Prometheus

Not that I base everything I do on opinion, but the reviews and word from friends are that it’s pretty but a terrible plot and characters.

I started watching about half of it the other night from sources I will not disclose.  Seemed ok, nothing great, but I immediately saw what people were talking about.  Supposed highly intelligent characters acting like idiots.  Plot that didn’t make sense.

It was missing what Alien had.  It was like trying too hard to not be THE Alien prequel while being AN Alien prequel.  Should have just tied it in.

But I do love Sci Fi and appreciate the talk it’s getting, it just doesn’t seem to be executed very well.  I just feel the hype really hurt the movie.

On the other hand, I’ve asked friends their Top 5 Sci Fi movies and the answers have been pretty lame.  I do limit their answer to one movie in a series though (You can say Empire and ST2 : the Wrath of Khan but that’s it).

It isn’t a very good script. There are some pretty cool sequences but the movie seemed in a big hurry and it felt like a lot of stuff got cut out for the sake of time. It isn’t a bad movie but it lacks the slow simmer of impending doom I was hoping for. Fassbender is good, Theron and the rest of the cast are good but there is a problem with the script or the edit or both. It is long but I felt it could have been longer. But any problems should first be heaped upon the script.

I’ve seen it. In one word: amazing.

I’ve had several discussions regarding the supposed ‘plot holes’ but I think it’s just that the movie has a TON of layers and subtext going on that most people won’t catch most of them by viewing it once. All the details, absent and present, have a reason/history, although in most cases we won’t see it until the sequel.

Example (SPOILER - highlight to read it)

According to Greek mythology, after mankind got fire from Prometheus, the gods gave to Pandora a box containing all the evils of the universe, which she opened although they warned her not to. Skip to the movie, to the surgery scene where the lead scientist removes the ‘alien thing’ growing on her body. The operating machine cuts her belly and them clamps the edges of the incision in a square shape just like a box. Coincidence?

I saw that movie last Friday and thought it was great. It stands on it’s own and too me was better than all the Alien movies except the first.

I like the Hal 9000 touch with the android. great special effects BTW.

It didn’t have what I’d term plotholes. It had a philosophical underpinning that was full of holes and it had some bad and inadequately explained science. If you want to ditch actual science fine but you have to explain what the science you’ll be using instead is. Weak script.

The script is terrible but it was still a pretty good time at the cinema which says that Scott is a really good director.

@frimmel:

It had a philosophical underpinning that was full of holes and it had some bad and inadequately explained science. If you want to ditch actual science fine but you have to explain what the science you’ll be using instead is. Weak script.

I love a challenge. What are the philosophical/scientific issues you refer to?

*** spoiler alert ***

This post will probably give away or allow you to figure plot points from Prometheus.

You have been warned.

Well evolution is a robust scientific theory. We understand both the how and why of it unlike say gravity which we understand the how of it (Newton, Einstein) but the why of it not so much. So the Engineers in the film did what exactly? Set evolution into motion? Created humans complete as they are in the film while evolution did its thing or was already doing its thing? Why is the DNA identical but the results in Engineers and Humans is so different? The Engineers were creating a bio weapon? Were doing a Dr. Frankenstein and created life to see if they could? Was the thing Shaw removed growing? Mutating? Evolving? Why did it turn out how it did in the end? What did the Engineers in fact create and why and how was it working?

So we can now get to the whole issue of “meeting your maker” in the first place and the dodge the shoddy science allows. The Engineers created us (on purpose? by accident?) but of course where did they come from? How did they come to be? How did they evolve? It all on reflection has the stink of trying to have your cake and eat it to. Man was created in God’s image (The Engineers) but God has the DNA of a man? There is a Creator but we can’t know?

Shaw is putting faith in what?

It isn’t really asking a particular philosophical question in the first place and then doesn’t bother to give an answer to any you might end up asking on your own.

Most Sci-Fi movies have terrible science.  At least if the ‘magic’ is consistent well then…. My issue is FTL or Faster Than Light travel.  Once/if humans get it, we will be around every star system in the galaxy within 50, 000 years, a mere blink of the eye in cosmic terms.  So why is the universe not filled with space faring creatures, because either they don’t exist or FTL is not possible.  Even without FTL, at 1% the speed of light we can cross the galaxy in 5 million years, again, a blink of the eye.

