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Huxley and I went to see this today and it was pretty great. Sure, it was no "Aliens", but really, what can live up to THAT title? David is almost as great as Bishop (although it's not like anyone can ever catch Bishop), and I love how (SPOILER)by the end it's just the heroine and some android running around. It's like I'm really watching an Aliens movie!
Anyways what do you guys think? :monster:
I must see this. I MUST.
Just saw it, was kind of disappointed really. Too much exposition, some of the action was overdone, and some of the implied background information seems to not make sense. I liked David, he was really my favorite part of the movie. But other things like (SPOILER)What the hell was up with the geologist going all apesh*t? He took some black sludge to the face and mutated? What does that have to do with anything? It just seemed to be out of place.
I also can't quite make sense of (SPOILER)The Engineers' relationship with Earth and Humans. Was the Engineer who seeded Earth (THE Prometheus) part of a rogue element? What about the implication based on the cave paintings that the Engineers had visited earth several times across multiple millennia in seemingly an amicable manner, directing humans back to planet lv223, yet they apparently hate humans. Did something the Engineers brought back to their planet from Earth create the monstrosities that killed them? It's gotta be something bad, 'cause when they wake big dude up, he seems pretty damn pissed off.
High quality of visuals, and I also really loved some little details in the sound, as well as the massive rumbling bass during some big scenes that made it seem like the theater was crumbling. Loved the opening scene. And again, loved the David character, hope we get to see him again. Didn't like the Shaw character as much, and as much as I love Charlize Theron, I didn't much care for Vickers.
Though disappointing, I do hope to see a sequel, as this movie seemed to leave some things unresolved intentionally in order to leave room for a sequel, and perhaps in a second movie they could act more freely and leave it unconstrained.
I did like that they tried to bring in some philosophical questions (though they weren't entirely successful in the attempt). The big two that were pretty obvious were the ideas of life out of death (sacrifice), and also the parent/child maker/made dynamic. The script was a bit heavy-handed with the second idea, but nevertheless I was glad to see it in the movie, and think it gives this kindofareboot series its own flavor, and hopefully a lot of potential for the sequel(s).
I saw it last night. I thought it was quite enjoyable and the visuals were amazing (first time I'd watched a movie in 3D since Avatar and it didn't disappoint). I will say this though; it didn't live up to that absolutely awesome trailer, which made it seem like it was going to be one of the most epic movies I'd seen in a long time.
Have to see this, but can do without that annoying scream that plays during the trailer. "RAAAAH RAAAAAH RAAAHA"
Not to say that Inception is bad, but you can thank that movie for action based movie trailers to do that for years to come.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiny
That exact same scream was used in the original Alien trailer.
I never knew that. I still feel that the way the sound was repeated with how the trailer was edited was trying to look like Inception's trailer.Quote:
Originally Posted by I'm my own MILF
I liked the movie plenty despite the problems. I thought David is one of the best performaces in quite a while. There was an uneasy feeling about him, his attitude and way of going about things that at times seemed human but then emotionally just broke away into an uncanny valley of emotion. I loved Fassbender in the role and he clearly stole the show.
As for a lot of the other things, I liked that they didn't answer the big questions and left so much up to mystery. [spoilers]Why were they going back to earth to destroy it? For all we know it was a renegade sect in a big war beyond our human comprehension. The whole meaning of creation can be viewed as a parallel with David and in what we choose to believe as with Elizabeth.[/spoilers]
I grasped onto the other stuff way more than the problems and the movie had quite the furious pace as to minimize the problems. The start of the movie is the rockiest part and once you get past that it starts to grip you. I felt the whole connection to Alien really held this movie back though. Some stuff seemed like it was there solely to give it a connection to that movie and it seemed very out of place.
One little detail that I have not seen in a big blockbuster (or at least that I recall) was the opening credits before the title. Visual Effects supervisor and sound editor...before the opening credits? They stopped doing that damn near 35 years ago!
I watched this Saturday night and I was overall pleased with the movie. It wasn't at all what I expected, which I appreciated. I really didn't care for them (SPOILER) turning it into a prequel to Aliens , although, I called it as soon as (SPOILER)that snake thing jumped down the guy's throat and Elizabeth got impregnated.
My main concern was this super weapon they developed and why? They already had the capacity to destroy Earth, being a great technological race. Was humanity simply an experiment, or was the Prometheus analogy from the beginning really one individual who wanted to bring life to the small rock of Earth.
If they develop a sequel, I'll be interested in seeing how they handle it. Taking one of their ships back to the home-planet with the payload of weapons sounds like an interesting way to cause some action. Perhaps that will be the tie-in between this movie and (SPOILER)Aliens.
