Wow, the “36 hours” controversy in Prometheus just won’t die down!
As I posted previously, when the Prometheus crew reach the moon LV-223 and awake from their extended cryo-sleep, David responds to Meredith Vickers that they have been asleep for “2 years, 4 months, 18 days, 36 hours, 15 minutes.” A common complaint has been that if Michael Fassbender’s David is using established temporal units to measure time, then he should have said “2 years, 4 months, 19 days, 12 hours and 15 minutes?”
Why 36 hours?
Well Jon Spaihts, co-writer of Prometheus, previously responded to a tweet about this saying “Robots have been showing off with this trick as long as there have been robots…”
At first many people, myself included, assumed he was stating that this was a deliberate part of the script. I realised though that it was likely that Mr Spaihts had not grasped the crux of the question. So I tweeted him back…
Benji Taylor: “King Jon! Please let us know about the “36 hrs” point. Am losing sleep over this and the GF is about to dump me!”
The screenwriter replied: “In candor, I didn’t write that line. I presume it’s an error on the page or on the day. Ask Damon.”
So I did, and Damon has responded…
Damon Lindelof: “I will take my lumps for all Prometheus mistakes, but for all asking, the scripted line was: “2 years, 4 months, 18 days.”
So there you have it! Screenwriters Damon and Jon did not script this to include “36 hours”, and it seems likely that this was the result of improvisation on the day.
Which still leaves the key question: was it deliberate, or an error?! As soon as WhatCulture has any updates we will let you know!
For my analysis of the ‘key themes’ in Prometheus see here.
Follow me on Twitter: @BenjiTaylorWins
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8 Comments
Nice scoop! Now you need to ask Fassbender if he deliberately improvised for a valid reason on the day!
Awsome!!
Ridley Scott said he made some changes to the script. He had the actors modify certain things on the spot. He is the next on the food chain to ask.
Benji my buddy says: “great investigative journalism on his part but with these skills and intellect shouldn’t he covering things like the higs boson or the LIBOR scandal”? Lol.
Ah, so the plot thickens! At least it’s confirmed that it is not a scripting error. Now we need to tweet Ridley or Fassbender for the reason! I’m thinking perhaps Ridley wanted to account for the ‘remaining’ elapsed time? I mean they haven’t reached LV-223 by that point, perhaps 36 hours 15 mins was the remaining time until they reach destination? Make sense for prep time and what not. Either that or simply David’s twitchy programming. It’s very likely that all this resulted from a simple conversation like this – Ridley: “Fass’ I want you to throw this in there to f*#$ with the audience, to add another subtle dimension to David.”
Benji, up there with BatMan as the world’s best detective! Very impressive!
This is a news story?
Legs, you’d be amazed at the amount of talk that this was generating in forums and on blogs, and many Prometheus fans have been very appreciative of this article and the fact that the writer has managed to get comments out of 2 Hollywood screenwriters!
So yes, it’s not only a news story, it’s a bloody good one!