Prometheus
One does not simply walk into LZ226. One does not stomp recklessly back into a beloved universe. One does not lightly prance when conjuring a tale on the origin of our species. One treats such things with great care, profound respect, love, and in the full knowledge that under their feet, the hearts and hopes of millions lie trembling.
Peter Jackson and Joss Whedon understood these things. And they made their choices, wisely.
George Lucas did not, either when journeying back to Tatooine or re-donning the fedora. He chose, as the cold light of day clearly shows, poorly.
Prometheus is Episode 1. They fucked it up that bad.
Let's be clear: this isn't Sir Ridley's fault. He showed up and did what he was supposed to, and did it well. Sure he's the director, but not in a Scorsese, Coppola, Kurosawa, Lynch, Cronenberg, Leigh, Loach kind of a way. He's a commercial director. Just because he's won a few awards and a Knighthood for "services to the British Film Industry", let's not confuse him with an auteur - one who authors. Directing, for Ridley, is a job, a set of tasks. The individual bits of directing, on the set, he knows how to do. Look how well everyone acts. Look how good all the elements look. Listen - it even sounds great.
Ridley is an old-fashioned commercial director. Actually, he's a commercials director. Put a can of Pepsi in front of him and tell him to sell it, he'll do it (exhibit a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8IAqatjQVk). Yes, he's got a special skill when it comes to conjuring worlds and making things look pretty. But he's not someone that feels any ownership or authorship over a movie. Put a script in front of him, give him a budget and some actors, and he'll do his job. Should he be more than that? No. Did we expect more from him with Prometheus? Yes, yes we did. And more fool us.
Look at Scott's back catalogue. Once you get past Alien, Blade Runner, and maybe Gladiator (does it really belong on that list?), the rest of his CV looks like a smorgasbord of varying quality fare. For every Blade Runner, there are at least 3 stinking turds: GI Jane, Kingdom of Heaven, Black Rain. I'll see your Alien and raise you a Hannibal, A Good Year, Robin Hood. This is not the CV of a man who prizes quality above all else. This is the CV of a man who lucked out with a couple of scripts and collaborators, and has coasted off them for 30 years. More than anything else, Prometheus has achieved one thing - it's shown Ridley Scott up for the one-dimensional hack director that he is.
What was it about Alien that we all loved? The relatability of space miners going about their business and being confronted by a creature from the deepest shadows of our subconscious. Thank you writer Dan O'Bannon (who also wrote Alien's comedy alter-ego, Dark Star) and designer H.R. Giger. Blade Runner - what is it to be human, and how amazing does L.A. look in the future? Kudos, Philip K. Dick and Syd Mead. Yes, of course it was Scott that chose and brought those elements together, but either he's recently lost his knack for finding great collaborators, or he just got lucky. Given the rest of his filmography over a 30 year period, the odds stack up in favour of blind luck.
The one saving grace is that he's open about it all. His job is to put "bums on seats". Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/prometheus/21646/ridley-scott-on-a-longer-prometheus-cut
"Dramatically, I’m about putting bums on seats. For me to separate my idea of commerce from art - I’d be a fool. You can’t do that. I wouldn’t be allowed to do the films I do. So I’m very user friendly as far as the studios are concerned. To a certain extent, I’m a businessman. I’m aware that’s what I have to do. It’s my job. To say, 'Screw the audience.' You can’t do that. 'Am I communicating?' is the question. Am I communicating? Because if I’m not, I need to address it."
He says, communicating badly.
Why is he like this? My guess is that he's tired of being on the little kids table at the beardy directors convention. There's Lucas and Cameron, sitting on top of the WW box office gross lists. Either of them can fart out a special edition and buy a new sub-continent. Ridley, on the other hand, has to continue to slave away at 70, making new films just to make ends' meet. He's sick of being the also-ran - he wants in on the special edition handle crank cash dispenser. And look, no sooner is Prometheus out, than he's already talking about a DVD/BD with 30 minutes extra footage. The theatrical version is only 2 hours long. But wait, maybe if it's shorter, they can have more showings in the theaters before everyone gets wind of its stench. And then, we can release the "Coherent Cut" for the Holidays, featuring the footage that we've already shown in the trailer so people know it's there. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please put on your 3d glasses now as we rape your wallet.
So anyway, it's not Ridley's fault. He's a talent processing machine. Put Dan O'Bannon and Giger in, leave in the oven for 30 minutes, enjoy your marvel of sci-fi horror. Excellence in, excellence out. On the other hand, excrement in...
Damon Lindelof. I don't know him and if I ever met him, I'm sure he wouldn't be a total cunt. But as a writer, he's up there on the writers-who-are-cunts scale, near the top end, alongside M. Night Shawaddywaddy and whoever spewed up Matrix 2 and 3. I'm not a writer, so I'm sure it's really hard to do what he does. But one thing I'm pretty sure I'd learn if I went to writing-for-Hollywood school would be that you should probably have some characters in your films. And by characters, I'm not ever talking about deep, well-rounded, empathetic souls. Just people. Played by actors. Who perform actions that hint at some mind that does things according to a history before the film started. I'm pretty sure that would be important.
