Prometheus First Footage Reaction

• 11th Apr 2012

So it’s an unusual Tuesday morning when you roll up to a Leicester Square cinema at 10am to be greeted by two burly security guards, have to be checked off a list, then face a row of another five big men in suits to have your phone taken away and bagged. An exclusive screening of Ridley Scott’s (not a prequel) Prometheus followed rather niftily by a question and answer with Sir Ridley himself and three of the actors from the film; Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron.

Faced with a free breakfast (screw those fruit pots I want the pastries) and a room packed with thick rimmed, skinny jeaned, checked shirt wearing men, disturbingly fashionista girls and a smattering of British TV “interviewers” I was drooling with anticipation.

I got to see about 10 minutes of never shown to the public footage of Prometheus. As I said to a friend if I was a guy I would’ve had a boner. We’ve all been salivating over those trailers but on the big screen and with some impressive 3D I am convinced this will be one of the most beautiful pieces of science fiction to hit our screens in years. Visually it was amazing. The spaceship sets, the use of technology, the alien planet. Everything.

The footage shown introduced us to the premise of the film. Beginning with Rapaces’ character, Elizabeth Shaw, discovering on an archaeological dig an “invite” from something in another galaxy to go and find them. The story then moves on to the crew of this exploration awakening. We have the tough and mean Charlize Theron’s Meredith Vickers, and the android Michael Fassbender’s David, with Shaw and what I can assume is a husband along for the ride. The crew receives a briefing of why they are there with a wonderful introduction to Guy Pearce as Weyland. This ends in a montage of what was primarily seen in the trailer (so much more awesome on the big screen).

I found every ounce of this footage a pleasure but what of the reveals in plot? I’m not one to over analyse and try to second guess what will happen but things I picked up from the footage and the question and answers afterwards:

* The character of David will be a treat. As Scott explained in the Q&A, the non-human reveal has been done before. So here is the chance to use this character to both view the action that takes place from a non-human perspective and as a vehicle for the primary gods/human subtext of the film. The brief view of Fassbender’s performance of this was fascinating to watch (and not just because he is hot). This is going to be a very interesting character.

* Which leads me to the second point. I think there is going to be a conflict between David and Vickers. During the Weyland scene he says that David is his only true son, cut to an expression from Vickers. Are we to assume she may be his daughter and by using the concept of Weyland as a god we have the competition of the created son of a god and the real child of the god. I could be wrong here but I don’t doubt there will be much play on various god mythologies.

* Revealed in the Q&A there will be a disturbing scene for Shaw. There’s a hint of this in the trailer but confirmed from the actors mouth it gave her nightmares for weeks.

* Scott revealed the connections between Prometheus and Alien will be in the last 7 minutes of the film and the reason he made this film was to look at the question “who is the space jockey?”.

* Theron swears a lot.

The Q&A was unsurprisingly littered with journalists trying to make the “so this is like this was in Alien” connections. It is quite evident to me though that you shouldn’t enter this film looking for what has gone before. It will be a work of science fiction genius entirely in its own rights and it should be at the top of your films to anticipate this year.

Lauren Cracknell