Women in Film Blogathon

John Hitchcock, over at Hichcock's World. is running a very fun blogathon focusing on the women in cinema.

Here are the rules:

1. The female character in question should have qualities that make her strong. That doesn't necessarily mean better than the guys, just well-written; we're trying to promote equality here, not reverse misogyny.
2. Unlike my previous blogathon, I'm going to be a bit stricter here and say that each entry should only focus on one character. However, if you like you can write multiple entries examining different characters.
3. If you can, do try to find less obvious choices. There are a few that I can expect are likely to get picked: Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc. If you decide to write about any the "obvious" choices, I encourage you to at least try and find something new to say about them.
4. You are allowed to pick characters from any film from genre or time period you like.

Visual Parallels: Alien + Prometheus

Alien and Prometheus, though set years apart in movie-making and storytelling terms, share many similarities. Both directed by Ridley Scott and taking place in the same universe, they have strong women as the protagonists - Ellen Ripley and Elizabeth Shaw - first one fierce to begin with and forced to fight for her own survival on board of Nostromo, where xenomorph is determined to kill every single passenger, second - a little naive and too trusting changes in the course of the story when she has to find the inner strength and courage to stay alive.

Scene of the Week: Prometheus

  Hello Mommy

directed by Ridley Scott

The scene: After Dr Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) learns that she is pregnant with her boyfriend, who just died after being infected with something, she is horrified - not only the place she believed to be a beautiful miracle is a hideous nightmare - something strange and unnatural (the fetus is growing very fast) is growing inside her. She manages to escape and go to Meredith Vickers's room where she finds the machine that is capable of performing surgery. Shaw is trying to tell the machine that she needs a caesarean but since it's mysteriously programmed for a man all she manages to do is to program it to remove foreign object from her body. She gets into the machine, with the syringe packed with painkillers, as her stomach starts rising. The machine manages to cut her open and remove the fetus. Upon seeing it, Shaw looks at it with astonishment until it comes to life trying to attack her. She escapes and leaves her offspring behind, locked in the machine.

Prometheus - symbols, theories and observations.

95/100  (124 min, 2012)
Plot: A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race. Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof
Stars: Noomi Rapace, Logan Marshall-Green and Michael Fassbender
(spoilers in the article and the images)

Paradise Lost

“This man is here because he does not want to die. 

He believes you can give him more life.” 

- David, speaking to the Engineer.

Why are we here? Who created us? Why did they create us? Why do we die? Why do we live? These are all the questions people were asking themselves for as long as there was human life. If you think Ridley Scott's Prometheus, movie set in the same universe as Alien but with the events preceding those shown in classic science fiction.horror will answer these questions you will be wrong. Nobody can answer them, can they? But Prometheus offers some theories and ideas that are very thought provoking and not necessarily completely impossible.

The film opens in 2089 when Dr Elizabeth Show and her boyfriend Charlie Holloway discover curious cave paintings. Soon they are part of the mission sponsored by powerful Weyland Industries to the distant planet - they know how to get there because Shaw and Holloway found several of such cave paintings, each containing pictograms which put together create a star map. They are going there, because as the paintings are from many centuries set apart, spread through the history of human existence they believe they are being led to the beings that created us. They call them Engineers.

Soundtrack Wednesday - Prometheus

Track: Infected

Artist: Marc Streitenfeld

Movie: Prometheus

Prometheus Viral Video "Quiet Eye"

Brand new viral video promoting Prometheus and featuring Noomi Rapace premiered today!

New Clip, TV Spot and Soundtrack for Prometheus online!

Prometheus soundtrack is now available on Itunes - you can listen to the samples or buy the album now!
To go to the page click on the album cover below.

There is also the first clip from the movie where you can see the landing of the ship:

And finally a brand new TV Spot where we get to see quite frightening glimpses of the primary antagonists in the movie: 

"God does not build in straight lines" - Prometheus "Origins" featurette.

There is a fascinating new featurette promoting Prometheus over at Yahoo - click the image below to go there.

In this one we find out the name of the planet - which is actually the name of one of the existing moons , we get to see more shots of Michael Fassbender looking very creepy and we hear Ridley Scott declaring he wants to scare the living shit out of us.

