[kevin]

Originally Posted by omegaman

Sounds ominous and interesting… more cerebral?

That's it's intention..........whether people feel it succeeds though...........

But to be fair, having seen it I don't want to forget about it and move onto next weeks cinema release. I want to revisit and see how it plays once the realisation it isn't like what I thought it would be is out the way and see how it works and chew on it a bit. So, I think there's stuff of interest within it.

[Roysten]

Sounds intriguing, is my birthday this month so I'm hoping to see it over the next few weeks, am tentatively optimistic that it'll be a good day.

[samwiseb]

Originally Posted by kevin

Partly.

Again, I'll hold off saying too much because I don't want to spoil everything. The film is visually gorgeous. Truly. But for me it's the final third where major issues emerge and aspects of the finale. I don't think I feel it pseudo intellectualises what it wants to be about thematically but that it doesn't commit itself to anything other than a great deal of set up. Though I think the intention is to explore that in a sequel.

I felt the atmosphere was good. Scott does a good job creating a sense of impending doom and that things are not going to go well here on the planet. The end of the film is not a 'and cut to Nostromo in space' style connection though. But I felt parts of the end didn't live up to the first 90 mins of work.

Like a lot of Ridley Scott films I suspect there is a lot on the cutting room floor that would flesh out parts. But I could be wrong.

I haven't seen a lot of Scott's later films. Gladiator certainly didn't impress.

The reviews I've read didn't want to spoil it either, but I kind of got the impression maybe the film ended with a continuity pornography shot of an egg slowly opening up in the vaults of the space jockey's ship... or some other gratuitous thing to that effect. I'm kind of hoping that's not the case.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by samwiseb

I haven't seen a lot of Scott's later films. Gladiator certainly didn't impress.

The reviews I've read didn't want to spoil it either, but I kind of got the impression maybe the film ended with a continuity pornography shot of an egg slowly opening up in the vaults of the space jockey's ship... or some other gratuitous thing to that effect. I'm kind of hoping that's not the case.

Hehe, how do I word this...............

........I think you will probably view it as continuity pornography of a kind BUT it still leaves a significant gap between 'Prometheus' and anything specifically in 'Alien' itself. I just can't say what I want without damaging other people's knowledge or experience going in and I really don't want to do it. I think I will eventually decide it's a good film, but the ending is for me not entirely satisfying. I don't know how it will play for people because I think it's visibly meant to be just part of a bigger story within the 'Alien' universe.

But I'll be real interested to see how people find the film.

[samwiseb]

Is it scary?

I still have A L I E N dreams from time to time. My heart no longer skips when the monster 'grabs' at Ripley because I've watched it too many times and stopped to appreciate the symmetry of almost every camera shot. But I still have dreams. (When I first discovered cockroaches in my apt nine years ago -I've been battling them off and on ever since- I dreamt there were alien eggs scattered across my floor and nobody my landlord called wanted to come out and remove them).

Would you say this is 'technically' still a monster movie, or some different beast?

[kevin]

I'm gonna shift to using spoiler tags here (there are no actual spoilers here I hope but just in case I still manage to say a little too much and others don't want to know - I'm transferring responsibility to those who decide to click!! If you TRULY don't want to know anything DO NOT CLICK!!!)..............

SPOILERS!!!

No, this is NOT a monster movie. This is NOT an action-adventure movie.

It wants to be bigger and deeper than that. It should become apparent very quickly once you watch it what it wants to be thematically. Whether it succeeds is, like I said, up to the viewer. But I think the early comparison to Blade Runner is somewhat apt. I think it wants to take Alien and push it in the Blade Runner direction.

I would say that it didn't 'scare' me in a jump out of my seat way, but there is one sequence that is relatively intense involving Noomi Rapace a little before the final act begins. But I felt that what it DID have was this overwhelming sense of messing where you shouldn't. I think part of that is the music, the performances and the atmosphere created by the production design and the combination of all that.

I'm not versed in many of the existant fan theories about who/what the Space Jockey was and what happened or the origins of the creature itself so I don't know if 'Prometheus' uses any elements of them or comes up with something on it's own which informs the audience.

But like I said parts of the finale seemed a bit OTT for me. But maybe not.

[NCC-73515]

And they won't show it here in Germany until AUGUST -.-