Monday 18 June 2012

Prometheus

I will be seeing Prometheus tomorrow.

To say that I have waited a long time for the release of a film that is related to Alien without being about Ripley would be an understatement. It has been a long time since I was amazed by Aliens.

I wasn't even a third of the way through Alien by the the time I had seen more in it than is in the entirety of everything that followed. I'm not aware of many people in my life who agree with me.

From the first film alone we take away so many questions. Where is the other ship from? Why are the eggs on board? What senses does the alien possess for processing the environment around it? How did 'the company' know there was something there to be found in the first place? Were the aliens engineered as a kind of tool for genocide, used to prepare planets by clearing all indigenous populations before returning to dormancy? Does the alien use the DNA from its host to help it adapt to its new environment? Can the alien survive in the vacuum of space?

No other film in the series really elicits this response. Worse than that, they drift further and further from any of the questions that were worth asking or answering with each sequel. Everything that gave the first film depth is destroyed or abandoned to follow a story about Ripley.

Prometheus is the sequel (or prequel) to Alien that I have always wanted.


1 comment :

Unknown said...

I like your speculation about the aliens being engineered for genocide. It definitely brought up a lot of curiosity for me, having only just been introduced to the saga in the last week. When I found out that the other Alien movies don’t broach the subject of their purpose or design even remotely I thought it was such a waste!
I did actually quite enjoy the first Alien but I didn't get involved in the intensity it provoked. Whether that was due to seeing it on a small screen, or seeing it in an age where it’s harder to shock, or perhaps there are now simply very realistic ways of making you believe something is capable of existing.
I'm expecting Prometheus will achieve this, and I’m a little bit scared or the prospect.