What kind of a transmission?
June 14, 2015 4:35 PM Subscribe
“Derelict is an editing project for academic purposes,” explains Willins. “Prometheus wasn’t exactly an Alien prequel, but this treats it as such by intercutting the events of Alien with Prometheus in a dual narrative structure. The goal was to assemble the material to emphasize the strengths of Prometheus as well as its ties to Alien.”
I watched it yesterday and really liked it. my memory of alien is sketchy...did he change the sound editing for much of the end scenes.?..it seemed much starker soundwise and the tension was incredible.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:48 PM on June 14, 2015
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:48 PM on June 14, 2015
Oh man, I hope this is good because if it is good I definitely want to see it.
posted by griphus at 4:48 PM on June 14, 2015
posted by griphus at 4:48 PM on June 14, 2015
The prime strength of Prometheus was Michael Fassbender's hair. It was magnificent, but I am not certain how far down that critical road you can go.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:55 PM on June 14, 2015 [18 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:55 PM on June 14, 2015 [18 favorites]
I kind of wish they'd gone beyond the B&W and dubbed it in some language I don't speak and given it poetic but possibly erroneous subtitles.
posted by Artw at 5:06 PM on June 14, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Artw at 5:06 PM on June 14, 2015 [6 favorites]
I really hope I can find time to watch this before the inevitable takedown. Just from the opening with David, it looks like the B&W will work well.
posted by Gaz Errant at 5:09 PM on June 14, 2015
posted by Gaz Errant at 5:09 PM on June 14, 2015
"The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts"
posted by clavdivs at 5:11 PM on June 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 5:11 PM on June 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
The only thing that doesn't look quite right is the CG exterior of ship, everything else is very well lot and shot but for some reason that particular thing falls down.
posted by Artw at 5:13 PM on June 14, 2015
posted by Artw at 5:13 PM on June 14, 2015
Also worth noticing that like myself the film seems to have no interest whatsoever in Prometheus' surplus crew.
posted by Artw at 5:21 PM on June 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 5:21 PM on June 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also worth noticing that like myself the film seems to have no interest whatsoever in Prometheus' surplus crew.
I don't remember that part - were they before or after Michael Fassbender's hair?
posted by thetruthisjustalie at 5:48 PM on June 14, 2015 [9 favorites]
I don't remember that part - were they before or after Michael Fassbender's hair?
posted by thetruthisjustalie at 5:48 PM on June 14, 2015 [9 favorites]
Ok, never saw Prometheus, always wanted to. I'm 10 minutes in, and the biggest thing that's jarring to me so far is that the technology from Alien, which is supposed to be taking place "later," is completely differently realized, for obvious reasons. This is neat tho.
posted by nevercalm at 5:57 PM on June 14, 2015
posted by nevercalm at 5:57 PM on June 14, 2015
Also, it's been a really long time, but the cells located somewhere in my brain that held the fact that Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt and Ian Holm were all in a room together on a spaceship have gone the way of all things. Seeing them together was a serious whoa moment. I've seen Alien a bunch of times, but not since I started watching movies seriously.
posted by nevercalm at 5:59 PM on June 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by nevercalm at 5:59 PM on June 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
I don't have him, the creepy bastard. If he's bringing what he brought in this movie he can fuck right off.
posted by nevercalm at 6:21 PM on June 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by nevercalm at 6:21 PM on June 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Prometheus really suffered for being a half-hearted prequel. Ridley Scott clearly wanted to tie it to Alien, but was afraid to fully commit. I was totally ready to accept another weird anachronistic 70's depiction of the future complete with CGA tube displays. Just look how well Alien Isolation did it merely by slavishly copying the original.
Instead we get "The Golgafrinchan B Ark Finds a Dangerous Planet" like it's impossible to write otherwise intelligent scientists getting slaughtered by an outside context problem. I even enjoyed the implication that the titular aliens started out as a biological weapon, which seems way more believable than any other explanation of their biology.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:52 PM on June 14, 2015 [10 favorites]
Instead we get "The Golgafrinchan B Ark Finds a Dangerous Planet" like it's impossible to write otherwise intelligent scientists getting slaughtered by an outside context problem. I even enjoyed the implication that the titular aliens started out as a biological weapon, which seems way more believable than any other explanation of their biology.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:52 PM on June 14, 2015 [10 favorites]
The first Alien: Engineers script keeps the ties with Alien and makes a lot more sense. I wouldn't say it's perfect but Lindelof sure as hell didn't make it better.
