Cinemart (UK) has theirs up!

‘Big things have small beginnings,’ says android David (Michael Fassbender) in a viral video promo for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. Indeed, the 1979 sci-fi classic, Alien, starts with some poor astronaut named Kane (John Hurt) finding a chamber filled with mysterious eggs. From a truly monstrous birth a horror franchise was born and the rest was supposed to be history – certainly for Ridley Scott.

The director began Prometheus or ‘Prequel to Alien’ (as Noomi Rapace, in the Q&A, admitted the film was known before the title change) asking a question none of the other directors (James Cameron, David Fincher or Jean-Pierre Jeunet) failed to ponder. “Who was the big fella?’

The ‘Space Jockey’, a name/description that perplexes Scott to this day, was the skeletal remains of an alien being sat in some sort of giant chair with a hole in his chest. No other director or writer thought much of this creature but Scott was drawn to questions surrounding it and from this Prometheus grew into a film that shares ‘DNA’ with Alien, but isn’t a true prequel. Do we believe them?…

On 10th April 2012, in central London, gathered bloggers and journalists were treated to a montage reel of scenes from the movie (all take place in the first act by the look of things). We were told by the marketing people we were the first people in the whole wide world to see this footage outside the studio. However, there were no major surprises and this preview was clearly designed to whet the appetite and make people generally excited to see the finished product. Given everybody is already dying from excitement anyway, it seems a bit pointless, yet still pretty cool. Go figure…

The first clip takes place on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, and sees Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and Dr. Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) finding a cave, some 35,000 year old drawings and what looks like a star map. They are clearly excited (and loved up).

The second clip featured a stunning shot of outer space (I’ll admit it, the 3D here was ace). This shot also echoes the opening of Alien but slyly subverts it when the outer edge of a surface enveloped in darkness turns out to be the Prometheus spacecraft and not a planet.

We are now in 2093, some years after the Isle of Sky sequence, and deep in space. David, the android, is walking about the ship preparing for everybody to wake. Once the crew awakes, they are suffering from the effects of space travel (Elizabeth Shaw throws up into a container – nice) and Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) is quickly established as a bit of a corporate bitch. She talks to David in that ‘Master to Servant’ tone which is cold and aloof. David, given he doesn’t possess emotions, just smiles blandly on.

Next up was a scene featuring Guy Peace (heavily made up with prosthetics) as Peter Weyland. He’s recorded a message for the crew explaining Holloway and Shaw are basically in charge and the reason why he gave these crazy kids a spaceship and loads of money to find the origin of life. Weyland says David is like a son to him even though he’s a robot servant.

So what do these scenes amount to? Not a lot, that’s for sure. There’s a sense Prometheus will contain some grand surprises and Ridley Scott (don’t call him ‘Sir’ because he gets embarrassed) clearly likes toying with an audience. When a person in the crowd mentioned the original film’s iconic ‘chestburster’ scene, Scott noted there is a scene in Prometheus which could be said to have a similar ‘What the fuck!’ shock factor. The director revealed it was shot on a closed set and none of the actors apart from Noomi Rapace know about it. Interesting…

During the enjoyable and good natured Q&A, which included Fassbender comically admonishing Charlize Theron for interrupting him, little was revealed beyond the usual boring talk about character back story (Elizabeth Shaw was born in Africa and her dad a missionary) and Scott insisting Prometheus is only really an Alien film in the last ten minutes.

Scott definitely came to life when talking about graphic design and how the film was designed. He clearly loves building the worlds his flicks take place in. Prometheus looks pretty incredible on design and photography levels, let’s hope the story matches such graphic perfection. One of the major reasons Scott didn’t want to make another sci-fi film for years and year was he felt once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. It appears with Prometheus he’s found something new to say and explore whilst presenting it as related to his second feature, Alien.

There’s no doubting Prometheus looks stunning and the eagle-eyed viewer will spot design similarities between the interior of the spacecraft and the Nostromo. What is interesting is how Prometheus and Alien clearly occupy the same universe but allows for different production design. The Prometheus ship is clearly well more expensive and sleeker than the Nostromo, which was a commercial vessel carrying minerals back to Earth.

This short event, whilst certainly cool to see, didn’t reveal a great deal. We have learned dates, names and spotted the odd visual reference and nothing more. Clearly Twentieth Century Fox and Ridley Scott wish to keep their picture under wraps. The best thing about it was seeing potential character dynamics. David the android sees a very peculiar character – he smiles a lot which suggests something creepy could happen – and I don’t mean in the demented Ash sense. Maybe he’ll the only character, who under pressure, starts behaving rationally and kindly.

Meredith Vickers, Theron’s character, is clearly a hard-headed corporate type and in the second clip barks orders at David, and even asks nonchalantly if any of the crew have died during the trip. We also see Idris Elba’s Captain Janek attempting to spread a little cheer and goodwill on the Prometheus with a Christmas tree, only for Vickers to seem utterly bemused by this action.

For now Prometheus’ and its major secrets remain under wraps but what I’ve seen today fills me with even greater levels of excitement. Ridley Scott – at his absolute best – transports audiences to some scary and brilliant places.

Big things have small beginnings yet big budgets can lead to small box office. Scott needs to tread carefully and a balancing act needs to be delivered regarding its relationship to Alien. Fans do not want to be disappointed. The last thing cinema-goers want is to feel conned: “It’s not an Alien movie!” We want a new story, new characters and to forget the sequels which got progressively worst because they continued to centre on Ripley – which was ridiculous. Scott takes us back whilst promising something we haven’t seen before.

http://cinemart-online.co.uk/2012/04/10/special-report-prometheus-footage-preview/