Prometheus Writers Audio Commentary Preview

Started by ikarop, Sep 23, 2012, 04:33:02 PM

Author
Prometheus Writers Audio Commentary Preview (Read 71,569 times)

SpeedyMaxx

According to what's on the first page, it sounds like the implication for an older Holloway was that he had been her teacher, she his student, and that power dynamic dominated their relationship.  That is an old story and an intriguing one to tell.  Then he dies horribly, and she asserts herself and steps up as the heroine.

It sounds to me as though old or young, the character was very much focused on his glory and his needs from the expedition.  I think it would have been very interesting for him to be older, but I don't think it was there to make him more sympathetic at all, and I seriously doubt it would've.  I think it would've simply made it that much thornier and edgier an interplay, this old elder/younger academic clash and the power issues therein.  And the younger Holloway already patronized Shaw at times.  The implication in the original posts says that an elder Holloway sees this as his last chance.

I always thought Holloway was arrogant and a bit too controlling with Shaw.  But I didn't think he was an evil man, per se.  The only time I passed a judgment about him was when I saw the film.  He was a manchild, and he was foolish, but despite his flaws he loved Shaw and he didn't deserve to die.  The older version would likely have had a lot more interesting sexual and gender politics, but I don't think he'd have been more sympathetic at all.  And that's fine by me.

SM

Quote from: RiddleMeTheus on Sep 25, 2012, 03:56:24 AM
Quote from: Valaquen on Sep 25, 2012, 02:14:20 AM
Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 01:54:22 AM
An older Holloway would've meant we would've disliked him right from the outset, rather than the build up to disliking him.
Not necessarily. Rapace is 32, her character is thereabouts, or mid-to-late twenties if anything. Seems perfectly fine for her to have an older lover/partner (Speedy invoked Fiennes, who is 49 - not that bad). Unless they were going to deliberately make him an opportunistic sugar daddy I see no reason to dislike him for being older. Some people have great relationships and are separated in age by a decade or more.

Exactly.  Just because he's older doesn't mean he's a pedophile or instantly unlikeable.  In fact, I would have preferred an older partner to the typical douche-jock cardboard cutout.

A more mature character than Holloway would have been great to see.  And his death would have made more of an impact with him being a likeable character.

Hardly.  As I said, when has the older mentor having the relationship with the younger student ever been portrayed as healthy?

Vickers

Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 04:53:17 AM
Quote from: RiddleMeTheus on Sep 25, 2012, 03:56:24 AM
Quote from: Valaquen on Sep 25, 2012, 02:14:20 AM
Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 01:54:22 AM
An older Holloway would've meant we would've disliked him right from the outset, rather than the build up to disliking him.
Not necessarily. Rapace is 32, her character is thereabouts, or mid-to-late twenties if anything. Seems perfectly fine for her to have an older lover/partner (Speedy invoked Fiennes, who is 49 - not that bad). Unless they were going to deliberately make him an opportunistic sugar daddy I see no reason to dislike him for being older. Some people have great relationships and are separated in age by a decade or more.

Exactly.  Just because he's older doesn't mean he's a pedophile or instantly unlikeable.  In fact, I would have preferred an older partner to the typical douche-jock cardboard cutout.

A more mature character than Holloway would have been great to see.  And his death would have made more of an impact with him being a likeable character.

Hardly.  As I said, when has the older mentor having the relationship with the younger student ever been portrayed as healthy?

So because you haven't seen films where a relationship with a bigger age gap than you're used to seeing in films is healthy, all films have to portray those relationships as unhealthy?

There are couples with 20+ years between them that are in fantastic relationships and couples who are the same age and in unhealthy relationships.

Xenomorphine

Xenomorphine

#183
Quote from: Bat Chain Puller on Sep 24, 2012, 05:06:43 PM
I find nothing is as scary since being an uninitiated pre-Alien young person. But there are plenty of hipster-larva out there that are unable to hide their squeamishness caused by seeing a vagina/penis eel infiltrate the security of a space suit and orally rape it's occupants. Same thing with the Med-pod scene. Pound for pound there was more iconicly creepy/disturbing scenes in Prometheus. It's the perceived success rate per individual fan that calls into question whether it worked or not. (and deconstructed ad nauseum online.)

