Just over a decade ago, acclaimed filmmaker Ridley Scott returned to theAlienfranchise with the 2012 featurePrometheus. After several action-packed films like James Cameron’sAliens, David Fincher’sAlien 3, andAlien: Resurrection, along with theAlien vs. Predatorspin-offs, Scott brings the horror element back into the series, as well as an intriguing origin story.
Prometheusalso has a stellar cast that includes Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, and Guy Pearce. ThisAlienfilm is a fitting entry because the story raises essential questions regarding the alien creatures, where they came from, and how they were formed.
RELATED:Alien: Covenant Ending, Explained
What is Prometheus About?
Set inthe late 21st century,Prometheusfocuses on Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), a pair of archeologists who discover a celestial map in Scotland, which matches other star maps containing ancient cultures. They strongly believe that these maps can point to the ancestors of humanity, who they call “Engineers.” Shaw and Holloway present their findings to billionaire Peter Weyland (Pearce), his associate Meredith Vickers (Theron), an android named David (Fassbender), and other biologists, geologists, and crew members of the Prometheus (a spaceship reminiscent of other large ships used throughout theAlienfilms).
Shaw and Holloway are in charge of the mission, but almost everyone casts doubt on them, believing the archeologists won’t find anything significant or evolutionary. When the crew arrives at a large, mountainous area, they discover that the air is breathable, causing them to take off their helmets from the protective suits they have on. They also encounter mysterious pieces of evidence, including a statue of a humanoid head, a decapitated corpse of an alien that’s believed to be one of the Engineers, and large cylinders containing a dark liquid.
The most important revelation Shaw and Holloway learn is that the alien corpse they found has the same DNA as humans. This establishes the fact that the Engineers andthe alien speciesassociated with them have a lot in common with the human race, raising the question of why they would want to destroy Earth later on (although perhaps to prove that they are predators who need to feed on their prey and are more dominant than anyone hence the survival of the fittest).
How Does Prometheus Connect To The Alien Franchise?
Prometheusis very similar to the previousAlienfeatures in terms of humans at war with monstrous alien creatures. Elizabeth Shaw is a heroine who doesn’t have as many action sequences compared to franchise starSigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, but Shaw does have Ripley’s persistence and determination to defeat evil and complete the mission at hand. Both women have also dealt with emotional life-and-death experiences when it comes to losing their entire crew and nearly getting killed by an alien. There’s a grotesque sequence involving a pregnant Shaw who single-handedly performs surgery on herself to remove an alien baby in her belly (a nod to the original 1979 film where John Hurt’s Kane fatally dies after an alien comes out of his stomach).
Michael Fassbender’s David is an android who resembles Ian Holm’s Ash from the first movie and Lance Henriksen’s Bishop from the second film in terms of intelligence level and knowledge of their respective crews and aircraft. However, David bares more resemblance to Ash because they are both mischievous villains who deceive their own crew members in favor of their appreciation toward the alien creatures they each encounter. David, like Ash, is also fascinated by human behavior and how his crew would react in dangerous situations. What distinguishes David from the other androids is his desire to have a soul and to be recognized, along with stylish looks (drawing inspiration from Peter O’Toole and his blonde hair inLawrence of Arabia) and the calculated precision of HAL 9000 from2001: A Space Odyssey.
Idris Elba’s Janek is the captain of the Prometheus spaceship. Reminiscent of Tom Skerritt’s Captain Dallas in the original film, Janek is a leader who primarily cares about the safety and well-being of his crew and the ship. TheAlienfranchise has usually come down to a crew on a mission seeking to investigate and/or take down aliens, but there is always conflict due to the characters being untrustworthy and dysfunctional with each other, and having their own agendas.
InPrometheus, Charlize Theron’s cold and merciless Meredith Vickers is a suspicious woman who wants complete control of the mission since she and Peter Weyland have their own plan associated with the Engineers, and like David, wants all the attention. Vickers also bares some similarities with Paul Reiser’s Carter J. Burke fromAlienssince he’s also a shady representative for the Weyland corporation. However, unlike Vickers, Burke tried to bring aliens to Earth albeit unsuccessfully. This prequel doesn’t have the high-powered action and gunplay fromCameron’sAliens, but there are gruesome death scenes involving the alien creatures and several human characters, along with the use of some gun blasters and a flamethrower.
How Does Prometheus End?
After Holloway’s sudden death, and Shaw extracting an alien baby from her stomach, Peter Weyland orders David to take him to one of the Engineers at the mountainous structure the crew observed earlier. It is revealed that Weyland’s purpose for this mission is to ask the Engineers how to live a longer life and not die from old age. However, when David tries to retrieve answers from one of the Engineers by awakening him and speaking to him in the Proto-Indo-European language, the Engineer decapitates David and kills Weyland and his team.
After witnessing Weyland’s death, Vickers instructs Janek to take the crew home, but Shaw tells the captain that the Engineer intends to attack Earth with the venomous dark liquid. Since Prometheus isn’t a warship, Janek and his comrades sacrifice themselves by crashing into the Engineer’s spacecraft, destroying both ships. Vickers is killed after the crash when a mountainous structure topples her. When Shaw reaches the lifeboat that was attached to Prometheus, the Engineer attempts to kill her, but she manages to release the alien baby (which has grown in size) from the lifeboat, allowing it to kill the Engineer.
Shaw finds David’s head and body, with the android agreeing to help her operate another Engineer spacecraft. Shaw wants to find out where the Engineers live and why they intended to destroy humanity, so she takes David’s body along for her next journey.Prometheusmay be a prequel that provides more questions than answers, but it’s also an effective origin story that offers a glimpse of where the aliens came from and how they share a connection with human DNA. There are also intriguing characters and the return ofRidley Scottin the director’s chair to bring his brand of horror back into the franchise.
