Prometheus: A Prequel That Doesn’t Quite Leave You Wanting A New Sequel0

by Damon Martin

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
~ Albert Einstein

Curiosity and a search for our origin is the heart of the new Ridley Scott film Prometheus which opens in theaters on today. In many ways the film was engineered as a moderate prequel to the popular Alien franchise, also launched by Scott some thirty-plus years ago.

Following the discovery of some ancient cave paintings that show early man pointing towards the a group of planets, scientists on Earth realize that these same images show up over and over again in different relics all over the world in civilizations that never, ever touched one another.

It’s with the premise of discovering where humanity started that the starship Prometheus is launched to try and find these planets, and possibly the origin of our species.

Archaeologists Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) and his girlfriend Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) are on the hunt for how humanity was born. Was it all spawned from some ancient alien race from another world that brought life to Earth?

As they land on a desolate moon that looks similar to Earth, the crew of the Prometheus soon discover a vast pyramid that houses perfectly breathable oxygen and the remains of an alien race whose DNA matches perfectly that of humans.

Without giving away too much plot at this point, it’s clear to see that there is something amiss with this planet and the species that once inhabited it, and needless to say all hell breaks loose shortly thereafter.

Prometheus plays on the very old idea that curiosity sometimes kills the cat, and the crew of this ship is definitely a little too curious for their own good. The leader of the ship played by Charlize Theron is a cold detached bureaucrat sent into space to guide this crew of scientists on their mission to find out where life first started.

But the real star of the film is Michael Fassbender, who plays the ship’s resident android named David. Like the other films in the Alien franchise where actors like Lance Henricksen and Iam Holm stole the show as robots who come to life, it’s no different with Fassbender who is simply brilliant in this movie. A secret motive behind every action, Fassbender is calculating and cold with his actions, but creepy and sly with his familiar smile.

The biggest problem with Prometheus is the fact that the film pulls the audience in too many different directions with plotlines that head in numerous directions. Throughout the 2-hour affair, there are several references to the Alien franchise, which call out to the idea that this really is a prequel to the popular science fiction series.

But what Prometheus also attempts to do is pull the story in a whole new direction with the questions about the origin of our species and where we all came from. It almost seems like too much by the time the film comes to an end, and you are left wondering which storyline you were supposed to care about more.

While the acting in Prometheus was largely very well done, the lead actress in the film, Noomi Rapace, fails to show the same kind of strong female character that Sigourney Weaver did in the original series of Alien films. It may not be fair to compare anyone to what Weaver was able to do with her character of Ellen Ripley, but Ridley Scott has made strong, female characters a centerpiece of these series of films and Rapace fails to repeat even a small part of Weaver’s powerful presence.

On its own, Prometheus is a solid film worth seeing, but ultimately when it was over the biggest feeling I was left with wasn’t about a sequel for this movie (which will inevitably happen), I just wanted to go home and watch the 1979 Alien classic.