Poor Dialogue and Acting? No Way!

Some of them know each other already, and the biologist tries to get to know the scottish guy, in what seems to be poor dialogue and poor camera angles. The dialouge is rubbish. They overdo the whole we came from ancient space engineers dialogue as if it hasn't been done to death in earlier scenes, (never mind the trailers. ) And then the same annoying biologist gets killed stupidly by going to pet a nasty looking creature. Even on earth, the first time you encounter anything that you've not dealt with before, you play it safe, simply to avoid losing a finger, but not this genius. The best bit of acting in it is the geologist who says something like "I do rocks, not giant aliens with no heads, I'm away back to the ship" Compare Shaw's weepy "We got it wrong, we got it SO wrong" with Ripleys rant in the WY board room. Okay, Shaw's not Ripley, but she's not very impressive either. After having her boyfriend turned into a walking alien host, and then go up in flames she should have a bit more anger to let out really, rather than a weepy "we were wrong". "Wrong" is not the thing to be focussing on. "Horrible, Horrible, killing creatures, don't go f*cking near them" is a bit more credible imho.

I actually think most of the acting was excellent. However, the script didn't give the characters enough space to show their personalities and draw me in. Compare this to Aliens: in both aliens and prometheus we are presented with characters who we know nothing about until they awake from hyper sleep. The difference is that aliens showed us more of the characters (admittedly not a lot more, but enough to give the characters a realism and charm that is lacking in Prometheus - think of Hicks here). The best example is Fifield and Milburn. Many of us thought they would be two characters in the mould of Parker and Brett but the only interaction they have is Fifield telling Milburn to f**k off (I'm paraphrasing) and then the two of them wandering about the pyramid. They are completely hollow and 2 dimensional (so much for ground breaking 3D Ridley) and I didn't give a toss when they went to the big engineer in the sky. I could go on ( Did you really care when Holloway died?) but I will end up writing a novella.

Hadley's Hope, sorry to be a pedant, but there is no Scottish guy. I think you are referring to Fifield who is English. He is the same guy who says he loves rocks and is off back to the ship. The only Scottish person is the woman who says 'what is that' in the trailers and she is the worst actor in the film. Every line she delivers seems like she is reading it for the first time. That is the only case of poor acting I would pick out.

The acting,editing and dialogue was appalling... yes way.

@Corporalhiccups, you're right, I meant Fifield, not sure why I called him Scottish, perhaps the surname (isn't Fife in Scotland?) and red hair. I think there is a definite case of poor acting / bad character writing from Rafe Spall who plays Milburn. In one scene they are crapping themselves having seen a pile of dead engineers and being told that there's something alive nearby, and not so long later, he's trying to pet this snake-looking thing that pops up out of the black liquid. Who wrote that?

Damon. Effing. Lindelof.

Hadley's hope: saw the movie with 3 biologists. They all agreed it was pretty spot on stuff because yes...that's basically what a biologist would do :) In fact they joked about it before the movie that a biologist would die first on such an epedition because of some such idiocy (and they have barely seen a trailer of it). It might just be that the ppl behind this movie know their business and you dont.

@ Galactic... Wow - you are really defending Milburn's behavior?! The mission should have had clearly established protocol for what happens when the crew meet ET. And Weyland should have screened attributes properly! Jeez, for me to get a job in finance I have to go through a bunch of pyshcometric tests, but to be able to get to the other side of the galaxy in a spaceship you can be retarded...

'defend Milburns behaviour'....what does that even mean? I spent 5 years studying biology and i have a number of friends who work in the field (which i do not :) I saw the movie with 3 biologists and they thought Milburns behaviour was spot on simply because he showed the traits they recognise in devoted biologists....a curiosity of nature and delight in nature that takes priority before personal safety.

