"I want to scare the shit out of you."
- Ridley Scott
The quote which launched a thousand fandom orgasms... The question is, did he succeed?
'
Prometheus' is what happens when you throw '
The Thing' and '
Event Horizon' in a blender, decide it needs some '
Splice' and then, for no apparent reason, decide to throw away most of what
could have made it an iconic piece of horror for the modern age. There are no two ways about this: The film had all the ingredients required to make it a potential new cinematic masterpiece, but began to start shedding them along the creative road as it journeyed along to completion.
Don't get me wrong, it's still an effective piece of science-fiction. Something which manages to feel both real and epic. If you're despairing at Hollywood's continuing attempts to try and splice together the DNA of Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich, then a trip to see this will be refreshing. Visually-speaking, it's something of an oasis in a graveyard of pretenders to the throne, marred so much by their own reliance on fast-paced jump-cuts and giant robots, that they seem to forget the art of story-crafting completely.
Unfortunately, what made '
Alien' - and its initial sequel - so successful... That very sense of realism... Is in some way ruined by the polished nature of, well, something trying to out-epic itself. There is nothing - I repeat,
nothing - which comes close to how awe-inspiring and disturbing that famous scene of the original Space Jockey is. There are attempts and the sets are
beautiful, but even though the film makes a point of exploring these cavernous extraterrestrial labyrinths to a far greater extent, there's nothing which really fills you with the same sense of wonder. By attempting to be overly clever and over-engineer (no pun intended) itself, '
Prometheus' seems to lose sight of what made its source material so compelling.
Again, that isn't to say it's a failure. It's not. '
Alien' films, most especially, are often rated by how much entertainment and escapist value they have. In this, '
Prometheus' mostly succeeds. But like that old elephantine monstrosity rooted to its telescopic contraption, the shadow of a certain blockbuster from the 1970s looms heavily over what we are seeing. Every time you see characters step foot into the Space Jockey's realm, you
want it to out-do the original. You really do. Or at least equal it. You want that same combined sense of wonderment and dread to loom out of the shadows and remind you
why millions of us rewatch the originals, to this very day. You want the film to somehow prove it's earned the right to its vast budget and the involvement of Ridley Scott and HR Giger.
Because, admit it... The teenager in you pored over Giger's '
Book Of Alien' like it was porn. You hoarded those comics, damn it. You've seen the masterpieces so many times, discussed them with so many like-minded fans, that it would be
impossible for giants like these to get it wrong. We've got technology and visual techniques available to us now, which simply didn't exist back then. Hell, you're so aware of what made those classics as great as they are, that you can tell when something else is copying those very same elements!
So, where does it succeed? Where does it fail?
First things first: You're going to see this because it's a monster movie. You want to know how masterfully the creature designs are handled. And this is probably the film's greatest weakness...
Why? Because
gone are any hint of biomechanical design aesthetics. Literally... Utterly, completely gone. Without spoiling much, the Space Jockeys have this represented upon their uniforms, by their very natures. But the entity you're actually
paying to see on screen exhibits none of that. And also just as absent - sorely so - is
any hint of psychosexuality.
That's right. Ridley Scott's had literally decades to think about the direction he'd take a film like this and we get relatively
generic monsters. The one time when there is an element of the story which delves into what could have been familiar xenomorphic territory (something which happens to Shaw, the film's protagonist), what we end up getting isn't terribly fresh or new, at all. It's something which could have easily featured in '
Splice' (and, in some respects, actually was). All that fan speculation you've been hit over the head with for months? Brooding subtext on the threatening nature of perversion and obscenity? Horrific scenes which would make Lambert's death seem almost tame? Nowhere to be seen here.
As a matter of fact, Lambert's death deserves revisiting here, since some will inevitably try to brush off criticisms, as being to do with concern for the age rating. My answer to that is that Lambert's death, even today, could easily have earned a relatively low rating (it is, in fact, a perfect example of what can be psychologically achieved by the use of pure suggestion, editing and audio). Someone like Ridley Scott should be all the more aware of this, yet, sadly, we don't see much evidence of it here. If you're hoping for something along those lines, you're going to be disappointed. Characters speak of death, but what was born from Kane exhibited more disturbing menace.
The actual physical designs, themselves, are a mixed bag. The initial things we see are handled fairly well and have an air of menace, but most of this is because one of the characters acts ridiculously stupid. If you thought Kane's response to an opening "leathery object" was lacking in common sense, you're going to be face-palming here. It is, however, effectively brutal. But brutality is more what you expect to see in a '
Predator' film. When you go and see an '
Alien' movie, you want to glimpse something nightmarishly horrific at least being hinted at. Something which you could believe might scare a character to death if they were confronted by it (as per Lambert's original death as it was filmed before editing).
