[I Have A Mouth and I Must Rant!] Ugh, Prometheus... Or as I like to call it...

Started by Vanity Evolved, November 06, 2012, 03:46:28 PM

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Olivia Cycien

Yes! You've hit the nail right on the head Chris. I mean I've seen some movies where the story idea is really great and has a lot of potential, but it is played out badly. You've gotten much closer than I did to the core of the issue here. :)

Psi

I would have to disagree here, as I actually liked Prometheus.
I don't go into movies that look interesting full of preconceptions that I use to justify while I fail to like it later if it doesn't meet them.
My friends have various criteria they use to evaluate movies, many of them I find ridiculous.

I go to a movie to be entertained and if I like it, then I look into it more, and although I don't like most comedy movies, I do like Sci Fi / Fantasy - even bad sci fi, with movies such as Tron, 1984, THX1138, Logan's Run and Silent Running in my collection, may have been great in its day, but today?

Some examples of what I have heard people was say.

A movie has violence - I can't watch it - Yes - thats why its called an "action" movie.
A movie has boobs - Avatar - she wasn't wearing a bra...   You noticed it not me, I was enjoying the movie.   Thats your only comment after coming out of the cinema?  She wasn't wearing a bra?
A movie deals with religion in some way - So does the evening news.  So what?
That isn't possible, it couldn't have been that way - Yeah but it was in the movie.   You may not have liked it, but I did.

If someone asks me what I think of a movie, I will say it.  If I don't like it, ditto.

I have only walked out of two movies in the cinema, Alexander was one of them and I think one of the Australian ones was another.  Although I have turned off movies in the past.

Sorry, just had to counter a rant with a rant.

Oniya

So, this randomly popped up in one of my Facebook feeds (I follow a small SF&F shop in Australia, because they happened to have boffer-legal frying pans once)

Apparently, there was a completely different script originally:

http://www.prometheusforum.net/Alien-Engineers.pdf

(When the PDF loads, the first page only has a few lines centered on it - your browser has not frozen on a white-screen.)
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I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Kythia

Quote from: Olivia Cycien on November 14, 2012, 12:43:00 AM
I think I can understand Vanity Evolved's gripe here. It seems to me that these days there is not much imagination going on in Hollywood. They seem to spend a lot of time remaking old movies because they haven't come up with any new ideas for years and the ideas they have come up with seem empty or shallow.

<snip>

It seems to me that these days Hollywood directors are thinking that the majority of people are mindless drones and will watch anything that comes out on the big screen. So they turn out mindless movies, lacking in plot, with two dimensional characters. A shame really.

Emphasis mine.

I have to disagree.  The issue is that Hollywood (or, technically, the film companies but I think the metanym works) is a business.  They don't, by and large, make films for the love of film or to answer life's big questions or to explore the nature of humanity.  They make films so people will go and see them.  They spend a whole shed load of money working out what films people will see and then make more of those.

And it works.  Inception made $132 million profit, sure.  But that's blown out of the water by such masterpieces as Fast 5 and Breaking Dawn:Part One in 2011 alone.

The issue isn't that Hollywood thinks we like crap films.  The issue is that we demonstrably do like crap films and Hollywood likes our money.

EDIT:  In case you don't check links, I am actually quoting from two different sources there and so they might not be a perfect fit.  I think the point holds though.
242037

Beguile's Mistress

Quote from: Kythia on November 14, 2012, 08:47:31 AM
The issue isn't that Hollywood thinks we like crap films.  The issue is that we demonstrably do like crap films and Hollywood likes our money.

This is it in a nutshell.  Audiences are lucky when a good director, producer, scriptwriter and cast manage to come together and make a good movie.  We all benefit. 

I watch a lot of old movies and notice the plots of some of them showing up repeatedly.  Whether or not it works depends on the crew.  A word-for-word remake can be just as good or even better than the original because it was produced better and a souped up version of a classic can fall flat on it's face.

Time and money are limited for me so I'm picky about what I buy a ticket for.

Olivia Cycien

Quote from: Kythia on November 14, 2012, 08:47:31 AM
Emphasis mine.

I have to disagree.  The issue is that Hollywood (or, technically, the film companies but I think the metanym works) is a business.  They don't, by and large, make films for the love of film or to answer life's big questions or to explore the nature of humanity.  They make films so people will go and see them.  They spend a whole shed load of money working out what films people will see and then make more of those.

And it works.  Inception made $132 million profit, sure.  But that's blown out of the water by such masterpieces as Fast 5 and Breaking Dawn:Part One in 2011 alone.

The issue isn't that Hollywood thinks we like crap films.  The issue is that we demonstrably do like crap films and Hollywood likes our money.

EDIT:  In case you don't check links, I am actually quoting from two different sources there and so they might not be a perfect fit.  I think the point holds though.

