"Lost" Entry 50.5: Prometheus (2012)

Prometheus (2012)

Dir: Ridley Scott

"The search for our beginning could lead to our end."

 

My 50th entry of this here blog was a four-part look at the Alien franchise.  It was meant to be a five-part series, but I just never got around to Ridley Scott's 2012 sort-of Alien prequel Prometheus.  I can't remember why; it's possible I just didn't feel like popping it into the player.  It's not a bad film overall, but it definitely falls below the first three Alien pictures.  Anyway, in honor of the first official "Alien Day," here's the "lost" entry on  Prometheus.  Pack your spacesuit, be careful what you drink and for fuck's sake don't get lost...

 In the year 2093, archaeologists/lovers Shaw (Noomi Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Drop) and Halloway (Tom Hardy-lookalike Logan Marshall-Green, TV's 24, Devil) discover cave paintings beneath the Isle of Skye that appear to represent a star map leading to what they believe to be the origin of mankind.  The deeply Catholic Shaw hopes to find proof of the existence of God, while the atheistic Halloway is looking for the meaning of life.  They convince billionaire tech guru Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce, L.A. Confidential, Ravenous) to bankroll an expedition to the planet indicated on the map and soon find themselves rocketing through the stars aboard the advanced scientific research vessel Prometheus.  Joining them on the expedition are Weyland's representative Vickers (Charlize Theron, Monster, Mad Max: Fury Road), android assistant David (Michael Fassbender, Inglorious Basterds, X-Men First Class), ship's captain Janek (Idris Elba, TV's Luther, Pacific Rim), Geologist Fifield (Sean Harris, Creep, MacBeth), biologist Milburn (Rafe Spall, Shaun of the Dead, Life of Pi) and a host of cannon fodder mercenaries and technicians.  Arriving at the planet, they discover an abandoned temple filled with enormous humanoid corpses and a room of urns filled with a strange black liquid.  While the other return to the Prometheus during a violent storm, Fifield and Milburn get lost in the temple's tunnels and are attacked by a snakelike creature.  Back on the ship, David exposes the belligerent Halloway to a sample of the black liquid, who is killed by Vickers with a flamethrower after he begins mutating into a zombielike creature.  Fifield, having mutated into a similar creature, returns to the ship and murders several of the crew members before being put down.  Having done the bone dance with Halloway after his exposure to the black liquid but before his mutation, the infertile Shaw discovers that she's miraculously become pregnant with a rapidly-gestating, inhuman fetus, which turns out to be a writhing, tentacled monster when she aborts it using the ship's MedPod.  Weyland shows up and reveals that, with help from David and Vickers, he's stowed away aboard the ship in a cryotube; he's close to death and hoping that the planet will provided him with a key to extending his life.  David reveals that one of the "engineers (the giant corpses discovered within the temple) is still alive in suspended animation and he, Weyland, Vickers and Shaw head back to the temple to arouse him.  Meanwhile, Janek discovers while studying a holomap that the temple is actually a hangar housing a ship that was bound for Earth with the intent of wiping out mankind when an accident befell it 2,000 years prior.  Back in the temple, the awakened engineer kills Weyland, rips David's head off and, eager to resume his old mission, begins to prep his ship for flight.  In a suicide maneuver, Janek crashes the Prometheus into the alien ship and Vickers is crushed by the debris, leaving Shaw alone to face the enraged engineer.  As Shaw prepares to defend herself from the huge, superstrong humanoid, it is attacked and smothered by the creature that Shaw extracted from her body earlier, now grown to an immense size, which forces a tube of some sort down the engineer's throat.  David's still-functioning severed head reveals to Shaw that there are other alien ships left vacant on the planet and that he knows how to fly them.  As Shaw and her disembodied companion set off to find transport, a somewhat familiar-looking creature bursts from the chest of the comatose engineer...

At least as far back as the commentary track for the 1997 DVD release of Alien, Scott had expressed his interest in returning to that world.  While he expressed admiration for James Cameron's Aliens (which took the story in a tonally different direction, emphasizing action over horror), Scott felt that the Alien sequels missed following up on the most interesting "unanswered question" from the movie-the "space jockey" discovered in the derelict ship and the origin of the alien creature itself.  In 2004, promoting the 25th anniversary theatrical re-release of Alien, Scott announced that he and Fox were actively pursuing scripts for a prequel movie, which Scott would produce with his brother Tony (The Hunger, True Romance) in the director's chair.  Eventually, a script by a emerging screenwriter John Spaihts (The Darkest Hour, the upcoming Dr. Strange) called "Alien Engineers" came across Scott's desk that so excited him, he decided to take on the directorial duties himself.  Scott and Spaihts worked closely for several months fine-tuning the script but the execs at Fox, perhaps mindful of both Scott's recent box-office losing streak and the financial disappointment of the past several Alien-related films, wanted another "name" attached to help sell the picture.  They settled on Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the recently wrapped and very popular television series Lost.  As Spaihts was summarily dismissed, Lindelof stepped in and convinced Scott to downplay the prequel aspects of the film, eliminating any direct connections to Alien and crafting a script that served as a sort of "sidequel;" a film taking place in the same universe but without any direct connection to the previous film(s).  Prometheus was the final result of their efforts.  It was released in the summer of 2012 to mixed reviews and solid (but not overwhelming) box office returns.

