Prometheus Review

Back in 1979, Ridley Scott’s second full length feature, Alien, was let loose on the world and changed the way in which Science Fiction was viewed forever. It tampered with the rule book of not just the Science Fiction genre, but cinema in general – Ellen Ripley was the strong female protagonist that was long overdue in a predominantly masculine genre. It was made on a shoestring budget and proved once again that the best Sci-Fi is made on a virtually nothing but ideas (see 2001 and Alphaville if you need more convincing). It’s filled with pivotal scenes that are regarded as some of the scariest film moments of all time, and has forever implanted the fear of coming face-to-face (no pun intended) with face huggers and chest-bursters. Numerous sequels followed, some with success (Aliens, although personally I’m not a huge fan) and some with not so much success (Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, etcetera.), but one thing is certain, the Alien universe has become a cultural phenomenon and subject to fanboys, intertextual references (Postmodernists just can’t get enough) and being a hot choice for Halloween costumes.

33 years on and we are back in Alien territory, with Ridley Scott returning to the directing chair for Prometheus – a sort-of prequel that has ‘strands of Alien DNA’ in it. The budget is substantially bigger at $120 million and has an A-List cast comprising of Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron, Logan Marshall-Green and Idris Elba. Not only has Prometheus received the big budget treatment, it has had one of the best viral marketing campaigns since The Dark Knight, with the release of numerous videos starring some of the characters within the film – all of which hint to connections to the Alien world. The excitement was off the scale – this was going to be Ridley Scott’s Sci-Fi hat-trick: Alien, Blade Runner and Prometheus. In a year of The Avengers, The Hobbit, The Dark Knight Rises & The Amazing Spider-Man, Prometheus was the film everybody was most excited to see. Plus, Michael Fassbender is in it, and any movie with Michael Fassbender is worthy of watching. So, did it live up to the hype? Did the viral marketing campaign and awesome trailers match-up with the finished product? Were pants shat all across the land from its awesomeness? Will Christopher Nolan have shat his pants with worry? Let’s just say Nolan’s pants will have encountered a mere bit of pee, and as for everything else – it’s a very mixed bag.

The word that keeps coming up to describe Prometheus is ‘disappointing’. Critics and cinephiles alike who have revelled in the trailers, viral videos and just the prospect of another Ridley Scott Alien movie have generally felt let down by its difference in ideas, the fact that it isn’t as stripped back as the original, and its poor script. I’m privy to agree on some levels, as I’m a massive fan of Alien – not the whole franchise; I’m not a huge James Cameron fan, so I wasn’t as taken with Aliens as everybody else, and Alien 3 really wasn’t anything special, but is quite strong stylistically and is the germ for David Fincher’s signature visual eye which, anyone knows me well will know, I’m a huge fan of (I’m a Fincher fangirl – leave me alone!). So although I’d seen the Alien movies, I wouldn’t call myself a hardcore fan of the series, just the first film. In relation to Prometheus, it obviously doesn’t hold-up to its predecessor, or successor depending on how you look at it, but as a standalone film, it isn’t as bad as a lot of people have been saying.

Just to clarify, we’re not on LV-426, Prometheus is on LV-223 - the Alien world isn’t known yet. Archaeologists Dr Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) have found a star map of the same pictogram amongst several cultures across the globe which they believe were made by the ‘Engineers’, our creators as in invitation to be found. The now elderly Peter Weyland of Weyland Corporations funds the mission for Prometheus to follow the star map onto LV-223. Already, this contrasts with the Alien world, which presents a more rational explanation of where we came from and focuses more on what we as human beings have done. Prometheus takes a more creational viewpoint, which initially seems fine, as it suggests there could be a shift in ideologies, leading towards the rational look. However, this is problematised by the beliefs of film’s lead, Elizabeth Shaw. She believes in God – something that we’re constantly reminded of as she is sporting a silver cross around her neck during the whole film, yet she wants to meet our creators, which almost instantaneously, causes the science/religion debate to become muddled. SPOILER And yet, by the time we do meet the only Engineer left on LV-223, it’s this porcelain looking bald guy who doesn’t talk and likes to beat people up. Talk about underwhelming – I would rather have had an ambiguous, open to interpretation ending that people could debate and discuss for months after, just like the ending of Inception. However, it wasn’t all bad in the end, and we are at least two films away from Alien, so maybe more blanks need to be filled, but I thought the whole humanoid thing was dumb. Apparently in the original draft of the script by Jon Spaihts, it was a lot more like the Alien, but brought in the bigger questions about humanity. However, after Damon Lindelof (Lost, Cowboys and Aliens) was signed on to do the re-write, it appears that stripped down, less is more approach was abandoned and making a big Sci-Fi epic became a primary goal. I’m not criticising Lindelof here, Ridley Scott was the one that hired him for the re-write after all, but I can’t help but wonder what the film would’ve been like if a big studio film writer hadn’t been hired for the re-write. Lindelof writes blockbusters and Prometheus probably would’ve served better not being a blockbuster, rather than an intelligent Science Fiction movie, just like its foundation film.

