the atmosphere.

And THEN finally, hoping that you'd be able to figure out the airlock controls before you lost consciousness.


And don't say this is nitpicking. Ridley Scott Intentionally played up how similar the Space Jockey's were to us in terms of genetics, appearance, and life support requirements. Fuck. You even had your characters emphasize that to the audience by having them remove their helmets while in the Space Jockey ship over and over again. But now we conveniently forget about it in a scene where the Space Jockey's breathing is finally relevant to the action?

A good movie wouldn't have ignored a recurring Chekov's gun like that.

[Ithekro]

Space Jockey's evolved from Batman...and they can breath in space.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Space Jockey's evolved from Batman...and they can breath in space.

I wasn't aware that Batmans #1 characteristic was getting face raped by giant squid face huggers.


But if that's the explanation, shouldn't we get to SEE the Space Jockey show off how tough it is?

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Could be just a tactic to push the sales of the home video release here.

Actually, looking at this video again...I'm kinda irritated now.

I really want to do the sequel to this one...it leaves the door open to some HUGE questions...and I don't know how to do it, but by the time we get to it I probably will...

...Ridley Scott made a movie that's supposed to end to sequel bait...and he doesn't even have any idea how he would do a sequel to it?

[Ak3mi]

Prometheus was just what I wanted, had the atmosphere of Event Horizon(Nothing to do with the franchise, I know). Still felt like it has something to do with Ailens. At the end I was fustrated about the unanswered questions. Will be picking this up on blu ray for sure Sorry about the grammer I just got back from the cinema to watch this and it was late viewing its 2am *Sleepy*

[MakubeX2]

A pretty well thoughout interpretation of the movie here admist all the negative review which deserve some discussion :-

Spoiler for Long Posting:

Prometheus Unbound: What The Movie Was Actually About

This blogpost contains many and frequent spoilers for Prometheus, so if you're planning on seeing it, I recommend you don't spoil yourself.



Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot. I'd like to draw your attention to the use of motifs and callbacks in the film that not only enrich it, but offer possible hints as to what was going on in otherwise confusing scenes.

Let's begin with the eponymous titan himself, Prometheus. He was a wise and benevolent entity who created mankind in the first place, forming the first humans from clay. The Gods were more or less okay with that, until Prometheus gave them fire. This was a big no-no, as fire was supposed to be the exclusive property of the Gods. As punishment, Prometheus was chained to a rock and condemned to have his liver ripped out and eaten every day by an eagle. (His liver magically grew back, in case you were wondering.)

Fix that image in your mind, please: the giver of life, with his abdomen torn open. We'll be coming back to it many times in the course of this article.

The ethos of the titan Prometheus is one of willing and necessary sacrifice for life's sake. That's a pattern we see replicated throughout the ancient world. J G Frazer wrote his lengthy anthropological study, The Golden Bough, around the idea of the Dying God - a lifegiver who voluntarily dies for the sake of the people. It was incumbent upon the King to die at the right and proper time, because that was what heaven demanded, and fertility would not ensue if he did not do his royal duty of dying.

Now, consider the opening sequence of Prometheus. We fly over a spectacular vista, which may or may not be primordial Earth. According to Ridley Scott, it doesn't matter. A lone Engineer at the top of a waterfall goes through a strange ritual, drinking from a cup of black goo that causes his body to disintegrate into the building blocks of life. We see the fragments of his body falling into the river, twirling and spiralling into DNA helices.

Ridley Scott has this to say about the scene: 'That could be a planet anywhere. All he’s doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself. If you parallel that idea with other sacrificial elements in history – which are clearly illustrated with the Mayans and the Incas – he would live for one year as a prince, and at the end of that year, he would be taken and donated to the gods in hopes of improving what might happen next year, be it with crops or weather, etcetera.'

Can we find a God in human history who creates plant life through his own death, and who is associated with a river? It's not difficult to find several, but the most obvious candidate is Osiris, the epitome of all the Frazerian 'Dying Gods'.

And we wouldn't be amiss in seeing the first of the movie's many Christian allegories in this scene, either. The Engineer removes his cloak before the ceremony, and hesitates before drinking the cupful of genetic solvent; he may well have been thinking 'If it be Thy will, let this cup pass from me.'

So, we know something about the Engineers, a founding principle laid down in the very first scene: acceptance of death, up to and including self-sacrifice, is right and proper in the creation of life. Prometheus, Osiris, John Barleycorn, and of course the Jesus of Christianity are all supposed to embody this same principle. It is held up as one of the most enduring human concepts of what it means to be 'good'.

