Prometheus Review: Look at the Pretty Moving Pictures, Ignore Everything Else
Prometheus is a beautiful movie. It is also – based on the few things I have read – a stand-alone prequel to the Alien franchise. It’s an origin story that features aliens. Some of the aliens look like the aliens you see in Aliens. This is not a reboot. I’ve seen people say the first half or the first two-thirds of the movie are good and then it goes off the rails.
For me, it seemed off the rails early. Prometheus is a very good looking movie that had a script written on Swiss cheese. Because of all the holes in the plot. Get it? There are a lot of interesting sci-fi and alien-related ideas throughout the movie including one creepy, scary, cringe-worthy, uncomfortable uncomfortable scene that was incredibly done and should stand up against some of the best scenes from the entire Alien catalog. Having said that…
I don’t want to describe the movie. I want to tear it apart. The trailer for Prometheus, combined with the storied movie franchise that it is now apart of made this movie look epic and badass. While the visuals and small stand-alone bits were great, it turns out this was a clown movie, bro.
See, that reference should stand the test of time about as well as this movie. Instead of the blockbuster everyone was hoping for, Prometheus turned out to be nothing more than another summer popcorn flick. Now let’s get to making fun of this shiny piece of shit.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The movie opened with a giant white human-type alien. A Caucalien if you will. What was he? Where was he? He’s supposed to be an engineer, but why did he drink that ever-evolving black goo? We don’t know for sure until the part of the movie where we have left the theater, gone home and looked it up on the internet.
Why did Charlize Theron do pushups as soon as she came out of stasis? The preview made her look like some sort of solider on some Fifth Element shit, but it turns out that is just future underpants. So why was she doing pushups? Is she a fitness freak? Because it seems like she’s just some blonde form corporate through the rest of the movie.
Fassbender… up Fassbender in Prometheus.
I mentioned the crazy uncomfortable scene and obviously I’m talking about when Elizabeth Shaw was giving birth to the alien. Alien abortion claw game should be in every arcade on the boardwalk this summer. It is an obvious tie-in to help with Bluray sales.
Oh, so why couldn’t that machine operate on women? This is a billion dollar piece of medical machinery that they only made 10 (something like that) of ever. This rare, expensive, top of the line piece of medical technology only operates on men? What the fuck is that? It’s the 2090′s man! What happened to equal rights?
If you think the most incredible piece of medical equipment in the history of mankind not operating on women doesn’t make sense, then you should have loved all the characters.
The ship had a 17 person crew and they couldn’t find 17 people who wanted to be there? You would think that this mission would be something you could get people to agree to participate in before they get on an spaceship and get put into a deep sleep for multiple years.
Unsurprisingly, the worst character in the entire movie was the geologist. A tattoed ginger dickhead who was there because he wanted to get paid and because he liked rocks. What? You’re flying millions of miles and years across multiple galaxies and you bring a fucking geologist? And a botanist with a future hood on his sweatshirt.
As for Idris Elba, he sports an… odd… accent in this movie, eh? My question is what is the point of a captain if he’s asleep for the first four years of your journey? How did the robot get them that far alone? Then they wake up Janek to land the ship? And then they kill Stringer Bell. (/nods at Bomani Jones)
And how are five fucking dots a map!? A cave drawing of people pointing at the sky is an invitation? Are you serious? If the all-powerful beings who created man wanted man to come find them, maybe they would have left a more detailed note? J. Walter Weatherman wouldn’t have stood for that shit.
Let’s say you have traveled a billion light years away. You get there, step off the space ship and your scientist says, “Hey, it’s just like the Earth’s atmosphere!” Don’t you at least wait for 5, maybe 10 full minutes of tests to come back before you take off your helmet?
Now for the horrible death of the botanist and the bad ass geologist. If an alien snake creature pokes its head out of a black stream, don’t try and play with it like a fucking puppy.
That’s it. I won’t even mention Fassbender’s head in the backpack. I look forward to Prometheu2.

