This is the culmination of my
thoughts, questions, and theories about the Ridley Scott film Prometheus.
The ideas and opinions expressed therein are based on limited, completely
unqualified research, and a lifelong fascination with the Alien
franchise. Alien and Aliens fascinated me upon seeing them for
the first time as a child, and have subsequently been the source of most of my
nightmares ever since.
Notes
Any references to Alien,
Aliens or Prometheus that are underlined refer to those films and
not the spacecraft or alien creatures of the same name.
The
Narrative
A
Little Push
The opening crawl of Prometheus
is a massive, sprawling shot of beautiful landscape that immediately captures
the awe of the viewer. The crisp cinematography leads us over the river and
through the woods to a waterfall where something incredible is about to happen.
A cloaked figure walks across the rocks to the top of the waterfall, and
unrobes to reveal no ordinary man. This man is an Engineer; an enormous,
sculpted individual who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Gods of Greek and
Roman mythology. The Engineer looks across the water and we immediately realize
that this being is not a native to this world. A spacecraft, in this case the
familiar “flying saucer” of UFO lore, is hovering over the countryside.
The Engineer opens a small
container to reveal a black liquid that is “alive” to some degree. As the
spacecraft begins to depart into the clouds, the Engineer drinks the black
liquid and immediately begins to convulse as his body begins to change and
break down. He falls into the waterfall as his body disintegrates down to the molecular
level. The strands of DNA continue to break and change, and multicellular
organisms begin to grow in its place. The Engineer has seeded the world with
life.
Fast forward thousands (if
not millions) of years, and archeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway
are digging on an expedition at Isle of Skye, the largest and most northerly
island of Scotland. The landscape looks eerily similar to the opening scene we
just witnessed. Inside a cave, Shaw discovers a 35,000 year old pictogram
similar to those that they’ve discovered from ancient civilizations all over
the world: a group of people and animals worshipping a large humanoid who is
pointing to a constellation. This large being is an Engineer, and they’ve been
back to visit our planet a number of times since seeding it with life many
millennia ago.
LV-223
“Say
unto them, Whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, that goeth
unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the LORD, having
his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the
LORD.” - Leviticus 22:3
Shaw determines that the
pictograms are not just a star map of a distant star system, but rather an
“invitation” to seek out our creators and find them once we have become
technologically advanced enough to do so. Shaw and Holloway convince Peter
Weyland, at the time the world’s wealthiest man and leading industrialist, to
fund a mission to travel to this distant star system in search of the
Engineers. Upon arriving at the moon LV-223 after nearly three years in
cryogenic stasis, the team’s ship “Prometheus” sets down in a valley which has
markings similar to the Nazca Lines in southern Peru. The valley houses several
dome shaped structures, and the team sets out to investigate the closest one.
Inside the dome the team
finds a pyramid shaped structure full of tunnels and chambers that echo the
biomechanical architecture of the derelict spacecraft first seen in Alien.
Atmospheric readings inside the structure indicate that the air is breathable
to humans, despite the fact that earlier scans showed the planet itself could
not sustain life due to high levels of carbon dioxide. Sunlight funneled in to
the structure heated condensed water to create oxygen. In a leap of faith,
Holloway removes his helmet and takes the first breath of air on an alien
planet. The rest of the team follows suit and later speculates that this may
have been the Engineers’ attempt at terraforming the planet.
The android David, who has
had two years of solitude to study ancient cultures and their languages,
activates a hologram recording that could be considered ancient security video
footage. In the video we see the Engineers running through the halls of this
massive structure in what we will later find out is their equivalent of a
pilot’s flight gear. We see a group of them running, but we don’t know what
they’re running from. The team follows the holograms to a door and sees the
last Engineer stumble and fall before being decapitated as the door closes on
his head. Outside the door the team finds the body of this slain Engineer. Using
a carbon dating tool, they determine the remains to be approximately 2000 years
old. Upon seeing the holographic recording and the body of the dead alien, geologist
Fifield and biologist Milburn decide to head back to the ship. They’re clearly
not interested in finding out what was chasing the Engineer or what lies beyond
the door that severed his head.
