Ridley Scott's Prometheus - READ AT LEAST A FEW PAGES BEFORE POSTING!

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Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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Sure. Stepping back a bit through, the point of mentioning that LV-426 is tiny and has Earth gravity is to emphasize to the audience that they're on a weird planet, and on a weird planet you're going to find weird things. It still supports the claim that Alien is "soft" scifi because the movie isn't so much about realistic plausible science as it is about humans and how humans deal with danger and the unknown.

Hard scifi is really uncommon come to think of it. Science Fiction by its very definition means "poo poo we made up and dressed to look like technology of the future"

edit: I mean, even 2001 despite having realistic, well-researched science fiction for most of the film also has SPACE GODS and MAGIC PORTALS. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe all scifi is soft scifi.

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at Dec 2, 2011 around 21:59

# ? Dec 2, 2011 21:45

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# ? May 18, 2013 15:26

Circus Pies!: Feb 11, 2011; I thought you were getting me a pie shaped like a clown, instead you mangled my dick!

The planetoid was probably 90% some heavy element that was valuable/useful to the Space Jockey race.

Edit: There may be something to Jace Madan's theory.

Circus Pies! fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 03:04

# ? Dec 3, 2011 02:14

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Online Encyclopedia

Circus Pies! posted:

The planetoid was probably 90% some heavy element that was valuable/useful to the Space Jockey race.

The thing is, for it to be that small but still have .85 gravity, it'd have to be composed entirely of elements that are off the periodic table and can't exist because they'd have to be created artificially (and would have a miniscule half-life). It could potentially be made of a black dwarf, but the universe actually old enough for those to exist yet. It wouldn't be able to have volcanic activity (as we see in the movie). The curvature of the planet would be really apparent with the naked eye.

The easier explanation (and the one later sources adopted) is that Lambert mis-read the number on the screen, and it's actually 12,000km in diameter. That makes it about .85 the size of Earth, which makes the .85 gravity number instantly make sense.

So really no matter how you slice it, either the writers pulled a number out of their rear end because they didn't understand science, or they intentionally picked a small number because "ooooo weird and mysterious!" but it doesn't actually make sense because they didn't understand science. My point is the same.

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 03:09

# ? Dec 3, 2011 03:06

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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"Later sources" are missing the point, if that's what they did. The planet is supposed to be tiny. The planet is supposed to be weird. It's supposed to be mysterious.

It's not that they don't understand science, it's that they intentionally made it something that can't be explained by science. It's a boogie-man planet.

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 03:26

# ? Dec 3, 2011 03:23

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Online Encyclopedia

It's also one throw-away line that's only present in the director's cut, and like I said, it only doesn't make sense if you stop and think about it - 90% of audiences are just going to roll with it. The planet is plenty mysterious without making it literally impossible. I only caught the "error" later because I'm a super-nerd who's watched the movie 4000 times and I caught a discrepancy in the planet's size in the technical manual, and read up on why.

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 03:45

# ? Dec 3, 2011 03:41

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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It's science fiction, get used to it.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 03:43

Circus Pies!: Feb 11, 2011; I thought you were getting me a pie shaped like a clown, instead you mangled my dick!

Xenomrph posted:

The thing is, for it to be that small but still have .85 gravity, it'd have to be composed entirely of elements that are off the periodic table and can't exist because they'd have to be created artificially (and would have a miniscule half-life).

Sounds like something pretty drat valuable to me.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 04:10

Space Jam: Jul 22, 2008; I wish, bro.

Circus Pies! posted:

The planetoid was probably 90% some heavy element that was valuable/useful to the Space Jockey race.

Edit: There may be something to Jace Madan's theory.

That really does look like a space jockey. You can see his knees, some form of genitalia/hole, hip, rib cage and part of his trunk connecting to his chest.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 04:38

Robot_Rumpus: Apr 4, 2004

Mr.Bond posted:

That really does look like a space jockey. You can see his knees, some form of genitalia/hole, hip, rib cage and part of his trunk connecting to his chest.

I think most people would agree.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 06:49

Dolphin: Dec 5, 2008

Xenomrph posted:

It's also one throw-away line that's only present in the director's cut, and like I said, it only doesn't make sense if you stop and think about it - 90% of audiences are just going to roll with it. The planet is plenty mysterious without making it literally impossible.

