Some people hate spoilers of any size or description, while others love to pick over drip-feeds of teased information. If you're in the former camp, we applaud you, but you'd better leave this story now. If you're of the latter persuasion, read on for a few MTV-sourced bits and pieces from Prometheus writer Damon Lindelof.
There's nothing here that's world-ending or ruinous, but a few new hints on tone and direction and character...
Of Ridley Scott, Lindelof says he felt a tremendous relief, having been part-responsible for Lost for so long, that the weight of Prometheus was on someone else's shoulders. He says that he came aboard following "a series of conversations where I was kind of interviewing Ridley to get a sense of the movie he wanted to make. Once I got a sense of that, then it was really about channeling that idea so that I was realising his vision, as opposed to imposing my vision on it. Really everything I was coming up with was just a different spin on what he was saying to me."
Michael Fassbender's role prompts reference to another Scott sci-fi classic: "He plays a robot. One of the things that evokes the idea of Blade Runner is, 'What does the movie look like from the robot's point of view?' If you were to ask him, 'What do you think about all of this? What's going on? What do you think about these humans who are around you?'. Wouldn't it be cool if we found a way for that robot to answer those questions?"
Of Charlize Theron's character, Lindelof reveals "She's sort of a corporate entity. That's another one of the familiar things from the Alien movies: that there are corporate interests in play. I feel like Charlize brought a new spin on that old variation. It's a remix …. I don't think she's slimy like Burke. She's not the suit you're used to: not the fast-talking, snake-oil face of the company. By the way, what company she's actually a face of is a big part of the fun..."
And the writer believes that there's more fun to be had with the rug-pulling that an ensemble cast makes possible: "If you watch the first Alien cold, you think Tom Skerritt is the hero, and then he's one of the first to go. I love the idea of building a really cool ensemble and again presenting the audience with like, 'Who's going to be left standing at the end of this movie? Maybe all of them. Probably not'..."
Prometheus is currently in post-production, and released on June 1 next year.