Fox Talks Prometheus Sequel

[Darth Vile]

Maybe I should have made my point clearer and more rounded.

ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER have very simple stories. One is essentially a slasher movie, the other is about a hit man.
But they are both dripping in atmosphere and are perfect mood movies that pull you into their world and explore a lot of ideas in their subtexts.

Prometheus fails at creating a consistent mood and atmosphere that you can sink into and fails to follow through on it's potential saving grace which is a well told story with a beginning, middle and end.

They decided they wouldn't tell us the whole story for the sake of commerce and thought they could patch up the holes with some monster movie moments.

It's a 2.5/5* - 3/5* movie tops.

Scott's movies are primarily visual masterclasses (well his better ones anyway). He doesn't major on character and story as much. Prometheus  is, I'd say, a very typical Scott movie. It has bags of atmosphere and looks fantastic - IMHO. It suffers in some of it's character development and pacing. The major difference between  it and Alien is, simply put and IMHO, it's tone and a hugely original take on design concepts and the alien morphology.

[SiL]

The major difference is the scripts.

Alien was written by people who wanted to make tell a neat story well and as unpretentious as possible.

Prometheus was ostensibly written by people who didn't realise most of the rest of humanity no longer considers "Maybe aliens made us?" a particularly novel or deep idea.

[zoidy]

The major difference is the scripts.

Alien was written by people who wanted to make tell a neat story well and as unpretentious as possible.

Prometheus was ostensibly written by people who didn't realise most of the rest of humanity no longer considers "Maybe aliens made us?" a particularly novel or deep idea.

Playing devil's advocate for a second:

Alien was ostensibly written by people who didn't realise most of the rest of humanity no longer considers "simplistic haunted house" a particularly novel or deep idea.

I don't believe that, and I also don't believe that the Prometheus story was any more cliched or unoriginal than any other movie. Alien is about as unoriginal as you can get.

[T Dog]

The major difference is the scripts.

Alien was written by people who wanted to make tell a neat story well and as unpretentious as possible.

Prometheus was ostensibly written by people who didn't realise most of the rest of humanity no longer considers "Maybe aliens made us?" a particularly novel or deep idea.

Playing devil's advocate for a second:

Alien was ostensibly written by people who didn't realise most of the rest of humanity no longer considers "simplistic haunted house" a particularly novel or deep idea.

I don't believe that, and I also don't believe that the Prometheus story was any more cliched or unoriginal than any other movie. Alien is about as unoriginal as you can get.

This isn't aimed at you or anything but you just jogged my memory of the silliness of Shaw's character.
"I believe, because I choose to believe it."
F**k, late 21st century Christians. Still sending missionaries to Africa. F**k off. What an interesting Alien movie.

[Valaquen]

I don't believe that, and I also don't believe that the Prometheus story was any more cliched or unoriginal than any other movie. Alien is about as unoriginal as you can get.

There is a distinction in that Dan O'Bannon was happy to admit that Alien was derivative of other B-movies and EC comic strips. He championed Giger and the film's artists for its originality or freshness. Ridley's direction also helped; the film's incredibly immersive. Prometheus stumbled because it wanted to go beyond the relatively simple set-up of Alien and be something grandiose and shattering, but it resorted to the sort of trickery we all see on History channel alien shows and von Daniken literature which is, essentially, a pseudo-scientific take on Lovecraft (a guy that Ridley, like O'Bannon, really should have turned to). With Alien, the writers, all three of them (O'Bannon, Giler, and Hill - you can throw in ideas-men like Cobb and Shussett too) were all scrumming to get their end into the film. What resulted was a wonderful mixing pot of ideas. With Prometheus, both writers made it clear that they were conduits for Ridley, and what we get is something sort of flat and almost one-dimensional, ideas-wise. Back in the Blade Runner days, Scott and Hampton Fancher would almost literally duke it out when it came to the writing, and David Peoples also did his thing nicely; throwing in an idea of his own but also translating Ridley's thoughts. They were collaborative. Now with Ridley's reputation, it seems like all he got were yes-men in the shape of Lindelof.

My two pennies, anyway.

[BANE]

F**k, late 21st century Christians. Still sending missionaries to Africa. F**k off. What an interesting Alien movie.

Yes, because religion doesn't exist in Alien movies. 

[ChrisPachi]

I read about criticisms of Shaw running around after the c-section, but once I saw the film a) it's the f**king future and b) she's doubled over in pain is nearly every second shot.

Her legs wouldn't work, regardless of how much Cordrazine was in her system.

Now with Ridley's reputation, it seems like all he got were yes-men in the shape of Lindelof.

And what he needed was no-men, just decent writers.

[Darth Vile]

The major difference is the scripts.

Alien was written by people who wanted to make tell a neat story well and as unpretentious as possible.

Prometheus was ostensibly written by people who didn't realise most of the rest of humanity no longer considers "Maybe aliens made us?" a particularly novel or deep idea.

I'd agree with that... although I'd be more specific and state that Alien was created by a group of people who wanted to make a scary movie, and who championed a design aesthetic, as then, not seen on film. Whereas Prometheus is a much more commercial movie designed to appeal to a much broader audience.

[BANE]

I read about criticisms of Shaw running around after the c-section, but once I saw the film a) it's the f**king future and b) she's doubled over in pain is nearly every second shot.

Her legs wouldn't work, regardless of how much Cordrazine was in her system.

Future, new, better drugs.

[thecaffeinatedone]

I'm sort of surprised people can be very deep and logical about certain flaws within the movie but not recognize that it's a.) Far enough in the future to where ftl exists and medicine has advanced a lot and b.)We don't actually KNOW how much time has passed from when she meets up with weyland for the first time to when they're all suddenly gearing up to go to the pyramid.

[Master]

I read about criticisms of Shaw running around after the c-section, but once I saw the film a) it's the f**king future and b) she's doubled over in pain is nearly every second shot.

Her legs wouldn't work, regardless of how much Cordrazine was in her system.

Future, new, better drugs.

Drugs can`t overrun anatomy flaws 

[Valaquen]

I'm sort of surprised people can be very deep and logical about certain flaws within the movie but not recognize that it's a.) Far enough in the future to where ftl exists and medicine has advanced a lot

It's utterly ridiculous, scientifically, in Alien where Lambert says they are 10 months travel time from Zeta II Reticuli to Earth - in Aliens the better technology (or military supremacy > truckers) has rendered this into a matter of weeks. So I don't get too hung up on a couple of implausibilities, s'long as they're not absolutely glaring (100% DNA match, err ...)

[BANE]

I need to watch again, but my recollection was that it was just 'match', not  '100% match'...which is plausible.

[thecaffeinatedone]

(100% DNA match,

Yeah, it's silly how the jockey creates all life on earth by breaking his body apart and then the DNA just happens to evolve to his exact strand. Kind of like a lazy way of connecting the jockey's and humans. Possibly it's the fact that two different scripts were written and cobbled together? Or maybe Lindelof was just like, "make DNA match, no make organic plot"

[Highland]

I read about criticisms of Shaw running around after the c-section, but once I saw the film a) it's the f**king future and b) she's doubled over in pain is nearly every second shot.

Her legs wouldn't work, regardless of how much Cordrazine was in her system.

Future, new, better drugs.

Yeah that never really bothered me. I'm sure we see her take tablets, then an injection, then the med pod spray's her across the guts with another presumably pain killing liquid. It's pretty clear she's drugged up like a mofo.

Plus getting cut open by a laser would prevent tearing of tissue. I'd assume it would be like a hot knife through butter.