Prometheus Fan Reviews

[Darkness]

This topic is for you to post your fan reviews. Prometheus is technically out in France, Belgium and Switzerland today.

[Xenoscream]

Right... I've just seen Prometheus in Lille, France. I came A long way to see it and my hopes for the film were very high. 

I'm going to try not to give any major spoilers but read this at your own risk, I will say however that if you have watched the first 2 trailers or more, you have basically seen the whole movie.

It's hard to look at the film objectively since alien is my favourite film of all time. But here goes.

Plot: this was fairly weak and predictable, there were a few good unanswered questions, but very few and far between, mostly you were spoon fed a very straight forward expansion of the trailers, in fact all the main surprises bar one (I'll get to that) were in the trailers.... This was a bit of a let down for me but at the same time won't affect the rating I give the film as its my own fault for watching trailers etc. I do feel that the story could have been much more impact full given the subject matter. That said its still a solid film overall.

One thing I have to say about the plot is that some of the reactions, or more specifically Non-reactions to some quite alarming events by characters are nuts...some serious shit hits the fan and the next scene it's as if nothing has happened... Quite poor if you ask me.

Characters: this is where the the film shines and falls down at the same time, David is great and a complex character, in fact I'd go as far to say he steals the show and it could have easily been his story. The crew of the Prometheus is 17 and honestly I'd say 10 of them don't do or say anything and just add to the body count...I really think the film would have been better cutting down the cast and making it more intimate like the original. I hate to say this but several times in this movie I was reminded of avp1, and some of the characters feel like the fell straight out of andersons story and into this one.

Gripes aside the "main" characters are all well acted and I think did a good job, I do feel that there was more potential particularly between vickers and David to expand the relationship.

Visuals: everything looked fantastic with the exception of the creatures. Apparently no one told Ridley that Tenticles are not scary and make any creature that has them a joke. There are several Tenticled creatures in the film and the looked stupid to me I won't say anymore than that.

Oh and remember that report of the 3 xenon sat next to each other outside a stage during production? Well I can confirm that's a load of bull.

There is also an... Abomination to Alien in the film, but I can't say more without giving away possibly the only thing which is not in the trailer... I'm sure it's going to be one of the most hotly debated topics on the boards soon though.

The engineer is also about 10ft tall in the movie (he's also a douchebag) 

Summary:

I wanted to love this film, but some of the stuff in it really shits on Alien, human space jockeys, creatures which would make h.r.giger laugh, a complete set up for another movie, which is almost cringe worthy. These are things which hurt me as a fan, that aside it is a good movie... Id give it a 5/10 as a fan and a 7/10 for anyone else.

Final message is this: Ridley why the f**k did you have h.r.giger on your set and not use him, the murals were the best damn thing in the whole movie (im not kidding) (someone even says "look murals" lol) and also it's clear Ridley is a big avp fan boy (you'll know what I mean when you see it)

Final note an hour after I wrote this, don't be put off, it is a good film, just not the prequel I personaly was hoping for.

[NGR01]

Be ready to get assaulted by the "you had too much expectation for this movie you set yourself to hate it" police ^^
I agree a lot with you.

Pretty cool what you did going to Lille lol!

I'm gonna copy/paste my intitial reaction here:

About the movie.
For now what i can say, is that i got out of the theatre angry.
I've got nothing to spoil because from the first trailer the movie has been spoiled to us.
I loved it until the last 20/30 minutes, i'm still trying to figure out how the last 2 minutes (Scott probably said 8 minutes because he's including the fight that leads to this moment) are supposed to make the bridge with ALIEN.
If it is what i think it is, it's just lame. My main theorie, the human Engineer is wrong, but i think that when you'll see the movie you're gonna wish it was right... And i'm not bragging...
The creatures i won't even bother...
The opening was beautiful, and there is some really cool moments.
I called the ending.
Lots of stuff is clearly missing, scenes have been clearly modified.
Some characters have their development cleary been cut from the move.

I had expectation going in.
i knew what Scott was doing, some sort of blockbuster version of ALIEN.
I was ok to embrace it. I really wanted to fuking love this movie.
As it is for now i can't.

One thing is sure, when you have great expectations, it is bound to happen some sort of backlash.
So i'm right now processing that, trying to leave my feelings and expectations out and see the movie fresh.
That is why i'm definitly going to see it again.

For me it is not a bad movie, it's a flawed and lazy movie.

