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Snowman_McK posted:It turned them into bizarre space god who may or may not have created us, possibly by accident, and now hate us or something but without ever explaining anything I just mentioned. ~written by the mind behind Lost~
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Dec 27, 2016 23:30
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Snowman_McK posted:It turned them into bizarre space god who may or may not have created us, possibly by accident, and now hate us or something but without ever explaining anything I just mentioned. I think what he's getting at is that the entire derelict spaceship and space jockey in Alien is completely and utterly alien. It's unlike anything anyone has ever seen before and was almost Lovecraftian. In a short span of time it introduced a whole wealth of mysteries that were executed perfectly. To pull the curtain back and say it was basically a guy in a suit is pretty bog standard, yeah. It's why they should have left it a mystery. The actual idea for the engineers themselves wasn't too bad and would have been better served by letting the story stand on its own without trying to shoehorn it into the Alien universe in the way that they did. Having some very loose threads to connect them would have been fine (the biomechanical body of the engineer and a better mural that doesn't look tacky would have been sufficient) but going as far as they did with the ships and suits etc. was a poor choice, in my opinion. They should have been their own separate race with their own mysteries and identity.
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Dec 27, 2016 23:37
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SUNKOS posted:It's why they should have left it a mystery. Virtually everything about them was.
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Dec 27, 2016 23:47
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As we get further away from it I think the look of the Engineers will stand the test of time a lot moreso than if they were just some elephant creature, which would have to be CGI and then you'd get a whole other set of complainers. It's easy to sit here and say now that you wish the movie would have not elaborated on the Space Jockey at all, but that's basically what the entire thing was sold on. Had Scott copped-out and not shown any more of the Space Jockey the fan backlash would have been worse in my opinion.
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Dec 27, 2016 23:58
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SUNKOS posted:I think what he's getting at is that the entire derelict spaceship and space jockey in Alien is completely and utterly alien. It's unlike anything anyone has ever seen before and was almost Lovecraftian. In a short span of time it introduced a whole wealth of mysteries that were executed perfectly. To pull the curtain back and say it was basically a guy in a suit is pretty bog standard, yeah. It's why they should have left it a mystery. The trouble is exactly this. It's like if in the Mountains of Madness had a sequel that was just the sentence "Never mind, they were just antarctic dudes."
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Dec 28, 2016 00:00
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You have it backwards. In Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness, the human characters are horrified to discover that an extinct species of winged alien crinoids is almost exactly the same as us. And we are exactly the same as them. They are our family: freakish evolutionary accidents like us. Lovecraft's horror is not about incomprehensible aliens threatening humanity, except in the most abstract sense. It is about how humans are incomprehensible and alien to eachother - and to themselves. So the unsympathetic 'bad' alien in Prometheus is a stone-faced man, while the loveable underdog is that fragile, mewling xenomorph.
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Dec 28, 2016 00:03
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a foolish pianist posted:The trouble is exactly this. It's like if in the Mountains of Madness had a sequel that was just the sentence "Never mind, they were just antarctic dudes." I think what Scott ended up doing is very in-line with Giger's work, the biomechanical nature of everything related to the Engineers seems very Giger to me. And At the Mountains of Madness explains everything that happened in pretty great detail. You just wanted the Space Jockey to be a specifically Lovecraftian creature, which is just an aesthetic preference, nothing to do with mystery or storytelling or whatever you're talking about.
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Dec 28, 2016 00:09
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Personally, I'd have preferred if the Wizard of Oz had stayed a giant floating head, rather than ruining the mystery by pulling back the curtain.
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Dec 28, 2016 00:11
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Snowman_McK posted:Virtually everything about them was. The guy's specifically talking about revealing the space jockey to just be a guy in a suit. You're also ignoring everything else in the film, such as the characters literally telling the audience what everything is. Basebf555 posted:It's easy to sit here and say now that you wish the movie would have not elaborated on the Space Jockey at all, but that's basically what the entire thing was sold on. Had Scott copped-out and not shown any more of the Space Jockey the fan backlash would have been worse in my opinion. Yeah, they shouldn't have sold the movie on that premise and the intention of revealing all of that stuff. Take the cesarean section scene, for example. Originally that was going to be a chestburster removal because Ridley wanted to show someone surviving impregnation, but Fox execs demanded the film showed some new monsters instead so we got the trilobite which was much more interesting and made for a great climactic scene with the engineer. I remember everyone thinking the addition of the deacon at the end was a poor choice as well and would have been better left out of the movie altogether. Prometheus definitely suffered from trying too hard to tie into Alien and provide fanservice, rather than be a confident work that stood on its own. I think it might be the one example where a film would have benefited from more studio meddling.
