Prometheus in Empire Magazine - "The Big Questions"

Viscal

The August 2012 issue of Empire has a two-page Prometheus feature that attempts to answer some of the questions regarding the theories presented in the movie. As you can imagine, however, nothing is truly answered. A cool bit is that in one of the answers you'll notice a shout out to PrometheusForum member Cavalorn!

Click to enlarge:

Thanks to seeasea for the files via http://redcognito.tumblr.com

Gahlaktus

Many thanks, Viscal!

DancingDavid

um, AWESOME. Big ups to Cavalorn, who wrote the best review/theory on the movie to date.

prometheus94

Thanks for sharing, Ridley Scott looks like a badass in that image!

Viscal

One thing the article got wrong is that we do know why Guy Pearce was cast despite not having any scenes of him as a young person in the movie.

"Damon Lindelof's script showed the android David going inside Weyland's dreams while he was in hypersleep — and in his dreams, Weyland is a young man, on a yacht surrounded by beautiful women. These dream conversations got cut, but Pearce's casting was already locked in. Scott had originally wanted to cast Max von Sydow as Peter Weyland. (In Spaiht's script versions, Weyland isn't aboard the Prometheus at all — instead, there's a hidden squad of company soldiers.)"

Carrot

(:

Gahlaktus

Viscal said:
One thing the article got wrong is that we do know why Guy Pearce was cast despite not having any scenes of him as a young person in the movie.

"Damon Lindelof's script showed the android David going inside Weyland's dreams while he was in hypersleep — and in his dreams, Weyland is a young man, on a yacht surrounded by beautiful women. These dream conversations got cut, but Pearce's casting was already locked in. Scott had originally wanted to cast Max von Sydow as Peter Weyland. (In Spaiht's script versions, Weyland isn't aboard the Prometheus at all — instead, there's a hidden squad of company soldiers.)"

I noticed that.

RobThom

"Thats a puzzler".

Aah...

"...and what made them want to do it 2000 years ago- before we started screwing up the planet?"

Say what now?

RobThom

Viscal said:
"Damon Lindelof's script showed the android David going inside Weyland's dreams while he was in hypersleep — and in his dreams, Weyland is a young man, on a yacht surrounded by beautiful women. These dream conversations got cut, but Pearce's casting was already locked in. Scott had originally wanted to cast Max von Sydow as Peter Weyland. (In Spaiht's script versions, Weyland isn't aboard the Prometheus at all — instead, there's a hidden squad of company soldiers.)"

Von Sydow would have ruled!

My only problem with this though (not that I doubt its truth what so ever!), is the idea of having big stars locked into roles, expensive/big enough stars that they can no longer be replaced, before the script was even finished to the degree of the limp postage stamp that we eventually got!

So they hired Guy pierce to play Weylan before completely changing Weylans only appearance into a bit role as an old man?!

And then moving that around again after filming it and mangling the Fifield attack.

Its just careless IMO.

And it still seems to me that Ridley has adopted the ugly role of tool and shmuck for the hollywood systems worst attributes.

Leviticus

This question about the hologram David initiated may shed light of how Prometheus ties in to the derelict ship in Alien. Ridley hints at whatever the threat was has left the planet. You think the lone engineer left LV-223 in an attempt to get help before his chest burst but didn't make it in time and crash landed on LV-426?

Another idea is that the "Deacon" might get affected even farther by the black goo and he will mutate into something more akin to the xenomorph that we are used to seeing while retaining some memory from its host, the engineer, allowing him to pilot a ship. David did mention there were several more ships on the planet. This is a stretch, just trying to make some conversation that might bridge a few connections. Would love to hear your ideas.

ummester

The magazine is wrong - 2000 years have not past since the emissaries visited.

RobThom

ummester said:
The magazine is wrong - 2000 years have not past since the emissaries visited.

Thats all lindelof verse IMO.

I suppose that these things will become apparent when lindelof does his commentary track and tells us that he's got it all figured out and we're all just to stupid to submit to it.

Unless your under the age of 14 and understand it very clearly!

ummester

RobThom said:

ummester said:
The magazine is wrong - 2000 years have not past since the emissaries visited.

Thats all lindelof verse IMO.

I suppose that these things will become apparent when lindelof does his commentary track and tells us that he's got it all figured out and we're all just to stupid to submit to it.

Unless your under the age of 14 and understand it very clearly!

