Prometheus

Do you suppose Ridley Scott knew he was remaking Alien? He must have. He made both films; he might have figured out at some point how similar the one was to the other. Somebody like me could make one hundred separate factual statements, easily, that could apply to the plot of both films. I won’t. But it’s kind of embarrassing that you’d market Prometheus with a different title as if it’s a different film.

I’m going to pretend Alien doesn’t exist from this point forward. Doesn’t matter if this is a remake. What matters is “does Prometheus stand on its own?” In a word, yes. It’s a horrific yes, but yes all the same.  A bunch of science-y opportunists get in a spaceship to track down the origins of man, believed to be on a moon just a bit beyond the out-of-town Denny’s. When they arrive, party time it is not. From the first footsteps in foreign territory, you can just tell this is one of those films that won’t end until we run out of cast. It’s OK, most of them are there for the money.  It’s always OK to slaughter thegreedy.  Luckily, they told me two scenes ago how many people were on board the ship; I’ll keep score. On firma-not-so-terra, the cavern explored has ample evidence of something … off. Holograms of aliens fleeing in terror lead the ground crew to an ancient decapitation. Damn these non-Star Trek uniforms; I can never tell who in the landing party is gonna buy the nebula farm without the color-coded shirts.

When you step in cavern where everything is supposed to be dead, and stuff moves of its own accord – that’s a universal sign you should leave.

I keep wondering why aliens always want to kill earthlings. They don’t even eat us. I suppose they use us for incubators sometimes, but mostly it’s “die, human, die!” Do you think they sit back punching their Schwarzenegger dolls with pins, talking on their princess phones and longing for the moment when they can slap humans around, “that’s for Battleship!” “That’s for Independence Day!” “That’s for the Tree of Life!” “Yes, I know there were no aliens killed in the Malick film. It merits human punishment all the same.” The xenophobia exhibited just seems wrong, doesn’t it? Think about it: an alien shows up on our planet and first thought you have is either, “kill it violently now!” or, “hmmm, I bet that would be a cool receptacle to lay my eggs and hatch my young.” Who would do that? And isn’t the latter putting an awful lot of trust that we aren’t a species of filthy diseased vermin? When you first saw E.T., was your thought, “you know what, I bet I could give birth in that thing; it would totally work. No, no, hear me out … you plant the embryo; you let it grow in a hostile host and fend for its own once the creature objects. Where’s the bad?” I’m pretty sure that’s how Dick Cheney was born.

Back to our film. Prometheus stars Noomi Rapace, who owns the scene of the month after discovering an alien inside her. It ain’t pretty, but ain’t nobody gonna change the channel for boredom. Michael Fassbender has a great role as an uptight yet oddly mischievous robot (what is it with Ridley Scott and cyborgs?). We better get used to that unromantic name of “Fassbender”; he’s future Oscar material. Speaking of which, Charlize Theron as the no-nonsense Captain was much better here than in Snow White next door. Now why can’t that cast die horrible, painful deaths at the tentacles of angry aliens? Alas. Maybe when Ridley Scott makes a third version of this film. A frog can dream. Yup. A frog can dream.

Rated R, 124 Minutes
D: Ridley Scott
W: Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof
Genre: Alien
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The losing side in Battleship
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: If you didn’t like Alien the first time …