When Ridley Scott’s Prometheus hit theaters, it was polarizing for a bunch of reasons. Some of the biggest were its connections to Alien, which created more questions than they answered.
The connections, of course, came in the form of the reveal of who was in that Space Jockey suit (the mysterious Engineers) and eventually a creature that almost looks like the iconic xenomorph, but not quite (seen above). Beyond that, the film attempted to be a deeper rumination on human life, which worked at times and didn’t at others.
Right now, Scott is working on Prometheus 2, which will continue the exploratory journey of the film’s surviving characters, including the android David, played by Michael Fassbender. But will the sequel give us a more direct connection to Alien? Not yet, says Scott in a new interview:
Yes [it will connect to Alien], but it won’t be in the next one. It will be in the one after this one or maybe even a fourth film before we get back into the Alien franchise… The whole point of it is to explain the Alien franchise and to explain the how and why of the creation of the Alien itself. I always thought of the Alien as kind of a piece of bacterial warfare. I always thought that that original ship, which I call the Croissant, was a battleship, holding these biomechanoid creatures that were all about destruction.
While it’s kind of disheartening that Scott calls the Derelict “the Croissant” (you created it, man!!) the rest of the quote is packed with discussion points.
1. The idea of the xenomorphs as weapons is very interesting. It’s a nice twist on the other movies in that humanity maybe ran into an unstoppable force created by a higher being. A war we couldn’t possibly understand. You’d assume they’re developed by the Engineers based on whatever popped out at the end of Prometheus but maybe not. Hopefully we’ll find out soon.
2. Does Ridley Scott actually think they’re going to make a third and fourth Prometheus? I mean, I hope so. I hope Prometheus 2 is so freaking amazing they’re forced to make sequels. But it’s a pretty big leap, and not particularly encouraging to know they have an idea of how this Prometheus world links to Alien and they aren’t putting it into one, concise story. Instead, they’re holding it on the whim and a prayer of more movies. Why not cut the fat of those two or three movies and put it all in this movie? And if it’s a success, then you do more.
We’ll see what happens in May 2017, when Prometheus 2 hits theaters.
[Filmfutter H/T Coming Soon]
Image credit: Deviant Art
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