Well this is kind of why I started that other thread - is being an ideas and questions salesman without
ever having explanations for the ideas and questions you are selling valid story writing?

RobThom

ummester said:

Well this is kind of why I started that other thread - is being an ideas and questions salesman without
ever having explanations for the ideas and questions you are selling valid story writing?

Well me personally I haven't done creative fiction writing since I was much younger.

But if I recall correctly, I tried harder then lindelof seems to be trying.

And it would be a shame for kids with much more energy then me to spend on it to think that what lindelof has done is an acceptable effort.

Because its not!

Maybe it is as a business model,
but not as an artistic effort.

If I have to I'll fucking write it myself!
:)

But I shouldn't have to!

virtftw

Well this is kind of why I started that other thread - is being an ideas and questions salesman without
ever having explanations for the ideas and questions you are selling valid story writing?

No, it is not. But it is marketing, and it is sales. We live in days where that is pretty much all that matters to those who we know most to create stories. Why do you think there is a phenomenon like Indie scenes today :P

Edit. It is very much related to this strange case of why so much of science fiction today in entertainment as well as literature is dominated by concepts like post-apocalyptic, doom & gloom, decay and entropy. While the rest of the world has moved on, and the country itself has decayed to a 4th world country status with and the rest of the world has lost its consideration for it, the US still is the prime resource reservoir for creative creation of culturally shared elements of concepts & ideas (because of a dominance established by several decades of being the only large scale institutionalised supplier). It's where the most "push" is available for the creation of stories, particularly in regards to science fiction and other segments of entertainment. And it is there where the concept of hope and the optimism of both science and society has been lost. Consider for a moment the difference between the times during which Star Trek was created, and with what motivations it was demonstrated to an audience. Consider then what we see today. It is no surprise that a country, and a culture, caught in schizofrenia of both the heart and mind no longer creates much more than doom & gloom to sell. It's pretty much like the political system now being based on destruction rather than creation, and a continuity of state based on fear harnessed as an instrument. Consider how long it has been since US congressmen and senators published books taking pride in what they built, as opposed to long interviews on everything they helped stop.

This approach to movie making applied is to be perfectly honest simply insulting, because it is based on the paradigm that your audience is dumb and will buy because it does not know how not to buy and all you have to do is take them by the nose or hand and bring them to the store. That mentality, is why writers like Lindelof are sought after. And audiences used to that mentality after decades of simple immersion in the fruits of it are why it is what makes the most money. Which is different from audiences being dumb, but it says a lot that this is how it is seen - and referred to all too often.

These days there is such a thing as an indie scene, in many areas and industries of entertainment. Even literature, where self publishing is allowing and enabling aspiring creative souls to pursue options and avoid walls which historically where simple instruments of economic dominance controlled by only a few. Yes, self publishing and indie scenes remain a niche, but the simple fact that they exist and do gain traction should be significant to everybody really. Even politicians and those in the scientific communities. But especially to people.

RobThom

virtftw said:
Why do you think there is a phenomenon like Indie scenes today :P

I wish Ridley would have gone Indie a long time ago.

He can afford to!

But he just isn't into that any more.

I think Prometheus as a franchise can go farther in even more rewarding ways WITHOUT Ridley as a director!
(He can get his cut as a producer).

And certainly WITHOUT lindelof writing the script!
(He'll still get his cut for character creation!)

virtftw

We can't really see Prometheus outside of several sets of contexts. That of Fox, that of the preceding franchise having been milked dry commercially, and so forth. But also we need to see Prometheus in the context of Ridley Scott himself.

He had a golden goose with Alien, that fell into his lap. Perfect time for a story like that, perfect circumstances for the adoption of the ideas of a story like that. But he lost it. He was passed by for the next story. It was no longer his, and it was no longer his to mark with ideas and vision. That is significant, because you see in interviews today and in Prometheus itself that he set out with the intent to create new franchise, and to put himself in a position where for a next run he would not be passed over. A lot of people complain about Lindelof, who really is just a mondane sign of the time really, but remember that Ridley signed off on this. More interestingly, for a director who always works on the basis of specialty jobs riding their respective trenches the hardest he deliberately allowed Lindelof to create the very sales mysticism which puts Ridley in the position to be the only one able to translate concept to visual experience.

