Prometheus (2012): Oops. Our Alien Creators Now Want to Kill Us
Prometheus (2012): Oops. Our Alien Creators Now Want to Kill Us
What should have been an awful revelation degenerates into what seems like the dumbest scene ever filmed
Last time, we covered the part where some members of the Prometheus crew enter a strange stone building, looking for the aliens that made humanity.
So far, things are not going well. Several crew members have been killed, and Dr. Shaw has just had a c-section to remove a baby alien. Somehow, she is still up and about, and she encounters the big twist of the film.
It turns out that Peter Weyland, the corporate CEO funding her mission, has hidden on the ship. Because he is an elderly man, he wants to see if the aliens can save his life.
Dr. Shaw is astonished by this. To make matters more complex, it turns out that one of the aliens who supposedly made humanity is still alive. He’s in a cryobed, waiting to be awakened by his “children.”
Dr. Shaw and the audience both know this is going to end horribly, and Dr. Shaw tries to tell Weyland not to proceed. But Weyland refuses to listen to her, so Dr. Shaw, the woman who just had a c-section, decides to go with him.
She hobbles back to the stone building with Weyland and his entourage, and David, the crew’s robot, wakes the alien up. Before he does so, he tells Dr. Shaw that he’s discovered something the audience won’t find very surprising: These aliens were returning to Earth to destroy it.
Now, when it comes to risk assessment, this should’ve been a tell. If the giant being you’re about to wake up wanted to wipe out your entire race, then it’s probably safe to assume that he’s a bad guy. Maybe you should kill him. But, of course, they don’t.
David talks to the alien Engineer
David can apparently speak this alien’s language because he’s basically studied every human language since the beginning of man, and that works for some reason. So he begins talking to the creature.
The Engineer then rips the robot’s head off, and everyone except the audience—because David is the most unlikable robot in this franchise—is horrified. He then kills everyone save Dr. Shaw, who runs back outside.
As she’s fleeing the scene, the ground begins to shake because it turns out that the giant stone structure is a spaceship. The Engineer, who has apparently been asleep for about two thousand years, is going to pick up right where he left off. He’s going to fly to Earth and wipe out humanity.
First of all, why? Everyone else on his ship is dead. It’s safe to assume the mission is a bust. Why go through with it? Second of all, there is no confirmation from the story events or dialogue that destroying Earth is his goal. The ship just begins to leave, and everyone assumes that’s his intention. He could’ve been flying back to his own planet because his mission failed. Or he could’ve been flying up into space to dump out all that black goo. The crew has no idea what his plan is!
Dr. Shaw, again running as if nothing horrible has happened to her, tells the crewmembers on the Prometheus that the alien’s ship is going to destroy Earth and that they need to ram into it, which the crew does.
One of the problems with this scene is that none of the writers paid any attention to the number of people on the Prometheus. In the previous review, some of the crew members left the ship on a tank and are never shown returning. They might still be on that moon. Not a lot of time has passed since they left. Number two, we see medical staff and various people roaming around at different points. So, unless the secret medical team that was hiding Weyland went with him to the building—and why would they?—then that team is still on board. And while on the topic of the medical team, how did nobody spot those people while they were on that moon?
In the end, the only one who leaves the Prometheus as it’s about to crash into the alien ship is Meredith, but there should’ve been others. And I’m sorry, but I have a horrible time believing that a ship that can travel through space for two years while on autopilot can’t direct itself to ram into a ship not even a mile away. But the whole rest of the central cast go out in a blaze of glory as they crash into the alien’s craft, which again might’ve been going into space to dump out the black goo. Nothing makes sense!
Then the single most idiotic scene I have ever seen in a film takes place.
The Prometheus rams into the alien ship, and it crashes to the ground. Somehow, this colossal thing lands on its side and begins to roll like a giant boulder. Dr. Shaw and Meredith are in this thing’s path, and they begin running away from it . . . in a straight line! It’s like the opening scene of Indiana Jones, only stupid:
The bottom line is that this ship is long and narrow. The distance these two characters had to cover would’ve been very much less if they’d turned to the left or right. They don’t do that! They don’t even try a diagonal. Throughout this entire scene, I just want to scream, Turn!
To make matters worse, Dr. Shaw—the woman who just had a c-section—catches up with Meredith, who was shown at the beginning of the film doing push-ups! Then Dr. Shaw trips, and guess what she does. She rolls! She rolls less than twenty feet and gets out of the ship’s way. Then Meredith trips because nobody can keep their feet in this story. And does she copy Dr. Shaw? No! She wastes her valuable seconds screaming and is crushed.
Then, as if all this stupidity wasn’t enough, the ship falls over, and Dr. Shaw is almost crushed again. She doesn’t try to run; she doesn’t roll; she screams. But a rock… a rock keeps this multi-ton ship from crushing her. She crawls out from under the alien craft and begins heading for Meredith’s ship, which ejected from the Prometheus during its last flight.
This is by far the dumbest scene ever put to film, and I’m including every black-and-white B movie you can imagine. It turns out one of the writers for this screenplay was Damon Lindeloff, a writer for the television series Lost, and I am not at all surprised. We’ll cover the conclusion of Prometheus next time.