In this week’s cover story, Entertainment Weekly provides an exclusive sneak peek at this summer’s top-secret, 3-D space epic Prometheus —  director Ridley Scott’s eagerly-awaited return to science fiction after three long decades — and attempts to get to the bottom of the question that every fanboy wants to know: Is the new film a prequel to Scott’s 1979 face-hugging, chest-bursting classic, Alien?

Ever since Prometheus was announced in January 2011, the R-rated sci-fi odyssey has been shrouded in mystery. Little was known about the film except that (a) its cast includes Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, and in the lead, the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Swedish actress Noomi Rapace; (b) the script is by Jon Spaihts and and Lost‘s master of the mysterious Damon Lindelof; and (c) its story revolves around the crew of a spaceship called Prometheus that heads off to a distant planet whose inhabitants visited Earth long ago.

But an exclusive visit to the set of the film — two hours northeast of Reykjavik, Iceland — yielded more answers. There, EW watched a master director at work and sat down with the star-studded cast as they tap-danced around calling the R-rated film an Alien prequel. “There’s definitely a link to Alien,” says Fassbender, who plays the spaceship’s resident android. “There are creatures in it that you’ll recognize, but that’s only one tiny facet of what’s going on.”

Scott, who’s making his first sci-fi film since 1982′s equally visionary Blade Runner, is the toughest nut to crack. At first all he’ll say is, “There may be a vague notion, some slight DNA from the original Alien. But barely. Fans of the original Alien will notice some things, especially toward the end of Prometheus. Like 12 minutes from the end. But I can’t really say more than that.”

But eventually, Scott does say more than that.

To find out how much more, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, on stands Friday, May 11.

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