We're clearly going to have to agree to disagree. :)

Hammerpede stuff was brutal, but I go to watch a 'Predator' film for brutality. I go to see an 'Alien' film for nightmarish viciousness. Ultimately, the famous advert with the reversed audio on it turned out to sound a heck of a lot more disturbing than what we actually got - which I think I predicted would be what might happen. Either way, I didn't find it scary and the sight of it going in the mouth cuts away relatively quick. It looks like instant death.

Compare that with, say, the insectoid pit in the remake of 'King Kong'. Remember how the guy dies by being gradually consumed by giant maggot-like creatures? There was a whole bunch of stuff in that scene which was scarier by several magnitudes than anything we saw in 'Prometheus' - and that goes for the Hammerpede scene, too. It's violent, yes. Not disturbing/scary.

The 'abortion' scene was better, but again... Relatively clean. It wasn't nearly as tense as I thought it might be. The most alarming thing about it seemed to be the precarious hold of the robotic device on the creature, rather than the removal, but nothing happens with that.

But as I've written elsewhere, none of this would have necessarily mattered if the production team had been honest and said they were just going to try and do the best they could. Instead, Ridley Scott warned in several interviews that there would be things which would make Lambert's death pale by comparison, said he was going "to scare the shit" out of us and that there was supposedly no way to make the original Alien design effective - with HR Giger, himself, on set - only to apparently perceive that the Deacon looked miles better.

That's why 'Prometheus' ends up being a bit of a disappointment on the horror film front - which is precisely what it was being hyped up as (when not having the emphasis placed on how supposedly revolutionary, epic and full of hard science it would be).

This is not to say that the film doesn't have its positive points. It certainly does and I really liked a lot of the visuals. It just doesn't succeed in the scare department for me, that's all.

Like I said a few posts back, the changes from the original Alien to other creature designs could have made sense if there was a legitimate plot reason for that, but it honestly looks like the reason for that was change for the sake of itself. They broke the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it rule.

Quote from: Blacklabel on Sep 24, 2012, 08:15:46 PM
Lindelof references that Shaw is Mulder and Holloway is Scully in the commentary.

Interesting...

Quote from: Cvalda on Sep 24, 2012, 08:27:21 PM
So, in other words... they still just do what the writers want them to as an easy plot device. Stuck on a story element whilst writing? "We have a goo for that."

:laugh:

SM

Quote from: RiddleMeTheus on Sep 25, 2012, 06:02:42 AM
Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 04:53:17 AM
Quote from: RiddleMeTheus on Sep 25, 2012, 03:56:24 AM
Quote from: Valaquen on Sep 25, 2012, 02:14:20 AM
Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 01:54:22 AM
An older Holloway would've meant we would've disliked him right from the outset, rather than the build up to disliking him.
Not necessarily. Rapace is 32, her character is thereabouts, or mid-to-late twenties if anything. Seems perfectly fine for her to have an older lover/partner (Speedy invoked Fiennes, who is 49 - not that bad). Unless they were going to deliberately make him an opportunistic sugar daddy I see no reason to dislike him for being older. Some people have great relationships and are separated in age by a decade or more.

Exactly.  Just because he's older doesn't mean he's a pedophile or instantly unlikeable.  In fact, I would have preferred an older partner to the typical douche-jock cardboard cutout.

A more mature character than Holloway would have been great to see.  And his death would have made more of an impact with him being a likeable character.

Hardly.  As I said, when has the older mentor having the relationship with the younger student ever been portrayed as healthy?

So because you haven't seen films where a relationship with a bigger age gap than you're used to seeing in films is healthy, all films have to portray those relationships as unhealthy?

There are couples with 20+ years between them that are in fantastic relationships and couples who are the same age and in unhealthy relationships.

So because you have seen people in real life where a relationship with a bigger age gap than you're used to seeing, that's exactly the way they're generally portrayed in film?

Handy tip - we're not talking about real life.

