While most of the world may be thoroughly sick and tired of talking about Prometheus, some countries are only just getting to see the movie.
One such nation is Germany, where the movie was released last week. One of our German readers, Michael Buch, got in touch to offer his thoughts on the film, including how the long wait – and inherent temptation to seek out spoilers – may have affected his enjoyment.
Take it away Michael:
I had read a lot about the story before actually watching the film – yes, I spoiled myself, because I couldn’t wait for it to open here.
That, and all the viral marketing on the web let my expectations increase dramatically, and finally I wasn’t too sure if the film could actually deliver.
I’m a huge fan of the “Alien” franchise since I’ve first seen “Alien” back in the 80s (actually, I’ve even been a fan before ever seeing it, because I had the novel way before I was allowed to watch the film). I’m a big fan of Ridley Scott’s work, too, “Blade Runner” being one of my other all-time favourites. So, naturally, I had very high hopes for “Prometheus”.
So was it what I hoped it would be?
I’ll try to write something about the different elements of the film:
Story and characters:
Well, it was epic after all. I really loved the opening scenes with their mystic background and breathtaking photography. Sadly, some later parts of the movie couldn’t hold up against this epic opening. I really loved that the writers picked up some original story elements from the first “Alien” that were dropped back in 1979, for example the alien pyramid, which was originally planned to be next to the derelict in the original film.
Unfortunately, the film could not keep the dramatic greatness of its opening moments for the complete length of its running time, as it got lost in the more typical monster-and-mutation-stuff, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as I obviously love monster movies. I would have loved to get more background on the “Engineers”, their true objectives and motives. I hope these things might get a bit more detailed in a possible sequel or an extended cut.
When I watch this kind of movie, I don’t need every character completely fleshed out, but some of the characters in “Prometheus” were a bit too one-dimensional in my opinion. You didn’t get to know everybody, and sometimes it was a bit confusing who was still alive and who had already been killed. I loved the main characters, especially Captain Janek. Sadly, his screen time was rather short, so let’s hope for an extended version with more Janek.
The characters of Milburn and Fifield seemed a bit strange to me, as they didn’t act like trained scientists but more like some kind of idiots, and I couldn’t really feel sorry for their gruesome deaths. More or less, you could not really care about most of the characters due to poor writing and missing characterisation.
Sometimes the film was missing a bit of suspense. Maybe that’s because I already knew a great deal about the story and what was going to happen next, but then again, I’ve seen “Alien” and “Aliens” nearly a hundred times and I still feel more emotionally involved with their stories than I did feel with “Prometheus” and its characters. But maybe the film has to grow on me, I will definitely give it another chance.
Technical:
Ridley Scott knows how to create great images, and I had nothing to complain about the technical aspects of the film. In fact, I loved the photography and the sets, as they felt “home” for an old “Alien”-fan, even if the ship looked not as old and creepy as the “Nostromo” interiors. I’ll have to mention Marc Streitenfeld’s score, as I really loved it. Great opening theme and over all a good musical score. I really liked the little musical homage to Goldsmith’s “Alien”-score when Peter Weyland was first introduced at the crew briefing sequence. That put a big smile on my face. I also liked the fact that most of the creature effects were done for “real” with animatronics and puppets, and CGI was not overdone.
Connections to “Alien”
So…prequel or not? Sometimes I had the feeling that the writers desperately wanted to put certain elements of the original movie into “Prometheus”, for example the last survivor running around or the closing lines.
Bottom line:
Maybe my expectations have been too high.
“Prometheus” is not a bad film and I’m still thinking about it, which is a good sign. Overall, it was a nice experience at the theatre, a visually stunning trip back to the “Alien”-world, and I quite enjoyed the ride. But then again, I really would have liked to get more information about the Engineers, more character background and not that many plot holes.
I’m looking forward to watch it again, as I think it’s a film that has to grow on its audience.
Our thanks to Michael for the well thought-out review. If you have an opinion on Prometheus, or anything else related to the Alien franchise or Ridley Scott, why not write your own piece, and we’ll publish it here.
The BBFC have again been busy rating more special features for the Prometheus home video release.
Most exciting in latest bunch is a collection of deleted and alternate scenes, totalling just under 35 minutes. They are as follows:
ARRIVAL OF THE ENGINEERS – 2m 31s
T’IS THE SEASON – 0m 58s
OUR FIRST ALIEN – 0m 42s
SKIN – 0m 42s
WE’RE NOT ALONE ANYMORE 1m 22s
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS – 2m 57s
HOLLOWAY HUNGOVER – 1m 25s
DAVID’S OBJECTIVE – 23s
JANEK FILLS VICKERS IN – 3m 27s
A KING HAS HIS REIGN – 3m 40s
FIFIELD ATTACKS – 2m 01s
THE ENGINEER SPEAKS – 4m 6s
FINAL BATTLE – 5m 30s
PARADISE – 5m 5s
So, there are some pretty lengthy scenes in there, with intriguing titles. It looks like we’ll get to see the original opening with the ‘Elder Engineers’, the original Fifield creature design (both as seen here), more of David’s chat with the ‘Last Engineer’, an extended version of Shaw’s fight with the engineer, and an perhaps a better glimpse at where the sequel may be headed.
On the other hand, as these scenes would seem to fill in many of the blanks, I’m not sure what else may be left for an extended cut, which has itself not yet been confirmed…
There are also a collection of featurettes, TV spots, trailers and trailer teasers:
SPACE TRAVEL – 2m 12s
ITUNES TOMORROW – 0m 29s
ITUNES 2 DAYS – 0m 29s
ITUNES 3 DAYS #1 – 0m 29s
TV SPOT: TRAILER ANNOUNCEMENT – 0m 19s
INT’L TRAILER E CUTDOWN SOFT – 0m 58s
A FILM THIRTY YEARS IN THE MAKING – PROMETHEUS – 1m 33s
23 x TV SPOTS – 10m 54s
VISION OF PROMETHEUS – 2m 18s
PROMETHEUS – FIRST LOOK – 11m 31s
We’ve added all of these to this page here, which we’ll keep up to date as new features are confirmed.
