Noomi Rapace on Prometheus

“I feel like my character is the heart in the movie. You follow her, and she changes. In the beginning, she’s a believer. She believes in God and she has a very strong faith. She is a scientist and an archaeologist. She’s on this mission, and she’s full of hope. In the middle of the movie, things happen and she changes into more of a warrior. And in the end, she’s such a survivor. It was really a quite intense and dramatic journey for me to go through, and to do with Ridley and the other actors. But, when we were finished and we wrapped in Iceland, I remember that it was almost like I came back to Earth because I’d been on this spaceship and I’d been out on this weird planet. It’s always quite fascinating, when I look back at things and I realize how deep into it I actually was. It’s almost like I’m occupied by something." - Noomi Rapace, Collider interview.

Filmophilia Interviews Ridley Scott re: Prometheus

Interview: Ridley Scott Talks Prometheus, Giger, Beginning of Man and Original Alien
December 17, 2011

Today, we bring you our most exciting feature yet, an interview with legendary director Ridley Scott, who is now working on one of 2012′s most anticipated blockbusters, sci-fi thriller Prometheus. I met with the very energetic Scott in July, when he was in Iceland filming a reported 15-minute sequence for the film, along with a crew of over 200, and most of Prometheus’ principal cast.

When we sat down in a small meeting room in his Reykjavik hotel, he not only answered questions on Prometheus surprisingly openly (although he will preserve that film’s most important secrets for its release, as you can note below), and linked Prometheus directly with Alien on several occasions, but also gave me this:
A: Offered a glimpse into his view on making the original Alien.

B: Revealed that H.R. Giger is indeed directly involved in the design of Prometheus and,
C: perhaps most interestingly, gave us an insight into not only the mythology of Prometheus but
D: his own radical opinions on how mankind has evolved to the point it’s at today.

But intros are boring. Just read the interview itself. A shorter (and translated) version of this interview was published in Icelandic film magazine Myndir manadarins in August, but we are now finally able to publish it uncut right here.

Erlingur Grétar Einarsson: What [part of Prometheus] are you shooting in Iceland? What role in the film does it “play”?

Ridley Scott: It’s, you know, whenever you’re talking about science-fiction, it always sounds pretentious or corny. It’s actually “The beginning of time”. But I think we’ve got it right. (He laughs) So, it will be a pretty good beginning of time.

EGE: [The Prometheus’ cast] is a very impressive line-up.

RS: Yeah, you know, we were staying with the notion that there were no stars in the first film [1979's Alien]. I think it was [Weaver‘s] first film. They were not stars.

EGE: Skerritt had some name recognition, maybe at the same level Fassbender is now.

RS: Yeah. I didn’t make that as a plan, you know. Sometimes it’s better when you have a story, where you’re gonna lose people during the story, that they are lesser known. Of course, Charlize [Theron] is very well known, but she hangs around ‘till the end. (He laughs)

EGE: So you are linking this directly with the Alien films?
RS: Not at all.

EGE: Not at all?

RS: No.

EGE: No?

RS: I mean, you could actually say, and there’s a quote I did, a pretty good quote: By the end of the third act you start to realize there’s a DNA of the very first alien, but none of the subsequent aliens. To tell you what that is is a pity, and I’m not going to tell you, because it’s actually pretty good, pretty organic to the process and to the original. But we go back, we don’t go forward.

EGE: The official synopsis from Fox says that this revolves around the “Alien Gods”, the “Space Jockey” from the first film.

RS: Yeah, so there you have that. I was always amazed that, I mean, I’ve only done two science-fictions, but I was always amazed that no one asked who the hell the Space Jockey was. He wasn’t even called the Space Jockey. During the film they started to call it the Space Jockey. I don’t know who started that one off. I always thought it was amazing that no one ever asked who he was, and why was he there? What was all that about? I sat thinking about this for a while and thought, well, there’s a story! And the other four [films] missed it! So, here it is.

EGE: Will you be using any of Giger’s original design for this film?

RS: We’ve had a pretty good relationship with Giger for many years. I was the first one to go see him in Switzerland, and persuade him to get on a plane. He wouldn’t get on a plane, because he was afraid of flying. And he finally came to Shepperton. He was with me for eleven months. Never went into town, stayed over a pub in Shepperton. Very non-Giger, not exotic. You’d think he’d be in a suite in a hotel. He’s in a pub. He was in a room over a pub, and he was very happy there. And yeah, I brought him in, I showed him what we were doing, showed him the story and he liked it a lot. So he’s doing a little bit of work for me. He’s been doing some murals, big murals, which we’ll see in almost one of the first chambers we encounter when we land where we’re gonna go.

