Prometheus (2012) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Ridley Scott returns with a reaffirmation of existential dread.

Prometheus returns to the roots of the Alien franchise, telling a story about the origins of life in the universe. It presents a cautionary tale about hubris and human fallibility. And it continues to creep audiences out with the introduction of several new alien species.

First Impressions

Right away, the trailer reveals that this is a film from Ridley Scott. Two archaeologists discover that several ancient civilizations, separated by time, all drew the same pictograph. They believe it’s an invitation to come visit. Much of the trailer becomes quick shots that mimic scenes from Scott’s Alien, as the soundtrack builds in tension. There’s running, screaming, fire, and many disorienting shots. It ends with a man menacingly saying that big things come from small beginnings. It’s Prometheus!

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

A spaceship leaves a planet as a tall, pale, muscular alien drinks a black fluid and begins to disintegrate. He falls into a waterfall and dissolves, his DNA breaking apart and reforming. In Scotland, in 2089, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) make a thrilling discovery in a cave. Four years later, on board the Prometheus, the android David (Michael Fassbender) uses a video link to watch Shaw’s dreams while she is in suspended animation. He practices basketball and watches Lawrence of Arabia while maintaining the ship’s systems. The ship arrives at a remote star system, LV-223.

After the 17 crew members awaken, Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) leads a briefing that begins with a holographic message from the financier of the mission, Peter Weland (Guy Pearce). The old man indicates he is probably dead by now and introduces David, whom he derides for not having a soul. Shaw and Holloway give a summation of how they discovered the same symbols in various cultures, which were all separated by Centuries, and how that has led them to this planet in search of the progenitor of human civilization. Shaw, who is strong in the Catholic faith, chooses to believe that these Engineers invited them.

Their hailing message provides no response, so the ship lands near what appears to be a runway. Excited, Holloway wants to get the first expedition in before nightfall. Inside the artificial structure, Fifield (Sean Harris) releases scanning orbs to map the interior while Holloway takes a risk and pops his helmet off, breathing the air. The group discovers a decapitated Engineer outside a doorway, which David is able to open. Inside the room are dozens of strange canisters that begin to ooze black fluid. Shaw and Ford (Kate Dickie) bag the preserved head for study, while Fifield and Millburn (Rafe Spall) depart, freaked out. A storm arises, and the group returns to Prometheus, not realizing that Fifield and Millburn were left behind.

Ford and Shaw examine the head by providing a small current to its nerves. It “awakens” and begins to convulse before exploding. Tests indicate that the DNA from the Engineers is a match to human DNA. David examines a vial of the black goo he secreted in his bag, placing a drop in a glass he hands to Holloway, infecting him. Holloway celebrates that evening with Shaw in their room. Captain Janek (Idris Elba) asks Vickers if she’s a robot, due to her officious demeanor. She suggests he meet her in her room to find out. At the structure, Millburn and Fifield are attacked by an alien snake (called a Hammerpede) which climbs into Millfield’s mouth and sprays Fifield with corrosive blood. The team returns to rescue the men but finds it’s too late.

While back at the structure, David finds a control room with a starmap to Earth and indications that a single Engineer is still alive. Holloway begins showing symptoms of an illness, which comes on quickly. Back at the Prometheus, Vickers refuses to let Holloway on board. He realizes he’s not going to survive, so he prompts Vickers to torch him with the flamethrower. Shaw, previously believing she is infertile, discovers that she’s suddenly three months pregnant. David won’t help her remove the fetus, so she uses an automated medpod to pull an alien lifeform (called a Trilobite) from her abdomen. In pain, she stumbles into a room with Weyland and Vickers, his daughter. He was in hibernation so that he could be healed by the Engineers when they found them.

Janek tells Shaw he believes the place to be a military installation filled with WMDs. David takes Weyland to meet his maker. Inside, they discover the Engineers were actually headed to Earth to kill the population. The remaining Engineer kills Weyland and rips David’s head off. Shaw manages to escape and radios to Janek that he must stop the Engineer’s ship from leaving. Janek ejects Vickers’ life pod and rams the Engineer’s ship, destroying both. Vickers survives but is crushed by one of the falling ships. Shaw avoids the Engineer who comes to kill her by opening the medpod room and allowing the Trilobite, now fully grown, to kill it. She grabs David’s severed head and takes another Engineer ship to the Engineers’ home planet. In the closing moments, a xenomorph-like character bursts from the Engineer’s body.

