The Prometheus panel at the San Diego Comic Con has minutes ago wrapped up. Instead of a trailer being shown, some sort of featurette containing behind-the-scenes footage and movie footage was screened instead. After this Damon Lindelof and Charlize Theron presented the panel with Ridley Scott and Noomi Rapace joined in via satellite uplink from Iceland.
The footage and panel revealed this about Prometheus:
- Many of the sets, spaceships, space suits and the look in general appeared very reminiscent of Alien. Repeated comments are that the sets are “epic and expansive“.
- In the footage the “Prometheus” title card slowly faded onto screen much in the same manner as the original “Alien” title.
- Michael Fassbender’s character, David, is shown looking curiously at a drop of blood on his finger.
- Charlize Theron’s character, Vickers, was also seen doing naked push-ups and wielding a flame-thrower. Vickers is revealed to “be a suit“. IndieWire is taking this to mean she’s the head of Weyland-Yutani. Theron also comments that: “She[Vickers] runs a tight ship… but she’s somehow ‘going to be a problem“.
- Ridley Scott comments on the long wait for his return to science-fiction: “I was busy doing other movies and exploring other genres and, frankly, I never thought about sci-fi until I realized there was something in the first Alien that no one ever asked a question about. In the next one, still no exploration of that big question, so maybe that can be the centerpiece of what we just complete. But we’ve decided to go a complete other direction… In the last few minutes of the movie… you’ll actually understand what I’m talking about . “
- The majority of the film is shot practically with very little CG. However, it was all shot entirely in 3D which is a format that Scott is quite taken with. “I’ll never work without 3D again, I loved the whole process… 3D opens up the universe even in a small dialogue scene, so I’ve been very impressed with that.”
- According to Ridley there will “maybe be two” androids featuring in Prometheus. We’re already aware that Fassbender’s character, David, is an android so this leaves the second a mystery.
- Noomi Rapace comments on how “demanding” working on Prometheus has been. “It’s been the best journey ever. When I read the script, I was thrilled. Then when we started to work on this, I completely forgot about everything, it felt like we were discovering something that I haven’t been in before.”
- A bombshell was dropped in that Fox are wanting Prometheus to be rated PG-13. Lindelof asked: “has the PG-13 rating inhibited you?” to which Ridley replied he has a responsibility to Fox but he also wanted to make sure he had both opens. In all likelihood we’ll see a PG-13 theatrical release and an uncut Blu-ray release.
- Bleeding Cool state that: “Scott has said that he hasn’t held back and has covered stuff that might not make the PG-13 cut, but that he and Tom Rothman “will watch the footage in that big theatre at Fox” and decide what is the best way to go with the film.”
- According to Empire they saw: “a creature getting flamethrowered” during the footage. This could possibly be the footage with Vickers and the flamethrower.
Thanks to First Showing and Coming Soon for their fantastic live blogs. You can also check out Bleeding Cool’s impressions/report from their first hand seat at the panel.
Spoiler
human space jockeys???
I am reminded of the old anime Armitage III though, where a new type of robot is built with a combination of organic and man-made material that can actually get pregnant.
Just an idea.
i'm wondering 'bout this head since yesterday... wtf?
great thoughts!
i agree with the broad consent, that dAvID will morph into a pre-alien/egg phase in which the creation of the alien species will set mark (hopefully).
but if that event won't happen, to be not disappointed that much, i'm looking forward to his transcendently trip of becoming a hybrid between human/synthetic.
surely, it will set under a spiritual context that shows each scene that will be devoted to fundamental keywords as: to evolve of awareness through fear, paranoia, love, depression, freedom and through acute pain.
i bet not only the opening scene will have their 2001 influence!
Scott's original concept for the spores were that they use the host as food rather than transform the host into an egg like thing by other means. So Brett and Dalla's body were being absorbed and enveloped.
that's limited thinking from a human perspective
anyhow, as to the point of the whole story of turning an android into a human being or similar? i don't know. but reading some of the descriptions of the footage shown, something like this COULD be part of the movie - and the android(s) really seem to have a bigger part in this movie than they had in the previous ones. looking forward to finding out what ridley, spaihts and lindelof came up with.
This apparent recombinant goo could in theory combine with David, enveloping and egg-morphing the android into a version of the alien egg we know.
