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When I create species on a whim, I will make sure to go back to help them draw maps to my races top secret weapon facilities.
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 03:35 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 12:43 |
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Tenzarin posted:When I create species on a whim, I will make sure to go back to help them draw maps to my races top secret weapon facilities. I'm assuming it was like just their nearest base or what ever, nearest space port or supply depot or what ever. Could be used for peaceful missions, could be used for bio-weapons. Maybe the fact that it was never meant to be a genocide depot was why their poo poo got away from them. They tried to convert a tourist information centre into a forward extermination base. You'd think with their amazing bio-engineering technology they could make a more simple and safe weapon. Something that just wipes out humans that they're immune to. But from Alien we learn these idiots don't have very good OHSA in their bio-weapons transport.
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 07:24 |
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Guy Pearce's make up didn't bug me nearly as much as his generic "hmm hrrm nm nm I'm olllld" acting. I get that it's super hard to get old people mannerisms down (I think the only convincing example is Gary Oldman in Dracula), but all the more reason to just cast an old actor.
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 07:34 |
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Baronjutter posted:I'm assuming it was like just their nearest base or what ever, nearest space port or supply depot or what ever. Could be used for peaceful missions, could be used for bio-weapons. Maybe the fact that it was never meant to be a genocide depot was why their poo poo got away from them. They tried to convert a tourist information centre into a forward extermination base. I don't always run away from black goo, but when I do I run into the room where it is kept.
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 10:14 |
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Tenzarin posted:I don't always run away from black goo, but when I do I run into the room where it is kept. He left his space wallet in there. Or maybe he was running from a slightly different bio-weapon and was going to use the black goo to counter the previous out of control bio-weapon They seem to have a ton on board and solve all problems in their society with convoluted extremely unpredictable bio-weapons.
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 10:17 |
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Baronjutter posted:He left his space wallet in there. Or maybe he was running from a slightly different bio-weapon and was going to use the black goo to counter the previous out of control bio-weapon They seem to have a ton on board and solve all problems in their society with convoluted extremely unpredictable bio-weapons. Why did everyone hate robots, everyone basically didn't believe in the god so why would not having a soul make any difference?
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 10:21 |
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People are just dicks to robots, and basically selfish, arrogant jerks in general. Prometheus is part Alien, part Blade Runner.
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 12:08 |
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davidspackage posted:Guy Pearce's make up didn't bug me nearly as much as his generic "hmm hrrm nm nm I'm olllld" acting. I get that it's super hard to get old people mannerisms down (I think the only convincing example is Gary Oldman in Dracula), but all the more reason to just cast an old actor.
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 15:58 |
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Tenzarin posted:Why did everyone hate robots, everyone basically didn't believe in the god so why would not having a soul make any difference? I can't even tell if you're fakeposting anymore.
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 17:53 |
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:I can't even tell if you're fakeposting anymore. Someone has a different opinion, THEY MUST BE FROM FYAD AND TROLLING!
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# ? Nov 8, 2015 18:07 |
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You can tell right away that Prometheus is a good movie when people (often pretend to) get really upset and it, and their stated reasons are really mundane stuff like 'the old-age makeup on one character is unconvincing'. Like, that's it? The necessary response is to ask "if the makeup were flawless, would you love the movie?" And the inevitable answer is "no, because that's not really why we're upset." Repeat this process enough times ("if they told you what the black goo is, would you love the movie?", etc.) and we might approach the truth. Tenzarin posted:When I create species on a whim, I will make sure to go back to help them draw maps to my races top secret weapon facilities. Tenzarin posted:I don't always run away from black goo, but when I do I run into the room where it is kept. The basic premise of Prometheus is that you are shown a bunch of messages written by an alien culture, and you have to figure out what they say. Above are examples of interpretive failure. Why did the engineers run into the room? There's an incredibly simple explanation: because they thought it was safe - it used to be a safe place. What is the room? The safe bet is that it is a sort of temple. If you look at the arrangement of the objects, you have the giant stone head, the Giger goo mural behind it and, in between, a mysterious green crystal. It's the combination of the three that is meaningful. We could call it a model of superego, ego, and id. The arrangement predicts how the severed head will explode later in the film. The jars are laid out as offerings, and clearly not supposed to leak. They begin to 'sweat' for the same reason that the murals fade and disintegrate. Would the aliens invite people to a weapons facility? No. Therefore, the images are not an invitation. A warning is more plausible, but the simplest interpretation is that the images are a display of pure power. "This is our strength. Obey us." People tend to forget/ignore that the engineers in Prometheus are literally just the pagan gods: Thor, Ra, Ganesh and whatever. The engineers' motivations are simply the same as theirs.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 01:13 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:You can tell right away that Prometheus is a good movie when people (often pretend to) get really upset and it, and their stated reasons are really mundane stuff like 'the old-age makeup on one character is unconvincing'. What is the theme of prometheus?
