I have yet to receive my Blu-ray review copy of Prometheus and if Fox Home Entertainment holds true to form it won’t arrive until, or after, the coming October 9 release date so I can’t add anything extra beyond the word that’s already spreading. The “word” I speak of is an apparent Blade Runner tie-in with the Prometheus storyline in that the two worlds co-exist and First Showing has done a good job rounding up the details.
First is the screen capture from the Prometheus Blu-ray that was found on Reddit featuring a dictated message by Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) that implying an obvious reference to Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel) from Blade Runner and his creation of Replicants. The reference to pyramids is another wink.
This has caused people to get all excited, but it’s not the end of it.
Some are wondering if the Blade Runner sequel Ridley Scott is working on is what’s being hinted at here? Will Guy Pearce show up in that film? Remember, Blade Runner takes place in the year 2019 and the viral video of Weyland speaking at TED 2023 would seemingly match up and continue the timeline.
First Showing then received a few tweets and screen captures from a Twitter user named Stephen Staunton who provided screen captures and more from the 3-D Blu-ray edition saying, “They hint at [the Blade Runner connection] further on the ‘Supplementary Pods’ on the 3D Blu-Ray version as well.” In one of the featurettes titled “Merging Ridleyverses”, concept artist Ben Proctor says, “There’s one idea that I’m very sad that we didn’t do. Ridley, one day, came in and said, ‘You know, I’m thinking what if it’s the Weyland-Tyrell Corporation? Is that cool?’ And we’re like, ‘Dude, that’s really cool. You gotta do it!'” Scott continues, “Maybe the bodyguards, you know, that come out with Weyland, maybe one of them says Batty on his uniform.”
Obviously they didn’t do it, but a couple of screen captures from the Blu-ray over at First Showing seem to prove the idea is more than just rumor.
With that out of the way, I have to first say that while you may be able to tie the two films together using timelines, I have never got the impression the Blade Runner world had anything to do with the Alien world. Because if Prometheus is a prequel to Alien then Blade Runner is a prequel to Prometheus, and I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t jibe for me and makes me think we’re getting the “answers” the Prometheus Blu-ray says it will provide, but not necessarily the answers I want.
The line that draws my attention the most up above is Scott asking, “Is that cool?” It’s a line that makes me wonder if that was the approach taken to the entire film. While others are looking at this as an interesting tidbit, I’m looking at it as a way of ruining everything we’ve been dissecting since the film came out. What’s even worse is the perceived disappointment in the fact it wasn’t included and the excitement in doing it without seemingly considering what it would do for the story.
“Dude, that’s really cool,” now seems like the sentence that broke Prometheus‘ back. How many times was this uttered in the writing of the script and the making of the film? How many ideas came up and without considering the ramifications only to receive the response, “Dude, that’s really cool,” and were then added to the film?
For so long we’ve been wondering what’s the meaning of this? What’s the meaning of that? And all along it simply could have just been one “cool” thing on top of another to the point a whole bunch of “cool” ideas came together for one misunderstood film.
I’m curious to check out what the Prometheus Blu-ray has to offer, but I truly hope it isn’t more of this nonsense and actually provides some substance. Otherwise all they’ve done is proven Prometheus was nothing more than a hodgepodge of “cool” ideas that add up to nothing. Because I’ll tell you what I don’t need, I don’t need confirmation they were ignorant in developing the story, which I’m beginning to feel is exactly the case.
Oh, and then there’s the following picture (via First Showing) of one of the film’s Engineers reading a book that apparently comes from an excised portion of the finale in which Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) is chased by one of the Engineers. What do you think the odds are he’s reading the Bible or maybe Nietzsche?
