Just the Ticket #65: Rogue V. Prey (Part II)
Last time, via Ticket Stubs, we looked at the AVP films, which served as horribly non-canon prequels to the Alien franchise (a little tidbit that I didn't realize when I was watching AVP the first time: Lance Henriksen, who played the android Bishop in Aliens has a role in AVP as Bishop's likeness, Weyland-Yutani founder Charles Bishop Weyland). The crossover event continues in this issue of Just the Ticket, which will be devoted to the canonical pre-boot, Prometheus, with a special Critical Quickie on Predators.
I recently read a review of the Blu-Ray release of Prometheus, which said that the movie answered none of the questions its cover promised (tagline: "Questions will be answered"). It's been such a long time since I saw an Alien movie that I really had no questions, and very little basis on which to found any.
For me, the Alien series was just a fun, scary monster-fest with iconic creatures and (I now realize) predictable plot mechanics. I made no notice of the much-clamored-about "Space Jockey" or the name of the string-pulling organization frequently referred to as "The Company" throughout the series. The infamous egg-shaped thing that appears on the covers of the Alien films was no more to me than just a cool logo. So I began watching Prometheus with an essentially virgin mind and no such expectations of an immediate and profound solution to the origin of the Alien race. I usually hate when filmmakers use what I am about to say as a fallback excuse for poorly planned scripting, but here it is: "It's a movie. It's not real. Who cares?"
With this mindset developing as I watched, I became pleasantly surprised. The egg-shaped thing turns out to be a "Space Jockey" (a.k.a. Engineer) ship, of which two kinds are seen in the course of Prometheus. The other would instill a sense of deja vu, at least as far as interior is concerned, in those who watched Ripley and crew explore the distressed ship at the beginning of Alien.
As it turns out, the Engineers (so dubbed by Noomi Rapace's Ripley-esque archaeologist, Elizabeth Shaw) created us, and the Alien race, by accident when experimenting with their mutagenic Black Liquid.
If you're one of the Alien-obsessed who demand answers, this is all you're going to get out of Prometheus (and most of this I got from Wikipedia after the fact, in addition to watching the opening credits sequence two or three times). There is a sequel in the works, but be patient, and remember: "It's a movie. It's not real. Who cares?"
The only question that you should really care about the answer to is: "Does Prometheus feel like it belongs in the same Cinemaverse as Alien?" As it turns out, the set design alone is enough to trigger a happily twisted trip down memory lane. The Prometheus ship is a dead ringer for the Nostromo from Alien (granted, the hypersleep chambers suffer from update-itis, much as AVP failed to do the Predators' heat vision and hunting gear justice, but that's just one stripped gear in the Prometheus hype-machine). The crashed Engineer ship shares the same terrifyingly dark, wet, and slimy atmosphere as any Alien-infested corner you'd have poked into in the four films that came before. Even the pre-Ash model android David (2001: A Space Irony, anyone?), with his malevolently childish curiosity (let's feed the Black Liquid to Shaw's boyfriend and see what happens!), is a familiar reminder that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation manufactures sulfur cobblestones for a certain proverbial road, minus all that good intention stuff.
Kudos to X-Men: First Class villain Michael Fassbender for his charismatically cold performance as David, by the way.
But where setting and villainy establish Prometheus as an Alien prequel, the iconic monsters and plot devices of yore are nowhere to be found, a development that both disappoints the viewer and heightens their suspense in the face of all-new creatures (some of which appear to be ancestral species of well-known Alien staples). Jars of Black Liquid sit in endless rows of unfulfilled potential terror where previously, Facehugger eggs would have sat in endless rows of soon-to-be-fulfilled Chestbusting terror. Facehugger-ish snakes, giant squid-like 'Huggers, a vengeful Engineer, an Alien with an overbite, and (WTF?) a zombified human stray so far from Alien tradition that we are put in such a constant, heightened state of anxious anticipation that by the time our buck-toothed Deacon friend climbs from the body of the dead Engineer at film's end, the preceding two hours of Prometheus feel like a colossal letdown (another BTW for you: isn't it ironic that the prequel to a series about chest-bursting monsters should be named after a disgraced Greek god who spends his days chained to a rock while a giant eagle rips out his liver over and over again?).
On the other hand, we must be patient. To those who don't share my "It's a movie. Who cares?" philosophy, Prometheus' planet and Alien's planet are two completely different places; mere cogs in the expansion of the Alien Cinemaverse, grinding and turning their way through the cosmos on a path towards the Engineer homeworld and the answers you seek. Strap in, enjoy the scenery, scream and whiten your knuckles where it suits you, remember that this is only the beginning, and above all else, appreciate the journey for what it is: a journey. I will do the same by grading Prometheus on the potential it represents.
B+
And now, the Predatorial editorial that is Critical Quickies: Predators--Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Justified's Walton Goggins, and Danny Trejo. Basically it's The Hunger Games meets Lord Of the Flies meets Saw with a Predator twist as a seemingly random group of humans battle each other and their invisible assailants in a Pred-run game preserve, all with the aim of being the superior killing machine on the planet. The cast as a whole actually do a commendable job of bringing a human element to Predators' slasher movie paces, and the writers concocted a decent mystery to keep things interesting. Perhaps even better than Prometheus did after it, Predators expands its respective universe and returns to the brutal man vs. alien vs. nature roots that were sorely lacking in Predator 2 and Requiem.