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 01:46 |
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What do you think it is, out of interest?
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 01:56 |
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Hbomberguy posted:What do you think it is, out of interest? Ancient aliens, insignificance and futility, interwoven notions of creation and destruction, parent issues, the nature of the soul, loss, science vs religion, and Lawrence of Arabia.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 02:16 |
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Tenzarin posted:Ancient aliens, insignificance and futility, interwoven notions of creation and destruction, parent issues, the nature of the soul, loss, science vs religion, and Lawrence of Arabia. prometheus is about how sex is gross and going to church is important
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 02:24 |
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Sinding Johansson posted:prometheus is about how sex is gross and going to church is important drat the one thing they forgot to put on the ship!
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 02:30 |
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they didn't forget and also there was one on the alien ship but they stopped going every week so they died horribly (the aliens, but also all the humans save Shaw)
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 02:56 |
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Prometheus: We out here
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 08:54 |
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Science sure has a way of turning a regular unimaginative dullard into an unimaginative dullard convinced of the rightness of their deficiency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osBFSuTRTqk&hd=1 Ban science plz
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 08:57 |
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oldpainless posted:I feel you put a lot more thought into finding parallels that Cameron did into actually writing the movie. I missed this, but this is actually a really wrong opinion. His "scriptments" that were/are freely available on the net show exactly how his thought process works, and shows that he loves parallels. And, yes, Aliens is an almost direct "remake" of Alien, just like Terminator 2 is of Terminator 1. That's something he likes to do, take the plot of the earlier movie, and then completely and totally change (or at least shift) the themes while also shifting the genre, both serving to make it an entirely different film, while satisfying fans of the first film on a visceral level. He understands both the artistic and marketing sides and combines them, and that's why he's been so successful. I wouldn't be surprised if Prometheus 2 is the same basic plot as the first, but taking away the glorious native industrial ruination stuff and changing it to how technical progress can advance humanity. Many of the parallels have been pointed out already, and I'm actually surprised at this point seeing that from a plot perspective, things like Ripley putting on a suit and ejecting the alien into space after apparently blowing it up in the Company's super expensive property in both movies were missed. Darko fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Nov 9, 2015 |
# ? Nov 9, 2015 16:28 |
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Xenomrph posted:
Stylistically Alien and Blade Runner are different from Prometheus, that's definitely true. If you happen to enjoy the art style of Alien more than Prometheus, well that's a totally legitimate opinion and there's no point in really arguing about it. I mean I get it, I love the visual style of Alien and Blade Runner too, but they aren't the only good way to do science fiction. The "tactile, lived-in aesthetic" isn't automatically better than the shinier, more stylized look of Prometheus, its what you prefer. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 16:58 |
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ruddiger posted:Prometheus: We out here *Chea
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 17:07 |
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Basebf555 posted:Stylistically Alien and Blade Runner are different from Prometheus, that's definitely true. If you happen to enjoy the art style of Alien more than Prometheus, well that's a totally legitimate opinion and there's no point in really arguing about it. My favorite part of Prometheus is that they spent so much money on the special effects and they didn't even change everyone's heart beat.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 17:23 |
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Basebf555 posted:Stylistically Alien and Blade Runner are different from Prometheus, that's definitely true. If you happen to enjoy the art style of Alien more than Prometheus, well that's a totally legitimate opinion and there's no point in really arguing about it. But it's not an unreasonable stance to take, either. Ridley Scott had made 2 scifi movies to date prior to Prometheus, and they were both lived-in, tactile, character driven masterpieces. Prometheus was advertised as Alien 0, so naturally people were saying "FINALLY, one of the great masters of scifi is returning to the genre, which for years has been plagued with cgi nonsense and hollow characters". And then what we got really wasn't Alien 0 in any meaningful way, and had its share of cgi nonsense and hollow characters. That isn't to say it didn't have great characters and great use of CGI (and its share of interesting themes, etc) but like you said it's very stylistically different from his prior scifi work. And I agree that it doesn't make it necessarily better or worse, but I understand why people (and longtime fans of Ridley Scott) would react negatively to it. Heck, it's one of the reasons people reacted so positively to Alien Isolation, it nails Ridley Scott's 'Alien' style better that Scott does in his own prequel. The environmental design in the game is seriously completely fantastic without just copy-pasting the set design of Alien, although I'd argue it almost takes the design TOO far at times. But it's one of those games where I wish there was a "free roam" mode where all the enemies were removed and you could just walk around at your leisure and examine the environments.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 19:48 |