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63 Responses to “Prometheus Review: Look at the Pretty Moving Pictures, Ignore Everything Else”
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June 14th, 2012 at 4:27 PM
awesome.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:27 PM
she’s an android
that’s some vision you’ve got there, Chief
June 14th, 2012 at 4:30 PM
you know what would be a really good heist movie post?
ONE ON THE U.S. FUCKING OPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 14th, 2012 at 4:30 PM
It’s calibrated for a man. That man is the 125 year old Weyland who Theron knows is on the ship, that’s why it’s there.
Most of the characters were horrible and underdeveloped or completely ignored until they had to die but I don’t care. Xenomorphs = good movie.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:32 PM
hell, most of the characters in “Alien” weren’t developed but the film was near perfect in every aspect so you didn’t pay attention to it.
but there were about 5 extra characters in the movie that didn’t need to be there, they were only there for the hanger scene with the geologist mutant.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:32 PM
Is this the movie Stephen A. Smith did a promo for?
June 14th, 2012 at 4:32 PM
Couldn’t get past the shitty title. I passed.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:33 PM
fassbender was the only one i liked.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:34 PM
I don’t think he was a botanist, I think he was a biologist. He loved weird albino snake creatures like ginger dickhead loved rocks.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:35 PM
I enjoyed it overall, but it should have attempted to explain a bit more. Such as when Fassbender was reading the Alien writings on the wall and when he spoke to the ‘engineer,’ it would have been nice to tell us something he read or heard. ANYTHING. I was hoping for a more explanation filled movie but think it’s still pretty good as a standalone. Def some freaky shit, such as what u mentioned. But again, they teased you with a lot and left ya hanging. I bet the dvd has tons of deleted scenes that would’ve made it the plot less unfinished.
There’s one theory going around that attempts to explain it all, it’s pretty nuts.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:35 PM
in retrospect, i can’t wait for the bluray since Ridley’s Director’s Cuts have always been superior to his cinematic releases.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:35 PM
hell, most of the characters in “Alien” weren’t developed but the film was near perfect in every aspect so you didn’t pay attention to it.
The Mormon and the black guy being underpaid was pretty great character development.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:37 PM
This is more or less how I felt for these reasons. Because I’m a scifi loving loser I enjoyed it, but in no way did I love it.
I also got talked into IMAX for this one. It’s going to be a while before I let that happen again.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:38 PM
I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I went in expecting a writer from Lost to completely fuck things up and leave gaping holes lying everywhere.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:40 PM
I enjoy that the guy ignores the “it’s too on the nose” thing from Scott.
The reason there are plotholes and unanswered questions is because the movie was written by someone associated with LOST, the worst TV show ever created.
If there is a different writer for the sequel it will be outstanding.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:40 PM
Urinal Mint gets it.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:41 PM
Probably Jay Mariotti.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:43 PM
This from Scott, which supports at least part of that theory.
Scott about Engineers
June 14th, 2012 at 4:43 PM
The reason there are plotholes and unanswered questions is because the movie was written by someone associated with LOST, the worst TV show ever created
Lindelof wrote my favorite episode of Nash Bridges.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:44 PM
Nah, Gregg Easterbrook.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:44 PM
Yeah I mean I don’t think it’s a crazy theory at all, it’s one which was talked about heavily before the movie was ever released.
But dude with a Live Journal and poor sense of spacing in paragraphs cracked the code.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:45 PM
They say it’s a movie that makes you think which is unfortunate since the more I ponder it the worse it becomes…would have liked a little more info on just what the black goo was and what it did, did it create zombies? Make you dissolve? Do whatever the plot called for in that given scene?
June 14th, 2012 at 4:46 PM
how the hell do you hit 8 out of 18 greens and make 7 birdies!?!?
June 14th, 2012 at 4:48 PM
that’s interesting, and makes that storyline about finding the creator much more complete
June 14th, 2012 at 4:50 PM
Any time you have to fill in the plot of your movie outside of the movie you know you’ve created some fine art
June 14th, 2012 at 4:51 PM
i think it simply broke down your genetic make up, have enough and you dissolve quickly, have a little and it’s slow, get infected with it after you die and you mutate into a strange ass crabwalking zombie.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:52 PM
Considering how angry I was over the loose ends in Lost, I think I’m going to avoid this movie. Will catch in on HBO in a year.
