Prometheus

[Cranky Old Man]

I understand Sci Fi perfectly well. Film and sci fi are two ends of an equally messy goo. Film involves you to make specific sacrifices to tell and entire story. I'm not saying they did it 100% correct, but dude, you try making a $130 million dollar film. It's not easy. You have conflict of interest everywhere. The actors will do something stupid every once in a while, the lighting, boom operators, cameramen, sound effects coordinators, special effects makeup artist, concept artists, etc etc etc, have to get everything correct. Then you have 3D animation, texturers, modelers, special effects artist, (the list goes on). They did it their way.

It did create jobs. I'm not saying that it's a feat, but you have to give them credit where credit is due. It wasn't a rancid movie. They didn't pick up the black goo because it wasn't in the open yet. Plus it was inside a sealed room and the goo, if you recall, is DNA. It's not a chemical.

Again, place yourself in their shoes. It's not all about science, it's about human interaction and emotion as well.

If you wanted to see a movie where they just pick up the black goo and head home, where is the cliff hanger, where's the story, where's the drama and action that everyone wants to see? A film is for entertainment purposes, I'm not saying Sci Fi is the reason why they don't have to explain anything, it's the film industry. Again, you try making a film, see how hard it is.

What are you? A science major? Programmer? Whatever it is, you don't seem to understand how to create movies/films, you don't understand how to set one up, how much work it involves, how many revisions it goes through and how much the script and function of the movie will change throughout it's process. People send you critique, tell you to change things, expect more out of you, do this and do that. Eventually, what you have left is a fraction of what you originally had. This is probably what you see from Prometheus.

Yes, it's difficult to make an entire film, but the thing that you start with, is a good story, that is written by a good writer. If you simply ask for a good Alien story, you'd get people throwing stories at you in the street, for free. The reason why people think that a movie sucks, is because they know that they could have made it so much better.
When it comes to Alien, the creativity process is simple:
1. Hire a guy with ideas.
2. Hire a scientist (or three).
3. Lock them both up in a room.
4. Let the guy with ideas come up with some good space horror.
5. Have the scientist talk sense into him.

Once you've done that, and made sure that you'll invest money in a story worth investing money in, THEN you make a movie. THEN you can worry about boom mikes and acting and all that, because that's just minor details by comparison. The story is the most important part of a movie. In science fiction, how realistic the science is, is the most important part of the story.

It's not goo. Give me a budget and a popular franchise, and I'll make you a $130 million dollar film that at least has a good story in it. The special effects were awesome in Prometheus, but it's not hard for me to hire that studio. At least I'll come up with a more realistic story. I mean come on: There are four people, and one of them has a map that he shows off. Which ones do you NOT send off to get lost? There are things in this movie that a five year old could have made better.
Conflicts of interest, you say? Send them to my office. If Tom Cruise has a "conflict of interest" with me, he can take a hike. He'll never work for me again. If anybody has any "conflicts of interest" with me, they can fuck off, because I'm the writer. As long as I'm paying their salaries, they're paid to shut up and do as I say.

Yes, the scans didn't pick up the black goo because it wasn't in the open yet, because it was inside a sealed room, and it was biological. ...so again: Why do they remove their space helmets? If they are going to go into closed spaces, and they're going to open sealed doors, and there is such a thing as biological contaminants and airborne parasites, that the scanners will fail to pick up, then why risc infecting not only themselves, but the entire expedition, just because they feel like breathing without a helmet? I say again: These people behave like rednecks. If you're a scientist on a mission, you stay sharp and you stay focused and you are very aware of possible dangers. You follow protocol, and you're smart and professional, because if you upset sombody in outer space, there's no police around to save you from cabin fever.

There's plenty of adventure that can happen even if the people are smart. Most of the stupid things that happened, didn't need to happen that way at all.

Again, a film may be hard work, but you only start filming once the story is worked out. From that point, it's only a matter of scene angles. I do not care what people would think of my story - if they don't like it, they can find other movies. Actors will read the entire script BEFORE accepting or rejecting a role contract.