Tag Archives: Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’

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Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus' Movie Review

Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’ Movie Review

I am pleased to welcome Ren Zelen to the Different Outcomes blog. Once again she graces us with her knowledge of movies, culture and science fiction in this delightfully rich review of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. It may well be that Mr. Scott did not quite hit his mark in Prometheus as he did with Alien and Blade Runner; nevertheless, Ren points out some interesting elements which might make it worth the price of admission.

Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’

Reviewed by Ren Zelen

“The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic” Charles Darwin

In ‘Prometheus’ Ridley Scott, director of ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner’, returns to the genre he helped to define, and again he seems to be concerned with giving us a slice of speculative fiction – one that concerns a key question, that of the creation of life. In ‘Blade Runner’ a gifted human runs a corporation that creates ‘replicants’ – clones engineered to be physically indistinguishable from their human counterparts, if anything, their physical characteristics are superior, but they are not allowed to developed emotionally, due to the ‘fail-safe’ device of a lifespan of merely four years, installed in case they get ‘uppity’ with their creators. But of course, they do get uppity, and a handful of them risk everything to go in search of their ‘creator’ to get some answers to the questions they feel compelled to ask. Although ‘Prometheus’ is ostensibly a sister film (supposedly a prequel) to Ridley Scott’s other ground-breaking sci-fi ‘Alien’, its characters are on the same quest as Roy Batty and his band of ‘replicants’ – they are in search of their creator and they are looking for answers.

In the Greek legend, Prometheus comes to a sticky end for delving into the secrets of the Gods. Clearly, the crew of the eponymous spaceship that sets off to find the answer to life, the universe and everything, in their eagerness and idealism, choose to gloss over that small detail. Not so the director, who remembers the Prometheus story only too well, and god-like, metes out an appropriately monstrous ‘sticky end’ to almost all of his cast.

Set around 40 years prior to the original movie, the movie features ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’’s Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender and Idris Elba. The story begins when two scientists believe they have discovered a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth and, finding private funding, they lead a team on a journey into the depths of the universe but, inevitably, they discover rather more than they bargained for. With a budget reportedly of around $130m (£84m), the new 3D blockbuster is on a much grander scale than Scott’s original ‘Alien’ movie (his second feature film) and its shoestring budget.

In the original ‘Alien’, the ship was a claustrophobic warren, whose crew were seen in the stark up-light that bounced off every antiseptic, white surface or were half hidden, cowering in the shadows of the dark, grubby tunnels of the industrial vessel. In this movie, the characters immediately make an excursion outside the ship into a colossal CGI landscape, a digital universe unavailable to Scott 30 years ago. Though strangely, this alien landscape seems to have a somewhat retro sci-fi look, reminiscent of the designs of strange worlds on seventies’ SF paperbacks and album covers. Technically, ’Prometheus’ is marvellous – visually stunning. Ridley Scott can still masterfully ‘paint’ a film. Shot in 3D but without letting the process dominate the movie in conception or execution, the film uses the process to enhance rather than overwhelm. The effects, supervised by Richard Stammers, build upon the outstanding production design by Arthur Max. Dariusz Wolski’s graceful cinematography synthesizes all the elements expertly and I was glad to note echoes of HR Giger’s original ground-breaking designs throughout. The race the crew encounters even had a touch of the muscular titans found in the apocalyptic etchings of William Blake.

In this movie, however, Scott has no stand-out charismatic character, such as Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty – ruthless, thwarted and ultimately tragic – who offered us one of the most poetic deaths in cinema history. It has an ‘Ellen Ripley’ of sorts, but here it seems she has been split between the two lead actresses. Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth is a more emotional character by far, but has the same relentless instinct of survival. In fact, her stamina is the most miraculous aspect of the movie. One must only assume that surgical procedures have advanced considerably in the future, as she is up, running and jumping almost immediately after a particularly gruesome major surgical procedure which normally requires considerable recuperation. I personally, stood amazed.

It is Charlize Theron who demonstrates Ripley’s cool-headed efficiency, calculation and attention to detail, admittedly, taken to a different level. The most delightful performance comes from Michael Fassbender, who plays David, the synthetic creation of another corporation head carried away by his own hubris. Being an earlier model of the latter synthetics of the ‘Alien’ franchise, he manages to appear more unnatural, while stealing the film with a chilling unctuousness rather like a knowing and slightly amused robotic ‘Jeeves’. He models his eerily Aryan look and slightly supercilious manner on Peter O’Toole in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and otherwise seems to be channelling the cold detachment of David Bowie’s ‘Man Who Fell to Earth’.

