What if you could meet God but God turned out to be the Devil?
Michael Ellenberg, Prometheus executive producer
Ridley was inspired by everything from the Nazca Lines in Peru, which are these vast Earth sculptures can only be seen from the air, to cave paintings in France, to ancient Egypt and ancient Mayan civilisations. Were pushing beyond whats been found thus far and speculating about what maybe found in the future.
Michael Ellenberg, Prometheus executive producer
Very loosely, these creatures are some kind of genetic Engineers on an interplanetary level
They go around creating life. In certain ways, theyre kind of God-like.
Arthur Max, production designer
a movie based on a philosophy and not an alien. The movies intelligence holds you through most its runtime before you get in to all the action. Youre turning the page not just because of what happens but what is said.
Logan Marshall-Green
Certainly, it makes an argument that will move away Darwinism, lets just say!
Logan Marshall-Green
Its about the beginning of life and the eternal what if
Has this ball weve been sitting on right now been around for three billion years or one billion? And if we havent been pre-visited (by alien civilisations), then what was this planet doing for all that time before life came along? Its only our arrogance that says, No, its impossible, were the first ones. Are we the first hominids? I really, really, really doubt it. In recent memory or legend we keep talking about wonderful, weird things such as Atlantis what is that? Where does that come from? Is that real, was it real, is it a memory, did it exist? And if that did exist, did it exist three quarters of a billion years ago? Thered be nothing left now. How was that created and who was it?
Ridley Scott
Ridley first called me in mid-July of (2010),
Id never met him before, but obviously I was a massive fan of his work. I was driving in my car when the phone rang and a voice on the other end said, Ridley Scott is going to call you in five minutes, are you available? After crashing my car and dealing with the immediate aftermath of that, I started talking to Ridley Scott. I was sort of trembling when he called me on the phone and he said he was going to send me a script.
Damon Lindelof
He was also driven by these bigger thematic ideas about what this movie could be about
We started having conversations, and as a result of those conversations we worked very closely together for a couple of months, rewriting the script until he was satisfied that it felt like it was its own movie.
Damon Lindelof
I think that one of the really interesting ideas that the movie is dealing with
s this sense that space exploration, particularly in the future, is going to start to be not just about going out there and finding planets, so that we can build colonies, or anything else, but also this inherent idea that, the further we go out, perhaps the more we learn about ourselves. And, I think the characters in this movie some of them at least are very preoccupied with the idea of, Where did we come from? What are our origins? What is our place in the universe? Are we the only sentient beings, or are there others?
Damon Lindelof
Its basically about trying to find out if there was intervention in the birth of civilisation on planet Earth by other beings, which we come to know as Engineers, and whether they had a master plan in mind for us.
Michael Fassbender
Theres always politics within, and thats why, I think, this cast got together. The tempo, the pace, the intelligence of the script; each person has got their own agenda on that ship and its each a very individual agenda. Some people are there for the pay. Other people are there to get answers. Other people are there to hopefully attain some sort of secret. Others are there in somewhat of a spite journey. Youve got all these collective relationships, individuals and motivations and thats what makes quite intriguing even before the **** hits the fan.
Michael Fassbender
I thought there was tremendous potential to explore themes that the script was already exploring, through the eyes of a character that was so different from everybody else whos on this mission
You have these scientists going out there one is a believer, one really isnt and you play on all these themes, but to really experience all of that stuff from the point of view of somebody who comes from a much more cold, economic, business suit sense of it was interesting.
Charlize Theron