Prometheus: misfire or misunderstood?
Prometheus started life as a prequel to the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien, but during years of development grew into something bigger and relegated the xenomorph to an almost incidental. As a fan of the Alien and HR Giger’s Oscar winning effects (pieces adorn my walls, grace my shelves, my desk at work) I thought I would be disappointed with how it would be included; I was very wrong. See my shouts below on what I took away from the Alien aspect of the film.
Prometheus stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Logan Marshall-Green, with Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce. At its heart Prometheus tells the story of our search for answers as to who we are and where we came from, and is a film that the more you dig the more you take away from it.
I’ve been an admirer of Polish cinematographer Dariusz Wolski from as far back as The Crow and Dark City, however it is his work on Sweeney Todd that was my highlight. I have a new highlight. From the first frame to the last the film is simply gorgeous. He finds the detail in the sets and costumes and casts your eye over them in an unassuming way to let you find them yourself. I don’t think I blinked the entire length of the film.
The visual, practical and makeup effects are remarkable and need to be seen on the big screen at least once. I’ve heard criticism of Guy Pearce’s make up and find them unfounded. Comments that it looked like it belonged in a high school play are ridiculous, it has Oscar nom all over it. I think the issue more lies in the anticipation throughout the film of seeing him without it, forgetting that we already have among the viral material (The TED Talks was truly inspired).
So with all of the shiny out of the way, let’s wind our way through the film as a whole.
The film is dense with ideas but often disjointed and uneven with some pedestrian dialog and some questionable acting. Scott has confirmed that the home release will be 20 minutes longer and have 30 minutes of deleted scenes; that alone speaks volumes. There are scenes and interactions that end abruptly and others that clearly pick up from something we just didn’t see. One character goes from being a bit put out to losing himself at the bottom of a bottle the next time we see him, with nothing between. You can often feel when they occur because they are quite jarring.
Much has been made of the thinly realised and ineffectual crew. My hope is that a solid portion of those 20 minutes gives them a little more flesh, however I feel it is going to be in the deleted scenes. They will still often make the same stupid decisions, but a bit more depth to them might make it a little clearer why.
Michael Fassbender owns this film with his realisation of the nuanced David. Rapace, Theron and Pearce are great in their roles, but I think I would have been fine with any of the others being recast with the exception maybe of Sean Harris’ underdeveloped Fifield.
So how, with all of that, is Prometheus still so damn good? Ridley Scott. The film is bursting at the seams trying to contain itself, you can feel it. I don’t know of another Director that could have achieved the vision Scott has shown us, he just should have shown us over 3 hours.
Prometheus works on a number of levels depending on how much of the surface you care to scratch away. If you just want a Sci-Fi action film with aliens. Tick. If you are looking for more, it’s there; it doesn’t spoon feed you and you will need to pay close attention, read between the lines and deduce. It’s a movie that I’ve been thinking about for a week after seeing it only once and can’t wait to don my 3D glasses and take the ride again.
So, Prometheus: misfire or misunderstood? I think a little from column A and a lot from column B
Totally facehugged
Ok, this is a little stream of consciousness without too much of a self edit, I have something in draft to post my thoughts of the film as a whole, but I wanted to address @Warlords comments in respect to the “Alien”. This is the way I saw it.
Firstly let’s talk penises. HR Giger who is responsible for the original Alien design is quite fond of them. They, and selected orifices, are through a large body of his work including his designs for Alien. The design for the facehuggers eggs originally didn’t split open into 4, it was into 2 and was quickly knocked back as it was clearly a vagina. The guy has some unresolved issues; a genius, but a little broken. I have three pieces of his work sitting on my desk here at the office and I can count four penises and two orifices. So anything penis like is extrapolating Giger’s original vision.
Ok, the ‘monsters’. As I said these are my thoughts after only having seen it once and know zero about the film going in.
The worm ingests the substance and turn in to the ‘snake’. It doesn’t have DNA beyond the worm to be structured with more complexity than that, but the key to its propagation is the ability to gestate inside a host. Any early iteration is going to feature something like what we see open up. On the ‘snake’ it is too small and ineffectual to subdue the guy so it goes down his throat. It starts to interact with the guys DNA and we end up with the couple of guys who are a little put out, but as I said is fairly limited to what it could achieve. Between the worm and the man it didn’t have enough to work with so we end up with a guy who still has it inside him messing around. The result is the ‘zombie’ who is aware enough of what is happening to asks to be killed. With his fiery death that whole line of evolution ceases and has nothing to do with the alien as we know it. It’s an evolutionary dead end.
