List of things I did not care for in Prometheus

spoiler alert!

I watched the movie Prometheus a few weekends ago, it was a decent sci-fi movie, in my opinion the more big sci-fi epics that are made, the better. Others have said similar things as I am about to. I recommend everyone read Bad Astronomy's review. In this post going to stick more to the bad science than the bad plot. Except for FTL travel, I don't care about that, I hate when people bring that up as a problem in movies, yes we know there is no currently known way to travel faster than light according to the General Theory of Relativity.


List of things I did not care for in Prometheus.

Sound in space. If there are no lasers or big explosions to make things exciting, you don't need sounds in space. You didn't need it in 2001: A Space Oddessy, so I don't know why every sci-fi movie since then feels the need to add sounds when there is an external shot of a space ship. Silence is unnatural and heightens the spookiness of space travel.

The spaceship Prometheus directly lands on the planet. Ok so they must have some super source of energy to fly FTL, but for some reason it bugs me they land their main ship directly on the planet surface. In Alien the Nostromo separated from the cargo portion of the ship, same thing in Aliens with the drop ship bringing the crew from the Sulaco which remained in orbit. Both of those movies are set at a later date, so it may be implying that these are one of the first expeditions to other star systems? Even so, it would seem technologically easier to construct an interstellar FTL ship without having to worry about landing it in on a planet with gravity and an atmosphere, let alone taking off again.

Another way you might expect them to economize their travel is by manufacturing things from the planet when they land, either fuel, or oxygen, water, etc.. all things you might not want to carry all that extra mass. I assume if you have some kind of infinite fusion drive energy source you might be able to get away with not bothering to do that, although unless they have super compression techniques, there didn't seem to be big storage tanks or anything on the Prometheus to hold the matter they would need for things like breathing and drinking. Another area where it would have been a nice thing to show them actually do for once in a sci-fi movie.

The purpose of the trip is supposed to be a scientific study but all the scientists immediately run out and dive into the first structure they see. There is no systematic mapping of the area, they landed near the first spot they came across. Even if they just land somewhere that seems interesting, if they had left the main ship in orbit or even just some remote satellites they could have begun mapping the entire world for any other interesting areas. That's not to mention that there are no efforts to survey the outside of the structure.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, the scientists run around touching everything they see. The one thing they do which makes sense are sending those small robots to map out the interior, the one good idea they have seemingly. David has some ulterior motives in his programming, so I can give him a pass, although it seemed silly for the android to be the one to take the "touch first, ask questions later" approach to levels higher than the other scientists could possibly do. Overall everyone seemed pretty underwhelmed that they had in fact found an alien civilization at all! Even the remains of one would be a momentous archaeological find. It seemed like they were not interested in studying anything, and I guess it would be emotional but they seemed more greedy than amazed by anything they saw. If I remember the Alien series, there was no confirmed alien/xenomorph life on any planet ever surveyed, and since this was earlier than those movies, this would be the first proof of life outside of Earth, another amazing discovery by itself.

What was the one Engineer alien doing there asleep all this time? Did he come there after everyone else died and was trying to do something? Or did he go to sleep before all the others and didn't know that things went to shit for all the other Engineers? If so why wouldn't no one wake him? Or why would he be sleeping on a stationary ship in the first place while the others were there doing some work.

The first thing the Engineer does is start trying to kill everyone.  That was probably the low-point for me in the movie. So predictable and B-movie-ish. No dialog, no explanation, nothing profound from the mouth one of the creators of the human race, not even a thank you for waking him from his several thousand year hibernation or sleep. Maybe they are inherently violent, although the opening scene would seem to imply some sort of more thoughtful existence. It would have been better if he didn't physically try to hulk smash everyone but instead if his actions were more intelligently shown to trick or trap the humans, or even experiment on them. At that moment he would have no idea whether or not there were 100 armed soldiers just outside, what he did was careless and incomprehensible.

