Prometheus (2012)

"Final report of the vessel Prometheus. The ship and her entire crew are gone. If you're receiving this transmission, make no attempt to come to its point of origin. There is only death here now, and I'm leaving it behind. It is New Year's Day, the year of our Lord, 2094. My name is Elizabeth Shaw, last survivor of the Prometheus. And I am still searching."

- Elizabeth Shaw

Prometheus is a British-American science fiction horror movie directed by Ridley Scott and a prequel to Alien. It was released in 2012.

The film began its development in the early 2000s as a fifth entry in the Alien franchise, with both Ridley Scott and James Cameron developing ideas for a film, that would serve as a prequel to Scott's 1979 science fiction horror film Alien. By 2003, the project was sidelined by the development of Alien vs. Predator and remained dormant until 2009, when Ridley Scott showed interest again in it and after the studios were opened to the idea again after the sequel Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem did not meet their expectations. According to Scott, though the film shares "strands of Alien's DNA, so to speak" and takes place in the same universe, Prometheus explores its own mythology and ideas.

Plot
On Earth, a humanoid alien stands above a waterfall as a hovering spacecraft leaves overhead. The alien drinks a dark liquid and starts to disintegrate. As its remains pour into the waterfall, the alien's DNA triggers a biogenetic reaction.

Many centuries later, archaeologists and partners Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discover ancient star maps that are common to several unconnected, extinct human cultures. They interpret the presence of these maps as an invitation from humanity's forerunners and creators, or "Engineers".Peter Weyland, the CEO of Weyland Corporation, elects to finance a scientific expedition to follow the maps, constructing the advanced research vessel Prometheus for this purpose. The ship's crew makes the long journey in stasis while the ship's android David monitors their voyage.

The crew arrive at their destination, a planet known as LV-223, where the crew are informed of their mission to find the Engineers. Mission director and daughter of Peter Weyland, Meredith Vickers issues orders to avoid making direct contact with any sentient lifeforms. The Prometheus lands near a large artificial structure on the planet's surface and a team heads inside to explore.

Inside they find several ampules, a monolithic statue of a humanoid head, and the corpse of a giant humanoid alien, thought to be one of the Engineers. Other bodies are later found and the species is presumed to be extinct. David secretly steals one of the ampules for study, while the remaining cylinders begin leaking a dark liquid. However, a rapidly approaching storm forces the crew to return to the Prometheus, but Millburn and Fifield get lost inside the structure and are left to fend for themselves overnight until they can be rescued. In the ship, the deceased Engineer's DNA is analysed and found to match that of humans. Meanwhile, David investigates the ampule and discovers the black liquid within. He intentionally infects Holloway with the substance and later he engages in sexual intercourse with Shaw.

Inside the structure, Fifield and Millburn encounter two serpent-like creatures known as Hammerpedes. Millburn is suddenly killed by one of the creatures, while acidic liquid from it melts Fifield's helmet, exposing him to the leaking dark liquid in the room. The next day, the crew returns to the structure and find Millburn's corpse while David discovers a room containing a surviving Engineer held in stasis and a 3D star map highlighting Earth. Holloway's infection rapidly ravages his body, and he is rushed back to the Prometheus, but Vickers refuses to let him on board and at his own request, burns him with a flamethrower. Later, Shaw begins to feel physical discomfort in her abdomen, and a medical scan reveals that, despite being sterile, she is somehow pregnant. She quickly discovers the offspring is alien in origin, and uses an automated surgery table to remove it from her body. Staggering through the ship after the surgery, Shaw discovers Weyland is on board the Prometheus, and he explains that he intends to ask the Engineers to prevent his impending death from old age.

Meanwhile, now monstrous and mutated, Fifield attacks the hangar bay and kills several crew members before he is incinerated by a flamethrower and crushed to death by an RT Series Group Transport. The Prometheus' captain, Janek wonders that the structure they have found was part of an Engineer military base that lost control of its biological weapon, the mutagenic black liquid. Weyland and a team return to the structure accompanied by Shaw where they awaken the surviving Engineer. David attempts to communicate to the Engineer in order to explain what Weyland wants. Somehow, the Engineer responds by decapitating David before killing Weyland and his team. Shaw escapes, but the Engineer activates his spaceship. The still-active David communicates with Shaw and reveals that the Engineer is going to release the black liquid mutagen on Earth, so she convinces Janek to stop the Engineer spaceship, which he does by crashing the Prometheus into it after sacrificing himself along with the remaining crew. Vickers escapes the ship by ejecting in an escape pod, only for the disabled Engineer spaceship to come crashing back down to the planet and Vickers is crushed to death by the wreckage.

