Secret Cinema was... Prometheus

Prometheus, are you seeing this? 


Secret Cinema presented Ridley Scott's Prometheus in Euston, London, throughout June, transforming a vast abandoned warehouse into the Brave New Ventures/Weyland Industries embarkation terminal and spacecraft.


The journey of one key employee, Elizabeth, has been documented in the film here. The photographic report was filed here. A press report can be found here.


Following the discovery of Star Maps in caves across the world, over 25,000 Secret Weyland Industries employees travelled to the distant planet LV-223 to search for their creators. They dined at the Future Paradise, the secret restaurant aboard on the ship.


Many went through a strict BNV training programme in the leadup to the missions to ensure all recruits were prepared for the trials to come.


After hypersleep and landing, the Brave crew headed through the airlock onto the planet surface in search of our origins. Some were contaminated. All were evacuated to the escape pods and addressed by Captain Ridley Scott from the upper deck. An important message was then relayed.


We thank our esteemed music partners, Radiohead, for creating a soundscape to enhance the mission across the many dark spaces aboard Prometheus. Thank you for investing in BNV. We shall see you very soon for more adventures. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest news.


BRAVE NEW PARTNERS
We would like to thank our visual effects partner Framestore, lighting partner Panalux, drinks partner Diageo, projection partner Dolby 3D, travel partner Virgin Trains, car partner Honda and all our contributing partners for their commitment to our vision.


BRAVE NEW PHOTO AND VIDEO COMPETITION
All crew that boarded the ship are requested to submit their photographic and video evidence here. These will be carefully analysed by our Guidelinks at base, with the three most truthful representations of the journey being awarded three pairs of places to the next mission.


FUTURE CINEMA PRESENTS...
From the creators of Secret Cinema comes a brand new way of seeing new films, don't miss Secret Screenings this Wednesday. Tickets here. May the 4th of July be with you. Future Cinema takes over Wilderness Festival on the 10th to 12th of August, featuring Bugsy Malone and La Haine. Tickets here.

Secret Cinema...

Last Thursday Stu and I went to the latest Secret Cinema event. We loved it. The event that is. Not so much the film.

[WARNING: MILD SPOILERS]

We'd been pondering what the film might be this time round - but at a party the previous weekend someone had let the cat out of the bag albeit confirming a widely circulated rumour. Unfortunately I'd seen that film the previous day and Stu wasn't keen to see it at all. Oh well.

There had in fact been lots of clues in the video clips, Twitter, Facebook and emails we had been sent in the run up to the event and various articles in newspapers had plainly stated the film title so we perhaps should have cottoned on earlier.

Anyway, we were instructed to wear navy blue boiler-suits as Matter Analysts, join the company Brave New Ventures and meet at the statue of the Engineer at Euston station at 6pm sharp. We were then lead up the road to a disused 190,000 sq ft NHS transport depot which had been repurposed into a space ship.

Once we had arrived we exchanged our cash for bright plastic tokens so we could buy beer and ventured into the frankly cavernous event space.

It took hours to explore all the rooms. There was a library, infirmary, laboratory, hydroponics, main computer room housing "Mother", navigation bridge, front and rear flight deck, cameras on helmets, workshop, maintenance floor, garage/loading bay with the real vehicles flown over from the real film set, numerous bars, Ping Tron (ultraviolet powered ping pong), hypersleep stations and booths, undercarriage, front and rear engines, surgical museum, restaurant, conduits, surface ramp, supplies area, crew quarters, escape pods, and plenty of signage. To say there was great attention to detail would be putting it mildly.

We were there for three hours in which time we took off, went into stasis, travelled through space, drank a few beers and finally had to be 'evacuated' due to a 'contamination'.

The evacuation meant we had to go down to the 'escape pods' i.e. cinema downstairs and be given our 'protection eyewear' i.e. 3D glasses before getting a brief safety briefing/motivational speech from none other than Ridley Scott himself.

