Prometheus

[Merusk]

Yeah but it only makes sense in movie chronology not lore chronology.

[Der Helm]

I don't get it.

[Trippy]

A B C D

[Rendakor]

They're the androids from the Alien franchise.

[Der Helm]

A B C D

[lamaros]

I much prefer the sense I got from the final movie than that early script.

But too old school SF slash fan fic for me on that one.

[HaemishM]

Finally watched this last night.

Holy shit, this movie was HORRIBLE. So pretty. SO GODDAMN BRAINLESS. I spent most of the night and the morning asking myself questions that contained the formula "But if X then WHY is Y?" Because there were so many stupid character decisions, inconsistencies and just outright bizarre senseless things that I kept trying to make sense of it all. The movie just made no sense. The characters made no sense. The aliens made no sense. It was the physical manifestation of the Chewbacca defense. Such a shame, because Fassbender did a fantastic job and Idris Elba was good with what little he was given. In all, I think you can chalk the whole mess up to a really really lazy screenplay that didn't bother to make even the slightest sense.

[Mrbloodworth]

Uh, Bad decisions is a staple of this genre.

Don't you write books?

[Ratman_tf]

Uh, Bad decisions is a staple of this genre.

Don't you write books?

Bad decisions are fine as long as they make sense. In the original Alien, Dallas going into the vents was a bad idea, but he didn't know the xenomorph grew up so fast, so it made sense.

[Mrbloodworth]

Bad decisions are fine as long as they make sense.

Wut.

[Ironwood]

Heh.

[Mrbloodworth]

Hold on guys. I hear something. You guys stay where. I will be right back with help!

[Ratman_tf]

Bad decisions are fine as long as they make sense.

Wut.

Are we talking about the making of the movie and not the story? 

[HaemishM]

Uh, Bad decisions is a staple of this genre.

Don't you write books?

Yep. Bad decisions is a staple of the genre. However, the decisions NEED TO HAVE A REASON. For teen slasher flicks, it's usually because teens are hormonal and stupid and thus prone to bad decisions. Or at the very least, the bad decisions need to be because of some character motivation we've been given.

Let's take Vickers, for instance. First off, her sleeping with the captain. Why? We didn't get to see her tits, so that's a reason shot down. If it was meant to get the captain off the bridge so he wouldn't see that Laurel and Scottish Hardy were getting facefucked by goo worms, that makes no sense because the minute he returns to the bridge or anyone looks at the monitoring equipment, they'll see that these dudes have NO FUCKING VITAL SIGNS, which would mean that when/if the crew did go back in the temple to find their bodies, they'd be prepared instead of being somehow surprised at these guy's deaths.

Also why did Vickers go on the ship WITH Weyland? The only fucking motivation we're given by the story is that she wants to succeed her father in running the company. Ok... well since her father is likely to die anyway on a 4-year space voyage AND she doesn't believe there's anything out there to be found, WHY WOULD SHE GO ON THE TRIP? Unless she's there to make sure her father dies (in which case, she'd have actually done something to kill him), I see no logical or illogical reason for her to go on the trip based solely on what little character motivation the script gave us. Just like there's no motivation for her to sleep with the captain unless there's more history there than the audience has been given. It's fine for there to be some past history but at least throw the audience a bone and give us a FUCKING HINT about it. Otherwise we're sitting there going "WHY WOULD YOU FUCKING DO THAT?!!!?!?!?!?!"

Bad decisions are fine, so long as the writer knows WHY those bad decisions are made and the audience is given at least some hint as to what would make the person make such a bad decision.

If it was just one bad decision, it would be fine, but it's a mountain of them that keep piling up for no reason other than the script said this had to happen.

[Tannhauser]

Untrained civilians making bad decisions is ok.  'Expert' civilians making bad decisions is not.

[Ironwood]

9 pages of thread totally convincing me to buy this.  Multiple times.

[01101010]

Let's take Vickers, for instance. First off, her sleeping with the captain. Why? We didn't get to see her tits, so that's a reason shot down. If it was meant to get the captain off the bridge so he wouldn't see that Laurel and Scottish Hardy were getting facefucked by goo worms, that makes no sense because the minute he returns to the bridge or anyone looks at the monitoring equipment, they'll see that these dudes have NO FUCKING VITAL SIGNS, which would mean that when/if the crew did go back in the temple to find their bodies, they'd be prepared instead of being somehow surprised at these guy's deaths.