Oddly, most of the actual carnage and body count is carried out by relatively mundane, humanoid antagonists. Those of us worried by, say, the rumours about 'space mutants' and what the Space Jockey is meant to truly be? We were right to be so. This is what bites me so much about this production; it can be so majestic with set design and beautiful scenic visuals, yet show hardly any attention when it comes to the crafting of a scene which would have been much better spent on creating something genuinely disturbing and unpleasant.
None of which might have necessarily been a big problem, but Ridley Scott painted himself into a corner by being widely quoted as believing it was somehow impossible to make the original Alien seem threatening on screen, using the fact that one of them had featured as a cameo on a Disney ride as proof of this. Many of us in the fandom have argued, by contrast, that the original Alien hasn't truly been portrayed
effectively since the eighties and that, in light of this, all the more effort should be spent on 'getting it right'. The very logic for why so many wanted the likes of Scott and Giger to be involved in a sequel (or, in this case, a prequel, albeit an indirect one).
So, what have we got in place of Giger's iconic stroke of psychosexual genius? Well, as I say, a rather mixed bag. Design-wise, something which has, shall we say, spent a while
gestating... See what I did there? Once it began to get active, it showed hints of a promising would-be successor. Something which might end up as this film's chestburster, gradually maturing into a true extraterrestrial force of agony and death. What ends up being revealed later on? Eh... A huge disappointment (visually impressive, but compared to the original Alien, even the facehugger shall still be more memorable). Why did Ridley Scott bother pouring on the criticism on a design which would have been
superior to what he ended up authorising? That's not sarcasm, I'd honestly like to know.
Spoiler
Many call it a 'squid', but it's more of a psychotic starfish on crack.
And yes, there
is a hint of the original Alien... Unfortunately, my reaction to it was akin to the morbid fascination associated with the wreckage of a car crash:
(A) Ohhh... Is that what I think it is?
(B)
Huhhh... I can see the limbs and stuff, but... Oh, there's a bit more of it. Wait, it's doing something more! Ah, I knew that couldn't be all there was...
(C) Wait, did this just turn into a Roger Corman film?
It literally is something I suspect most fans would have rather been left on the cutting room floor. Or even better, had the budget diverted to something more meaningful.
Fans of '
Alien 3' will, however, recognise something of a homeage...
Spoiler
In my honest opinion, it looked like someone tried to copy the Bambi-burster with one of the parodies from 'Beetlejuice' and took away the tail.
All those weird Dark Horse comic interpretations of the infamous Jockey-burster? You will be wishing this thing was like those. It's worse than the Predalien, is how bad it is.
So, with that over, how does the story stack up?
Whether you see this in 2D or 3D, you can't escape the feeling that it's a bit like '
Alien Versus Predator' without the Predators. If and when Anderson watches this, he's going to raise an eyebrow. The next time Scott makes one of his suggestive comments about the AVP films, you can feel free to wonder if he ever actually watched them, because there are key elements which are very similar to the first one.
Spoiler
Ironically, including the final scene.
But that's OK, because, much like how '
The Matrix' can get away with directly copying scenes from certain Japanese animation movies before it, '
Prometheus' can get away with copying Anderson's because it does the whole archeologist-gets-hired-by-Weyland-to-go-exploring-ancient-pyramid-of-doom-thingy well (although, quite why a character refers to it as a pyramid when it's more of a mound, I was confused by). You can, however, be excused for sometimes wondering if Shaw should be getting called 'Lex'...
Some of the film cleverly plays around with the very expectations it sets up. I liked this. For example, rather than everyone haplessly marching to an almost certain death, a few of them
do pipe up with how ridiculous it is to do so and even take action. However, that doesn't stop others from doing really stupid things, like taking off helmets and taking in whole lungfuls of who-knows-what, just because the atmosphere sensors think it's
probably OK to breathe. Do these scientists not think about things like unknown contaminants? Or, worse still, have the training necessary for excavating ancient digs, yet don't even consider their own bodies might be exposing and infecting the
environment with something?
It's stuff like this which makes you side with the character of Vickers. Yes, it's almost mandatory for an '
Alien' film to have at least one character who's there as a 'suit' and needs to exude an air of let's-do-evil-shenanigans-because-I'm-rich-and-you're-expendable. Here, Vickers supplies that function and even mixes in a little of Nostromo-era Ripley's pragmatism. You can't help but think she's almost the only sane one around, at times, when even the alleged 'scientists' show zero understanding of basic matters like quarantine. That it's a prequel to a film in which that was already a strong sub-plot, only serves to emphasise this more. She is, however, portrayed very well on screen. In retrospect, the actress doesn't have terribly much material to work with, yet gives a stronger impression for it.
