This Movie has a lot of big problems, too many for considering it even a decent movie.
A- The plot/history/script/whatever: Besides it being well translated to screen or not (I dont thing so), it is REALLY weak. C'mon, its Alien universe! Thats the best they can do with that magnificent world they created more than 30 years ago? Some people will like it more, some people will like it less, but Im sure that MOST of you think that they could come up with something much better.
The space jockey being some kind of humanoid inside an space suit....well...iim sure its nothing anybody thought about at the time. But I also agree that having space jockeys as big elefant mans around was tricky...
About the eternal discusion on the height of the engineers, my veredict : They should be bigger and taller.
All the Von Daniken point of view is terrible boring and unoriginal. but this is purely a personal opinion.
Anyway, all this, for me, is the less important of the problems of the movie, because a so so plot, with a great directing, actors, dialogues, design, screenwriting etc can became a decent good or funny movie. ( actually, besides Christopher Nolan, who is doing any Sci-fi/action movies with decent plots anymore? ).
B- The cast, acting, dialogues: Shaw is not that bad of a character, and Rapace does as much as she can ( that is a lot) to give her some dimension. And I am not even going to compare her to Ripley, that's not fair. (if her character had been amazing, then I would positively compare them.)
David is a great android, without being a copy of Ash or Bishop. (having an stupid or bad robot would be too much). Fassbender, even without knowing what the hell is going on David's head or in the whole movie(well, maybe he knew but viewers never got to know anything), gives an amazing demonstration of great acting but, why he does what he do? I can somehow understand that he takes the urn, ok, he is curious, he is childish, he is bored, or maybe he is programed to do so ok (a little hint on why this behaviour won't have hurt the movie at all). But why he infects holloway? Ok, he was programed also? Ok, so he was programed to just do random shit on the first one that passes by? or specially to holloway because he is the one that can have sex and maybe bla bla bla Speculation speculation speculation, nonsense nonsense nonsense. You can come up with as many theories you want, but will be only this, theories. and the movie SHOUD explain this, or at least, narrow the path for coming with an explanation. And like this one, we have dozens in the movie.
Janek/Idris, Vickers/Charlize are also great and its a shame we dont see more of them but boring conversations and stupid reactions.
- Why Janek does not care much for the people lost in the piramid? Why he is not worried when the prove picks something? (and wat the hell is this prove picking something about? just for creatinc 2 seconds of nonsense tension?)
- Janek sudenly grabs the scipt and reads the part where lindelof explains what the urns and the place is : "Hey people watching this, the guys from the movie just told me to explain you a little what is hapening here, just in case you are having some questions. This seems to be a like some sort of military base and bla bla " Thanks for explaining one of the few part of the movie that we actualy can figure out alone!
- The infamous death of vickers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLlUgilKqms#- You never see vickers or Janek or anybody in control of anything that hapens there. Who the hell is in charge of anything there?
Fifield and Milburn/Abot&Costello: everything they say or do is stupid and makes no damm sense. If you liked anything of them, rmemember that there was people that liked Jar Jar Binks: now you are like them. think about it.
Again, people can come up with theories about why two scientifics that are suposedly payd a lot of money, want to flee the scene after 5 minutes of being inside a DAMM ALIEN PYRAMID WITH DEAD ET's all around. But none of this theories will overcome the fact that they do because the screenwriter was lazy and thought you where stupid enough to believe it. The same for them geting lost or the snake peting thing. I don't even wanna remember the POT moment...
-Weyland: well, besides being some mix of John Hammond from Jurasic Park and Old Biff from back to the future 2, I still wonder what is his role on the movie...Why he is smuggled in his own ship? If he is paying for all that, why he dont just says the truth? "Hey, this mision is about me dont wanting to die yet. You will get a lot of money so deal with it. " Why all the mistery? for creating tension? well, it just creates nonsense and more bothering unanswered questions...
- The two other pilots or whatever they are : If anybody here had any empathy, feeling, or connection with them, and thought that it was moving and beliable when they suddenly decide to give their lives for something they dont even had seen, as they spend the whole movie in the deck, please, rise your hand.
- That ugly woman: Well, she is not only ugly but also a shitty doctor that blows up, for no clearly explained reasons (again) one of the most important findings of human history. She also works without any protection in a non secured environment, etc....
- The rest of the cast : "All other considerations secondary. Crew expendable."
C- The Sci-Fi/terror/Monsters/design Component:
Yeah, great photography, amazing scenarios, all the human designs are great (maybe too modern if you take in consideration this is before Alien etc, but well, I can live with it...), CGI is not overused and looks mostly fantastic.
Prometheus ship looks great and reminds a lot to the nostromo (on a good way). The scape pod Deluxe Vicker's Room its a little too much, and just an excuse for having the Medi Pod there, so the Kraken can survive the crash and beeing just on time for killing the engineer. Weak, weak, weak, weak script...
Oh, and just in case, they let you know that the whole room is actually an escape pod. "hey, its not that you need to know it, but this happens to be an scape pod you know? how cool is that!" weak weak weak weak... Why they care in explaining that and not all the other things? I can leave with a room suddenly becoming an scape pod much more than all the random efects of the black goo....
The alien world designs: Great, even the giant engineer head it's not my cup of tea (more for what it represents than for the design itself). Also, what is that green stone? What are the murals for? What is that Alien Christ thing? Well, we can speculate again but the questions keep piling up like rotten smelly bodies....).
