Prometheus/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Dr Elizabeth Shaw

"We were so wrong."
Played By: Noomi Rapace

Shaw is a firm believer that the Engineers not only created humanity but can offer them answers to mankind's very existence. A belief shared by her lover Charlie Holloway.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • An Axe to Grind
  • Badass: She manages to take out two people whilst in crippling pain and likely suffering the side effects of a sedative. Shaw then takes it upon herself to personally remove the thing inside her womb with some self-surgery using inadequate anesthetic. Everything else she does (ie. taking down the Engineer) is whilst carrying the pain of having just cut herself open and removing her own womb. If that's not badass, I don't know what is.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Elizabeth wanted to meet her creator, she comes to learn they are evil and believes it was a mistake for the crew to have ever come to the planet.
  • Broken Pedestal: The Engineers. They go from awe inspiring to the stuff of nightmares.
  • But I Can't Be Pregnant: In the most horrifying way imaginable. Shaw immediately knows the child is not human and is suitably disturbed. David's lack of tact doesn't help either.
  • Crisis of Faith: Averted. Despite the horrors she and the crew faces, her faith in a higher power never wavers. In fact when things have really hit the fan she still makes sure to get her father's cross back, after she was forced to hand over it due to quarantine procedure. David even lampshades this, intrigued that she still believes after all that's happened.
  • Determinator: She performs emergency surgery on herself whilst conscious in order to ensure the creature inside her is removed. She also beats two people off her to get to the operating machinery. And to put this into perspective, she is the only person in the Alien Universe to have survived being infected with a chestburster, which is supposed to be the death sentence event for a character in this setting. David tells her afterward that her survival instincts are very impressive.
  • Despair Event Horizon: After ensuring the Engineer is dead and the Earth is safe, she breaks down crying out to the deceased Charlie that she isn't strong enough to go on. However, David snaps her out of it when he tells her he can get them off planet in a space jockey vessel.
  • Expy: Her character has been compared favourably to Ripley due to being a strong female character in the Alien universe. Though Noomi Rapace believes that despite some similarities there are clear differences.
  • Fetus Terrible: She gives birth to what is possibly the first facehugger.
  • Hot Scientist
  • Law of Inverse Fertility: She's sterile, something Holloway accidentally reminds he of when he says that creating life is no big deal, and she asks what it means that she can't do it. The fact that she's sterile is also her first big blue that she her pregnancy is not natural, not to mention that she's already 3 months along.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: She does this to the surviving Engineer trying to kill her. Opening a near-by door unleashing a giant proto-facehugger on him. It's not pretty.

Dr Charlie Holloway

Played By: Logan Marshall-Green

Charlie, alongside his partner Elizabeth, has long desired to gain answers from the Engineers. When the opportunity to meet and converse with them is provide by Weyland Industries funding it is a dream come true.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Drowning My Sorrows: When they find a dead Engineer, despite it being the greatest discovery in the history of mankind, Holloway is depressed due to them being dead 2,000 years. His dream of conversing with them gone. Once he learns they share our DNA however he noticeably begins to snap out of it.
  • Driven to Suicide
  • Eye Scream
  • Fantastic Racism: He seems to hate or at least deeply dislike David.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Arguably when he willingly makes Vickers put him down. Especially when you consider the damage Fifield did once he returned mutated.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Initially he doesn't come across as a particularly nice guy, especially with his Fantastic Racism towards David [[spoiler: making David's choice to experiment on him come across as near reasonable. Subsequently it is made clear he genuinely loves Liz, and then there is his Heroic Sacrifice mentioned above.
  • Kill It with Fire: You may want to cover your eyes and ears when this comes up. Why not put a bullet in his head first?
  • Painful Transformation
  • Suicide by Cop: When it becomes clear to him that he's dying and/or about to become serious danger to the crew, including the woman he loves, he practically asks to be put down by Vickers and then forces her hand.
  • That Came Out Wrong: He offhandedly remarks that if they prove they were designed by the Engineers and they too were mortal then creating life isn't such a big deal (in a divine sense) as any living thing can do it. Elizabeth is rather hurt by the suggestion, as she can't have children. However Holloway handles the misunderstanding very swiftly.
  • Virus Victim Symptoms: He attempts at first to hide the fact he's been infected with something out of fear. But eventually has Shaw take a look at him when it becomes clear he's in serious trouble. But it's far too late at that stage.