EGE: The tone of the film, according to the official synopsis, and the tone of the premise, sounds a lot more mythological than the original Alien films. The original Alien films revolved around industrial settings and premises and social situations rather than anything mythological.

RS: The original Alien was a pretty savage engine. I’ve always said it was a C-movie done in an A-way. Because it was the Old Dark House, you know. Seven people in the Old Dark House, and they’re all going to die. (He laughs) And they’re gonna die horribly and that in itself is a tricky exercise, because you can do it well, you can do it badly. But somehow that worked. It turned out pretty well.

I think one of the reasons why I’ve never gone back to science-fiction, even though I’ve often noodled around, thought about it, looked for story, looked for material, is that there’s a nice purity to the original Alien. It’s fairly pure. And this one does actually raise all kinds of other questions, because if someone could, a being, could be as monstrously clever to create something like we experienced in the very first one – I always figured it’s a weapon, and I always figured that [the ship in the first Alien] was a carrier of weapons. Therefore, who is that, inside that suit? That wasn’t a skeleton, that was a suit. And if you open up the suit, what do you get inside it? And why were they going, where were they going?

Also, I ring off of… there’s a writer, Erich von Däniken. One of his most famous books was called Chariots of the Gods. Everyone thinks he was out of his mind, you know, for number one, “we are the creation of gods”, if you go back to the 19th century anthropologists, Darwin, and say if you go look at Darwin for the moment and look at the Darwinian idea, the Darwinian thesis, which is seemingly very logical. You know, you’re going from something that gradually comes to two legs and gradually here we are. Then you can go beyond that and you look more mathematically at the feasibility of how we’re able to be sitting here, right now, in this place. I’m talking to you, and I’ve got this thing (he picks up his cellphone) which looks like Star Trek. This is “Beam me up, Scotty”-stuff. You wouldn’t have believed this thing could exist thirty years ago.

[Editor's note: And here is where he really takes off:]

Things have changed so dramatically that you can start looking at the idea that all our history can be completely wrong and misguided. Because at some point someone has to put a statement down and have their own thesis, have their own theories. That was then later accepted or later is gradually dissolved and re-drawn or reworked. So now you’ve got the whole changed attitude with NASA, the church and I think even Hawking. Over the last thirty years have gone from “It’s highly unlikely that there’s anyone else in our galaxy, any other force, being in our galaxy,” to now, where they’re conceding that there are probably thousands of different lifeforms in this galaxy. And I think Hawking actually said, “Let’s hope they don’t visit.” And I think the church has conceded as well that it would not be against the word of God if we conceded that there are other lifeforms in this galaxy.
So, if you take that out, then the door is open. To me, it’s entirely logical. It’s entirely ridiculous to believe that we are the only ones here. That’s why my first thought is that for us to be sitting here right now is actually mathematically impossible without a lot of assistance. Who assisted? Who made the right decisions? Who was pushing and pulling to adjust us? That’s a fair question.

EGE: Prometheus has the Brandywine production tag on it [a Production slate only used for Alien films since 1979] Do you feel any pressure going back to that world?

RS: No. Not at all, really. I had a good time making it. They gave me an opportunity to make it. I’d only done The Duellists at that point which was actually a pretty good film. Then someone had bizarrely seen it at Cannes and thought, “I wonder if he wants to do science-fiction,” which couldn’t be more different. I read it and thought, “Wow! This is fantastic,” because at that moment I was engaged in a lot of, I was reading a lot Jean Giraud’s “Moebius” stuff. The great French illustrator, beyond everything. I’d been looking at him just with the view to, you know, one day I wanted to do science-fiction. I’d seen Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and that for me was certainly a door opening. You go, “Wow, that works,” and what am I gonna do?

So, I happened to be looking at Moebius’ stuff, just out of interest, because I’m a really… I can really draw and paint. I was really influenced by what I saw, but didn’t know where to apply it. When I read the Alien script, I just saw Moebius all the way, and I said, “I’ll do it! I know how to do it!” I was in Hollywood, and we sat for 22 hours straight. “Do you want to change it?” – “Nope.” – “What do you want to do?” – “Shoot it.” That was it. Bingo. People were saying, “Let’s rewrite the third act, that is a disaster.” I said, “I’ll do it.” Once you’re doing it, you can adjust it.

