The Alien Masterclass - Part 6: Prometheus (2012)

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This May is “Masterclass Revisited” month at Catching Up On Cinema!

All month long, we'll be revisiting the subjects of Masterclass months we've done over the years to review films that may have slipped through the cracks.

This week we're wrapping up our Masterclass of the Alien franchise with long overdue review of Ridley Scott's, Prometheus (2012)!

Written by Jon Spaihts, and later tailored and refined by Damon Lindelof, Prometheus serves as a both a prequel to Alien (1979) as well as director's Scott's long awaited return to the franchise.

An enthusiastic effort from Ridley Scott, Prometheus boasts the director's trademark heady themes and large scale visual flair, however on occasion it's split parentage between 2 very distinct writer's voices can be felt across it's streamlined 124 minute run time.

Beginning life (on the page) as a straight up prequel and direct lead in to Scott's own Alien (1979), later drafts of the screenplay, and indeed the final film version of Prometheus would see the narrative lean harder into exploring the Engineers and the human races' connection to them.

Hiccups and vagaries in the screenplay aside, Prometheus is a mesmerizing visual experience, possessed of some truly astounding production design and 3D cinematography, as well as some show stopping sequences of tension and violence that rank very high not just among Scott's illustrious filmography, but all of sci-fi horror cinema.

While an enjoyable experience in isolation, Prometheus is not an especially strong prequel to the Alien franchise as a whole, however from this author's perspective, the film serves as a wonderful introduction to Michael Fassbender's character of David, who in turn goes on to become a compelling throughline to Ridley Scott's, Alien: Covenant (2017).

Not quite a masterpiece, Prometheus currently stands as the (exceedingly handsome) black sheep of the Alien series, however should a satisfying concluding chapter of it and the character of David's narrative eventually be made, it very well could find it's significance in the franchise canon promoted by leaps and bounds.

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