June 14th, 2012 at 4:54 PM
A writer from Lost does Bang Bros scripts too?
June 14th, 2012 at 4:54 PM
Any time you have to fill in the plot of your movie outside of the movie you know you’ve created some fine art
Was this a shot at Star Wars fans?
June 14th, 2012 at 4:57 PM
I didn’t think there much left unanswered in those films other than Ol’ Melty Face possibly using the Dark Side to knock up Anakin’s mom
June 14th, 2012 at 4:59 PM
I didn’t think there much left unanswered in those films other than Ol’ Melty Face possibly using the Dark Side to knock up Anakin’s mom
True. I was referring more to the creation of a “Star Wars Universe” which grew completely out of the movies which now encompasses events which happened many years before the events of the movies, many years after the events of the movies, and several events in between in the background of the movies.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:01 PM
True. I was referring more to the creation of a “Star Wars Universe” which grew completely out of the movies which now encompasses events which happened many years before the events of the movies, many years after the events of the movies, and several events in between in the background of the movies.
Have you been hanging out with Spencer again?
June 14th, 2012 at 5:02 PM
Have you been hanging out with Spencer again?
I can’t help it. I love the smell of stale garlic and day old cheese.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:06 PM
It’s 2093 and there’s a billion dollar piece medical equipment that is calibrated specifically for a man? Fuck. Off.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:07 PM
Also I thought a lot of the stuff was kind of explanatory but not mentioned in the movie.
The black goo replicates stuff like The Thing. Kind of. The “snake” that kills the biologist isn’t a snake, it’s one of the worms that they tracked into the tomb on their shoes, mutated by the goo. Note that it didn’t have any eyes. The biologist comes back all jacked up and mutated, looking exactly like one of the dudes in The Thing.
When the black goo baby is made, well that kind of is confusing.
What I took from it was this: the Xenomorph civilization already exists, and is likely not created by the Engineers. But Stringer is right and it is a military installation, the Engineers took the knowledge of the Xenomorphs and made the black goo, which when impregnated in a woman creates their own version of the facehugger, which is basically what the big squid thing is at the end, thus making a facehugger which can make xenomorphs from human DNA, like at the end.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:08 PM
Charlize does better pushups than Kevin Garnett
June 14th, 2012 at 5:09 PM
Well I mean it’s a stupid explanation but it’s the only one other than “it was a lazy plot device to show how smart she is to … trick a machine easily?”
But it’s in Theron’s joint, she knows that he’s on board, and is all “don’t touch that shit” because he’s the only person she actually cares about even though she hates him.
I don’t know, it’s a Lost joint, man.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:09 PM
Was David trying to make the squid baby by poisoning the one doctor? That’s when I thought we were headed towards another Alien film where the sinister cororation is simply trying to get one of them back home but that doesn’t really jive with the rest of the film
June 14th, 2012 at 5:09 PM
The black goo replicates stuff like The Thing. Kind of. The “snake” that kills the biologist isn’t a snake, it’s one of the worms that they tracked into the tomb on their shoes, mutated by the goo. Note that it didn’t have any eyes. The biologist comes back all jacked up and mutated, looking exactly like one of the dudes in The Thing.
When the black goo baby is made, well that kind of is confusing.
What I took from it was this: the Xenomorph civilization already exists, and is likely not created by the Engineers. But Stringer is right and it is a military installation, the Engineers took the knowledge of the Xenomorphs and made the black goo, which when impregnated in a woman creates their own version of the facehugger, which is basically what the big squid thing is at the end, thus making a facehugger which can make xenomorphs from human DNA, like at the end.
I think all you mf’ers are high
June 14th, 2012 at 5:11 PM
Yeah I was thinking that too and then it’s all “help me live forever.” Maybe he thought that it was a cure at first.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:12 PM
Here’s the thing about Prometheus — it was almost brilliant. I don’t think Scott and Lindelof have any idea how good a movie they almost made. Unfortunately it was paper-cut to death with hundreds of minor yet irritating plot holes and contrivances. A few are fine. This just piled one on top of the other until it became too much to ignore, even when you really, really wanted to.
