http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness

Quote :

"The story has inadvertently popularized the concept of ancient astronauts, as well as Antarctica's place in the "ancient astronaut mythology"."

L O FUCKING L

http://whatculture.com/film/has-prometheus-actually-killed-at-the-mountains-of-madness.php

While I found Prometheus pretty enjoyable, a lot of it was just plain dumb. I'd rather have a del Toro film.

[Edited on June 10, 2012 at 7:24 PM. Reason : l]

6/10/2012 7:20:23 PM

hmm, i don't see any reason they couldn't make that still. I understand not wanting to release it within a few months or so of each other for the sake of how they would do in the theater. But ultimately, they're different stories.


I know Lindelof (?) and scott have both said they saw this is as multiple movies though. edit: or at least would like to tell more of the story with more movies. So if there are sequels, i guess it may sort of make it tough to fit in this At the Mouth of Madness in if studios are really worried about them being to similar. Personally, I don't see the big deal. movies with similar concepts come out all the time.

[Edited on June 10, 2012 at 8:43 PM. Reason : .]

6/10/2012 8:20:59 PM

Of course the xenomorphs existed long before the events in this movie. After all, they were used as hunting trophies by the Predators way back when we worshiped them too.

(In case it's not clear, I'm being sarcastic.)











(But, uh... for the record... I enjoyed Requiem more than Prometheus solely based on the badass Wolf Predator. There goes all my credibility! )

[Edited on June 10, 2012 at 8:25 PM. Reason : Wolf!]

6/10/2012 8:25:15 PM

I am very confident that this movie will fall into the "Phantom Menace" syndrome very soon, in that all of the delusional fan boys who had initially convinced themselves that this movie was awesome as a defense mechanism (despite knowing deep down that it really sucked hairy nut sack and was a disappointment), will eventually stop lying to themselves and accept the fact that it really does suck and is a shitty movie.

After Phantom Menace came out, delusional star wars fans swore up and down how awesome it was, but eventually they fell to earth quite hard when they accepted that they had been lying to themselves and that the movie did indeed suck donkey balls. The more they had falsely built up that it was awesome, the harder the eventual let down was. Today, you will hardly find even the most ardent star wars fan who sticks up for phantom menace.

I see the same thing happeneing with prometheus. no matter how hard you want to read into it, no matter how much you want to stick up for it, and no matter how much we were all excited about it, eventually most people will realize that this movie really did suck big gay jays putrid diereahha asshole. i see this movies ratings dropping like a stone over time, not getting better.

6/10/2012 9:26:47 PM

the captain clearly told them they were still having comms problems when he told the 2 stranded about the life form that was picked up

i find it amusing that so many people think that being on the cusp of meeting your creator wouldn't drive you to ignore mortal issues in pursuit of knowledge. yes the husband died, yes she cut an alien life out of her stomach, but shaw was immediately pressed with more severe issues. just like when in combat you don't immediately stop to mourn those that fall next to you. you complete the mission, then you mourn the dead.

6/10/2012 10:07:20 PM

^^ idk, it seems to me that it's the fanboys who up in arms over this. I actually would have pegged you as a fanboy based on your original posts. No offense by that, just what I gathered. Everyone really upset about it is so because it doesn't meet their fanboy expectations.

Not that it was a great movie. But i'm not sure its nearly add bad as you're making it sound.

6/10/2012 10:29:48 PM

I am a fan boy myself, I admit that whole heartedly. And as such, I am super disappointed in this movie, and honestly think its a steaming pile of dog shit. I am not letting my fan boy love of the series cloud my judgement of how shitty the movie really is though. And I think you are right, there are a lot of fans that are just as pissed as I am. However, I also feel there is a large percentage of fans that are trying desperately to like this movie despite its blaring flaws and overall shittiness. which is why i mentioned the phantom menace syndrome.

6/10/2012 10:43:38 PM

Quote :

"i see this movies ratings dropping like a stone over time, not getting better."

the reviews are already pretty bad

6/10/2012 10:57:05 PM

well i have heard the denial arguments that "well alien initially had bad reviews too but they went up over time". I dont see this happening with prometheus. As time goes on, the reviews will continue to fall, this most likely will not become a loved classic or even cult classic. it just plain sucks big gay jays herpes infected nut sack

6/10/2012 11:01:22 PM

^^ 74% for critic reviews (200+) and 75% for audience reviews (80k+) on rotten tomatoes is pretty bad?


