Well, actually, let me rephrase that.  I know what it was about, so I don't need plot explanations, however... WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?

This movie annoyed me, not least because of the pedigree of talent involved in it.  Premiere Sci Fi Director?  Check.  Enormoulsy talented cast? Check.  Big budget special effects?  Check? Cleverly written script? Che...no wait.

The first third (maybe) was pretty good, Fassbender alone on the ship captured the isolation of space perfectly, but it all seemed to go to shiiiii when the crew woke up.  MY GOD THE CREW!  I cannot entertain such a crushingly STUPID bunch of people and they are supposed to be scientists.  The brightest of the bright.

I am pretty sure all of this has been said ad infinitum by others more adept at critiquing movies, however I would like to point out some exasperating plot holes:  (SPOILERS AHEAD)

1:  The map guy.  The guy with the little drones that go off and map an area, also equipped with high tech GPS, gets lost!  Really?

2:  The biologist guy, brought along on the journey to help with the discovery of our supposed progenitors is scared of a 2000 year old corpse, and yet is happy to entertain, and get stupidly close to a sentient worm thing THAT HAS ACID FOR BLOOD!

3:  The ridiculous connection between Wayland and Charlize's character that just wasn't explored.

4:  Why, oh WHY, if the moon our hapless crew landed on was a site for WMD did our supposed progenitors provide various maps to the location?  I mean, seriously, the whole premise about the Engineers wanting to wipe humanity out after creating it is around the idea that each progeny secretly wants to kill their father.  The Engineers it seems, were trying to do that before we could get around to it, so WHY LEAVE A MAP TO EXPOSE THE PLAN?

5:  Don't even get me started on the running vertically from a falling ship when running horizontally would have been signigicantly more effective.

6:  Alien pregnancy?  Really?  That is just f**king lazy.

7:  Noomi Rapace perfectly able to rappel from and climb in to a beleagured escape pod with very recent lower abdominal surgery, but struggles to run and perform otherwise fairly straight-forward activities.  I have had a c-section, and I can assure you even sitting up is excrutiatingly painful, let alone hulking the inanimate Fassbender down a 10ft drop.

8:  What were the Engineer crew running from in the holographic impression that Fassbender manages to uncover? It just wasn't explained.

I find the whole thing just inexplicable.  Alien is an incredible movie, in my opinion.  Perfect blend of science fiction, horror and drama, Prometheus is just crap.  What happened? 

Has anyone seen an extended Director's cut?  I ask because some of the narrative leaps suggest to me that there was an awful lot of editing, so many scenes didn't make sense.

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Wool: Omnibus addition is actually Wool 1-5 combined into one book. Shift Omnibus is Shift 1-3 in one book. The third and final book Dust, no idea of a release date. I can not say enough how much I have enjoyed these books.

Now, as I wait for two "final" books, I used Amazon's feature of "if you bought this, you would like....." and ended up with Extinction Point , this book starts of very fast and throws you right into it. Very short read, about 300 pages. I'm 25% in (started last night) and so far so good. Only reason why I did not read more last night was because I just could not keep my eyes open any longer after a long week so far.

As my desire to game has almost completely fallen apart, I find that I am reading more and more, almost can't get enough of it, I fogot just how much I LOVE it! What books can you all reccomend? I'm open to pretty much anything, but tend to stick to mostly fiction.

Oh, and if I remember correctly, someone here, maybe JohnS knew someone who put a book out last year... something about a watch? Anybody know of this, it was someone from GS.

Some other books I also recently read..

World War Z

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter

Time Ship

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Hobbit

John Carter

Tarzan

And the Hunger Games series

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The drawback of a prepackaged physical product on the shelves is that it has to be an all encompassing solution.  All of its various components are bundled together and shipped at its recommended retail price a price that is a reflection off all that content.  What if you dont want all that content though?  That limited single product is not tailored to the desires of your various customers.  Some people will utilise everything that is on offer, whilst others are only interested in certain elements of the product.  To give you an example, I have friends that have sunk hundreds of hours into the Call of Duty series of games and yet, being fans of online multi-player, have never touched the campaign modes.  This of course works in the reverse: there are gamers that are only interested in the single player campaign and yet have effectively paid for an online component they wont ever use.

