Prometheus

[crisosphinx]

There usually not enough budget for extra people who won't bother to help out for free, AKA a scientist. They have things to spend better time on. That's most of the logic right there. With a movie like Prometheus, all the budget went into costume, prop, makeup and special effects on top of all the sound designers, modelers, texturers, etc. A lead animator in that industry will get paid roughly 800-1k for a second of FINISIHED animation, a lot of the other people will be paid roughly anywhere between 30k (new hire, not as much experience) to 60k for a salary. Then you have to pay for all the facilities, programs, food, etc. Actors usually get paid way more than they should.

So if you have 130 million, you'll most likely blow through most of it in the first couple months of producing a film. Since most movies are a year process of filming, in about 6 months, you'll be down at least 90 million. That's just to pay all the people you already have. Then add in all the people you haven't paid yet, who haven't worked yet. Films are expensive. They are hard work. Hiring randoms is a waste of money in the directors and producers eyes. You truly have to factor in every bit of the production before you can say "oh they should've just hired some scientists who would have needed to be paid at least a hundred thousand because you're wasting their time and they might talk about the movie and leak information if not bribed properly" (everyone who works for the film has to sign a contract, a scientist offering ideas is not someone who is working on the film, they are a paid extra, in film terms).

So basically what you're saying is that they blew their budget. That's a rookie accountant mistake, and usually you can always loan money from the movie company if you really need it. Also, while scientists are expensive, nerds aren't. If you replaced Lindelof with a nerd, I bet you'd have a better and cheaper movie.
Also, the movie makers need to get their priorities straight: Foremost, a movie (Well, most movies.) is supposed to make sense. That's all it really needs to do. Everything else is secondary. There are people who have built careers on doing nothing but complain about movie plots that doesn't make sense. You don't see anybody building careers over complaining about lighting, sound quality or the wardrobe, because that's not as important as the plot. (CGI has a niche too, and the quality of the acting, so those come second to the story making sense.) A plot doesn't cost money. There's a surplus of plots and writers in the world, and most of them can write better stuff than this plot.

I didn't say they BLEW it as if they just spent it on random shit. They spent it on their workers, actors, places they had to have the entire crew stay at, etc. CGI costs a lot of money.

I complain about lighting, wardrobe, sound quality (and so do a lot of other people, sound design has been reaching new heights as of late, so that's why you are saying what you're saying). Have you ever seen a movie with that crappy shit in it? If not, I suggest you go do that.

A plot does cost money. The script writer is the one to blame if anything. They scripter wrote it, it was accepted, the writer worked with the director and his sub-advisers. I can guarantee you that the surplus of writers is not always very good. A lot of them have stories that won't work for a particular style, some won't allow their material to be changed in anyway, some get fucked over and they don't get paid, etc.

Also, I doubt you'd have a cheaper movie. The amount of people you'd have to hire would still suck the budget dry. Here would be a typical budget list for a typical movie:

Director, assistant director, producer, assistant producer, boom operators, assistant boom operators, sound designers, boom assistants, makeup artists, assistant makeup artists, special effects artists, cgi artists, lead cgi artists, assistant cgi artists, lead animator, assistant animators, animators, camera men, trackers, set designers, assistant set designers, lead graphic designers, graphic designers, (your list of actors, lead actors, extras, etc), conceptual artists, background artists, character designers, script writer, assistant script writers, (the list will go on with about 30 other jobs with lead and assistants, specific to the actual making of the movie), poster designer, trailer producer, the actual trailers, the marketing (dvds, trailers, toys, posters, commercials, etc), the accountants, assistant accountants, catering (actors love their food), housing (if it's filmed elsewhere), then you have all the contractors, the multiple companies that helped produce the movie (paramount, lionsgate, etc), then you have all the benefits you have to add, then all the money that goes into the studio recording time for the audio syncing, then you have all the electricity bills, plumbing, etc.

