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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

We Came From Them. They Will Come For Us.


The following post is spoiler free!!!

Above is the free poster I got from attending the midnight opening show for Prometheus last Thursday night in IMAX 3D. After walking out of the movie, my 1st thought was, "Damn, it's 2:30am and I have to be at work in 4 and a half hours!" My 2nd thought was, "Holy hell, that was the most unbelievably good-looking film I have ever seen," (from a special effects standpoint). Just beautiful to look at. My 3rd thought was, "What the hell just happened?"

Without giving any spoilers, I told Dad that I was giving the film a rating of "I" for incomplete, fully expecting a sequel (or two).

5 days after seeing it, my head is now reeling. I am forced to reevaluate my original impression, and I find myself being sucked in further to Ridley Scott's crazy world. On further review, I am upgrading my rating to an "A-" without even seeing it again.

Tom Rench emailed me a link to a rather in depth discussion (DO NOT READ UNTIL VIEWING PROMETHEUS) of the film that points out the finer points of the movie. After reading that, I clearly see that the "finer points" weren't so fine, and that Ridley has a clear message in his film. I won't go so far as to agree with everything this guy says, but his argument is rock solid and supported by quotes from Ridley himself. The 1st thing you should do after watching Prometheus is read the above link. The next thing you should do is go see it again, which I will be doing next week.


If that isn't enough, there is a bonus clip at the end of the movie credits that I have embedded above. Don't worry, it has nothing to do with the plot and can be safely viewed. Ridley Scott is not even close to subtle in trying to show us that this is HIS very own sci-fi epic... Know any other movies that use themes from Nietzsche? Maybe one that has a classic score using a certain piece by the same name????

Let's go even further down the rabbit hole... You are probably aware there was a viral marketing campaign that led up to Prometheus. There is now a new website associated with the movie:

http://www.whatis101112.com/

Not much else there yet, but there are some REALLY COOL things if you click the Weyland logo at the top and explore the Weyland Industries website. However, it is clear that Ridley still has some tricks up his sleeve. Clearly, something is significant about 10-11-12. It is the fictional date of Weyland Industries being incorporated, but it's more than coincidence that the date is this year in reality.

I have no idea where this is going, but it's starting to really suck me in. I'm thinking that date could be anything from the Blu-ray release date, to a new website, to a major announcement about a sequel.

You don't think Ridley pulled the ULTIMATE fast one and did a LOTR style double shoot without letting us know do you?

Comments are NOT spoiler free below! Colin let the cat out of the bag!

3 comments:

Colin and Liz said...

I read this article at lunch, and it answered a lot of my questions. However, I still have a question unanswered. The article states: "Two thousand years ago, humanity not only murdered the Engineers' emissary, it infected the Engineers' life-creating fluid with its own tainted selfish nature, creating monsters."

How did humans infect the fluid? We were still on earth, right? Did our actions on Earth effect the fluid all the way on LV-223?

Teddy said...

Colin, I think the author of that article is 75% correct. He is right on in figuring out the important themes, and he nails the symbolism perfectly.

I do think he is reaching a bit when he says Jesus was the Engineers' emissary. As far as I know, Jesus was human and was not a milky white 10 foot tall alien. Sounds like Ridley considered this, and then pulled back that idea a bit realizing (correctly) that the religious implications would take over for the viewers and cloud the underlying themes of sacrifice and survival that he really was exploring. So the question YOU ask in your comment isn't the real question.

I still think there are 2 unanswered questions that hopefully the sequel will answer:
1) What was REALLY the event that led to the Engineers to want to destroy Earth? I'm assuming Jesus wasn't an alien engineer.
2) How was that related to what killed them at the outpost?

Either way, I know this is one of those movies that DEMANDS repeat viewing. There was too much anticipation, too much wondering about when an alien was going to show up, too much figuring out the characters and plot. I know I missed things.

Anonymous said...

it is the release date for the blu-ray/dvd