Got back from Prometheus a good hour ago, started watching Alien, came on here. I've come to build a resistance towards expectations, even though upon announcement I heralded its release as the next great moment of life, primarily because its genesis coincided with my budding love affair with Blade Runner. That being said, I enjoyed it, but as a whole it felt like a missed opportunity. Underdeveloped. Another half a year's writing would have helped.
I found myself disagreeing quite peculiarly with most reviewers. The film is praised for its epic scope, but little actually happens that we haven't seen before. Although towards the end the stakes escalate, nothing interesting ever happens with the characters. There are plenty of powerful character dynamics teaming with potential, all of which are almost immediately craftily set up in the first fifteen minutes, that are never explored and a couple plot twists that are almost jokes because they end up meaning NOTHING, which is especially a shame given the talent in front of the camera. The ending's a tease, and then you realize the whole movie's been a tease that hasn't really given the Alien universe anything you could have lived without while asking exponentially more questions than it answered, and you can become so frustrated that you'd rather not have them answered, because they were never as inspired or cryptic as: "Who is the space jockey?" Yes, this question is concretely answered and its ties to Alien pretty obvious. Yes it is a good answer. Have a decent amount of people probably already guessed as much? Yes. Between both Ridley and Lindelof I expected a LOT more. Ambivalence is a good thing, but in this case it undermines the rest of the film when important characters begin dropping for no reason with no symmetrical arch to be found, shameless sequel teasing, and no theme capitalized upon, except for that which I've christened Life on the whole which is "unfulfillment."
Two problems reviewers often had with it is that it was too cerebral and not enough like Alien, while on the contrary it is VERY much like Alien, in fact I'd say they're almost identical in formula. It's a slow moving, tense, horror/creature film, except nothing looks anywhere near as good as Giger's Xenomorph. That being said, it could still be very very tense, disturbing, entertaining, and Fassbender is worth the price of admission alone, but I would've rather watched the trailer for 2 hours. In all likelihood I'm going to see it again. Hopefully it'll be a better viewing, as is the case with most of Scott's work. If not I hear there's 21 minutes of unused footage that'll keep me nice and anxious for a DVD/Bluray release.
On a side note, I finished Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me after what may very well be a three month/four month break, possibly more. I literally only had to finish the last 20 minutes on youtube. Leland Palmer hatefully lusting his daughter is probably more terrifying than the majority of Prometheus. Another open ended show. Shame the Twin Peaks franchise is so dead.
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! Awesome work Josh Brolin!!!
