How has the game changed now that we can no longer compare this sequel to Alien or can we? A new franchise, a slightly corrupt one, & I truly mean that, its alright for filmmakers to flirt with cerebral glitter, but if that cannot be truly developed in the script, realized in front of the camera & translated well to a moderately intelligent audience then it hurts the movie. Science fiction is a genre cut & made to gestate, to reoccur, to make us pause & think. Somewhere along the way Prometheus became quite an ambitious if now pretentious Alien spin-off. Weak moments did hurt the movie [Yes the upcoming Blu-Ray deleted scenes include a confirmed axe fight between Noomi Rapace's Elizabeth Shaw & the Engineer].
Scott is ready to return & direct the sequel. The director earlier stated it was his happiest production for quite some time & speaking earlier stated:
Scott: ''I really enjoyed it so much, I really want to do the sequel, it's interesting to do a sequel because it leaves the door so open to some huge questions.''I don't know how to do it but when we get to it we probably will."Prometheus raised a lot of complex questions, questions which ad been pervading Scott's mind for quite some time. One of his channelors on the movie was screenwriter Damon Lindelof. The screenwriter who came in to evolve Jon Spaihts Alien Prequel script into something more evolved, individual, epic & certainly abstract. Speaking on the possibility of returning for a sequel Lindelof stated:
Lindelof: "I had [Prometheus] for the period of time that I was running the race, and if that story continues, it could actually benefit going into someone else’s able hand, Although, I feel like some of the iceberg below the water for any potential future movies in that storyline has already been constructed based on conversations that Ridley and I had about it."Lindelof is a myth-building specialist. The introduction of the writer who excells in creating mystique & ambiguity certainly caused a reaction in Prometheus' audience. Lindelof touched on the direction the sequel may take while addressing the use of ambiguity:
Lindelof: "The audience is given a little more information than the characters in the movie have, And it’s our hope that fires the imagination up enough for them to say, ‘I might want to see Prometheus again’ or ‘I definitely want to see where this movie takes me.’ Because this movie has two children: One of these children grows up to be Alien, but the other child is going to grow up, and God knows what happens to them. And that’s what the sequel to Prometheus would be."Interestingly, the screenwriter revealed even more details while chatting to Time.
Q: In that final scene, David wants to go to Earth, and Elizabeth wants to go to the alien home world. Where do you think they’re going?
Lindelof: "I think they’re going where she wants to go. His fundamental programming has been scrapped. Weyland [the man who built and programmed him] is dead and so now his programming is coming from God knows where. Is he being programmed by Elizabeth, or is it his own internal curiosity now that Weyland isn’t telling him what to do any more? He’s always been interested in Elizabeth, remember that: He’s watching her dreams when she’s sleeping in much the same way that he watches Lawrence of Arabia. He’s a strange robot that has a curious crush on a human being, and when Weyland is eliminated, I think he is genuinely interested in what she’s interested in. He reaches out partly for survival, but partly out of curiosity, and I think he’s sincere that he’ll take her wherever she wants to go."More details emerged on the potential sequel. Scott had clearly discussed the basis of the movies story.
Scott: "I know where [Prometheus 2] is going. …Keeping David alive is essential and keeping Elizabeth alive is essential and to go where they [the engineers] came from is essential. …I don’t see them landing in a place that looks like paradise. …Paradise cannot be what you think it is. It has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous. …If you look at the Engineers, they’re tall and elegant… they are dark angels."The director has even hinted that Prometheus' sequel will be titled 'Paradise'. That was Prometheus' working title in the early production period. The title referring to the home planet of humanity’s makers [ie. heaven].
