Ok, so the big blockbuster has arrived with a big…plop.
I will not lie, I did enjoy the film, but I feel this is more of a reflection of the complete lack of substance in films these days as opposed to Prometheus being anything special, or at least, anything worth the hype. Basically, it’s just a decent action film with stunning visuals. The problem is is that it pretends to be something more. The idea that this film delves into the depths of the meaning of life, God, and our origins is bloated with bullshit. These topics are touched upon at only a superficial level and when they do crop up in dialogue I can only remember them being flippantly dismissed. Their appearences at best serve to maintain the illusion that they are a consistent presence. They aren’t. And Jesus Christ, there are plot holes galore and just stupid, stupid so-called scientists. What kind of biologist thinks an alien fucking worm that looks like some prehistoric cobra is cute and should be coo-ed at? Yes that’s right dickhead, it’s now spurting acid in your friend’s face and making its way down your esophagus.
Y’know if this film was directed by Sylvester Stallone it would be better. No pretense there. It’s just “hey, here’s another shitty action movie to kill a few hours, and a few more brain cells with.”
Going to the cinema is an ever-increasing disappointment. I really do think that the old films are best. Y’know the ones that have dialogue longer than two lines a piece, and characters, and a coherent plot line. Prometheus is built for a sequel. That’s it. We’re in the era of episodic cinema. And with such they can leave such gaping holes left, right, and centre, in order to introduce whoever, or whatever they please, whenever they like.
Thats just biased nostalgia, there’s always been good and shitty films it’s just you don’t remmember the bad films as much as you do the great ones.
Though to be honest i haven’t gone out to see a movie in a long time simply because none of them looked good though there have been a few Ihaven’t seen and might of been good.
The first time I saw the trailer for it, I thought it was gonna be like a new 2001 or something. The second time I saw the trailer lowered my expectations quite a bit – I thought it was just going to be like another space-horror, like Alien – but still super awesome.
I didn’t ever think of the religious presence as being propaganda, but I was irritated by the naive, simplicity of faith the archaeologist woman had. Again though, anything remotely religious was only superficially presented, and flippantly also, I should add. There was nothing for anyone daring to desire something a little more intelligent.
It’s just that that kind of scene is a staple of the genre.
In every horror film there’s always someone that touches something no one would touch or someone who enters a place no one in their right mind would enter. It just seems to be a necessary plot device.
For me, it was complete propaganda. It’s exactly what you’d expect from Lindelof.
Mentioning religion, or showing a religious symbol in a movie, is not propaganda. If there’s something like propaganda in the film, I think it’s against religion.
Take the scientist lady’s boyfriend as the first of two religious characters. He’s not bright–and whoever made the movie was not hiding it. It’s just so apparent in the scene when he is talking to the robot David, and David asks him why humans made a robot like him, to which the reply was, “because they could”. There’s two options: Either 1. The boyfriend has religious faith in the aliens–a religious faith because he wants a ‘why’ answer from the aliens, over and above a ‘how’ answer, and thinks they can provide it, or 2. The boyfriend believes in a God independently of the aliens, but is going to them anyways for the ‘why’ answer. The latter is like going to someone with good or bad luck and asking him why people get good or bad luck. And if its the former, he just doesn’t get David’s suggestion that any answer is going to be nothing more than a curious fact about some being’s psychology–and thus disappointing in the exact same way that he recognizes his answer to David is. Maybe this person isn’t religious at all, and its just Shaw…
The scientist lady at the end of the movie is taking the weapons ship to locate and blow up the aliens. I think that much was explicit, obvious if not, despite what she told the robot David. The robot was still programmed on his master’s orders, so needed a lie to be useful to the scientist lady. The religious scientist lady.
Suppose the alien was trying to blow up earth, and kill everyone. Put aside the idea that he was trying to blow something else up, or not blow anything up at all. He left a bad first impression, no doubt. So now the lady is going to go and try to blow up his entire planet? Huh? Crazzzzy. What did I miss?
These are the religious people in the movie. So, where exactly is the “propaganda”?
