At the end of Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus', the audience is left with not one, but a multiple of questions regarding what happened, what didn't happen and all the factors between. This is the first part of a two part blog post of me attempting to answer some of those questions. Some of them will be very simple to answer, others won't be. Seems needless to say but I'll say it anyway, this post contains spoilers.
Why didn't it end where 'Alien' began?
It wasn't supposed to, Ridley Scott basically tricked us all. He went on for months about how it wasn't an 'Alien' prequel, that it had started out to be, but they believed that the story was strong enough for it to be its own movie. A lot of us were thinking, great, this could work. Then when the trailers started coming out, they looked very 'Alien'y. Then Scott stated that the film wasn't a prequel, but it was in the 'Alien' universe. By the look of the trailers it was so much in the 'Alien' universe that it could walk up and tap 'Alien' on the shoulder. Finally Scot came out and informed us that 'Prometheus' is in fact, an 'Alien' prequel. What was kept on the low note was that Scott gave us lots of mixed messages, when in fact, the film is a mixture of all them. It isn't a prequel in the sense that it has a very strong story that stays mostly away from 'Alien', but it is a prequel in the sense that there are some major factors from the 'Alien' universe. So the film is an indirect prequel.
News is already out that plans have been made for a 'Prometheus' sequel if it is well enough received (which I think it's fair to say it's doing pretty well for itself). Apparently the second film will take the story even further away from 'Alien'. We are still a long way away from the beginning of 'Alien', so we can assume that if they go ahead with a sequel, then a third installment will be made, which will bring it all together and tie up all the loose ends.
(All other questions after the last one seem irrelevant because I have already explored why the course of events don't line up with 'Alien', but they're still important questions that a lot of people have been asking)
If it's set on the same planet as 'Alien', why does it look so different? And why did they only find the one ship in 'Aliens'?
This is a really simple question to answer, the planet we see in 'Prometheus' isn't the same planet from 'Alien' and 'Aliens'. 'Prometheus' is set on a planet called LV223 and 'Alien' and 'Aliens' is set on LV426.
Is it the same Space Jockey?
No, like I have talked about earlier the film is set on a different planet, so although Scott tried to throw us off with the scene of the Engineer getting into the pilots chair, it isn't the same as the one in 'Alien'. This is obvious because in 'Alien' the the space jockey clearly died via a chestburster whilst he was sitting in the pilots chair, whereas in 'Prometheus' he dies a fair distance away from his ship via some large alien creature chocking him to death (then a Xenomorph type creature bursting out of his chest).
What is the creature at the end of the film? Is it a Xenomorph?
Basically we don't know yet, Ridley Scott hasn't provided us with much information on this. It clearly resembles a Xenomorph, and as we have seen in previous 'Alien' films, there are many different breeds of Xenomorph's, it changes depending on the host. However all Xenomorph's have one thing in common, the first come out of the host as a chestburster, in 'Prometheus', the creature came out fully formed. It also didn't have an inner mouth, and the Engineer wasn't impregnated by a facehugger. My assumption as to what this creature is, is that since the Engineer's created us, they must have created other species, the black goo stuff that we kept seeing in the movie seems to be the key to creating life, I believe that the Engineer's will come to (or already have) create the Xenomorphs, either on purpose, or by accident, and the events in 'Prometheus' play out in a similar way, leading to the creation of a similar creature. It could potentially be the cousin of the Xenomorph.
What is the black goo? How does it cure Shaw's infertility?
We can all speculate as much as we want, but in true science fiction fashion we haven't been given all the answers, or enough information to com up with the answer properly on our own. I think that it is the key to creating life, at the beginning of the film we see an Engineer use to to kill himself, and that then goes on to creating life. The fact that he falls in water is important I think, considering a large part of us is made up of water. As for curing Shaw's infertility, clearly the goo corrupts the human body, we see that with Holloway, maybe the goo edits the way the human body is for its own cause, or its adapted to her body and it isn't Shaw that gets pregnant, but the goo (a three-way baby). It's all speculation at the moment.
Isn't it just 'The Phantom Menace again?
I keep seeing this quote coming up and it's ridiculous, I mean I can understand why people are saying it, but it's a bit harsh. There have been talks about doing an 'Alien' prequel for years, there were talks about doing it ever since 'Alien' came out! It's down to your own opinion in the end, 'The Phantom Menace' mostly relied on the story that was already there, whereas 'Prometheus' has its own story that is strong enough for it to have easily made it as its own movie.
Did reviewers and critics not like it because they were expecting 'Alien'?
I think that's the same reason why a lot of fans haven't liked it. They were expected to be spoon fed the answers as to what happened on that ship and where the Xenomorphs came from. Maybe some critics generally didn't like it, but I think a lot of them were expecting 'Alien', or maybe something more like James Cameron's 'Aliens' which was more action/adventure than Ridley Scott's 'Alien' which was a space horror. All 'Alien' films post 'Aliens' have been more action/adventure than horror, so I think some critics were disappointed to see it revert back to the original style of the first 'Alien'. However that is also the reason why a lot of people (critics and reviewers too) loved it. I didn't like it at first, I was expecting 'Alien', and by the end I was confused, but after I slept on it and thought everything over, the film started to make sense, and now I love it.
Will there be a 'Prometheus 2'?
I think I've made it clear that the resources in the story are there to make a sequel, plus Ridley Scott is keep on doing another installment, depending on the critical and commercial success of the current film. However, even if he does go ahead with a sequel, we'll be waiting a while, I know he's currently working on another film, the name of which I do not know, then next year he starts work on 'Blade Runner 2' and in between all that he's apparently working on a Moses movie (yes, from the Bible), so we will be waiting a while for a second installment, but the pieces are all there.
As you can clearly tell I have left out some important questions, mostly character based ones, so as you can probably guess Part 2 of this blog post will revolve around characters based questions. I will be searching deep into the emotional and religious aspects of the characters. I will be taking a detailed look into what makes David tick, because in my opinion, he is the best character by far.
Hope you all enjoyed this post, I will try and have the next part online within the next few days.
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