Maybe the planet is artificial and its creators used degenerate matter in its core to strengthen the planet's gravitational field.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 12:30

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Online Encyclopedia

Dolphin posted:

Maybe the planet is artificial and its creators used degenerate matter in its core to strengthen the planet's gravitational field.

Alternately, perhaps the planet is fairly normal-sized, with gravity to match, and Lambert mis-spoke (and Kane caught it, but no one else noticed or pressed her on it). I mean there's nothing really saying the planet has to be tiny, especially when all other indicators in the movie show that it's not. Why jump through a bunch of logic-hoops and bend over backwards to make it "work" when there's a really easy explanation?

I never got the impression that the planet itself was meant to be weird, mysterious, or abnormal - it's what the characters find there that's important, not the planet itself. James Cameron clearly took that approach for his movie, too - in-dialogue the planet gets called "a rock", with people having lived there for 20 years without any indication that it was in any way abnormal. If it was tiny and with insane density (or in some way artificial) it would have been the scientific find of the century; you'd have scientists from everywhere scouring it from top to bottom, it's not something you just let a bunch of terraformer families sit on and do their thing for like 20 years.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 17:20

NINbuntu 64: Feb 10, 2007

Xenomrph posted:

The thing is, for it to be that small but still have .85 gravity, it'd have to be composed entirely of elements that are off the periodic table and can't exist because they'd have to be created artificially (and would have a miniscule half-life). It could potentially be made of a black dwarf, but the universe actually old enough for those to exist yet. It wouldn't be able to have volcanic activity (as we see in the movie). The curvature of the planet would be really apparent with the naked eye.

The easier explanation (and the one later sources adopted) is that Lambert mis-read the number on the screen, and it's actually 12,000km in diameter. That makes it about .85 the size of Earth, which makes the .85 gravity number instantly make sense.

So really no matter how you slice it, either the writers pulled a number out of their rear end because they didn't understand science, or they intentionally picked a small number because "ooooo weird and mysterious!" but it doesn't actually make sense because they didn't understand science. My point is the same.

This is going to be this thread's "Another Earth orbit problems" thing isn't it?

# ? Dec 3, 2011 18:49

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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The second Death Star is obviously a mistake. I mean, it's literally impossible for something that massive to explode over a planet without wiping out all life below in a rain of flaming wreckage and nuclear winter to follow. The easier explanation is that

Jaws is obviously a mistake. I mean, it's literally impossible for a 25 foot shark to wreck a large fishing boat like that. The easier explanation is that

Jason Vorhees is obviously a mistake. I mean, it's literally impossible for him to walk slowly after a running victim and then somehow show up in front of them. The easier explanation is that

Poltergeist is obviously a mistake. I mean, ghosts are literally impossible. The easier explanation is that

Santa Claus is obviously a mistake. I mean, it's literally impossible for him to visit every child in the whole world in one night. The easier explanation is that

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 19:16

# ? Dec 3, 2011 19:09

echoplex: Mar 5, 2008; Stainless Style

I always assumed it was an acting flub that no-one noticed or felt the need to change.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 19:16

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Online Encyclopedia

Steve Yun posted:

The second Death Star is obviously a mistake. I mean, it's literally impossible for something that massive to explode over a planet without wiping out all life below in a rain of flaming wreckage and nuclear winter to follow. The easier explanation is that

Jaws is obviously a mistake. I mean, it's literally impossible for a 25 foot shark to wreck a large fishing boat like that. The easier explanation is that

Jason Vorhees is obviously a mistake. I mean, it's literally impossible for him to walk slowly after a running victim and then somehow show up in front of them. The easier explanation is that

Poltergeist is obviously a mistake. I mean, ghosts are literally impossible. The easier explanation is that

Santa Claus is obviously a mistake. I mean, it's literally impossible for him to visit every child in the whole world in one night. The easier explanation is that

So when deciding between "the planet is tiny and presents a billion problems, and the idea of the planet being tiny isn't supported by anything else in the movie or in the subsequent sequel, and the notion that the planet is tiny is only brought up in 1 throw-away line only present in a deleted scene" and "sloppy 'scientific' writing in a movie that's chock-full of it, easily addressed by the idea that the character mis-spoke", you went with the former over the latter? Oh okay.

echoplex posted:

I always assumed it was an acting flub that no-one noticed or felt the need to change.