Different UFO. Not bomber class or whatever. Some alien rips his DNA apart and puts it into the water of earth (presumably). It’s not the alien virus (as that doesn’t rip people apart at the molecular level; it turns you into something that spawns an alien).
Seriously. That scene happened and I was like ‘Oh fuck. This is going to be good.’ and then literally nothing ever at all connected back to that scene.
The implication in that scene was that, when he drank the goop, he died and new life was created – perhaps the beginnings of life on Earth. That’s why they called those guys The Engineers – they’re responsible for life on Earth.
Read my second link above to find a sensible interpretation of the goop.
Okay. I’ll be generous to the film-makers and concede that’s what was happening, but then my complaint is that they did a terrible job of portraying a hypnotised man. He simply sounded like he was talking to an infant. I mean, there was no woozy-hypnotic sound in his voice or behaviour etc. for me to think, “Oh, this guy is hypnotised. Cool trick.”
Wake up. I just explained how the one religious guy was really dumb, and the religious girl was going to blow up and entire civilization like a terrorist basically because some of their number were “playing god”. That’s suuuuuuch a flatering portrayal of religious people (sarcastic). Wake up. If you see it differently, then explain why. Not all movies that show a religious symbol, or have a character saying something about their religion, are propaganda for religion.
Wake the fuck up. I also explained in this thread that there’s a scene where the main female character says that she has no evidence for god but chooses to believe. That scene cuts immediately after she says that which validates the line. There’s also a shitload of close-ups of her cross and countless other references. And it’s not just that references are being made, it’s the way the dialogue was written and the way the scenes were done.
This is Damon Lindelof’s trademark. Lost was also all about faith vs science with faith coming out on top in the end.
Closeups of a cross, a religious character in the movie, doing what religious characters do, and saying what religious characters would say… this is not propaganda, anymore than showing you a carrot, and telling you qua carrot eater that I like eating carrots is propaganda for carrots—you just can’t portray a carrot eater in a movie without such. What you’ve said is completely vacuous, if that’s all there is to propaganda. Not to mention that the religious woman was portrayed as something like a terrorist set on blowing up an entire civilization for playing god, in the movie, or else an idiot, like the other religious character. Frankly, you need a message for propaganda… something like “be religious too”, and there’s nothing like that in the movie, at all, I’d say. Stop talking out of your ass because you know the director’s name and watched a tv show. Maybe Sam Harris has said something on the topic which you could link to on youtube and thereby contribute something at all.
Maybe it’s time you educate yourself on what propaganda actually means.
For your information it is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. There need not be an explicit textual message.
Also, it attempts to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented like the scene I mentioned and some others towards the end of the film.
The director of the film is Ridley Scott. Damon Lindelof is the writer. And I don’t “know it”, it’s fucking plastered on the imdb page.
And no, Sam Harris didn’t say anything about this film, as far as I know. Why the dig? Did the fact that not everyone agrees with your interpretation hurt your feelings? Can’t you handle frustration without raging?
If its propaganda, then there’s a message being propagated–nooooo, you don’t say. Which is why showing a cross, and having a religious character do what a religious character would do, is not propaganda. The fact that there are religious characters in the movie, the symbols they wear, and the things they say, isn’t propaganda, unless the movie is also propaganda for robots, aliens, tables, people with beards, …all of which were also depicted in the movie. If you think the message is “be religious” or “yay religion”, then address what I wrote, to the effect that that can’t possibly be the message based on the way the religious characters are actually portrayed. And figure out the carrot analogy for yourself.
If its propaganda, then there’s a message being propagated–nooooo, you don’t say. Which is why showing a cross, and having a religious character do what a religious character would do, is not propaganda. The fact that there are religious characters in the movie, the symbols they wear, and the things they say, isn’t propaganda, unless the movie is also propaganda for robots, aliens, tables, people with beards, …all of which were also depicted in the movie. If you think the message is “be religious” or “yay religion”, then address what I wrote, to the effect that that can’t possibly be the message based on the way the religious characters are actually portrayed. And figure out the carrot analogy for yourself.