If you’re not in the least bit interested in the world by the end of the first episode, probably not.
Though, I too hated Prometheus yet enjoy this. That said I think Prometheus actually had a strong start, great cinematography, some interesting characters/acting (David) and the setup was interesting. Then it all just fell apart in the most galling manner I think I’ve probably ever seen. I’m really hoping lessons were learned both from that and Covenant…
Also, I don’t think the hats make (much of?) an appearance in the next two episodes, if it helps!
I feel like you need to have some degree of appreciation for the way Ridley Scott creates atmosphere, in order to appreciate this show.
Personally, I think that Scott’s one of the best filmmakers for this aspect of his work, but if someone really doesn’t like that stuff, then I figure they’ll probably not really be into this show.
I hated, and continue to hate, Prometheus with the rage of a thousand suns. But I’m intrigued by Raised by Wolves, probably because it’s not laden with the Alien baggage that Ridley Scott seems to have no idea what to do with.
This is definitely a weird show. It veers wildly between WTF and watchable.
It’s two parts Ridley Scott’s Androids Fetish with one part Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven/Crusader obsession.
I have no idea what’s this technology level. There are androids, and then there’s whatever the hell Mother is. And there are guns, and then there are plastic shields??? And not like modern-day police shields, but more of “I’m going swordfighting mom, where’s my shield?”
As it turns out I didn’t watch or scan the last 20 minutes of the episode so I missed the exciting conclusion. I guess that pulled me in so I’m going to watch a few more episodes at least.
Yea I hated Prometheus, and I’m not going to say this is a great show, but I find it just too weird not to watch. The end of the first episode reminded me of the Lonely Island “Like a Boss” video, where it gets exponentially crazier by the end. “Steal the Christian ship. Fly into a mountain. Make em all explode. And I’m done.”
I guess it didn’t work for me since just watching the first half of the first episode left me with the following questions:
If you were sending two androids off to start a new society with only 6 kids I would think you’;d program them to be better at doctoring and stuff. Or did the kids die from falling into that crater? The one so big that you almost deliberately have to throw yourself into it?
How does a child who has never heard a British accent develop one? Did Madonna stow away somewhere?
Why would a child raised in isolation by atheists to be an atheist start praying? How would he even know what praying is, or how to do it?
And of course the “female” android is the emotional one. Stupid women robots.
They had 12 embryos, but I guess half of them were lost when the ship cratered. Still, that’s an incredibly tiny gene pool to start the new human race with, and that was before they lost half of them! With six, basically everyone’s going to be cousins in a generation or two.
Mother is also a huge monster, even though they try to show her side of being protective to kids. There were A LOT more than five kids in that nursery on the ship. So, yeah, she either killed or left the rest to die. Which they did.
Yeah, I have to assume that this was a hasty desperation bid operating with what they could scrape together in time, otherwise the logistics don’t make any sense.
At some point every civilization decided to pray without being encouraged by anyone to do so.
In the case here, they’re at least being introduced to the notion of religion, even if it’s being directly discouraged… in many ways, that makes me think that it’s even more likely that they would do it.
I did a lot of things that my parents discouraged me from doing.
I look at it this way - way back in the earliest times, the tribal Chief (or whoever) not only had to be the biggest and strongest, but also the wisest. So when someone came to him (usually) and asked why the cows were dying and the crops failing, he couldn’t afford to say “Beats me”. It was a lot easier to say “There’s this guy up in the sky even more powerful than me, and obviously you did something to piss him off. Better apologize, and by the way if you want anything else from Him in the future it helps to butter him up first”.
I like your theory that the kid was just being rebellious better.
But that just kicks the can.
If you say that the only reason the tribe members were religious, was because the chief told them to be… then you are left with the question of how the Chief came up with religion.
The fact remains that in essentially every society, the concept of some form of religion developed independently. This suggests that it fills some fairly intrinsic facet of the human consciousness. Indeed, there is even some evidence of proto-religious behavior in non-human animals.
There have also been a number of studies of neurological activity in recent years, looking at what appear to be fairly consistent patterns when humans engage in activities like prayer. It’s all quite interesting when you get into it.
For me, I’ve always been interested in religion from more of an academic perspective, having studied it in college along with philosophy, and it does have interesting intersections with my work in cognitive science and artificial intelligence.
Firstly, the complaints many have voiced here regards to “how did they, why did they, what about” questions that arise by reason of the first episode are all – or nearly all – answered as the series progresses. The flow of the story - and the reveal of facts in the backstory - is not entirely linear.
We’ve seen up to Episode 5 and my wife and I are really enjoying Raised by Wolves. It heads off in directions you don’t always see coming and is reasonably well acted and well-written. The effects are excellent.
My only complaint so far is that there ARE a handful of “Hollywood Moments”; beats where the characters make an irrational choice – more often not doing something that should be clear by now they really ought to do – for the sake of the plot. It’s annoying but not grating – at least not yet. Three or four of these moments so far over the course of five episodes.
The series is really quite enjoyable and I do recommend it.
