It’s been quite some time since there was a big-budget Hollywood movie as thematically and intellectually ambitious as Prometheus. Not content with anything other than the biggest questions, Prometheus asks, “Where did we come from? What happens when we die? What is the purpose of all this (i.e. life on Earth and the human race in general)?” That it asks these questions with the aid of Ridley Scott’s trademark visual flair (now in very-not-bad 3D; I’m starting to come around to the thinking that 3D is okay as long as the whole movie is shot in 3D and, more importantly, I don’t have to pay a zillion dollars for it) makes it a little easier to process. That it does so in the context of being a kind-of-sort-of prequel to Alien makes it more than a little ominous.
[Read more. Some spoilers for the early plot.]
Some spoilers for the early plot.
To be perfectly clear, Prometheus is not Alien, and should not be approached as such. It’s a story set in the same universe—the pre-Yutani-merger Weyland Corporation looms large, as do their trademark androids, and their destination planet LV-223 suggests the legendary LV-426—but the events of Prometheus‘ story do not lead directly—note, directly—to the events of Alien. If anything, there’s quite a bit of deliberate distancing from the earlier movie at work in Prometheus: where everything about Alien suggested dark, grungy enclosed spaces, Prometheus is bright, clean, and expansive from its first shot, a massive landscape of a primordial, ocean-covered planetscape, on which stands a solitary cloaked figure, revealed to be a large hairless humanoid with gray-white skin, who ingests something and begins to disintegrate.
We then jump forward several eons to the late 21st century, on Earth, where scientists find a series of ancient cave paintings depicting what they determine to be a message from extraterrestrial visitors to Earth, and what protagonist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) believes to be an invitation to said extraterrestrials’ home planet. Elderly industrialist Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) sponsors an exploratory voyage on the spaceship Prometheus to find the extraterrestrials, whom Shaw refers to as Engineers, as in, they engineered human life. As in, they created us. Upon landing on LV-223, the expedition finds it deserted, though there are signs that the Engineers clearly were there some millennia hence. As for why the Engineers aren’t there anymore, that’s when the expedition starts getting the sense that they’ve gotten a bit more than they bargained for on this trip.
Probably the most impressive thing about Prometheus, in light of how the anticipation for it was so inextricably tied to Alien—I’d have said “fastened to Alien‘s face with a tentacle down its throat,” but that would be excessive—is how unlike other movies it feels. Per the opening paragraph, visually and aurally Prometheus is as spectacular as we’ve come to expect from Ridley Scott, whose command over the technical aspects of cinema is as total—and whose touch with that command is elegant—as just about anyone who’s ever made a movie.
Its script stumbles in places, though the central questions it asks are genuinely profound and universal. A story built around questions is certainly allowed to not answer them all, but it’s not always confusing in the right way. All the stuff about the aliens is fine, because aliens are supposed to be inscrutable and unknowable: they’re aliens. The relationships between the people are a little muddled. We’d never know Shaw and her love interest Holloway (Logan Marshall Green) were boyfriend-girlfriend unless the movie repeatedly told us, due to their complete lack of chemistry.
The supporting cast, though, are universally pretty awesome: spaceship captain Idris Elba and corporate functionary Charlize Theron are terrific (and terrific together; there’s one scene where, contra the Shaw/Holloway non-starter, you can taste the sexual tension). Michael Fassbender walks away with the movie as the android David, who models his hair (and I guess level of radness) on Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. Fassbender is truth and light and even triumphs over moments where the script undercuts David, because that’s what movie stars do. In an odd way, the actors making more of things than what they’re given in the script is Prometheus‘ most fundamental connection to Alien. In the latter it’s because the script was a minimalist template and the actors filled in the outlines with emotional color, and in the former, the script is a maximalist puzzle on top of which the actors coast. Still, structurally, it’s an example of Prometheus both being and not being Alien.
That kind of duality is a little troublesome in writing about the movie itself as well. I had a very difficult time watching Prometheus and didn’t personally enjoy the experience very much, primarily because of the artificiality of the character relationships, but also because of a tendency to over-explain things better left ambiguous and under-explain things that needed explanation. It would be tempting to just complain about all that for a couple thousand words, but I’d be doing the movie’s considerable assets a disservice by approaching it that way. Not only does Prometheus look and sound magnificent, any artistic endeavor that takes on questions and themes this large deserves a lot of credit. A sincere attempt at greatness beats a rote recitation of the safe and proven, any day.
Danny Bowes is a New York City-based film critic and blogger.