^^^ I get what you're saying. I'm just wondering if the fact that you have such interest in the franchise and what not is causing to be overly harsh. Sometimes you can expect too much, or just specific things, and then it doesn't meet those things and something is actually OK (maybe not crazy good but just OK) seems like it's complete shit.

[Edited on June 10, 2012 at 11:05 PM. Reason : adding a ^]

6/10/2012 11:03:25 PM

I really enjoyed the movie, but will reserve final judgement until I've watched it a few more times. I definitely didn't find anything about the movie "laughable".

6/10/2012 11:15:19 PM

Quote :

"I get what you're saying. I'm just wondering if the fact that you have such interest in the franchise and what not is causing to be overly harsh. Sometimes you can expect too much, or just specific things, and then it doesn't meet those things and something is actually OK (maybe not crazy good but just OK) seems like it's complete shit."

I promise you, after alien resurection, AVP, and requiem I went into this movie with the loooowest of expectations. Plus, I was reading non spoiler shitty reviews on IMDB a week before release because it was apparently released in the UK first. I went into this with absolutely bottom of the barrel expectations but with the intent of really wanting to like this movie. If this movie had been mediocre it would have surpassed my expectations. I tried hard during the first act to really like it, but then it shit the bed like an NCSU football game.

6/10/2012 11:20:37 PM

Quote :

"74% for critic reviews (200+) and 75% for audience reviews (80k+) on rotten tomatoes is pretty bad?"

For the franchise, yes. Alien has 97%. Aliens has 100%.

74% means critics are already admitting the film was a huge disappointment. That's already baked in. Regardless, the film is fairly well made, has a few great performances, and is visually awesome. 74% is quite appropriate. Why would the ratings go down further?

Quote :

"well i have heard the denial arguments that "well alien initially had bad reviews too but they went up over time". I dont see this happening with prometheus. As time goes on, the reviews will continue to fall, this most likely will not become a loved classic or even cult classic. it just plain sucks big gay jays herpes infected nut sack"

I agree that they aren't going up. The rules were different in 1979. People were still wetting themselves over ultraviolence and "science fiction" meant a fantasy film for kids, Star Wars.

But you're obviously exaggerating about how bad Prometheus is. I think you've already shown that being a fanboy is clouding your judgement.

And btw, fuck Roger Ebert. Every time I read about a genre classic, I realize he initially shit all over it only to admit decades that it was groundbreaking (e.g. Alien and Night of the Living Dead).

[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 8:33 AM. Reason : asdf]

6/11/2012 8:18:04 AM

We're talking about Rotten Tomatoes, right? 74% just means that 74% of the critics polled thought it was good.

6/11/2012 8:38:47 AM

Of course. You can look at the average rating too though: 8.7 for Alien, 6.9 for Prometheus.

6.9 average or 74% RT score. Either way that puts it plainly in "mediocre" territory to me... which is quite bad in comparison to the others.

6/11/2012 8:44:50 AM

c'mon,really? How many movies have a 97% or higher?

For the most part, 74% on rotten tomatoes is good. And if it's not good.... it's certainly not "really bad." OK, I can see "mediocre." Personally, I'd give it a little better than that, but that's much more realistic to me than "really bad."

As for the "for the franchise" thing though, I think you're right if you're only looking at the first two. Alien 3 has a 40%, Alien: Resurrection has 54%,. Alien vs. Predator has a 22%, and Alien vs Predator: Requiem has a 12%. The average rating for a movie in the franchise is a 54.16%. Even leaving out the Alien vs Predator stuff, the average rating for Alien movies is 72.5%. So if you actually meant "really bad for the Alien Franchise", then I think "slightly above average for the franchise, but not as good as Alien and Aliens" to "much better than the average piece of shit in this franchise" would have been much more apt.

[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 8:52 AM. Reason : edit - read new posts that clarified some things]

6/11/2012 8:46:07 AM

Quote :

"Alien: Resurrection has 54%,. Alien vs. Predator has a 22%, and Alien vs Predator: Requiem has a 12%. "

pffft. I don't care about those. I didn't know Alien 3 had such bad reviews, but come on: you kind of expect a long running franchise to go off the rails around the 3rd or 4th film.

I guess "franchise" is less significant than this: Ridley Scott has only directed 2 other sci-fi films in his entire 35 year career and they were both masterpieces.

