Did Ridley Scott mislead the internet? Are fanboys making much ado about nothing? Are new reports and rumors of the film‘s plot even true? When Ridley Scott announced “Prometheus,” his new film born out of the ashes of an “Alien” prequel, various outlets took his still somewhat vague and enigmatic comments as some sort of concrete statement.
Scott was teasing what “Prometheus” would be, but it’s not like he let the cat out of the bag completely and detailed the plot or exactly spelled out the differences between what the “Alien” prequel was and what ‘Prometheus” became. Here’s his full statement again.
“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,” Scott said. “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.”
“In a world flooded with prequels, sequels and reboots,” “Prometheus”writer Damon Lindelof said. “I was incredibly struck by just how original Ridley’s vision was for this movie. It’s daring, visceral and hopefully, the last thing anyone expects.”
Ok, so that means many things to many different people. Regardless, one can speculate how you like, but Scott’s statement didn’t exactly nail down “Prometheus.” This is how this writer interpreted the comments: what was once a straightforward prequel to the events witnessed in “Alien” — as Scott had said, a sort of history of the terraformers, and what happened to the large space jockey in the original — had spun off into something different (also thanks to the sites that googled Prometheus and gave a wiki explanation, we had no clue about this thing called Greek mythology ;). We also assumed this story would definitely take place within the universe established in the “Aliens” films — as Scott says above — but would spin-off from being a direct prequel. Again, none of us outside of Scott, writer Damon Lindelof and his core creative team actually know exactly how it’s being framed.
However some took his comments to mean there would be no xenomorphs in “Prometheus” and the film would be something completely different. We suppose its all up subjective reading of it all, but SkyMovies have allegedly found some new details of the project and believe that Scott somehow misdirected audiences as evidently the alien xenomorph does still figure into this film. Frankly, we’re not shocked at all, but again, that’s just us. “They’ve built the ‘space jockey’ cockpit at Pinewood as seen in the original ‘Alien’ film, so it definitely takes place in the same world as Alien,” a source told them.
Well, one, sure, it already it already sounded like it plays in the same world and two, how do they not know that space jockey cockpit wasn’t built for the developing “Alien” prequel? The rest of the “plot details” sound as dumb as rocks, so we’re hoping none of it is true (and we’re not gonna bother to regurgitate it here).
Adding to the confusion, let’s not forget Scott himself once said the “Alien” prequel would be two separate films and later 20th Century Fox reversed that claim which is odd and does lend some credence to the claim that the filmmaker has been throwing out red herrings. The speculation will continue…
Either way, Fox won’t comment as they note “Prometheus” is still in development — Scott’s comments always hinted that a new idea had been born, but likely a new screenplay hasn’t been completed yet. PR for the studio also says talk of Michael Fassbender as an android is news to them, not confirmed gospel and shouldn’t be treated as such.
So, was the “Prometheus” announcement a big ruse? Well, only if SkyMovies’ report is correct (which everyone all of a sudden seems to have taken as biblical truth). It’s fun to speculate, and surely fanboys will piece together the plot eventually (scriptflags’ guesswork about the connection to Jon Spaihts “Shadow 19” script are fun, but like shooting in the dark), but as of right now, all we have is one paragraph from the director which always seemed like a teaser statement to build buzz and not anything anyone can yet crystallize in a neat box. The guessing games will probably continue until June 8, 2012, when “Prometheus” finally hits theaters.
