Prometheus

This 2 DVD package is a perfect example of why you should purchase the set, rather than just viewing online from a streaming service. The movie is well written, the sets, acting and effects are top level and state of the art. It leaves one with lots of questions about the Engineers and why each alien doesn't look like the ones we saw in the Alien movies: those questions are answered in a beautiful example of leading-edge technology. If you have an iPad or Android tablet/phone, you can download a Prometheus app that will link with your Blu-ray player if it supports BD-Live! As the movie plays, background information is displayed on the tablet including production notes and sketches. At certain parts of the movie, the movie is paused while a video from one of the producers/directors/special effects editors, etc., is displayed on the tablet. The movie then continues. At other places, alternate or deleted scenes are added to the viewing experience at the exact place they fit in the film. You have an option on the tablet to skip the experience, but it is worth watching if you truly want to appreciate the time, talent and effort that went into making this film. The other add-ons on the second disk, including the SD version, Digital Copy and additional resources telling you about the movie are all worth watching. The history of how the movie came into existence is remarkable, as well as how the first Alien movie was completed with a few starts and stops. The production team and director made it all look too easy and polished when we all saw the first Alien movie...the story is an inspiration for all of us who aspire to be creative, jump hurdles and achieve goals over time. Noomi Rapace brings the same level of intensity and emotion to her role as she did in the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy. (She was good in Sherlock Holmes too, but the role did not offer anywhere near the challenge of this one.) Charlize Theron continues to amaze with her acting as a hard-core, highly disciplined, driven...but still-wanting-to-be-a-loved-daughter persona. Idris Elba does a great job of balancing out Theron's intensity with calm leadership, focus and demeanor: after all, it's Christmas! Michael Fassbender is both frightening and fascinating as the cyborg with a hidden agenda and a bad habit of listening in on other people's dreams. Guy Pearce makes good use of his screen time although there is not much of it: his movements and voice, along with remarkable make-up transformed him into a very old man with his own special, but not surprising, agenda. The rest of the cast does a good job in adding depth and texture to the story line. If you want to learn an interesting interpretation of the mural they find....watch the add-on info carefully. And....the ending leaves room for a sequel!

Great movie

I'll get the visceral reaction out of the way quickly. I was disappointed with the movie the first time I watched it, from a director who gave us the original "Alien" and "Blade Runner" plus gripping non-sci fi films such as "Black Rain" and "Gladiator". The best thing I can say for Director Scott is that I believe the primary problem is not with the premise, which had enormous potential, but in the plot and the line by line writing. But, I watched it a second time the next night, and some of the kinks were ironed out by noticing some lines. Also, the relevance of the Prometheus myth became far clearer, and through it, I realized an important back story explanation which was obscured by the characters' ignorance. Read the Prometheus story before watching the movie and pay very close attention to the opening (and think 2001 opening.) One indicator of how incomplete things seem is that the very old billionaire, Peter Weyland, is played by a fine middle aged actor, Guy Pearce, but we never see him younger in flashbacks, which were probably cut from the final editing. Without giving too much away, the Peter Weyland character adds very little to the story aside from being the person who funds the mission. I sensed something was seriously out of joint when the "away team" enters the cavernous artifact. After encountering something just a bit squeamish, the geologist Fifield (Sean Harris) and biologist Milburn (Rafe Spall) decide to return to the Prometheus (the name of the humans' interstellar space ship.) The remaining team does a fair amount of exploring. Among other things, they see a hologram of the intelligent giants, drawings of whom they found on Earth. they are seeking running from some unseen danger. I saw no clue to what triggered the hologram. Following the hologram, they find the decapitated head of one of the giants (as opposed to the 'aliens' we encountered in earlier films). The captain of the Prometheus sends them a message that a serious storm is approaching. The team, with the usual annoyingly distracting side efforts which slow them down, reach the entrance and begin driving their vehicles back to the ship. But, and here the train falls off the track, never to return, we find Fifield and Milburn still in the artifact, when they said they were returning to the ship. They found some kind of life which intrigued the biologist. But why didn't the team returning to the ship notice that none of their vehicles were gone. Why did they leave the other two behind? Somehow, the two truants don't get the warning about the storm, or ignore it, so they become stuck in the artifact. There are loose ends aplenty with the alien fauna on this desolate world. My