Lindelof:Hero or villain

0945 here just now

Now i know when you're not active during the day its because your probably asleep over there.Its the same here, i typically log off in the next hour or two.

I work shifts so im actually on here when im working hahahaha

@Ali81

With a name like Johnston I am 25% Scot I climb the Munro's from Glencoe twice a year. Right now its 24 degrees in Singapore and I am on my way to Paradise (New Zealand) but I am travelling on an A380 rather than a Juggernaut !

Inevitably each of our takes on these films can depend on your point of entry. I am like one or two others A L I E N centric that was my intro so I love A A3 The Assembly Cut and find Aliens very entertaining. After that I am out I know several people who share that placement but there is huge following for ALIENS who loved the whole US Marines vibe and really want "their" follow up to that movie. Personally that doesn't interest me because as executive producer of A R Sigourney has already re written the rule book once and cheated death to do that again just for another fight between her and a Queen again seems gratuitous and repetitive but thats a nostalgia vibe and I understand why people want it. Nostalgia does not interest me nor does an overtly action movie I preferred the suspense of A L I E N thats why there are some nervous of A C being fan service rather than breaking new ground.  

Michelle, like u im not huge on nostalgia but I get why a lot of people are. I think ridley will introduce more new things as the series progresses but hes smart enough hel still stick to some aspects he knows have been successful in the past for the nostalgia lovers, but I got the sense before Prometheus that the reason he changed his intention of an alien prequel was to explore new ideas and concepts in the engineer universe. I hope he has just put together a mix movie here, a bit of engineer, a bit of xeno/ new forms of xeno to bring back those who criticised prometheous for not being alien enough yet keep those who came around to his prometheus concept happy, a compromise if u will. hopefully, and this is just my own view, is hel go more engineer/answers theme in the AC sequel than alien movie. as iv said several times we do have another alien movie to come next so a change of pace would be welcomed for me. hopefully, though unlikely I think, hel not have killed shaw off as her character is a fresh one and isn't ripley-esq wich wel probably get with daniels and newt 

I'm on through out the day but spend most of my time on at night.Though thats when its the most inactive.

@Michelle Johnston 

Again, very interesting post, never thought you'd criticize Prometheus but that's irrelevant. What's relevant imo (of course!) are the 3 (obviously script related) issues you pointed out that I forgot to mention. 

1) Two issues

a) Peter's story wasn't more pronounced other than the simple fact that he wanted eternal life. If you can't establish a character more and bring more depth to a MAJOR character, there's no interest from the audience, "there's nothing".

b) this idea in the first place to partially build a story upon. I don't care about his personal desire, I care about what the company wants, that's what I call "larger scope", not Peter Weyland's philosophy. 

If this happens to be the "true" mission in the first place, I'm not impressed or interested. What a silly plot.

2) Back and forth between the ship and the pyramid. Yep, I counted 3 times and by the third time I started yawning.

They should've spent more time and like you said achieve more in the pyramid to increase the suspension build-up in there, and let us have more time as tourists to admire or examine the crew's actions and the surroundings just like in Alien. That makes for potentially great mystic storytelling.

3) Engineers, who are they again? I don't need explicit details, it could be as ambigous as possible but the problem was the shifting in focus away from them to the crew and back to them at the end were they were used merely as monsters. That's not very deep.

The Engineers were left out for the most part when ironically Ridley wanted to tell a story focused on them #allengineerslivesmatter

"If there is no suspension there is no engagement" 

You said it Michelle, and I'm fairly certain you and a lot of others here could've done a much better job with the script for this film given full artistic control. 

It's unfortunate that, apart from discussing interesting details about Prometheus, I feel as if some people have to manufacture solutions to the flawed writing, but it's nonetheless admirable and positive.

Deep Space did have a point as well; that it's what we choose to focus on. I could look past the errors if they weren't so obvious and so many, and had they been fewer I'd be more inclined to like this film. 

personally I am a big fan of Prometheus, like a lot of movies it has its holes yes but were they intended as the finished product is what the director puts into it from the script, which is after all pretty much a base to start off with. ridley, for the same reasons he didn't choose spaights' script, may have decided some information was best left to mystery and he didn't want revealed at that point. the going back and forth? yes I agree after the first time it got a bit pointless. I got the first reason as they had just got there and with a huge sandstorm on its way the best and logical place for shelter was the familiar surroundings of the ship. after that though, they r explorers seeking answers so it def would have made more sense for the majority of the party to remain in the facility. as said in avp 'u can go back to the ship,but eh,wer staying'.

and I didn't need anymore insight into weyland. we got the 20 min deleted scene where we see an obviously highly motivated and intelligent man who wants to change the world, probably for the better at that point. however he is older now and theres always been one constant he has never understood or been able to change, death. he has realised his own mortality and how short his live has been and wants eternal life and the man he is now is still highly motivated but now he is a man who will step over his own to get what he wants

But it doesn't apply imo because it was cut out. That deleted scene, slightly cut down, should've been in the film and would fit nicely after the sacrifice scene and before the Prometheus crew introduction.