Scott: ''From the very beginning, I was working from a premise that lent itself to a sequel. I really don't want to meet God in the first one. I want to leave it open to Shaw saying, 'I don't want to go back to where I came from. I want to go where they came from. I'd love to explore where [Dr. Shaw] goes next and what does she do when she gets there because if it is paradise, paradise can't be what you think it is.''Scott continued this train of thought stating:
Scott: ''Because [the Engineers] are such aggressive f*****s. I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God.''So does this trajectory somehow pervade towards Alien? Or are we heading further away? Lindelof stated effectively "it will tangentialize even further away from the original Alien". Scott hinted where that destination lay:
Scott: "It’s interesting to do a sequel because this leaves the door so open to some huge questions. The real question to me is – the more mankind discovers in science the more clear and helpful everything becomes, yet we’re very bad at managing ourselves. And one of the biggest problems in the world is what we call religion, it causes more problems than anything in the goddamn universe. Think about what’s happening now, all based on the very simple idea that a Muslim can’t live alongside a Catholic, or a Catholic can’t live alongside a Protestant…"Scott seems to be alluding to the big question at the end of Prometheus – Why did the engineers want to destroy us? Why did the Engineer aboard the ship attack the crew of the Prometheus, decapitating David in the process? In their exploration of the Alien compound the Prometheus crew discovered that the Engineers were making preparations to wipe out earth 2000 years ago before disaster struck. 2000 years is approximately the time Christianity began. This is very significant but what does this imply? The sequel may include further explanations to this. Implications involving Christ? Scott envisions God but he may well be a little distant from our general perception.
What kind of significance would Christ have with the Engineers? What took place 2000 years ago? For what reason would we provoke an annihilation? Retribution for knowledge gained? Mankind’s enlightened perception of the universe. Was Christ some kind of emissary of the Engineers whose crucifixion by humans enraged them? Scott states:
Scott seems to be alluding to the big question at the end of Prometheus – Why did the engineers want to destroy us? Why did the Engineer aboard the ship attack the crew of the Prometheus, decapitating David in the process? In their exploration of the Alien compound the Prometheus crew discovered that the Engineers were making preparations to wipe out earth 2000 years ago before disaster struck. 2000 years is approximately the time Christianity began. This is very significant but what does this imply? The sequel may include further explanations to this. Implications involving Christ? Scott envisions God but he may well be a little distant from our general perception.
Scott: "It’s interesting to do a sequel because this leaves the door so open to some huge questions. The real question to me is – the more mankind discovers in science the more clear and helpful everything becomes, yet we’re very bad at managing ourselves."Scott definitely has plans for the incorporation of such themes. The director hints more details on the fate of Rapace & Michael Fassbender’s characters:
Scott: "Because [the Engineers] are such aggressive fuckers … and who wouldn’t describe them that way, considering their brilliance in making dreadful devices and weapons that would make our chemical warfare look ridiculous? So I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God. As she [Shaw] says, “This is not what I thought it was going to be, and I think we should get the Hell out of here or there won’t be any place to go back to. That’s not necessarily planted in the ground at the tail end of the third act, but I knew that’s kind of where we should go, because if we’ve opened up this door — which I hope we have because I certainly would like to do another one – I’d love to explore where the hell [Shaw] goes next and what does she do when she gets there, because if it is paradise, paradise can not be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous."The director continues.
Scott: "I know where it’s going. I know that to keep [David] alive is essential and to keep [Elizabeth] alive is essential and to go where they came from, not where I came from, is essential."This returns us to the biggest questions left open at the end of Prometheus, why did the Engineers make the decision to wipe out the human race? Jon Spaihts original script for Prometheus explained exactly why Earth was targeted for destruction & alludes to Scott’s thoughts on religion. The concept lacked tact & was later scrapped, but Scott elaborated on the plot point & really gave a sense of where the franchise is heading.
Scott: "We definitely did [have that in the script], and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an ‘our children are misbehaving down there’ scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, ‘Lets’ send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it. Guess what? They crucified him."So what are the concrete signs already out there? At the end of Prometheus' credits there is a clue directing us to a website: whatis101112.com [dating system; Oct 11 2012] which links to a Weyland Corporation website that contains a video of Peter Weyland [Guy Pearce] & a reference to a book titled Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The novel, by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche composed in four parts between 1883 & 1885 examines themes that relate to those of Prometheus & its sequel.
