‘Prometheus’: “It’s not a map, it’s an invitation”
After more than three decades, Ridley Scott returned to the universe he created for the legendary saga
Prometheus is to Alien what The Force Awakens is to Star Wars, with visual throwbacks, musical cues, and a similar plot shared by the two movies – without going so far as to be a remake. After a gap of more than 30 years, Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created, presenting us with this origin story reboot. Rather than focusing on the alien itself, Scott here is more interested in the provenance of the “engineers,” the pilots of the type of craft discovered in the first film, one of whom was seen in Alien in a fossilized form, complete with a burst-open chest.
It also seeks to explain the beginnings of Weyland-Yutani, the nefarious “company” that is behind many of the ills that befall the protagonists of the franchise, and represents the corporate greed pushing the human characters into the dangerous task of finding the alien and bringing it back to Earth. And even further than that, it is a story that explores the origin of humankind itself, suggesting a novel answer to the question of just how we ended up on the third rock from the sun.
In the absence of Ripley, Noomi Rapace is the female hero of the story, with her antagonist also a woman, the steely Meredith Vickers, as played by Charlize Theron. But the real scene-stealer is Michael Fassbender, who plays an overly obedient android - every Alien film must have one - who creepily models himself on Peter O’Toole’s character in Lawrence of Arabia.
‘Prometheus’ (2012). Director: Ridley Scott. Duration: 124 minutes. Format: DVD and Blu-Ray.
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