The full length trailer for Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus recently hit the … broadband? I don’t know how the internet works, but regardless if you would so choose, you could join the legions that have hit play on the new trailer or you could be like me and decide not to watch it.
What is the purpose of a trailer, really? I think it’s a fairly straightforward deal – to entice people to see a movie. Once you’re already enticed, do you really need to see more? There are some movies that I would never have even known about if it weren’t for a trailer. Equilibrium comes to mind. Never had any clue about this movie until I saw a trailer online and it looked awesome. I was lucky enough to then catch the movie in theaters.
Sometimes it takes several trailers to wear you down. At first glance, you might not care about Wrath of the Titans because the first one was so mediocre. After watching a few other television spots, they won me over. Now, here’s the thing about Prometheus….
I’m already enticed to see the movie, so I don’t need any more convincing.
A trailer could maybe build my excitement up just a little bit more, but on the other hand it could easily ruin the experience by revealing too much.
Trailers have a long history of blowing great jokes, awesome action scenes, ruining endings, or portraying scenes in misleading contexts. For every great trailer, there are several crappy ones that give too much away. Personally, I’m playing it safe and avoiding all Prometheus stuff from here on out. I just want to see the movie as purely as possible. I want to be surprised with every twist and turn and not be trying to place bits of the trailer into the movie. Even a great trailer for a movie like The Grey ultimately gives too much away. The whole time you’re just in your seat going “When does he punch the wolves!!?”
I could easily just say trailers push me past my boiling point and call it day, but there is another aspect ofPrometheus that has people all up in a tizzy. The fact that it most definitely 100% is a prequel to Alien.
Apparently some people refuse to believe this, despite Ridley Scott saying in interviews and at San Diego Comic Con that the “Alien DNA” was mostly definitely in the film. I think that is just him playing coy, because in the SDCC footage we definitely saw some small alien like creatures and the teaser had a lot of Alien imagery. I accidentally saw a still from the most recent trailer which has more alien imagery, and it’s long been talked of that the movie would somehow involve the Space Jockey from the original film.
Take it from a guy who doesn’t even need to see the trailer to know – Prometheus is a prequel. It has people exploring space, the Weyland company, presumably the Yutani company, aliens, and androids. This is definitely a movie set in that universe. Chronologically, we know it happens before Alien, so that makes it a prequel. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Deal with it.
Further, why is this a bad thing? Some are upset to hear that it’s a prequel. Worry not. For it is not, apparently, a direct prequel like The Thing (2011). This movie doesn’t happen forty-five minutes before Alien. What we’re getting is another science fiction film from Ridley Scott in the universe he created and that we love. It doesn’t matter what you think of anything that happened post-Aliens, they’re far off in the future. Kind of. TechnicallyAlien vs Predator and Alien vs Predator: Requiem are both prequels too. They’re even prequels toPrometheus. If it makes you feel better, you can consider Prometheus a sequel to AvP2.
Doesn’t help? I tried.
I really want to say to you, ‘Don’t worry, we’re getting an expanded story from the creator of the original! Isn’t that great?’ but there is George Lucas just standing there, waving his limp dick in my face shouting ‘Phantom Menace, Phantom Menace.’
But fuck George Lucas. He made some shitty prequels, but let’s be honest – besides directing Star Wars: A New Hope and coming up with the stories for franchise, he never really made any other good movies. In fact, his ideas for the franchise were changed a lot from original idea to finished screen version. So let’s ignore those.
Prometheus isn’t a cash grab, it’s a director coming back around to material he did an excellent job with and he’s excited to dive deep into the history. This isn’t the studio version of a prequel that is a carbon copy clone of the original, but with new names on roughly similar faces. This is Ridley Scott making another movie in theAlien universe. Call it a sequel, call it a prequel, call it whatever you damn please – I’m calling it damn awesome and I haven’t even see the trailer yet. And I won’t.
So that’s my piece. Prometheus is a prequel, so quite arguing against it and quit your bitching about it. Trailers give too much away too often, so think about skipping them once you’ve already decided to see the movie. Leave some mystery in it. Movies are magic and I’m past my boiling point.
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