Prometheus... your thoughts.

[Squid]

Before I came to this forum, I was absolutely unaware that this movie existed.

At my core, I believe sci-fi is some of the best entertainment around.

How could an awesome idea for a "spin-off" of an awesome franchise fail so miserably.

My short but high expectations came to a crashing halt.

It's a set-up for a sequel. It's predictable.

This was the 4th (maybe 5th) movie I've seen in a theater in the past decade... ...never again. (Charlize Theron is still hot, though.)

 

[jrolson]

Yeah I didnt enjoy it either... I felt it lacking something...

 

[Squid]

I forgot to mention the worst part of the movie...

There were no pinball machines in the lobby.

 

[dtown8532]

I saw Prometheus today in 3d IMAX. A beauty to look at with fantastic effects and sound. Nice to see some sci-fi on the big screen for a change. Well that's most of the good news. To sum up this film in one word for me: disappointing. As an admirer of the early Alien films my expectations were sky high. I thought the movie was too short, had some cringe worthy dialog and lots of stupid decisions made to suit the script. And yes, the sequal setup was pointless and stupid. Just there to satisfy the execs for the possibility of one.

However, the lobby did have a nice Family Guy for just 50 cents per play.

 

[Jeff Strong]

I thought it was OK. Not perfect by any means, but I did enjoy it.

 

[Richard B]

Great production design, intriguing concept, started well, but slid off the rails when that old guy was unfrozen, and it was all downhill from there. Plus, as the enemy, giant white guys just aren't as scary as the xenomorphs.

 

[Bowflex]

I liked it overall but was annoyed by most of the actors. The scenery was gorgeous and the environments were well done. The plot was solid enough but there were too many common sense issues with the story. No military escorts and no probes to the planet? No real weapons? Not waiting a day to have better conditions and then trying to rush out of the temple to get back? Idiots.

 

[Jeff Strong]

I liked it overall but was annoyed by most of the actors. The scenery was gorgeous and the environments were well done. The plot was solid enough but there were too many common sense issues with the story. No military escorts and no probes to the planet? No real weapons? Not waiting a day to have better conditions and then trying to rush out of the temple to get back? Idiots.

All very true. It's one of those movies that's enjoyable....yet it can't be over-analyzed because it will crumble very quickly.

 

[Richard B]

I liked it overall but was annoyed by most of the actors. The scenery was gorgeous and the environments were well done. The plot was solid enough but there were too many common sense issues with the story. No military escorts and no probes to the planet? No real weapons? Not waiting a day to have better conditions and then trying to rush out of the temple to get back? Idiots.

Don't forget, though, that this was an archeological expedition. They probably didn't expect to find anything other than some ruins, or, if the "engineers" were still alive, it would be reasonable to assume that the ones who created us would not be hostile, and may even be delighted at the visit. It was also in a remote location, and even many crew members believed this was a foolhardy endeavor, so it's unlikely the military would provide support. Travel that far is also expensive, and they must provide all supplies needed, as it cannot be assumed they could replenish their provisions, so the fewer crew members, the better. That's probably why their security person was also their geologist. As for the weapons, well, you would hope that a civilization with ships capable of extrasolar travel would have devised more advanced weapons than flamethrowers.

 

[Jeff Strong]

As for the weapons, well, you would hope that a civilization with ships capable of extrasolar travel would have devised more advanced weapons than flamethrowers.

Yeah, especially since we don't even use flamethrowers any more now, so I highly doubt they would be using them in the future.

Ridley seems sort of obsessed with them though. They were basically the only weapon in the original Alien too.

 

[Bowflex]

I would still say a security detail would be a given. You have no idea what you're going to be dealing with so some sort of military/security detail in addition to things like doctor, geologists, etc would be good. A couple other bothersome things was the financial aspect. The benefactor of the ship said he paid a trillion dollars to make it all happen. Based on what a trillion dollars does these days and the rate of inflation, it seems like that number is a bit low. I also didn't understand the big deal about people not surviving the cryo-sleep. It was almost presented in a way that it was likely there would be one or two that failed to wake up or died in the process but aside from vomiting, everyone was fine and they moved on in the conversation. They should have had the security personnel on board and let them be the ones that did not survive. Thus leaving a group of scientists on their own to figure stuff out. Would have fixed a couple of my nit-picked plot points.

