Prometheus tells the story of an expedition crew who are sent to investigate a planet that could hold the secrets to man’s own creation. The coordinates of which, were laid out in the art of civilisations across earth with centuries separating them.
When the crew reach the planet they find most of the creatures there have died and after testing their DNA, discover that it matches our own. Thus disproving in this world all previous evidence of evolution.
And it is this that remains one of the key themes in the film, ideas of origin, creation and our position of relevance in existence. These are all interesting themes to explore in filmmaking however the execution here is at points terrible.
The ideas of creationism are forced to heavily throughout the film. Characters are constantly discussing these ideas but it comes across as over kill. Another point never explained is why they all think that these coordinates will lead them to some kind of creator / god type beings? Could aliens from this planet not have visited these different areas of earth over the centuries? They managed space travel but I guess visiting different parts of the same planet is just too much for them. (As it is for the humans in the film as well, I guess great minds truly do think alike.)
Another problem comes with the clunky script in which one scene has a character reveal from nowhere that she is unable to have children. This is done as a cheap payoff so that we are surprised when it is announced only a few minutes later that she is pregnant.
It was mistakes like this that most bothered me. This could have been used much more subtly to create an interesting backstory. Where earlier on in the film we could have seen a flashback scene of her and her partner trying to conceive a child for them then to be told she is unable to have children. Intercut this with shots of her on her own studying the DNA of the creators and the film would have created emotional investment as opposed to an uncalled for awkward outburst.
What’s more the film is littered with cliché scenes and dialogue. Just some of these being the you’re my father line made famous by Star Wars, the lets ignore all danger slasher logic and lastly but not the least of which being, “you seem uptight, are you a robot?” The response being “Come to my room in ten minutes and IL show you.” (Honestly the film didn’t put it any better itself.) The problem is people act in a false manner to advance the plot. Dialogue is forced and information is spelled out in an excruciatingly obvious detail.
Often as well at times the film feels bloated. Ridley Scott has gone for telling the story on an epic scale around a subject matter he has clearly put much thought into. But this is on a lot of occasion’s part of the problem. With such a large crew we barley feel by the end of the film that we got to know any of them. There’s just to many characters and the time that is spent on character development is spent on to few of them. Even comparing it with other science fiction films with similar atmosphere like The Thing (1982), or even Ridley Scott’s own Alien (1979) develop characters on a more even level. In these examples characters are each given enough screen time to allow the audience to gain an understanding of them as a character. As the films progress and characters are killed more time is spent on the actions of the remaining crew, giving the viewer more time to emotionally invest in them.
As a prequel to the Alien franchise the film is trying to build on an already established universe in an introductory fashion. If you were to look at Ridley Scott’s own Alien (1979) again, the film is set up in a way to introduce both the audience and characters to the hazards of the unknown alien creatures. It does this in a sense by having a small crew unwittingly pick up the alien creature and trapped in the small environment of their cargo ship must deal with this new problem. In this setting we are, like the characters stuck in this small tight location. The feeling of the building claustrophobia creates suspense as one by one the creature picks off the crew. In the sequel Aliens (1986), a different approach is taken again as this time we are introduced to a group of well armed space marines. Within this group there is a different approach as we are now with a group of well-trained soldiers going into a combat situation. There is a certain sense of camaraderie and as the plot advances we become aware of the more action-oriented direction.
Between these two films we see the universe develop, we see our knowledge and understanding of the aliens build as we see them reacting to different situations. Through all this many would obviously point out the massive development of the character of the series protagonist Ripley. From the beginning of the first film as a regular member of the crew to being by the end of Aliens (1986) a symbolic matriarchal idol, and possibly one of the strongest and most developed female characters in the history of action cinema. Most importantly though to stay on topic we see two successful methods of showing the audience a large group of people in a position of hardship, whilst also developing their character at the same time as being in a position of threat.
In my opinion Ridley Scott fails to follow this concept in Prometheus. Instead of a group of characters being developed in a close-knit situation, the cast is to spread out and we are able to see very few interactions with each of the characters. Many characters are left undeveloped by the time of their deaths and we are often left wondering who that fallen character even was.
I believe the main problem with the setup is that the film is often trying to mould itself around two archetypes. One of these is the high budget action adventure epic, of the crew exploring the possibilities of creation of life itself and the chance of meeting our creators, with the other being the atmospheric suspense film, tried and tested as in the previous examples above. Yet the problem isn’t necessarily that the two genres cant mix together it has more to do with the way these ideas were decidedly executed. Yet these two genre forms by definition are often diametrically opposed. One aims to bring in the audience a feeling of awe at the spectacles before them whereas the other aims to make you feel claustrophobic, sitting on the edge of your seat in suspense of what might happen next.
In reality the film needed a transition point if this was something it wanted to achieve. Although this may seem slightly tedious, if you look back at the first Alien (1979) we see shots outside the ship in space and even some of the crew leaving the ship however, it is only when one of the crew members who left the ship is infected that the story then remains on-board the ship with the crew. This instantly gives the audience a feeling of paranoia around this situation, because now like the crew we are trapped with the creature. Relating this idea to Prometheus (2012), there never seemed to be a clear transition point to this. The film would happily at a whim transition between scenes that were supposed to be tense or suspenseful and then the next scene was aiming to be whimsical and spectral again.
Now I am by no means suggesting that genres cannot be melded together into one film. Quentin Tarantino to name just one filmmaker transitions through many different genres throughout his filmography to great success. One scene in Pulp Fiction (1994) in particular sees Vincent and Jules talk about the significance of a foot massage performed by a man on a women and the suggested intimacy of it. The two bicker in casual conversation until they reach an agreement. Jules then walks to the door saying the line, “Ok let’s get into character.” This here is for the audience a clear subconscious transition telling us that the two men are no longer in casual comedy mode, but are now in serious hit man expenditure. Although the audience wasn’t necessarily aware that this point of preparation was there, they were certainly able to benefit from the comfort of its presence.
Although science fiction is a genre that is known to push technology and new special effects, mainstream sci-fi films tend to have very simple plots. This in turn helps the audience to feel comfortable and allows them more time to analyse the visual or narrative information. For example Avatar (2009) can be described as the journey of a man sent to infiltrate the natives of a planet as a means to steal their resources, only for the same man to grow to love their culture and at the expense of his own people, become one with the natives. On the other hand Alien (1979) has been described as a haunted house movie in space. These are very simple archetypes, which in turn make it easy to follow the rest of the story and study the worlds of which they are set. Now if you were to compare this with Prometheus (2012) that tells the story of an expedition crew who are sent to investigate a planet that could hold the secrets to man’s own creation. The coordinates of which, were laid out in the art of civilisations across earth with centuries separating them, you can begin to see where some of the problems may come into the picture.
To summarise, on the surface the film does look aesthetically pleasing and the actors all give good performances. As I previously stated, I don’t think that the film achieved what it set out to do, but I think there are enough interesting themes and ideas explored in the film to keep some science fiction fans coming back to it. For me though I’d have to say that although it had some interesting concepts there are just to many plot holes and misdirection of both action and characters that I just don’t think I could recommend this film. As a science fiction fan myself I have read and watched many different interesting and well-implemented stories with similar conceptual ideas, and so feel no empathy of not giving this film a recommendation on originality alone, as some other critics have chosen to do.
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