Shaw makes it onto Vickers' lifeboat and finds the alien offspring she had removed earlier, now fully grown into an enormous Trilobite and is trapped inside the medical bay. David reveals to her that the Engineer has survived the crash of the ship and moments later, it forces open the lifeboat's airlock and attacks Shaw. However, she unleashes the Trilobite upon it and flees. After a titanic struggle, the Engineer is subdued by the Trilobite, which impregnates it. Shaw recovers David's remains from inside the wrecked Engineer ship and with his help, the pair launch in another similar craft, heading for the Engineers' home world, hoping to discover why they attempted to destroy humanity. Meanwhile, inside the Prometheus lifeboat, a Deacon erupts from the Engineer's chest.

Production
Development on a fifth film in the Alien franchise was in progress by 2002. Scott considered returning to the series he created with his 1979 science fiction horror film Alien, to pursue a sequel that would explore the engineered origins of the series's Alien creatures, and the "space jockey"—the extraterrestrial being, who briefly appears in Alien, as the deceased pilot of a derelict spaceship. Alien star Sigourney Weaver also expressed interest in returning to the series. Aliens director James Cameron discussed the potential for a sequel with Scott, and began working with another writer on a story for the film. It was then that 20th Century Fox approached Cameron with a script for a crossover film that would pit the series's monsters against the titular characters of the Predator films; this project became the 2004 science fiction film Alien vs. Predator. After Fox confirmed that it would pursue the crossover, Cameron stopped working on his own project, believing the crossover would "kill the validity of the franchise." In 2006, Cameron confirmed that he would not return to the Alien sequel project, believing that the series was Fox's asset, and he was unwilling to deal with the studio's attempts to influence the potential sequel.

In May 2009, Fox said that the project was a "reboot" of the Alien franchise, and soon afterwards was reported as an untitled prequel to Alien. Development stopped in June 2009 when Fox clashed with Scott over his selection of former television advertisement director Carl Erik Rinsch as director. Fox was only interested in pursuing the project if Scott directed. By July 2009, Scott was contracted to direct the film, and screenwriter Jon Spaihts was hired to write the script based on his pitched idea for a direct Alien prequel. With the director and writer in place, and pleased with Spaihts's pitch, Fox scheduled a release date for December 2011, but this was eventually canceled. In June 2010, Scott announced that the script was complete and that pre-production would begin, and a filming date was set for January 2011. Fox eventually pushed to develop the project into an original work, and by July 2010, Lindelof had been hired to redevelop Spaihts's screenplay. In October 2010, Lindelof submitted his rewritten screenplay to Fox. Scott had initially requested a $250 million budget and an adult oriented project, but Fox was reluctant to invest this amount of money, and wanted to ensure the film would receive a lower age-rating to broaden the potential audience.

In December 2010, it was reported that the film would be called Paradise, named after John Milton's poem Paradise Lost, but Scott considered that this would convey too much information about the film. Fox CEO Thomas Rothman suggested Prometheus, which was confirmed as the title in January 2011. A release date was scheduled for March 9, 2012, but weeks later the release was postponed until June 8, 2012. With the name confirmed, the production team began to publicly distance the film from its Alien origins, and were deliberately vague about the connection between the films, believing it would build audience anticipation for Prometheus. Scott stated that "while Alien was indeed the jumping-off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien's DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative. "In June 2011, Scott and Lindelof confirmed that Prometheus takes place in the same universe as the events of the Alien series. In July 2011, Scott stated that "by the end of the third act you start to realize there’s a DNA of the very first Alien, but none of the subsequent [films]."

Reception
This movie is by far the most successful movie in the Alien franchise. The critics also responded positively to the movie. A sequel was planned because of all of this and was finally released in 2017. It is called Alien: Covenant.