Online digital download removes many of the constraints that occur with a physical product.  It enables the publishers to slice and dice the content into chunks, making for a more versatile product.  This is a scenario that is beneficial to both the seller and the consumer.  The costs involved with hosting download servers and a front end market place are far less than that of producing and shipping physical copy.  The consumer should benefit from not only a reflectively reduced price because of this, but also the option to only buy  the segmentally priced content they desire.  It could be argued that publishers would lose out here, as they gain more from selling you a higher priced product whether you want all of it or not, than they do from selling you just the bits you do want, at a cheaper price.  Id suggest that the elimination of second hand sales and also disgruntled consumers who dont want to pay full price for merely a five hour campaign, would negate any of these loses.  There is also the benefit of product availability.  Retailers only have a limited amount of shelf space and need to be smart with their product ordering. They have to second guess the market, making sure they order in enough of what the consumer wants and as little dead wood as possible.  As a consumer, this means your local game shop may not have a copy of a game youre after, as the retailer didnt deem it worthy of the shelf space.  Online download eliminates this issue (as files can always be available on a server), with an added benefit of 24/7 opening hours.

So there are some clear mutual benefits around how the product is put to market, but what about the content of that product itself?  How can games, gaming and consequently gamers, benefit from being tied to always online?  Firstly, it means everyone will be forced into the existing benefits of online gaming.  Online social networking and interaction, the most up to date, patched content and bug fixes, news on the latest releases or up coming games and not to mention access to expanded media services like netflix.  Then there are the potential benefits that games could utilise by a constant connection.  Simulations aim to be as realistic as theoretically possible, using cleverly scripted code to produce a virtual reality.  What if some of that coded reality could be replaced with real time data?  Weather conditions in a simulation racing game could be as dynamic as the actual weather itself, calling in global atmospheric data as you race.  Day/night cycles could be reflective of those geographic locations at the time you are playing.  Imagine playing a game based in a location local to you and witnessing the synchronised sunsets both in game and through the window.

Graphics are an area that the industry has seen constant improvement over the years, leaving many gamers keen to see attentions turned to other aspects of gaming, like artificial intelligence.  How about actual intelligence?  Data, logging peoples actions, constantly being captured then stored in a database and then used to feed back into the AI, updating its behaviour based off those human actions.  Even the best examples of AI cant change the fact they are scripted, so running the variables off genuinely unscripted human actions could greatly improve the gameplay, bringing the thrill of the multi-player experience in the solo campaign.  This could potentially be applied to range of gaming genres.  Real time strategy games where you can no longer capitalise on patterns of AI behaviour.  First person shooters where the enemy is as smart and dangerous as you are, and no two enemies react the same.  Opponents in a driving game that dont feel like they are on rails and are just as prone to making mistakes as you are.  This variety of constantly changing AI means that replay value is vastly increased.  Each play-through, in fact each level, would feel and play differently each time its attempted.

These concepts are just the ideas I could think of, so I am sure there are many more.  Some may seem ambitious, but none are outside the bounds of reality or feasibility, and all of them are exciting additions that always online would make possible.

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Within months, I was a weighty Gear of war chainsawing the locust horde and I was the Master Chief taking it to the Covenant for the third time. I was Commander Shepherd exploring a vast galaxy and I was Niko Belic mowing down pedestrians in a massively gorgeous and sordid Liberty City. I played Call of Duty 4 and bore witness to the birth of a phenomenon. I watched as the very act of turning my 360 on took on new and different forms. I could stream music; I could video chat. I could stream MOVIES! My on-line profile now had a face, an avatar, that looked suspiciously like me. It wasn't long before these revolutionary moments were complimented by downloadable content, more and MORE DLC. Map-packs, in-game items, costumes, episodic missions, ZOMBIES! I could now download entire retail GAMES to my harddrive, gigs and GIGS of data, all under the panicked, over-bearing churning of the Xbox 360.

I don't recall how many consoles these changes put me through. 7? 8? T'was the Intercooler that took my first one. A 3rd-party's solution to the 1st-party's design flaw. After that lesson learned, I saw a few red-rings, heard a few odd sounds over the chugging and plugging of normal functioning that led to multiple phone calls to "Max" and subsequent trips to FedEx to have replaced my hardware; I began to wonder if McAllen, TX wasn't simply littered with the corpses of Xboxes, the air over it thick with the silent swan songs of flashing red lights beckoning their last to the heavens. It's sad that I came to expect the short life-span of my systems; if I got 6 months out of one, it was good run.

I finally settled on one in late 2009, my last go-around with MS repairs. My new struggle was space. Day one, 20GBs felt like I'd have enough space to will to my children and my children's children. Soon, I couldn't keep up, frantically deleting old game saves and map-packs for long-ignored games, opting out of DLC I wanted for sheer lack of space and will to delete anything else. But I was content juggling my 20GBs; it's all I really needed after all, me and my trusty 20-giger.

Then it happened.

March 2012, nearly six years to the day. Started with it running unusually loudly. Then a few in-game freezes followed by some slightly more alarming dashboard freezes. A few times, I had to hit the eject button two, if not THREE, times to convince the tray to open. I was good to get an hour, maybe two, of solid gameplay before I knew it would freeze; fitting that this realization would come whilst playing Halo Anniversary, a game I'd loved for 8 years on a system I'd loved for 6.

I let it rest; maybe it just needed time? A couple months have gone by, and today, powering on for the first time in weeks, it freezes within seconds of being on, first time, second time, third time... every time.

"Max" need not answer my call; I won't be placing one. I will not be expecting my 9th box of shipping supplies in the next couple of days; they're not coming. Though my Xbox has died; I will not be committing its body to the bone yard of McAllen, TX or dropping it off on the doorstep of a Game Stop for the pittance it might merit. We've been through too much together for me to simply let it go in lieu of an upgrade: we bested Call of Duties on Veteran together, witnessed the fall of the covenant AND the Fall of Reach together, dropped HUNDREDS of hours into the vastness of Cyrodiil and Skyrim together! Over 60,000 Gamerscore, tons of friends and countless memories we've amassed together, all within the confines of the same 20GBs.

With a heavy heart, I will unplug it, I will collect its wires and heavy brick power supply, I will detach my Halo 3 faceplate and replace it with the factory white one, and to complete the circle of life, I will place it all back in the same box that I opened with all the excitement of a child on Christmas morn only 6 years ago, and I will place that box in my closet to keep in honor of the end of an era I fondly remember and shan?t soon forget.

- In memoriam 20GB Xbox 360 (v8,) 2006 - (2009) - 2012

"I will soldier on."

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I know it's a pretty basic idea - parallax 3D platforming, humourous level design, cutesy graphics - but this game is a perfect storm of all those things thrown in with just amazingly silly and enjoyable MP.

I have been playing the game on and off for about 2 years and I genuinely still enjoy it, especially with a group of mates.

From the random backhander slaps which allow you to knock your mate across the room, to the way the sackpeople grab on to one another as they hang from ropes, to the fiendish multiplayer puzzles thrown casually into an otherwise straightforward level - it all combines to bring that rarest of things in gaming these days - a smile to your face.

Bravo, Media Molecule. Just bravo

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There are a few games that 'really' strike a cord with me I could probably name them on both hands and still have a digit or two left. One of those games was the orange box the bargain of the year as far as I was concerned. You got all the half life's, which even now are an astonishing accomplishment, Team fortress 2 and of course Portal.

For those not in the know Portal was originally a Half life mod from PC community … Valve loved it and got the guys in to flesh it out. The game was frankly a breath of fresh air for me, a rare treat in that I had never played anything like it. From glaDOS and her vocoded, sinister undertones and gentle mocking to the sheer mind bending application of a portal gun, it won me over.

Spring forward to this weekend when I purchased Portal 2 and the love affair continues. I could go on for hours about how much this game is making me laugh and think in equal measures.

The humour really is something different in the gaming world in that it's actually funny… I mean laugh out loud funny! The additions of light bridges and goo only add to the fiendish ways in which Valve try and trip you up.

This time round it has co op and puzzles that require team work ( you hear that Dave 'Teamwork' ) and these have really opened up the game to some serious head scratching moments and yells of delight as you realise it's not that hard you were just making it that hard.

I'm only part way through but I don't want it to end. I'm now not really one for full priced, day one purchases esp for games such as this but I don't regret it for one moment. If you have never given the original a try I urge you to get this game and have some fun …just don't let glaDOS give you a complex about your weight

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As of right now, I own Little Big Planet:GOTY (awesome game), Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time (awesome) and Valkryia Chronicles (awesome. As for as accesories go I'm planning on getting another controller and the Blu-Ray remote and possibly the headset, but I can wait on the headset. If I do end up getting the headset does any Bluetooth device work?

And for games I have to be patient as Christmas is 3 days away and I'll either be receiving gifts or gift cards. But I'm planning on definitely picking up Metal Gear Solid 4, Uncharted 2 and Demon Souls. I've got to put some money aside for Mass Effect 2 and Wii Sports Resort (my dad's birthday is in January). I'm planning on picking up Infamous as well.

I'm debating if I should trade in my copy of FIFA 10 for the 360 for a copy on the PS3 as my 360 copy works like crap. Holiday decisions await.

Enough of my greedy materialistic blogging.

Happy Holidays to all of you and have an awesome New Year!

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PROLOGUE: Family Beginings.

Fade in: Follow a 1979 Ford Crown Victoria driving through a wooded area on a side road.

SCREEN READS: Greenwich Ct. 1985

The Ford sedan pulls up to a gated estate. The license plate reads U. S. Government.

Inside the sedan a M.P. in his mid twenties sits in the driver seat. A seasoned colonel of about forty sits in the passenger seat smoking a cigarette. The car is darkened, and the light from the burning smoke is the only thing that lights up his face.

The M.P. starts to roll down his window at the gate. The colonel gestures to him that it is not necessary. The gate begins to open.

Follow the car as it drive up the long road leading to the house. The colonel on one side of the car seems comfortable, and at peace with himself. The M.P. on the other shows a hint of fear, and nervousness. Rain begins falling heavy as they get up to the house. This seems to be the only thing that has the colonel a little upset.

COLONEL

F'n rain, it couldn't wait another twenty minutes to open up.

The car rounds the final turn and the estate is shown high and gothic in the rainy evening. Lightening cracks off in the distance briefly illuminating a bit more detailed sight of the imposing house ahead. As the car gets closer the men inside see three people standing outside of the house on a long set of steps. The sight of the people gives the young man in the drivers seat a better idea of the scale size of the mansion. A cold shiver goes through him as he brings the car to a stop at the foot of the stairs.

The colonel gives the M.P. a look of blandness.

COLONEL

Don't assume you brought any rain gear with ya now soldier?

M.P.

(nervously) Sorry sir I don't.

Now the colonel gives a look of a bit of agitation.

COLONEL

Ahh, what good are ya.

The colonel reached to get out of the car, and that is when the baby starts to cry in the back.

COLONEL

Well I guess we got lucky the little brat didn't start sooner ey boy ha!

The colonel slapped the M.P. on the back with this and gets out of the car. A second after the front door closes the back one opens, and the colonel grabs the baby in his car seat and takes the whole thing out to the people on the stairs.

The M.P. remains in the car watching the colonel talk with the others. He becomes sure that it is a woman who must be the owner, or wife of the house, the others are both men, one seems to carry himself like a servant, so the M.P. assumes he is the butler. The other man looks to be either the husband, or another party all together.

The colonel looks to be arguing with the others, and after a minute, he starts heading back to the car, the M.P. starts to get ready to leave when the colonel opens the back door instead of the front.