expectation coming in was that the film would explore the origins of two creatures, the "Alien" and the race of the giant pilot discovered by the crew of the mining ship Nostromo in "Alien". We meet the giants soon enough, but we also encounter at least three other life forms which have a passing resemblance to THE Alien, but their connection to the life cycle of the Alien is never explained. I'm entering dangerous "spoiler" territory now, so I will not discuss any more of the plot except to say that there are a number of unexplained events. Mysteries are great in the middle of the film, but one expects most of these to be wrapped up and revealed at the end of the picture. Many are not, leaving a huge jumping off point for a sequel to "Prometheus". Part of the special attraction of this story is that the audience knows full well what will eventually happen, so there is a lot of mental "don't go there" and "don't do that" moments, because we already know what things that look like that can do. The problem with that is that there is too much "quoting" from "Alien" for my tastes. Most of it is done relatively well, but it becomes more and more obvious as time goes on, and increasingly annoying. There is also ample quoting from other major Sci Fi movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (both in situations and in dialogue). There are also some subtle cinematic (visual) quotes from "Avatar" and "Jurassic Park". One of the bright spots, aside from the imaginative, well done CGI and cinematography, is the acting, which I always thought was a weak spot in "Alien". The crewmen, such as Captain Idris Elba, are spot on (unlike Yahpet Kotto in "Alien"). Instead of the strong Ellen Ripley character, we have the physically smaller and less imposing archaeologist, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) who sports a convincing English accent as the lead character. Charlize Theron's character is restrained and unlikable. Like both Scott and Cameron's "Alien" and "Aliens", this movie has an android (artificial person) as a principal character, in a role much fuller than in the earlier movies. The only thing which distinguishes 'David', Michael Fassbender's android from Scott's earlier android Ash (Ian Holm, Alien) and Cameron's Bishop (Lance Hendrickson, Aliens)is that David is ever so slightly stilted, somewhat like Data from "Startrek, The Next Generation." I will give this the benefit of the doubt for now, but I found a strong disjoint in the rationale between two early scenes and the climax. I sense Scott wanted to leave plenty of meat on the bone to support a sequel. (In contrast, Avatar is almost totally devoid of preparation for a sequel I suspect I will need to revisit this review after seeing the film again. If my suspicion about gaps and disconnects is born out, I may have to lower my rating to 3 stars.

This is a review of the whole package but I will touch upon the film as well. I bought the 3D bluray pack that come with the 2D version of the film and a whole load of extras. 1st: The 3d looks pretty stunning, having watched it through on a 42" TV set the picture looked good, there was some slight fuzziness of some of the opening credits but as a whole it looked very good. The menus have been rendered into 3D and it gives a very cohesive look. 2nd 2D blu ray worked well and had some nice special features. I have not listened to any of the commentaries (you'll forgive me that when I talk about the extras), but I have tested out the feature where you sync your ipad to the film by downloading an app. The film plays and pauses to allow you to watch so,e items appear on the ipad that relate to the scenes you are watching. It works well, was easy to set up and has a lot of useful information. 3rd: The extras are a mammoth undertaking. The main extras feature clocks in at 3.5 hours, you can also set it up to divert to about 26 mini features lasting 1-5 minutes that give you further insight into the making. The main feature is long but covers from initial idea, through scripting and design to the filming and release of the movie. It is very informative and often does not hold back. There are times when you can hear the disappointment as the crew talk about things that maybe did not work or were abandoned. It discusses what the film might have been like had it stayed as a true prequel to Alien. Well worth watching and certainly provides much needed insight into the making of Prometheus. The film itself is a solid sci-fi affair. Fans of sci-fi will recognise some of the situations and fans of the Alien franchise will be familiar with the set up. What I enjoyed was that it didn't feel like it tried to recreate the other Alien films too much. There were nods to it (sometimes very big nods) but that is to be expected in a film set in the same universe. There are plot holes, some of those explained a little in the deleted scenes, which if left in would have given some context to character decisions. There will be even one moment where you might shout at your screen, 'run to the side you silly person' I personally enjoyed the film, however I went not quite knowing what I would expect having read the blurb about it NOT being a prequel to Alien. I know the film has divided opinion, but certainly I think that may be down to high expectations. However, if you are looking to be entertained then this film does that. Watch it in 3D, then watch the feature length extras and you will certainly feel that you bout a quality product and got your money's worth.