While Shaw and team medic
Ford investigate the Engineer’s remains, David scales a ladder and begins to
decipher the mechanism that will open the door. Before Shaw can speak to the
contrary, David opens the door to reveal a vast chamber full of vase-like
ampoules spread out around an enormous monolith that eerily resembles a human
head. On the wall of this cavern is a mural that depicts an Engineer crouched,
with one hand inside what appears to be another body that is changing into
something not quite Engineer and definitely not human. The team enters the
ampoule room and we notice that there are organisms similar to mealworms in the
soil, revealed beneath one of David’s boot prints.
Charlie investigates the
area behind the monolith and finds an altar with a green crystal-like object
perched atop it. Above this altar is a mural that while unfamiliar to these
explorers is instantly recognized by fans of the Alien franchise. It is
a Xenomorph perched in a position not unlike Christ on the crucifix, surrounded
by other H.R. Giger-esque symbolism representing the Alien lifecycle.
Looking
at the mural, Charlie surmises that this room is “just another tomb”. Before
the team can investigate further, the walls inside the chamber begin to change
and David notices a black liquid begin to move and leak from one of the
ampoules. Shaw speculates that exposure to the new atmosphere and the change in
temperature has caused this. While it is only shown for a few seconds, we do
catch a glimpse of the previously shown Engineer mural changing to that of alien
hands holding the familiar egg containing a facehugger. A bad storm begins to
move toward the dome, and the team is forced to retreat back to the ship. Shaw
and Ford wrap up the head of the deceased Engineer to bring back for further
study while David quietly freezes and bags one of the ampoules.
Big
Things Have Small Beginnings
The team survives the storm
and makes it back to the ship, not realizing that Milburn and Fifield have yet
to return. Captain Janek informs the two that there is no safe way to retrieve
them until the storm passes, so they’ll have to camp out inside the dome until
morning. While wandering aimlessly through the halls of the pyramid, they
stumble upon the bodies of a number of dead engineers in front of another wall
that resembles the door the team opened earlier. Milburn notes that it looks
like something exploded from inside each of them. Fifield had previously
released several probes (referred to a “pups”) to scan and map the layout of
the structure. Janek lets the pair know that one of the probes has picked up
something that is reading as a life form in another part of the structure. The
scientists decide to head in the opposite direction and camp out in the room
with the ampoules instead.
Shaw, Ford and David begin
examining the head of the dead Engineer. A scan of the head reveals that the
outside is actually a helmet, and with David’s help they remove it to reveal
the Engineer’s human-like head. The head appears to have active cellular
growth, and Shaw decides to initiate a small electrical charge in an attempt to
reanimate the tissue. As the Engineer’s head begins to come back to life, it
undergoes the same type of changes seen at the beginning of the film when the
Engineer drank the black liquid. Unable to stop the reaction, the team places
the head into a decontamination chamber just before it explodes. Shaw and Ford
continue their analysis and determine that the Engineer’s DNA is an exact match
to human DNA. They are indeed our progenitors.
After a conversation with
someone off-screen (later revealed to be Peter Weyland), David opens the stolen
ampoule and begins experimenting with the substance inside. Fueled by a
directive from Weyland to “try harder”, he decides to see what will happen if
the substance is exposed to a living organism. He finds a drunken Holloway in
one of the ship’s living areas, and covertly places a drop of the black liquid
into a glass of champagne that he hands him. Charlie drinks the champagne and
heads back to the quarters that he shares with Shaw. Unaware that he is
infected, they sleep together.
Back in the dome, Milburn
and Fifield notice movement within the black liquid. It is now leaking from all
of the ampoules and forming pools on the floor. They are confronted by a blue,
snakelike organism that is the result of the previously seen mealworms coming
in contact with the black liquid. After getting a little too close while
attempting to investigate the creature, Milburn is bitten on the hand and the
snake wraps itself around his arm. As its grip tightens like that of a boa
constrictor and eventually breaks his arm, Fifield attempts to cut the worm’s
head off. The injury results in the creature’s acidic blood being sprayed
across the front of Fifield’s helmet, which begins to melt, and he collapses face
first into a pool of the black liquid. The worm’s head grows back immediately
and quickly finds its way inside Milburn’s suit, killing him by forcing itself
down his throat.
