I know, I know. I said that I would be doing Lulu for my next post in this series but I was only able to get through about a third of the album before I kind of got disinterested for the time being. Not in the sense of not liking in since I didn't get enough of it to really say how I thought about it. More of just I didn't feel like writing about it. That would explain why I have not really gotten any work done lately aside from trying to write more from a more fictional aspect with my own ideas. That too has gone by a little slow as I feel like I'm dragging the story I'm writing to a slow pace that might be considered a complete stop of any momentum. That's what the editing process is for, though. But onto the topic at hand, the last week or so, I have kind of gotten a little more trigger happy with purchasing stuff than I should be, since I got my hands on a bunch of blu-rays, one being a set of films by the Coen Brothers, another being season one of True Detective, and the last (and also the cheapest purchase by comparison) being the topic for today, Ridley Scott's 2012 film Prometheus. I had not seen the film partially due to the amount of criticism it had gotten from critics and the public alike, praising some of it while really being angered by some other parts. It still got me interested due to the fact that it was a Ridley Scott film and that it was science fiction, since he does make a lot of movies (12 since 2000) and most of them do span different genres yet sci-fi has not been that prevalent with him since Blade Runner came out 30 years prior to this film. I'm not really that much of a fanboy of Scott's since A. I haven't seen a whole lot of his work aside from some of the more obvious one and B. some I've seen I don't really like all that much. To be honest, looking back at his filmography, I think I've only seen five of his films all the way through, two of which I wasn't really a fan of (GI Jane and Gladiator), one I thought was okay but it really did benefit from a director's cut (Kingdom of Heaven, which I might bring up later on) and the obvious ones I should like that I do that don't really need to mention.
So what could you call Prometheus as a film, since it tries really hard to distance itself from the other sci-fi film Scott is known for, Alien, yet there is a lot it takes from that film. It it obvious that both of those films take place within the same universe but does that give Prometheus the footing to call itself a prequel to Alien or is that not the case? There are some aspects that do call back to Alien, such as the whole design of the interior of the ship such as the room where all of the stasis chambers are and the like along with the creatures that roam the planet they stay on, which have that relation to the xenomorphs and their whole reproductive system representing those themes of rape and phallic symbols coming back. There is also the android who might have some ulterior motives hidden behind that facade. The bigger difference between the two that I could call right away is the scope that is trying to be achieved. With Alien, there is a huge sense of claustrophobia with all of the tight spaces and darkness within not only the Nostromo but also the derelict ship that they investigate, bringing the feeling of dread out more prominently. With Prometheus, it is more open, larger, brighter even with the scale of everything trying to mesh with the concepts and ideas that the movie itself is trying to convey. It's easy to say that Scott can make a beautiful looking movie and this one is no exception. I can give all the praise in the world for Michael Fassbender's performance as the android David since everyone else does and for good reason. The other characters do suffer a lot from the lack of development due to Scott's usual desire of having the pacing being the most important thing even if it leads to things not making any sense like the scene with Millburn and Fifield being the way it is. There is some things as well left in questioning that maybe a sequel would answer but maybe they left too many loose threads hanging.
This could really benefit from having a different cut. Not necessarily adding things that could been seen as superfluous but I think that there could be more scenes of character development with the crew along with not making the movie more like Alien. As is, I still like the movie but I really do see it as a missed opportunity as well, something that can be expected from Scott as of late. I'm sorry this turned out to be shorter than I expected but I really got distracted even though that isn't really a good excuse. But it might bring some good though since I think I'll start working on something that I hope people will like and I hope can turn out as well as I think it will be. That will be discussing the ending of True Detective, mainly what happened with Rust since that has been a really polarizing topic that a lot of people think ruined the show. I'll start off by saying I think the ending was really great but I'll try to talk about why on a future post.
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