Prometheus

[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?).

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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.