Five Ways that Aliens Beats Prometheus as a Companion Film to Alien

Disclaimer: This article is SOLELY the opinion of Nerd5. It is grossly unfair as a review, which should NEVER be a contest between two very different works of art produced by two very different artists. That said, in a franchise it’s IMPOSSIBLE not to draw comparisons. I’ll try not to be a jerk, though I already am by indulging in the worst form of criticism. Also, this is full of spoilers. Now, read on…

1.     Aliens was made for 18 million dollars, Prometheus for 125 million. Even adjusting for inflation, that’s a BIG difference. Both were filmed primarily in the UK, which allowed them to benefit from large tax breaks, and both were highly anticipated follow-ups, so they at least started on even footing.

Of course, with the amount of CGI that went into creating the world of Prometheus it was never going to be cheap. Ridley Scott is in the business of creating beautifully realized worlds, and the bills pile up, but Aliens also created a world and filled it with interesting people and creatures (including the Alien Queen) with no CGI whatsoever.

2.     Aliens features Marines making bad decisions, not scientists. Marines are trained to charge in. Scientists know better. Throughout Prometheus the elite team of brainiacs didn’t just exhibit poor judgment; they were bad at their jobs. 

3.     There were a lot of things in Prometheus that JUST DIDN’T MAKE SENSE. A movie doesn’t have to answer every question it poses, most of the best movies don’t, but the characters within a film need to have some reasonable motivation for their actions. In Aliens the creature’s motivations are simple: defend the hive and collect humans for the face-huggers to lay eggs in. In Prometheus, there are huge logic holes on the side of both the aliens and humans. For example: why does the only remaining Engineer (within the first installation - there were at least 5 others, so probably even more in hypersleep) track Shaw to her escape ship instead of simply going to another one of the numerous underground Engineer ships and completing his mission?  I might not always agree with Ripley’s decisions (I would probably let Newt die) but I certainly understand them within the context of her character.

4.     Aliens elevated the production design of Alien. H. R. Giger’s original artwork for Alien is hauntingly beautiful. I can’t look at any of his drawings without being terrified and fascinated at once. It’s dark, dangerous, sexual, and inhuman in a way that’s impossible to describe. Aliens continued down this path, especially with the design of the Alien Queen, while adding a militaristic style of its own. Prometheus also had fantastic production design, but much of what I saw was just the old classics with very few new ideas brought to the table. This is a completely unfair assertion, but since this is an opinion piece rather than a review I will simply state my gut reaction.

5.     Aliens had Ripley, and Ripley had an arc. Noomi Race did a great job as Shaw in Prometheus, but I didn’t feel that she had a clear emotional journey. She did transition from “Engineers good!”, (a decision that she came to with no evidence to support her claim), to “Engineers bad!” (again with very little evidence, other than that she and her compatriots had really screwed things up for themselves through sloppy science). Ripley had a journey. By the end of Aliens she was able to put to bed her uncontrollable fear of the xenomorph, as well as her disappointment at the death of her daughter, and become a powerful woman who wasn’t afraid to bitch-slap an enemy four times her size. Shaw was reactionary, Ripley was extraordinary.

That said:

1.     Michael Fassbender does a remarkable job as the android, David. Bishop is cool, but David manages to terrify me while still making a poignant statement for android equality. I've heard him best described as "a scientifically inclined Dennis the Menace."

2.     The creators of Prometheus absolutely made the right choice making the traditional Alien creatures an epilogue to this film instead of the main story. The less we know about the “xenomorphs” the better they are, and there are already a handful of terrible movies that cover the well-beaten ground of face-hugger+terrified and ignorant scientist/space pirate/marine/convict/dog/whatever=Alien.

3.     I love the idea of The Engineers. Their campaign of terra-forming and seeding planets with life is fascinating and should be explored. I just wish a bit more of that had been done here.

4.     I actually like (spoiler) that the only xenomorph we see isn’t a carbon copy of the Alien we’re all used to. It gestated differently, it should be different. Good choice.

5.     Prometheus was wildly ambitious, and though it skewed more toward LOST than gothic sci-fi horror, I will never fault it for taking chances. The creators trusted in their audience’s intelligence, and dared to piss off their own fans. If "fans" are going to be upset that Ridley Scott didn’t make the same Alien movie that has been attempted over and over again, than they don’t deserve to call themselves fans. They should just go and enjoy the god-awful Alien Vs. Predator movies (which in the opinion of this critic should not be counted as part of this series, or as films).