Movie Review: Prometheus: WARNING SPOILERS

Because this movie is highly anticipated, and God-forbid I try and stop movies like this from making every last scrap of a dime they can, I will refrain from talking about spoiler stuff until much further into this review.

Yes, this is my poetry site, but I have decided to use this also for movie reviews, at least in this case, as I am so angry at what I'm seeing.  Prometheus could have been a really, really good movie.  Sadly, it wasn't.

I am thinking that, if someone were to ask me what to call today's age in literature, I think I'm going to call it the Parasitic Age.  Not Post-modern or Post-colonial, or whatever.  Parasitic, or at least Post Original.

When has anyone felt an itch on their body, reached to scratch it, found a tick, and said: "Oh, that's a cute little thing isn't it?"  That's what movies like this are to me now.  They are parasites that attempt to suck out the blood of an original concept.  They are tapeworms in the belly of a beloved franchise, ironically like the monsters of this movie (every single solitary one of them).

I have been a fan of the original Alien franchise (from which I exclude 3 and 4 and from which I exclude the Aliens vs. Predator franchise entirely).  It had so much potential for awesomeness, but every sequel after Aliens has gotten progressively dumber and more pointless.  Prometheus, I'm disappointed to say, is the same.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE:

ISSUE NUMBER 1:
The Mariners or Space Jockeys.  So, they were going to introduce us to the Space Jockey Aliens from the first movie, right?  The ones that looked like giant elephant creatures?  Quite a few books have included this alien race as just that: creatures that looked like elephants grafting themselves to these massive chairs to pilot these huge u-shaped spacecraft in space.  Why, oh why did Ridley Scott have to botch this?  They were elephant looking creatures at all, but actually just big bald human beings with elephant-looking masks on.  I almost cried when this was revealed in the movie.  I love the idea of non-human creatures being out in space.  Why do movies have to be so humano-centric to make aliens look like humans?  We had the technology to make the space jockey a fully formed being like the one we saw in the first movie.  I kept hoping this was just a prototype human being, and not the original space-jockey, but alas.  Suckitude reigns supreme.  I, like many others, had spent years wondering what in the world it was in that chair, and why the eggs were in there with him, and where he was going.  Well, this movie ruins all the mystique of that prospect.  The ancient alien race?  Just space people.  Why we look like monkeys?  No particular reason.  Just space people.  Big, bald, stupid (apparently) space humans.  I got no problem with them saying that these creatures were making bombs and even made the Aliens.  I got no problem with these creatures they made NOT being the Aliens, but I would love to have seen supreme, ancient Alien beings that WERE NOT humans, with different thinking, with different ideas, with completely alien mindsets.  Where are they about to attack?  Earth.  Why are they going to attack it?  Because it's Earth, the biggest threat in the universe, obviously.  These beings can make the Aliens, can travel billions and billions of lightyears across the universe, and they want to attack....Earth.  Of course.  It's the arrogance of suggesting that we, as human beings, really ARE the supreme beings in the galaxy.  STUPID!!  Maybe they wanted to destroy Earth because they were ashamed of having come from there.  I dunno.  Why would an advanced alien race want to attack Earth?  What is the point of that?  This would be like Al Qaeda going after some random trailer park in the middle of nowhere with no military value or resource value.

ISSUE NUMBER 2:
The whole Aztecs were really worshiping aliens thing.  So, a bunch of civilizations had the same messages about these creatures and so it helped us come up with a means of finding them in space.  Whatever.  It's basically Aliens vs. Predator all over again.  But what I HATE about this movie is that while they are en route to find the alien creatures that apparently manufactured human beings for their entertainment or to be lab mice (this was a lot like Hitchhiker's Guide actually), is that we can figure out their technology in about five minutes.  Basically, they did not really do much in the way of security.  They have some of the most dangerous beings in their cargo hold, but any human being, or artificial human being, can learn ancient mayan and suddenly know how to get at their technology.  Literally, simply guessing at the door codes in the ship allow access.  The access code to the air-shield is: 12345, the stupidest codes imaginable.  Just pushing buttons on these panels gets you all kinds of information.  And it really doesn't even advance the plot any, except to teach someone how to use the technology.  Their security footage is just perfect plot point holograms that tell exactly what someone needs to know to use it, all for the taking at the literal random push of a button.