If that's not bad enough, you have to do that for the next YEAR. You seem to fail to understand HOW much has to go into a movie. Yes, a story needs to be well thought out, but that's the thing, it was with the intention of it being a prequel to the stories we know. That means, a lot of the movie's questions are answered in the following films. Maybe it didn't do quite a good job, but the movie in and of itself was NOT BAD.

Again, you try making a film, then multiply it by 100%, you'll understand how hard it is.


The average movie budget is 139 Million dollars. Why aren't you complaining about Avatar? The movie cost 400 million and was just Pocahontas with 10 foot tall, blue people. Talk about lazy story telling... He just ripped it off of Disney.

[Cranky Old Man]

There usually not enough budget for extra people who won't bother to help out for free, AKA a scientist. They have things to spend better time on. That's most of the logic right there. With a movie like Prometheus, all the budget went into costume, prop, makeup and special effects on top of all the sound designers, modelers, texturers, etc. A lead animator in that industry will get paid roughly 800-1k for a second of FINISIHED animation, a lot of the other people will be paid roughly anywhere between 30k (new hire, not as much experience) to 60k for a salary. Then you have to pay for all the facilities, programs, food, etc. Actors usually get paid way more than they should.

So if you have 130 million, you'll most likely blow through most of it in the first couple months of producing a film. Since most movies are a year process of filming, in about 6 months, you'll be down at least 90 million. That's just to pay all the people you already have. Then add in all the people you haven't paid yet, who haven't worked yet. Films are expensive. They are hard work. Hiring randoms is a waste of money in the directors and producers eyes. You truly have to factor in every bit of the production before you can say "oh they should've just hired some scientists who would have needed to be paid at least a hundred thousand because you're wasting their time and they might talk about the movie and leak information if not bribed properly" (everyone who works for the film has to sign a contract, a scientist offering ideas is not someone who is working on the film, they are a paid extra, in film terms).

So basically what you're saying is that they blew their budget. That's a rookie accountant mistake, and usually you can always loan money from the movie company if you really need it. Also, while scientists are expensive, nerds aren't. If you replaced Lindelof with a nerd, I bet you'd have a better and cheaper movie.
Also, the movie makers need to get their priorities straight: Foremost, a movie (Well, most movies.) is supposed to make sense. That's all it really needs to do. Everything else is secondary. There are people who have built careers on doing nothing but complain about movie plots that doesn't make sense. You don't see anybody building careers over complaining about lighting, sound quality or the wardrobe, because that's not as important as the plot. (CGI has a niche too, and the quality of the acting, so those come second to the story making sense.) A plot doesn't cost money. There's a surplus of plots and writers in the world, and most of them can write better stuff than this plot.

I didn't say they BLEW it as if they just spent it on random shit. They spent it on their workers, actors, places they had to have the entire crew stay at, etc. CGI costs a lot of money.

I complain about lighting, wardrobe, sound quality (and so do a lot of other people, sound design has been reaching new heights as of late, so that's why you are saying what you're saying). Have you ever seen a movie with that crappy shit in it? If not, I suggest you go do that.

A plot does cost money. The script writer is the one to blame if anything. They scripter wrote it, it was accepted, the writer worked with the director and his sub-advisers. I can guarantee you that the surplus of writers is not always very good. A lot of them have stories that won't work for a particular style, some won't allow their material to be changed in anyway, some get fucked over and they don't get paid, etc.

Also, I doubt you'd have a cheaper movie. The amount of people you'd have to hire would still suck the budget dry. Here would be a typical budget list for a typical movie:

Director, assistant director, producer, assistant producer, boom operators, assistant boom operators, sound designers, boom assistants, makeup artists, assistant makeup artists, special effects artists, cgi artists, lead cgi artists, assistant cgi artists, lead animator, assistant animators, animators, camera men, trackers, set designers, assistant set designers, lead graphic designers, graphic designers, (your list of actors, lead actors, extras, etc), conceptual artists, background artists, character designers, script writer, assistant script writers, (the list will go on with about 30 other jobs with lead and assistants, specific to the actual making of the movie), poster designer, trailer producer, the actual trailers, the marketing (dvds, trailers, toys, posters, commercials, etc), the accountants, assistant accountants, catering (actors love their food), housing (if it's filmed elsewhere), then you have all the contractors, the multiple companies that helped produce the movie (paramount, lionsgate, etc), then you have all the benefits you have to add, then all the money that goes into the studio recording time for the audio syncing, then you have all the electricity bills, plumbing, etc.

