Almost outright acknowledging the lingering questions about Ridley Scott’s recent sci-fi epic; the promotion for the Prometheus DVD/Blu-ray release carries the tagline that “questions will be answered,” which is most certainly not the same as making excuses or explaining the movie.
And while there are tons of bonus features (almost 7 hours!) on the 4-disc Blu-ray, the director’s commentary track from Ridley Scott might be all you really need. Thankfully, not only does Scott answer some big continuity questions about the film and its placement in the Alien mythos, he does it by accident, while ranting in a marvelously bonkers tone of voice.
Here are some highlights of what I learned about Prometheus, Pink Floyd, blond robots, the f-word and more! All from my main man, Ridley Scott.
Lots of spoilers for Prometheus ahead.
The Engineer dying at the start spreads DNA… somewhere
Initially, he describes The Engineer dying scene as a “seeding” of whatever “rock” he is on. Scott doesn’t claim it’s necessarily Earth. At this point in the commentary, he already seems annoyed that we all assumed it was definitely Earth.
David IS a replicant (Peter O’Toole, too!)
In the early David scenes, Ridley Scott definitely uses the word “replicant” to describe Fassbender’s robot, further cementing the notions of a pseudo-shared universe between Prometheus/Alien and Blade Runner. He also claims Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) from Lawrence of Arabia is soulless, like David. You get the sense that it was possible Scott was just planning a Lawrence of Arabia reboot and decided to do Prometheus at the last second.
The planet in Alien is not the same planet as the one in Prometheus
Early in the director’s commentary, Ridley Scott confirms that the planet from Alien was LV426 BUT in Prometheus the planet is LV223. (He calls this number “romantic.”) Presumably this is still in the Acheron star system from the first Alien movie. So how did the xenomorphs get off LV223 and over to LV426? Well, later in the commentary, Scott says the decision to not have things take place on the same planet was intentional. He says he didn’t like the idea of the Nostromo picking up a signal from the same ship in Prometheus because it was “Too neat. Too clean.”
He suggests that other “misfortunates” have died trying to get at secrets in this star system. Most importantly, he says the spaceship located by Tom Skerritt and co. in Alien was set down by an Engineer not because of a crash-landing, but because the Space Jockey had indigestion. (This is likely a joke about the chest-burster. Good one, Ridley.) But really, this means the xenomorphs came from LV233 and then got inside other Engineers who set down on a different planet. And that’s the planet everyone goes to in Alien. So the planets are neighbors. This is why no one is where they are “supposed” to be at the end of the movie.
The whole of Prometheus came from Ridley Scott wondering about the Space Jockey
During the Prometheus landing sequence, Scott says that the more they wrote this film, the more “Alien flew away.” He also asserts (as he did in interviews before) that he was really surprised that no one in the Alien sequels ever wondered about the Space Jockey and what happened to him. He also asserts that by the end of the movie, “you find out.” Um?
Ridley Scott is really pleased with his vision/tells the world to f*ck off
During the section of the movie when Scott is describing the nifty floating scanning balls, and holographic table on the bridge of the Prometheus he goes on what can only be called a rant. He basically asserts a lot of people challenged him on certain design elements. People who are either “inexperienced” or “fundamentally stupid.” But he insisted on the floating balls saying: “every kid will want one of the floating balls,” lamenting that they don’t exist but that he’ll “sell them through NASA.” Apparently he told a lot of people to “shut the fuck up” when they opposed a holographic table. You go, Ridley. You go.
All blond people are robots
Because both Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron were blond, Scott decided it would be fun to suggest they were “like clone brother and sister.” Blond people are robots. Duh! He seems to think it’s funny that we might think Charlize Theron is a robot. He also doesn’t explain if she is or not. Ridley Scott, are you a robot? Somebody get Deckard in here right now.
Later, Scott suggests that Charlize Theron’s character maybe is indeed a robot. Because a lot of “company men” are robots. He says this acknowledges Ash from the first Alien film.
Ridley Scott helps me justify my belief in unreal things
You heard it here first folks: “We can’t terraform yet, but we know it exists.” Now that is a sweet notion. I also can’t see unicorns yet, but I know they exist, so I totally agree with him. (I know what he meant, but it sounded hilariously absurd.)
There is a “weird section” of the internet where Ridley gets stuff
The black goo David touches is actually corn oil, which is apparently sitting on top of a speaker, which makes “weird designs” as a result of a “sonic boom.” Scott said he found this cheap speaker on a “weird section of the internet.” Scott then trails off saying something about “worm design.” Where is this weird section of the internet? I want in, Ridley!
