But yeah, I can write something, if you like.

may be a visionary director, but ‘Alien’ was written by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, with significant

contributions from producers David Giler and Walter Hill, as well as H.R. Giger’s inspired art design.

Filmmaking is a collaborative process, not just of the people involved, but of the time period. It is

alchemy, a fleeting moment of providence not easily recaptured, proven time and again by the likes of

‘Predators’ and the ‘Star Wars’ prequels.

‘Prometheus’ had the potential to be truly great science fiction in the literary sense of dealing with

Big Questions. It is all right there in the viral marketing: The myth of Prometheus taking fire from the

Gods and giving it to Man. The central theme of this movie is clear enough: “What happens when Man meets

the Gods?”

This theme is embodied by two characters, David and Elizabeth Shaw.

David is an artificial construct that arguably becomes more than the sum of his parts. In the form of a

man but lacking in certain fundamental aspects of humanity, he has the misfortune of knowing his own

arrogant and eminently flawed creators. On this epic voyage straight out of a Greek drama, he will

discover a sense of wonder and destiny.

The opposite of David is Shaw, an educated woman with a deeply personal religious inspiration. This is

remarkable enough, as scientists in movies are typically portrayed as militantly skeptical at best and

cartoonishly blasphemous as worst. But Shaw never stops to consider that the Gods might be angry with

having fire taken from them.

David finds faith and Shaw loses it. The story needed to be about them, but kept getting sidetracked by

subplots and CGI monsters.

Regarding the Engineers themselves, it was my interpretation that the one living specimen the crew

awakened became aggressive because it was never his people’s intention to create a species that could

reach out to them as equals. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, which Shaw holds dear, Man is purposely

created in God’s image. It was not so in Greek mythology.

There are a couple different versions, but it mostly goes like this:

Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus did not fight with the Titans and against the Olympians, so they

were spared imprisonment and instead given tasks. Prometheus sculpted Man out of clay, into which Athena

breathed life. Epimetheus assigned traits to all the mortal creatures of the Earth — cunning and

strength, fur and wings, et cetera. But when he got to Man, he found that he had run out of positive

traits to give, so Prometheus gifted us the ability to be civilized as the Gods are.

In order to establish rule over Man, Zeus decreed that we must pay tribute, but Prometheus tricked him.

Given the choice between an ugly ox’s stomach (secretly containing nutritious meat) or glistening fat

(concealing useless bones), Zeus picked the later, thereby allowing Man to keep for themselves that which

would be more useful.

Angered, Zeus hide from Man the knowledge of fire, which is when Prometheus stole it back. For his

crime, Prometheus was chained to a rock and cursed to have an eagle tear out his liver, over and over for

eternity. To punish Man, Zeus and Hephaestus created a stunningly beautiful mortal — the first Woman,

Pandora — and gave to her a jar (not a box) which she was forbidden to open.

I am sure you know how the next part goes. If David could be seen as the titular Prometheus, the agent

between Man and Gods, whom gets torn apart for his troubles, then Shaw is definitely Pandora, whom opens

the jar and unwittingly releases evil.

I do think the setting of ‘Alien’ is expansive enough to be explored without slavishly cleaving to the

source material. Earlier entries in the franchise left a number of mysteries to be discerned, yet still

managed to tell cohesive and self-contained stories of their own. Not so much with ‘Prometheus’. In the

hands of more capable script writers, this movie could have formed a lasting identity of its own.

Instead, it may forever be known as another prequel that nobody asked for.