Ridley Scott Says ‘Prometheus' Was A Failure — He's Wrong

In terms of divisive movies, Ridley Scott’s career has two blatant examples — I’m thinking “The Counselor,” and “Prometheus.”

This writeup is about “Prometheus,” which I’ve long cherished as the best ‘Alien’ movie since James Cameron’s 1986 film. This was Scott’s long-awaited return to the ‘Alien’ franchise, an ambitious prequel that was met with love/hate reactions. To this day, the film has its passionate defenders, including myself, as well as intense detractors.

Scott is now reflecting on the film and, being the terrible judge of his own work that he is — recently referring to “Gladiator II” as “possibly my best work” — he doesn’t have many nice things to say about “Prometheus” (via Deadline).

I sat down with the great writer [Damon] Lindelof, and we reconstructed a resurrection of the era, with “Prometheus,” and how it evolved from “Alien.” But we were asleep at the wheel. My advisors, who frankly no longer are with me, were asleep at the wheel, certainly. And I partly blame myself, except I was busy making other films. And so it was let go and it shouldn’t have been. When you resurrect, you better put your nail into the wall.

Scott basically blames his busy schedule at the time for not making the film he truly wanted to make with “Prometheus” — there was a lot going on that got in the way of allowing the film to be as good as it should have been, in his eyes at least. 

Again, it matters who you ask when it comes to “Prometheus.” It might not be an indisputably great film, but it sure as hell is better than any of the other ‘Alien’ movies we’ve gotten since 1986’s “Aliens.”

I keep going back to Dom Nero‘s “It’s Time To Redeem “Prometheus,” which appeared in the 9.1 edition of Esquire. Nero calls it a “masterpiece.”

Since its release, “Prometheus” has taken a rather harsh beating from the film community, but why? Yes, it was promoted as Scott’s return to the “Alien” franchise, which he created back in 1979, but what we got instead was a heady, richly-detailed and incredibly thoughtful movie about humanity; not the slasher film in space that most people expected. Rather than hitting the same familiar beats of, say, “Alien: Romulus,” what “Prometheus” was interested in tackling was the meaning of existence.

Many great films were initially met with lukewarm reviews before being embraced much later down the road. Most of them were a victim of audiences, and critics, going in expecting a one thing, and getting something totally different than they bargained for. I’m not saying “Prometheus” is, as Nero proclaims, a “masterpiece,” but it’s a bold and satisfying statement from Scott.