@Hadley's Hope. Fife is indeed in Scotland. I happen to live there and it is full of delightful Fifield-esque characters. Surprised to hear that biologists are so ready to die for curiosities sake, but I think the fact that they are on an alien planet should have made Milburn more cautious. I agree that protocol for first contact should've been established but that takes us right back to the problems surrounding when the crew were told about the mission and Shaw's lack of leadership. It's all a bit ..... Messy. I was disappointed in Milburn's short screen time as I really rate Rafe Spall as an actor. One to watch.

When people are selected for going on to missions in space they are selected for dealing with certain situations, (see NASA & Prometheus project recruitment game). So freaking out and shouting at other people and saying you like rocks is not how I would expect a specailly selected astronaut to behave. Don't say he must be cranky after a couple years sleep this is supposed to be a mission funded by trillions of pounds to allow summat to happen can't post because it's a spoiler. So I am sure they would have gone through trails regarding this.

What value did Fifield bring to the mission? He couldn't read a map despite having fancy flying mapping tools. No one else had problems finding the exit even with the added stress of carrying an injured crew member. For a geologist you'd expect him to be midly interested in the stone alien head or the make up of urns but no they were to scary for him. So scary that after blindly roaming around for a few hours he decided that sleeping under the big head and urns would be the perfect spot.

@thenextlv426 Totally agree.

GalacticNorth 1. Don't get personal with me. 2. Regardless of whether a biologist would have a moment of awe when unexpectedly meeting some species in a fairly okay environment, what do you expect to be the case when in a hostile environment, seeing piles of dead giants, knowing something is on the move, and then you meet a new life form? One would expect that in this situation a biologist MIGHT just use his judgement to assume that this is a likely candidate as the organism that killed the giants. Would a biologist in the wild, behave the same way meeting a new creature near the site of lots of dead humans as it would simply meeting it on some unexplored Savannah? I think not. 3. 3 biologists is not a valid sample size :)

hadleys hope: sorry but unlike you....Lindelof and Scott know the business of making good stories and movies that make people watch. And you dont own Ridley Scott....he didnt make the movie for you :) Biologists are more about curiosity and delight than awe. Spiders, snakes, centipedes, rays, sharks...you would be seriously surprised at what ethologists can make themselves do at such encounters. A friend of mine dived into the water with a tigershark off south thailand and while under water he clicked on his divingwatch with his divingknife to get the shark to come withing viewing distance. Fortunately for him it didnt. It makes Milburn look like Mr HMS.

I don't know how any of you can dispute the bad acting in this movie. Some of the line deliveries by Ford were toe curling. Millburn wasn't too bad but Fifield was terrible. It took someone as good as Idris Elba to make bad dialogue sound good but let's face it her could read from the yellow pages and it would sound interesting. My problem was more a motivational one, everyone in the movie did stupid things for no good reason. They all went to the planet based on cave paintings? No robotic probes sent first? Could have been a monumental waste of time. They all took their helmets off with no complaints from anyone back on the ship. Holloway was so gutted everyone on the planet was dead he got drunk? Bullshit! After finding temples and bodies and specimens galore you would be over the bloody moon. Vickers motivation for torching Holloway was paper thin at best, she had no idea what was wrong with the guy and no idea as to the level of threat they were facing in the temple that could have transfered to him. The captains and his barely acknowledged crew deciding to ram the derelict out of nowhere did not have a strong enough motivation to carry out this out of the blue suicide act. Would have made much more sense if they were all infected or something. Shaw's motivation for flying back to the SJ planet was complete bollocks. She had a strong desire to meet her makers...not strong enough in my opinion. Not enough to combat the proof that these beings wanted us dead as a whole and the one they came across went on a murder parade through the crew, you wouldn't fly to their home world and hope for the best. The only person who had motivation enough to do most of these things was Weyland as he was dying. The movie should have been about him seeking out the SJ's because he was dying and that gave him all the motivation he needed.

I could understand Milburn sticking his hand out if the creature was covered in fur and meowing at him but it was an angry snake creature. What when through his head... Oh look an annoyed looking alien snake. I wonder if it's poisonous. I know I give it my hand to find out.