Official Off Topic Thread

[Kenneth R.]

The only thing that is in conflinct between Alien and Prometheus is the name of the planet, since I'd say it's pretty safe to assume both movies are set on the same rock. I could think of reasons why they would do this on purpose, but they'd be a bit contrived.

I can't recall what exactly would be lost if ten seconds were cut, but personally I would have ended it without revealing whether Shaw and David got the other ship working. Showing them heading towards it and ending it there would have been perfect.

I don't think it's the same planet. It could be in the same system though, or nearby. This may not be the Engineers' only installation. Who says the humans got the right directions when they aimed for that moon?

You're bolder than I even. Yes, that would work too. Anything that leaves it ambiguous. The bit at the end felt like the spoon-feeding hollywood gag that the film so expertly avoided up till that point.

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

And now for some nerd facts...

The moons featured in Alien and Prometheus are not the same. Alien and Aliens occur on the same moon - Acheron (LV-426). Prometheus occurs on LV-223. These moons are two of three that orbit the gas giant Calpamos, thus the moons are relatively close to each other.

 

[EyeballKid]

The only thing that is in conflinct between Alien and Prometheus is the name of the planet, since I'd say it's pretty safe to assume both movies are set on the same rock. I could think of reasons why they would do this on purpose, but they'd be a bit contrived.

Why do you assume there was only one alien around on the planet in Prometheus? There were most certainly more, since some of the dead beings found lying around the alien ship were described as being ruptured from the inside. It's an organism that's strange by definition, we can't pretend we know precisely how it works based on Alien alone. It seems they had reverted into some kind of dormant state when they ran out of people to eat and started to become active again when the crew of Prometheus came strolling around. There were plenty of indicators pointing towards this. It's assumable that the larva-like alien that those two stranded guys found would have, along with it's brethren, entered the cocoon-like state seen in Alien by the time Ripley and co. got there.

That's my point, it is not safe to say that they are the same location. Scott and Lindelof have specifically stated they are different moons. I'm willing to bet the original version of the script said "LV-426", and that it was later changed to accommodate the new idea of this movie "not being meant as a prequel to Alien" (which the writer and director have also stated).

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I'm coming from the opinion that the birth of the alien is a unique event, hence why we as the audience are gifted with observing it's arrival. So, this specific giant squid facehugger is the result of the alien organism invading a human (Holloway), then spreading that mixed DNA into ANOTHER human (Shaw), resulting in a pregnancy that, when birthed, is the squid-hugger. That squid-hugger then implants an embryo in an Engineer, which births the alien. So what we have here is an extremely complicated bloodline, all leading to the creation of the alien. It can reasonably be assumed that alien is the alien queen, a variety of which we finally meet in Aliens. Hence why it lays a bunch of eggs all over the ship, where it likely takes refuge following it's birth and Shaw and David's departure. But those eggs go unused until Ripley and Co. land years later and the alien drone is born by impregnating a human body (thus, the alien we see in Alien is the first of its kind).

All of this, I think, actually makes for a really awesome mythology! The problem is that the creators of Prometheus are forcing us to believe that ISN'T the mythology...when it would actually make perfect sense! All they had to do was leave the Engineer in the gun/ship chair for the squid-hugger to find and everything could have fallen into place.

So, either Prometheus is an exercise in pure madness, or Ridley Scott is a crazy-pants liar. That is my deduction.

 

[Sauna]

If Prometheus was indeed set on a different rock on the same system, it wasn't necessary to leave a chest-bursted corpse on a chair. They could have had it be set on the same planet as Alien and set everything up nicely for that movie, but if they didn't want to do that, that's fine. Like Ken said, it might not be the only place in the system with crashed ships. This approach at least explains why the locations of the movies look a bit different in terms of climate and stuff and it leaves the setting of Alien untouched so that none of the mystery of that encounter is lost.

Then again, it would have been much simpler to just have them happen on the same moon, so I guess you might be right about this one.

As for the birth of the alien being a unique event that occurs in Prometheus, that can't be right. The aliens were there before and their outbreak caused everything to go to shit for the "engineers" on the ships. There were plenty of indicators pointing towards this. Also, the squid-alien in Prometheus can't be a queen of any kind because it's clearly in the facehugger-stage based on what happens when it gets a hold of the "engineer" at the end.