That was the first time I laughed out loud at work today. Thanks... thought I would be able to get out of here without someone raising an eyebrow.

[Mrbloodworth]

The Vickers and Captain scene is also a requirement. "Sexey" scenes followed by horrible things is a staple. Unless you are saying that a captain, and a high ranking corporate citizen are incapable of human error, but I don't think that's what you are upset about, Mr. Petraeus.

[Ingmar]

Untrained civilians making bad decisions is ok.  'Expert' civilians making bad decisions is not.

You clearly don't work in IT.

[HaemishM]

The Vickers and Captain scene is also a requirement. "Sexey" scenes followed by horrible things is a staple. Unless you are saying that a captain, and a high ranking corporate citizen are incapable of human error, but I don't think that's what you are upset about, Mr. Petraeus.

It's only a requirement if the scriptwriter you hired to unfuck your script is doing his rewrites according to "Lazy Ass Fucktard Screenwriting for Dummies by Clueless Fucktard." There's nothing that says you HAVE to do the expected things for genre entertainment. It just takes some goddamn thought. And there weren't even any "SEXEY" scenes. No tits displayed, hell the "seduction" had about as much passion as I show my vacuum cleaner. And it has mad suction. 

[Ironwood]

You're in the wrong thread.

[Lakov_Sanite]

They never gave vickers a reason to sleep with the captain other than "fuck it, why not?" which ironically happens in real life. I can't remember who said it but the quote is something like "unlike in real life, fiction has to make sense"  I don't regard that point in the movie as a bad decision or even close to one of its many faults, I think it stands out for most people though because since they did not explain it, it felt jarring to the audience.

[Lantyssa]

Maybe the Ice Queen was horny?  It's been known to happen.

[palmer_eldritch]

This is the thing though, in any story the characters generally have to behave in a way that makes some sort of sense. They don't have to behave rationally - if you establish that one of them is an idiot then they can behave like an idiot. You can have one of them be insane or just a nasty type of person or a nice person and that might be explanation enough for their actions. But there has to be some sort of logic behind their actions otherwise you don't have a narrative, you have a series of random events.

If a character is a trained astronaut or scientist but totally lacking in common sense ("I think I'll take my helmet off") then that's cool but the story has to acknowledge that, not just suddenly turn them into an idiot for 30 seconds when its convenient to the plot.

A story can leave mysteries unsolved or let the viewer come up with their own answers if it's exploring questions to do with life, the universe and everything, but if the behaviour of the characters is so inconsistent and apparently random that you're asking "why did they do that? And why did they do that?" every 5 minutes then it's just a badly written story.

[Ironwood]

Maybe the Ice Queen was horny?  It's been known to happen.

Pics or it's never been known to happen.

[Lantyssa]

I made Minvaren burn all pics involving the lamp.  Sorry.

[HaemishM]

What Palmer said. If you are going to have people acting like an idiot, don't establish the character as something entirely unidiotic like then out of nowhere make them act like an idiot. It was the jarring nature of most of the bad decisions that made them all so obvious. Biologist dude playing with snake thingie, geologist getting lost in a cave that HE HIMSELF IS MAPPING, Ice Queen sleeping with the captain JUST BECAUSE. Just because is a terrible excuse for anything in a narrative is 90% of the time going to cause the audience to ask "WHY?"

Once the audience starts asking why something has happened, you've fucking lost them.

[shiznitz]

Haemish is making sense to me.  I thought the implied love scene was strange because it served no purpose in a movie begging for more explanation.  We already knew Vickers was an ice queen.  It did not need to be reinforced.  The fact that the captain brought the subject up actually added to his character a bit, but it didn't require Vickers to agree to make that point. 

[Mrbloodworth]

F13 Hates sexy time that has no reason!

[Merusk]

When a 3 hour porn shoot has more plot structure for the sex that's about to happen, yes, it's a problem.  Particularly when you don't even get to see the goods.

[calapine]

F13 Hates sexy time that has no reason!

It's not that I had no reason, it's that it felt out of place. Vickers being a frigid cow and/or being to stuck up to get consider fucking the chauffeur would make more sense.

[Mrbloodworth]

I like how dedicated driven women in power are instantly frigid!

[Der Helm]

 

[Ratman_tf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8f9-Mf47L0&list=PLBF95254D29BEAE15&index=1&feature=plcp

[Der Helm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8f9-Mf47L0&list=PLBF95254D29BEAE15&index=1&feature=plcp

I think I am in love.