6/11/2012 8:52:33 AM

Weren't both Alien and Blade Runner somewhat panned by critics at the outset? Not saying Prometheus is going to gain as much respect as both of those movies have as time goes on, but I don't think many people considered them masterpieces out of the gate.

6/11/2012 9:19:35 AM

true. Overall, I think Scott has made some great movies, but he has also made some just OK movies. And I, personally, don't care too much at all for his "just OK" movies. So it's always a roll of the dice. If he had made more Sci-fi stuff, I think his ratio of great to just OK would be more aligned with his actual filmography. But he's got this now, and he's talking about doing another Blade Runner movie. So that ratio may balance itself out sooner than later.

6/11/2012 9:26:27 AM

That Livejournal (lol) article linked a while back was a really good read. I'm on board with about 99% of that theory now that I think about it.....the exception being how does shit get wonky on the remote planet and kill the Engineers just because we crucified the Engineer Jesus?

6/11/2012 9:44:12 AM

As far as rottentomatoes is concerned... I always get a laugh at the audience ratings. It's like every movie ever is automatically spotted 35% points because of the group that hasn't seen a movie they didn't like.

When checking all the terrible, terrible movies I can think of nearly every one hits in the high 30s or low 40s. You get below 30% on the audience rating and you know it must be the worst movie imaginable.

And gg comparing this to the Matrix. There's a lot of questions and ambiguity because the people writing it don't even know the "answers." They leave questions as nothing more than bait to get you in the theaters for the sequel. I just imagine a writing session going:

Well what about...
Who cares? Adds to the mystery.
But then...
Mystery.

It's either entirely lazy or a deliberate attempt to market a sequel. I'm leaning toward the latter.

And in following with the Matrix theme when you see the sequel it turns out that the crappiest of fan fictions and speculations you saw on the internet was 10 times better than the actual film... at least that's the vibe I'm getting from all the back and forth about the mysteries surrounding this film.


[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 10:57 AM. Reason : -]

6/11/2012 10:31:55 AM

that's probably dead on. Lindelof was behind Lost, and that was the model there. Just leave stuff open as if it's going to be important (so we can come back to it later if we choose) even though there isn't an actual plan for it what so ever.

And Scott has said several times that they explored this story because none of the other Alien movies explored who or what the "Space Jockey" was. -- It was an open ended thing that people were interested in. Which I get from a creative standpoint, but that was natural. Some things here are forced for the sake of having the option later.

I did read in an interview that Scott told Lindelof to be careful about that, that there is no guarantee of a sequel and they have to be happy with how things are left with this film. And Scott claims he's happy with it, and that there won't be many changes (if any) for the dvd. There will be a scene where Shaw fights the engineer in the deleted scenes section.

6/11/2012 10:47:40 AM

So are we to assume that all of the space jockeys are now dead, or just the ones on that moon planet?

RE: the livejournal article: It is clear that the space jockey being wiped out about 2000 (+/- 100) years ago means something. Just as it is clear that the sterile Shaw giving birth to the queen facehugger squid also means something. What do they mean? I don't know, that's why I liked the movie. As far as I am concerned no sequel is needed.

[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 1:21 PM. Reason : d]

6/11/2012 1:08:01 PM

^Shaw wanted to go to their homeworld in the end, so I think it's fair to assume they could still be there.

Honestly, I think there were more plot holes than "unanswered questions". How the hell did Prometheus land right next to the pyramid holding the last Engineer on the whole planet?

Heh, well, at least we have an explanation for why Jesus is white.

6/11/2012 2:12:36 PM

^You got to give the director a little bit of leeway, come now...

6/11/2012 2:23:18 PM

Quote :

"How the hell did Prometheus land right next to the pyramid holding the last Engineer on the whole planet?"

Another fantastic question. Weren't there several other ships? It all just seems far too convenient.

6/11/2012 2:44:20 PM

^ It's a fucking movie. You want them to spend an hour and a half trying to find the pyramid???

6/11/2012 2:45:07 PM

^^Thanks.

They could have added a single extra line of dialogue and made it believable (e.g. "We're landing next to a heat signature").

6/11/2012 2:55:39 PM

^^ Well, that certainly would have made this a lot more logical. They just happen to fly to the correct planet, and just happen to land in just the right place where the engineers were previously. If there had even been some kind of mention of something like "orbital survey shows these structures on the surface, let's go there" would have made a lot more sense than just randomly looking out a window.

