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Unreleased scene from the movie, Elder Engineer?

Prometheus: My Official and Final Review....Maybe


I normally never get on blogs to discuss movies but I've felt compelled to visit some and defend a film I honestly thought was great sci-fi and a worthy prequel to such a classic. I love all kinds of movies but there's always been a special place in my heart for science fiction and for me it was definitely Star Wars that started it. But in high school I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and it totally changed my perspective on what science fiction could deliver. Eventually I saw the movie Alien and it again made me think of the genre in a totally different light and I've loved it ever since. Its story had so much mystery which in turn gave it depth and like a book forced you to use your own imagination. When an artist or artists leave things to interpretation it can have a positive or negative effect. For me it was positive. But there's still a part of you that wants the artist to interpret for you and so this is how many prequels come about.

When I first heard that a prequel to Alien was in the works I got very excited because the image of the iconic space jockey immediately came to mind and I thought "Okay great, we're going to find out who these guys are.". Many months later the promotional websites and previews start fueling fan anticipation until finally the film hits theaters. I admittedly have let hype cloud my judgement when seeing certain movies like Revenge of The Sith which I loved at the theater and grew to hate after watching it enough on dvd. I've seen Prometheus twice at the theater and have enjoyed it each time. I can't say my opinion of it won't change in a few months time when I've watched it again on dvd but 'Revenge' was a finale and Prometheus is the beginning of what might be a whole new tangent in the universe of Alien.


Before I get into the microscopic negatives from other people who's expectations weren't met, I want to say what I liked about it. Story is number one, no doubt about it. But can you imagine Star Wars or Superman without music? I thought the soundtrack to Prometheus was good and it was a definite statement by Ridley Scott to use far more music in this one than he did in Alien or even his other sci-fi hit Blade Runner. Visually I think everyone who's seen it agree, whether they liked the story or not, that it was a beautiful picture. I always appreciate a balance of special effects and actual on-location footage. Acting wise, Fassbender was undoubtedly the star but I have to give props to Noomi Rapace. I haven't seen her in anything else but I thought her character by the end of it was pretty hardcore, an echo of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. The story definitely tackles a lot of themes and even though the idea of challenging 200 hundred years of evolutionary discovery might seem foolish to pro-science people like me, its still interesting and entertaining to see both science and religion challenged as it was in Prometheus.

The growing consensus among the naysayers is that the acting is bland, the characters are boring and the plot has too many holes. I personally could not disagree more about the acting. The importance of some of the characters is questionable, particularly Charlie. But I don't agree that he gave a poor performance overall. As for the plot, the only holes that I consider relevant are ones that the sequel(s) will presumably answer. If there was only going to be this movie and nothing more, I would agree that it was lazy writing but its not. The most annoying complaint I've read thus far about the movie is that the xenomorph doesn't look like the others from the previous films. Pretty dumb considering none of them looked alike or did the same things. Whatever the engineers were engineering-making on LV-223 were obviously biologically diverse and there were several species. And speaking of biology, another complaint is around the character of the biologist and the geologist who get lost within the Engineer's pyramid and eventually get killed by a species resembling the face-hugger. To me this was nitpicking at its finest. Clearly these were meant to be expendable characters and this is after all a story about how an emotionless, remorseless, instinctual beast who hunts its prey one by one...is created.

No film is perfect, there are always going to be flaws, even in the story itself. You could take any story and pick it apart until all the potential enjoyment in seeing it is lost. If I could say anything to the naysayers of Prometheus it would be this: Wait until the rest of the movies are made before you totally tear this one apart. Alien had a lot of people asking questions too, but its still a masterpiece. I'm going to wait until I see the other movies being planned before I pretend I'm an accomplished director like Ridley Scott and pick away at a movie that is far from "terrible". Everyone's entitled to their opinion, sure, and this is mine.