THROWBACK | 'Prometheus' Retrospective
33 years after launching the franchise, Ridley Scott returned to direct a prequel/spin-off/parallel narrative piece that aimed to address the mythology behind the series’ history.
Following on from existing production dramas throughout the series, pre-production began on another ‘Alien’ film in 2002. Scott was interested in returning to the franchise to explore the backstory of the “space jockey” from the first film, while James Cameron was interested in helping to write the script. However, Fox decided to produce the ‘Aliens vs. Predator’ films instead. It wasn’t until 2009 that Scott was brought on board to direct the project as a prequel to the original film.
As was trend in the franchise, up-and-coming screenwriter Jon Spaihts (who would later be known for ‘Passengers’ and ‘Doctor Strange’), wrote a script in 2007, which was later rewritten by Damon Lindelof when Scott brought him on board the project. Inspired by the idea of alien influence on the evolution of life on Earth, Lindelof and Scott added in the seeking of one’s creators as a major theme of the work.
The title ‘Prometheus’ is allegedly supposed to refer to this theme by connecting it to the Greek myth whereby the Titan Prometheus gave humanity fire; this demonstrates the film’s ambition to be a broad, grand literary piece; however, it only succeeded in giving it a further height to fall from. The release had to be delayed several times due to budget issues and disputes regarding film locations. The film was finally released in mid-2012.
The most positive aspect that the film had going for it was its cast. As in many other ‘Alien’ films, the casting was exceptional. Noomi Rapace is a good replacement for Sigourney Weaver, even if her protagonist, Shaw, is a poor replacement for Ripley. The supporting cast of Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender and the others are all capable actors, but the characters they’re asked to portray are distinctly lacking.
There are many problems with the script, but the characters are likely the biggest. They perform actions with no reasoning, and at times, against what little character they have established.
When a biologist has flown across the galaxy to seek out alien life runs away because of an alien corpse, it is really silly; but what’s even sillier is that when he sees a live alien snake (that in typical ‘Alien’ series style, combines the appearance of genitalia) he tries to pet it.
The fact that he’s trapped in the alien facility because he and the geologist (who mapped the facility) got lost when they ran from the alien corpse doesn’t help portray either character in a great light. Mind you, the captain decides that instead of monitoring the two lost members of their expedition overnight, he’ll instead have casual sex with Theron’s character. Not exactly dedicated to the job, even if he does make a standard heroic sacrifice at the end.
Even Shaw is immune to the irrational characterisation problem, as she is unaware of how to get away from an object rolling in a straight line, i.e. move to one side and let it pass you by. She only seems to survive in one of the most contrived ways possible. At the beginning of the film, the entire project is based on “what [Shaw] chooses to believe” rather than anything that usually causes interest in a project, like research, development and evidence. However, this might fall down to scripting issues as a whole.
The idea of exploring the “space jockeys” origins -now known as “Engineers”, is a good one for an ‘Alien’ prequel; except that’s not what Scott and Lindelof said they were making anymore. So why did they keep the Engineers in the film? And why did they show the origins of what is clearly supposed to be a proto-xenomorph?
The xenomorph apparently has one of the strangest evolutionary chains in the universe as it requires consumption by a human, sexual intercourse, removal from a host, time to mature, implanting on an Engineer and then it will produce a proto-xenomorph?
Why did the symbols that Shaw said would guide them to the Engineers lead them to a base where the Engineers stored their bioweapons? I’d say this comes down to the film being one of those scripts that has been rewritten so many times in an effort to read coherently.
‘Prometheus’ is one of the recent sci-fi films that tries too hard, or perhaps not hard enough. They’re trying to follow in the footsteps of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, but forget that both Asimov and Clarke held science degrees and understood the discourse they were writing about. Hollywood writers have neither PhDs in biochemistry, nor first-class degrees in physics. If they want to tackle the scientific world the same way the greats did, they need the knowledge and they need to put in the time.
Now we’ve caught up to the ‘Alien’ franchise as it stands today, let’s prepare for ‘Alien: Covenant’, which is out now. Will it recapture the glory of the franchise’s history? Will it stand on its own as a good film?
We’ll find out on May 19.
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