I also have a suspicion that Scott is a visual thinker to the extent that he really has no idea what the difference between a good and bad script is, and he just lucked out in his early career.
posted by Artw at 7:09 PM on June 14, 2015 [16 favorites]
I also have a suspicion that Scott is a visual thinker to the extent that he really has no idea what the difference between a good and bad script is, and he just lucked out in his early career.
posted by Artw at 7:09 PM on June 14, 2015 [16 favorites]
Artw, that's exactly the impression I got from listening to the director's commentary on Blade Runner: "we were making a B movie and then accidentally made Blade Runner while trying to get the visuals right". For every commentary track too, not just the directors.
posted by tychotesla at 7:28 PM on June 14, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by tychotesla at 7:28 PM on June 14, 2015 [7 favorites]
Amazing source material, but yeah, it could have been so much less.
And Alien was basically an attempt at doing Dark Star meets Planet of the Vampires that accidentally turned into a masterpeice.
He's been less lucky since.
posted by Artw at 7:31 PM on June 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
And Alien was basically an attempt at doing Dark Star meets Planet of the Vampires that accidentally turned into a masterpeice.
He's been less lucky since.
posted by Artw at 7:31 PM on June 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
I watched the opening, which is the part of Prometheus where David is introduced. The switch to B&W is very interesting. I wonder, though, how dark the Alien sections will be? Dallas in the tubes, for example, could be unwatchable.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:40 PM on June 14, 2015
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:40 PM on June 14, 2015
"The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts"
As has been noted many, many times on MST3K: Never quote, or show clips from, a superior movie in your movie. This was the best line of Prometheus as a result.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:39 PM on June 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
As has been noted many, many times on MST3K: Never quote, or show clips from, a superior movie in your movie. This was the best line of Prometheus as a result.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:39 PM on June 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Regarding B&W: I only ever saw Alien as the midnight movie on the black-and-white set in my parents' basement as a teenager. I actually keep having to remember that it was filmed in colour, because even after watching a colour DVD of it as an adult it still felt like a very desaturated (if tinted) film. I feel like the different colour profiles of the two films could have helped someone unfamiliar with Alien adapt to the switching back and forth better, but this may also have been an anti-takedown measure as well.
I never saw Prometheus before viewing this little paste-up. I feel like I understand now why people said fans of Alien would be disappointed. The pathetic "revelation" that the utterly other Space Jockey corpse was just an environment suit for a Silly Forehead Humanoid is pretty disastrous to the setting.
My father once told me of the Canadian radio drama that was one of the inspirations for Alien's script. The comparable scene to the Space Jockey Room has the explorers just looking at an empty captain's chair and jibbering in fear at what kind of unreal body the aliens might have such that this chair would be comfortable. It's perfect for letting your mind wander off into unexplored territory and never find anything to latch onto. That keeps the wonder in the setting.
If you collapse that waveform, you'd better have something more impressive than "really tall bald dude". Wow.
Also, the Earth-centrism of the plot just shrank that whole universe for me as well. "Oh, you're from Earth? Wow, I think we built that! Small world, eh?"
A more interesting plot would have been if they'd built us as biological weapons against the xenomorphs.
Oh one last thing about Alien I'd forgotten: they totally killed off the white guys first, leaving two white women and a black man alive near the end! That film was every bit as hip as its reputation.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:14 PM on June 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
I never saw Prometheus before viewing this little paste-up. I feel like I understand now why people said fans of Alien would be disappointed. The pathetic "revelation" that the utterly other Space Jockey corpse was just an environment suit for a Silly Forehead Humanoid is pretty disastrous to the setting.
My father once told me of the Canadian radio drama that was one of the inspirations for Alien's script. The comparable scene to the Space Jockey Room has the explorers just looking at an empty captain's chair and jibbering in fear at what kind of unreal body the aliens might have such that this chair would be comfortable. It's perfect for letting your mind wander off into unexplored territory and never find anything to latch onto. That keeps the wonder in the setting.
If you collapse that waveform, you'd better have something more impressive than "really tall bald dude". Wow.
Also, the Earth-centrism of the plot just shrank that whole universe for me as well. "Oh, you're from Earth? Wow, I think we built that! Small world, eh?"
A more interesting plot would have been if they'd built us as biological weapons against the xenomorphs.
