Detailed Ridley Scott movie that grossed over $400 million should have started a new sci-fi franchise

Ridley Scott’s polarizing 2012 blockbuster Prometheus Would have been much better received as a brand new sci-fi franchise than a tangential one Alien Prequel. Set around 30 years before the events of Scott’s original Alien movie, Prometheus Fills in the unseen origin story of the xenomorphs who terrorized Ellen Ripley. Although it was a box office success, grossing $403,354,469 worldwide against a budget of $130 million (via Box Office Mojo), Prometheus was met with a mixed response from critics and audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a good-not-great critics score of 73% and a certifiably divided audience score of 68%.

Prometheus is praised for its stunning visuals, its thought-provoking themes and the brilliant performances by its cast (especially Michael Fassbender as a cold-hearted android). But it was criticized for a poorly paced script, asking more questions than it answered, and making unnecessary additions to the Alien Canon. By explaining where the xenomorphs came from, Prometheus Took away a lot of the mystery That made the original Alien Movies so terrifying. It is a great concept, sinking its teeth into the origins of humanity and the confounding enigmas of the universe, but it arguably would have worked better as an original story.

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus Should Have Started a New Sci-Fi Franchise (Not Continued Alien)

Prometheus is a powerful enough sci-fi story to support a franchise of its own

Prometheus It’s not a bad movie at all, but it’s arguably a bad one Alien Movie. It has some great moments of body horror that would make HR Giger proud, like Elizabeth Shaw’s horrifying self-abortion sequence, but it doesn’t really seem interested in being an Alien movie – and it makes too many radical changes to the canon of the franchise for a film that doesn’t really want to be part of the franchise. It didn’t Alien In its title, it has none of the pre-existing characters of the series, and it even has its own visual language apart from the established aesthetic.

It would have worked much better as an original movie kick-starting its own franchise, not a prequel to force its biblical allegories into the backstory of the Alien Franchise. A group of scientists venturing into deep space to solve the mysteries of the universe is a solid enough premise for a sci-fi franchise without bringing the familiar xenomorphs into the mix. Prometheus Couldn’t have made $400 million if it wasn’t marketed as new Alien Movie from the original director, however Audiences would have gone in with a more open mind.

Prometheus’ engineers could have been the beginning of a whole new sci-fi universe

The worst thing about the Engineers is their forced connection to the Xenomorphs

The history of Prometheus Revolves around the Engineers, a race of highly evolved, highly intelligent beings who create new lifeforms across the universe with specific goals and objectives. The movie reveals that The Engineers are responsible for creating the human raceAnd after they saw how greedy and harmful humanity is, they began to plan the destruction of humanity. in Prometheus‘ Alien– Adjacent storyline, the engineers created the xenomorphs to be humanity’s mortal enemy and finally wipe them out. But If the xenomorph was taken out of the equation, this would still be a compelling story.

With all the wars and genocides in mankind’s history, it would make sense for the universe’s all-powerful overlords to consider humans unworthy of existence. By turning the plot into the creation of the Xenomorphs, Prometheus Suck out all the tension and intrigue of the morning Alien films. What made the Xenomorphs so terrifying was the incredible mystery surrounding them; Give them an origin story ruined that. Prometheus is not a good sci-fi movie because of its connection to the Alien mythology; It’s a good sci-fi movie despite its connection to Alien.

Not much of Prometheus needs to change to remove its alien connection

It’s barely connected to the Alien saga as it is

It would be quite easy to rewrite Prometheus As an original story with no official ties to the Alien Franchise. as it is Prometheus‘ Connections to the larger Alien Sagas are tangential at best. All the references from the film Alien Learning – from LV-223 to the Space Jockey to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation to the Proto-Xenomorphs – would be easy to replace with similar original concepts. Rename the moon and company, swap out the space jockey for another astronaut carcass, and redesign the proto-xenomorphs to look less like ancestors of Giger’s iconic xenomorph, and Prometheus is an original story.

If Prometheus Wasn’t Anne Alien movie, then it would not have been criticized for failing to answer the franchise’s unanswered questions. If it was just the beginning of a new franchise with many sequels ahead, these unanswered questions wouldn’t be a point of conflict; They’d drum up excitement for the next installment. Hollywood is increasingly wary of taking a chance on big-budget original movies — studios are more confident pumping money into projects with links to existing IP — but Prometheus is a rare example of a film that would have been more successful if it hadn’t been tied to a beloved franchise.

Source: Box Office Mojo