They kept the origin of the alien (as a species) a mystery, and I for one like it that way. There are some hints in Prometheus as to how they might have come to existence, but thankfully they didn't explicitly explain their origin.

The bit at the end felt like the spoon-feeding hollywood gag that the film so expertly avoided up till that point.

I guess there's just something about Ridley Scott and horrible voice-overed "happy" endings to awesome scifi-movies.

 

[EyeballKid]

As for the birth of the alien being a unique event that occurs in Prometheus, that can't be right. The aliens were there before and their outbreak caused everything to go to shit for the "engineers" on the ships. There were plenty of indicators pointing towards this. Also, the squid-alien in Prometheus can't be a queen of any kind because it's clearly in the facehugger-stage based on what happens when it gets a hold of the "engineer" at the end.

They kept the origin of the alien (as a species) a mystery, and I for one like it that way. There are some hints in Prometheus as to how they might have come to existence, but thankfully they didn't explicitly explain their origin.

The outbreak of something born from that liquid ooze garbage caused everything to go to shit. It's likely that it was aliens, yes, true. I was saying the alien birthed at the end was the queen, since it's bloodline was so complicated (i.e. this was a new type of alien that hadn't been seen yet). It is reasonable to assume that aliens broke out and caused shit for the engineers, but also reasonable to assume that the aliens were very different from what we see at the end of Prometheus. It has been established in the alien world that the final creature which emerges takes different traits from different hosts (i.e. the doglike alien in Alien3). So, the aliens born straight from an engineer would be different than those born in a human, to another human, from a human, into an engineer...right?

It's confusing because the "hints" are treated as fact. Granted, all of these facts come as random observations from the characters, most notably the pilot. The movie treats these hints as fact to drive the plot forward, so I can only assume they are facts (or Scott has lost his ability to understand story). The engineers created this goo-ooze, which eventually leads to aliens, as a weapon to eradicate mankind. Now, I would see that as random conjecture by someone who knows nothing about science nor has even wandered off of the ship at any point. BUT, the film treats this as fact, so I feel like I should take the filmmakers at their word.

It boils down to trust for me. Do I trust Ridley Scott and his flashy screenwriter or not? If I trust them, the story is confusing and deliberately tries to be something different while playing with the same exact story. If I don't trust them, then they are horribly misguided filmmakers. I don't want to believe either. So it's hard for me to have a true opinion of this film.

I did like them 'splosions and vi-o-lence, though!

SIDE NOTE: I rewatched "Predators" last night. I really enjoy it, despite its flaws. I'd say it's equal to Predator 2.

 

[Kenneth R.]

If Prometheus was indeed set on a different rock on the same system, it wasn't necessary to leave a chest-bursted corpse on a chair. They could have had it be set on the same planet as Alien and set everything up nicely for that movie, but if they didn't want to do that, that's fine. Like Ken said, it might not be the only place in the system with crashed ships. This approach at least explains why the locations of the movies look a bit different in terms of climate and stuff and it leaves the setting of Alien untouched so that none of the mystery of that encounter is lost.

Then again, it would have been much simpler to just have them happen on the same moon, so I guess you might be right about this one.

As for the birth of the alien being a unique event that occurs in Prometheus, that can't be right. The aliens were there before and their outbreak caused everything to go to shit for the "engineers" on the ships. There were plenty of indicators pointing towards this. Also, the squid-alien in Prometheus can't be a queen of any kind because it's clearly in the facehugger-stage based on what happens when it gets a hold of the "engineer" at the end.

They kept the origin of the alien (as a species) a mystery, and I for one like it that way. There are some hints in Prometheus as to how they might have come to existence, but thankfully they didn't explicitly explain their origin.



I guess there's just something about Ridley Scott and horrible voice-overed "happy" endings to awesome scifi-movies.

I'm with you on this.

That's my point, it is not safe to say that they are the same location. Scott and Lindelof have specifically stated they are different moons. I'm willing to bet the original version of the script said "LV-426", and that it was later changed to accommodate the new idea of this movie "not being meant as a prequel to Alien" (which the writer and director have also stated).