The big hologram scene was filmed to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon
In the totally beautiful scene where David hangs around in the nifty hologram room Ridley Scott challenges us with the taunt “don’t you want one of these in your car?” Having a giant floating hologram with star maps in your car is kind of cool, but I guess I’d be worried about having to carpool with one of the Engineers as a trade-off.
Anyway, Scott gives us an awesome tidbit in this scene. Because the initial filming did not include a real hologram, Michael Fassbender was reacting to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon to get in the mood. There you go, internet: start making mash-up videos with Prometheus and Dark Side of the Moon. (Note: At this point in commentary, Ridley Scott is referring to Michael Fassbender as “David,” exclusively.)
Charlize Theron really burned that dude
Ridley Scott says he thinks Charlize Theron was really reacting emotionally to shooting the flamethrower at Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). He told Charlize “you’re going to burn him now.” And Charlize Theron really shot that flame-thrower. When Ridley tells you to burn, you burn.
There were three other Engineers asleep on the spaceship, but they’re dead now
And Ridley Scott doesn’t want to “get into it.” There you go: they just died. Be quiet. Ridley then starts complimenting his own movie and saying “marvelous.” Seriously he just said “look at that!” and “amazing!”
Ridley Scott thinks your kids can (should?) watch the gory self-surgery scene, because they’ll all watch Prometheus anyway.
At first, our wonderful director mentions that he believes in film ratings and limiting what people could see in a theatre or on public television. But then, as if he’s arguing with himself, he turns on a dime completely and points out “…but you can watch a caesarian [section] on reality TV.” So really, what’s the difference between watching that and Dr. Shaw remove the squid baby? Ridley doesn’t think there is one. Further, he says “every kid under the sun is going to see this anyway.”
Cyber-Yachts were cut from the movie (or were they?)
Guy Pearce’s Weyland was at one point going to be depicted as a younger man in “cyber-sleep.” The scene he describes would have involved the dream of a young Weyland on a “cyber yacht” in the “Cyber-Mediterranean” with “lots of cyber girls.” I seriously couldn’t tell if Ridley Scott was kidding or not.
Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace weren’t sure why they were running
In a mock-imitation of the actor’s voices, Ridley says Theron and Rapace said “why do we have to do this again?” in reference to the scene in which Vickers and Shaw run away from the giant tumbling spaceship. But in true Ridley form he says “You gotta stick to your guns,” closely followed by his trademark humble appraisal of the movie: “looks good though, innit?”
Apparently Grey Goose or Smirnoff executives are kicking themselves right now
Just before Noomi Rapace wields her axe in Vicker’s life pod, she has a swig of vodka. Ridley Scott thinks vodka companies screwed up by not going along with his product placement ideas in the scene. I mean why wouldn’t Grey Goose want you to associate drinking their product with a giant fighting a giant squid baby and somebody swinging an axe around?
Ridley claims the fact that Noomi kind of looks like Sigourney in certain scenes was “not intentional”
Ridley, I love you, but yeah, right.
Ridley Scott wants to do a Prometheus sequel NOW
He says he had so much fun doing this movie, he wants to do the next one as soon as possible. And if he’s “very clever” maybe a sequel after that.
Whew! Say what you will about Prometheus, the Ridley Scott show is super entertaining.
Ryan Britt is a staff writer for Tor.com and loved his time with Ridley very much.
He is brilliant, though for sheer commentary craziness, no one beats Paul Verhoeven.
This was hilarious!!
And “marvelous”.
:-)
Any of the directors commentaries with John Carpenter & Kurt Russell, very funny and total classics. One of the best being The Thing.
The black gunk is corn flour and water, which is a non-Newtonian fluid and will create strange shapes if you put it on a loudspeaker (the force from the sound waves causes parts of it to increase their viscosity). You can find this on ‘weird parts of the internet’ like YouTube and Wikipedia.
I can’t help feeling I’d have enjoyed Prometheus more if I never heard anything Scott had to say about it
The madness of King Ridley.
Pretty funny stuff here. I also wondered why none of the Alien sequels revisited the Space Jockey mystery. They also haven’t brought back the Colonial Marines yet. Every movie I’ve seen with space marines depicts them as horribly incompetent, stupid, or evil (Avatar, Doom, etc.). Give me Colonial marines who are smart and can kick some ass for once.
