(no subject)

[sacramentalist]

I watched Prometheus on Netflix, today. Basically out of curiosity of all the strong opinions. I tried to have an open mind, but I didn't like it. The CG and makeup took me out of the movie. The characters were all unenjoyable, except for the robot.

Hokey science aside, there wasn't enough action to be an action movie. There wasn't enough suspense to be a thriller or horror. Meh.

Comments

[jonthedull.livejournal.com]

It sucked so much. But what might have made me more annoyed was that even though I have every premium movie channel and like 5439 other channels there was nothing else to watch.

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

That's why I watched it on Netflix. It kept offering it to me. Opinions were so polarized, I was curious to see the hooplah.

[quickly-9.livejournal.com]

I loved it and I'm picky.

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

Are you serious, or trolling. If serious, I'd like to know what I missed. It appealed to quite a few people. I just found it unpleasant.

[(Anonymous)]

Very serious. I am wondering if I missed something, but usually everybody tells me I'm overly picky and negative about movies. I wouldn't put it in a top ten list or anything, but I enjoyed the concept and thought the execution was good. The script seemed a bit shallow (for lack of a better word), but it wasn't stupid.

[quickly-9.livejournal.com]

Oops. That was me.

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

It felt like they threw in a bunch of obscure things to make the viewers do the work of creating a coherent mythos.

They obviously put in a lot of work and money into the movie.

[clevortrevor]

I really enjoyed it too. It could be that forcing the viewers to do the work was part of what I liked - I'd rather be trusted to do that, than have it forced down my throat. Especially since I don't think the plot demanded symbolism to make the movie work - so it was more of a layer than a crutch. It's been a while, but as I recall, I appreciated the overall mood, which did remind me of Alien, and I liked that I never had any idea which way the plot would turn. I thought the ending was satisfyingly non-Hollywood - as in, non-triumphant, yet not entirely void of hope. I liked the open-endedness of it, which (dare I say?) echoed 2001 at least in my mind. I wouldn't call it GREAT, and I think seeing it in a cinema made a difference, but I'm still surprised at the negative reactions.

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

I think some of the reaction is a little unjustified. I see people don't know how DAVID infected the other guy? It was pretty obvious.

[morgyne.livejournal.com]

Me too! Plus, who doesn't like some Idris Elba in their Alien kinda sorta mythos movie?

[immemor.livejournal.com]

And, as Quinton Tarantino said, “Don’t give me a movie where the smartest people in the galaxy are dumb enough to play with the space cobra. Here little space cobra – tickle tickle.”

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

I just realized... how did the guy with the mapping devices get lost? Oh yeah, he was high. Hrm.

Even if you remove the odd decisions the characters made (people do dumb shit in horror films all the time) it just didn't appeal to me.

[snakesinspace.livejournal.com]

After trying my best to stay neutral before watching it, I didn't like it either.

I yelled at the screen a few times when the characters where being super stupid. I can see how it could have been much better.

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

Maybe they could have have had ONE story that made sense from beginning to end.

And cut the number of characters in half while doubling the personalities of the remainders.

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

I kept getting hung up on the fact that, for a science exploration crew, they had NO quarantine procedures. WTF?! Even WE stupid, backwater, non-spacefaring earthbillies (since, from a space perspective, we don't all live on a hill, of course) know that you have to follow quarantine protocol when you come into contact with something new.

The first "dude, I'm a science dude and I'm going to just take off my suit and breathe this unknown air, dude!" made me want to scream. It didn't get better after that.

However, I did like the opening scene with the DNA transfer, somehow I found it interesting enough that it's stuck with me.

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

Don't engage the space cobra!

It seemed like there were some ideas in there. Something Jesus-y, and a bit of Moby Dick, but not enough to give an appreciation. If there were hidden things, the plot and characters need to be endearing enough to want someone to watch the film multiple times.

[clevortrevor]

i think part of the appeal of a lot of science fiction is that as a genre, there's a lot more "wild west cowboy" to it than there is "smart, cautious scientist." In light of that, logical fallacies (such as impossible time travel scenarios) tend to prevent me from suspending disbelieve more than departures from good science. So even though I had the same reaction - "don't take off your helmet!!!" I also appreciated the fact that they were showing people being stupid, foolhardy, and haphazard, and then paying the consequences.

[zimon66]

Silver lining: Despicable Me 2 trailer kinda sounds like they're aping Prometheus cool noise thing.

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the cast of DM2 on Graham Norton? Hilarious.

[sacramentalist.livejournal.com]

It seemed like that to me. And then there's this cache of people with otherwise good taste in film who liked it. Warts and all.

At least we learned some valuable lessons:

Don't play with space snakes
Don't run in the same direction as something rolling at you.
Chehkov's "portable surgery unit" law is upheld.