the m0vie blog

So, what exactly is Ridley Scott’s upcoming Prometheus? The director was all set to make an Alien prequel a few months ago, but all the rumours coming out of the production seem to be throwing me for a loop – I’m not quite sure what to make of them. To quote Scott himself:

While Alien was indeed the jumping off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien’s DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative. I couldn’t be more pleased to have found the singular tale I’d been searching for, and finally return to this genre that’s so close to my heart.

We’ll spot “strands of Alien’s DNA”, but it’s a “new, grand mythology”? I’m not quite sure what to expect of it. And that, to be honest, excites me quite a bit.

Great Scott!

There have been a whole host of rumours circulating about the film since late last year, and all of them seemed a lot stranger than one might have expected from a generic prequel or reboot. Being honest, I was worried that Fox would attempt to force Scott to simply offer “more of the same”, ignoring the fact that the once terrifying creatures have since become quite banal. I was worried it would be a simple attempt to emulate what had come before, ignoring the fact that the best entries in the franchise – the original Alien and its sequel Aliens – worked because they were so new and deeply strange.

There were some very weird rumours circulating about the film. Initially, it seemed that the movie would eschew humans all together and focus on the Space Jockeys – which seemed a crazy idea for a major Hollywood production:

It’s set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley]. It’s fundamentally about going out to find out ‘Who the hell was that Space Jockey?’ The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer’s chair. … [The film] is about the discussion of terraforming — taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life.

To make an entire film without a human character aimed at an adult audience within the studio system? That’s very ambitious, and it grabbed my attention – even if I was uncertain about how in the world Scott would pull it off.

Scott is playing details close to his chest...

And things got stranger from there. There was a leaked plot synopsis which as been somewhat derisively described as “Brokeback Alien”:

What’s Playing reports (or reported) that these extra terrestrials, now known as “growers” are nomadic types who travel from one planet to another, terraforming it for their own purposes (which may well hint at the origin of the murderous xenomorphs). In the film, they encounter two male human slave farmers and use a form of mind control on them to force them to have sex. The suggestion is that the growers want their captives to procreate, but have rather got the wrong idea, being themselves a single sex species.

Yep, you read that right. The rumour was that the script (worked on by Damon Lidelof of Lost) would feature mind-controlled gay sex. A lot of people focused on the “gay” aspect of that sentence, but I have to admit that any mind-controlled sex (and therefore, I suppose, rape – since it’s non-consensual) seems very “out there” for a mainstream science fiction. It doesn’t matter whether it’s male-on-male, male-on-female or female-on-female – it’s not exactly what you’d expect from a Hollywood film.

It kinda disturbed me, to be honest. I know that the Alien creature itself has always been a metaphor for sexual violence. Look at the design of the creature by H.R. Giger, right down to the way that it forcibly impregnates its human host. There’s always been an element of sexual violence about the creature, even implicitly. However, there’s something that just feels strange about taking that (admitted heavy) subtext and making it explicit.

Jockeying for position?

However, perhaps making your audience feel uncomfortable is what the film should do. It’s hard to engage or interest people if you’re going to retread what came before. Which is why this announcement that it isn’t quite a literal prequel to Alien intrigues me so. Recent casting announcements certainly hark back to the original films – from the casting of Naomi Rapace, famous for her strong female lead in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, as the lead here to the presence of Michael Fassbender as an android. A strong female lead and an android are two of the key ingredients of the Alien franchise, so it’s hard not to get a sense of nostalgia.

At the same time, it seems that the movie isn’t counting on its ties to the earlier film to support it. It clearly wants to be its own movie, which is something bold and brave. There’s some suggestion that, despite Scott’s quotes and the change in title, even the eponymous creatures might make an appearance:

“They’ve built the ‘space jockey’ cockpit at Pinewood as seen in the original Alien film, so it definitely takes place in the same world as Alien”, they told us.

“Despite that press release that seemed to indicate there were no aliens in the movie, the familiar HR Giger-style aliens do appear. Big ones apparently.”

However, the movie doesn’t seem to be relying too heavily on the monsters, which is great – at least in my opinion.

Looking for something truly alien...

Other than that, we only have conjecture. But the very name “Prometheus” invites rampant speculation. It is, as some have pointed out, perhaps a reference to an earlier script by writer Jon Spaihts. However, it’s also a classic reference to the Greek god who brought fire down from the heavens to share with humanity, and paid dearly for it. Even the most iconic story of science and the quest for knowledge (the proverbial fire), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is subtitled “The Modern Prometheus”.

I would be very disappointed if the movie doesn’t touch on the classical themes of mankind’s perpetual flirtation with annihilation through our pursuit of knowledge. Somewhere scientists are crying, wondering where all the “good science” movies are – rather than stories where they continually threaten humanity with extinction – but I like me some classical and epic themes. Oppenheimer would be proud.

Fass to Fass...

I find myself desperately hoping that the movie will go somewhere new, even as it is respectful of what came before. It would be fascinating to see a new twist on a familiar tale, to see a movie which is linked to – as Scott described it – the “DNA” of what came before, but without seeming like a retread. Movies are frequently tied together by genre and tone. A viewer who goes to a James Bond film knows what to expect, as does a cinemagoer who is hoping to see the next Marvel Studios film. Movies that share a classification or a common thread typically fall within the same grouping.

On the other hand, the few exceptions I can think of – the rare case where a movie took the “DNA” of a beloved property and attempted to repurpose it – haven’t always worked out well. I’m thinking of the decision to play Starsky and Hutch as a flatout comedy or Miami Vice as “dark and gritty” undercover cop film. However, I hold out hope that Scott knows exactly what he’s doing.

Because, right now, I have no idea what awaits me in the dark of the cinema in March 2012. And I couldn’t be happier about that.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: alien, DNA, Ellen Ripley, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, HR Giger, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Prometheus, ridley scott, shared universe, Space Jockey |