Vickers

Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 06:08:10 AM
Quote from: RiddleMeTheus on Sep 25, 2012, 06:02:42 AM
Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 04:53:17 AM
Quote from: RiddleMeTheus on Sep 25, 2012, 03:56:24 AM
Quote from: Valaquen on Sep 25, 2012, 02:14:20 AM
Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 01:54:22 AM
An older Holloway would've meant we would've disliked him right from the outset, rather than the build up to disliking him.
Not necessarily. Rapace is 32, her character is thereabouts, or mid-to-late twenties if anything. Seems perfectly fine for her to have an older lover/partner (Speedy invoked Fiennes, who is 49 - not that bad). Unless they were going to deliberately make him an opportunistic sugar daddy I see no reason to dislike him for being older. Some people have great relationships and are separated in age by a decade or more.

Exactly.  Just because he's older doesn't mean he's a pedophile or instantly unlikeable.  In fact, I would have preferred an older partner to the typical douche-jock cardboard cutout.

A more mature character than Holloway would have been great to see.  And his death would have made more of an impact with him being a likeable character.

Hardly.  As I said, when has the older mentor having the relationship with the younger student ever been portrayed as healthy?

So because you haven't seen films where a relationship with a bigger age gap than you're used to seeing in films is healthy, all films have to portray those relationships as unhealthy?

There are couples with 20+ years between them that are in fantastic relationships and couples who are the same age and in unhealthy relationships.

So because you have seen people in real life where a relationship with a bigger age gap than you're used to seeing, that's exactly the way they're generally portrayed in film?

Handy tip - we're not talking about real life.



Handy tip - it's not good to generalise.  Did I once say that all films portray relationships realistically?  No.

I was simply saying that just because you haven't seen films with a big age gap in a relationship being portrayed as healthy, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

They may be in the minority but the point is that it doesn't mean Prometheus has to be like that if hypothetically it did go the other route with Holloway.

SpeedyMaxx

Personally, I think the medpod scene is incredibly nightmarish and disturbing.  I think it's up there with anything in the first two films, and it's a huge part of the reason I rate Prometheus third in the franchise.  That whole sequence still scares me.

I do think they mismarketed it a bit, at least in the press quotes (the trailers were masterful and awed a few old hands in the business I know, though I think a couple ultimately showed too much).  It's less of a scare factory and more of a science-fiction adventure film with horror elements.  It's not simply "Texas Chainsaw in space," which was the brief on Alien.  There is a haunted house of sorts, and a chamber of all sorts of weird horrors - and I think they were right to get away from the same old series iconography, simply because this adds so much more future variety and possibility, as well as the fear factor that even hardened fans had no idea what the f**k was going to be in that chamber or that ship or coming out of Shaw's belly - but overall the movie is more broad and dreamy in its scope, more of an exploratory thing. (I also think that there was plenty of plot reason for them to be different, other than the above audience and future film issues; it demonstrates that the Engineers were profound biogeneticists, experimenting with a variety of different lifeforms and monstrosities, and that the alien we know is just one of many dangers.)

The music, the tone is often very different, deliberately so.  It's a larger cosmic story.  There's the horrific elements juxtaposed with the space-age romanticism, or the identity politics and ongoing enigma of someone like David, and that's what fascinates me about the film.  It's just a very, very different piece of work.  And so I agree up to a point that it was misrepresented as, say, "Alien plus."  But for me it's perfectly okay that it wasn't.

SM

SM

#187
QuoteHandy tip - it's not good to generalise.

Why are you doing it then?

QuoteI was simply saying that just because you haven't seen films with a big age gap in a relationship being portrayed as healthy, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

Name some, 'cos I can't think of any.  Closest I can think of is Jurassic Park, but there's no mentor/ student dynamic there despite the undetermined age gap with Alan and Ellie. They're equals.  We always end up with the older man who comes off as creepily lusting after the young student, who treats her with condescension and she ends up being treated better by someone nearer her own age.  Not terribly to clever to paint a target on Holloway as 'Marked For Death' in the first couple of minutes.  And similarly paint a woman who you want to be intelligent as emotionally weak.

QuoteIt's less of a scare factory and more of a science-fiction adventure film with horror elements.

Sums up Aliens too.