In response to mankind's three most pressing questions—Where do we come from? What is our purpose? What happens to us when we die?—the empirically minded suggest that we probably arose through abiogenesis out of a primordial ooze, that we exist to propagate our genetic code, and that death simply returns our atoms to be endlessly recycled. The faithful, meanwhile, take comfort in a supernatural creator who has a plan for their lives, culminating in an eternal heavenly reward. But what if neither camp is quite right? What if we were planted here, not by a god, but by a race of corporal beings sufficiently technologically advanced to traverse the universe, seeding the cosmos with life of their own design? This is no new idea, but it first gained cultural traction with the 1968 publication of Erick von Däniken's bestseller, Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, a work of staggering psuedoscience and blatant anthropological chicanery. If completely bonkers and without any actual evidence, the book still makes for an imaginative flight of fancy, and its key, "ancient astronauts" concept serves well as the basis for Prometheus, director Ridley Scott's magnificent-but-flawed return to the sci-fi genre. Despite what you may have heard, the film is a prequel to Scott's 1979 classic, Alien, although not necessarily a direct one. It's better to think of Prometheus as a semi- distant relative, twice or thrice-removed. The two movies aren't immediately narratively linked, but they share much of the same DNA. And Prometheus is all about DNA. The pre-title sequence takes us over a barren, lifeless landscape, and up to the top of a turbid glacial waterfall, where an alien protohuman—who looks like a buff, living marble reproduction of Michelangelo's David—stands by the shore, holding a cup of black goo. This is an "Engineer," as they'll later come to be called, and he's here to seed what we can presume to be Earth. He downs the viscous caviar-like substance in one gulp, and immediately his cellular structure begins to break down, causing his skin to rupture, his bones to snap grotesquely, and his body to fall into the water, where it dissolves, spreading genetic material downstream. Et voilà! Life. Eons later, in 2089, we cut to a pair of anthropologist lovers—the believer Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and the atheistic Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green)—as they find a 30,000-year-old cave painting on the Isle of Skye, depicting an Engineer-ish-looking figure pointing to a cluster of stars, an image that's been found in numerous archeological sites around the globe. Shaw believes it's "an invitation," and soon enough they're aboard the spacecraft Prometheus—funded by the supposedly dead industrialist Peter Weyland (Guy Pierce)—zipping toward the distant moon LV-223, hoping to find answers to humanity's deepest existential questions. Unlike the Nostromo, Alien's dingy blue-collar mining craft, Prometheus—named after the mythological fire-stealer—is a state-of-the-art research vessel, carrying scientists from pertinent fields, including spectacled biologist Millburn (Raff Spall) and punk geologist Fifield (Sean Harris), along with a substantial crew of ancillary characters. The ship is captained by former military man Janek (Idris Elba), but the real leader of the expedition is Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), a stone-cold Weyland Corp. employee who makes it clear to everyone—Shaw and Holloway especially— that they report to her. Also on board is David (Michael Fassbender), an 8th generation android who's obsessed with Lawrence of Arabia—he even dyes his hair to look like Peter O'Toole—and ironically becomes the very soul of the film, a grown-up Pinocchio who can never become a real boy. Not to demean the rest of the cast, who are generally decent-to-excellent, but Theron and Fassbender are the two acting powerhouses here, the former all icy secrecy and the latter effete and guarded—think a more refined C3PO crossed with Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. In a way, Prometheus is a more pop, "genre"-oriented version of 2001, both concerned with evolution, artificial intelligence, and the notion that something out there gave the fire of human consciousness its first spark. Where Kubrick's film is a slow-burning intellectual exercise, Prometheus becomes a tension-ratcheting affair where the big ideas are couched in stylish big-budget sci-fi/horror action. When the ship lands on LV-223, which is not the moon from Alien, the crew quickly—too quickly to believe actually—spots and enters an enormous pyramid complex with reniform subterranean tunnels and a chamber that houses a monolithic human head and dozens of cylinders filled with that DNA-altering black goop. Nearby are the piled up bodies of several long-dead "engineers," who were obviously trying to escape something but didn't make it. Without getting into spoilers, it's safe to assume to that one or more team members become "infected," and you can also expect to see some aggressive lifeforms that have never before appeared in the Alien franchise, although they share the phallic/yonic, H.R. Giger-inspired qualities of the facehuggers and xenomorphs of yore. There are grotesque mutations, frantic firefights—one involving an actual flamethrower—and even an emergency alien fetus c-section, the film's most white-knuckle, squirm-inducing scene. Does the original xenomorph monster show up? Well, sort of. Let's just say it has a