Prometheus doesn't really have characters. It has people that retain the same names and faces throughout the ordeal (ours, not theirs). But otherwise, there's nothing there to suggest that these are people, as you or I would define people. If your best friend suddenly turned around and stubbed a cigarette in your eye, you'd probably be quite surprised (and they don't even smoke!). Of if your beloved grandmother decided to start massacring kittens in blenders, you would probably testify that that was "out of character." That's kind of what it means - a range of behaviours that are to some extent predictable. There are no such things in Prometheus.
In Prometheus, human-shaped creatures do stuff, and then do other stuff, because it makes the story work. It doesn't matter that no human being that you have ever met, or will ever meet, would ever, ever act and react in the way that these creatures do. First contact with a sentient alien race? Here kitty kitty, eat my face off. Hey lady, try taking a step to the left when that ship is moving in one direction powered by nothing but gravity and with no ability to rapidly alter course. Go on, in your own time. Captain of the ship keeping watch while 2 crew members remain stranded overnight in an alien cave system? Sure, go have sex because the last thing you need to be doing is monitoring communications. Trillion dollar budget? So-called smart engineer guy with distracting mohican - maybe you should have ordered more than 4 of those pup things. Then you could wait for the place to get scanned before walking to your - oh wait, too late. You look like an archaeologist that's discovered the remains of an alien race in a distant galaxy. Probably a good idea to get pissed and wallow in a pit of despair so that robo-boy can spike your drink. It's like watching an inter-stellar Darwin Award, except without actual people.
Unfortunately, Prometheus has fallen into the category of so-empty-it's-not-worth-getting-upset-about. We can have a long discussion about over-promising and under-delivering in movies. We could ask questions about the plot, like "what's the black goo" and "why did David do that?" To ask those questions plays into their hands. Remember "why is there a polar bear on the desert island?" Or "what's the significance of those numbers?" The same mind farted out this stuff. The difference is, we're wise to this now. Just like with M. Night, we've seen through Lindelof's bag (shallow petri dish) of tricks, and we as an audience are better able to reject it. Prometheus didn't need to be about the birth of mankind. We didn't need to see a bunch of new alien species. We just wanted a story that made sense, the backstory to Alien, told well. What we got was a sequence of flashing lights that suggested a story, but never told one.
If you want a story about humans and Earth being part of a grand plan and an inter-stellar trip to its designers, read Douglas Adams and visit Magrathea. You'll be told a real story, by a master storyteller. It'll also re-raise your expectations, and allow you to properly evaluate Prometheus.
Prometheus gave fire to mankind by stealing from the gods. They chose the wrong Greek myth. The movie aimed high and in doing so, crashed and burned. Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof presented us with Icarus.
Peter Jackson and Joss Whedon understood these things. And they made their choices, wisely.
George Lucas did not, either when journeying back to Tatooine or re-donning the fedora. He chose, as the cold light of day clearly shows, poorly.
Prometheus is Episode 1. They fucked it up that bad.
Let's be clear: this isn't Sir Ridley's fault. He showed up and did what he was supposed to, and did it well. Sure he's the director, but not in a Scorsese, Coppola, Kurosawa, Lynch, Cronenberg, Leigh, Loach kind of a way. He's a commercial director. Just because he's won a few awards and a Knighthood for "services to the British Film Industry", let's not confuse him with an auteur - one who authors. Directing, for Ridley, is a job, a set of tasks. The individual bits of directing, on the set, he knows how to do. Look how well everyone acts. Look how good all the elements look. Listen - it even sounds great.
Ridley is an old-fashioned commercial director. Actually, he's a commercials director. Put a can of Pepsi in front of him and tell him to sell it, he'll do it (exhibit a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8IAqatjQVk). Yes, he's got a special skill when it comes to conjuring worlds and making things look pretty. But he's not someone that feels any ownership or authorship over a movie. Put a script in front of him, give him a budget and some actors, and he'll do his job. Should he be more than that? No. Did we expect more from him with Prometheus? Yes, yes we did. And more fool us.
Look at Scott's back catalogue. Once you get past Alien, Blade Runner, and maybe Gladiator (does it really belong on that list?), the rest of his CV looks like a smorgasbord of varying quality fare. For every Blade Runner, there are at least 3 stinking turds: GI Jane, Kingdom of Heaven, Black Rain. I'll see your Alien and raise you a Hannibal, A Good Year, Robin Hood. This is not the CV of a man who prizes quality above all else. This is the CV of a man who lucked out with a couple of scripts and collaborators, and has coasted off them for 30 years. More than anything else, Prometheus has achieved one thing - it's shown Ridley Scott up for the one-dimensional hack director that he is.
What was it about Alien that we all loved? The relatability of space miners going about their business and being confronted by a creature from the deepest shadows of our subconscious. Thank you writer Dan O'Bannon (who also wrote Alien's comedy alter-ego, Dark Star) and designer H.R. Giger. Blade Runner - what is it to be human, and how amazing does L.A. look in the future? Kudos, Philip K. Dick and Syd Mead. Yes, of course it was Scott that chose and brought those elements together, but either he's recently lost his knack for finding great collaborators, or he just got lucky. Given the rest of his filmography over a 30 year period, the odds stack up in favour of blind luck.