@frimmel:

*** spoiler alert ***
Well evolution is a robust scientific theory.

Theory. It is also a well proven fact, but the fossil record can’t prove most of the theory. In some cases we haven’t discovered yet the physical proof of some theorized species, like the last common ancestor between humans and other primates, for instance. Genetically we can determine the date when the split happened, which is so far the best evidence for the existence of that ancestor. But there’s still several important points unresolved in Evolution like if Homo Sapiens developed first on Africa and then expanded or had a multi-regional origin.
Now, take Creationism/Intelligent Design (I’m not endorsing it btw) and one of its tenets is that Mankind was created by a superior being. It can fit the Almighty, but it can be Engineers or other extraterrestrials. If you come up with definitive proof that the latter was the case (humans being genetically created by extraterrestrials) then the whole scientific theory of life would have to be rewritten.
My point is really - if you accept that humans on that movie can travel faster than light (which is impossible according to contemporary physics, but no one complains about that on sci-fi movies) then evolution, as we know it, can also be questioned.
Of course, FTL and evolution are not quite the same subject because of the latter’s emotional and religious connotations that it can carry… so it’s like discussing a girl with your friend, everything OK if she’s a stranger, but if you’re talking about his sister… oh boy.

We understand both the how and why of it unlike say gravity which we understand the how of it (Newton, Einstein) but the why of it not so much. So the Engineers in the film did what exactly? Set evolution into motion? Created humans complete as they are in the film while evolution did its thing or was already doing its thing?

Your guess as good as mine. It can be that they seeded Earth with life (another scientific theory called panspermia - life’s ingredients came from space instead of being created on Earth). We know that they made routine visits to Earth so we can assume that they were always monitoring the experiment. LV-233 is probably an example of their favorite planets - with the exception of the CO2 levels (something that vegetation would fix into the ground) the planet seems almost devoid of multicellular life (except worms, apparently).

Why is the DNA identical but the results in Engineers and Humans is so different?

What results on Engineers are you referring to? When the head is revived it shows the same symptoms (blistering, etc) than the boyfriend scientist. Other than that, something scared and killed almost all Engineers but we don’t know what it was. It could be that one of them got infected by accident, like Dr. Frankenstein. It could also be that they were all killed by the sleeping Engineer before he went to stasis. Also, the last Engineer is attacked and infected by the giant octopus, which implants an embryo on him, like any other human.

The Engineers were creating a bio weapon? Were doing a Dr. Frankenstein and created life to see if they could?

My first impression was ‘WMD research facility that went wrong’ and Earth was the test subjects. Which would imply that they create worlds just for their own pleasure and somehow we got lucky because of the accident, otherwise we’d be biological mold by now.
Then I read an article that argued precisely the other point: instead of being Zoo Keepers, the aliens are Caretakers, meaning that their intention was to spread life throughout the galaxy and care for it. With sacrifice being an essential part of their culture (the Engineer at the beginning and there’s a mural where you can see an Engineer with a familiar wound on his stomach.
In that case the black goo is their working material to create life. What happened is that mankind turned to be a flawed selfish creation with no respect for life and the last attempt to fix it happened 2,000 years ago and didn’t work. That’s why the Engineer wants to kill all humans (specially the robot David, which represents everything that he’s against, or technology vs life, since David is only mechanic while the Engineers combine both in biomechanic materials). Wayland is also everything the Engineer is against, since he uses all means possible to achieve his selfish aims of immortality.
On both theories the image of Prometheus is present, it just depends on which one. You can have a Promethian Engineer that decides that mankind should be saved (probably after visiting Earth) and kills/freezes all other Engineers before it happens. Or a Pandorean Engineer that unleashes all the evils at LV-233. Or mankind can be seen in general as Prometheus, defying the Gods/Engineers by creating life of its own (David).

Was the thing Shaw removed growing? Mutating? Evolving? Why did it turn out how it did in the end? What did the Engineers in fact create and why and how was it working?