Seen in this light, the perplexing obscurity of the rest of the film yields to an examination of the interwoven themes of sacrifice, creation, and preservation of life. We also discover, through hints, exactly what the nature of the clash between the Engineers and humanity entailed.

The crew of the Prometheus discover an ancient chamber, presided over by a brooding solemn face, in which urns of the same black substance are kept. A mural on the wall presents an image which, if you did as I asked earlier on, you will recognise instantly: the lifegiver with his abdomen torn open. Go and look at it here to refresh your memory. Note the serenity on the Engineer's face here.

And there's another mural there, one which shows a familiar xenomorph-like figure. This is the Destroyer who mirrors the Creator, I think - the avatar of supremely selfish life, devouring and destroying others purely to preserve itself. As Ash puts it: 'a survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality.'

Through Shaw and Holloway's investigations, we learn that the Engineers not only created human life, they supervised our development. (How else are we to explain the numerous images of Engineers in primitive art, complete with star diagram showing us the way to find them?) We have to assume, then, that for a good few hundred thousand years, they were pretty happy with us. They could have destroyed us at any time, but instead, they effectively invited us over; the big pointy finger seems to be saying 'Hey, guys, when you're grown up enough to develop space travel, come see us.' Until something changed, something which not only messed up our relationship with them but caused their installation on LV-223 to be almost entirely wiped out.

From the Engineers' perspective, so long as humans retained that notion of self-sacrifice as central, we weren't entirely beyond redemption. But we went and screwed it all up, and the film hints at when, if not why: the Engineers at the base died two thousand years ago. That suggests that the event that turned them against us and led to the huge piles of dead Engineers lying about was one and the same event. We did something very, very bad, and somehow the consequences of that dreadful act accompanied the Engineers back to LV-223 and massacred them.

If you have uneasy suspicions about what 'a bad thing approximately 2,000 years ago' might be, then let me reassure you that you are right. An astonishing excerpt from the Movies.com interview with Ridley Scott:

Movies.com: We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered?

Ridley Scott: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, "Let's send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it." Guess what? They crucified him.

Yeah. The reason the Engineers don't like us any more is that they made us a Space Jesus, and we broke him. Reader, that's not me pulling wild ideas out of my arse. That's RIDLEY SCOTT.

So, imagine poor crucified Jesus, a fresh spear wound in his side. Oh, hey, there's the 'lifegiver with his abdomen torn open' motif again. That's three times now: Prometheus, Engineer mural, Jesus Christ. And I don't think I have to mention the 'sacrifice in the interest of giving life' bit again, do I? Everyone on the same page? Good.

So how did our (in the context of the film) terrible murderous act of crucifixion end up wiping out all but one of the Engineers back on LV-223? Presumably through the black slime, which evidently models its behaviour on the user's mental state. Create unselfishly, accepting self-destruction as the cost, and the black stuff engenders fertile life. But expose the potent black slimy stuff to the thoughts and emotions of flawed humanity, and 'the sleep of reason produces monsters'. We never see the threat that the Engineers were fleeing from, we never see them killed other than accidentally (decapitation by door), and we see no remaining trace of whatever killed them. Either it left a long time ago, or it reverted to inert black slime, waiting for a human mind to reactivate it.

The black slime reacts to the nature and intent of the being that wields it, and the humans in the film didn't even know that they WERE wielding it. That's why it remained completely inert in David's presence, and why he needed a human proxy in order to use the stuff to create anything. The black goo could read no emotion or intent from him, because he was an android.

Shaw's comment when the urn chamber is entered - 'we've changed the atmosphere in the room' - is deceptively informative. The psychic atmosphere has changed, because humans - tainted, Space Jesus-killing humans - are present. The slime begins to engender new life, drawing not from a self-sacrificing Engineer but from human hunger for knowledge, for more life, for more everything. Little wonder, then, that it takes serpent-like form. The symbolism of a corrupting serpent, turning men into beasts, is pretty unmistakeable.

Refusal to accept death is anathema to the Engineers. Right from the first scene, we learned their code of willing self-sacrifice in accord with a greater purpose. When the severed Engineer head is temporarily brought back to life, its expression registers horror and disgust. Cinemagoers are confused when the head explodes, because it's not clear why it should have done so. Perhaps the Engineer wanted to die again, to undo the tainted human agenda of new life without sacrifice.

