Prometheus: Secret of the Space Jockey

Warning: major spoillers ahead.

The picture that accompanies this article was first seen in the first Alien movie directed by Ridley Scott. It shows the fossilized corpse of a gigantic space pilot sitting below what it seems an immense telescope. The cause of his death is apparent: a hole in his chest indicates that something burst out of it killing him in the process. This unknown alien came to be called as the Space Jockey and for years fans speculated how the Jockey race was first attacked by the Xenomorphs as are called the mindless beasts of the Alien(s) saga. 

Enter Ridley Scott and his Prometheus movie that is a prequel to the Alien movie he directed in 1979. It turns out that Prometheus is the ship that transports human beings to the moon (LV-223) of a distant planet. The reason why they are going there is that recently (it's the late 21st century in this reality) archaelogists have found evidence that indicates an alien race could have visited Earth in the ancient past and are perhaps responsible for the creation of mankind. LV-223 appears to be long abandoned and the scientists that visit it come to believe that the race that inhabited it once, has become extinct. This alien race is the same as the Jockey but their appearance is not the one you see in the picture. That large head turns out to be an exo-skeleton of some type that when taken off reveals a white-skinned alien that looks human because his race and humans share the same DNA.

It is revealed that the the moon is not the Jockeys' homeworld (called Engineers in Prometheus) but a base used to design bio-weapons one of which turned so deadly it killed almost everyone in LV-223. The bio-weapons are apprently the xenomorphs in an earlier form that also attacks and causes the death of many of the crew members of the Prometheus. The Engineers are portrayed as anything but benign creators with the exception perhaps of an Enginner who appears in the first scenes killing himself so his body could fall in a nearby body of water where his DNA reconfigures to a new form indicating that perhaps that is how life began. The Engineers have dedided to eliminate everyone on Earth by bombing the planet for an undisclosed reason. We get to see one of them who is also the only survivor of his race in LV-223, and his intentions and demeanor are anything but friendly.

The story heavily relies on a strong female character (not Charlize Theron's) called Elizabeth Shaw and interpreted by Noomi Rapace who discovers the evidence of the Engineers' visits, gets pregnant with an early Xenomorph creature, practices an abortion by herself and eventually becomes the only human survivor of the mission. Her and David, an android (another constant of the Alien saga) who is responsible for Shaw's husband's death and is actually a secret agent of Peter Weyland the millionaire who funded the mission. Michael Fassbender stars as David conveying a very convincing performance, unlike Charlize Theron whose role is even irrelevant though her acting is not bad anyway.    

The end of the film shows us Dr. Shaw and what remains of David, who has been partially destroyed by the surviving Engineer, traveling in an Engineer ship heading to the Enginner homeworld and looking for the answers that led Shaw´s questions in the first place. After the ending we also see the Engineer survivor whose effort to leave the moon has been thwarted by the remaining crew of the Prometheus  who sacrificed themselves to stop the destruction of mankind. The Engineer is infected by a Xenomorph in his initial stages and later on after the end a creature emerges from the body of its host resembling a Xenomorh.

It's really a good movie with wonderful special effects and mostly consistent performances.