Prometheus: How to make an Alien

Poster is taken from Wikipedia

These days, if you want to watch a movie, look who’s the director is, not the actors. This was what motivated me to watch Prometheus, because it is Ridley Scott’s. Scott is one of the earliest contender in thriller sci-fi genre. The world know him from creating one of the most visually horrible movie of all time: Alien. Remember all those disturbing scenes? not to mention that gigantic-pointy-head creature? yes, that’s all Scott’s brainchild. Now, Prometheus. The title is taken from the name of a titan in greek mythology, the one who gave fire to human race. 


In the movie, Prometheus is the name of a space ship manufactured by Weylan enterprise that travel the universe with a mission, to search the origin of mankind. Prometheus said to be the prequel of Alien, and yes, every bit of it is actually a step-by-step explanation of “how to create Alien”. So here’s I prepare you the recipe:





Ingredients:
1 teardrop of oddly outer space substance that can be found on a planet in a galaxy far-far away
1 glass of wine

Medium:
1 pair of madly in love couple that happened to be scientists on a mission to the planet
1 ancient giant outer space humanoid species with very bad temper

Operator:
1 old and nearly dead egomaniac billionaire, that has more money than sense
1 too smart, too obedient and too experimentalist android, it is better to use David 8 type made by Weylan Industries, the most advance David to date.

Process:
Phase 1 - initiation

• Program your David 8 android to involve in expedition to a planet in a galaxy far-far away, and make sure he’s part of the field team
• Give your David instruction to bring back any organic substance he can found, eventhough he doesn’t understand it clearly
• Give your David instruction to run a thorough exploration of the oddly substance, and take any experiment necessary as part of the exploration
• Make sure your david can find a first medium: a full grown man, half drunk and in a state of frustration
• Instruct David to deceive the man to drink a glass of wine with a teardrop of substance mixed in it

Phase 2 - squid/octopus form

• Make sure your first medium spend the night in his room with his partner
• Create a condition that lead the couple to has a sexual intercourse immediately. After they had sex, you can get rid of the first medium as soon as possible, because he has been contaminated and has no longer meaning for the process.
• The second medium will be the woman partner of the first medium.
• Wait for approximately 10 hours for the ‘squid’ form to be prepared inside the woman’s body. Give your David an instruction that lead her to panic and perform an immediate self operated surgery to take the squid out of her body.
• After the squid form has been taken out, it is ready to be raised to a bigger form, almost octopus like form before it’s ready to dissipate to the last medium

Phase 3 - Alien form

• Ignore your octopus form for about 1 day. And move to prepare your third medium.
• You need to take your egomaniac billionaire with you for this step. He is the best catalyst for the last process.
• Take your egomaniac billionaire, alongside your David, to the chamber of ancient giant humanoid creature that they believe to be the creator of human race.
• Make your David to try to talk some sense to them, something about ‘why you created us?’ will help. And don’t forget to make sure your second medium comes there and agitate the ancient giant as well.
• The ancient giant has a very bad temper. So, if the ancient giant abruptly become hostile and kill your egomaniac billionaire and also ripped off your David’s head, then move to the next step. The ancient giant will activate its spaceship and immediately move to travel to earth and create destruction there.
• Your second medium will drop to a state of panic and frustration. She will call her ship, Prometheus, and make sure the ship will do all it takes to prevent the giant’s ship from travel to earth.
• The travel to earth will be prevented because the captain of Prometheus will do a heroic kamikaze attempt with the ship , it means your final step is near.
• Your second medium will go to the lifepod that has been ejected from Prometheus, out of instinct to find more oxygen.
• The ancient giant will be furious because the Prometheus prevent his travel. He will come to the second medium whereabout for revenge.
• In the meantime, a day has past and your octopus form alien has been prepared. Now, its size should be as big as a shark. It has been grown up in the surgery chamber that is part of the lifepod.
• The ancient giant will hunt the second medium down to the lifepod.
• The second medium will fight as hard as she can, and using the octopus that literally is her child, to attack the ancient giant.
• The octopus form turn out to be stronger than the ancient giant and then dissipate itself into the ancient giant’s body. In the meantime, just let your second medium run away, believing that the ancient giant is dead by the octopus form.
• After the octopus form dissipated to the ancient giant body, wait for awhile until baby Alien ripped its way out of the ancient giant body.
• And voila, the pointy head and horrible looking Alien is ready to kill and scare people out.

And that is all of Prometheus. The plot is actually almost the same scheme as Alien, strong woman as lead role, trap in a spaceship in a galaxy far-far away, has an encounter with odd creature and generally has a very bad luck. The scientific message in the movie is weak, and so does the moral value. Too many questions popped up in my head after the movie ends. Why the ancient earth civilization can get the knowledge about the galactical pattern? Detail scientific deduction about the origin of mankind from other species originated from other planet? Why the similarity in DNA leads to the conclusion that they are our creator? How David can still operating after his head been ripped off? What is the conclusion of the movie except that it tells the creation of Alien? Too many question no answer.

So, people said that ‘hope is paralyzing and expectation is sucks’. Well, that’s true. I put too much expectation in the movie to the point I can’t really dubbed this movie as great. Maybe if I just watch the movie without any expectation whatsoever, the movie will feel better.

The very positive side and great about Prometheus is their marketing effort. From all those viral video on PrometheusNews channel on YouTube, to Weyland Industries’s website, that is awesome. Thumbs up for the marketing and creative agency team! Very creative way to create buzz.

Overall, I give Prometheus 7 out of 10. I expect it to be a 9, but no, it’s not a 9. That’s all! Two movie review post in a row, I certainly should find another interesting topic to write.