Movie Monday – Short film “Prospect” (2014)

My introductory post.  

“Prospect” on IMDB  

(This isn’t the trailer, it’s the whole movie.)

(Spoilers)

The movie follows this teenage girl and her father who are on this inhospitable planet.  They are there hunting for this substance I believe is called orlack, which is this alien goo that is apparently some sort of energy source.  They’ve collected a bunch of it, but need just a bit more before going home.

The dad is constantly grilling her on how to get back to their ship, how to fly it, what ships they can trust and which ones to avoid, all kinds of things in case something happens to him.  Then one day while she is out getting water, he is attacked by a bandit who steals the orlack.  Over the radio, he tells her to run to the ship and take off because his leg is broken and he won’t be able to follow her.  Instead, the girl runs back to their tent and sees the bandit shoot her father.  He isn’t killed, his faceplate is just broken and he’ll die from breathing the air. 

The girl drags her dad into the tent and gets him patched up a bit.  He tells her to go to the ship because other bandits have probably found it already.  Instead she grabs a gun and goes out to find the first bandit.  She shoots him a few times, and then takes off his faceplate and shoots him in the face.  The girl then drags her dad through the forest towards the ship, but then she sees it taking off in the distance.

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I only did a quick search for this movie, but it seemed all the reviews I saw only talked about how great the location and cinematography were.  A few also mentioned that it was made for X thousand dollars, some of which apparently came from Kickstarter.  None really talked about the plot. 

My thoughts are that while the location and cinematography were great, the movie fell a little short.  It feels like the flashback bits of another movie of this girl trying to save her father and herself.  It’s rather ironic for me to say that.  I write short stories and I don’t know how many times people have commented that they wanted more, they felt my story was just the beginning of a longer story.  My feelings have always been that my stories deal with a specific thing, and are long enough to just get that one point across.  Doing more would dilute the point, or change it into something else.  So on one hand I can see how the filmmakers could be annoyed by people telling them their movie should have been longer, but on the other hand I’m not really seeing the point of their movie.  In my opinion, a movie showing the girl trying to save her father and herself with the scenes from “Prospect” as flashbacks would have been more interesting.

If for nothing else, you should still watch it to see a good example of using locations.