# Prometheus discussion with open spoilers \[edited title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 1, 2012, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755 "2012-06-01T09:40:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/241 "2012-06-12T01:42:16Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I don’t recall anyone saying _Blade Runner_ was stupid. Since you know of “a lot of critics” that said that, could you provide links to, say, five of them? [Not 5, no. 3, yes.](http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/alien/) Not that I agree with them, and given the date the criticism was posted, I’m inclined to think they’re the “anti-trend” sort of people. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/242 "2012-06-12T01:44:34Z")
> [@misterW](#): > > A few plot holes one can overlook. It’s the sheer number of plot holes in Prometheus that is the problem. There is literally a plot hole in nearly every significant part of the movie. And yet, [the great majority of moviegoers rating the film have come away impressed](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/ratings). All except a few Comic Book Guys, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/243 "2012-06-12T01:45:59Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > And yet, [the great majority of moviegoers have come away impressed](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/ratings). All except a few Comic Book Guys, I guess. So Titanic must be the best movie ever, right? Well, that’s not fair, Titanic is way, way fucking better than Prometheus. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/244 "2012-06-12T01:49:03Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > So Titanic must be the best movie ever, right? No, it only has a 7.5 rating. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/245 "2012-06-12T01:50:56Z")
IMDB ratings tend to be higher early on, as the people who are really enthusiastic and likely to be fans of the movies see it and rate it. They’ll tend to sag after. I’m surprised it’s doing as well as it is with 40k votes though. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/246 "2012-06-12T01:51:56Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > No, it only has a 7.5 rating. But more people liked it than liked Prometheus. In any case, your devotion to your shitty movie is laudable. If you embrace mediocrity, may I suggest the films of Michael Bay and the writings of Michael Chrichton. ---
**Author:** ![misterW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@misterW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misterW)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/247 "2012-06-12T01:52:53Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > And yet, [the great majority of moviegoers rating the film have come away impressed](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/ratings). All except a few Comic Book Guys, I guess. That’s really the criteria that you want to use? ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/248 "2012-06-12T02:03:56Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > You’re right. I misread. > > I’ve already pointed out the often-noted major plot hole in _Alien_. The beast grew rapidly without any apparent food intake. > > That’s just stupid. > > (Commence fan wanking in 3…2…1…) > > (Oh, and don’t get me started on the microchanges in air pressure alien detectors.) I’d like to see you get started on Ash’s explanation of “microchanges in air density.” Maybe I’m showing my inner dork here, but two scenes later, Ripley detects movement through a door, and mutters “micro changes in air density, my ass.” It’s not a plot hole, Ash was lying to them. It’s a really masterful bit of acting by Ian Holm when he explains how the motion detector “works.” Slight tilt of the head, slight pause, slight hint of contempt that he has to explain himself. > [@Spoke](#): > > And yet, [the great majority of moviegoers rating the film have come away impressed](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/ratings). All except a few Comic Book Guys, I guess. I don’t get the point you’re trying to make by dismissing our claims as “comic book guys.” When I explained my concerns about the film, I gave it a 7 out of 10, and lamented that it was serviceable, not amazing as I expected. Your link predominantly gives it an 8. I don’t get how a 1-point difference is enough to offend you. I haven’t been demeaning your opinion, and you don’t have to demean mine. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/249 "2012-06-12T02:13:58Z")
[![](http://tinypic.com/images/goodbye.jpg) ](http://tinypic.com/images/goodbye.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/250 "2012-06-12T02:18:58Z")
I walked out of the theater yesterday moderately ok with the spectacle of it. 24 hours of time to think about it have not been kind to it. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/251 "2012-06-12T02:21:53Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > [http://i35.tinypic.com/s3lue1.jpg](http://i35.tinypic.com/s3lue1.jpg) I laughed. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/252 "2012-06-12T02:32:20Z")
