New Stills From Prometheus – UPDATED

There are few films that we at Filmophilia wait for with more anticipation than Ridley Scott‘s first foray into science fiction for three decades, the star-studded, very expensive and very, very mysterious Prometheus. Yesterday, the first official character still surfaced, via Entertainment Weekly. The photo, which has gone through EW’s painfully incompetent photoshopping team before being published, shows the three major characters for the first time. From left to right, we see Logan Marshall-Green’s Holloway, Noomi Rapace‘s Elizabeth Shaw and Michael Fassbender’s android David, wearing space suits inside what Empire calls “The Ampule Room”, which will apparently serve a pivotal purpose within the film.

The film is reportedly running on a budget around $200 million, which means you can rest assured that the horrible photoshopping and retouching seen here will not be visible in the film, but let’s try to look past that.

We know that this film, while not a direct prequel to the original Alien, takes place in the same universe as that film, and will contain “the DNA of the original alien”, as Ridley Scott has said as much himself, in an interview with Icelandic film magazine Films Monthly (Icel. Myndir manadarins – link is in Icelandic) this last summer, and focus on the back story of the mysterious “Space Jockey” from the first film. Another hint: Go to IMDb and check out the name of the producing company. The Brandywine Productions slate has only been used for Alien or Alien-related films for the last 32 years, further proving Prometheus’ direct link to Alien. Also, H.R. Giger is designing original material for Prometheus. Oh yes, he is. While other media outlets speculate themselves to death, we bring you facts. Remember that, dear readers.

However, Prometheus abandons the industrial overtones of its Alien predecessors in favor of a far more mythological plotline. The official synopsis states, and Ridley Scott himself confirms, that in Prometheus, humans will find physical evidence of so-called “alien gods”, along with space coordinates to travel to their home planet. When there, the gods are so proud of their creation that they give humans access to the technology to terraform planets. When a human betrays the gods, however, every type of hell breaks loose. Also, it will feature a scene titled “The Beginning of Time”. You can hardly get more 2001 than that.

This still seems to confirm the validity of this synopsis, however vaguely. The space suits have a more fantastical look than Alien’s chemical factory-inspired behemoths, and the craved-out face in the background, along with the Giger-designed pillars to its side, conveys more mythological mystique than the four predecessors combined. And placing Noomi’s Elizabeth Shaw front-and-center gives credence to hopes that she’ll be a worthy torch-bearer in place of Sigourney Weaver.

So, non-matching eyelines, light-covered retouching spots and strange head placements aside, we approve. Now bring on the trailer already!

UPDATE!

Thanks to the wonderful peoplez at /Film, we now bring you all the photos published in Entertainment Weekly, adding the mugs of Charlize Theron intently staring at something off the bridge onboard the spanking new Prometheus ship, a bigger picture of the ominous carved face, as well as a still of (presumably) Holloway, Shaw and David rummaging about the Ampule Room. Here you go:

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