I won't say too much about the film as I have done so twice before except to say that Stu wanted to leave before the end. Oh dear.

Musings on Prometheus...

Having seen Prometheus twice now I think I'm more confused after the second watch. Plot holes (and SPOILERS) ahoy!

Mark Kermode was interviewing Ridley Scott on Mark Kermode film review on BBC Five Live and after the interview MK was musing about Prometheus being more 'Bladerunner' than 'Alien' as the film was more about robots and the nature of what it is to be human than it was about alien nasties running about.

Ridley Scott was saying that a proper Bladerunner prequel and sequel (I think) were both being written so I don't think we'll be seeing a crossover anytime soon. Does the team think Alien/Pometheus/​Bladerunner are all in the same universe?

Ridley also confirmed that the planet in Prometheus is NOT the same planet as in Alien. Same galaxy but different planet.

And this from my mate Chris (which I largely agree with):-

The caesarean scene was cool, though also completely over-the-top unrealistic (or rather, the scenes immediately following the caesarean).

The special effects were good, obviously, but I am never going to rate a movie highly based on its special effects. Saying that, the makeup used to make Guy Pierce look old was crap, and his attempt at trying to pretend to be an old man was equally crap. They could have CGI'd a better old geezer to play Peter Weyland.

The characters were either boring or unbelievable. The geologist with so many psychological problems that you wouldn't trust him with sweeping the streets let alone sending on an interstellar mission of possibly the greatest importance the human race has ever undertaken was particularly ludicrous. Charlize Theron's "Bitch Without A Cause" was a close second. The Ripley-a-Like was lame-as, interlaced with brief spurts of completely superhuman unbelievability (see aforementioned caesarean). Even David was just an "evil robot" - there was no real explanation given as to why he was acting like such an incredible cunt. You just had to presume that it was because he'd been programmed to, but the details of the motives behind this were completely opaque.

The behaviour of the characters in general was pretty random and unbelievable, with people who are supposed to be scientists completely flouting the most basic and obvious of safety procedures and otherwise just acting completely irrationally very obviously just to introduce the most contrived drama into the story.

The acting was mediocre at best, all from the Bog-Standard Action Movie School of Drama. Lots of "this is my angry voice!!!" stuff. Michael's mention of the self-sacrificial ramming scene at the end is a particularly good example of three actors who wouldn't know how to express their imminent death if someone put a gun to their heads. Even Fassbender's David wasn't particularly mind-blowing or anything - it was pretty standard "guy acting like a robot"; there wasn't anything particularly memorable about his performance.

The dialogue was uninspiring at best and downright corny at worst. Almost none of it sounded like real people talking to each other - it sounded completely like a script.

The actual storyline was disjointed and made little sense. There were multiple "plot points" (I use the term loosely) that were made to seem important but then later turned out to have almost no point or relevance at all (the previously mentioned 2,000 year-old Engineer head, for one; Doctor Holloway's poisoning for another; Peter Weyland's appearance and subsequent - and almost immediate - demise for a third). The "plot" seemed to advance mostly by the process of the characters jumping to irrational conclusions.

So the only parts we're left with that were any good are the special effects (Guy Pierce's makeup notwithstanding) and Doctor Holloway's face (and the face of the orderly who is looking after Peter Weyland... but he's only in it for about five minutes). And that's not enough to make even an average movie for me, I'm afraid.

Prometheus...

On Sunday afternoon Tim, Andy, Kev and I went to see Prometheus at the IMAX in London's Waterloo. We had to fight our way through the crowds of people who had turned out for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee flotilla on the Thames but it was worth the struggle.

As a sort of Alien prequel it certainly ticked all the boxes. Not as scary though; more sci-fi than horror. I won't give any spoilers here but suffice to say I have a feeling there might be a sequel to the prequel in the pipeline.

Michael Fassbender was excellent although Guy Pearce looked a bit weird.

The film did give me nightmares that night so it obvious affected me more than I'd first thought.

I have a feeling we might be seeing it again rather soon...