But some humans do act in ways the Engineers might have grudgingly admired. Take Holloway, Shaw's lover, who impregnates her barren womb with his black slime riddled semen before realising he is being transformed into something Other. Unlike the hapless geologist and botanist left behind in the chamber, who only want to stay alive, Holloway willingly embraces death. He all but invites Meredith Vickers to kill him, and it's surely significant that she does so using fire, the other gift Prometheus gave to man besides his life.

The 'Caesarean' scene is central to the film's themes of creation, sacrifice, and giving life. Shaw has discovered she's pregnant with something non-human and sets the autodoc to slice it out of her. She lies there screaming, a gaping wound in her stomach, while her tentacled alien child thrashes and squeals in the clamp above her and OH HEY IT'S THE LIFEGIVER WITH HER ABDOMEN TORN OPEN. How many times has that image come up now? Four, I make it. (We're not done yet.)

And she doesn't kill it. And she calls the procedure a 'caesarean' instead of an 'abortion'.

(I'm not even going to begin to explore the pro-choice versus forced birth implications of that scene. I don't think they're clear, and I'm not entirely comfortable doing so. Let's just say that her unwanted offspring turning out to be her salvation is possibly problematic from a feminist standpoint and leave it there for now.)

Here's where the Christian allegories really come through. The day of this strange birth just happens to be Christmas Day. And this is a 'virgin birth' of sorts, although a dark and twisted one, because Shaw couldn't possibly be pregnant. And Shaw's the crucifix-wearing Christian of the crew. We may well ask, echoing Yeats: what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards LV-223 to be born?

Consider the scene where David tells Shaw that she's pregnant, and tell me that's not a riff on the Annunciation. The calm, graciously angelic android delivering the news, the pious mother who insists she can't possibly be pregnant, the wry declaration that it's no ordinary child... yeah, we've seen this before.

'And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.'

A barren woman called Elizabeth, made pregnant by 'God'? Subtle, Ridley.

Anyway. If it weren't already clear enough that the central theme of the film is 'I suffer and die so that others may live' versus 'you suffer and die so that I may live' writ extremely large, Meredith Vickers helpfully spells it out:

'A king has his reign, and then he dies. It's inevitable.'

Vickers is not just speaking out of personal frustration here, though that's obviously one level of it. She wants her father out of the way, so she can finally come in to her inheritance. It's insult enough that Weyland describes the android David as 'the closest thing I have to a son', as if only a male heir was of any worth; his obstinate refusal to accept death is a slap in her face.

Weyland, preserved by his wealth and the technology it can buy, has lived far, far longer than his rightful time. A ghoulish, wizened creature who looks neither old nor young, he reminds me of Slough Feg, the decaying tyrant from the Slaine series in British comic 2000AD. In Slaine, an ancient (and by now familiar to you, dear reader, or so I would hope) Celtic law decrees that the King has to be ritually and willingly sacrificed at the end of his appointed time, for the good of the land and the people. Slough Feg refused to die, and became a rotting horror, the embodiment of evil.

The image of the sorcerer who refuses to accept rightful death is fundamental: it even forms a part of some occult philosophy. In Crowley's system, the magician who refuses to accept the bitter cup of Babalon and undergo dissolution of his individual ego in the Great Sea (remember that opening scene?) becomes an ossified, corrupted entity called a 'Black Brother' who can create no new life, and lives on as a sterile, emasculated husk.

With all this in mind, we can better understand the climactic scene in which the withered Weyland confronts the last surviving Engineer. See it from the Engineer's perspective. Two thousand years ago, humanity not only murdered the Engineers' emissary, it infected the Engineers' life-creating fluid with its own tainted selfish nature, creating monsters. And now, after so long, here humanity is, presumptuously accepting a long-overdue invitation, and even reawakening (and corrupting all over again) the life fluid.

And who has humanity chosen to represent them? A self-centred, self-satisfied narcissist who revels in his own artificially extended life, who speaks through the medium of a merely mechanical offspring. Humanity couldn't have chosen a worse ambassador.

It's hardly surprising that the Engineer reacts with contempt and disgust, ripping David's head off and battering Weyland to death with it. The subtext is bitter and ironic: you caused us to die at the hands of our own creation, so I am going to kill you with YOUR own creation, albeit in a crude and bludgeoning way.

The only way to save humanity is through self-sacrifice, and this is exactly what the captain (and his two oddly complacent co-pilots) opt to do. They crash the Prometheus into the Engineer's ship, giving up their lives in order to save others. Their willing self-sacrifice stands alongside Holloway's and the Engineer's from the opening sequence; by now, the film has racked up no less than five self-sacrificing gestures (six if we consider the exploding Engineer head).

