Chart Illustrates How The Alien Species Of Prometheus Are Created
Were you bewildered by the sheer variety of creepy crawlies in Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus? You’re not alone. Even years later, it can get somewhat confusing.
Luckily, someone simplified the whole gene-bending mess in one easy-to-read chart. Be warned, though the chart may be easy to read, it doesn’t factor in the permutations of black goo + genetic code and how those things made any sense at all.
Check out this handy Prometheus visual aid to “clear things up”:
Although Prometheus was a beautifully shot film with fantastic special effects, it definitely garnered some criticism. There were a number of questions left unanswered by the end of the movie.
One of the key questions that left even the most diehard Ridley Scott fan struggling to come up with answers, was why the viscous gene-splicing material seen earlier in the movie would make at least four different creatures from the same basic source. According to graphic artist Carlos Poon, black goo creations are a little bit like pizza, they vary greatly depending on the ingredients.
Makes sense enough when you look at it. But this still begs the question, if the Engineers created a substance that would turn humans into space mutants, was the whole purpose of making them just so they would “do the nasty” with Earth women?
The enigmatic “black goo” in Prometheus, in many ways, embodies the flick’s broader narrative challenges, particularly in its inconsistent application and the bewildering outcomes of its contact with different life forms. This gene-splicing material’s ability to create a wide array of creatures from a single source raises pretty significant questions about the internal logic of the film’s universe. In essence, what were they thinking here?
Is the black goo like a variable equation (as seen above)? Though if that’s the case, what were the Engineers even thinking with it? Which is to say, maybe they weren’t.
Prometheus, unfortunately, never really dives all the way in here. And that’s why we’ve needed “help” later on deciphering some of the different components. Sure, it’s both a weapon of mass destruction and a means of creation.
There were chances to answer some of these things, but the Engineers in the movie just go nuts, and we never totally get there. Could we have gotten answers? There was literally a perfect time, but when you start ripping heads off and running away, it isn’t exactly Q&A time.
Alas, it was clearly a missed opportunity. And one of the main criticisms of the film overall. But at least we have the poster above so we can understand what was happening here in Prometheus.