“These are ancient civilizations, they were separated by centuries, they shared no contact with one another, and yet the same pictogram, showing men worshipping giant beings pointing to the stars was discovered at every last one of them.” – Holloway

History in the Making

Prometheus marks Ridley Scott’s return to his science-fiction roots, 30 years after his last genre picture and 33 years after the film that began the most influential sci-fi/horror franchise of all time. While Scott has been known for many amazing films over the years, such as Gladiator, Thelma and Louise, and Black Hawk Down, to many he is still best known for his second and third films, Alien and Blade Runner. Both are cult classics, and Alien spawned a franchise that now includes seven films, two crossovers with the Predator franchise, and an upcoming television series, along with countless novels, comics, and video games. Prometheus is both a return to these sci-fi roots and a reinvigoration for the franchise itself, being both a remake of Alien and an entirely new film at the same time.

Prometheus also pushes the boundary of both the science-fiction and horror aspects of the series. The 1979 Alien had themes of corporate greed, phallic terror, and artificial intelligence gone rogue. It viewed all of these elements through the lens of a strong female character, creating a new archetype for both the sci-fi and horror genres. Alien also borrowed ideas and imagery from various other sci-fi films and stories. Prometheus takes all of this groundwork, modernizes it with the last thirty years of science-fiction advancements, and adds in further themes of creation, religion, and deities. It achieves a similar type of physical horror, shocking audiences with new imagery, but creates a new and different level of existential horror for the 21st-century viewer.

Genre-fication

The previous film in the Alien franchise was Alien Resurrection from 1997, a film that was not well received. It had strayed from the formula of the series, introducing an alien hybrid clone of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley character who becomes a superhero in this installment. The film had some jump scares, but overall was relatively bland, lacking some of the twists and surprises of the original. Scott’s return to the series was often discussed, but without an engaging story, the process lingered. Weaver had also shown interest in returning if an appropriate story could be found. While Weaver has not returned to the franchise as of this writing, Scott found the ideas and entry point he needed to revisit this franchise–a prequel. George Lucas had proved that there was much to be mined in the telling of tales set prior to a box office hit, having created Episodes I, II, and III for his Star Wars Saga. The Planet of the Apes franchise had recently returned to its roots with Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The Thing (2011) told a story of the ill-fated Norwegian camp prior to John Carpenter’s 1982 thriller. Even comic book films were turning to origin stories with X-Men: First Class (2011). Over the following decade, dozens more genre films in sci-fi and horror would switch up their formula by turning to a time-before-the-time the audience had already seen.

With Prometheus, writers Jon Spaihts (Doctor Strange, Dune) and Damon Lindelof (Lost, Cowboys & Aliens, Star Trek) would use the template of the previous film as the basis for the plot and structure of this one. It’s a process that JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan would use when developing the upcoming Star Wars sequel, The Force Awakens. Prometheus becomes both a remake of Alien and an entirely new film at the same time. For starters, it was the first film in the franchise not to use the word “Alien” in its title. The marketing and word of mouth for the film indicated it was an Alien film, but the casual viewer may have been confused. Did the Prometheus land on the same planet as seen in Alien and Aliens? It certainly seems familiar, with the spaceship and elephant-like aliens. Again, casual viewers may not have remembered the distinction between LV-426, the planet from the 1979 and 1986 films, and LV-223, the planet in the film. They seem exceedingly similar. Which is probably the point of the film: to create an innate sense of familiarity with the audience, but provide a wholly new experience. It’s a fine line to walk between creativity and honoring what has come before and eliciting fan service for the sake of instant gratification. Both Prometheus and The Force Awakens straddle this line, and their individual results may vary based on the viewer.

Something I never touched on with my original review of Alien was its similarity to the 1965 Mario Bava film Planet of the Vampires. In part because I was unaware at the time of such a connection, having never seen the Bava film. Something I have since rectified. To recap, the 1965 film is about two spaceships that land on an alien planet where they discover giant alien skeletons before becoming infected by psychic creatures that want to be transported off-world. The parallels between it and the original Alien are myriad. A spaceship lands on a mysterious/haunted planet. The crews discover alien parasites that infect each other. Dead, giant alien beings are found inside a derelict spaceship. For Prometheus, the similarities increase. There are the same parallels as in the original film, but this time, there are more types of alien parasites to worry about, the gigantic aliens are explored further, and the spacesuits more closely match those from Planet of the Vampires, including the widows’ peaked skull caps.

