Prometheus trailer

[ManofWords]

Looks great. This could be epic... fingers crossed Sir Ridley delivers!

[Nektonic]

See Phantom Menace, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Matrix 2&3...Everyone thought those couldn't miss, because of the players involved. Ridley can certainly go wrong. He's made some great films but he is hit and miss.

I am a huge fan of Ridley Scott's work, and Alien and Blade Runner are two of my favorite films of all time. In fact, without films like Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, I might not have ever gotten interested in films and filmmaking. Those were two of the films that made me want to look into films and how they did all the effects and sets and all that behind the scenes stuff. Alien and Aliens, as well as Blade Runner also turned me onto science fiction as a young whipper snapper. A lot of people cite Star Wars as their big "aha" moment for science fiction/fantasy, but for me, it was Alien and Aliens.

So I certainly want Prometheus to be a return to the brilliance of Ridley Scott's Alien. At the same time though, you make an excellent point Batutta. So many times have we seen either subpar sequels/prequels from the same team that made a great first film in a series. And the Star Wars prequels, as well as Indiana Jones IV are great examples of trying to remake something decades later and things looking too slick, and the old magic just not being there.

I've already went nearly frame-by-frame through this Prometheus trailer, and a lot of it doesn't look like it takes place in the Alien-verse. It looks too slick, without the gritty industrial grime that made the Nostromo such an iconic and original setting for Alien. So here we have Prometheus, a prequel set a couple to several decades before Alien, and yet at the end there is the space jockey from Alien and the biomechanical derelict ship from Alien and the Aliens director's cut. The slickness plus the elements from the original Alien just don't seem to completely jibe for me. The derelict alien ship then seems to be shot out of the sky and crashes on a planet that has what looks like normal cloud/sky and normal old mountains and even snow. This planet the ship seems to crash upon in the Prometheus trailer, looks nothing like the darkly twisted Giger designed and wind blasted planet from Alien and Aliens (Acheron/LV-426, which is actually a moon of a gas giant).

The other thing that worries me is that there was this great mystique and foreboding sense of deep time in Alien, upon the discovery of the derelict ship and its sole pilot, fossilized to some sort of navigational chair structure. It always seemed to me that the ship and the space jockey had been there for a few thousand years or maybe even much longer. It was very Lovecraftian and creepy and counter balanced the more visceral second half of Alien with the full grown creature lurking around in the Nostromo.

I don't know if I really want to know too much about what or who that space jockey fellow was, and how he (or she?) ended up dead on LV-426, only to be found eons later by the crew of the Nostromo. I worry that the answer will be less compelling than the mystery. Why is it that Jack the Ripper still fascinates people all these years later? Because we don't know for sure who Jack the Ripper was.

[Jon Starr]

Some great points Nektonic. This is why I love mystery, and why I despise people that don't. I love how people like J.J. Abrams uses mystery and doesn't always fully explain it, yet people complain when it goes unexplained. I'm sure if those mysteries were explained, it would only be disappointing. Nothing can ever beat your own imagination and speculation.

Am I the only one that felt underwhelmed by the trailer? Though I'm not a huge fan of Scott (though I did love Alien and at least the style of blade runner). Maybe it's because there was so much hype leading up to this trailer. They had a campaign of mini behind the scenes every day leading up to the trailer. Now looking at it, it's not really showing us very much. If anything a bunch of stills and the announcement that the movie was coming would have been just as effective as this trailer. I wanted something more. Hopefully this is just a teaser.

[drapeama]

See Phantom Menace, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Matrix 2&3...Everyone thought those couldn't miss, because of the players involved. Ridley can certainly go wrong. He's made some great films but he is hit and miss.

That's a point. But I really want to hope that this one will be just as great as the first movie. In fact, They're all in order: Alien was a masterpiece, Aliens was an excellent sequel (in the few "better or at least as good as the original"), Alien³ was (only the extended version: the closest to Fincher's vision) and then, the disappointing Resurrection.
From there, anything can be better than what they left us with: Alien Resurrection & AVP 1-2...

I am a huge fan of Ridley Scott's work, and Alien and Blade Runner are two of my favorite films of all time. In fact, without films like Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, I might not have ever gotten interested in films and filmmaking. Those were two of the films that made me want to look into films and how they did all the effects and sets and all that behind the scenes stuff. Alien and Aliens, as well as Blade Runner also turned me onto science fiction as a young whipper snapper. A lot of people cite Star Wars as their big "aha" moment for science fiction/fantasy, but for me, it was Alien and Aliens.