Reposting from the Alien3 thread:
It’s a great film but there’s too many notes, Herr Scott, too many notes. Ever read a description of the original plot for Alien? Where there’s a pyramid with cryptic sculptures, and a mysterious culture that worships the xenomorphs, and a love affair subplot between Ripley and Dallas? All that stuff got cut before shooting started, mainly for budget reasons, and the result was a tight thriller with a pretty much linear plot and a single (albeit evolving) antagonist – the only time you get a subplot or a twist is the “Ash is a goddamn robot!” moment and that’s brief. You could describe the plot to Alien in thirty seconds.
They should have done the same cutting job to Prometheus.
Too many threats for one thing. The black stuff and all the different things it does to people, the worms, the squidbaby, the giant… there’s no consistency, it jumps from one threat to another. I liked the simplicity of THERE IS AN ALIEN WITH TEETH, IT HAS EATEN YOUR CAPTAIN’S FACE, AND IT WANTS TO EAT YOUR FACE.
Too many characters and not enough time taken to introduce them. Watch Alien some time and notice how long it takes for Kane to encounter the eggs. It’s a long time – about half an hour of showing the crew waking up, chatting, having food, preparing to land, landing, going for a scout, finding the ship…
Same with Aliens. Ripley’s recovered, thawed, gets interrogated, meets Burke, talks to Burke again, then we meet the Marines, they banter, they have breakfast, we meet Bishop, they get a briefing, they land, they secure the colony building, search it, find Newt, and only then – forty minutes at least into the film – do they go on down to the basement and meet the bad guys.
The result is that we get to know the characters and the tension builds up. Prometheus just jumps right in there. It has no choice: there’s so much plot to stick in inside the dome on LV-223 that there’s no room to have any character development.
And that wonderful prologue: what exactly was happening there anyway? Was that Earth? LV-223? Was the stuff he was drinking the same stuff we see later? Why did it have a different effect? Why did he do it? Who was in the disc ship? WTF generally.
… it looks amazing, though. As you say, it has a sense of scale that was completely lacking from the other films in the series – because it’s filmed almost completely in daylight. Think about that – how many other monster movies don’t have shadows for the monster to hide in?
I thought Prometheus clearly highlighted all shortfalls of today’s big blockbusers:
– Visually interesting and high quality: yes, but clearly Scott can – could – do better. Ok, maybe like Spielberg and Lucus he gets senile and shouldn’t make any more movies.
– Storyline: well yeah, as Alien movies, or Blade Runner for that matter either bad scripts are chosen or good ones tortured until they are a shadow of what they could have been. I think we’ve got to thank the big production companies with their misdirected understanding of good / successful movies. Seriously, the Prometheus plot was confusing and thin at least. Why can we not spend at least 15% of product budget on script writing. Oh we do? Well, something seriously wrong then… If this was a book, no publisher would even read more than one line…
– Actors: Well, Fassbinder is good. Ok, but an easy role to play. The others? Hell, I can’t even remember them. Apart form that annoying geologicst, and of course Noomi Rapace, who looks like some botox treatment gone wrong.
– Big themses: fair enough, but seriously, just throwing them randomly in doesnt indicate intelligent movie making. You have to work with them. Clearly the authors weren’t up for coping with such grande schemes or maybe there were just too many of them?
For me, this was just another movie which was hyped through advertising and big, previously successful names, and which turns out to be really disappointing. What a shame…. So much lost potential… Tiny changes and it could have been great.
Just to reply / add to a couple of things Danny said”
“I had a very difficult time watching Prometheus and didn’t personally enjoy the experience very much, primarily because of the artificiality of the character relationships,”
Indeed they were non existent. David infecting whats-his-name boyfriend: great scope for deep topic, but hey, they just leave us hanging. Of course, proponents will always say that ambiguity was intended, my a****, I’ve heard this too much from colleagues who have no ideas, and hide behind ‘leaving it to the audience’…
“but also because of a tendency to over-explain things better left ambiguous and under-explain things that needed explanation.”
exactly my point
“Not only does Prometheus look and sound magnificent, any artistic endeavor”
Yeah, some very pretty shots, like medieval paintings, but a lot of week ones as well. It felt like a mix of 2001 and Star Trek interspersed with medieval paintings, the former boring, the latter great. I’d have expected more from Scott, not maybe, shadows&light patters as we know them, man has to move on, but something ‘different’…
“that takes on questions and themes this large deserves a lot of credit. A sincere attempt at greatness beats a rote recitation of the safe and proven, any day.”
