5. Beyond Prometheus
So by the end of Prometheus, we know that Infected Host + Impregnating Another (via good old intercourse) = the creation of a facehugger (or indeed ‘body’ hugger) and Body hugger + Host = Xeno. Or close enough. Also this Xeno’s placenta seems to hold a heartbeat which Ridley seemed keen to highlight, so potentially Xeno with a bonus facehugger egg to boot. I suppose one route for future sequels is Weyland’s company arriving on LV-223 to find out WTF went down and discovering baby Xeno, capturing it, sending details back to Earth and them loosing it (someone probably blows it out of an airlock or something). This would explain the Nostromos re-routing at any signs of alien life and give Weyland Industries a connection to know what they were looking for. Either Engineer or Xeno based.
The other possibility, and no doubt the one Ridley will take with sequels is Shaw and David’s head fly off to the stars and find The Engineer’s home planet where we gain a deeper understanding of the “military base” on LV-223 and their manipulation of life in the universe. As hinted before this sounds like a trilogy, with the final instalment being the one that connects Prometheus to Alien. As a quick guess. Shaw befriends the Engineers in Prometheus 2, Avatar style and in Prometheus 3 she leads them back to LV-223 to discover the Weyland follow up ship taken out by this new species of Xeno. The Engineers and Shaw nuke the whole planet from orbit but with one Xeno inside the last Engineer, the chest burst wipes out a race, crashes a ship on LV-426 and the eggs, xenos and fossilised Engineer sit alone in silence until Ripley and Co. turn up to investigate the crashed derilict ship years later.
So guys, over to you. Thoughts on the back story (because these are just ideas remember) and of course what you think the future of this potential new franchise might be. Will Ridley direct them all? Do we need new writers for the sequels? Will James Cameron do Prometheus-s?
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174 Comments
Hello
I think the reason the Engineers were sending the Spaceship on a course to Earth was eliminate humans for one of two reasons.
1) Humans have evolved so much they are becoming so technologically advanced the Engineers are worried that we may overpass them. After all, when David spoke to the Engineer it decapitated David. We must have evolved so much as we got to the planet in the first place. Like you say if the Engineers like to be preserved as gods they certainly wouldn’t like it if we overpassed technologically.
2) The Engineers have seen what a selfish species humans are and have seen what we have done to the Earth for our own personal gain in slowly destroying the Earth. So the Engineers may want to wipe out the human race so save the Earth before humans make it inhabitable for all the other species of life.
One thing I am not sure about is in the first Alien film. How did the Engineer get in the drivers seat as it could clearly be seen that the Xeno had burst out the engineers chest whereas at the end of the film, the last remaining engineer was killed in the escape pod?
I think the newly born alien at the end of the film must have been a queen and escaped the escape pod and started to lay eggs (beasties cocoons) in the space craft. Hence why beasties cocoons were in the space ship where the beastie attaches itself to Kane’s face in the first alien film.
Danny
What did mankind do 2000+ years ago to warrant our destruction? Mankind killed Jesus. If that’s the case, maybe Jesus was a human/Engineer hybrid created on Earth thru artificial insemination to be a gift and inspiration to mankind. How does mankind repay that gift, by killing him. It would explain his power of Miracles.
Were the Engineers creating this bio-weapon to use on mankind working in secret from the rest of their race? I think they were and it would explain why no one carried on with the work and wiped out mankind in those 2000+ years since.
What killed the Engineers in the pyramid? Was it a plaque or a LIEFORM? I think it was a life form because they seemed to be running in fear. If it was a life form, what was it and where did it go?
Is Vickers alive? My guess is YES since it took 2 years to get to the planet and her lifeboat could sustain itself for 2 years, my guess is she will pop up in a potential sequel. In an early draft of the script, she was found to be an android at the end of the film and killed by SHAW.
Did David infect the male scientist (Holloway) out of curiosity or because of orders? Did he do it because he knew Shaw couldn’t get pregnant? He was spying on her dreams after all. What was Holloway mutating into before he was burned? To me his face was resembling that of an Engineer.
Screenwriter Lindelof said the ALIEN family tree goes like this: Engineers made man, man made robot, robot infected man with alien DNA, infected man had sex with woman. Woman got pregnant with MUTANT life form. Mutant life form infected Engineer resulting in the birth of the first Generation/First step in the life cycle of the alien.
How do we get from the creature and the URNS seen in PROMETHEUS to the organic eggs, face huggers and the alien seen in ALIEN? What happened to the life from that burst out of the Engineer seen in ALIEN in 1979?
Why did Shaw give birth to a squid like creature? My theory is that the ALIEN DNA in the urns when combined with the body of an Engineer and dumped into a body of water would result in the creation of EARLY primitive life forms. What were some early life forms found on earth? Things without backbones like squids. My guess is the DNA is NOT supposed to be used in any other way but due to David’s experimentation, we are on our way to what was seen in ALIEN in 1979.
I’m pretty good at predicting what’s coming next in movies. I think the virus whipped out all the Creaters on the planet they went to & that’s what happened to the Creater in the opening scene. The robot exposed the virus to a human & transformed him in to a demonic monster. The robot knew that the couple would have intercourse. All in all the human race are perfect carries to reveal what the virus really is, being that the Creaters are like gods they knew this & would could not let a threat like this go unanswered. Thus destroying what they created to stop a huge outbreak & the robot knew this from the beginning.
That’s a great theory about the goo…..I believe it’s possible humans were about to be colonized, not attacked…..the goo turned holloway into something more akin to the engineers, maybe what they thought a more suitable fit to get the alien creatures off of their own backs so they can recolonize their species somewhere else
Yeah, this movie will blow your mind.
I would check out http://forums.movietheories.com/categories/prometheus-theories.23/ to share theories and analysis. It was set up just for this movie and for people to talk about it. It’s looking pretty cool, though they are still working on the actual site. I think these forums will be the place to discuss mind blowing movies in the future.
I agree that Prometheus left me with more questions than answers, but at the same time, it didn’t really disappoint me being that it made me think after watching it twice at the theater and I bought a copy the day it came out. Let me explain, I enjoy thinking of all the possibilities of what a Prometheus sequel could have in store. I have my own idea of the reason the “engineers” created us and why they decided to eradicate us. I like to think that there’s a possibility that the engineers had a civil war, one side that wants to create and another that wanted to destroy us. Maybe that is why there was only one left alive. The good guys figured out the bad guys plot and released the black ooze onto the ship to stop them. The one left alive put himself into the sleep chamber so that by the time someone woke him up, all the Aliens had died off. I only think this because at the beginning of the movie, the engineer sacrificed himself to create humanity. I hate to think the engineers are all evil and want us dead. Also, the alien ship that dropped off the engineer that sacrificed himself was completely different from the ones that were going to earth to destroy humanity. Maybe the good side has the flying saucers and the other have the horse shoe shaped ships. Still loved the movie but I’m gonna hate having to wait 3-4 yrs for the sequel!!!
Danny, Prometheus took place on LV-223.. In Alien the crashed ship was found on LV-426.. Different planets :)
What happened to that biologist called Milburn? There should be another Xeon form burst out from his chest, shouldn’t it? Another question is that David found some green sticky substance before he opened the door, therefore, what substance is that and where did it come from? Any thoughts?
Milburn was attacked by a mutated/infected worm. Essentially what happened to Holloway and the Space Jockey’s happened to that worm is my thoughts. Just an angry Xeno mutation. It has an instinct to get inside of a host but has nothing to implant. That’s my take.
The life teeming substance David found doesn’t really have anything I can attach a solid explanation to. Maybe it just shows signs that the delicate balance in the silo was dirtied during the outbreak or something and this is how it spread. On panels and door handles? Like how people catch colds ;)
This makes sense.. Still not satisfied with why they were on route to killing humans. Surely if this was a mission set by the whole of the gods, and for some reason killing of earth failed, they would have sent another team to finish the job?? May have been a rogue set of gods trying to do this.
Might add that I was completely traumatized watching this at 6.5 months preggars!!
At the opening i think it was clear the engineers were creating life somewhere, most likely earth, as we watch the DNA reform & cells split under the water….but what does he drink? Is it the black goo from the ship? If so, then how can it be later used as a weapon against us? When the geologist fell in the goo, he seemed to simultaneously evolve & devolve, possibly into something more akin to the engineers. If that’s the case then is the black goo some type of missing link? We’re they really trying to kill us or offer up a different species to the alien threat, & the black goo was the missing link between those two cycles? it’s obvious the aliens as we know them are in a different form here, almost like A gigantic Protozoa of some sort….if that’s the case, is this some war between two species akin to if homo sapiens & Neanderthal were to occupy the earth simultaneously, and after a slaughter on their home planet they are forced to recolonize earth, this time as a feeding ground for these aliens? If so, it doesn’t seem like it will work out as planned, as what comes out of noomi looks pretty damn gnarly….if it is truly the lesser threat, how terrifying was the original form? This movie met & exceeded any and all expectations, a true think piece in a time where they are few & far between….it is highly recommended, & I hope we are lucky enough to get a sequel with the same creative team, noomi & fassbender on home world? Consider my interest permanently piqued.
1. Was earth emptied by them before they applied the new genetic code?
2. I agree that the engineer needed to kill all other life, when he was awakend, as he was concerned that they were infected from earth and could cause unknown genetic mutations as possible perfect xeno hosts.
3. I believe the next instalment will be Shaw and a manipulative David finding the engineers home planet with catastrophic results,as the genetic human material destroys them.
You said that the birth of religion may have “caused the Engineers to get snippy about their creations”.
Religion has been around for thousands of years before Christianity…. Hinduism is like 5000 years old for example…
hehe Rita. My wife is 9 months pregnant and that scene was a bit personal too. Also it added to me disbelieving Shaw’s ability to function with just a row of staples post operation too!
Ro, that’s true about religions. I still think this will play a factor somehow. Like human beliefs changed from the the worship of the Engineers to something else or it became uncontrollable, as there seems to be a co-operation up to 2000 years ago. So something must have put a strain on that to cause the decision to purge the experiment.
I think this because this whole film is a battle between faith and science. Shaw is a woman led by faith but if she’s right about the Engineers, her faith might not be valid. Also Holloway seems driven to prove religions wrong. The Engineers view science in an almost religious light. Their artwork and general attitude towards their work has a fair few religious undertones. If the humans started treating their false ideas of God(s) in such a light, this has to undermine the perfect organism the Engineers seem to want to make, especially if Humans deny their connection to the Space Jockey’s. That’s gotta piss you off right?
