#658 Prometheus – is not an Alien prequel – The Film Buff Review

Welcome to the Film Buff Review of Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982/2007)!

In this bold and unfiltered episode, Peter A. DeLuca (AKAPAD) takes on one of the most revered and reworked science fiction films of all time — and delivers a passionate takedown. Part of his deep-dive “cyborg movie block,” AKAPAD argues that Ridley Scott’s Final Cut is a complete waste of time, so disappointing that he couldn’t even finish watching it.

Growing up with the original theatrical version featuring Harrison Ford’s essential voice-over narration, AKAPAD explains why removing that guiding narration in the Final Cut leaves the film confusing, boring, and nearly unwatchable for him. He contrasts it with other successful Ridley Scott director’s cuts (Kingdom of Heaven, Alien), dives into the philosophical questions of cyborgs vs. replicants, and shares his extensive quest watching dozens of cyborg/robot films from the golden 80s/90s era.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who loves Blade Runner, debates the multiple versions of classic films, or wants an honest contrarian take on a movie many call a masterpiece. AKAPAD also touches on Blade Runner 2049 and why certain creative choices fall flat.

Turn up the volume, grab your tissues (for the hot takes), and decide for yourself which version of Blade Runner actually works. Available now on AKAPAD’s podcast — perfect for sci-fi fans who enjoy raw, no-holds-barred discussion.

[00:00:00]
Overview and Initial Reception of Prometheus (2012)

• Prometheus remains a deeply polarizing film since its release, generating substantial debate and misunderstanding among audiences.
• Initially, many viewers expected a direct prequel to Alien (1979) but were surprised to find a more complex and less straightforward narrative. This led to widespread disappointment and confusion.
• The film’s reputation has evolved over time, with ongoing appreciation from dedicated fans and film buffs, particularly within podcast communities discussing the Alien franchise.
• The excitement at its premiere was palpable, akin to major franchise releases such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Infinity War.
• Despite initial anger and confusion in theaters, Prometheus has survived as a subject of analysis, discussion, and admiration.

[00:01:32]
Audience Reaction and Interpretation Challenges

• The internet era amplified negative reactions, with many critics and viewers either missing the film’s thematic depth or refusing to engage with its ambiguity.
• Some fans demand perfection and clear answers, but Prometheus intentionally embraces mystery and imperfection.
• The film’s $130 million budget yielded approximately $400 million globally, marking commercial success despite mixed reviews.
• YouTubers and online theorists have built careers explaining the film’s complex lore, increasing tolerance and understanding over time.
• The film’s narrative focus is less on straightforward plot and more on thematic and experiential elements tied to the broader Alien universe.

[00:02:54]
Connection to the Original Alien and Franchise Lore

• Prometheus is linked to the original Alien through the concept of the “space jockey,” a mysterious alien species first introduced in the 1979 film.
• For deeper background on space jockeys, fans can refer to the Dark Horse Comics Alien series, considered part of the franchise canon until contradicted by later media.
• Hollywood franchises often face canon conflicts, similar to the discrepancies between George Lucas’s Star Wars canon and that of Lucasfilm post-Lucas.
• Ridley Scott sought to expand the mythology around the space jockey in Prometheus, but the film diverges from direct continuity with the original Alien.

[00:04:19]
Plot Elements and Storyline Overview

• The original Alien plot: The crew discovers the space jockey ship, encounters alien eggs, and suffers the infamous chestburster attack leading to the Xenomorph threat with acid blood and lethal aggression.
• Prometheus promised to answer questions about the space jockey and alien origins but instead expanded the mythology without fully resolving connections.
• The movie explores two moons and a larger satellite, complicating its link to Alien and introducing new elements such as the “Engineers” or “Creators.”
• The follow-up, Alien: Covenant, further complicates the story, leading to fan backlash due to perceived inconsistencies and unclear biology of creatures like the protomorph.

[00:06:22]
Fan and Creator Expectations vs. Reality

• Ridley Scott and writer Damon Lindelof (known for Lost) built great hype around Prometheus as a prequel, but the film’s ambiguity frustrated fans expecting clear answers.
• Fans deeply invested in franchise lore, novels, comics, and fan fiction often clash with those seeking straightforward storytelling.
• Online fandom activity is immense, with some individuals producing extensive content and commentary, though this passion can appear obsessive or overwhelming in person.

