Friday, October 19, 2012

Prometheus really sucked

When the movie came out, I didn't read reviews of "Prometheus", the prequel to "Alien". But I couldn't help but see headlines about viewers' disdain for the movie. As I understood it through headline telegramese, Ridley Scott, the director, implied that jeebus made us and the aliens.

Didn't turn out that way but dang, this movie was a confused mess. There's god-talk everywhere -- and really, who the hell wants this sort of nonsense in the prequel to Alien? The idea for the movie, if there was one, was expressed so incoherently that I'm not even sure what Prometheus was about.

Some huge human-looking creature lives on the world where Ripley found the aliens. But this is way before that time. Somehow, in a way that's never explained, these giant aliens spread their DNA on Earth, and this resulted in mini-versions of themselves. Uh-huh. And now they're going back to Earth to kill us all with the aliens seen in "Alien" (or rather, their precursors). Why would the giant alien do this? No clue. The worst thing is that Scott's premise throws evolution out the window. The aliens "made us". Uh-huh. Why? They never say. The movie literally made no sense.

This is very sad because a ton of money went into the production. With an entirely different script, it might have been good. What I did like (and it's in direct opposition to the no-evolution premise of the movie) is that we saw precursors of the aliens we came to know and love in "Alien". They were obviously less evolved versions of themselves. I liked that. But they blew even this by suggesting that the "evolved" alien seen in the original movie is a hybrid of human/alien origin.

Oy. The giant alien turns out to be a hateful loon and when the humans wake him up (from death, apparently), he attacks them. Duh. What's that about? Seriously, this movie is a mess. I guess Ridley Scott is getting Alzheimer's and he convinced a confused bunch of jeebus fans that his movie was going to push a Christian idea. (And I don't know where the jeebus remarks come from; I didn't see any jeebus in the movie.)

The other fun thing, by the way, was the android. I liked his creepy nature and the things he said. But even here, they blew it. It's as if the movie makers had no imagination at all. They actually used the same gambit as in "Alien": the android's head is ripped off and a human converses with his severed head. I mean, really. They couldn't come up with a fresh idea?

This movie is dead, and watching it is a waste of time. Don't bother.