Why Prometheus is Inexcusably Bad
Above, Noomi Rapace tries to escape from a really shit film.
Spectacular digital effects, of which there are plenty in Prometheus, are complicated, time-consuming and expensive. Likewise, impressive sets and cinematic hardware cost money. Orchestral scores and booming sound design aren’t cheap either. Had Ridley Scott dropped the ball in these departments, it might at least have been understandable, given the number of people to be coordinated and the sums of money involved.
But the script, on which everything else in a film has to hang, is one of the cheapest parts to get right. It typically involves a handful of people, not hundreds of technicians racing against the clock. Not getting the basic story and dialogue presentable, or even close to presentable, is much harder to excuse.
And yes, this applies to any number of other films.
Update: The particulars of its badness can be found in the comments. Spoilers, obviously.
Dammit, David, you keep telling us how awful the film is … and then linking to pics of Noomi looking as cute as a cupcake in her space suit. That’s just cruel…
The script was bollocks, and it sunk it completely. No tension. Not a serious Sci-Fi film, which of course we expected from Scott. Diluted by the studios? probably, but still… come on?!
I’m the admin for the Sci-fi-O-Rama blog btw…
kie,
“The script was bollocks, and it sunk it completely.”
Yep, and it’s a pity. Lots of talented people worked hard on the film and did good work – effects teams, production designers, some of the actors. Just not, it seems, the writers.
I think the phrase we’re looking for is “spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar.”
Just sum it up with “your film is bad and you should feel bad”, OK ?
@David – Ok it wasn’t all that bad, but with some truely terrible moments you have to wonder how some of the rest of the team/crew didnt pipe up and say”naaa, thats not gunno work”
The Space Recorder springs to mind, Charlize Theron getting squashed, re-animating an alien head with a toothpick… What lingers most though is why none of the character seemed to know or furthermore care what was going on! The ghostly hologram effects, the the 5 minute cesarian, the zombie geologist, underline the general complete disinterest in discovering our ancient extraterrestrial ancestors…
I did like the last alien birth scene, and the bit where the “Space Jockey” gets into the flight control exo-skeleton…
A total let down, saved from oblivion by talented craftsmanship.
@David – Whilst I say I like those scenes, they were of course bollocks in the context of the rest of the film and the original. I actually can’t remember a film with more glaring plotholes, reading the thread there were some I hadn’t even noticed!
If you come with a flute to start the engines up then you know it’s a lemon.
Here is a good one you might of missed: In the ‘waking the engineer’ scene why was the ‘Security Gaurd’ armed only with a peashooter and not an SMG or Assault Rifle! a black widow catapult would of done more damage…..
Perhaps much of the plot ended up on the cutting room floor? Look out for the four hour directors cut.
I’m not sure I’d have the stomach to sit through it, just in case it was as big a disappointment.
If you come with a flute to start the engines up then you know it’s a lemon.
Oh God, that f*cking flute…
Fantastic, David, thank you for all this. The disjointed, terrible script will no doubt get a slight smoothing over in the director’s cut (hell, RS is the father of the director’s cut isn’t he; shame that none of his theatrical releases are ever as good as they should be), but there’s no fixing the shallow writing without cutting 70% of the dialogue. I have been saying in other discussions that the whole film would be better off silent: everyone is dumb and simple enough we could sympathize better with them if we just watched them walk into harm’s way and die. They would seem smarter. All their talking didn’t clear up any parts of the story, and as you noted created zero tension with insta-conflict that was brought up and resolved or completely undone moments later. Introduce concept, bang it out. Preschool attention span style, like the audience is channel-hopping. Gotta catch us before the next commercial break? Guess that’s what we get from the writer of the notoriously hoodwinky LOST television series.
Fassbender’s android is excellent, but what little depth he appears to have is the happy accident of audiences actively second-guessing his motivations, after four movies in a franchise where the android is the wild card. And I was almost shocked by how much the film leans on him: the android is the only character who advances the action. He decodes the language. He opens the vault. He collects the specimen. He infects the crew. He finds the space jockey, lets him loose, and even after his (further shockingly derivative) Ian Holm/Lance Hendrickson fan-service “death”, saves the day by piloting the heroine off the planet.
Most of the film’s big moments reminded me of other films. As the saying (?) goes, it’s a bad sign when something constantly reminds you of something better. Cabin in the Woods, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and ending of the live-action Popeye movie all gave me a “hey!” giggle during the ridiculous climax shown in your article header.
Anyway, thank you. Inexcusably bad. Scriptwriter has botched this one. Who knows, though! Maybe Scott will cut all the extraneous quips and hollers of EVERY UNLIKABLE CHARACTER and fill out scenes with a few more minutes of thoughtful scenic contemplation on DVD. I sure hope so, anyway.
beaker,
“…created zero tension with insta-conflict that was brought up and resolved or completely undone moments later.”
