While Prometheus isn’t as bad as some claimed, the Alien prequel does seriously screw up the franchise’s timeline and mythology. The Alien movies never told a particularly coherent or plausible story, but the franchise’s timeline didn’t really go off the rails until its original director returned in 2012. Ridley Scott started the series in 1979 with Alien, so fans were understandably excited when he returned to the director’s chair for 2012’s prequel Prometheus. However, Prometheus’s messy, uneven story soon made it one of the most divisive Alien movies as Scott’s story wreaked havoc on the lore of the series.
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For the most part, the first four Alien movies chronicled the struggle between Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Alien introduced the Xenomorph, Aliens revealed that Weyland-Yutani attempted to utilize it as a bioweapon, Alien 3 stranded Ripley in a prison, and Alien: Resurrection saw her DNA fused with the Xenomorph so she could be resurrected. While the Alien Vs Predator movies weren’t well-liked, they did provide a relatively clear, simple prequel to this saga. Then Prometheus came along and swiftly retconned all of Alien Vs Predator as well as complicating the rest of the franchise immeasurably.
7 Prometheus’ Infamous Black Goo Was Never Mentioned Before Or Again
Prometheus’s Black Goo Could Have Been Better Integrated
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Prometheus started as it meant to go on, with stunning visuals that were utterly inscrutable when it came to straightforward narrative interpretation. Prometheus’s opening sequence depicts a humanoid alien, later revealed to be part of a species known as the Engineers, consuming black goo that causes him to disintegrate immediately. Viewers later learn that this scene depicted the birth of humanity, as one of the Engineers did their own unique recreation of the Prometheus myth by giving humanity life through their self-destruction. This makes Prometheus’s black goo pivotal to the entire franchise’s story, but it’s barely mentioned again.
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Alien Movies & TV Shows In Timeline Order |
|
|---|---|
|
Title |
Year Set |
|
Alien: Earth (2025) |
2092 |
|
Prometheus (2012) |
2093 |
|
Alien: Covenant (2017) |
2104 |
|
Alien (1979) |
2122 |
|
Alien: Romulus (2024) |
2142 |
|
Aliens (1986) |
2179 |
|
Alien 3 (1992) |
2180 |
|
Alien Resurrection (1997) |
2379 |
Prometheus’s black goo is a bioweapon developed by the Engineers, but viewers would have a hard time finding this out by watching the movie. This piece of information is revealed in Alien: The Roleplaying Game, which explains that “Prometheus Fire” was developed by the Engineers so they could wipe out entire planets at a time. Since Weyland-Yutani was originally obsessed with the Xenomorph due to its potential applications as a bioweapon, Prometheus’s black goo should theoretically be central to the entire Alien franchise’s storyline. Instead, it is only mentioned in this movie and never addressed before or after the prequel.
6 Prometheus Made The Xenomorph An Invention (Not A Natural Organism)
Prometheus Heavily Implied The Xenomorph Wasn’t A Natural Organism
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Prometheus implied that the Engineers created the Xenomorph as a bioweapon much like their coveted black goo, although the prequel was hazy about the timeline of this development. This is surprisingly pivotal to the story of the franchise, since the origins of the Xenomorph are subject to some considerable debate among fans and even the creatives making the movies. Alien: Earth showrunner Noah Hawley admitted to KCRW’s The Business podcast that his show would depict the Xenomorph as a naturally occurring species, since depicting them as bioweapons “Invented half an hour ago,” was less compelling to the director.
While viewers can argue for or against this claim, canonically confirming that the Xenomorph is an engineered bioweapon rather than an existing species has huge implications for the franchise’s villains. If the Alien franchise’s Xenomorph was always a bioweapon, then it is not all that surprising that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation intends to utilize the species for its original purpose. If the monster occurs naturally, then the company’s plans are much more morally dubious. Thus, this seemingly unimportant aesthetic distinction proves to be central to the franchise’s larger story, as the vlllainy of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation centers on this detail.
5 Prometheus’s Xenomorphs Arrived Way Later Than Alien Vs Predator’s Aliens
The Xenomorph’s Alien Vs Predator History Was Undone In Prometheus
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The history of Prometheus’s Engineers isn’t entirely clear, but it seems fair to suggest that Ridley Scott’s prequel retcons Alien Vs Predator’s depiction of Xenomorph hordes from thousands of years ago. If the Xenomorph was invented by the Engineers, as Prometheus appears to imply, then it doesn’t make sense for Alien Vs Predator‘s titular threats to have hunted Xenormorphs before humanity’s history even began. As noted by users of the Alien/Predator fan site Xenopedia, it is tough to see how the series can square these seemingly divergent timelines.
Throughout the first two
Alien
movies, the Xenomorph is referred to as a perfect organism that evolved to be a relentless, ruthless killing machine.
