Movies: What did You Watch Last Night?

[Tornado]

Good memory jschild. I am still waiting for my nephew to get a little older to show him that one. I am not sure he is ready to see so many of his favorite Transformers die. Pretty wicked marketing. Kill off the classic heroes to make room for new ones. I believe that was Welles' last movie.

[Fencerjared]

Saw Prometheus today. Good, but not super impressive. Very shallow characterization, occasionally poor dialogue, lots of plot holes, and (while this isn't a flaw exactly) a very different atmosphere than I was hoping for; I knew it wasn't going to be a direct prequel to Alien, and didn't expect much xenomorph action, but was hoping it would go back to the horror sci-fi action of Alien, instead of just a standard sci-fi psychological thriller.

[ABOMINATION]

Originally Posted by Fencerjared

Saw Prometheus today. Good, but not super impressive. Very shallow characterization, occasionally poor dialogue, lots of plot holes, and (while this isn't a flaw exactly) a very different atmosphere than I was hoping for; I knew it wasn't going to be a direct prequel to Alien, and didn't expect much xenomorph action, but was hoping it would go back to the horror sci-fi action of Alien, instead of just a standard sci-fi psychological thriller.

I like it more than you evidently did, but I did notice a major plot hole. Someone else who has seen the movie can either agree or disagree and point out what I missed.

Spoiler Alert!

If the alien planet they visited was a 'military base' of sorts where they could test harmful things that they could use as weapons, why the heck would they transmute any of that planet's location to all of those civilizations on Earth? I mean, it'd be like the Americans transmuting the location of Area 51 to everyone. Was it like a message that went along the lines of 'Hey, just so y'all know...we're coming for you and going to kill you...and we're located here...just a head's up'. And as stupid as that sounds, it doesn't even make sense since those civilizations were seperated by hundreds of years. Just how long were those aliens experimenting over there?

So yeah, major plot hole there unless I'm missing something. It's still a great movie and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the writers really should've thought that through.

[screwDriver]

Saw Prometheus last night and I agree with Fencerjared that it wasn't that impressive. I mean some really nice eye candies but everything else was just average. Didn't really enjoy the pacing either.

And I feel some of the characters are very narrow-minded. They are going into uncharted space where everything is unknown and yet they held on to their single expectation. Examples (spoiler)...

Spoiler Alert!

One scientist wants the security officer to leave his weapon because it's a scientific mission.
One scientist starts to get cranky because he realized that they are not going to be studying rocks. So lame.
Another scientist was shown like all his dreams had came crashing down because he was expecting his "creators" to welcome him. Another lame character.
And then there's this guy who believes he can live forever if he go with them.

This ones my take on ABOMINATION's plot hole spoiler.

Spoiler Alert!

There was a possibility that when the alien race did their experiments on earth, they actually wanted "man" their creation (if we let the film have it's way) to be what they planned it to be. So perhaps that the reason they left their calling cards. But time goes by and things changed and they considered destroying their creation. And, the location of the "military base" is really a large planet, who knows, the "human experiment base" is actually a thousand kilometers away from that "military base". And it is a possibility that those calling cards where from that "human experiment base". Just my 2 cents.

[Ryougabot]

Originally Posted by jschild

I knew he was, he was Galvatron.

Also, Orson Welles. Eric Idle, Casey Kasem, and music by Weird Al!

Also Judd Nelson, Robert Stack, John Moschitta, and Lionel Stander. For it's time it was an expensive cast.

I just saw MIB3. Not bad. OK story, Will Smith did not age a day, Tommy Lee Jones aged 3 decades. Never be as good as the original.

[Dad_Scaper]

The Avengers!!

[Fencerjared]

Originally Posted by ABOMINATION

I like it more than you evidently did, but I did notice a major plot hole. Someone else who has seen the movie can either agree or disagree and point out what I missed.

Spoiler Alert!

If the alien planet they visited was a 'military base' of sorts where they could test harmful things that they could use as weapons, why the heck would they transmute any of that planet's location to all of those civilizations on Earth? I mean, it'd be like the Americans transmuting the location of Area 51 to everyone. Was it like a message that went along the lines of 'Hey, just so y'all know...we're coming for you and going to kill you...and we're located here...just a head's up'. And as stupid as that sounds, it doesn't even make sense since those civilizations were seperated by hundreds of years. Just how long were those aliens experimenting over there?

So yeah, major plot hole there unless I'm missing something. It's still a great movie and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the writers really should've thought that through.

My assumption about your question:

Spoiler Alert!

My guess is that at some point, the planet wasn't used for military experiments, or at least not this kind, and when the engineers were working with us and wanted us alive, humanity had some reason to expect a welcome in that location and created the paintings and sculptures giving the "directions" to that place.
This kind of ambiguity is part of why I wasn't really impressed by the movie. I'm okay with not being spoonfed all the conclusions, but I don't really like it when a movie provides contradictory information.

