If you haven’t figured out how dedicated I am to the Alien series, I literally ran almost three miles to my nearest movie theater to catch this and I don’t regret it. I’ve heard the arguments why some thrashed the pseudo prequel to Alien- I say pseudo prequel in the way The Hobbit is a pseudo prequel to Lord of the Rings. Both happen before, both have relevant characters, and both in essence have almost jack shit to do with the main story. Many look at Hobbit separate from the LotR trilogy which I think is appropriate; Prometheus deserves the same respect.
Prometheus is the story of the crew of the ship named so as they journey to a desolate world in search for the Engineers of mankind. On earth, Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discovers ancient star maps indicating that man was created by otherworldly beings and in these drawings are coordinates to another planet, LV-223. The expedition is funded by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (the very same as in the Alien series though the movies refer to them primarily as just “The Company”). We get a brief glimpse of the founder of Wey-Yu, Peter Weyland, a decrepit old man and in the same breath introduced to Vickers, the edgy corporate head on the trip and David, the synthetic meant to be Weyland’s finest creation. David cares for the ship while the rest of the humans are in hyper sleep. LV-223 is barren of any life but they find a massive structure fans of Alien will know well as a space ship. Inside they find the severed humanoid head belonging to one of the Engineers, evidence something dark happened on that ship, and several containers of a black tar like substance. David sneaks a canister of it away, while Shaw investigates the head. David drops a single drop of the substance into Holloway’s drink and drinking it, him and Shaw bone. We learn Shaw still believes in god even after discovering our creators, she was close with her father and her mother died when she was young, and she can’t have children. Charlie wakes up with blood running out of his eye. Hours later his body starts irrevocably breaking down, his face swelling and contorting, his skin turn black. Vickers nukes Holloway with a flamethrower to cut the threat of contagion. Shaw is sedated and brought on board. The day before, two idiot crew members got lost on the ship and trapped there during a sandstorm. In the first WTF scene of the film, the hammerpede emerges from the ooze and kills them, the last victim falling into the ooze. After Holloway got torched outside the ship, the pit crew comes upon a terrifying surprise. There lost crew mate returns in a startling new way- in the theatrical version he looks like more a rabid ape man but a deleted scene reveals much more traditional alien features. He attacks with feral speed and inhuman strength; it takes like four guys with flamethrowers to bring his ass down, leaving four or five dead in less than two minutes. Shaw awakes to an even more disturbing fact, hours have passed since Charlie died and shes four months pregnant…and it’s not human. In a harrowing scene, she gives herself a C section on a med tube, revealing the baby trilobite, getting the hell out of there with the creature trapped in the tube. She discovers Peter Weylnd was on the ship all along and Vickers is his daughter, and both Shaw and Weyland want answers from a sleeping Engineer, but the question remains, why did they want to destroy us?
Prometheus is a good, thoughtful Sci-fi epic about man’s greatest question: where do we come from? Michael Fassbender steals the show as David, a complex character I couldn’t peg as truly good or evil but sympathetic. I also have to say Naomi Repace gave a very underrated performance as Shaw. The cinematography is beautiful and the movie has a great sense of wonder and awe in it’s scope; the score is a good blend of original score with small nuances of the Classic Alien’s score. If I have to pick a flaw it’s that it raises a shitload questions you know it won’t answer by the end. If you jump in expecting a A to B prequel, you will be severely disappointed but go in wanting a good classic Sci-Fi epic with some creepy if not disturbing body horror moments, you’ll enjoy it.
3 thoughts on “Prometheus”