In a mad, mad week just before Christmas last year, the world lost their collective shit over trailers for The Hobbit, The Dark Knight Rises and Prometheus. Fanboys obliterated the twittersphere with ‘debate’ about Bane’s nonsensical mumblings, admiration for a dwarf chorus and a whole lot of second guessing about a Space Jockey mask.
But it was Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel teaser that wiped the floor with that of the chiropteran man and the vertically challenged inhabitants of The Shire.
Thankfully (read: tediously and unnecessarily) the web was soon awash with frame by frame deconstructions of Ridley’s teaser, effectively defeating the entire purpose of the deliberately ambiguous rapid fire trailer. Since then, every time a new Prometheus image surfaces online, the latest of which can be seen here, we are treated to more speculation about what it all means.
We’ve had the space jockey suits and the giant head, even the infamous glowing bag! And each and every time there’s been almost nothing to say about it save for “oh look it’s a Space Jockey suit” or “isn’t that head rather large” and “Noomi’s pack lunch seems to have gone radioactive”. It’s all rather inconsequential really.
Anyway, this time we’re treated to a snap of Noomi sporting a rather fetching barnet and Tom Hardy a-like Logan Marshall-Green hanging out sans helmets next to some natty hieroglyphic type symbols. Presumably somewhere there has been an extensive translation of said symbols that reveal that we are all alien/jockey hybrids or something, oh and look there’s another bag in the background, maybe all this bag symbolism is a metaphor for the emotional baggage we all carry around with us as a result of our inability to effectively express our true selves to one another.
Noomi & Logan just chilling, illing and doing a little killing (Source: ENI)
Either way, all this forensic interrogation into every single pixel is rather wearying. I feel like I already know the entire bloody plot already and that’s only serving to dampen my enthusiasm for what should be the cinematic highlight of the summer, perhaps the year.
There was a time when one could venture to a cinema knowing next to nothing about a film and Ridley’s teaser, whilst catering to that sentiment was so on the money that it’s created an interwebs shitstorm that threatens to spoil everyone’s fun before it all goes off on June 1.
I for one shall be donning a trusty set of blinkers until then.
(originally featured at www.lostinthemultiplex.com)
crash/burn 
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