Plenty of unanswered plot points (I can't take full credit for these, thanks to my bro for expressing better than I can):
-- Why did the engineers, create humans billions of years ago, then come back to earth several times over our history to tell us about a military base they were building to eventually use to destroy us? Were those runes or cave paintings an invitation or warning?
-- So the engineers were planning on wiping out Earth with the goo, but something went wrong and they all died except for the one engineer who went to sleep before the others? Why are only the corpses of the engineers left but not the xenomorphs or whatever it was that killed them?
-- Did the rest of the engineers, the one not on the base just abandon the whole thing? The goo base and humans?
-- What happened to the two scientists who were trying to put the main woman [Shaw] under?
-- How does the main woman do this major surgery on herself, but no one seems to know, or notice, or react at all to it?
-- Why is no one particularly surprised that a stow-away, a man who had supposedly been dead for two years, turn up on the ship?
-- Where does EVERYBODY go? We see some people get off-ed but its a crew of 17. [>> So there were at least 3 in the bridge of the ship at the end. The Biologist, Geologist and Charlie killed by various alien things. Vickers met her end too. Thats seven. If David counts, 8, there were at least an orderly and two security guards with Weyland too, and presumably some of them were killed by the Engineer in the alien ship? I think you could count 3-4 more killed in the cargo hold by the zombie-Geologist, even if the number was only 3, then you're up 14. Two aforementioned scientists operating on Shaw, they vanished after being beat up. And Shaw herself being the 17th, not counting Weyland. ]



(Full disclosure, I wrote most of this the week after the movie came out when it seemed to matter more)

Redwood Road Trip

As readers of my blog may know, I am a fan of redwoods, specifically coastal redwoods. So this year when I planned my grand tour to the west coast to visit relatives in southern California, then head up to the Bay area, we of course took the opportunity to go up the coast to the Redwood National and State parks area, about 300+ miles north of San Francisco. This is a summary of my grand tour.

I started my road trip in San Diego, went from there to L.A. (Hollywood), took a detour inland to "Antelope Valley" region of California, let's just say somewhere between Sequoia National Forest and Death Valley, there were some interesting sights there too.

From there I mainly hit the coast on CA-1, the Pacific Highway from Cambria up to Monterrey, one of the more scenic roads I've ever driven. It was about a 9 hr drive all the way from where I started to San Jose. One cool stop was driving through Big Sur and seeing all the huge Redwoods on either side.

Long story short, after some time in the Bay area, we drove up 101 through Sonama / wine country and up the "Redwood Highway" past Humboldt Redwoods. Around that point, as you start to get close to Eureka, CA you begin to see stands of Coastal Redwoods along the highway, which lives up to it's name. The climate in general, visibly changes from the dry and gold colored hills you see from basically LA to Sonoma change to green conifer covered ridges, it was cool, even being July and mostly cloudy at least the first day we were up there.

It was a great few days in the parks with some amazing old growth trees you can read information on what hikes to take from some of these resources
http://www.redwoodhikes.com/RNP/RNP.html
http://www.turtlerocksinn.com/one-day-itinerary.html

Exploring the Redwood Parks - Day 1

We started our expedition from a B&B in Trinidad, CA, a great place, with an Ocean view overlooking some rocks where we could hear sea lions barking at night. Our first day itinerary was the following:

Redwood National Park:

Lady Bird Johnson Grove - First thing we did was stop at the National Park Kuchel visitor center. We got a map and directions from a helpful park ranger, we also found out that there was a ranger led walk through the LBJ Grove so we rushed off to make the start time. It was a cool and foggy day, perfect for seeing the redwoods. The park ranger was friendly and gave us a very informative tour where we would stop every few hundred feet to talk about some tree or plant species or the life cycle of redwood trees. It was my first time being around the really large Coastal Redwoods since I had been to Muir Woods 4-5 years ago. This was really impressive, and seeing the difference from the preserved old-growth grove and the second-growth areas that were 40-50 years old and much more like a forest you might see around New England. Interesting note. Most of Redwood National Park has been logged over already, this is what they say is a restoration park rather than a preservation park as every other National Park is. The hike was about 1 hour, including the tour, which ended about halfway around the 3/4 mi. loop and you just hiked your way back through more old-growth. One impressive thing is the fact that some of the Fir and Spruce trees look as large as some of the Redwoods, one difference is that the fir trees' trunks are covered in moss, lichen or ivies, the Redwood trunks are generally un-colonized due to their high acidity in the bark.



Trillium Falls Trail - A short 2.8 mi hike over some hilly terrain through some really beautiful forest. We parked at the Elk viewing area, and hiked to the trail head, the sign there is pretty misleading. According to the guides and trail description, you are supposed to head off from the dirt road to the right, getting to the falls pretty early in the hike then a loop around the forest. We missed the turn-off of course, which was a narrow foot path off of a dirt road angling away from the dirt road where the trail head is. So we ended up going through the hike "backwards" which actually was pretty nice, and seems better than the suggested in the guides. After walking along the dirt road for a bit you come to a trail heading off to the left marked "Trail" with no other information. We took a gamble and went down that path. It loops through these impressive old-growth Redwood groves. At this point the sun came out and lit up the forest as we hiked around, almost completely alone. After a while we figured out we went the wrong way as we never came across the falls after forty minutes (it also helped to realize that the traffic from the 101 was on our left which helped to give us a direction of where we were). But after just a little more hiking we met some other hikers coming from the other direction who were helpful enough to tell us that we were almost at the falls. The falls were nice, but nothing really impressive, a small mountain stream, felt like somewhere in the White Mountains of New Hampshire except for the enormous trunks of the Redwoods in every direction.

