What I learned from Prometheus

SPOILERS

When I was at university I kept a little book detailing important lessons I learned in writing technique and story telling, every time I watched a film or read book and was impressed or annoyed about something I'd note it down in the book. I amassed an impressive series of rules and guidelines that inform my writing to this day, albeit indirectly.

Unfortunately I lost the book somewhere along the line and I can't replicate it. I often wonder if I'm making mistakes in my writing that I railed against in those rules, hopefully I learned the lessons without having to revisit them.

Anyway, I'd like to start it again and this blog seems as good a way as any to do it. As I saw Prometheus last night and was enraged by it, it occurred to me I can trigger these rules from whatever I've been watching recently. So, today I'm going to set out some rules triggered by watching Prometheus. I apologise if this turns into a rant.

• If you're telling part of a larger story, that part still needs to tell a satisfying story in and of itself. 

Prometheus is clearly establishing itself as the first of further films. During the course of the film so many things are introduced and then brushed under the carpet that it leaves the plot looking like it has more holes than Danny Trejo's face. I suspect the reason for this is that much will be picked up in the following films. I'm fine with that. The problem is that doesn't unburden the writer of the responsibility of telling a satisfying story within that first part. I didn't pay £12 to see 2hrs of claptrap that only serves as Act one to a larger story. Look at the first part of any of the big trilogies and they serve as stories in themselves with the characters making an important journey. I don't really see that in Prometheus.

• All of your characters should be necessary.

Prometheus contains a large assortment of characters, a good half or more of which are totally unnecessary to the story. When the Captain of Prometheus sacrifices himself to destroy the Engineers' ship at the end there are two co pilots who go along with him. Two co pilots who we have not seen before this point who have a bit of light hearted banter with the Captain before hurling themselves into a fiery black ball of screaming death agony. Who the fuck were they?!!!! Having characters you don't know anything about perform heroic deeds robs the deed of any emotional investment. There are a half dozen more of these moments and characters throughout the film.

Charlize Theron and the ageing Weyland are irrelevant and could be removed from the plot without consequence. Charlize's character is set up as the cliche corporate shill then never does anything remotely sinister for the whole film before being killed in the end for being too stupid to run sideways instead of forwards. (Note to film characters, if something tall and thin is falling towards you you will have more chance of survival if you run at a right angle to where the thing is going to fall.) The ridiculous looking Weyland (Guy Pearce acting half Mr Burns / half Danish pastry) is supposed to be dead for most of the film only to turn up alive just in time to have his head kicked in and die. There is no point in introducing a character we thought was dead just to kill him. We already thought he was dead anyway. The same applies for relationships, Charlize reveals in a piece of awful acting that Weyland is her father. So what? Nothing in the film has made that revelation in any way sensational or shocking. Absolutely pointless.

• Do not duplicate character arcs

The story of Prometheus is the story of Noomi Rapace. She wants to find out about the people that made us and try to find some answers why. The first two acts take us on that journey so we invest ourselves in it. So there is no point in having another character turn up in the final act and try to muscle in on that journey. Weyland turns up and effectively says actually this film isn't about your journey its about mine. But his journey is resolved so quickly as to make it utterly pointless: 'Can you extend my life?' 'No' Punch. 'There's nothing!' Weyland makes some exclamation as to the pointlessness of it all as he dies. But he was never looking for meaning, that was Noomi Rapace's journey. He just wanted longer life. Weyland's introduction is just a distraction and duplication of Noomi's story. 

The same applies to Charlize Theron. We already have a villain of the piece in Fassbender. So what purpose does Charlize serve? It's like they thought we needed an Ash and a Carter Burke together to up the ante. Never have too many villains. Since Charlize never does anything particularly reprehensible but is drawn as cold and callous it feels like she's just been included to distract us from the naughty things Fassbender is doing so we can still root for him later or in the sequel. So we have two bad guys where one would have worked better. 

This replication smacks of TV writing where a series will need a larger cast of characters with metronome motivations to keep our interest up over 24 episodes. That's not necessary in a 2 hr long film. I think this is baggage Lindelof is carrying over from writing Lost. 

• The world of your story should be consistent in and of itself.

The premise of the film is that ancient cave paintings and pictograms all over the world contain a star chart that Noomi Rapace reads as an open invitation to visit our creators the Engineers. These must have been planted by the Engineers, the ancients wouldn't have a clue as the Stars are too far to be seen from our planet. So why the hell do these same aliens want to dish out hot agonising vicious death on us? The mission to destroy us was supposed to happen in around 90AD. So what was so different between our ancient ancestors and the Romans that the Engineers decided we needed to be wiped out? One of the cave paintings was Mayan from around 600 AD, placing it 500 years after the Engineers had decided to kill us. Doesn't make sense. Presumably a sequel will address this but Prometheus makes it seem like our next door neighbour has invited us to his birthday party just so he can kick us in the nuts in front of his friends. 

