Giant Freakin Robot

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus was one of the most polarizing movies of the summer, disappointing many fans who were eager to see the director’s return to the genre of science fiction. As it turns out, iconic film director Quentin Tarantino agrees with the film’s naysayers, and as the Pulp Fiction director puts it, the movie “had some dumb stuff in it.”

While doing promotion for his latest film, Django Unchained, Tarantino appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson to talk about movies. Tarantino told Ferguson that, while making Django Unchained, he didn’t have enough time to watch new movies in the theater, but he did have an opportunity to watch Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. Watch the video below (jump to the 4:45 mark to hear the sci-fi talk).

Now that 2012 is coming to a close, we can all appreciate the good and bad of the year’s science fiction crop. From the poor plotting of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus to Len Wiseman’s inept remake of Total Recall, audiences and genre fans were painfully annoyed with some of Hollywood’s 2012 offerings. And just as a good movie will make audiences willing to suspend some disbelief or forgive the odd plot hole, in the bad movies they stand out that much more.

The people at Popular Science have put together a list of the year’s most egregious scientific mistakes in movies. Although there are some glaring errors, please keep in mind that ultimately these are all movies. Just imagine how exciting Prometheus would be if it were a depiction of a 100% accurate scientific and archaeological exploration. It wouldn’t be as exhilarating as what we got in Ridley Scott’s movie. But Hollywood theatrics are no excuse for some of these boneheaded mistakes:

We witness some of ‘the most irresponsible, inept archaeologists ever to don spacesuits, take off their helmets just minutes after leaving the spacecraft. Advanced atmospheric sensors or not, this is a terrible idea. What if there’s an unknown, undetectable, and highly toxic compound in the air? Or a virulent strain of life? No matter: Soon enough the movie’s characters are touching creepy-looking aliens (and, of course, dying horrible deaths).

One of the most polarizing science fiction movies of 2012, Prometheus will continue to alienate or please audiences for years to come. The film was Ridley Scott’s return to the science fiction genre, and the Alien franchise, but it left many audiences lukewarm that it couldn’t live up to expectations. Still, it added a lot of intriguing concepts to the world of Alien, and if nothing else it’s given fans some more ideas to mull over. Case in point: a new artist’s rendition of the film’s Engineers, depicting the mysterious creators as gods in “Prometheus and God.”

The fan conversation about Prometheus seemed to get a second wind after the home video release of the film last month. Some are still calling it brilliant. Some are still convinced it’s an abomination cluttered with gaping logic holes. And many seem to fall into the same camp I do: admiring what the film was trying to do, but bewildered by the characters doing one stupid, illogical thing after another. There’s no question that these problems should have been addressed in the script stage, by both director Ridley Scott and by Damon Lindelof (Lost), whose draft was used for the final film, and who shared screenwriter credit with Jon Spaihts. Now an earlier draft of the movie that became Prometheus has popped up online, giving us an intriguing look at a different path the film could have taken.

The script appeared on Prometheus Movie over the weekend, and has since been confirmed as genuine by screenwriter Jon Spaihts via Twitter. If you’re interested, we recommend you check it out quickly, because there’s no telling when/if Fox’s lawyers will begin trying to scour all copies of it off the internet. If it’s already gone by the time you read this, fear not: we’ll have our own look at the screenplay posting later this week.