@MooseyMcMan: I didn't think the ending was improper. It resolved the main thread in the movie, that thread being "Oh no, aliens are killing us". If you're referring to the unresolved question "Why did they create us?", then I think you're meant to gleam what you can from the subtext revolving around David's own creation and make your own interpretation.

Why did he become a fucking space zombie? That's my biggest problem with this movie. You can't just chuck that in there and hope nobody is going to notice that a space zombie has nothing to do with anything in the film.

There was the space zombie, the space snake that the Geologist decides is a smart idea to stroke because why not, there's the Engineers, there's the squid baby, there's the proto-Alien ...

It came to a point where I had no idea what was going on because there are like five different aliens all competing to kill the cast for reasons unknown.

I though the movie was great. And I "get" the alien movies.

@MooseyMcMan: the "proper" ending doesn't bother me. I guess part of it for me is I wanna theorize about what happens to shaw, and how what happens on LV-223 then leads to LV-426. IDK, I guess I'm just ok if none of that ever gets touched on.

I was super disappointing by this movie. Granted, my expectations were blown way out of proportion, and I understood that going in.

But, man, it could have been so much better.

Meh, I thought it was fucking awesome

The Charlize Theron "father" reveal was dumb as hell, and the dude who becomes a super-powerful space zombie felt arbitrary. But otherwise I quite enjoyed how this film approached the creator/created discussion.

It's a lot like The Matrix Reloaded, from what I remember. At some point the philosophy it wants to chase becomes more important for filling the holes in the script than the actual narrative threads themselves. And while that's probably not excusable I found myself totally engaged by it.

*shrug* I liked it.

It's atrocious through and through. Writing was bad, acting was bad (Apart from Fassbender, but he was only good and was bettered by both Holm and Henrikksen). So many logical inconcistences. For example, why the FUCK would scientists take off their helmet on an unknown planet...It just wouldn't happen, no matter what the equipment said. Dumb dumb dumb.

Man, fuck Prometheus. It didn't have characters, the dialogue was simply people stating, in obvious prose, the themes which you were meant to be thinking about. There was no subtlety, no nuance and even more criminally all of the themes have been explored before, far better, by the same fucking director.

Fucking Starship Troopers is miles and miles above this film on how to convey subtext and themes.

Come to think of it, this film could learn a lot from Starship Troopers. Now that's a film.

@MooseyMcMan said:

I should, however, add that since the movie is a prequel to Alien directed by Ridley Scott (who directed Alien), some of the obvious "paying homage to" things that you "complained about" can be forgiven.

Just because it's by the same director doesn't make it not bad. If he wants to do a shittier version of a movie he's already made - and spend the entire film doing callbacks to that original - fine, but don't expect me to enjoy it.

@stinkysaid:

if you need to see a movie that spells everything out for you don't go see this one. you'll just be upset that you didn't get it.

Except that wasn't my problem with the film at all. And they pretty much did explain everything, so in all honesty I'm not even sure what you're talking about.

@stinky said:

dont get how the worst part is an explanation of the Aliens. its the kind of thing you want in a prequel. if they don't talk about Aliens in an Alien prequel something is wrong. for any watcher of the Alien movies its the explanation that we have known all along. so no big deal there.

You basically proved my point and disproved your own. There wasn't really any reason for them to explain anything about the Space Jockeys, because Alien wasn't the kind of movie that spells everything out for you. Maybe the people who like this one are the ones who didn't 'get' Alien? I dunno. And if this is the "explanation we have known all along", then why did they make a movie based on explaining it? But again, none of this is why I don't like the movie. There was plenty of potential for this to be cool even with the Space Jockey stuff, but the dialogue, characters, and how they handled the plot were just really fucking dumb. That's all.

@lazyhoboguy said:

So I just watched aliens resurection and I expected that to be trash, but it was semi-decent. Was much much better than Aliens 3 at least. How do you think Prometheus compares to Aliens 3 ? That was really terrible imo. I didn't read through most of your blog because I haven't seen Prometheus yet and dont want any spoilers.

It's been a long time since I've seen 3, but I remember thinking it was pretty alright. Never understand the hate that gets. I've never seen Resurrection all the way though, but it seems like a mildly entertaining B movie, I don't hate it but I don't much love it either. Prometheus comes closest to Resurrection out of any of that franchise, so if you like that you're probably find this entertaining.

So I just watched aliens resurection and I expected that to be trash, but it was semi-decent. Was much much better than Aliens 3 at least. How do you think Prometheus compares to Aliens 3 ? That was really terrible imo. I didn't read through most of your blog because I haven't seen Prometheus yet and dont want any spoilers.

Too long, read all of it, agree with everything.  What a turnip of a film.

I don't think I hated it as much as you did, but I certainly didn't think it was anywhere near as good as it needed to be.

And yes, I agree that the C-section scene was probably the best one followed by the question "well, aren't you going to say anything about it"? What if she had said "Guys, I just did a fuckin' C-section to myself! Isn't that awesome!?"

movie is i thought was pretty good, but if you need to see a movie that spells everything out for you don't go see this one. you'll just be upset that you didn't get it.

we finally get to know more about the space jockeys (the promise of the movie) without us knowing everything.

dont get how the worst part is an explanation of the Aliens. its the kind of thing you want in a prequel. if they don't talk about Aliens in an Alien prequel something is wrong. for any watcher of the Alien movies its the explanation that we have known all along. so no big deal there.

