For the past 33 years, director Ridley Scott fretted about “Alien.”
Although the movie has become a modern classic and been celebrated for its unique blend of horror and science-fiction, Scott couldn’t stop thinking about the one, gigantic question that “Alien” and its five sequels failed to address: Who was the Space Jockey?
In the original “Alien,” a team of humans aboard the space vessel Nostromo investigate a distress call and discover an abandoned alien craft. Sitting inside is what appears to be the skeletal remains of a 9-foot-tall pilot of some sort. This is the Space Jockey, a name supposedly given by a film crew member who scribbled it on a storyboard, which suggests the Jockey was not even important enough to be given a name in the script. (Chad?)
And true enough, what’s most relevant about the Space Jockey, for “Alien” at least, is that something appears to have burst out of its rib cage, giving the first hint of the horrors to come.
Then the Space Jockey is completely forgotten, as Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt and the rest of the crew spend the remainder of the movie battling the H.R. Giger-designed creature with seriously terrible dental hygiene (known to fans as a xenomorph).
Ridley Scott, however, never let the mystery of the Space Jockey go.
“Who was he? Where was he from? What was his mission? What kind of technology would his kind possess?” Scott asks. “I thought those questions could provide a springboard for even larger ideas.”
Those “larger ideas” ended up as Friday’s “Prometheus,” Scott’s return to the genre — science fiction — that launched his career and a chance to once again play in the “Alien” sandbox.
Never mind the Space Jockey. The big question on everyone else’s mind is, Just how much does “Prometheus” connect to “Alien?”
When Scott began developing the project a decade ago, it was originally planned as a direct prequel to the 1979 movie. Jon Spaihts wrote a first draft that contained all of the familiar elements from the franchise, including face-huggers, chest-bursting, acid blood and xenomorphs. Damon Lindelof, the mastermind of TV’s “Lost,” was later hired to revise Spaihts’ script.
“They were looking for a version that stripped away all of its prequelness and fleshing out the big idea in the script more so the movie could sink or swim on its own without being married to those others,” Lindelof says. “But at the same time, it’s Ridley Scott doing science-fiction, so pay homage to those movies, don’t necessarily strip it all away, but rebalance it and change the focus of it.”
The plot was so top-secret that scripts were delivered to cast members by guards who waited until the talent had finished reading before driving the pages back to the studio for safekeeping. The story tackles nothing less than the origins of mankind.
After two scientists (Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green) discover ancient star maps pointing towards a distant world, a voyage is launched in hopes of connecting with alien life-forms. The crew, including Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender, touches down on a distant world and finds evidence of an old civilization (who look a lot like the Space Jockey), as well as hostile creatures who begin picking off the humans.
Scott and the studio behind him, Fox, have been adamant that “Prometheus” is not a prequel to “Alien,” although it’s set in the same world. The studio head reportedly vetoed titles with the word “Alien” in them in favor of “Prometheus,” the name of the spaceship and a nod to the Greek god who stole fire from heaven and gave it to mankind. Lindelof says he can understand the reluctance to bind the film franchises together.
“I wouldn’t say that ‘prequel’ is a dirty word, but for me, I have yet to hear the word ‘prequel’ and ‘awesome’ in the same sentence,” Lindelhof says. “I like the idea of seeing a story where anything can happen and you don’t necessarily know what the ending can be, as opposed to the ending is going to be the beginning of the thing you’ve already seen.”
But fans who know the original “Alien” movies backward and forwards might have trouble believing “Prometheus” has only a minimal relationship to “Alien.” The connections are everywhere.
Watch the trailers for “Prometheus” and “Alien” back to back. Both movie titles slowly materialize onscreen in exactly the same way. Both trailers also use the same siren-like sound effect.
Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) owns the company that launches the expedition in “Prometheus.” A logo aboard the Nostromo in “Alien” suggests the ship is manufactured by the same company. The space suits, with their fishbowl helmets and Neoprene underwear, were designed to relate to the costumes in “Alien.” Even the production company, Brandywine, has only made films with “Alien” in the title since 1979.
And like “Alien,” “Prometheus” also features a strong lead female character, Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw.
“My character has similarities with [Sigourney Weaver’s] Ripley, but she is very much her own,” says Rapace, who played Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish version of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”
Shaw is more feminine, a scientist and a religious believer, whereas Ripley’s backstory is largely unknown. Lindelof agrees the comparisons are superficial.
“I don’t think it would even be a factor if Noomi wasn’t a women,” he says. “I don’t think there’s any direct analogy. I wouldn’t touch Ripley with a 10-foot pole. Sigourney gave one of the most iconic screen performances, and the idea of trying to do that again is way, way, way intimidating.”
Scott did make one nod to his two leading ladies.
“I had a costume fitting before we started to film and I had an onboard suit like a one-piece. Ridley came in and said, ‘Oh, my God. You look like Sigourney,’ ” Rapace says. “That was the only time he said something like that, but it was in the air in the beginning because others were talking about it so much. But this movie stands on its own.”
Another thing “Prometheus” has in common with its distant cousin is the rating.
“Fox was enormously generous is letting him shoot the movie he wanted to shoot, and it turned out to be rated R,” Lindelof says. “As a fan, if it had been rated PG-13, I would have worried about what compromises had been made to make it so. The ‘Alien’ movies are best when they’re terrifying and gory and vivid and shocking.”
Should enough fans — 17 and older only, please — turn out to see “Promethus,” a sequel or two could follow with a story line that Lindelof says would “run parallel to and independent of” “Alien.” In other words, there won’t be that explicit connective tissue moment when the Darth Vader helmet is lowered onto Anakin’s head, as in “Star Wars.”
“This movie asks questions and it doesn’t dot all its i’s and cross its t’s on purpose,” the writer says. “That’s the kind of storytelling Ridley likes to do and I like to do. Thirty years after [Ridley Scott’s] ‘Blade Runner’ came out, people are still arguing whether or not Harrison Ford was a replicant.”
Making “Prometheus 2” and “3” will also give the director a chance to put a bigger stamp on the franchise he helped create but quickly lost control of. Scott was not invited to helm 1986’s “Aliens;” the job went to James Cameron instead. Different directors handled the other sequels.
“Ridley did the first one and the franchise kind of went off in another direction,” Lindelof says. “He was the father of this thing and it ran away from home at a young age, and it’s the idea of him coming back and saying, ‘I’m your father. Let’s get to know each other and hang out together.’”
Yep, Daddy’s back — and it’s time for whomever made 2007’s “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” to get a spanking.
Director Ridley Scott on set with Noomi Rapace. (
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reed.tucker@nypost.com