Prometheus: In space no one can hear you yawn

I have just arrived from viewing Prometheus, one of my most anticipated films of the year, even after I had heard a few negative comments and reviews. Unfortunately, they didn't disappoint.

There are a lot of good things one can say about this movie, but there are also several bad things as well, so let's begin with the topic everyone has in mind: comparing Prometheus with Alien, based on the fact that they are both Ridley Scott's babies, so I'll move forward with it: I am quite sure you have heard the old saying "More is less and less is more"? That's exactly what happens with Alien and Prometheus.

In Alien we:

1) Barely see the Alien
2) Barely have any music
3) Barely have dialog -or complex dialog for that matter-
4) Have a handful of equally developed characters
5) Have a simple but solid plot
6) Have no religious references
7) This result in a classic. In essence, less is MORE

In Prometheus we:

1) See too much of the Engineers. The tension and the interest factors are lost and diminish every time they show up on screen and by the end of the second act, we just think of them as friends. The Xenomorph also makes an extremely unnecessary appearance.

2) We have a musical score, but it's definitely nothing compared to Alien's -even less to Vangelis' Blade Runner-. It's just a typical score that could be heard on blockbusters like Armageddon or Lord of the rings.

3) Have way too much talking and what makes matters worse, is that it's notably complex and overwritten. There are also some cliche lines such as "Father..."

4) Have too many characters, with only a few of them well written and developed, and by a few of them I mean  David; Vickers and Shaw are somewhat well developed. The rest are meaningful.

5) Have a plot that gets complicated by the minute. At the end of the movie you are left with more questions than answers.

6) Have obvious christian references. If Ridley Scott wants to make a movie about christianity, he should do so... but why use an excuse for it?

7) This results in a film that should have been a classic, but turned out a major disappointment that can be summed up by contrasting both film's taglines: Alien -a classic-, has one of the best of all time "In space no one can hear you scream". Prometheus' tagline should have been "In space no one can hear you yawn"

The positives however are very, very positive. On first place come the visuals, one of the best I've seen hands down. The movie is just simply beautiful, visually compelling with a stunning cinematography. Then comes Michael Fassbender's portrayal of David, which is equally as impressive as the visuals. Charlize Theron also gives a good performance, but is nowhere near Fassbender's impeccable performance.

Now going back to the negatives, we have to make a raw separation between the complaints I have been reading about the plot, the dialog and the actual actions of the characters. For instance, a common scene that has found severe rejection is the electricity shocks given by Dr. Shaw to the engineer's dead head. There is a difference between a bad plot and a bad decision made by someoene. The movie's script suggests we are intended to believe the fact that the scientists were at an emotional moment and made a human mistake or an error of judgement. Making them "perfect" would be detrimental to the plot, hence you cannot qualify a plot as "bad" just because the characters make poor decisions. The fact that they decided to "trick the neural system to make it think it's alive" is simply a bad decision by the characters, but it's not by any means co-related with the movie having a bad plot. If they were, then we would also have to call a bad plot the fact that in the original Alien, Dallas and Ash decided to make an incision of the facehugger that had grabbed Kane. Another scene that has received critisism is Charlie removing his helmet in the cave and then Millburn trying to touch the alien life form. Again, back in the original Alien, Kane didn't hold back from exploring the deepest corners of the cave, even when he was surrounded by the blue myst that covered the hundreds of eggs that were around him. It's not that I think the scenes were sublime or anything, but I do believe they are manageable within the context that one has to understand that scientists are human, hence prone to make mistakes. I can say that, the frequency of the mistakes made by characters in Prometheus is a little higher than what one would have expected from a Ridley Scott movie, and perhaps this is what bothers viewers.

Something that did bother me greatly was the final scene. It is very clear in a thousand ways (well, maybe not a thousand, but quite clear) that the events in Prometheus do not take place in the same planet (or moon) where the Nostromo crew lands. So then, why place an explicit scene of having a Xenomoprh burst from the Engineer? Viewers can put 2+2 together by themselves and even if they couldn't, there was no need to tie both movies, or to leave the door open to do so in the future. However the film's ending strongly suggests that there will be a sequel, therefore increasing the possibility of seeing a connection between the Prometheus events with Alien events. Other than make millions of dollars, I really don't see the point of it. It's as meaningful as the prequel made of John Carpenter's The Thing released in 2011.

Speaking of The Thing, another aspect that we can talk about is what influences Prometheus. It is clear that The Thing (the 1982 original) has its fair amount of ingredients in Prometheus, with the infecting and the flame throwers. However the greatest influence in the film is christianity: a vast amount of pieces try to somehow give Prometheus a religious point of view, like the crucifix Shaw carries, the search of a superior being (or creator), and of course her getting pregnant despite being unable so... all of these completely unnecessary.

Overall the main issue with Prometheus is that it keeps following the formula of major budget films that have been produced in the past years and that wish to become a trilogy. Sadly, it fails and falls way behind the more successful Iron Man, Batman, Avengers and even Spiderman... and that's because those films know what they are and what do they stand for. Prometheus starts as drama, then becomes sci-fi, then drama, then sci-fi, then drama, then adventure, then sci-fi, then drama. It has zero identity.

In summary, I really enjoyed the movie, but sadly it's nothing more than a good effort by Ridley Scott. This movie should have been a classic, but instead it's worthless.