And don't get me started on the ATV at the very end. How exactly did that get there...?

I think this is my biggest problem with this movie - everything was just FAR too convenient. The holograms which show how to do pretty much everything? David's ability to interpret and communicate with the engineer's language? (Mind you, I know that he did study ancient languages for a very long time, but still. It's like he knew everything.) The medical pod being so readily able to extract the tentacle baby, which, by the way, occurred after Shaw assaulted two people who didn't bother to try to find her or better yet ask what was wrong with her?

[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 2:57 PM. Reason : ^^]

6/11/2012 2:57:02 PM

Quote :

"It's a fucking movie. You want them to spend an hour and a half trying to find the pyramid??"

Hahaha, seriously though it's true. You have to have them find the pyramids quickly or it's just boring. For that matter how do we know that engineer was the last one? There may have been several ships with others in stasis. I realize there's an area where suspension of disbelief is too difficult to maintain and the story is ruined, that didn't happen here for me.

I didn't understand why Vickers' escape shuttle was a two-part thing. She had to eject the shuttle from the ship and eject in a smaller pod to get to it. What was that about? I hated that she got killed, I thought we might find out she was an android like David. No matter though, she would have been a good character to bring back...but it's too late for that. Unless they introduce a time machine in the next one.

6/11/2012 3:02:34 PM

The ATV at the end was blown away from the main ship when the storm hit.

6/11/2012 3:04:39 PM

Somebody on the internets mentioned that Blade Runner and Alien take place in the same universe and pointed to the very logical conclusion that Vickers was a replicant, and they pointed specifically to the scene where she "proves" her human nature by sleeping with the captain because something similar happens in Blade Runner. This all seems very logical to me.

So, she prolly didn't really "die".

[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 3:38 PM. Reason : k]

6/11/2012 3:22:11 PM

After some time at work google searching, I have found out that Vickers is the name of a WWII brand of Birtish Machine guns (interesting fact). Seeing as how it is an antique now and that it is prolly only found in the replica form (this is just my assumption, but after spending my childhood attending WWI and CW reenactments, it seems logical that most civilian owned Vickers are prolly replicants), I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that her name is a symbolic gesture to the fact that she is a replicant.





[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 4:42 PM. Reason : hj]

6/11/2012 4:38:55 PM

Vickers root form is Vicks. This is the name of a cold and flu medicine that makes Vapor Rub. I'm going out on a limb here and saying Vickers is actually made of VapoRub.

6/11/2012 4:49:50 PM

Dont be hating on my critical thinking skills. You think that they gave her the name "Vickers" just because? Are you that dense?

6/11/2012 4:53:54 PM

Actually they got it from vicar, as in priest. They were one of the disciples of alien Jesus. The 'jockeys' got so mad that earthlings would kill him that they decided it was best to... kill off the entire planet with a biological weapon just to prove how much more above that kind of behavior they actually were. Space Republicans if you will.

6/11/2012 4:54:39 PM

Ugh, guys. If she were a replicant, that would totally ruin most of her scenes. It would defeat the joke of Janek successfully negging her and make Weyland treating David like a son, even though he has a human daughter, meanginless.

6/11/2012 4:56:52 PM

Vickers rhymes with knickers, which is similar to knickerbockers, as in the New York Knicks.

Vickers =

[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 5:01 PM. Reason : Subtle proof that the Air Bud and Alien films share the same universe]

6/11/2012 4:58:27 PM

seriously on the is Vickers an android note; they made a point to mention David's strength. Vickers choke slammed him against a wall. During that scene I was thinking "hmm, that's ballsy of her. He could completely destroy her..... unless she's an android too"

Quote :

"and make Weyland treating David like a son, even though he has a human daughter, meanginless."

He said "closest thing to a son", not closest thing to a child nor that he "treated" David like a son. Weyland thinking of David as a "son" doesn't necessarily diminish her as a daughter. And what if she doesn't know she's an android?


I think i'm going to have to see this again before passing any final judgement on theories such as Theron being an android or airbud, Jesus being an engineer, the secret ooze actually being an ancient prototype for a mood ring, etc.

6/11/2012 6:44:36 PM

Im just gonna go with the whole she is a replicant. That's it, final answer.