Bingo, that's the right idea. If it was somehow intentional to make the planet weird and mysterious, the characters never bring up how or why it makes the planet weird and mysterious, nor does anything about the planet itself lend anything to that conclusion. The planet isn't important, and like I said, the sequel continues that trend pretty explicitly.
If the actual authorial intent behind the dialogue was to make the planet impossibly tiny in order to make it weird, you'd think the characters would have spent more than 1 line talking about why that makes it weird and impossible. How many people in this thread even realized the "1200km" number was wacky and made no sense before I brought it to their attention and then explained why it didn't make sense? Like I said before, on its face the line doesn't seem odd until you stop and actually think about what it means. Movies often have characters asking questions for the audience's benefit, so that the audience understands when something isn't right or how something works or whatever. Evidently I guess the writers thought that wasn't necessary in this instance.

No I'm pretty sure it was just sloppy writing, one way or another.

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 19:53

# ? Dec 3, 2011 19:50

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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It wasn't sloppy. Immediately after Lambert says it, Kane exclaims that it's tiny. When Lambert says it has .85 earth gravity, the crew look surprised. Everything about it was deliberate and they made it sufficiently clear that it was weird.

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 21:06

# ? Dec 3, 2011 20:46

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Online Encyclopedia

Steve Yun posted:

Immediately after Lambert says it, Kane exclaims that it's tiny.

That by itself doesn't make the planet weird. It's the size combined with the gravity that would make it weird, and the dialogue never brings up why that is.

Steve Yun posted:

When Lambert says it has .85 earth gravity, the crew look surprised.

No they don't, in fact you can't see anyone's reaction since they're all in the background. The only indication you get of anything is Ash's line that they can walk on it, and he doesn't seem terribly surprised that you could walk normally on something that small.

Steve Yun posted:

Everything about it was deliberate and they made it sufficiently clear that it was weird.

"Deliberate" enough that they left the scene on the cutting-room floor, and then made no other indications in the rest of the movie (or its sequel) that the planet was in any way abnormal.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 21:12

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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Xenomrph posted:

That by itself doesn't make the planet weird. It's the size combined with the gravity that would make it weird, and the dialogue never brings up why that is.

To say that it's tiny, and then immediately follow that it has almost Earth gravity is sufficient to understand that the writer intended for the planet to be weird. If the 1200km diameter was accidentally leaving a 0 out of 12000km, the line about it being tiny wouldn't have been there.

quote:

No they don't, in fact you can't see anyone's reaction since they're all in the background. The only indication you get of anything is Ash's line that they can walk on it, and he doesn't seem terribly surprised that you could walk normally on something that small.

Ok, you're right there. But then again, Ash doesn't seem terribly surprised by anything in the film for obvious reasons.

quote:

"Deliberate" enough that they left the scene on the cutting-room floor, and then made no other indications in the rest of the movie (or its sequel) that the planet was in any way abnormal.

I trust you realize that being edited out has absolutely zero bearing on whether something was deliberate or not?

I trust you realize that what subsequent sequels say also has absolutely zero bearing on whether something was deliberate or not as well? Humans being turned into cocoons was also changed in later film continuity, but that had zero relevance as to whether or not that was deliberate.

edit: Look, if you're going to argue that it's bad screenwriting that they didn't emphasize it enough, then I'll shrug my shoulders and say "maybe" but one thing it's not is a mistake, which was your original argument.

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 21:34

# ? Dec 3, 2011 21:27

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Online Encyclopedia

quote:

To say that it's tiny, and then immediately follow that it has almost Earth gravity is sufficiently making the point that it's weird, assuming that you're actually listening to the dialogue.

Not really, because like I said 90% of people who have seen the scene don't realize it's weird until it's explained to them just how impossible it is.

quote:

I trust you realize that being edited out has absolutely zero bearing on whether something was deliberate or not?

I trust you realize that what subsequent sequels say also has absolutely zero bearing on whether something was deliberate or not as well? Humans being turned into cocoons was also changed in later film continuity, but that had zero relevance as to whether or not that was deliberate.

The point is that nothing else in the movie indicates that the planet is abnormal, and the one thing that did show it (be it through sloppy writing or whatever) got deleted. If anything that seems like they went out of their way to make the planet not seem abnormal. And then the sequel followed that trend by going out of its way to make the planet seem commonplace enough that families had lived there for 20 years without a care in the world.

quote:

edit: Look, if you're going to argue that it's bad screenwriting that they didn't emphasize it enough, then I'll shrug my shoulders and say "maybe" but one thing it's not is a mistake, which was your original argument.