It was all right. I thought that Michael Fassbender's performance as David was (by far) the best thing about the movie.

I am, however, very disgruntled at how the movie just ends with no resolution other than, "tune in next time." (Which they don't actually say, but they might as well.)

I should, however, add that since the movie is a prequel to Alien directed by Ridley Scott (who directed Alien), some of the obvious "paying homage to" things that you "complained about" can be forgiven. Things that don't make sense and lack of a proper ending, however, cannot.

@Everyones_A_Critic said:

Same, I enjoyed it. I didn't have all the hype it seemed like most people had. The trailer didn't look that great and the movie was better than I expected!

@Everyones_A_Critic said:

Shut up butters.

I'm seeing it Monday.

(SPOILERS OBVS).

So I didn't know anything about this movie going in. Deliberately. I avoided all the hype, the trailers, the threads you guys made, the reviews, etc. I saw this as a new sci fi movie by the guy whose work in that genre consists of 2 of my favorite movies ever. I knew it was supposed to be semi-related to the Space Jockey from Alien, but that's it. I wanted to have everything be uninfluenced when I saw it, to avoid spoilers or letdown. I know there's a couple threads about this movie already, but those guys aren't really talking about what I want to address. Which is how bad it is.

And holy balls, is it bad.

Ok, it's not all bad. The opening sequence is intriguing. The special effects are hella dope. Idris Elba is always fun to watch, and Charlize Theron is purty. Even the 3D was done in a tasteful, impressive way that supported the overall aesthetic. Other than that, though.... man. If it wasn't so high budget, I'd say this was a Syfy Channel Original, not Ridley Scott's latest.

It's like someone wanted to do an 'homage' to Alien, but they thought 'homage' meant 'use all the basic story beats, and rejigger them a little just so it's not blatantly obvious even though it still totally is'. Almost all of what happens in this movie has a direct correlation to what happens in Alien, which is a terrible idea because it automatically sets itself up for comparisons. And of course, it does not come anywhere near the level of that film. The rest of it, what's not stolen from Alien, is still a bevy of the most trite, overused sci-fi cliches since the genre began.

Let's start with the basics. The underlying premise of the entire film is that ancient civilizations knew about aliens, who possibly created us. So, yes, the central idea for the entire movie is Chariots of the Gods. We are off to a great start.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE: The main (?) character is a scientist, who believes in God! HOLY SHIT. You mean we're going to talk about faith and religion versus logic and facts? That's never been done before in sc-fi! And by never, I mean almost always. Don't worry, though: they don't actually have any discussions, they just make a basic nod to it, as if they knew you'd heard that conversation before and didn't actually need them to have it...

Which is actually how most of the film operates. None of the characters are actual characters. They're just versions of people you've seen in a dozen other scifi movies, and the only motivations they have are reduced to a single sentence or two, repeated occasionally in case you forgot. Some don't even have a point. The token Asian guy just sort of stands there watching everything the whole movie; he's supposedly an engineer, but I don't think he ever did anything for the entire movie. Like, at all. Other than die at the end. Also they have a fake Tom Hardy, which is automatically -10 points.

Likewise, every plot point is something you've seen in a dozen other movies, reduced to the point where they don't even feel the need to explore it. And not in a mysterious way, it's just sort of there. Want mysterious ancient constructs? Got those. Want tentacle-y monsters? Got those. Space zombies? sure. Space truckers? We got one with an accordion! What do any of them have to do with anything? Nothing, really, other than that the God Aliens actually think we kind of suck, so they made these other aliens to eat our faces, except they got their faces eaten first. Clearly the work of a superior intelligence. And of course, because we must leave no scifi trope untouched, we end it with an old rich man trying to live forever, who gets promptly killed by his supposed saviors. The two reveals about how Weyland was on the ship, and was actually Charlize Theron's dad, were so blatantly telegraphed that I was actually confused when the movie acted like they were big plot twists. The only surprising thing about this was when I realized the old man was played by Guy Pearce.

As the movie progresses, the story starts to splinter into several threads as different people have their own interactions with the aliens. But after a while, they kind of stop checking in on each other, or explaining what's going on. Like, the religious scientist lady I mentioned earlier has a self operated emergency abortion at one point (possibly the highlight of the film, because it's fucking nuts), but never tells anyone else about this. She just gets up, finds the rest of the crew and is like 'ok, what are we doing now?' Even though some of them knew she had an alien baby inside her, they don't ask 'hey what happened to the babything?' The robot guy ( yes, there's a robot, so naturally they have the 'does robot have soul?' theme that has never been done before in any scifi story ever... right?) knows about it, but he's just sort of like 'haha, you aborted the baby I was desperately trying to save, that's so silly!' This is the most absurd example, but not the only one.

The worst part about all this is that the entire thing ends up being an explanation of the source of the Aliens. That's it. They took one of the things that didn't need to be explained from a well regarded franchise, and found a way to explain that one thing, while ignoring all the parts of this story that you're actually supposed to flesh out. So... congratulations? The movie ends with people avoiding a giant wheel by running in the direction it's moving, instead of getting out of it's way, which is a pretty apt metaphor for how the whole story works. Brief efforts towards examining the greater ideas of The Meaning of Life, Creation and Death are just lip service, offhand comments made while we wait for the next crew member to die in a horrific and vaguely sexual manner.

There's probably more I could complain about, but it's 2 in the morning and it's too hot for me to think about things anymore. There was so much potential here, and it just... it's such lazy goddam writing. That's really all it is. How long till Batman comes out?