The planet with all the pyramids etc looks great, but its so lame that they land JUST in front of them. (minor plot flaw but they go pilling up...)and just in front of the one that got "problems". Or all of them had the same kind of bio weapon leak, or whatever happened? So, what happened there ? Agaaaaain the speculating moment! How many of this can you have without killing the tension? Well...in this movie, way too many.
The urns look great, and the concept of bio weapons is great (and old) but its such a pity that is so bad explained and that its all reduced to a black goo that acts randomly. So worms+goo = snakes that look like protohuggers, that have acid blod and can regenerate themselves, that get in your mouth and kill you and then they jump out and run. Is that cannon from now on? Stick your face in goo: mutate into a raging killing monkey with super strengh and flexibility. Is now that canon also? A goo cocktail gives you little eye worms and makes you ejaculate little squid spermatozoids that can impregnate sterile woman, who will give birth a calamari that will grow into a Kraken that if impregnates a Engineer will result in a really clumsy xenomorph? Really? is that CANON? Or is just the most stupid and random plot turn in modern cinema?
? CMON!!!!!!!! And by the way, why that xenomorph? You have been shiting on the fans mouth for the whole entire movie, and now you wanna make us happy with that? Are you buying us with an scene that is a clone of the one from Alien 3, one of the most hated movies of the franchise? (I love it tho) It just shows how unaware, and how careless they have been with the whole thing.
The whole Fifield mutation is random and has one only reason, the attack scene: lets kill all this people that we don t even know who they are! Funny!
So, what is the diference between the green goo and the black goo? where does the goo comes from? why the goo goes out when they get to the ampule room? etc etc etc etc AGAIN: hundreds of theories about everything, but all theories, nothing in the movie really points anywhere, is just speculation and nonsense. Actually, the incident that triggers most of the movie situations, the goo, IS not only not EXPLAINED (again), but also it just makes no goddam sense, and feels completely random and ludicrous all the time. So, the major plot of the movie is based on RANDOMNESS! This is, SCI FI, this is ALIEN franchise, where the Alien live cicles have been discussed and examined till the minimum detail! We live and die for the Canon of the series! You cant just enter randomness in this world! This, and almost all the other monsters and creatures on the movie are the biggest slap on the face to the fans. This is unforgivable.
The engineers itself...well...could be better, and the guy in a suit trick its really thin...when you see the engineer suiting up, the "eleffant helmet" its just like....er.....really?....
The flute moment its one of the most embarasing moments in modern cinema. I just can't believe I seen it. I cant believe anybody liked it, and enjoyed the first Alien at the same time. Cant be the same person...
The nipple buttons are also quite meh....
The first scene- .... the whole engineer-god von daniken thing just does not work for me. Thats just a personal point of view, so its not a total flaw of the movie. I can understand that someone can be interested in that. Im not. (i cant understand anyone liking the flute thing for example).
The Derelict Juggernaut: Well, amazing! I just hate that we don t see Shaw and David getting on the second one. how do they pilot it? how does it work? they just place the head there? or Shaw sits on the chair? This are the kind of things that you wanna see, but that if you don t see, can make a movie better. Just only if the rest of the movie delivers. In this case, this makes it even more irritating.
D- THE MUSIC: Terrible. All of it. there is one tune in particular that is extremely annoying and that goes on loop again and again, when people are having serious self explanatory conversations.
Im sure i am forgetting a lot of other stupid things but I think that is enough. Anyway, even after all this mess of nonsense, plot holes, clumsy mcguffins, terrible alien designs, stupid characters, stupid lines etc. could be somehow acceptable, if it wasn't for that last and definitive problem of the movie:
E- The Editing: It just makes no goddam sense at all and just confuse and mix and adds an extra layer of dumbness to the whole movie.
Im sure (maybe i m just hoping) that a better editing would make much better movie ( making it just a silly stupid movie). There is evidence on the trailers that some situations where different, that the order of the events was different, but even besides that, the editing is wrong.
The best scene of the movie ( the med pod scene) is suddenly buried and forgotten by the introduction of a really week plot turn. Weyland. We dont have time to flavour what hapened to shaw, she does not have time to deal with it, making just an excuse for having a rouge kraken when we need to get rid of a crazy engineer. Again, weak weak weak weak script.
From the moment the crew wakes till they enter the pyramid all is rushed, there is no tension, no focus on the characters, the environment, the planet, nothing. (we are only familiar with the ship, with David, and the past of shaw, that give us no idea of what is she like).
The whole movie editing is really bad and you can feel its been massively cut. Thats my only hope, that someday, maybe, we get another version that at least, is not insulting.
BONUS FLAW- The fact that is an ALIEN franchise movie does not help at all, making all his flaws much more worse. But hey, if you have space jockeys, engineers, bursting xenomorphs, etc. then don t complain if you get compared...
For me, the worse movie of the whole ALIEN franchise. Alien 3 went to infinite internal problems and finally it delivered something with at least some sense of continuity, originality, mistery and terror. And things made sense more or less.
Alien resurection was done with the heart, with respect and with love, but by someone that had a vision that didn't fit on the Alien world.
AVP and AVP2 are horrible movies, done with no respect for either the alien or predator worlds, and full of stupidness and nonsense, but I was never expecting nothing better from that bunch of mediocre directors, so it was never a disapointment. I actually dont consider them part od the Franchise. But this one....you cant just delete it, you cant just pretend it never happened....its there, its Ridley, and its HORRIBLE.
I definitely think riddley was the least important part in ALIEN and Blade Runner....or he was just lucky, or he lost the touch after that....there is no other explanation.
About linderlof....well...he always sucked. John Spaths will be ever be a mediocre writer with the best of the intentions....
One thing is sure: my english sucks big time.
