Should Have Been Better

Rating: 4/10 (9 July 2016)

Prometheus was a movie that should have been much much better. It had everything it needed to do that: budget, actors, backstory and a directory. Sure it had big ideas and concepts like where did man come from, the old ET seeded earth, Panspermia concept. But like many a grand plan, it undid itself on stupid B movie maneuvers and nonsensical plot elements. Let's start with the stupid maneuvers. The Geologist and the Biologist managed to get themselves lost on in the cavern, even though the Geologist Fifield mapped the cave out with his laser imaging balls and supposedly would be able to access the map from his local computer. Then they are forced to spend the night in the cavern, so the pick the room with the proto alien organisms. They see this hideous python snake creature, slithering through the black ooze. So instead of running away, they treat it like a stray Golden Retriever puppy and try to pet it, DUHHH?? This is on par with the average cheap horror slasher movie where characters inexplicably go off and wander into dark spaces to get killed and eaten. They could have given the two hapless scientists a better story. Their machine broke down in the storm and they had to return to the caverns for protection then the snake snuck up on them when they were asleep. Such sloppy writing.
Then in a more serious scene of true horror, our intrepid driven female scientist, Dr. Shaw, climbs into a medical pod to get this alien fetus removed, a med pod conveniently for men only in spite that it is in the female commander's private pod and there are 4 women total on the ship. So she gets the pod to remove this horrid face hugging thing, then she stitches herself up it was a true well done horror scene. So instead of screaming and alerting the crew to the treacherous android David and this horrid alien, she keeps it all to herself. And for someone who just had major surgery and just stapled the incision shut, she is remarkably active and in character. Mind you later on this same alien, sans any food, in a few hours increases in size 200 fold. Then there are the more esoteric parts of the theme. This ship was commissioned to go to this planet based on ancient cave drawings found all over the world of the same star system. So this is all pre Alien, no one on earth knew about any dangerous xenomorph, This is in contrast to Alien where the Wayland Corp knew about the dangerous xenomorphs, put an a maliciously programmed android aboard the ship and they treacherously planned on sacrificing the crew to get the alien. In this case, all Weyland knew was that the earth seeding humanoid aliens came from this planet and the president of the corporation, near death, wanted to find a medical miracle to extend his life. Yet the android on this ship did act treacherously. Apparently it, David, had some daddy issue concerning the president, or people in general. So what, in the space of a couple years this emotionless android hatched a plan to destroy people he was supposed to serve on his own? This is more troubling since David was busy watching classic Britfilms like "Lawrence of Arabia" while the rest of the crew was in cryosleep. Would Lawrence, whom David was modeling, betray his own people and country? Was this some Skynet scenario? Also, according to ship's captain, this alien outpost was some sort of military base. You know, black guys who are just pilots or other nonintellectual types always have some preternatural sense of aliens two thousand years dead, even though he never left his ship. Then we are left with the big question. Why did the aliens put directions to their military base in the ancients' minds? I can buy the inscrutable aliens' inscrutable motivations that last seemed to be to destroy earth. But why 2000 years ago, which is when the aliens all died there? Did the aliens not like Jesus, which could tie into Dr. Shaw's religious beliefs? Why give our ancients DNA memory of that star system? Then they add in David's inscrutable motivation to wreck everything. Then David warns the Prometheus of the destination of the now active alien ship and its cargo. That is just plain Grade B sloppy writing. Then the final charge of the Prometheus at the alien ship as it takes off? Tra la, save the day. Then the stupid women who just couldn't run to the side as the ring shaped alien ship rolls on its edge. This is what made this an un-great film, in spite of the awesome epic scale and visuals of the ships and the alien world. The newer Star Trek and Star Wars cash grabs were cheesy takes on the classic themes and plots with a few new characters thrown in. They sold since their idiot fan base is easily led and Abram's schlock was at least more watchable than the previous installments. Like Star Trek Insurrection. Prometheus was supposed to be more and billed itself as more than just pre-teen Star Wars space opera or just more horror monster movie too. IT was supposed to bring us back to the glory days of real serious Sci Fi. So it deserves a final kick for letting us down with such shoddy writing.