Prometheus also plays with the archetype of the female in a horror film, much as Alien had done thirty years before. The character of Ripley was introduced as part of a group that becomes stranded on a planet. In the vernacular of the horror tropes from the late 70s and 80s, she is the final female–the last surviving person in the horror film. However, her survival is not part of dumb luck or fate. She is an empowered woman who takes survival into her own hands. Weaver’s portrayal created a new type of action-heroine for a new age of filmmaking. Scott toys with this perception again, putting Shaw as the lead female character, making audiences wonder if she will actually be the lone survivor. Theron portrays a much tougher female character. She wields a flamethrower and lays down the rules to the crew of the ship. In the style of this genre, Vickers would be the character who survives. Instead, Shaw is chosen as the final female; in part to subvert the tropes of previous films, but also in defiance of her religious beliefs having been shattered. Her faith is what has fueled her trip across the stars. Other characters are there for money or self-serving reasons, but Shaw is seeking answers to the biggest questions for humanity. She believes that the discovery of the Engineers will complete a lifelong question for her. But those beliefs are killed as she is presented with a much darker truth, yet she still maintains the strength to continue, outliving everyone else.

Societal Commentary

Prometheus states its themes plainly in the crew’s quest to discover who made us. A search to find the answers to the ancient question of where we came from is answered, not by a theological discovery, but by a scientific one. But this quest, spurred by the discovery of ancient pictograms showing a distant star system, is still an unknown encounter. Shaw states explicitly that she cannot know the answers for certain, but that it’s all part of her belief. It’s a belief that quickly takes on water as the answer to the question of “who is my creator,” takes a dark turn. For people who have a tough time enjoying this film, this may be the central reason. Scott creates a film that attempts to explain the origin of life on the Earth, and some viewers may not be ready for the answer he provides. The mythology is that eons ago, the Engineers visited Earth and mixed their DNA with rudimentary elements within the planet, spontaneously generating life. Now, thousands of years later, they are on their way back to the planet with weapons of mass destruction to scour the world free of that life. Maybe to start over? Maybe because they got bored? In this world, the gods giveth and taketh away.

The creation of life is a key theme in this film. The Engineers create life on Earth. Weyland Industries creates artificial humans, who are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. Humans accidentally create new forms of life on this planet, which immediately turn on them. While all of this is going on, Shaw suffers a crisis of faith and sadness at not being able to create life of her own. She admits to Holloway that she is infertile, which weighs heavily on her. That is, until she realizes that she is pregnant with an alien lifeform, in which case, she wants it out immediately. She shuns the fetus inside her, however horrific it may be, in the same way that she feels shunned by her creators. In the same way that David feels spurned by Weland. The loving parent does not exist in this film except in Shaw’s dreams of her father. It’s all a parable about the flippancy seen in the creation of life. It is further explored in the present with David failing to understand why he was created. His creator sees him as a tool, even though David has aspirations of his own and can never adequately live up to the expectations he sets for himself.. The crew also tempts fate, potentially angering the very gods they come to greet, by naming their ship after the Titan who stole fire from the ancient Greek gods and gave it to humanity. The hubris of this might irritate even the most benign of deities, believing that mankind is coming back for another helping. Kids, don’t piss off Dad!

The designs of the xenomorph life cycle by HR Giger for the original Alien are still some of the most horrific and unsettling creatures in horror. And the franchises’ use of phallic imagery related to the alien attacks makes even the toughest of fans squeamish. Prometheus takes a no-holds-barred approach to this element of horror. Millburn is attacked by the most phallic alien of all, a simple worm. It inserts itself into his throat, killing him instantly. It’s an act of male rape that is most unsettling. Shaw’s offspring has both tentacles and an ovipositor, but includes multiple vulvar-like openings, complete with teeth, for your nightmare fuel. Freudian psychoanalysts must enjoy analyzing the creatures from these films. But the creepiest creature of all is David, and his remorseless desire to please his master. He commits multiple acts of rape on both Shaw and Holloway as a means to his end. With Shaw, he peeks into her dreams while in stasis, stealing her innermost thoughts and desires to use against her later in the film. It’s a emotional rape, but one he uses to bring her to a stand still by mentioning her mother’s death. With Holloway, he “roofies” the scientist to see what effects a piece of the Engineer goo will do to a human. While not overtly violent, David takes advantage of an unsuspecting individual for his own insatiable curiosity. Seriously, stop letting androids on board these missions.

