Films/DVD Asylum

RE: strange

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In Reply to: RE: strange posted by Fretless on November 12, 2012 at 19:54:54

If we take Prometheus at face value, we get a botched screenplay with nary a trace of intelligence, wonder, discovery or even basic continuity, written by a couple of hacks (Lindelof, in particular) with unbelievably rushed and disjointed pacing, two-dimensional placeholder characters and a few pretty (mostly recycled) set and effect designs.

I'll address this at the end.

The "scientists" showed no hint of their calling because the writers were dumbing-down (assuming they had anywhere else to go) to a juvenile, instant-gratification, generation-video-game audience. Hint: actual scientists employ the rigorous painstaking discipline known as scientific methodology; so "retarded." On the other hand, shoehorning in a smattering of phony Bronze Age spiritual hokum fit this train wreck of a story perfectly, as it was a transparently forced attempt to add the illusion of depth where none existed.

It wasn't a mistake the scientists were cast as imbeciles, and it wasn't to dumb down the movie. Plenty of dumbed down movies cast scientists as geniuses. Prometheus was a refreshing change. If you think scientists are smart--most of them are not. They're like chefs, but without creativity. More like prep cooks. They're also cut-throat, elbowing each other out of the way for grants in a system of cronyism and elitism that is not conducive to the best researchers or research. We live in a time when the human genome has now been sequenced and uploaded to PubMed Central. We are told this will unlock the key to curing all kinds of horrible diseases and retard aging.

If anything, the message I took away was that blind selfish grovelling to fantasy thunder gods--recall the enraged reaction of the giant gray bodybuilder when asked for a boon--continues to plunge an unenlightened mankind into darkness and ignorance; a failed experiment and time to sterilize the Terran petri dish and start over. IOW, we can take away anything we choose from a story that has nothing to offer in the way of narrative substance.

The story had a beginning, middle and end, and I understand you didn't like any of it, but it wasn't empty or devoid of a narrative. Mankind, as portrayed in the film, is not unenlightened. The movie made a distinction between those who act purely on "scientific methodology" as you say, with no hint of ethics or faith to guide them, vs placing faith above empirical knowledge. Granted, you would rather take away "anything you choose" from what the movie actually points toward, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a narrative substance--it just means you choice to ignore the substance because you refuse to accept the concept that science may not unlock all the secrets after all.

I loved the original "Alien"--that was a study in deliberate pacing and the slow buildup of tension--but the rest of the franchise provided varying degrees of awful. Has Ridley Scott done anything of value beyond "Alien" and "Blade Runner"? If so, it eludes me.

I agree that Alien was a more masterful study in old fashioned suspense, horror and pacing. But Prometheus was no lighweight fare and didn't dial in any of the scenes that erupted in violence. There was very good build-up to the abortion scene in particular. And Prometheus had things that Alien did not--namely a totally masterful performance by Fassbender, who tied in Lawrence of Arabia in a brilliant way. Did you miss the connection? Do you know what LoA says about humanity? Because it's not that mankind is plunged into darkness and ignorance--it's a bit more complicated than that. I also disagree with you that Scott has not done anything of value besides Alien and Blade Runner (ironically, I didn't care for that one but more power to you if it was your cup of tea). I think Black Hawk Down was one of the greatest war/combat movies ever made, and Gladiator was about as close to Shakespeare as Hollywood can get.
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