From interviews Scott and others have given, if they get green lit for a sequel (and considering how well it is doing already I would be surprised if they didn't get to do one) then it would move even further away from Alien and become more of its own thing. Personally speaking, that is exactly what I would like to see.
I think you give too little credit to the engineers in the movie. [spoilers]That is just a small base of what is believed to be a military base for housing WMDs. Something went wrong there. How can we be so sure that those there were not a renegade group? Why is it that any Alien race seems to be take as a singular homogenized society instead of a complex one of different beliefs on subjects like creating life or seeding the universe? If they were suppose to destroy Earth all that long time ago then why did no one else pick up the slack and do the job those losers could not?
There are many possible answers from this stuff destroying most of their planet of that it was an experiment and they got bored to they simply changed their mind for no good reason.[/spoilers]
With each role I see him in, Michael Fassbender is becoming my favorite actor working today. Honestly, I could have watched an entire movie with just him wandering the ship while everyone else slept.
Overall, I went in knowing very little about the supposed "Prequel" nature of it and I think that helped as I was able to enjoy it on its own rather then have it try to explain some of the backstory to Alien.
I too would have liked for a bit more quiet and a bit less boom-boom, explosions, but we are in the year 2012 and movies sadly are about money and explosions SELL.
I think the film could definitely use a sequel of sorts to maybe clear up some of the murkier details, though as others have pointed out, perhaps we aren't supposed to know the motives of the Engineers. As humans, perhaps it is beyond us to grapple with the reasonings of another species and to quote a very old saying, "It's the height of human arrogance to think that everything must revolve around our existence". It reminds me of a moment I always enjoyed in the first Men In Black, of the shot where we see that Earth is just a marble to some giant other being, being used as a play thing. We may not even be able to fathom this, but if we aren't alone, we may be too small to notice it.
Take care all.
There were moments, early in the movie, that reminded me of the kind of contemplative stillness that made 2001 so epic when it came out. I was disappointed when the other characters started waking up.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Captain
The Engineers are really intriguing, I hope we see more of them.
It was alright. I hated how (SPOILER)everyone died and how the captain (SPOILER)who was later the hero, turned a blind eye and basically knowingly let two people die without explanation, and how the android (SPOILER)intentionally defied everyone, and intentionally killed off one team member with the apparent hope of throwing the entire operation into chaos, which it did, and seemingly knew what would happen when no one else did, also with no explanation and overall just the complete lack of explanation of so many important plot points. This is especially irritating since they more or less said they probably won't make a sequel.
Everyone didn't die. :p
I feel like the people hating on it are either hating it on because they want closure, but no you will not get complete closure -- at least not yet and I personally love when films leave things up the viewer. It's obvious that this was meant for a sequel and the open-ended things were purposeful, but that didn't really bother me. The other people who hate it are Alien series fanboys who wanted it to basically be a prequel to the Alien series, but listen this is another, different film that just happens to have some connections to the series. I say give it some time to see what pans out, but as a stand alone film it was pretty good.
The only thing I wasn't crazy about is how completely dumb some of the crew were and how Shaw would randomly cry sometimes at the drop of the hat. Vickers was honestly the only one making sense at some points but I can also understand why Shaw is how she is and why she chose what she chose to do at the denouement. The message of this film (the most evident one) is that human beings will always be searching for answers of their creation whether through religion, science, or other means. This is a good, but chilling telling of what can happen when you become too curious.
Did you watch the whole movie? Yeah, yeah they did, all except one character, who happened to be the worst. The android doesn't count.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiny
And I never said I hated the movie. I just hate all the unanswered questions/plotholes. It's not a matter of "leaving things up the viewer". It's a matter of flat out lousy writing and macguffin abuse.
Last I checked two characters living isn't everyone dying. It's not like this is meant to be a happy story although it isn't a complete tragedy either. If you want a happy ending then go watch a Disney movie or something.
And I wasn't talking about you hating it just the general consensus of many Alien series fanboys.
Story wise I thought it was great. Plot holes are only problematic to me if they're not deliberate. I do wish some things wouldn't have dragged on and Hollaway's character was less of a twit.
Also the Captain didn't let two people die without explanation. I think you missed the part where they said they will choose to stay on the ship to help him fly the ship to stop the Engineer's attack on Earth because he was going to destroy it. They succeeded so all three of them were martyrs but an heroes as well.
I don't know that it's particularly about curiosity any more than the average horror/sci-fi thriller. Imagine Friday the 13th without morons who go off into the woods to investigate some interesting sound. Curiosity is simply a necessary ingredient for building suspense. In the end, the question isn't actually, "where did we come from." That's just the question that keeps us afraid, and keeps us from dealing with what we are. We think we have to know our origin to understand our mass-identity, how we fit into the cosmos.
