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Prometheus
Prometheus is a disappointing film. Just how disappointing? Well, I'd say its up there with The Matrix Reloaded but not quite the catastrophe that was Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Most of the problems come from the confused and unfocused script which is a tired mishmash of such diverse elements as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stargate, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Alien Versus Predator. Ridley Scott has very much lost his storytelling compass in the last decade and he's acquired the knack in recent years of turning a good, original idea into a dreary Hollywood tick-the-boxes one. (The sad tale of Nottingham is the prima facie case of this). Scott at 75 has forgotten that story builds on character and without good characters a script is largely worthless. In Prometheus there is no space for characters to exist and although the rather bland cast do their best they have nothing to work with but dialogue so wooden it would have been embarrassing for the woodentops to utter it. I don't know what the initial script of Prometheus looked like but it was Ridley Scott's idea to bring in one of the writers of Lost who completely rewrote the original concept into the Lost-style rather pretentious mess which the film has become.
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Prometheus is a hair's breadth away from being a one star disaster but it is saved by some striking visuals, a nice turn by Michael Fassbender and a great scene of self surgery in the final act. Still we expected a lot more from Ridley Scott whose two previous science fiction films Alien and Blade Runner are both masterpieces. Sir Ridley doesn't need the money and it probably would have been better for his reputation if he had passed on Fox's whole Prometheus concept when it was first raised three years ago. Perhaps someone can now stage an intervention and talk him out of his crazy idea to - essentially - remake Blade Runner.
31 comments:
The key may be expectation. Has Ridley Scott forgotten what makes a good story or has he realized it's just not that important for Hollywood movies anymore? It seems like we're about to name The Avengers the greatest movie ever made.
Maybe there was a time when a few movies a year had some of those story elements as well as visual dynamics or maybe we just romanticize an era from our youth when we hadn't seen thousands of movies and everything seemed new to us.
I'm going to go see this on Monday so I'll let you know if having reduced expectations helps.
I agree wholeheartedly with John. Why does anyone think this is going to be any good when the man has made nothing but shite for 30 years. Hannibal,Black Hawk Down, Gladiator etc weren't crap because he was working in the wrong genre. The intervention should have been just before Legend. Sir Ridley is a loaf salesman who dreamt he was Kubrick and now the dream is over. He's a multi-million dollar sack of fuck all. Stop talking about him. Even Alien and Blade Runner seem a bit clunkier every time I watch the latest recut. Jaysus he's a fucking ... Sorry , I'll go and sit down.
John
Well everyone at Fox knew this film would make money so I suppose no one tried that hard to make it good. They probably thought, well the scripts a bit rubbish, but hey we've got Ridley Scott directing so it'll be all right. They thought the same with The Phantom Menace and yes it was as all right. That film made hundreds of millions of dollars.
Anon
Harsh but I can totally see where you're coming from. I think its easier to be objective about Ridley Scott if you're not from the UK, where he's treated as a national treasure. But you've seen the Hovis ad so you are from the UK, so I commend your objectivity. I think what I'll do is have a little think about the Scott oeuvre and repost my blog from a year or two back where I rate all the films...The last decade is going to look pretty bleak.
John, Anon
They played this advert for Metro Last Light, an Xbox game, right before Prometheus started and to be honest I found it more affecting and terrifying than anything in the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUuK1DMoLcY
The period when any kind of artist gets valuable feedback must be pretty short. First they don't want to know you, then there's some kind of brief golden period where you're actually edited or whatever, and then you're too big to be critiqued, which is probably the worst phase of all, although I suppose people are largely unaware when it has happened to them.
Seana
The auteur theory for directors is largely bullshit anyway. Sure it would have been nice if they'd given Orson Welles the final cut, but for every Orson Welles there's a Spielberg, Scorsese, Scott, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, Coppolla etc. who need people working with them who will tell them that what they are doing is shite. But like you say they fire those people when they get any kind of success.
Its true with fiction too I suppose. Writers as diverse as Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell, Peter Temple, Salman Rushie, JK Rowling, George RR Martin have all "refused to be edited" and of course their books have got more bloated and generally declined in quality.
I know more about writers than the other fields. I think writers often have this idea that having a bestseller or fame or whatever is the best outcome, but landing a great editor with a lot of integrity would really outweigh all these in the long run.