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm coming from the opinion that the birth of the alien is a unique event, hence why we as the audience are gifted with observing it's arrival. So, this specific giant squid facehugger is the result of the alien organism invading a human (Holloway), then spreading that mixed DNA into ANOTHER human (Shaw), resulting in a pregnancy that, when birthed, is the squid-hugger. That squid-hugger then implants an embryo in an Engineer, which births the alien. So what we have here is an extremely complicated bloodline, all leading to the creation of the alien. It can reasonably be assumed that alien is the alien queen, a variety of which we finally meet in Aliens. Hence why it lays a bunch of eggs all over the ship, where it likely takes refuge following it's birth and Shaw and David's departure. But those eggs go unused until Ripley and Co. land years later and the alien drone is born by impregnating a human body (thus, the alien we see in Alien is the first of its kind).

All of this, I think, actually makes for a really awesome mythology! The problem is that the creators of Prometheus are forcing us to believe that ISN'T the mythology...when it would actually make perfect sense! All they had to do was leave the Engineer in the gun/ship chair for the squid-hugger to find and everything could have fallen into place.

So, either Prometheus is an exercise in pure madness, or Ridley Scott is a crazy-pants liar. That is my deduction.

No, that's you assuming it to be the path of least resistance and therefore true, which is a logical fallacy. It's just not right, and it's kinda lame to complain that when they went for a more difficult interpretation on purpose. Looking at it this way like you have is the wrong way I think. It buys in to all the mythos and baggage of something explicitly against the goals of the film, but audiences might want to interpret it this way anyway.

The outbreak of something born from that liquid ooze garbage caused everything to go to shit. It's likely that it was aliens, yes, true. I was saying the alien birthed at the end was the queen, since it's bloodline was so complicated (i.e. this was a new type of alien that hadn't been seen yet). It is reasonable to assume that aliens broke out and caused shit for the engineers, but also reasonable to assume that the aliens were very different from what we see at the end of Prometheus. It has been established in the alien world that the final creature which emerges takes different traits from different hosts (i.e. the doglike alien in Alien3). So, the aliens born straight from an engineer would be different than those born in a human, to another human, from a human, into an engineer...right?

It's confusing because the "hints" are treated as fact. Granted, all of these facts come as random observations from the characters, most notably the pilot. The movie treats these hints as fact to drive the plot forward, so I can only assume they are facts (or Scott has lost his ability to understand story). The engineers created this goo-ooze, which eventually leads to aliens, as a weapon to eradicate mankind. Now, I would see that as random conjecture by someone who knows nothing about science nor has even wandered off of the ship at any point. BUT, the film treats this as fact, so I feel like I should take the filmmakers at their word.

It boils down to trust for me. Do I trust Ridley Scott and his flashy screenwriter or not? If I trust them, the story is confusing and deliberately tries to be something different while playing with the same exact story. If I don't trust them, then they are horribly misguided filmmakers. I don't want to believe either. So it's hard for me to have a true opinion of this film.

I did like them 'splosions and vi-o-lence, though!

SIDE NOTE: I rewatched "Predators" last night. I really enjoy it, despite its flaws. I'd say it's equal to Predator 2.

Yeah, this post confirms what I said above.

By the way for those who have not read Lovecraft, the tentacled being is pulled DIRECTLY from "At The Mountains of Madness" as are the ruinous dwellings and topography. That's why that film didn't get made - it would have been redundant given those key elements inclusion here.

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

SIDE NOTE: I rewatched "Predators" last night. I really enjoy it, despite its flaws. I'd say it's equal to Predator 2.

I thought it was great, even though it tried to be too much like the original film.

 

[Wander]

Predators was a decent flick, but not particularly memorable. 6/10ish

 

[donKyle]

^I just remember being at a half full theater with a fat guy near us munching on snacks.

 

[EyeballKid]

No, that's you assuming it to be the path of least resistance and therefore true, which is a logical fallacy. It's just not right, and it's kinda lame to complain that when they went for a more difficult interpretation on purpose. Looking at it this way like you have is the wrong way I think. It buys in to all the mythos and baggage of something explicitly against the goals of the film, but audiences might want to interpret it this way anyway.

I can see where I'm making an interpretative choice, and why it might not be agreeable to a lot of Prometheus fans. I guess I just don't think they had a specific goal in mind, and yet held all the cards to their chest in hopes of an audience interpretation that would make the film seem prophetic or philosophically grand. It was a good story that could have played very well into the overall mythology that Ridley Scott helped to create, while still making a new artistic statement and raising important questions. And yet, they chose artfulness over cohesiveness and, in turn, made a heavily-debatable, theological science-lite-fiction film.

