I went to see Prometheus over the weekend, and like many of you, I was disappointed (to put it lightly). Although a technical achievement in every way, the narrative and characters left much to be desired. The mystery I wanted solved was not the black goo or the Engineers — it was how the creative team of Ridley Scott, Damon Lindelof, and Jon Spaihts could produce a movie with such rudimentary mistakes. There have been casts of Scream movies with more intelligence than this lineup of characters. The connective tissue between the film’s big set pieces felt as if plucked from a Random Idea Generator program online; even the mythology was mucked up as the film dissolved into a by-the-book sci-fi thriller by the end.
Baffled, I thought about the simple brilliance of 1979’s Alien. The 1970s were a fertile time for Hollywood. What we consider to be some of the greatest movies ever came from the “New Hollywood” era, including Scott's Alien and works by the likes of Coppola, Kubrick, Altman, and more; these were directors who were the first wave of “film buffs” who emerged from university film programs having studied and loved the medium for years. They were awed and inspired by cinema, and introduced fresh technologies and darker and more subversive subject matter to wider audiences for the first time under a creative freedom Hollywood hasn't allowed since. But all eras come to an end, and not every great director has a perfect score (except maybe Scorsese and Hitchcock). Even if Prometheus didn't disappoint you, chances are one of these movies from nine New Hollywood filmmakers did.
9. Ridley Scott’s Hannibal (2001), Robin Hood (2010), and Prometheus (2012)
There are two kinds of Ridley Scott camps: Those who think Scott is a middlebrow director with mediocre titles that appeal to AMPAS voters only, and those who believe Alien and Blade Runner constitute a lifetime pass. That’s not to say Scott isn’t an accomplished and respectable director even today. Prometheus is his most technically beautiful film in ages, and Matchstick Men and Kingdom of Heaven are underrated achievements. But let’s face it: Prometheus is a narrative mess, his Robin Hood was a bafflingly bland Russell Crowe vehicle that famously massacred a fabulous spec script that was intended to tell the Sheriff of Nottingham’s story, and… well, just watch Scott talk up Hannibal in this commentary track clip.
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8. Robert Altman’s Dr. T. and the Women (2000)
Not inherently a bad movie, Altman's Dr. T. and the Women is often delightful, but a bit too broad and soapy for the man behind MASH and Nashville. As an unconventional rom-com, Altman's film retains much of the director's trademark style, with charm and emphasis on character relationships over plot -- obviously, since a magical tornado comes out of nowhere at the end to wipe slates clean.
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7. Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate (1999)
From the director who brought you Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown comes The Ninth Gate, starring a subdued Johnny Depp, who seems perpetually in danger of getting hit by cars, and Emmanuelle Seigner, delivering roundhouse kicks to baddies and floating down staircases. Like Altman's Dr. T., this isn't Polanski hitting an extreme low -- he's just not hitting any highs, either. The film's production values go a long way to delivering an elegant yet creepy atmosphere, but the business of the horror-fantasy plot falls deeper and deeper into absurdity with generic thriller frights.
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6. Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars (2000) and The Black Dahlia (2006)
You could also probably slide 1998's Snake Eyes into this lineup to prove a point that, like Prometheus, no matter how technically capable you are as a visual director, sometimes the narratives just don't measure up. Black Dahlia also carried the negative weight of bizarre miscasting (Hilary Swank, I'm looking at you), while Mission to Mars succumbs to shallow writing and absence of thrills. Snake Eyes, for what it's worth, tries to cover up mediocrity and frustratingly silly webs of intrigue under an abundance of style and visual prowess. Movies are a sensory experience, and if what you're hearing doesn't work, it doesn't matter if what you're seeing is the most beautiful image ever shot.
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5. John Schlesinger’s The Next Best Thing (2000)
This is the man who directed Midnight Cowboy, Sunday Bloody Sunday, and Marathon Man. Obviously we can chalk this one up to the Madonna poison she obviously secretes onto every set she steps foot on. Right?
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4. Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Without a doubt the most successful member of the New Hollywood clan, Steven Spielberg made his name marrying fear, domestic drama, and wonder with special effects-driven spectacle to become the single most populist director of the last four decades. His early science fiction pieces Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. hinted at the more profound dramatic director he would become in the '90s with Schindler's List, while other sci-fi thrillers like Jurassic Park and Minority Report upheld Spielberg's reputation as a box office king. Although he courted criticism in the past for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Hook, and The Lost World, it wasn't until 2005 that Spielberg really stumbled with the frequently boring War of the Worlds, starring an unlikeable Tom Cruise and a cheap Shyamalan-approved conclusion. Although Spielberg bounced back with Munich, his repeated visits to the extraterrestrial well landed him in even hotter water in 2008. With Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Spielberg not only failed on a narrative level with gimmicks like nuking Harrison Ford inside a fridge, he pulled a George Lucas and introduced us to Indiana's bratty young adult son, played by Shia LaBeouf. Hayden Christensen must have been busy.
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3. Francis Ford Coppola’s Jack (1996)
I have this theory that sometimes directors are contractually obligated to make movies for a studio that they don’t want to make. So instead of actually directing these movies, the director invites his DP to make the movie as practice. Or maybe the gaffer and key grip take a crack. Yet the director’s name is the one attached to the movie at the end of the day. I think Francis Ford Coppola’s Jack supports this thesis. I hoped to use a clip of Robin Williams’ 10-year-old character Jack farting into a coffee can and making small explosions using matches, but alas, that video was not available for use as a demonstration of the creative gifts of the man who directed The Godfather. Is it no small wonder he’s stuck to making wine lately?
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2. George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy: The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005)
When you think about it, it’s kind of a fluke that the original Star Wars trilogy was the success it was. Lord knows Carrie Fisher feels that way, and is still struggling to understand how she ended up taped to so many bedroom walls in the '80s. The original trilogy was often hokey and peppered with trash compactor serpents, Ewoks, and bald Sebastian Shaw, and yet it became the international phenomenon it is. But after years passed and George Lucas returned to direct a new prequel trilogy featuring everybody’s least favorite Gungan Jar Jar Binks and a little kid named Anakin, suddenly Star Wars was on a whole new plane of silliness. Apart from contributing some good and bad ideas to Spielberg’s Indiana Jones series, Lucas seldom involved himself in many other creative endeavors beyond his beloved Star Wars series. Perhaps if he had allowed himself more time away from Naboo, Lucas could have gained some much needed perspective on how to write romantic dialog exchanges.
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1. John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars (2001) and The Ward (2011)
When you think of any director whose recent work doesn't match the quality of his early work, you're obligated to think of John Carpenter. This is the director who introduced us to Michael Myers and a synthesizer, made us afraid of ice cream trucks, and turned Kurt Russell into a dystopian John Wayne. After 1993's In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter seemed to just run out of steam, hitting a particularly low point with Ghosts of Mars, aka Assault On Precinct Mars, a red-sand regurgitation of his 1976 classic. Carpenter waited nine years before making his next movie, the asylum horror The Ward starring hysterical females in peril. Carpenter has spoken out about struggling with burnout, leading us to wonder if he's really got anything left at this point.
Michelle Welch is a freelance writer who has also contributed at The A.V. Club and PopMatters. She tweets her pop culture ramblings as @stayfrostymw.