Prometheus Spoiler Alert.

Okay- I've seen Prometheus, Ridley Scott's prequel to his SF classic, Alien. Verdict? Pretty good. Not as good as the first two Alien films, but better than the rest. I liked the teaser trailers:

TED conference

Introducing “David”

This brought back a very old tradition of shooting footage only for use in the trailer and not the actual film. It's reminiscent, in that respect, of Hitchcock's classic Psycho trailer.

A few things surprised me about Prometheus.

1. I thought David would defect and prove himself an enemy.
2. I thought Charlize Theron's character was an android. Her personality and decision-making were both cold throughout.
3. Peter Weyland turning up, old and infirm, on the ship. This was a bit far-fetched.
4. The eggs seen at the start of Alien must have hatched from a queen, as seen in Aliens. The only sign of the queen in Prometheus was a brief illustration engraved in a wall inside the ship. Am I missing something?
   
   
   A separate thought: Here's an earlier film in the Alien franchise, Alien vs Predator.

There's a Weyland character in this film as well, and it's implied that he's the founding father of the Weyland Yutani corporation. This was set in present day (2004) and played by Lance Henriksen. Henricksen also played Bishop in Aliens, so there's a suggestion that Weyland designed Bishop after his younger self.

But this is seemingly a different Weyland, even though the films exist in seemingly the same universe. I think Hollywood fucked up here.

AVP was turned into a movie from this script by Shane Salerno. Let's be honest: it's not great.

In 1996, however, Peter Briggs adapted the AVP graphic novel (which is awesome) into a script (which is also pretty damned good.) 

Not only was this story better than the finished AVP movie, but it would have allowed the characters in Prometheus to comfortably exist inside both the Alien and Predator universes simultaneously.

Other thoughts: giving a character a Scottish accent does not make her comic relief. Also, the cockney punk guy was a bit of a clichéd cock.

I was really hoping that Prometheus would deepen and enrich the story of the film it prequels- Alien.

I was hoping it would add something more about how the Weyland Yutani corporation was formed, and how they discovered the Alien species. I wanted to see who gave the order to send the Nostromo to land on LV426. I wanted it to be the Godfather Part II of the SF world, and with Scott again at the helm that was entirely possible- but it didn't happen. I wanted to see how the eggs ended up in the ship, what happened to the queen alien in this ship and possibly a character from Alien as their younger self. Was Captain Dallas rising quickly through the ranks as a twenty-something? Was somebody working on a blueprint for the android Ash? All of these opportunities were squandered.

Prometheus is a good film and well worth a watch, but Ridley Scott has slipped drastically over the last few years. Alien, Blade Runner and Thelma and Louise are all-time classic movies. American Gangster was fun but predictable. Gladiator was basically Conan the Barbarian with a bigger budget. That crusades thing was boring.

Scott is capable of making all-time classic movies, but he isn't doing. Is he getting too old?