Prometheus is dead...long live Prometheus

"If you sit down and think about the potential of such a story its huge and like the best science fiction the further on you go the further you return"

Absolutely this was the Premise of Prometheus, there could have been Numerous ways the Story Could have Unfolded, you have you own Idea which sounds Interesting but regardless of HOW they could have taken it, the Quote i used from you is PERFECT because in a Nutshell that Quote shows the Scope... that the Direction of the Prequels seems to have SHUT the Door on which is a shame, is we could have had a EPIC Story to tell.

"David and Elizabeth were right and in looking at the fall of the people we meet on the Moon we see ourselves"

Again a excellent point.. indeed we could had been seeing the same Theme Repeating Over and Over. David perhaps saw his Mirror in the Engineer in Prometheus and had Dr Shaw meet one of those Planet 4/Paradise Engineers she could be looking into the Mirror of a Ancient Version of herself.

"these were merely emblems to Weyland"

I think a lot dont look into that scene and the Ozymandias Poem, they have deep relative meaning that people overlook certainly in regards to IMMORTALITY as indeed its our Works and Creations, and our Ancestry that makes us somewhat Immortal.  

Shakespeare, Piero della Francesca, much like Elvis and Picasso are Immortalized due to their Works, had they been just Normal People then Long After they are GONE it would only be their Family who would remember them, and pass on Stories.  You can have Statues Erected in Honor of Certain People, Kings, Saints but as the Ozymandias Poem points out " Nothing beside remains. Round the decay, Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare"  so Eventually all these Works and Statues will be lost over time.

Nothing Lasts Forever... in Many Millions of Years the Earth could look as Mars is now... then what remains?

And so this i feel is what Peter Weyland had pointed out, for all his Accomplishments for all the Gifts/Objects/Art that he Possesses they are of NO-USE to him when he Dies, Eventually his Works will be Forgotten.. 

And so this is why he has the Ambition to Eventually Meet our Makers, in the Hope to Attain True Immortality, yet ironically to a Degree when he looks at David he is looking at a Kind of Immortality.

So there is a lot of Philosophy and many ways they could have expanded upon this, which i now feel we wont do, and so the Prequels have maybe Lost that Scope... because FOX at the Time Felt that Fans wanted to have Xenomorphs instead.

@BigDave

Nice post and the point about immortality can be defined by achievement + timeless value is very true. My reason for responding to the guy on this thread is he may be interested in the work I have done. However thanks for your two posts a breath fresh air. Someone once said we get the newspapers we deserve, maybe in that context we get the films we deserve. If people think those six fan shorts are worth all the hits they get there is not much hope.

In the end you have to make the film your believe in and hope the general audience buy in it and shut up the core fans who have a lot to say on the internet. I am following the making of Bond 25 and I read the criticisms of Sky fall, the biggest grossing bond ever, and whilst people do not have to like the film, though it captured the much wider audience, whats clear is deep fans have two major experiential problems. 

1) They become wedded to a certain way of doings things and decide thats the only way things can work.

2) They are incapable of suspension or recognising artistic licence, believing they are expressing their fandom by watching the film from the bottom up.    

Best

Michelle 

The tricky question - do you think studios must give Ridley $100-200 millions for the next ingenius, but box-office failure film?

Hint:

If Ridley wants to sponsor the next film from his own wallet - no one will mind.

Well LETO that is the Main Question... its not a case of "what kind of a world would David Create" or how we can get back to what Prometheus was trying to show us.

It will be what DISNEY think will Sell Tickets $$$ if they think a ALIENS meets Avatar meets Guardians of the Galaxy will make $$$$$$ then thats what they would choose to do.

It seems some of FOX had confidence in RS, even after the Disappointment of Alien Covenant, it could seem that some of them was considering that maybe YES he was ahead of the Curve....  with Emma Watts backing a Continuation to Ridley Scotts Prequels instead of working on any other ALIEN Projects.

The Take Over Talks placed everything on HOLD.. and Disney would be looking at WHAT could make Money.

Its a case of IF we see Disney have Confidence in RS, or indeed the kind of Direction he wanted to take, or do they continue with a more Direct Alien Xenomorph connection which is now EXPECTED?

I think a lot depends on THREE things..

1) How well Received his Raised by Wolves is and the Ideas within that TV Series.

2) How Good he works with Disney on Merlin Project and how well that Performs.

3) Fan Reaction to the Upcoming ALIEN Content, that includes New Books, Comics and Games that revolve around the similar Tropes of the ALIENS and on-wards Franchise.

