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Jun 15, 2012 - 01:58 PM |
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For Ulysses: My Friend's Review Of Prometheus |
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PROMETHEUS
An Adventure Beyond Your Imagination's Greatest Imagination
by
the creative genius behind that Robin Hood movie about Robin Hood secretly being slightly different from regular Robin Hood
and
that guy who gave LOST such a satisfying conclusion
EXT. OPEN ON STOCK FOOTAGE OF EARTH, AND THEN A REALLY PALE GUY TAKES SPACE DRUGS AND DROWNS.
TITLE: PROMETHEUS, BUT FORMED LIKE THE WORD ALIEN FROM ALIEN. GET IT? GET IT?
SUBTITLE: "USS PROMETHEUS, IN SPACE"
INT. ROBOT MOVIE THEATER
DAVID
"The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts."
AUDIENCE
Huh, is the robot quoting Lawrence of Arabia for some reason? I guess that's interesting, maybe it will be important later.
DAVID
Nope! And now I'm going to actually watch Lawrence of Arabia on screen so that no one can ever accuse this story of having any subtlty whatsoever.
INT. SPACE HOSPITAL
DAVID
I'm sure fascinated by how this supposedly rational woman of science has a cross around her neck, as everyone knows religion and science are completely opposing concepts and one can't exist at the same time as the other.
SHAW
{Is asleep, and so we must simply gaze at her gentle form and wonder about this contradiction.}
DAVID
Hah, just kidding, I'm literally watching her dream with my dream TV so here's some footage of her as a kid. It's lucky she was dreaming about her childhood, which is a thing people totally do.
INT. BRIEFING ROOM
OLD MAN
Hello everyone, I'm a hologram of CHARLES FOSTER WEYLAND.
OLD MAN PAUSES SO THAT THE IMPACT OF THIS AMAZING REVEAL CAN SET IN
OLD MAN
You know, like the trucking company in Alien.
GROUP
Oooooooooooooh.
OLD MAN
Anyway, I'm sorry to say that if you're seeing this message then... I'M DEAD.
GROUP
Why would it affect our lives in any way whether or not this old man is dead?
OLD MAN
I want you to meet my robot pal, David. In a way, he's the closest thing to a ***SON*** I'll ever have.
GROUP
By that do you mean you don't have any children, or do you still have a daughter?
OLD MAN
That will be a surprise! (holds his pinkie finger up to his lips and grins)
GROUP
Why would we care?
OLD MAN
Anyhow, you are the baddest group of money-grubbing gritty realistic post-docs in the galaxy and I have brought you together for one reason and one reason only: someone looked at all those cave drawings and decided they were obviously a map to the Prometheus homeworld and now we're going there to... I don't know, root around or something.
GROUP
Excuse me, Mr. Weyland, did you see AVP: Alien vs. Predator? I only ask because it seems like you would have learned an important lesson about you personally assembling a team of mercenary scientists to travel to a distant alien temple with some secret ulterior motive...
OLD MAN
I am, in fact, a completely distinct Charles Foster Weyland who happened to have the same idea with the same results and the same stinger at the end of the film. Lance Henriksen was too busy filming the Millennium movie. In his mind.
INT. VICKERS' SECRET DOUBLE-SPACESHIP ROOM.
VICKERS
Thank you for coming to see me. I was hoping you'd take care of distributing these for me.
VICKERS GESTURES TO A BOX LABELED "ESPECIALLY OBVIOUS LAMPSHADES"
SHAW
Of course. And while I'm here, I notice that you live in a self-sustaining life pod for some reason.
VICKERS
That's a thing, alright.
SHAW
And you have an autodoc that can do any kind of surgery! Where did you get it? There's only five of them in KNOWN SPACE.
VICKERS
I have no idea what you're implying. {tugs collar}
SHAW
Anyway, I'm sure none of this will be important later.
EXT. PLANET PROMETHEUS
SHAW
I'm too excited to wait! Let's go outside NOW even though we've been specifically told we're going to die if we do. Science is NOT about patience.
SHAW'S HUSBAND OR WHATEVER
I'm a roguishly handsome 30-something, exactly what you'd assume the world's greatest xenomorphology scientist would look like.
SCIENTIST
Hey, so, wait, shouldn't we send out a robot to see if there's anything dangerous?
SHAW
It's dumb to assume that our society necessarily even has robots that can explore things!
DAVID SMILES
SOMEONE
Marines, we are LEAVING! Get it? Get it? Like in Aliens. Which was a movie tangentially connected to this one. Also, it's the doors from the Nostromo! Woo!
INT. SPACE CAVE
SHAW
Woah, it's the Space Jockey body from Alien! This is totally cool, I always wondered what their backstory was and now we're going to find out, wink wink.
SHAW
But wait, he's missing his head! Oh, hey, no, it got cut off because he couldn't get into this elevator in time.
SHAW'S HUSBAND
Why would any civilization ever invent automatic doors capable of cutting their own heads off? I mean, if you put your arm in a human elevator it just doesn't close all the way...
SCIENTIST
Screw you all, man, I'm a GEOLOGIST. Seeing the greatest discovery in the history of mankind that apparently shatters all our previous notions about the meaning of life in the universe doesn't interest me in the slightest because there are no rocks! I'm LEAVING!
ANOTHER SCIENTIST
Actually, there clearly are rocks, we're looking at a giant leftover H.R. Giger mural carved in some right now...
SCIENTIST
LEAVING
SHAW
You fool, you're not in terrible danger, don't go back to the Prometheus.