UPDATE 2

Ok so the night was great and i had time to rethink about what bothered me in the movie.
I'm gonna dwell into spoilers so be warned.

Spoiler

Some stuff just bothered me in the movie (the way Fifield and Millburn get lost and end up being victims, how can the guy who is mapping the place with his orbs and is in constant contact with the ship can be lost is just beyond me lol, that ravel and chance who have their great moment with janek are almost just shadows, that the hangar attack is just there to satisfy the need for action of the general movie audience) But i can forget and forgive them.
Eeverything is so cool around those that its ok.

I loved the movie until the Engineer is awaken.
One thing i understand now is that the surviving Engineer, is just a regular shmoe he's not a leader or anything.
He and all the dead engineers were on this planet creating weapon of mass destruction, this is a military base and he's just one of the many "soldiers" (remember Scott said the derelict was a bomber hence the military concepts).
When shit hit the fans on that base (this is important i will get back to it later) he and his crew were on their way to take off to Earth to wipe us out (the image of David in front of well stored urns, is actually the cargo bay of the juggernaut inside the urns, death either by complete desintragration of the body or by infestation).
So when he wakes up and start to go berzerk on David, Weyland, Ford and the Merc his agressive reaction do make sense.
He was ordered to destroy our race and he wakes up to find us there.
That is all there is to this first contact.
But i was expecting that our crew will get to meet an actual leader of the race, not just a grunt.
The one who has his face sculpted, he's their leader.
The movie forget about all the grand questions and goes into action, slasher, blockbuster territory.
But now i'm even ok with that, its not a problem anymore that we end up having just a classic horror slaher ending with a big bad monster stalking our heroine.

What still bothers me is the missed oportunity to make the events that lead to the massacre in the Engineer military base to payoff in the end. Especially now that i know what was supposed to take place in the end of the movie.

Bascally here is what happened in the military base.
An Engineer got infected by the same thing that killed/infected Holloway, the black goo that seems to either kill you in horrible pain or make you morph, mutate. That infected Engineer unleached a new form of life, probably like the one that Shaws delivers, a giant octopus like facehugger. The pile of dead Engineers (beautifull image btw) that Millburn and Fifield encounter at one point have their chest bursted (Fifield even states it) and the holes in the 3 sarcophagis leave no doubt that xeno like creature have been born 2000 years ago (that is the date Shaw gets when she carbon analyse the Engineer dead body they find) and killed almost everyone on the Engineer base.
What was the original plan for the final act was to have The surviving Engineer doing the same thing, going berzerk and kill the humans taking off but then :
1st script version, he would have been chestbursted by a massive xeno (wich growing was kept dormant thank to the Engineer being in cryosleep) growing very fast (like all the creatures of the movie) and been hunting down Shaw.

2nd script version, they (Engineer and Shaw) would have been confronted to the massive xenos or their spawns that were born from the Engineers 2000 years ago.

After killing it, Shaw would have took off with the Juggernaut with David just like she does in the movie.

Maybe Scott ditched these endings because they were too much ALIEN like, or maybe he wants to use this and adress the whole military base incident in the sequel.

Either way i would have prefered this than the Engineer stalking Shaw to the ship like Jason to be killed by a giant octopus.

[close]

[Xenoscream]

Well can't help the way I feel about it, but like I said, it is a good movie, just not so much for a fan (unless you are into tentacles)

Edit: I read your review and I guess we are on the same page, I didn't feel quite as bad but definitely the last bit felt wrong somehow.

Spoiler

Were you surprised how vickers died, it felt like she was just written out quickly because they had changed the story

[close]

[Le Celticant]

Time for a Review, I watch it at Le Grand Rex in 3D with 4 other friends.

I'm going to start about the 3D since I'm someone who mainly hates the use of it.
I must say that the first 30 mins surprised me a lot with all this space sequences and it looks fabulous on 3D.
Overall the fact it was directly shot in 3D stereoscopic is a very good thing and really made the screen disappear.

If there's a movie in the whole License that I love, it is ALIEN.
It is Alien for so many reasons in fact so I wasn't "so" worry when I went to the theater when I knew that H.R. Giger was designing creatures & set, Walter Hill & David Giller producing (well that's a 50/50 actually since they produced AVP but whatever) and Ridley Scott was directing.
My only main concerns was Jon Spaiths who only wrote the Darkest Hour.