fan-appeasing cameo. Written by Jon Spaihts and Lost's Damon Lindelof, Prometheus expands the universe of the series and unravels a few mysteries from the first film—yes, the "space jockey" in that pilot's chair was an "engineer"—but it also raises a host of other questions that it doesn't have time to answer. (Why do the engineers suddenly want us dead? Why leave us a star map guiding us to what's essentially a biological weapons depot? If the engineers created us, who created them?) With a sequel already in the works, I don't consider the lingering ambiguities a problem—and I love the post-viewing discussions that naturally arise because of them—but Prometheus does have other shortcomings. There are small potential plot holes, and a few scenes that feel forced—inserted for narrative convenience or just to ramp up the action—but the most noticeable issue is that characters sometimes simply don't act in believably human ways. They contradict earlier established behaviors. They make choices only a soon-to-be-slaughtered teenager in a slasher movie would make. They don't express nearly enough awe at the fact that they're not just on another world, but making discoveries that dramatically alter humanity's assumptions about its own origins. Prometheus probably could've used another script revision to tighten everything up, but the pacing flows well—even when some of the events don't exactly make sense in retrospect—and there's no doubt that the film is an experience, the kind of grand-scale, high-concept science fiction that's unfortunately rare. (Although, between Looper and Cloud Atlas this year, sci-fi seems to be making a comeback.) I don't really get the small but rabid cult of haters that's sprung up to deride the film, but I blame the internet hype machine, which skews expectations impossibly. If you're anticipating the be-all-end-all Alien movie, with mind-melting twists and non-stop horror, then yes, Prometheus might be a bit of a let-down. But this prequel really is its own entity and deserves to be seen and evaluated on its own terms. Personally, I think it's a terrific reboot of a franchise that had grown ridiculous long before the dopey Alien vs. Predator movies. Ridley Scott directs the hell out of this thing, the scope is immense—check out those real, predominately non-CGI sets—and call me a heretic, but damn if Michael Fassbender doesn't make a better android that Ian Holm or Lance Henriksen ever did. Onto the sequel, I say, and if Scott isn't going to do it—he's only listed as producer, and he'll probably be busy revisiting the world of Blade Runner—I nominate David Fincher, whose Alien 3 got bungled by the studio, and who definitely deserves another shot at the series. Anyone second that motion? Gorgeous. And that's about all you really need to know. But for the sake of completeness, let's get into what makes Prometheus' 1080p/AVC- encoded Blu-ray transfer so stunning. Using Red Epic digital cameras mounted to 3ality Technica Atom 3D rigs, the film was shot almost entirely on Pinewood Studio's famed—and enormous—007 lot, allowing Ridley Scott and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski complete control over the lighting of the magnificently detailed sets. The combination of a great camera system, high-quality Zeiss lenses, and precise manipulation of the direction and degree of light makes for an image that's often terrifically sharp and nearly noiseless at times. Camera noise does spike a bit during the darkest scenes, but it has a granular quality that looks almost filmic up close, with no digital harshness or chroma artifacts, and it isn't really noticeable from a normal viewing distance. It should also go without saying that there are no compression issues or encode errors on this top-tier release; even scenes where you might expect to see some banding or splotchiness—flashlights cutting through darkness, volumetric clouds of dust rising into the air, fine color gradients—hold up under pixel-peeping scrutiny. The level of clarity is exemplary for a live-action film. Fine detail is ever-present in the textures of the actors' faces, the fabric of their clothing, and the intricacies of the props and set design. The film's distinct color palette is handled with ease too. The inky depths of the pyramid, the yellow LED lights inside the explorers' helmets, the cool fluorescence inside Prometheus, the spatters of blood, the skin tones—everything has a satisfying density and presence. And then we come to the film's use of 3D, which is some of the best I've seen outside of all-CGI movies. If you saw the 3D version of Prometheus in theaters, you'll already have a good idea of what to expect on Blu-ray, namely, lots of depth and little-to-no projection. That is, you'll spend a lot of time looking into your screen—which becomes a kind of portal through which to view a 3D diorama—but you won't find any leap-out-of-the-TV-and-jab-you-in-the-eye gimmickry, which may work in horror films or cartoons, but would only cheapen the experience here. And because there are no objects jutting out towards you, you don't have to worry about the roughly 2.39:1 frame cutting anything off. (No, there's no 1.78:1 "open-matte" version available.) There are a few longer landscape shots where no dimensionality is apparent, but most of the time there's a clear and natural-looking distinction between foreground objects and their backgrounds. There are definitely some "showpiece" 3D shots, like the landing sequence, the silica dust storm, and the engineer holograms, but