If that's not bad enough, you have to do that for the next YEAR. You seem to fail to understand HOW much has to go into a movie. Yes, a story needs to be well thought out, but that's the thing, it was with the intention of it being a prequel to the stories we know. That means, a lot of the movie's questions are answered in the following films. Maybe it didn't do quite a good job, but the movie in and of itself was NOT BAD.

Again, you try making a film, then multiply it by 100%, you'll understand how hard it is.


The average movie budget is 139 Million dollars. Why aren't you complaining about Avatar? The movie cost 400 million and was just Pocahontas with 10 foot tall, blue people. Talk about lazy story telling... He just ripped it off of Disney.

What you're saying is basically that a plot costs money, so you can't afford a good plot, because there's so much else that's necessary to spend money on. That's bullshit. The plot is the number one priority, and you make sure that you can afford it, on the expense of everything else. Amidst this huge list of jobs, 1-2 consultants doesn't cost that much. Even leaning back in your chair and thinking critically for five minutes, doesn't cost that much.
You say that CGI costs a lot of money, but what CGI also often does, is look like shit, so what you do is that you hire a puppeteer instead, and work with puppets and robots. Problem solved.
However, you should be able to work with *any* budget. If it's just you and five friends in the middle of the woods, you should be able to work without hired stagehands, wardrobe, make up, et.c.. You work within the budget that you are given, making sure that consultants gets their appropriate percent of it, just like everybody else get their appropriate percent of the budget. If you really find that you cannot afford to meet your own standards when it comes to sound and lighting, et.c., then that's not your fault. If the company can only afford to make a sub-par movie, then they'll get a sub-par movie, but at least the plot won't suck.

While you say that sound design has "reached new heights", plots have reached an all-time low. If your friends are discussing the actual sound quality of a movie they've seen, then you hang with some odd friends. Most people will leave a theatre discussing the plot, and pick at plot holes.

Yes, of course some writers won't allow their material to be changed in any way. The writing of a script is something that you work out beforehand, before you even announce that you're making a movie, because if you change the script on the fly later on, you'll run into continuity issues and plot holes that you can't foresee within five minutes on a busy set. This is why the script is law when it comes to filming. It is the foundation of the movie.

Yes, I'd make a cheaper movie. For one, I don't live in a barn, so I know at least basic science, and basic logic. I can also scale the production, I can replace the CGI with puppets, and I can replace the star actors with unknown actors. You don't need talent to know how to make a good movie with that kind of money. These writers had a *lack* of talent, that you cannot blame on the budget.


"Yes, a story needs to be well thought out, but that's the thing,
it was with the intention of it being a prequel to the stories we know.
That means, a lot of the movie's questions are answered in the following
films."

I'm not talking about unanswered questions here. I'm talking about people that just showed off how they were not going to get lost because they had this scifi GPS map, got lost, because they were too retarded to check their wrist map. I'm talking about people "studying" an alien head by running strong current through it. I'm talking about perfect DNA matchings, an autodoc mistaking a womb for a stomach, a stapled patient sprinting without tearing her womb open, stationary star maps, and people generally not following procedure at all. These aren't "unanswered questions". These are fuckups.


"Maybe it didn't do quite a good job, but the movie in and of
itself was NOT BAD."

You know, Prometheus could have been even worse. Hollywood is by now a gaping pit of despair, so I expected to see a complete lack of innovation too, or a plot without any development.


"Again, you try making a film, then multiply it by 100%, you'll understand how hard it is."

