Prometheus

Or, maybe, one of the themes of the story is how people react to the unknown, especially when what they've encountered challenges all their assumptions.

If this movie is any indication, people react by either folding their arms and sulk in a corner because their fantastic discovery isn't fantastic enough, draw completely unfounded theories based on nothing, or trying to pet it.

And that's (presumably) the brightest minds money can buy. I dread to imagine what the script writer think the rest of us would do, but it probably involves running collectively off a cliff.

The script writer is pretty spot on to human behaviour. You wouldn't believe how petty and childish our brightest minds can be. And once you realize how stupid the average person is, you need to remember how averages work and realize half the people are even stupider than the average person.

Well, if you start from the point of view that all humans are that stupid, then I guess the film must be for you. And it also gives the aliens a good motive for wanting to exterminate them. Go Aliens.

But it's not consistent with my experience of humans, which leads me to the conclusion that the characters are stupid because the writer is stupid.

Fiction doesn't follow the same rules as real life. Real Life doesn't have an overarching plot. Not having a plot would hardly make the story stronger, but it would be totally realistic. Spontaneously stupid behaviour in fiction needs some kind of explanation, because, ultimately, some guy sat down and decided that this "spontaneous" behaviour would happen. Maybe he has a plan. Maybe he rolled a die. One make for a better story than the other.

So, to repeat, in case it's not obvious enough: Fiction != Real Life

I'm not so sure about that.

I think we'll find that a lot of 'sense' and basics facts have ended up on the (virtual) cutting room floor.

Perhaps the inevitable Director's Cut DVD's will shed some light on what went wrong with the movie.

Until then I give it 5/10 - Great visuals, great acting from Fassbender but all let down by the rest of the movie being riddled with inconsistencies and plot discrepancies.

Didn't the scene in the beginning of the movie basically imply that Earth's Human race came from that lone Engineer who disintegrated into DNA after drinking the black goo? However, what his motives were are arguable.

Sorry, I tend to divorce finding a film fun from any sort of 'rating' I try to give it, I'm odd. The AvP movies really left me flat in terms of enjoyment, sure they did provide the Aliens fighting Predators thing but for the most part I was very lukewarm on them. Prometheus on the other hand I had a lot of fun with in spite of its generic plot and plotholes.

Oddly I significantly disliked the recent Star Trek movie in spite of its being very well-done. It just seemed a mass of action beats thinly strung together with small bits of plot ... in other words very much a modern action flick. Unfortunately for me that's not what I generally go to a Star Trek film.

If living in denial makes your life happier then by all means live the way you want to live.

Well, if they had toned down the lens flares to sub-Liefield levels, the Star Trek movie might've been tolerable...

Well, for me, fun is probably the most important aspect of an entertainment medium. For example, a movie could be the "best," most "artsy" film ever, lauded for its camera shots and dialogue, etc. etc., but if I feel like I'm about to doze off while watching it, it's not a good film in my opinion.

I think it depends on how the film is marketed.

Prometheus is reasonably fun; but it was marketed as something deeper, and that is where it fails.

Exactly.

In cases like that, I think people try to call the movie a "film" and "good" so that they appear to be more intellectual than the plebian masses that enjoy something like AvP or Shaun of the Dead. Whenever I'm tricked into one of those arthouse snobbery movies, I find myself wanting to yell, "Someone throw a pie or something!".

Yes, I can be very Peter Griffiny at times. >.<

Well see that's not a good movie either, if you're falling asleep to it then it's not engaging at all. On the other hand there's movies that are more like Schindler's List, There Will Be Blood, and No Country for Old Men. None of those movies are what I would consider fun by any stretch of the word but (to me) they manage the engaging part wonderfully and end up being bloody brilliant films. They're not movies I'm going to watch frequently though because they're not exactly fun films.

And yet I've seen critics praise the "unengaging" films and most of them even win Oscars for Best Picture*, and I'm like "wut?" Clearly critics and the Academy enjoy being bored to death.




*Mind you, I'm not saying all Best Picture Oscar winners are "unengaging," but a good 80% percent usually wind up to be.

I think you're possibly more looking at nominees than winners. Or at least I hope you don't think 80% of the winners were unengaging. I mean look at that list, there's a lot of good movies on that thing. There's a lot of 'Oscar Bait' on the list of nominees lately which is unfortunate. Of course just because it's blatant Oscar bait doesn't mean it's a bad movie either.

I seriously don't get some of the nominees though. I'm completely floored that The Tree of Life was up for best picture last time. It was a stunningly beautiful movie to be sure, and decently acted. Unfortunately the narrative was unfocused at best and was more an extremely loosely connected series of vignettes than anything else. Not what I would consider a good candidate for best picture.

The Artist, The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, Million Dollar Baby, and A Beautiful Mind just to name the more recent, egregious winners. One word sums up these films:

DULL.

And I liked both AvPs (probably because I wasn't corrupted by established AvP lore (and all those poor wittle babies in that nursery; hehe))

Just look at Ebert (? one of those critics anyways) that said video games can't be "art", despite knowing next to nothing about the medium.

Obviously everyone's tastes differ (I personally liked The King's Speech well enough despite it's being Oscar bait), but you're saying you didn't like The Hurt Locker, No Country for Old Men, The Departed, The Return of the King, Gladiator, Braveheart, Unforgiven, or the Silence of the Lambs? Personally I'm not a fan of Gladiator or Unforgiven but I can see why they were up for the award at least.

Possibly you just aren't a huge drama person. They do seem to be up for the award fairly frequently.

No I'm not saying that. I loved Return of the King, Gladiator, Braveheart, and Silence of the Lambs, but those films fit into the 20% implied earlier.

That was Ebert. Or at least most famously it was Ebert. I'm not sure what that has to do with liking being bored though. Just looking through his 'Great Movies' list shows a large number of action and comedy films. Sure he likes his share of dull 'artsy' films (and I do too to be honest), but he also seems relatively fair towards 'mindless' action movies too.

He's been pretty fair towards film even though I disagree with him a lot of the times. I'll just ignore anything he says regarding video games since as you mentioned he obviously doesn't know much about them.

It goes to the nature of the critic system and kinda what Scythus was getting at. The stuff that the masses enjoy tends to be 180 degrees from what the critics deem as "good".

Eh, I guess this is where taste in films comes in. I look at that list and I see a lot of really solid movies that have stood as good movies even over time. Sure not all of them are the movie that I would have picked for that year but they're usually good films.

Now if you want dull films; The Tree of Life, Manos, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, or Contraband. Those things are what I'd call dull.