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Dec 28, 2016 00:17
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I think the marble statue men are cool and their weird organic elephant suits are also cool. I hope rumors that they appear on screen in Covenant are true. There are some summaries of the footage that was screened earlier this month on most of the bigger film blogs now. They're a bit spoilery, but they give context to the scenes from the trailer and make it sound a lot better and less slasher-y than it did. There are some fairly elaborate action scenes which makes it sound like the Aliens to Prometheus' Alien (Further backed up by Waterson talking about her character being an action-movie heroine in a bunch of interviews).
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Dec 28, 2016 00:19
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I'm just sick as poo poo of humanoid aliens. When your budget is limited and all you can do is some forehead makeup or what ever, I get it, but we have the budget and hopefully the creativity for some actual alien looking aliens. I'm also sick as poo poo of scify plots where humans are "linked" to some grand design and are related or created by "ancients" of some sort. I loved the feeling in alien that we've stumbled onto something far more dangerous than we can deal with, that space is huge and ancient and we are absolutely nothing. Nope, we were created by aliens who look just like us, "and they have a plan"
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Dec 28, 2016 00:20
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Baronjutter posted:I'm just sick as poo poo of humanoid aliens. When your budget is limited and all you can do is some forehead makeup or what ever, I get it, but we have the budget and hopefully the creativity for some actual alien looking aliens. I'm also sick as poo poo of scify plots where humans are "linked" to some grand design and are related or created by "ancients" of some sort. I loved the feeling in alien that we've stumbled onto something far more dangerous than we can deal with, that space is huge and ancient and we are absolutely nothing. Nope, we were created by aliens who look just like us, "and they have a plan" The engineers don't look just like you. They're like ten feet tall with black eyes and metal suits fused into their skin. Prometheus satirizes 'ancient alien' theories. One basic point of the movie is that the aliens don't have a grand design.
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Dec 28, 2016 00:43
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Baronjutter posted:I'm also sick as poo poo of scify plots where humans are "linked" to some grand design and are related or created by "ancients" of some sort. Human's weren't part of a "grand design" so much as a mistake the engineers were embaressed about and all to eager to rectify.
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Dec 28, 2016 00:53
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Schwarzwald posted:Human's weren't part of a "grand design" so much as a mistake the engineers were embaressed about and all to eager to rectify. The movie goes out of its way to make it clear that the engineers deliberately created humanity. What gives you the impression that they did so by mistake and were somehow embarrassed by it?
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Dec 28, 2016 01:02
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SUNKOS posted:The movie goes out of its way to make it clear that the engineers deliberately created humanity. What gives you the impression that they did so by mistake and were somehow embarrassed by it? They at some point, about 2000 years ago, decided to return to Earth and exterminate us. So they regretted our existence, which isn't quite the same as having created us by mistake but they decided later that it was one.
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Dec 28, 2016 01:07
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SUNKOS posted:The movie goes out of its way to make it clear that the engineers deliberately created humanity. What gives you the impression that they did so by mistake and were somehow embarrassed by it? The main character literally yells that they were all wrong about there being a grand design. It's even in the trailer.
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Dec 28, 2016 01:12
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SUNKOS posted:The movie goes out of its way to make it clear that the engineers deliberately created humanity. Well its never explained what they were doing on earth, so you cant say they deliberately created humanity. You don't know if that was an execution or something else. That's for the sequels to tell you. Schwarzwald posted:Human's weren't part of a "grand design" so much as a mistake the engineers were embaressed about and all to eager to rectify. I sure hope he didn't attack earth to make us more interested in the movie. It's not like they use that trick all the time.
