Prometheus

[crisosphinx]

Yes, it's difficult to make an entire film, but the thing that you start with, is a good story, that is written by a good writer. If you simply ask for a good Alien story, you'd get people throwing stories at you in the street, for free. The reason why people think that a movie sucks, is because they know that they could have made it so much better.
When it comes to Alien, the creativity process is simple:

1. Hire a guy with ideas.

2. Hire a scientist (or three).

3. Lock them both up in a room.

4. Let the guy with ideas come up with some good space horror.

5. Have the scientist talk sense into him.



Once you've done that, and made sure that you'll invest money in a story worth investing money in, THEN you make a movie. THEN you can worry about boom mikes and acting and all that, because that's just minor details by comparison. The story is the most important part of a movie. In science fiction, how realistic the science is, is the most important part of the story.



It's not goo. Give me a budget and a popular franchise, and I'll make you a $130 million dollar film that at least has a good story in it. The special effects were awesome in Prometheus, but it's not hard for me to hire that studio. At least I'll come up with a more realistic story. I mean come on: There are four people, and one of them has a map that he shows off. Which ones do you NOT send off to get lost? There are things in this movie that a five year old could have made better.

Conflicts of interest, you say? Send them to my office. If Tom Cruise has a "conflict of interest" with me, he can take a hike. He'll never work for me again. If anybody has any "conflicts of interest" with me, they can fuck off, because I'm the writer. As long as I'm paying their salaries, they're paid to shut up and do as I say.



Yes, the scans didn't pick up the black goo because it wasn't in the open yet, because it was inside a sealed room, and it was biological. ...so again: Why do they remove their space helmets? If they are going to go into closed spaces, and they're going to open sealed doors, and there is such a thing as biological contaminants and airborne parasites, that the scanners will fail to pick up, then why risc infecting not only themselves, but the entire expedition, just because they feel like breathing without a helmet? I say again: These people behave like rednecks. If you're a scientist on a mission, you stay sharp and you stay focused and you are very aware of possible dangers. You follow protocol, and you're smart and professional, because if you upset sombody in outer space, there's no police around to save you from cabin fever.



There's plenty of adventure that can happen even if the people are smart. Most of the stupid things that happened, didn't need to happen that way at all.



Again, a film may be hard work, but you only start filming once the story is worked out. From that point, it's only a matter of scene angles. I do not care what people would think of my story - if they don't like it, they can find other movies. Actors will read the entire script BEFORE accepting or rejecting a role contract.

There usually not enough budget for extra people who won't bother to help out for free, AKA a scientist. They have things to spend better time on. That's most of the logic right there. With a movie like Prometheus, all the budget went into costume, prop, makeup and special effects on top of all the sound designers, modelers, texturers, etc. A lead animator in that industry will get paid roughly 800-1k for a second of FINISIHED animation, a lot of the other people will be paid roughly anywhere between 30k (new hire, not as much experience) to 60k for a salary. Then you have to pay for all the facilities, programs, food, etc. Actors usually get paid way more than they should.

So if you have 130 million, you'll most likely blow through most of it in the first couple months of producing a film. Since most movies are a year process of filming, in about 6 months, you'll be down at least 90 million. That's just to pay all the people you already have. Then add in all the people you haven't paid yet, who haven't worked yet. Films are expensive. They are hard work. Hiring randoms is a waste of money in the directors and producers eyes. You truly have to factor in every bit of the production before you can say "oh they should've just hired some scientists who would have needed to be paid at least a hundred thousand because you're wasting their time and they might talk about the movie and leak information if not bribed properly" (everyone who works for the film has to sign a contract, a scientist offering ideas is not someone who is working on the film, they are a paid extra, in film terms).