See, here I disagree. Or, I agree, if you are strong enough to make it, they clearly didnt. I’d rather see an honst reduction, than taking on a task too big out of hubris…
I actually loved it, but agree the plot has holes. While the alien part is actually interesting and let’s you put together the engineer’s inner politics (for my part far out scientests terraform a planet, military back home brews up bio-weapon, scientests sabotage military expedition) was fun, however the first scene with the engineer only makes sense towards the end of the movie, at the beginning I would have liked that little bit of tension as to if these being had really engineered us or not. Secondly, finding cave paintings in 2089 seems a little dicey, perhaps a better explanation would that the indexing and googling of pre-historic art lead to the discover of such correleations between these ancient commentaries… and if the aliens were coming back to kill us… then why leave a message with directions to the weapon? but that is alien politics and open to numerous valid ponderings. The problem I think is that the movie had to much plot and was probably cut down to a mininal tabaleu, for instance in Ebert’s review he mentions the engineer climbing a mountain at the beginning, that shot was cut from the theatrical release. So maybe a director’s cut can add a good 10 – 30 minutes of exposition to make it all stick, but aside from that really enjoyed it even though it doesn’t quite make sense why the geologist comes back as he does or how exactly Noomi’s boyfriend’s infection spreads (did not know facehuggers bred like that), the fight scene with the geologist also went uninvestigated which was strange, but over all promtheus worked as a prequel to the Alien world and Michael Fassbender was just AWESOME as the android, I know the other android guy was good and made a decent tv show post-x-files later, but Fassbender does such a good job and Noomi Rapace does well too that a sequel is a possibility is a challenge, but Scott has done eons better than other prequels especially the Star Wars ones.
I don’t get all this stuff about “big themes”. What big themes? It’s not enough to briefly throw out a proposition like “Human Beings creation had no purpose” and not actually explore it. That doesn’t take any talent or creativity. If you don’t actually develop the implications of a concept through the story, you’re just being pretentious by even bothering to include it. Any writer can insert random philosophical musings in the mouths of their characters, and Prometheus didn’t even do that very much. Ridley Scott definately shouldn’t get any points for this aspect of the film.
I would like to ask you guys a question I came across on IDMB: Prometheus seems to have a quite dark undercurrent suggesting that David might not work in favour of humans in general. There are big discussions about whether he does it because he works only for his boss, he is inquisitive and nothing else, or that he wants to kill his father / maker. As such parallels to Blade Runner have been drawn.
My question now is, whehter the choice Shaw in the end makes. Ok, I understand she wants to meet the ‘engineers’, but ultimately, she wants to save earth. Now; by teaming up with David she has to trust him to guide the space ship to the right plane, I presume there is no way she can learn to fly that ship, nor can she stay awake all the time, that actually is quite interesting, would we assume the deep-sleep-cabinets can adapt to humans, let’s assume yes, but can she really trust David?
Ok, I understand she wants to meet the ‘engineers’, but ultimately, she wants to save earth.
That’s really not the best way to go about it. The engineers tried to wipe us out once already, but their plan backfired: goo escapes, everybody dies. Either all the engineers are now dead, or the survivors have just decided to leave well alone rather than have another crack at the genocide of humanity.
Now, if they’re still alive somewhere else, they’re going to see the arrival of one of their hated creations who has a) got hold of one of their ships b) got hold of enough goo to kill a world full of engineers c) knows where the engineers live and d) has figured out what the engineers were up to.
A scary sight for the engineers. I don’t think they’ll be happy to see her.
I’ve already posted a rant on this film in another location, but I’ll append it after this prequel, in which I just want to comment on a couple of points:
– Sexual chemistry between Charlize Theron and the captain? You’re joking, surely. Charlize Theron has the sexual chemistry of a department store mannequin (and the captain is a non-entity, really). Her function in this film is to stand and look flawless, and to perfectly fill out a form-fitting jumpsuit in close-up shots. I really don’t understand anything other than a physical attraction to this actor, and her character (like all the characters except for Shaw and David) is boring.
– The incessant mention of the ‘big ideas’. There are no big ideas in this film — certainly nothing that hasn’t been covered far better and for much less money in any number of Star Trek episodes. And I can watch those for free. People who prattle on about big ideas in this film must have missed 2001, not read much science fiction, and must not think terribly deeply.
So, to save myself some typing, here’s the rest, copied and pasted.
==
I’m going to be a curmudgeon on this one and say that I was pretty disappointed. I thought the CGI and other effects, and the photography in general were great. I liked that they got the distance right (10^14 km is, in fact, about 100 lightyears, so that shows that someone can actually use a calculator, which I consider a big plus in film). And I really liked Noomi Rapace’s Shaw, who stands up well in comparison to Ripley, I think. And Fassbender’s David is brilliant; I love the Lawrence of Arabia touches, and the air of complete indifference to his human charges. The technology aboard the ship was cool; the autodoc was well done, and the scene in which Shaw uses it is absolutely riveting.
Everything else about this film sucked, I’m afraid.
