1929 replies to this topic

[crocodile]

That is the problem I have with this concept. It's one thing to suggest film's theme in subtle way, it's another to have characters actually talk about it. Almost never ends well. Unless you're Bergman or something.

Karol

[paleo]

I can't believe that first Lucas/Spielberg and then Ridley Scott give so much credit to Erich von Däniken. I mean, if this guy wrote fictional stuff, okay... but he sells that crap about alien origins of civilization as facts!

[Alexcremers]

What von Daniken and others like him are saying is just another theory based on stuff that can be interpretted in several ways. For instance, every ancient civilization mentions the existence and destruction of an advanced civilization (Atlantis). Momumental ancient megastructures like the Great Pyramid in Egypt or Machu Picchu in Peru are completely anonymous (there are no hieroglyphs on the walls of the pyramid and Ancient Incas said they didn't build the city in the clouds but the gods did) and more and more researchers are beginning to believe that these are much, much older than what school books have been telling us for the last 100 years.

[Chaac]

Von Däniken is mad.

It's Lovecraft where the coolness concentrates.

[Alexcremers]

Or he is not afraid to think differently and has the balls to go against traditional school books. In any case, I think it's healthy to question the establisment. It's been quite a while since I've read one of his books though.

[Chaac]

Or he is not afraid to think differently and has the balls to go against traditional school books. In any case, I think it's healthy to question the establisment.

But to do that you need to offer something solid. That's how it works. It can't work any other way.

If one starts genuinely believing stuff without conclusive materials, that's not healthy. And then if you start contradicting stuff that already makes sense...

[Wojo]

And every major civilization has a great flood. The fact remains that ancient civilizations were far smarter than we give them credit for -- building materials, techniques, and placement; astronomical and geographical awareness; agricultural technology; weapons and tactics; politics; the list goes on and on. The problem is that so many of their achievements were left undocumented, without records of how, what, why, and when such events were made possible. The blueprints and schedules required to build the pyramids were not preserved, for example.

And a major attitude swing to come out of the European Renaissance that has lasted until the present day is that post-Dark Ages European civilization, which was founded on Christian values and that brought to the Americas, represents the pinnacle of human intellect and culture, and mostly everything that came before and elsewhere was simple-minded barbarian (with the exception of the classical civilizations like Greece and Rome, and the far eastern empires of China and India, which far predate Europe). Even though they left these magnificent stone structures and figures that have lasted far longer than even Rome herself stood. It's a totally incorrect bias, but it's one that appeals to the wild imagination in humans. Imagination run rampant enough to suggest that human beings cannot be responsible for building the works that they did, or for propagating similar ideas, technologies, and art forms across the vast oceans, and so must have had alien influence and guidance.

Uh, sure. If you look long enough for evidence to support a predetermined theory, you will find it.

[paleo]

I'd agree with Chaac. While new ideas and controversial debate are always welcome, just looking superficially at the evidence, then ignoring most of it and explaining perceived gaps in knowledge with some ridiculous "theory" (no, certainly not a theory in the scientific sense) is either fraudulent or crazy. There is a reason why von Däniken is shunned by scientists everywhere... and it is certainly not because they are so jealous because they didn't have these ideas, it's because these explanations cannot be proved. I once was very excited about his and other people's books on similar topics... I was 12 years old. Since then I have read plenty of scientific books on archaeology and history... Are the pyramids older than we think? Maybe (but unlikely - Chufu's pyramid has inscriptions of the workers mentioning the king's name if I'm not mistaken, for instance, just to give an example), but if so, they were clearly built by humongous creatures from hollow earth, not aliens. Seriously, to dismiss the conclusions of thousands of people who intensely study a subject with passion is insulting, as is the assumption that ancient cultures couldn't have achieved anything amazing on their own. And now this debate will probably be forbidden by the moderators, because it has nothing to do with films or music any more ;-)

[BloodBoal]

Oh, boy, this thread is getting boring! Let's spice things up a bit, shall we?

[Wojo]

Mmmmm...Xenomorph Parmesan...

[Alexcremers]

Or he is not afraid to think differently and has the balls to go against traditional school books. In any case, I think it's healthy to question the establisment.

But to do that you need to offer something solid. That's how it works. It can't work any other way.

If one starts genuinely believing stuff without conclusive materials, that's not healthy. And then if you start contradicting stuff that already makes sense...

That's just it, saying the pyramids were built solely as a tomb for a pharaoh isn't solid. It's just as good as any other theory. Remember, not one pharoah has ever been found inside a pyramid. There are no hieroglyphs that say "Here lies our beloved pharaoh". Personally, I find keeping an open mind to be much healthier than blindly excepting theories from a 100 years ago. There are unexplained mysteries that tradionalists can't explain. I'm not saying it's aliens but I'm open to other perspectives. One of these perspectives, and one that gets more and more followers, is that we are wrong about dating the sphinx and some other megstructures and that advanced civilization existed much earlier in history than we originally suspected.

