# 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:** 24
**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 15, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/461 "2012-06-15T15:48:17Z")
The more liberal churches allow exceptions in the case of rape, incest, and giant fast growing alien squid. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/462 "2012-06-15T15:59:23Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Sorry. I’d love to buy this – there’s nowhere near enough good SF out there – but I just don’t. I never said you had to accept my opinion. Though can you do the same (ie, I don’t have to accept yours). ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/463 "2012-06-15T16:01:58Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I just realised that Shaw was the one struggling with her religion, correct? > > Is it Christian based? > > And she had to perform an abortion on herself. > > Deliberate irony by the writers? I saw it that way. Though she did call it a ceasarian. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/464 "2012-06-15T16:12:10Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > The more liberal churches allow exceptions in the case of rape, incest, and giant fast growing alien squid. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/465 "2012-06-15T16:24:50Z")
> [@holmes](#): > > However they wanted to ‘explore’ childbirth, infertility or virgin births or some such nonsense and wrote themselves into corner, so it had to be Shaw. "Cause like, her lady-bits didn’t work and now they do, only \*\*irony \*\*it’s a squidbaby. Oh lordy…what is she going to decide? Keep it? Well she’s going need to build an addition on the house, cause you know how fast they grow…big too. Oh no, she’s chosen to remove it, her only chance to be a mother… Hilarious. The whole infertility angle was so ham-fisted and unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/466 "2012-06-15T17:44:22Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > We’ve established that we have on-board imaging technology which allows us to peer inside a patient in real time. > > We’ve established that the facehugger that latched onto Kane was feeding him oxygen and keeping him alive, presumably to _some_ end. > > Yet when the facehugger falls off it doesn’t occur to anyone to take a quick look-see inside Kane to make sure it didn’t leave anything behind? Or at the very least to make sure that it didn’t do any damage, and that Kane doesn’t, for example, have internal bleeding? > > (Gee, **iamthewalrus(:3=**, would that be a [plot hole](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_hole)? 😉 ) I appreciate your responding with substantive criticism. I agree that this is potentially major enough to qualify as a plot hole, since the plot is about the alien organism and it could have been detected by technology we’ve already seen used. I think that it’s adequately explained by the fact that Ash is the guy who would have done the scanning, and he’s not on the level with the crew. Yeah, we don’t see it on the screen, but I don’t know how you _could_ show that without prematurely giving away the fact that Ash is a bad guy or that there’s an alien inside Kane. I guess you could have Ash explicitly say that he scanned Kane and he seems fine. I’d have to watch it again to see exactly what Ash says, but I believe he does actually make some positive statement about Kane being in fine health. > [@](#): > > And then there’s the whole Scooby-Doo-esque “Let’s split up and look for the monster” approach to finding the alien. Jinkies, that’s stupid! I half expected a long hallway shot with doors lining both sides of the corridor and the characters chasing each other back and forth to the strains of “Yakkety Sax.” You’re misremembering it. They first go searching for the alien in two groups of three. They’ve got little nets and they’re looking in small compartments. Remember, they think it’s tiny at this point. One group finds the cat, and a guy goes off to get it, and gets taken. They then regroup, get flamethrowers, and Dallas tries to seal it off in the ventilation shaft, but is grabbed. He’s alone there because it’s too small for a group to move around in the shafts. They’d just get in the way. Then Ash goes crazy and the remaining 3 subdue him. Then they decide to blow the ship, but the other two are killed (even though they have flamethrowers and are together, they’re frightened and don’t have a clean shot). At no point is there a cliched horror-movie “let’s split up” for no good reason. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/467 "2012-06-15T18:21:13Z")
Here’s a deleted scene which addresses the issue of Kane’s infection. We can see that the writers did consider it, but I guess they made an artistic/editing decision to remove it. I don’t believe it’s removal makes a plothole, for reasons that you note. [Kane](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw2BhcXn9ac) ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/468 "2012-06-15T18:26:59Z")
