Gore 4 Reel horror for real horror fans!
In an interview with Empire, director Ridley Scott announced that the script for his follow-up to Prometheus, entitled Paradise, is completed. This is great news for fans of Scott’s 2012 “Alien” hybrid, which left off with *** spoilers *** Noomi Rapace’s Shaw and Michael Fassbender’s David leaving the distant moon LV-223 aboard an Engineer’s vessel into the unknown, when Shaw declares, “I don’t want to go where we came from, I want to go where they came from.” That certainly lends itself to a very intriguing sequel.
Though Prometheus proved polarizing among sci-fi and “Alien” fans for perceived gaps in logic and poor character choices, it nevertheless was a visually striking and thought-provoking epic science fiction tale, the likes of which are rarely seen on screen anymore. One can only hope a sequel will improve upon its predecessor. According to Fassbender, 20th Century Fox is high on the sequel (it grossed over $126 million in the U.S., and over $400M worldwide), and they want to take their time and do it right. Scott, meanwhile, has two other films he’s doing first, the biblical epic, “Exodus”, and “The Forever War”, a “science fiction thing” based on a book by Joe Haldeman. So, the hope is for Prometheus 2 to film in 2015. So, though some key pieces are in place, it will still take a little while before we see the next chapter in the uniquely inventive Alienverse.
re-watching 1 again . still trying to decide.
Prometheus has certainly divided fans, even among the Gore 4 themselves. Hope you found the film more compelling the second time around and could appreciate what the filmmakers were trying to do.
Yup… Even among the GORE 4 this movie was disputed! Yes, it was visually stunning and was pure sci-fi, but, like Lucas’ newer 3 Star Wars films, it very much had the look and feel like it was a movie made YEARS after the originals. I know technology has advanced in film making, but what’s wrong with at least making it LOOK like it was from the same universe as their predecessors? Prometheus looked more like they were much further in the future than in Alien (or Aliens, for that matter!) This movie felt like a sci-fi fantasy, since it seemed like it was so removed from us, with nothing much for us to identify with. Alien just felt closer to home. We were able to identify with the characters more – they were more like people we see or run into every day, stuck in a bad situation. I think that’s why we were pulled into the world of Alien much easier. Alien was a work of art – a space opera with terror – a dirty 2001: A Space Odyssey. Prometheus was more like Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit in space. It simply felt less real. I will watch it again, and probably again, but like the prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, I will only watch it as a change of pace, while I will watch Alien (and John Carpenter’s The Thing), over and over again for pure enjoyment, thrills and satisfaction.
I understand what you are saying about the film having a ‘newer’ look, and it can be difficult making sequels/prequels have a similar look to their predecessors while you have all this new technology in visual effects at your disposal. But you have to remember something when comparing Prometheus to Alien/Aliens. In Alien, the crew was basically blue collar workers hauling ore in a refinery towing ship. In Aliens, they were Marine grunts on a military mission. However, in Prometheus, this was a scientific exploration funded by a multi-billion dollar corporation. They had the best technology available to them. So it is entirely plausible that the ship and accompanying technology in Prometheus would have a more advanced look. They were simply funded better, and were doing more sophisticated work. It’s like comparing the machinery used today by a geneticist or surgeon to that of someone drilling for oil or working at a machine shop.
As for the film being pure sci-fi, certainly Prometheus is science fiction in every sense of the term. But there are certainly extreme moments of horror on display too, from the grisly fate of the explorers in the caves, to the tentacled monster gestating inside of Shaw. That self-operation sequence was one of the most intense, horrific scenes in recent movie history, if not all-time. Any time you have monsters or creatures out to kill you and blood is being spilled, that is horror, even if the setting and everything else around you shouts sci-fi.
All told, any film that questions mankind’s origins and its place in the universe and attempts to explore those ideas and get answers, has much greater ambition than most films and that is welcome in an age of summer blockbusters filled with explosions and mayhem. And the way Prometheus ends, any sequel looks to explore those themes even further. Can’t wait.
Your points are taken. And one of the best scenes in Prometheus was the self-surgery scene. However, I simply didn’t like the direction they took in this prequel. Seems to me they were following an upswing in the trend of the “ancient aliens” idea for our origin. Why not keep it ALIEN? It makes for more mystery and opens a universe of horror to explore. They’re bringing it right back down to Earth – literally. But, no matter how you look at it, the new polished look seems way more advanced than the look in Alien and it’s still supposed to be who-knows-how-long BEFORE Alien, and I’m guessing quite a while, judging from the decrepit condition of the way the derelict ship looked and the FOSSILIZED remains of the Space Jockey. Everything seemed ancient (AND alien). James Cameron changed the life-cycle of the aliens in the sequel, but it didn’t matter so much because that was something not really explored in Alien the film, plus his movie was sensational. Now, Ridley Scott is veering from his original vision so many years later, giving us “ancient aliens”. Just thought it fell short of an opportunity for a grander, more horrifying vision. But, I shall wait and see where this new vision will take us in his next installment and try to bite my tongue until then.