Changing
Change is a recurring theme
throughout Prometheus: The Engineer sacrificing himself to seed the
planet with life; the ampoules releasing their contents and the murals shifting
as a result of the atmospheric change; the mealworms changing from harmless
larva to deadly killing machines after coming in contact with the black liquid.
The next change for the explorers came following the conclusion of the storm.
Captain Janek leads a team to locate Milburn and Fifield while David ventures
off to another part of the structure to investigate a probe that is believed to
be broken. They discover Milburn’s corpse in the ampoule room, but Fifield is
nowhere to be found. By this time, the changes occurring within Charlie’s body
have begun to manifest, and he collapses. Janek helps Shaw carry him back to
the transport, and they ask the remaining Prometheus crew to prep for
quarantine procedures. Holloway continues to change in a manner similar to the
Engineer who drank the black liquid. Before the team can bring him into the
cargo bay, they are confronted by a flamethrower wielding Meredith Vickers who
states that because he is infected, he cannot be allowed back on the ship.
Rather than risk the life of the woman he loves, Holloway sacrifices himself by
asking Vickers to immolate him. Restrained by Janek, Shaw collapses.
She awakens in the ship’s
medical bay, where David is removing the crucifix necklace given to her by her
father. Since Shaw asked for full quarantine, all crew members are being
checked for the infection that resulted in Holloway’s death. David asks Shaw if
she had sexual relations with Charlie prior to his death, and subsequently
reveals that she is three months pregnant. This comes as quite a shock to
Elizabeth as they had copulated only 12 hours prior, not to mention that fact
that she herself was unable to bear children. David remarks that the fetus is
not exactly normal, and she asks to see it. Becoming agitated, David sedates
her and says that it would be better to put her back in cryostasis. As seen in
the previous films in the Alien universe, Weyland has a thing for getting
people impregnated with alien lifeforms and then putting them to sleep to be
harvested later.
Shaw plays possum as Ford
and another crew member attempt to prep her for stasis. She attacks both with a
blunt object she was hiding beneath her, and makes her way to the automated Med
Pod in Vickers’ quarters. By this time the alien fetus in her womb has grown
even larger in size. She attempts to configure the pod for a caesarian, but
finds that it is only configured for surgery on a male patient. She manually
configures it to remove a foreign body from her abdomen, injects herself with
painkillers, and climbs into the pod. The organism begins moving within her
abdomen as she pleads for the robotic surgeon to remove it from her body. After
applying a local anesthetic, the pod creates an incision and removes the alien
from her. Shaw briefly stares at her “baby” before being doused with amniotic
fluid as it begins thrashing and ruptures the placenta.
She tears the umbilical
cord from her squid like offspring and screams for the med pod to sew her back
up. With her abdomen stapled shut, she escapes the operating table and
immobilizes the alien by initiating the pod’s decontamination procedure.
Juggernaut
Stumbling through the halls
of the Prometheus, Elizabeth happens upon a very much alive Peter Weyland.
Having faked his death, Weyland hid in stasis aboard the Prometheus. He
communicated only with David via a neural interface that allowed the android to
view his creator’s lucid dreams. David gives a barely clothed and obviously
shaken Shaw his lab coat to cover up with and helps her to sit down. It turns
out that Weyland intends to meet the last surviving Engineer that David has
discovered in hopes of finding the secret to living forever. Shaw pleads with
Weyland that they were wrong and that this place is not what they thought it
was, and that they must leave. Undeterred, he asks her if Charlie would have
given up so easily.
Despite just having major surgery,
Shaw pumps herself full of painkillers and suits up to accompany the expedition
that is going to awaken the remaining Engineer. Before she can depart, Janek explains
his belief to her that this place is “hell”. He proposes that the planet was a
military installation created by the Engineers as a depot to hold their ships
loaded with the black liquid, a veritable “weapon of mass destruction”. He
tells Shaw that he can’t allow any of it to travel with them back to Earth, and
she says that he must do whatever he can to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Shaw joins David, Ford,
Weyland, and one of his bodyguards back to the temple. They follow the tunnel
that David explored earlier and arrive at what he refers to as a cargo bay,
full of the ampoules. It turns out that this part of the structure is actually
a ship. Having watched another holographic recording of the Engineers
interacting with the controls, David knows how to activate it and proceeds to
do so. He then presses a series of buttons on the sleeping chamber of the last
surviving Engineer and awakens him from stasis. The Engineer rises and is
greeted with the sight of one of his species creations: humans.
