Ridley Scott’s desire to make a prequel to one of his previous sci-fi classics with Prometheus was ambitious but would have been better used with a different series. Even amid a career of iconic movies across numerous genres, Alien remains one of the director’s most iconic films. It shaped the respective cinematic genres for years to come. After other filmmakers got the chance to put their stamp on the series, Scott returned to the franchise and expanded the Alien timeline with Prometheus and Covenant.
Ridley Scott’s Alien prequels serve as the bridge to the original Alien, expanding on the origins of the series and interjecting it with heavier themes than what the original film ever aimed for. That world had already been expanded in numerous other films, with continued exposition and explanation only removing some of the blunt appeal of the series. Prometheus suffered from its attempts to meld Alien with the kinds of larger questions that Scott clearly wanted to explore in a film. Those ideas would have worked better in another prequel Ridley Scott had considered.
Blade Runner Would Have Been A Better Ridley Scott Prequel Than Prometheus
Ridley Scott’s desire to return to the Alien movies with Prometheus would have been better served exploring a prequel set in the world of Blade Runner. While Alien remains a classic of the genre (and its direct follow-up Aliens successfully raised the stakes for the series), the rapid expansion of that universe has been explored numerous times in subsequent films, comics, and video games. Blade Runner was a far more singular project, with far fewer expansions. A Blade Runner prequel would have possessed more interesting potential, whereas attempting to flesh out the Alien series complicated a thing of beautiful simplicity.
The Xenomorphs of Alien work best when they are blunt creations of galactic evolution, the perfect killing machines. It doesn’t need to be any more complex than that, the appeal stemming from the tension they create for the humans (and the audience.) Prometheus needlessly complicated the concept by setting up the creation of the first Xenomorph. It’s an unnecessary expansion of the Alien franchise that adds too much to a straightforward monster. By contrast, a prequel to Blade Runner could have provided a better understanding of how a society came to be and shown how places like Los Angeles evolved.
Blade Runner 2049 Proved That Returning To Future L.A. Could Have Been Great
Fans of Blade Runner did get the chance to return to a futuristic Los Angeles with 2017’s Blade Runner 2049. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film focuses on an investigation undertaken by Officer K (Ryan Gosling) into a potentially world-changing discovery. This naturally exploratory concept allowed the film to expand the scope of its setting. It would have been exciting to see a director like Scott and his team paint out the world becoming Blade Runner. Blade Runner would have been a better thematic pick for the kind of story Scott seems to want to explore.
Alien: Romulus – Release Date, Story, Cast & Everything We Know
With Fede Álvarez at the helm of the new Alien movie the franchise is heading in a promising direction, but what is Alien: Romulus about?
Prometheus is ambitious, with reflections on artificial life and mortality. These introspective ideas don’t fit well alongside the more visceral aspects of Alien where a giant alien rips robots apart. Those themes would have felt perfect in a Blade Runner prequel, far more focused on questions of humanity, agency, and mortality. These are the things Prometheus wanted to explore, but the constraint of Alien as a franchise is that it is more rooted in horror and tension. Overcomplicating it distracts from the elements that make Alien effective, and Ridley Scott should have made a Blade Runner prequel instead.
Watch Prometheus on Hulu
Prometheus
- Release Date
- June 8, 2012
- Director
- Ridley Scott
- Cast
- Charlize Theron , Noomi Rapace , Idris Elba , Guy Pearce , Michael Fassbender
- Writers
- Jon Spaihts , Damon Lindelof
- Franchise(s)
- Alien