[Stefancos]

I think it's healthy to question the establisment.

But you ARE the establishment!

[Alexcremers]

And every major civilization has a great flood. The fact remains that ancient civilizations were far smarter than we give them credit for -- building materials, techniques, and placement; astronomical and geographical awareness; agricultural technology; weapons and tactics; politics; the list goes on and on. The problem is that so many of their achievements were left undocumented, without records of how, what, why, and when such events were made possible. The blueprints and schedules required to build the pyramids were not preserved, for example.

They knew things we clearly don't. And I don't think every single thing can be explained by: "Well, they had a lot of time and manpower". The more you learn about the materials (the hardest rocks), the 'primitive' tools they used (and yet the marks on them suggest they went through them like butter), and the incredible presicion they applied (a greater level of accuracy than with modern buildings), the more astonishing it gets. Some believe the knowledge is burried in an underground chamber right in front the sphinx. It's been established that there is indeed a chamber there but no one gets a permit for digging it up (the sphinx would collapse, or so officials say). Is the Egyptian government afraid of the truth? Perhaps they will find records saying it wasn't the Ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids after all? Maybe the knowlege has been destroyed by the Catholics together with the Ancient Library of Alexandria?


Alex

[Stefancos]

Hippie trippy nonsense!

[Alexcremers]

If you're bored, or have nothing interesting to say, there are other threads you can join, Steef.

[Stefancos]

You know it's true, how nice.

[Wojo]

Some believe the knowledge is burried in an underground chamber right in front the sphinx. It's been established that there is indeed a chamber there but no one gets a permit for digging it up (the sphinx would collapse, or so officials say). Is the Egyptian government afraid of the truth?

Ironic that Stiff would select a photo from the Ark movie to make a wisecrack, because there are those who believe the location of that relic itself is known to man, but is simply protected at all times by a fanatical group in Ethiopia, and that to view it would be death. I also read it was nearly found, but the tunnel that leads to it was filled with concrete. Either way, it's out of touch.

The destruction of the Library of Alexandria is perhaps the greatest crime ever to befall physical objects in all of human history. All responsible should be brought back to life only so they could be put to death again.

[Chaac]

If someone still gets mad at the Library of Alexandria you probably love history. I kind of do.

Alex, next thing I'm hearing is that the knowledge for landing in Titan is hidden somewhere or is far too sophisticated for us. And if the Pyramids or something like that are far older... so what? A few thousand of years don't impress this geologist here. Mankind was basically the same we are back then. Knowledge can be discovered many times. The Romans did amazing stuff and I'm not reading about how they couldn't have discovered how to deviate water from a place kilometers away to wash a hole in the ground and pass the resulting mix for a filter of heather leaves that they burned to obtain the gold dust in conglomerate rock. Just to put one example.

Plus if you hint at aliens, suggest we couldn't do that, and then say you don't mean it was aliens... then what it's being supposed to have done that? "It was aliens-but no-but yes-but maybe- ooh I'm defying the establishment!"

Not everybody in the antiquity was so obsessed with writing shit down as we have become (because we need it). In many areas it was straight taboo or nobody knew how to write a lot, and the vast majority of the works of those who wrote a lot is lost (you have to write a lot for a bit of that to reach the future).

[Wojo]

Writing was definitely taboo in the Inca culture. They used to have writing until a soothsayer said that it would bring about the destruction of their civilization or death of the king, something like that, so they banned all writing under penalty of death. That's why they used the elaborate system of knots to keep track of numbers for financial transactions: no writing required.

[Chaac]

And for example, the Mayans are an example of the development of complex math on their own. As well as many other works of old, that would require it. However our math is "ours", but their math can't have been "theirs". Wtf?

I think, with all these stuff that supposedly we wouldn't know how to build without what they have (which stuff, specifically?): it can be solved. Have a bunch of engineers striped of what "they didn't have" and make them find a way to do it. They'll end up finding ways for it (in reality this might have taken generations because they'd get there little by little building on previous knowledge, instead of just learning a lot of pre-thought engineering in a few years like people today).

So some realized things we don't, because we currently don't need it. So what? It's like the "it's older that previosly thought". Fine. So what? They assume some people couldn't know certain things just because they lived at an earlier time. Uh?

Add to that, some people are easily fooled by emotive, empty language. And then there's the people who talk about forests on Mars and UFOs.

But coming back to Prometheus. I haven't seen the new trailer and featurettes, but I remember the previous trailer had this thing about an ideogram found in several civilizations of antiquity. Now this is interesting. It would imply the reason of that ideogram had visited them all, at wildly different times. Why? How complex could such an ideogram be for it not be pure chance? How can they determine where exactly go in the Prometheus out of a simple drawing of a few dots? And how is that interpreted as an invitation? If it was an invitation, they could have got humans with them when they got here at different times. I hope the film addresses these points and finds a way to make sense.