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Xenomrph posted:
I agree with you that the marketing for Prometheus was deceptive, maybe purposely so, but we're now sitting here a few years down the line and that's no longer a meaningful criticism of the film itself. You should be able to sit down and watch Prometheus now without being weighed down by the hype and expectations that it will be exactly the same kind of movie as Alien was. Taken on its own, as it should be, the fact that Prometheus is stylistically different from Scott's previous work is not a criticism. Personally I wish Scott never made any other films outside of science fiction, but I can still watch Gladiator or Legend and appreciate them for what they are. As for "cgi nonsense", that's your own hang-up and has nothing to do with Prometheus. The CGI used in Prometheus is excellent.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 20:09 |
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Basebf555 posted:I agree with you that the marketing for Prometheus was deceptive, maybe purposely so, but we're now sitting here a few years down the line and that's no longer a meaningful criticism of the film itself. You should be able to sit down and watch Prometheus now without being weighed down by the hype and expectations that it will be exactly the same kind of movie as Alien was. quote:As for "cgi nonsense", that's your own hang-up and has nothing to do with Prometheus. The CGI used in Prometheus is excellent. Edit- I really do need to rewatch Prometheus though. Maybe I'll do it tonight. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Nov 9, 2015 |
# ? Nov 9, 2015 20:18 |
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I'm skeptical that the Alien film franchise is as big a draw as fans assume it is, and I appreciated that Prometheus went its own way.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 20:22 |
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Xenomrph posted:I wasn't talking about myself personally, I was saying I understand other people's criticisms. The scene where the worms kill Fifield and Millllburn is so good, I get tense as hell watching it. I don't know what mix of practical/CG that is, but that loving wormsnake breaking Millburn's arm freaks me out every drat time and it just gets worse from there. And the helmet melting uuughhhhh
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 20:24 |
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Hbomberguy posted:They cast a young guy because he's young in his dreams...which were then deleted for the final cut. I thought it was also meant to be a red herring so the audience is expecting to see him become young.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 20:26 |
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Xenomrph posted:But it's not an unreasonable stance to take, either. Ridley Scott had made 2 scifi movies to date prior to Prometheus, and they were both lived-in, tactile, character driven masterpieces. Prometheus was advertised as Alien 0, so naturally people were saying "FINALLY, one of the great masters of scifi is returning to the genre, which for years has been plagued with cgi nonsense and hollow characters".
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 20:30 |
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Shanty posted:The scene where the worms kill Fifield and Millllburn is so good, I get tense as hell watching it. I don't know what mix of practical/CG that is, but that loving wormsnake breaking Millburn's arm freaks me out every drat time and it just gets worse from there. And the helmet melting uuughhhhh Terrorist Fistbump posted:The problem with these expectations is that people don't get who Ridley Scott is as a filmmaker. Could you elaborate on that?
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 20:34 |
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Xenomrph posted:I wasn't talking about myself personally, I was saying I understand other people's criticisms. But if we can agree to disagree, then you're willing to say that you simply have a personal preference for practical effects? That's all I'm getting at, that the stuff you're saying is a criticism is just your specific set of likes and dislikes, and they happen to not line up with what Ridley Scott was doing when he made Prometheus. Evaluated as an Alien sequel it fails, because it is not intended to be one. Evaluated as a movie that is trying to look like it was made pre-1990, it fails because is was made in 2012 and doesn't try to hide that. But evaluated on its own terms, the film succeeds at everything its is trying to do.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 20:48 |
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Basebf555 posted:But if we can agree to disagree, then you're willing to say that you simply have a personal preference for practical effects? quote:Evaluated as an Alien sequel it fails, because it is not intended to be one. And like I said, I wish it hadn't been made as an Alien prequel, I think the ties to Alien don't help the movie at all. quote:But evaluated on its own terms, the film succeeds at everything its is trying to do. Are you saying this thread should be nothing but people fellating the movie, because it successfully did what it was trying to do and therefore anyone criticizing it can be reduced down to "not getting it" or "missing the point" or "not engaging it on its own terms"? Maybe "its terms" aren't universally good or worth engaging? Remember, i liked Prometheus, but I felt it was far from perfect. I'd like to think that's not a controversial opinion about Prometheus (or any movie, for that matter). In your opinion, is Prometheus an unimpeachable masterpiece? Was there nothing about it you didn't like, or could have been handled better, etc? Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Nov 9, 2015 |
# ? Nov 9, 2015 21:00 |
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It was sold as an "Alien prequel" in marketing, it was in fact purposely changed from being a direct Alien prequel to a movie that takes place in the same universe that is softly linked to Alien.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 21:18 |
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Darko posted:It was sold as an "Alien prequel" in marketing, it was in fact purposely changed from being a direct Alien prequel to a movie that takes place in the same universe that is softly linked to Alien. And it's more complicated than even what you're saying - they went back and forth from it being an alien prequel, to being totally unrelated, to being varying degrees of in between. And back and forth like a see saw over the course of the film's production.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 21:26 |