Also Rita – “This makes sense.. Still not satisfied with why they were on route to killing humans. Surely if this was a mission set by the whole of the gods, and for some reason killing of earth failed, they would have sent another team to finish the job?? May have been a rogue set of gods trying to do this”.
Yeah this one is a huge thing not covered. It implies humans missed being wiped out by blind (xeno) luck. Maybe in the sequel we will see that the other “gods” came to investigate only to caught up in the whole “contagion” themselves. I don’t think there’s enough in the film to paint a much larger picture. We don’t see in the other pyramids (maybe pyramid 2 is making Predators – hehe). We don’t know if this is really a military base or not. I guess it is as Januk’s out of nowhere “weapons of mass destruction” scene is pretty much straight out of Ridley’s mouth given the old Alien documentary. And the big one is, we don’t know if there are any more Engineers for sure. Maybe this is the last of them (well other than Space Jockey Zero in Alien). Maybe we get to Engineer home world in the sequel and it’s more like Xeno city and Shaw and David help to save what’s left or something. I don’t know, that sounds pretty guff but the even wider picture doesn’t really have any breadcrumbs to follow…yet.
What if the Engineer at the start was literally Prometheus? He created life against the wishes of his people, thus making them angry?
I think this is a very well thought-out piece of writing. I did find that all the life cycles of the creatures of the film were a little bit too complicated for me, the life cycles felt chaotic and overly complicated. I will say that I was pleased to see the octopus thing at the end, it is a direct take on Giger’s earlier facehugger designs.
Paul – That was another thought I had but if this opening scene is earth, does that mean human life was only created 2000+ years ago in the Prometheus time line?
Well, Shaw might be right in that the Bible reckons humans are 2000 years old, and that the original peoples lived much longer than today….could be a sly take on the Bible.
This theory breaks down as how would the modern humans know about the engineers unless the engineers visited us again? If yes, the engineers would be the originators of religion (the first people, titans etc).
Paul, the New Testament’s frame of reference is the last 2000 years. The old testament goes well beyond that. Which is to say that the Bible absolutely does not reckon that humans are 2000 years old, just that Jesus was born 2000 years ago.
They can’t NOT make another film, like there are wayyy too many loose ends, for example, why the Engineer sacrificed his life, are David and Shaw away to the planet who created the Engineers?
Are the questions really, where and when was human life originated?
Another thought:
The whole plot may be like that of A C Clarkes 3001: the Engineers have monitored us for millennia and since the 20th century was a bloodbath decided to kill a dangerous experiment on that basis. The engineer looked almost dissapointed when he patted David on the head.
I read that as confusion as to what David was. He certainly seemed to dislike the idea of robots didn’t he.
It did- you could say it (the engineer) was jealous.
But here is another thought:
David stated the engineers were going back to Earth, presumably to kill us off. Now, the engineer is in stasis- so was the plan to return to Earth set when the engineer went to sleep? If so, the plan to return was hundreds of years old. This would mean mankind was destined to be wiped out a long time ago, way before Weylands plan.
Were we seen as a potential threat even then?
We don’t know what David actually said to the Engineer after he awoke. He may have said something totally different to what Weyland asked him to say.
My understanding is the Space Jockey’s were all set to go “2000+” years ago – as per the carbon dating (if that can believed considering the environment). So the mission to wipe out Earth seems to be have been hatched ages ago with only the outbreak stopping it. I mentioned that in the article.
If that’s the case (and sorry for missing the point in the article!) mankind must be a mistake with the potential to cause problems later, or a result of one engineer wanting to play god. Narrows things down.
what does the date mean at the end credits?
They are two potential reasons. I think the fact we’re shown the images of men worshipping giants pointing to stars indicates it was all going well up until a point though (and for a good while). Whether that change was a human or Space Jockey’s fault is the sequel’s territory to play in.
The 10-11-12 or whatever it is. I don’t know about that. If it’s the Blu-ray release date, Cinema finally made it clear that the theatrical event is just another step in the advertising campaign for home release and the expected ‘Director’s Cut’ of Prometheus (how is it that Ridley Scott can’t release any film in the cinema as “originally intended”?) I like the idea/talk there’s a follow up movie already in the can and this is our one and only tease but I don’t think we live in a time where that could possibly happen
This link to wikipedia might prove interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_(mythology)
(esp the Jewish references to Nephilim)
could the Flood be related to the black ooze?
That is quite interesting actually. Good find.
Interesting article, but some things to point out
“1) It’s Earth and we’re seeing an Engineer sacrifice himself to create life”
I’d read some postings that Ridley has confirmed this happens on Earth.
A lot of the deleted, unfilmed, and changed scenes from Prometheus and Alien reveal many answers you’re looking for. It’s lame they aren’t readily available in the movie, but they are out there. For example:
“Holloway gets one drop in his drink and he starts react. We don’t see where the infections leads”
In a trailer Fifield shows arm mutations in line with temple ceiling mural. In the theatrical release he has normal arms. This shows the Engineers know what happens when you only get a black goo infection, but the Xeno mural in the same room also shows they know it’s part of the path to creating a Xeno.
Just seen this yesterday and have been unable to think of anything else since. I personally loved this film. My theory so far is that there are 2 different groups within the engineers. One that was benevolent and created life on earth at an undisclosed date in the past (the opening scene and the disc shaped craft). The other group being a more militaristic group eho disagree with te concept of creating us and thus are trying to wipe us out (the ones that janek theorises are military and making weapons of mass destruction, they also have a different shaped ship, one which will become the derelict). It would explain the different ships and why after 2000 years whn it seems there plan was to be carried out something went wrong and the facility seems to have been disbanded and no attempt made to carry out the plan. Until the one wakes up in his pod and immediately shows a dislike for humans. Let me know what you guys think? Ill be browsing forums etc for weeks to come.
It may also explain te cave paintings of humans worshipping the benevolant engineers as they point to the star system as them warning humans to stay away from there as that is where this group of extremist engineers operate
I think you might be right. Seems like too many people are thinking of the engineers as cohesive and possessing a uniform plan. If they share our DNA, I would expect them to be diverse, with different sects having different designs. I think the colony Prometheus discovered was rogue, as they seem to worship the Xeno. And I think a more benevolent sect created life on Earth and then returned to warn us about their hateful brethren. Maybe there was an intergalactic war between the Xeno worshipers and the benevolent sects, and we’ll see the later stages of this war in the next few movies . . . ending with the destruction of all the engineers, so that by the time Ripley lands in Alien, we truly are the last humans in the cosmos. I would think the story is inspired by the way humans (be they engineers or us) have a way of creating devastating weapons to acquire power that might end up destroying all of us — see nuclear and bio weapons. After all, the corporate guys in the Alien movies continually want to harness the Xeno as a weapon. They are the intellectual descendants of the rogue engineers.
If you take the Christian motif further, it is kind of Weylans dream to live longer. This site
http://www.worldwideflood.com/general/noahs_age.htm
tells the ages of various Biblical characters, some (Adam) are nearly 1000 years old! But as you can see, the lifespans of the offspring get shorter as genetic diversity kicks in.
I am trying to make sense of the ancient murals though. If they were a warning, why are the worshippers pointing skywards instead of looking afraid? I must admit I need some screengrabs to look at as my memory is a bit hazy.
I don’t know. Having an image depicting the actual star system as a warning NOT to go there seems a little overkill to me. Just simply have stars.
I’d read quite a lot had changed between filming and editing and I also questioned the “longer” arms of Fifield not showing up as it was a big deal in one of the trailer/TV spots. By what we’re shown in the film, the infection just leads to head swelling, aggression and then explosion. Shaw even says that the decapitated head exploding was the final stages of whatever infected the Engineer on her little dictaphone. The flick has no indication they are becoming a Xeno form. I read early on this was the original intention and Lindlof took all that out as no one would have gone for it (I have to say I agree). I like the idea it’s the Xeno DNA messing with everything. It means the Xeno are still the bad ass bad guys this franchise made them to be.
I also don’t think there are two factions of Space Jockey. They just have different ships for different purposes in my mind.
“..it’s a safe bet that what the writers and Ridley Scott are implying is that the birth of Christ or even the birth of religion is what caused The Engineers to get snippy about their creations. False Gods and wars about faith are legitimate reasons to go to war given actual human history, so spreading the net further to include our actual creators “The Enginners” taking offence to this makes sense to me”.
The birth of religion is at the dawn of Mankind, and is some 30,000 years old. Christianity didn’t become the dominant religion across all of Europe until 1000 AD. Hinduism and Buddhism are more than 2500 years old. Islam (historically more militant, intolerant and problematic than Christianity, IMHO) was founded in the 5th century AD. If the engineers started a campaign 2000 years ago to either annihilate or change humanity, it would have been another reason than the religious objection you gave, Mr. Marcus Doidge.
So to recap (for my sanity):
Engineer ceremonially becomes the genetic soup for all life on Earth, millions of years ago. This (to me) now seems this was planned and was not a rebel act. The saucer seems to have no significance (fractions etc) other than looking cool.
Point: the engineer literally epitomises ‘the body of Christ’, dying for all of us (or is taught this way).
The murals (having looked at some grabs) appear to show engineer and man together, so other subsequent visits occurred. It may be that the engineers taught man a few things to speed progression.
Some event causes the engineers to reconsider mankind. They plot to destroy man, involving a bio weapon based on their technology created on one of their worlds. I assume the weapon is based on the same tech used at the start with the seed engineer (thus the murals pointing to this world).
Point: perhaps this precipitates the Garden of Eden, with man cast out from paradise (a rejected title for Prometheus)?
Human mythology paints giants as ‘evil’.
The engineer plan fails/ is interrupted by an accident that releases the pathogen (as witnessed in the holograms, engineers running / bodies/ head exploding etc). One engineer survives and goes into stasis.
Origin planet is discovered. The ‘jars’ like xenomorph eggs react to the presence of human DNA / human respiration and leak the bio weapon. This mutates into an organism that steadily adapts to its programmed prey (humans)- first small worms, then a small snake, and then the proto- hugger baby. The temple mural depicts the weapons final form (the xenomorph).
Point: why do the engineers wear their helmets indoors at this point around the jars? It seems to back up my theory breathing sets off the jar weapons. They only take off their helmets on the bridge.
Engineer is awoken, attacks the humans after talking to David/ realising we (mankind) have become like them (creating artificial life, diametrically opposite to their organic tech). We seem to have equal space-faring tech (both ships use ion engines according to Shaws last monologue).
