Critic Review Thread (79% fresh - 7.1 average rating)

[Symn]

Ok, i think it's time for a massive expectationlowering otherwise ill be severly disapointed.

[Face Jockey]

Those are maddeningly inconclusive and vague

[mastermoon]

Maybe they were expecting the movie to have this fan made Space Jockey story.

The Xenomorphs were created by an ancient race (The Jockey Race) tens of thousands of years ago.  They were fighting among themselves in a brutal civil war.  Their technology was organic in nature and was so powerful, the death toll ran into the millions.  For decades, the war never saw twilight.  It seemed to go on forever...until one side got an idea.

     It was an experiment to create a biomechanical weapon.  It would adapt to its environment, be completely independent...and finally...it would be viscous.  This creature would be a living machine with the most grotesque combination of science and nature.  They created a species bent only of the art of killing.   The experiment was placed on a distant world ("Alien-Proteus").  They designed the species with a hive structure to keep the infestation from running out of control.  The "ant" methodology was promoted.  The object: To keep the infestation under control by keeping the creatures close to their "queen."

     The experiment was a success.  The creatures we know as Xenomorphs were created.  The standard infiltrator mission was as follows: An egg is deposited in a populace, it impregnates, and an alien bursts out of the host and soon finds more hosts which it can convert into eggs which will also hunt down hosts to impregnate.  The creature will kill anything threatening and convert the rest.  Soon, the populace is destroyed and the aliens are left alone on the world or spacecraft where the infestation was released.  It is assumed the Jockeys that created the Xenomorphs had a procedure to eliminate the new infection.

     The Jockeys were ready to unleash their creation on their enemy.   The Proteus planet was still under control.  The experiment seemed safe.  The mother species deposited many life forms to keep their hives intact.  These life forms seemed to reproduce in large numbers.  When needed, a transport would simply set down and pick up a queen, a drone, an army, or just a bunch of eggs as the mission profile specified.  The weapon proved useful and the war ended quickly.

     The Xenomorphs were designed to adapt to current situations but their basic morphology was not to change...it did.  Before the Jockeys could stop their "children", they had evolved.  One small little change, something seemingly insignificant connected to the "ant" structure but not included in the alien design...Royal Jelly—the strange substance used to generate a queen.  When the Jockeys discovered infested worlds where there shouldn't be, they got worried.

     Given the capability to create their own queens, the infestation could not be bottled.  It soon broke out of control.  The Jockeys found their experiment turning against them.  They tried to find a weapon to defeat their own creation but they were already demoralized from a past war.  They sent one last ship to pick up "evolved"    egg samples from the Proteus planet to study...it never came back.

     The Jockey race vanished.  After thousands of years, without transportation, the Xenomorphs quickly overran the planets they were on, then promptly died out.  They might be long lived, but after ten thousand years, even their lifespan ran out.  The eggs fossilized, the bodies disintegrated and the last legacy of the alien species vanished.  The ship from the proteus world crashed landed on a world far away from their Homeworld
   
LV-426 was the world where the lone Jockey ship crashed landed, across the galaxy from their Homeworld.  The Jockey onboard was killed when an alien egg he carried broke free and impregnated him.  Without a pilot, his ship set down on the hostile world.  The stasis fields in the cargo bay were damaged and all but one bay of eggs were unsealed.  They all soon died from exposure.  One bay remained sealed and waited--the last living legacy of a past experiment that failed.

Thats what they were possibly wanting.

[Vulhala]

Hmmm. Marmite it is then. Not what I was hoping for. I'll make up my mind when I see it, of course.

[Aceburster]

  I dunno if anything is being lost in translation but im seeing a lack of "IT SCARED THE $#!^ OUT OF ME!"
 
  Im willing to accept the movie for whatever it turns out to be, but I did expect some genuine horror in the forefront of peoples reactions.

[Ruzena]

Don't tell me its psychological thriller with love story and space octopus please lulz

[Symn]

Starting to think there's a lot less horror in it then they make us believe

[Darth Vile]

  I dunno if anything is being lost in translation but im seeing a lack of "IT SCARED THE $#!^ OUT OF ME!"
 
  Im willing to accept the movie for whatever it turns out to be, but I did expect some genuine horror in the forefront of peoples reactions.

Yep that would be my view... first and foremost I'd like the movie to be somewhat genuinely scary/disturbing. The fact that thus far, no one has mentioned this element is leading me to believe that it is perhaps not genuinely scary/disturbing.

[mastermoon]

Starting to think there's a lot less horror in it then they make us believe

You will only know when you see the movie.

[OmegaZilla]

No, we know it already without having seen it.

[Ruzena]

The twitter reactions are more scary than the movie itself

[Bat Chain Puller]

Starting to feel like this film might have a polarizing effect like Blade Runner (and more recently Watchman.)

Too early to tell if the only ones that liked it were crazed "I like anything remotely sci-fi or from Ridley Scott" fans, and if the ones who didn't would be better served watching pop corn sci-fi like Independence Day or Transformers.

[Bigticket]

By today standards scary movies are Paranormal Activity (or something like that) etc. so i dont expect people to be scared by Prometheus. I am looking for great trip in alien universe with new characters, new ideas and creations , also with some space jockey answers. it doesnt have to be a horror, just a great sci fi .

[BonesawT101]

This is pretty expected really. Alien had some rather dreadful reviews upon its initial release only years later the same reviewers decided to change their minds.

[TimmyTurnersDad]

Starting to feel like this film might have a polarizing effect like Blade Runner (and more recently Watchman.)

Definitely agree with this. They've made it a point to mention multiple times in interviews and statements that the movie was going to be more 'intellectual' than Alien, akin to Blade Runner. We may see another 'cult classic' type film here, with mixed reviews in theaters, but a bounce back in sales and audience reviews when the movie is released on DVD and Blu-Ray later on.