Scientists Decide to Revive a Head Which is 2,000 Years Old

Near a huge waterfall, a humanoid alien watches a  starship leave the planet before retrieving a pot  

with a black liquid that it proceeds to drink.  Immediately the liquid begins taking over its  

body, making its skin black and dissolving its  DNA, causing the alien to fall into the water.  

Its body begins dissolving as well, leaving its  DNA to be taken away by the current. In 2089, a  

team of archeologists led by doctors Elizabeth and  Charlie find some paintings in a cave in Scotland  

that are at least thirty-five thousand years old.  They match a series of paintings they've found all  

over the world from cultures that couldn't have  shared the same information. Two years later,  

the starship Prometheus leaves Earth. The whole  crew is under cryosleep, and the one in charge  

of taking care of things is David, a robot. He  uses his free time to get to learn more about  

being human, like playing sports, watching movies,  dying his hair, and learning ancient languages.  

He also likes to spy on the crew's dreams. For  example, Elizabeth dreams of the time she was  

a little girl and watched an African tribe bury  one of their men, her father had to explain to  

her how each culture had different beliefs when  it came to death. After two years of traveling,  

the ship reaches its destination, and David wakes  up the whole crew consisting of mercenaries and  

scientists. Everyone gets time to recover from the  side effects and to get some food on their empty  

stomachs, although Captain Janek also puts up a  Christmas tree because they missed the holidays.  

This is seen as dumb by Meredith, the person in  charge of overseeing everyone's doing their jobs  

right. Soon the mission brief begins, and Meredith  plays a holographic recording of Peter, the CEO of  

Weyland Corporation, which is the company funding  this expedition. He explains that by the time they  

watch this he's already dead, and that David's  the closest thing to a son he'll never have. Peter  

has always wanted to know where we come from and  what happens when we die, which is why he funded  

this expedition when Elizabeth and Charlie came  with him with a theory. The doctors take over the  

floor and explain the paintings they found all  over the world depicted a star map that could  

take them to a planet with its own sun that could  sustain life, and that's where they are now. They  

think this map was left by some aliens Elizabeth  calls "Engineers" because her theory says they  

were the ones that created humankind, although  the rest of the crew is skeptical. Moments later,  

Meredith calls the doctors to come to her private  quarters, where she has her own medical pod and  

self-contained life support. Meredith explains  that she doesn't believe those cave scribbles  

meant anything and she's doing this for Peter,  thus it's her responsibility to be sure the  

money isn't wasted. If the doctors make find life,  they're forbidden from making contact, which makes  

the doctors wonder why they even came then. David  spent the last two years deconstructing dozens of  

ancient languages and is sure he can communicate  with the Engineers, but when he sends a message  

to the planet, nobody responds. The crew decides  it's time to land and the ship goes through the  

atmosphere, detecting no radio signals or heat  sources, which should mean there's no civilization  

down there. However Charlie notices some straight  lines on the ground that couldn't have happened  

naturally, and the ship lands on that spot. The  crew gets ready to go on the expedition and David  

wears a suit even if he doesn't need it because he  was designed to blend in among humans. The group  

takes a series of vehicles to visit a dome-like  structure that geologist Fifield can't tell if  

it's natural or not, but he's sure it's hollow.  Once they get inside, Fifield sends two special  

probes that map the whole area, allowing them to  find their way through a series of corridors. When  

they go deeper, they find a source of water that  is heated by the sunlight, and the CO2 levels are  

acceptable. While outside it's completely toxic,  it seems inside here it's breathable. Charlie  

assumes these aliens had been terraforming  and takes the risk of removing his helmet,  

confirming it's completely fine. Then everyone  removes their helmets to keep exploring, and  

David finds a wall with a weird goo and various  symbols on it, which he activates thanks to his  

language knowledge. This causes a sudden hologram  of running figures to appear through the corridos,  

and the crew follows them until they find the body  of an alien lying next to the door that killed it.  

Fifield can tell things are getting dangerous and  a geologist won't be needed, so he and biologist  

Millburn decide to go back to the ship. While  the doctors inspect the body, David manages  

to open the door, and they find the alien's head  on the other side in a great conservation state.  