One striking image is when her abdomen is cut the clamps make a perfect square/rectangular shape. Or, to punish mankind, the Gods gave Pandora a box that contained all evils of the universe, and told her not to open. Which she did.
On the alien movies one aspect of the creature’s DNA is that it will copy genetic features of its host - on Alien 3 it has 4 legs IIRC because it grew on a dog. Shaw is also the only women which gets infected - you don’t see any female Engineers (if there are any) - with the men it drives them into zombies.
Now, go back to both theories. If it is a biological weapon to destroy (human) life on planets then it basically turns the males into marauding zombies and females into breeders of monsters. If instead is the elixir of life… well for some reason it isn’t compatible with humans (flawed, selfish, warmongering) despite the exact DNA with Engineers. Or maybe it isn’t for Engineers at all also. Either way, it seems to copy the host’s genetic traits:

• Acidic blood from the planet’s worms, which turn into white snakes.
• The ability to lay eggs (from Shaw)
• Aggressiveness (boyfriend and Engineer)
• The biomechanic aspects (from the Engineer own body)
  The creature that emerges isn’t a full alien as we know it - but at the same time there’s also a mural that shows it already, so the Engineers are aware of its existence. Most likely they already had a few incidents where the black goo had that effect, or represents the antethesis of Sacrifice, a selfish creature that thinks only of itself.

So we can now get to the whole issue of “meeting your maker” in the first place and the dodge the shoddy science allows. The Engineers created us (on purpose? by accident?) but of course where did they come from? How did they come to be? How did they evolve? It all on reflection has the stink of trying to have your cake and eat it to. Man was created in God’s image (The Engineers) but God has the DNA of a man? There is a Creator but we can’t know?

Shaw is putting faith in what?

It isn’t really asking a particular philosophical question in the first place and then doesn’t bother to give an answer to any you might end up asking on your own.

Wait for the sequel. There’s a lot of this I mentioned above, but it is all speculation. As Shaw says, someone must have created them. Shaw also represents the only thing left on Pandora’s box after it was opened: Hope.

******more  spoilers **********

The problem is not that they’re ignoring evolution but that they don’t adequately explain what is in fact at work. A good writer establishes rules for his fictional universe. There is a certain amount of belief you’re expected to suspend simply by stepping into the theater. But that doesn’t mean anything goes.

The problem also is not that there aren’t explanations or possibilities but that if I’m left to fill in the story however I like then they didn’t actually say anything. While it is reasonable to expect me to bring some external knowledge from things to catch some symbolism the whole thing with Shaw as Pandora’s Box is really a stretch (though that was a really cool sequence which was good because it kept me from thinking too long about why the medpod in the ladies survival bunker was not calibrated for women.) And really easy to miss since right after she’s running around covered in blood with a line of surgical staples visible across her belly and nobody says a word and let’s her go along to wake up the Engineer.

I can’t fault anyone for enjoying the movie, I rather did, but that is one lazy script. The mapping guy got lost? There’s something moving over that away let’s run the opposite way and pet the alien space cobra in the room we couldn’t get away from fastest enough. Vickers was right there to burn up the infected guy but allowed the bridge to be unattended with two men lost in a storm on an alien world? And of course they opened the door right away for the zombie. Just lazy.

There is already talk of the Blu-ray/DVD release being an extended cut. I wouldn’t expect any answers to my questions in any added footage though because I really don’t think the writers have them.

FTL is possible with contemporary physics…  One can theoretically create a “Warp Drive” that contracts space infront of you while expanding it behind you.  You essentially are going FTL but you physically are not accelerating to that speed.  One can also generate “worm holes” to create tunnels in space/time to move from one side of the universe to the other.  Or what about entering another dimension/universe where one is capable of moving faster than light and re-entering our universe/dimension when we reach our destination.

All of these are possible, but we are no where near capable of performing these acts with our present tech.  Yet alone able to harness and focus the massive amounts of energy required to use these methods.

@frimmel:

******more  spoilers **********

The problem is not that they’re ignoring evolution but that they don’t adequately explain what is in fact at work. A good writer establishes rules for his fictional universe. There is a certain amount of belief you’re expected to suspend simply by stepping into the theater. But that doesn’t mean anything goes.

