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Prometheus


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#1 PLEASUREMAN

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Posted 08 June 2012 - 10:48 PM

Note: this post is spoiler-free, but ensuing discussion may not be

It has taken 30 years, since 1982's Blade Runner, for Ridley Scott to return to the science fiction genre.  Finally, one might add, for Prometheus represents a considerable rejuvenation of the 74 year old director after a long career spent doing polished, small-think popcorn movies only superficially more artistic than his brother Tony Scott's action flicks.  Why did it take so long, and why did his genre return involve revisiting his most successful film? (It is a first for Scott, who has never directed a prequel or sequel prior to this.)

Prometheus began as a straight prequel to Alien, but during its development morphed into something else.  Scott, who had a desire to revisit some of the unanswered questions of the first film, was reluctant to simply rehash the "xenomorph" in Alien.  For good reason: the xenomorph itself was relatively uninteresting; despite its bizarre appearance and unique life cycle, the creature had no way of expressing intention and seemed to have only the most primitive motivations.  Learning more about it had no emotional stakes, and even so the commercial franchise of Alien sequels had rendered this creature as stale and over-familiar as the Frankenstein monster:  just another shambling horror cliche with bolts in its neck and a ratty blazer.

Curiously (or not, given the directors), none of the lame, lamer, lamest sequels had bothered answering any of the questions raised by the original film.  The origins of both the xenomorph and the "space jockey" (the giant humanoid found in the same derelict spacecraft) had been left totally unexplored.  This then became Prometheus' jumping-off point, and with Damon Lindelof revising Jon Spaihts' script to further de-emphasize the role of the xenomorph, the film became a prequel which despite existing under the shadow of Alien manages to launch into a very different, tantalizing direction.

As the marketing has suggested, Prometheus is concerned with the question of the origins of human life, as well as themes of evolutionary and generational succession ("A king has his reign, and then he dies. It's inevitable," remarks one character, poetically).  Does the creator eventually come to destroy his creation, or be destroyed by it?  There are theological implications here--not about evolution but about the nature of godhood.  Is our relationship with the divine that of a creature which must kill its creator and replace him?  That is to say, is it simply a fact of intelligent life to usurp?

In dealing with a much older, progenitor race, Prometheus finds itself deep in Lovecraftian territory--so much so in fact that Guillermo del Toro has scotched his plans to film Lovecraft's story At the Mountains of Madness, due to resemblances in setting and plot.  In a way this is a more satisfying outcome, as the Giger-esque designs of Alien and Prometheus seem more evocative because they reflect perversions of humanity and sexuality, rather than Lovecraft's more wildly imaginative conical organisms with psychic powers.

It will be said that, like Alien, Prometheus refuses to answer most of its questions.  I believe this conclusion is flawed, for the very ideas these movies concern themselves with are not questions and therefore have no real answers.  Of course there are literal questions about, say, the origin of the space jockey race, but the answer to such a question can only be prosaic and uninformative.  Are we any wiser about the mystery of human experience from knowing about evolution, brain function, the history of civilization, and so on?  Such awareness can only be grasped existentially, artistically, religiously--it is not for reason to capture.  And it is in this sense that Prometheus is a rewarding, captivating film:  it never dares to reduce mystery to a mere riddle.
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#2 GhostfaceCracka

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 01:01 AM

I saw it tonight at the Cinebistro with the wife. I enjoyed it, thought it was well made and I'm glad it left things very mysterious at the end. Not much to say now because I'm tired, tomorrow I'll post more. One thing that struck me though was the 3D was quite effective, the technology has come a long way (I suppose it did with Avatar too, but that movie was gay, the less said about it the better). Setting was great, sets were great, and I liked David as the android.
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#3 Chad Buffington

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 02:33 AM

I saw it when it opened @ midnight and enjoyed it overall. My main problems with it are shallow character development, accelerated pacing, and lack of suspense (at least when compared with the original Alien). I blame some of this on the cost of CGI vs. traditional special effects. It's almost too economically feasible for a director to realize a grandiose vision these days and it comes at the expense of "downtime" in the movie between the more dramatic, awe-inspiring scenes. "Downtime" is important; it's when we get to know the characters, understand their relationships, catch our breath, let their situation sink in and speculate about what's going to happen next. Prometheus was so jam-packed with action that I wasn't really able to think about what happened in the movie until I reached the parking lot.
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#4 PLEASUREMAN

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 03:14 AM

View PostChad Buffington, on 09 June 2012 - 02:33 AM, said:

I saw it when it opened @ midnight and enjoyed it overall. My main problems with it are shallow character development, accelerated pacing, and lack of suspense (at least when compared with the original Alien). I blame some of this on the cost of CGI vs. traditional special effects. It's almost too economically feasible for a director to realize a grandiose vision these days and it comes at the expense of "downtime" in the movie between the more dramatic, awe-inspiring scenes. "Downtime" is important; it's when we get to know the characters, understand their relationships, catch our breath, let their situation sink in and speculate about what's going to happen next. Prometheus was so jam-packed with action that I wasn't really able to think about what happened in the movie until I reached the parking lot.
I agree that some of the characterizations were weak.  David, Charlie, and Shaw are well written, Vickers is okay, and the rest are mostly cyphers.  The captain, geologist, botanist, etc. do not seem to have a firm place in the story (you could switch them with a completely different character and nothing would change).  I am guessing the movie got edited down to make a two hour running time and some of this got cut out; but Alien ran just under two hours and had strong characters.  Then again, Prometheus isn't trying to be Alien; it's not horror survival in space, and in fairness Alien wasn't really about anything--the "story" is alien attacks and starts killing everyone.  Prometheus was much stronger in this department.

I don't think the film over-used CGI.  Ridley is on record preferring practical effects.  I found the pacing to be quite good and without seeing a longer cut of the movie I think it didn't damage the movie--but I am particularly turned off by slack pacing and character moments that don't serve the story.  The one exception is that I thought the captain needed stronger motivation in the third act, and because his character was weak you have to take the movie's word for it that he would actually take that course of action.

A couple of shots in the trailer were not present, which I think reflects aggressive editing to get a desired running time.  Probably the studio was nervous that with an R rating it was a bigger risk with a long running time.  Surprisingly it held its own Friday against another one of those terrible cartoons.

Still it was a huge relief and welcome surprise after sitting through The Avengers, the epitome of junk food movies.  Definitely worth a second viewing in my opinion.
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#5 Blarg

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 10:14 AM

Could you say more about what you saw in it?  I found it pretty awful, not only in its incoherent plotting but also in its pompous failure to seriously dramatize the large-scale philosophical themes it took on, and am curious about your take.

#6 Blarg

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 10:20 AM

Compared to the sublime effect of those original images in alien (the enormous crashed ship in the howling wasteland, the elephantine corpse staring into an enormous telescope-like machine, the alien creature that managed to combine fears about sex, predation, and parasitism in one weird bundle, this junky movie was to me one of those dispiriting behind the curtain moments.

#7 Probably Not a Nigger Limiter

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 11:13 AM

I'm still not sure how much of this film was verbal and visual razzle-dazzle and how much was solid fare that sticks with you. At the very least, I feel the plot was driven forward far too often by characters behaving in incredibly foolish ways. The folly of the characters undermines them and ultimately sabotages the film's attempts at grandeur, for me.

Spoilers follow.

Let's take the example of the biologist, who is established as a bit of a coward (he's eager to head back to the ship at the first sign of trouble). A mysterious and possibly dangerous alien creature appears, and his reaction is to get chummy with it? Why? It doesn't match the caution/cowardice established earlier, it doesn't match his established role as a scientist, it doesn't match with ordinary human suspicion of danger.

If the plot requires that the scientist get attacked, here's a better way they could have done it: the biologist gets intrigued by the creature, noting its similarity, say, to a worm or a cobra (particularly when it expands its "cowl" later in the encounter). Making analogies with known quantities is typical of scientific thinking. It would have been nice to see what an actual scientific approach to the unknown looks like, since so much of the movie is allegedly about man's questions about the world around him. In fact, he could have exposed himself to danger because his scientific curiosity overrode his natural instinct to be afraid - and the fact that he was doing so could have been heightened by the geologist (who, as he made clear earlier, is only interested in "rocks" and "making money") not sharing his particular curiosity.

But what happens? He grins like a dipshit and tempts fate like the village idiot. Where does that get us? The audience doesn't understand or sympathize with his response, he's just a fool - and our reaction to him getting killed is far less than it might otherwise be because in the end a fool gets what he deserves.

And this is what most of the movie was like for me. The real mystery is why these people all act like idiots. (What? A geologist gets lost in a fairly simple cave?) If this is the point, that human beings are essentially idiot children in the face of ultimate questions, then the shooting and score (which attempt to evoke wonder and suspense) seem disjointed from that point emotionally.

I may need to see it again, given that others have had such a distinctly different experience - maybe my expectations colored my response too much.