I feel like there’s an extra 40 minutes on the cutting room floor that would have filled in a lot of the narrative and made the movie great. Hopefully it happens on Blu Ray. Scott did it once before with Kingdom of Heaven.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:12 PM
Guilty.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:13 PM
Yeah I’m expecting a BIT more character development in there too.
Kingdom of Heaven’s theatrical release was horrible. I saw it but never saw the director’s cut. The version I saw was basically about irrigation techniques.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:14 PM
phenomenal
June 14th, 2012 at 5:14 PM
Kingdom of Heaven’s theatrical release was horrible. I saw it but never saw the director’s cut. The version I saw was basically about irrigation techniques.
Kingdom of Heaven is one of those movies where the Director’s Cut isn’t an excuse for the director to masturbate into a BluRay cover and then watch the profits roll in. It actually makes the movie better. The editor of the theatrical release should be slapped for the way he cut that movie.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:17 PM
Keep the non-golf posts coming. I love to see golf honks get pissed
June 14th, 2012 at 5:17 PM
CRM brought his A game I see
June 14th, 2012 at 5:18 PM
Keep the non-golf posts coming. I love to see golf honks get pissed
/Todd Charske
June 14th, 2012 at 5:19 PM
It’s actually a phenomenal movie. Really. Like, it borders on elite status.
The idea about the creators being pissed at us because we killed their envoy (christ) is fucking fascinating and should have been made more clear. I’m all for subtlety and not pandering to the dumbest fuck in the theater, but there’s a line between too much and not enough and I think they fell on the wrong side of it. This is one movie that actually could have benefited from a longer running time.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:25 PM
if you pay $1,000,000,000.00 for a piece of medical equipment you can have it calibrated for whatever the fuck you want it to be. if you wanted it to only operate on your goddamn diabetic cat you could do that b/c you can afford a BILLION DOLLAR robotic surgery machine.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:26 PM
i doubt this movie would have been released or profitable if they kept in the Christ storyline since Christians put fistfuls of sand up their vaginas whenever Christ isn’t portrayed as the sterilized white man in arabia storyline.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:28 PM
Semi-OT: but since I mentioned Star Wars earlier…
June 14th, 2012 at 5:29 PM
maybe the women’s version was in the kitchen.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:30 PM
this looks like the us open is supposed to look.
/team california and oakmont us opens
June 14th, 2012 at 5:39 PM
Christians put fistfuls of sand up their vaginas
go on….
June 14th, 2012 at 5:40 PM
How the hell do you manage 22 putts at Olympic? I need to know these answers.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:42 PM
Speaking of Oakmont. I love seeing El Pato play well in the Open. -2 early.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:42 PM
How the hell do you manage 22 putts at Olympic? I need to know these answers.
That’s even crazier…
June 14th, 2012 at 5:43 PM
Fell asleep for about 15 minutes in the theater. Wanted a refund when I left.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:54 PM
Yeah, I would only recommend Prometheus just to see how fucking beautiful Ridley makes space travel. But I still don’t get why the Alien at the very end looks the way it does with the weird ass jaw bone.
June 15th, 2012 at 8:33 AM
Same reason the thing in Shaw’s belly didn’t look like an Alien — it came from a different, less (or more) evolved facehugger.
June 15th, 2012 at 3:10 PM
aaaaa, NO. You missed it. ridley, theron, etc all have interviews saying SHE WAS NOT A ROBOT. No wonder you loved it
June 18th, 2012 at 2:16 PM
“My question is what is the point of a captain if he’s asleep for the first four years of your journey? How did the robot get them that far alone?”
Aren’t most airliners today flown by computer except during take offs and landings? I imagine they were on a pre-plotted course, and when you’re traveling through mostly empty space with no gravity, there’s probably even less need for oversight. The flight crew just needs to be woken up for reentry and maneuvering the craft in-atmosphere.