Prometheus

Lets start with the storyline. I think anyone going to watch this is fully aware by now that this is q prequel to Alien, and trust me, you'll have been slapped so hard in the face with this fact by the end of the film that your cheeks will be stinging. Time spent on plot background is over in a matter of seconds. If you've seen the trailers then you've pretty much seen the reason they're off to another planet. From there the storyline follows the usual tried and tested Alien(s) method, i.e. They find stuff, it ain't good and people start dying. What's wrong with that? You cry. Nothing is wrong with that but from then on in in you can't help yourself comparing it to the other two films. And that's where the wheels start falling off.

The first two Alien movies were filled with strong characters who acted and behaved as you felt they should when their friends and colleagues start dying around them. In Prometheus however they may well have all been androids as Rapace apart, they were all taking death and destruction remarkably in their stride. Even one of the best scenes in the whole movie (Rapace's DIY Cesarean) is just glossed over like it didn't happen when . She escapes quarantine, removes a baby squid from her stomach and then runs into the others covered in blood only to be mocked for lacking scientific fiber. Theron may just have well not been there for all she adds and will someone please tell me why they felt it necessary to employ Guy Pearce to play an old man? Here's an idea, just hire an old man to do it instead!

Even the characters taken as a whole are a rather strange bunch. In Alien they were a mining vessel (believable). In Aliens they took some hard asses because they were expecting trouble (believable). However on this occasion a billionaire thinks he'll take himself half way across the universe fully expecting to meet another civilization who may or may not be hostile and who does he take with him? A couple of scientists, his daughter and a bunch of misfits. Oh but its OK, they have flamethrowers and a few pistols.

Moving on to the bad guys and here we have something which I thought was rather good, as an idea. The concept of humans having evolved from an alien race is a good one, and one of the more believable parts of the film. It was a good idea tackled well. Now if we'd just stayed with that idea and made a film about it I may have been a much happier man. However Scott had decided from the outset that this would be an alien prequel and we were subjected to this absurd notion that they were simply created by a squid impregnating a super human. Bingo! Quite why this hadn't already happened on the planet before is a mystery, as is why the Alien's don't come out looking more human every time one pops out of our stomachs. And so to the final scene which I suspect Scott saw in a ream one night and built an entire film around it. I can only compare it to Darth Vader's unavailing in Star Wars 3. Laughable.

As a rule I don't like prequels and sequels. They all too often lead to feelings of anger and dismay. But I thought if anyone is going to do it right it would be Ridley Scott. Alien was his baby and there's no way he'd make a mess of it. Well now I feel its time for a public appeal. Will somebody please make a decent ORIGINAL sci-fi movie. PLEASE! It's one thing to have a haunted-house movie filled with naïve teenagers, but it's quite another to see supposed top scientists do dumb things. With a little more thought, Prometheus could have addressed the plot holes I and others have noted, and as a result been a tighter film with more tension and surprises.

Can you imagine a biologist guy, signed up for a mission to explore a different race, shitting his pants and literally leaving the scene at the first sight of an alien body that's been dead for 2000 years? Well, Ridley Scott could. However, the same guy goes ape shit over a real, moving alien cobra-thing and wants to cuddle her! Perfectly consistent character writing! And what the was that android guy really trying to do with his plots and schemes? What was your plan? Who actually did you serve? And Shaw who did nothing to fill in Ripley's shoes... She attacks the crew, performs a surgery -I'm not even gonna touch that one- that probably overthrows a plan in motion, comes out covered in blood and no one even says "Hey! What the heck?" and they go on another expedition together? And what was that space jockey's problem!? Relax, dude!! I mean you have to be a really mean bastard, consumed with rage to come out of a crashed ship and go after a woman you missed the chance to beat up before.

I cannot fathom how a film like this could get a 75%!!!  There was gaping plot holes that were never fix.  I couldn't believe it!  The script is so bad is weighs down the actors all together, although that Tom Hardy-looking guy was bad within himself.  This is not only a bad prequel, but a bad film overall.  The ending, also, was a huge slap to any Alien fans!  It doesn't help that the guy who directed this, was the ORIGINAL creator of Alien.  Scott, I love ya bro, but you got to get better script writers.  I mean, it only set up more questions than it answered.  Imagine if this flopped at the B.O. (which it almost did).....none of the "answers" would be answered.

5/10