Weyland
instructs David to tell the Engineer why they’ve come, before being interrupted
by Shaw. She wants to know why they decided to destroy humanity, their
“children”, by sending a ship full of the black liquid to Earth. Upon seeing
Weyland’s bodyguard strike Shaw to silence her, the Engineer loses his cool.
Despite what seems to be an initial fascination with the humans’ android
creation, he proceeds to rip David’s head off, beat Weyland to death with it,
and quickly dispatches with the other members of the expedition. Shaw makes the
only smart move of the group and quickly flees the ship. The Engineer activates the
ship’s cockpit and a familiar structure rises from the floor of the chamber –
the same telescopic chair seen inside the derelict spacecraft in the original Alien
film. He climbs into the pilot’s seat where an elephant shaped helmet lowers
onto his head and the bone-like armor encloses around his body. He begins the
launch sequence as Shaw escapes from the bowels of the structure and reaches
the surface.
Back on the Prometheus,
Vickers, Captain Janek, and pilots Chance and Ravel have witnessed the death of
Weyland and the remaining crew. Vickers remarks that it is time to go home, but
not before they are radioed by Shaw. She explains to Janek that the ship is
headed for Earth with a stockpile of the black liquid containers, and that if
they don’t stop the Engineer “there won’t be any home to go back to.” Janek
tells Vickers to abandon ship and has the pilots prepare the Ion engines for
flight. As the Engineer’s ship rises into view, one of the pilots remarks that
activating the engines inside the atmosphere will turn the ship into a bullet,
which is exactly what Janek intends to do. He offers the pilots a chance to
abandon ship as well, but they choose to go down with their captain and offer
assistance taking down the Engineer as Janek is apparently a “shit pilot”.
Vickers ejects and Prometheus jettisons her living quarters to give the ladies
a chance to survive on the planet.
The pilots activate the ion engines and
collide with the Engineer’s ship, destroying the Prometheus and crippling the
Juggernaut which tumbles back to the surface. Shaw and Vickers quickly realize
that the ship is going to land on top of them, and attempt to outrun it. Shaw
is apparently the only one smart enough to run opposite the path of the falling
ship, and Vickers is crushed beneath the rolling Juggernaut as it finally comes
to a stop.
Confrontation
Shaw climbs out from
beneath the wreckage just as her air supply beings to run out. She makes her
way back to Vickers’ living quarters, which according to Janek would have
enough resources to sustain them for up to two years. She begins gathering
supplies when she notices movement within the room that contains the med pod. A
tentacle appendage slaps against the door’s window and it appears that Shaw’s
alien offspring has survived it’s decontamination and grown to an enormous
size. Before she can investigate further, Shaw is contacted via radio by David.
He apparently survived not only his beheading, but also the crash of the
Juggernaut. He tells her that she must flee, as the Engineer has survived and
is coming for her. The Engineer enters the craft in pursuit of Shaw. Just
before reaching her, she shouts “DIE!” and opens the doors to the med pod room.
The alien creature bursts forth and grabs the Engineer as Shaw flees the craft.
The Engineer attempts to fight off the enormous squid-like Alien, but is
quickly overpowered. It reveals a vaginal mouth full of teeth before unleashing
several smaller tentacles that grab the Engineer by the head. The alien then
thrusts a tentacle down the Engineer’s mouth that finally kills it in a manner
similar to how the alien worm earlier dispatched of Milburn. As the camera pans
away it becomes obvious that the squid was a sort of massive facehugger, which
having completed its purpose goes lifeless atop the Engineer’s body.
On the planet’s surface,
Shaw breaks down in to tears. She is contacted again by David who seems both
surprised and happy that she survived. He tells her that they can still escape
this planet as there are more Engineer ships, and he knows how to pilot them.