Heh. I’ll have to remember insta-conflict. But yes, that’s arguably the major bug, the thing that crops up repeatedly and kills any hope of engagement. There’s no real attempt to earn the drama. Again and again, there’s no proper set-up, or any set-up at all, and very little pacing or tension or dramatic consequence. Just a series of instant crises, each of which gets forgotten by the writers – and the characters – to make room for another glib or unfinished idea.
In this interview, Ridley Scott says he always wanted the film to end as it does, with Shaw saying, “I don’t want to go back to where I came from. I want to go where they came from.” Which is comprehensible, if somewhat implausible, as a device for setting up a trilogy, as a commercial gambit – but completely unearned dramatically. Like so much else, this bizarre decision isn’t worked towards or made explicable by the film he actually delivered. If Scott wanted Shaw to carry us through three of these things, he should have taken more care in constructing a character that was believable (as a scientist, as a heroine and as a dramatic lynchpin). And if he wanted to set up a trilogy to inspire grand questions, he shouldn’t have made a film that gets smaller and more ridiculous the more you think about it.
I’d like to defend John Spaiths here, as I believe he deserves far better.
He wrote the first main draft of this movie but then Lindelof went over it and apparently changed a lot of things, including the main ‘theme’ of the movie. If you watched Lost and read some analysis about its themes and references, you’ll recognize the same things in the final version of Prometheus, so it’s clearly Lindelof’s baby at the end.
If you want to know more about Spaiths’ writing, I suggest you search for his ‘Shadow 19’ script. It’s basically a high budget SF/action movie, but it is very well written, exciting and would make a spectacular movie. It also has a few layers of story beyond the action, and there aren’t any obvious flaws or bad dialogue. Sure, some of the twists can be seen from a mile, but it’s a blockbuster, and waaay better than the Transformers sort.
Prometheus is actually an intelligent film masquerading as a dumb one. I understand Ridley didn’t get his own way entirely, Lindelof was brought in by Fox to broaden the story for a wider audience. Hollywood is not the home of the avant-garde and risk takers. It’s the home of a money making machine that doesn’t know what it’s audience wants. If you blame anyone, blame Tom Rothman.
Shadow 19 script
http://www.whoaisnotme.net/scripts/S19_2006_3D.pdf
Makes you want to read Spaith’s original Prometheus draft…
“If you come with a flute to start the engines up then you know it’s a lemon.” Tears in my eyes from laughing. If anything the movie was worth understanding that reference for the 15 minutes I’ve spent laughing my ass off. @Simon King
I’m one of the few in my circle that enjoyed the film. I know it doesn’t live up to Alien but what could? Sure, there are inconsistencies and dumb moments (the dude reaching out for the penis worm stands out) but in the end I was thrilled and looking forward to the next episode. One thing that I’ve heard complaints about is that it raises big questions but offers no answers. But just because you ask a question means you deserve an answer. In the end nothing that people were expecting actually happened. That’s how things happen.
I feel tricked! It seems other people have watched a different movie than I did.
http://boingboing.net/2012/06/11/using-pop-rocks-as-a-sound-eff.html
”
Prometheus is a film that begins with a question, and throughout the course of the film, we try to answer that question…
”
Hah!
-S
Sorry I’m a bit late to the party.
“How do you know they created us?” “I just know… that the plot calls for me to say that.”
The Titans record holograms (talky holofilms) of near random events… except for when they don’t. Meanwhile, the crew have cameras running on their suits but when the 2 guys wander off and die no one says “Hey, we can’t contact them let’s see if we can get video from the suit and/or see what’s been going on with them. And no one notices the beacon from the dead guy’s suit walking back to the ship to attack? and attack because…
No one at all asks David what any of the Titan’s text written on the walls says. wtf happened with the exploding head. It was sort of alive, they zapped it to encourage that, it started to… wake(?) and then kersplatter.
After the fight, why doesn’t Shaw use the stolen ship to return to – and warn – Earth?
I don’t fault the character for being selfish and following her own interests. She did send out the warning message. She doesn’t seem to have any family and the plot didn’t call for her to have any friends. To be honest curiosity could probably make me do the same in her place.
Why were the Titans getting killed by, apparently aliens, and yet one survives only to be woken up and he automatically decides to smack some people around and then go depopulate earth? If that was what he wanted to do why didn’t he do that instead of going into stasis?
seeding human life, then return to leave maps for humans to find them at some later date
or perhaps did they visit earth and stay? “Bow before me puny humans, you puny descendants of my vacationing comrades” How did they star map work? How much would gravity and expansion distort a map of star systems over 35,000 years. I note that Pioneer plaque used distance from pulsars and the pulsars frequency. btw, like the Titans, NASA also decided to only use a pictogram and have no written text instructions.
And are we supposed to endure a sequel before any of this is explained?
that would presume the writers have explanations.
Why does the ‘engineer’ have to sacrifice himself
I took it as a simple suicide. A suicide that released the black goo that then mutated and attacked the other Titans. (Charlie was infected by a speck, the translucent Titan drank a cupful.)
