I don't buy this theory. Simply because they didn't need to be stupid and incompetent. It doesn't detract from the film at all if they were smart and professional, yet still got killed by the freaky alien stuff - in fact, it would make the freaky alien stuff even scarier and more effective, in that even smart people cannot deal with it.

If the only way to make the villain in your movie scary is to make the victims stupid, your movie got problems.

Oh well, I've gotten past this issue.
If you could confirm as koolspyda has said about the Mercenary 1, Mercenary 2, etc. instead of Scientist 1, Scientist 2, etc. in the credits (I couldn't watch finish the credit roll); for me, I'll just think of them as incompetent mercenaries for hire, and not smart crews. And the stupid lost geologist Fifield himself said that he's in it for the money, then I'll just accept that they wanted Prometheus to be a homage to the 'trucker' crews of Alien (1979), just mostly meats ... that's what I guess most intelligent viewers have problem with the movie, most couldn't identify / relate to them and thus couldn't care less who died. Maybe that's the problem with the characterization or maybe it's intentional .... I'll give the experienced director, producers and writers the benefit of a doubt and go with the latter.

now there's a problem, the original Alien trucker crew were meant to be 'meats' but the characters were so well made and convincing that we actually cared about what happens to them, they were 'truckers' and were NOT meant to be intelligent, and we all knew they are going to die. In this movie, these 'doctors' even if they are mercs, they are freaking DOCTORS for fxcks sake....if our future's doctors are like them (stupid fxckers) then it's worst than having a meteor crashing down to earth killing everybody. plus in this movie we don't really care what happens to ALL of the characters, even with the main ones. This can all be blamed for whoever wrote the script and story (even a 10 year old can do better). The directing however is very very good, as well as the camera work. This is one of those movies that combined the very best and very worst of movie making. It's one of the most beautifully made movie this year yet it's the worst on everything.

hahahaha...
relax guys...
any film/movie is just an EVENT TO MAKE BELIEVE
some will believe it some don't..
and clearly it's science FICTION

and after seing all the comment in this forum and all over the internet...
i think the movies really DID GOOD JOB
their marketing strategy is GOOD...it leaves more question than answer..
so "some" people will still looking foward for next sequal in the franchise

Sounds like a whole lot of BS excuses for a bunch of stupid characters. If you like the movie that much, just embrace the utter stupidity of the crew instead of being apologetic.

The crew in Alien was not stupid. Tell me one instance where they were stupid? The best you will be able to come up with is when Kane didn't run away when the egg opened up, and even that wasn't really stupid. And hey at least he didn't run up to the egg, pet it and stick his head in.

but that's the brilliant part!

in other films, we rely on the smart doctors/scientists to explain things as we go along. take ANY of emerich's disaster films. there's always a brilliant scientist that survives till the end. and u KNOW that he/she'll survive at least until after they delivered the 'revelation speech'.

but not here. those whom u would expect to explain the story got killed earlier on. and then we're left with people who are only able to produce conflicting assumptions at best. i thought this was subtly written, but when u look at it, it seems deliberate!

I wasn't around when Alien came out, but from what I've read no one knew Ripley was going to be the main character and the sole survivor. Most people thought Dallas was going to be the one. No one expected Kane to die first. No one expected Ash to be THAT. Prometheus was pretty damn predictable compared to that. Who in the theater didn't know Fifield and Milburn were dead for sure when they went to pet the snake?

You know the ship is loaded with idiots when ONE idiot, who never bothered to turn around to check on the incoming impact and navigate the running course to increase the possibilities of survival, says “For those of you whom I hired PERSONALLY, it is nice to see you” in her opening speech before the mission briefing.

Birds of the same feather flock together?

aww come on, alien was 33 years ago, the element of surprise is long gone, (who was the one to be 'killed', or meat for the villian, etc) much has changed in the way viewers (general) expectations over the years (i guess).

