My expectation when going to see a Ridley Scott film is that it will be good work. With Prometheus, however, the studios promised nerdtopia. Here it was; a legendary director returning to the sci-fi canon that endeared him to the world in the first place. A multi-million dollar marketing campaign that included some of the best use of viral media I have yet seen for a film. A cast of talented actors picked fresh from the pop consciousness. I ran to the theaters on opening weekend to be delivered onto paradise. How could it go wrong?
The answer is simply that it can’t, Ridley Scott always turns out good work. The effects are stunning. The movie holds tension and scares you (grosses you out too) once it gets going. On the surface it works phenomenally. The problem with Prometheus is that it never penetrates that surface. The script is more an opera than a film. It lacks the subtext that Scott can and has delivered in previous work.
Prometheus deals with a group of astronauts in search of God. These scientists are on a mission funded by Peter Wayland, the man who created artificial life on earth, a god himself. They are on a ship named after the Titan punished for giving humans fire which allowed us to progress and come to be on equal footing with the gods. The film is chock-full of daddy issues. Who is our father? Why did he abandon us? Why did he betray us? Why must he punish us for wanting to be like him? It would be powerful stuff if it were not said. From the get-go these existential issues of faith are treated literally rather than figuratively.
There are no allusions or metaphors. The characters just talk about these things. They actually ask some of the questions I listed above. The screenplay lacks the fundamental understanding that these questions are unanswerable and to design a plot structure on the premise that your characters will find answers is absurd. It can have no resolution. It becomes laughable and melodramatic. There is a moment where Theron’s character utters the word “Father”, I won’t spoil the plot, but there is no amount of talent in the world that would not make that line contrived in the moment in which it is delivered. There are a lot of these moments.
Lindelof and Spaihts, the writers here, deserve the lion’s share of the blame. A simple look back at Scott’s own filmography, Alien and Blade Runner, would have showed them what subtlety looks like. Both of those films are thematically dense but never overbearing. Don’t get me wrong, go see it in the biggest screen possible. It’s eye candy and a perfect distraction for the summer, it could have just been more thoughtful.
Sometimes a Good Notion 