Prometheus: “Pings, glitch, life-form”

This is the prequel that isn’t for the Aliens-series that Ridley Scott began with Alien (1979). It positions itself a little awkwardly as being a part of the same universe, but not a direct prequel, which means we are in a world we are familiar with, but the pacing and the ideas are different. It’s different enough to be intriguing in its own right and still familiar enough that the viewer is comfortable with the premise.

A pair of archaeologists, Elisabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), have discovered a particular constellation of stars that appear in several ancient artifacts from different cultures all over the world. They believe this map is an invitation from the giants depicted in the rock art to come visit. The theory is that these beings created us, life on Earth, and an expedition is put together to go talk to our makers, the “Engineers”.

The journey takes place on board the Prometheus, a vessel owned by the Weyland Corporation. Whereas the expedition is composed of archaeologists, biologists, geologists, and sundry others, Weyland is not doing this for strictly altruistic, ideological reasons. The old patriarch of the company, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), is dying and wants to find the Engineers, not to meet our makers, but to try and exhort more life out of them. Weyland himself has created the android David (Michael Fassbender) in his likeness and David is a part of the expedition as a sort of general dog’s body, manservant, translator and sinister handmaid.

… And I go on about the philosophical implications of all this here: Prometheus