The year is 2089 and doctors: Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace)
and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) are heading an archaeology
expedition when Elizabeth discovers a 35,000
year old cave painting in Scotland’s
Isle of Skye. Four years later, it’s December,
2093 and now they’re in charge of a scientific team aboard the deep space
exploratory vessel: Prometheus. Commander Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron)
and the rest of the crew have just been awakened from a 2 year cryogenic sleep
monitored by an android named David (Michael Fassbender). Given a short
recuperation period, the crew is gathered for a prerecorded holographic
introduction to a feeble old man referring to himself as their “employer”,
Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce). He informs them that, “… If you’re watching this,
you have reached you’re destination, and I am long dead, may I rest in peace…”
He introduces David as, “The closest thing to a son, I will ever have.” And
then he explains that he’s spent his entire lifetime contemplating the
questions, “Where do we come from; what is our purpose; what happens when we
die?” Then he fades away after surrendering the assembly to doctors: Shaw and
Holloway. Charlie explains that archaeologists have, through the course of
centuries, unearthed numerous pictograms from ancient human civilizations that
date back over thousands of years and depict men worshiping giant beings, pointing
towards map like images of the universe far beyond the stars. Elizabeth concludes that they are there to
seek out what she calls “engineers” that will lead them to “Our creators”.
Yup, Elizabeth and Charlie believe that humans were created
by aliens, and Peter Weyland has funded an outer space mission designed to help
them find and return evidence to support their theory. He was also secretly
hoping they may even discover some sort of fountain of youth or Garden of Eden:
as it were; he dreams of immortality. Go figure!
As they approach the new planet, Charlie sees a strange rock
formation right in the middle of what looks like a well excavated runway, he
directs Captain Janek (Idris Elba) to land their vessel in front of it.
Charlie’s excited and immediately requests the survey team to suit-up; Janek
suggests that, “There’s only 6 hours left of daylight. Why don’t you leave it
till the morning?” But Charlie calmly declares “It’s Christmas Captain, and I
want to open my presents.” He, Elizabeth and David suit-up and meet with 3
other scientists to begin exploring the hollow rock formation. While inside,
one scientist releases several tiny balls that fly through every tunnel and
digitally trace a 3-dementinal map that begins to appear back on Prometheus for
Janek and Vickers to oversee. They don’t know it yet, but, they’ve just
discovered a ghost ship whose crew bear an uncanny relationship to human
beings. However, evidence found throughout the ship will indicate that these
distant relatives were not planning a warm family reunion, after all; in fact,
they were actually in the process of developing weapons of mass destruction.
And Oh My, let me tell ya, we’ve all seen these weapons before!... Now the
survivors of Prometheus will have to find a way to protect mankind by
delivering these weapons to their rightful destination.