I could not help but notice some similarities between the first Alien movie and this one. There was enough difference to possibly show that some time has elapsed between the two, though.
He Never Said Laurence of Arabia was Soul-less or even intimated it and He sounds perfectly fine, are you tying to find a made up reason to write or what? You can’t just make up whatever you want and hope people won’t check your facts. Crap article.
I WANTED to like it, but this movie was a tragedy and Ridley should be ashamed instead of self-congratulatory.
This is how you identify a narcissist.
i agree with genuinly unimpressed. much like james cameron’s avatar, and george lucas ‘ star wars prequels, and the hobbit movies, this movie was a collosal fu to any devil’s advocate or anybody that questioned their logic, or work. huge failure.
I have an analysis of my own. There were no hidden meanings, no symbolic relations, no religious concoctions. The entire movie was a story based on “copy, paste, repeat” everything was devised to mislead us, it was designed to play on our own inert fears of the unknown. It had no basis for anything, it borrowed ancient societies as story vehicle, it used mans greed against itself in the image of engineers. It used the cold dark vastness of space for intrigue, loss, hopelessness.
My overall standing on this masterpiece can be summed up in a single line that I found best describes this subtle train wreck:
Every king has his rain and then he dies!
sure alien and the other sequels were very good and are considered art. but prometheus kind of screwed the alien story line up. prometheus is set in lv-223 and all the “alien” set up happened there, but alien was on lv-426. he explains “there will be no xenomorph in the next sequal”. and is that on lv-426? how can you make a film of the planet, of the original alien without xenomorphs? prometheus doesn’t explain how xenomorphs arrrived at lv-426, it explains a side story that obviously explains no relations to the original writen story of alien. ridley scott directed the original alien but what is he achieving here? he is oviously stearing clear from alien and anything related to alien in the next film. i wanted to see how the xenomorph got to lv-426 as countless others want awnsers too. but when interviewers ask him that very same question he drifts away from the question and starts talking about the set of prometheus and actors, other nonsence and stearing clear from the question. too much cocaine? his brain is too fried from drugs and alcohol that drives him to mess up art and its well embedded history? sure scott you have directed alien, but you can’t change the story of the original movie last minute to fit your prequels. we all can see ridley scott despise alien and the connection to prometheus. why make alien in the first place if you despise it? make art and convince people it is art? and then shoot people expectations down by saying you despise it?
let another director handle the job of the connections now, scott retire please. you claim to be an artist but an artist has “respect, love for his/her own piece, truthful, patient.” you have none above from fowl mouthing and telling people to F*off and saying you despise your own original movie. p.s. these security words are dumb, enter them correctly and still becomes wrong? crap man.
Great articel this one!
I did a mix up whit Pink Floyd music and that scene, really love how it turned out. I did upload it on youtube, but they toke it down in a sec ;( FOX did not like it.(I did not try to make money on it, I did not activate that thing on that clip) I uploaded it on Facebook but they toke it down to ;/ Sad world. When u can not share clips anymore…
I think that you like Ridley far too much. I liked Prometheus A LOT (mostly because of David, but that’s a side issue). I watched it in the cinema about three times I think, and looked forward to watching the BluRay with Ridley’s commentary with considerable anticipation. So I settled down with a friend who is equally a fan of the film and we both proceeded to be overwhelmed by the egotistical and narcissistic nonsense he was spouting literally the entire time. In fact, the reason I even found this post is because I was trying to find a quote about his opinion of people who try to make suggestions about what they think works or doesn’t work in his film (that’s those “inexperienced” or “fundamentally stupid” people who do get a mention above). How dare someone question the great and glorious Ridley Scott who has made so many films held in such high esteem?! Well, I suggest anyone watch his film The Counsellor and come away agreeing with that sentiment. (Which is not to say I’m not looking forward to the next sequel, or The Martian which looks very promising).
Sadly this film was a wreck, for some reason they wanted to make a prequel to one of the greatest sci-fis but yet they did everything to stay away from it as much as possible. Consequently creating a dull and unoriginal piece of film that tries too hard for its own good. So it turns out the planet is not really Lv-426 where Alien takes place but yet we see the space jockey on the seat with his chest torn up and we see the alien spaceship crash/land standing similar to what was shown on alien/aliens. Face it Ridley, you dropped the ball and now we have to wait for a sequel to hope for a proper connection to the wonderful Alien saga.
I always think that if people think that if a film is a failure, why don’t they try and make one themselves, it like you failed to see the vision of what the director and the screen writers were aiming for.