Spoiler

Plot: Every little thing is predictable and it is done in purpose because that's the only thing they can give you. Everything else will remain in a stupid mist and I bet they won't even serve as a purpose in Prometheus 2. By that I mean:
-You don't know what is the place they are in (one character suggest bio weapon)
-You don't know Why SJ run and were afraid of something.
-You don't know Why there is a green emerald in the head room.
-You don't know what is this head doing here (art I guess)
-You don't know who are the SJ, where they came from, what are they doing, why they created us and now want to kill us, why only one is remaining?
-Why is Weyland having only 2 days to live?
I could go one for a very very very long list but you get the point, there are just some irrelevant elements shown on screen.

What I really hate in movies when it comes to plot, original or not, it's when characters & actions are making total non sense.
For example:
Millburn say hello to Fifield and Fifiel answer he's not here to makes friend but to makes money. Which force then Millburn to be distant during dinner.
They land...
Fifield launch the probs that scans the map and get directly the topography on its computer located on his arms.
He says which way to go and they end up in the room with the head & jars.
Fifield says he's coming back to the ship because he's tired of alien/god bullshit and Millburn says "I come with you" why he's a scientist. I mean, Haven't we miss something between both?
But the worse is to come. Fifield is the dude with the maps and HE CAN'T FIND HIS WAY OUT while the rest of the crew does.
Fifield and Millburn are stuck in this sanctuary alone.
Doesn't this remind you of AVP and the scenes between Miller & Verheiden (enemy at the beginning) and while progressing inside the pyramid ruins / They encountered the Aliens (which in Prometheus are earth-worm mutated by the black liquid... lol)
Anyway, they both die in a gory way that made the audience laugh pretty much like AVP-R or SAW.

Characters: 17 crew members and we probably see like... 10 or 13 of them? And only David & Shaw have character development. Holloway and Vickers are probably then a bit more developed with Cpt. Janek. But all other characters have like "one line of dialog" for the entire movie or just a bit more but it ain't anything relevant and it felt most of the time off. I mean it's the kind of Comedy scenes which makes you smile but it's nothing incredible.

The thing concerning David that bother me are its motivations. I may understand that he obey weyland but every of his actions put in dangers FOR NO REASONS the mission and it even seems like in ALIEN that Weyland had informations concerning the SJ much much before prometheus and knew about their existence just like in ALIEN. That is an question that still won't get an answer apart Vickers who says he's superstitious.

By the way Vickers also makes non sense once you understand who she is.
I mean, what would the daughter of Weyland do on board of the Prometheus, especially when she wants the crew to be wrong about that alien / god stories and once they prove it is right she just want to come back on earth.
She also express a hate for her father and vice versa but why?
Among every characters, Weyland is the top-noch of the useless state of art.
He play like... 2 mins of screen time. He die ALA ALIEN Resurrection (A beautiful butterfly scene) while trying to worship his god and felt uninspired very much like the Weyland we got in AVP (an old sick billionaire who send a last expedition to make the biggest discovery of mankind. A total remake of AVP).

Visuals: The prometheus ship looks very nice. It is the state of the art and we get some awesome space footage in 3D.
But that is pretty much all you get.
I don't know why is Giger Credited because NOTHING has bio-mechanic design. It may have a "feels" of it but it's unlike anything we've seen in Giger art. It's more mechanical and shiny metal than a basalt volcanic black rock with bones mixing with pipes when it's about the set.
And it is 100% organic when it comes to creatures.
Though despite all the unimpressive visuals I must say that the VFX (CGI) were very very very well executed.

To finish, I disliked the film a lot. It felt exactly like the first AVP with a R-rated.
I don't think that giving a note would be very useful apart 1 for the 3D and 1 for CGI which would be 2/10.
But it's a movie that won't be remembered as Alien and in several years we'll laugh about it.
Just to give you statistics, we were 5 to go to the theater that night.
1 loved it.
1 enjoyed it
3 disliked it and almost fell asleep.

It's in the end a matter of taste & colors but still, it's nowhere near a masterpiece.

[close]

[NGR01]

Well can't help the way I feel about it, but like I said, it is a good movie, just not so much for a fan (unless you are into tentacles)

Edit: I read your review and I guess we are on the same page, I didn't feel quite as bad but definitely the last bit felt wrong somehow.

Spoiler

Were you surprised how vickers died, it felt like she was just written out quickly because they had changed the story

[close]

I was like WHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTT???