We had lunch in Orick, you take what you can get in that wilderness...

Final stop was on the way back to Trinidad, we went back to the Kuchel center and asked what kind of coastal hike we might try. We decided to go to the Patrick's Point State park which is not really a Redwood park, but it does have amazing overlooks over the Pacific from high up on rocks and cliffs. So we drove there, paid the $8.00 entrance fee (the National Park is free, California State Parks are $8.00 /per day, but if you pay once you can use the same pass at the other parks). Highlights were the Muscle Rocks, a hike down close to the "rocky" beach. The next thing was the Wedding Rock, a nice outcrop of rock a few hundred feet above the ocean with views up and down the coast. A truly beautiful place, and a nice walk back and forth from the parking lots in each case.

Video of Lady Bird Johnson grove hike

Exploring the Redwood Parks - Day 2

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

First stop on Day 2 was to the Fern Canyon hike in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. You need drive down a narrow dirt road over a ridge through the park to get down to the coast. It's a state park which costs $8 a day to enter per car. Past the ranger post the road continues along low elevation near the ocean to a parking lot. This is apparently the Gold Bluffs Beach area. The paring lot leads to a short path to the actual Fern Canyon, a small creek through a good size gorge or ravine where the walls are covered completely in a green carpet of ferns and other plants. No redwoods, but everyone keeps mentioning that they filmed Jurassic Park: The Lost World there. It is a pretty area, about a 30 minute hike, depending on how fast you go (or how far, there didn't seem to be a clear "end", you have to jump over the stream in a few places or bring shoes that can get a little wet.


Back in the parking lot, we walked across a marshy meadow to the dunes and the beach. On the way we saw herd of Roosevelt Elk feeding. We were separated from by a small waterway in the marsh. It turned out there was not path to the actual beach from this parking lot or so it seemed.


Video of the elk

After the detour we drove up the highway to the Klamath area to the "Trees of Mystery". The Trees of Mystery is a tourist trap with a giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox in front. There is a fee to take the hike which includes seeing a few remaining old-growth redwoods, some oddly shaped trees of different species and a sculpture park. The highlight is the SkyTrail a ski lift type gondola ride that takes you through the canopy of the forest up to a lookout platform at the top of the hill. What they don't tell you in the brochures is that the whole area was previously logged so it is all second growth up there. Some of the trees in their hike like the Brotherhood Tree are pretty impressive (a worker said they didn't log it since they knew it was rotted inside). The place is kind of a novelty. What is pretty interesting is at the back of their extensive redwood gift shop, is a Native American museum of different artifacts from all over the west.


Day 2 was actually the 4th of July. So that night we drove from our hotel up to Crescent City to enjoy the fireworks show. Its a nice little coastal town, very low-key, we had pretty descent sushi (probably the only sushi for 100 miles). The fireworks were basically people setting off their own rockets all over the beach and the Battery Point Lighthouse area, not exactly the Boston Pops, but we had a good time and left after it got dark (which was well after 9pm). Even though it was July in California, you needed a sweater at least to be out there.

Leaving the Redwood Parks - Day 3

On Day 3 we had a flight to catch...in San Francisco. About 320 miles away to the south. We had a good breakfast at the hotel first, one of the guests pointed out a bear on the opposite bank of the Klamath river, it walked around for a while, maybe looking for food in the sand? We then took our leave and started the journey back down to civilization, we were sad to go from that beautiful place. I kind of wish we had more time to explore some of the various other hikes, although I have a feeling from their descriptions it would have been similar to what we already saw on the first day.

It took us about 6 hours to get back to San Francisco. Along the way, I wasn't driving this time and got to see quite a bit more redwoods all along the aptly named "Redwood Highway", its quite a sight to see these huge trees right by the side of the highway. We took a tip from one of our B&B hosts "stay in the right lane through the Golden Gate tolls" this exits the 101 into what used to be the Presidio military base. They are now turning this area into a park and you can walk over the old concrete bunkers and coastal fortifications, I doubt you will see better views of the Golden Gate bridge or the mouth of the bay than from there. Very windy. Some scenic drives and delicious chinese food later, we made it to SFO for our red eye flight back to the east coast. It was quite an adventure for me, and overall a peaceful relaxing vacation.