Prometheus is a flawed but interesting film.  Though they cause some canonical problems with the Alien films (more on this later), it's production design and visual effects are astonishing; it's the best-looking science fiction film in years and, even though I'm FAR from a 3-D enthusiast, seeing it in IMAX 3-D on the largest screen in my state was a special treat.  Though many of the characters are either unlikable or underwritten, the performances are all solid, with Fassbender's David being an absolute standout.  The creature design is top-notch; the hulking, Giger-inspired engineers are genuinely menacing with their black, shark-like yes and chalky white skin.  The "proto-alien" creatures, while sadly lacking any Giger's biomechanoid influences (that's something that will supposedly be addressed/explored in the upcoming sequel), have a slippery, sea life-like quality that's unsettling in a Japanese hentai sort of way.  I also get a kick out of how anti-Catholic the script is; it's not often that you see a multi-million dollar studio franchise pic that heavily implies that Jesus Christ was an albino alien and features a legitimate on-screen abortion (albeit of an alien life form).  Speaking of the script, however, it's here that the film's flaws begin.  It feels like an early draft, without all of its ideas properly fleshed out.  Why does Halloway descend into drunken belligerence when when he can't speak with a living engineer?  Why, exactly, does David choose to experiment on/doom the crew?  Why plant the suggestion that Vickers might be an android without following up on it and/or giving it any relevancy to the greater plot?  Why raise all sorts of questions about the origin of mankind, the purpose of our creation and the intent of the engineers and then not even begin to answer any of them?  A lot of this may have to do with the "built-in sequel" mentality of current Hollywood blockbusters; the studio is SO sure of the film's potential that a sequel is seen as a sure thing.  Lindelof stated in interviews that he intended this to be the first of three films that would run parallel to the original Alien trilogy; perhaps the biggest problem with Prometheus is that it FEELS like just a bunch of setup for the film(s) that Scott and Lindelof REALLY wanted to make (ironically, Lindelof was not asked to return for Alien: Covenant, the currently in-production sequel to this film).  Perhaps the most infamous script problem (the rage over which can still be felt echoing through the halls of the internet) is that of Fifield and Milburn getting lost in the temple and encountering the alien "hammerpede."  The "two characters go wandering alone through the old dark house and get killed" scenario is an accepted horror trope at this point, but it strains even the most forgiving credulity when the guy getting lost is the one who mapped the goddamn temple and the guy who antagonizes the alien life form is a fucking world-class biologist!  In actuality, this is an error of editing, as deleted scenes show the storm wreaking havoc with Fifield's mapping device and Milburn encountering earlier, benign worm-like alien creatures.  Scott was offered the chance to prepare a director's cut for home video but declined-he shouldn't have; it might've given the masses cause to re-evaluate the film.  Finally, to address the canon problems caused by the production design that I mentioned earlier, despite this film being part of the Alien franchise and taking place several years prior to Alien, no attempt is made to give the film a low-fi, "retro future" look to match up with the previous film.  Prometheus features 3-D hologram maps, advanced stasis chambers that appear capable of monitoring their occupants' dreams, sleek, form-fitting space suits and a MedPod capable of performing complex surgical procedures in minutes.  Compare this with Alien, with it's Apple II-esque computer tech, bulky, Moebius-designed pressure suits and decided lack of MedPod technology (Kane needs to be frozen for return to Earth in order to remove the alien within him).  Compared side-by-side, the two just don't match up (the Star Wars prequels suffer from the very same problem).

So is Prometheus an Alien prequel?  No, not really; it's a side story that sheds a little bit of light on a mysterious scene from the first movie, but ultimately raises more questions than it answers.  It's undeniably a great looking, well-acted movie that's more brazen and ballsier than most of it's big-budget brethren, but there's as much to be irritated about as there is to admire.  It is, however, required viewing for all Alien fans, especially in preparation for the upcoming Alien: Covenant, which will hopefully see the big-screen return of our favorite biomechanoid.  Also, it officially knocks those shitty Alien vs Predator movies out of continuity!  

Well, that was fucking long, huh?  Happy Alien Day, folks!

"In space, no one can hear you scream."