[_____V_____]

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Meredith Vickers - Theron did a great job with her, but I really didn't understand the point here - Big Business lady in space, I suppose? She didn't really turn out to be all that villainous (Weyland and David take that I suppose), but yet she deserves a villain's ending?

She and her father weren't on the same page. She was in this just like Carter Burke in Aliens, to safeguard the investment of the project. Clearly her intentions were business and profit, and she behaved like a very one-dimensional character, like her Daddy. Yes, she didn't deserve that ending but then she couldn't have been left alive in the end, could she? Since she didn't die inside the ship or the pyramid...

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

SPACE JOCKEYS - I was promised Space Jockeys. I didn't go to see the great questions of Life, The Universe, and Everything be peddled about by pretty little things in spacesuits... WHERE ARE MY SPACE JOCKEYS?!

You saw a whole bunch of them running through when David activated the hologram, remember? And you saw a full-fledged SJ in the Engineer who was awakened from his cryo-sleep. Explanations about their running/flight from the deck should be provided in the sequel (or prequel?).

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Penis aliens - hur hur - Ok. Seriously. I canNOT be the only person who giggled at how incredibly phallic AND vaginal the black goo face huggers were... Though the breaking arm scene was pretty cringe-worthy. Also - WHY WOULD THE BIOLOGIST GET THAT CLOSE TO THEM?!

Ah, the hammerpedes. One of the many bioweapons inside the pyramid (shame that we didn't get to see more of those bioweapons, which were cut out by Lindelof from Spaihts' treatment because the script was getting unnecessarily long) which looked innocent but turned out extremely deadly. Again, the biologist had no idea what he was dealing with. Of course, he should have been a bit fearful and apprehensive when dealing with such a creature, but judging by how incredibly swift the hammerpede was, he was a foregone conclusion the moment it drifted towards them in the goo stream. Even then, the hammerpede didn't cause death - it merely impregnated you with something, like the facehugger. The problem started when they cut it and sprayed themselves with it's acidic blood. Inadvertently dipping the helmet into the flowing goo further enhanced the situation.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Argh. I was really disappointed and underwhelmed with this movie. Sure, it was pretty. Sure, more than a few scenes appealed to both my scifi fangirl AND horror fangirl sensibilities, but it seemed all really disjointed, no one seemed to react appropriately to anything at all, which made the best scenes seem like non sequitur. Ultimately, it all seemed very random, as though there were way too many areas of focus but none were fleshed out particularly well. Sure, one might say "Wait for the next movies," but UGH I feel as though I was promised a lot here and didn't get much out of it. Big empty pretty thing. I was actually pretty DISSATISFIED afterwards.

I don't blame you.

It may all seem like a confusing, muddled mess to even the best of viewers, specially when there are hurried rewrites of the original script involved. The Spaihts' scriptt was fantastic, but the hurried rewrites by Lindelof messed everything up.

Most portions of Spaihts' work was leaked to the media when shooting was underway (remember my post in the Upcoming Horror section's Prometheus thread about the script getting leaked, and the whole angle of male gay aliens, and a scene of gay aliens actually having sex). Wait, let me find it...

Here's the synopsis of Spaihts' treatment -

Earth. Year 2058.

Archaeological digs in Africa reveal alien artifacts that humans were genetically engineered by an advanced alien race (space jockeys). These “Alien Gods” also terraformed Earth in order to make it habitable for their human creations. Amongst finds are coordinates to the Alien God’s home-world, to Paradise. Months later the Weyland Corp launch the spaceship PROMETHEUS and [its] crew, into deep space to make first contact. Thanks to faster than light travel a few years later the PROMETHEUS enters the Zeta Riticuli star system. Humans are greeted by their makers, then transported further into space to a scary yet fascinating world. The Alien Gods are proud of their “children”, their first creation to reach such levels of intelligence.

As a reward they share bits of their astonishing bio-based technologies with the humans. But for one crew member of the Prometheus it’s not enough. In a treacherous act he steals the “bio-source code” to Terraforming, a technology at the origin of all Gods’ power, that could make humans equal to the gods. The Alien Gods may be scientists but are also ruthless conquerors, destroyers of worlds who will not accept humans as equals. They unleash on the escaping human crew their favorite bio-weapon, a creature used to “clean up” worlds before colonization. But something goes wrong in the process and humans manage to turn the bio-weapon against their makers. Giving birth to a smarter, nastier, bigger breed of gut eating creatures. Creatures that will be the demise of Paradise. What’s left of the Prometheus crew manages to escape the doomed planet.

On their trail a survivor Alien God in very familiar ship with one ultimate mission.

Bring the wrath of the Gods to Earth.

And this is what happened when the first rewrite of Spaihts' treatment by Lindelof was over -

http://www.horror.com/forum/showpost...5&postcount=56

The script (by John Spaihts and recently rewritten by Damon Lindelof) tells of the space jockeys traveling from planet to planet and terraforming them.

The space jockeys are holding captive of two human slave farmers named Fin and Karik and force them (via mind control) to engage in sexual activity. (The twist: they’re both male).

There will be a black Vasquez-esque spaceship crew member named Oliver.

Gemma Arterton was offered to play a female crew member named Truks.

The aliens are used by the space jockeys (known as “Growers” in the script) in their terraforming processes as some sort of biological tools.

The signature alien won’t appear until the latter half of the film when it fully develops into it (this hints that we’ll be seeing different and new forms of aliens).

The editor calls the film a hard science fiction part psychological drama.

Ridley has met with Lance Henriksen to appear in the film.

The idea behind the man-on-man action is apparently that the growers want their human slaves to breed. They’ve no idea about human genders as they are a single sex race and so things get a little… confused, leading to what the original story described as “Brokeback Alien”.

Subsequent rewrites weren't planned, but forced. But that doesn't justify Ridley's satisfaction with the final draft, or the go-ahead after they saw their treatment in the editing room before release. Either way, it's a given that they didn't pursue the originally intended Prometheus story the way they would have liked it to. No wonder Ridley is staying silent on the prospects of a sequel right now, when usually film makers announce sequels almost immediately after a film releases and does well at the BO. This after announcing that there will be at least two prequels, and an explanation of how the SJ fits into the Alien universe.

Prometheus is a thought-provoking film. Ridley tried to leave enough questions in it to keep fans thinking and guessing so that he would have scope to fit in a sequel (or a prequel) or two, but two things went against it - Lindelof's hasty rewrites, and the whole Ridley treatment which makes the film give off a vibe of taking itself way too seriously.

But the biggest merit of the film is that it actually gave us something different, something to think about, something to talk about, like today. When bigger films with bigger budgets warrant a one-watch, some oohs and aahs, and ultimately disappear from sight to make way for the next blockbuster. This is the reason why I appreciate it, despite it's flaws.