A-
Time for another Six Degrees or Less as we move from Topher Grace (who played Eddie Brock/Venom in Spider-Man 3) to Thomas Haden Church (who played the Sandman/Flint Marko in Spider-Man 3 and was also in Sideways) to Paris Hilton (who starred in House of Wax, which I reviewed in the same issue of SW@ Ticket as Sideways). How do you like me now, Random Word-Association Guy from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon? Stay tuned for the Ticket Stubs re-print of House of Wax. And Thank You, 30lb frozen turkey, for being the heavy opposite of pocket hand warmers. Goodnight, and my apologies to Matt Damon for running out of time (oops! Wrong show).
Eww.
For me, the Alien series was just a fun, scary monster-fest with iconic creatures and (I now realize) predictable plot mechanics. I made no notice of the much-clamored-about "Space Jockey" or the name of the string-pulling organization frequently referred to as "The Company" throughout the series. The infamous egg-shaped thing that appears on the covers of the Alien films was no more to me than just a cool logo. So I began watching Prometheus with an essentially virgin mind and no such expectations of an immediate and profound solution to the origin of the Alien race. I usually hate when filmmakers use what I am about to say as a fallback excuse for poorly planned scripting, but here it is: "It's a movie. It's not real. Who cares?"
With this mindset developing as I watched, I became pleasantly surprised. The egg-shaped thing turns out to be a "Space Jockey" (a.k.a. Engineer) ship, of which two kinds are seen in the course of Prometheus. The other would instill a sense of deja vu, at least as far as interior is concerned, in those who watched Ripley and crew explore the distressed ship at the beginning of Alien.
As it turns out, the Engineers (so dubbed by Noomi Rapace's Ripley-esque archaeologist, Elizabeth Shaw) created us, and the Alien race, by accident when experimenting with their mutagenic Black Liquid.
If you're one of the Alien-obsessed who demand answers, this is all you're going to get out of Prometheus (and most of this I got from Wikipedia after the fact, in addition to watching the opening credits sequence two or three times). There is a sequel in the works, but be patient, and remember: "It's a movie. It's not real. Who cares?"
The only question that you should really care about the answer to is: "Does Prometheus feel like it belongs in the same Cinemaverse as Alien?" As it turns out, the set design alone is enough to trigger a happily twisted trip down memory lane. The Prometheus ship is a dead ringer for the Nostromo from Alien (granted, the hypersleep chambers suffer from update-itis, much as AVP failed to do the Predators' heat vision and hunting gear justice, but that's just one stripped gear in the Prometheus hype-machine). The crashed Engineer ship shares the same terrifyingly dark, wet, and slimy atmosphere as any Alien-infested corner you'd have poked into in the four films that came before. Even the pre-Ash model android David (2001: A Space Irony, anyone?), with his malevolently childish curiosity (let's feed the Black Liquid to Shaw's boyfriend and see what happens!), is a familiar reminder that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation manufactures sulfur cobblestones for a certain proverbial road, minus all that good intention stuff.
Kudos to X-Men: First Class villain Michael Fassbender for his charismatically cold performance as David, by the way.
But where setting and villainy establish Prometheus as an Alien prequel, the iconic monsters and plot devices of yore are nowhere to be found, a development that both disappoints the viewer and heightens their suspense in the face of all-new creatures (some of which appear to be ancestral species of well-known Alien staples). Jars of Black Liquid sit in endless rows of unfulfilled potential terror where previously, Facehugger eggs would have sat in endless rows of soon-to-be-fulfilled Chestbusting terror. Facehugger-ish snakes, giant squid-like 'Huggers, a vengeful Engineer, an Alien with an overbite, and (WTF?) a zombified human stray so far from Alien tradition that we are put in such a constant, heightened state of anxious anticipation that by the time our buck-toothed Deacon friend climbs from the body of the dead Engineer at film's end, the preceding two hours of Prometheus feel like a colossal letdown (another BTW for you: isn't it ironic that the prequel to a series about chest-bursting monsters should be named after a disgraced Greek god who spends his days chained to a rock while a giant eagle rips out his liver over and over again?).
On the other hand, we must be patient. To those who don't share my "It's a movie. Who cares?" philosophy, Prometheus' planet and Alien's planet are two completely different places; mere cogs in the expansion of the Alien Cinemaverse, grinding and turning their way through the cosmos on a path towards the Engineer homeworld and the answers you seek. Strap in, enjoy the scenery, scream and whiten your knuckles where it suits you, remember that this is only the beginning, and above all else, appreciate the journey for what it is: a journey. I will do the same by grading Prometheus on the potential it represents.
B+
A-
Time for another Six Degrees or Less as we move from Topher Grace (who played Eddie Brock/Venom in Spider-Man 3) to Thomas Haden Church (who played the Sandman/Flint Marko in Spider-Man 3 and was also in Sideways) to Paris Hilton (who starred in House of Wax, which I reviewed in the same issue of SW@ Ticket as Sideways). How do you like me now, Random Word-Association Guy from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon? Stay tuned for the Ticket Stubs re-print of House of Wax. And Thank You, 30lb frozen turkey, for being the heavy opposite of pocket hand warmers. Goodnight, and my apologies to Matt Damon for running out of time (oops! Wrong show).
Eww.
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