She recovers David’s head and body from the crashed Juggernaut, and loads them
onto one of the remaining off-road vehicles from the Prometheus. He tells her
that he should easily be able to pilot the ship back to Earth, but Shaw tells
him that they’re not going home. She wants to go to the Engineer’s home to find
out why they created us and then decided to destroy us. Another Juggernaut
rises into view near one of the other temple structures on the surface, and
quickly darts off into space with a flash.
Back inside the remains of
Vickers’ jettisoned quarters, the Engineer’s lifeless body begins to move and
convulse. A pointed head cuts through the chest of the dead Engineer, splitting
it open. A vaguely humanoid creature falls from the Engineer’s body onto the
floor and begins to move. It is clear as the creature begins to stand that it
is not the classic Xenomorph, but something different altogether. The proto-xeno’s
head arches back as a secondary jaw moves forward from its mouth, letting out a
loud wail.
Theories
& Musings
Sacrifice
& The Prometheus Myth
There are multiple examples
of sacrifice throughout the plot of Prometheus, beginning with the
film’s opening.
·
The Engineer downs the black liquid in order
to seed the planet with life. This Engineer sacrificed his own life in order to
provide the building blocks that would lead to the birth of humanity. Based on
the star map that David discovers when activating the hologram inside the
Juggernaut, we can surmise that they have repeated this process on other
worlds.
·
Charlie is the next to sacrifice himself
when he tells Vickers to kill him. Granted, this comes as a result of David dosing
him with the black liquid.
·
It could be argued that Shaw becomes an
unwilling sacrifice when she is impregnated with Holloway’s contaminated alien
sperm. Fortunately for her, she survives David’s experimentation and has the
alien offspring removed by the med pod before it can finish the job.
·
Captain Janek and the pilots of the
Prometheus perform perhaps the most notable sacrifice when they crash the ship
into the Juggernaut to prevent the Engineer from destroying life on Earth with
the black liquid.
The idea of sacrifice also
ties in with the story of Prometheus in Greek mythology. Prometheus, one of the
Titans, is credited with the creation of man. He is also responsible for
stealing fire from Zeus and giving it as a gift to humanity to inspire progress
and civilization1. His punishment for this theft is that he is
chained to a boulder for eternity, where every day and eagle will come devour
his liver. This symbolism of something cutting or emerging from the abdomen
occurs throughout the film:
·
The mural of the Engineer inside the ampoule
room shows a large crack or cut across the abdomen.
·
Shaw’s alien offspring is extracted from an
incision cut across her abdomen.
·
The proto-xeno that incubates inside the
Engineer emerges by cutting open the abdomen and chest of the host with its
head.
Ancient
Astronauts
The idea of the Engineers
visiting our planet throughout history fits in nicely with the “ancient
astronaut” theory that intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth
and made contact with human beings. These beings with advanced technology would
be revered as Gods capable of magical or mystical acts by ancient humans. It
also explains how many of the structures on earth that seem out of place might
exist, given the incongruences with the time period in which they were built
and the technology that was available. The great pyramids in Egypt and the Moai
stone heads of Easter Island may have actually been built by the Engineers, or
they may have aided humans in building them. It’s clear from the pictograms
discovered by Shaw and Holloway throughout the world that the Engineers came
back to visit humanity over many thousands of years. It is inferred that they
may in fact be responsible for steering the course of human history up to a
certain point.
Our
Savior
So what was the turning
point? Something led to the Engineers abandoning all hope in humanity and
deciding to wipe out the children that they had nurtured for thousands of
years. We know from the age of the star map pictograms that the Engineers
visited Earth early and often throughout humanity’s history, but then abruptly
stopped. The first holograms seen by the explorers are of the Engineers fleeing
through the tunnels of the pyramid. Playback of the hologram ends in the death
of the Engineer who collapses and is beheaded by the door of the ampoule room.
Carbon dating performed by Shaw on the corpse of the fallen Engineer indicates
that it is approximately 2000 years old.