Do you mean that I should multiply it by 1, or multiply it by itself?
I don't care how hard it is to make a movie: The plot comes first. You're not even making a movie when you write a script, so that's hardships that you deal with later on.
Also, the last thing that viewers want to see, is a series being butchered, so if I don't think that I have what it takes to make a sequel with a good plot in it, it's economically sound to refuse, and not be a part of it, because a bad sequel will hurt the rest of any movies in the series after that.


"Why aren't you complaining
about Avatar?"

Why should I? The writer of that movie had nothing to build off, so 10 foot tall blue people doesn't contradict anything. It was a space adventure for teens, not technical scifi for adults like Alien is. People who has watched and enjoyed Alien and Aliens, are really clever, old people, probably lab technicians and various over-intelligent members of the working class. People who watched and enjoyed Avatar, are young boys who wants to move on from Disney. Do you see the difference in at what level the bar is set?

[Bridge]

Guys, CGI is not expensive. It is time consuming which means you need to hire a bunch of people to spend hours and hours modeling but it doesn't take any longer than making an actual custom puppet/prop/whatever and with those you need to spend money (sometimes a lot of money) buying materials. When the licenses and salaries have been paid, CGI is practically free. If you made a Bayish Transformers movie only with animatronics and practical effects in the same scope, the budget would have probably been a billion dollars or more. So if you think about it CGI is much cheaper, it's just that more things are possible which makes some people get overambitious.

[crisosphinx]

Guys, CGI is not expensive. It is time consuming which means you need to hire a bunch of people to spend hours and hours modeling but it doesn't take any longer than making an actual custom puppet/prop/whatever and with those you need to spend money (sometimes a lot of money) buying materials. When the licenses and salaries have been paid, CGI is practically free. If you made a Bayish Transformers movie only with animatronics and practical effects in the same scope, the budget would have probably been a billion dollars or more. So if you think about it CGI is much cheaper, it's just that more things are possible which makes some people get overambitious.

But as a result, you still admit that CGI is expensive. Only a couple people would have to work on animatronics and puppets. A couple people vs a ton of people. CGI is in fact expensive and in this current day and age, it's where at least a third of the entire movies budget goes. Let's say you have 600 people on the movie, maybe 100 of them are working on CGI.. Normally, CGI will be the first thing a ton of the money will go towards (CGI meaning color correction, 3D, animation, film compositing, background art [matte painting], texturing, etc).

[Bridge]

Guys, CGI is not expensive. It is time consuming which means you need to hire a bunch of people to spend hours and hours modeling but it doesn't take any longer than making an actual custom puppet/prop/whatever and with those you need to spend money (sometimes a lot of money) buying materials. When the licenses and salaries have been paid, CGI is practically free. If you made a Bayish Transformers movie only with animatronics and practical effects in the same scope, the budget would have probably been a billion dollars or more. So if you think about it CGI is much cheaper, it's just that more things are possible which makes some people get overambitious.

But as a result, you still admit that CGI is expensive. Only a couple people would have to work on animatronics and puppets. A couple people vs a ton of people. CGI is in fact expensive and in this current day and age, it's where at least a third of the entire movies budget goes. Let's say you have 600 people on the movie, maybe 100 of them are working on CGI.. Normally, CGI will be the first thing a ton of the money will go towards (CGI meaning color correction, 3D, animation, film compositing, background art [matte painting], texturing, etc).

Well if you're definition of CGI is so broad I would readily admit that most of the money goes into it. And yes, I admit that CGI is expensive but making a movie is very expensive in general. That was the point I was trying to make when I said if someone made Transformers with practical effects it would be a hundred times more expensive. As a result, CGI is less expensive and less time consuming on average, so I see no point in bringing up how expensive it is. If you worked hard for 20 years you could make a movie with effects on par with Transformers for free. As I said, most of the money goes towards salaries; it's just a way of speeding up the process by having a bunch of people working on it. I don't think it's really fair to compare CGI-driven movies to high budget films that predate CGI like Star Wars, because the technology has gotten simpler and therefore the possibilities have become more numerous. If someone made a movie with effects as simplistic (not in a negative way) as Star Wars today with CGI they probably wouldn't even break a million.