SHAW AND HER HUSBAND EXPLORE THE SPACE JOCKEY CAVE FOR A FEW MINUTES
SHAW
I just realized we're in terrible danger, let's go back to the Prometheus.
INT. GIANT HEAD TESTING ROOM
SHAW
Oh my God, I just realized: the H.R. Giger creature that so-fascinated generations of moviegoers isn't a creature at all but a giant man in a HELMET! Let's remove it and stick electricity in it.
GIANT HEAD
Waaaaaarg {explodes}
SHAW
Good science today, people.
INT. ROBOT CONSPIRACY LAB
DAVID
Now I will mix this SPACE POISON I found on the Prometheus planet into Shaw's Husband's drink in the hopes that he will then have sex with her before dying so that she might be impregnated by an alien and then in the third act need to use the autodoc to cut the alien out and in the process learn that Charles Foster Weyland is ALIVE.
VICKERS
This plan makes perfect sense.
INT. THE BRIDGE OF THE PROMETHEUS
VICKERS
You see, the ship is called Prometheus because Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and was punished for his transgression.
CAPTAIN
That is what Prometheus is, yes, but as far as I can tell it has almost nothing to do with what's happening here.
VICKERS
Another good name for a movie would be NOSTROMO because that was a cute reference too that everyone should notice.
CAPTAIN
So, are you a robot?
VICKERS
Let's have sex!
CAPTAIN
That answers my question, as humans would never invent a robot they could have sex with.
INT. SPACE CAVE
SCIENTIST #1
Welp, we're lost. Let's get high.
SCIENTIST #2
Aren't you the guy who makes maps? With map robots that even the audience can understand? Why did they pick you to be the guy who gets lost? And didn't we leave well before the others? What exactly happened here?
SCIENTIST #1
I ONLY CARE ABOUT MONEY, OKAY!
SCIENTIST #2
Also, we left because we were terrified of the space cave and yet here we are again specifically going in to the part with the Alien eggs I mean goo hexagons.
SCIENTIST #1
Yeah! Let's play with this alien cobra for some reason.
SCIENTISTS DIE
INT. USS PROMETHEUS LIFE POD
SHAW
Oh no, all that stuff no one could have predicted happening came true here, in the third act! I'd better get an abortion.
ABORTION COMPUTER
I'm sorry, this abortion computer is only programmed to operate on men.
SHAW
Men?! But there aren't any MEN on this mission! What a shocking twist! And a significant design flaw for an abortion computer. Also, I'll just press two buttons.
OLD MAN
... and it turns out I'M still alive! It was all a conspiracy to not tell anyone I was here.
SHAW
Why would anyone care?
VICKERS
And I'M his daughter! Do I have some issue with his robot son, some kind of interesting conflict? Does this revelation mean anything to the narrative? No.
SHAW
Again...
OLD MAN
Anyway, let's go back to the alien ship and wake up a giant alien who won't want to kill us at all and then he'll make me immortal or something because in my mind science means looking at a drawing of circles and deciding it means one thing and nothing else.
SHAW
I don't know, I wish I had slightly more closure.
CAPTAIN
Hey, Shaw! I know I haven't been involved in this adventure in any way other than to have every college student from Baltimore hoot at me when I say something because I was on The Wire, but I suddenly realized several facts the audience should know: this isn't the Space Jockey Home World, it's a Space Jockey WEAPONS LAB! And it turns out not only did they CREATE MANKIND ITSELF but they also plot to DESTROY IT!
SHAW
That's spectacular! When it comes to plots, bigger is better, biggest is best!
CAPTAIN
I wonder why ancient civilizations drew maps to the Space Jockey weapons lab in their ancient living rooms...
SHAW
SHUT UP
INT. USS PROMETHEUS BRIDGE
VICKERS (comm)
No, Captain, you can't go home! It turns out the Space Jockeys STILL plotting to destroy mankind! And the specific ship we found is the one that's going to do it, coincidentally.
CAPTAIN
I have no choice but to trust the word of a crazy woman I hate. RAMMING SPEED.
NAVIGATORS
But if we do ramming speed at them, we'll die!
CAPTAIN
That's the point!
NAVIGATORS
Ooooh. Well, that sounds great, we're in! High five! Hang ten! Suddenly suicidal bros 4 life.
VICKERS
I'm ejecting in a life pod so there'll be a life pod at the end of the movie even though there's nothing more my character is needed for!
EXT. PROMETHEUS PLANET
VICKERS AND SHAW
Ahhhh a 50-mile-high C-ship is falling straight down on us! We'd better run lengthwise rather than five feet to our right or left to survive!
VICKERS AND SHAW ARE SQUASHED, BUT SHAW SURVIVES FOR SOME REASON
DAVID
I'm still here, and it turns out there are LOTS of Prometheus ships and we can fly one!
SHAW
I thought you were an evil robot that wanted to kill people for no reason.
DAVID
No, I'm a helpful robot that wants to help them for no reason!
SHAW
I've misjudged you terribly. Let's blow this pop stand.
SHAW FILLS OUT A LOG ENTRY BY TAKING A PAGE FROM THE ALIEN SCRIPT, SCRATCHING OUT NOSTROMO AND ELLEN RIPLEY AND WRITING IN PROMETHEUS AND SHAW. CLEVER. THE END... OR IS IT?
INT. LIFE POD
An alien explodes the dead Space Jockey. It's like the ones we know, but slightly different! And it's full sized because the audience can't be trusted to recognize a chest burster.
CREDITS ROLL
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