Prometheus: Giftbearer

This was a pretty cool take on what I originally thought was a great movie and later a confusing one and finally a movie that leveled out somewhere in the middle of my "favorites" scale. The best thing it had going for it was its connection to Alien. I went into Giftbearer with great hope that some things might be cleared up and some of the extras would be used the right way. While I'm not sure anything was really cleared up, the extras were definitely used the right way.

THINGS THAT STOOD OUT:

1. The TED talk scene- I really like this set up scene. It is a great explanation of who Weyland is and what his aspirations are. I thought about it's placement and where I would put it instead. Not sure if there is a better spot. Perhaps I would put it after the discovery of the ruins, but to each his own. Maybe what I would do is show the scientists finding the ruins, do the TED talk, and then bring them back to the crew getting ready to leave. Anyway, no big deal.

2. Moving the opening alien scene- Probably not a bad idea. I think it is important, but not necessarily where it was. I like how it was used later.

3. The extra dialogue scenes- beautifully woven back into the movie. All cool. All needed. Great job.

4. Audio between Noomi's dream sequence and the next sequence- You'll know it when you hear it. It goes from no sound to abrupt music. I'm no pro, so I don't know what I'd do there, but it is the one time I think I was aware something had changed.

Perhaps what I liked best is that you didn't really change the movie and what it is about, but rather added to the story. I never thought it was bad before. Now I just think it is better.

This version has a much better linear and understandable structure than the original and looks superb. My only complain is that the audio has only 2 channels and appears to be clipping on loud moments.

THANK YOU!

you have singlehandedly made this mess of plotholes, one dimensional characters into something watchable.

you have made a lot of good choices where ridley fell flat.

this has more of a Alien 1 theme now - it's dark and mysterious, it's still beautiful to look at.
it's easier to follow without the constant distractions of poor character choices or gaping plotholes.

but you could go farther:
remove the whole Vickers/Janek One night stand thing, i know it's in there to show vickers is not completely dead to emotion and is unlike david, not an android child of weyland.

SPOILER ALERT
why is the protoxenomorph in the end not screaming out? felt weird...

Negative Points for the 2.0 Mix on Audio, this movie is a blast on a channels - why mix it down?

this has taken the movie from a 6.5 to a 7.9 for me - now i'm looking forward to prometheus 2 again (and if that sucks too - severian can jump in and fix that too)

I just recently watched this edit, and I have to say I didn’t see why everyone was giving it huge props.
Actually think most of the time people like something cause its new, but that doesn’t always make it good.
The opening is too long and boring, the Viral clips used where good yes, and I understand the inclusion of the TED video, which I liked, but the Noomi phone call video, wasn’t a good choice and it wasn’t ever suppose to be part of the movie, it was her screen test.
The title sequence was blah, and didn’t give credit to anyone not even the director Ridley Scott.
In your breakdown you explain why you took things out but some of it was like why? I don’t think you understood all the characters, like Weyland; for example: Weyland saying “What happens when we die.” Sure they didn’t find anything there that had to do with that, but Weyland was hoping they would, hence one of the reasons why they spent 11 trillion dollars to get out there.. But then you leave in the whole David looking at her dreams… Why? What point does that serve to the overall plot of the story, there's no big reveal to why this is important?
The inclusion of the deleted footage was good, and definitely builds the characters, but they looked so out of place, it was like watching a work print. They where all smoked over and green, didn’t look like they where colored at all, and every time one came on, it threw me right of the picture. I watched this with a friend and even he asked “Why does it look so different?”. The volume of those added sequences was off also by about 6db.
The dream / flash back sequence was just not for me, it just doesn’t progress the story any. In the beginning I was happy you got rid of those scene’s, but then you added them back in.. bored again…
The editing was good on the cuts though, and some of the audio work that you did was nice. Though in the Shaw vs Engineer scene you didn’t add any extra sound in that sequence except music so it felt a bit out of place, an again felt more like a work print.
I understand where you where going with this edit, and if your new to editing, then you did a good job with your cuts and some of your audio work, but when your adding clips that haven’t been mastered, you need to look at your levels and balance all the audio. Another thing you need to do is try your best to color correct the sequences to match the overall look of the film, premade filters don’t cut it. If you don’t know how to color correct, ask someone on the boards, or look up how to read Color Curves, CMY, RGB levels. And always remember pacing, stop; take a look at it; even if its good and you like it, pace it out and see how it feels, if your not sure, have a friend watch it, sometimes even if its good, it just doesn’t fit, or it doesn’t fit there.

Sorry...