[crisosphinx]

What you're saying is basically that a plot costs money, so you can't afford a good plot, because there's so much else that's necessary to spend money on. That's bullshit. The plot is the number one priority, and you make sure that you can afford it, on the expense of everything else. Amidst this huge list of jobs, 1-2 consultants doesn't cost that much. Even leaning back in your chair and thinking critically for five minutes, doesn't cost that much.
You say that CGI costs a lot of money, but what CGI also often does, is look like shit, so what you do is that you hire a puppeteer instead, and work with puppets and robots. Problem solved.
However, you should be able to work with *any* budget. If it's just you and five friends in the middle of the woods, you should be able to work without hired stagehands, wardrobe, make up, et.c.. You work within the budget that you are given, making sure that consultants gets their appropriate percent of it, just like everybody else get their appropriate percent of the budget. If you really find that you cannot afford to meet your own standards when it comes to sound and lighting, et.c., then that's not your fault. If the company can only afford to make a sub-par movie, then they'll get a sub-par movie, but at least the plot won't suck.

While you say that sound design has "reached new heights", plots have reached an all-time low. If your friends are discussing the actual sound quality of a movie they've seen, then you hang with some odd friends. Most people will leave a theatre discussing the plot, and pick at plot holes.

Yes, of course some writers won't allow their material to be changed in any way. The writing of a script is something that you work out beforehand, before you even announce that you're making a movie, because if you change the script on the fly later on, you'll run into continuity issues and plot holes that you can't foresee within five minutes on a busy set. This is why the script is law when it comes to filming. It is the foundation of the movie.

Yes, I'd make a cheaper movie. For one, I don't live in a barn, so I know at least basic science, and basic logic. I can also scale the production, I can replace the CGI with puppets, and I can replace the star actors with unknown actors. You don't need talent to know how to make a good movie with that kind of money. These writers had a *lack* of talent, that you cannot blame on the budget.


"Yes, a story needs to be well thought out, but that's the thing,
it was with the intention of it being a prequel to the stories we know.
That means, a lot of the movie's questions are answered in the following
films."

I'm not talking about unanswered questions here. I'm talking about people that just showed off how they were not going to get lost because they had this scifi GPS map, got lost, because they were too retarded to check their wrist map. I'm talking about people "studying" an alien head by running strong current through it. I'm talking about perfect DNA matchings, an autodoc mistaking a womb for a stomach, a stapled patient sprinting without tearing her womb open, stationary star maps, and people generally not following procedure at all. These aren't "unanswered questions". These are fuckups.


"Maybe it didn't do quite a good job, but the movie in and of
itself was NOT BAD."

You know, Prometheus could have been even worse. Hollywood is by now a gaping pit of despair, so I expected to see a complete lack of innovation too, or a plot without any development.


"Again, you try making a film, then multiply it by 100%, you'll understand how hard it is."

Do you mean that I should multiply it by 1, or multiply it by itself?
I don't care how hard it is to make a movie: The plot comes first. You're not even making a movie when you write a script, so that's hardships that you deal with later on.
Also, the last thing that viewers want to see, is a series being butchered, so if I don't think that I have what it takes to make a sequel with a good plot in it, it's economically sound to refuse, and not be a part of it, because a bad sequel will hurt the rest of any movies in the series after that.


"Why aren't you complaining
about Avatar?"

Why should I? The writer of that movie had nothing to build off, so 10 foot tall blue people doesn't contradict anything. It was a space adventure for teens, not technical scifi for adults like Alien is. People who has watched and enjoyed Alien and Aliens, are really clever, old people, probably lab technicians and various over-intelligent members of the working class. People who watched and enjoyed Avatar, are young boys who wants to move on from Disney. Do you see the difference in at what level the bar is set?

