With next year’s sequel Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott has the chance to at least partly answer those questions, while its title also suggests that the veteran director’s seeking to continue the religious and mythical themes Prometheus established back in 2012. Scott has spoken in the past of how his film taps into John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, about a battle between God and Satan which sees the latter cast into hell.

Exactly where this leaves Alien: Covenant hasn’t been entirely clear so far, and nor do we currently know where the story might go in the two sequels Scott currently has planned – movies that will, we’re told, take everything up to the events of 1979’s Alien. A recent report, however, may provide the key to understanding what it is that Scott’s attempting, at least in the big-picture sense of his Prometheus movies. What follows is conjecture on our part, but could help to explain the stew of angry bald Engineers, silos of deadly black goo and other assorted plot points in Prometheus, and how Alien: Covenant might return to them.

Mortals, giants and gods

On the 29th October, AVP Galaxy published a brief report claiming that Guy Pearce is set to reprise his role as Peter Weyland, the billionaire industrialist who appeared in wizened form in Prometheus. Briefly described in that report is a flashback scene that is said to appear near the start of Alien: Covenant – Peter Weyland switching on David 8, the duplicitous android played by Michael Fassbender. David, the report continues, plays a piece of music from composer Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold – presumably on a piano – before explaining the story behind the melody.

Now, if the report on this scene is accurate – and at this stage, it’s still best classed as a rumour – the reference to Wagner may help to make sense of where Scott’s going with his prequel saga. Certainly, some of the themes in Das Rheingold – the first quarter of Wagner’s Ring cycle – chime with those in Paradise Lost.

Das Rheingold, to outline it very briefly, sees a dwarf named Alberich steal a magical gold ring from a bunch of maidens who live in the Rhine. That ring, which gives its wearer power over the whole world, is in turn stolen from the dwarf by Wotan, a Zeus-like god of gods. Meanwhile, there’s trouble in Valhalla: the gods have contracted a pair of giants to build them a luxurious new house, but when it comes time for the gods to pay up, they renege on the deal. What follows is an almighty tussle between giants, gods and ordinary mortals, with the purloined ring the MacGuffin at the centre of it all.