The proto hugger matures and unwittingly impregnates the engineer, thus mixing DNA making the xenomorph (as seen on the temple mural, since the humans share DNA with engineers as originally intended in the war plan).
The first xenomorph is born.
Its a fair point you make about the overkill and different ships for different purposes. The main question then in my mind is after the outbreak 2000+ years ago that stopped the possible obliteration of earth, why was there no attempt again until the events of the film. Did no other space jockey want to go near it for fear of infection? How did they know of the infection?. Another thing that niggles at me after watching the film is te end, when shaw and david are going to the space jockey homeworld to find “answers”. Now if there is only the one faction of space jockey and from what we know of there superior size and strength, and penchant for ripping heads off without saying a word or batting an eyelash. If they reach the homeworld why would they suddenly be given answers and not just get annihilated. I think the civil war thing would make mich more sense. Of course as you said its all speculation at this point.
Question: How do you explain baby squid becoming a giant calmar with nothing to eat, in a matter of hours ?
Fadi: how do you explain a black fluid that changes organic flesh into almost anything? Normal rules do not apply, at least to me.
In the original alien, the chestburster grew without consuming anything, at least on-screen.
Yeah the religion idea was a little based on Christianity etc I guess rather than the the entire history of religion. It was more to do with the timings of things and trying to work out why they felt the need to pinpoint a date on the dead headless Jockey as well as tying it in with Shaw’s faith.
As for the sequel and the potential SJ homeworld. Who knows where that will go. In many ways I don’t want to see it (especially now they don’t look like giant Elephant dues)but if we get closer to seeing the downed ship on LV-426 and the reasons behind it, I’m in. We don’t need it but now the ball is rolling I’d like to see it.
As for this Xeno being the first ever Xeno. I just don’t like it. I don’t like they have the wall image and it comes out looking exactly like that the first time the perfect combination happens. It feels more in tune with the Alien franchise that the Xeno’s victims/captors THINK they can control it but they never can. I guess somewhere down the line, we are to believe SJs have a hand in creating all life so in turn the Xeno’s were probably something they had a connection to, either purposely or not but this being the first one ever. I don’t buy it. I buy more that given the chance, the xeno DNA is so menacing it only take a few steps to create the beast.
To be perfectly honest, I’m still torn on whether that final scene is important for a potential sequel or it was just 20th Century Fox saying “Come, give them what they want at the end. The subtle hints aren’t strong enough”. I guess we’ll find out, now the secrets can be brushed to one side but by the sound of Ridley and him taking future stories “even further away from Alien” something tells me the next movie will be even more adrift from our beloved Xenos.
The goo that infected the DR came from inside the canister and the black goo started ooze out of the canister because the change in the atmosphere int the room when the door was opened just as the mural changed. This is why they ran to get the head to seal it from decomposition.
Apparently an unfilmed/original script part of Alien is a fossilized giant xeno behind a rock formation on LV426. Notice the size of the xeno in Prometheus, it is huge compared to the Alien chestburster. If it grows anywhere near in proportion compared to that chestburster, or is that much larger than the facehugger that planted it as the original Alien is bigger than the facehugger that planted him, it could be that unfilmed xeno. There’s also the skull shaped xeno on top of the temple, another sign (along with the temple xeno altar) that this has been done before. It’s also possible that could be an actual skull of a large xeno.
Ridley has stated the film gives you more questions than answers. Its been a long time question of what came first, the xeno, facehugger, or egg. The final scene along with the events of the Prometheus answers this.
You make a good point when you state we don’t know what David said to the Engineer. What we do remember however is when he tells Shaw something to the effect of, ‘Afterall don’t we all want the death of our parents?’ Perhaps he triggered the agressive act by the dormant Engineer? Maybe the Engineer was infected too adding to his agression. My question is, what were they running from when the first Engineer got beheaded? Since there were no Xenos at the time, it must have been on bad mutha!
Why must the movie prometheus be the birth of the 1st xenomorph?
ridley already said is not a true prequel. movie already shows how xenomorph were “created” (not necessary the 1st xenomorph) in the sense. With the forward thinking that the lv223 is a military installation it could also mean other spacecraft with cargo of biological weapon. Hence a separate spacecraft met with an outbreak itself and crash onto lv466 at an unknown time which led to Alien 1979. (dont mind me if lv number is incorrect)
The mural already shows a xenomorph. It already existed. An outbreak happened. A few engineers were already dead with chests burst opened “exploded from inside”. Engineers were plannning to set loose the biological weapon on earth to destroy mankind for reasons unknown till the sequel. the idea that engineer took offence that mankind believed in other gods and not them 2000 years ago is very interesting. Furthermore, in the viral video that peter weyland declare “we are the gods” and his demand for immortality to the engineer could spur the attack. After all engineer did give briefly a nonchanlant look at david before he snap david.
Regarding black goo… i think the writers have to declare the content or explained it in a sequel. Possibly the weaponized black goo dematerialize organic matter to become a facehugger which inturn could produce a xenomorph. but doesnt explain mutated fifield.
Best is do not think of prometheus movie as the timeline a xenomorph is created. it just shows xenomorph as a biological weapon harnessed by engineer possibly as long as 2k years ago at least.
Sounds good as give predator to steal some xenomorph for their hunt hahaha.
Well, what can I say,waited 8/9 months for the film.disecteted every trailer ect of film. And feel slightly disappointed. The last 3 x1/4 of the movie were definatlely rushed and a lot of loose ends not tied up. I know there was a writer from lost involved but come on, alarm bells were ringing willy! I’m not sure if I want a sequel or not? A giant face hugger and a poor excuse for a xeno chest burster don’t cut it for a 33 year wait! And if the writer is THE MARCUS DOIGE of culver road fame then he must be feeling the same. Why was David, an inferior android, able to function as just a head when ash. A supposedly more advanced droid was unableable to function in a worst state of repair.???? The engineers looked like a dead eyed simpleton p, and if I was faced with Peter wetland after a 20000 year kip. I would have opted for the back gander as we’ll!
Hander, dam typo!
Could of been so good but with so many unanswered questions and plot holes the film just never felt complete.
A film tells a story, this film tells you part of a story which for me is pointless and actually fairly annoying.
I’m a fan of science fiction and of Scott so I was looking forward to it but it unfortunately it disappoints greatly.
Such a shame as it had outstanding potential to be one of the greats.
On the up side it had a real quality look and I thought the cast done well with the poor script.
Chandru
– the idea the Engineer from the pod is infected as well never crossed my mind. That’s an interesting one but I’m not sure it quite fits given his calm and controlled decision to launch the ship. Even so that’s something I might look closer at next time.
Thank you for your explanation Marcus. I have one more question.
Who is David loyal to?
maybe the jockey’s discovered the xenos and were marveled by the fact they were a perfect specimen,but haunted by the fact they were not its creator and so the entire planet shown in prometheus is just a science experiment to create the xenos.They perhaps wanted to send them to earth because they need us to creat the xenos.
Paul: “how do you explain a black fluid that changes organic flesh into almost anything? Normal rules do not apply, at least to me.
In the original alien, the chestburster grew without consuming anything, at least on-screen”
Some things can be accepted in a Sci-Fi films if you get the minimum explanation. For example the black fluid could be viewed as a sort of a DNA transformer or a virus that could be programmed to modify an existing DNA, etc.
There should be a minimal explanation as I said. So a 3 kilograms baby squid becoming a 1000 kilogram monster in a matter of hours while emprisonned in a small room with nothing to eat, well that defies the most basic laws of physics/chemistry. As Antoine Lavoisier said once “rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme” (nothing is lost, nothing is created, all things are transformed).
In the first Alien, the monster had access to all the food it could get on the ship, plus the dudes it ate. In any case I’ve read the original Alien book, and that’s a detail that have been explained in the book.
On another register I’ve wondered how the Engineer finds Shaw at the end and I guess it could be David the robot who told him for he was on the bridge with the Engineer.
Now how did Shaw find the bridge and got to David’s head and body is a mystery. Also she had to use cables in order to slide off the Engineer’s ship, so how did she get in/up ?
I have a few theories as to why they decided to create and destroy humans-
1. There is a big nod to Human religion and how it links with why the Engineers decided to exterminate humankind. We know that the plan to drop the Xeno ooze on earth was at least 2000 years old, linking it to the birth of Christ. What if the story of Christ was heavily diluted and warped by history, and in fact Christ was the last Engineer to visit Earth in order to see how we were evolving. When we tortured and killed him they decided we were too hostile and too aggressive and decided to start over.
2. Another possibility is that they created humankind because they could, or more to the point, because they wanted someone to worship them. When we started to mix progressive social developmental and religion maybe they took exception and started again.
3.We could also read more into the Jockeys aggressive reaction to David. Maybe in the past (even millions of years ago) they had created life on other planets similar to humankind. This led to progression and development which ultimately led to the creation of technology and eventually artificial intelligence, such as David. Possibly the problem isn’t humans, but our evolutionary pattern likely to lead us to create AI. Maybe they recognise the dangers of synthetic life and decided to exterminate humans before we had the chance to create it. The idea of synthetics vs organic life is a common motif in Sci-Fi and would also tie in to other films in the series.
4. Possibly they wanted to create more of themselves, and some how their DNA was polluted and they created us instead. Maybe they hoped we would be better as a race, more evolved, but we weren’t and they simply wanted to start again.
5. Possibly they created Earth as a sort of guinea pig test chamber to test their WMDs. Maybe we’re simply a galactic Bikini Atoll and they only created us as a means to test weapons. Not sure why they would then illustrate LV-223 to ancient civilizations though.
My main question is why they wanted us to go to LV-223 in the first place. If it was just a militarised planet for weapon production and research, why would they promote it to our ancient civilizations? And especially if they would later intend to wipe us out. Maybe it was once their home and became uninhabitable, so they then decided to exterminate humans so they could steal earth…who knows.
Maybe we were never the intended creation. Like maybe the created us, to use as a means to great the Xeno’s.
Oh yes, another detail that annoys me. Those bodyguards that kept shooting at the Engineer without any effect whatsoever… Those guys should be top killers with the deadliest weapons human kind could invent. They serve and protect the wealthiest man ever, someone who could raise a trillion dollars for that mission alone..
Were the Engineers responsible for Virgin Mary’s “immaculate conception”, pregnacy and eventually the birth of Jesus?
