Morgoth, on 15 June 2012 - 12:13 PM, said:
I don't understand how what will be included in some theoretical director's cut is relevant for the quality of this film. I didn't see a future directors cut. I saw the film as it was in the cinema. It's interesting to speculate what would be included in something like that for sure, but hardly something that affects the quality of what we all saw.
The thing with Prometheus to me is that you can divide it into to sections. It raises a lot of interesting questions for sure. Why would the Engineers act the way they did. Did the mural in that temple room represent their religion. Do they consider the something resembling the Alien their creator. Are they trying to recreate whichever race created them? Perhaps they worship the idea of genetic perfection, culuminating in something very much like the Alien?
You can draw quite a lot of parallels to christianity for sure, which is surprising considering Ridley Scott's quite vocal view on religion.
See all this together with the fictional TED talk and you get the foundation for an intelligent sci fi that actually challenges the viewer. The trailer and all the other pre-release material promised us something as rare as a sci fi that treats its viewers like at least marginally intelligent people. Apart from Moon and Sunshine, how many of those have we gotten in the last decade? Then look at how much twisting some members need to do in order to justify some actions in this film. Ridiculous analogies about surgical masks and imploding helmets. Really? Is that the signs of an intelligent movie to you?
The main problem I have with Prometheus, and which the other posters with a more negative view seems to share, is how most of the things that happen throughout the movie makes sense only as stepping stones for the plot. When a character makes a choice that forwards the plot but seems completely artificial for the character, it ruins immersion for a lot of people. It was necessary for the plot to have the biologist and the geologist get lost, but there was no way they'd get lost considering the tools they had at their disposal. You sit there thinking "How the fuck did they get lost?" and the only viable answer is "because the plot required them to do so". That's bad writing. It could have been anything. Their equipment malfunctioned because of the storm. The floor collapsed and they found themselves in an unmapped part of the structure. Instead they got lost because of plot.
Prometheus is packed to the brim with this sort of thing. It's not nitpicking. It's a reacting to bad writing and a badly written story is not a good story.
And when talking about bad writing. The dialogue didn't strike you as stiff and rather forced? I remember a collective groan when Shaw brought up the inability to have children. Did anyone find that scene the least believable? Considering the quality of the actress involved it must have been poorly written indeed. Not to mention Charlize Theron, who seemed to be hitting her head continously at the limitations of her role. Fassenbender played great as David, but even with his role the script didn't seem to know what it wanted him to be. His taunting of Shaw in regards to her pregnancy was particularly strange considering how his character had been presented so far. Not to mention how Shaw acted towards David at the end, after he'd killed her husband and tried to have her give birth to an alien parasite.
At the very end I want to point out that this is not a thread dedicated to some sort of Ridley Scott circlejerk. If someone wishes to debate the negative aspects of the film they are just as welcome to do so as those wishing to talk about the positive aspects. The important thing is that the general tone remains civil. If a person for whatever reason feels threatened by opposing views then perhaps this is not the place to hang out.
The above post is tantamount to saying that I didn't see the same movie as you and that I'm too stupid to have seen it for the bad movie it was.
No, and I'll say this once: I am NOT TWISTING fuck all. My explanations for the things people had issues with are EXACTLY how I saw the film. I didn't sit there while I watched it (or afterwards) and construct all the explanations for the things in the film. That is simply how I interpreted them as i watched. That does not make you smarter than me, and it certainly does not make me stupid. It simply means we didn't watch it and get the same things from it. So don't call me "wrong" or call my attempts to explain HOW I viewed it as ridiculous...those arguments I put forth are not because
I had issues with understanding the film in the way I did...they were my attempt to point out to others perhaps WHY my brain saw it that way. Those are not, I repeat NOT me twisting anything, it's simply how I saw those things.
I think that TREE OF LIFE is an eye-raping, assinine, and boring ass film....but a lot of people here liked it. I didn't proceed to go on thread about it and say anything further than I didn't like it. I didn't set out to challenge the reasons people put forth FOR liking it...they liked it, I didn't End of story. That makes them no more stupid or less stupid than i...it simply means they saw something in Mallick's film that I didn't and that's great for them.
Was there silly stuff in PROMETHEUS that was less than immediately believable? Sure, I've already noted that. But I don't think it outweighs the film as a whole.
That's how I saw it. There's no need to attempt to dismiss or discredit my argument as I'm not about to change my mind...but I'd rather not be labelled as someone who is
making excuses for a film that MUST be stupid because others saw it that way. I saw it my own way. I was simply attempting to ask negative reviewers to consider some "reasons" for the things they disliked.
If I (on the other hand) came across as calling anyone stupid (not that I thought I was) for DISliking it, then that's not what I had intended and I'm sorry. I had only truly intended to present options and reasons that i saw for the complaints they had.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon