Chicken footstools. You heard me. // Deboning chickens with robots. // Distil your own sugar beet vodka. // Avengers tech design. // The plumes of Enceladus. // Underpants of note. // Photographs by Shikhei Goh. // Fun with Photoshop. // Flavoured envelopes. // From tadpole to toadlet. // The Sun is not your friend. // Sunlight in Europe. (h/t, rjmadden) // Venus and the Sun. // In Search of Steve Ditko. // This is one of these. // This is Coffee, 1961. // Coping with loss in Wisconsin. // When the answer to narcissism is even more narcissism. (h/t, dicentra) // And remember, folks. Aaron Sorkin does not have a political agenda. 

Robert Hodgin’s real-time instant fat suit. 

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.

Tokyo transsexual cooks and serves own genitals. // Self-stirring saucepan. // Assorted rattlesnakes. // Fly ablutions. // Robot spiders coming soon to hazardous environs. // Unmade beds and sailing boats. // Essential beach accessory. // Stop-motion crochet portrait. // The museum of endangered sounds. // Coin-operated mortuary. // Zombie gnomes. // The mysteries of Guinness. // Gummi bears infused with chilli. // British newspaper archive. // Fugu & Tako. // Found in Lapland. // Parked 747 encounters quite strong winds. // And for those who haven’t seen it, and you should, all eight episodes of The Planets (1999). 

Further to my exchange with TimT in the comments, I thought I’d post this 2009 lecture by David Horowitz. 

See also this.