Our review of Prometheus, the long-anticipated pesudo-prequel…?…to Alien, directed by Ridley “the director of Alien” Scott and written by Damon “the writer of Lost” Lindelof…Why we anticipated it could be a whole other video unto itself. Sadly, those reasons were all turned against us in a cynical campaign to sell us yet another Alien rip-off…from the director of Alien. How the mighty have fallen…
Sigh. The most frustrating thing for me is that most of the characters were unprofessional idiots. With a lot of movies, they would have needed to be in order to make the plot work. In this movie, they could have all been smart and logical and practical and still all died the same horrible deaths. They’re up against a warehouse full of morphing alien bioweapons. The only way not to die is not to go into it in the first place.
Oh my God, don’t get me started. Early on the Token Stoner asks Original Salander, “How do you know [your pet theory’s correct and these aliens really are our progenitors]?” The answer’s the same as the one Nicholas Hammond’s Peter Parker gave to David White’s J. Jonah Jameson: “Simple: I believe.” Because that’s how scientists think (if they work for the Creation Museum)! As soon as they’re in the facility and their suits say it’s okay to breathe, Paco from Across the Universe whips his helmet off like someone just said, “Start the orgy.” Original Salander chides him for being stupid. He turns around and chides her for being a “skeptic.” Double dumbass on him for tempting fate…
So I don’t know if I’d agree with your third sentence, there. The very idea of staffing your First Contact mission with two scientists who still look like grad students at Underwear Model University, two more who look like stereotypes, and Robot Lawrence of Arabia makes me think Mr. Weyland succumbed to senility by the time he planned this little adventure.
Instead of being stuck in the temple because they got lost, Biologist and Geologist could have stayed there because they volunteered (or were ordered) to do more research. Instead of trying to pet the hostile organism they could have tried to capture it. Or it could have just snuck up on them.
As for the idea that the Engineers were somehow responsible for life on Earth? No. Completely stupid. I refuse to believe that any species could seed a planet with life and then come back 1,500,000,000 (1.5 BILLION) years later to talk to beings who somehow evolved into smaller, hairier duplicates of the original species. The only reason we (homo sapiens) are here is because we got lucky. Evolution has only one direction – survive to reproduce. Human beings aren’t THE end result of evolution. We just A result. The dinosaurs were not a step on the ladder of evolution to humanity. They were a different thing entirely. Humanity evolved from rat creatures that were present before the dinosaurs. If the Engineers designed life on Earth to result in humanity, humanity should have “evolved” at least 300 million years ago.
Gah. I’ve decided that the Engineers are really something like Atlanteans. Noomi says that their DNA matches ours perfectly so that means they’re human. Some sort of extraterrestrials (such as the xenomorph on the Temple wall) came to Earth in prehistoric times and engineered the Engineers. The ETs left. The Engineers built an advanced civilization and then, most of them, in a religious fervor, left Earth to find their gods, the ETs. The pictograms aren’t invitations to humans to come join them; the pictograms are maps so that the remaining Engineers would know where to go when they decided to follow their brethren.
I’ve already thought too much about this.
You and me both, man. You and me both. Know who this thing really needed? Dan O’Bannon.
Or Roger Corman.
Definitely needed Peter Weller. That’s for damn sure.
Just like everything else.
“Cookies need Peter Weller like…everything does. [collective evil laugh]”
Fantastic video review that I couldn’t agree with more. I’ve had people tell me that I fell victim to my insanely high expectations, but that’s only a tiny fraction of the problem with this film.
The entire time it felt as if Damon Lindelof was scared to cut deeper into the heavy shit he was bringing up. I can’t think about Spaihts, obviously, unless we see his original draft of the proper prequel, but I can definitely blame Ridley Scott for being a bitch. In their attempts to be mystical and epic, all they did was fall flat on their faces. Anyone with an ounce of knowledge of film, screenplays, story-telling, or sound logic gets a sour taste from this movie.
For some reason, there’s this poison goin’ round Hollywood that’s making people think speculative plots, and especially endings, are the coolest. Which doesn’t. Make. Sense.
Unless you can imagine being trapped in a room, reading an endless stream of idiotic screenplays from every cashier and busperson in the city. That’s the only thing I can figure. I’d get pretty sick of standard riffs on the Hero’s Journey, too…if I didn’t occasionally refresh myself with good examples of the form. Something few have the time to do when they’re busy making movies (or doing the schmoozing to get the money to make the movies – which I’m told is an even more time-consuming and psychically-draining slog).
I didn’t really have a problem with the movie. Yes, there’s some appallingly dumb **** on the screen half of the deaths on screen (I’d mention them specifically but those would be spoilers). Still, the movie’s primary sin in the eyes of my fellow geeks seems to be, “It wasn’t the movie I wanted it to be.” Which is one of the complaints I really dislike in fandom.
The movie is about Ancient Astronauts who created humanity. No, there’s no such thing. There’s room to believe in God (I do) but even if you disagree (your choice) there’s even less likely evidence of AAs. That doesn’t mean it’s not the movie’s premise and I can’t put it aside anymore than I put aside physics in Star Wars and Star Trek. A lightsaber is a stupid weapon, I love it anyway. I don’t need to believe in the world anymore than I need to believe in Middle Earth.
No the real “heart” of the movie is the father-son-daughter dynamic that Ridley obsesses about the entire film with poor Noomi’s character of Shaw wanting to find a Dad replacement and upset she can’t can’t have children while Weyland’s family is 7 kinds of ****ed up because he has a robot son, a sociopath daughter, and he’s Lex Luthor. Regular average Joes these are not.
I can’t say it really says anything other than, “looking for your parents is dumb” but I found it entertaining. If you didn’t, that’s your right but I can’t get behind the whole idea the movie made some appalling sin by making the scientists not very scientific when the movie is about an expedition where half of the crew wants it to fail in the prologue. I mean, hell, Charlize Theron flat out says that the scientists won’t be allowed to do any science and people STILL complain they’re not acting like scientists.
My .02.
Obviously, I can only speak for myself. So, first off, I’m genuinely glad you were entertained. I was, too, but most of my entertainment flowed from laughing as the film ticked off every box on the Generic Alien Rip-off Check List. My primary problem with this movie was not, “It wasn’t the movie I wanted it to be,” except insofar as I wanted it to be smart, well-made, and have some manner of point. Those hopes died around the point Our Token Stoner first reached out to pet the albino space penis. It’s not that the scientists were “not very scientific” – it’s that I repeatedly had trouble believing they were even human, given their reactions to circumstances. Shiftless Androids I can understand, even get behind if their humans are big enough dicks. And while that was the case here, it got to the point where every character’s every action prompted a stream of increasingly aggravated questions. Most of which flowed from the question, “Why?”
Still, it was one fine looking movie, confidently directed in a way most summer sci-fi isn’t. That was nice. It was moody, atmospheric, and had the best surgery scene of 2012, even beating out Robert Pattinson’s prostate exam from Cosmopolis.
The thing that Leviathan got absolutely right in its Alien-ripping-off, and a large part of the reason it’s in my DVD collection: most of the time, the characters act like grown-ups. They grouse and bitch, but they come up with ideas that seem as though they should stand a reasonable chance of working and keeping them alive.
Sure, they still die, but they at least tried to be smart.
Trying and failing to be smart can still count for a whole lot of audience good will – particularly if you’ve watched too many bad horror movies (like some of us have) and are constitutionally incapable of putting up with stupid characters.