The one saving grace is that he's open about it all. His job is to put "bums on seats". Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/prometheus/21646/ridley-scott-on-a-longer-prometheus-cut
"Dramatically, I’m about putting bums on seats. For me to separate my idea of commerce from art - I’d be a fool. You can’t do that. I wouldn’t be allowed to do the films I do. So I’m very user friendly as far as the studios are concerned. To a certain extent, I’m a businessman. I’m aware that’s what I have to do. It’s my job. To say, 'Screw the audience.' You can’t do that. 'Am I communicating?' is the question. Am I communicating? Because if I’m not, I need to address it."
He says, communicating badly.
Why is he like this? My guess is that he's tired of being on the little kids table at the beardy directors convention. There's Lucas and Cameron, sitting on top of the WW box office gross lists. Either of them can fart out a special edition and buy a new sub-continent. Ridley, on the other hand, has to continue to slave away at 70, making new films just to make ends' meet. He's sick of being the also-ran - he wants in on the special edition handle crank cash dispenser. And look, no sooner is Prometheus out, than he's already talking about a DVD/BD with 30 minutes extra footage. The theatrical version is only 2 hours long. But wait, maybe if it's shorter, they can have more showings in the theaters before everyone gets wind of its stench. And then, we can release the "Coherent Cut" for the Holidays, featuring the footage that we've already shown in the trailer so people know it's there. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please put on your 3d glasses now as we rape your wallet.
So anyway, it's not Ridley's fault. He's a talent processing machine. Put Dan O'Bannon and Giger in, leave in the oven for 30 minutes, enjoy your marvel of sci-fi horror. Excellence in, excellence out. On the other hand, excrement in...
Damon Lindelof. I don't know him and if I ever met him, I'm sure he wouldn't be a total cunt. But as a writer, he's up there on the writers-who-are-cunts scale, near the top end, alongside M. Night Shawaddywaddy and whoever spewed up Matrix 2 and 3. I'm not a writer, so I'm sure it's really hard to do what he does. But one thing I'm pretty sure I'd learn if I went to writing-for-Hollywood school would be that you should probably have some characters in your films. And by characters, I'm not ever talking about deep, well-rounded, empathetic souls. Just people. Played by actors. Who perform actions that hint at some mind that does things according to a history before the film started. I'm pretty sure that would be important.
Prometheus doesn't really have characters. It has people that retain the same names and faces throughout the ordeal (ours, not theirs). But otherwise, there's nothing there to suggest that these are people, as you or I would define people. If your best friend suddenly turned around and stubbed a cigarette in your eye, you'd probably be quite surprised (and they don't even smoke!). Of if your beloved grandmother decided to start massacring kittens in blenders, you would probably testify that that was "out of character." That's kind of what it means - a range of behaviours that are to some extent predictable. There are no such things in Prometheus.
In Prometheus, human-shaped creatures do stuff, and then do other stuff, because it makes the story work. It doesn't matter that no human being that you have ever met, or will ever meet, would ever, ever act and react in the way that these creatures do. First contact with a sentient alien race? Here kitty kitty, eat my face off. Hey lady, try taking a step to the left when that ship is moving in one direction powered by nothing but gravity and with no ability to rapidly alter course. Go on, in your own time. Captain of the ship keeping watch while 2 crew members remain stranded overnight in an alien cave system? Sure, go have sex because the last thing you need to be doing is monitoring communications. Trillion dollar budget? So-called smart engineer guy with distracting mohican - maybe you should have ordered more than 4 of those pup things. Then you could wait for the place to get scanned before walking to your - oh wait, too late. You look like an archaeologist that's discovered the remains of an alien race in a distant galaxy. Probably a good idea to get pissed and wallow in a pit of despair so that robo-boy can spike your drink. It's like watching an inter-stellar Darwin Award, except without actual people.
Unfortunately, Prometheus has fallen into the category of so-empty-it's-not-worth-getting-upset-about. We can have a long discussion about over-promising and under-delivering in movies. We could ask questions about the plot, like "what's the black goo" and "why did David do that?" To ask those questions plays into their hands. Remember "why is there a polar bear on the desert island?" Or "what's the significance of those numbers?" The same mind farted out this stuff. The difference is, we're wise to this now. Just like with M. Night, we've seen through Lindelof's bag (shallow petri dish) of tricks, and we as an audience are better able to reject it. Prometheus didn't need to be about the birth of mankind. We didn't need to see a bunch of new alien species. We just wanted a story that made sense, the backstory to Alien, told well. What we got was a sequence of flashing lights that suggested a story, but never told one.
If you want a story about humans and Earth being part of a grand plan and an inter-stellar trip to its designers, read Douglas Adams and visit Magrathea. You'll be told a real story, by a master storyteller. It'll also re-raise your expectations, and allow you to properly evaluate Prometheus.
Prometheus gave fire to mankind by stealing from the gods. They chose the wrong Greek myth. The movie aimed high and in doing so, crashed and burned. Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof presented us with Icarus.
posted by Shin at 11:29 pm
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