This post has been edited by koolspyda: Jun 29 2012, 12:35 AM

LOL, i totally get your joke.....

the problem with the 'running away from giant horse shoe spaceship' is when u analyze that moment on a first person point of view, you will know why she don't run in a zig zag kinda way to avoid getting crushed. Because that spaceship is so huge, u can't really see where it's going when u r running away from it, adrenaline pumping furiously, flames and debris are falling everywhere, u will understand why she got crushed, it's not because she is stupid, it just means that she is HUMAN (if she's a droid then she won't be killed)

that's the sad part, finding out that she is indeed a human, and with poor survival skills.

i sorta wished she's a droid. i mean why would weyland create a MALE droid? and later, he would design a droid in his image (bishop). man, this guy have serious god-complex issues.

But if you're a virgin to the Alien movies, and had no prior knowledge of the movies (including how legendary Ripley has become), I think it would be still pretty unpredictable as to who gets killed and who survives.

And to be far, that's a comment that is also applicable to Prometheus- if you hadn't seen the trailers and read interviews (pretty much a given in the internet age), you wouldn't be able to guess who dies at the start.

But the difference between the two is, in Prometheus you have characters being really stupid before they die, and in those moments of stupidity the audience knows instantly they are goners. In Alien, some of the deaths are not entirely unexpected, you know in the quiet moments that the alien is going to rip into someone (Dallas looking nervous and lost in the ducts, Brett looking for the cat, the shadow of the alien looking over Parker and Lambert), but none of those deaths were results of acts of stupidity.

In short, when someone dies in Alien, you go "Shit, he's going to die."

When someone dies in Prometheus, you go "Haha, he's going to die."

Sometimes in Prometheus, you also go "Aiyo you dumbass, faster die."

Bishop, the next CEO of weyland-yutani (in aliens) made the next droid an image of himself.

While some may argue the idioticty of vickers not running zig zag as to avoid the crescent falling spaceship, I dunno man, Ridley wanted her to die, I guess, or at least we think she died being crushed. Who would know where falling derbies/giant spaceship would land in a state of panic.

I dunno man some guys are meat, some guys are to die

This post has been edited by koolspyda: Jun 29 2012, 05:27 PM

exactly my point we just DON'T CARE about those dumbasses in Prometheus

Exactly,for the first two deaths, I really thought of that really....

"Just die and move along please....." while watching the spectacles dude trying to play with the mutated worm creature

Good read from all you guys. Really enjoyed your thoughts on this movie despite its almost running out of shows in the cinemas. I do agree on the anticipation of death part. Where in the old films, you hold on to your seats knowing the next victim is going to die. These days, its just "just die and get on with it lah". Yes, I never knew Ripley was going to be the hero in Alien. The outcome of that was totally what blew my mind. I just fall for movies where you have the unexpected character became the hero.

It'll be really kick everyone in the nuts if in the next Alien movie...

... nobody dies.

Not even the Aliens.

when i first saw alien (VHS), i never knew who survived coz my dad always stopped the movie when it gets to the ripley stripping off. it took me a while to eventually managed to see the ending, and by the time i got to it, i went "laaa itu aje?" lol.

yeah, it totally screwed the whole effect to me .

i think no one at the time or in their first time viewing will think it's that girl who are going to kick the Alien's arse. The best scene of all is after the ship self destruct and we all thought "ah, at last, ending..." but suddenly u got the shock of your life when the Alien appeared from it's hiding place inside the escape ship and every scene from then on is almost slow motion, oh the TENSION! now this is how u make a movie a legend. And when I watched it for the first time, I was 5 and at midnight, at home, alone with all the lights switched off and in a HUGE lounge, I was genuinely terrified. From that day onwards, no movie can scare me anymore! I can totally understand in 1979 at the launch of the movie, some ppl actually can't finish it and needed to watch it 3 times to finish the entire movie, it is just horrifying. Laugh all u want because that guy in the rubber costume scared more ppl in that few weeks than all the horror movies with 'special effects' added together in this 10 years.

This post has been edited by stormlcc: Jul 5 2012, 10:36 AM