EGE: Do you see Noomi [Rapace] as something of a successor to Sigourney?

RS: Yeah, I mean, they’re quite different women. Sigourney, to start with, is 6’1’’ in stocking feet, and Noomi insists that she is 5’1’’ in stocking feet. (He laughs) I look at a lot of foreign movies, and unfortunately a lot of mainstream movies aren’t terribly good. You know. (He laughs)

The most influential for me are the new ones around the corner, and I look at a lot of foreign films and a lot of Scandinavian films. The Scandinavians have a very good touch for making movies, you guys (Icelanders) as well. I saw Dragon Tattoo a year ago, the first one. And, “Wow, who is that?” and from that I said, “This is the girl that’s going to do the film.” She came to L.A. and I met with her, and discovered that she’s in fact extraordinarily posh, as opposed to punk. So there was a real actress. A real actress, very, very good. So, I don’t know, she will just do great.

EGE: She has this same fire that Sigourney brought, as well.

RS: I would say that Noomi’s even more volatile and passionate. And sure, she looks good. But the combination of that and intelligence is a great combination.

EGE: Final question. I have a feeling what the answer will be, but many want to know. Will we see the original xenomorph in Prometheus?

RS: No. Absolutely not. They squeezed it dry. He (the xenomorph) did very well. (He laughs) He survived, he’s now in Disneyland in Orlando, and no way am I going back there. How did he end up in Disneyland? I saw him in Disneyland, Jesus Christ!

Taken from http://filmophilia.com/2011/12/17/interview-ridley-scott-talks-prometheus-giger-beginning-of-man-and-original-alien/ (19/12/2011)

Ridley Scott talks Prometheus

Interview with Ridley Scott, Source: Empire Magazine Issue 272 - Feb 2012
Found at: http://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=41265.0 (17/12/2011)

"He was marvellous, but he's cooked," laughs 74 year old Ridley Scott of the Nostromo's unforgettable chestbursting stowaway. "He's now got an orange in his mouth." What Alien's famous director wants to make clear, as post production on his much-vaunted $100 million, 3D return to the science-fiction genre, draws close, is that he has gone back to the universe of his groundbreaking classic, but he's also moved on. "I felt there was still life in the old sod, but it has evolved into something else. To stick to the story, you don't really get it until about eight minutes from the end." Deep down in its scaly heart, Prometheus is an Alien prequel, but not as we know it.

It certainly embraces the Alien aesthetic; that biomechanoid phantasmagoria born of H.R. Giger’s pervy art and his director's unerring eye. "It does," agrees Scott, "but it's also different..." This is as much a matter of scope as anything. With a much bigger budget, Scott has been utlising all the tools available to him: high-end digital effects ("Avatar set the bar high"), filming in 3D ("You engage more, you're drawn in") and building massive Giger-esque sets across Pinewood that oozed the atmosphere that defined his career ("I still believe in putting in the proscenium")

The cast went giddy at the belly-of-the-beast effect of the giant sets. If Alien was a souped-up B-Movie, then Prometheus is a biblical epic. "Alien felt epic," says Scott ", but this one is Epic."

Barring a beach scene in the long cut of Alien 3, the new film will feature the franchise's first genuine exterior, with Iceland's black lava fields providing the new planet's hardscrabble surface (LV-426 was created on a soundstage). Thematically, too, it's gone big. This is God versus Science, and the survival of not just the crew (most of whom probably don't) but mankind itself. In other words, there is a whole 2001-vibe going on. "It's gone off in a new direction," boasts Scott, "but I promise it will engage you in the first five minutes."

The script, written by Jon Spaihts and Lost's Damon Lindelof, based on "one single thought" Scott drew from the original, initially follows a familiar arc. The crew of the Prometheus (the ship's name designed to echo the Greek myth) follow a perplexing message to a planet that will open their eyes and their chests to a new alien race. "A crew of scientists embark on a journey somebody else is paying for," says the director, referring to the fact Charlize Theron's Meredith Vickers is a "suit" for a certain Weyland-Yutani. Meanwhile, Michael Fassbender may or may not be an early model of Ash's android and may or may not be trustworthy. And Noomi Rapace's archaeologist heroine, Elizabeth Shaw - a spiritual cousin to "Rippers" - is one half of a conflicted couple of Logan Marshall-Green's Holloway: "One comes from a position of faith, and the other is pure scientist," details Scott. Both are going to have a lot to swallow.