**holmes** , thank you for your thoughtful input. As to the merits of _Prometheus_, we shall have to agree to disagree, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/469 "2012-06-15T18:28:31Z")
To summarize, then: Elderly billionaire industrialist Weyland, despite being seriously ill and near death, accompanies his hand-picked team of specialists on a lengthy voyage to a desolate, lifeless location where they discover an ancient pyramid built by aliens who visited Earth in the distant past. The explorers soon get out of their depth, ancient mechanisms are reactivated, and team members begin to die horribly, until only one young woman remains, only surviving through an unlikely and uneasy partnership with an inhuman ally. The ending, of course, is pure sequel bait. As I understand it, though, Ridley Scott has never seen fellow Tyneside director Paul W. S. Anderson’s 2004 movie _Alien vs Predator_, so the resemblances must be pure coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![JMH125](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee59a6/32.png) [@JMH125](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JMH125)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/470 "2012-06-15T19:11:07Z")
> [@holmes](#): > > Will it become a classic, maybe; but I think that more an indicment of what passes for classic film-making these days. A) I think that was an excellent, well-thought out post. B) i don’t think it will be a classic like Alien 1 or 2. ---
**Author:** ![srm13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f05b48/32.png) [@srm13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srm13)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/471 "2012-06-15T19:58:03Z")
Just saying, I would totally watch an entire movie featuring robot Fassbender’s head… It was amazing to watch him show more emotion as an emotionless robot than the rest of cast combined. Easily the most captivating character. And was it ever explained why they needed a gender-specific surgery machine on board? Because when Shaw found out it was for males only, I totally disengaged from the movie for a few minutes to shake my head profusely. ---
**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 15, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/472 "2012-06-15T20:25:10Z")
> [@srm13](#): > > Just saying, I would totally watch an entire movie featuring robot Fassbender’s head… > > It was amazing to watch him show more emotion as an emotionless robot than the rest of cast combined. Easily the most captivating character. > > And was it ever explained why they needed a gender-specific surgery machine on board? Because when Shaw found out it was for males only, I totally disengaged from the movie for a few minutes to shake my head profusely. I would assume it was for Weyland. I can believe that a machine might be more or less optimized for sex. Certainly it might not be cleared to deliver a baby, which is what she asked for initially. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/473 "2012-06-15T20:48:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > SNORT! > > No, I’m a big science fiction (and movies in general) fan from way back, but I can’t see **Prometheus** as a gem, not by any stretch of the imagination, except perhaps for its visual imagery. It’s not that I can provide a list of objections. One can, as you note, come up with lists of objections for any movie, or any work of artm, for that matter. But **Prometheus** is a work lacking in coherence and filled with non-sequiturs. Characters do things for no discernible reason, do profoundly stupid or ilogical things (most glaringly in areas where we’re givemn to believe that they are knowledgable or skilled), display knowledge of things they have no reason to have knowledge of, violate the laws of common sense, and ndulge in much mock-profundity. When you dig into the actions and the background things msake even less and don’t corroborate each other. Oh, geez, an SF movies violates logic on occasion. Alert the media! ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/474 "2012-06-15T20:57:13Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Oh, geez, an SF movies violates logic on occasion. Alert the media! Many movies violate logic on occasion. This isn’t special to SF movies. But as long as they’re generally internally consistent and have good characterization and a well-constructed plot and the other elements of a good film, it’s okay, you can forgive some logical leaps and errors here and there. Some people feel that there were simply too many of those in Prometheus, and therefore it didn’t work for them as a good film. You are clearly not one of those people. That’s OK, man. Not everybody has to like the same things. Personally, after having thought about it for a few days, I think I’d assign it maybe 6 stars out of 10. Maybe as high as 7. The acting was first-rate, the set design and the visuals were stunning, and the basic story was pretty good. The script was just not good, though. Flawed characterization, leaps of logic, inconsistencies, etc. It’s too bad, too, because this project had massive potential. (Why in the hell did they hire Damon freaking Lindelof as the screenwriter?!) ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/475 "2012-06-15T21:20:44Z")
