"The trick is not minding that it hurts."

[stillsostrange]

I have lost the ability to write coherent essays, so I will break up my thoughts with bullets instead.





* Michael Fassbender. Seriously. So amazing. Even casual readers of this LJ may have picked up on my affection for him, but his performance as David was more than even I expected. And I am completely on David's side.

* I nearly cried when the Space Jockey/Engineer helmet was removed for the first time.** I am deeply invested in this universe.

* This movie is gorgeous. My only gripe about the visuals was Guy Pearce's makeup--I find it amusing that between CG and prosthetics, movies can manage amazing alien landscapes and beautiful monsters, but can't achieve a good human senescence.

* Charlize Theron was robbed. She did well with what she had, but there was a great dynamic between her and David and Weyland that was woefully underutilized. Also, her death was Mad Max levels of stupid.

* Obnoxious boyfriend was obnoxious, and my glee at his demise wasn't worth the suffering.

* Shaw's pregnancy felt a bit wobbly all around. The revelation of her infertility was gracelessly done, timing-wise. If we could have had that slipped in earlier (with less crying), it would have been less ham-fisted. (And if she could have had sex with someone less obnoxious than Charlie, that would have been great too. Alas, plot.) On the one hand, it was interesting to have the first implantation of a human be one that wasn't an act of immediate violence and violation (only second-hand violation). Also, if it were LV 426*, that would mean make Shaw the direct mother of the xenomorphs we all love, and that would be fantastic. But instead the whole thing never came together strongly enough for me, and the medpod surgery--or her amazing recovery afterward--was the one place where I couldn't suspend my disbelief. Also, I assume the gender-setting on the medpod was meant to be a clue about Weyland, but we already knew about him, so that felt pointless.

* I adored the ending. And not just because sailing through space on a Giger Nouveau starship with Michael Fassbender is about the best afterlife I can imagine.



* Do we think altering star charts to cover their tracks is beyond Weyland-Yutani? I'm not quite convinced.

** I would have been happier if humanity's forebears hadn't been so...white.

Comments

[graygirl.livejournal.com]

Very white and super human-looking. Okay...I suppose -we- look like them, rather than the other way around, but I was hoping for more alienness.

I think the chart said it was LV-223 or something...pretty sure it's the same system (ringed planet, three moons)?

I definitely want to see it again, even though parts of it annoyed. I find it odd Shaw didn't tell anyone what happened to her--and that no one asked why she was stapled and covered in blood. Granted, David knew, but...do you think the others all knew, too?

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

They were very pretty, but "white" is not even remotely the human default, and I wish Hollywood would stop pretending that it is.

Yes, it was LV 223.

Since she fought off Ford and...someone else to escape cryostasis, I figured everyone who was in the room when she finds Weyland knew what happened. I'm not sure if Janek knew or not.

[graygirl.livejournal.com]

Also, I love your Shaw icon very much! Did you make it, or find a source for Prometheus icons?

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I made it, and it's free for all. I really need to find/get around to making a good xenomorph icon.

[curgoth]

One of the things about the movie that I have decided to love is the ambiguity; there's a lot that can be read in multiple ways, a lot of story vaguely implied. And picking answers changes the reading of the whole movie. Which lets me happily ignore the stuff that didn't work.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm concocting elaborate schemes involving Weyland-Yutani altering star charts, and the lonely xenomorph rearranging the corpses and egg canisters before the Nostromo shows up. Or maybe Yautja showed up and tidied.

[curgoth]

I've been going through interviews with Damon Lindelof and Ridley Scott, reading their views on what happened, and deciding that, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. In my version, the Romans possibly crucifying an Engineer has nothing to do with why the black goo made monsters. I think Idris Elba is more trustworthy than the director anyway.

[hareguizer.livejournal.com]

It was so very beautiful to see, that I am sad that the ragged tyrant of a plot dominated the actions of so many of the characters and made them act in ways that made little sense. I would love to be pondering whether Shaw's muted emotional reactions in the last reel were the result of shock, transcendence or just underlying psychosis. Instead I am wondering if the script just didn't include that level of detail.

Also, Weyland makeup was a sore disappointment. Could they not find an elderly male actor for the role? Peter O'Toole's still making films... How delicious would that have been?