In the end, it's all personal enjoyment and interpretation, and that boils down to preferences. I prefer artists who make statements and ask questions, as opposed to just the latter. But that's just my preference, and art is a fluid, malleable form of entertainment, so I can't condemn them for making the art they want to make.

By the way for those who have not read Lovecraft, the tentacled being is pulled DIRECTLY from "At The Mountains of Madness" as are the ruinous dwellings and topography. That's why that film didn't get made - it would have been redundant given those key elements inclusion here.

Very Lovecraftian, indeed. Was Ridley attached to AtMoM? I know Del Toro was all over it, but I wasn't clear on why it fell through. I've heard his script was really quite pitiful.

I thought it was great, even though it tried to be too much like the original film.

True. But there is some neat stuff in there. The ending was terrible and idiotically vague, but the film was a good homage that built slightly on the series. Though I still want to know why OG-Predator was all tied up and gettin' hated on.

 

[Kenneth R.]

I can see where I'm making an interpretative choice, and why it might not be agreeable to a lot of Prometheus fans. I guess I just don't think they had a specific goal in mind, and yet held all the cards to their chest in hopes of an audience interpretation that would make the film seem prophetic or philosophically grand. It was a good story that could have played very well into the overall mythology that Ridley Scott helped to create, while still making a new artistic statement and raising important questions. And yet, they chose artfulness over cohesiveness and, in turn, made a heavily-debatable, theological science-lite-fiction film.

In the end, it's all personal enjoyment and interpretation, and that boils down to preferences. I prefer artists who make statements and ask questions, as opposed to just the latter. But that's just my preference, and art is a fluid, malleable form of entertainment, so I can't condemn them for making the art they want to make.

I also prefer artists who make statements and raise interesting questions. Prometheus did both. You're right that it is is a matter of opinion/interpretation but I can't fathom how anyone intelligent would miss the obvious messages.

Also, a slew of interviews with the production team have confirmed many of the theories posited by viewers - like a Gene Wolfe book, the clues ARE there, but subtle and while it is possible to discern the deeper layers of it, effort is required on the part of the viewer, not handed out as in most mainstream trash. The choices were all explicitly intentional.

Very Lovecraftian, indeed. Was Ridley attached to AtMoM? I know Del Toro was all over it, but I wasn't clear on why it fell through. I've heard his script was really quite pitiful.

Yes, this is del Toro's fault. He had so many awful ideas, just like with Lord of the Rings, that it was ultimately scrapped for what would amount to a B-Horror flick instead of a haunting philosophical voyage.

True. But there is some neat stuff in there. The ending was terrible and idiotically vague, but the film was a good homage that built slightly on the series. Though I still want to know why OG-Predator was all tied up and gettin' hated on.

Predators was fairly decent for what it tried to do. But it also is not the kind of film you revisit time and again in your collection.

 

[EyeballKid]

I also prefer artists who make statements and raise interesting questions. Prometheus did both. You're right that it is is a matter of opinion/interpretation but I can't fathom how anyone intelligent would miss the obvious messages.

Also, a slew of interviews with the production team have confirmed many of the theories posited by viewers - like a Gene Wolfe book, the clues ARE there, but subtle and while it is possible to discern the deeper layers of it, effort is required on the part of the viewer, not handed out as in most mainstream trash. The choices were all explicitly intentional.

I honestly don't think the theories and messages were that subtle, nor do I find them uninteresting or poorly constructed. I just don't agree with the way they were presented in conjunction with the Alien mythology.

In the end we can all agree on one thing: Meredith Vickers runs real dumb.

 

[Kenneth R.]

She was never a video game buff. Strafe lady strafe!

 

[EyeballKid]

Honestly, my first choice of sentences was:

"Meredith Vickers don't know how to strafe."

 

[Kenneth R.]

It's God's punishment for her not knowing who Stephen Stills is.

 

[monoxide_child]

i already saw Amazing Spiderman last night

 

[Kenneth R.]

alright, the world has ended.

Snoop Dogg is now a Rastafarian who calls himself Snoop Lion. NOT Joking. But it is funny.

 

[Marwen]

Interesting tale indeed, my male compatriot.

 

[donKyle]

Lol I saw that and didn't know what to think. He says he's going to try and be a better person and role model, and create music that both mom and child can listen to.

I guess we'll see haha

 

[Sauna]

Things sucks, but not as much as his post-90's stuff usually does, so I'm all for it.

The whole thing is kind of silly though.