Why <em>Prometheus</em> Deserves to Be Taken Seriously
Ridley Scott’s last sci-fi epic was called an unsatisfying <em>Alien </em>prequel on release, but it’s far smarter, and bleaker, than many might remember.
The crux of so many arguments about Ridley Scott’s 2012 sci-fi epic Prometheus revolves around a simple question: Couldn’t Charlize Theron have just run to the left? In the film’s climax, Theron’s cold-blooded, calculating villain Meredith Vickers is crushed while trying to outrun a crashing alien spaceship; several observant critics online noted that had she just turned in another direction, she might have made it out okay. Many of the complaints about Prometheus upon its release (including my colleague Christopher Orr’s measured pan) fell along similar lines: Its characters seemed reckless and impulsive to the point of stupidity, exploring a hostile alien world with casual horror-movie arrogance that ends up getting them killed.