If 1+2 turn out to be Disappointing and there is a Great Interest in 3)  then i think its CURTAINS for Ridley Scott and the Alien/Prequels and so what Prometheus offered would be ENDED.. apart from the Introduction of maybe the Engineers in regards to being Technologically Advanced Warlike Race using their Bio-Technology, and Biological Warfare against Mankind... and PREDATORS (in Comics/Games at least).

But certainly it would mean a Move to Movies about the Xenomorph and revolve around such.

We cant use Hindsight..... as Prometheus should have been a bit more ALIENY with Xenomorphs or similar and less Vague Clues to LV-426 so that the Door to Alien would be Closed and Dr Shaw and David go off to something NEW!

They could have rectified this by having TWO sequels.

1) A Mission to LV-223, much more Alieny like Alien Engineers that gives more clues to the Xenomorph and LV-426... and sets up Special Order 937

2) Leaving another Movie where Dr Shaw and David go off to find the Engineers and END UP going VERY FAR away... to explore something Fresh that does-not have to be Shackled down by ALIEN.

Essentially opening up TWO Franchises....

Engineers/Creation Franchise and the ALIEN Franchise.

@Michelle Johnston Nice to see you again, but this morality/ immortality question could be more complicated than that. Even if an artist's name is remembered by his works, does it really mean that something of the artist remains? What about the anonymous works of art? Or what about masterworks lost and only known through second hand sources? Or misunderstood art? Remember I once said to you that David's quote from Lawrence in Prometheus is incomplete and that could be attributed to misunderstanding as the quote of Ozymandias.

And if you change everyday, like the Ship of Theseus, can you really be called immortal or that you merely live through an infinite number of phases (as opposed to the limit count as a human). Maybe in this sense, only something utterly unchanging is eternal.

@ignorantGuy

I spent a great deal of time thinking about the transmission mechanism of the donation, what they were transmitting and what it meant as an act. I concluded that they lived through an infinite number of phases but not necessarily in the manner of Theseus and therefore the chant that comes to Elizabeth is correct. What they pass is eternal so the resurrection is like everything else an echo of an inner truth. (Indeed that was to give mankind a second chance) I think in David's case he had information, which became untrammelled by dysfunctional relationships then he had understanding but that was only the beginning of his journey. As you know in my story he is not distracted by madness. Instead through Elizabeth he found the truth of this Universe and "they' became representative of it. he played by the "rules" of an Intelligent Universe and you could argue he was accepted and Elizabeth was rejected. So for me David was on point with his knowledge whereas Elizabeth was the one that misunderstood things. That David correctly interprets Lawrence and Shelley in my vision is due to both hind sight and the help the author received.

For me the intriguing question is were the powers changed by the events of the fall and I believe they were, they learnt that there is no immutable truth. Indeed Elizabeth vain glorious believed the fall gave them a more rounded view of the potential of the universe. That I think is something having answered all the questions should be left for us to ponder. What impact did David and Elizabeths journey have on the powers.

Damon Lindelof said if you go "there" and remove all the ambiguity it will always end in disappointment. I think thats true and whether one travels at the gift of an obsessive hobbyist or a professional film maker to the Engineers Homeworld not only is it provocative to realise that the creatures of the Juggernauts are not the Engineers but that "they" the real Engineers should remain illusive. Was that unique capacity of fallen mankind to love and hate unrealised because the Engineered Universe was the gift of machines or did they become machines which is why they allowed David to make the journey in the opposite direction? Is that why they used the donation tool billions of years into the universe existence. I think thats constructive ambiguity. 

So to answer your question my vision is this creation lasts for a very long time and does so by taking an exceptionally long term view but is it eternal who knows?

Two other points one which relates to the original question of the OP. 

Whilst there was a chance to take the events of ALIEN and contextualise them and at the same time broaden the appeal beyond the 16 to 25 year old male audience I can see in reaction to what I have done some people say "so its about exploding chests and all that nonsense." No no no its about placing it in the context of an intelligent universe. So some are immediately put off by ANY association with the creature whereas of course a book which reflects Lindelof's vision for P 2 "there will probably be none of those references." is as dull as ditchwater to the core audience whose pre occupations lie with fabric. If Alien ever makes big again it will be with an entirely new audience and a story that relates to them.

The other more philosophical point is if we take the sum total of all knowledge and our imagination what can we create. I think in Ridleys case he has a bundle of ideas and a great craft for visual cues but he still needs an astonishingly good science fiction person (knowledge plus imagination) so that you end up with all those visual feasts meaning something more. The first film was a superior slash film in space Aliens remade Vietnam and Americans going into territory they do not understand. Both of those are highly relatable if you then simply start throwing the dice up in the air (bad androids, attitude woman, the creature tropes and the colonial marines) you just go round in a smaller and smaller circle and end with legacy fan stories (on wait thats already happening). 

Tried to increase the font and failed.

ditto