PROMETHEUS

[justdrew]

Does anybody remember that old '60's cartoon movie that the 'big giants' remind me of?

Fantastic Planet?

I think so..... i mean, they were GIANT guys in the cartoon, but, they had those 'baby-like' faces like the big guy in "Prometheus".

yeah, Fantastic Planet. The alien giants keep uncultured-humans as pets.

The people who made Fantastic Planet made another movie a bit later, called Time Masters.

[82_28]

Seatown anti-war, gnostic blog, Fantastic Planet, is what led me to RI in the early aughts. It no longer exists. We had a nexus up here back in the daze. Me, Tim, Jeremy, Garrett et al. We wuz a stoned and drinkin' team back in the day. We'd just sit on the porch, pontificate, BBQ and then later that night go to bed. Do it all the next day.

I really miss those days. . .

[82_28]

Oh, I do realize that Fantastic Planet (blog) is not the same thing. It's just I saw it and had to throw that in. Fantastic Planet was the first blogger in the region to reach out to mine and thus changed the course of my life to this day. . .

[justdrew]

Fucking sucked. Saw it tonight. Not really much to report about it. Very formulaic and keeps a haphazard effort at keeping a brand alive. That's my review. It sucks.

I believe you, but I am not so much looking for movie reviews, except for how the movie ties in to Greek Mythology, and again how that mythology ties into the origin of mankind.
Which increasingly appears to be of extra terrestrial origin- both biologically and.... perhaps with some intent?

well, I don't think the movie DOES tie into Greek mythology, there doesn't seem to be any parallels with the story of Prometheus at all. Maybe it should have been called Antimetheus.

The humanoid aliens apparently came to earth and modified a local primate by splicing in a bunch of their own DNA. in the 50k years ago range. Why? Doesn't say, presumably to create a worker-race or some sitch thing. Early humans retained some memory of them, and of the invisible to the naked eye constellation of stars they were coming from. Though it turns out the planet modern humans found in that area was not the aliens home planet, just a staging area. At some point they apparently decided they didn't much care for their creations and decided to wipe us out, by introducing a bio-weapon, the Xenomorphs (aka the Alien, from the alien's franchise). Seems like a questionable plan, since the Xenomorphs would then have a whole planet to take over. Surely a simple virus would have been more effective. Anyway, the Xenomorphs got out, killed all the aliens, except one who slept for thousands of years in a cold sleep bay. but, then what happened to the rest of the aliens? No idea, theoretically they still exist, but why they didn't investigate their staging ground/research center going silent, or finish with the earth humans is unknown, they've had a long time to work it out. Best guess is they are in some sort of civil war, and the alien faction that wanted to wipe out humans and such lost. maybe. maybe. Given the alien v Predator movies, is it "cannon" that the Predator race exists in the same universe as the alien movies now?

It's fucked up movie, and really just about exactly what I was expecting. Nothing explained, doesn't make much sense, is all about action, and zero character. Everyone is a hollow idiot. The ideas aren't particularly interesting or developed. In the end, it's a cynical money move, a cash extraction machine.

Sorry to get "inter-generational" but it really feels like the pinnacle of cynical boomer self-hatred of humanity. No more NEW stories, no continuation, no now all we get a PREQUELS. Now they tell us stories backwards. Unless you're a 55+yo multi-millionare, you can take your ideas and stories and go to hell, because sure as shit, no one today is getting the kind of leg up chances that were handed to riddly scott, george lucas, steven spielberg, etc.

It's so fucked up in many ways. Everything they do is dumb. It's about killing scientists, who exist only to serve the super rich idiot, who thinks the aliens might give him a new body. Everyone dies, except the one woman who has some "faith" - though in exactly WHAT is not spelled out.

here's a nice review that sums up some of the problems, this is well worth a read:
http://digitaldigging.net/prometheus-an-archaeological-perspective/

some choice quotes from the comments there:

This film is is a case study on how NOT to fund, plan, staff and conduct extraterrestrial expeditions.
Because the screen writer and director chose to make the expedition improperly funded, staffed, planned and conducted, there are a lot of expendable crew members that die horrible deaths, invaluable scientific data was lost, a unique first contact scenario was was irreparably wasted and a one-of-a-kind interstellar spacecraft was destroyed. What we are left with is one post-op crew member and a damaged android that shouldn’t be functioning at all.
There was a lot of unprofessionalism on the part of the crew, a lot blood, screaming, death and not much else in the way of a plot.
Plenty of special effects though. They were great.
The premise of the film, the screenplay was interesting, entertaining.
Now…if the screenwriter would have went the route of quirky, interesting, but professional crew and scientific staff, the film “Prometheus” would have been somewhat esoteric to say the least, but it would have had the potential to be a film of wondrous vision that would have had the potential of being an instant classic right up there with “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Instead we got gore, screaming, death, fire, a storm, intrigue, more death, more gore, blood, hostile aliens, bioweapons, and on and on of what Hollywood thinks we want or what Hollywood thinks we will pay for. I sure did.
So we are left with one crew member, Shaw, and David, the broken, unethical android making their way to another alien spacecraft to ask them why they want to destroy the Humans they created on Earth (Earth is a planet, earth is just plain dirt).
I expect that we will have another sequel to the prequel where we will see more of the same.

and here's a comment summing up the self-hatred for humanity I was talking about:

the film has its flaws, but i think critics making snap judgements will eat their words over time.

one of the themes of the movie is naive optimism and blind faith.

The industrial design mirrors bubbly kitschy sci fi. then everything beautiful turns to shit.
The miracle of life and creation are brutal violent disgusting events.

the nostromo were a bunch of cynical survivors these guys weren’t.

The miracle of life and creation are brutal violent disgusting events.

No. Not really.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Is the rich idiot Guy Pierce?

I remember sneaking out for beers with him back in Torquay, when he'd just started out in Neighbours.

[/pointless namedrop]

[Burnt Hill]

Actually justdrew, it seems your review does describe some correlations with the mythology, just not very nice ones.

Heres this:Blowing the Whistle, Chpt. 5: Tracking the Crack in the Universe (Loosh 101)
This is the fifth chapter in an online book, “Blowing the Whistle on Enlightenment: Confessions of a New Age Heretic,” by Bronte Baxter

What kind of God or gods would create a world predicated on killing? We don’t like to ask that, and we find every excuse to avoid looking at this question. But every time a dear one dies, or you find a nibbled bird in the yard destroyed by an idle cat, or you read about an animal that has suffered mercilessly, or another molested child, or a nation ravaged by a quake that’s buried thousands of living people, your mind goes back to that nagging question. Who would make a world like this? Was it truly a God of love?



According to much evidence, it wasn’t. The world was created by something else. Or if it was created by the loving God our hearts insist exists, then creation has been tampered with by someone else so merciless that it barely resembles the original divine vision. The biological universe is controlled by the law that to live we must take life or die. That is sinister. Something there is that makes us have to eat, that makes us age and disintegrate. This is the “something wrong with the world,” the crack in the universe. Knowledge of it works “like a splinter in the mind, driving you mad,” quoting “The Matrix.” Yet awakening to the truth of our predicament is the first step toward radical change. Only radical change can possibly right the fundamental flaw woven into physical creation.



And how well-woven it is. Not only does violence wind through the lives of all Earth life like the fibers of a time-bomb attached to a victim. It reaches out into space, where supernovas implode, collapsing millions of stars along with all living beings on all their attendant planets. Death and devouring are so pervasive most people can’t conceive of a world without them, or if they can conceive it, they label the concept preposterous. Yet quantum physics shows that matter is nothing but atoms: emptiness vibrating. Emptiness does not die and neither does the energy it oscillates. So why must bodies die that are made of up of these things?



Robert Monroe, in his book “Far Journeys,” writes of contact he had with a light being in an out-of-body experience. (Monroe is arguably the world’s foremost researcher on OBEs; he started an institute with trainee/researchers to scientifically investigate the phenomenon.) Reportedly the light being told Monroe that when humans die, their energy is released and harvested by trans-dimensional beings, who use it to extend their own life spans. The claim is that the universe is a garden created by these beings as their food source.

http://brontebaxter.wordpress.com/loosh-101-tracking-the-crack-in-the-universe/

[2012 Countdown]

Now thats a theory! Regardless, thanks for that Mr. Hill.

[smoking since 1879]

Reportedly the light being told Monroe that when humans die, their energy is released and harvested by trans-dimensional beings, who use it to extend their own life spans. The claim is that the universe is a garden created by these beings as their food source.