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Dec 28, 2016 01:24
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The main character literally yells that they were all wrong about there being a grand design. No, that's Shaw saying "We were so wrong" with no reference to any grand design. The ritual at the beginning of the movie along with the various cave paintings indicating prior human/engineer contact made it abundantly clear that the creation was very much deliberate. What Shaw is saying they were wrong about was interpreting those cave paintings as an invitation, because somewhere between then and the events of the movie something happened to make the engineers dislike humanity and want to eradicate it. The movie itself leaves this a mystery, with Shaw herself screaming "Why?!" at the last living engineer and the film ending with her insistence on traveling to their home world to find out why. The early drafts of the script (and silly Christmas references in the movie) reveal that the engineers turned on humanity because we crucified one of them.
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Dec 28, 2016 01:24
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SUNKOS posted:No, that's Shaw saying "We were so wrong" with no reference to any grand design. When she says this its actually just the commentary track with Ridley Scott.
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Dec 28, 2016 01:27
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SUNKOS posted:No, that's Shaw saying "We were so wrong" with no reference to any grand design. The ritual at the beginning of the movie along with the various cave paintings indicating prior human/engineer contact made it abundantly clear that the creation was very much deliberate. No. We see an out of context individual, and cave paintings that suggest the intervention was interpreted as deliberate by a bunch of primitive tribes. quote:What Shaw is saying they were wrong about was interpreting those cave paintings as an invitation, because somewhere between then and the events of the movie something happened to make the engineers dislike humanity and want to eradicate it. The movie itself leaves this a mystery, with Shaw herself screaming "Why?!" at the last living engineer and the film ending with her insistence on traveling to their home world to find out why. The early drafts of the script (and silly Christmas references in the movie) reveal that the engineers turned on humanity because we crucified one of them. That it is also interpreted (explicitly wrongly) as an invitation should give you a reason to question whether the assumptions of those primitive tribes were correct. Even if it is deliberate, that leaves, well, everything else about the engineers and their motivations a mystery. You're the first person I've encountered who thinks the film explained too much. Snowman_McK fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Dec 28, 2016 |
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Dec 28, 2016 01:29
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SUNKOS posted:No, that's Shaw saying "We were so wrong" with no reference to any grand design. The ritual at the beginning of the movie along with the various cave paintings indicating prior human/engineer contact made it abundantly clear that the creation was very much deliberate. The opening scene doesn't take place on Earth. And none of the paintings or carvings shown depict a creation story. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Dec 28, 2016 |
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Dec 28, 2016 01:31
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Tenzarin posted:When she says this its actually just the commentary track with Ridley Scott. SMG said this: SuperMechagodzilla posted:The main character literally yells that they were all wrong about there being a grand design. I pointed out that Shaw doesn't reference any grand design, and instead merely says "We were so wrong" which as SMG pointed out is in the trailer, at 1:45. SuperMechagodzilla posted:The opening scene doesn't take place on Earth. Nobody is saying that the cave paintings depict a creation story. What makes you think that the opening scene doesn't take place on Earth?
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Dec 28, 2016 01:45
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SUNKOS posted:Nobody is saying that the cave paintings depict a creation story. What makes you think that the opening scene doesn't take place on Earth? The scene with David and the star map implies that the whatever the Engineers have done on Earth they've also done in a lot of other places. The fact that they wanted to kill us says to me that we're more of an unintended anomaly, but that's just my personal speculation. None of that is explained in the movie, which was the original point of the discussion.
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Dec 28, 2016 01:50
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What do you think she was "so wrong" about then? What thesis is she saying is incorrect?
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Dec 28, 2016 01:52
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SUNKOS posted:SMG said this: For what it's worth, Ridley Scott has said that the opening scene may or may not be Earth, it's intentionally ambiguous. If it's not Earth, it introduces the idea that "humans" could possibly be elsewhere in the galaxy, wholly unaware that "Earth" exists.
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Dec 28, 2016 01:54
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Xenomrph posted:For what it's worth, Ridley Scott has said that the opening scene may or may not be Earth, it's intentionally ambiguous. They are, but low gravity stretched their bodies to impossible gracility, the alien environment heightened their senses and the uh.... they're felinoid cuz those particular Engineers were just kinda hosed up I guess 
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Dec 28, 2016 02:01
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That the Engineers created humanity still doesn't necessarily suggest a grand design. The fact they were destroyed by another one of their creations more strongly implies that they did poo poo just because they could and never paid any mind to consequences. It's a movie about wanting to meet God and when you do he RKO's you.