Cvalda

Quote from: Valaquen on Sep 25, 2012, 03:53:46 AM
I think, because of Cvalda, I went in with that notion already pre-programmed and utterly unshakeable once the film got on with it.
Don't blame me :D

Vickers

Quote from: SpeedyMaxx on Sep 25, 2012, 06:14:13 AM
Personally, I think the medpod scene is incredibly nightmarish and disturbing.  I think it's up there with anything in the first two films, and it's a huge part of the reason I rate Prometheus third in the franchise.  That whole sequence still scares me.

It was a solid scene but hardly enough to put it above Alien 3.  And... it was mostly expected.  Which greatly lessened the nightmarish factor.

Trailers: Few glimpses of Shaw in pain. Medpod scanning.
TV Spot and 1 trailer: Shaw's stomach swelling.
Ridley: "I want to keep it a secret but there's a scene that rivals the chestburster scene in Alien. Lulz, I bet you can't guess what it is. Is my hint not obvious enough?"

A lot of fans knew what to expect just by seeing the trailers.

Quote from: SpeedyMaxx on Sep 25, 2012, 06:14:13 AM
I do think they mismarketed it a bit, at least in the press quotes (the trailers were masterful and awed a few old hands in the business I know, though I think a couple ultimately showed too much).  It's less of a scare factory and more of a science-fiction adventure film with horror elements.  It's not simply "Texas Chainsaw in space," which was the brief on Alien.  There is a haunted house of sorts, and a chamber of all sorts of weird horrors - and I think they were right to get away from the same old series iconography, simply because this adds so much more future variety and possibility, as well as the fear factor that even hardened fans had no idea what the f**k was going to be in that chamber or that ship or coming out of Shaw's belly - but overall the movie is more broad and dreamy in its scope, more of an exploratory thing. (I also think that there was plenty of plot reason for them to be different, other than the above audience and future film issues; it demonstrates that the Engineers were profound biogeneticists, experimenting with a variety of different lifeforms and monstrosities, and that the alien we know is just one of many dangers.)

The music, the tone is often very different, deliberately so.  It's a larger cosmic story.  There's the horrific elements juxtaposed with the space-age romanticism, or the identity politics and ongoing enigma of someone like David, and that's what fascinates me about the film.  It's just a very, very different piece of work.  And so I agree up to a point that it was misrepresented as, say, "Alien plus."  But for me it's perfectly okay that it wasn't.

Your writing above was better than the entire film's dialogue in Ridley's "director's cut."

SpeedyMaxx

Quote from: RiddleMeTheus on Sep 25, 2012, 06:27:20 AM
A lot of fans knew what to expect just by seeing the trailers.

The thing is, the film was not just made for us fans (nor did most of the general audience dissect the promo material the way hardcore fans did).  And I think that scene is a real show-stopper - it certainly knocked out my theater - but that the whole film is also vastly superior overall.

QuoteYour writing above was better than the entire film's dialogue in Ridley's "director's cut."

I write in a different aspect of the field BTS these days, but thanks for the compliment. :)  Still, I disagree.


Vickers

Vickers

#192
Look, just because you haven't seen any films like that, doesn't mean they're not out there.  This may be difficult to believe but not every film follows the Hollywood mold.  Most films do but not all of them.

It's pointless to argue with you when you're set on believing otherwise.

That's why I'm not going to bother taking the time to type out a long response.


Quote from: ShadowPred on Sep 25, 2012, 06:42:18 AM
Quote from: RiddleMeTheus on Sep 25, 2012, 06:38:16 AM
Quote from: SM on Sep 25, 2012, 06:23:21 AM
Name some, 'cos I can't think of any.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maksb7g7yt1r8jvb3o2_500.gif

I call BS.

You call BS on what?

ShadowPred

That you can't name one single movie that has what you are arguing for. If I were to say that some movies have so and so, I would definitely be able to name at least one of them.

SM

QuoteThat's why I'm not going to bother taking the time to type out a long response.

A short one would suffice.

I really think you'd struggle to portray a teacher/ student relationship as healthy, because it's still viewed as something of a taboo even among consenting adults.

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