Sorry if this is a duplicate as I’ve only skimmed through the thread, but this seemed to capture the tone of the writing pretty well. > **[SMS dialogue between Noomi Rapace and an Engineer](http://enchantedmitten.blogspot.com/2003/12/reading-previous-entries-in-this-series.html)** > > (This was originally linked from another post that contained a massive spoiler warning, but since it's now being passed around on social med... ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/253 "2012-06-12T02:35:17Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > **Snowboarder Bo** , both films received a lot of bad reviews when they debuted. I thought that was common knowledge, but I guess maybe you weren’t aware. > > [Alien](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_%28film%29#Release_and_reception): > [Blade Runner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner#Reception): I don’t know why you keep telling me about _Alien_; I didn’t ask about it. I don’t see “stupid” anywhere in that synopsis of reviews of _Blade Runner_. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/254 "2012-06-12T02:42:16Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Sorry if this is a duplicate as I’ve only skimmed through the thread, but this seemed to capture the tone of the writing pretty well. > > [Listen Eggroll: SMS dialogue between Noomi Rapace and an Engineer](http://enchantedmitten.blogspot.com/2003/12/reading-previous-entries-in-this-series.html) Brilliant! Totally made me Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there! And that only focuses on a couple of the major plot holes, not all of them! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/255 "2012-06-12T05:59:19Z")
I always go to see sci-fi movies that a sufficient number of Dopers are excited about, so I saw _Prometheus_ tonight. Yeah, gotta agree with the general feeling of irritation here. It was less the big-unresolved-mysteries in the plot and more the accumulation-of-implausible-little-things that I found frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying. And no, I’m not a “Comic Book Guy” sci-fi obsessive who passionately nitpicks unimportant details: I had no problem enjoying _John Carter of Mars_ and _Avengers_ and _Men in Black 3_ on recent Doper recommendations, but the “wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense” moments in _Prometheus_ were too much for me. Just a few that I don’t think have been mentioned in detail so far: - About those pictograms: No, dooface, it isn’t plausible for the ancient cultures you mention as having examples of the pictograms to include “Sumerian”, “Babylonian”, **and** “Mesopotamian”. Mesopotamia is a **region** whose history **includes** the specific **cultures** or **culture clusters** of Sumerians and Babylonians. You can speak of “Mesopotamians” **or** “Sumerians and Babylonians”, but not all three as though they were three distinct peoples. Just like you can’t sensibly speak of “Norwegians, Swedes and Scandinavians”. - Also, when were those pictograms supposedly created? The Skye one that the archaeologists discovered was stated to be 35000 years old, and hence derived from a preliterate civilization. But the ancient Egyptian/Sumerian/Babylonian artifacts would be only about three to four thousand years old, and appeared to include some writing in the writing systems of the various cultures. So why not actually try **reading** what they said in order to interpret them? - A pattern of about seven dots in an ancient pictogram provided sufficiently accurate interstellar coordinates to find the place you’re looking for? Bull and shit. - Isn’t anybody bothering to keep track of the numbers? If the “stardate” screen shows the ship’s distance from Earth as on the order of 10^12 or one trillion kilometers, then why does Vickers later say that she’s “half a billion miles” from every man on Earth? I can’t believe that somebody actually doing interstellar space travel would make that kind of mistake. It’s literally like driving across the North American continent and then sighing that home is nearly a whole two miles away. - Why the **hell** is your harness-mounted weapon of choice a candy-ass flamethrower that merely incinerates people **slowly**? A target less resigned to his fate than Holloway would have had the time and probably the mobility to run at the shooter and engulf him/her in flames too before dying. Jeez, it’s 2094 or whenever, you’ve got FTL space travel and auto-surgery medi-pods, I expect to see some kind of shoulder-mount gun that actually **vaporizes** the critter you point it at, or at least blasts a hole in it that you could put a basketball through. - Speaking of your equipment: What’s with those helmets that were apparently tough enough to withstand full-body impacts generated by 200 kph winds but start shattering like sugar brittle when zombie-creature punches people? Sure, okay, I get that he hits hard enough to kill someone inside a suit, but I simply don’t buy it that the material of these **space helmets** shatters like windshield glass. (And knocking somebody’s helmet **off their head**? Really?) - Oh, by the way, if you’re really reconstructing a hypothesized alien-derived pan-human proto-language, studying “Indo-European” languages or even Proto-Indo-European isn’t enough. The world’s other language families like Semitic and Finno-Ugaric and Sino-Tibetan are not derived from Indo-European, so Indo-European of some sort—even Very Old Bald Alien Pre-Proto-Indo-European—can’t be the **sole** source of human language. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/256 "2012-06-12T06:40:17Z")