The problem also is not that there aren’t explanations or possibilities but that if I’m left to fill in the story however I like then they didn’t actually say anything. While it is reasonable to expect me to bring some external knowledge from things to catch some symbolism the whole thing with Shaw as Pandora’s Box is really a stretch (though that was a really cool sequence which was good because it kept me from thinking too long about why the medpod in the ladies survival bunker was not calibrated for women.)

It was there for Wayland in case something happened to him during the journey.

And really easy to miss since right after she’s running around covered in blood with a line of surgical staples visible across her belly and nobody says a word and let’s her go along to wake up the Engineer.

There’s an even worse one there - Shaw had abdominal surgery, which usually involves cutting the belly muscles and sewing them back together and prevents you from almost walking (like mothers after a cesarian). But again I could argue that the machine took care of that as well.

spoilers continue*******

@Hobbes:

It was there for Wayland in case something happened to him during the journey.

Why? The man had only days to live which is why he was in hypersleep. What kind of surgery was he going to need? The medpod was introduced in the context of Vickers, a female, being prepared for anything which read to me as “my own survival.”

There’s an even worse one there - Shaw had abdominal surgery, which usually involves cutting the belly muscles and sewing them back together and prevents you from almost walking (like mothers after a cesarian). But again I could argue that the machine took care of that as well.

I had those thoughts as well. But that is just more of how sloppy the script is. To further go into problems there. If it isn’t calibrated for females simply asking for ‘remove foreign body’ without the program understanding there is a uterus there? And since they didn’t go into why Shaw couldn’t have children we might ask if she in fact had a uterus or eggs or why did she get pregnant in the first place. That brings us back to the magic black goo with unexplained abilities that seems to be able to do whatever needs done to motivate the next action sequence. I shouldn’t have to do mental contortions to make the script work and there is a limit to the number of “It’s a movie” cards the filmmakers can play.

But the medpod sequence was pretty intense and gripping despite the sloppiness. Would it really have been less so if the medpod were calibrated for females?

I often hear and use the phrase, “You can’t polish a turd.” I think maybe with “Prometheus” that has been proven wrong. That script is a turd but I still find myself having trouble saying the film is bad. Perhaps therein lies its genius.  :lol:

:roll:@frimmel:

spoilers continue*******

@Hobbes:

It was there for Wayland in case something happened to him during the journey.

Why? The man had only days to live which is why he was in hypersleep. What kind of surgery was he going to need? The medpod was introduced in the context of Vickers, a female, being prepared for anything which read to me as “my own survival.”

The guy is like 100 years old and goes through stasis, I guess it was a way to deal with any unexpected complications after waking up. IIRC someone mentions that he has cardiac problems as well.

There’s an even worse one there - Shaw had abdominal surgery, which usually involves cutting the belly muscles and sewing them back together and prevents you from almost walking (like mothers after a cesarian). But again I could argue that the machine took care of that as well.

I had those thoughts as well. But that is just more of how sloppy the script is. To further go into problems there. If it isn’t calibrated for females simply asking for ‘remove foreign body’ without the program understanding there is a uterus there? And since they didn’t go into why Shaw couldn’t have children we might ask if she in fact had a uterus or eggs or why did she get pregnant in the first place. That brings us back to the magic black goo with unexplained abilities that seems to be able to do whatever needs done to motivate the next action sequence. I shouldn’t have to do mental contortions to make the script work and there is a limit to the number of “It’s a movie” cards the filmmakers can play.

But the medpod sequence was pretty intense and gripping despite the sloppiness. Would it really have been less so if the medpod were calibrated for females?

I often hear and use the phrase, “You can’t polish a turd.” I think maybe with “Prometheus” that has been proven wrong. That script is a turd but I still find myself having trouble saying the film is bad. Perhaps therein lies its genius.  :lol:

Yeah, the black goo is really the plot device here as you say, that can be used to explain almost anything (or at least that obsessed viewers will try to use it so…). At the same time, its properties can be explained (partially) if you think of epigenetics, which studies how outside factors influence the genetic properties of DNA and how genes are activated. One example is cell differentiation - all cells share the same DNA but epigenetics is what makes some become bone marrow, others liver cells, etc. The black goo seems to share those qualities since it activates specific DNA parts on each organism that infects.