Him being one of their more successful experiments in improving the human dna, with Jesus co-operating with that one Engineer (Father) they widen their experiment with twelve more subjects, giving them the DNA by making them drink wine which has drops of blood containing this highly contagious DNA.
All does not go according to plan though and all kinds of mess ensues.
Ok, it all makes perfect sense now :)
Frederic Desmette – That is the question with David isn’t it. It seems he wants to be loyal to no one doesn’t it. Which adds more weight to what he actually said to the Engineer to set him off. Again, this is something we’ll look at in future sequels I guess but given he shared much the same characteristics as Weyland (movie tastes, drive, willingness to do anything for a mission) it could be argued that David is very much Weyland’s “Son” and a lot like him.
Oscar.G – That angle very much ties into Ash’s comment in Alien. I like it.
Fadi – “On another register I’ve wondered how the Engineer finds Shaw at the end and I guess it could be David the robot who told him for he was on the bridge with the Engineer.
Now how did Shaw find the bridge and got to David’s head and body is a mystery. Also she had to use cables in order to slide off the Engineer’s ship, so how did she get in/up ?” – All valid points. I also questioned why the SJ came after Shaw after the crash. I thought as his mission was so important, why didn’t he just get into the other ship we know was there. However, I then thought it was only the downed ship that has the Xeno virus and it might explain why he was so pissed off with Shaw. As for Shaw getting on the downed ship – that really is a good point!
Nathan – All great points. SJ Jesus – like it! And adds more to the 2000+ years we’re given.
Hi Marcus,
Great read: and you have certainly provoked some debate and discussion. Which is one of the things i absolutely LOVE about this film, so many head scratchers, so many talking points. Ive barely stopped thinking about it since I saw it.
As for your first point, the opening scene kinds confused me a little too- and ive seen it twice now. I didnt take it to be earth, I figured it was LV-223 (and im sure some of the landscape imagery is practically repeated when the prometheus crew is landing there) – whatever it was inside the cup that the Engineer drank from, it was seriously affected by the environment and starts to disintegrate and mutate as soon as it is exposed to the air. This made me think that it is from ANOTHER planet, maybe where the Xeno’s originated from- the act of the engineer in that scene seemed more suicidal to me, that his intention was simply to destroy life rather than create it at that point. Is it not plausible that the scene is on LV-223 and takes place after some kind of invasion or outbreak of the ‘xeno virus’- this Engineer, believing himself to be the last (as the only other is in the hibernation pod) then goes and offs himself? Or am i missing something?
Also, your point about the birth of christ and the explosion of religion being the engineers reason for wanting to destroy us- genius- id have never have thought of that but it does make complete sense within the film and would further strengthen the religion vs science theme that runs very strongly through it.
Chelsey – Thanks for the kind feedback (and that goes for everyone else too). The opening scene is really the biggest head scratcher. We have no idea of intentions or setting, or time frame really. The only thing I take from is it whatever the round ship is doing it does it fast (or it’s finishing it job – this is why I went for it being a cleansing vessel of some kind)and the Jockey doesn’t seem to fussed by it’s presence. We know it’s a sacrifice of sorts and we know it’s to create life. I didn’t read it as Earth either -mainly due to the use of score here and when we arrive on LV-223 but given interviews and such with Ridley & Co. it certainly appears to be Earth.
On a side note, the shot where the SJ reaches down to grab his pot and we see the round ship heading through the clouds in the background is probably my favourite single shot of the entire film. There’s something really cool about it’s subtlety and the grace in which the ship disappears. It really struck me on the first viewing and I loved it even more on the second.
Fadi>
Not trying to argue, but in Alien (the film, not the A D Foster adaptation) the alien grows to maturity (i.e. from a chestburster to 2m tall warrior) within hours, without eating anything (unless it eats materials we do not consider food). Remember the Nostromo has very sparse food supplies due to the fact the crew would need a lot of food to sustain them due to the long voyage lengths (thus hypersleep).
The crew were all killed bar Ripley in under 24 hours, so in essence I find it difficult to see how the alien was eating whilst it was being hunted so early on. Perhaps it was chomping on a bowl of muesli on C deck whilst they scraped up Kane.
You are right in that it goes against conservation of mass / energy but it is an alien life-form, and sci-fi.
As far as engineer armour, I thought it would be more advanced anyway. The engineer dreadnought withstood a direct hit from the Prometheus and remained intact- if they are made from the same material a single bullet would not be particularly effective. And I imagine engineers having higher density muscle-mass, so a bullets energy would be dissipated more readily too.
Maybe I’m getting caught up in the detail, but everybody keeps mentioning Jesus because of that 2000 year figure, which I guess might make some sense if the film were set right now, however it is not, set more or less in 2100, so the SJ’s would be set to wipe us out in 100AD for whatever reason, which others have pointed out has no religious significance anyway, Christianity wasn’t popular then. I really don’t think this film is related to religion at all
Luke: not so-
96 AD, John the Baptist is on the Island of Patmos to receive visions that constitute the Book of Revelation, esp Revelation 16:
” Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” 2 So the first angel went and poured his bowl on the earth, and a foul and painful sore came on those who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped its image. 3 The second angel poured his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing in the sea died. 4 The third angel poured his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood”
Its a stretch, but an apocalypse could have been foretold via the engineers. But it is tenuous at best.
Paul: I really do not believe that any person would require such an indepth knowledge of the bible to formulate ideas around the back story of a SCIENCE fiction, with all due respect, science and religion are famously out of sync
Science fiction is created here by Ridley Scott team… and of course it is in sync with Religion and different believes. All the film is full of “coincidences”, see for example the name of the planet LV226.
Leviticus 22.6: As the Lord says to Moses.
The one who touches any such thing will be unclean till evening. He must not eat any of the sacred offerings unless he has bathed himself with water.
Luke: Science fiction is created here by Ridley Scott team… and of course it is in sync with Religion. All the film is full of “coincidences”, see for example the name of the planet LV226.
Leviticus 22.6: As the Lord says to Moses.
“The one who touches any such thing will be unclean till evening. He must not eat any of the sacred offerings unless he has bathed himself with water.”
There are more..
I just seen this film yesterday and I was disappointed. The main thing that disappointed me was the description of the film. If it was to explain the origins of the exenomorph in Alien then I would have left the cinema happier as this would have been the main point of the film and I could have excepted the other plot holes. But as it wasn’t, I guess you have to let your imagination do the rest.
Personally I think the beginning was on earth and the Engineer sacrificed himself by ingesting the black goop and when he fell into the sea would create new life, which would eventually become us. Ie humans.
The black liquid seems to react to the humans in the film completely different to the Engineer we see at the begining, I thought this is because the Engineers have purer dna than us with less or none of the impurities we humans have. For me this would explain the Engineers reaction when David speaks to him, as he would see David as been even further down the evolutionary ladder than even humans and probably not even worthy of addressing him. This in turn would explain why they would want to cleanse earth of humans and also how the black DNA modifier reacts so badly with humans. The Engineers for me seemed split over this decision and this is why they were running to the ship to try and stop it from leaving, either that or running to the ship to leave and something stopped them.
I think it is obvious the effect the black goop has on humans is completely different from the Emgineer we see at the begining. I also find it interesting the similarity between humans and the xeno which as we find out share the same DNA. Both like to multiply and populate, hunt anything that is considered lower than us on the food chain and be the dominent species.
I’m an atheist, but it would be very interesting (and brave) if Prometheus dealt with these issues. After all, the film goes into Darwinism v Creationism, why not this? And since some theories about the trigger for the engineer attack use religion, it would fit.
If you do not believe me, read Childhoods End by Arthur C Clarke, and see how a clever interpretation of religion can work from an atheist author. Other examples (although fantasy) include His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman.
This probably has little significance to the overall scheme of the movie but has anyone considered that Meredith Vickers could possibly be an android? We find out that she is Weyland’s daughter but that does not really stack up given their age difference. We see a young Peter Weyland in the TED 2023 viral video and can assume that by 2093 when he dies his age was at least 100. Assuming Vickers is give or take 30 years old I see it unlikely that she was born when he was in his 70s. Also note that he described David as the “Son he never had”, you see a quick cut of Vickers negative facial reaction to this comment. If she is his real biological daughter then she has no visible affection or love for him, David on the other hand worships Weyland (I suspect this is a show as I find there something very sinister about David’s character). When we see Weyland die, again Vickers shows no emotion and is of course hell bent on saving her own life opposed to sacrificing herself for the good of mankind.
I hear that these androids are so lifelike they all have their own emotions, is Vickers the stereotypical emotionless android? Another interesting point is that although we see the ship collapse on her, we do not actually see her die. I did assume on my first viewing however that she is probably dead. If however she is an android we can assume she is still alive given their life durability (David does not die despite decapitation). Like I said this may just be a pointless theory but I think it is one worth considering, I hope we see a sequel to Prometheus so that Ridley Scott can tie up a few of these loose ends he has deliberately left us to debate over!
Matt: presumably she disproved that accusation when she invited the captain back to her cabin? “if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”.
Besides, I thought her comments to her father about wanting to take the throne proved her human nature, that cold hearted power hunger which was obvious showed the true nature of her character, one who felt she had waited too long to take control, for an android time would have no relevance.
So how does the Alien vrs Predator story/timeline fit in? Supposedly Predators had been using earth as a hunting ground back in the Early American Civilizations (Mayan Incas).
Also Weyland industries ended up with the Predator tech so how come the Prometheus guards only have pistols and shotguns.
Guys, guys, guys…..you are all forgetting a HUGE point in the film which is left unanswered!? Ok, so in the film, WTF are the SJ’s running from in the hologram? Also, when the 2 guys go missing, they stumble across a large number of SJ dead bodies, one with a noticeable ‘chest buster’ like hole in him. So where did the creature that burst out of that particular SJ go to? Is that what killed the other SJ’s??? We need answers RS!! We waited 33 years for this, and I’m even more confused now than I was before I watched Prometheus!!! J
I noticed the Space Jockey at the start is a naked white dude, the pilot ones seem to be wearing some kind of biomechaical suite which on seeing it a second time looked organically melded with his skin/body. so the flacid pale giant facehuggers impregnation of the Suited SJ combines with his suites DNA to make the zenos tough black armoured exoskeleton in which case I didn’t mind the resultant Alienlike creature. Then I’m thinking seeing the Alienesque Mural on the wall made me think the SJ worship the Zenomorphs and maybee Gieger type Aliens were the Space Jockeys creators the same way they were ours?…
Also the orange visored helmet David wore displayed Shaw’s dreams in a very similar way to the Space Jockey’s escape hologram. and also the sleep chamber pods were similar between humans and SJ which I found cool and sugests we were catching up in terms of ingrained technology
anyway tons of stuff to think about which is cool but also annoying and the writer is the guy who did lost which after all the cool build up ended it all in a dream church so I’m not really that keen to find out lol
;(
I messed the first line of this comment up, it should say;
“They have damage to their helmets like a hole has been punched through, similar to the way Xeno’s kill their prey.”
