Prometheus: Why should I defend you when you made so many mistakes?

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.............


Oh dear...

     After much build-up and hype with its awesome trailers and state-of-the-art viral videos, followed by a bitter internet backlash on opening day, I went to see Prometheus with some trepidation.  But, I was determined to give it a fair day in court and to do my best not to be swayed by the hype or the nay-saying. 

     @MrMichaelRose and I went to a good theatre that was largely empty on a Monday night that promised us an "UltraAVX" presentation on a very large screen with 7.1 Dolby Digital sound (On the plus side, the picture in 3D was good due to the Christie projectors throwing enough light to keep the movie from looking too "3D dark".  On the down side, premium sound does not mean "LOUDER THAN FUCK".  I'm glad your system can do playback at that level guys, but running your LFE track that loud distorts the hell out of the low end and will blow your subs sooner rather than later). 

     This was a movie I wanted to like, but was ready to hate if it was as terrible as the internets made it out to be.  In the end, my feelings were pretty mixed.


     "If you're one of those people that gets that upset over Prometheus, you should probably stop watching movies altogether. In a world of Jack & Jill's and What to Expect when you're Expecting, if an ambitious but incredibly flawed sci-fi film is what gets you so upset, there is no hope for you". 

                                                                                                            Jay Bauman of Red Letter Media

     A part of me agreed with Bauman.  If people were willing to pay to sit through shit like Transformers or Battleship, they could certainly do worse than spend 2 hours on Prometheus.  I don't regret seeing it, I didn't feel cheated when I walked out of the theatre, and I still feel people are being too hard on the movie.

     But...

     The two big questions I had after seeing the movie were one; with such an interesting concept and set up from the original Alien, why did Prometheus make choices that seemed to me easily avoidable but repeatedly painted the movie into a corner, and two; Why is Ridley Scott so hit or miss?

     As for my second question, R.S.'s output has always been up and down.  You have classics like Blade Runner and Alien along with quite good films like American Gangster and Thelma & Louise, and then misses like A Good Year and G.I. Jane.  In terms of visual style and production design, he is unrivaled.  His incredible eye for detail and camera placement are just as good now as ever.  Even his worst films look stunning. 

     But like some of my favourite directors (Michael Mann and John Frankenheimer spring to mind), Scott is not a monster for story structure.  He will shoot what he is given as well as it can be shot, but if it isn't there on the page, he sometimes doesn't see it. 

    As for my first question, I really had no major problems with the movie until the third act.  But, I had a series of minor ones throughout the whole movie.  The original Alien is still so powerful to me because it's the Rockford Files of horror/sci-fi movies.  Nobody on the crew wants to be there, but they have no choice.  Eventually their choices ratchet down to nil and they buy it one by one until not even the emergency escape pod is safe.  You never second-guess any of the characters choices because they aren't where they want to be and there is no way for them to escape.

     I can live with the fake crew dynamic scenes like the nonsense bet between the two flight crew guys.  I can live with the stupid biologist trying to make nice with the black ooze King Cobra-penis thing.  I can even live with Shaw being mobile seconds after having major surgery that basically severs her abdominal muscles.   In fact, I'd go along with pretty much the whole movie except for two things.

     First, This nonsense about other ships and Shaw deciding to take David's head with her to get answers from an alien race that will probably kill her the second they see her coming.  And second, the Alien Engineer dying in the escape pod and not in the chair in the alien ship.  Pretty much everything else you can justify or at least gloss over.  But those two plot points are just too much for me. 

     The only reason I can see Shaw going to the Engineer home world is to leave the door open for a sequel.  I don't think that's a good enough reason at all.  It just felt far too handy that there would be other ships just lying around for her to take when she has no provisions and a very damaged android for a navigator. 

     But really, the Engineer dying from the almost full grown Zenomorph bursting from his torso in the escape pod was way too much for me.  Is this canon or isn't it?  And yes, I know that in Prometheus they land on LV-223 and in Alien/Aliens the ship is discovered on LV-426.  But that is such a minor detail and the fact that the Engineer's ship crash lands in basically the same position as the one in Alien/Aliens makes the audience think its the same ship.  Using a slightly different planet ID doesn't excuse a massive continuity error like that.  If it's supposed to be a different place, than the ship didn't need to suffer the same fate. 

    I was disappointed in Prometheus.  I was entertained by the visuals and I did enjoy myself for most of the film.  It's a shame that the last act is such a mess. 

     I think the backlash against the film is really because its such a near-miss.  Such a lot of talent and effort went into making this movie, and about 85% of it is on on the screen.  All it would have taken is some minor changes and a re-think on the last act and it could have been a really good movie.

     I can't bash the movie too hard, but I couldn't give it an unqualified recommendation either.  It's a mess.  A creative mess, but a mess.