No, my original point was that it was sloppy science, in order to show that the movie isn't "hard" sci-fi.

Xenomrph fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 21:35

# ? Dec 3, 2011 21:33

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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Xenomrph posted:

The point is that nothing else in the movie indicates that the planet is abnormal, and the one thing that did show it (be it through sloppy writing or whatever) got deleted. If anything that seems like they went out of their way to make the planet not seem abnormal. And then the sequel followed that trend by going out of its way to make the planet seem commonplace enough that families had lived there for 20 years without a care in the world.

Like I said, what subsequent sequels do has nothing to do with intent of the film in question.

To get back to your earlier point:

quote:

Then again 'Alien' suffers from a lot of "sci-fi" writing written by people who didn't actually know what they were talking about

(...)

One of the really bad examples is the size of the planet in 'Alien' - in the script and the director's cut it's listed as 1200km in diameter. Now as an audience member you don't give that any thought - 1200km is pretty big, right? The characters land on it, poo poo happens, movie continues.

But if you stop and think about that number and get some perspective on it, 1200km is less than half the size of Pluto (which is smaller than Earth's moon). The ship wouldn't have been able to land on it, let alone have characters walk on it. It wouldn't be able to hold an atmosphere.

But it doesn't matter because the story isn't about the scientific accuracy of the planet's size or anything like that. It's about what the characters bring back from that planet, and how they react to the crazy poo poo it does (no matter how scientifically impossible it might be).

On one hand you're saying that the movie's scientific accuracy doesn't matter, but then you point out an example of what you think is a mistake and then talk about it as an example of people not knowing what they're talking about.

My point is it wasn't a flub, it was intentionally not supposed to make sense.

quote:

No, my original point was that it was sloppy science, in order to show that the movie isn't "hard" sci-fi.

My point is that it's not sloppy science, it's intentional in the same way Monoliths and Space Gods are not "sloppy science."

Stuff like M&M's moving in orbits around other M&M's in zero gravity like in Mission To Mars, that's sloppy science.

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 21:48

# ? Dec 3, 2011 21:44

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Online Encyclopedia

I guess, I don't really see how any of it changes the point that Ridley Scott has never made a "hard" sci-fi movie, and I'd be surprised if he started with Prometheus.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 21:47

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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I can agree with that.

edit: To bring up a question I made earlier again, has anyone really made a "hard" scifi movie? All of them are filled with some fantasy, aren't they?

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at Dec 3, 2011 around 21:59

# ? Dec 3, 2011 21:49

Theshby: Feb 24, 2007; **********

The only hard sci-fi is a valid theory before it has been experimentally confirmed. You don't even know that it was hard sci-fi until after the fact.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 22:04

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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Well, have there been scifi movies where everything is based on known science, but all the cool spaceships and stuff in the movie haven't been made yet for other reasons (mostly economics)?

# ? Dec 3, 2011 22:12

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Online Encyclopedia

Theshby posted:

The only hard sci-fi is a valid theory before it has been experimentally confirmed. You don't even know that it was hard sci-fi until after the fact.

Yeah, for the most part the accepted definition of "hard" sci-fi is science fiction that doesn't outright contradict presently-known laws of science, and was written with that scientific accuracy in mind. It could even get proven "false" later, but that doesn't change that at the time it was written it was hard sci-fi.

The more I think about those space-jumpsuits in the Prometheus stills, the more I feel like I've seen them before and I just can't place it. I think the thing that grates on me the most is that it just looks really disconnected from the design we'd seen in 'Alien', similar in a sense to the disconnect between the visual aesthetics of the ships in the original Star Wars trilogy compared to the prequels.

It's really bugging me that I can't place where I've seen those sorts of space-suits before, though.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 22:36

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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Lost in Space?

http://ticketstubrefund.files.wordp...in-space-11.jpg

# ? Dec 3, 2011 22:50

Mononymous: Mar 28, 2009

Jace Madan posted:

This one SPOILER:http://www.avpgalaxy.net/wordpress/...12/PROM-001.jpgSPOILER

It's on the lower right-hand corner. It appears to be what looks like a creature that is lying down with the face away from us, and the chest and legs towards us. Or it may be part of the scenery and I'm just seeing things.