Even at the time of Alien, some 32 years ago, Scott mentioned he was interested in exploring the origins of the 'Space Jockey', the dead pilot of the derelict "space croissant". He talked about bioengineering and biological warfare as potential themes. Has he been able to satisfy his curiosity in that respect? "Definitely." And what significance can we draw from the pictures slowly being released, especially the giant humanoid 'head' that looms over what Scott terms the "ampule chamber"? "Oh there's a lot more to it," he says wafting explanations away, "I've locked up all the sweet stuff..."

Including something familiar, perhaps?

The Alien

Of the many variations on the design of the Alien, H. R. Giger's original is, to my mind, far and away the best, because it is the most alien of the lot. After the initial nightmarish creature, the design became ever more organic and insect-like (and slimy), as all subsequent films dwelt on the eusocial, hive-like qualities introduced in James Cameron's first sequel. But in doing so, they drifted away from what it was that was so unsettling about the Alien in the first place - the fact that it was NOT like anything we'd encountered before. The original was a triumph of ambiguity and perversity - here was a creature that seemed to be both animal and machine, rigid yet graceful, slow and yet capable of great speed, inhuman and yet so very, very human in such alarming ways. Its design incorporated elements suggestive of both male and female sexual organs; it was the very embodiment of rape and yet it also defied the usual categories of human sexuality, being neither male nor female.

Part of the problem is that, from the second film onward, the creature had a name of sorts. In the first film it was quite simply the Alien, an ambiguous name for an ambiguous and unknown thing. But in Aliens the creatures came to be known as Xenomorphs, meaning 'strange form' or 'alien creature', which arguably has much the same meaning but lacks the directness and uneasiness of the word 'alien' itself. Fans and spin-off media have gone even further, bestowing upon the creatures the scientific-sounding binomial classifications 'Linguafoeda Acheronsis' ('foul-tongue from Hell') or alternatively 'Internecivus Raptus' ('Murderous Thief'). It was inevitable that some of the mystery and thus the fascination of the creatures would be stripped away with greater exposure in sequels, part of the beasts's perverse allure was in its mysteriousness - it was only glimpsed briefly and to great effect in the original film.

I'm REALLY looking forward to Ridley Scott's Prometheus, which, in going back to the original conception of the creature in its purest form, will hopefully do much to restore its majesty and enigma.

The Gods

In light of the revelation that Ridley Scott's new film Prometheus is going to be about the giant Space Jockeys from the original Alien film, and given my speculations about the thematic connotations of the name Prometheus, I thought I'd post some of the excellent images I've found of the creatures who will be the 'gods' that Prometheus stole 'fire' from...

As you can see, there's some confusion over whether or not the Space Jockeys have legs.

Far and away my favourite image, however, is this one:

It's a fake movie poster, obviously, but the skull is beautifully done and unnervingly alien. Top stuff :)

Prometheus - My Speculations

Prometheus, the latest addition to the highly successful Alien franchise, is slated for release on June 8, 2012. It was originally scheduled to be released on March 9, 2012, but the date was pushed back for "a high-profile summer release". Director Ridley Scott, who brought the stunning original Alien film to life, reported that he is shooting both PG-13 and R-rated cuts of the film to be submitted to Fox for review when the film is finalized, and Wikipedia notes that it is being filmed in 3D using the same technology used for James Cameron’s Avatar. [Note: The image above is NOT the official poster, it's by Nuke Vizard over at deviantArt... but I love it].

This being an Alien film, the audience is coming to it with certain expectations. In a nutshell, the things that people expect from an Alien film are as follows: A strong woman will survive while everyone else (with possibly a couple of exceptions) dies a gruesome death at the hands of the vicious drooling monsters, which are usually released by human arrogance. There’s usually a Synthetic humanoid involved, so expect someone to have white goo for blood. And fans of the franchise, particularly, will be expecting certain things from this film: An explanation of the Aliens’ origins and some answers about the giant, elephantine ‘Space Jockey’ creature that the crew of the Nostromo discovered in the derelict crashed ship in the original film.

