50 Essential Sci-Fi Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

One of the most unfairly maligned science fiction films of the past 25 years, Ridley Scott’s return to the Alien franchise suffered from two primary issues on release. Firstly, it wasn’t marketed as an Alien movie, but something adjacent, purporting to explore its own mythos. Secondly, it is an Alien movie. Fans who wanted the former were disappointed, and fans who wanted a pure instance of the latter were disappointed.

Prometheus sends android David (Michael Fassbender) and a crew of, let's face it, doomed humans, off to a remote moon in search of humanity's forebears, flying under the Weyland flag (yes, that Weyland). Once they reach their target, the crew discovers abandoned structures, monuments to the Engineers (the big white lads who made us), plenty o’ corpses, and jars of a primordial ooze that mutates anything it comes into contact with.

Unlike other Alien films, the android winds up being the centre of this one, reflecting humanity’s desire to meet their creators having been damned by them, and flipping the script and using  David's creators to his own end, in a quest for bigger answers - answers that lie with the xenomorphs. Thus, this fifth effort in the franchise offers all the excitement of your average Alien flick, but with an added philosophical underpinning - the kind of mission statement that the rest of the movies lack, and which elevates this one far beyond the norm.