Prometheus

[Lumenskir]

Apart the the fact that they go into the cockpit and confront the Engineer with those exact big questions? The big questions are most certainly kept at the front and centre of the plot. The questions should have been dropped as soon as they found their co-worker dead and begun to realise that this was now a battle for survival.

Ok, maybe it's just a difference of opinion on what they were trying to get across, but the whole confrontation lasted like, a minute, and was dealt with even quicker? And I don't really think Shaw going "Why are you going to kill all of us!" counts as a 'big question'.

I mean, once David doses Holloway they sort of sideline all of the non-Weyland concerns in place of killing zombies and escaping death. It never really slows down for any length of time to ponder.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

I just got back from the movie and I liked it a lot. Great design aesthetic, solid performances (even though the characters were pretty simple archetypes), and some really interesting questions which makes sense since writer Damon Lindelof made a living off of six seasons of questioning.

I had the same hang-up with the whole "let's take off our helmets" issue but I attributed that to being a studio thing. It's the same reason Spider-Man always loses his mask in the movies.

[Aldurin]

I really liked it, since it sort of acts as a prequel/reboot simultaneously (there is nothing I see that is conflicting with the storyline from the Alien trilogy, especially since there is a large time gap and various possibilities to lead to the wreck in Alien) , giving a stronger origin to the xenomorphs while pointing towards the new line of thought of "What about the guys that made the xenomorphs?".

My only real issues are that Scott's attempt to expand upon the personality of androids felt awkward and clumsy, and that common sense ran horrifically short (I would hope that when we get to that point in the future that potential space travelers get the basic safety stuff drilled into their brain).

[Yumil]

I didn't really like it, the only memorable performance was from Fassbender, I didnt give a hoot about the rest of the cast.

About the first scene. I don't think the engineer was a Genetic Gardner, instead I think it all stems down to what they were doing on that moon. When they go into the tomb room(the one with the vases and the mural), the Mural at the end of the room shows a Xenomorph at the center of it. I feel that they were trying to recreate them, perhaps to make themselves a perfect lifeform(a theme from Alien/s with the Xenomorph being so much more advanced evolution wise). The engineer drinks the ooze, perhaps trying to mutate himself, it backfires deconstructing himself and seeding the planet. They have no reason to try this stuff on an inhabited world as they might screw their population.

I think they had either created or seen the Xenomorphs before(they had to to put it in the mural) and they were trying to recreate or perfect them through themselves. They had no intention of engineering earth, but the life just gave them one more thing to experiment on to perfect their ooze.

[BloodyMage]

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

Ok, maybe it's just a difference of opinion on what they were trying to get across, but the whole confrontation lasted like, a minute, and was dealt with even quicker? And I don't really think Shaw going "Why are you going to kill all of us!" counts as a 'big question'.

I mean, once David doses Holloway they sort of sideline all of the non-Weyland concerns in place of killing zombies and escaping death. It never really slows down for any length of time to ponder.

Even that question though is loaded. She's really asking 'why do we die?' 'Why does a powerful creator with the capabilities to do something about our pain and suffering make us mortal and let us die?' That's a pretty big existential questions as far the questions in the film go.

And while the film never slows down completely for a massive discussion I don't the pace of the film was rather slow anyway, although I've watched 2001: A Space Odyssey so it's nothing to gripe about. But there were plenty of discussions after Holloway got poisoned. Holloway and Shaw had one about creating life before they had sex and there's the conversation between Vickers and Weyland about man being meant to die. Scott seemed to be trying to present Shaw as in the right though, so I'm not sure he was going for big discussions really. Just big questions

Originally Posted by The Sevenshot Kid

... and some really interesting questions which makes sense since writer Damon Lindelof made a living off of six seasons of questioning.

Not necessarily so.

[Lumenskir]

My only real issues are that Scott's attempt to expand upon the personality of androids felt awkward and clumsy

How so? I thought David was a really great example of a Bishop-esque Uncanny Valley android, where you can sort of guess at his motivations but can't really be sure what you're seeing is just surface or something more meaningful. Like, did he dose the drink because he was pissed off at Halloway, or was it just a cold calculation that his boss had just told him to try harder, he had a mysterious substance but no idea what its effects were, and Halloway was one of the least essential members of the ship?

Although maybe I like him so much because he was a Peter O'Toole fan.

Even that question though is loaded. She's really asking 'why do we die?' 'Why does a powerful creator with the capabilities to do something about our pain and suffering make us mortal and let us die?' That's a pretty big existential questions as far the questions in the film go.

But the sequence of events that lead or to ask the question was (1) Janek theorizes they built this place as an offworld WMD facility (2) David says they are headed to Earth (3) She wants to know why they now want to kill us. I don't think they ever treated the Engineers as being a continuing force in modern Earth activities to reason with, she just wanted an explanation for why they now wanted to crush us.

so I'm not sure he was going for big discussions really. Just big questions

Yeah, I agree with this, and it's probably why I liked it. I like when mysteries are presented, but they're also too big for the characters to sit down and actually comprehend/deal with in the presence of more facehugging concerns.