Another theme that might give us an insight into the answers about what happened 2000 years ago is that everyone is trying to break the control of their maker. David from Weyland. To a degree Vickers from her Dad (adding more weight to the “end of a king’s reign” speech). Holloway to the idea of religion. Is this the larger theme at play that gives us the answers to why the SJ’s wanted to end the humans 2000+ years ago. They simply didn’t want to be controlled any more they wanted to find their own way, just like David shows he wants to do. Having a robot or artificial human being the first “thing” to greet the SJ after he awoke must have really pissed him off. Humans didn’t want SJs to help/lead them any more, yet here they are dabbling in the same arena.
The start of Christian philosophies 2000+ years before the film may have been the flashpoint for the Engineers’ anger. Christianity is fairly unique among philosophies as it worships a man as god – Jesus is the epitome of man’s hubris. While the relics and paintings on Earth infer the Engineers were worshipped as a different (superior) race in previous times, their status as creators would be undermined by the new religion.
This seems to tie in well with the theme of “creation acts like creator; creator disapproves”. There is a recursion of this in Michael, forged in the image of a human, and in the negative responses when he tries to act like a human (eg. wearing the helmet).
It strikes me that the Engineers are a proud race, and their motivations stem from pushing development of species. Thus their plans to knock humanity back from its state of self-worship could be to introduce a new, superior race.
Great article, Marcus, very thoughtful.
I figured the outbreak started there on that ship, just as the countdown to take off to wipe out Earth started. Given that they are on the wrong moon, and the Engineer died on the drop ship rather than in the pilots chair of a cargo ship as seen in Alien, we know that the outbreak leaves that very planet.
My theory is an outbreak on the ship sends the crew running in a panic. They are slaughtered, and the launch abandoned (with one Engineer safely in stasis indefinitely). We don’t know what form the outbreak took at that point so I don’t want to blame xenos just yet, but chest bursting was the result no doubt. There were several ships on the planet, so what if the outbreak spread out of the doors of that temple, into the others. An impregnated Engineer escapes in a cargo ship of the same design, flying alone. Soon, a Xeno queen bursts from his chest, killing him, and the ship crashes on LV426, lays eggs and the rest is history.
But I also like the idea that possibly the Engineer seen at the start was on LV223. Right away I thought those landscapes looked unbelievable and too alien for Earth (even though they obviously were actually filmed here – they seemed to be purposefully chosen for being otherworldly). Maybe he, by ingesting the black goo and dissolving in water, unleashed the Xeno form on the planet. The temple and cargo facilities then became overrun and the launch aborted.
Also: maybe the Engineers didn’t plan to wipe out the human race on Earth. If they had been visiting Earth over the millenia, maybe they gifted us the knowledge of fire, as the Greek Promoetheus mythology goes. They might have been coming to Earth to give us a new gift 2000 years ago – the DNA splicing black goo (who knows – there could be a positive side to it so far unseen to us that might have furthered us more). The hostility the Engineer showed after awakening could have just been down to what David actually said. He seemed throughout the whole film to have been too curious, devious, experimental and a wild card. He doesn’t understand mortality and can’t be wounded. He has nothing to loose by provoking the Engineer.
No one stopped to think that the Engineers could’ve and probably would’ve spent hundreds if not thousand of years creating this DNA and the perfect weapon? First of all they needed to inhabit a far out of reach planet, build those structures and everything inside, and then get to work.
Given that this may have taken thousand of years, it would tie in with the birth of Religion and the fact that the Engineers look like us ties in with the religious theme of God creating us in his image. This is brought up by David when questioned why is he wearing a helmet, his reply is that they created him and would react normally if he behaved like them.
Going again with Religion, the fact that it’s not acceptable to worship other/false Gods would be the reason why they wanted to destroy us.
A point I picked up was that when David touched the black goo for the first time he caused that static storm which would’ve been hostile to everyone bar David (at least I imagine). This lead me to believe that the black goo when morphed with certain DNA can create a hostile planet into an inhabitable one, depending on what DNA the goo has reacted with
ALSO, sorry for going on, but no mention of the WORMS!?
They seemed to focus a lot on the worms, it’s the first thing you see when they walk in and focus on their feet. Obviously once the worms morphed with the DNA they became those larger monsters, but that still doesn’t resolve why the bio scientist turned all big headed, while the mohawked one is just dead.
Forgot to mention, I also believe the blonde captain is an android. There are reasons to disprove this, such as why was she in hypersleep and having sex (that is, if they did)?
The Creators are the unevolved predators (35000 years later they evolved into the predators) their masks and body is a sign of this development. They created humanity as a future hunting ground and that’s why they want to send their big ship to infect earth with xenomorphs (Aliens).
Jonny – “Obviously once the worms morphed with the DNA they became those larger monsters, but that still doesn’t resolve why the bio scientist turned all big headed, while the mohawked one is just dead”.
Other way around wasn’t it. Bi scientist died because he got strangled by the worm. Mohawked one went big headed and aggressive because when the acid sprayed in his face he fell face first into the black goo and in turn got infected.
Hi guys, this is the theory that me and some friends devised, I sent this to another mate and it’s just a copy since it took a while to write.
Right, I have a thesis for Prometheus. 1.) we see at the beginning the engineer on an unknown planet, he does the shot and he dies, but in the process his DNA alters to form what could be humans.
2.) the shot he takes looks markedly similar to the stuff in the urns that all over the planet that they go to, we already know this is not where they lived, so maybe its a scientific facility of some sort.
3.) we take the hint from the doctor who burnt to death, that the engineers create life simply because they can.
4.) the engineers know that nothing that exists on the planet can survive above the surface, the perfect way of cordoning off there facility.
5.) the goo creates lots of different aliens depending on what it comes into contact with, when the goo touches the ground, both in the case of davids sample and biologist’s death it touches the ground where there are worms, so it causes a mutation of a wormlike alien, for if field his head comes into contact with the material and forms a superhuman contortion, and when the infected doctor impregnates shaw she gives birth to a more humanoid mutation of the worm, resulting in the alien at the end.
6.) the engineers has a system that scans the solar system searching for liveable planets, so they know what they’re doing.
7) in conclusion the scientific facility is where they refine the life source,the thing that uses the basic DNA of any living being to create another being, how they created life, not a military facility.
So when thatlast engineer wakes up he panics and tries to fly to earth why???
I think they were fleeing, for survival. Like how we think we can move to that moon on Saturn. They were running away tote nearest planet which could sustain life, and they were taking the life source because it’s such available commodity.
So next film is shaw finding the above information out from the original engineers or finding out that the other engineers were extinct. If it is the latter it would be awesome because that make humans the engineers attempt to recreate themselves, but ironically humans destroyed the last surviving engineer.
I’m only posting this cause I think it’s a completely different sort of viewpoint, but feel free to ridicule as you see fit
I like it as an alternative view of the Engineer (mainly due to my 2500 article a few months back yearned for them to be more than just Space Maniacs) but given the age old Ridley view point that the Juggernaut is a war machine and the Xeno is the pay load it might be a little too alternative.
Well, I don’t think the engineers were really trying to kill human race. They could have done it 2000 years ago with their technology when humans were fighting with arrows. If they had to send the payload to Earth to grow aliens out of humans, then they are in a war with another.
Great site and great comments.
Pawkin – Ridley Scott has said that basically AvP is a load of cobblers and the whole Predator mythology involved in creating the Alien is now discarded.
I have a few comments and questions that I need help/speculation on.
1. The SJ found on LV-426 was apparently fossilised and that would mean he was there for a long, long time. 2,000 years would be my guess as that ties in with the previous events on the planet in Prometheus.
2. What were Peter Weyland’s last words?
3. Vickers is human. Weyland could have frozen his sperm and had lots of kids at different ages in an attempt to have a son, which he obviously didn’t. I think we could well see other Weyland daughters in the sequel(s) to Prometheus… perhaps even played by Charlize Theron herself? Vickers could be a triplet for example, if Weyland was using artificial means to have children?
4. I wonder if and when Yutani will appear on the horizon?
5. What is with the different SJ spaceships? The flying saucer vs The Juggernaut?
6. Why did the SJ at the start have to sacrifice himself?
7. We know the Xenomorph takes characteristics from its host, so there are obviously a few steps to go before the one we know and love in Alien. It obviously came out of the SJ’s chest and laid some eggs which one of those eggs via a facehugger went through Kane.
8. The mural is interesting. Does this hint at the SJ’s worshipping a higher intelligence?
9. Did the SJ’s create the xenomorph or did they too discover the xeno and somehow try to manipulate the DNA and it all went toes up?
10. Why did the SJ in the hypersleep chamber wait 2,000? Was this a bit like Ripley at the start of Aliens?
11. Why do the SJ’s want to kill us?
12. What did David say to the SJ?
13. Are there any SJ’s left in the universe?
14. What is the SJ homeworld like?
15. Why did it take 30 years for Weyland Corp or Weyland Yutani to send a ship to gather a xeno specimen?
I know, lots of questions, but it has really got me thinking. I really enjoyed it.
Not too much to add to the comments so far, most seems covered and new topics to think about. One question I do have, why is Peter Weyland played by Guy Pearce, a fairly young actor.. Surely he’ll be included in the sequel for this reason although he “died” in this movie.
1, Maybe because they liked him as an actor
2, For a back story in the sequel.
3, Did he get his dream of eternal life (very unlikely and just throwing out there for fun).
Maybe the explanation is more simple than we think? As I said in my earlier post, when the engineer takes the black goo at the begining it’s used to create life ie us, but when humans take it or come into contact with it the effect is the exact opposite. It creates something that wants to destroy life. The Engineers wouldnt know this is the effect the black goo has on humans so he was probably thinking he was doing us a favour, maybe giving us a gift?