[00:08:31]
Key Characters and Performances

• Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) serves as the spiritual successor to Ripley, embodying resilience and determination.
• Shaw’s personal tragedy, including the loss of her husband, adds emotional depth.
• David (Michael Fassbender) stands out as the most complex android in the franchise, blending human-like traits with unsettling artificiality.
• David’s character is further explored in Alien: Covenant.
• Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) represents the corporate face of human ambition, seeking immortality and assistance from the Engineers.
• The Engineers themselves are portrayed as enigmatic, godlike beings whose disdain for humanity reflects their higher consciousness.
• Supporting characters include Idris Elba and Charlize Theron, whose roles contribute to the human ensemble and interpersonal dynamics.

[00:11:04]
Film Style, Themes, and Atmosphere

• The film’s cast is composed of distinct archetypes with specialized skills, reminiscent of Alien vs. Predator (AVP) crews, creating a dynamic interplay of personalities.
• Prometheus incorporates a detailed biological and ecological design, enhancing the sci-fi horror atmosphere.
• It balances mystery and horror, inviting viewers to engage with it as a suspenseful journey rather than a fully resolved narrative.
• The film demands active viewing, rewarding those who appreciate thematic depth over simple plot exposition.

[00:12:25]
Visual and Audio Elements

• Cinematography by Dariusz Wolski is praised for its beauty and innovation, using lighting techniques such as under-jaw haloes to create eerie effects.
• The film’s creature design and industrial aesthetics are highly regarded, contributing to its immersive sci-fi world.
• Mark Stretenfeld’s musical score supports the film’s tension and atmosphere.
• The movie’s use of darkness and light reinforces its horror roots and the theme of the unknown.

[00:13:50]
Narrative Approach and Franchise Impact

• Prometheus intentionally de-canonizes some elements from the original Alien timeline and story, introducing new mysteries instead of clear answers.
• This approach frustrates fans who expect direct continuity but enriches the franchise’s mythos with philosophical questions about creation, destruction, and humanity’s place in the universe.
• The film should be viewed as a horror mystery, paralleling Alien in tone and suspense rather than as a straightforward sci-fi action movie.

[00:15:12]
Summary of Viewing Experience

• Many viewers find Prometheus compelling even when watched without focus on dialogue, appreciating its visuals and mood.
• The storyline centers on humans encountering monsters in an unfamiliar, hostile environment far from home, with underlying themes of exploration, danger, and survival.
• The film’s dark tone and complex narrative require patience and an open mind, especially for those accustomed to more conventional sci-fi thrillers.

[00:16:25]
Future Discussions and Context within the Alien Franchise

• The podcast intends to continue exploring the Alien universe, with the next episode focusing on Alien: Covenant and its related novelization.
• These episodes may be released weekly or more frequently leading up to the launch of Alien: Romulus.
• Alien: Covenant is viewed as a complementary piece to Prometheus, further expanding and complicating the franchise’s mythology.
• The ongoing discourse highlights the enduring fascination and complexity of the Alien series, with Prometheus as a pivotal, if contentious, installment.

Key Insights

• Prometheus is not a straightforward prequel to Alien but rather a thematic and philosophical expansion.
• The film’s initial reception was marred by unmet expectations for clarity and continuity.
• It excels in atmosphere, design, and character complexity, especially through David and Elizabeth Shaw.
• The narrative intentionally leaves many questions unanswered, emphasizing mystery and horror.
• Fan engagement is intense and varied, ranging from deep theorizing to frustration over perceived inconsistencies.
• Visual style and sound design contribute significantly to the film’s immersive experience.
• The film challenges traditional franchise canon, encouraging viewers to rethink the Alien universe’s mythology.

Summary Table: Core Characters and Roles

Terminology and Concepts

00:00:00
boohoohoo everyone the internet hates Prometheus no one understands this movie it’s something a lot more this movie has resonated this movie has survived and this movie is still watched and appreciated to this day in 2012 this blew the collective mind because it wasn’t a prequel to alien and the world had to get over that well we’re over here on the a Kad the film buff podcast we’re talking everything alien until the release of alien Romulus so let’s go let’s talk about this movie I am pumped I am

00:00:41
excited all action I remember seeing this movie the night it dropped in New Jersey in a insanely crowded theater there was absolute excitement there was a anticipation in the a I would compare it to Star Wars force awakens Avengers Infinity War it it was it was in the air it was there you could uh slice it with a knife Prometheus 2012 is viewed we watch it right we sit down we have our popcorn and then everyone leaves the theater angry we’re in the age of the internet and here we go Prometheus is is now misunderstood

00:01:32
forever because of the initial audience reaction and people just flat out playing dumb when they discuss this movie they will just pretend they can’t make leaps you just can’t have fun and it needs to be perfect well guess what we don’t live in a perfect world I’m a person I can walk through a museum and I see a lot of errors in painting proportions technique hell hell even even the the way how some museums are are lit I was I was just at the Philly Museum and in in the the modern the modern art section and I