Now, that we have seen what the substance can do, we get to the one that matters.
After being roofied by David the substance first takes from Charlie and then Elizabeth and has enough DNA to produce something with a little kick. It gestates in her womb and grows very fast. We have seen this in Alien. From chestburster to fully grown can be measured in hours.
Elizabeth’s bundle of joy is squid like with powerful tentacles. It is an unrefined facehugger. Unlike the ‘snake’, this has the ability to latch on to lay its love child. It grows fast because it needs to be able to take down its prey to survive. It grabs at the body, the arms and legs trying to overpower the Engineer. They have a candlelit dinner and we get the smaller proto-Alien (Scott refers to it as The Deacon), which kind of skips the chestburster state as we know it. Its size comes from Charlie and Elizabeth, and the look based on what it took from the Engineer. Think of the Dogbolter in Alien 3
Adaptability is it strength and it starts to refine over a number of iterations, over who knows how long. Not long I imagine. The facehugger becomes much smaller with a tail to spring right at the face. It’s fast, no need to fight, no need for teeth, get on and paralyse them. It slims down to the chestburster so it can gestate quicker and get out faster and then grows quickly rather than be locked inside a host growing to full size. Once it knew it prey it adapted.
To lay eggs it has to have taken some kind of reproductive cycle, either from Charlie and Elizabeth or as a later encounter. I really like the idea that the core of it comes from them as it means we even more heavily involved in putting angry black penises in space.
Whether the tradition starts on this planet or not, they would have no need for the ampules of the black substance, in fact they would pose a very clear threat to them should something else grow from it bigger than they are, and replaces them with eggs which serve the same purpose but is only perpetuating themselves.
Ok, as I said I'm just free balling the idea. It may not be completely water tight, I may have missed something, or it isn't Scott’s intention, but I think it is in the ball park.
This is probably the most I will ever use the word penis on this site, but stay tuned ;)
Review by whitsbrainVIP 6BlockedParent2022-01-15T16:51:22Z
After a first viewing "Prometheus" was a jumbled mess of speculative Science Fiction with healthy doses of frightening Horror. After a second watch the initial findings are the same. On the one hand this is impressive Sci-Fi. It's high concept. There are some wonderful things to see. It is really one of the most visually stunning films released in years. The problem is that at about the 55-minute mark things go south and fast. Up to that time the story is pretty amazing. There's lots to think about. After that the movie makes the Sci-Fi then Horror split. It's really pronounced.
Once David (Michael Fassbender) slips a little something into Holloway's drink things get nutty. This Sci-Fi and Horror combo is nothing new. The same thing can be found in "Alien" but there's so much promise to "Prometheus". When it turns Horror it loses what made it start out great. In fact it gets irritating.
What is it with Hollywood and their fascination with the 1960s? "Prometheus" is set in 2093. Yet for some reason the captain of the ship uses a Stephen Stills reference as a way to get laid. Vickers (Charlize Theron) admits to not knowing who Stephen Stills is but somehow the innane hippie anthem "Love the One You're With" scores the Captain free love. When will Baby Boomers ever get over themselves? It's over okay. The '60s are gone. It's embarrassing that Ridley Scott put this into the movie. By my count it would be roughly 130 years since Stephen Stills was first on the radio to begin with. It's just pathetic. Here's another thing...you've made an amazing discovery. The beginning of life as we know it. But you're horny so let's do it to Stephen Stills. The creators of life on your home planet that you've traveled for two years to meet can wait. Stupid. Then when the two scientists are left behind in the alien cargo area one of them decides to start smoking pot through a tube that he has fitted into his suit. More stupidity. It's all illogical and it sets the tone for the remainder of the movie.
Thankfully Fassbender and Noomi Rapace (Elizabeth Shaw) are excellent in their roles and the amazing visuals continue. Charlize Theron was also good as the daughter of Peter Weyland. The choices around Weyland being portrayed by Guy Pierce in bad age makeup aside his motivation was understandable.
The third act is pretty exciting. The ending sets up a sequel and learning what David and Shaw find on their journey to meet their creators should be something to look forward to. That along with the great effects of "Prometheus" made it worth the two frustrating hours spent watching it.