The Science in The Fiction

Prometheus contains lots of new and interesting technology for viewers, elements that were undreamt of in previous installments. When the team first enters the structure on LV-223, Fifield releases a series of spherical drones that fly through the base and map the space, creating a three-dimensional computer model. This appears to be a similar technology to LIDAR, which uses lasers to map surfaces. While this technology has been around since the 1960s, it is something that has been more prevalent in the last decade as a way for special effects companies to map locations in order to translate them into CGI models. This use of the technology also feels like the sort of mapping technology that occurs in video games, parsing out a small area ahead of the player and waiting for doors to open before advancing.

The Pauling Med-Pod is another fascinating piece of technology. It’s a self-contained medical bed complete with tools for performing multiple types of diagnosis and surgery. When Shaw first notices the device, she mentions that only a dozen were constructed. Even in the world of the film, this is an expensive and niche piece of technology. Later, when she attempts to have the alien fetus removed, the pod tells her that it has been calibrated for a male patient–the first clue that Weyland is still alive and on board the ship. This calibration makes perfect sense. If the Med-Pod is a substitute for a medical team back on Earth, it might not be able to handle every possible procedure, and needs to be configured to take care of specific aspects of a surgery. The manual functionality appears to be sufficient in some cases when the more precise method is unavailable.

Prometheus compares the technology of the humans to that of the Engineers. While humans have created machinery that takes them to the stars and repairs their tissue, they are still fragile beings in sacks of flesh. Mankind has been able to create new life in the form of humanoid androids like David. The Engineers, on the other hand, have mastered the technology of bio-organic mechanisms. For eons, they have been seeding worlds across the galaxy with their experiments. They have the ability to rip apart DNA strands and reconstitute them, combining elements from multiple sources. And as far as audiences know, they do this for fun–creating and destroying life as they see fit. Their treatment of what humans consider life is no better than the way Weyland (and others) treat David and other synthetic lifeforms.

The Final Frontier

An entire paper could be written about the character of David and his fascination with Lawrence of Arabia. It’s a film that he is fascinated with and rewatches during the two-year space trip. David quotes the film and even styles his hair like Lawrence. For those unfamiliar, the 1962 film is a semi-biographical film about TE Lawrence and his military career, which culminated in him uniting various tribes of Arabs and using them to help the British battle the Turks during World War I. It’s about hubris, colonialism, and a driving human spirit, all things that fascinate the non-human David. His quotes from the film include the ominous “Big things have small beginnings” phrase, which precedes his one-sided experiment on Holloway. At another point in the movie, he watches a scene where Lawrence snuffs out a match with his fingers. When another character tries it, they cry out in pain. “The trick,” Lawrence tells him, “is not minding it hurts.” This serves as the core characterization for Shaw, who runs around the planet for the entire third act, just having had abdominal surgery. It bloody well hurts! This may be the one aspect that David fails to grasp, since he feels no pain–physical or emotional. Certainly, David sees himself as some modern-day Lawrence of Arabia, as he attempts to unite the worlds of the alien Engineers and the human scientists to create something wonderful.

From a real-world perspective, Prometheus continues the alphabetical naming of the android characters. The first film, Alien, had Ash (Ian Holm). He was followed in Aliens and Alien 3 by Bishop (Lance Henriksen). Finally, Alien Resurrection had Call (Winona Ryder). The first letters of the android names follow A, B, C order. This next film in the franchise, though technically a prequel, follows with the ‘D’ name, David. Alien: Covenant, which is a direct sequel to Prometheus, again features David as the android, while the most recent film, Alien: Romulus, reverts the process with Andy (who would chronologically follow Ash), but also includes Rook, the weird outlier.

Ten-plus years on, Prometheus offers a different perspective on the franchise. While audiences of 2012 may have been uncertain of what the film had to offer in the way of the continuation of the in-universe mythos of the xenomorphs, the film and its sequel have both provided a lot more to think about in the Alien universe. The future appears bright for the time being. Romulus was released in 2024, serving as a bridge between Alien and Aliens, and during the summer of 2025, fans are set to receive Alien: Earth, a new television series premiering on Hulu. Fans who are interested in continuing to explore the world of the Engineers have several comics from Dark Horse to check out, including Fire & Stone from 2014. And for any multi-billionaires that read this article, who are planning to create synthetic life and launch it into the galaxy to search for aliens, I only caution one simple thing: don’t do it.

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