COLONEL

(severely agitated) NO NO NO Damnit! You signed on for this, it isn't now, nor was it ever negotiable! And you don't mess with the people I am associated with; I don't care who the hell you think you-

The colonel's sentence is cut off as he closes the door again after getting some papers from the back. The young M.P. is caught thinking about what he said about his "associates" this visually confuses him, but before he can think to deeply about it, the front door opens and the colonel (Now a bit damper) gets into the car brushing himself off.

COLONEL

--And you will NOT even think about doing anything stupid, (a severely cold glare crosses his eyes) it would be a devastating mistake, for a lot of people.

The colonel points his index finger towards the people on the stairs and the closes the door.

As they drive away the colonel turns to the driver

COLONEL

That goes for you to young man, whatever it is you think you saw or heard, you are sourly mistaken, and it would be good to just forget about the whole thing.

The M.P. somehow gets out a confident looking nod to the general, before looking back to the road as they drive away from the estate. The name THEEDON is seen on the gated fence as it closes behind them.

FTB

ACT I: So Much For Normalcy.

SCREEN READ: Lakeshore N.Y.

Present day

Open on a small cabin tucked away in the woods by a lake in upstate New York. The sun is just starting to rise above the trees across the lake.

Closing in on the house it is seen to be a ranch, a deck goes around the entire perimeter of it.

Stop alongside the back door, just next to it. A medium size brown package sits on the far side of the door. On the near side the newspaper.

The flimsy screen door opens and a pair of feet walks out with nothing on them, a dark blue robes bottom can be seen just at the top of view. The feet point towards the newspaper, a hand comes down and picks up the paper. The man walks back in the house.

A second later the mans feet appear again, this time pointed at the package. They stay for a second before as if by some unseen force the hands come down again to pick up the package.

Follow the man as he goes into his kitchen, which is actually one large room that includes the living room, and dining area. It is at the table in the dining area that the package is put down. The man walks over to the counter where his morning coffee is brewing. The focus remains on the package in the fore ground, and off to the side the still rolled up newspaper. The top corner of the paper can be read, it has a headline saying: WIDOW OF FAMED GENETICIST DIES IN CAR CRASH. A picture of a woman in her early sixties smiling is at its side.

The man walks back over to the table, now he can be seen from the chest down, his robe is slightly opened, and a t shirt saying TALLIC can be seen, the newspaper still sits unnoticed off on the side, the man stands in front of the box, pondering it. This whole thing seems to be throwing his daily routine out of whack.

After a moment the man opens the box, its contents are spilled across the table knocking the paper off. Inside he finds a video tape, and two envelopes, one legal size, and thick, the other a very small thin envelope. The tape has a sticker on it, that says: VIEW FIRST.

The man walks across the room to the rather modest television set in one corner, dust has gathered on it, giving the impression that it has been a while since the occupant watched any movies.

Slipping the tape in the man sits down, for the first time his face is shown, He is young, his looks say so, but his eyes show a great many more years than they should, he is a handsome man, about the age of twenty six, as the tape comes on, his eyes widen drastically. A look of surprise has invaded his face.

The television screen shows the same woman that was in the paper; only in the video she looks about five years younger.

WOMAN

Hello Mark, I am not sure how or when this will find you, but I know it will, that much I can trust. However unfortunately if this has found you, then I have left this world for another, I do hope it will be a long time from now, but either way I am no more.

MARK THEEDON, sitting on the couch in his robe starts to feel himself slipping.

FTB

EXT. Theedon estate the past

Follow as a little boy runs around playing. The view moves to a window and Mrs. Theedon watching the boy inside. Mr. Theedon is in the back round talking.

MARTHA THEEDON

V/O

Mark you have to understand, I wanted more than anything to tell you, tell you the truth. But your father, he knew that if we told you they would take you away. You see you are different than other people.

The scene now shows a boy about twelve years old, sitting in his room reading.