David

"Big things have small beginnings."
Played By: Michael Fassbender

David is a new breed of sophisticated androids developed by Weyland Industries. He is designed not only to look human but act like a living person, mimicking a wide range of human emotions and behaviours. This is to allow fellow employees to feel more comfortable around him as he actually lacks human emotions.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played with. He repeatedly throws lines that seem to suggest that it would please him to see all humanity dead ("we all want death of our parents"), but it's left ambigious as to whether or not he was still following Weyland's programming when he infected Charles.
  • Artificial Human
  • Brutal Honesty: Lacks any real tact in this department.
  • Electronic Telepathy / Neural Interface: Whilst people are in stasis pods David can utilise a neural link to access their memories. The moral implications are never discussed as David only reveals he does this to one person, Elizabeth, late on in the film. He apparently sees nothing wrong with it and those he spied on were seemingly unaware of his ability and/or willingness to do it.
  • Just a Machine: He gets this from pretty much everyone. The most notable case being his own creator Peter Weyland, who makes a point of saying that although he's the closest thing he has to a son, he has no soul and is therefore lacking. Interestingly when people bring this up David tends to react negatively, however subtly. Whether he's programmed to be offended by the suggestion, which makes sense if he's trying to blend in, or genuinely insulted by it is anyone's guess.
  • Losing Your Head / Off with His Head: A newly awakened Engineer tears it off with his bare hands. Leaving David without a body for the remainder of the film.
  • Personality Chip: David's programming allows him to emulate human emotion and body language in order to better fit in around living people.
  • Photographic Memory: Which is no doubt quite useful when learning different languages, human behavior patterns and any other beneficial information he comes across.
  • Uncanny Valley: Invoked and played with.
  • Ridiculously Human Robot
  • Secret Keeper: For Peter Weyland and by extension Weyland Industries.
  • Servile Snarker
  • Stepford Smiler

Captain Janek

Played By: Idris Elba

The captain of the Prometheus. Janek is a former military pilot who sees the responsibility of keeping the crew safe his top priority. That being said he is one of the more lighthearted characters aboard the vessel.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • A Father to His Men: Twice he rushes to the aid of crewmen in danger. When Holloway is in serious trouble and when Mutated!Fifield shows up. Also clear in light of the Undying Loyalty of his co-pilots and friends who refuse to leave his side when he's about to go down with the Prometheus.
  • Badass
  • Cool Starship
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Dies saving Earth in explosive style.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Flies his ship directly into the Engineer vessel in order to stop it leaving for Earth.
  • Going Down with the Ship
  • The Men First: They refuse to leave his side however.
  • True Companions: Janek has these in Ravel and Chance. They even decide to go out in a blaze of glory with him.
  • Space Is an Ocean: Described by his actor as being "a longshoreman and a sailor".
  • Ramming Always Works: Janek ploughs the Prometheus into the Space Jockey ship to take it down. Justified in that his ship had no other offense capabilities and it was an act of desperation.
  • Refuge in Audacity: How he attempts to woo Meredith. He flat out tells her to stop with the "flimsy" excuses to come up to the bridge and if she wants to get laid just ask. It's notably the only time we see her character genuinely smiling. His approach works.
  • Taking You with Me

Meredith Vickers

"I am Meredith Vickers, and it is my job to make sure you do yours."
Played By: Charlize Theron

Vickers is the aloof Weyland Industries executive aboard the Prometheus. She has clear misgivings about the missions probability of success and seems to be doing it out of obligation only. Turns out Peter Weyland is her father.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Armor-Piercing Question: Janek delivers an unusually playful example of this trope but it does get her to drop her guard.

"Are you a robot?"