Having seen the movie, it succeeded in a lot of ways, and in terms of the basic litmus test of choosing to see it, I’m glad I saw it in the theater in IMAX 3D and I’d like to see it again because it was a fun experience. That said, this was a motion ride adventure. And a really good one. But it wasn’t really a good cinematic story. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, and maybe there is a background explanation that makes comprehensive sense, but it gives off the appearance of being a bunch of really cool scenes tied together very loosely by a base plot/theme. Which is fine for a motion adventure ride, and done very well in that respect. But doesn’t work dramatically as a compelling story. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/257 "2012-06-12T10:55:03Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > Why’s that? Because _Lawrence of Arabia_ is one of the greatest films… … In The World. 😃 Seriously though, it was just a nice, quirky touch that an android, wanting to learn about being human, was taking tips from a David Maclean film about someone who was, well, more than a little odd in real life - even if he did achieve great things. Let me stress I didn’t _hate_ Prometheus. But the plot flaws already mentioned (Starting from “Were these guys really the best they could do for an interstellar expedition?” and going from there) really are significant, IMHO. And not the sort of plot holes that can be overlooked as artistic licence or the sort of thing you’d expect in a generic action movie. If you’re going to try and pretend your movie is tackling Worthy Matters and Weighty Questions, you can’t expect people to overlook things like, well, pretty much everything that’s been pointed out over the previous five pages or so. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/258 "2012-06-12T12:26:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > If the “stardate” screen shows the ship’s distance from Earth as on the order of 10^12 or one trillion kilometers, then why does Vickers later say that she’s “half a billion miles” from every man on Earth? I can’t believe that somebody actually doing interstellar space travel would make that kind of mistake. It’s literally like driving across the North American continent and then sighing that home is nearly a whole two miles away. Figuratively. It’s called “hyperbole”. Vicker’s isn’t giving navigational directions. She’s complaining she a “bazillion” miles away. Here’s something that bothered me that no one has mentioned yet. They demonstrate several futuristic technologies: -Anti-gravity survey balls -Dream monitoring tech -Severed head electro stimulation technology What bothers me is when you introduce a futuristic technology in a film, I now expect that culture would have used that technology in more than one or two use cases. For example, if you have anti-gravity survey balls (and artificial gravity in the ship), I would expect you would also have anti gravity illumination devices. Maybe even larger anti-grav vehicles. All sorts of useful shit. Instead they are bopping around in dune buggies. Same thing with David reading Dr DragonTatoo’s dreams in statis. If you have that sort of brain-computer interface technology, why would you not have more practical use cases? LIke, I don’t know. Maybe some sort of brain interfacing anti-gravity drone you can send out into an alien pyramid to check shit out before you go meet a bunch of alien creatures? ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/259 "2012-06-12T12:42:17Z")
I enjoyed the movie while watching it. But I came away feeling unsatisfied. Plot holes, nitpicks, what have you, I just felt like it was incomplete. I just would have liked a little more resolution to the major plot points. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/260 "2012-06-12T13:39:07Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > I enjoyed the movie while watching it. But I came away feeling unsatisfied. Plot holes, nitpicks, what have you, I just felt like it was incomplete. I just would have liked a little more resolution to the major plot points. You bring up an interesting point about wanting more resolution to the major plot points. The central question of the film was “who made us, and why?” That question is kicked off by showing an alien seeding (probably the) Earth. It leads Shaw to the ruins where she discovers the star map. It’s what leads her (and the Prometheus) to the planet. After the entire plot of the movie, it’s what drives Shaw onward in search of more answers: who made us, and why? And I think it’s a serious cop-out that the movie never answers that, shuffling the question off to a sequel. Sure, plenty of other junk happened, and not everyone in the film had the same goals as Shaw. But Shaw is our viewpoint, our protagonist, and her questions are our questions. It’s these basic filmmaking 101 issues that bother me so much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755.md?page=14)