Unfortunately, gorgeous and exciting as it is, ‘Prometheus’ doesn’t have the impact of either ‘Alien’ or ‘Blade Runner’ because it offers philosophical ground that has already been well-trodden by Ridley Scott. Although it shares those films’ willingness to play with ideas and concepts, it merely expands on the ‘space-jockey’ mystery of the first ‘Alien’ movie and marries it to the ‘panspermia’ notion posited by Erich von Däniken’s 1968 notorious bestseller ‘Chariots of the Gods’ (a book my father related to me on his knee) which asserted that humankind was bred on Earth aeons ago by spaceman-aliens. (No-one mentions Von Däniken much anymore, his notion fell into disfavour and has been largely ignored). Here, the philosophy of the movie runs into several dead ends: So, did the aliens create all life on Earth, and if so, why did they spend so much time on the dinosaurs? (Though presumably, even they had teenagers to amuse.) How long ago did this happen – because the aliens’ map of Earth has the layout of continents as they appear today, post-Pangea ? Lindelof’s script is laced with inconsistencies and tends to nip every good idea in the bud or kill off a character just as things get interesting. The justifications are not particularly helpful in themselves and only serve to obscure one layer of mystery with another.

This movie is backed by a huge orchestral surge of a score, which meant that it conspicuously lacked the long, drawn-out silences and sense of menace and breath-holding tension that made the original ‘Alien’ movie so elegantly unnerving. This was a pity.

But Scott’s skill as a director makes sure that there is a driving narrative impulse throughout the film, as well as an endearing idealism regarding mankind’s drive to find answers. There is, as in his previous movies, an abiding interest in man’s connection to his technology and the responsibility he has towards it – the idea that we can learn about ourselves through that which we sometimes inadvertently create – and that is a fitting notion for any artist or engineer to contemplate.

Copyright R.H. Zelen – ©RenZelen 2012 All rights reserved.

Please visit Ren’s action and information packed blog, Lethal Lexicon. While there you must sample some of her series Pitchfork Red. If you read just a little, you will be hooked. Part Philip K. Dick and part Raymond Chandler, Pitchfork Red will take you on the science fiction ride of your life. Follow @RenZelen on Twitter for the latest tweets on pop culture and gothic horror along with excellent micro poetry. Ren Zelen is the author of the post-apocalyptic novel, The Hathor Diaries, which is available for Kindle. Thank you, Ren, for today’s wonderful article. You are always welcome at Different Outcomes!

Promotional images courtesy of Prometheus Forum

ALIEN: A Sci-fi Iconoclast

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Prometheus3

As we await what could be the movie event of the summer, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, pop culture guru Ren Zelen takes us back in time with a discussion of the groundbreaking movie by the same director about a cute little alien that liked to pop out of stomachs. Alien took the science fiction world by storm and Prometheus promises to do it all over again–but maybe with a few new twists. Prometheus is in theatres June 8th. Check out the trailer.

ALIEN: A Sci-fi Iconoclast

By Ren Zelen

“Believing the strangest things, loving the alien”

Alien is one of the most discussed, dissected and academically analysed movies in modern cinema. Considering so much has been said about it, the film seems to be simplicity itself: a tense, linear storyline, an innovatively envisioned setting, sparse dialogue – it is simple, but close to perfect. Belying its high production values and box-office success, Alienwas made on a shoestring by Hollywood standards (approximately US$11 million). It just goes to show that a little creativity and imagination goes much further than mere dollars. Without the benefit of CGI, Ridley Scott and the Swiss surrealist artist H.R Giger relied on their artistic inventiveness to create this iconic and hugely influential science-fiction movie. We would never see space travel the same way again.

Before we get excited by Ridley Scott’s return to his Alien universe with his upcoming movie, Prometheus, it may be timely to remind ourselves what caused us to feel this anticipation in the first place.

It is hard for current generations to imagine a time in science-fiction before Alien, a time before face-huggers, chest-bursters and strong heroines, but such a time there was.

In the science-fiction movies of the fifties, sixties and early seventies, the role of female characters, with rare exceptions, was confined to mixing cocktails for their scientist husbands and screaming and fainting at inconvenient moments. They were there to be ‘protected’ and‘rescued’ by the male protagonists, often as adjuncts in a larger scheme of saving the world. Apart from the occasional appearance as tightly-costumed, science-babe-eye-candy, their role was generally as helpmeets, or consisted of dithering hysterically and getting in the way of the serious business of the menfolk.

After three (four if you count the ‘Predator/Alien’excursion) subsequent Alien movies, countless imitators, and the wholesale plundering of Giger and Scott’s sci-fi visual language, it is hard for latter generations to comprehend sci-fi movies that came before, since the entire‘look’ and tone of sci-fi was forever altered. As a female raised by a father with a fondness for sci-fi B-movies of times past, I found Alien a revelation. It was a shock to see a female character, thanks to her mixture of ingenuity, practicality and luck – allowed to finish a movie as the sole survivor. I’d never seen that happen before – just as I’d never seen a face-hugger, a chest-burster or that outstanding Giger visualization, the Xenomorphic alien (for which he won an Oscar).

