More Science Fiction like any other movie in the last years

Rating: 10/10 (19 August 2012)

Prometheus was a great movie. I am really wondering about, why there's such a shitstorm against this nice made movie. Therefore this review contains more about Science Fiction as a genre and why the movie totally fits into it.
First at all, Science Fiction isn't a genre just about science and technology. It's also about discovering exotic places where a human being never was before. And Prometheus contains exactly this: It's a journey and the trying to answer the question "where do we come from."
The movie has less to do with god. The theory, that life on earth comes from outer space, is just one of the thousands theories of life's origins. The godlike beings, the ones who are older than mankind, are our origin. They are mortal and they have a normal life span. They're no gods. They can, whenever they want, destroy the life on earth with their mass murdering weapons.
Science Fiction isn't, as already mentioned, just about technology. It also deals with the question: "Where do we come from?" The movie gives a great answer to that: Mankind comes from an alien race from outer space. They created us, because they wanted to, and they can kill us whenever they want – what's wrong with that? Why has there to be a shitstorm on this movie just because of this fact?
It's Ridley Scott's vision to deal with that question like he wants. It's his alien universe, not that from the fans. It's his creations. He has a plausible explanation for mankind's origin. The movie doesn't say that the science of biology and evolution on earth are wrong; it just says that mankind doesn't originate like we imagine it. That's all. It's nothing about the scientific scheme, and has nothing to do with religion.
The movie is in the main parts like archaeology: The humans discover a foreign planet and its dead inhabitants. They search for old relicts and for the possibility to make a contact with them. It's the search for the origins again; this motivation is as old as mankind itself. Therefore this motivation is enough to make the movie plausible.
The fact that this movie has differences to the original "Alien" is actually good. It's structure is like the original, but it's motivation is completely different from the original movie. The horror parts of this movie deal with the exploration of the unknown and foreign: The humans don't know what's there on this planet. The unknown biology is a threat for the humans. This Science Fiction tradition is as old as the genre itself.
The movie has much more to do with Science Fiction than any other alien movie in the last years. Like other movies ("District 9", "Sunshine", etc.) this isn't about aliens invading the earth or great space battles. And that's actually good, because movies showing this aren't real Science Fiction movies. In "Independence Day", "Battleship" or "World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles" the aliens could easily be replaced by human aggressors. They are continually developing from the unknown to the known, so mankind can defeat them. But it's actually more "realistic" and better fitting to the genre, when the unknown threat can NOT made known, when it stays a threat.
The atmosphere of this movie is great. The fantastic OST plays an important: It helps integrate the moviegoer in the movie. Combined with the splendid and gorgeous visuals it helps to be "in" the movie and not outside it.
The shitstorm against this movie derives from two reasons: 1. "Prometheus" is different from the original movie, but has the same structure. 2. The alien can't be seen unless the very end; many moviegoers are actually disappointed, because it isn't the 'original' alien. But the fact that the alien race is a xenomorphic race (it adapts to body of its host) is the reason the alien at the end of the movie is different from the alien we know in "Alien", because it derives from this humanoid alien race we see in the first minutes of "Prometheus".
Science Fiction isn't just about technology. It's main motivation and characteristic is: Facing the unknown, discovering foreign worlds because of curiosity and furthermore looking in a mirror. Science Fiction depicts our own identity. The movie contains just possibilities about where we come from, it doesn't definitely say that this is true. Neither does science, and so we can think about our origins because of this movie.