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The nice thing is that most of the retro male illustrations on someecards actually look like Mitt Romney.

Is Prometheus Just A Classier Version of Alien Vs. Predator?

      

A wealthy industrialist named Weyland organizes an international mission to a remote location to explore humanity's connection to an alien civilization that may have visited Earth in the distant past. However, they soon learn that our alien benefactors have sinister plans for us.

Sound familiar?  If you recognize this as the plot of the much-talked about Ridley Scott movie Prometheus, then you are correct.  However, did you also know that it describes the 2004 movie Alien Vs Predator as well?  The similarities between the two films are especially ironic since Prometheus is meant to be a return to the Alien series’ roots after the two AVP movies, which are commonly considered a low point for the franchise.

Is it possible that despite its pretensions of depth and intelligence, Prometheus may just be Alien Vs Predator with a Philosophy degree from Greendale Community College?  Let's look at the evidence...

1.     Chariots of the Gods:  Both movies are inspired by the Ancient Alien theory that humanity has been visited and aided by alien visitors in its distant past.  In Prometheus, the Engineers seemingly seeded Earth with their DNA and were actively involved in human development until about 2000 years ago.  In AVP, the Predators had contact with human cultures all over the globe and apparently assisted in their development while accepting sacrifices in order to breed Aliens for their ritual hunts.  Both movies feature a similar sequence in which a high tech Power Point presentation is used to showcase the archeological "evidence" of alien intervention across disparate cultures. While this is an interesting subplot in AVP, it is close to the central theme of Scott’s movie.

2.    Temple of Doom:  Both movies feature human beings wandering through labyrinthine alien temple complexes seemingly inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s novella At The Mountains of Madness, in which an Antarctic expedition discovers an ancient seemingly abandoned alien city.  With its Antarctic location and giant subterranean temple, AVP seems to borrow directly from this source.  Filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro had been trying to make  a Mountains  adaptation for years and has publically claimed that Prometheus was so similar a concept to have put the final nail in the coffin of his troubled production.

Interestingly, this is also an abandoned idea from the original Alien movie, in which the derelict spacecraft was to have originally been a pyramid or temple.  It is, therefore, logical that it would show up in Scott's revisitation of the material. Also, given the deep level of fan-wankery in AVP it's not surprising that a rejected Alien plot point would make an appearance in a movie that is obsessed with honoring its predecessors.

3.    Weyland Family Values.  In a nod to the Weyland-Yutani company of the Alien series both movies feature a member of the Weyland family.  Ailing American industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland appears in AVP, set in 2004.  He leads a mission to the Antarctic to investigate a mysterious heat bloom and structure buried under the ice.  Set 80 years later, Prometheus features an aged British industrialist named Peter Weyland, who bankrolls and stows away on an expedition to seek out humanity's alien creators, with the hope that they might prolong his life.   Ancillary sources for Prometheus seem to deny a canonical connection between the two characters but they both fulfill similar roles in their respective movies.

4.    In Space, No One Can Hear Your Teamwork:  Both Prometheus and AVP feature the obligatory Motley International Team of Scientists.  The supporting casts for both movies are practically interchangeable and feature many of the same kinds of stock characters, including the Panicky Character found in every Alien movie.  I do have to say that the AVP team, is not quite as inept as the crew of Prometheus.  Both films also have a subplot in which two minor characters who started out on the wrong foot, end up getting separated from the main crew and bond before meeting their fates.

5.    Alien on Alien Action.  Both films culminate with some hardcore extra-terrestrial fighting, with humans caught between.  For those worried that the Aliens and Predators might find a way to talk things out, AVP delivers on the promise of its title.  Suprisingly, for all its Philosophy 101 prattle, Prometheus ends up with one of its marble-skinned Engineers rumbling with the giant facehugger thing.   In the end, the only Big Question left in the movie is “Can I put this Alien in you?”

6.    A New Life: Both films end in a remarkably similar way, in a short, quiet tag in which a hybrid xenomorph chest bursts its way from a dead alien host.  In AVP the Predalien pops out of the corpse of the fallen Predator.  If it had eyes, it would have winked at the camera.  In Prometheus, a weird proto-Alien erupts from the dead Engineer, in a scene that almost asks, “Am I late for the Alien movie?”

So, you see, despite its fancy pedigree, Prometheus actually borrows quite a bit from Alien Vs. Predator.  This may mean that either Prometheus is a dumber movie than you think, or that AVP is a smarter film than you think.  I enjoy both movies, AVP for unsophisticated entertainment value and the obvious amount of fan knowledge and love that went into it and Prometheus for its visuals, scope, and performances.

Patrick Garone is a writer, director, sketch comedian, and blogger. He is the author of

City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. Follow him on Twitter for fun-sized ramblings on nerd culture and politics.