6/11/2012 7:33:27 PM

Quote :

"seriously on the is Vickers an android note; they made a point to mention David's strength. Vickers choke slammed him against a wall. During that scene I was thinking "hmm, that's ballsy of her. He could completely destroy her..... unless she's an android too""

That reminds me... what was the reasoning for her being so adamant that she know what her father wanted? If I remember right, David said he had told her to "try harder"?

6/11/2012 7:41:14 PM

Quote :

"^ It's a fucking movie. You want them to spend an hour and a half trying to find the pyramid???"

exactly

Quote :

"Well, that certainly would have made this a lot more logical. They just happen to fly to the correct planet, and just happen to land in just the right place where the engineers were previously. If there had even been some kind of mention of something like "orbital survey shows these structures on the surface, let's go there" would have made a lot more sense than just randomly looking out a window."

by that logic, I should disregard the entire movie because no one ever took 10 to go pinch off a loaf.

come on, guy.

6/11/2012 7:41:17 PM

Quote :

"That reminds me... what was the reasoning for her being so adamant that she know what her father wanted? If I remember right, David said he had told her to "try harder"?"

My take is that she just wanted to leave the planet and go home once they realized that the space jockeys had been destroyed.

6/11/2012 7:50:03 PM

^^ LOL. No, no. What I mean is that I wish that more emphasis had been placed on the significance of finding what they did rather than just plainly looking out of the window.

Just a thought - the Nostromo's crew had to home in on the crashed space jockey's ship on LV-426. We're talking about one ship on the surface of an entire planet. The difference is that they knew exactly where to find it because of the signal broadcast. The Prometheus crew didn't seem to put any thought into the approach of the planet. They just casually land, look out the window, and suddenly, hey here we are finding the ruins of an ancient civilization. Call me crazy, but that's just far too conveniently written. All it would have taken is like maybe 1 or 2 lines of dialogue to give this some much-needed weight.

I think that with just a little bit more writing thought, this could have been a significantly better movie.

6/12/2012 12:23:25 AM

^ agreed. the concepts are interesting enough, the visuals were great, but the writing held it back quite a bit. Not even major plot points either imo. Just things that were distracting.

For ex., Characters who are supposed to be scientists making ridiculously terrible decisions. And those same decisions didn't even align with decisions the same characters made moments prior. That sort of stuff should have never made it into a movie like this.

6/12/2012 12:41:24 AM

Quote :

"Call me crazy, but that's just far too conveniently written. All it would have taken is like maybe 1 or 2 lines of dialogue to give this some much-needed weight."

I agree here, even considering the possibility that those structures might have been all over the planet and they just found one of several thousand. The fact that it was a trillion dollar mission and five years traveling you'd think they'd want more than just lets show up to the only moon capable of supporting life and see what happens. Even if they just ignored that point and flew right to the structure my mind could make that leap but they kind of made a big deal about looking out the windows for signs of life. It still wasn't enough to kill the movie for me.

6/12/2012 8:25:15 AM

Quote :

"the secret ooze actually being an ancient prototype for a mood ring"

6/12/2012 8:29:41 AM

Quote :

"I think that with just a little bit more writing thought, this could have been a significantly better movie."

Quote :

"For ex., Characters who are supposed to be scientists making ridiculously terrible decisions. And those same decisions didn't even align with decisions the same characters made moments prior. That sort of stuff should have never made it into a movie like this."

I'm reminded of Red Letter Media who reviewed Phantom Menace and determined no one was questioning Lucas anymore. It's as if he turned in a shitty first draft of the script and they said Ok, let's go with this.

Same thing must have happened here. I was browsing their site and noticed they had some videos on Prometheus. Pretty fucking hilarious but fair.

4 minutes of plot holes:
http://youtu.be/-x1YuvUQFJ0

Review:
http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-prometheus/

6/12/2012 9:20:34 AM

that "4 minutes of plot holes" thing is

FREAKING HILARIOUS

[Edited on June 12, 2012 at 9:46 AM. Reason : ...]

6/12/2012 9:46:13 AM

Quote :

"If the alien ship was rigid enough to support its own gigantic weight, falling hundreds of meters to the ground and not crashing into itself, remaining completely? rigid, like a plastic toy, and even start to roll, how was the Prometheus even able to punch a giant hole in it by flying into it?"

6/12/2012 9:58:10 AM