Thread: I have a feeling this movie will be solid win!

  1. #1
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    I have a feeling this movie will be solid win!

    Prometheus Trailer (Full Version) - IMDb

    To see Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger's hand in this, win. Alien is in my book as the #1 horror movie ever. Now they're back at it.
    Last edited by Cynic; 03-23-2012 at 01:03 AM.

  2. #2
    &TH of undefined behavior Fordy's Avatar
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    ...and Aliens is one of the best action films.

    I've read about this being on the way for a while...looking forward to it

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    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fordy View Post
    ...and Aliens is one of the best action films.
    Also, both great sci-fi films . I must have watched them a dozen times each as a teenager.

    Ridley Scott is hit and miss as a director tho. Gladiator was was about as engaging as wallpaper paste. Giger is neat, but his style has been copied so much since then it just looks like everything else, and obviously he has not developed at all in decades. Charlize Theron is fun to watch, but she's no Sigourney Weaver.

    The trailer looks a lot like Alien. Evidently, a prequel. I guess it is the same planet, and we learn how "the corporation" first heard about it.

    In fact, pretty sure the wrecked ship* that the Nostromo (named after a great Joseph Conrad novel) went to investigate was the Prometheus. Sort of gives away the ending, I guess.

    * well, not that sure. According to google no one else has asserted that, lol. Maybe that ship wasn't referred to by name. [later... nope, totally wrong. The wrecked ship was alien. But hmmm...]
    Last edited by MK27; 03-23-2012 at 09:26 AM.
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    &TH of undefined behavior Fordy's Avatar
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    >>In fact, pretty sure the wrecked ship* that the Nostromo (named after a great Joseph Conrad novel) went to investigate was the Prometheus. Sort of gives away the ending, I guess.

    According to Wiki, the "Sulaco" (ship from Aliens) had its name from the same book. IIRC the other ship was alien in origin (hence the huge alien corpse found in the ship)

    >>Ridley Scott is hit and miss as a director tho

    American Gangster, Blade Runner, Duelists, Black Hawk Down...he does put out some good stuff, but I admit I was disappointed with Robin Hood and some others.

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    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fordy View Post
    According to Wiki, the "Sulaco" (ship from Aliens) had its name from the same book.
    Yep (Sulaco was the mothership/freighter, Nostromo was the planetary dropship). I think I read the book because of a quote that appeared during the opening of the C64 game, Alien:

    Lemon - Commodore 64, C64 Games, Reviews & Music!

    Wowee, a screenshot! "We live as we dream: Alone" -- Joseph Conrad. I haven't changed much, sigh.

    Nostromo is the main character, Sulaco is the setting. I remember it as a kind of tragic, haunting story about corruption, hubris, and miscommunication in an exotic Colonial frontier place where bad things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. Is that an "existential" universe ?

    Conrad was a professional seafarer in real life.

    IIRC the other ship was alien in origin (hence the huge alien corpse found in the ship)
    I was thinking they had taken those on as cargo, but you're right, such is not the case.

    American Gangster, Blade Runner, Duelists, Black Hawk Down...he does put out some good stuff, but I admit I was disappointed with Robin Hood and some others.
    Can't remember what I thot of Black Hawk Down. Love Blade Runner, enjoyed American Gangster. I notice he directed Legend too, which I really liked when it came out (nb, I was ~12), maybe Mia Sara is partially to blame.

    IMO Scott seems like a kind of uncritical director who does a decent job with a big budget; he doesn't write anything himself, and I assume just accepts oodles of cash when offered ("Ah, the story's passable, what the heck...").
    Last edited by MK27; 03-23-2012 at 12:34 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cynic View Post
    !&@*#& I thought this was going to be a movie about the Greek Titan. Now my appetite for the sci-fi movie has gone. I'll probably watch it anyway, and enjoy 2 hours of escape from real life. I'm usually very entertained by Ridley Scott's movies even if they're not the greatest piece of cinema ever (Aliens may have been though).

    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    In fact, pretty sure the wrecked ship* that the Nostromo (named after a great Joseph Conrad novel) went to investigate was the Prometheus. Sort of gives away the ending, I guess.
    A fellow Conrad fan? I thought I was the only one.

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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    Ridley Scott is hit and miss as a director tho.
    I looked over a list of his work and I have to agree. Some of his stuff I haven't even heard of before.

    Gladiator was was about as engaging as wallpaper paste. Giger is neat, but his style has been copied so much since then it just looks like everything else, and obviously he has not developed at all in decades. Charlize Theron is fun to watch, but she's no Sigourney Weaver.

    The trailer looks a lot like Alien. Evidently, a prequel. I guess it is the same planet, and we learn how "the corporation" first heard about it.
    Perhaps, but Scott is adamant that he doesn't want to do another "Alien" movie as the fear factor is gone. That said, there may be some references. Still, looking forward to another good sci-fi. I haven't seen one that didn't make me roll my eyes in decades.
    Last edited by Cynic; 03-23-2012 at 01:01 PM.