Not necessarily so.

Not necessarily that the questions were interesting, or that he made a living off of Lost?

[BloodyMage]

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

But the sequence of events that lead or to ask the question was (1) Janek theorizes they built this place as an offworld WMD facility (2) David says they are headed to Earth (3) She wants to know why they now want to kill us. I don't think they ever treated the Engineers as being a continuing force in modern Earth activities to reason with, she just wanted an explanation for why they now wanted to crush us.

Many people believe in God but not so many believe in an active God. Yet, they still ask questions such as 'Why do we die?' or 'Why are we allowed to suffer?' Obviously, the engineers are a bit more proactive about pain and suffering than most religious gods, except maybe the Gnostic gods, but these are pretty big questions which are framed within the story. They arrive at the planet of their creators, find that their well-being is low on their creators concerns and question their role in the universe. When Shaw meets the Engineer her questions are drawn from the more imminent concern of their biological weaponry but the thematically the question serves the same purpose.

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

Not necessarily that the questions were interesting, or that he made a living off of Lost?

That the inclusion of questions is Lindelof's doing. The article suggests it was more of a joint decision between Lindelof and Scott to present large questions within the film and maybe only answer smaller questions or only answer them in part. In fact, the article suggests Lindelof warned Scott about the danger of withholding from the viewer, something he probably learned from his experience on Lost.

[RickZarber]

Has everyone read this (spoilerific) blog post that's been going around? It digs into the symbolic undertones of the story and goes a long way to surmising some of the meaning behind the film. (Seriously, go read it if you haven't.)

I do have some major issues with some of it though:

1) I'm not satisfied with the idea of the black slime reacting psychically to the wielder's intent. Maybe it would be easier to simply say it affects different creatures in different ways? ie, For the Engineers, they break down into basic life-structures, but it's not meant to react with other things? But that still doesn't explain why it had different effects on different humans, of course, nor whether it was in fact ever meant as a weapon.

2) Space Jesus is just so stupid. Even if that is more or less straight from Ridley himself. Just, ugh.

3) I don't like the explanation of the xenomorph mural. It seems odd to me that we get a xenomorph at the end of the film through what seems like genetic chance. (black slime + human copulation = squid monster + Engineer = xenomorph) There has to be more to it than coincidence.

4) This isn't based on the blog post, but I'm still not sure what the point of setting this on another planet was. Why go through all the trouble to seemingly set up the first Alien movie (similar terrain/atmosphere/storms, same ship, space jockey) if you give away up front--for those paying attention (I wasn't)--that it's LV-223 and not LV-426?

Anyways, I enjoyed the film for what it was: a very pretty, admittedly flawed attempt at posing some Big Questions, with a good dose of genuinely creepy body horror. But hey, even if it tries and fails, at least it tries. How many other big blockbusters do that?

[Lumenskir]

It digs into the symbolic undertones of the story and goes a long way to surmising some of the meaning behind the film. (Seriously, go read it if you haven't.)

Counterpoint from a huge Lost fan: Just because someone has the time to write out all of their theories and connections doesn't mean it's in any way official. This goes both for superfans and creators, since if they couldn't find a way to incorporate it into the actual product it's just their unofficial musings.

It seems odd to me that we get a xenomorph at the end of the film through what seems like genetic chance. (black slime + human copulation = squid monster + Engineer = xenomorph)

The more I think about, xenomorphs really wouldn't be super rare if the black slime bioweapons were actually deployed. You figure that if you introduce it to a large enough water supply, some trace amounts are going to infect any civilian who drinks it. Since they don't start to show signs of infection for around a day they just go on acting normally, which for some amount of people includes some screwin', which implants the vagina monster. Infected guy dies, new 'mom' undergoes 12 hour pregnancy and gives birth to a vagina monster. From that point it's just the normal facehuggers->xenomorph scenario (assuming that since Engineers have our DNA we'd react the same).

[Magus]

Well one thing about the xenomorphs is they use the DNA of whatever they gestate in as a backbone for their own. So you're going to see wide variations amongst even the "modern" xenomorphs, let alone the various proto-xenomorphs created from the ooze, as to what exactly they look like or what constitutes their life cycle. Basically consider the xenomorphs in Alien and Aliens as just being one of many different possible xenomorphs on a myriad of planets--there could be some that are quite different (but equally deadly). The main point of the ooze would be to produce organisms that are are 1. dangerous, 2. incredibly difficult to kill, and 3. parasitical. Oh, and acid blood. I mean, maybe we can presume that the ooze is meant to work that way in some fashion, even if there are variations, rather than being total chance that it would produce a dangerous parasitical life form.