According to The Guardian, who references a “supposed” interview with FilmFutter, director Ridley Scott spoke about connecting the Prometheus saga with his original 1979 classic sci-fi horror Alien. (I myself do not read German and so can’t speak to the credibility of this article). Prometheus of course started life as an Alien prequel, then Scott claimed that it had evolved into something independent only for all sorts of links – including a proto-xenomorph alien – showing up in the divisive sci-fi thriller. So exactly where do things stand?
Apparently Scott still plans to connect the two franchises and explain the origins of the xenomorph alien species, but will expand on the story in his sequel to 2012’s Prometheus.
“It won’t be 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 Prometheus was] 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.”
Just showing us the origin of the xenomorph won’t be the only major link between the franchises though, as Scott is also intending for one very overt connection: the title! Chatting with the folks from HeyUGuys about how Alien and Prometheus 2 will crossover, the filmmaker revealed that the upcoming sequel will in fact be titled Alien: Paradise Lost, borrowing the title of John Milton’s famous epic work of poetry.
The 10 000+ line poem deals with the Biblical “Fall of Man” and if you recall there were substantial religious themes and iconography to be found in Prometheus as well, specifically related to the alien Engineers and how one sacrificed himself to create life (there’s also that theory that the Engineers tried to destroy us humans because we killed Jesus!). And according to Scott “It sounds intellectual, but there’s a similarity to it. That’s where it stops.”
Well, that’s not where the franchise stops because those other sequels must still show up as well. In the mean time a fifth Alien film, from District 9 director Neill Blomkamp, is moving forward but is scheduled to be released after the Prometheus sequel Alien: Paradise Lost which is planned for a 2017 release.
Last Updated: September 25, 2015
