Here's my prediction. There will be two sequels to Prometheus. Three films total. The last shot of Prometheus 3 will be the same as the opening shot of Alien, thus making the Prometheus Trilogy the prequels. We'll reconvene in ten years to see if I was right.

Wow, Geek-quel's perfect. But just for fun, how about a Peek-quel? You don't get a full view of the Alien universe you've come to expect, but you do get a few peeks at it. Just as long as it's not a Weak-quel. We've seen far too many of those. After reading Lindelof's comments, the cynic in me might say he's distancing himself from the story in case it bombs. Notice how he emphasized he "wasn't driving the car this time," it was all Ridley. Whatever, the nefarious Weyland Zaibatsu will get my hard-earned Credits come June.

It's a prequel. They just don't want to call it one. Pretty sure what he's saying -- is that a typical "prequel" ends where the original begins. And that's not going to be the case for Prometheus. I don't think many people outside of a very, very slim group of people hold such a specific definition of prequel as that. It's clearly a story in the ALIEN world that that takes place chronologically before the original film. I really think it's just a ploy because prequel carries a negative connotation with it (as it should). Whoever the marketing guy was that came up with the term should be shot. INDY 2 is a prequel. No one called it one. The term didn't exist then.

It's a prequel. The thing is, society and apparently the movie industry, has historically construed "prequel" narrowly, i.e., the similarities and themes used in the original movie must be closely connected, as a continuous flow of events, character actions, causal elements, so that one could look at the entire film saga as one long tale. Construe "prequel" broadly and you're able to step away from the direction that original films took and expand on the background and themes, perhaps showing how they originated or how certain elements of the original films came to be where they were. Doing this, a writer is no longer bound to the tone, style and expectations that come with directly tying in a prequel movie to the original films. The effect, as Damon Lindelof said, is "freeing." For example, the Alien(s) movies were about survival-horror, usually by a bunch of cannon fodder characters with dialogue, trying to survive in a dark, confined space while contending with the aliens. In Prometheus, the message is about finding the origins of humanity, or exploring what it means to be human, and asking philosophical questions about the origin of life. And, once they get there, that's when things begin to go wrong, and the horror elements that began to mark the original film are introduced. But as it originated, Prometheus was nowhere near the horror genre. This is contrasted with something like, let's say, the Star Wars prequels, where it was obvious that the word "prequel" was being construed narrowly. All the thematic and world characteristics were present and accounted for: the Force, the Jedi, Anakin's turn to Darth Vader, fall of the Republic, etc. It was not as if the movies didn't explore a world where the Force was unheard of and how a budding civilization stumbled upon it, build a society around it, and later perfected space travel that would one day, a few millenia into the future, become the Republic and the Jedi Order. So, in short, Prometheus is a prequel, pure and simple. It's just a broad construction of the word "prequel."

Prometheus is a stand alone movie that would be amazing all by itself - yet - it needs the ALIEN brand to make it worth producing. Audiences are all "When's the new Alien come out?" and that's what the studio needs in order to secure a certain amount of revenue. I'm sure by this Christmas we will see a shiny new ALIEN collectors box super set that includes PROMETHEUS.

Bingo. Star Wars (the new ones) is really what coined the term prequel. Because they were highly anticipated, incredibly hyped, and ultimately disappointing -- the term prequel carries that weight with it. I understand the want to separate your project from the term. But to say it's not one is misleading. It's clearly in the ALIEN world prior to events of the first film. That's really all that constitutes a prequel.

I think Ridley Scott just said "Alien prequel" so he could get money from the studio. No way they would have funded Untitled Ridley Scott Science Fiction Movie. I do think Ridley Scott wanted to go back to the Alien universe to some degree. But I think the way to look at this is to compare it to one of his earlier sci fi classics: Blade Runner. Scott wanted a new title because he knew how much he diverged from the novel. In the case of Prometheus, he's doing with his own work what he did to Philip K. Dick's.

Both Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof did explicitly say it takes place in the same universe as Alien--check the Prometheus wikipedia page, the last paragraph of the "Development" section, for references. I saw a good analogy someone made though: most people wouldn't refer to Captain America as a "prequel" to Iron Man, despite the fact that the movie takes place in the same universe and features Howard Stark, Tony Stark's dad.

Okay, I've got it -- it's an "obliquel"! There's just a tangetial connection to the original movie, not a direct connection. Picture an angular line going from PROMETHEUS in the direction of ALIEN. Yup, an obliquel.

Whoops, where's the edit button? That should read: "tangential connection." :)

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