Join us for our extra long 100th podcast! “Prometheus”, “Snow White and the Huntsman”, “Game of Thrones” and “True Blood”. PLUS William Van Winkle’s “Short Shorts”. It’s a full plate, and we jam packed it with goodness, so you don’t have to.
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By Sci-Guy-Jim
June 15th, 2012 - 2:42 pm
Really liked the flashbacks to your old radio days. Scott’s “Can you restate the question” to that guy who called in was hilarious.
I quite enjoyed Prometheus, but aside from a few good acting performances and the visuals, I couldn’t really tell you why. Maybe I just find it interesting (and more at a filmmaking level rather than the questions posed internally by the film) rather than good, I reckon Jim was actually being kind to it when describing the script: it’s an utter mess at times.
Something I don’t think you touched on that really bothered me. The whole Alien life-cycle in this is frustrating in how badly defined and inconsistent it is, but the biggest head-scratcher was the final shot of the alien itself. Now, the way it’s staged this seemed almost an ‘ah-ha’ reveal where it’s making a big statement that this is the origin of the alien itself. But there’s a really brief shot earlier of a murial inside the ship with an alien at its centre (this is pretty easy to miss, I’d seen the image online beforehand), which contradicts my reading of the ending. And the transition into the third act (post surgery) is just horrible; like they’ve bolted together two scripts that don’t mesh. And yes, my gut reaction was that a lot had been cut as well. Sometimes I wonder if they stare at this stuff so long in the editing room that they assume we have knowledge provided by certain scenes which aren’t in the latest cut of the film.
Talking about story problems, I thought Game of Thrones had a few small problems with its plotting too (like decisions a few characters made seeming out of character)…but then I liked all of the other stuff so much I can happily accept these and just go along with it. I think when you spoke about episode 9 on a previous podcast Mike or Jim mentioned something about developments in that being changed from how they happen in the book, what was that? Just the chain used to block the ships or was it something else?
June 18th, 2012 - 1:28 pm
Guys, 100 episodes!! Listened to this with my main SciGuy on a road trip and it was really fun. We talked so much between bits that we kept having to rewind. The flashbacks to early days was perfect and necessary – I’d always wanted to know what the radio show was about.
You convinced us to give up any lingering doubts we had about not seeing “Prometheus”. The ads make it looks visually stunning, but I don’t need to spend two hours and $20 on a confusing ending. I’m really surprised Scott and the Lost writers couldn’t make things more cohesive. I guess they chose “cool factor” over story, which is something I detest in any medium.
Thanks for the shout-out and I hope I’m around for the next 100! Congratulations!!
love, lore