OK, so, Prometheus.

[Bolo Boffin]

Truly enjoyed watching this movie. IMAX 3D eye candy -- you're soaking in it.

But I had some problems with a lot of the science talk. Most of the science talk. OK, all of it, frankly. But the eye candy was so lovely and I'd spent $17 on a ticket, so, hey! I was letting the movie flow. Fun, fun.

And then the whole thing fell apart thinking about it later. I found a mega-spoiler-heavy review online that really, really, really pointed it out. And it wasn't just the science talk, it was all of it. In fact, it was such a fricking mess of a script that the whole thing feels like Katy Perry's new hit single, "I Got Facehugged And I Liked It."

Anybody else feel that way?

[YankeyMCC]

1. Aw nutz!

Why did I read that?

[Bolo Boffin]

2. I'm sorry.

Do I need to put more warnings around the link?

[YankeyMCC]

3. No apology needed

it's my own fault. It's not the spoilers that bother me, I can know what to expect in a good movie and still enjoy it.

What bothers me is that this review reads like exactly all the thoughts I had about how this could go wrong. I heard an interview with the writer (that guy from Lost) and and sounded so convincing about how he treated the story I had my hopes up.

So although I should not judge based on another persons review I just know now this will be another Hollywood SF disappointment.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. OK.

I did enjoy the movie even with the nagging little questions I had. The review is what crystallized everything for me.

[semillama]

5. I felt a little better about it after reading more, but you're right about the science part

My feeling is that they could have used accurate, basic science and it would have vastly improved the movie.

[YankeyMCC]

6. Saw it yesterday

yup that's what I can say, saw it.

Well to expand a bit, underwhelming, no fault of the actors with the possible exception of the biologist.

Visually great, but the words incoherent, muddled together, missing the mark, come to mind overall.

Not demand your money back but maybe wait for dvd/stream.

[FloridaJudy]

11. $7 with the Senior discount.

About what it was worth. I would have royally ticked had it cost more.

[CJCRANE]

7. I thought it needed tighter editing.

IMO they should've left out the two scenes of prologue and started on the ship (as happens in Alien). The exposition of why they're there is all explained on the ship anyway and the first scene just spoils the surprise of what's inside the space jockey helmet. (Ridley could then have put those scenes in the DVD special edition).

[Javaman]

8. The way I describe the movie to my friends is...

and exquisitely beautiful car wreck.

[zappaman]

9. That's an apt description! n/t

[FloridaJudy]

10. Absolutely! (minor spoilers ahead)

The acting was decent, the sets and costumes were stunning, and the special effects were breath-taking. But the plot? A disaster!

It opens with a monkish-looking alien standing on a cliff above a lifeless, but watery world. He takes out a container of some dark, metallic, weirdly mobile substance and consumes it in a solemn ritual, whereupon he - literally - falls apart, and his flesh and bones merge with the primordial waters. The only thing I could think of was "Don't take the Brown Acid, dude!" Somehow, several hundreds of millions of years later, his DNA winds up in Homo Sap. That is not how DNA works. That's not Science Fiction. It's Intelligent Design run amok.

Which also makes me wonder: if our DNA is identical to the Maker, then why aren't we all nine-foot-tall hairless albinos with no whites in our eyes and Industrial/Goth/Deco bones and muscles? I know there's a huge variation in human height and pigmentation, but our skeletons are arranged in much the same manner everywhere. We don't have strange bony structures in our limbs.

I'm thinking that some giant black slab that somehow mutated our neurons (microwaves?), turned us into murderous tool-makers, and split us off from the chimps is sounding a lot more plausible.

That was only the beginning of holes in the plot that any Sophomore science major could have maneuvered a double-wide through. How does someone who's only days away from dying survive cryo-sleep, when even the young and hale are violently ill and debilitated upon awakening? And why the hell would anybody build a spaceship completely embedded in a solid stone structure? What did the Alien Thing eat in the isolated medical pod to grow to the size it did? You can't create that kind of mass out of random scalpels and IV fluids!

And the scientist who presents himself as a skeptic has a crucifix tattooed on his bicep. That's not a science error, but it's a grating incongruity.

It's a pity that considering the talent and effort that went into this film that they didn't hire a real Science Fiction writer. Those guys and gals are no dummies. They could have gotten it right.

[FloridaJudy]

12. And why does underwear

In the near future all look as if it was cobbled together out of surgical gauze by inept seamstresses?

[NGNM85]

13. Should have Stayed Home and Watched Blade Runner (Directors Cut)

In a word; trash. It was awful. Where does one begin? The plot has holes you could drive a semi through. Events follow one another without any discernible reason, or explanation. Many of the characters are flat archetypes with no depth, or personality. Much of the film makes no sense. The 'engineers', for all their apparent technological sophistication are Incredible Hulk-esque behemoths that lumber around solving most of their problems by smashing things. Unlike in Alien, the gross-out scenes were gratuitous, and seemed to serve no other purpose than shock value. On top of all that the film contained a very troubling anti-science message. Seeing as some 60% of the American public already reject evolution, I don't think this is something Hollywood needs to be reinforcing, especially in a Science Fiction film, of all things.