ISSUE NUMBER 3:
This movie was no where near scary AT ALL.  The scariest thing in it was the Surgery Machine, which I will get to later.  Otherwise, nothing was really all that suspenseful.  They don't spend enough time developing character.  They only have like one or two run-ins with the aliens, and nothing is dark or difficult to see.  Everything's pretty CGI and stupid-looking and as one reviewer has said, nothing is cramped or claustrophobic at all.

ISSUE NUMBER 4:
Probably the only scene in the whole movie that really was interesting at all, was impromptu surgery in the Surgery Machine.  One woman tries to get an alien squiddly-do out of her system with this automated surgery table, and she does, and it's pretty frightening as a process.  However, I kept wanting to say afterwards: "Thank you for using the Surgerytron 5000.  We hope you have enjoyed your surgery and have a nice day."  I bit my lip trying to hold that gem in, because the scene really played out like some kind of coin-operated ride gone insane.

ISSUE NUMBER 5:
These aliens were not ALIENS.  There were sort of proto-aliens in this movie, as though we got to see some of the pilot programs for the original Alien, and they just weren't interesting.  It was like reading a rough draft of a better and more polished movie to come later, and wishing you hadn't seen the rough draft.  These creatures just weren't interesting to look at, and were basically Cthulu's buttworms.  They weren't the terrifying creatures that fans of this franchise would have wanted to see, and don't get me started on the last image of the movie, the Alien rough draft, or prototype.  They killed this franchise.

Why not take the opportunity to create new ALIEN thingies, just as scary as the original Alien, but completely new and different.  The original Alien movies were about sexual assault (a terrifying thing), but there are other things that are terrifying, too, and these Space Mariners could have been making completely different alien weapons.  If Scott had been clever, he would have gone either as a prequel to Aliens proper or he would have taken this movie in a completely other direction.

ISSUE NUMBER 6:
This movie kills the mystique.  Whatever mystery there was involving the Mariner Spacejocky creatures.  Whatever reason the Aliens existed, why the Space Jockey was there, what the purpose of the ship was, all the mystery involved in the first two movies is gone.  They raise questions no one is asking, or they answer questions we really don't want to know about.  People keep thinking they know what they want, but it is the truly surprising movies that really deliver, I think.  The movies people don't see coming.  This movie was rather predictable through the entire thing.  They even recycle some of the stuff from the first movie, particularly some of the dynamics between characters.  Whereas the other alien movies demand a viewer watch and rewatch them to really get the full effect, this movie was pretty much done the moment it got to the second half.  It would have, in fact, been a better movie if they had left off the last five minutes and the first ten minutes completely.

ISSUE NUMBER 7:
One of the things about both the first and the second movie is the character development.  Admittedly, there was a little here and there in this movie, but mostly, this movie just throws some people together, makes a half-butt attempt at developing them, and then start killing them off at random with accidental deaths.

Anyway, I think I'm done.  I don't care for this movie all that much.  I think I've made that clear.

The Church on Highway 29

The cemetery grows like a mold on bread, out, out, out.
The church seems to be the bread.

Dying Tree Struck By Lightning

Dying Tree Struck By Lightning

A lightning bolt smashed that tree,

And the wind finished it off.

The bark is now shredded.

The trunk is broken in half.

Parts of its heart are now

Exposed, violated, burnt open

By an ancient summer storm.

Still a branch emerges,

Trying to salvage it all, 

A tiny, scraggly, childish reach,

A baby's fist in the face of death,

To save fifty feet of dying tree,

A hundred years of growth abandoned.

I Saw A Cloud Like an Angel

I saw a cloud shaped like an angel,
Or maybe it was more like an eagle,
While driving between Opelika and Columbus one morning.
I hoped it was an eagle,
Swooping down, claws opened,
About to catch a trout from somewhere beyond the rooftops.
I hoped it was an eagle
While I watched it fading...fading...fading away.
I hoped it was an eagle and not an angel;
When angels fall to earth,
They don't get back up.

