Prometheus was a... controversial film, to say the least. Some loved it for its stunning visuals, ambiguous storyline, and a great performance from Michael Fassbender, others loathed it for being a pretentious mess of plot holes, pointless characters, and a complete insult to the franchise is claimed to be a prequel of, Alien. In case the title didn't already clue you in, I am firmly in the latter camp. I left Prometheus feeling more angry than I've ever felt about a film, and yes, I'm including Movie 43 in that statement (that just made me depressed). I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this, and that's fine. This is only my opinion, and it's no more valid than yours or the next guy's. That being said, I do think Prometheus is a badly written film from a calculated standpoint. Let's dive into this pool of rubbish and find out why Prometheus' story is one of the worst ever put to celluloid. Obviously,
HEAVY SPOILERS TO FOLLOW.
5. All Those Pointless, Poorly Written Characters
Let's take a look at Alien for a second, shall we? You had a few embittered, jaded, and cynical space truckers all sitting together on a routine delivery. There's a limited number of them, and their characterization is handled perfectly. Fast forward to Prometheus, and we have a crew of nearly 20, all introduced in around ten minutes, and are also embittered, jaded, and cynical. Only here, they have no reason to be. They are scientists on a four plus year expedition to outer space, further than anyone has every travelled in the history of the human race, and are possibly going to encounter alien life on a far away planet. They should be ecstatic! I get they're going to be kind of tired and cranky after two years in cryo-sleep, but they remain this way the whole way through. And when they do find alien bodies (the whole reason they went there in the first place), their first instinct is to run away, in a truly hilarious scene in which the geologist (who for some reason looks like an
antagonistic punk rocker) repeatedly shouting "I like rocks!
I LOVE...ROCKS!". Honestly, that scene makes me crack up every time. I only have a limited space and I don't want to go into too much detail, but most of the characters literally serve no purpose and are defined by one character trait that they remind the audience of every ten seconds they are on screen.