Spoiler

Make her survive the crash to get her crushed like this.
What was the point? Have the 2 stars running together in the same shot?
Whats even worst is that Shaw also get crushed but thats ok only her Oxygen is low lol
The film suffers for major rewrite or last minutes shooting, many scenes that appears in the trailer are modified or absent.
What about the maybe there is 2 androids thing? Just a f**king tease? What for?

[close]

Celticant,
Giger did shit on the movie
He was let go after a fight with production designer Arthur Max.
The creatures and sets are not his work but inspired by.

[Xenoscream]

Time for a Review, I watch it at Le Grand Rex in 3D with 4 other friends.

I'm going to start about the 3D since I'm someone who mainly hates the use of it.
I must say that the first 30 mins surprised me a lot with all this space sequences and it looks fabulous on 3D.
Overall the fact it was directly shot in 3D stereoscopic is a very good thing and really made the screen disappear.

If there's a movie in the whole License that I love, it is ALIEN.
It is Alien for so many reasons in fact so I wasn't "so" worry when I went to the theater when I knew that H.R. Giger was designing creatures & set, Walter Hill & David Giller producing (well that's a 50/50 actually since they produced AVP but whatever) and Ridley Scott was directing.
My only main concerns was Jon Spaiths who only wrote the Darkest Hour.

Spoiler

Plot: Every little thing is predictable and it is done in purpose because that's the only thing they can give you. Everything else will remain in a stupid mist and I bet they won't even serve as a purpose in Prometheus 2. By that I mean:
-You don't know what is the place they are in (one character suggest bio weapon)
-You don't know Why SJ run and were afraid of something.
-You don't know Why there is a green emerald in the head room.
-You don't know what is this head doing here (art I guess)
-You don't know who are the SJ, where they came from, what are they doing, why they created us and now want to kill us, why only one is remaining?
-Why is Weyland having only 2 days to live?
I could go one for a very very very long list but you get the point, there are just some irrelevant elements shown on screen.

What I really hate in movies when it comes to plot, original or not, it's when characters & actions are making total non sense.
For example:
Millburn say hello to Fifield and Fifiel answer he's not here to makes friend but to makes money. Which force then Millburn to be distant during dinner.
They land...
Fifield launch the probs that scans the map and get directly the topography on its computer located on his arms.
He says which way to go and they end up in the room with the head & jars.
Fifield says he's coming back to the ship because he's tired of alien/god bullshit and Millburn says "I come with you" why he's a scientist. I mean, Haven't we miss something between both?
But the worse is to come. Fifield is the dude with the maps and HE CAN'T FIND HIS WAY OUT while the rest of the crew does.
Fifield and Millburn are stuck in this sanctuary alone.
Doesn't this remind you of AVP and the scenes between Miller & Verheiden (enemy at the beginning) and while progressing inside the pyramid ruins / They encountered the Aliens (which in Prometheus are earth-worm mutated by the black liquid... lol)
Anyway, they both die in a gory way that made the audience laugh pretty much like AVP-R or SAW.

Characters: 17 crew members and we probably see like... 10 or 13 of them? And only David & Shaw have character development. Holloway and Vickers are probably then a bit more developed with Cpt. Janek. But all other characters have like "one line of dialog" for the entire movie or just a bit more but it ain't anything relevant and it felt most of the time off. I mean it's the kind of Comedy scenes which makes you smile but it's nothing incredible.

The thing concerning David that bother me are its motivations. I may understand that he obey weyland but every of his actions put in dangers FOR NO REASONS the mission and it even seems like in ALIEN that Weyland had informations concerning the SJ much much before prometheus and knew about their existence just like in ALIEN. That is an question that still won't get an answer apart Vickers who says he's superstitious.

By the way Vickers also makes non sense once you understand who she is.
I mean, what would the daughter of Weyland do on board of the Prometheus, especially when she wants the crew to be wrong about that alien / god stories and once they prove it is right she just want to come back on earth.
She also express a hate for her father and vice versa but why?
Among every characters, Weyland is the top-noch of the useless state of art.
He play like... 2 mins of screen time. He die ALA ALIEN Resurrection (A beautiful butterfly scene) while trying to worship his god and felt uninspired very much like the Weyland we got in AVP (an old sick billionaire who send a last expedition to make the biggest discovery of mankind. A total remake of AVP).