So I certainly want Prometheus to be a return to the brilliance of Ridley Scott's Alien.

1) Exactly the same here. Ridley Scott and James Cameron takes on the Alien franchise were probably what's interested me the most in filmmaking. I always wanted to shoot a sci-fi movie with hostile out-world creatures involved. Without these classics, the Sci-Fi wouldn't be what it is today.
2) I'm sure it'll a brilliant return to the source. You can't always be 100% right on everything you make, but returning to a genre that you helped define can hardly go wrong, as you were one of those pioneers.

[Captain Pierce]

It looks too slick, without the gritty industrial grime that made the Nostromo such an iconic and original setting for Alien.

My understanding is that this movie is about a group of scientists/explorers who make a discovery. If that's the case, it certainly makes sense that their ship would be a little better maintained than the very blue-collar Nostromo.

The derelict alien ship then seems to be shot out of the sky and crashes on a planet that has what looks like normal cloud/sky and normal old mountains and even snow. This planet the ship seems to crash upon in the Prometheus trailer, looks nothing like the darkly twisted Giger designed and wind blasted planet from Alien and Aliens (Acheron/LV-426, which is actually a moon of a gas giant).

Who's to say it's supposed to be the same planet? Did the Space Jockeys only have one ship? It certainly doesn't seem to me like the ship in Prometheus is going to be left in much worse shape than the one on LV-426 by the time the movie's over...

I was starting to get a little worried about all the back-pedalling about Prometheus being an Alien prequel, but the trailer has enough Space Jockey goodness to reassure me that it's at least still in the same universe, and that's good enough for me.

[vincent thomas]

Ah it's not because Im actually working myself on Prometheus, but yes i think this trailer is brillant!

Merry Xmax everyone

__________________________________________________ ________
Vincent Thomas
Artist for Film / Photograph & Creative Director
http://www.stranger-than-paradise.book.fr/
__________________________________________________ ________

[Tyrant Lizard]

I am a huge fan of Ridley Scott's work, and Alien and Blade Runner are two of my favorite films of all time. In fact, without films like Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, I might not have ever gotten interested in films and filmmaking. Those were two of the films that made me want to look into films and how they did all the effects and sets and all that behind the scenes stuff. Alien and Aliens, as well as Blade Runner also turned me onto science fiction as a young whipper snapper. A lot of people cite Star Wars as their big "aha" moment for science fiction/fantasy, but for me, it was Alien and Aliens.

So I certainly want Prometheus to be a return to the brilliance of Ridley Scott's Alien. At the same time though, you make an excellent point Batutta. So many times have we seen either subpar sequels/prequels from the same team that made a great first film in a series. And the Star Wars prequels, as well as Indiana Jones IV are great examples of trying to remake something decades later and things looking too slick, and the old magic just not being there.

I've already went nearly frame-by-frame through this Prometheus trailer, and a lot of it doesn't look like it takes place in the Alien-verse. It looks too slick, without the gritty industrial grime that made the Nostromo such an iconic and original setting for Alien. So here we have Prometheus, a prequel set a couple to several decades before Alien, and yet at the end there is the space jockey from Alien and the biomechanical derelict ship from Alien and the Aliens director's cut. The slickness plus the elements from the original Alien just don't seem to completely jibe for me. The derelict alien ship then seems to be shot out of the sky and crashes on a planet that has what looks like normal cloud/sky and normal old mountains and even snow. This planet the ship seems to crash upon in the Prometheus trailer, looks nothing like the darkly twisted Giger designed and wind blasted planet from Alien and Aliens (Acheron/LV-426, which is actually a moon of a gas giant).

The other thing that worries me is that there was this great mystique and foreboding sense of deep time in Alien, upon the discovery of the derelict ship and its sole pilot, fossilized to some sort of navigational chair structure. It always seemed to me that the ship and the space jockey had been there for a few thousand years or maybe even much longer. It was very Lovecraftian and creepy and counter balanced the more visceral second half of Alien with the full grown creature lurking around in the Nostromo.

I don't know if I really want to know too much about what or who that space jockey fellow was, and how he (or she?) ended up dead on LV-426, only to be found eons later by the crew of the Nostromo. I worry that the answer will be less compelling than the mystery. Why is it that Jack the Ripper still fascinates people all these years later? Because we don't know for sure who Jack the Ripper was.