It’s impossible now to approach Alien as a first-time viewer and feel anything resembling its original impact. Everyone knows too much about each of the iconic scenes of the movie, whether they’ve seen it or not, whether they like sci-fi or not. It made an international star of Sigourney Weaver and of the Xenomorph she managed (against all cultural odds) to escape. We have become so familiar with the ‘Alien’of the title, most viewers don’t realise when watching the original movie, that the creature is never really seen properly until the last few shots. (We didn’t actually get to see that fabulous creation in its full glory until the James Cameron action sequel, Aliens.)

Martin Scorsese, in his recent film Hugo, reminds us through his fictionalized character of Georges Méliès, that film is a potent medium because of its link to dreams and unconscious states. In that sense, science-fiction film can be seen as a genre predicated on the exploration of the bizarre, fantastic, and unusual – most closely connected to the imaginary, to dreams and possibilities. Despite its apparent simplicity, Alien tapped into some deep psychological territory, and this is another reason why its resonance is still felt throughout popular culture today.

Prometheusapparently, will deal with the problem of origins, but we must look back to Alien to seewhere these questions were first formulated. That movie began with the camera exploring the inner-space of the mother-ship, tracking down a corridor to a womb-like chamber which houses the crew, wakened from a protracted sleep by the craft’s support-system, aptly named ‘Mother’. Their waking mimics a kind of rebirth, but they emerge into a clean, antiseptic, white-walled ambience – well-controlled and regulated with no hint of blood, trauma or pain. Contrast this with the crashed, unknown ship three of the crew are later required to enter (through those vulvic openings). That interior is mysterious, dark, dank and organic. They are lost within its hugeness, and tiny in comparison to the giant figure of the life-form they find inside, fossilized in its death-throws.

Crew member Kane is lowered into a steamy chamber housing rows of eggs, the most basic of organic forms. As his hand touches one of them it opens up, revealing a fleshy, pulsating interior. The thing inside leaps out, smashes through his helmet and penetrates through Kane’s mouth – reaching deep inside him in order to fertilize itself within the secure confines of his stomach. Many primal fears are invoked here – the fear of suffocation, of forced penetration and of unwanted pregnancy, and just for good measure, this invasive violence and subsequent gestation is perpetrated upon a man. The Alien is not fussy about whom it impregnates.

The now, well-known scene of Kane’s bloody birthing of the Alien ‘baby’ was originally one of the most jolting cinematic ambushes in cinema history. It begins innocently enough, with Kane apparently recovered and the Nostromo ‘family’ happily reunited over dinner – but it ends with Kane convulsing in agony, being held down by his unwitting crewmates, when, with a cracking of rib-bones and a spray of blood and entrails the Alien infant gnaws and bursts its way out of his torso, hisses at the stupefied, gore-splattered crew, and scurries out of sight. On its first release, the cinema-goers were just as shocked as the crew- in space, apparently, ‘no-one can hear you scream’. Here, we discover the invasive ‘alien’ violating the human body, bursting through its flimsy organic matter and the barriers of sexual identity – and that birth is death – talk about invoking subconscious Freudian fears!

But probably the bravest twist in the original Alien movie was to kill off the central character of the rugged and manly captain (Tom Skerritt) mid-narrative, and against all contemporary expectations, to allow the prettiest woman on board to be the shrewd and tenacious survivor – to allow Ellen Ripley to take the role of monster vanquisher. In that first movie she emerged gradually from an ensemble cast to be the focus of identification, but following on from that, Sigourney Weaver’s character of Ripley was to become the connecting thread that was torun through all the Alien sequels, making it the first movie series to be focussed on and powered by a female protagonist.

The movie’s auteur, Ridley Scott, decided to quit the franchise while he was ahead – until now. Perhaps the temptation to answer some of the questions his first movie posed and to tie up some of the threads left hanging, was just too strong. So, 33 years later, Prometheus arrives to provide us with answers, and, presumably, with further questions.

“You’re what? You’re still collating? I find that hard to believe.” Ellen Ripley

Copyright R.H. Zelen – ©RenZelen 2012 All rights reserved.

Please visit Ren’s action and information packed blog, Lethal Lexicon. While there you must sample some of her series Pitchfork Red. If you read just a little, you will be hooked. Part Philip K. Dick and part Raymond Chandler, Pitchfork Red will take you on the science fiction ride of your life. Follow @RenZelen on Twitter for the latest tweets on pop culture and gothic horror along with excellent micro poetry. Ren Zelen is the author of the post-apocalyptic novel, The Hathor Diaries, which is available for Kindle. Thank you, Ren, for today’s wonderful article. You are always welcome at Different Outcomes!

(first published on http://www.spookyisles.com)