Apparently. We see David talking to him about half way through the film, using the same glowing helmet he used to read Shaw’s dreams.
Yup. And at one point after a chat, Vickers corners David and demands to know what “he” said, and David finally spits out something like “work faster” or “try something else” (I forget the exact phrasing).
Between that, and David asking Holloway what he’d do to find answers here, and Holloway says he’d do anything, the decision was made - David hands over the glass of champagne, and right as he does so, he deliberately dips in his index finger with the “black goo” drop on it.
And I’m just re-iterating: I did like the film. I’d give it three stars. But a good bit of the way through the film, I realized that the vast majority of the humans absolutely deserved to die. So many of them made fundamental errors under even non-stress situations that are directly related to their jobs, that they looked like an utterly colossal bunch of fuckups.
Since it references the 1982 movie Blade Runner, that is obviously NOT from Ebert’s original review. (In fact, without telling your readers, you are taking a quote from a 2003 article and trying to pass it off as though it reflected Ebert’s original view of the movies.)
Ebert has tried very hard to go back and re-write history after realizing he missed the boat on Blade Runner and Alien (and also John Carpenter’s The Thing), but his original views are still out there floating around:
You should really take a look at the collector’s edition of Blade Runner. There’s lots of interesting stuff in there about how the movie bombed both critically and at the box office.
Nah. That would only lead to you nitpicking my fanwanks, and then 20 pages of back and forth. Pass.
My general view is that movie earn fanwanking. They have something that makes you want to gloss over the flaws.
I have no problem with this, many great movies have great flaws.
Whatever that ineffable quality is, though, is lacking in Prometheus. At least for me. Instead of making me want to gloss over the flaws, it makes me want to use the flaws to beat it about the shoulders.
(Though maybe part of it lies in the difference between “this movie has flaws” and “every scene in this movie is a chance to highlight a new flaw.”)
But that quality of entertaining enough to ignore issues is so subjective I don’t hold it against anybody who disagrees.
No, I never said it was his original review. I never tried to “pass off” anything as anything. In fact, the date of the review is right there on the page that you get if you follow the link I provided in my post.
And what you’ve done is posted a summary, written by someone else, with quotes taken out of context. In fact, the one quote you used in a previous post and because you used it out of context, you gave Gerald II the false impression that Mr. Ebert didn’t like Alien.
AND you aren’t even linking to a review of Alien, as you imply.
Those quotes come from an old episode of Sneak Previews where Siskel & Ebert weren’t reviewing movies, but rather comparing and contrasting SF films from the 1940s and '50s with more modern SF films from the late 1970s. They were examining the evolution of science fiction films.
The quotes you used, again, out of context, aren’t nearly as damning as you think they are when you hear them right from Mr. Ebert. (21:45 of the episode, as found on siskelandebert.org; sorry but you’ll have to skip there yourself as I couldn’t find a way to set the time in my link like you can with youtube videos). If you don’t want to watch the man himself, I’ve transcribed this part:
And ya know what? Alien is basically just a haunted house thriller set in a spaceship. As many have noted, it’s much more a horror movie with a sci-fi setting than a real SF story. And his disappointment wasn’t in the film itself, overall, so much as it was disappointment in the lack of a real touchy-feely humanistic element to the story (pretty much what he expressed about Blade Runner, in other words). In other words, he wasn’t disappointed in Alien because it wasn’t good at what it was, but because it wasn’t like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
But by taking that quote out of context, and using it in a summary, it gives a very different impression of what Mr. Ebert was actually saying.
This is laughable. In other threads about Blade Runner, such as this one, I’ve more than established that I know about this movie and all it’s iterations. I own every version of the film that’s ever been released, in multiple formats. I also own more versions of the soundtrack than most people even know exist.
The main reason Blade Runner didn’t do well at the box office isn’t because anyone thought it was a bad movie, but because it was up against some stiff competition during it’s initial release: John Carpenter’s The Thing, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which became the top-grossing film ever made within a year of it’s release (it’s since dropped to 35th overall, btw, when only theatrical release revenue is considered).