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    Master Apprentice phantomotap's Avatar
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    I'm looking forward to Prometheus; it looks fun.

    Everybody has their misses:Jack.

    Soma

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    Looking forward to this movie. Though I didn't know about the change til a few months back. Was supposed to be a sequel, then a prequel, then they said it was going to be a separate movie but set in the Alien universe. Still looking good either way they had taken it.

    Though watching the full trailer makes it look like a prequel again as it seems like the ship is what is discovered in the first Alien movie.

    To see Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger's hand in this, win.
    Yeah, but I wish they would have got Giger to pen new creations for this instead of using ideas from the first Alien movie.
    Last edited by BHXSpecter; 03-23-2012 at 06:06 PM.

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    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cynic View Post
    Still, looking forward to another good sci-fi. I haven't seen one that didn't make me roll my eyes in decades.
    Oh bah. You've missed out:

    2006 The Fountain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The greatest climax of any movie ever

    2002 Solaris (2002 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Russian original, made about the same time as 2001, is f'ing awesome but this one is almost as much fun, maybe easier to watch (it's in English and only a few hours, lol), with a different ending. See also His Master's Voice (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    2009 Moon (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Anyone who didn't like this is a FOOL. Don't read the plot synopsis, just watch it.

    2001 K-PAX (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Someone here led me to this, thx.

    Hmmm, plus:

    2004 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Riddick Much better than "Pitch Black", to which it is a sequel.

    2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlef...rth_%28film%29 Quirky take on the banality of evil with John Travolta! Apparently everyone hated this, go figure -- I say they just did not get it.

    2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scann...kly_%28film%29 This and The Fountain were both movies I finished thinking: maybe that was the best movie I ever saw.

    2002 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_%28film%29 I hope before I die someone makes a few dozen more Philip K. Dick derived films.

    And of course,

    2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29 If you liked Aliens but not Avatar, something really wrong happened in your life, lol.
    Last edited by MK27; 03-23-2012 at 08:19 PM.
    C programming resources:
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    Current ISO draft standard
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    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    Oh bah. You've missed out:

    2006 The Fountain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The greatest climax of any movie ever
    I'm not sure what I would categorize The Fountain as, but it seemed hardly a sci-fi. It is an extraordinary movie and I found myself actually appreciating Jackman's ability to pull off a serious role, but it's so far out there, I'm not sure how I would qualify it.

    2002 Solaris (2002 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Russian original, made about the same time as 2001, is f'ing awesome but this one is almost as much fun, maybe easier to watch (it's in English and only a few hours, lol), with a different ending. See also His Master's Voice (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Saw parts of Solaris, not enough to hold my attention though.

    2004 The Chronicles of Riddick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Much better than "Pitch Black", to which it is a sequel.
    That is one of the eye rollers I'm referring to. I found it so hokey and just...just...I'm speechless as to what I say about it, but it certainly didn't impress me.

  12. #12
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cynic View Post
    I'm not sure what I would categorize The Fountain as, but it seemed hardly a sci-fi.
    I just categorize anything in which the future, and advanced technology, play a significant role, as sci-fi. This way I can indiscriminately include a lot of mindless drivel, and some of the greatest works of fiction of all time . In the The Fountain, technology/the future is maybe not as significant as the unconventional nature of the narrative, and forces best understood as "supernatural". But:

    a) The second word in science fiction is fiction, which may mean that it is fiction about science. Or/also: it is fantastic, potentially unconventional fiction from a scientific materialist perspective, which is not to say that science solves all the problems and answers all the questions. I think traditionally, a lot of scientists don't like sci-fi, and maybe they shouldn't, lol, if they are looking for something that affirms the value of logical positivism. Note that the main character in The Fountain is a scientist, but science does not provide a solution to his problems. Nature, which it is the purpose of science to explore, is a dark and unfriendly thing in the film, it resists explication, it is heartless and uncaring -- inhuman. In The Fountain, science is to nature what water is to the proverbial duck's back. This impenetrability of nature might be the root of our fantasies about the supernatural (eg, religion), another obvious theme.

    b) High technology/the future of civilization is not necessarily the most important element in a lot of sci-fi anyway, it's just a key element. Also: the conflation of technology and the supernatural (which The Fountain does this) is a sci-fi tradition, I think.

    A predominant theme in my favourite sci-fi (including The Fountain) is identity, which lends itself well to exploration using technology as a medium; akin to how Greek myths examine identity using the medium of the supernatural. Another characteristic is satire (or dark comedy), which also works well in the context of a slightly altered reality (where certain things can be exaggerated -- and again, myths are often dark humour or satire). Kafka has a sort of sci-fi feel to me, but I think most people would refer to this as speculative fiction.