#8 Itty Bitty Kitty

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 12:28 PM

I agree that some of the character development was lackluster at best. Particularly with the captain and the two crew members left, like Pman mentioned. It was slightly farfetched to expect the audience to accept that the captain went from a gruff, "I don't give a s**t about the answers" attitude, to this self-sacrificing hero over the course of a couple hours. And the two crew guys (I can't even remember what they were there for officially), they seemed like they could have fleshed them out at least a little bit more. They had a good rapport with one another, the few times they actually had dialogue, which could have definitely been used to facilitate some sort of emotional connection for the audience.

That being said, I don't think that this lack of supporting-role character development took away too much from the overall experience. I really enjoyed the characterization of David, and Elizabeth was a well-rounded protagonist. There were no obnoxious female heroine stereotypes, for the most part, which was refreshing. The cinematography was engrossing, CGI wasn't overdone, and the more intense scenes were always purposeful, never just shockingly grotesque for the sake of itself.

I read a review somewhere which compared "Prometheus" to "2010", which I thought was really unfair. Prometheus does a great job at being what it is, which is an indirect Alien prequel with intentions of expanding far beyond the realm of Alien. Of course, you'll never please everyone, but as someone who had little idea what to expect from Prometheus, I was very happy with the film as a whole.

#9 PLEASUREMAN

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 12:46 PM

View PostBlarg, on 09 June 2012 - 10:20 AM, said:

Compared to the sublime effect of those original images in alien (the enormous crashed ship in the howling wasteland, the elephantine corpse staring into an enormous telescope-like machine, the alien creature that managed to combine fears about sex, predation, and parasitism in one weird bundle, this junky movie was to me one of those dispiriting behind the curtain moments.
The unnerving opening sequence featuring an Engineer and some kind of departing craft is a terrifically sublime moment.  Prometheus wasn't trying for the gothic horror of Alien.  It is after something much more Lovecraftian, and if Lovecraft isn't your thing this quality is going to be lost on you.  (It's why Prometheus has a mixed critical reaction, as opposed to the nauseating overpraise given the most recent comic book movie about nothing.)

Otherwise I think I've described what appealed to me in this movie, such as its ruminations on the creator and the created.  But it isn't the first movie, and fans of Alien expecting a redo are going to be disappointed and confused by what they get.  It doesn't have Alien's omninous pacing, its intimate focus on the crew, or the atmosphere of panicked survival, because that's not what this movie is.  You have to un-expect those things to enjoy Prometheus.  And it's not for everyone.

It's worth nothing that many sci fi movies have had mixed receptions but gone on to become established classics--I can't be completely sure, but I think Prometheus will be one of these.  I think it will hold up as more than a few arresting images and a good trailer, just as 2001 held up despite reaction against its opening sequence and the ostentatiously surreal ending.  Blade Runner got lots of negative criticism and confused/irritated audience reaction from people who were expecting something other than a film noir Star Wars (I think the film delivers even less than that).  The Shining bothered King fans who didn't know what to make of Jack Nicholson's arch acting or Kubrick's wicked sense of humor (and who missed the themes of civilizational collapse).

Science fiction so rarely aims for anything interesting, that I'll take what Prometheus offers, flaws and all.
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#10 MIB

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 01:13 PM

View PostItty Bitty Kitty, on 09 June 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

I agree that some of the character development was lackluster at best. Particularly with the captain and the two crew members left, like Pman mentioned. It was slightly farfetched to expect the audience to accept that the captain went from a gruff, "I don't give a s**t about the answers" attitude, to this self-sacrificing hero over the course of a couple hours
I think they addressed this by not so much making the captain a gruff guy but by making what they found so far out of his realm of experience, all he cared about was getting home.  His life on earth is what he valued.  So when he thought that the engineer was going to go wipe it out, it fit with his values to sacrifice himself if that was his only option of preserving what he loved.

#11 PLEASUREMAN

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 02:01 PM

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#12 Bixxy Noodles

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 04:11 PM

The movie got off to a great start, but devolved into the stoopid very rapidly. I was deeply disappointed by the whole thing. It turned embarrassingly dumb and never really recovered. The people in our row at the theater were laughing at serious scenes and groaning at the idiotic dialog. Never a good sign.

