Prometheus: Ruining My 2012

For me Prometheus was the most exciting prospect of 2012. I watched Ridley Scott’s original Alien in my room, in the dark, in secret and immediately regretted owning a video machine (it was the nineties). Alien’s primeval predator made me give up astronomy because, although nobody can hear you screaming in space, everyone will know I wet myself. And this was why just the mention of Prometheus sent shivers down my spine and I’ve never been so thrilled to go to the cinema.

Turns out Prometheus is all prey and no predator. It offers a sumptuous space adventure with mystery, exploration and masterfully maintained suspense; but falls short on plot. Audiences are introduced to an awe inspiring and delectably tense world but left feeling confused and frustrated as Prometheus’ story spins wildly into chaos and turns tension into tedium.

The film tells the tale of two Archaeologists (the most exciting scientists) who discover an enigmatic star-map in thousands of art works throughout history: obviously an invitation to visit some intergalactic neighbours. So steps in some shadowy billionaire corporation to fund an expedition into space, aboard the unfortunately named Prometheus, and away goes the thrilling expedition.

The ill-fated ship Prometheus is populated by an excellent cast, each with their own curious agenda. Particularly Michael Fassbender’s android with a chilling disdain of humans, and Charlize Theron’s cold-hearted patron who seems even less human than the robot. What they find are the lost remains of an ancient civilisation, realised with such awe-inspiring beauty that only the great Ridley Scott can achieve. What happened to the original inhabitants nobody can tell, but it was probably bad.

 What follows is a film of stunning visuals and enthralling mystery. Swapping the claustrophobic corridors of Alien’s dilapidated space-junk ship, are epic 3D vistas of wonderfully realised alien ruins. Suspense is masterfully maintained throughout the first half, looming memories of Alien don’t spoil expectations but provide a constant reminder of what’s waiting for our naively intrepid archaeologists. So I spent about the first hour shuffling to the edge of my seat in the complex world of Ridley Scott’s imagination.

 After that halfway mark however I started to suspect things were going wrong. Things began to stop making sense, huge clues became irrelevant and the thrilling threat of doom became the increasing threat of disappointment.

 I started to ask my own questions, like why did that person try to kill that one? Why, instead of hiring an old man to play the old man, did they hire a young man who’s make-up looks like a grandmother’s bum-cheek ? Why did the black goo kill one, turn one into a zombie and impregnate another? And why did those two characters suddenly have sex? And how come all of this has nothing to do with the actual plot?

 Prometheus loses control and all of those questions asked at the start are just forgotten. Like that whole star-map thing, the whole reason they’ve gone half a million miles out into space, is never brought up again. Why the long extinct alien species sent messages to the Cavemen, the Incas and the Inuits doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

It’s not a case of nit-picking plot holes, the plot is completely absent and the result is, as bodies are being flung about the cosmos, I was busy wondering about star maps and all the supposed thrill of the climax flops like a dead fish.

Its great predecessor Alien’s brilliance was in maintaining focus with ideas all branching from the single theme of The Alien; from that trunk all the other branches grew. Prometheus has no focus, instead mysteries and plot devices fall by the wayside of an onslaught of half-baked ideas and the building tension collapses. By the end Prometheus is just a mess, the story has no central trunk and the plethora of disparate MacGuffins end up as cinematic as a pile of dead wood.

The film’s crowbarred in philosophic posturing is as developed as the ramblings of a drunken undergraduate. Slowing down the plot is just one character who (repeatedly) says she still believes in God and basically everyone else is too busy being greedy/creepy/having sex/getting murdered by black goo, to care.

And whilst I’m at it, who calls their exploration vessel “Prometheus”: the most famous parable on the risks of over-reaching our knowledge? Even Frankenstein’s subtitle was the Modern Prometheus. It might as well have been called “Curiosity Killed the Cat”.

           

 Altogether Prometheus is expensively incredible: it’s aesthetic, sinister and excellently performed but missing the most essential ingredient: a story. The result was me downing five pints in a nearby Weatherspoons and ranting to miscellaneous attractive women and bar-staff.

Ridley, if you can’t think of any more film stories then just stop, please stop ruining your old films by revisiting them. And, whatever you do with the rest of your senile existence, DO NOT make Blade Runner 2.