08/06/2012: Prometheus [2012]

I can happily announce to you all that I was the very first person in line, for Prometheus. I showed up and hour early, and anxiously waited for the moment I could enter the theatre. What I will go on to tell you, is unfortunately, unlikely spoiler free, but if there is two pieces of information you shall take away before you go see it they are: One, Prometheus is as epic as it attempts to be, without losing its head in the clouds. Second, it is undoubtedly in the Alien universe, just not a direct prequel.


I'm not sure at what point exactly that I got excited for Prometheus. I am not the biggest fan of the Alien film, although they are good, well the first two at least. I also avoided all but one of the earliest trailers for the movie, which I do out of habit. Perhaps I should have given Ridley Scott more credit in that department, and I'm am genuinely disappointed I have yet to watch any of the viral campaign videos, which I will have to check out later. That being said, the little excitement I had for Prometheus was mostly what I thought I should feel as a movie lover. It wasn't until I was sitting there standing in the front of the line that I started to get truly excited. While I was instantly comforted, in the end I was more than happy with how things went, and Prometheus sure was worth being first inline opening night for.

There are a lot of blockbusters coming out this summer, and I think under the wait of them all, Prometheus might have slipped through a lot of minds. While, the line did pile up behind me, the theatre in the end, was not even packed, with an empty seat either side of me and my friend. I thought this was pretty strange, seeing as I really consider Prometheus to be this years Avatar. It has the same epic scope, and impressive visuals, and the same feeling of hype surrounding it. The big directors name, the epic scope of the trailers and story and the promise it would be an important cinema moment. While, I personally was not overly impressed by Avatar, and have not watched it since, Prometheus I feel lived up to my expectations.

There was one trailer where I swear the letters spelled Alien as the appeared, but maybe I just wanted them to.

I rewatched all of the Alien movies over the last few months in preparation for this, and because I avoided all the marketing and news, I might have missed the reveal that it would not be an Alien prequel. I didn't really expect it to be, and as I suspected it was instead only in the same universe. That being said, many things are interconnected. Prometheus occurs in only 2093, making it much closer in the future than Alien. However, with the ability of space travel of course comes Wayland Corp. confirming our first tie ins with Alien. However, at about 30 minutes in I came to one conclusion that just hit me. If this is that universe, and Alien was the first time alien life was discovered, no one in this movie is going to be returning to earth. That kinda changes how you view the rest of the movie as it unfolds.

Prometheus is a rather original movie in terms of story. While many of the plot twists are predictable, the large scope of things was not so easy to guess. Prometheus starts out as a very grand movie, with an epic and godly scope. The crew of the Prometheus has literally set out across the universe in a quest to meet our makers, and as the tagline read "the search for our beginning may lead to our end" For quite a while, Prometheus maintains that grand scope of epic discovery, the visuals are massive, and breathtaking, almost Discovery channel HD footage. However, Prometheus still manages to keep itself tied down to earth a bit through its characters, and this is important. Without developing the characters, and only telling us this grand story, the movie wouldn't have been as good. Luckily Ridley Scott knows what he is doing.

So is this holograms, snow, magic, ghosts, or just snow?

Ridley Scott assembled a great cast when he put together Prometheus. First, I'll congratulate him on choosing Noomi Rapace, who while relatively new to Hollywood is a great actress. Her character, Elizabeth Shaw, is really the embodiment of all of humanity hopes and dreams, strangely appealing to both science and religion. Stranger however, was the fact that I liked Charlize Theron's character better. Vickers, was made out to be this distant character, with a business like, and overly logical approach as the boss. Yet, for some reason, I wasn't struck with Shaw's determination to uncover the truth, and was more drawn to Vickers' better off if there is nothing here, and our survival comes first attitude. That or maybe, it was just the fact, Charlize Theron spent most of the movie strutting around in that skintight suit.

Michael Fassbender is of course in this movie, seeing as he has been in everything since he was discovered a year or so ago. However, he is in everything because he is good, and this time he gets to play our mandatory android David. While this time, we don't get the standard surprise, android reveal as the rest of the Alien movies, David is a very important character for other reasons. While we humans search for our creators on this forsaken planet, David in-fact, lives with his, and lives everyday knowing we merely created him to serve us because we could. The rest of the cast was great as well, particularly the Captain, who's name I forgot.

Those were really some bitchin' space suits. Kudos to the costume designer.

One noticeable thing about Prometheus is it is not really filled with a lot of comic relief or event he customary dark humour. However, with material such as this it is best to take a more serious tone perhaps. When it comes to the plot, as much as things remained grounded by the charaters, Prometheus really looked like it was going to turn into an epic tale of creation. Then however, we meet our first life forms. Lets just say, that brings back some Alien memories, and shows you that this movie is going to dish out both the alien horrors and the action. While it dips down a bit temporarily, things quickly pick up and don't stop climbing from there. In the end, while it still maintains it's godly scope, it gives us the excitement we need to not become a philosophy lecture.

I think that there is one epic moment where Ridley Scott just comes out and says, if you haven't figured out how this connects to Alien, here it is. That is when we are revealed, the same epic visual as we saw in Alien. The massive chair/turret, this time with a live operator, and so we learn that it is in fact a cockpit of sorts. That explains some things, whilst raising other questions. In the end, many of our original questions are answered, but how many new ones do we now have. The conclusion, was a little disappointing, but at least it wasn't the most blatant set-up for a sequel I have seen. It is possible we won't even get one. As for any after credit scene, I didn't see any, but I didn't stay all the way. Ridley Scott wouldn't use such a cheap ploy.

Overall I think that Prometheus was extremely successful. It built up a lot of hype in a lot of circles, if not all of them. It also managed to create such an epic story and yet managed to stay firmly grounded through its characters. At no time do you feel like things are just to grand and boring, and Prometheus is no let down in the action department, and it even gives us some of that old fashioned, Alien style horror. Of course Prometheus is also a sci-fi lovers wet dream, if not exactly Star Wars level of nerdyness. On top of that, don't be worried the big head in the chamber full of urns is by any means the biggest reveal. I'm glad I saw Prometheus opening night, but only time will tell if me being able to claim the position of first in line will ever amount to anything as cool as if I was first in line for Star Wars.

Link:
Prometheus IMDb