Side note: Was anybody able to figure out why they had a bunch of homeless minorities crewing a starship? Occupational therapy maybe? Affirmative action? :smugga:

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 05:11 PM

I don't think I could add much here in terms of talking about the actual characters, story or motifs, so I'll just add that I was very fond of the visual effects. I have to say one of my biggest fears going into Prometheus was the seeming overdose of CG from the trailer, but after seeing the actual movie I was very impressed at the amount of practical props and sets they used. The large, detailed Giger rooms inside the cavern, the functional APC and buggies, the mounds of alien corpses... all very exquisitely crafted (not to mention well-designed; things like the suits or the ship itself were all very memorable looking). And the CG that was used was done so very carefully, so that it meshed perfectly with the practical effects.

#14 MIB

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 05:17 PM

View PostBixxy: E Pluribus Tantrum, on 09 June 2012 - 04:11 PM, said:

The movie got off to a great start, but devolved into the stoopid very rapidly. I was deeply disappointed by the whole thing. It turned embarrassingly dumb and never really recovered. The people in our row at the theater were laughing at serious scenes and groaning at the idiotic dialog. Never a good sign.

Side note: Was anybody able to figure out why they had a bunch of homeless minorities crewing a starship? Occupational therapy maybe? Affirmative action? :smugga:
I think the homeless minorities was an attempt to recapture the original alien movie mood.  But they were marines, so it did come off a little odd.  The only other reason my brain could come up with is that scientists can be eccentric, and in movies, the more eccentric, the smarter they are.

#15 PLEASUREMAN

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 05:47 PM

In thinking about the movie this weekend, the thing I keep coming back to is how much more ambitious and serious Prometheus is than any of the sequels or than what the studio originally wanted out of a prequel.  What the studio wanted was "events leading up to Alien", with the main question being how was the xenomorph created.  This would have been a very pointless movie of interest only to teenagers and nerds who can't tell the difference between the first movie and its three terrible sequels.

I thought what Lindelof said about their choices on this movie was interesting:

Quote

There were drafts that were more explicitly spelled out. I think Ridley’s instinct kept being to pull back, and I would say, “Ridley, I’m still eating s**t a year after Lost is over for all the things we didnt directly spell out, Are you sure you want to do this?” And he said, “I would rather have people fighting about it and not know then spell it out.”

And I know it’s horribly obnoxious to say “You need to see the movie a couple of times in order to truly appreciate it”, but I do feel like it was designed that way and there are little things that seem like a throw-away on first viewing.

For example, when they do the carbon dating on the dead engineer and realise he has been dead for 2000 years then you wonder about when, 2000 years ago, the Engineers decided to wipe us out. What happened 2000 years ago? Is there any correlation with what happened on the earth 2000 years ago and this decision that was already in motion? Could a sequel start in that time period and contextualize what we did to piss these beings off?

I think it’s a very interesting question to leave dangling. Is it a loose end? Yeah, probably. But it’s probably what sends you to the pub after the movie and has you arguing with your friends as to what you think it might mean.

I can definitely tell you that if a lot of people go to see this movie and there is a critical sense of people wanting there to be another one, the second movie would clearly answer the question of “what did we do to deserve this?”
Again I think of the difference between a mystery and a riddle, and the desire that some in the audience have to reduce everything to riddles.  This desire also affects philosophy and religion.  You get it a lot when ordinary people talk about the ending of 2001:  "That was just stupid."  I'd say they are missing something right in front of them because of a discomfort with ambiguity and mystery.
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#16 Who Runs Barter Town?!?

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 07:33 PM

I thought the chick was really cute and had nice legs.  Also never trust a gay robot with HIV.
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Posted 09 June 2012 - 08:28 PM

I finally got to see Prometheus and all I can say is that it was far better than I was expecting, definitely not another awful remake-masquerading-as-a-prequel like I feared it might be awhile back, like the recent "The Thing" remake.
The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked bare, and the War Pigs are gorging on a feast of its fruits. In their ravenous gluttony, they swallow it all and shit out the seeds, sowing a garden of horrors that we -- all of us -- shall reap. No sacred secret is spared; not the forces of nature, not the human mind, not the fundamental stuff of life, nor the building blocks of the universe itself. There is no territory the sinister technologists refuse to explore in their quest for Maximum Pain. Their lust for death is so strong, they've even begun creating a robotic army to extend their grim work through the twilight of our species, and beyond.

Imagine it. Metallic security guards, propelled by deathless power cells, crunching and gliding over a rotting graveyard planet. I can think of no more fitting legacy.