This is meant to be a scientific expedition, but with the exception of Shaw, the bunch aboard this ship make the crew of Nostromo, who were basically prospectors, look like Nobel laureates. I don’t think I’ve seen a dumber, less impressive bunch of people aboard a spaceship in a long time. They have no protocols for dealing with alien contact, no safety rules, the only way on and off the ship is to open it wide to whatever is coming at them, and they have no weapons more sophisticated than flamethrowers. The other ‘scientists’ on the expedition are completely worthless and serve only as alien fodder. There is, in fact, virtually no ‘science’ on display on this scientific expedition.
The whole business with the ancient star arrangements would be interesting if it made any sense at all. Charlie, the ‘archaeologist’ (and I use that term extremely loosely, as he appears actually to be a surfer on spring break), makes some vague reference to ‘galactic configuration’, which is rubbish, as one can find a ‘configuration’ exactly matching any star pattern you like anywhere you want, unless there is something more specific about those stars that identifies them (distances from known pulsars, for example), and in any event stars move; after thousands of years those stars are not going to be in the same position.
But those are all technicalities, and I can suspend disbelief with the best of them. But the characters, other than Shaw and David, are boring. Nobody is developed. What makes Charlize Theron’s character (whose name I can’t even remember) really tick? Who knows? What is Weyland really looking for? Immortality? Why? How would he know to expect anything from this expedition at all? Nothing he says makes any sense at all. What is Theron there for? We’ll never know, as she gets mooshed because she’s too stupid to run off to the side, out of the path of a rolling spaceship, instead of directly along its path. Where is the background, the binding, that leads the remaining crew to join their captain in one final, desperate attack? I sense nothing in these characters that justifies this kind of camaraderie, the love and loyalty that would allow men to give their lives for each other or a greater cause. Nothing. Brett, Dallas, Lambert, Parker, and Ripley (and, yes, Ash) showed more charisma, more development, more interesting personalities when they were sitting around the fucking table eating breakfast than this lot showed during the entire bloody film.
And don’t get me started on the soundtrack, which was insipid in its saccharine main theme and its bombastic, omnipresent hollowness.
You know, I started this writeup disappointed in this film. As i finish, I find that I really hate it. And that’s just a crying shame, because it really could have been something special.
If I want to watch a good Alien film, I’ll just have to go watch Alien and Aliens.
Cannot add much other than to strongly agree with the criticisms here and elsewhere – weak characters, inconsistent-confusing-swiss cheese story, cringeworthy dialogue etc… but it looked good! Massively disappointing. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being the most disappointing big film of the year. Was the reviewer watching something else?
I just wanted an excuse to post this excellent write-up…
http://digitaldigging.net/prometheus-an-archaeological-perspective/
Well, as long as we’re plugging other great reviews, here’s one that just leaves ’em in the dust.
have to agree with nomadUK on so many points: why was dr. holloway doing pretty much nothing? shaw had to keep begging him to help with the bag when they decided to run for it. after that he sits around drinking. straight up goldbricking. why is vickers, apparently the head of the weyland corp., along on this 4-year mission? (you already spoke to her poor choice of escape.) i eventually understood why she was so bitter and suspicious of david, and also why she has the demeanor of an android herself.
one of the biggest problems is the lack of cohesion in the group. it makes it impossible to come inside the film and root for anyone. the nostromo were all comrades, even the newcomers ripley and ash. they believed they were in it together. the sulaco was a team of marines who had a long history together. and the fury 161 prisoners were united in their devotion and history of incarceration. we’re told right off that prometheus’ crew doesn’t even know each other. beyond the flight crew it’s unclear who even met before departure. the geologist doesn’t know the other scientists. and the other female? she’s in on the weyland secret too. the guys in the hangar may be a part of the flight crew? or security? how many of those guys were there? because they died in droves. if the two bridge guys at least had freaked out, ranted for a minute about what they were being asked to do, i could have felt for them. that was a momentous decision and it just doesn’t feel heavy and intense like it should.
and no one asks why shaw is covered in blood and all freaked out. and she never mentions this insane organism she barely managed to remove. shouldn’t people know that’s onboard?! what a thing to forget.
and then there’s david who is clearly more than anyone realizes. why they’re so disdainful of him is unclear. but he offers up plenty of subtext and passive-aggression. i think his experiment on holloway and shaw was completely his own perverse decision.
and the movie certainly doesn’t answer the question it presents in the prologue. alien is dropped off on earth. alien drinks organic ooze, is destroyed and his dna is washed into across the planet. …so this race is seeding planets with their dna for what purpose? just ’cause? to create races of potential organ donors? to create a compatible slave race to harvest later? and when david mentions lots of other ships under the surface… um, all with dormant crews? loaded down with more black ooze? shaw’s still wanting to know? stupid. she’s suffered enough to know not to ask.
(also, weyland’s nasty feet. ugh. would have been cool if peter o’toole had played him, though.)