When Ridley Scott‘s new film Prometheus was announced, the official word was that the story evolved out of the script for the director’s planned Alien prequel. But this story, we were told, took place in a different narrative universe than that of the Alien films. (Even though some common DNA would be recognizable, Ridley Scott said.) It seemed like this new movie would be an all-new, totally original thing.
Now there’s a report that runs counter to that claim — according to Sky.com, Prometheus very specifically features Alien elements such as the Space Jockey and the actual xenomorph aliens the series made famous.
First up, lets revisit Ridley Scott’s statement from the official Prometheus announcement:
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. I couldn’t be more pleased to have found the singular tale I’d been searching for, and finally return to this genre that’s so close to my heart.
And now, Skymovies says that the Space Jockey — the big corpse seen in Alien as pictured above — has been built at Pinewood studios (could something have been built for an earlier version of the film, or for another reason?)
And the site’s source claims “the familiar HR Giger-style aliens do appear. Big ones apparently.” There’s also this: “The main spaceship in the film will be piloted by an enormous head which I assume will be CGI. Yep, sounds weird but I assume some of the technology will be sort of biomechanical.”
So what’s the deal? Some are saying that the director’s statement about DNA was literal — indeed, part of the Skymovies report is that xenomorph DNA is integral to the plot, and scenes shot in Morocco will see that DNA being dug up and eventually decoded to give coordinates to another world. If anyone other than Damon Lindelof was writing — aka one of the Lost masterminds — I’d write that idea off as crazy.
But “a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place” certainly says to me that this has nothing to do with Alien. Has Ridley Scott gone all Kevin Smith on us, substituting ‘alien’ for ‘auction’? Or is this all just hot air? Treat as rumor for now, but it’s an interesting idea.