Hmm you know what? I think you are right. I concede that you have a valid point. I remember thinking when Inception came out that it looked like it might be interesting to watch. I haven't seen it yet so don't tell me :) I watched the first Twilight movie and didn't like it. I guess what it really comes down to is how we perceive things. 

Vanity Evolved

Quote from: Olivia Cycien on November 14, 2012, 12:43:00 AM
I think I can understand    Vanity Evolved's gripe here. It seems to me that these days there is not much imagination going on in Hollywood. They seem to spend a lot of time remaking old movies because they haven't come up with any new ideas for years and the ideas they have come up with seem empty or shallow.

I can't say that I've been wonder-struck by many of the movies Hollywood turns out. While it is true that I like some of the movies, I am aware that some of them don't really have much of a plot, or are so convoluted that the plot makes no sense. For instance, I enjoyed the movie Wanted, not because it was intellectually thrilling, but simply because I was in the mood to watch an action flick. The movie doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is fun to watch.

It seems to me that these days Hollywood directors are thinking that the majority of people are mindless drones and will watch anything that comes out on the big screen. So they turn out mindless movies, lacking in plot, with two dimensional characters. A shame really.

It's not so much that. It's a feeling of annoyance - similar to how I felt when I saw Diary of the Dead. Ridley Scott is a major player in defining sci-fi cinema. Similar to how Romero pioneered the zombie genre. They're both hugely talented men who have done, and can do great work.

Prometheus (and for my example, Diary of the Dead/Survival of the Dead) are prime examples of not only these two directors creating terrible films, but made even worse by making terrible films even by genre standards. Diary of the Dead is, by far, one of the worst films I've seen about zombies in my life. And this is made by the guy who made Night of the Living Dead.

Prometheus and Diary of the Dead both feel like two directors completely out of their water; they want to approach a topic, but they have no idea how to. In Diary of the Dead, Romero just shows a complete lack of understanding of the 'Youtube' generation, so rather than a glimpse into the idea of racism and just how easily we can detach ourselves to hurt our fellow man? It becomes a laughable parade of stereotypes and poor writing holding together a very poor premise which is never really explored.

Quote from: Psi on November 14, 2012, 02:58:28 AM
I would have to disagree here, as I actually liked Prometheus.
I don't go into movies that look interesting full of preconceptions that I use to justify while I fail to like it later if it doesn't meet them.
My friends have various criteria they use to evaluate movies, many of them I find ridiculous.

I go to a movie to be entertained and if I like it, then I look into it more, and although I don't like most comedy movies, I do like Sci Fi / Fantasy - even bad sci fi, with movies such as Tron, 1984, THX1138, Logan's Run and Silent Running in my collection, may have been great in its day, but today?

Some examples of what I have heard people was say.

A movie has violence - I can't watch it - Yes - thats why its called an "action" movie.
A movie has boobs - Avatar - she wasn't wearing a bra...   You noticed it not me, I was enjoying the movie.   Thats your only comment after coming out of the cinema?  She wasn't wearing a bra?
A movie deals with religion in some way - So does the evening news.  So what?
That isn't possible, it couldn't have been that way - Yeah but it was in the movie.   You may not have liked it, but I did.

If someone asks me what I think of a movie, I will say it.  If I don't like it, ditto.

I have only walked out of two movies in the cinema, Alexander was one of them and I think one of the Australian ones was another.  Although I have turned off movies in the past.

Sorry, just had to counter a rant with a rant.

Same here; admittedly, I did walk in with the -hope- (not preconception, important point) that this would be a good film. Ridley Scott has a proven track record of making good films, and Alien is a very good sci-fi horror flick.

The issue isn't 'it discusses religion'. My issue is the film not only discusses religion in a -very- insulting way to both religious and non-religious viewers (Religion as blind faith and rejection of science ALL THE TIME! Science is all about being skeptical, and skepticism is a bad thing, and you should feel bad for not believing in super god aliens!), due to the fact that the discussion on religion vs. expanding knowledge/science/the possibility of life beyond our own has less merit and more poor writing than a fifteen year old Born Again Christian debating a fifteen year old Atheist who just discovered a throbbing hard-on for Dawkins. This, in of itself is rather bad, but considering that this premise is the entire -driving point- behind the film, the fact it fails on such a spectacular level is just irritating.

It fumbles. It fumbles hard. It does nothing but make Ridley Scott look like a fish out of water, trying to be much smart on a topic than he is and all he achieved is making himself look foolish, annoying large portions of his audience and ending up with a very poor, very beautiful film.

Religion and it's conflict with the possibility that there isn't something out there is taken much more seriously when you don't make one character into screaming blind preacher from Little Nicky and the Atheists in the group into gigantic douchebags.

Strangler