Prometheus is not easily categorized, it rises from a murky lake laden with cliches, facsimiles & rip offs of its original 1979 masterpiece. This animal is burdened by weaknesses & comparisons but overall delivers what it set out to accomplish. Scotts return to Sci-fi is a success. Prometheus is visually spectacular, a franchise executed with a new dark vitriol in its veins yet it does not take full flight. As it attempts to change, to take a new form & show us new colors it finds its wings crippled. Were we fed too much? Did we see too much in all the extensive marketing & teasers? Maybe, but don't be distracted by this, for it still remains something you have not seen before. There were moments in viewing this movie which felt cumbersome, inconsistencies arose for which a director like Scott championed as "the master of small detail" felt corrupt. The early reviews slated the characterization of the main protagonists, a damning lack of depth in the leads, this is true. Thematically the major introduction of faith tried to form a structure in the mire, to quantify drive. Faith is not necessary as a theme, a conflict in ideology is not enough to push this dark visage to climax, fear is enough, simply fear of oneself. That is what the movie evoked early on but somehow stumbled past. Prometheus heralded great metaphors like sound bites yet it somehow seemed to forget its dark birthing, its lineage, its birthright. Terror once again was conceived in space, yet marred by consistency, somewhat stalled by cerebral glitter. This movie is not a prequel to Alien yet it is a prequel to Alien. Prometheus was the wrong title for this movie, Ouroboros was more fitting -a serpent, a circular being, the first living in the universe a mythologically constructed beast devouring itself but also constantly re-creating itself. That is this movie, searching for something new in the darkness finding only mirrors reflecting its disfigurement, its reality. That is what Prometheus attempted to escape from but it cannot do so, so it flourishes with a new contemporary complexity, a new form & we wait patiently for signs of familiar DNA & they are revealed & what is learned? Can we escape from what we are? Can we as Emperors wear new clothes? Can we transform & mutate? No we cannot, no matter how we paint ourselves. We still yearn for something familiar, something we have already experienced as children, like perceiving inspiration. Rarely is it something new, mostly it is a reminder of what already exists. We crave fear, we are bound by what we desire. Prometheus has not created a new Universe it has reminded us of something very important, we are old, we are tested, we as an audience hold too much knowledge, we are in love with ourselves, our lavish intellect & understanding but this is what also cripples us. This is why life must end, why it is so hard to regenerate, to form new life without death. Alien was born from a disfigured nightmarish intellect. Prometheus was born from vanity, from adulation but it still somehow succeeded because Scott knew this, its written throughout the movie, we are mesmerized by the possibility, like the greatest idea that never was it is enough to sustain us, to make us pause.
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