The Most Stupid A-List Science Fiction Movie Ever Made. Maybe Worse.

Rating: 2/10 (14 May 2017)

Before his career started circling the drain, Scott was on record saying he would not make another 'Alien' flick -- the Xeno was all played out. But even Sirs gotta eat, so with thoughts of quick bucks dancing in his head, he decided to cash in with the last refuge of a has-been: A prequel. Well, not so much an 'Alien' prequel as a movie that took place in the 'Alien' "universe", was full of Aliens, revealed the events that happened before the Nostromo encountered the Alien, and had "Alien" in the title. So he got Jon Sphaits' to write a script entitled 'Alien: Engineers'.
Then he lost his mind.
He realized he actually didn't like xenomorphs, so he simply deleted them. I don't mean he had the script rewritten without them, I mean he revised the script to excise them without changing much else. The result is a morass of incoherence.
In Sphaits' original script, the Engineer was furious when awakened because he had a chest-burster and would surely die. Rewriter Damon Lindelof deleted the chest-burster, (thereby his motivation and the impetus for the climax), but did not otherwise rewrite the scene. Remember when hologrammed Engineers ran down a hallway because nothing was chasing them? Excised Xeno Syndrome again.
From draft-script through post production, Scott didn't know what movie he wanted to make or how to make it. Shrink your Space Jockey after you've built most of the sets? No problem, only "nitpickers" will care why an Engineer that stood upright in an escape pod airlock would own a ship with interior door controls the height of a basketball rim.
There is no major scene that doesn't have a catastrophic problem. None. From an early scene where a tiny hole becomes a fully excavated cave complete with floodlights. To scientists in three cases, not taking a couple steps to view the IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. Nobody ever shows any awe as they scoot their asses through a temple and steal body parts.
An ARCHAEOLOGIST wouldn't even walk a COUPLE STEPS to EVEN GLANCE at the face of the being who created life on Earth and micromanaged all of human history -- He wanted to learn the facts of life from a living being. It stinks so bad you can smell Damon Lindelof's hand as he sits on the toilet, Clippy the Paperclip in lap, squeezing out the scenes.
Did I mention the characters constantly declare things they could only know if they watched the movie and saw themselves say it? EVERYTHING in the original 'Alien' had an explained rationale behind it: Ash's (the Android) decisions were to help the creature; Ripley was sometimes as low as FOURTH in command (Ash>Dallas>Kane>Ripley); they had guns but didn't shoot because acid would burn through the hull; they didn't have enough air to blow it out; they had to investigate the signal or would forfeit their paychecks; the Narcissus couldn't hold the entire crew because it wasn't a lifeboat, it was a shuttle; There wasn't a spear-gun in the Narcissus, it was a grappling gun for use when they took the shuttle to harsh planets (actually used in a sequence that was cut for budgetary reasons); They didn't "have" flamethrowers, they fabricated them. In 'Prometheus' she grabs one from the First Aid Kit or something; Ripley went back for the cat. I'd go back for my dog.
Kane wasn't stupid looking in the egg because he had a gun, and was wearing a heavily padded suit with a thick helmet. Nothing conceivable could be in that egg that could hurt him, unfortunately something INCONCEIVABLE was. Remember, HE didn't know he was in a horror movie; I could go on endlessly, there's nothing stupid in 'Alien'. But reaching for an angry cobra-gina in 'Prometheus'? The MOST conceivable thing happened -- he got attacked. In a suit the movie established could be pierced by hypodermic needles.
Scott's slapdash approach to 'Prometheus' extends all through post-production. He substituted a pyramid with Giger's dome in post-production but didn't bother re-dubbing the dialog. THAT is the reason everyone calls the dome a "pyramid", and don't let any over-weaning fanboy tell you it's for some artistic, allegorical reason. This alone disqualifies the movie from any serious consideration, could you imagine everyone in '2001' calling the monolith a "sphere"? Even if we push all these problems aside, 'Prometheus' is still deplorable because it retcons the original. A deleted line of dialog reveals the entire original warning: The derelict crew encountered eggs ALREADY on the planet and set up a warning before they were killed.
Even without the explanation, no thinking 1979 viewer thought the eggs were in the derelict intentionally. What kind of imbecile thinks the Space Jockey strew his own cargo hold full of loose, barely closed eggs filled with horny monsters that ejaculate hull-melting acid? No doubt the same kind who thinks the Space Jockey taught Fred Flintstone how to finger paint.
No matter how much credit Scott takes, 'Alien' was never his vision, it was Dan O'Bannon's. Scott stumbled into a movie well into preproduction as the 6th director considered. He just pointed a camera at Ron Cobb's Nostromo and sets and creatures hand-crafted by H.R. Giger. The ending for which Scott takes credit existed before he was hired. His sole addition was the unfilmed finale where the Alien bit off Ripley's head and imitated her voice in a call to Earth. No, really, Google it. When it came time for a sequel, Scott wasn't even considered.
Despite heroic efforts to con the audience into thinking 'Prometheus' is ABOUT something, it's nothing but two tedious hours of the Gilligan's Island cast trying to figure out how jars work to the sound of Giorgio Tsoukalos slapping his dick on a crystal skull.
Prometheus is certainly no 'Alien' movie, Ridley Scott won't make any more of those. He told us so.