Minimalist. Sci-fi. Western. Somehow this one didn’t land on my radar at the time, but I’m glad Hulu has beefed up their movie catalog. Prospect is a fantastic example of how to execute low-budget/high-concept science fiction.
A father-daughter team of harvesters travels to a remote moon to extract a massive payload of a valuable deposit known as “aurelac” for a group of mercenaries. When they come across another team looking to score big, things escalate quickly, and they’re forced to fight for survival on the moon’s toxic jungle.
This film was a promising debut feature from writing/directing duo Christopher Caldwell and Zeek Earl, who got to adapt this from their 2014 short film of the same name. This thing kicks off like a Tarantino flick with “Crying in the Storm” by Rita Chao and The Quests playing over the opening, which sets a much different tone than you’d expect. Despite the intergalactic setting, PROSPECT is a western, designed like a gold-rush era story for a reason. The robust screenplay leans heavily into those themes with frontier lawlessness at the forefront. You even get some of that very formal, almost Shakespearian dialogue to establish tone. Still, the familiar narrative of the gentleman gunslinger and ambitious kid aligned by fate has been around for a while. However, it was refreshing to see that idea developed and cultivated on its own. I can’t wait to see the next project this pair takes on.
There was a minuscule primary cast, but Sophie Thatcher and Pedro Pascal worked well together, giving engaging and occasionally strange performances (I’m curious if this was something Disney looked at when casting pascal in The Mandalorian because there seem to be some parallels between the characters). Caldwell and Earl were smart to keep things focused on their primary characters while sprinkling in world-building and background information about the supporting plot. They could have used a little more background context when establishing the characters in the beginning, but they provided just enough to make things work.
One of my favorite things about low-budget Sci-Fi is the approach to production design, and Matt Costa nailed it here. It has muted browns and off-whites in the set pieces, and the costumes immediately conjured images of the Russian space program of the 1960s. The gritty, industrial, almost steampunk kind of retro-futurism is reminiscent of Alien and sets the tone for a working-class sci-fi experience. If you pay close attention, despite English being the spoken language, there’s an entirely different written language that adorns their instrumentation, manuals, and notebooks. It’s an intriguing detail that took time and care to implement, but also suggests that this isn’t a geocentric story, perhaps taking place in a different solar system. The cinematography by Zeek Earl has some Annihilation vibes, and he makes the jungle seem endless but still captures the inherent beauty in nature.
I can understand this not being for everyone. There’s a lack of exposition most people would hope for, expect, from a story like this. The ending doesn’t exactly give you what you might want either but it works. Even though I was left wanting more, I didn’t feel cheated in the end either.
Recommendation: If you enjoy low-budget sci-fi, this is a great example. It highlights the creative functionality of practical design and application. Fans of westerns could get behind this too if they can get past the sci-fi hump.