prometheus

Well it looks like we are getting close. Ridley Scott has just released a trailer for Prometheus. What Prometheus is, is not entirely clear. It's clearly linked to the Alien movie universe. It started out as a prequel to the first Alien movie that he directed. But then the movie itself is supposed to not predate anything from the following films. That leaves us with a film that takes place far in the future from the Alien franchise but takes place on the planet where the aliens were first found.

To say I'm a little pumped for this movie is an understatement. Ridley Scott hasn't made a science fiction movie since Bladerunner (or Legend if you want to consider that sci fi). That's almost 30 fucking years. And I have been waiting

This is strange because between 1979 and 1985 he came out with Alien, Bladerunner, and Legend. None of them were particularly well reviewed by critics. They did okay in the box office. But all of them have cult followings now.

Alien did the best at the box office. It's a little hard to imagine now but that film was fucking scary as all get out when it came out. The advertising campaign was genius too. The tagline "In space, no one can hear you scream" became somewhat of a meme. And in reality it wasn't a sci fi movie it was a horror movie. I had to sneak into a theater to see it and fell in love.

Then Bladerunner came out and bombed. It had Harrison Ford so people thought it would be like Star Wars and it came out when a Star Trek movie and ET were released. Amazingly ET won the academy award for best visual effects that year. Go back and watch those two films and tell me the Academy didn't make a huge mistake.

 And then finally he came out with Legend. Which bombed even more. But again this was also a great film that still is unlike almost anything else ever made.

All three films had something that was rare until then. The visuals, story, set design, and special effects were tight. 2001 Space Odyssey approaches something similar to these three movies in that the special effects have held up well over the years and the films weren't really about sci fi themes but humanist themes. But Scott removed the clean, white, pristine future look that plagued all sci fi films until then. These were grungy and retrofitted and quite frankly more realistic. And he had fitting soundtracks that improved the films. He's still the best sci fi/fantasy director ever in my book. And then Scott did the most annoying thing. He didn't make another sci fi/fantasy film. Unbelievable. Well now one is coming out. I'm a little apprehensive that he will have lost his magic but we'll see.



I should also point out a couple of interesting things.  At 0:29 it looks like they are doing research on the 'space jockey' from the first film.  And at 0:39 it looks like the chair he sat in is rising.