For example:

Why were all the scientists so monumentally stupid? No one, let alone a trained scientist, would unseal their suits just because the air is breathable. There are airborne diseases to worry about, and a battery of tests would be required before anyone thought it okay to break suit integrity.

In that same vein, why were Fifield and that other guy lost in the first place? He made the map everyone was using; he had a copy of it on his wrist tablet, and he was in contact with the captain who had the giant version. No way would they have gotten lost. Assuming that somehow they were so incompetent as to get lost, why would they go back to the room that freaked them out so much in the first place, instead of staying in the nice cozy front alcove? Didn't make sense. And then for the biologist to attempt to touch the wormy Facehugger? It's an alien creature on an alien planet. No way to tell what it's motivations might be; no true scientist would just try and touch it.

Why did the infection affect Holloway and Fifield so differently, when the results of infection on the worms in the Head room were so consistent and predictable? Why weren't there any lumpy misshapen worms if that's what the black goo did to humans?

On top of those logical inconsistencies (among others), I felt the film didn't answer ANY of the questions it posed about the relationship between us and the Engineers.

That being said, the movie has made me think about it a lot, and I'm kind of looking forward to whatever happens 10.11.12 (which I guess could technically be October 11th 2012 as we would read it, or November 10th 2012 as a European would); I'm hoping they filmed two parts to the movie together, and are announcing the release on that day. I feel there's still a lot of exposition that needs to happen.

[screwDriver]

Re: Prometheus

How's this for inconsistencies... David eating.

[ABOMINATION]

Originally Posted by screwDriver

Re: Prometheus

How's this for inconsistencies... David eating.

I assumed that this went in line with wearing a spacesuit outside...he did it to make himself seem as human as possible for the other members. Though seeing as how they were in hypersleep when he was eating is rather odd...maybe he was practicing.

[screwDriver]

Originally Posted by ABOMINATION

I assumed that this went in line with wearing a spacesuit outside...he did it to make himself seem as human as possible for the other members. Though seeing as how they were in hypersleep when he was eating is rather odd...maybe he was practicing.

Why does someone like him need to practice? Hehehe.

------------------------------------------------------

I hate to make a new post when my post was still the last one. But this was bothering me.

I saw Men In Black 3 a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't really something. The best thing that film had was Josh Brolin as the young Agent K was a perfect performance. Then I saw the trailer for Gangster Squad and... is it just me or Brolin was still playing young Agent K. Check out the trailers below.

MIB 3 Trailer
Gangster Squad Trailer

[screwDriver]

The new Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield.

Likes... There are some pretty good fight scenes and some awesome moments with the swinging. I also liked that they went back to the comic-book mechanical web shooters. It was a nice touch to see The Lizard abused those web shooters (intentionally vague to avoid spoiler). I got to admit the new Spidey custom was the coolest one yet.

Dislikes... I didn't like The Lizard's design that much, was hoping for that elongated mouth, sharp teeth and long tongue but none was there. He did have a Joker-like mouth which looked weird. Dr. Connor also pulled a Norman Osborne from Sam Raimi's first Spidey movie... the dual-personality stunt. Oscorp's security was pathetic, and I don't mean like bad, it was pathetic. It felt lacking that the police publicly announcing Spidey is a wanted man but we didn't really get that many heroic acts from the guy. He just captured a few crooks. In a way of speaking, he's was not an established hero at all, he was just another vigilante. But the one thing I didn't really liked about this version of Spidey was that he wasn't the Spider-Man I grew up with. Revenge was a huge motive that drove him to clean the city of its criminals. You'd probably say Raimi's Spidey also had revenge in it. The thing was, Raimi's version was a continuous event that didn't give Peter the chance to assess. This one's handled differently, it was what drove him to go out into the nights and seek out the dark alleys. I dreaded to see the moment that he would finally catch up with the guy who killed his uncle Ben. What happened there? I'll let you watch it for yourself to avoid spoiling it. And it was kind of a let down how that was handled. You'll know what I mean when you watch it. In a nut shell, this film was trying to be like Batman. I mean, the dark theme, it's mostly night time when those fighting happens and those psychological issues. Children may enjoy the actions but I doubt it would be easy for them to appreciate the story.

And yes, there was a bonus scene. But who the heck was that? I mean really, it was supposed to be a glimpse of the next villain but gee, you need to know everything about the Spider-Man to actually guess who that was. Kind of defeat the purpose imho.

My review sounds like it's a movie to avoid. But don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it for most parts of it but those moments with Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy sure was boring.

[jschild]

Haven't seen it yet, but those scenes are for the geeks and not the general audience. Anyone not a comic geek at Avengers would not have known who Thanos was, nor Thor's Hammer in IM2, or the Cosmic Cube in Thor (since Thor came out first).