Ridley Scott Briefly Addresses The 'Alien' And 'Prometheus' Relationship

Last week the Wall Street Journal talked to Ridley Scott, and got the brief info that the director's upcoming Blade Runner project is likely to be a sequel, but still hasn't hired a screenwriter.

Now the paper's entertainment blog has some brief info on Prometheus, Scott's current film, which is also a prequel of sorts to his 1979 film Alien. We've heard a lot about how the two are related, but Ridley Scott specific in a certain way when talking in this latest interview. I've put the info after the break for the spoiler-averse. It isn't a big story spoiler, but if you'd rather just sit down and watch Prometheus, then having this quote in mind might be distracting during the experience.

The WSJ says in a piece about Prometheus, with broken-up quotes from Scott,

The last eight minutes of the "Prometheus" story evolve into "a pretty good DNA of the 'Alien' one."

That line about Alien DNA is something we've heard ever since Prometheus was announced, but the precise timing hasn't been spoken of quite as much. Does this mean that we can expect to see facehuggers and xenomorphs in the last eight minutes of Prometheus? Probably not, though we might well see something that is very recognizable as a precursor to the classic Alien beast.

He also discusses the film's title and theme, referencing the ancient story of Prometheus with mention of a "higher being" who tries to take fire from the gods. Scott says "fire is our first form of technology," and for the theft of fire, that being is punished "in perpetuity in a horrible fashion."

Without trying to read too much into things, if the Alien xenomorphs represent that punishment, the story would start to look pretty tidy. (Part of the punishment could also be having to sit through Aliens Versus Predator – Requiem.)

Prometheus stars, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Rafe Spall, Logan Marshall-Green, Guy Pearce, and Patrick Wilson and will be released on June 8, 2012. Here's the official synopsis:

Ridley Scott, director of "Alien" and "Blade Runner," returns to the genre he helped define. With PROMETHEUS, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.