Yeah Adrian, that video game looks interesting. Apparently it's based on a book that started out as something the author gave away on his website:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Glukhovsky
And Seana, usually writers think having a bestseller is the best outcome because of the money, then we can quit our jobs and spend more time writing and not feel guilty about what we should be doing with the time we do spend writing.
If there was something in between making almost no money and a bestseller, many of us would probably be aiming for that.
John
thats brilliant for that guy. And its cool that the game has such an interesting backstory. You could tell in that 2 minute ad that there was a lot of depth to the thing, unfortunately it turned out to have more layers than all of Prometheus.
Had the misfortune to see Prometheus last night. All the money spent on the set and effects and two bob spent on a script which appeared to have been written by two eleven year olds.
So bad, it was worse than The Avengers.
Remy
I was no fan of the Avengers, but you know what? It was worse than the Avengers. The Avengers didnt take itself too seriously and understood irony. Prometheus does neither of those things.
John, I was just finishing up Anthony Burgess's article in the New Yorker today, and he was saying that the privilege he has to spend time as he likes has only led him to become his own taskmaster. Freedom apparently isn't easy.
Though he still prefers it to government heavy-handedness.
Seana
I wouldnt be a hard taskmaster of me. If I had fuck you money no one would ever hear from me again.
I don't believe you. It doesn't have to do with whether other people hear from you again.
The Economist review of Prometheus here:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/06/ridley-scotts-prometheus
They hated the stupid stupid script.
Seana
No, I'm serious. I'd drop my laptop in a volcanic vent and never write another word. It would be awesome.
Well, we'll see about that, but what I mean is that the taskmaster wouldn't be erased.
Well, not without a lot of drugs.
Some days the never writing again sounds good but mostly I'm just talking about the guilt - everytime you sit down to write you yhink about the things you should be doing instead, usually spending time with family. A bestseller means writing time that isn't stolen from something else.
Seana, John,
I think Burgess probably had a lot of things he wanted to say. I dont feel that way. I reckon I got what I wanted to say out of my system in Dead I Well May Be and The Cold Cold Ground. I have no burning desire to communicate any other truth or idea or story. If someone made me an offer of, say, 10 million dollars on the condition that I never wrote again I would take the money.
Thank you for the razor-sharp appraisal of my recent writing. I must point out, however, that since I have never taken kindly to being edited, both my small rise and my fall owe little to outside intervention.
Peter
I thought you had a thicker skin than that. Sigh.
I thought the critique of my own writing was a bit more pointed: basically only 2 books out of the 12 I've published have been worth a damn.
There may be good writers with thick skins, but personally I've never come across one.
Seana
I think its a complicated equation that involves 1) how you rate your own talent 2) how the world rates your talent 3) how you wish the world would rate your own talent. I also think 4) if you're quite well off you tend to be less bitter about criticisms because a bad review is not actually going to be taking bread out of the mouths of your children.
4 is the big factor for me. My books dont sell but when they get bad reviews or - worse I feel - no reviews it really does have an impact on our ability to keep our heads above water.
I accept your personal position, but I bet the wealthy get just as bitter about bad reviews as anybody else. Of course, they are less likely to get them if everyone around them is kissing up to them, which they probably are.
Seana
I bet you Dan Brown doesnt get that upset by the reviews. And if he does, like Liberace's brother George, he "cries all the way to the bank."
And the lady who writes Fifty Shades of Grey, etc. probably doesn't get all that upset by the reviews either. But for both of them that's totally offset not just by money, but by insanely devoted, if tin-earred fans.
Seana
50 Shades was written by a woman?
I thought it was a pervy bloke. I suppose that makes sense though. Female readers probably would have seen through him.
I haven't actually read them, but I suppose if it was guy, it would be pervy. I watched a little film about her arrival in America, and she does come across as a housewife startled by fame, but in fact, she's married to a screenwriter, was educated at the University of Kent and worked at the National Film and Television School in London. I'd say she's pretty well connected, and understands the workings of the world.
Heh, Roger Ebert gave this movie four stars, too. I should have known better. Add me to the disappointed list. What were they thinking? Plot holes galore, the "oh so pretty" scene that made me laugh. This movie was a mess. --Keishon
Keishon
4 stars for this? Its madness!
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