Stars in London for 'Prometheus' world premiere

[June 01, 2012]  LONDON (AP) -- The stars of "Prometheus" landed in London on a special blue carpet Thursday night for the world premiere of Sir Ridley Scott's new sci-fi thriller.

Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender and Guy Pearce joined the director to meet fans at Leicester Square.

"Prometheus" takes its title from the spaceship in the story. The vessel goes on a mission to explore signs of alien life and the origins of mankind.

The film marks Scott's return to the sci-fi genre after classics such as "Alien" and "Blade Runner."

Twentieth Century Fox revealed the film has been given an "R" rating due to scenes of "sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language." The worry is that the big budget film would suffer as it has a potential appeal to younger audiences, who now can't attend without being accompanied by an adult. When questioned about this, Scott outlined that artistic integrity was his central concern, not cutting corners.

"What you don't want to do is to undermine the fundamental punch of the movie. If it means taking things out and therefore diminishing it, then you shouldn't do that," he said.

Fresh from her role as the evil Queen in "Snow White and the Huntsman," actress Charlize Theron was also in attendance at the premiere. She embraced another dark female character in "Prometheus," Meredith Vickers, a powerful woman who has other agendas for the mission that the team are embarking upon. She explained why she enjoys playing female characters who have a darker side.

"They feel real to me. I think women are just as conflicted as men," she said. "I don't think we are as one-dimensional, as two-dimensional as cinema sometimes wants to make us.

"It doesn't make us not empathetic. I think people are still scared of women showing their flaws and their weaknesses and their not-so-pretty attributes, but that is what makes us human as well," she explained.

"Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" actress Noomi Rapace stars alongside Theron and revealed that she found certain scenes that she was involved in hard to handle.

"It really messed me up, I got the worst, crazy, disturbed dreams for a week or something, so it really felt like I had stepped into some kind of nightmarish hell," she said.

"Prometheus" opens in the U.K. on Friday and in the U.S. on June 8.

[Associated Press; By SIAN WATSON]

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.