I think with the eggs in the Derelict, that these were Jockeys egg-morphed (perhaps by the goo) and so their bio-mechanical traits get passed on to the facehuggers within, a half-mechanical version of the jelly-fish like goop the original eggs spawned.
I always wondered if these eggs were egg-morphed Jockeys, why they were so small compared to the Pilot really, however if the goop combines with a creature to form an egg, the chrysalis of the egg could absorb and combine with the matter of the host making the egg a set size...
Now I think that the goop has to combine with a creature to make it a viable egg with a type of facehugger inside. We know somehow a facehugger gets on a Jockey in both films to create a large alien. Its possible the goop to be a type of biohazard, it is accidentally touched by a cut on David, this egg-morphs him, creating a proto-facehugger which infects a Jockey.
On the Derelict, a similar event could have happened to accidentally egg-morph a Jockey and thus another gets face-hugged (the Pilot) leading to the ship on LV-426 that we all know.
Thoughts?
Demonstration of power ... or a simple fatherly "No son, THIS is how you tie a shoe" depending on your take.
It is my understanding that Ash/Bishop and other Alien/Aliens era androids are made of a synthetic tissue. An imitation of flesh ... perhaps more closely related to genetics than machine robotics in the nut and bolt sense. We're not talking about turning the T-800 endo-skeleton into real flesh and bone here.
but the alien and the space jockey are biomechanical. is this plausible?
and animals!
BUT he stole the fire of zeus and did one big mistake: when it was on people to sacrifice a bull, prometheus did two batches, both covered with the leathern skin of the animal to hide what's inside. the bigger one, chosen by zeus was only a fake, coz it we're only full of bones and intestines. and the other one, left for the humans had the delicious meat in it.
zeus knew that, but would annihilate prometheus for that betrayal.
the rest with the vulture that is feeding on prometheus stomach is (myth)history...
ha, maybe the particular member of the ship who steal the technology will also get punished with this:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F_4OYGjUrdllo%2FSSTbGVHMgEI%2FAAAAAAAAMGw%2FJzS7RGjOVHo%2Fs400%2FDSCF0011jochestburster.jpg&hash=08c518a798290da302b87c5056ca5fae01369107
that would be a reversed but cool conclusion to this plot, coz it would fit to the myth literarily.
As to the question of turning an android (or Replicant) from the Alien (Bladerunner) universe into a human...I would argue "what is the point". I mean, both of these "synthetic" life-forms appear not only to be sentient and intelligent, but fully self-aware, concious, and self reflective beings. It also appears they have a moral existence (e.g. Batty or Bishop). They already have all the attributes of being "human". The only difference is from a physiological/biological standpoint. In fact, one might even argue that they are post-human, and in fact superior to true Homo sapiens. Putting aside the limited life-time of Bladerunner's Replicants, I am not sure that either Bishop or a Batty would consider it an improvement if they were somehow turned into a "true" human.
Hmm, in Greek Kythology, Prometheus was responsible for creating mankind
so i think, we will see an android becoming more human-like, but we don't know how.
with a spoken magic spell? manipulating via TV? serious now: filling the androids veins with blood of another member? just speculations over speculations. but, it's fun!
why would the jockey's just terrify the crew member, scare the living shit out of them and then take them back to earth?
to be honest to you: i don't care much about this "detail". i will let them surprising me, but i got one thing on my mind..
- surely they will explain about the origins of the space jockeys, maybe even the particular one, and it's ship from 'alien'.
- we will see how they terraform planets and how the company get use of this technology and how it became developed in 'aliens'.
- my own sentence: what if when the jockeys will use one or two members of the crew to create an pre-version of an alien?
at least they would use one android to create it the way we know the alien.
maybe it will be a first 'cocooning' of people/androids to make an alien.
The last sentence has made me really want to wach this film now (Along with everything else aswell).
anyway, i like that the android aspects of the story seem to be really important - as i think fassbender is probably the best actor besides rapace in that movie and i'm looking forward to seeing some amazing performances in prometheus.
Fassbender playing two parts sounds too derivative for Ridley at this point. I rooting for the Machine becomes Human angle. How they do it will just icing on the cake. I trust that it won't be a simple touch. The concept is fascinating. And not really a stretch considering man for all intents and purposes is already a bio-mechanical 'machine.'
Those changes had little or nothing to do with mature content, but running time. Scott's biggest challenge will be the running time. Stories need time to build, breathe, grow ... and two hours is pretty short when you are creating a whole new world to play in.
