Prometheus Review

Sequels and Prequels

After over 30 years away from the franchise, Ridley Scott finally returns to the world which made him famous. The result is a strange beast: a technically adept  film which adroitly sidesteps some of the potholes which other sci-fi franchises have fallen to, but ultimately fails to live up to its own goals.

From the opening scenes, Prometheus makes its intentions clear – this is to be no simple space action horror film! It explicitly states that it is going to be about subjects like the dawn of the human race, our purpose in the universe, and what God means to us. Weighty stuff. Once the introductions are past, however, we are back in familiar territory. A mismatched group of individuals wake up in a starship, and touch down on an alien planet where they encounter a deadly threat.

Dodging George Lucas' Phantom

The film manages to avoid one of the common pitfalls of the prequel, namely the tendency to drown the viewer in familiarity. The easiest offender in this case is, of course, Star Wars.

                   “Hey! Remember us from the original trilogy! We’re in the prequel for no reason at all”

Scott knows not to put too much stress on the film’s pedigree. Whilst the references to Alien are there (and they slowly build in frequency and intensity throughout the film), it thankfully doesn’t crowbar in xenomorphs as the primary threat, and therefore manages to keep the audience feeling like they are in uncharted territory. This is a smart move, from both a marketing perspective and from a narrative one- the third and fourth films in the series, followed by cash-grab tussles with the Predators, have rubbed a lot of the lustre off the Alien franchise in recent years, and the life cycle from face-hugger to chest-burster to xenomorph is now so familiar to most audiences as to be blasé.


                                       
                                                   Familiarity is the enemy of horror

Another issue with prequels is their tendency to answer questions from their progenitors which didn’t need answering. Returning to Star Wars as an example of “how NOT to do it”, remember how you found out that the Force was caused by “midichlorians?” It was stupid.

In this, Prometheus is a less qualified success. One of the many elements which made Alien such a tight thriller was its economy- you didn’t need to know exactly what had happened to the elephant aliens in the horseshoe ship at the beginning, any more than you needed subtitles for the Norwegian gentlemen in the helicopter at the beginning of John Carpenter’s The Thing. The aliens in the ship did a wonderful job of being a narrative iceberg, hinting at greater mysteries beneath the surface, that humans were only aware of one corner of a vast and unknown universe. Without giving too much away, it could be argued that Prometheus actually steps backwards and closes off some of that expansiveness. Rather than mankind being a small, ignorant part of the Aliens universe, it's now the focus.

Sequels

Whilst it is clearly a narrative prequel, Prometheus feels a lot like a thematic sequel. If Alien is a twisted metaphor for birth, then Prometheus is about the relationships between parents and their children.  There are echoes of this at every level of the script, from Naomi Rapace’s archaeologist protagonist and her dead father, to humanity itself and the aliens who supposedly created it. The theme is one of the more consistent and interesting elements running throughout the film, and is personified by Fassbender’s android, David, and his ambivalent relationship to his maker. Whilst ostensibly an earlier model than Alien’s Ash or Aliens’ Bishop, his character feels like a natural successor to both of them -  whereas Ash was basically “evil”, and Bishop was “good”, David is neither of these things, skirting closer to Blade Runner’s amoral Replicants. Occasionally some of the more melodramatic scripting veers him a bit towards the dreaded “vaguely camp sinister British guy” territory...

                                                                     "Fnar"

...but overall the character is just a blast as he wanders through the story, seemingly motivated almost entirely by his own curiosity.

Only a few of the cast other than David are filled out more to be than briefly sketched clichés, standouts being Rapace, her brash partner Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron’s ice queen, but there are some nice twists and reveals in the relationships of the crew, and most of the character interactions are comfortable and assured, proving that Scott is still generally a dab hand at this kind of thing.  

The way that Prometheus attempts to expand and explain the universe established in the first film in such an ambitious way just feels like a director flexing their muscles, proving that they can not only make action or horror, but can tackle big themes. Alien and, more specifically, Blade Runner had interesting things to say about the human condition, but they were subtly hidden in well-constructed horror and noir films respectively. By putting the big ideas front and centre, Prometheus has two problems – that the shift of gears from philosophical discovery to the inevitable space action horror is somewhat jarring, and that the ideas which the film is talking about are simply too big to be directly handled. The film knows this, and so they aren’t ever really answered. However, the obvious downside to this approach is that it makes Prometheus a bit of a gyp, as it sidesteps its own grandiose claims.

When the action does happen it’s all well-handled and exciting, and the film is often absolutely beautiful to look at, with one notable exception being a vicious birthing scene (which only reinforces a sneaking suspicion that Ridley Scott has some pretty weird attitudes towards women).

                            This, the Thelma and Louise parking lot scene,  and GI Jane to be specific

Swiss Cheese

 In fact, it’s interesting to see a film which does so many things right in terms of action, direction, themes, and character but still doesn’t really quite work like it should. The last and biggest reason why it doesn’t is simply this: It just doesn’t make much sense. In tying together a film which still recognizably similar to Alien, and an Erich von Daniken version of 2010: A Space Odyssey, the film has a lot of holes. Like, a lot. If you watch it, afterwards ask yourself these questions for starters:

1)      Why would the aliens “invite” humanity to that particular planet?

2)      The crew of the Nostromo were believably unprofessional because they were just a bunch of blue collar working stiffs. What’s the excuse of the Prometheus cast?  

3)      If the alien ship still works, why is it still there?

4)      Did this whole situation get completely swept under the rug before Alien?

There are others, and some of these queries could presumably be answered by a sequel, but even ignoring the obvious problem that movies should ideally be self-contained, I’d lay money down that they won’t be, or that if they do that they won’t be particularly satisfying. It might seem hypocritical to criticize this seeing as earlier on I was lauding the way Alien kept some of its mysteries intact, but there is a difference between a mystery and an unresolved plot point - one of them is annoying, and the other isn't.

                                  The poster child for unanswerable questions and narrative blue balls

The end result is a film that is best enjoyed if you just switch your brain off. It has a lot of disparate elements which are fun and well-made in and of themselve, and it’s visually sumptuous. If you just let the references and action wash over you without questioning it, you’ll be entertained. If you go in expecting another science fiction milestone from Scott, you should probably get ready to be disappointed, or possibly even very angry, depending on how much of a geek you are, of course.