Meredith Vickers, of course, has no interest in self-sacrifice. Like her father, she wants to keep herself alive, and so she ejects and lands on the planet's surface. With the surviving cast now down to Vickers and Shaw, we witness Vickers's rather silly death as the Engineer ship rolls over and crushes her, due to a sudden inability on her part to run sideways. Perhaps that's the point; perhaps the film is saying her view is blinkered, and ultimately that kills her. But I doubt it. Sometimes a daft death is just a daft death.

Finally, in the squidgy ending scenes of the film, the wrathful Engineer conveniently meets its death at the tentacles of Shaw's alien child, now somehow grown huge. But it's not just a death; there's obscene life being created here, too. The (in the Engineers' eyes) horrific human impulse to sacrifice others in order to survive has taken on flesh. The Engineer's body bursts open - blah blah lifegiver blah blah abdomen ripped apart hey we're up to five now - and the proto-Alien that emerges is the very image of the creature from the mural.

On the face of it, it seems absurd to suggest that the genesis of the Alien xenomorph ultimately lies in the grotesque human act of crucifying the Space Jockeys' emissary to Israel in four B.C., but that's what Ridley Scott proposes. It seems equally insane to propose that Prometheus is fundamentally about the clash between acceptance of death as a condition of creating/sustaining life versus clinging on to life at the expense of others, but the repeated, insistent use of motifs and themes bears this out.

As a closing point, let me draw your attention to a very different strand of symbolism that runs through Prometheus: the British science fiction show Doctor Who. In the 1970s episode 'The Daemons', an ancient mound is opened up, leading to an encounter with a gigantic being who proves to be an alien responsible for having guided mankind's development, and who now views mankind as a failed experiment that must be destroyed. The Engineers are seen tootling on flutes, in exactly the same way that the second Doctor does. The Third Doctor had an companion whose name was Liz Shaw, the same name as the protagonist of Prometheus. As with anything else in the film, it could all be coincidental; but knowing Ridley Scott, it doesn't seem very likely.

QUICK EDIT: Just noting down some of the other Christian symbolism I missed, with thanks to those who pointed them out: David washes Weyland's feet, and I'm told that when Janek and his co-pilots sacrifice their lives to save the Earth, they apparently stand in the form of crucifixes, their arms held out. ('Hands up'?) So you have three 'crucified' guys, one in the middle higher up, the other two on the sides, lower down. All a bit Calvary. However, I don't remember that bit very clearly myself, so I'll have to go see it again.

Source

[james0246]

^All of that is great (I'm sure we've all done similar for a film we've liked that others have not (I did something similar for the film Sucker Punch, amongst other titles that are generally disliked)), but hidden depths (as I and others have alluded to) does not excuse bad characterization, bad editing, bad score, bad pacing, general story incompetence, and bad directing. It's plain and simple, Scott failed at communicating his ideas via the medium he wished to express himself (high ideals and the like does not excuse bad film making. )

[MakubeX2]

Let be forgiving here and take it that somewhere, somehow, Scott had forgotten how to balance out what the Studio demands and what he had envisioned. Perhaps he is under pressure to meet the Summer Blockbuster deadline.

[Roger Rambo]

That's heavy enough on the conjecture that I'm not going to take it entirely on face value. Or maybe I'm just not that philosophical/high minded of a person.

Mind, it's not like I didn't pick up some of these elements either. Such as

Spoiler for spoiler:

The Space Jockey's not being a race that values life in the same way that modern human society does, makes Weyland thinking he can just ask them to make him immortal come off as very stupid. You have no idea if this is a culture that considers eternal life worthwhile for themselves, much less for other beings.

And the "Humans killing Space Jockey Jesus inadvertently caused the Black Goo to kill all the Space Jockeys on LV262 two thousand years ago...comes off a bit conjectural. And if this is really the case, I'm not sure it's an interesting enough of a background to warrant having to do this elusive"put the clues together yourself" game. It also seems to be overthinking it a bit to assume that the Space Jockey's only died because of something humans did, when the one Space Jockey we see, upon reflection, is engaging in just as stupid and risky behavior as all the humans have. If I hear about any dying off Camera, I'm probably doing to assume that it happened because they were idiots too.

I'm a bit irritated by a certain comparison he used.

"Unlike the hapless geologist and botanist left behind in the chamber, who only want to stay alive, Holloway willingly embraces death."