Edit: I'm talking about someone specific. I'm just ranting.

[Alexcremers]

The destruction of the Library of Alexandria is perhaps the greatest crime ever to befall physical objects in all of human history. All responsible should be brought back to life only so they could be put to death again.

Can I pull the trigger?


Man brought to life again: "Forgive us, but we were afraid people couldn't handle the truth, for you see, it was the ali ..." Bang!

[Stefancos]

Oh please, we have the internet now. The intere content of that library could these days not even fill a 32 gig micro SD card.

[Chaac]

Oh please, we have the internet now. The intere content of that library could these days not even fill a 32 gig micro SD card.

But we don't have the content of that library. Which would be very important because it would tell us a lot of stuff relating to that time. That's the issue.

[Alexcremers]

Then we would finally get our hands on documents like 'Building Pyramids For Dummies' (after years and years deciphering the mysterious text, of course).

[Koray Savas]

If one starts genuinely believing stuff without conclusive materials, that's not healthy. And then if you start contradicting stuff that already makes sense...

Hey, kinda like religion. Oops, I said the R word. Alex sounds like he's saying the events of Uncharted actually happened.

[Alexcremers]

Oh please, we have the internet now. The intere content of that library could these days not even fill a 32 gig micro SD card.

But we don't have the content of that library. Which would be very important because it would tell us a lot of stuff relating to that time. That's the issue.

Not only to that time, Chaac. The library was also a preservation place for much older books and documents.

[Chaac]

Yes, that.

The Building Pyramids for Dummies would have been one of those.

And stuff on linguistics

Ancient libraries are cool because it's like info already collected for us. But they tend to end up badly..

[Maurizio]

I don't know if it's already been posted, but this Prometheus fansite has posted the full end credits of the movie in text format (beware of spoilers). Looks like Goldsmith's Alien theme is featured in the film!

Also, on the FSM boards someone posted this quote of Harry Gregson-Williams explaining briefly his duties on the film:

"my contribution is in the shape of a theme, a theme for 'creation' - first heard at the opening of the film, also at the end, and a few times within the body of the movie. It's in a major key and is kind of optimistic and also a little mystical. I hope you like it!
Harry"

[Chaac]

So that's the human name for the other aliens.

[Wojo]

Oh please, we have the internet now. The intere content of that library could these days not even fill a 32 gig micro SD card.

Perhaps, if someone were to type out every document in a text file, assuming that one could do so with ASCII characters. But then much of the relative information -- images, document size, specific placement of text with respect to images, document damage, etc. -- would be lost. It would be far more beneficial to archive the information with high-resolution photographs and/or scans of each document and artifact inside the library, and then we're talking hundreds of gigabytes. The sky would be the limit once you start jacking up the DPIs. Sure, every issue of National Geographic Magazine back to 1888 fits onto six DVDs -- about 50 GB worth -- but the image quality of each page is not flawless. You would expect a library of that prestige to have held far more than just 120+ years of one magazine.

At any rate, it's not about the quantity of information that was lost, it's the quality. The knowledge and culture that was totally destroyed by fire because people thought "their" god wanted all heathen knowledge to be destroyed is irretrievable.

[BloodBoal]

New trailer. Beware! It reveals a lot of plot points:

[Joey]

The film as been given an R rating.


Of all the suprises in the world I didn't see that one coming......

[Chaac]

I was expecting that, but the film is still going to be missing some scenes.

So annoying.

[Joey]

I was expecting that, but the film is still going to be missing some scenes.

So annoying.

what are you talking about?

[Chaac]

They wanted to cut some stuff out for the theatrical release.

Spoiler

And something interesting. I also read that the first 15 minutes are about the Engineers, then around 25 minutes of pre-landing scenes and around 80 minutes on the planet, but the opening might have been recut in a different manner in the end.

[Joey]

They wanted to cut some stuff out for the theatrical release.

And something interesting. I also read that the first 15 minutes are about the Engineers, then around 25 minutes of pre-landing scenes and around 80 minutes on the planet, but the opening might have been recut in a different manner in the end.

that's not spoilers and there are always scenes cut for editing purposes, but the film is not being cut to acheive a specific rating.

[crumbs]

Damon Lindelof tweeted that the R rating was pretty much always inevitable, and joked a PG-13 cut would only be eleven minutes long.

[E.T. & Elliott]

I hope it's a nice long sci-fi flick with tons of quiet scenes.

[Alexcremers]

Doesn't "quiet" means "it drags and nothing happens" in this day and age (in these fast internet times where information must be delivered fast and nonstop)?

[crumbs]

Runtime is 119 minutes apparently, not including credits.