The City

Clickety-clack
Go the trains
Go the dice
Go the rains
Go the mice
Go the pains.
Everything's rollin'
Growin'
People fly like flies
Without legs
Birds without eggs
Home somewhere ahead
But no homes in the city
Houses but no homes,
Mice sneaking in after hours,
Leave the lights off
I'll scurry through.
Pardon you
I was just passing through
Got someplace to get to
Edge me off the map awhile
Take me off the grid
Let me breathe on the z-axis
Let me jump from the y.
Let some other day be my
Day to fry
Hooked in at all my ports
To the electric blood of night,
No pillow drowns the siren wail
Of the city baby, the baby city
Blue-red lights
That can't get enough milk
From the single mom.
It bleeds
Not blood but ice
Crunching in the steps of strangers
Marble statues walking by each other,
Cells in the same body not talking
No one wonders.
The devil commutes,
Takes the interstate over the bridge
Into the city
Grumbles on his way
About the traffic
Never looks out his window pane
Doesn't make eye contact
Doesn't want trouble today.

The House

The House

A young couple, newly married, get into their car.
The house sits at the curb and whines,
Its red-painted door shining in the morning,
"Come back to me, sit inside,
Make my hearth beat,
Preheat the oven,
Light the pilot light,
Let me live with you."

The man tightens his lip,
And he doesn't look at the house,
Not willing to say anything of comfort to it,
Afraid his voice might shake his resolve,
But the woman cries, and she holds up her hand.
"Stay," she says. "Please, don't follow us," she says.

They decide that a house is too big a committment.
They leave theirs to wait on the side of Highway 280
Between Opelika and Columbus,
Like people trading in their dog for a turtle,
Or a screeching bird.

The house stays. They told it to stay.
"They'll come back," it says.
Its neighborhood watch sticker turns white and peels.
Nobody to watch it now.
"They'll find me," it says to itself.
Its head turns as the cars pass by,
And it listens for their little van
For the four doors opening wide like bird wings,
Children laughing from school and daycare.

"They'll come," the house says,
"There'll be a Thanksgiving here,
The overwhelming turkey-cooking smell,
Cranberry sauce, stuffing and the stuffed.
They'll be crammed wall to wall,
Bumping butt to shoulder as they try
To find their seats at the family table.

"These cars will see me in the cold November,
And they will want the warmth inside,
The orange glow of Autumn candles,
Televisions tuned to the Auburn-Alabama rivalry,
Everybody's belly full.

"The drivers will open and close their fingers
By the air-conditioner ducts in their cars,
And wish they were inside, 
Back in their warm beds, 
Not commuting, but dreaming in my dreams.

"My family'll come and they'll bring their children home,
And in the morning: Styrofoam,
Crinkling cellophane and too many plastic pieces,
And daddy, without his slippers,
Will step on sharp little monsters in the carpet,
And jump back like spiders were biting.
Mother will be making breakfast,
Pancakes and eggy breakfast casseroles,
Eggnog staining the inside of green glasses.
The hangover of too much Christmas will settle in
And I'll sleep under the white blanket on my head,"

The house stays in Alabama near Highway 280.

The cars go by, and the house stays;
Its masters told it to stay.

The signs grow like weeds in the front yard:
First Realty, Rice Realty, Century 21,
For Sale By Owner.


The signs disappear.

Paint peels.
A few of the shingles shift.
The front steps rot.
Cats have kittens in the crawlspace.
Chimney swifts hatch in the chimney,
Bats chitter in the attic, a constant noise.
The house has forgotten their car,
The warm slide of its tires in its driveway, 
The familiar jangle of keys.

The cars out on 280 have a warmth the house envies,
Commuters huddle in their coats,
Air-conditioners breathing across the radios
A man and woman chat about inconsequences and latest news.
Journey plays between blasts of hiphop and Lady Gaga.
No one looks for their bedrooms beyond the windows here again.


To the house, these are breaths of winter, 
Sighs only
A bleb of life that might look, 
See only ruins of memories,
And forget it in the next commercial.

The house shivers.

It waits on its own porch,
Termites and carpenter bee larvae in its bones.
It looks over the helmet heads gathered.
It looks over the rumbling bulldozer.

"I stayed. You told me to stay,"
The house breathes out.

WELCOME ONE AND ALL TO JARED GULLAGE'S MODERN POETRY INVENTIONS.  I am going to use this blog to showcase my efforts at writing poetry.  In all humility, I submit my poetry to the world that I might reach out to people who enjoy reading poetry, learn more about writing poetry, reach a broader audience and attract it to my writing in general, and hopefully entertain someone along the way.  If you come to this site, expect to see poetry that I have created.  Perhaps, one day, I will create a chapbook and publish it.  That is yet another goal here, I think.

Please, please, please, please feel free to make comments.  I want to learn.