#18 Legs Sahne

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 09:30 PM

View PostPLEASUREMAN, on 09 June 2012 - 05:47 PM, said:

In thinking about the movie this weekend, the thing I keep coming back to is how much more ambitious and serious Prometheus is than any of the sequels or than what the studio originally wanted out of a prequel.  What the studio wanted was "events leading up to Alien", with the main question being how was the xenomorph created.  This would have been a very pointless movie of interest only to teenagers and nerds who can't tell the difference between the first movie and its three terrible sequels.

I thought what Lindelof said about their choices on this movie was interesting:

Quote

There were drafts that were more explicitly spelled out. I think Ridley’s instinct kept being to pull back, and I would say, “Ridley, I’m still eating s**t a year after Lost is over for all the things we didnt directly spell out, Are you sure you want to do this?” And he said, “I would rather have people fighting about it and not know then spell it out.”

And I know it’s horribly obnoxious to say “You need to see the movie a couple of times in order to truly appreciate it”, but I do feel like it was designed that way and there are little things that seem like a throw-away on first viewing.

For example, when they do the carbon dating on the dead engineer and realise he has been dead for 2000 years then you wonder about when, 2000 years ago, the Engineers decided to wipe us out. What happened 2000 years ago? Is there any correlation with what happened on the earth 2000 years ago and this decision that was already in motion? Could a sequel start in that time period and contextualize what we did to piss these beings off?

I think it’s a very interesting question to leave dangling. Is it a loose end? Yeah, probably. But it’s probably what sends you to the pub after the movie and has you arguing with your friends as to what you think it might mean.

I can definitely tell you that if a lot of people go to see this movie and there is a critical sense of people wanting there to be another one, the second movie would clearly answer the question of “what did we do to deserve this?”
Again I think of the difference between a mystery and a riddle, and the desire that some in the audience have to reduce everything to riddles.  This desire also affects philosophy and religion.  You get it a lot when ordinary people talk about the ending of 2001:  "That was just stupid."  I'd say they are missing something right in front of them because of a discomfort with ambiguity and mystery.

Interesting.

As a preliminary matter, just that I'm still thinking about the movie several hours after walking out of the theatre puts it miles ahead of the majority of movies.

Also, the important part that I keep mulling or wondering about --and I think that wondering is a good thing, was the Cross and the potential Christian themes. So, a big thank you to the heads up on the 2000 year thing; I missed it.

That said, I think you are underestimating how jarring some of the implausibilities (pacing, characterizations, etc.) were. For instance, I was thrown off early when, after a journey of more than 2 years, across a vast distance to another solar system --at vast expense, they immediately go to 'tree-top' level to explore the moon/planet and, within moments, find what they're looking for thanks to the naked eyeballing of the young male scientisty guy --"there, that's it; nature doesn't draw with straight lines." Really? Later it occurred to me that they might have been in a bit of a rush because the old man really running the show was at death's door. But... and then nothing. It doesn't seem like this was a plot-point that was meant to be a mystery so much as laziness in telling the story. Sometimes a riddle is just a riddle, and should be solved or dealt with. You didn't feel like the fly-in smacked of Team America? They couldn't orbit and surveil the place? They wouldn't?

Edit: I did not lift this from Steve Sailer's review. Really, the non-orbit surveillance bothered me because of what I'd read in Neal Stephenson's Anathem.

Edited by Legs: Budding and Meaningful Dammit!, 10 June 2012 - 09:27 AM.

If the people could vote directly on each individual issue, they’d support all these things: an end to almost all immigration, legal and illegal, and sending back people in the country illegally. Strong defense, but non-interventionist foreign policy. Strong tariffs on just about everything to put American workers back to work. Tough crime laws and severe prisons. Death penalties after one month. Gun ownership, but with licensing. Removal of vagrants from the streets. Forcing the mentally ill into institutions. Equitarianism not egalitarianism. Forced government jobs for everyone who can’t find one in the public sector. An end to affirmative action. You get the idea, they are on the opposite side of the elites on all issues. --commenter Steve on a Roissy thread

#19 PLEASUREMAN

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Posted 09 June 2012 - 10:17 PM

At the end they explain that there are other outposts on the planet.  I assume that is why they quickly found one.
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Posted 09 June 2012 - 10:45 PM

I still dont understand why the robot was such a dickhead and trying to infect people with the alien bio weapon.  I mean I understand he was a fag and most likely trying the spread the 'gift' but still....



Its also pretty strange that the scaredy cat biologist came right up to some alien species when just 5 minutes earlier they were trying to stay away from lifeforms.


What made them want to blow us up 2000 years ago?  The jews being mean to jesus?
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