Whadda we do NOW huh? GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!

Rating: 2/10 (10 June 2012)

It is curious that the current IMDb rating for this film is 7.8/10 and yet the opening 20 user reviews (as well as the reviews of many professional critics) consider Prometheus an abomination. I think this illustrates the blind, indiscriminate, unquestioning acceptance of the 'average movie-goer', whose depth of analysis (and the worth of their opinion) is summarized by their lazy button-clicks. I contrast this with discerning (review-writing?) audience members, who insist at the very least, upon a cogent STORY.
This film was not riddled with plot holes, it was disconnected FRAGMENTS OF PLOT (HOLES >> PLOT.) There was hardly 30secs of this film where a 'character' didn't say or do something unbelievably stupid. I could easily turn this review into a 50 page dot-point list of ridiculously implausible flaws or outright inconsistencies in this story, but other reviewers are way ahead of me (for example, the reviews of michael-albertsen, Jey Stone and BJBatimdb.)
So instead, I'm going to focus on the over-arching problems of this film (and so many recent films like it): (a) inconsistency within its own paradigm and (b) lazy usage of character stupidity to drive narrative.
(a) Everyone understands that you have to suspend belief a little when watching a film, but a film should not be so inconsistent with its own 'rules', as to contain outright impossibilities or to have the audience is screaming "BS!" It's OK to have an intergalactic spaceship, so long as you don't later refer to its engines being powered by Gandalf, pogo-sticks and happy thoughts. Characters must also be consistent with themselves. Spaceship captains that 'can't fly for sh*t' are a big no-no, as are scientists who propose space missions based upon belief rather than evidence, as are mega-corporation executives who spend trillions with only hearsay as proof of return-on-investment, as are biologists that seem blissfully ignorant of obvious cobra-like 'threat posturing'. Why does Shaw need to stop and think, when asked about (normal human) sexual liaisons/pregnancy likelihood? We have JUST HEARD that she is infertile and has been in hyper sleep for years!!! Bottom line is: films and characters have to make some sort of sense, within their own context.
(b) This brings me to my next point; the creative laziness with which plot is driven. A plot should move along with characters' actions driven by plausible, understandable (hopefully logical) MOTIVES. Instead, film-makers will lazily throw any old nonsense into the mix because they can't be bothered thinking up a more sensible way to achieve preconditions for the scenes they're after. A Prometheus example: in order for some minor-characters to meet grizzly demises, it was necessary to have them isolated from help at the time of an attack. But how does Ridley Scott achieve this? By having the scouting party REFUSE the presence of armed security personnel (why lug them light-years away if you're not going to use them?); by having characters become hysterical for no reason and seek 'safety' by separating from the group and running deeper into an alien complex riddled with bodies; and by having the Captain leaving the bridge/cockpit/communications unmanned (on the possibility of a shag and we never even find out if he gets lucky or not), knowingly risking the lives of two vulnerable crew mates (and his own) when all he had to do was say "Hey co- pilot... can you take over for a while?" - Charlize EVEN GIVES HIM 10 MINUTES TO DO THIS. Point is, if characters' actions and motives are complete nonsense, the audience cannot empathize with them, becomes detached and the it's all over.
Like the minor characters of their films, the grandfathers of the cinematic science-fiction genre have all wandered off into the dark and fallen prey to sinister villains - hordes of Hollywood 'yes-men', weird fetishes/preoccupations with aesthetics (CGI) and the temptation to lazily elaborate on masterpieces (like adding lipstick to the Mona Lisa's smile.)
All at the utter expense of a compelling story and inspirational heroes/heroines.
George Lucas: The Phantom Menace; James Cameron: Avatar...and now Ridley Scott: Prometheus
Luke Skywalker, the T-101 and Ellen Ripley are really unimpressed.