Oh one last thing about Alien I'd forgotten: they totally killed off the white guys first, leaving two white women and a black man alive near the end! That film was every bit as hip as its reputation.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:14 PM on June 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, but they need to talk about the bonus situation.
posted by Artw at 11:39 PM on June 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Artw at 11:39 PM on June 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
No, they need to talk aboBWAAAAAAAAARP
posted by obiwanwasabi at 12:11 AM on June 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by obiwanwasabi at 12:11 AM on June 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
I also have a suspicion that Scott is a visual thinker to the extent that he really has no idea what the difference between a good and bad script is, and he just lucked out in his early career.
arguably then, Neill Blomkamp doing the next Alien movie would fit right in this very specific niche of directors.
posted by cendawanita at 12:18 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
arguably then, Neill Blomkamp doing the next Alien movie would fit right in this very specific niche of directors.
posted by cendawanita at 12:18 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
My father once told me of the Canadian radio drama that was one of the inspirations for Alien's script.
I wish to know more about this.
posted by thedaniel at 12:58 AM on June 15, 2015
I wish to know more about this.
posted by thedaniel at 12:58 AM on June 15, 2015
It was called 'Eh-liens'. They come out at night. Moostly.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:49 AM on June 15, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:49 AM on June 15, 2015 [16 favorites]
Oh, this is on my to-watch list. The first few minutes seem promising, not to mention going black & white really works well imho.
posted by Ravneson at 3:44 AM on June 15, 2015
posted by Ravneson at 3:44 AM on June 15, 2015
I hate that Scott/Lindelof dragged that sad old Chariots of the Gods trope into the Alien mythology.
posted by octothorpe at 4:28 AM on June 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:28 AM on June 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
Seriously, why isn't Lindelhof on some list of writers that nobody wants to use?
posted by angrycat at 5:46 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by angrycat at 5:46 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
The worst thing is that they trotted it out as if it were a shiny new idea and not something that's been done to death already.
posted by octothorpe at 6:07 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 6:07 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seriously, why isn't Lindelhof on some list of writers that nobody wants to use?
angrycat
He made a pact with the same malevolent entity that keeps getting Zack Snyder work.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:21 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
angrycat
He made a pact with the same malevolent entity that keeps getting Zack Snyder work.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:21 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
That element was there before he got to it, the cript was basically a less squishy adaptation of Mountains of Madness from the start.
posted by Artw at 6:26 AM on June 15, 2015
posted by Artw at 6:26 AM on June 15, 2015
Looks like it's been taken down... I blame The Company
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:50 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:50 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
What do you mean they invoked the DMCA? They're animals! /wrong movie.
posted by Artw at 6:53 AM on June 15, 2015
posted by Artw at 6:53 AM on June 15, 2015
arguably then, Neill Blomkamp doing the next Alien movie would fit right in this very specific niche of directors.
It's becoming horribly apparent that this is the case.
The guy is amazing at working with a team of production designers to create a deep, evocative world through visual storytelling and put it into the screen, and then the actual scripts he uses are, with the exception of his short and the first half of District 9, pretty much an extended combination of sad trombone and wet fart.
He needs a Dan O'Bannon and a Walter Hill.
posted by Artw at 6:58 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's becoming horribly apparent that this is the case.
The guy is amazing at working with a team of production designers to create a deep, evocative world through visual storytelling and put it into the screen, and then the actual scripts he uses are, with the exception of his short and the first half of District 9, pretty much an extended combination of sad trombone and wet fart.
He needs a Dan O'Bannon and a Walter Hill.
posted by Artw at 6:58 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I also have a suspicion that Scott is a visual thinker to the extent that he really has no idea what the difference between a good and bad script is, and he just lucked out in his early career.
He also had the ability, by luck or judgment, to get a collection of really good actors in his early films.
A couple of weeks ago I randomly started watching a few minutes from the middle of The Duelists, was years since I'd seen it and apart from the shock of everyone looking so young, it still looks utterly fantastic and the actors really commit.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:04 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
He also had the ability, by luck or judgment, to get a collection of really good actors in his early films.
A couple of weeks ago I randomly started watching a few minutes from the middle of The Duelists, was years since I'd seen it and apart from the shock of everyone looking so young, it still looks utterly fantastic and the actors really commit.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:04 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
From what I've read about the production of Blade Runner, it sounds like he was pretty hands-off in his directions of actors. This seems to have left Harrison Ford somewhat adrift and complaining about feeling like set dressing, and allowed Rutger Hauer the freedom to create a vital and compelling character out of very little.
(To be fair, Ford managed to create an iconic character based on George Lucas's direction which supposedly consisted entirely of "faster, more intense," so don't read this as a criticism. He's also fine in Blade Runner, I just know he felt underutilized.)
