Ridley Scott's Prometheus has already been lauded as the savior of this summer's batch of movies and the savior of an entire movie genre. After seeing it myself last Saturday, I was confused.
I enjoyed the movie. I thought it was intriguing, well-filmed, and thought-provoking. But I also came out of it a bit.... befuddled. No, it wasn't the plot's various twists and turns that had me scratching my head. It was the insistence of setting the table for a sequel through various plot cliff hangers and an ambiguous ending that had me down right mystified.
Scott has always been, in my mind, a director with clear vision. His movies generally had straight forward messages from Alien's critique of corporate greed and faceless omnipotence to Gladiator's commentary on corrupt politicians and their detriment to society. And while Prometheus had obvious themes of creation, life's meaning, and religion, the characters' urges to just keep asking more questions gave me the impression that a resolution may never be in sight. May that be Scott's point? Who knows.
The alien landscapes and set pieces were, once again, fantastically done and the cast did an admirable job, especially Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender. However, there were times where the dialogue got a little too corny, or at least too corny for the tone of the rest of the movie. And there was the ridiculous glaring problem in the script concerning the fact that a company would fund a trillion dollar mission without a large trained military force to protect its' interests.
I enjoyed the movie. I thought it was intriguing, well-filmed, and thought-provoking. But I also came out of it a bit.... befuddled. No, it wasn't the plot's various twists and turns that had me scratching my head. It was the insistence of setting the table for a sequel through various plot cliff hangers and an ambiguous ending that had me down right mystified.
Scott has always been, in my mind, a director with clear vision. His movies generally had straight forward messages from Alien's critique of corporate greed and faceless omnipotence to Gladiator's commentary on corrupt politicians and their detriment to society. And while Prometheus had obvious themes of creation, life's meaning, and religion, the characters' urges to just keep asking more questions gave me the impression that a resolution may never be in sight. May that be Scott's point? Who knows.
The alien landscapes and set pieces were, once again, fantastically done and the cast did an admirable job, especially Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender. However, there were times where the dialogue got a little too corny, or at least too corny for the tone of the rest of the movie. And there was the ridiculous glaring problem in the script concerning the fact that a company would fund a trillion dollar mission without a large trained military force to protect its' interests.
I guess my expectations were just too high, and I definitely don't agree with some of the critiques who are heaping massive amounts of praise on the movie. It was enjoyable but not fantastic. I think the questions the movie posed were definitely profound but there were times where it was impossible not to see Alien within Prometheus. Now, since it's the same director and the movies encompass the same "universe" some parallels may have been expected. But at times they were unnecessarily overwhelming. There were moments I felt the movie was trying to become it's own entity and others where I felt it wanted to directly connect to it's predecessors. I know that ambiguity can be a piece of a larger picture, but I just felt it didn't fit with the comments Scott had made leading up to the film's creation.
Overall, I did like the movie. And I do have to agree with one of the previously cited articles and say that it probably was one of the best pure science-fiction movies done in the last year or so. But ultimately, I think it was an underacheivement compared to the first Alien, which in fact, was a film that trascended generations and went down as one of the best, most innovative science-fiction movies ever.
So to answer my own question I posed in the title, I don't think Prometheus changed the game. But it certainly opened the door for Sir Scott to make sequels if he so chooses.
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