Don’t forget you can pre-order Prometheus now via our UK and US stores!
The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog caught up with Damon Lindelof, who told them about the genesis of the Prometheus viral campaign and his use of Twitter.
You can read the whole thing here, but there are a few snippets below:
How did you come up with the idea for these viral videos?
I was working on the script and the story with Ridley directly and this guy Michael Ellenberg who is a producer on the movie. Ridley was aware of “Lost” but Michael was a watcher of it, not just the show, but a lot of the stuff we did virally between the seasons, and the courtship of the fanbase primarily through events like Comic Con. I was aggressively tweeting by the last season of the show, so he understood the idea of a two-way street. He made it clear that Ridley wouldn’t be engaging in any of that, not for lack of caring what the fans thought. He doesn’t have a Twitter handle or even an email address…but he was open to the idea of engaging with the fan base and so the big question that emerged out of the gate was: What is this movie’s relationship to the original “Alien”? Is it a prequel? How is it a prequel? Is it an entirely original movie?
I thought that instead of us answering questions in mainstream media, was there a way to control the story by releasing content before the movie that just isn’t the trailer. They were like “What do you mean?” I said, “We can do some cool viral stuff.” And the best viral content stars the actors, the stars who are actually in the movie. I thought if we could talk Michael Fassbender into doing this, or Guy Pearce, that would be awesome. But we are going to have to have these ideas figured out by the time we are shooting the movie because that’s when we have those actors.
Do you think movie marketing is become more of a conversation?
Yes. That’s why we designed the content the way we did. Weyland’s TED talk is a talk to an audience, and the audience is a proxy for the audience that’s watching it. The “David 8” spot is a commercial, not for “Prometheus,” but for a robot you can’t actually buy. Sometimes when you put content out there and it’s just a scene from the movie it’s exactly the same experience you’d get in a movie theater. But I do think people, particularly when it comes to viral content, like content that’s talking directly to them, creating that level of interactivity.
I noticed that you’ve been responding mostly to negative comments [on Twitter] — do you like to do that?
I am amused if somebody says something cleverly negative about it. The mean negatives, there is nothing pleasant about that experience whatsoever for me. I try to not address it unless it’s so horrible that I feel the need to tell everybody who follows me, “Just so you know, there are people out there who says this.” If somebody says something positive it’s something I want to keep to myself.
Were you prepared for the opening results?
The tracking that they had been presenting me was well short of what we did opening weekend. I don’t know if they were just hedging, but I think between the R rating and opening against “Madagascar.” It was always “Madagascar” was going to win the weekend. So, $30-35 million was what they were hoping for…when they did $50 [million] I was surprised.
Prometheus is directed by Ridley Scott, from a screenplay by Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts. The film stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall, Logan Marshall-Green, Patrick Wilson and Kate Dickie, and is now on release around the world.
Wired caught up with creature designer Neville Page, who discusses his work on several recent projects, including Prometheus, and, in the final seconds, the Blade Runner sequel.
It’s clear that Scott has a trusted circle of creative collaborators that he takes with him from film to film, including cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, production designer Arthur Max, editor Pietro Scalia, and costume designer Janty Yates. It seems Page can now be added to that exclusive club!
In a round-up of this summer’s box office, The Hollywood Reporter got confirmation from Fox that a Prometheus sequel is being actively developed:
Fox confirms to THR that Scott and the studio actively are pushing ahead with a follow-up (stars Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace are signed) and are talking to new writers because Prometheus co-scribe Damon Lindelof might not be available. “Ridley is incredibly excited about the movie, but we have to get it right. We can’t rush it,” says Fox president of production Emma Watts, who also has overseen the successful reboots of the X-Men and Planet of the Apes franchises. A Prometheus sequel would be released in 2014 or 2015.
Fantastic news – though let’s not confuse development with active production – but let’s hope they don’t rush things too much – there’s much more story to tell, and I’d rather wait for them to get it right!
As overseas readers may or may not know, with a few exceptions such as sports and music events, in the UK all material destined for legal home video release must be rated by the BBFC, which lets us see in advance what movie studios have lined up for special features on Blu-ray and DVD.
Prometheus is no exception, and following last week’s audio commentaries, today – July 27th – a load more extra features have been classified.
There may be more to come, but here’s what we’ve got so far:
PROMETHEUS – PETER WAYLAND FILES – Running 17m 58s, and consiting of:
QUIET EYE: ELIZABETH SHAW
VIRAL VIDEO: PROMETHEUS TRANSMISSION
VIRAL VIDEO: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID
VIRAL VIDEO: TED CONFERENCE 2023
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND: POST-PRODUCTION AND RELEASE – Running 29m 26s
There are also a selection of brief talking head clips with the cast about their characters
There’s definately a great selection of extras there, with some very intriguing titles! We’ll keep our eyes peeled for any more!
Don’t forget you can pre-order Prometheus now via our UK and US stores!
Prometheus is directed by Ridley Scott, from a screenplay by Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts. The film stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall, Logan Marshall-Green, Patrick Wilson and Kate Dickie, and is now on release around the world.
Just a couple of weeks after showing off some of their upcoming Prometheus figures at Comic-Con, NECA have teased us with this image of an in-progress mutant Fifield sculpt, posted to their Twitter feed.
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