The official Weyland Industries website also has a listing for October 11, 2012 on their corporate timeline.
"Weyland Corporation is recognized as a legal entity and corporation under United States law and receives their Certificate of Incorporation from the Companies House in the United Kingdom. Due to the combined value of Sir Peter Weyland’s various patents and patent-pendings, the company incorporates with a higher fair market valuation than any other company in history."Much of the novels work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the parable of the "death of God" & the "prophecy" of the 'Übermensch', "Eternal recurrence of the same" is what stands out most. Many stories have incorporated the idea of life cycles which as David quoted Stalin so elegantly in Prometheus "We must first Destroy in order to Create". Its possible the reason Engineers want to destroy us is before we overtake them technologically & become capable to create intelligent life of our own? This is highly plausible as it's David communicates to the Engineer who then kills everyone in the room & sets off for Earth. The Engineer telepathically understood that David has no mind never-mind whatever David actually stated to the Engineer.We have become dangerous once we achieved God-like powers in our endeavors as a species in creating synthetic life & travelling across the stars. We need to be culled. The Übermensch concept, also outlined by Nietzsche fits in with the "death of God" parable often quoted in part of the book 'The Gay Science' by Nietzsche referring to the death of religious values more than the literal death of God. The death of morality. Nietzsche states:
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"Shaw like Ripley the sentient survivor only this time a philosophical crusade.
So when can we expect production to commence? Scott is currently gearing up to direct The Counselor plus he is also priming his Blade Runner sequel that he’s currently developing. Fox will most likely push Scott to make Prometheus' sequel his next movie after The Counselor.
'Enter The DEACON'
Further clues emerged with the release of the movie's book Prometheus Art of the Film. The newly born lifeform which resulted from a violent encounter between the Trilobite & the Engineer, named the 'Deacon' in reference to its conical shaped head resembling a mitre, a conical head piece worn by a minister of the christian church aka Deacon [another allegory to Christianity as we have previously seen with the Xeno-Jesus & now also with this life form birthed on Christmas day]. Described by effects designer Neal Scanlan as needing a creature to embody a byzantine genetic makeup. "It came from Shaw and Holloway, which then produced the Trilobite, which impregnated the Engineer, which then mixed its DNA with the Trilobite. We tried to hold on to some of Shaw, some femininity since it was born of a female before being born of a male."
The juvenile Deacon once born is seen towards the end of the book moving across the LV-223 landscape toward a Engineer spaceship, a Juggernaut. The full image also contains a quote by Scott referring to his Sequel.
Ridley Scott: ""I thought 'Prometheus' was so enjoyable - returning to the world of science fiction was so fun - I'm thinking about what the hell I might do for a 'Prometheus 2"
Is the Deacon about to board the Juggernaut in pursuit of Shaw & David as they navigate towards the Engineer homeworld? Its certainly inferred that the creature will be involved in such a pursuit. Check out Juvenile's Concept designs below via Creature designer Ivan Manzella's site: Click to view full size.
Visual effects art director Steven Messing developed the Deacon’s final form by drawing on images of horse foal births. "The quality of the Deacon’s skin is based on the placenta when a horse gives birth," states Scanlon. "Steve managed to get something between horrific and beautiful. The way he rendered the quality of the surface treatment, it had a sort of iridescent quality that was kind of beautiful-scary." Whats also worth noting is that this lifeform's host is an Engineer & its DNA is part Human, its apparently highly intelligent, rising on its hind legs & expressing sentience. Its not necessarily a proto-lifeform as we have already seen evidence of similar Xenomorphs in Prometheus' murals.
Quotes attributed to Collider, THR, Movies.com & Time.
