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Looking to get Pro on blu (mainly for the VFX) coz it's getting cheap... is it worth paying double for the Furious Gods documentary (don't need to for a 3D copy)? If it's a genuinely good, technical stuff (like the LotR extended doco material) I'd say yes. Otherwise no...
I'm also wondering if the decent (i.e writers) commentaries are on the standard blu or of I need the collectors one for that too...
Thoughts?
Last edited by Malak (2013-01-07 11:11:04)
Looking to get Pro on blu (mainly for the VFX) coz it's getting cheap... is it worth paying double for the Furious Gods documentary (don't need to for a 3D copy)? If it's a genuinely good, technical stuff (like the LotR extended doco material) I'd say yes. Otherwise no...
I'm also wondering if the decent (i.e writers) commentaries are on the standard blu or of I need the collectors one for that too...
Thoughts?
The Furious Gods doco is actually a very well put together behind the scenes. Much much better than the usual DVD fare, and better than the stoopid movie. Yes, it's almost up there with the LOTR and Fincher extras. Ridley Scott usually has good extras on his epics (Gladiator, Alien, and Kingdom of Heaven all come with hours of extras).
Perhaps his motivation is to show off what a genius he is, but in any case, it's worth it if you like seeing the production process. Also, it actually sheds light on some of the unanswered questions in the movie.
Nevertheless, it is kinda weird saying this^ though i.e. the movie sucked but the making-of was awesome.
So I sold the blu-ray I got for christmas on ebay and did a double take when the email said the buyers name was 'Michael Scott' 
So I sold the blu-ray I got for christmas on ebay and did a double take when the email said the buyers name was 'Michael Scott'
Maybe Dorkman is secretly buying all Prometheus blu-rays in the world so he can burn them.
So, I am not a fan of this movie...and yet I find myself re-watching it on what seems like a fairly regular basis.
It isn't that it's getting better, or that I'm forgiving it somehow. I don't load it up each time thinking "maybe it will all make sense this time." I had the opportunity to watch Furious Gods, which only made me dislike what we got more.
Still, for reasons I can't quite articulate, I find I'm still drawn to it. Maybe it's as simple as "oo, shiny...," but I can't cite any other film that has this car-crash effect on me.
Still, for reasons I can't quite articulate, I find I'm still drawn to it. Maybe it's as simple as "oo, shiny...," but I can't cite any other film that has this car-crash effect on me.
You can't help but admire the visuals. Ridley Scott could always deliver stunning eye candy (think Blade Runner or Kingdom Of Heaven).
When it comes to plot, the movie is seriously flawed, but IMHO not as terrible as some say. Making sense of the plot requires some wishful thinking (and the whole Internet has tried)... but then again, they said the same about 2001: A Space Odyssey (it took some time, but now it's regarded a classic). If Ridley was going for a 2001 feel with Prometheus, then his mistake was using too much dialogue (or using it badly - "that system has a sun", "100% DNA match" etc.). Unfortunately he didn't have Arthur C. Clarke to consult 
Last edited by MartyJ (2013-03-16 23:03:53)
2001 always made sense - and was considered a classic by many ever since the day it came out. It was nominated for Oscars for Best Director and Original Screenplay, as well as Art Direction, and won a special Oscar for the FX.
True, 2001 doesn't give the viewer much info to go on. To really understand it, you pretty much had to read the book (or nowadays, the Wikipedia article at least). But the ideas were always there, even though Kubrick chose not to explain most of them on screen.
Prometheus simply doesn't make sense even though it gives plenty of exposition - and as you say, the more they explain the worse it gets. And now that Scott has hinted at what his take on the material was, it makes even less sense. (*cough* Space Jesus *cough*)
I think part of the reason it hit me so hard is that Ridley seemed to still be on top of his game as of a couple years ago, I didn't see him as a director who was over the hill or seemed to be on a real downslide. I've loved most of his 2000's output, Black Hawk Down was great, Kingdom of Heaven was great, even as recently as American Gangster I thought he was doing really good work, and that was only 5 years ago. These are movies with strong thru-lines that effectively juggle large casts, so to see him suddenly make such a vast mis-step (in a genre he largely defined as we think of today) just seems so out of the blue, like WTF?
I guess Body of Lies and Robin Hood should've been warning signs, but the former was still decent, and the latter had a troubled production and started out as a much more interesting movie, so those never jumped out as failures to me particularly.
