Prometheus

Don't get me wrong. It's gorgeous to look at, and I'm definitely going to go and see it again. It's really impressive.

But... It's stuffed with scenes without any payoff. Again and again it sets stuff up and then just... walks away from it.

In at least one unforgivably stupid scene, someone *literally* just walks away from an antagonist and leaves it there. And then doesn't tell anyone about it. Some of it's really effective. There are some scenes that are absolutely gripping. But so much of it doesn't make any sense...

Having said all that I think it's very clear that what I just saw was Prometheus part 1. It's very definitely supposed to have a sequel and I will certainly go to see the sequel. I think both movies taken together might score a 10.

But this movie by itself doesn't.

Archeologists and lovers Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) have discovered several pictographic records from across the Earth's civilizations dating back 35,000 years detailing worship by ancient peoples of giant humanoid beings with shared star maps. Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) the late billionaire founder and CEO of Weyland Corp. Finances an expedition on board the ship Prometheus to LV-223 detailed in the ancient star maps under the direction of Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), Synthetic humanoid David (Michael Fassbender), and a team of scientists to locate the ancient alien species known as "The Engineers". Upon arrival, the crew find remnants of the Engineers which may prove to be more dangerous than any of them imagined.

Prometheus' origins date back almost 10 years prior to its final release where James Cameron and Ridley Scott had jointly pitched a fifth Alien movie following Sigourney Weaver's hesitance to return as Ripley that would serve as a prequel to the series and examine the origins of the spaceship and the "space jockey" that had long captured the fandom. These plans were put on hold when Fox decided to prioritize the crossover Alien vs. Predator which both Cameron and Scott aw as undermining the validity of the series putting the proposed prequel on a shelf. Following the negative reception of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Fox began salvage attempts for each franchise with Robert Rodriguez making the film Predators and Scott given development resources for the Alien prequel. There was a conscious effort on Scott's part to make the film its own story relatively independent of Alien with more focus paid to building the mythology around the Space Jockey rather than the Xenomorphs themselves. The film was undoubtedly one of the most anticipated films of the 2012 Summer movie season with the direction by Scott and a promised R-Rating seeing as a welcome return to form for both the Alien series as well as a welcome return by Scott to the Sci-fi genre after not having directed such a film since Blade Runner in 1982. While the movie received solid enough reviews upon release, a good number of critics had expressed disappointment with the handling of certain elements of the material with the screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof garnering a lot of criticism for its feeling of raising more questions than answers. When I first saw Prometheus 10 years ago I think I tried to tell myself that I liked it because there are moments of wonder and majesty in the film that are sights to behold, but I also felt this feeling of "something wasn't quite right" that's only gotten more pronounced with time.

To start on a positive note, Prometheus starts out of the gate feeling like a true epic. From Marc Streitenfeld's sweeping score to Dariusz Wolski's awe inspiring cinematography Prometheus is a film whose sheer enormity in both scale and tone leaves the viewer with a strong sense of grandiosity that serves to make them feel dwarfed by comparison. The movie also features a fantastic performance by Michael Fassbender as David the synthetic humanoid and the opening stretch where he goes around the Prometheus by himself tending to all the ship's functions while keeping himself occupied is one of the best character moments in the film and he becomes something of a core to this movie that holds it together even during its weaker moments.

Unfortunately the movie makes a number of missteps in other areas, particularly in its characterizations and story beats. The movie features way too many characters for the kind of movie it is with 17 crewmembers in total on board the Prometheus and many of them just being glorified "red shirts" to pad out the body count. What characterization we are given isn't particularly compelling with Sean Harris and Rafe Spall playing a geologist and biologist who not only carry an out of place pessimism that feels ill fitting for this story, but end up doing some really boneheaded decisions that don't make sense in context of what the movie presents us. There's a large number of moments in this film where characters make terrible decisions that don't make sense from trying to pet clearly dangerous wildlife, getting obvious infections and then telling no one about it, or justifying decisions with tired adages like "because it's what I choose to believe" that parts of the movie veer off into unintentional comedy with how nonsensical characters act. We also have Guy Pearce in some really unconvincing "old man" make-up as Peter Weyland that was apparently only done because the script called for scenes in the past with Weyland as a young man, but those scenes were dropped during re-writes so we're just supposed to accept this on face value. The movie tries to build its own mythology with the Engineers from the space jockey established in the first Alien film and given Scott's professed distain for the AVP series it's rather ironic that he went with the "ancient astronauts visiting Earth" stuff that was featured prominently in those films as a backbone for Prometheus (not a spoiler by the way, all this is seen in the first 3 minutes).

If you're a fan of Alien then you'll probably find a lot of value in Prometheus with its production design, grand scope, and performance by Michael Fassbender solid points to appreciate, but the dangling plot threads begging for sequels, characters lacking in brain cells, and some really stupid justifications for faith that feel like flowery nonsense. I know this movie has an audience that likes it, but I unfortunately can't count myself among that audience despite my best attempts.

Prometheus is one of the most underrated and misunderstood science fiction movies in recent memory. Do NOT view this as a prequel to Alien. It is part of the same universe, but while the first 4 are action/horror films, Prometheus is a sci-fi adventure that explores the origins of mankind. This concept is something I've always wanted to see put to screen, and Prometheus delivers so well that I'm enthralled by it no matter how many times I watch it. The cinematography and score are Oscar worthy, and the direction and visuals are near perfect. I believe Prometheus would be much higher rated if more people went into it with an open mind. The first Alien did have mixed reviews upon initial release, and now it is an all time classic. I really think that one day Prometheus will have the same status, and I hope the sequels are more appreciated.

Prometheus seems to have disappointed many viewers. Luckily for me I had no expectations, despite being a Scott film set in the same universe as the Alien franchise. The ship Prometheus goes looking for the beginning of mankind and what created us. It's a rather ambitious idea and the film should be given credit for trying to have some kind of theological and scientific debate. Unfortunately, the script also feels as though it has to give us the scares and frights that we associate with the Alien films. The majority of the film is intriguing but for every positive there is a negative. We get fascinating characters such as David, Vickers, and Janek. But they are mostly pushed aside to focus on the stupid scientist characters. Did the writers not realise how bad their work was? Rapace refuses to let one character take weapons on an expedition because it is a "scientific" mission. I call BS on that. No scientist would be so stupid as to explore a new planet, with no information on said planet, without a bit of protection. Characters decide to do stupid stuff, such as approach viscous looking new species etc. and it is here where the film annoyed me. The set design was beautiful, and I enjoyed the quieter moments the film had to offer, such as David's trying to understand emotions etc. The most interesting ideas the film has are delivered in single lines of dialogue, but are never explored. It's head and shoulders above many science fiction films of late, but it also needs a few sequels to clear things up. Unfortunately, that means it wasn't so great as a stand alone film.

I think this serves as a pretty decent stand alone sci fi. I like quite a lot about this movie. The cast is good. Noomi Rapace in particular is very good.

I like the idea of the engineers, I like the idea of the black goo, I mostly like the idea that this all spawns the xenomorphs we know and love but I don't really understand why.

Not everything needs an origin story and I preferred Alien when we just thought they were out there somewhere. I don't think we needed an origin/backstory/genesis story.

Take out the final scenes which, if I'm honest, felt a little forced, and Prometheus would still have been a fairly decent sci fi.

And most notably, Prometheus does teach us not to run in a straight line.