Most other characters are generic. In the case of a few, I can't even remember what ended up happening to them. I would say, though, that most of them have their own little quirks, which helps to make the cast feel like real people. Few of them do the kind of casual bitching about day-to-day drudgery which rounded out the likes of Parker and Brett, which means we don't get much opportunity to empathise with most, but they're serviceable. Nevertheless, I did miss an opportunity to revisit those kinds of social divisions between the pragmatism of the engineering department and those in charge of the ship and mission.
The latter is actually problematic. In both '
Alien' and its sequel, there were obvious chains of command. Here, it's all a bit unclear. Orders are barked, but not necessarily followed and you almost get the impression that nobody on the crew roster, themselves, are even sure of who they should be taking their cues from. This makes it more difficult to believe that they're on a trillion-dollar mission of grand importance, since nobody seems the least bit trained in protocol. Over all, though, this doesn't really detract from the events of what they experience.
And experience, they do... Repeatedly, in fact - and constantly putting themselves in danger seems to become more like a habit than accident. '
Alien' was so plausible because of accidental exposure and the characters reacting how the audience would: Wanting to get the hell away. Disaster struck because they had allowed contamination to come aboard. Here, the crew of the Prometheus are struck by that most inconvenient of measures; a film director gripped by feeling he
needs to keep exploring the Space Jockey lair, instead of realising that less can sometimes be more (if the Prometheus had somehow been damaged beyond repair, this would be more understandable). As a result, the characters leave you with the feeling that they have a death wish, because of how often they force themselves to go back to where tragedy clearly lurks. You yearn for the days when poor Lambert refused in tears to follow Ripley's plan of flushing out the ventilation system after Dallas' death. Here, the crew of the Prometheus would have not only done just that, but forget to rig up extra weapons for precaution.
David 8, thankfully, doesn't come close to what was threatened by some quarters of fandom. There's nothing where he shows more hints of more emotional capability than the likes of Ash or Bishop did. Moments of what
could be interpreted as resent, but they don't hit you in the face. It's no better/worse than the moments of what could be seen as frustration were demonstrated by Ash. And because of this ambiguity, David 8 doesn't come across as more radically advanced than Ash, which helps the continuity. There are some very nice moments with him, in fact. Also some weird ones, though, where his motivations aren't properly clarified like those for Ash had been. I was worried that his story arc would be about becoming human, but the story doesn't dare to venture along such meaninglessly sentimental lines. So, yes, David 8 fits reasonably well alongside Ash, Bishop and Call. We witness him doing things like watching films, when you would think he'd logically be engineered to simply absorb them for analysis to an internal download, but I can forgive the film-makers for that. Acting-wise, it's a good performance of what it means to be synthetic. The few moments where he's implied as potentially angry about something, though, I could do without - they didn't make much sense for a robot to exhibit.
But what about the mystery? These 'Engineers'? Who are the Space Jockeys? Where did they come from? Why do they do what they do? What is it they're
trying to do? How do they perceive us? Why?
This was the film which, everyone involved, director included, claimed would serve to investigate these questions. They were the whole point of it! And this is Ridley Scott! With a
budget, no less! You cannot doubt that this will lead to epic philosophical places!
When it comes to story-telling, if you float one mystery, putting up others is perfectly fine, so long as you also provide some answers. We don't actually get much of that here.
Only more questions. The Space Jockeys are explored, but you're left none the wiser. And, yes, for those of you in the know, the 'suit thing'
is as daft and pointless as it sounded - which is possibly the film's greatest failing, since this was a mystery decades in the making and what most fans
wanted Ridley Scott to be involved in answering, if it must be. From that perspective, it feels like an exercise in squandered potential. Then again, this is the same guy who did a director's cut of '
Alien' and didn't fix the notorious problem with Ash's head by adding a simple cut away reaction... Perhaps this should have been interpreted as a warning?
If you're not looking for the 'derelict question' to be solved, however, then it's still an
interesting journey to tag along with. The infamous visual of that giant human head, strangely, doesn't get explained, which is reflective of a large proportion of what goes on, really. I attribute this to Ridley Scott's technique of 'the art' always coming first. He has an artistic canvas and paints something memorable with actors and cameras. Whether we end up liking it is neither here nor there. The canvas is what you pay him for. We get his ideas about the Space Jockeys and what they're up to, which don't hold much in the way of surprise if you've read/listened to his views of them over the years. Space Jockeys carry around biological weapons (of, apparently, varying types) and sometimes Stuff Goes Wrong(TM). Much beyond that, you won't find answered here. '
Prometheus' is more like a glimpse into the aftermath of an ancient prison riot, than a historical flashback of monumental proportions (and no, I didn't just give away the story; just a suitable analogy).