Remember that the original Alien had very to little no onscreen deaths apart from the chestburster scene, it all added to the mistery and fearfulness of the original alien. It's only untill aliens onward that the series became more bloody.
Edit: And anyway Directors cut versions of Scotss movies tend to be totaly differen't movies to that of the original. Legend had 20 miniutes more footage in it, and its original soundtrack back into the movie, to the point where its a vastly differen't movie. And Kingdom of Heaven i was shocked how better the directors cut version was so much better. The original movie always made me think that i had a botched dvd with scenes missing because half of the movie never made sense.
Yeah, they're def terraformers. Engineers of space and what-not. It makes sense they would be highly advanced but shit, even a highly advanced species would require alot of time to study the physical makeup of an android in order to suddenly make that android a real human. Not to mention that idea is stupid, that the Jockeys just fly around space with android to human transmogrification machines on all thier ships just in case they need to impress some humans? Nah, I don't buy it. And if the movie pulls any of that touch him with a glowing finger and he's a real boy crap I'll walk out.
who said that the jockey's had created man? they are terraformers, like the colonists in hadley's hope (technology seemed to be from the jockey's).
scott only mentioned that the beginning of the movie will take place on earth which is very at the beginning of it's development/evolution. maybe the space jockey's had fix the climatic state of earth to give birth to any lifeform that could evolve on earth. and the beginning of earth & appearance of man aren't at the same time. to be fair you could say their technology had made the possibility to evolve dinosaurs, animals, man etc. pp.
what we know is that this movie will import the idea of 'prä-astronautik', but tell me: how do you feel, when you're looking alien and see the jockey of the derelict ship, will you accept him as god?
i think the members of the ship prometheus, will be a specific factor for the formula of making an alien...
That video clarifies a lot and hopefully helps people rest easy about the rating, for now.
Did anyone catch Lindelof say 'it plays like a mashup of BLADE RUNNER and ALIEN" - in the red carpet interview?
Imf**kin speechless. This movie looks just gets better and better with every piece of info I hear about it.
So the excavation site is on another planet? That's what I was hoping for.
So we will get the visual aesthetic of Alien with just a hint of new concepts. This is f**king great.
http://www.movieline.com/2011/07/naked-push-ups-time-warps-and-7-other-revelations-about-ridley-scotts-prometheus.php
I didn't see this posted anywhere yet. Unless I'm blind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LeIce4lc8s#ws
Flashlights would seem like magic to someone in the middle ages ... so the jockeys tech should invoke a sense of awe with some degree of traceability in the logic.
If they did create the human race they would be impressed at the human's version of 'artificial life' and it would be a great show to have them 'perfect' a synthetic. Opens up all sorts of acting and emoting possibilities for Michael Fassbender too. A good roll suddenly becomes ripe and juicy ... not to mention challenging.
now if the space jockeys are descrbed as engineers,as creating the xenomorphs,masters of bio-tehnology they could certainly make him human.plus ridley is saying he wants the whole android,robot thing to be fresh this time because this idea became kinda lame after all the ci-fi made in the last decades.so an alien race making a android into a human could certainly be fresh,and cutting edge.just like ridley would want it.would be a game changer.
i'm wondering also will any of the crew escape in one piece?or will they all die?someone will probably have to escape to give the information to the company .doing so they could programe ASH to obtain the alien on zeta reticuli
I like it so much I will be disappoint if it doesn't come to pass!
Fits perfectly with the notion that the space jockeys were responsible for the creation of life as we know it.
And on the subject of getting some cam footage of those clips ...
It shows what kind of people live with us in this world ... that bloody the Twilight bed breaking sex clip is all over the place via cams ... but nothing ... nothing to do with the clip from Prometheus.
That's certainly an interesting concept.
would be nice if the space jockeys experimented on him and made him human.just a thought
I've seen them do that with a couple of recent horror movies. The names of which have completely escaped my mind though. They screened both the 15 (UK) and 18 cert versions at the same time. I'm pretty sure it happened with a recent comedy too.
I imagine it would cost them too much to do something like that.
*fap*
If she's a hidden android like ash maybe?
She does.
But do androids need to do naked push-ups?
Actually just relised how much thats never going to happen whilst typing lol
Anyway by the sound of it, Scott's going to show the Rated-R version to Fox in the hope they'll let him release that in theaters instead of the PG-13 one.