Again, the notion that Ebert thought either Alien or Blade Runner to be “stupid” or bad movies or not worth seeing is a fiction. The fact that he found flaws in both films doesn’t mean he found them wholly without merit.
Please drop this line of argument, as it’s really not relevant to how shitty a movie Prometheus is.
Yes. Yes you were. 
In fact, it’s probably safest to read everything I write in Jeremy Clarkson’s voice. Or Stephen Fry’s. Or Matt Berry’s. It really depends on the context. 
Maybe someone was trying to prove that Chekov’s gun doesn’t have to be loaded?
I’ll be interested to see the Director’s Cut of the film, because there’s clearly a lot missing from the theatrical release and it strikes me as highly unlikely that no-one making the film was unaware of this at the time.
I completely agree. Everyone’s disbelief has a different buoyancy, you know? For me, the stupid moments just accumulated to a point that I didn’t care anymore. I go into a SF film expecting improbable FTL, cryosleep, and conservation of mass problems with the monsters. I understand why in movies, characters don’t wear helmets and face masks when failing to do so would be idiotic in real life - because we need to see the characters’ faces in a movie. But at some point, it got to be so much I couldn’t immerse myself in the movie anymore.
Others have different tolerances. Obviously I don’t find this movie a total brain-dead loss or I wouldn’t be discussing its finer points. Even though I found it disappointing, my suggestion to others has been, “See it, but make sure you have the right expectations.” I want to see it again on DVD, with the knowledge that I’ll be seeing characters I can’t relate to, and just enjoy it despite that.
To be fair the initial alien could also have been described as Prometheus since that was its role. But no I never heard the ultimate engineer described as “a prometheus”.
I was listening to Kermode and Mayo’s BBC Radio 5 film podcast, and last week they interviewed Scott. Near the end they asked about whether the film is complete or if he’d release a director’s cut, and he waffled with a “there’s every possibility, never say never” response, then when asked if there are things he wanted to add in, he said “oh sure, getting to the next phase, definitely.” That’s a bit unclear, but it sounds like he’s thinking of a director’s cut before the sequel comes out? (In the same interview, he said he’d love to do a sequel if Prometheus does well enough to enable that to happen.)
I so wanted to like this movie. I even convinced myself that it was ‘ok’ the next day…but then I had to keep thinking about it.
Sigh…it really wasn’t a good movie in my opinion. I don’t fault the actors or the effects…I fault the writers.
As others have noted, this movie is full of plot holes…however, you must be careful because what some think as plot holes are actually not. This movie doesn’t go out of the way to explain things…and I like that in movies…and so some items appear as plot holes but are actually not.
That being said, it is a swiss cheese of plot holes.
I don’t want to put you on the spot, but can you explain some of the plot holes that aren’t plot holes?
A handy guide: Rob Sheridan
Put it this way: Prometheus is getting much better reviews than either Alien or Blade Runner (or John Carpenter’s The Thing) did when they debuted. If you contend otherwise, you are just plain wrong.
And I encourage people to watch the show you linked. Watch it and you will see just how dismissive Ebert was of Alien in 1980. (Funny that it is now on his list of Great Movies. Also funny that his original 1979 written review seems to have been purged from the internet. Hmm.)
Gloss over with what? Bitumen?!
This fim has so many plot holes and inconsistencies, and is left so open-ended, that it’s a veritable invitation for a BYO dimwitted rationale fiesta. It’s like the patently demetia -suffering Scott read “leave open to interpretation” as “make an incoherent mess”!
I’m a huge fan of films that allow the viewer to fill in the blanks; like 2001, The Thing, Sunshine, Solaris, von Trier’s stuff. But Prometheus is so beyond the pale, it’s out of sight. The film is essentially one plot hole after the other, followed by one asinine character action superpassed the the next! It really is embarrassing to watch at times. Many have reported raucous laughter throught out the film in cinemas. …and this ain’t meant to be no comedy.