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Xenomrph posted:
Me and you think of film discussion much, much differently. When I say "the film succeeds at everything its trying to do", that's not meant as a way to end the discussion, if you feel the movie tries and fails at certain things, that's your cue to talk about it. What I don't want to do is talk about which cgi you personally found superfluous, or argue about whether the film was meant as an Alien sequel or not. That stuff is not interesting to me. The whole modern movies use too much cgi debate is extremely boring at this point. Xenomrph posted:In your opinion, is Prometheus an unimpeachable masterpiece? Was there nothing about it you didn't like, or could have been handled better, etc? Is it a masterpiece? Yes in my opinion it is. Is it an absolutely perfect film? No I'd say it isn't, but the reasons have nothing to do with cgi or art design, which seem to be your primary complaints. And again, those aren't really complaints other than in the sense that Ridley Scott made a different movie than the one you personally wanted to see. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Nov 9, 2015 |
# ? Nov 9, 2015 21:47 |
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Basebf555 posted:Me and you think of film discussion much, much differently. When I say "the film succeeds at everything its trying to do", that's not meant as a way to end the discussion, if you feel the movie tries and fails at certain things, that's your cue to talk about it. What I don't want to do is talk about which cgi you personally found superfluous, or argue about whether the film was meant as an Alien sequel or not. That stuff is not interesting to me. The whole modern movies use too much cgi debate is extremely boring at this point. I don't think your form of film criticism is in any way invalid even if it's not my preferred form of film criticism, and I personally find it boring. But in the same token I'm not going to try and stifle the discussion just because I don't find it engaging, instead I'll hope that maybe someone else finds my ideas interesting and wants to talk about it. If not, then the conversation peters out naturally. I'd like to think this thread can support multiple forms of film criticism at the same time. quote:Is it a masterpiece? Yes in my opinion it is. Is it an absolutely perfect film? No I'd say it isn't, but the reasons have nothing to do with cgi or art design, which seem to be your primary complaints. And again, those aren't really complaints other than in the sense that Ridley Scott made a different movie than the one you personally wanted to see. I'd say that "being an Alien prequel" is a big part of what he tried to do, and I've said why i felt he didn't fully succeed at that. Again it didn't ruin the movie for me, but I don't feel the connections to Alien helped the movie. Then again there are similar complaints I've seen when comparing any of the Alien movies to each other, since they're all very stylistically/thematically/tonally different from each other in a lot of regards. Similarly I think there's merits and pitfalls to those comparisons, too. It's the nature of movies being part of an interconnected series, for better or for worse. But enough about my opinion - you've said how you don't agree with my criticisms of the movie on an ideological level and that's okay, but you said you had reasons why Prometheus isn't a perfect film? Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Nov 9, 2015 |
# ? Nov 9, 2015 22:26 |
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Basebf555 posted:Is it a masterpiece? Yes in my opinion it is. Is it an absolutely perfect film? No Ladies and gentlemen, the reason why movies today suck.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 22:50 |
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Xenomrph posted:Could you elaborate on that? That's not the case at all. He is a great filmmaker who has made numerous contributions to the art, but the quality of his work is highly dependent on who he collaborates with. He has a superior visual sense like Cameron, Spielberg, and others, but doesn't have a strong personal style. His films tend to be reflective of the contemporary state of whatever genre he's working in, and his most familiar work is in genres that were hot and culturally relevant at the time. In the case of Alien and Blade Runner, Scott collaborated with some exceptionally talented people and was working in a genre that was still establishing itself as "legitimate film". The rules for sci-fi hadn't been fully codified and everyone was experimenting in some way. Additionally, those films were made at the tail end of the era of the director-driven film, where personal vision and stylistic innovation was encouraged by the industry far more than it is today. Scott moved with the industry into the era of the blockbuster, and his big films that most people remember today (aside from Alien and Blade Runner) are landmarks of blockbuster genre filmmaking -- Gladiator, Hannibal, Black Hawk Down, American Gangster. They borrow a lot from contemporary films in their respective genre and aren't highly original or stylized -- just very well-made. So when it comes to Prometheus, expectations should have been for exactly that: a well-made blockbuster film that reflects the current state of space sci-fi. That can be thought of any number of ways, but some attributes that come to mind immediately are adventurous tone, fast-paced, slightly campy, clean and minimalist, action-oriented, filled with CGI, light on characterization. It would have been closer to Avatar and Star Trek 09 than Moon, but looked and felt like all three in some way. Expecting something that resembles sci-fi from 30 years ago when the director and the industry have both moved on is a good way to be disappointed with whatever you get.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 23:02 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 12:43 |
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Tenzarin posted:Ladies and gentlemen, the reason why movies today suck. The only thing is m seeing is the reason your posting sucks.
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# ? Nov 9, 2015 23:04 |