Overlooked 2018 Sci-Fi Western Flick Made Pedro Pascal a Reluctant Father Before The Mandalorian
Before the real Pedro Pascal hype began with The Mandalorian, the actor was already dealing with a child he didn’t order on his hands in a hostile environment.
Pedro Pascal has always been an extremely prolific actor, and his track record is nothing short of impressive — but he only received real-real recognition after 2019’s The Mandalorian. This instant classic Star Wars TV show saw Pascal become a reluctant father figure for a teenage girl he’d come across in a dangerous world…
But we bet the actor was having severe deja vu while filming it, because by then, he had already done the same thing in an overlooked 2018 sci-fi Western!
Pascal Feels Natural in Father Figure Roles
We’re not even joking: Pedro Pascal’s “reluctant father” archetype started in his 2018 movie Prospect — a low-budget sci-fi drama that didn’t get the recognition it deserved (just like Pascal himself, at that point). In Prospect, his character also finds himself in a hostile environment and suddenly has to take care of a teenage girl he stumbles upon out in the wilderness. Fun, isn’t it?
But the circumstances were a tad bit different.
In Prospect, a father and a daughter venture to a dangerous planet to collect its plentiful gemstones and get rich, but they encounter other fortune-seekers, and a conflict ensues. In the end, the girl is left one on one with her now late father’s unlikely enemy, and, unable to bring himself to kill her, too, he instead decides to help her survive on the planet and ensure they can both escape from it.
Prospect Was Criminally Overlooked
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Despite being a small and low-budget movie, Prospect nailed its sci-fi aspects beautifully. It’s not a flashy CGI-fueled movie; it’s a grounded and serious experience of surviving on an unknown and bizarrely hostile planet. Pedro Pascal gives a stellar performance that — have this movie not gone under the radar — could have given his career a much-needed boost even before The Mandalorian.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Prospect boasts an amazing 89% Critic Score and a solid 74% Audience Score, somewhat supported by its 6.3/10 on IMDb. It’s praised for its great character development and setting as directors Christopher Caldwell and Zeek Earl managed to turn its budget limitations into its main feature and advantage.
You can watch Prospect on Apple TV and Prime Video.