Which is something we know is somewhere between artistic, desperate and silly. Because when push comes to shove, he's as much an instrument of sales as we are as audience. Fox decides. Not Ridley, and certainly not we.

popii

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing.

virtftw

RobThom said:

virtftw said:
Why do you think there is a phenomenon like Indie scenes today :P

I wish Ridley would have gone Indie a long time ago.

He can afford to!

But he just isn't into that any more.

I think Prometheus as a franchise can go farther in even more rewarding ways WITHOUT Ridley as a director!
(He can get his cut as a producer).

And certainly WITHOUT lindelof writing the script!
(He'll still get his cut for character creation!)

You know, there's an old case of a very similar situation, once upon a time in a different franchise.

That of Star Trek, when Roddenberry was faced with the challenge of considering the continuity of what he had created, and the enormous inputs he had received during the first succesful venture with his ideas (he had several, incidentally).

It took about a year or so, if I remember correctly, but ultimately the decision was made to strike a very careful balance between commercial considerations, third parties commercial and principalities of ideas, concepts. Enhanced by the established desire for a creative continuity which was certain to either be exposed to or invite other perspectives than that of Roddenberry and the initial inner circle at the beginning.

It resulted in the creation of a framework of ideas, concepts, timeline and a library construct of characters, events and events. Very slim at the start, more as a guideline than as a canon, but it was a beginning. It also resulted in a platform of discussion and formation of orientation for the franchise created. Over the years that got adapted, enhanced, worked out and so forth, to ultimately end up as a de facto council of continuity concept. Something which works quite well in human history, until the hurdle is met of handover from the passing of a first generation council to a next (which generally takes several generaties until the first one retires or passes away and then a decade or two at the most). Which incidentally is why Star Trek got raped by the mystic reboot doctrine reigning in Hollywood, but that is another story :P

I agree that Prometheus, like any created fictional universe, can be provided with the potential to not just function as a franchise but to function as a culturally internalised mythology. Alien had the same potential, perhaps even more so because of its place in those days and the simple fact that Prometheus suffers from an execution of methodology which comes down to people ending up raising expectations rather than anticipation, but that too is another story.

But, let's look at the case itself. What happened with Alien, just as powerful and even more so. Yet it got squeezed and milked dry until not even the most idiotic exec could think of "let's do it one more time". Why? Because there was no concept of continuity, no concept of guidelines or framework, no creative foundation written down and signed off on to maximise the potential of the story AND the experience in order to maximise the potential of the commercial venture without risking its own foundations. Note the order of priority and dependancy in that.

If Prometheus is to be more than just a franchise Fox can milk dry again like Alien, it is going to need more than just Ridley working the production in such ways that he sees himself as an integral element of its commercial production. As much as I respect the man, he is making the same fundamental mistake as with Alien here (sure, he will do the next Prometheus venture, but for different reasons than being indispensable). He is not a required element for the venture. The franchise has no foundation element called Ridley, he is an instrument. That is how business works, and he knows it. He's done better in those regards with Prometheus than with Alien, ofcourse he has, he's had twenty plus years to learn from that experience :P

But yes, if Prometheus is to be more than just a franchise venture it is going to need a worked out and public framework of concepts, elements, timeline, and so forth. Without that, it's nothing but a movie. And while that is perfectly fine, it also means that it will not be a mythos or an epic. Which is ok, just a shame really because it does have that potential, many movies and novels end that way. It's business.

rabidranger

I know I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't have minded the "Jesus is an Engineer emissary angle." That said, the Engineer agenda towards earth remains somewhat of a mystery, which hopefully gets resolved in the sequel.

jasonjason

Sort of agree with you regarding the Engineer as Jesus angle. It would explain Jesus performing miracles and whatnot. I still think that there is a tie-in to the Engineers coming down and trying to promote peace and telling the Romans or whomever to "don't worry, be happy"....and the Romans or someone looking at the Engineer and basically saying, "go f##k yourself" and killing him. If the engineers have been coming down and tinkering with humanity and making us smarter and stronger...maybe that little issue with the Romans/humanity made them think, "sh!t, we have created a monster". I just don't get why they came back AFTER something happened 2000 years ago....unless there really are two factions...and one faction is about creation and one is purely about dominance and war...being selfish.

DancingDavid

rabidranger said:
I know I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't have minded the "Jesus is an Engineer emissary angle." That said, the Engineer agenda towards earth remains somewhat of a mystery, which hopefully gets resolved in the sequel.

2nd

Welcome!

Categories

Forum Tips