The rest of the crew finds more bodies, indicating  the species is extinct. This room has worms in it,  

showing life is possible here, but also a  monolithic statue of a humanoid head, murals  

on the ceiling, and a bunch of stone cylinders.  David notices the cylinders are sweating and soon  

one of them begins to expel a black organic  substance. Elizabeth doesn't notice because  

she's looking at the murals, which have started to  change. She thinks they've affected the atmosphere  

in the room and they need to leave, so she and  Charlie begin to bag the head to take away while  

David steals one of the cylinders as he comes  to the conclusion that the cave is a tomb. At  

that moment, Janek discovers there's a dangerous  storm incoming and calls the doctors to warn them,  

Meredith gives them fifteen minutes to make it  back before she closes the ramp. The crew runs out  

of the cave and drives as fast as possible, making  it back to the ship just in time. However the  

alien head falls from the vehicle in the process  and Elizabeth goes back to grab it, causing the  

storm to hit her and enter the ship. Charlie tries  to rescue her by driving the vehicle through the  

wind but he ends up getting stuck as well, and in  the end they must be pulled away by David with a  

set of wires. Afterward the crew begins working  on decontaminating their bodies and the hangar,  

only to discover Millburn and Fifield haven't come  back yet. It turns out the two scientists are lost  

inside the cave. Janek manages to contact them  to explain they can't pick them up because of the  

storm, meaning they'll need to wait until morning.  Meanwhile the team sterilizes the head and a quick  

scan reveals it's not an exoskeleton, it's a  helmet. When they open it, they find a humanoid  

alien head inside with new cells changing on its  forehead, so they decide to run a stem line into  

his brain to make it think it's alive. The trick  works and the face starts gesturing, but things  

go wrong quickly and the overstimulation ends  up making it explode. Elizabeth takes a closer  

look at the sample she took from the head and  is delighted to discover that its DNA matches  

a person's, meaning her theory had been right and  these guys created the human race. Meanwhile David  

goes to offer an update to a cryosleep pod  that holds a mysterious person. Nobody else  

knows about it except for Meredith, who violently  demands David tell her what the person said. David  

only says they were asked to "try harder". Then  David goes to inspect the cylinder he brought in  

private, and inside he finds a bunch of capsules  with a black liquid inside. This gives him an  

idea, and he decides to visit Charlie to share a  drink with him as they wonder how far they'd go to  

get the answers they want. Afterward, Charlie  joins Elizabeth in her room and she gets to  

share the news about the DNA, so they celebrate by  getting frisky. In the cave, Millburn and Fifield  

are looking at a creepy pile of alien bodies when  they suddenly get a call from Janek, who warns  

them that the scanner found signs of a life form  nearby. The scientists begin to worry, but just  

like that the ping on the scanner disappears,  and Janek blames it on a glitch. Eventually  

Millburn and Fifield come across the room with  the monolith and find the black liquid coming  

out from the cylinders. To their surprise, they  find a reptile-type alien swimming in the liquid,  

and when Millburn comes closer, the creature gets  attached to his arm to try to break it. Fifield  

cuts the creature off to help him only to get the  alien's corrosive fluid sprayed on his helmet,  

which eats through the plastic and reaches his  face. While Fifield agonizes in pain, the creature  

gets inside Millburn's suit and kills him. The  next morning, Charlie wakes up feeling unwell and  

notices there's something weird in his eyes. Janek  calls everyone to inform them the storm's gone but  

he can't make contact with the scientists, so  they'll go looking for them. His men couldn't  

find the glitch on the scan either, thus David  promises he'll find the probe and fix it. However  

while the group searches the cave, David stays  behind on purpose and takes his own path, sending  

a recording of what he sees to Meredith. He finds  another room full of thousands of cylinders and  

alien armor, then takes a corridor to a chamber  with a bunch of cryosleep capsules. David cuts  

Meredith off before activating a machine in the  center of the room that shows him holograms of  

the Engineers looking at a star map that includes  Earth. When the show is over, David notices one of  

the cryosleep capsules is glowing because it still  has a live Engineer inside. Meanwhile Charlie  

keeps tripping during their search and Elizabeth  notices he's sick, but he keeps going anyway.  

When they finally find Millburn's body, they come  closer to inspect it and cause the little reptile  

alien to jump out and slither away. Yet Fifield is  nowhere to be seen. At that moment, Charlie starts  

to feel really sick, so Elizabeth asks everyone  to go back in order to quarantine Charlie. By the  

time they return to the ship, Charlie's skin  is starting to turn black, and Meredith meets  

them at the hangar with a flamethrower in hand  because she doesn't want Charlie aboard. Janek  

and Elizabeth start arguing with her, but Charlie  thinks he has no future and walks to Meredith  

on purpose to make her toast him to the ground  while Elizabeth watches in agony. Moments later,  

the crew is quarantined and David runs tests on  Elizabeth to check Charlie didn't infect her. To  

their surprise, the scan shows her to be three  months pregnant, which is impossible because  

three months ago she had been under cryosleep.  The fetus has a creepy weird shape as well and  