The black goo... the fucking black goo. So, in order, the black goo: turns the Engineers inside out if they drink it, makes earthworms from nothing, makes snakes that intelligent rational scientists want to cuddle instead of dissect, makes angry geologists (who specialise in mapping but who lose their way out of a cave system they've only just entered) turn into The Thing, makes little silver worms come out of the eyes of any human that drinks it (even though we have identical DNA to the Engineers and it destroys them in seconds) it makes intelligent rational scientists too shy to mention the worms in their eyes to anyone or seek medical attention when they notice it, is the worst STD ever and makes you pregnant with squids that turn into massive facehuggers that sit on your face like the fat guy from Borat that go on to make crappy aliens that look like Olympic cyclists and would have HR Geiger retching into his popcorn. The black goo is like the Engineer's iPhone. It's got an app for everything. The black goo does not make sense and is not consistent. 

The Engineers want to kill us but fail. 2,000 years then pass and apparently they don't know that the attempt failed as they make no further attempt. What have the rest of the Engineers been up to? Ball jugglers. Somewhere in the universe there is an admin Engineer trying to leave the room without being noticed. 'Philip, didn't you reschedule the destruction of Earth?' 'Yeah, I was going to do that, but then I didn't.' 'Why not?' 'The post it note fell behind the desk' 'This isn't going to look good on your annual appraisal Philip.' 

The events of Prometheus occur about 30 years before Alien yet the technology is way more advanced. The only attempt to make the ships look consistent is the rubber cladding on the walls.

On watching Alien again it seems fairly clear in the design of the Space Jockey that it is something biological  and fossilised, not something mechanical.

Apparently it doesn't seem to bother anyone on Earth that Weyland, the founder of the corporation that seems to run the Earth in Aliens, spends vast sums of money to launch the mission and dies during it. No one on the ship sent a message to Earth to let them know what was going on and no one on Earth seems to care that they never came back since no one followed them in the next 100 years before Aliens to find out. If Bill Gates spent his fortune flying to Mars and was killed by Martians I think a few of us would know about it. 

'Hey remember when our boss and his daughter went to go and find out the origins of life and never came back?'

'Aye, mad that wasn't it? I'm glad we never discussed it with anyone, they might have stopped our paycheques.'

• Make the actions and motivations of your characters consistent.

Noomi Rapace's boyfriend is an apparently stable, gentle, intelligent and rational scientist who discovers evidence of the creators of our species and is so disappointed by that astounding discovery that he goes on a bender and is a prick to everyone around him. He has not been a prick before. This seemed contrived simply so we'd root for Fassbender when he puts the black goo in his drink. 

Our geologist is set up as a mean bad ass mercenary who within 5 minutes has become Scooby Doo and is running around the base like its a haunted mansion even though very little has happened. His Shaggy is a scientist who is set up as a boffin who when confronted with a totally unknown snake looking creature clearly exhibiting threat behaviour just wants to pet it like a kitten. 

Charlize is set up as an inhuman robot who will climb over anyone in the interests of the corporation. For most of the film though she is the only rational voice and appears just to be desperately trying to save herself from the stupid decisions of everybody else. 

Prometheus has a contingent of security personnel who are never heard from again after the first 5 mins on the planet. Where were they and their guns? Why do they obey Naomi's dictat not to bring weapons when she is not funding or leading the expedition? 

Given that everyone is of the opinion that the Engineers are militaristic and hell bent on our destruction why was no attempt made to restrain or minimise the threat of the one survivor when they wake him?

Apparently if you're the pilot of a ship it takes no more than someone telling you that you can't let another ship leave for you to decide your only course of action is to crash your ship into it in a suicidal action. You don't have to ask what's going on. This is especially true if you're a copilot, if your Captain decides to commit heroic suicide on the word of someone hysterical you will go along with it no questions asked because it seems like a bit of a laugh. 

• Do not claim your story is one thing and then make it the exact opposite

A lot of people online seem to think the negative reaction to the film derives from it not being an Alien film. I don't think that's true. I would have been more than happy if it was not an Alien film but something new instead. That's what I expected it to be and what the excellent marketing led me to believe. Throughout the hype of Prometheus Ridley Scott was at pains to state that the film was not really a prequel to Alien but that it was a thought provoking sci fi set in the same Universe. If that's the case then don't make the last half of the film a creature feature about face huggers, chest bursters and finish it with the birth of an alien variant. THAT MAKES IT AN ALIEN FILM. This film is not thought provoking or philosophical. It asks the question of what the motivation behind creation is and what it means to try to reverse engineer your understanding of your own existence. But it doesn't explore any answers. It simply shows you what life would be like if the person that gave you life was also a massive tit. Plenty of people suffer that in real life and don't have to be shown an allegory of it at the flicks. (I don't mean me Mam, Dad.) 

So there we go. Lessons learned. I'm off to watch Alien again and see if I can still enjoy it. 

Next time I might do the Avengers to address some positive lessons.