Yo, here be spoilers.
Dear Prometheus:
I wanted to love you, I really did. From the moment I first saw the trailer I thought this was going to be one of the movies I was born to love. Horseshoe ship! Space jockey! Michael Fassbender! Flamethrowers!
And it’s not like I generally have standards that high, right? I mean, you did see my review of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, didn’t you?
Though I did go in with higher expectations than that, and maybe that was the problem. I liked Alien and I loved Aliens and we’re just not going to talk about those other movies okay? I was willing to forget the horrors of the past because this was Ridley Scott coming home to his baby.
Because this is the problem. Alien was a horror movie with a scifi background. Aliens was an action movie with a scifi background. But you, Prometheus, you were touted to be an honest-to-goodness real science fiction move, which means that as a lover of science fiction I had no choice but to expect more of you.
This was the thing about Alien and Aliens. While there was the occasional whoops moment in those movies, the characters that populated them weren’t dumb. They were just generally up against an implacable, terrifying enemy that out-everythinged pitiful humans who never had all the facts about what they were facing until it was too late. That was what made those movies good. You were rooting for the humans to triumph because damnit, they were trying so hard.
Why couldn’t you be more like your mom and dad, Prometheus? But no, instead you were populated with a collection of scientists so dumb I feel like there must have been a writing process where, in draft after draft, the script was read and someone said, “Well yes, but they’re still too smart. Try adding some drool.” Where did you dig up the geologist and biologist? Mail order from Planet Ohmyfuckinggodwhateven? Did their graduate degrees include, as a door prize, a full lobotomy given by a janitor with extremely shaky hands? A geologist bitching that there are no rocks when he’s on a planet with no vegetative cover? And what’s this shit about him just being in it for the money? And the biologist, what was that even? Calling evolution Darwinism and playing coochie-coo with an alien cobra that has a terrifying vagina instead of a face?
I figured we were in real trouble when the scientists repeatedly couldn’t remember the difference between a theory and a hypothesis. Between that and the Darwinism thing, I’m throwing some serious side-eyeing at this script writer. Let’s just say I could keep ranting about the unnecessarily stupid science gaffes that could have been corrected and would only have served to strengthen the story. But at this point all I can hear in my head, repeating over and over is, “A super nova that was going to destroy the galaxy let’s fix it with red matter! Yeah!”
And Charlie. Don’t even get me started on Charlie. As far as I can tell his entire contribution to the movie was getting shit-faced and then sexing up Dr. Shaw so she could have an evil alien squid baby in one of the better (and more disturbing) scenes of the movie.
Oh yeah. And he got set on fire. That was pretty boss. Actually, I liked that scene quite a bit, and not just because it meant we no longer had to suffer through Charlie’s weird pouting about gee we only just made the single most important discovery EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND but it’s somehow not good enough because all the aliens are mysteriously dead. No, that scene was awesome because of Meredith Vickers wielding a flame thrower and setting Charlie on fire. And in that moment when he’s dropped on the ground and screaming there’s an amazing shot of her face where you realize even she can’t believe she just did that. (So good on you, Charlize Theron. But we already knew you were awesome.)
But I digress.
Also, there’s the matter of the aliens. I knew going in that we weren’t getting xenomorphs, and that was fine. Because we were going to get the space jockey and hell yeah. But instead we get giant white guys with bulging muscles. I get the punchline that apparently we were created in their image (somehow, only we got their DNA and evolution happened and… oh hell with this) but they just want to kill us all now for some nebulous reason. It was all very unsatisfying. Xenomorphs, I could buy. They want to fucking eat us, or lay eggs in us, and it makes sense. But frankly, the engineers felt like a giant navel-gazing cop-out where confusion was substituted willy-nilly for deep.
Though to be honest, I still prefer the giant white dudes to the squid baby and it’s horrifying vagina dentata. At the end the engineer + squid = xenomorph-ish was a math problem far too disgusting for me to even want to see the proof.
You were trying to ask big questions. I felt it. It was obvious you were trying to take something from the mashup of science and religion and the question of who created us – and hey if it was aliens, who created them. But then instead of going anywhere with that, having any real development it was just the same lines over and over again. Well why do you believe X? Because I choose to. Perhaps this is a problem of mine because I’m an atheist, but I feel like that’s a giant cop-out, particularly when it’s just sort of dropped on the floor and left there to pathetically roll around like a turtle attempting to right itself. Really all it tells me is that Dr. Shaw is really stubborn, since that’s basically her answer in both the beginning and end of the movie despite all events that occurred.
Really at this point all I can do is cross my arms, sadly shake my head, and say I expected so much more of you.
Oh no, please stop crying. It’s not all bad. I’m not demanding my money back. I’m not comparing you to, say, The Last Airbender, where I left the theater and then immediately fell to my knees to scream “WHY?” at the uncaring sky. There were things I liked.
Charlize Theron, for example. Idris Elba playing a concertina was something that will keep me warm and smiling on a sad, cold night or two. (Though him keeping Charlize Theron warm for no apparent reason was just another bit of in-theater facepalm for me.) Noomi Rapace as Dr. Shaw managed to operate like she had half a brain more often than any of the other sacrificial lambs (this is not saying much) and she does have a few excellent moments, so that’s something. And you are visually lovely.
But I’ve also got to be honest. The only character I really gave a shit about was David, because he was interesting. He had a plan, and even if it ended badly for him, you could see everything he did was in service of that plan and not just because the script needed him to do something utterly moronic. I was also quite captivated by the way he was played, because to me it seemed like every time people tried to reassure themselves that he had no emotions (being a robot and all) it was rather plain that he did have feelings. There seemed like a lot of sarcasm in his agreement with people whenever they pointed out something in his robot nature – and some genuine pain when Weyland calls him the closest thing he’ll have to a son followed immediately by pointing out that he doesn’t have a soul. (Weyland, you turd. Don’t mess with my boy.) David’s obviously got some very rich internal life going on, and I think that was why I was much more willing to buy the sillier bits of him being the macguffin and instantly knowing how to operate the alien machines and speak giant white dude-ese.
I was willing to forgive David because when he wasn’t being the plot’s bitch, there was something there to find interesting. You paying attention, other characters?
To be honest, Prometheus, I think I’d rather just rename you The Unfortunate Adventure of David and Some Jaw-Droppingly Stupid People.
Sorry, but even then I still wouldn’t buy the DVD.