It just so happens that a
somewhat significant theological event occurred around 2000 years ago – the
death of Christ. We know that the Engineers visited ancient humans throughout
the years, and are most likely the inspiration for the Gods and Goddesses seen
in various religions all over the world. Is it possible that one of these
Engineers was in fact Jesus Christ? It certainly lends an answer as to why the
Engineers would all of a sudden decide to wipe out humanity; they sent us a
“savior” to teach and guide us, and we responded by killing him. As pointed out
by Rob Bricken in his Prometheus FAQ, it may also explain why Christians think
a Middle Eastern Jew born in the first century was a white man2.
Older
Ship, Newer Technology?
One of the common
criticisms of Prometheus is that the technology shown in the film
doesn’t match up with what’s seen in Alien, given that the events in Prometheus
precede those in Alien chronologically by several years. The best
analogy I have seen to explain this is the comparison between the space shuttle
and a garbage truck. While the garbage truck may have been built many years after
the first space shuttle, it would require much less sophisticated, albeit more
rugged controls and features. It would also not appear nearly as
technologically advanced or “shiny and new” due to the type of work that it is
responsible for carrying out.
The spacecraft Prometheus
was the pinnacle of Weyland Industries engineering, built to fly a scientific
mission to seek out the answers to the biggest questions about the nature of
life. The Nostromo was the equivalent of a space tug boat, hauling a refinery
full of mineral ore across the galaxy. It is mentioned in the behind the scenes
documentary included with Alien that the crew of the Nostromo are the
equivalent of “space truckers”. The sets of the Nostromo’s interior were
designed using large transistors and low-resolution computer screens to give
the ship a used, industrial look and make it appear as though it was
constructed of retrofitted old technology3,4.
Where’s
Vickers?
I made it a point to only
reference the character of Meredith Vickers when her presence was needed to
explain a portion of the plot. Thankfully, that didn’t happen very often. There
is no mention of any of the following because frankly, Vickers did little to
advance the story or contribute in any way to explain the mysteries of Prometheus:
·
Her role at Weyland Industries or on the
Prometheus mission
·
Her limited interaction with the other
members of the crew
·
Her relationship with David and Peter
Weyland
·
The question of whether or not she is an
android
·
Her possible sexual encounter with Captain
Janek
·
The specific details of the incredibly
stupid manner in which she met her demise, which in retrospect was a very
fitting way to go for her terrible character.
I love Charlize Theron, but
her character in this movie was in my humble opinion completely pointless and
unnecessary (save for the naked pushups scene of course.)
Alien
DNA
Despite whatever issues
film critics, auteurs, and the general movie going public may have with Prometheus,
one thing it does deliver on is Ridley Scott’s promise that there would be
traces of the original Alien in this film. That is not to say that Prometheus
is in any way a prequel to Alien. While the events of this film take
place in the same universe as Alien and the story elements do precede it,
Prometheus does not end where the first film began. To clarify, it does
not end with the derelict spacecraft crashing on LV-426, sending out a warning
signal before the pilot’s untimely demise as the result of the birth of a
facehugger.
What it does provide is
insight into one of the biggest questions that fans of the Alien
franchise have been asking since they saw the first film, namely “Who was the
guy in the chair of the derelict spacecraft?” While we are never given the
answer to who exactly he was or how he ended up there with a massive hole in
his chest, we now know a few things for sure:
The Derelict
·
The structure investigated by the crew of
the Nostromo was a spacecraft similar to the Juggernaut piloted by the Engineer
in Prometheus.
·
The chair that the Space Jockey was seated
in was the equivalent of the pilot’s seat in the spacecraft.
·
The Space Jockey with the hole in its chest
was actually the flight suit of whoever was piloting the spacecraft.
·
It can be assumed that the remains of whomever
or whatever was inside that suit had decomposed long before being discovered by
Dallas, Lambert, and Kane.
The Alien
·
The Engineers knew what the Xenomorphs were
and were familiar with both the creatures and their lifecycle, as evidenced by
the murals inside the ampoule room.