“ ‘2001’ on steroids.” Ridley Scott talks about "Prometheus" + new tv spots

New York Times website has a great article about Prometheus including Ridley Scott's comments.
“God doesn’t hate us,” Mr. Scott added ominously. “But God could be disappointed in us — like children.”

There also 3 new TV spots with few new shots.

2 new "Prometheus" related gems!

by Sati

Today two new lovely promotional materials showed up on the web - English version of 3-minute long featurette and alternate version of the new trailer with new shots which are quite gory and disturbing. Check them out below.

Brand new trailer for "Prometheus"

Brand new trailer for Prometheus just aired in UK. It features tons of new footage, first look at some of the creatures in the movie and horrifying screams of the crew. There are more and more glimpses of a certain scene featuring Noomi Rapace, which I hope is not the one rumoured to be as shocking as chestbuster scene in "Alien" - if you saw the trailers and promotional materials you can figure out what happens. We have a lot of new scenes with Charlize Theron, but the best part of the trailer for me is the ending - where disturbing images mix with the screaming. I really don't see how can PG-13 even be an option here.

Brand new featurette for "Prometheus"

New featurette for 'Prometheus" has just been released featuring the look at the making of the movie and few new shots. We also get a brief commentaries by Ridley Scott and the cast. It's only a little more than month away!

Michael Fassbender is David, the android in new "Prometheus" viral video.

"Prometheus" marketing campaign is not just trailers, TV spots, pictures and posters but also impressive viral marketing which includes videos made specifically for the purpose of expanding the universe of the movie. In 3rd video we can see the introduction of David, the android played by Michael Fasssbender. The video runs a bit over 2 minutes yet his acting is already impressing me. Damn it, Michael. Is there anything you can't do?

What can you see on the new picture from "Prometheus"?

(click to enlarge)

Few days ago a whole bunch of usual character pictures was released in part of the promotion for "Prometheus". Whenever there is something new connected to the movie online I always hold my breath since I anticipate it so much, but with those pictures I wasn't impressed. But, hell, I am now. The above picture has been playing with my mind for two days now. But let me fill you in on the details.

"How far would you go to get your answers?" International trailer for "Prometheus"

What a great treat - extended trailer for Prometheus with more scenes and more dialogue than the one we got yesterday. Does anyone know the music that plays in the background? It is absolutely gorgeous. Also I really do hope Noomi's performance will be as amazing as what we saw so far from the trailers - that scene where she composes herself is amazing. Also there is something chasing her as she is struggling to escape, which I only noticed now.

First full trailer for Prometheus

I love the trailer. It has so much new great footage, a lot of Fassbender and Rapace and we still know absolutely nothing about the plot. Also I'm pretty sure that if you go frame by frame near the end of the promo there is a lot of hidden footage there, including Space Jockey and something weird attacking Noomi's character. I really can't wait for the movie.

2nd teaser for Ridley Scott's Prometheus

(I'm still looking for info whether it's the full trailer that was announced to appear this weekend, or just another teaser. Some sources say the full trailer is 2:30 minutes long, so this may be just another teaser, regardless of what it is it is freaking awesome).
We have Space Jockey, something freaking happening to eyes, Charlize Theron being bad ass and Noomi Rapace being even more bad ass. I can't wait to see this film and from the looks of it, let's just hope there is no way this will be PG-13.

The secrets of "Prometheus"

What happened to Elizabeth Shaw? Who is that in the wheelchair?

Recently released, in the form of heavily Alien inspired, teaser trailer for "Prometheus" is perhaps one of the most intriguing promos ever released. I have been watching it for some time now, on repeat, and it is driving me crazy. The whole cast and Ridley Scott have been teasing all of us cruelly for the last few months - apparently changing their minds whether it is a prequel of "Alien" or it is not. The teaser pretty much proves that in fact, "Prometheus" has very strong links to the iconic movie - here is a wonderful breakdown of the trailer, frame by frame.

What we know for sure is that Charlize Theron is playing a villain - how hot is that - and Noomi Rapace is the heroine of the story - Elizabeth Shaw, whom we see screaming in the trailer. Michael Fassbender stars as an android, who may or may not start becoming - literally - human in the progress of the story.

Charlize Theron, possibly doing push ups after sleeping during space travel?

First teaser for Ridley Scott's Prometheus

'

This is going to be so amazing.