Using that theory if we look at the name of the film, Prometheus stole fire from Zeus to share with mortals ie humans. If the engineer at the begining is the Prometheus then the black goo would be the fire. Once humans were created and established on earth, the other engineers that believed in this also were trying to get the black goo to earth. This would explain why they are getting chased, if they stole this from there own leader which would be the equivalent of Zeus in mythology and this is who Shaw is going to see?
I would appreciate any views on this theory.
Why would they leave a star map or invitation to a planet that is a military instillation over several thousand of years in different civilisations ?
Ok then, have read articles and the 70 comments; some bad some good.
The continual theme of religion v science is interesting.
Film title (fire being ‘science’ stolen from the ‘Gods’) – is it true working title was Garden of Eden?
Shaw’s need to believe
Holloway’s need to disprove
Vicker’s comment about Weyland wanting a “true believer” on board
Creationism v Darwinism talked about st the beginning
Cruciform symbolism on Shaws cross but remember the mural central image looking like a crucified victim
Not sure about 2000 year reference
David’s comment about wanting to see the end of our parents
Worshipping of Engineers by earlier mankind
The idea of Christ being the next evolutionary step is interesting (his Father being an Engineer, Mary’s virgin birth – does this also point to earlier attempts to further human DNA eg Isis’s virgin birth of Horus in Egyptology?)
Use of the term Engineers rather than Creators? (Engineers continually adapt and fiddle with, Creators creator then bigger off….)
Humans creating artificial life just like the Engineers?
Anyone know Scott’s take on religion?
And Holloway’s comment “God doesn’t build in straight lines” when he sees the tracks leading to the desert (anyone else think that in one frame they looked like the enormous live drawings in the Peruvian desert (hummingbird etc)
Private: Weylands last words were to David, he said “there’s nothing David, there’s nothing”
David said he knew, and “enjoy the journey”.
I suppose he was talking about an afterlife
Some really great points being made here.
One point i think thats being over looked is the fact that there is no further mention of the Engineers following the original Alien film(3 further films spanning hundreds of years and journeys deeper into space). This would lead me to believe that the Civil War point could be valid, and in fact the Engineers have been wiped out by their own creation, or they have simply “moved on” (being the creators of worlds, its not beyond comprehension that they could belong to an alternate universe)through fear of further infection from their “creation”. (the Engineer in stasis could simply be unaware of what has transpired during his sleep)
Paul’s comment on 3rd June at 9.23 is brilliant..really great read
I love that we’re nearly a week in to having seen this film and new ideas are still coming out of it. 2000+ years and the fossilised SJ never dawned on me at all. That’s very good. Maybe that’s tied into the events 2000+ years ago. I’m gonna take a few days/weeks to muse over this one .
why were they terraforming LV-223
if the writers of lost were involved what makes us think there will be a satisfactory ending
hi folks i think the SJ were experimenting on themselves,(which couldn`t continue) so they seeded earth with future lab rats, and helped with the development of humans and showed them where to go.
The navigation display of the engineer’s ship has Earth as the next destination and the black goo as the cargo. I think the engineers quarreled and attacked each other. What ever the engineers were going to do to Earth 2000 years ago did not happen and yet mankind flourished in their absence.
I also think David is sentient – he has favourite movies and has an emotional desire to kill his creators (just like the replicants from Blade Runner).
I don’t know if this has been said or not but has no one thought why the SJ have no form of weapon or way of purging the outbreak (of whatever it was)? They were running from something but it seems strange that they wouldn’t have prepared for such an eventuality given the volatile nature of what they were creating or have discovered . Now this could lead in to the fact that they simple have no weapons in the form we have and that life is their greatest weapon . Which could be why they fear us ? But this could easily be disproved as 2000 years ago we hardly had atomic bombs and gun .
Another guess of mine as to why they basically told us where they where is related to my above point . Maybe they were “inviting” us to this military base as a backup to free the sole surviving SJ . There is no indication as to when his cyrostasis would eventually stop and he would awake without davids input. This seems the most logical reason as to why they wanted us to come ? If it was to experiment on us surely they had the means to do so before this point , maybe they already did ? This could explain how the xeno came to be . Continuous experimentation over thousands of years , I mean they kept coming back didn’t they ? It must have had some other reason besides getting us to paint pretty pictures of them .
Also to people saying they may have worshiped the xeno due to the murial? Wasn’t that said to be a blueprint to creating them ? But I suppose this was shaw guessing at their nature so there is no definately truth to this .
I feel David’s character was the most entertaining yet scared thing about the film , he seemd to have very sinister motives from the beginning and despite ultimately working for his dad, this still doesn’t seem to be the reasoning behind his actions. He obviously disliked (I think it’s holloway? Can’t remember his name) which leads him to test the goo on him , very human like qualities for a robot . Now you could say well he was testing to see if this could help save weyland but there was obviously a reason why he chose holloway . He seems to be more advance than ash in the first alien which could be due to weylands
Point made by Private Hudson should be explored a bit more. We are all jumping to the assumption that the Engineers created the Xeno, and the Mural on the wall was paying homage to the ‘final product’, created through a number of metamorphosis (being the Alien Queen).
But Hudsons point about the Engineers discovering the Xeno as a higher being may not be as far off the mark as you may first think. I dont agree that they discovered them and viewed them as a higher being, but i do think its possible that they could have discovered them, and become envyous of their genetic make up, and could be striving to mix the DNA to either make themselves better/stronger (if the civil war idea holds weight this could play into it)or to try and create the perfect being.
Alot of this is just our imagination getting carried away..but its good fun lol
So, have only seen the film once so forgive me if I’ve missed the point in anything. Personally this is why I loved this film, so many unanswered questions to think about and reading other people’s theories – although the fact that someone from Lost is involved worries me slightly for any potentially future films!
Initially I thought the opening scene was earth and that the engineers had teraformed the planet (possibly the flying saucer did this part) and that when the SJ drank the black goo he set about creating life on earth. But thinking about the reality of this, wouldn’t it have taken millions and millions of years for the human race to evolve from the strands of DNA gloop that is floating around in the water?
Another point is that when they find the wall painting of an engineer pointing to the star system, don’t they say the think its 35000 years old? (Could be wrong) But this does then suggest that the Engineers created Earth a very long time ago and had been visiting them peacefully until an incident circa 2000 years previous to the setting of the film.
One possible theory, that I think someone touched on earlier, is that Christ could have been in fact the offspring of a Human and an Engineer. I’m in no way fully versed on religion or the teachings of the Christian Bible but most know the story of Christ’s birth. God (possibly an Engineer – creator of life) has the miraculous conception with Mary and Christ is born. We are also told in the Bible that Christ is then tortured and killed a few centuries later. Perhaps this is what makes the Engineer(s) flip, nothing like the murder of an offspring to set you off in a rage to end all humanity!
Perhaps the engineer had made new black goo that when ingested by humans, it ultimately killed them and as the urns only seems to be activated in human presence it supports the theory that they could be safely transported to earth and simply left to infect the water supply with the obvious consequences.
The could be a further explanation of why the last Engineer in stasis, maybe he was the SJ equivalent of Weyland but with different motives. Weyland wanted to meet his maker in the hope of extending his life but the SJ was preserving his long enough so that he could witness elimination of Humanity! As no-one knows what David said to the SJ, it could be interpreted that he was decapitated for being created in the mould of a Human/Engineer – thus triggering the one of the 10 commandments “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:” Although the SJ are guilty of doing this with the giant stone head in the urn room.
But what the engineers might not have known is that when an infected human reproduces it inadvertently created the face hugger. Which leads to the question of did face huggers exist before Shaw ‘gave birth’ to it? Ok so there were the dead SJ’s piled up but could these have been killed by being infected or by previous snake type creatures?
I’m glad someone finally mention the WORMS! It was such a focus on them in the boot print for them not to have had any further role in the film. Again sorry if it stating the obvious or repeating what someone else has already stated. But I believe that once the black goo starts leaking then these worms are infected and very quickly become the snake things that ultimately kill the two scientists left behind. Perhaps this is why the room was sealed off previously? Maybe because of the worms or because those urns were faulty or a bad batch of goo! Don’t recall the other urns in the cargo hold of the ship leaking when humans were present.
Back tracking a little, if Shaw did produce the first face hugger and that then ‘impregnated’ the engineer creating the ‘first’ Xeno – which was the message that I felt was trying to be put across, then how did the engineers have the mural of what they looked like?? Also was the mural actually a mural, could it possibly have been a hibernating Xeno?
Mass fortune leading to a more advanced robot creation , I mean you want the best if it’s yours . Maybe the reason the SJ went vessel was because synthetic life is the ultimate insult to them who seem to creat all organic life . Also the whole classic sc fi , the synthetics eventually become aware and take over may be something they fear , who knows .
A theory : Like we see in the opening scene, the engineer drinks the goo and it desolves his dna, and he washes over the waterfall and the goo starts reacting to the H2O(water). The next time in the movie the goo reacts to a human breath, when he stares at the goo- cylinder. Again H2O awakens the goo. Next scene is where holloway drinks the goo. It tranform his dna, attitude, strength and he manage to impregnant a women that can not have babys. The human body is like 70% water. It looks like the main ingredients is water that activates it. The goo is like pure and defenceless buildning blocks. But why dosent it kill Holloway instant like it did to the engineer in the opening scene? Maybe it’s because the engineers is abit thougher than humans at a celluar level. His cells fight it of by killing it and it self..But before that happens some of the goo manage to take up a few cells/dna strings and copy itself and it’s host dna structure. Making a soup of buildning blocks. That later would become us.
Why the last engineer is killing everyone is abit of a mystery. But i like to belive that it’s Davids fault. First, because of what he says to Shawn about «every child wants their parents dead». He gets feeded all the time that he is just a robot from the humans, and that they can do what ever they want with him because they made him.
Humans biggest nightmare is when the day comes when the machines (robots) takes over the planet. When the machines gets to smart, or better than humans. We solve this problem in every story with trying to pull the plug. (Kill it) Maybe thats what happend to the engineers vision too. They see that the humans grow incrediable fast. Social and intellectualy. Humans are on a brink to descover more than they should. A race like the Engineers have to think many many many years forward in the future because of what they are doing. Seeding planets, making new species. So it aint that strange that they was planing to modify or kill us 2000 years ago. They don’t need to see us make th a-bomb or any kind of guns to determine that we bring chaos with us. At that time we were all ready making war on each other. Slaving people, killing people, inventing stuff for goods and bad purposes.
Aaah my hand hurts now from writting. Guess i need to stop it here because im in work, so i better do something i guess.
