by jellydonut25 » Fri Aug 10, 2012 9:17 pm
Just saw this at the cheap theater...not gonna bother with whiting stuff out and spoiler warnings...
In general and overall, WOW...I was blown away. For starters, it was much MUCH more gruesome than I had been led to believe by all the people who said, "It's not so much horror as it is straight-sci-fi" I was squirming in my seat quite a bit.
This is NOT pure sci-fi movie. I'd place it well-within the horror genre, right where something like Alien exists. A horror film with a sci-fi base.
Pros:
-The aesthetics are wonderful. I caught myself smiling with how much this little thing or that little thing reminded me of a ship interior from Alien or Aliens. That was really cool.
-The little nods to the Alien universe without FORCING it to connect to Ripley's story. Wonderful.
-Michael Fassbender. God, I love this guy.
-Most of the unanswered questions. Who cares WHAT the Space Jockeys are? Did you ever care what the Xenomorphs are? Did you care what The Thing is? Origins can be disappointing.
-The subtlety. I love movies that give you room to think. and force you to pay attention and connect stuff from earlier. awesome.
Cons:
-A lot of characters have unclear motivations. Specifically:
(1)Why would Holloway despair so fast? "Oh they are dead. I cannot talk to them. I CAN'T LEARN ANYTHING!!!!!" like...wait, WHAT?!?! Dude, you're (ostensibly) a scientist...you of all people should realize that (ESPECIALLY after seeing the holographic projection earlier) there could be PLENTY to learn. As far as he knew at that moment, the Engineers may have left a video message for them. Instead he's just all, "I NEED TO DESPAIR AND DRINK HEAVILY! I FAILED!"
(2)I didn't really understand what David was trying to accomplish. At certain points, he really seems to be the advocate of "Why ask the question? You may not like the answer. Besides, it's not important. I'm here because I am. So are you." but then he helps Weyland, who is trying to figure out why we were created...it just seemed like it was a little incongruous.
-The one unanswered question that I would like to see an answer to: How does this ultimately tie into Alien? For most of the movie, I was sitting there thinking, "Alright. I bet the captain is right...this is their chemical/biological weapons PLANT. Thus, all this stuff happening in this movie, may be minimally related to Alien, but these creatures are not AT ALL." But then I've been reading that they are intended to be ancestors? I actually don't like that as much as my thoughts while I was watching it. I'd prefer it if it were something like: The planet is a bio-weapons plant. The stuff in Prometheus and the stuff in Alien are just two separate creations. Similar, sure, just as an M-16 is similar to an AK-47, or hell, a shotgun to a handgun, they are both GUNS...but ultimately, they are quite different and used for different purposes.
In fact, for me, that'd be a GREAT way to tie in Prometheus with Alien...(this is some fan-fic level stuff here, but bear with me) Shaw is the "Space Jockey" in the original Alien. She hopped into one of their suits (since it's fairly CLEARLY stated that the Engineers are wearing suits of some kind), in order to pilot the ship, but unknown to her, the bio-weapons on her ship were the Xenomorphs, and during her trip, she gets "impregnated" and the ship crashes on LV-426 when she dies.
I'll grant, that makes for a fairly boring movie, because it'd in a lot of ways probably wind up as a rehash of Alien...but it fulfills my desire to have the Xenomorphs not be related to the black good and eel-creatures.
-Final complaint:
as for the eel-creatures and black goo...color me confused on the life-cycle for the most part.
though one thing i literally JUST thought of while I was typing here...in the beginning-ish of the movie, David steps on the ground, and some worms go crawling under where he stepped...perhaps the black goo affected those worms and then the whole "Holloway impregnates Shaw who gives birth to the proto-face-hugger and proto-xenomporph" thing is entirely separate from the worms. the black goo is not an entity, it's a molecular changer.
it's like the black goo in District 9, sorta.