Prometheus asks really interesting questions about morality and humanity, and whether or not the two coincide. It’s another example of Science Fiction that is about ideas and is grand in scope - the Sci-Fi which I think is the best. Take away the futuristic elements and Prometheus could still have a story. Although traits are shared with Alien, the film also shares traits with Scott’s other Sci-Fi masterpiece, Blade Runner, especially in relation to humanity. This is most obvious through the character of David (Michael Fassbender), the Android space butler. To quote the ‘bot himself, he understands human emotion although he doesn’t feel them himself, which puts forward the question about the state of human beings in the future and the fear of people becoming desensitised to everything around them. SPOILER For example, when David infects Holloway, there’s neither remorse nor rationale behind his motives. Is David trying to suggest that by interfering with things that are greater than you, it can only lead to disaster, or that we are facing a world that is no longer concerned with ethics and simply being conditioned to partake in activities that’ll give us a higher status or claim on society? This obsession with image and perception that is common with the 21st Century is exacerbated in Prometheus, with the implication that this is what the future will be.

The film also parallels with the actual story of Prometheus – the Greek titan who stole fire from the God’s and gave it to man who used it not only for good but for evil and as a result, Prometheus was tied to a rock and had his liver pecked out by an eagle every day for the rest of his life. The crew of Prometheus are essentially doing the same thing – they are messing with the masses (the Engineers) and because of this, they are punished.

Because the film is fuelled on huge and complex ideas, it is hard to relate to the characters on a personal level. In Alien, the characters spoke in small, mumbled conversations about everyday things like Parker wanting to get paid and go home. They were relatable characters, so the realisation that the majority of them were going to die filled viewers with a horrid sense of dread. The iconic chest-burster scene had so much impact because it was so calm beforehand. In Prometheus however, all the conversations are big picture, big ideas, and big questions. And for that reason, the characters are foreign and are no longer relatable to an audience like they were 33 years ago. Furthermore, unlike in Alien when Ripley isn’t presented as the heroine until over halfway through, it is clear who the lead is and the rank in which the other characters will die. Shaw is our new Ripley, her feminine counterpart. Her relationship with Holloway doesn’t serve any real purpose other than as a plot device. She is a very strong character, but that’s overshadowed by her conflicting beliefs that we are constantly reminded of, and the fact that she goes all gooey in most of the scenes she shares with Holloway. It isn’t until a pivotal moment well into the third act that it is clear how strong Shaw really is, and if it wasn’t for Noomi Rapace’s sterling performance, people wouldn’t care about Shaw by the time that moment arrives. Idris Elba and Charlize Theron are severely underused, and although Elba does get a couple of laughs and a shining moment towards the end, Theron has nothing to do except set David his orders and repeatedly saying not to engage with things. SPOILER Plus, she gets the most redundant movie death ever, which is pretty ridiculous considering she’s Charlize Theron – it’s not like she’s Rafe Spall or even Idris Elba; she’s a big Hollywood star who has nothing to do, which makes me question why she agreed to be a part of it in the first place.

THIS PARAGRAPH IS FULL OF SPOILERS.
In terms of scares, Prometheus is quite impressive. The death of Milburn is pretty nasty – there is something about breaking bones alone that is unsettling, not to mention a snake-looking alien entering a person’s body through their mouth. The mutation of Fifield however was a bit goofy; he just looked like a hankered old drunk guy wanting another drink. He killed some crew members, sure, but were they anybody we cared about? No. And to be honest, when the other crew members did kill him, it wasn’t exactly gutting. The two worst bits for me – and I must confess, I am a bit of a baby when it comes to this kind of stuff – were surrounding Holloway and Shaw. Firstly, when David infected Holloway by putting the black liquid in his drink, my stomach turned – it was the ‘here we go’ moment. *Just FYI, no one will ever be making me a drink ever again. When Holloway then slept with Shaw that night, which was obviously going to happen, disastrous consequences were going to ensue. The morning after Holloway’s eye is looking a bit bloodshot and nasty, and then a tiny little worm thing wriggles out! Fucking ERRR, that was disgusting. Anything to do with eyes is repulsive. But without a doubt, the worst bit was when we realise that Shaw, who can’t have children (yeah, they played that card), was pregnant, but not with a human foetus. Yes, that already happened to Ripley too, but this time it was a lot more claustrophobic, due to the fact that not only does Shaw survive this, but she has to perform her own caesarean with the help of self-operating pod that is introduced in the beginning. This was what I was looking forward to most scare-wise; I had my fist in my mouth, my stomach was churning, I was cursing repeatedly – it was grotesque and intense, and it was the shining moment in the film. That moment also cemented my reasoning for seeing it in IMAX 3D – it was amplified to its highest and just made it even scarier. The only problem was that there was still 40 minutes to go, and unlike Alien in which the scares snuck-up on you right into the final 10 minutes, Prometheus ran out of steam after that whilst I waited for something even bigger to happen. Alas, it did not.

So overall, I did really enjoy Prometheus. It wasn’t the movie I was expecting it to be, and my mind wasn’t as monumentally blown as I hoping. That being said, I thought it was a solid film in parts and has created new iconic movie moments that nerds like myself will be discussing in years to come. The 3D was good, but it didn’t add to the experience much – although the IMAX screen did; I would’ve preferred an IMAX 2D experience, just because 3D is a bit disorientating after a while, but it didn’t ruin the experience for me at all. It doesn’t deserve the hate that it has been getting from the film community – it’s not a bad film, it was just a disappointment in comparison to Alien. If it were a standalone Science Fiction movie without any links (or even just knowing links) to Alien, it would serve a lot better as a film about big, ambitious ideas. Plus, Noomi Rapace & Michael Fassbender are awesome, and that’s always worth celebrating.