The speech was so vital to the narrative as it gave us a good picture of what he wanted and how delusional he was. He was a key figure and got less screen time than unintentional comic relief duo Milburn and Fifield.

agree, I was actually quite interested in seeing the speech. cut a bit and put right at the start wouldv given the audience a good portrait of the man he was when he was younger with visions. I think he is portrayed as highly a motivated workaholic (which ties into his relationship with Vickers) who had good intentions behind wanting to change the world but somewhere along the line his own mortality hit him like a freight train and he became more delusional in his later years, seeking the answers to the one question hed previously not given time to and cannot answer himself. he has been able to change a whole world and the path of an entire species by terraforming yet he cant do anything to help himself

I don’t think that Spaight’s draft was close to AVPR, come on. That is to exaggerate.

He was hired to make an Alien Prequel, connected to LV-426 and so on. It had far better characters, included alien connected monsters and so on. It stuck to the alien universe.

Lindelof made the characters worse, almost totally removed the Xeno , filled it in with themes that has got nothing to do with the Alien universe, and so on. Mankind's origin from giants (Engineers) might be an interesting thing to make a movie about but that shouldn't be in an alien movie because that isn't what the franchise is about IMO. Make another franchise about that but keep it away from Alien. Things did not make sense and you had to look things up on web pages that only a small percentage even bothered to look up. I do not think that is the same as good writing or deep ideas. Exactly, too many goofy things. Who was the person that allowed him to rewrite the script and to get away with it?

Sorry but I don’t think that Lindelof is a genius by far. Some of his ideas might have been alright but he did much damage to Prometheus (see the paragraph above). Hopefully he won’t be involved with future Alien related movies but also a lot of what happened with Prometheus is to blame on Fox it seems so he isn’t the only one to blame for how Prometheus turned out to be. There are many parts when it comes to making movies so to just blame it on one part doesn’t make sense. I don’t want this to be like Lindelof is the only one to blame and that everyone else that were involved in the decision making are innocent. It is like a hockey game, if the team loses it is because the team didn’t play well enough, you just don’t blame it on one in the defense.

I would like to mention about ambiguity. There were some in Alien (for example it wasn’t clear what the SJ was) but that was alright. A movie doesn’t have to answer everything but when the ambiguity is over the top and that is just one bit of many bad things then it is to me a result of bad writing.

Sure, he had a better draft than what the movie turned out to be (I have read it) but that isn’t a very difficult thing to do. I have watched scenes from Prometheus that were cut that should have stayed there so it would have made more sense so the editing was also a big problem when it comes to it.

Spaight’s draft while not perfect had better characters that didn’t do stupid things as far as I remember it and made more sense. I am happy that they have other writers for Alien Covenant. Let’s see how AC turns out, low expectations are probably a good thing.

Neomorph: I also think that people over-reacted, I don’t like bullies which it seems that some of the behavior against him was at least on the edge of being.

^ This guy gets it

Man, a lot of hating on Lindelof, some rightfully so.

Prometheus was a jumbled mess of a movie that looks like it was edited by Helen Keller.

The frequent jumps from the ship to the pyramid looks like they were intertwined too much. As ya'll have said, it should've been more time in the pyramid and less back and forth.

The religious implications that were thrown in I think was just a plot device to throw people off. Lindelof loves that crap, just watch the first few seasons of Lost. He is a great idea man, but when it comes to implementing them, he gets crazy and starts throwing more wrenches in as he goes and before he knows it, he can't remember what the original device was. He also comes up with annoying things that don't need to be there (I'm looking at you FLUTE THAT STARTS A HIGH TECH SPACESHIP!).

All in all, the movies was meant to setup future installments by asking serious questions. The debate amongst all of us is what are those questions? Who created us? Why did they want to kill us? Where does the Xeno fit in? How does David fit in? It's a lot to take in with just a 2 hour prequel set in, and for that I give Lindelof a pass. Too much to tackle in a short time, anyone would be screwed.

if anyone had truly heard what ridley scott was trying to say was that Prometheus is NOT an alien movie. this is the point I was trying to make. lindelloff has been given such a hard time for his script, but remember it was ridley who choose it over the spaights script and the reason for that was the spaights script was done as an alien film, which ridley decided against. lindelloff gave him the script he wanted. remember, it is the director who paints the scene not the writer. u can take a great script yet the final product is garbage and take an awful script and the movie gets multiple nominations. Prometheus/ lindeloff, in my opinion, both get a hard time of it mainly because it wasn't 'alien' enough, which is wrong. Prometheus is not meant to be an alien movie. it is an early sample into the world of the engineers and over time these 2 worlds will connect. we have a whole forum where people r discussing things and giving theyr theories on many topics and wev seen some wonderfull ideas and this is in part down to Prometheus. it may not be one of ridleys best, alien and blade runner r on a different level but those films r so hard to follow and out do anyway, but for what Prometheus was intended to be, a stand alone film to start us off, it was a good start IMO. spaights' script gave too much away I think and I wouldn't be surprise if we start seeing a lot of aspects of his script popping up in later sequels if not in AC 

@ali81 Exactly.

