How far would you go to find the origins of mankind? To meet our makers? For eager scientists, geologists, and engineers aboard the Prometheus shuttle, more than half a million miles—a little over two years’ time—to some of the darkest corners of the universe.
The prequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien, Prometheus takes us on a journey that originated from two scientists’ findings—Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) and Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace)—that ancient calligraphies from all over the world, from all different points in history, had the same underlying theme: illustrations of creatures pointing up at a distinct pattern of lights in the sky. Intrigued by what these lights could possibly mean, or have to do with what we came from, they calculated the feasibility of reaching the destination of the lights. Then came the $3 trillion shuttle: Prometheus.
And while Shaw and Holloway are the masterminds behind the entire mission, they are still technically “employees” aboard the ship, managed by a very stern Merideth Vickers (Charlize Theron). Along with Vickers, you also have David-8 (Michael Fessbender), an android created by Weyland Industries who is programmed to do pretty much anything, but yet doesn’t possess a soul to express any real feelings—yet somehow he is the backbone of the entire movie.
So when Prometheus finally lands on the unknown planet, things start to take a weird turn when they scan a hollowed out structure that ends up being filled with globs of mystery goop, a giant head sculpture, tons of dead carcasses lying around everywhere, and you guessed it: our progenitor race, that when all is said and done, they maybe would have been better off not knowing about. Shaw is able to capture the “head” of one of the creatures and run tests that show its DNA is humanity’s predecessor, in other words: these aliens from half a billion miles away somehow made it to Earth (as you will see in the intro scene), plotting our very existence.
Of course, scientifically speaking, the likelihood of humanity originating from a naked alien drinking magic potions with strands of our DNA that leaked into the ocean probably isn’t our best bet, but that’s the beauty of sci-fi and the movie’s entirety. Overall, Prometheus’ visuals outweigh the actual storyline, which is somewhat of a disappointment to those of us who had high expectations, but you definitely see threads of Blade Runner, Artificial Intelligence, and even some 2001: A Space Odyssey throughout. Oh, and we really need our own personal David for all those critical moments, like you know, decoding ancient calligraphy and speaking foreign alien tongues.
(photo via Prometheus-Movie.com)
