When “Prometheus” came out about three years ago, it wasn’t received very warmly – quite on the contrary, many film fans were disappointed with what the film had to offer, and expressed their frustration with the overall poor quality of the plot and presentation. Which is probably why Ridley Scott’s announcement that he’s working on a sequel wasn’t initially met with a lot of excitement. However, the director has since then revealed various details about the upcoming “Prometheus 2” which have put the film in a slightly more favorable light.
One of the things that will set the new film apart from the old one is the fact that it will not focus so much on xenomorphs, and in fact it will try to stay away from the creatures. So far, Scott’s intention is to not resort to including the iconic creature from “Alien”, but he didn’t completely deny the possibility that we might see this happen eventually before the film is out.
There was initially a lot of speculation that the new film is going to indeed feature xenomorphs, after the ending of the first “Prometheus” showed one of the creatures briefly. For many fans, this was seen as a hint that the aliens will also be featured in the next film, although Scott’s statements seem to directly contradict that as a possibility.
Right now, the director’s plan is apparently to introduce various new creatures to the franchise while getting rid of the xenomorph idea. He wants to take the film in a new, fresh direction, even if it means having to put more effort in coming up with original creatures. Plus, this could be the perfect opportunity for him to explore entirely new ideas for what the characters of his film (and possibly future films in the franchise) will have to come up against, which could result in the birth of fresh new ideas.
And while some critics are excited to see the franchise moving in new, unknown directions, that excitement isn’t shared by everyone. Some have been rather disappointed that they won’t be seeing the xenomorphs in the new “Prometheus 2”, but in the end, it’s probably for the better if that franchise is ever to evolve into its own completely unique thing.
Fan opinions have been somewhat split as well, although most seem to just be happy to be getting news about the film at all. Scott Ridley certainly seems to be quite dedicated to making this installment in the series work, so there are high hopes that the new “Prometheus” is going to make up for everything that the original lacked, and even bring more to the table.
Prometheus could have been a lot better. The plot was severely underdeveloped and ambiguous. There was too much room for speculation. I feel audiences would have wanted to know more about the origin of the engineers which was not elaborated upon as much as it should have.
I also wish that they addressed why the engineers wanted to destroy mankind. It would have been better to do that and then have Elizabeth/David return to Earth or travel to their planet to learn more.
It’s also been a proper while since the first film was released. The problem with waiting so long to make a sequel is that people tend to forget and move on. Unless it’s as popular as Avatar, you can’t afford to wait. Usually a sequel is released within 3 years of it’s predecessor.
I feel as though it could have been a stand alone film and should have closed up the whole story by providing insight into the origin of the engineers and in turn the Alien franchise.
The problem with Prometheus is akin to “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. In that movie, all the important things with Indiana Jones happened in a couple of minutes: the scar, the whip, the hat.
In “Star Wars:Episode III” all the bad things to Anakin happened in a matter of hours.
In Prometheus, the Xenomorph were created out of bad combinations in a matter of hours, instead of being an ancient alien civilization.
The “Space Jockey” was meant to be a full alien being, not some Star Tek humanoid with bad make-up.
So, a little less anthropocentrism is necessary to write a full ALIEN movie.