What can we gather by looking at the promotional images and production notes released so far? Wikipedia confirms Prometheus will be a prequel to the original film, taking place approximately 30 years prior to the starship Nostromo’s destruction, in the years before the Weyland company merged with the Yutani company to form the greedy and immoral Weyland-Yutani corporation. As such, it cannot possibly acknowledge the rest of the franchise, or the original characters. There may be a little tie-in at the very end, with the Company getting news of the events depicted in the story and their appetites being whetted (more on that below), but I expect this to be a largely stand-alone story.

The story is about the crew of an exploratory space ship. Our new ‘Ripley’ will be Dr Elizabeth Shaw*, played by Noomi Rapace. She’s either the ship’s science or medical officer, and Wikipedia notes that she is in a relationship with Holloway (played by Logan Marshall-Green), who I expect will probably die fairly early on because he’s hardly a big name. Rapace’s not the most obvious choice to take on Sigourney Weaver’s mantle but perhaps that’s intentional because...

Charlize Theron will play Meredith Vickers, a Company ‘suit’ who ‘sheds that skin’ (according to Wikipedia). Not a lot to go on there, but she seems to be the more obvious ‘Ripley’ so I’m expecting she’ll be a bit of a red herring, a tough, stand-offish woman, who warms up a bit and looks like the one who’ll survive, only to die in the last ten minutes. Or she may survive, taking news of what’s happened back to her bosses at the end (nicely setting up the events of the original film).

Michael Fassbender will play David, the ship’s Synthetic. Interestingly, the film’s Wikipedia page quotes writer/script editor Damon Lindelof making reference to the androids of Ridley Scott’s other classic (Blade Runner) in describing him, possibly linking the two films together...? If so, he may not even realise he is synthetic, or may be a saboteur. He’s the most likely antagonist, because Fassbender is too good to waste, he does intense, broody and violent SOOOO well.

It’s quite a large cast compared to that of the original film, and interestingly the captain (played by Idris Elba) doesn’t seem to feature prominently. The only other big names in the cast are Guy Pearce and Patrick Wilson, but no real news on their roles yet. Although I suspect one of them will be a Company official even higher up than Vickers, perhaps the person she reports to (my bet is on Patrick Wilson, he has that corporate sleaze look about him).

The Wikipedia page further notes that:

'[Ridley Scott] said, "While Alien was indeed the jumping-off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien's DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative." However, speaking to MTV on February 12, 2011, Fassbender stated the film was still an Alien prequel, saying, "Prometheus is absolutely connected to Alien... There's a definite connecting vein." In a June 2011 interview, screenwriter Damon Lindelof claimed it will be a prequel to the Alien films but follow a different story, stating "a true prequel should essentially [precede] the events of the original film, but be about something entirely different, feature different characters, have an entirely different theme, although it takes place in that same world. That was my fundamental feeling about what this movie wanted to be"'.

Turning to the images released so far, I’m very pleased to see that the overall LOOK of the original film is being retained. The walls of the dark space Dr Shaw, Holloway and David are exploring look as though they were built by the Aliens, and on this point Wikipedia quotes Ridley Scott as saying “The film will be really tough, really nasty. It's the dark side of the moon. We are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?” Wikipedia further notes that the Alien design is being reverse-engineered to present the creature in an earlier stage of its evolution, and thankfully, H.R. Giger is being consulted. I think we’ll see that the Aliens were genetically engineered or at least modified for use as part of a terra-forming process used by the Space Jockey creatures, but Ridley Scott has stressed that Prometheus is not ABOUT the Aliens, and I’m inclined to believe him. I’ll go into that more below, because I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself here. But I believe we definitely won’t see an Alien Queen, because that (admittedly brilliant elaboration on the Aliens’ original life-cycle) was a later addition by James Cameron and his writers. This film will go back to the purity of the original concept.

And finally, to the biggest surprise in the images released so far - the elephant, as it were, in the room: Dominating most of the images that have been released thus far, bizarrely and maybe even implausibly, a giant statue of a human head. This massive effigy is at the centre of the whole riddle, and now, finally, I can start to lay out my theory. What possible explanation could there be for this bizarre artefact?

The key, I believe, is in the name of the movie itself, Prometheus, and here we come to those ‘unique, large’ and provocative’ ideas Ridley Scott refers to in the quote above.