But i guess we just have to cross our fingers that Riddley gives us a second (and a third) movie to explain more. Like i told my friend before the movie started. «I bet you that this film gives you more question than answears»
I don’t know if anyone realised it but the liquid is not sliced material to make the xenomoprh that we saw in alien. It is a liquid which creates life based on the hosts DNA structure for example the worm creatures that attacked the scientists was created from the maggots on the floor and the xenomorphs that we all know and love are the creations of this liquid with the “engineers”. It is the ultimate weapo as it immediatley becomes the predator of the host and doesn’t have sufficient intelligence to have anything more than instinct meaning wiping the out after the humans would make things easier than getting retaliation from the humans.
Xeno + another human host = Predator. That might explain why predators look more humanoid.
Is it possible whatever David said may have been deliberately offensive or provocative??As mentioned about, we don’t have a clue what he said to the engineer, so he could have deliberately provoked him causing the engineer to react how he did, concequently killing Weyland (Davids “father”; you will note that earlier in the film he indicated that its every persons desire to see their parents dead..did david know this is the reaction he would get by saying what he did?)
I agree, the number of questions that are left unanswered is what made me love the film even more
Great point about not knowing what David said to the Engineer.
He could have been deliberately offensive or provocative, causing the Engineer to react violently (concequently killing Weyland, his “Father”, something he commented on earlier in the movie, human nature to want to see their parents dead)
Really loving this thread
So many things to think about. Definitely food for thought. I agree with the beginning taking place on Earth. Either, the Engineer was chosen to sacrifice himself or he was part of a splinter group that wanted to create life elsewhere in the universe. Amongst the religious overtones and human endurance, I really enjoyed David’s most unexpected demise. I love this character and I believe that he had always planned to help the Engineers and hoped to elevate himself by killing his masters (father) and find his answers about the Human soul, too bad he got his head ripped off.
Now I’m almost sure this has been covered, either that or im daft. But when the two scientists got left behind, the captain stated that there was a life sign about a click from their location. I don’t think anyone has picked up on this? What was it? It didn’t move and it vanished quite soon after being spotted.
Just throwing it out there for flaming, but maybe its the Alien they were all running from?
Just a new angle, if its not already been put to bed.
I assumed this was the feint life signs of the last engineer that was is stasis which they found through the door where the PUP was hovering.
Prometheus had the story to be the best science fiction film ever.
The start of human life, a good director, the alien tie in [we all like a tie in with other films] and best CGI yet.
Instead we got a great looking, well acted film that gives us dozens of questions and doesn’t answer one of them, B-movie monsters, no really characters, terrible pacing, a script on par with the AVP films, a very poor ending and a plot with so many holes I can not believe paid professionals had anything to do with it.
The list of questions raised by this film is to long to list and I’m guessing if your reading this or even writing on here then you know what they are.
A film tells a story, Prometheus told nothing. A piece of art is supposed to raise questions not a film, not to this level anyway.
I just found the whole thing so disappointing and the all questions….why did he do that….what did he say to him……why are they there……what were their plans……how come they did that…..it just drives me mad.
I don’t like complaining but the disappointment consumes!! If you did enjoy the film that’s cool and please ignore my complaints…… each to their own!
I like to know if anyone else feels this way??
Perhaps the ship Shaw takes at the end of the film could end up being the derelict from alien? Davids still around to make trouble, even as a head.
I don’t know if this was mentioned before, but these are my theories,
1) In all the Alien comics, there is a goo that plays a very important part, referred to as Royal Jelly. I believe the black goo in Prometheus may have something to do with, or possibly itself be, Royal Jelly.
2) I think the Engineers created life on Earth, to basically use humans like livestock. Even in this movie, it seems you need a host to create a xeno, so it is my theory that they created humans to use as hosts for a biological weapon. The tablets could’ve been warnings for the inhabitants of Earth from Engineers that do not agree with this method of creating weapons.
3) It is also possible that the green goo David finds in the beginning was the actual Royal Jelly, whereas the black one was a genetically modified version. The head explosion thing might have been a safeguard implemented by the Engineers to keep the infection from spreading in their own worlds.
Those are my ideas so far. This movie makes for lots of thinking.
gabe- Well I personally loved the story. It has an in-depth and philosophical feel to it. If you think about all of the clues given in the movie, most of your questions have actually been answered.
Why did they do it? First of all the carbon dating of the decapitated head was around 2000 years ago. That was about the time that religions began originating on Earth. I personally find the whole Christ-Engineer scenario riveting! It is completely plausible to think that around the time Christianity’s origin, an engineer traveled to Earth to check on their creation.
These engineers were considered gods throughout humanity and then the whole “crucifixion” of the Christ-Engineer thing set them off on a mission to destroy us. The other engineers were informed of this ruthless murder and began looking for a biological weapon that would easily exterminate us. This explains why they had the WMD ship’s itinerary heading towards Earth around 2000 years ago. Then unexpectedly the xenomorph virus (whatever you want to call it) escaped its cage, if you will. The escapee virus explains the surveillance videos of the engineers running. They could be running from some kind of outbreak.
The engineers wanted to get the ship of the planet ASAP. They were about to leave and the virus was taking over them. One of them managed to put himself into stasis while the others fended it off.
All these events lead up to Humanity’s arrival on the planet where they wake up the engineer who has predetermined feelings of disdain towards humanity. This is why he is hostile towards them and has immediate plans to take the ship to Earth.
For the record this is also the first movie in a supposed trilogy that will finally end with the exact circumstances that lead to the original Alien.
BOOM.
Perhaps we are not created by the Engineer… my reasoning is:
1. The last engineer left on earth (maybe he couldn’t make it back to mothership, just like ET left on earth by mistake)
2. So he decided to take his own life.
3. Who knows his DNA almost self-destructed came alive with the earth environment and evolution takes place..
4. So they (engineers) reached their base planet (2.5 year away) realized they accidentally left their DNA on planet earth and decided to do some serious cleaning up…
this article is really dumb , ” i didnt think david was that evil ”
are you kiddin me ? david was so sinister , talkin to shaw about her fathers death with a cold smile on his face and stating “dosnt everyone with their parents dead?” ,then infecting holloway he didnt drop the black goo in until he spoke with him he asked “wat would you be willing to do to get your answers? how far would you be willing to go?” which holloway replys by saying “everything and anything” then he spikes his drink and infects holloway. finding the map room and engineer without so much as a word to the crew (including vickers)
david had his own agenda ,in my oppinion. i thought it was totally creepy
plus the fact that instead of destroying the alien shaw gave birth to he wanted to freeze it , i think tbh there was something else goin on
and then there was the scene when he spoke to the engineer, nobody knows wat he said..
alien has the amazing gross scary violent facehugger scence
prometheus has “would you like a drink?”
:( bahh my comment not showing , spent ages typing that :( sad panda !
why aint any of my comments showing up
I saw the film yesterday and at first I wasn’t convinced but the more I think about what happened the more curious I have become.
After seeing Prometheus I immediately dusted off my Alien Trilogy boxed set, as I’m sure many others will have done, to see if i could find any answers or even hints to some of the questions Prometheus leaves you with.
Now one of the things that I’ve noticed in Alien is that we see the engineer ‘fossilised’ sitting in his chair/cockpit with a gaping hole in his chest and on that ship we see the room full of xenomorph eggs. We know that ‘drone’ xenomorphs don’t lay eggs they impregnate their victims and reproduce that way and that only the queen xenomorphs lays eggs. We also know that xenomorphs take characteristics from the hosts that they emerge from. Now this is a bit of a long shot but would it be possible that the xenomorph-esque creature we see at the end of Prometheus is actually a baby queen? Queen xenomorphs are alot taller than drones and they are also ‘givers of life’ much like the engineers. A long shot I know but this is the beauty of Prometheus, it makes you think!
Another thought on the goo being royal jelly. In the comics,consuming total jelly gave people things like incredible strength and uncontrollable aggressiveness. the symptoms are pretty much spit on to what happens to people when they come in contact with the goo in the film. Now royal jelly can only be taken from queen Xenos, which would mean that the xeno at the end can’t be the first. This is made more evident with the “sculpture” of what appears to be a queen in the face room with the vials.
Personally I like that the film had so many loose endings. The only issues I have with the movie is aliens and alien planets can be as confusing and mysteries as you like, but to keep the story believable the human beings have got to act in a rational way.
First of all they fly down to the planet and decide to get out and explore the first thing they see. In truth wouldn’t you launch some satellites to orbit the planet and take photos to get an overall idea of what’s going on, rather than just charging into an alien pyramid with a skull carved into it.
Also considering Fifield & Milburn were totally freaked by the decapitated SJ why did they end up back in the head room (the scariest room they’d discovered). Surely you’d just wait near the front door and wait for the storm to pass. Plus who would seriously want to try and stroke the alien space worm!
Good theories all round by the way.
This is horrible writing.
This entire article is horribly written. The wording is not thought out which makes it confusing overall. Learn to express thoughts in a clear and concise manner.
So there’s one thing that’s bugging me regarding the 2000+ year old idea to wipe out humanity: why, ho why would they go to all the trouble with bio weapons?
With so much technology one could arguably say they’d have it pretty easy to mop the floor with us in present time with “standard” weapons.
What would they be able to do with humanity with 1AD tech? Anything they’d wanted, I’m guessing…
You could then argue they wanted to fully “reboot” life on Earth.
But then, why go to all the trouble of Xeno’ing the planet?
Just kill everything! (that could be the purpose of the bioformer in the first place, though…)
Thinking about it the idea of a Civil War among the Engineers is quite a plausible idea.
Sticking with the theory you could then interpret the ancient drawings as either a warning or an invitation depending on which side the Engineer in question is.
Not sure anybody noticed this, but: WHY was the last Engineer asleep, when he could just as easily have taken off for earth instead of going to sleep in the first place? The apparent catastrophe at the Engineer base didn’t prevent the mission. It MUST be the case that they did NOT intend to destroy earth until humans arrived there, unless by a bizarre coincidence the last Engineer was already asleep before the disaster struck.
I doubt that the sequels will proceed along the lines described in the article. Things are not at all what they appear.
I strongly suspect that the scene at the base was deliberately staged as a test for mankind, to determine if we are worthy of survival.
Facehugger John,
On my first viewing I felt the scene with David and the Hologram was a test. For anyone that got there they would haphazardly reveal the planet they were from. I thought that as the hologram for the Earth was a different colour to that of the star chart when David ‘picked’ it. On my second viewing I didn’t feel that so much.