I think most of those plot issues have to do with the movie’s pace, which is fast and I liked it. The mission briefing is really: ‘this is what we’re here for, get up and lets do it now’ - no one asks questions about anything (which makes sense, since I’d be trying to rationalize it as well). No one seems to want to wait (which I would do the same with an alien building waiting to be explored) - they land and go to the structure right away, without much time for preparations.
At the same time, I think that most ‘plot holes’ belong to this approach, to make you feel like a crewmember of the Prometheus, trying to figure out what’s going on exactly.

FTL is going a bit off topic but……I’m familiar with warp drive as you explained it, it seems to me that is how Star Trek explained it.  I’m not so sure about that in reality, would love to see a paper explaining how in theory it would work.  Worm holes might actually exist but from what I read (can’t find it on a quick google search) it would stretch out anything that went into it into a long long string ripping apart the molecules if not atoms.

The reason I suspect it is not possible for FTL space travel for complicated things like life forms is that we are not seeing it.  If a civilization in the universe could, then with a growth rate of 1% a year the population doubles every 70 years or so, lets say 100 years of ease of calculation.  Life has probably been possible in the universe for 10 billion years, life on earth is roughly a few billion years old.  So you would have the population doubling 100, 000, 000 times.  Even if it took not 100 years but 10, 000 years to double the population then the doubling would occur 1, 000, 000 times.  Suppose the first FTL civilization occured not 10 billion years ago not 1 billion years ago but a mere 100 million years ago and took 10, 000 years to double.  You would double the population 10, 000 times.  So lets say the population started out as a single being.  Well you only have to double one 120 times to get a trillion trillion trillion beings.  That is only 120 times, it could double 10, 000 times easily, so where are all the aliens?

@MrMalachiCrunch:

so where are all the aliens?

To which there are a number of theories, namely Earth as a Zoo (aliens know about us but due to our backwardness only keep an thing on things), or that advanced civilizations are extremely rare (due to a number of necessary factors required, such as mineral rich star systems, surviving asteroid impacts, etc.) and would be separated by time and distance (two civilizations would have to develop on the same area, at the same time to achieve contact).

would be separated by time and distance (two civilizations would have to develop on the same area, at the same time to achieve contact).

Only if a civilization had a finite existence or did not expand exponentially as humans do AND avoided contact.  In 1000 years I don’t think it beyond reason to assume humans could achieve 1% the speed of light with robotic self replicating space ships carrying human DNA that could be defrosted and artificially incubated to start a colony around a new star system.  In a matter of 10 million years humans would be around every single star in our galaxy.  At least we know there are no expansionist civilizations any where in a galaxy near us.  If these ships could replicate once every 10 years then in a matter of a century and a half there would be more ships than stars in the universe.  At that rate of growth, in a few 1000 years there would be more ships than sub atomic particles in the universe so obviously the growth would reach a limit of the entire universe;s available materials would be converted into ships and humans given infinite speed.

@MrMalachiCrunch:

would be separated by time and distance (two civilizations would have to develop on the same area, at the same time to achieve contact).

Only if a civilization had a finite existence or did not expand exponentially as humans do AND avoided contact.  In 1000 years I don’t think it beyond reason to assume humans could achieve 1% the speed of light with robotic self replicating space ships carrying human DNA that could be defrosted and artificially incubated to start a colony around a new star system.  In a matter of 10 million years humans would be around every single star in our galaxy.  At least we know there are no expansionist civilizations any where in a galaxy near us.  If these ships could replicate once every 10 years then in a matter of a century and a half there would be more ships than stars in the universe.  At that rate of growth, in a few 1000 years there would be more ships than sub atomic particles in the universe so obviously the growth would reach a limit of the entire universe;s available materials would be converted into ships and humans given infinite speed.

Yeah, but in that case why hasn’t an ancient older civilization done it so already as you asked?
From there you can conclude either that a) there are/have been already galactic civilizations, and they either are too far yet, have died or are ignoring us deliberatly. Or b) There has never been a civilization on the universe capable to expanding outside and colonizing other stars, due to the factors I listed above.