Before I tell you what I did love, let me tell you what I did not love about Ridley Scott's Non ALIEN prequel/ALIEN prequel, PROMETHEUS.
1: Too many little dramas. In ALIEN, Dallas and Ripley are clearly involved on an intimate level. But no one ever has to say shit about it. It hits us that much harder when Ripley and us lose Dallas. Because we know. No one had to fucking spell it out for us. That's called subtext. I call it awesome. The love story in PROMETHEUS is completely unnecessary. It serves no purpose beyond date night at the movies. It's trite. Certainly didn't need a "love scene'. They got it right with the characters of Vickers and Janek. Place, time, a look and a joke. But the Shaw/Holloway romance is dead weight. Sorry. And one too many father daughter stories for one ALIEN prequel. Jeez Louise.
2: Cheesy dream watching scene. Of a quality that reminds me of the lamest fucking multimedia projects at community college...This heavy handed exposition that is not needed and would have had some actual power to it if it were only brought up as it was later by David and he explains flat out what he watched and learned from her dreams. Talk about hitting me over the head with a message. How about hitting me over the head with something *I* can believe in. Like the story in the trailer for the film. That's what I chose to believe in. Sheesh, Ridley & Damon.
3: Not telling a soul that an octovagina alien is locked in a room on board the ship. particularly 15 minutes after someone just burned your boyfriend to crispy Spam for having the a "bug" and made a big deal out of the fact that nothing of "unknown origin" is coming on board. And yes, as it is revealed at the end to be a big fuckin deal. Felt very, very odd.
4: Buddy subplot, "The Bet". Who fucking cares? Are these guys supposed to live up to some kind of Harry Dean Yaphet Kotto standard? Well, they're fine actors, but no Harry Dean or Yaphet Kotto by a damn sight. Who fucking cares about your bet. Not interesting or believable bromance at all. Every minute of it felt forced. Like they won the parts unintentionally at the bottom of a cereal box. And yo, Benedict Wong! You died right on the first space ship (Sunshine). And absolutely did not fucking buy their fucking elation to kamikaze themselves. Now if they were established at first not to get along and be more gruff as their captain was, would've packed more of a punch to kamikaze at the end. Possibly could have moved me to tears.
5: Terms and phrases like "Weapons of mass destruction" need to stop showing up in films. Particularly sci-fi.
6: Too much Xenomorph indication and not enough elaboration.
7: Did not need the last scene.
8: Lacked the wonderful sense of realism that made ALIEN so powerful. Expanding on a film's "Universe" is about tone and feel more than just a familiar horse shoe space ship.
After all this, I find it strange saying that I think the problem is maybe that some other parts of the film were cut possibly? There are cuts in the story that felt...jarring on a narrative front.
The bad bottom line is this: Too much time and emphasis on useless shit and not nearly enough time involved in what the films trailers, website, and entire marketing campaign promised. And I am not talking about aliens. I didn't give a shit about aliens. I'm talking about the world in which the movies ALIEN and PROMETHEUS are supposed to co-exist in. I wanted 2 plus hours of this:
And it's not quite what I got. But what I did get wasn't all bad...stay tuned...