It not only looks like a body in the foreground, but aren't they examining the head to go with it too? It seems to have a face.

# ? Dec 3, 2011 23:16

Robot_Rumpus: Apr 4, 2004

I really hope this movie doesn't have a comedic sidekick role. I want them to play this pretty dead serious and it would really depress me if they don't.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 17:12

echoplex: Mar 5, 2008; Stainless Style

Robot_Rumpus posted:

I really hope this movie doesn't have a comedic sidekick role. I want them to play this pretty dead serious and it would really depress me if they don't.

Uh?

# ? Dec 6, 2011 17:23

Robot_Rumpus: Apr 4, 2004

echoplex posted:

Uh?

If they are going for PG13 I can see there being a ridiculous comedic sidekick character that has witty one liners for what's happening. I'd rather they play it dead serious the whole way through.

Or we could talk about hard vs soft science fiction some more I guess.

Robot_Rumpus fucked around with this message at Dec 6, 2011 around 17:30

# ? Dec 6, 2011 17:28

Darko: Dec 23, 2004; Distrusting me was the wisest thing you've done.

Has there ever been a Ridley Scott movie with a comic sidekick?

# ? Dec 6, 2011 17:30

Le Woad: Dec 2, 2004; We Do Not Sow

echoplex posted:

Uh?

Hey a Ruby Rhod crossover works for me.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 17:35

echoplex: Mar 5, 2008; Stainless Style

Robot_Rumpus posted:

If they are going for PG13 I can see there being a ridiculous comedic sidekick character that has witty one liners for what's happening. I'd rather they play it dead serious the whole way through.

Or we could talk about hard vs soft science fiction some more I guess.

Context, my friend. That wouldn't be Scott's style at all.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 17:36

Cacator: Aug 6, 2005; You're quite good at turning me on.

Darko posted:

Has there ever been a Ridley Scott movie with a comic sidekick?

Well Gaff did make an origami man with an enlarged penis, that was... amusing? And remember when Imad ad-Din slipped on the banana peel in Kingdom of Heaven? Ho boy.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 17:54

Robot_Rumpus: Apr 4, 2004

echoplex posted:

Context, my friend. That wouldn't be Scott's style at all.

I'm thinking of the studio who dumped 150 million+ of its own money into the movie having some say on what goes into their property. I could see see them wanting it to be as commercially appealing as possible.

Scott is probably an important enough director to fight back but who knows. Although really, I have no proof whatsoever of this happening.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 18:37

Ofc. Sex Robot BPD: Aug 30, 2008

Cacator posted:

Well Gaff did make an origami man with an enlarged penis, that was... amusing?

You're right. Edward James Olmos should be in this movie.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 18:40

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I
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Robot_Rumpus posted:

I'm thinking of the studio who dumped 150 million+ of its own money into the movie having some say on what goes into their property. I could see see them wanting it to be as commercially appealing as possible.

If they didn't force Ridley Scott to put a funny sidekick in the first movie, they're not going to force him to put one in now.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 18:47

foodfight: Feb 10, 2009

Steve Yun posted:

If they didn't force Ridley Scott to put a funny sidekick in the first movie, they're not going to force him to put one in now.

Does anyone know what the rating is on this yet? I know the expensive price tag mixed with the R rating is what killed At the Mountains of Madness.

e: I should read the OP.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 18:52

feedmyleg: Dec 25, 2004; EVERY FAIRY TALE NEEDS ITS HERO.

Robot_Rumpus posted:

Scott is probably an important enough director to fight back but who knows.

We do. We know.

There won't be a wacky comic sidekick. Use your head, use historical context. This movie is in a series of very serious, dark films by a big-budget prestige director returning to the franchise he made famous, a franchise with no history of comic sidekicks. When the closest you get is Paul Reiser as Burke, there's just no way.

feedmyleg fucked around with this message at Dec 6, 2011 around 19:05

# ? Dec 6, 2011 18:57

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# ? May 18, 2013 15:26

Cacator: Aug 6, 2005; You're quite good at turning me on.

feedmyleg posted:

When the closest you get is Paul Reiser as Burke, there's just no way.

Bill Paxton.

# ? Dec 6, 2011 19:12

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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Ridley Scott's Prometheus - READ AT LEAST A FEW PAGES BEFORE POSTING!