However, it is not only Alien Vs Predator that this twist disrupts. Throughout the first two Alien movies, the Xenomorph is referred to as a perfect organism that evolved to be a relentless, ruthless killing machine. Not only would this not be true if Prometheus’s version of events is correct, but the company’s very founder would be the one who disproved this when the Xenomorph was first discovered during the prequel’s events. Xenomorphs not only didn’t evolve naturally, but the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s CEO was actually killed by one of their inventors on the same planet where they were discovered by humans.
4 Prometheus Made The Engineers Pivotal To Alien’s Entire Reality
Prometheus Revealed The Engineers Created Humanity
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Speaking of the Engineer who killed Weyland, it is important to note just how much Prometheus made the Engineers way more important than the Xenomorph in the franchise’s reality. Outside the history of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation and even the origins of the Xenomorph, Prometheus reveals that the Engineers created humanity itself. This was one of the biggest problems with Ridley Scott’s Alien prequels, as they never really delved deep into the implications of this revelation after the opening scene. An existential space-set drama like Interstellar, Ad Astra, or 2001: A Space Odyssey seems better suited to this material.
In the Alien franchise, the Engineers are effectively living evidence of a creator god. This has massive implications for humanity, which can now come together with concussive proof that they were made in the image of an ageless, extra-terrestrial creator. However, all the massive cultural, social, and philosophical ramifications of this twist are ignored by Prometheus, and viewers hoping to see them mentioned in earlier or later Alien movies will be disappointed. Seemingly, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation discovered the origins of humanity itself and then simply forgot about this, even though it appears to undermine or possibly entirely rewrite the theory of evolution.
3 Prometheus’s David Is Way Too Advanced For His Place In Android History
David Doesn’t Make Sense Compared To Alien and Alien: Romulus’s Androids
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Both Alien’s haywire Ash and Alien: Romulus’s faulty Andy are flawed androids whose operating systems let them down throughout the story of their respective installments. In contrast, Prometheus’s David is an impossibly advanced android with incredible intelligence, perception, problem-solving skills, and even emotional and psychological insight. It is impossible to work out how Prometheus’s David is so advanced when the rest of the franchise’s androids lag so far behind. One argument, that the founder of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation has access to its best prototypes, doesn’t hold much water here. After all, there can’t be that big a gulf in tech terms.
It seems absurd for Weyland to use his wealth to make a super-intelligent android and never allow subsequent android designs to borrow from David’s software.
Even assuming that the Nostromo is equipped with a mid-range android, Ash would have been developed years after David. As such, it seems scarcely possible that its functions would be so much more drastically limited than those of the earlier android prototype. The same is true of Bishop from Aliens or Andy from Alien: Romulus. Again, both of these androids are owned by less wealthy characters, but it seems like a uniquely absurd folly for Weyland to use his immense wealth to make a single super-intelligent android and then never allow any subsequent android designs to borrow from David’s software.
2 Prometheus’s David Has No Real Reason To Poison Holloway
Prometheus Complicated The Franchise’s Androids
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Although Prometheus’s technology gap with the Alien movies doesn’t make much sense, David doesn’t make perfect sense as a character, either. Prometheus’ David uses the black goo to poison and kill Charlie Holloway, but the movie gives viewers no way of knowing how David knew what this would do. Furthermore, the fact that androids work in the interest of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation doesn’t seem to come into play here. Charlie wasn’t impending the corporation’s work and was instead central to its mission, so it makes no sense for David to betray him just to test out an unknown substance.
1 Prometheus Invented A New Weyland-Yutani Backstory and Founder
Prometheus Completely Retconned Alien Vs Predator’s Plot
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Many of the biggest issues with Prometheus come back to its biggest change. Prometheus invented a whole new founder and backstory for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation after Alien Vs Predator introduced Lance Henriksen’s Charles Weyland. In Prometheus, Henriksen’s Charles is replaced by Guy Pearce’s Peter Weyland, an aging billionaire and philanthropist in search of eternal life. This change alone doesn’t seem like a major issue, but many of the major timeline alternations spring forth from it. For all of Alien Vs Predator’s problems, its lore made sense within the context of the larger existing Alien series. Prometheus’s plot did not.
Alien: Romulus
is currently available to stream on Amazon and Apple TV.
Prometheus may have worked as a standalone movie, but its status as an Alien prequel complicated the franchise’s timeline and lore immensely. Prometheus rendered the rest of the movies more confusing by introducing the Engineers and the black goo, even though these were never mentioned before, and making them of central importance to the franchise’s universe. Furthermore, the prequel confused the origins of Xenomorph, meaning the story of Prometheus made the series harder to follow upon a rewatch. Thanks to these changes, Prometheus made the world of Alien more impenetrable than ever before, and this all came back to its new Weyland-Yutani founder.
Sources: The Business podcast via KCRW
Xenopedia
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27 8.3/10 Prometheus R
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*Availability in US Director Ridley Scott Release Date June 8, 2012 Studio(s) 20th Century Writers Jon Spaihts , Damon Lindelof Cast Charlize Theron , Noomi Rapace , Idris Elba , Guy Pearce , Michael Fassbender Runtime 124 Minutes Franchise(s) Alien Expand