...are we to infer that there is something WRONG with not wanting to randomly die in some random location from random things? Is the writer suggesting it would have been morally superior for those two to have intentionally gotten themselves killed?


Finally, if the C-sec scene really is the cornerstone of this movies themes....then it's just an example of how the movie is flawed. Because it's not a defining cornerstone of the films plot narrative. In the way the movie is plotted, it's just a Gorey shock scene, that's immediately discarded and ignored by the films plot until the end of the film. Shouldn't such a incredibly dramatic scene, with such close ties to the films theme, tie in more closely to the overall plot/narrative of the movie?

And as our friendly moderator James said. The fact that Ridley Scott peppered random symbolism throughout the movie doesn't really make it a better movie. And Scott having the studios making crazy demands of him is only an explanation as to why the movie is flawed. It's not an excuse. The movie is still as flawed regardless of what caused it.


For me, the biggest failure of the movie is its failure to present the characters questions as ones the audience should care about. This starts from the start when Shaw and Halloway's general attitude/demeanor and particular kind of enthusiasm makes them come off like arrogant UFO cultists of questionable credibility. The rather incredible thesis of "we were created by aliens!" is just casually dropped on the viewer the way it's dropped on the crew. And there is no profound or compelling explanation given by Shaw or Halloway that this is the truth. We are merely told to accept it as the unquestionable truth, and to acknowledge the significance of the question of "Why the Space Jockeys did this?" unconditionally.

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

That's heavy enough on the conjecture that I'm not going to take it entirely on face value. Or maybe I'm just not that philosophical/high minded of a person.

I'm not going to argue with you about the analysis. The source of the original entry is there and you are free to take up arguments with the original blogger.

And as our friendly moderator James said. The fact that Ridley Scott peppered random symbolism throughout the movie doesn't really make it a better movie. And Scott having the studios making crazy demands of him is only an explanation as to why the movie is flawed. It's not an excuse. The movie is still as flawed regardless of what caused it.

That much I agree. Scott could have made a mindless action/horror blockbuster like the original Alien but he choose to implant subtle religious philosophical message in there. Everything becomes a mess that flew over the audience head.

However if one can let go of the hate and read into the implanted theme, perhaps they can see the movie in a new light and decide whether the movie deserves the criticism.

Here's one more trivial discovered :-

LV-233

LV= Leviticus
22= Chapter 22
3= Versicle 3

"Say to them: 'For the generations to come, if any of your descendants is ceremonially unclean and yet comes near the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the LORD, that person must be cut off from my presence. I am the LORD."

I'm not a religious person here, but I find this entry from the bible fits with the theme of the movie

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

That much I agree. Scott could have made a mindless action/horror blockbuster like the original Alien but he choose to implant subtle religious philosophical message in there. Everything becomes a mess that flew over the audience head.

I REALLY must protest the assertion that alien was a mindless action/horror blockbuster.

Alien was a pretty damn intelligent and well thought out movie.

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

I REALLY must protest the assertion that alien was a mindless action/horror blockbuster.

Alien was a pretty damn intelligent and well thought out movie.

It's one of those good rare old classics made during simpler times that could cut both way.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

It's one of those good rare old classics made during simpler times that could cut both way.

So...Alien WASN'T a mindless action/horror at all, was it?


Though the "all exciting sci-fi movies today are stupid" sounds like a pretty weak argument, considering contemporary high quality action sci-fi includes movies like District 9.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/DyLUwOcR5pk

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Now I'm not arguing District 9 is as good a movie as Alien. But it's a head and a shoulder above Prometheus.

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

So...Alien WASN'T a mindless action/horror at all, was it?

"The 1979 Alien is a much more cerebral movie than its sequels, with the characters (and the audience) genuinely engaged in curiosity about this weirdest of lifeforms...Unfortunately, the films it influenced studied its thrills but not its thinking. – Roger Ebert"

Thus to the casual audience, it's a mindless horror action film. With Prometheus, Scott should have done away with his agenda and look back at what made Alien great.

[james0246]

LV-233
LV= Leviticus
22= Chapter 22
3= Versicle 3

"Say to them: 'For the generations to come, if any of your descendants is ceremonially unclean and yet comes near the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the LORD, that person must be cut off from my presence. I am the LORD."

That's pretty cool (admittedly, this evidence is only useful if the initial analysis is on point). Does anyone know if LV-426 (the name for the planetoid from Alien/Aliens) means anything?