The juxtaposition of David and the other characters in the story brings the more important (to me) question to light: What is life? and its corollary: What is sentience? What does it mean to be alive? Are our working definitions of "alive" and "sentient" too simplistic and self-centered? At one point in the movie one of the characters, Shaw I think, shows interest in the Engineers because they are the creators of humanity, but David says (paraphrasing): "but who created the Engineers?" The implication being that looking for an origin is a neverending search, as there will always be doubt because of basic laws of causation.
The other major idea, which threads its way through basically all of Scott's works, is expressed succinctly by David in the movie: "Sometimes you must destroy in order to create"
Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life. This is necessary.
I thought it was pretty sweet.
I was pretty down on Hollaway too but in thinking about him and what he did and how he reacted to everything. It seems to have grown on me. He has such a passion about what is going on that he lets his emotions sweep him away. Breathable air? Let the moment take me. Complete and utter disappointment at the discovery because it did not live up to his insane expectations? Understandable and relatable. He comes off as a bit douchy but the anticipation for him is just too great. Traveled an incomprehensible distance to do what no human has done. Why wait?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiny
I am seeing it again on Friday with a friend so I will have a chance to see if these ideas make the character way more enjoyable of if he is just as annoying as he initially was.
Because I was told outright that this was not a prequel to Alien, but was merely set in the same universe as it, I knew that any references to Alien were going to be in broad strokes, if any were to be made at all. It sort of got on my nerves that there were these occasional shots that were only in there because they were in an Alien movie (someone being run over in a close-up shot of wheels, the "We are LEAVING!" obviously lifted from Resurrection, the giant red X with someone banging on it yelling "come on" and so on; I wonder if we were even meant to pick up on these right away?)
Hell, the fact that there even were any allusions to the films themselves was what surprised me.
So I enjoyed the film anyway. It provided way more backstory to Alien than I was ever expecting it to; I literally went into the cinema with a blank slate as far as expectations were concerned. The characters were a bit stupid, but it seems we were meant to see them as unlikeable prats you just wanna see get killed, so no complaints on that front. Anyway, I'm just waiting for a chance to see it in 2D as I freakin' hate 3D films but didn't have a choice in this instance.
Anyone calling this a bait-and-switch needs to stop following unreliable news sources. When Ridley Scott himself says "this is not a direct prequel" then that's what you damn well follow. There had been rumours of him doing a film about the "Space Jockey" for years. Well here it is, a film about the Space Jockey.
Anyway, the film's being received much the same way the original Alien was: mixed. Yet that became a cult classic with a massive expanded universe and some good sequels. Yes, I liked Alien 3, bite me.
Oh, and as far as I am concerned this decanonised those rubbish AVP films. Score.
Even though I have said prequel or prequel-ish at other places, it really should be more like a prequelized spinoff ;D Same universe, takes place before the other movies, has nothing to do with the other movies. Yeah...I think prequelized spinoff works but I think the only reason people continue to call it a prequel of sorts is because that is more or less how the movie got started and reported on for a very long time and when things started to change over the prequel association never got dropped.Quote:
Originally Posted by ReloadPsi
Even though they keep saying it isn't a prequel the marketing and everything else says it is heavily related to the point where people remember all the talk about a prequel and then make the connection. As usual, blame marketing.
This movie made me want to watch Alien. Like I literally wanted to leave the theater, go home and watch Alien. =/ So, I dunno what that means, whether this movie sucks or whether it fits in with the series...no idea. But I have to watch Alien man.
Besides that, I felt it was a good distraction for a while. Not great, but ok. At least it wasn't the usual Hollywood filth, like whatever the trout Adam Sandler decided to star in.
As soon as it was over Hux and I went home and watched Aliens. It was great.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nice
I've watched all the alien movies other than the avp movies in the last few days. Forget Bishop, David, and Ash, Sigourney Weaver is the real robot, bitch never ages!
So speaking of "Aliens", Hux and I decided that Vasquez in the power loader could have destroyed all of the aliens in the movie.
Agree Y/N?
Y
AvPvV wouldn't be a fair fight, Vasquez would kill everything (as long as she had enough ammo).
As far as the power loader specifically, it only works against the queen, the smaller aliens would be able to work inside. Ripley was lucky as it was not to get splashed with acid.
FINALLY saw it today. I really liked it and the unanswered questions did not bother me. The movie was worth the price of admission just to see Fassbender and the entire spectrum of visuals the movie presents.
Alien - Director's Cut has been playing on T.V. alot lately so I've watched at least three times now. MAKE ANOTHER MOVIE NAO MR. SCOTT.