Elizabeth wants it out, but David points out  they don't have the means or personnel to perform  

such surgery. Suddenly Elizabeth's abdomen beings  hurting terribly, so David gives her some medicine  

to make her sleep. Some minutes later, a few crew  members wake Elizabeth up in order to take her to  

a cryosleep capsule until they can decide what  to do with her fetus. Elizabeth refuses to keep  

this thing and fights everyone off before running  away until she finds Meredith's medical pod. She  

asks for a caesarean, but for some reason the  pod is only calibrated for men and can't do it,  

so instead Elizabeth asks for the extraction of a  foreign body. The machine accepts this and gives  

her some anesthetics, but they aren't strong  enough and she still feels unbearable pain as a  

claw removes the strange fetus from her body. The  fetus immediately pops and a creepy alien comes  

out of it, which begins shaking its tentacles to  try to free itself. Elizabeth has to stand the  

attack while the machine closes her wound, but as  soon as the stitches are done, she leaves the pod  

and locks the alien inside it, leaving it to be  put to sleep by the anesthetics. In the meantime,  

Janek notices something weird standing in front  of the ship and one of the crew members goes to  

check. It turns out to be a mutated Fifield, who  begins attacking all the people in the hangar. A  

fierce fight begins among all the men, and since  bullets don't do anything to Fifield, they end  

up using the flamethrower to kill him. Elizabeth  wanders around the ship until she makes it to the  

infirmary to ask for medicine, and there she's  surprised to discover Peter is still alive - he  

was the guy in the extra cryosleep David had been  talking to and the medical pod had been for him.  

Peter wants to meet his maker directly and demand  answers, so David will take him to the Engineer he  

found in the cave. Elizabeth tries to explain this  planet is dangerous and not what they thought,  

but her warnings are ignored. Unwilling to give  up, Elizabeth pushes through her pain and suits  

up to go back into the cave. Janek finds her  and points out this can't be the Engineer's  

home planet, the cave is probably some military  installation where they were making that black  

liquid as a weapon of mass destruction that leaked  and killed them. Janek wants to return to Earth,  

but Elizabeth convinces him to wait until she gets  in contact with the remaining living Engineer.  

Peter is getting ready to leave too and Meredith  comes to try to stop him from dying in some hole  

as she calls him "father", but Peter ignores her  warnings as well. When the crew reaches the cave,  

David tells everyone to take off their helmets  because he knows the disease isn't in the air,  

implying he was the one that put the black liquid  in Charlie's drink. The crew reaches the new room  

with the thousands of cylinders and David calls  it a "cargo hold", this new scan angle makes  

Janek and Meredith realize this isn't a cave,  it's a starship. David activates the machine  

while he explains the Engineers were in the  process of leaving for Earth when they lost  

control of the black liquid that killed them.  The last Engineer is woken up, and Elizabeth  

tries to ask some questions, but Peter makes one  of his mercenaries shut her up with a hit before  

he begins asking philosophical questions of his  own. David translates into Proto-Indo-European,  

but the Engineer reacts by taking David's head and  using it to kill Peter. Then he pushes Elizabeth  

away to kill the mercenaries that are wasting  bullets on him. Back on the ship, Meredith sees  

Peter's death through David's eyes and orders  Janek to get things ready to leave the planet.  

Elizabeth runs away as the Engineer activates its  own ship to fly to Earth as well. This opens lots  

of areas on the ground and Elizabeth jumps through  them as she calls Janek to tell him to stop the  

Engineer or the black liquid will make it to  Earth and destroy humanity. Prometheus isn't  

a battleship and Meredith thinks they should  leave without doing anything, but Janek ignores  

her and orders his pilots to warm up the ion  propulsion, which will transform the ship into a  

bullet. Meredith runs out of the ship, and Janek  gives permission to his pilots to do the same,  

but the pilots respect their captain and would  rather go down with him. In mere seconds,  

both ships are crashing in the air, successfully  stopping the Engineer from leaving. However the  

ships now fall to the ground, and Elizabeth and  Meredith have to run away before they get crushed.  

Meredith isn't fast enough and dies, but Elizabeth  manages to survive by finding cover next to a  

rock. Then Elizabeth goes into Prometheus to get  some supplies and hears some noises deeper inside.  

After grabbing an ax to defend herself, she goes  to investigate and discovers her alien offspring  

has escaped the medical pod and has grown into  a huge size. At that moment, David contacts  

Elizabeth and tells her to run, but it's too late:  the Engineer shows up and pushes Elizabeth against  

the wall to kill her. Elizabeth thinks fast and  opens the door behind her, which releases the  

alien offspring that immediately jumps on the  Engineer. As Elizabeth runs away, her offspring  

thrusts an ovipositor down the Engineer's throat  and subdues him. Outside the ship, Elizabeth's  

having a breakdown when he's suddenly contacted  by David, who explains the Engineers have more  

ships underground and he can pilot them. Elizabeth  goes to rescue both David's head and body, but she  

has a request: instead of returning to Earth,  she wants to go to the Engineers' home planet,  

and David accepts even if he doesn't understand  why she's so desperate for answers. Before David  

and Elizabeth leave the planet on an alien ship,  Elizabeth returns to Prometheus one last time to  

send a message to Earth explaining what happened.  Moments later, from inside the dead Engineer,  

a black alien emerges, confirming this  story is the predecessor to Ripley's tale.