Prometheus is a legendary figure from Greek mythology, and a highly significant one at that. There are variations on the basic story, of course, but essentially it goes like this: Prometheus, a Titan (an embodiment of one of the forces of nature) stole fire from the king of the Gods, Zeus, and delivered it to mankind. There’s more to it than that, but I’ll elaborate as I go on. I firmly believe that Prometheus is the name of the exploratory ship that our heroes are travelling on. Why? Because the name Prometheus is highly symbolic, and just the sort of thing you expect a historic space flight to be named. It has connotations of defiance of the higher powers, venturing out and bringing salvation and light (literally: enlightenment) back to people who are struggling in the darkness - it’s a metaphor for the scientific endeavour itself. It’s almost the very essence of aspiration and optimism.

But the name Prometheus has dark and sinister connotations as well, and this, I believe, is the brilliance of the choice of title. For the story of the Greek Prometheus goes on; Zeus, infuriated at the betrayal, had Prometheus chained to a rock in the mountains to punish him, and every day an eagle would come and tear out his innards and feed on him, only for him to regenerate every night for the same punishment to happen again, and again, ad infinitum. Does it sound familiar? It should, because what do the Aliens do, but disembowel a victim, and then find other victims to repeat their awful reproductive cycle through? Some variations of the Prometheus myth say that Zeus unleashed his fury on the humans as well as on the traitor, and thus Prometheus brought endless toil and suffering on humanity. Prometheus is further implicated in creating the first woman, Pandora, who of course went on to unleash all the worst things in the world when she opened the box she was forbidden from opening...

And what do we see all around the giant face? Rows and rows of object that look suspiciously like urns, laid out in a pattern reminiscent of the Alien eggs. You can bet that the proto-Aliens or proto-Facehuggers will be in those things, and that it will be a woman’s (probably Dr Shaw’s) fault that one gets out. But the other part of the Pandora story, of course, is that there is still hope in the box after all the evil has escaped into the world, and thus our female scientist/doctor will hold the key to survival by eventually understanding what she’s unleashed.

This still doesn’t explain the giant head, but I’m getting to it. You see, although the exploration team are aboard a ship called Prometheus, they are NOT the Prometheus of the story. Someone ELSE has already ‘stolen fire from the Gods’ (in this narrative, the giant Space Jockeys), and THAT is who the giant head represents. Our heroes are discovering what’s left of a previous attempt to use the ‘stolen fire’, a terra-forming experiment that ended in disaster. I expect we’ll see that a ‘mad’ scientist (probably either Guy Pearce or Patrick Wilson - my bet’s on Pearce) took the relatively benign biotechnology of the Space Jockeys (the Aliens), and did not take the precautions necessary to contain them, not knowing what he was doing. I further expect he attempted to modify the Aliens’ genetic structure to make them behave as he wanted them to (he ‘played god’) and unwittingly turned them into the unstoppable killing machines we recognize from the Alien films. And he probably sacrificed his crew in the process, hence all the hundreds of urns. Either that, or they revered him and came to worship him as a cult-figure**.

I expect the majority of this back-story to emerge as the team explores the (seemingly?) deserted, terra-formed planet. But a back-story is just that, it’s not exciting in its own right. Events have to unfold in the present, and those will come largely from the dynamics between the crew members of the Prometheus. The Space Jockeys may be on the planet as well, trying to ‘clean up the mess’, and perhaps they will come into conflict with the heroes. The proto-Alien will, of course, finally be unleashed and start slaughtering the crew, probably only at the very end. One thing’s for sure though, the Prometheus’ mission will not end well. The Company does not get hold of the Alien life form, though they desperately want it to exploit it for commercial gain. They will end up knowing about it (they have to, to tie this film in with the original Alien film), but the Prometheus and her crew are doomed.

And THAT will be the big theme - Technology, Science, Innovation, they may bring light and salvation, but if mismanaged, they can bring only destruction and desolation. Once greed starts to direct our actions (as it does throughout the Alien films), the spirit of investigation that could otherwise liberate us will inevitably destroy us. Which Prometheus will we be - the hero who saves or the meddler who damns? In a 21st century world, where designer babies, stem cell research, gene therapies and the genetic modification of our food crops are pressing ethical issues, this message could not be more timely. That inescapable, giant stone head dominating those promotional images symbolises the centrality of this moral dilemma, an ever-present reminder of the moral ambiguity at the heart of this tale.


* Something I find highly amusing - Dr Elizabeth Shaw is also the name of a companion character from the Doctor Who television series, played by Caroline John in the Third Doctor era.

** The cult-worship connection would not be completely out of place - Alan Dean Foster's novelisation of Alien 3 had one character begin to worship the titular beast, and indeed that entire story takes place within the walls of a religious commune.