[This story seems oddly relevant](http://www.science20.com/squid_day/squid_your_plate_could_inseminate_your_mouth-91085) to a discussion of Prometheus. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/476 "2012-06-15T22:42:33Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > [This story seems oddly relevant](http://www.science20.com/squid_day/squid_your_plate_could_inseminate_your_mouth-91085) to a discussion of Prometheus. And the Oldboy thread. But seriously, ick. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/477 "2012-06-15T22:53:49Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > And the Oldboy thread. > > But seriously, ick. +1 ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/478 "2012-06-15T22:58:01Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > The point is that you can nitpick any SF movie, CBGs _did_ nitpick these earlier movies to death (see the Carpenter quote), and these movies are now regarded as classics of the genre. In fact, Prometheus has had a better public and critical reception than any of them. I’ve read a number of reviews of _Prometheus_, and even the positive ones seem to have the same criticisms people are posting here: the plot is full of holes, and the characters behave in ways that don’t make sense. For example, [The New York Times’s AO Scott](http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/movies/prometheus-by-ridley-scott-with-noomi-rapace.html) wrote: > [@](#): > > But the virtuosity on display makes the weakness of the story — the screenplay is by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof — all the more frustrating. I’ll avoid spoilers here, but “Prometheus” kind of spoils itself with twists and reversals that pull the movie away from its lofty, mind-blowing potential. Geeks and dreamers will hold onto scraps of splendor and wish for more. There are no revelations, only what are called, in the cynical jargon of commercial storytelling, “reveals,” bits of momentarily surprising information bereft of meaning or resonance. For example: A sequel is coming. [The AV Club’s Tasha Robinson](http://www.avclub.com/articles/prometheus,79946/): > [@](#): > > The human element proves problematic, though, as the characters’ decisions are often foolish, even comically unbelievable. People in extreme situations often make poor choices, but Prometheus’ characters are routinely fundamentally incompetent in ways difficult to reconcile with their qualifications. Their disregard for common sense and their own safety tends to be distancing and frustrating, and lead to the feeling that they deserve what they get, much like the one-dimensional characters in slasher films who exist only to exhibit annoying behaviors, then get killed for viewers’ amusement. Also frustrating: the film’s tendency to introduce intriguing ideas, then leave them unexplained, unexplored, or unresolved. Some of that is deliberate and thematic—one of the story’s central ideas is that it’s unwise for mere humans to seek out gods, because they might be unimaginable or incomprehensible. But even the humanity-based concepts, like the monitor that lets Fassbender watch Rapace’s dreams as she sleeps, or the conflict between Rapace’s beliefs and Marshall-Green’s, are introduced, then dropped in a way that’s strikingly at odds with the film’s otherwise careful, thoughtful sense of craft. Again, these are from largely favorable reviews. It looks to me like most people who loved this movie see the same strengths and weaknesses as people who were less enthusiastic: good visuals, some good acting (particularly by Fassbender), but a weak script. Whether this is enough to outweigh the things about the movie that were done well is a matter of opinion, but this movie has flaws that aren’t merely “nits”. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/479 "2012-06-15T23:08:39Z")
Re the Guy Pearce makeup: [This article](http://io9.com/5917639/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-design-of-prometheus?tag=prometheus) gives an explanation. > [@io9](#): > > Oh, and as for why Weyland is played by Guy Pearce in old-man makeup, Spaihts says Damon Lindelof’s script showed the android David going inside Weyland’s dreams while he was in hypersleep — and in his dreams, Weyland is a young man, on a yacht surrounded by beautiful women. These dream conversations got cut, but Pearce’s casting was already locked in. Scott had originally wanted to cast Max von Sydow as Peter Weyland. (In Spaiht’s script versions, Weyland isn’t aboard the Prometheus at all — instead, there’s a hidden squad of company soldiers.) ---
**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 16, 2012, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755/480 "2012-06-16T00:23:36Z")
Well, whatever the hidden goon squad was, it would’ve made more sense than surprise non-dead Weyland. I suspect Spaihts’ script was better before Lindelof became involved. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755.md?page=23) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-with-open-spoilers-edited-title/623755.md?page=25)