Prometheus simply doesn't make sense even though it gives plenty of exposition - and as you say, the more they explain the worse it gets. And now that Scott has hinted at what his take on the material was, it makes even less sense. (*cough* Space Jesus *cough*)
That's probably because of all those rewrites (two different writers + Ridley's "take"). The earlier versions (mentioned in the commentary) might have made much more sense. Ridley just wasn't sure what he wanted.
Recently we had a thread about reviving Michael Crichton and other dead people. We need to add Arthur C. Clarke to the list, he really could save a lot of movie projects.
If Prometheus had less plot and dialogue, people (especially European film critics) could have endlessly gushed over the "hidden symbolism". But we've got all this exposition and, naturally, some people read into it (like here).
Todo list: Edit out 95% of the dialogue in Prometheus and turn it into a 45 minute art film
Also found this: http://www.fanedit.org/ifdb/component/c … giftbearer
Would almost be curious to give that a watch and see if it holds together better, the change list is extensive
Last edited by bullet3 (2013-03-17 00:47:16)
Edit out 95% of the dialogue in Prometheus and turn it into a 45 minute art film
That could actually work 
Such a Phantom Edit would've been a hit in Europe.
Enabling one of the foreign dub tracks on the DVD/Blu-Ray may prove an interesting experience. The DVD edition I own has some (Turkish, Hungarian and Czech).
True, 2001 doesn't give the viewer much info to go on. To really understand it, you pretty much had to read the book (or nowadays, the Wikipedia article at least). But the ideas were always there, even though Kubrick chose not to explain most of them on screen.
That could be considered a major flaw, reminding me of the illuminating directors commentary for an anime series, Paranoid Agent, where they stated they removed any line of dialog that could possibly tell the viewer what was going on 
OK, I watched some scenes from the movie with redubbed audio and they're much more palatable that way. Prometheus in Turkish is a surreal arthouse film. Prometheus in Czech is an absurdist comedy. Now I understand why they shot Incubus in Esperanto...
I just realized something else... David explains all the movie's problems. If your head hurts from stupid dialogue, simply follow David's advice: "The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts". Or switch to a different audio track.
You know with all the emphasis on the Engineers in this film, maybe Scott can create a prequel's prequel-all about the Engineers and their battle against the Predators 
It would not surprise me at all if that film establishes that the Engineers also created the Predators, and that their DNA is also a 100% match.
And then a Rod Serling twist: humans go back in time and create the Engineers.
And then a Rod Serling twist: humans go back in time and create the Engineers.
Humans ARE the Engineers!
Engineers also created the Predators, and that their DNA is also a 100% match.
Even better, what if their DNA was a 200% match? Science!
what if their DNA was a 200% match?
Sure, why not? If a system can have two suns...
Matt Vayda wrote:Engineers also created the Predators, and that their DNA is also a 100% match.
Even better, what if their DNA was a 200% match? Science!
The sample is, in one word, perfect:
+1
Marty J hyper-linked to this above, but I think it's worth embedding here out in the open, so more people will notice it and take a look.
Even after all the point-by-point explanations, I still don't much care for the movie for 2 big reasons:
1. I find much of the movie badly directed/acted. It's just so damn self-important and kind of melodramatic to the point of unintentional comedy.
2. Almost all of these "explanations" are the result of external research and homework outside of the film itself we're expected to do. To me, that's a massive failing of the movie. If the film can't stand on its own as a single story with all the necessary contexts contained within the running time, then that's bad storytelling. What you're left with is a paper with all of the math problems completed, and you expect me to go through the books and work out the equations for myself to see how you got there. Basically, I'm showing your work. Screw that!
Having said all that, I'm very interested in these statements at the beginning of the video: "Is Damon Lindelof just a bad writer who expects everyone to fill in the plot holes for him? No. The original writer was Jon Spaihts. Lindelof was brought in for rewrites, and Ridley Scott was involved from beginning to end with a specific vision in mind. People are only targeting Lindelof because they don't like Lost, which was one of the best TV Shows ever made. He knew the whole plot on that one, too. And just so you know, a Plot Hole is when something in the movie contradicts something else, not when something is left open."
I'd like to see these guys make one of these videos for Lost, specifically. I'm a fan of that show and would want to see them back up their statement.
Last edited by johnpavlich (2013-03-19 17:15:11)
I rather intensely dislike that video. It demonstrates the old adage of 'not all replies are answers', in that some of the answers are merely hand waves, and manages to be quite patronising to boot.
Hahaha, and now Fox and Ridley have no idea what to do for a sequel because they fucked it up so bad on the first movie: http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/32253 … -lindelof/
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