Every single review I have done so far for ScreenDemon has been my true and honest feelings. I have never written a review and wondered if I have made a mistake, been too harsh, too critical, too full of praise. That was until my Prometheus review.

I’ll admit, it wasn’t exactly glowing and perhaps I came across as very negative, but, at the time, this is how I felt about it. I was disappointed, massively so, but I had my reasons, as listed in the review itself.

The thing is, Alien has always had a special place in my heart. Not only is it a phenomenal film, a film that I attribute my love of horrors and science-fiction to, but it was one of the very first 18 certificate films that I saw. I was probably 12 or so at the time and the VHS sat proudly in my dad’s video collection. I remember that even the front cover scared me, with its ominous egg-shaped object and glowing green light. Of course at that time I had no idea what that object was, but for whatever reason my parents weren’t around and by watching it I believed I was living on the edge, being naughty and rebellious, even.

Needless to say Alien scared the living crap out of me, even if I didn’t fully understand and appreciate it back then. As I grew up I got to see Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection and, despite what the critics say about the latter two, I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. It has been one of the very few franchises that I have owned on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray.

I believe this has something to do with my feelings toward Prometheus. It wasn’t Alien. Butterflies fill my stomach with every dark corridor or shadowy figure whenever I watch the 1979 original, even though I’ve seen it countless times. I got none of this with Scott’s return to the franchise.

With that said, as soon as I had written and published the review a week ago, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was wrong. Although I had written my honest opinion of what I saw, there was this voice inside my head saying “It was better than that, surely?” But the more I thought about it the more I was determined to stick to my guns. That was until last Wednesday when I went and saw the film for a second time. My reaction couldn’t have been more different.

Maybe I entered the cinema expecting again to be disappointed. Maybe I knew that it wasn’t going to be Alien. For whatever reason my mind was clear and I allowed myself to enjoy Prometheus for what it is: a fantastic sci-fi.

I found myself becoming more attached to the characters, I found things more tense and, above all, I found myself asking far fewer questions. I’m not going to lie, it is still flawed and still unworthy of the 5 star rating that Ripley’s first outing undoubtedly achieves, but there is so much more to this film than I had first realised. The plot still leaves a lot of unanswered questions but everything seemed to fit better and my understanding of the entire situation became a little less cloudy. I still maintain the opinion that had Theron and/or Fassbender been absent from this project it would have suffered massively.

I’m writing this mainly to rectify some of the things I wrote, after all, like I said at the start I always like to be 100% honest in my reviews. Perhaps this is purely to put my own mind at peace, settle my inner 12 year-old from the discomfort of slagging something off that is so closely linked to one of my favourite films of all time. I criticised so it’s only fair that I hold my hands up and admit that I was wrong…just a little, mind!

So, in conclusion, if you have yet to see Prometheus and are familiar with the Alien franchise then please, please, please do not go into the cinema expecting something similar. Sure, there are recognisable elements but Prometheus really does need to be treated as a stand alone film. I suppose that’s why it was never given the prefix ‘Alien’.