Stunning visuals and idiotic plot - a Riddley Scott Hallmark after Blade Runner

Rating: 1/10 (2 July 2012)

Well, that's it: wonderful visuals with stupid story and stupider characters. That's a Riddley Scott film for you. So, i'll just focus on the character's behavior. Oh my, where to begin? - A team of misfits with severe behavioral problems chosen to be crew members on a trillion-dollar expedition. - a geologist that looks like a street mugger and smokes pot inside a space suit, panics at the first sight of a dead alien and then, being, of course, the person who maps the caves, gets instantly lost. - A retarded biologist that tries to pet a snake-like alien creature that is displaying blatantly obvious aggressive behavior. - Another retarded paleontologist that has no right to the name of scientist and comes up with the "engineer" theory based only on her personal feelings and religious beliefs. - Another retarded paleontologist that sees tentacles coming out of his eyes and hides the fact from everybody else for no reason at all. - An emotionless robot that displays sarcasm and a varied set of other emotions. - THE WORST SURGERY SCENE EVER SHOWN ON SCREEN OR OFF IT (by the way, displaying amazing lack of imagination and incredible ignorance; if the machine was programmed for males (supposedly, it's Wayland's), it should make a top-to-bottom incision, but it made a lateral incision, which is the one used in cesarean anyway. Also, no anesthetics from the supposedly standalone medical module (spray on skin does not count. And cauterizing and stapling to close the incision. Really, folks, that's just lack of imagination: they copied standard cesarean procedure, and made it a thousand times worse. If that's future medicine, I want none of it!!!) - Also, Shawn's inhuman resistance after the operation (the rest of the movie) is ridiculous. - They open the door of the ship to something that's obviously not human, from its posture (impossible to a human), just because it's wearing Fifield's suit?! - And then, the Engineers, the crowning imbeciles of all. Why did the engineer in the prologue have to sacrifice himself before the ship posturing as a sky god? Wouldn't just his blood with the black slime (which seems to create all kinds of life) work the same? - I don't care why they wanted to destroy humanity. That's one of the films' mysteries and it's OK. But why make a monster vector that implants other monsters inside people? That's stupid. A virus would work a lot better and be much more energy-saving to engineer (pardon the pun). - Why does the awakened engineer charges blindly at the humans? He only succeeds because they had no weapons with them (oh, yes, another thing we have to thank Shawn's imbecility for). And then, after his ship has been crashed by the tiny humans, he goes charging after Shawn blindly and with his bare hands, again!!!! The problem is that the characters are irrational and idiotic, when they should not be. They should be the cream of earth's scholars and scientists - remember, it's a trillion dollar mission to save Weyland's life. Why would he bet his life on imbeciles? And this never happens in good science fiction. but then again, I'm afraid those who think this is a good movie (aka good story, not good visuals, that you can get from a screen saver) have never read good science fiction, like Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, or Howard Philips Lovecraft (who mixes sci-fi and horror very well in his stories), and so many others that were REAL writers, not just people who put words together. However, I haven't read the movie's original script yet. After I do, I'll find out whether the rumors that Scott messed with it are true, and discover that he has really embraced religious idiocy and bad Hollywood clichés. But after Blade Runner he hasn't made a really good movie - except visually, they are all stunning. 1492 is so bad that he didn't even research history. People had known the Earth wasn't flat since the Middle Ages, and, in some cases, before that! This is just current-day cliché from the historically-illiterate. So, I'm afraid Alien and Blade Runner are fortunate accidents and the rest of his opus just shows that the Congress should approve an act forbidding Riddley Scott from messing with film scripts or even choosing them. Just direct them they way they are, and everything will be fine. That law should also apply to James Cameron, with an addendum forbidding him to write his own scripts. Same case as Scott, only worse.