the 3D effect is most impressively used to add a degree of realism to some of the more mundane scenes, like when Holloway stares into the mirror of his cabin, noticing there's something unusual in his eye. Or Shaw lying on the all-white operating table. Clarity and color both hold-up well, and there are no unusual 3D anomalies to report. Of course, the effect will be better on bigger screens—and the amount of ghosting/doubling you experience will depend on the quality of your TV/projector/glasses—but in general, Prometheus' 3D Blu-ray replicates the theatrical experience rather well. Do note that all screenshots are from the included 2D Blu-ray. Turn off the lights, crank up your receiver, and settle in—Prometheus's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround track is one to savor, particularly if you've got a home theater setup capable of bringing the aural goods. This mix just doesn't quit; from start to finish it delivers room- quaking dynamics, pristine clarity, and polished, realistic, puts-you-right-in-the-middle-of-the-action sound design. From the opening scene on the barren planet Earth we get deep sub-woofer engagement, the lapping, crashing, and bubbling of a massive waterfall, and the thunderous rumble of an alien ship overhead. The sense of all-surrounding immersion is near-constant from here forward. Bleeps and bloops and the hush of processed air aboard the Prometheus. Sirens wailing in the rears. Dripping rain. Convincing cavernous reverb. The whipping of a monster's tendrils. Debris from an explosion rocketing through the soundscape. Silica dust clinking furiously as a storm blows across LV-223. Fifield's mapping "pups" as they zoom off through underground corridors. There's not a scene where the audio isn't lushly and thoughtfully arranged. Just take the actors' voices, which—besides being well-balanced and easily understood—always reflect the acoustics of their surroundings, flatter aboard the ship, slightly muffled inside their helmets, echoing and wet inside the pyramid. All this is backed up by Marc Streitenfeld's enormous-sounding orchestral score, which alternates between quiet uneasiness and sheer bombast. Note that the 3D disc and the 2D disc have slightly different dub and subtitle options. 3D: Includes descriptive audio, and Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hindi, Urdu, and Tamil dubs—in Dolby Digital 5.1—along with English SDH, Span, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Port, and Swedish subtitles. 2D: Includes descriptive audio, and Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telegu, and Ukranian dubs—in Dolby Digital 5.1, except for the Russian DTS 5.1 track—and English SDH, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian subtitles.

EXCELENTE CALIDAD DE IMAGEN,SERVICIO EXCELENTE,LLEGO MUY RAPIDO

Prometheus, the long awaited "prequel" to Alien. I quote prequel because can we even call it that? It sure has many things that can be related to Alien, specifically the Weyland Corporation, but it's a movie entirely on it's own. The movie itself is excellent. The characters, some of them dull, were interesting to watch, and it was almost like the first Alien all over again. The film start's off slow, and when it picks up, it never lets go. It draws you in, with relatable information (which is hard to do in a sci-fi action movie, in my opinion) and it never really lets you breathe. The next scene comes in, and the next, and before you know it, the characters are running for their life. The extended scenes (in the special features tab on the menu) give additional spikes in your hearts beats per minute, that is without the commentary. The scenes that are in the movie don't seem to live up to the extended versions of the scenes, but due to time, makes sense why they cut it out. The movie wasn't as scary as the first Alien, but it was just as disturbing, and more so in my opinion. The video quality is really good. The scenes I dreaded in the theatre (Med-Pod anyone?) because of people spoiling things for me looked fantastic on the bluray, that is assuming you could actually watch that scene without curling up into fettle position. The bluray looks clear and crisp, and dark scenes are not overly dark, and is well lightened. The 3D presentation is really cool. The bluray and the 3D bluray bundles both being the same price, I don't know why you would pick up the normal version (even if you don't have a 3Dtv, you could build your catalog for when or if you do.) besides the cover art. The audio is chilling, and it is really something with the surround sound kicked in. The audio presentation is nearly perfect. I don't want to say perfect, because I don't know the "perfect" audio presentation, but if there was one, this would be it. The special features are extensive, with a 3 and a half hour documentary that covers everything that you need, or want, to know about the production, from the first draft to the movie in your hands. Overall, the movie is fantastic. The story is a little lopsided, but the video presentation, and the audio presentation, top of expectations. The special features are extensive, and are really interesting to watch. The movie is a definite pick up for fans of the Alien franchise, and I think everyone should pick it up. If you're thinking about picking it up, do it. If you haven't seen it, blind buy it, but remember, there is very disturbing imagary in the film, and is rated R for that very reason! ***** - Phillip

Es una buena película precuela de Alien