 

[Richard B]

I would still say a security detail would be a given. You have no idea what you're going to be dealing with so some sort of military/security detail in addition to things like doctor, geologists, etc would be good. A couple other bothersome things was the financial aspect. The benefactor of the ship said he paid a trillion dollars to make it all happen. Based on what a trillion dollars does these days and the rate of inflation, it seems like that number is a bit low. I also didn't understand the big deal about people not surviving the cryo-sleep. It was almost presented in a way that it was likely there would be one or two that failed to wake up or died in the process but aside from vomiting, everyone was fine and they moved on in the conversation. They should have had the security personnel on board and let them be the ones that did not survive. Thus leaving a group of scientists on their own to figure stuff out. Would have fixed a couple of my nit-picked plot points.

A trillion dollars is a lot of money, no matter what politicians may be telling you. Unless we have Zimbabwe levels of inflation, it will likely still be a lot of money in 2093. BTW, do you really think we'll have advanced that much technologically in 81 years? It may sound like a long time, but many of you here will still be alive then.

 

[Jeff Strong]

A trillion dollars is a lot of money, no matter what politicians may be telling you. Unless we have Zimbabwe levels of inflation, it will likely still be a lot of money in 2093. BTW, do you really think we'll have advanced that much technologically in 81 years? It may sound like a long time, but many of you here will still be alive then.

Most people here are 30-40 according to this poll....so unless we have some huge medical advancements, most of us will be dead.

Our technology should advance quite a bit in the next 81 years. Just look how much it's advanced in the last 81 years.....and the rate at which it's advancing has certainly sped up in the past few decades.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

Most people here are 30-40 according to this poll....so unless we have some huge medical advancements, most of us will be dead.

Our technology should advance quite a bit in the next 81 years. Just look how much it's advanced in the last 81 years.....and the rate at which it's advancing has certainly sped up in the past few decades.

Computer/information technology has been accelerating, though I wonder if it isn't approaching a plateau (CPU clock speeds have certainly stopped exponentiating).

I don't think advances in transportation tech has been speeding up since about 1970, except inasmuch as it's been improved by better computers. In the first two-thirds of the 20th century we went from the Model T and the Wright Brothers to interstate highways, supersonic jetliners and people walking on the Moon. In 2012 we have interstate highways, subsonic jetliners and nobody going beyond low Earth orbit, so in some ways things might have gone backward (though I think a better way to put it is probably that we hit a time of slower growth, and certain ambitious but impractically expensive one-shot projects didn't lead to better things).

Interstellar travel by human beings is such a difficult prospect that I'd be hard put to say it can ever happen, much less by 2093. As a science-fiction movie premise you can just stipulate that it did, somehow, and it's fine. The bright side of this is that it makes it that much less likely we have to worry about xenomorphs.

Artificial intelligence didn't quite go where people thought it might at midcentury. But the brute power of dumb computers exploded beyond imagination, and some AI-esque things (machine translation, self-driving cars) are sneaking up on us through the back door via the power of massively networked data. So I might actually be a little more bullish about androids than about starships.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Interstellar travel by human beings is such a difficult prospect that I'd be hard put to say it can ever happen, much less by 2093. As a science-fiction movie premise you can just stipulate that it did, somehow, and it's fine. The bright side of this is that it makes it that much less likely we have to worry about xenomorphs.

Ha, good call.

 

[Peter NYC]

I saw Prometheus today, and although it was entertaining enough it was a pretty big disappointment. If not for the heavy atmosphere and the good digital special effects, there wasn't much to it. As it progressed it got worse. There wasn't much sci-fi aside from the setting, I found it to be basically just a dumb action / horror / suspense movie. Certainly the characters had no development and they tended to make one bad choice after another followed by a series of implausible events.

Being that it was a Ridley Scott sci-fi movie, my expectations were higher than the average movie - but it was just an average movie.

For my money, the best sci-fi movie I've seen in the past several years is Moon starring Sam Rockwell.