Objectified Review

Rating: 7/10 (11 June 2012)

Being a hardcore Alien fan, I felt the urge to write a review first time in my life after seeing the film last night. Maybe my biggest disappointment was caused by my high expectations, since I need to be honest, it has been a long time since we last seen a good sci-fiction movie. So, with all the premises that the film brought, Ridley Scott as being the director, good cast, amazing trailers and propaganda online, and decent budget, I thought this film might answer some of my questions (not on life!) so I gave it a shot. To be frank, it's a decent film and it's worth seeing in the theater and it's definitely not below 7/10! The film deserves a decent rating, but it should be also criticized so that promising writers like Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts would do a better job next time, if they will still be involved. I have seen other movies and works of Lindelof before like Lost, Star Trek and Cowboy's and Aliens. And I have a feeling that he knows how a plot works for a film with commercial goals. That's the main problem with Prometheus as everyone expected it to be a 'masterpiece' but surely it isn't and it won't be after the sequels to come with the destruction of such phenomenal concepts.
From the beginning of the film I was really into it, with the images that were being shown (especially the volcanic rock formations which is also grounded in philosophy since earth spits lava to create life) were highly moving. Although the search is on 'origins of life', the colors are set to dark tones to create an overall horrific atmosphere. If you know Horror 101 you need dark scenes, scared characters, a weak protagonist for the audience to empathize to face the 'beast' and a slimy, formless, sublime creature with tentacles, limbs, sharp teeth, spits...etc. All these elements are really well done with the original Alien in 1979 without having a potential technological counterpart. That's why it's a masterpiece! But for Prometheus the problems appear mostly due to the rushed and forced aspects of the plot and the textbook application of some fundamental concepts for alien designs.
Although the first half of the film is phenomenal with good visuals, introduction of characters, explanation of relationships and mission, there are still some glitches - like the infertility of Shaw, rushing of the expedition, exposure of David's secret agenda...etc. In the second half we understand that the crew is dispensable as they are meant to fall like domino so that we can face the final scene between Shaw and Engineer as planned. The main problem here is the rushed fact of how these characters die. In Alien(1979) for every death there was rising tension that builds up a momentum for a tragedy to happen. It was also the carrying element of the film towards the final showdown. But with Prometheus the deaths are quite instant that makes the plot 'work', the film flow and us get bombarded with action. It was a similar characteristic of the new Star Trek film as well that shows a commercial intention rather than artistic film-making.
There are also other biological problems with the film that forces some concepts to be destroyed and reinvented as pure fiction. It is possible to imagine a super fluid that causes high rate mutation, but biologically it's impossible for a human to breed a 'squid' with an umbilical cord naturally. The genius behind the Alien was the resemblance of a parasite to the host. This was present in Alien (bipedal) and Alien 3 (quadrupedal). It seems like the writers needed a 'scary' monster and picked Shaw as the victim to face this fictional part of the story. Another problem is the new 'face-hugger' that resembles a snake with little fans that covers its mouth. If it's a parasite to inter-penetrate a host through an opening, it would need supplementary organs to help it. Again comparing it to the original Alien, where the design of face-hugger was bi-symmetrical and it had limbs and tails that looked like a horseshoe crab without a shell. And it used all those elements to achieve a certain goal to lay down the egg. It it were to be a snake, it wouldn't enter another biological form, but rather ingest it because its form is expandable. We can see the contrast via comparing the larger monster in the film to the smaller one, as the larger one battles the last engineers it wins the battle with its long tentacles that helps it to get closer to its victim.
The secret behind waking Mr.Weyland is to get answers to his search for 'immortality' not to understand why human beings are created. Aside from Hayflick limit in cells, there needs to be a cycle and dynamism of death and life. Old cells need to be replaced by new. Thus, life has an irreversible fact of becoming. If it were static, things wouldn't be able to grow or transform - taking away all the vitality of it. In terms of evolution life is believed to head towards perfection or a god-like entity. Then the matching of the Dna with engineers is a spot on remark. But this still does not explain the hostile nature of an advanced alien species. Nature does not operate through destruction (The reference to Darwinism is a mistake, I am sure biology will take a different route in 21 century), but through pure creation or productivity. It would have been better to show the seed of life as a source of creativity like the film Fountain, rather than destruction of it via sacrifice of suicide. But this is not the intention of the film. It needs to be of horror, of destruction, and of fictional elements that fail to scare the audience and hypnotize them with advanced CGI.