I agree. Well said.

This was taken from something else I wrote on the trailer:

I think they could be making a big mistake by explaining the origins of the Space Jockey. That element of mystery is a big part of what makes up the "cool" of "Alien".

From what I can tell. These explorers discover this tomb in a structure of some sort (the Derelict) which crashes over somehow. It falls over. Sometime before or after that they find a chamber, sacrificial of some sort, with a giant statue tributing the human race in front of rows of some sort of capsules shaped vaguely like human torsos. Upon examining one of the capsules, an astronaut is sprayed by something which effects him somehow. They take him back to their space station and he mutates into some sort of being. They have to escort him back to the derelict, where he either transforms into the space jockey, or the space jockey puts on a suit which straps into the chair to send off the warning signal. Either way, somebody is definitely mutating and they are escorting him somewhere when they encounter something that they have to shoot at.

Something like that.

From what I can tell it looks like "Alien" all over again.

I'm hoping they're tricking us with all of this information into making us believe we know what it is, when we don't at all. Somehow, I doubt this. After seeing the typo in the leaked trailer, I don't know if I have faith in the creative behind this. I know that's a blasphemous statement with Ridley involved. The writer did "Cowboys and Aliens" which was good. So I have faith in that at least. It was no Dan O' Banon from teh 70's though.

Needless to say, I'm excited about this. I will see it in 2D, that's for sure.

One thing I think the studio executives should take in mind when debating the decision to go 3D. Is that none of the blockbusters from the past were in 3D. They made that money without it. I think 3D is a gimmick that hasn't been perfected yet. It's too dark. And if done poorly, will distract from the movie. I don't know if it's possible to make a 3D movie that doesn't distract from the subject. I have to state here, that of course "blockbuster from the past" "Avatar" was in 3D, however it was a top-of-the-bell curve McDonalds ad and doesn't apply to this genre.

Other pieces from the trailer I've interpreted:

There is going to be a Kane ala "Alien" scene in "Prometheus" where a crew member walks into a situation and has an episode of some sort. Not exactly sitting down and eating breakfast, but will interrupt an otherwise normal event with a castastrophic occurance changing the course of events. I'm talking about the scene where the girl wrapped in bandages walks in on Fasesbender talking with some other crew members (is one in a wheelchair, and is Fassbender on his knees in front of him?). I think she was in some sort of stasis for burns or something, and came out of her coma into the room.

See I'm hoping this is all meant to make us think we have the movie pinned, but I'm doubtful.

There is also a definite transformation of one of the crew members into some sort of mutated, lava zombie or something. As we can clearly see him jumping from one of the land vehicles onto the suited up space man with a flame thrower. We can also see from the "Trailers for trailers" shots of a mutated deforming human being torqued up into the air.

There's also a dust storm or something that sweeps them away at some point.

There is definitely a agiant human type person standing next to the jockey's chair/telescope/whatever the hell that thing is. It looks like the suit is locked into the chair, that he straps into or something. But we also see a space jockey skull/helmet(?) in a convener/CAT SCAN machine. So what the hell is that about? And does anyone else think that the space jockey man looks like a ghost, or transparent (maybe they were doing that to try and hide him from us)?

I mean, Jesus, guys. They are going to tell us the whole freakin' story.

Needless to say, I am excited.

Let's see what they do here, huh?

Oh! And not to mention Theron stripping down as she's running through the spaceship! What's that about, Ridley? I mean I can't say I fault you for it, but I mean IS this going to be "Alien" all over again???

Everything said aside, it's a beautifully looking film. The cinematography and color palate look beautiful, although, compared to "Alien" 1979, it looks a bit too bright.

[roei z]

Alien³ (only the extended version: the closest to Fincher's vision)

is the extended version really good? i'm looking for at now.

oh, and this is also interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63MKd5dqRoo

[drapeama]

is the extended version really good? i'm looking for at now.

Yeah! Far superior to the threatrical cut. It's not the best of the series, but the extended edition adds some material that actually helps the story, it explains more why and how things. I can't stand the theatrical cut anymore. Previous movies were good in both edition, but this one must be viewed in the extended edition.
Let me know when you'll have watched it!

[roei z]

have you seen the link i added in my previous post?