Visuals: The prometheus ship looks very nice. It is the state of the art and we get some awesome space footage in 3D.
But that is pretty much all you get.
I don't know why is Giger Credited because NOTHING has bio-mechanic design. It may have a "feels" of it but it's unlike anything we've seen in Giger art. It's more mechanical and shiny metal than a basalt volcanic black rock with bones mixing with pipes when it's about the set.
And it is 100% organic when it comes to creatures.
Though despite all the unimpressive visuals I must say that the VFX (CGI) were very very very well executed.

To finish, I disliked the film a lot. It felt exactly like the first AVP with a R-rated.
I don't think that giving a note would be very useful apart 1 for the 3D and 1 for CGI which would be 2/10.
But it's a movie that won't be remembered as Alien and in several years we'll laugh about it.
Just to give you statistics, we were 5 to go to the theater that night.
1 loved it.
1 enjoyed it
3 disliked it and almost fell asleep.

It's in the end a matter of taste & colors but still, it's nowhere near a masterpiece.

[close]

I agree with everything you said but a bit of a harsh rating

Spoiler

I really want to know what that crystal was!

[close]

[NGR01]

I agree with everything you said but a bit of a harsh rating

Spoiler

I really want to know what that crystal was!

[close]

[/quote]

Spoiler

I dont think it's a crystal or anything.
Rememember in the trailer you see the same shot with Holloway reaching toward it, but instead of a green thing there is the bowl that the sacrifice engineer uses in the opening of the movie.
It another modification made in post production.
It's still the same bowl but its tilted and there is frozen green goo, like the one David finds on the panel that activates the corridor holograms.

[close]

Celticant some answer are there there are just not spoonfed to you

[ThisBethesdaSea]

Xeno that was a fair review. I'm now more excited then ever!

[Le Celticant]

I agree with everything you said but a bit of a harsh rating

Spoiler

I really want to know what that crystal was!

[close]

Spoiler

I dont think it's a crystal or anything.
Rememember in the trailer you see the same shot with Holloway reaching toward it, but instead of a green thing there is the bowl that the sacrifice engineer uses in the opening of the movie.
It another modification made in post production.
It's still the same bowl but its tilted and there is frozen green goo, like the one David finds on the panel that activates the corridor holograms.

[close]

Celticant some answer are there there are just not spoonfed to you

Ah!!! Didn't noticed this and thanks for the Giger infos too.
Though I still hold my opinion on this: It was stupid to show it and irrelevant.

[NGR01]

Xeno that was a fair review. I'm now more excited then ever!

LOL  what a surprise.
Can't wait to read your review where you will of course say that its a masterpiece lol
Whatever... 

Xeno,

Spoiler

Did you not rolled you eyes at how Ravel and Chance are completly fine to sacrifice themselves?
They had like What 2 scenes to flesh them out and it's like YES SIR WE ARE HAPPY TO DIE FOR SOMETHING WE DONT EVEN UNDERSTAND!!! Laughable.

[close]

[mastermoon]

I've got big plans to see this move on June 15TH, but the other people posting in this topic should at least give a rating.

You people should do the "(Insert Numerber)/10" rating system more often.

[Xenoscream]

Xeno that was a fair review. I'm now more excited then ever!

LOL  what a surprise.
Can't wait to read your review where you will of course say that its a masterpiece lol
Whatever... 

Xeno,

Spoiler

Did you not rolled you eyes at how Ravel and Chance are completly fine to sacrifice themselves?
They had like What 2 scenes to flesh them out and it's like YES SIR WE ARE HAPPY TO DIE FOR SOMETHING WE DONT EVEN UNDERSTAND!!! Laughable.

[close]

Yes! I did actually physically roll my eyes. I

Spoiler

It was like they as characters just had nowhere to go, I also thought the captain suddenly having depth and saying they can't let them go back was stupid... And also no one seemed to mind there was a squid hanging out in the escape pod, and that David was an asshole...

[close]

[NGR01]

Spoiler

Weyland and David are ready to freeze Shaw to keep the squid but when she appears with her C section they don't give a damn about where is the squid. Also why Ford and the Merc who prepare Shaw for cryo dont pursue her when she escapes

I just loved how it's Janek that comes with the explaination of what is the temple.
Suddenly he's the one who give us the answers.... Even if i liked the character, seriously?
That is just lame screenwriting.

I hope an extended cut will fix some of those.

[close]

[Valaquen]

Thanks for using the spoiler tags, guys I think it's healthy to temper our expectations. I feel realistic