Trama

Following clues to the origin of mankind, a team finds a structure on a distant moon, but they soon realize they are not alone.

Following a faint trail of clues, Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, an accomplished archaeologist, and her partner, Charlie Holloway, embark on an ambitious deep-space scientific expedition in 2093. Their task is to explore the desolate exomoon LV-223 aboard the USCSS Prometheus and shed light on the existence of a superior extraterrestrial species known as the Engineers. Instead, more enigmas await the crew as they venture into a mysterious structure on the moon's rocky terrain. And soon, their terrifying discoveries threaten not only their mission but also the future of humankind. After all, the world may not be ready for the answers to the fundamental questions of human existence.—Nick Riganas

In 2089, archaeologists discover a star map suggesting humanity's origins lie with a powerful alien race, the Engineers. A team travels to a distant moon to find them, led by the wealthy and aging Peter Weyland. They discover an ancient structure and the Engineers, but the encounter turns deadly. The Engineers, it turns out, were attempting to destroy humanity, and a deadly bio weapon is unleashed. The survivors must escape the wrath of the Engineers and confront the terrifying truth about their own origins.—Anonymous

In the ancient past, a hovering spacecraft departs a planet, a humanoid alien drinks a dark bubbling liquid, then starts to disintegrate. The alien's remains cascade into a waterfall. His DNA triggers a bio-genetic reaction. Presumably, the planet is Earth, and the process describes how life possibly started on the planet.

In 2089, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover a star map in hidden caves on the Isle of Skye in Scotland that matches others from several unconnected ancient cultures. The star map is 35,000 years old or maybe older.

Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), the elderly CEO of Weyland Corporation, funds the creation of the scientific vessel Prometheus (with a crew of 17) to follow the map to the distant moon LV-223. The moon is 34 light years away and it tool roughly 2 years and 4 months to get there.

The ship's crew travels in stasis while the android David (Michael Fasbender) monitors their voyage. David is an android that acts as the ship's butler and maintenance man. It is designed to be indistinguishable from humans, and begins to develop "its own ego, insecurities, jealousy and envy." David can establish Neural links with the crew in Statis and access their dreams.

The crew includes captain Janek (Idris Elba), Fifield (Sean Harris) a geologist who has become mentally unstable after many missions, Millburn (Rafe Spall) a geologist, Ford (Kate Dickie) the ship's medic, pilots Chance (Emun Elliott) and Ravel (Benedict Wong).

Arriving in 2093, they are informed of their mission to find the Engineers. Mission director Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) orders the crew to avoid making contact without her permission. Vickers says that the Weyland corporation paid $1 Trillion to fund the expedition. Vickers has a separate module in the ship with its own life support system (called the lifeboat) and can survive independently of Prometheus.

Peter has a Pre-recorded a message for the crew and says that he died sometime during the crew's voyage due to his old age. Peter recognizes David as the closest thing to a son, which irritates Vickers. Peter says that the mission is to find where humanity comes from and what is its purpose. Peter introduces Shaw and Halloway as the people who convinced him about the mission.

Shaw and Halloway demonstrate how various archaeological digs across civilizations such as Egyptian, Mayan, Sumerian, Babylonian, Hawaiian, Mesopotamian had the same star map pointed to by giant beings. These civilizations were separated by centuries and had no contact with each other. The star map pointed to a system with a sun, and a planet with a habitable moon, LV-233. Shaw interprets this as an invitation from humanity's forerunners, the "Engineers". Shaw is a believer in God with a very strong faith as says that the Engineers made humanity. LV-233 had a atmospheric composition like Earth but has 3% CO2, which means humans cannot survive without a space suit.

The Prometheus lands on the barren, mountainous surface near a large, artificial structure, which the team explores. Fifield releases drones that map the entire underground structure. Inside the structure, the air is completely breathable. Inside they find numerous stone cylinders, a monolithic statue of a humanoid head, and the corpse of a large alien, thought to be an Engineer. Shaw recovers its head. They find other bodies and presume the species is extinct. Crew members Millburn and Fifield grow uncomfortable with the discoveries and attempt to return to Prometheus but get lost in the structure.

David secretly takes a cylinder, while the remaining cylinders begin leaking a dark liquid, which comes in contact with worm-like life forms on the ground. A rapidly approaching storm forces the crew to return to Prometheus, leaving members Millburn and Fifield stranded in the structure. David communicates with someone unseen in a stasis pod on the ship and is told to "try harder".

In the ship's lab, the Engineer's DNA is found to match that of humans. David investigates the cylinder and the dark liquid inside. He then taints a drink with the substance and gives it to an unaware Holloway. Shortly after, Shaw and Holloway have sex.

Inside the structure, a snake-like creature kills Millburn, and sprays a corrosive fluid that melts Fifield's helmet, exposing him to the leaking dark liquid. The crew later returns to the structure and finds Millburn's corpse. David separately discovers a control room containing a surviving Engineer in stasis, and a star map highlighting Earth. Holloway's ingestion of the dark liquid leads to an infection that rapidly ravages his body. He is rushed back to Prometheus, but Vickers refuses to let him aboard, and at his urging, burns him to death with a flamethrower.

Later, a self-performed medical scan reveals that Shaw, despite being sterile, is pregnant with an alien offspring. Shaw uses Vicker's automated surgery table to extract and subdue the squid-like creature.

Shaw then discovers that Weyland, Vickers' father, has been in stasis aboard Prometheus. He explains that he wants to ask the Engineers how not to die from old age. As Weyland prepares to leave for the structure, Vickers addresses him as "Father".

A monstrous, mutated Fifield returns to the Prometheus and attacks, killing several crewmen before being killed by the captain of Prometheus, Janek. He speculates to Shaw that the structure was actually an Engineer military base that lost control of a virulent biological weapon, the dark liquid. He also determines that the underground structure is in fact a spacecraft. Weyland and a team return to the structure and awaken the Engineer.

David speaks to the Engineer, who responds by decapitating him and killing Weyland and his team. Shaw escapes the spacecraft as the Engineer activates it. Shaw desperately flees and warns Janek that the Engineer is planning to release the menace on Earth to exterminate all life forms, convincing him to stop the spacecraft. Janek and the remaining crew sacrifice themselves by ramming the Prometheus into the alien craft, ejecting the lifeboat in the process.

The Engineer's disabled spacecraft crashes onto the planet; its wreckage crushes Vickers. Shaw goes to the lifeboat and finds that her alien offspring is still alive and has grown to gigantic size.

David's still-active head warns Shaw over the intercom that the Engineer has survived the crash. The Engineer forces open the lifeboat's airlock and attacks Shaw, who releases her alien offspring onto the Engineer; it thrusts a tentacle down the Engineer's throat, subduing him. Shaw recovers David's remains, and with his help, they launch another Engineer spacecraft. She intends to reach the Engineers' home world in an attempt to understand why they wanted to destroy humanity.

In the lifeboat, an alien creature bursts out of the Engineer's chest.