Could not Vickers at least try running perpendicular to the impending doom?
from Alien the Space Jockey with the hollowed out chest cavity was in the navigator’s seat but in Prometheus he got out to chase Shaw (because the script says she needed chased some more) and the chest bursting occurred far away from the navigator’s seat.
Absolutely the WORST way to implement a spacecraft lifeboat system. WTF. You have to get in a spacesuit to take an escape pod in order to get to the lifeboat?
If you come with a flute to start the engines up then you know it’s a lemon.
Considering how few people have any musical talent, a flute could be a good method of locking up a gigantic spaceship to prevent joyriding. If a pilot loses his “keys” then he could start it up by whistling.
Prometheus vs Titan’s ship. No collision avoidance system? For a ship that can come crashing to the ground from hundreds of feet up and land on its back and then fall forward and not be smashed to dust and gravel I’m surprised the much smaller Prometheus will knock it out of the sky? (I presume the answer could be some incredible energy source that enables interstellar travel.)
it raises big questions but offers no answers
If events simply doesn’t make sense then they need to provide an answer or an explanation of how it is Mystery and not dumbness – especially for the small questions (eg the lifeboat system etc).
the whole film would be better off silent
amen. I went wanting to like it. I still want to like it. I’m hoping it can be edited into something that isn’t as disappointing.
Col. Milquetoast,
“If events simply don’t make sense then they need to provide an answer or an explanation of how it is Mystery and not dumbness…”
Yup. Peddling jaw-dropping shoddiness as cerebral intrigue is a whole new low. See also this.
I doubt anyone will read down this far (only skimmed the comments, myself) but I think a lot of what David (near the beginning) is talking about as plot inconsistencies are actually problems with using a plot as an allegory.
The characters and various plot devices seemed more like symbols revolving around the concept of creation. The religious folks in the movie had their hopes fulfilled by actually meeting their maker, but then their hopes were dashed because the answer they got was a non-answer. Basically, “we made you because we could,” like the geologist says to the android guy.
Whenever people talked about their parents, it was about problems. David’s “parent” only made him to serve his needs. The alien fetus was hated by it’s mother because she was horrified by it’s existence. The Engineers wanted to destroy earth. The movie seems to be saying that the creation of life is usually some horrible accident. They never explain why David dripped the black stuff in the drink, but to me it seemed like he wanted to try his own had at making life.
Obviously, writing like this creates a lot of problems with consistency, but if you approach the movie from a different perspective, you’ll enjoy it much more, I think. I hadn’t seen the other alien movies until a few days ago, and I didn’t expect anything from Prometheus, so I can say that from this perspective the film was very satisfying. Maybe you’re all much too interested in/jaded by the other movies to give this one the chance it deserves?
Luke,
Wow. This thread just won’t die.
“Maybe you’re all much too interested in/jaded by the other movies to give this one the chance it deserves?”
I went to the cinema with very few preconceptions. I wasn’t expecting anything in particular beyond a well-made, reasonably intelligent science fiction film that would bear some relation to the director’s comments and online promos. How (or if) the film linked to the earlier Alien outings wasn’t a major concern. In fact I was surprised by how lazily Prometheus rehashed events from Alien that are now clichés. What disappointed was that a skilled director had delivered such a shoddy and patronising film. The claims of profundity and scientific realism were laughably misleading. And I was surprised by just how little the elaborate online promos – the fake TED talk and the android ‘advert’ – gelled with what was on screen. It’s almost as if half of the advertised story was left out of the final cut. And that’s before we get to the enormous list of problems mentioned earlier in the thread.
Though I do agree with you insofar as I think the audience’s familiarity with science fiction and horror films does work against Prometheus, and quite badly. For instance, I liked the idea of the android watching and imitating Peter O’Toole, but every other character acts like they’ve never seen a film, certainly not a horror film or any science fiction. And dramatically, that’s a real problem. We, the audience, have seen so many Alien films, and monster films generally, you just can’t get away with characters arbitrarily choosing to go in unarmed, or ‘scientists’ taking off their helmets in alien atmospheres (no microbes?), or petting face-huggers, or otherwise acting like morons. It jars with the film’s pretensions of intelligence and makes it all but impossible to suspend disbelief. At times the effect is of sitting through a parody.
And like most of the other, many, problems listed in the comments above – from plot logic failures to unwritten characters and an intrusive score – these things have nothing to do with allegorical narrative. It’s just bad story-telling.
just wanted to say that i read the shadow19 script that Jack LeCritique mentioned. that rocked. It was a great story and would make a great r-rated anime movie or mini-series. I think its probably too expensive to film though. The living jungle would require avatar level effects imho etc. Id be very interested in seeing Spaiths original script for Prometheus.
A few people have said that the problems with this film are the “Unanswered questions”. They are easy. The Engineers want to kill humanity because we are another escaped bioweapon, what with our warlike ways and fast breeding. It’s that bloody predictable.
The problems are the plot holes. Characters, motives, actions, all stupid. As though, really, nobody had bothered to read the script, just filmed it. But surely when Scott edited it, he must have noticed?