Weirdly, the aspect which has, up until now, been the most controversial; ET-influenced human origins, was conspicuously pedestrian. Those adverts where we see Shaw relate the tale of old paintings correlating to a star system? That's
literally her entire proof. I felt sure that there was going to be more to it. That something would crop up later, perhaps to do with the company's financial involvement. An intriguing about-face for one of the scientist characters, revealing they knew more than had been let on. Some fragment of ET DNA or a device uncovered at one of the old dig sites.
Something. They had to get all that funding, right? There must have been more to it!
But... No. That's why some of the film, as a whole, feels disappointingly painting-by-numbers. I was looking forward to at least this fantastical angle to history being done justice to. Yet, it isn't. The most we get is a short scene involving a waterfall. There was so much potential here and it actually feels inferior to the far more epic historical flashbacks in '
Alien Versus Predator'. I'm not asking for lasers and spaceships, but as someone who's been intrigued by all those old legends of 'star gods from the sky', the practical reality of a visual artist like Ridley Scott doing next to nothing with this, especially when he's been so passionate about it in interviews, is astounding. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of things I could have had Shaw or her partner speak of in dialogue, if budget was the issue. Even '
Predator' did this well, with Anna's reference of "the demons who make trophies of men" and we get nothing in '
Prometheus' approaching how memorable that was.
But with all of this said, it's
worth going to see. I mean that. It won't blow your mind, but it's a nice addition to the series. This is, it's true, what damages it: You're going along to see something which
should be spectacular and, while good entertainment and even (relatively) effective at what it sets out to do, it's not anything revolutionary. It's
not the thing you've been waiting since the 1980s to see and you're honestly left wondering why Ridley Scott chose this project over the true sequel James Cameron was going to write for him to direct. Or why he was so openly critical of Giger's creature design, only to apparently settle for a much inferior product.
Does he "scare the shit" out of us? No. And, really, we should expect that. The guy's evolved since the 1970s, after all. He's had time to be a family guy and hasn't had opportunity to
practice the art of film horror. It's the same as the director who gave us '
Jaws' later doing his version of '
War Of The Worlds': Much bigger budget and many years of experience later, but would have benefited enormously from Spielberg having taken the time to helm a couple of creature-feature projects between them.
And that's what we have. It's like a family relative you deeply admire, who used to take you out for the best times on Earth, who recently came back from his trip overseas and decides to take you out somewhere special. You appreciate the ride, love that he's doing it, but... You've kind of grown apart. And it doesn't make those old times spent with that person any
less special. It's just that times have moved on and he's better at doing other things.
Or perhaps a more relevant analogy would be like how we wondered what happened to the director of the '
Terminator' films and '
Aliens', after watching '
Titanic' and '
Avatar'... Decent enough films in their own right, but a radical departure of what you would have predicted he'd have done with the subject material, years before.
Would '
Prometheus' have been better if it wasn't a prequel? Very probably. It suffers from labouring under the weight of its predecessors very, very much. The whole point of it is that it's meant to at least rise to similar heights, yet it doesn't. Prettier, yes, but when what made the old things so great was how they got their hands dirty... Pretty isn't what you need. You're comparing Tina Turner to Britney Spears and it doesn't quite mesh when they do a duet.
Is it acted well? Not in all places, but mostly, yes (in many cases, though, you won't remember half the faces as fondly as you will Ferro or even Jones, the cat). Does the story do what it should? Yes and no... It's not what we were promised. Not in the least. But it takes you for a ride and engages you. Does it out-Giger Giger? F**k,
no - and never will. But it does its thing and you don't regret paying to see it. You just wish it had been something more... Special.
The real test will come later. Will we be rewatching it as many times as the others? Will we be quoting the lines to friends? Will there be entire parodies based on scenes people remember from it?
Right now, I place it behind '
Alien' and '
Aliens': As something which was meant to come up to their level or even
replace them, it fails. As something which was meant to stand alongside them? Yeah... I can buy that.
I give it a 6.5 out of 10. If they'd just made it an original film and done away with any Space Jockey stuff, I'd have rated it higher. But it
is entertaining and, while it needed to be more '
Event Horizon' than '
Resident Evil', what we get is by no means poor.
Yet, I'll always be left wondering how things might have turned out with more Giger-esque biomechanoids and a better script...