    The thing about "speculative fiction" is that it has been used a lot to market sci-fi to a non sci-fi audience, so I like to just "keep it real" and remind people that _______ is obviously derived from the sci-fi tradition. Eg, my sister (who has kids) just gave me The Hunger Games to read (engaging, very easy to read, lots of clever ideas), and that is inarguably a work of Science Fiction -- but I notice the marketing has been careful to avoid calling it this.

    Science Fiction is the mythology of our age . I'd call The Fountain a sort of post modern sci-fi myth in the sense that it explores being a sci-fi myth self-reflexively (there is a strong subtext/undercurrent reflecting upon the nature of narrative and other creations of the mind).

    So as a member of the sci-fi hip-hop generation, lol, I'm planting a sci-fi flag in The Fountain. Darren Aronofsky, the creator, referred to it that way too. Identity is a big theme, it's satirical to the point of sarcasm (altho, you might be able to watch it and ignore that), and technology is one of the mediums used to further the plot. You could call it other things too I guess -- labels are just labels -- but if it ain't sci-fi, it ain't anything.

    Saw parts of Solaris, not enough to hold my attention though.
    Ch. Now that is a great movie that revolves around the concept of identity using the conflation of technology and "the supernatural" in a classic sci-fi way. Note that "the planet" in Solaris is not actually a piece of technology, but it's not supernatural either. It just seems that way; science/technology provide a perspective on what "nature" is, such that the "super" can be included. Alien life forms (such as the one in Solaris, or the one in Alien) are an example of the conflation of the "super"natural and the technological. Sometimes, life is actually engineered. Again, all this is a great way to explore identity, intelligent alien life being a mirror; very profoundly (almost: literally) in Solaris.

    J.J. Abram's awesome Battlestar series was very similar in this sense. I watched in en masse on DVD, wow.

    The Fountain kind of (satirically) pulls the rug on the supernatural. There's lots of explicitly religious imagery, but no God, making the "supernatural" meaningless (in the same sense that a supernova is "meaningless"). There are no aliens, so all you are left with is the human and a strange taste in your mouth, lol.

    [Chronicle of Riddick]
    That is one of the eye rollers I'm referring to. I found it so hokey and just...just...I'm speechless as to what I say about it, but it certainly didn't impress me.
    Well -- I find all fiction more and less "hokey". Try and name some that isn't I think this is related to the "suspension of disbelief". Life in the public sphere is also hokey, but I think that is because life in the public sphere is more or less one fiction following from another.

    I enjoyed Riddick a lot because I thot it had a strong plot, good pacing, action, etc, with an interesting outsider hero, and the storyline was mythic in proportion. One of those stories about some nobody who comes out of an unlikely nowhere and saves the planet, to a certain extent against his better judgement, kind of thing. Like the world is lucky to have this guy around, but he isn't so obviously happy about being here. I can't deny that is hokey, but Aliens is hokey as all hell, and I loved that. Aliens is a lot (very) dark comedy. Also, Sigourey Weaver's character is a lot like Riddick's. Watching Riddick I felt "totally transported" like I did as a kid watching various fantasy/sci-fi films, and I don't get that very much.

    I was then all excited about seeing Pitch Black, but that turned out to be real bland.
    Last edited by MK27; 03-24-2012 at 09:45 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    A predominant theme in my favourite sci-fi (including The Fountain) is identity, which lends itself well to exploration using technology as a medium; akin to how Greek myths examine identity using the medium of the supernatural. Another characteristic is satire (or dark comedy), which also works well in the context of a slightly altered reality (where certain things can be exaggerated -- and again, myths are often dark humour or satire). Kafka has a sort of sci-fi feel to me, but I think most people would refer to this as speculative fiction.
    The teacher of a sci-fi lit class I had years ago said that one of the predominant elements of theme for sci-fi is what it means to be human. I remember that more so than any other part of the class.

    I suppose The Fountain could be sci-fi for this reason. However, I do kind of grow tired typing movies, even though in my first post I typed Alien as a horror movie above being a sci-fi. Still, I think The Fountain was more something else than it was sci-fi. Perhaps more drama, maybe more love story. These came across as more predominant than anything of science.

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    Lastly, for Alien, I am a huge fan of good horror and sci-fi. Note, good horror. Alien and Aliens had that persistent tension that good horror movies should have, punctuated by a sudden shock. For me, horror and sci-fi go hand in hand because we know our world, but what is out there is still very much a mystery.

    you might have forgot one movie from your list: Event Horizon.

  15. #15
    &TH of undefined behavior Fordy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cynic View Post
    you might have forgot one movie from your list: Event Horizon.
    Liberate tutemae ex inferis!

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