According to Ridley Scott, Prometheus is not supposed to be a prequel to Alien. However, if it wasn’t for that inspiration – which goes from H.R. Giger designs, to the tough female heroine and the creepy humanoid-robot with questionable motives – Prometheus would be an average film, if not bad. And I must say my first impression was indeed bad; albeit I now attribute that initial disappointment to the failed high expectations the trailers created and as well my lack of love for the imax 3D experience. As I see it, 3D is used to overwhelm the sight so you miss the sloppy details.
But yes, the visuals are stunning; Michael Fassbender is once again superb (when it comes to dark deranged characters the man has a gift!); and Naomi Rapace, not being Ripley/Weaver, is still interesting. Unfortunately that’s basically it, because what we get is a horror sci-fi that lacks the wonder, darkness, visceral commotion and dramatic pacing that made of Alien and Aliens such great films. Including such features as the stock of disposable characters, mostly shallow and with obvious dialogue; the heroic captain, unaware of what is going on in his spaceship during the whole time but still voluntary to give is life easily away when asked; and a robotic Charlize Theron, probably there because the movie really really really needed a good-looking blond to suffer a stupid death (next time try moving to the side). The result is a confusing story that makes up for in silliness what lacks in substance.
Back to Alien and Aliens, the beauty of it is that both films are able to stand on their own even if you haven’t figured everything out. Prometheus, on the other side leaves you with more questions than answers (possible sequel to the prequel?). Being the first: “Is Ridley Scott a scientologist?”. Because the plot just does not make sense. Yes, Science Fiction is fiction; but to achieve in science fiction, a certain degree of reason and plausibility are required. In Prometheus, Scott dwells the concept of intelligent design, mixing creationism (religion) and scientology (more religion) with evolution (yes, at some point someone actually managed to say the name Darwin) in a way that all ends up sounding terribly phony. As such, instead of the touted genre-defining masterpiece we ended up with a completely unoriginal mash-up of other movies and philosophies.
And this gets me to where this all started… the people behind the camera. The first thing we do when discussing films is talk about the actors and directors, to the point that we usually end up giving all the credits to the directors. And if that is true in some cases - of which Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter and Wes Anderson are good examples, when it comes to Ridley Scott allow me to doubt. Ridley Scott is the man who brought us Alien and Blade Runner but also Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood and G.I. Jane; and even agreeing they all share the same visual prowess characteristic to Scott, any self-respecting fan must concur that while the first are genre-defining masterpieces that influenced filmmaking hereafter, the later stand between the meager and plain terrible. What parts Blade Runner and Alien from G.I. Jane, then? – The script, I say. The success of Ridley Scott’s films has always hinged on the quality of the scripts and his screenwriters. Blade Runner is loosely based on the great novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” from one of the best sci-fi writers ever - Philip K. Dick. As for Alien, well… Alien is all over Dan O’Bannon. To be even more accurate, Alien is the child of one of the greatest movies never made: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune. In 1974, the avant-gard Chilean filmmaker assembled a creative team of artists such as Jean Giraud (aka Moebius), H.R.Giger, Chris Foss and Dan O’Bannon and set about to write the screenplay adaptation of Frank Herbet’s classic sci-fi novel. However, after a couple of years, the major studios lost the interest and the project was shut down after running out of money, leaving Jodorowsky and O’Bannon in the bankruptcy. Fortunately not all was lost and a raged O’Bannon, fueled by Giger’s biomechanical dark imagery and sexually explicit art, revenged by writing the script that would become Alien.
And what about Prometheus? Well, Prometheus comes to us from Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof’s hands. The same guys who wrote The Darkest Hour and Cowboys & Aliens, respectively. I believe that says it all.
Final note: 5 out of 10.
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