Prometheus

Prometheus is the Greek Titans who decided to bring Fire to man. Which was awfully nice of him, but pissed off the Gods to no end. "Now they'll have fire." They said. "And they'll hit each other with it. That's what men do. You should have given it to the women!" For his impudence, Prometheus was chained to a rock, and had seagulls eat his liver. Each night, his liver would grow back, only to be eaten the next day as well. This is one of the few cases when have Wolverine-like regenerative capabilities would really suck. Also, I'm not sure why Zeus picked the liver. Does it have any special meanings to ancient Greece? Why not eyes? Or the tongue? Was there a big anatomical wheel that he spun beforehand? "Not the eyes, not the eyes, not the eyes ..." " ... Liver!" "Well, okay then. That doesn't seem so ba - ow!"

Anyway, Prometheus was also the name of the movie Evan and I went to see this week. We took Norm and Scott along as well, because hey, why not? The movie is named after the space ship the characters travel on. I think we tied the trailer game, but I can't remember too many of them, except for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I always like seeing that trailer in the theatre, because almost none of the audience knows it. So when the ridiculous title finally comes up, the whole theatre laughs in dibelief that they would actually make a movie this ... ludicrous. The only other trailer that comes to mind is Flight, because apparently Denzel Washington's oscar for Training Day is getting lonely.

The movie opens several thousand years ago with an alien on Earth (please bear in mind that when I say 'alien' Im not referring to the titular Alien in the franchise to which this is a prequel; I'm just saying extra-terrestrial). It dies (the alien, not the Earth, although that would be a cool way to start a movie). Suddenly, it's the future, and some people are exploring a cave. They find a painting that's similar to several other paintings, all with aliens pointing towards a particular star formation. "Why not go to that star formation?" they wonder. Maybe because you're in the Alien universe and would get eaten? Well, they don't know that, so they blithely go where no one has gone before, and die in horrible ways. Because, you know ... Alien movie.

Maybe I should have spoiler warned the previous paragraph, but you're not going to these movies for the intricacies of the plot (or maybe you are. Why?) You're going for the scares, deaths, and special effects. So this movie had scares, deaths, and very good special effects.

I liked the special effects, but I've never been a fan of horror movies, so I wasn't much into the horrible ways to die. Or the scares. So I give this movie a DVD rating, although I'm sure a number of people will love it far more than I. Instead, I'll finish the movie by picking nits. Massive nits, but nits nonetheless.

They have faster than light travel. The ship went halfway across the galaxy in two years (it's possible, due to relativistic time, that the trip took longer, but it probably took less than six, and at most 10 years). They also have mastered artificial gravity (walking around a ship in space normally). And finally, they have a completely human android. The Android does not have Wifi. All this tech and no wireless? Also, they send little flying balls (about the size of a softball) down hallways in a hollow mountain to map it. Can't they use sound? Seismic activity? There must be far better ways to map an unknown location.

Biology is pretty terrible. Firstly, the movie pretty much forgets about how similar simian and human DNA is. Second, the aliens on the planet seem to evolve and adapt incredibly quickly. As in, a single generation. Which would be cool, but then why did the aliens stagnate over the next four films? And yes, these are supposed to be the same things.

They set up some good foreshadowing, then never took advantage of it. The example that comes to mind is the atmosphere of the planet they're on. It's stated to be poisonous because of a high CO₂ content. And so I thought someone was going to die that way. Nope. And there was a fantastic setup for one as well - except the person chose suicide by flamethrower instead of asphyxiation. Either of those is going to be a bad way to go, but at least too much carbon dioxide wouldn't be too painful. But nooooo, let's try immolation.

The 'villain' does some inexplicable things that are only explained if you remember why the ship in Alien was sent out in the first place. Or rather, the unstated reason it was sent out. Ostensibly to investigate/rescue an SOS beacon (from the Prometheus?), but actually to bring back a sample. Still, it has very little to do with the last half of the movie.

The humans manage to identify a buried alien ship based on their mapping. How? It's not like they've seen one before. Also, one of them can speak the alien language. I can get them reading it because of the paintings and all, but how on Earth (galaxy?) did they know the right pronunciation?

And finally, some people are running away from a large, falling object. They run in a straight line. Do they run perpendicular to the location where it will fall? No, no they do not. People! You have TWO WHOLE DIMENSIONS to run around in. USE THEM!