I can hardly believe his producers, editors, and even retinue, let Scott (erstwhile; soon to be known as: ‘Scottnofriends’) do what he did with this film. It smacks of Lucas and the prequel trilogy; where the yesmen plebes just sat around nodding in gob agape, awe struck agreement at whatever bilge Kurts’ fluff barfed up. Moreover, the fact the film has gotten some decent reception, is the kind of disillusionment that has the potential to jade a person enough to justify the existence of the Anders Breiviks of this world! :smack:
I’m sorry. But I cannot, in good conscience, andorse people paying money to watch this film. It’s not so much about a single schlock as it is about what it means for the future of this entertainment medium, if people swallow faeces like this and say thank you. I don’t want a future where this is as good as it gets.
My personal feeling is that there is no reason, aside from the movie makers needing to find a way to impregnate Dr Shaw so that they could do the whole scene with her removing the alien from her abdomen. A cool scene by the way. Plus they perhaps wanted the audience to become suspicious of David and his motives.
You cut off **obfusciatrist’s **quote. **Obfusciatrist **isn’t saying that Prometheus is a great film that should have its flaws overlooked, but that many great films have flaws, but they are great enough that you can overlook them. This is opposed to Prometheus which is missing something to make you want to overlook its flaws.
I agree with this. There have been many films that I was in love with while watching, and didn’t notice many (or any) problems until I started thinking about it when driving home. But when I’m still thinking about the movie a few days later, I’m thinking about the many good things about the movie, not the plot holes or inconsistencies. For recent sci-fi movies, Inception and Sunshine had plot issues, but I thought they were great enough that the flaws don’t irritate me. When I think of them, the first things that pop into my mind are the beautiful visuals, the great acting performances, and the interesting plot for Inception. But when I first think of Prometheus, I think of the plot issues before all the good things.
I have no problem with people who loved the movie despite it’s flaws. But I agree with obfusciatrist that there isn’t that ineffable quality in Prometheus that makes me look past its flaws and love it more.
Has there been any explanation as to the first scene in the movie? My interpretation is that it shows how the alien’s DNA came to be on Earth and led to our own evolution? But even that seems kind of strange, given that the alien had to basically poison himself to do it. Additionally, there appears to already have been life on Earth, which would have led to our eventual evolution anyways, right? I have no other explanation for that scene though.
He’s Prometheus, who created humans out of clay. Whether he did it as part of a plan, or in defiance of his fellow BBGs, is the question.
“He said, ‘Try harder’.”
Pretty much. I can’t find the link now, but when Damon Lindelof was asked, he gave the rundown of David’s sleep-conversation with Weyland as something like this:
“So what have you found?”
“Not much, no live Engineers at least, but there’s this biologically-active black goo…”
“What does it do?”
“I don’t have that information yet.”
“What would it do to a human?”
“I don’t have that information yet. That would take experimentation.”
…at which point Weyland reminds David that his health is failing and there is a reason they are out here and dammit, David, do something already, your primary directive is to serve me and you need to try harder.
Now, another thing left ambiguous (or left out altogether) is what other directives David is operating under: is he supposed to assist the humans in general? Avoid causing them direct harm? Blend in, above all? It seems pretty clear that something of the above is going on, so he has the problem of how to do what Weyland commands while meeting the other competing objectives.
And although he has no interest in the Engineers (other than sheer curiosity, which is pretty clearly part of his programming), Holloway and Shaw are clearly obsessed with finding out the truth about their connection to humanity, and are therefore the most likely people that he can “talk round”.
He seems to have a fascination with Shaw, for whatever reason, but Holloway has been an especial dick to him. So he tracks down Holloway, and puts the question to him, in an especially devious and roundabout matter: what would you do to find out the truth? Holloway’s answer (“Anything and everything”) gives him the “permission” he needs to experiment on him, and thus do what Weyland has commanded.