One Of The Most Controversial Sci-Fi Movies Ever Is A Streaming Hit 13 Years Later

How long does it take for audiences to finally catch up on true, ahead-of-its-time greatness? Roughly 13 years, apparently. It almost feels quaint to look back now and remember, but director Ridley Scott first debuted 2012's "Prometheus" at a time when the "Alien" franchise hadn't seen a single new installment in over a decade and a half. (No, we're not counting either of those "Alien vs Predator" crossover experiments in the mid-aughts, thank you very much.) Hype soon reached an all-time high as fans eagerly awaited this prequel film, which purported to explore the events leading up to those of Scott's original 1979 horror/sci-fi classic. What audiences received instead turned out to be a very different and much more esoteric approach to the universe — one that invited some of the loudest, most vitriolic reactions we'd experienced to any blockbuster since the "Star Wars" prequels.

Funny how things change though, right? Or, to put it in the words of our favorite synthetic lifeform with a taste for murder: "Big things have small beginnings." "Prometheus" features an all-star cast including the likes of Noomi Rapace as Elizabeth Shaw, Logan Marshall-Green as Charlie Holloway, Charlize Theron as Meredith Vickers, Idris Elba as the ship's pilot Janek, a pre-"Mission: Impossible" Sean Harris as Fifield, Benedict Wong as Rivel, and even Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland (curiously saddled with old-age makeup, as opposed to an age-appropriate actor). But Scott's divisive and controversial choice to place Michael Fassbender's David in a position of such prominence — essentially making him responsible for all the Xenomorph mayhem that unfolds in the first "Alien" movie — was just one of many narrative swerves that contributed to the less-than-stellar response to "Prometheus" upon its release.

The last several years have seen something of a sea change, however. Both "Prometheus" and its direct sequel, "Alien: Covenant," have since gained their share of vocal supporters. (For the record, /Film has been ahead of the curve on "Prometheus" for some time now.) And now, finally, it appears that streaming audiences have (re)discovered this ambitious, ungainly, and otherwise thoroughly fascinating artifact for themselves.

Never underestimate humanity's instinctive, primal need to discover more about where we came from — no matter the cost. Okay, I'm not saying that fully explains the love for "Prometheus" on streaming these days but, well, it can't hurt! While far from a complete portrait for audiences as a whole, the viewing analytics on the latest roundup for HBO Max paint a pretty compelling picture. The third-party website FlixPatrol has crunched the numbers, revealing that Scott's ungainly passion project has cracked the streamer's top 10 movies watched as of the day of publication. Is this a product of "Alien: Earth" humming along on FX and Hulu? Or a sign of reinvigorated interest following "Alien: Romulus" and the announcement of its upcoming sequel? The arc of the universe may be long, but we choose to believe that it has always been bending towards reclaiming "Prometheus" revisionism, folks!

In all fairness, there are certainly many valid reasons why moviegoers didn't gravitate towards this big-budget oddity in the early going. Even before all the behind-the-scenes drama came to light, revealing that "Prometheus" underwent a somewhat tortured production process and heavy script revisions, much of the film almost felt designed to alienate (pun only sort of intended) its own target demographic. A prequel movie that traded in the existential dread of the first "Alien" for a much more meditative, mythological, and almost spiritually inclined journey into the origin of our species was always going to be a hard sell for those looking forward to a conventional crowd-pleaser. Add on the retroactive additions to canon involving the mysterious and godlike Engineers, the Xenomorph as a biological weapon, and even the not-so-subtle allusions to the idea of space alien Jesus? Yeah, no wonder this stirred up a hornet's nest of discourse back in the day.

Are we in for a new era of "Prometheus" (and "Alien: Covenant") appreciation? Maybe, maybe not. But let's put it this way: All our proselytizing that "Prometheus" is actually a crucial and necessary part of the overall franchise no longer feels like the hottest of hot takes. In a few more years, if Scott ever gets around to finishing his trilogy with that proposed "Alien: Awakening" sequel, perhaps long-suffering "Prometheus" defenders will find ourselves on the right side of cinematic history after all.