[starman]

[OAW]

Looks pretty exciting. I'll definitely check it out.

OAW

[subego]

Prometheus looked exciting, too.

[OAW]

There is that. But the trailer leaves me "cautiously optimistic" that it will be better than Prometheus.

OAW

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by subego 

Prometheus looked exciting, too.

Agreed!

I ended up thinking that Prometheus had the makings of a very good movie - it almost got there. There's a few main criticisms, but one big one was that it was as though they never bothered to get any science consultation whatsoever. I know that's not technically the point of the Alien franchise, but today's viewers have a level of sophistication that you can no longer just throw a group of idiots onscreen and call them scientists without really pissing off a solid portion of your audience.

Originally Posted by OAW 

There is that. But the trailer leaves me "cautiously optimistic" that it will be better than Prometheus.

OAW

I hope you're right, but the trailer left me feeling the opposite. The Prometheus trailer was brilliant - it wasn't Alien, but it looked like Alien, WTF was happening, that music - but honestly, this trailer looks a bit like retread set pieces that were good the first time we saw them. (The exploding Alien birth? A sexy-shower-in-space-with-aliens-wait-what?)

I'm not confident but fingers crossed. Scott made The Martian last year which was an excellent and tidy if somewhat uninspiring movie - basically the opposite of Prometheus - but other than that, it's been quite a while since he's made a good movie.

[subego]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

they never bothered to get any science consultation whatsoever.

Or geometry consultation. Life Pro Tip: right angles are your friend.

What surprised me was how I'm irritated by the non-existent science in the first half. My dad had to go to the bathroom so we paused, and I started thinking about it.

As I did so, I realized they had covered a truly impressive amount of narrative distance by that point. Making the science legit would have filled that up with a lot of things contrary to the breakneck speed of the plot.

I thought to myself, "it's good I got a chance to pause and get on the same wavelength as the movie... this could actually turn out fantastic".

That was the exact moment when the movie became stupid. Abandoning science to move the plot along is one thing, abandoning basic reasoning is not.

On top of it, Scott often has no idea how to finish what he starts.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Agreed!

I ended up thinking that Prometheus had the makings of a very good movie - it almost got there. There's a few main criticisms, but one big one was that it was as though they never bothered to get any science consultation whatsoever. I know that's not technically the point of the Alien franchise, but today's viewers have a level of sophistication that you can no longer just throw a group of idiots onscreen and call them scientists without really pissing off a solid portion of your audience.

The bit that really bugged me was how super-spiritual Noomi Rapace's character was. I suspect thats rare enough nowadays in a field-leading scientist but a century or two from now? Unheard of.

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

I hope you're right, but the trailer left me feeling the opposite. The Prometheus trailer was brilliant - it wasn't Alien, but it looked like Alien, WTF was happening, that music - but honestly, this trailer looks a bit like retread set pieces that were good the first time we saw them. (The exploding Alien birth? A sexy-shower-in-space-with-aliens-wait-what?)

Typical Hollywood tactic these days. More important to remind the audience they are watching part of a franchise than to make it interesting or original.

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

I'm not confident but fingers crossed. Scott made The Martian last year which was an excellent and tidy if somewhat uninspiring movie - basically the opposite of Prometheus - but other than that, it's been quite a while since he's made a good movie.

I'm surprised you'd say The Martian was uninspiring. I thought using science to eke out a couple of months of supplies to 2 years or whatever it was was fantastic. What a great example.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

The bit that really bugged me was how super-spiritual Noomi Rapace's character was. I suspect thats rare enough nowadays in a field-leading scientist but a century or two from now? Unheard of.

In a more general sense, I felt they wanted to make Rapace and Theron distinct from Ripley, and the result was two totally unlikeable characters.

[Waragainstsleep]

I figured Theron was supposed to be unlikeable, but yeah a decent scientist can't be a decent scientist with the preconceptions that she had.

[Brien]

I hope it's good, but I will prepare for the worst.

... where's the Blade Runner 2049 thread? That looks like it could be good.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by subego 

Prometheus looked exciting, too.

Yes, and that's why I am very cautious. Prometheus totally delivered on the visuals for me, but the story was asininely stupid.

[subego]

To be somewhat fair to Scott, I think he made choices which made sense at the time, but didn't in the final product.

Like Guy Pearce.

Don't get me wrong, I like the guy, but Lance Henriksen is too busy?

Turns out a younger Weyland was supposed to be in the movie, so he cast someone who could also be younger. We never saw that in the finished product (it was used for a teaser, though).

He (they) also took out the conversation between the robot and the awakened primordial (or whatever they were called).


Shout out again to the opening sequence, which is one of the best scenes in film.

[OreoCookie]

@subego
To me the really horribly bad story took me out of the movie. Why, after spending $1 trillion on the whole mission and assembling the crème de la crème of scientists, did the Android sacrifice them like moviegoers munched pieces of popcorn? The old Weyland is in stasis, so why does he care if the mission takes 1 week, 1 month or 1 year? Why do smart scientists insist on touching stuff with their bare fingers without any precautions? Why not start by establishing a base? I could go on and on, that movie really left me angry. Why do the progenitors now all of a sudden want to kill humans without knowing what has become of their generous DNA donation?

Some of the shots were amazing, e. g. the design of the ship or just the whole initial sequence.

[subego]

Part of the problems you mention I addressed upthread.

Things like how they went about taking a trip to an unexplored planet took me out of the movie as well. You can add all manner of unmanned exploration they would have done to cut down on surprises.

As I said though, about halfway though I got on the movie's wavelength. Yeah, all this stuff is wrong, but we've got a pretty packed narrative. I can forgive Scott for giving that a low priority.

It was at that same point it went from forgivable to stupid. Jesus Christ on a cracker... don't touch the alien. That's like, on the first day of xenobiology class.


FWIU, the explanation for the progenitor ripping everybody apart is in a deleted scene. He has a chat with the robot before it happens. I don't recall all the details, but it was something along the lines of being pissed about Weyland "playing god". Seems like an important bit of information. There are also apparently warring factions of progenitors. I think he was on the other team.

The robot actually made sense to me. Weyland was the only one who matters. Everyone else is expendable.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by subego 

The robot actually made sense to me. Weyland was the only one who matters. Everyone else is expendable.

Ultimately expendable, perhaps, but how the hell does the robot know that the black goo will reverse Weyland's aging process? Using the very scientists who could do careful experiments as expendable lab rats defies logic for me. (I'm a scientist, so this bit irked me especially — a cold-hearted robot should not act rashly.) Injecting healthy scientists randomly with black goo is akin to touching aliens with your bare fingers — mind bogglingly stupid. Again, I don't see any reason for such an accelerated time table or what it was that convinced the android that the black goo he finds in an ancient vault is the solution to his master's ails.

I didn't quite catch the bit about warring factions within the progenitors, I assumed that the ancient structure was a weapons cache, and that something went horribly wrong, cutting one of the progenitors in half (by the vault door) and putting another one in stasis.

Overall, I felt that Ridley took a Transformer approach to the movie: attempting to use special effects (which were IMHO outstanding) to cover for deficiencies in the story. Or like the Star Wars Prequels where George Lucas seemingly forgets what the three movies are supposed to be about, i. e. how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. Even if this is planned as the first in several parts, I don't see the threads, and since with the exception of one all humans are dead there is very little to connect the first with the next movie.

PS If my post comes across as combative, the anger is not directed towards you but Mr. Scott!

[subego]

The warring factions was also deleted scenes territory.