Well, at seven billion and counting I think they might need to do some herd management.
Seriously, who can believe that crap?

[semper occultus]

The humanoid aliens apparently came to earth and modified a local primate by splicing in a bunch of their own DNA. in the 50k years ago range. Why? Doesn't say, presumably to create a worker-race or some sitch thing.

...I interep'd that it was waaaaaaaaaaaay before that ?
I presumed the opening scene was meant to be in a far more primordial-soup era where human dna was being somehow seeded into the earth's oceans....

Early humans retained some memory of them, and of the invisible to the naked eye constellation of stars they were coming from.

...see my answer above...which creates something of a plot-hole if I'm right...the dogon / van Daniken stuff was a poor element of the film

At some point they apparently decided they didn't much care for their creations and decided to wipe us out, by introducing a bio-weapon, the Xenomorphs (aka the Alien, from the alien's franchise). Seems like a questionable plan, since the Xenomorphs would then have a whole planet to take over. Surely a simple virus would have been more effective.......

Anyway, the Xenomorphs got out, killed all the aliens, except one who slept for thousands of years in a cold sleep bay. but, then what happened to the rest of the aliens? No idea, theoretically they still exist, but why they didn't investigate their staging ground/research center going silent, or finish with the earth humans is unknown, they've had a long time to work it out. Best guess is they are in some sort of civil war, and the alien faction that wanted to wipe out humans and such lost. maybe. maybe.

....everyone seems all pissed-off & that stuff isn't "explained" but RS likes not spelling everything out in his films & instead leave enigmas , mysteries & unanswered questions.....( ....what's the unicorn in Bladerunner meant to be etc etc ...)

It's so fucked up in many ways. Everything they do is dumb. It's about killing scientists, who exist only to serve the super rich idiot, who thinks the aliens might give him a new body. Everyone dies, except the one woman who has some "faith" - though in exactly WHAT is not spelled out.

to me the aliens ( who may or may not actually be the big white muscley guys ) are practicing some form of religion by seeding life - this is shown by the opening scene at the waterfall where the alien performs a sort of pseudo-oriental religous ceremony with the black goo & then commits seppuku......the chamber in the dome on the alien world that contains the flasks is clearly a kind of temple with a god-head carving , a green gem-stone on an altar & cruciform style xenomorph reliefs on the wall..presumably Xtianity is meant to be somehow a form implanted in the inherited dna.....any intra-alien civil war may be some form of schism or heresy arising in the belief-system...

It's fucked up movie, and really just about exactly what I was expecting. Nothing explained, doesn't make much sense, is all about action, and zero character. Everyone is a hollow idiot. The ideas aren't particularly interesting or developed. In the end, it's a cynical money move, a cash extraction machine.

...it would have had the potential to be a film of wondrous vision that would have had the potential of being an instant classic right up there with “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

...thing is...this reminds me so much of when Bladerunner came out & it was critically utterly & completely shat-on from all directions & was commercially unsuccessful - same criticisms..what does it mean, why isn't it all spelled out, the characters are shallow, is Harrison Ford a robot..how dare we not get a nice neat ending tied up with string...

I couldn't understand the criticism..I was totally transfixed by the beauty of the film & must have gone back to the cinema 20-30 times over to immerse myself in that world wondering if I'd be alive long enough to actually live in it ( this was even before vhs was out- let alone dvd versions being in supermarkets 2 weeks after the cinema release )

..now ofcourse everyone says Bladerunner....classic !

interesting to know if 2001 was as "instant" a classic as that at the time it came out or of people were saying the same thing..?

Is the rich idiot Guy Pierce?

Guy Pearce isn;t it..hope you aged better than him !

[jlaw172364]

I doubt you can compare Blade Runner to Prometheus because of criticism.

I've seen both.

To begin with, both films make a claim to be more hard SF akin to Dune than "space opera" akin to Star Wars, so some standards must apply.

Prometheus craps all over those standards with its plot holes.

Hollywood can spend hundreds of millions on special effects . . . yet, they can never seem to afford a decent writer.