00:02:12
hated the way it was lit right like nothing’s perfect and Prometheus is not perfect it costs $130 million it makes 400 million and then there’s an age of YouTubers that legit created their career they they made their career over explaining and coming up with theories around Prometheus just trying to get people to understand the movie and along the way you know we got more and more people tolerant to Prometheus a lot of these alien franchise episodes not going to be so much around the plot it’s really these

00:02:54
other experiences around the movies because each one has a different lore about it but Prometheus picks up this tease from the original 1979 alien also directed by Ridley Scott it’s an idea called a space jockey if you want a more explanation of the time to what the space jockeys were you can go to Dark Horse Comics and get the early alien comic books they used to be uh up there yeah I’m pretty sure you can you can still get get them they’re they’re plenty of affordable but that’s called Cannon right so it’s

00:03:45
Cannon until someone picks it up makes a movie and they can kind of honor the cannon like kind of what came before or they say that that doesn’t take place here and that’s common with a lot of these Hollywood guys like George Lucas had a different Canon for Star Wars than the the rest of Lucas film even though Lucas film did everything it could to make a lot of characters and situations butt up around at the time episodes 1 through six there was a lot of effort for that but Ridley Scott says look this

00:04:19
space jockey scene where we discover the alien eggs where the alien space hugger the egg opens up it it infects who is it William Hurt is it William her but yeah and then uh yeah we go off to the spaceship and chest burster comes out they hunted chest burster no luck chest burster uh forms into a giant Xenomorph alien black slimy acid blood and just kills the whole crew that’s the original alien but there’s so many of these ideas that went back to the space jockey so Prometheus it looked like Prometheus was

00:05:01
going to answer those questions and Prometheus was in some way going to butt up against the original alien very much like how Star Wars Episode some Star Wars Rogue one butts up against Star Wars Episode 4 it’s not the case we’re kind of dealing with different planets we’re dealing with a bigger satellite with moons and there’s two separate moons and this movie further confuses things with the follow-up alien Covenant but the internet just goes crazy like they hate that these connections don’t exactly line up they

00:05:40
hate that there’s a biology in this movie that kind of explains space Huggers or or face huggers and the xenomorph we see uh I think it’s called a protomorph they called it at one point and then it’s all of this mumbo jumbo with what they call the space jockeys or the creators the engineers the the idea that these are the beings that create humanity and then there’s comments made by Ridley Scott and Damian and landoff the guy from Lost that that and he really tarnish his name with this cuz

00:06:22
they’re like the guy from Lost is writing to prequel to alien this is going to be amazing and this is a sure no one was happy with season six of lost so we don’t get answers and everything in the movie Just from the audience perspective doesn’t make any sense and this is what I mean about playing stupid for some reason there’s a there’s a fandom that wants these things so hard and they love it so much and they’ spent so much time imagining and reading fan fiction and reading the

00:07:08
comic books and they’re they’re the first in line to even get the novels and they read the the novelizations of these screenplays they love it and these are also the people that the internet’s built for and a lot of times these are the loudest voices some of these accounts are relentless they tweet all day they Facebook all day and I’m talking they have hundreds of thousands of posts they the activity alone is heads spinning you think they’re computers but they’re not if you ever meet them in

00:07:45
person you’re like holy CRA but like your first question is how do you how do you get the time for a half a million tweets where’s that time come from I think I’m at 22k and I’ve you know and I’ve been on Twitter almost since it’s Inception so and then here we are let’s be adults let’s sit down and watch Prometheus I absolutely adore and admire and love this movie I’d like that it takes itself seriously I’d like that the engineers are set up to be Humanity’s

00:08:31
creators but there may be not there may be Humanity’s destructors they’re an angry alien race and they potentially made a weapon and the humans in the movie potentially find a facility for that weapon and we don’t know anything that they’re doing we still know far less and we don’t even know if it’s connected to the original alien by the time we’re done watching this this movie and then along the way we have Naomi Naomi race she’s our girl she’s our like Ripley cuz we need a

00:09:10
Ripley in all these movies she’s awesome she’s amazing she’s hot her husband the love of her life dies in front of her he has a horrific death we have David played by Michael fosbender the best Android in all of these movies this is somewhat of a Trope now we have Androids we have uh h humans that are now robots right that they’re not really humans but they’re always set up to be humans he is one of the most complex characters in all of these movies and we get so much of him