You sure are cranky.

I like how you said people who watched Aliens are really clever, old people and probably lab technicians. I would have to disagree with you. A mixed group of people watch the series. I'm not a lab technician, I'm not "old", old enough perhaps. I definitely don't agree that everyone who has watched it is over-intelligent, but rather, maybe a majority of them (at least half) were. Anyone who likes a good Science Fiction story would have watched it.
Quite honestly, it sounds like you're trying to be egotistical and flatter yourself.

Multiply the difficultly by itself.

My friends I talk about are animators and videographers. Don't call them weird, though they may have their quirks. Right now, you're looking like an asshole for saying that and talking badly about me. We have to discuss how sound was developed, otherwise the placement of objects and characters in an environment won't seem natural. For example, you don't give a dog a lions roar. You'd complain about that, like you're complaining about everything else. We talk about all aspects of a movie. Not just the "I'm a movie goer, I'm going to look cool and complain about plot holes and act like I'm intellectual" act. If you want to be completely rounded in critiquing a film, talk about other aspects and not just the same things. Otherwise, you don't look like you know what you're talking about.

Considering that you seem to not understand how a movie is constructed in the first place, leads me to believe you're just trying to get under my skin. I wasn't saying the movie was amazing, I said it was good and I didn't understand how people HATED it. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't amazing. That's all I'm saying. I said they put some good money into something so people could try to enjoy it. Go watch Trolls 2 and then tell me that in comparison, Prometheus is horrible.

FYI, the comment about Avatar being for Disney converts, that might be so, but that movie racked up enough money to be placed at, what, 2nd or 3rd highest grossing film in history? Honestly, get your shit together, old man. You're trying to tell me I'm an idiot for liking a movie that was visually appealing and brought more money to HR Giger? I will admit, it wasn't as good as it could have been and it was definitely a bad prequel (prequels are never good, have you ever seen a movie with a good one or a game for that matter?).

---

I love you, Cranky, but man, we need to get off this topic, as I'm getting a bit annoyed to some extent with you assuming that I'm not very good at understanding Sci Fi, films, and with you not being able to see two sides to every story. Let's please just meet at a middle ground somewhere.

[Cranky Old Man]

You sure are cranky.

I like how you said people who watched Aliens are really clever, old people and probably lab technicians. I would have to disagree with you. A mixed group of people watch the series. I'm not a lab technician, I'm not "old", old enough perhaps. I definitely don't agree that everyone who has watched it is over-intelligent, but rather, maybe a majority of them (at least half) were. Anyone who likes a good Science Fiction story would have watched it.
Quite honestly, it sounds like you're trying to be egotistical and flatter yourself.

Multiply the difficultly by itself.

My friends I talk about are animators and videographers. Don't call them weird, though they may have their quirks. Right now, you're looking like an asshole for saying that and talking badly about me. We have to discuss how sound was developed, otherwise the placement of objects and characters in an environment won't seem natural. For example, you don't give a dog a lions roar. You'd complain about that, like you're complaining about everything else. We talk about all aspects of a movie. Not just the "I'm a movie goer, I'm going to look cool and complain about plot holes and act like I'm intellectual" act. If you want to be completely rounded in critiquing a film, talk about other aspects and not just the same things. Otherwise, you don't look like you know what you're talking about.

Considering that you seem to not understand how a movie is constructed in the first place, leads me to believe you're just trying to get under my skin. I wasn't saying the movie was amazing, I said it was good and I didn't understand how people HATED it. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't amazing. That's all I'm saying. I said they put some good money into something so people could try to enjoy it. Go watch Trolls 2 and then tell me that in comparison, Prometheus is horrible.

FYI, the comment about Avatar being for Disney converts, that might be so, but that movie racked up enough money to be placed at, what, 2nd or 3rd highest grossing film in history? Honestly, get your shit together, old man. You're trying to tell me I'm an idiot for liking a movie that was visually appealing and brought more money to HR Giger? I will admit, it wasn't as good as it could have been and it was definitely a bad prequel (prequels are never good, have you ever seen a movie with a good one or a game for that matter?).