·
The black liquid is somehow responsible for
the creation of the Xenomorphs in some way. Unfortunately it is unclear how
interaction with a living being results in the creation of the classic
Xenomorph that we know from Alien, based on the sequence of events shown
in Prometheus:
o
Engineer drinks black goo that breaks down
his body and seeds planet with life, resulting in the evolution of mankind.
o
Worms bathe in black goo and turn into hyper
aggressive vagina mouthed cobra snakes that break arms, regrow heads, and kill
Milburn via suffocation.
o
Goo turns worms’ blood into acid that melts
Fifield’s helmet and transforms him into some sort of boil faced super strong
contortionist Zombie.
o
Ingesting a drop of the goo gives Holloway
alien-infused sperm that is able to impregnate an otherwise sterile Shaw with
an alien baby.
o
Said goo also begins to transform Holloway
either into a zombie like Fifield or slowly breaks down his body like the
Engineer at the beginning of the movie. We never see what the end result is
because Vickers goes all burning monk on him before we can find out.
o
Alien baby inside Shaw grows at an alarming
rate. Within 12 hours it appears to David that she is the equivalent of 3
months pregnant. It continues to grow before finally being excised by the med
pod to reveal an aggressive, squid-like facehugger offspring.
o
Decontamination of med pod does not kill
squid, which continues to grow in size. Shaw eventually releases squid which
kills Engineer by forcing tentacle down its throat and implanting it with alien
embryo. Squid dies.
o
Embryo grows inside Engineer and escapes
from host’s body by cutting chest cavity open with the back of its pointy head,
as opposed to typical chestburster which punches a hole through victim’s
breastplate.
o
New alien/proto-xeno emerges from host fully
formed rather than in the chestburster snake/lizard body with tyrannosaurus
arms.
o
Proto-xeno does not have secondary mouth on
end of phallic tongue, but rather a secondary jaw inside of primary jaw.
Paradise
While the viewer is left
with many questions to ponder at the conclusion of Prometheus, the most
obvious has to be “where does the story go from here?” We are led to believe
that Shaw has departed LV-223 aboard an Engineer spacecraft, piloted by David
or at the very least flown with his assistance. She wants to go to the
Engineers’ home to find out why they wanted to wipe us out. But what will she
find there? Does Shaw truly believe that she is going to find the answer to the
meaning of life? If David and Holloway’s conversation about why humans created
androids is any indication, the answer we receive may not be the one we were
hoping for, nor will it be one that we are in any way prepared to accept.
Fans of Alien and Aliens
may be hoping for a story that ties into or sets up the events on LV-426.
Unfortunately I don’t know that we will ever get those answers, at least not in
a neat little box that will explain everything. The clues provided in Prometheus
are probably the closest we will ever get to understanding how the derelict
ended up on Acheron, with a dead Space Jockey at its controls and thousands of
xenomorph eggs in its belly.
Conclusion
I wrote this as a way to get my thoughts about
Prometheus on paper. My hope is that these ideas might explain some things that
other folks didn’t quite understand or notice when seeing the film. As stated
in the introduction, everything expressed hereto is based on incredibly limited
research and my overall fandom of Alien and Aliens. I apologize in advance for
references to other works and photos from which I have undoubtedly forgotten to cite.
These omissions are completely unintentional, and it is not my intent to copy
or infringe on ideas that anyone else has already written regarding Prometheus.
TL;DR If
you feel I’ve plagiarized a piece of your work, please accept my most sincere
apologies and let me know as I’ll be happy to cite additional sources or remove
content where appropriate.
References
1. William
Hansen, Classical Mythology: A Guide to
the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans (Oxford University Press,
2005), pp. 32, 48–50, 69–73, 93, 96, 102–104, 140
2. Rob
Bricken, Rob’s Prometheus FAQ
(Topless Robot, 2012) http://www.toplessrobot.com/2012/06/robs_prometheus_faq.php
3. Charles
de Lauzirika, The Beast Within: The
Making of 'Alien' (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2003)
4. Set
design and filming, Alien (Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia, 2012)
Additional
Reading
·
The Bioscopist - The Linguistics of
Prometheus – What David Says To The Engineer - http://thebioscopist.com/2012/06/20/the-linguistics-of-prometheus-what-david-says-to-the-engineer/
·
Mark Salisbury, Prometheus: The Art of the Film (Titan Books, 2012)
·
/r/LV426 – http://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/ - A subreddit for fans of James Cameron's 1986
sci-fi classic Aliens, and anything else related to the Alien franchise
(including the Predator series and the new film Prometheus).