00:09:43
in Alien Covenant one of the reasons why you guess that I love Alien Covenant we have Guy Pierce playing Wayland this is the logo we’ve been seeing in Alien history now we can put a face to it we can actually put a personality and the purpose he’s trying to prolong his life and he needs help from the engineers if they can help him and they are insulted by the idea the way that the engineers act in this movie is exactly how you would anticipate a higher being a higher understanding a higher

00:10:21
Consciousness acting and looking down on the people seeking it out we have Idis Elba his arc’s amazing he gets to bang Sharice Theon we have Sharice Theon as Wayan’s daughter she has a unceremoniously death death she gets crushed at the end but this movie is there and this movie is so much like AVP we have Prospectors we have people on the mission and they’re all certain personality types for skill sets you can in you can inter swap the Cru of both of this movie and AVP and it wouldn’t even

00:11:04
matter and I like those clashing personalities and there’s a biology to this movie and there’s a flow there’s an understanding and it’s still mysterious and I get it it’s hard to watch this movie completely blank because you go into this movie and you love Alien you love aliens and you hate Alien 3 and you and you hate alien resurrection and and you hate AVP and you hate AVP Rec real you hate you hate you hate but you’re there it’s 2012 you’re ready to relove the franchise and you just need

00:11:40
something absolutely perfect to lay it all out for you and then you’re angry when it doesn’t this movie adds more mystery to all of it and then it gets to the idea like we’re watching the movie we’re watching the movie let’s let’s be entertained let’s have a good time let’s look at the amazing design work let’s listen to the music Mark streten field his last name is about 22 letters cinematography douche witz wolski this movie is one of the most beautiful movies science fiction wise

00:12:25
you can never look at this movie is dark this movie uses highlights and and uh Halos underneath the jawline to light the face from below this movie has fantastic creature Design This movie has incredible industrial design this movie is there in front of your face to entertain you and you leave it with a true sense of mystery with a true sense of how dangerous the the stars in the universe is how dangerous the Wilderness is and there’s still like hope there’s a little bit of Hope at the end but we’re watching horror we’re

00:13:09
watching a horror movie and that gets lost that gets excaped and along the way this movie has been like there’s been people that translated some of the alien languages they have brought cutcenes into this movie they they introduced commentary from around the movie into the movie to help explain it they want to explain they people are fascinated with explanations around this movie if you look at this movie as a horror mystery and then you go watch alien as a horror mystery meaning we’re kind of

00:13:50
trying to figure some things out along the way and this is exactly what we want in the horror movie in the Mind’s Eye they’re glorious they’re fantastic to watch and guess what here we go this movie de cannons the gation period that we think that we know from the original alien movie so there it’s it every single one of these movies has a quick just station period but alien alien’s the outlier get over that that talking point still comes up because people like to act surprised

00:14:29
like I said they act silly they act a little bit dumb and naive oh well what about the the time that the alien was inside the body for that first movie okay guys we have to move on from that James camon decanonized that with cut scenes that are somewhat more widely accepted than the original cut of the movie but the Journey of new family and their gustation period is equal to anything you will see in this movie and any other alien or alien verse Predator flick so let that be said AKA PWS this movie is great to watch this is

00:15:12
another movie A lot of times I just had it running with no sound and people just start staring at it and they’re like what is this I’m like oh it’s Prometheus what’s it about it’s about like I don’t know man like it’s it’s a deep science fiction movie there is a lot happening you got you kind of have to take it in but it’s essentially monsters stalking humans and the humans are not where they’re supposed to be and everything’s dark and we’re in the future and it’s science so

00:15:41
let’s go that’s really what this movie is it’s not an alien movie We’re watching entertainment so guys coming up we will discuss alien Covenant which is uh there there’s a really there’s a book connected to that movie uh made from the movie and I want to talk about the alien Covenant book we’ll talk about that next alien episode installment I believe some of these episodes might run once a week or um or every day or every other day leading into the release of alien Romulus but there’s a

00:16:25
super there’s a there’s just a great discussion point that I see a lot of people ignore alien Covenant uh in my view too work per works perfectly with this play so next episode we’re going to get into it thank you rock and roll have a good day

PETER A DELUCA AKAPD

AKAPAD is a versatile thinker known across Philadelphia, Europe, and even in the vast Multiverse as The Electic One. By day, he excels as an IT Mastermind, assisting individuals, both big and small, with a wide range of simple and complex solutions. In contrast, he is also a talented illustrator, a passionate comic book enthusiast, a creative content creator, and an active live streamer. Additionally, his podcast, “AKAPAD The Film Buff Podcast,” boasts an impressive catalog of over 500 episodes available on nearly every major platform.