---

I love you, Cranky, but man, we need to get off this topic, as I'm getting a bit annoyed to some extent with you assuming that I'm not very good at understanding Sci Fi, films, and with you not being able to see two sides to every story. Let's please just meet at a middle ground somewhere.

You can determine the target demographic for Alien by looking at what it's about. Alien and Aliens is about a working class woman getting screwed over by her own company. Yes, there's all kinds of sci-fi and aliens too, but the backbone of it is one workers fight against the company, because she's too intelligent and moral to go along with what they do. If you add good dialogue to that, and you add good sci-fi to that, then it will attract people who take that seriously too. Once you have defined a demographic, you'd do well to stick with it through the entire series too. You don't portray the working class as irresponsible, especially not when your target demographic is picked to be hard to please. Naturally, your core target demographic will age, so people who enjoyed Alien back in 1979, and Aliens back in 1986, will have aged at least 26 years, turning up around 40-50 years old by now. 40-50 year olds who are intelligent, and who has worked up close with technical stuff, and who don't like to be screwed over.

I'm saying that you have odd friends, so that you know that other people will value the plot more than they do. This movie looked really, really good visually, but apparently most people still didn't like it, because they care more about the plot than you and your friends. I'm not saying that your friends shouldn't focus on their jobs - just that they focus on the movie in a different way. If this movie had a good plot, and bad effects, then it would have been less of a disaster. Then people would have blamed the company for not giving the creators enough money, but cheered the series on (instead of mistrusting its future because "the captain is drunk off his ass").

There's another reason why Prometheus stings too: With the US economy crumbling, religion is wrapping its tentacles around the country, and christianity has viciously been trying to wrestle control from science itself, by portraying science as primitive belief. While Prometheus mocks christianity too at its core, it does a fine job in discrediting science.

Avatar was such a success because it was the favourite child of James Cameron - one of the greatest producers who ever lives (if not *the* greatest) who spent over *ten years* writing it. It HAD to be good. It WAS good too, because we didn't expect realism out of it. Yes, it was Pocahontas, but it was Pocahontas in 3D with weird shit going on. It was Pocahontas turned up to 11.
Still, what does Avatar have to do with anything? Why don't YOU talk about airplanes (in a different thread)?

Movies aren't about racking in money "to H.R. Giger". Not to the viewers. The viewers know that you can both please the movie company AND them. In that way, the viewers will let you rack in even MORE money in the future.

[Hunter of Shadows]

The actors were bad, the plot was bad, the horror was bad, the scares were bad, just so much of it was so bland compared to some of his previous masterpieces

All and all, it was an okay creature feature, is what you can say for it, but then you go back and you look at Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, or Robin Hood, it's pretty much a straight up disappointment, and looking at some of the gaping plot holes, it feels like Ridley Scott didn't hire very good writer's, and didn't spend as much time putting this film together as he ought to have.

[Cranky Old Man]

What makes it worse, is also the waiting. 12 years, if you don't count the AvP movies. In 12 years, with this epic of a franchise, they better come up with something worth the wait. They even set up Resurrection as "Ripley goes to Earth", and people were excited for that.

[Hunter of Shadows]

Aye, 12 years and you come up with something that in the end just feels...rushed

Which I'll note, really kind of makes the movie feel worse then it really is, when you strip away all your preconceptions of (OMG A MOVIE BY RIDLEY SCOTT THAT IN SOME WAY HAS TO DO WITH HIS ALIEN FRANCHISE! WOOT!), it's not that bad, just okay.

But on the flipside, considering Ripley Scott's reputation as a good director of movies...that does kind of make Prometheus kind of shitty, kinda like "Hey Ridley Scott...we all know you for delivering good movies, kind of like Peter Jackson and James Cameron...so what the hell happened?"