The thing that disappoints me most is, this movie has been described as "epic," even by Sir Riddles himself, right! When I think of "epic" I think of movies built on a massive scale, with a production to match, stories that develop and take their time. Movies like Ben Hur (1959 - $16 million, 212 minutes), 2001: A Space Odessy (1968 - $10 million, 141 minutes), Spartacus (1960 - $12 million, 184 minutes). More recently, Gladiator (2000 - $103 million, 155 minutes), Lord of the Rings (2001 - $93 million, 178 minutes), King Kong (2005 - $207 million, 187 minutes), Robin Hood (2010 - $200 million, 140 minutes. All these movies, whatever we think of them, had huge scale and big budgets for their time, but they also have something else in common... they didn't feel rushed.
Of course we all know movie making has changed so much lately. But we also know what Ridley Scott is capable of, that Prometheus has a massive production worth up to a reported $200 million, and we've all seen proof of the epic scale it could be, but with a running time of just 119 minutes it strikes me as anything but epic. Obviously the problem for the studio is how to sell their product to the masses not just the fans. I just think with so many fans of this genre waiting to see this movie, putting it out as PG-13 while bad enough is understandable, but if Prometheus is truly meant to be "epic", why risk hurting it's theatrical release even more by possibly cutting it to shreads, when it's pretty obvious who's going to want to see this type of film and no guarentees the movie will attract an outside audience in he first place!
Even with all the hype, I STILL talk to people who don't know what Prometheus is, while the people expected to see it most, us the Alien/Predatopr fans, who I'd wager would see Prometheus many times if it's great, might well be the same people put off seeing it at all if they hear the movie fails to measure up. And just imagine, all this could happen because one person thought 'if the movie was shorter more people would go see it, and so it would make more money.' Well, I hate to burst your bubble Mr Rothman, but it doesn't always work that way. And I wonder, are you just trying it on because you really didn't like what you saw and just want it over with... in which case we should all be worried!!