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Dec 28, 2016 02:09
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Xenomrph posted:For what it's worth, Ridley Scott has said that the opening scene may or may not be Earth, it's intentionally ambiguous. That's a good point, actually. It's this interview: quote:Movies.com: Do you worry that you’ve lost the element of surprise that worked to your advantage with the original Alien? By now, we’ve seen numerous movies in the Alien universe, and like it or not, audiences are coming in with an expectation that deflates tension and suspense. Did you feel the need to pull the audience in to the story in a different fashion this time?
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Dec 28, 2016 02:26
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Detective Dog Dick posted:That the Engineers created humanity still doesn't necessarily suggest a grand design. The fact they were destroyed by another one of their creations more strongly implies that they did poo poo just because they could and never paid any mind to consequences. It's a movie about wanting to meet God and when you do he RKO's you. David: Why do you think your people made me? Holloway: We made you because we could. David: Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator? Snowman_McK posted:Exactly. Or, if you really wanted to pick a human shape, Luke Wilson would make way more sense. A dude you would never look at twice without being forced to. This is a pretty good argument for the casting of World's Most Generic Actor in Salvation
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Dec 28, 2016 02:35
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Detective Dog Dick posted:That the Engineers created humanity still doesn't necessarily suggest a grand design. The fact they were destroyed by another one of their creations more strongly implies that they did poo poo just because they could and never paid any mind to consequences. It's a movie about wanting to meet God and when you do he RKO's you. Pretty sure Dr. Hollaway unintentionally explains why the Engineers made them when he is talking to David. "Why did your people make me?" "Because we can."
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Dec 28, 2016 02:35
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Ah, it's been a while since I watched it and I forgot about that exchange.
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Dec 28, 2016 02:42
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Rewatch the movie and pay attention to David: he's the key to the entire movie.
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Dec 28, 2016 02:51
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That was one of my favorite parts of the movie. It was such a, "...What if he's right?" moment that I took a little bit to really think about it.
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Dec 28, 2016 02:52
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Party Boat posted:David: Why do you think your people made me? This is the best exchange in the movie. It's why both David and Shaw survive. Everyone who expects clear answers or thinks they're in control dies in horrifying, frequently ironic ways. David knows the answer, and knows how disappointing it is, and can accept that. Thus, he survives. Shaw accepts her own ignorance, she understands that the journey and the faith is requires is important. Thus, she survives.
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Dec 28, 2016 02:55
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David survives because he's a robot.
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Dec 28, 2016 02:57
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I love when he gets permission from Holloway to experiment on him.
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Dec 28, 2016 02:57
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oldpainless posted:David survives because he's a robot. Great avatar/post combo. I imagine the Rock has a similar sense for symbolism to Ron Swanson.
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Dec 28, 2016 03:02
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Snowman_McK posted:It turned them into bizarre space god who may or may not have created us, possibly by accident, and now hate us or something but without ever explaining anything I just mentioned. Mysterious god-like precursor race who may or may-not have created us is like the most common thing in mediocre fantasy and sci fi.
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Dec 28, 2016 03:39
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Catfishenfuego posted:Mysterious god-like precursor race who may or may-not have created us is like the most common thing in mediocre fantasy and sci fi. Actually, no. The ones who definitely did is absolutely a cliche. 'Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, maybe you shouldn't expect clear answers from god, because he probably doesn't think about you very often' is less so.
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Dec 28, 2016 03:44
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MacheteZombie posted:I love when he gets permission from Holloway to experiment on him. This was so good. I didn't mind them looking like huge pale guys because that and the opening and Shaw's the vaguely floated concept of Jesus being an astronaut makes them fit into Norse and Greco-Roman and Christian mythology simultaneously which is cool because it gives Shaw a reason to fall into the ancient aliens guided us bullshit. But the elephant like head being a pilot's helmet+mask and the whole thing being a bio-organic suit was always what Scott had in mind. He talks about it a bit on the commentary track on the Quadrilogy and IIRC that commentary was recorded years earlier for an even earlier release of the movie. I also like that the one seen at the end does have like a line of mechanicalish stuff down the back for the suit to connect to, so the engineer sure as heck is bio-mechanical itself. Scott did something sort of similar in Blade Runner, an awesome detail though I can understand why it wasn't mentioned in the movie with the direction the story goes:  All the tattoos and marks on him are where the powered armor he's fitted with when going into battle plugs into his body.
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Dec 28, 2016 03:46
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