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 7:32 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
(To be fair, Ford managed to create an iconic character based on George Lucas's direction which supposedly consisted entirely of "faster, more intense," so don't read this as a criticism. He's also fine in Blade Runner, I just know he felt underutilized.)
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 7:32 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's not for everyone but even Harrison's deliberate 'boring' reading of the voice over actually made it better as he comes over as deliberately world-weary
(Yeah, I don't absolutly hate the original cut, please don't judge me)
Rutger Hauer the freedom to create a vital and compelling character out of very little.
He even wrote his own dialogue!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:39 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
(Yeah, I don't absolutly hate the original cut, please don't judge me)
Rutger Hauer the freedom to create a vital and compelling character out of very little.
He even wrote his own dialogue!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:39 AM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seriously, why isn't Lindelhof on some list of writers that nobody wants to use?
After Prometheus and Star Trek: Into Darkness, any project I see with his name (or his henchmen Kurtzman and Orci for that matter) attached gets a lifetime ban from me. I do not have a spare two hours to suffer through anything these fools have laid a finger on. They are just bad awful horrible no good writers.
posted by Ber at 8:09 AM on June 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
After Prometheus and Star Trek: Into Darkness, any project I see with his name (or his henchmen Kurtzman and Orci for that matter) attached gets a lifetime ban from me. I do not have a spare two hours to suffer through anything these fools have laid a finger on. They are just bad awful horrible no good writers.
posted by Ber at 8:09 AM on June 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Every generation has it's inexplicably successful screenwriters. Ten to fifteen years ago I was scratching my head at Akiva Goldsman's continued employment. Twenty five years ago Joe Eszterhas was getting paid millions to write crap.
posted by octothorpe at 8:16 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 8:16 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
After Prometheus and Star Trek: Into Darkness, any project I see with his name (or his henchmen Kurtzman and Orci for that matter) attached gets a lifetime ban from me. I do not have a spare two hours to suffer through anything these fools have laid a finger on.
It's like you don't need to know anything else about the film, just that he is involved and it's like *let me spend my recreational time elsewhere*
posted by angrycat at 9:05 AM on June 15, 2015
It's like you don't need to know anything else about the film, just that he is involved and it's like *let me spend my recreational time elsewhere*
posted by angrycat at 9:05 AM on June 15, 2015
A more interesting plot would have been if they'd built us as biological weapons against the xenomorphs.
There are still a couple of decent ways smart franchise-owners could take the storyline if they ignore the supremely idiotic space-jesus place Scott and Lindelof have said they wanted to go to.
Both ways revolve around humans being created by and out of the Engineers as hosts for xenomorphs -- we are the kind of body that creates the xenomorphs that the Engineers wanted.
One way to take it is that the Engineers (that we see) are basically the Company at a larger scale, and that all we are is a weapons program that they wanted to sell to other Engineers or other ancient races or just to help the Engineers oppress their lower castes. The other is to go full Lovecraft and the Engineers are doing this for no reason that makes sense to us; they're genius insane idiot gods kinda like Azathoth. The important thing in this view is that they're totally implacable and uncaring. We're simply irrelevant to them except when we aren't.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:17 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
There are still a couple of decent ways smart franchise-owners could take the storyline if they ignore the supremely idiotic space-jesus place Scott and Lindelof have said they wanted to go to.
Both ways revolve around humans being created by and out of the Engineers as hosts for xenomorphs -- we are the kind of body that creates the xenomorphs that the Engineers wanted.
One way to take it is that the Engineers (that we see) are basically the Company at a larger scale, and that all we are is a weapons program that they wanted to sell to other Engineers or other ancient races or just to help the Engineers oppress their lower castes. The other is to go full Lovecraft and the Engineers are doing this for no reason that makes sense to us; they're genius insane idiot gods kinda like Azathoth. The important thing in this view is that they're totally implacable and uncaring. We're simply irrelevant to them except when we aren't.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:17 AM on June 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I just finished watching the re-edit and all I can say is nothing can fix Prometheus. There was so much rich material that Scott had to work with and he just blew it. Like it's been mentioned, Scott is good with visuals and not much else.
posted by photoslob at 9:32 AM on June 15, 2015
posted by photoslob at 9:32 AM on June 15, 2015
taken down...if it shows up elsewhere please post
posted by judson at 11:21 AM on June 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by judson at 11:21 AM on June 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
@Todd_Spenceposted by blueberry at 11:39 AM on June 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Went ahead and put a woman on my $10 bill - ELLEN RIPLEY. Retweet. @20thcenturyfox
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