Ridley wanted to make a movie in the same vein of Alien, even the same universe, but be a separate entry and that's why he chose Lindelof's script.

Problem was, general public wanted a connection and I'm pretty sure so did the studio, as they saw it as a reboot for the franchise. So Prometheus was kind of slogged as an in between movie...not quite a prequel, not quite a stand alone.

Sorry. The flute always bugged me. I felt like I was watching an Alien movie and then suddenly David pulls out the Ocarina of Time and I'm in Hyrule.

Also probably correct Hicks/Hudson about the film being stuck in between.The whole "don't call it a prequel" campaign lead to a lot of confusion,but after seeing the film i understood why.However i still consider it a prequel(perhaps it can be called a soft reboot of sorts).

The flute is something i often forget about.i saw someone else mention it and did think perhaps it was a little silly.

Soft reboot is a good term.

Yeah, I liked it don't get me wrong. I was just confused as to what they wanted it to be.

I think there are two issues:

First one is that many people wanted Prometheus to be more Alien-like. I agree with the comments above, with regards to why, in that case, Lindelof's script was what they went with.

Second issue is the quality of Lindelof's script (accepting that the thrust of it was 'less Alien'). As other's have said before, Lindelof is awesome at the 'broad strokes' (thank's David!), and overall, that to me made Prometheus a good film. However, the detail is the killer, and to me, that's where the most of the problems that get talked about on this forum come from. Inconsistencies, continuation issues, elaborate set ups for weak payoffs, seemingly important situations (and obvious nods to Alien) that turn out to never be explained, or even suggest they can't be given the context they appear.

Prometheus (in Lindelof's hands) essentially became a bit like 'LOST!' in space. Lots of 'OMG' set ups with limp payoffs. It's like he expends all his creative energy coming up with a shapeshifting, biomechanical, 8 foot, polar bear looking hybrid man in black, which we are teased with to the point we almost burst. Then, when we get the big reveal, we never find out who/what it is, just that whatever it was has just come back from the grocery store with two lettuces and a carton of milk! WTF! I mean, I know I'm exaggerating, but really, that's what it's like. 'Look at these Engineers run in to this room - something must be chasing them, and that room will keep them safe'. 'Now look at this pile of Engineers, not in that special room, but all burst open and scary looking'. 'Now let's forget them, and look at the ship'. 'Now let's look at the pyramid.....ship.....pyramid.....ship....pyramid....now, forgot those other Engineers, they won't be worth investigating further - oh, look, a flute that starts a Juggernaut'

flute got me aswell, the only thing I can come up with is the computer is switched on by some sort of tone passcode where only the right pitch and tones will turn it on, but the flute itself is a bit off, why not tones made electronically by pushing buttons on a terminal and not by such a primitive form. I wanted an alien prequel and I much preferred spaights' script as a read because of this. but what I took from what ridley said before the film came out was to keep an open mind and that this is the alien/ engineer story but back at the point where humans become directly involved. ridley has often asked the very questions we the fans have asked since alien and im sure by the end of all the movies the big questions will be answered. we needed Prometheus, looking at the bigger picture, I don't think theyd have the same suspense factor if they had just dived straight into an alien film. wev asked who was the SJ in the pilots chair? what happened to him? whats the purpose of the eggs? Prometheus has given us our first taste of these factors

I think the flute (or it's sounds) is a nod to sonic technology. Again, taking a whole bunch of religious and alternative history theories from Earth's cultures and mix them all together in one film. That can only be good, right?

Hicks/Hudson i know what your saying.Early on Prometheus was meant to be a new franchise(Fox's idea)but after the backlash that it wasn't Alien enough plans changed.I also think Blomkamps 5 took a lot of steam away from a true Prometheus sequel causing Ridley change course and make an actual Alien film instead.

I really hope ridley goes more engineers themed in the AC sequel. I want to kmow the connection between them and the xeno, get an in depth look into theyr history and why they decided to wipe us out and I doubt wel get all those answers if any in AC. I did want an alien movie but now we have Prometheus I want another, more engineer themed movie 

 I hope so too.Ridley has a vision for this series and i don't think he'll leave any stone unturned.