Well I might take a boat or I'll take a plane,
I might hitch-hike or jump a railroad train ..
* potential spoilers ahead *
I saw Ridley Scott's Prometheus again for the second time the other day. Discussions among friends on the film are wide ranging and a glance at my facebook feed shows one post hailing the film as "brilliant" and a comment underneath saying "nah i saw it yesterday - its shite". As a fan of the Alien films, I'd agree mostly with the first one, though Prometheus does fall short of it's predecessors. My breakdown:
POSITIVES
- Visually, one of, if not THE best films I've ever seen. The designs are flawless and the CG stuff isn't the half arsed clunky bollocks we so often see in big budget films of late. The opening credits showing a panorama of a volcanic world are worth the price of your cinema ticket alone.
- Deeper and a little more contemplative about the big questions than most other sci-fi films.
- Great main cast. Michael Fassbender steals the show with an Oscar-worthy performance as the humanoid android David, who is creepy and charming and mysterious all at the same time.
Noomi Rapace is less of a power-frau than Ripley, but she's still very good. Charlize Theron is also great as the icy corporate bitch in charge of the operation. - Nice links to the original Alien film, particularly the much-needed final scene and the introduction of the recognisable space-jockey.
- Old school gore. There are various bits that are tougher to watch than I was expecting, like a tentacled alien C-section. Be warned
NEGATIVES
- Pretty much everything about the crew of the Prometheus spaceship. They've been in suspended animation for two years without ever having asked what the nature of the expedition was, wake up and find themselves to be generally incompatible with one another (needlessly) and, while Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender run around exploring, the non-speaking parts of the anonymous 17 member crew essentially just stand around waiting to be killed.
- The old man makeup. Hmmm.
- Noomi Rapace legging it round and jumping over crevices shortly after major traumatic surgery and a couple of painkillers.
- Not giving answers. I guess this is the classic setup for a sequel, but the film just doesn't work as well as a standalone project as the producers thought; they tease us with questions and possibilities but only explore them superficially with no real closure.
- Questionable behaviour. Upon first contact with a creepy snake-like alien, the first response of one of the biologists is to poke his finger near its head, resulting in his gruesome untimely death.
- The space-jockey aliens from the original turn out to be wankers.
- Slightly better link between films needed in final scene. This isn't to say the final scene isn't awesome, but I think a more solid link was needed, perhaps having the alien-esque creature that emerges to be recognisable as a young Alien queen.
It would have been so much better as a direct prequel. For me, the perfect ending would be to have the crashing Engineer ship kill both Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron. In the crashed ship, the space-jockey lies dazed and injured in the iconic pilots seat. In the cargo hold, the thousands of vases containing the black goo and alien life forms lie scattered, some smashed and some opened, revealing Alien eggs, one of which opens.
In the cockpit, the Engineer realises the implications and sends out a transmission as a warning to other spacecraft, which the Nostromo will pick up in Alien. As the Engineer finishes the transmission, a facehugger leaps from the shadows.
In the cockpit, the Engineer realises the implications and sends out a transmission as a warning to other spacecraft, which the Nostromo will pick up in Alien. As the Engineer finishes the transmission, a facehugger leaps from the shadows.
OH YEAAAAHHHHHH.