  • Ambiguously Evil: Clearly has her own agenda and ambition but never so much that you distrust her as much as David nor see her as a monster. After all, she didn't actually want to go to the planet in the first place. Interestingly Theron sees the character as a Villain Protagonist.
  • Ambition Is Evil
  • Blondes Are Evil
  • Control Freak: Described as such by Charlize Theron. It doesn't work so well.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Downplayed. She shows, however briefly, a more playful side when Janek starts flirting with her. This is probably in part because not many men would have been that direct with her. She's even impressed to the point that she sleeps with him. Though she resumes her more frosty personality afterwards.
  • Freudian Excuse: Clear daddy issues. Also seems jealous of David being a confidant of her father.
    • The other issue being that by delaying his death, Weyland is preventing her from assuming control of Weyland Enterprises.
  • Ice Queen: At a glance she is cold, distant and more intent on running Weyland'swho also happens to be her father's company than chasing off across the galaxy after one of her employer's dreams. Subverted in that in several scenes we see her "unbreakable" demeanor flap.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Her face when she burns Holloway alive. Sure she'd been threatening to do it, but when the issue was forced upon her she was clearly unnerved by what she'd done.
  • Only Sane Man: In something of a Call Forward to Ripley, she refuses to let a contaminated Holloway back into the ship.
  • Nom De Mom: By implication, since she's presumably using her mother's surname instead of her father's, Weyland.

Fifield

Played By: Sean Harris

An irritable geologist brought in for his expertise. He is less than thrilled with the notion of going to chase after aliens that allegedly made humans. Even less so when they actually find them.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • All There in the Manual: Apparently one too many missions have made him a little on edge.
  • And Then John Was a Zombie / Came Back Wrong
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Alien acid blood melts through his helmet through his face. Then he's mutated. Then he's shot, set on fire, and run over.
  • Death By Pragmatism: Once the creepy dead Engineers show up he decides it's time to get the hell out of there and Millburn decides to go with him. But they get lost on their way back and become the first victims. Despite Fifield deciding to head in the opposite direction of the unknown life-sign being picked up.
  • Jerkass: Generally irritable and condescending but still very much right about getting as far away from the alien structure as soon as possible.
    • Despite his initial rebuff of Millburn, he makes a point of asking him to come along back to the ship when he decides he's had enough, and acts almost entirely professional up to that point. They become pretty good friends later.
  • No Kill Like Overkill: His reanimated corpse is run-over, shot and burnt to a crisp.
  • Only Sane Man: Much to Millburn's surprise. He's the only one who suggests it's time to get the hell out of there once they find a dead alien's body.

Millburn: "And I thought you were the crazy one."

  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted and actually used as a plot point. Filfield points out he's a geologist and rocks, not creepy alien shit, is what he came here to study. So he decides the ship might be a safer place to go wait.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Soon as he claps eyes on an Engineer's corpse he decides to head back to the ship and welcomes anyone else to join him.

Millburn

Played By: Rafe Spall

A botanist hired by Weyland Industries to go on the mission. Much like Fifield he's skeptical of them finding the Engineers and proving they created mankind.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Asphyxiation courtesy of a Face Full of Alien Wingwong
  • Hydra Problem: Fifield attempts to cut off the alien snakes head when it breaks Millburns arm but not only does it spray acid blood over Fifields face for his efforts, the head instantly grows back.
  • Idiot Ball: He has the sense to leave with Fifield when it starts getting weird but not enough to know a strange creepy alien snake is not to be trusted especially when it starts hissing at you cobra-style. Nor should it be petted like a dog.
    • He also gets Fifield killed in the process.
  • Nice Guy: Attempts to introduce himself to Fifield to get to know him better but he's in no mood to make a new friend.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted, he's a botanist and out of his depth when xenobiology comes into the mix.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Decides that Fifield's declaration they should leave makes too much sense.

Chance

Played By: Emun Elliott

One of Janek's co-pilots.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Ravel

Played By: Benedict Wong

The other one of Janek's co-pilots.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Peter Weyland

Played By: Guy Pearce

The founder of Weyland Corp.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
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