MARTHA THEEDON

V/O

You were such a smart child, whether that was because of our help raising you or not, I don't know. This is so hard to say, Mark your entire life is a lie.

A set of shots are shown showing Mark growing through the years.

MARTHA THEEDON

V/O

Your parents didn't die in a fire, and we did not adopt you. You are part of a covert government project called Arch Angel Six.

The shots of Mark as a happy child are gone. Replaced by shots of doctors and military men involved with experimentation.

MARTHA THEEDON

V/O

Your father, that is your adoptive father, my husband was part of this group. They biologically engineered human beings to be super soldiers, there were two groups of children, those that were activated at conception, and kept in the outfit from birth, given only codenames and guns, never love, always trained, focused completely on their powers, and nothing else. Essentially emotionless.

Shots of the children are shown, about two dozen of them first young, about seven or eight years old. Then ten, then twelve, fifteen. The older they get the more they look like robots rather that children. Killing machines.

MARTHA THEEDON

V/O

The second group was what they liked to call "sleepers" children who were put under the protection of either the doctors, or the military involved. This is what you are Mark. The big difference between you and the "front line" soldiers as they like to call them, is that there is one more treatment that you must go through to activate your powers. A simple injection with the final commands to alter your DNA. This is of course irreversible. I am not telling you what to do; I just cannot lie to you anymore.

Now Mark is seen present day sitting on his couch in his bathrobe, seemingly a different person than the one who sat there minutes ago.

Returning to the television and Martha again she begins to speak.

MARTHA THEEDON

There's one more thing Mark. I'm sure you remember when your father died.

A flashback shows Martha sitting Mark down, he's about eighteen. She begins to talk

MARTHA THEEDON

V/O

I told you he died in a car accident. That was another lie, god after they killed him I wanted nothing more than to tell you everything, but I couldn't whether it was fear or what I guess it doesn't matter now. The truth is they came for you, and your father wouldn't give you up. They decided they could wait, but to teach us a lesson they killed him to scare me. It didn't end there, about two years later a contact I had developed after James' death told me that they would be coming within a month. I had only one choice.

A series of shots show Mark and Martha fighting, and Martha drinking.

MARTHA THEEDON

V/O

I had to send you away Mark, or they would find you. Well for me that was a week ago, I have no clue when this will get to you.

Mark is now sitting in utter disbelief staring almost through the television set.

MARTHA THEEDON

Mark I know this is a lot to take in at once, but you must listen. Inside the package that this tape came in there are two envelopes. The large one contains instructions to a series of off shore bank accounts that I have set up for you over the years. There is more than enough money to fund you no matter what you decide to do, but if I know you at all then you will want the second smaller envelope. It contains just a card, on the card is the name and address of one of my contacts, who can assist you in the final injection for your ahem "powers" if you go to him when you meet simply say "Wallace". It is a code that he will understand. Mark I want you to know that while it may not make up for all of this, your father and I loved you with all our hearts. In the end we both gave our lives for our love, I hope that can matter at least a bit. I am truly sorry.

After that Martha is seen getting up and walking towards the camera, then it turns to snow.

Mark remains sitting on the couch for a moment.

Cut to the box still on the table. Mark is in the back round, his back to the box. Suddenly his head turns to the box.

Mark is seen sitting at the kitchen table with the two envelopes in his hands. He puts down the large envelope and opens the small one. Inside just as the tape said is only a card. The name Ian Simmons is written on it, below it says 1413 Vesters way Minneapolis Minn. Mark turns the card around and notices a thumb print in what looks like blood on the back.

Mark puts his head on the table

MARK

This can't be true. This can't be true

Mark begins to sob, then stops himself. He looks up at the television the snow still dancing across the screen. His face twists into an almost unnatural rage he stands up and throws the table aside. The second envelope falls to the ground in the corner of the room.

Marks walks over to the television staring out the window the whole time. Picking up the television.

MARK

DAMN YOU ALL DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!

Mark throws the television through the window screaming as he does it. Then he collapses in the corner where it once stood. His eyes cris cross the room until stopping on the second package on the ground. FTB

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