Some examples:

*** SPOILER ALERT ***







1. The mission cost $1 trillion dollars, yet every person on it behaves so unforgivably stupid, including Weyland.

a. Why would Weyland go in person to meet an alien if he doesn't know in advance how it would react? Oligarchs usually have a better self-preservation instinct.

b. The geologist brings in his "PUPS" to map the building, but then gets lost and can't find his way out, even though this is the future and all kinds of mapping and tracking technologies exist. A look at the 3D schematic reveals the building to be of a relatively simplistic design.

c. You go into an alien building on an alien planet with alien artifacts, so naturally you must : TOUCH EVERYTHING!

d. Why didn't they send bots in to scout things out first? They had David. Why not send him in alone? Why not subject David to closer scrutiny? David demonstrates signs of actually being sentient in the way that humans are. Why would he bother to make come-backs to insults, unless he developed an ego? Part of his programming for realism? In a sense, one could argue that this is a 2001 Space Odyssey reload, with David as HAL, maliciously sabotaging his human masters at every term because he resents being created by them . . . explicitly for the purpose of serving them, when he himself is superior in so many ways. He does make the comment about children wanting to kill their parents . . . yet this has NO resonance with any of the humans. That still doesn't explain why he's allowed to get away with doing all sorts of suspicious things with NO scrutiny or consequences. Poisoning Holloway was just unforgivably dumb. I suppose you could frame it as an "error" in his programming, but that's kind of a cop-out. You might even argue that he's responsible for tricking Weyland into going to meet the Engineer in person, but I don't think the Weyland character would be that stupid, seeing is how he wants to live. Maybe David even insults the Engineer, or tells him that the humans are coming to kill the Engineers, and this is why the Engineer goes berserk. We have no translation of what David said to the Engineer. Ironically, for me, the ambiguities surrounding David's actions were the only redeeming quality of this otherwise execrable film. Had David not been in the film, it wouldn't even be worth discussing.

e. The alien proto-face-hugger impregnated into Shaw gestates pretty quickly. Fine. But then it goes from the size of a cantalope to the size of a giant squid in only a few hours . . . having eaten presumably NOTHING! Where is it getting its energy from? The atmosphere? Did it stumble on a fuel source aboard the ship and use it to fuel its accelerated growth? I must call BULLSHIT on this gimmick. This isn't science. It's magic. Lifeforms may rapidly expand in size on a micro-scale, but not on a macro-scale. They need time, energy, fuel, etc.

f. Every life-form was implaccably hostile to human life. Of course! Because all non-human life-forms on Earth automatically attack and devour everything in sight with no thought to their own safety.

g. The first thing the Engineer does upon confronting non-hostile humanoid beings talking to it politely in its own language is . . . ATTACK them! Of course! There's no point in gathering information, engaging in a parley, as a supposedly superior form of life, you must devolve into a B-movie monster and kill, kill, kill. Maybe he was offended by David's presence? Maybe the creation of AI broke an Engineer taboo? Maybe the figures decribed as Engineers are nothing more than "bio-mechanoid" killers, who are basically warriors who carry out the commands of the real Engineers. Even so, warriors are sophisticated enough to get intel before going on a rampage. It also seems unlikely that he was the only survivor. There were other ships, and other stasis pods that appeared undamaged.

h. The Prometheus ship has NO weapons? No missiles? No lasers? Nothing? All it can do is suicide crash into the Alien ship? The Alien ship has no defenses? What about auto-pilot? Why was it necessary for 3 people to self-sacrifice just to direct a ship at another ship? No software in the future?

There are many more things that can be picked out and critiqued.

Long story short: this movie had no brain. Only special effects, which, really, are no big deal in this day and age, since they are all computer-generated.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Went in with a face full of mushrooms and had a great damn time.

Plot holes were not an issue, I merely assumed everyone in the film was tripping like me.

I definitely recommend watching Prometheus my way.

Maybe it was the drugs, but the movie is 100% about Prometheus from the the Greek tradition, his image was the central leitmotif yo!

[jcivil]

Meh.

[Wombaticus Rex]

This years other Nazis-in-Space film, "Iron Sky" was way better written and probably harder sci-fi, too. It was technically a comedy but then again, so was Ridley Scott's final product.

[semiconscious]

Some examples:

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

dude! this post had me & my wife laughing out loud . absolutely awesome, &, strangely, it almost makes me want to actually witness this travesty...

[Burnt Hill]

Now thats a theory! Regardless, thanks for that Mr. Hill.

You are quite welcome , Mr. Countdown!