SageMerlin hated the movie so much he was driven to write a review of it. He messaged me: "I don't do movie reviews but this film was so bad I just had to do it. Here's the link in case you want to read it: http://open.salon.com/blog/sagemerlin/2012/06/14/prometheus_redux_an_unnecessary_remake"
ChillerPop also thought it wasn't the great flick I made it out to be: "I've posted my thoughts on Prometheus and would agree that there are some flaws for sure. Don't know how much it 'deserved'."
BenSen added: "I think people are getting bored with the 'humans come from aliens' plot. How many times do we have to see it, knowing it's a fantasy? The visuals don't matter so much any more. Prometheus proves it. And that's not all that's repetitive about the movie. Time for something new."
Jan Sand raised some good points in his detailed response: "I saw the film and I disagree. It takes more than special effects to carry a film these days and although the effects were competent, they were not extraordinary. The concept that a superior race would have to sacrifice one of its members to disseminate DNA as the opening sequence seemed to imply is, to say the least, rather odd since even with current primitive human control and understanding this type of action could be managed with a bit of tissue culture.
The inherent concept that only by releasing monsters on Earth could rectify the mistake the superior culture made and rid the planet of its failed humanity does not even reach the intelligence level of idiocy. And the only demonstration of intelligence and power that the remaining surviving individual demonstrated, when it was revived, was to rip the head off the robot it could communicate with and act like any mindless monster in the simulation of a Frankensteinian horror did not betray any quality of alien intellect I could find even vaguely interesting.
The original Alien film was tightly plotted to reveal unexpected and overwhelming horrors when the monster revealed itself to have a life style parallel to an existing insect wasp that implants its eggs in living creatures and no innovative horrors were exhibited in the current film to give it any interesting distinction. I found the plotting of the current film rather routinely full of tentacles and slimy nonsense but then, perhaps, the full bag of standard frights has been totally explored and there just isn't any more.
What I missed was the analysis and exposure of details of why this superior culture felt humanity in particular and perhaps Earth life in general failed to meet the expectations of a superior culture and why Earth life eradication was necessary to be replaced by a horde of vicious creatures of no particular superiority I could discern. To me that made it science fiction that totally failed."
My friend Robert liked the movie and disagreed with my comment that there were many unanswered questions. He wrote: "Hey, buddy: I don't want to give it away, but like 2001: A Space Odyssey, all questions are answerable, and seeing it again will result in you seeing things you may have missed. Here's a hint. Never look up or you will be cast down."
Where do you stand? Was Prometheus a big failure? Is it an underappreciated masterpiece? Or is it some place in the middle -- a film that neither completely disappoints nor rises to great heights?
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In "Prometheus" what could have been a real confrontation of a superior alien creator with the the awed children of its creation, with the huge sadness of its failure and why it perceived humanity as failed and how humanity might have offered its love and admiration to its creator was totally lost as a huge moment in the story which should have been filled with terrible anguish but became mere monstrous horror hell bent on destruction and obliteration of humanity for no revealed reason. Whatever the mysterious special effects there was no real interaction with a superior mind and in that I was profoundly disappointed. The challenge, of course, of portraying a truly superior and probably impenetrable intellect might be unconquerable for a mere human but it would have made truly great science fiction. How could a squirrel, for instance, understand the greatness of Shakespeare, the shape of the universe, the delight in a Van Gogh? To lay out the limits of a human mind and the reach of alien intellect is probably an insuperable target but what a lovely one.
R
http://open.salon.com/blog/jeremiah_horrigan/2012/06/10/prometheus_the_quiz
KC, if it works for Hollywood... :)
As for whether or not you need to see the other Alien movies to appreciate Prometheus, I think not. I think it can stand on its own, but fans of the original movies will enjoy a bunch of nods to those films. I think it does a fine job of being it's own self-contained entity.