The first scene is clearly not mean to be earth. The music and the whole setting is meant to be otherworldly, so the point of it is: This is what the engineers do. Find a planet that can support life and seed it with their DNA. They are the sole Gods of the Universe… or at least they think so.
Now the base is NOT a weapons facility. I mean where are the weapons? They have a bio-weapon facility and don’t have any standard arms to for defense? That makes no sense. So here is what I think. The Engineers seed the planets, then go back to them 1000′s of years later so see what has developed and get samples to bring back , store, examine or whatever. Like a gigantic bio-library of all the creations they have made- keep in a black goop form. The room with our Alien friends is just one of many and not connected to any plot.
OK now stay with me… a group of Engineers then come across a planet on the edge of the galaxy (Earth) that has life on it that they DIDN’T create. And what’s more when they test the DNA of the intelligent life forms it matches their own exactly. Whoa! So who created humans then? Maybe the Engineers are not the sole Gods of the Universe? Maybe there is something more? This explains the paintings. They are showing where they came from – the great universal library of life.
So the ones that came across earth watch it for a while and then something happens. Now some are making the connection to Christ or something else that we did, but suppose it is something they did? Word of this race of beings with exact DNA not created by the Engineers reaches home and totally f*cks up their entire belief system- or at least threatens to if news of these humans gets out to everyone.
So either a Engineer civil war breaks out- or more likely a leadership element within the Engineers decides to take matters into their own hands and wipe out the humans. They have the perfect way to do this using the same stuff that they already know destroys their DNA and its sitting back on that Bio-Library base they just need to develop a way to deploy it. So they go to the planet and while secretly developing this (maybe right under the noses of the Engineers who are working there as librarians) they loose control of this virus- or purposely let is loose to kill the civilian Engineers. Either way this kills off everyone- the place is locked down and made off limits by the Engineers and stays silent until we show up 200- years later.
Now in the sequel, the ship will travel to home world and out will walk living proof that the Engineers are NOT the Gods of the universe and that there is a greater creator out there somewhere that engineered them- calling into question their entire life meaning.
So how do they know what a Alien queen looks like? Easy they have the exact same DNA as us, so any previous encounter would produce the same kind of Alien. But the Alien race is incidental to this story.
Why not just blow the hell out of earth with standard weapons? Easy, the group wanted to destroy humans wants to do it in a way they will not leave any trace they even existed. Using the DNA destroyer would look like any other Engineer project afterwards. No one would know humans were ever there.
Humans are the threat to the Engineers not because of what they may or may not do, but because of what we represent. We change their meaning of life….
That is my 2 cents.
I also think 1) the Alien we see is a baby queen. 2) the face hugger explosive growth with no source of food required a large suspension is disbelief 3) David rocked the movie and said something very important to the Engineer, 4) the guys not waiting by the entrance for the storm to pass was silly, 5) Lets all stop mentioning Predators. The whole AVP thing was just dumb and has nothing to do with this film.
While that is an interesting thought, if your theory is correct, why did we worship them? Why would they contact us? Not just contact us, but give us an exact location as to this particular planet in which they are testing their weapons that would destroy us?
Great read The Thinker and some solid ideas. One thing that dawned on me. A lot of people here have said “blow up Earth with weapons or wipe up humans with weapons”. Maybe they are culture that have no need for weapons because of their understanding of genetics. The spliced Xeno/Human DNA bomb is as functionally as any nuke AND they don’t mess up the planet in the process. If this is their way or wiping out the planet, using technology and getting their hand dirty with weaponry seemed a bit backward for such an advanced “God” like culture surely?
Seems to me like the cave writings were warnings to NOT VISIT THIS PLANET in the drawing. I feel like the planet was a quarantine or they were trying to keep the “alien” infection locked up there and away from anything with human DNA. Maybe they were studying how to destroy it and it got out of hand. The lone survivor killed the humans in case they were infected. Then he tried to get the hell out himself.
I’m still not sold on that theory. “NOTE TO ALL HUMANS WHO HAVE NO MEANS OF SPACE TRAVEL – Do NOT go exactly here” If they wanted to be clear they should have put a red line through it. ;)
Could the sleeping Engineer have been infected? It might have known he was and put himself in the pod. When he is woken up he seems fine so maybe the infection hasn’t gotten to the point of making angry and crazy but as they talk to him it gets control of him, which explains why he attacks them. You can also see his veins turning black like all the others.
Pointing where not to go makes no sense. They were highlighting that place to humanity for some positive reason. This is why I think the location is not a weapons center but rather a library of some kind. ‘When you grow up come here and see all the forms of life we have created.’
God like they may be, but the technology of the ships, the sleeping pods, the storage facility, the space suits is all very recognizable and similar to our own. To the point of even being able to bring down a ship by ramming it. Given that it would follow that they would have developed standard weapons as well. Even the fact they know about the Alien race and can clearly be hurt would be reason enough to have a few weapons. The fact that none are present is clear evidence to me that this is not a weapons facility- but rather a civilian scientific center. And if that is the case, lots of other things in the story start to make more sense.
A Xeno bomb would not be efficient at all. You end up with Aliens running around or mutant super-humans or something. Its just an even worse problem. Remember the idea in my theory is to erase the idea of humans from history completely and pretend earth was like any other starter planet with no life, so that your religious belief of being the only original creation of God stays intact. This is being done by a small group of Engineer zealots secretly and probably unknown to most other Engineers. You can’t leave a planet of mutants or Aliens with out needing some explanations. And you can’t blow up the whole place without someone noticing. But drop the black goop on the place, completely break down the DNA to dust and you have something. In a few 1000′s years there would be no evidence left.
I don’t think the last Engineer is infected. I think he is in shock to see the threat to his peoples beliefs now standing before him only a step away from his home world. I think he panics and wants to ensure none of them survive.
The Gods and creation theme is pretty strong throughout all Scotts work so I am sure that the Engineers are not ‘the answer’ and that the end of the movie will find us and them facing the same big questions.
I thought this movie was the best SciFi that has been made in a long long time. Can’t wait for the sequels.
I do not believe we can conclude that the Engineers created life on Earth; only that they created human life. The reason: we see plenty of examples of plant life on the planet before the Engineer sacrifices himself. Not only that, but the beginning of life on earth i dated back roughly 3.8 billion years ago, give or take. In the film, the planet is strikingly cool (glaciers, etc) for a period in which the earth is still extremely hot.
Why does it appear to be 99% opinion the Engineer at the beginning was creating life. Everything about that scene was pure death, DNA starnds being ripped apart, the body decomposing within seconds and releasing a black substance. I’m honestly perplexed why this scene is being perceived as creating life when it seemed more sinister and horrific above anyhting else.
We know the black substance has to be ingested, correct? David confirms this by placing the substance in the drink and by confirming to Shaw later on it can’t be passed through the atmosphere. The Engineer at the beginning releases the substance into the water supply but was it accident or was he poisoning the water supply intentionally? After all he did walk to the edge of a cliff over running water to “sacrifice” himself and it appears the “mothership” was watching to ensure the task was completed?
I didn’t go through all the comments so not sure if someone has brought this up yet, but I think the Engineers set-up LV-223 as a fail safe. Nothing really happened on LV-223, they just set it up to look like something happened. They set this all up so that if anything they created became as powerful as them (intergalactic travel) they would come to LV-223 and start the destruction of themselves.
Lets look at something simple that i think has been forgotten
- Name of the movie
Promethus, s a Titan, culture hero, and trickster figure who in Greek mythology is credited with the creation of man from clay and the theft of fire for human use, an act that enabled progress and civilization. He is known for his intelligence, and as a champion of mankind.
Alien at the beginning i think is in some way one and the same, accept what they intended to kill him, brought about more life. they notice this and prepare the weapon to clean up their mistake, the weapon goes hay wire and delays the attack on earth.
It certainly does seem to be the simplest way of looking at it doesn’t it.
Just saw the flick last nite. Methinks the only true answer may come about in the sequel. The door is obviously left open for that. LOVED the posts, but, back here on planet earth–the real engineers are the scriptwriters and Ridleys vision for us, LOL! Carry on, mates. =)
I did briefly consider the idea the broomey mentioned a while back. I think it is distinctly possible. We know that the space jockeys dont actually look like the elephantine create we first seen in alien, and that its a suit. So imagine that its not a space jockey at all but shaw in a suit at te end of the sequel or trilogy. Thus connecting it directly to the first alien
I also think the idea that the xeno we see at the end is a baby queen. When it screams another set of jaws sort of pop out making the snout longer. This is a trait that the first queen xeno we see in Aliens shows as we first see her
Plus the placenta seems to have a heartbeat and the sound design really emphasises it. That seems to imply this is more than just a simple Xeno.
I think that the Engineers made those cave paintings to invite the humans to come to that Engineer ship once humans grew advanced enough to travel that far into space. The one that woke by David has been sleeping for 2000 years, it could have traveled to Earth instead of putting itself into sleep. Maybe the plan was to keep all four in sleep until the humans found out the true meaning behind the paintings but then an outburst occurred (although it didn’t tell us what the SJ’s were running from).
They don’t want any civilization to surpass them technologically so once a species became smart enough to depict the messages they would awaken the Engineers who would then wipe them out. Maybe bringing life to planets is just an experiment to see whether or not the black goo was a success in creating life. There were multiple ships on that moon so maybe each ship had a predestination set to whatever planet they were meant to eradicate but then how did the humans happen to pick the ship with Earth as its destination… Maybe when David picked up Earth it was a test to see which planet the species came from. So the species of each planet would pick their own and that would bring their end. That may also be the reason why no other Engineer crew came to that moon…because it was believed that the right time to check on the ships would be when the intelligent life they created finally reached it. The black goo also had the effect of rapid growth, like when Shaw’s octopus looking thing went from a baby to a full grown beast in a few hours. So maybe there are different chemicals/goos and the experiment was to see which would lead to an advanced civilization the quickest and most successfully. So going back to the main theory, when a species awakens the Engineer and ship that would tell the Engineer home planet NASA people the amount of time it took for evolution.
I dunno though…Gotta get that sequel.
Weyland know about the Xenomorph because in AVP they are discovered by The Company.
How many times must it be said in the universe that prometheus takes place there are no predators. Ridley scott confirmed that these films are no longer cannon with the alien films.
Everyone is focused on what David said or didn’t say. I think that misses the point. The Engineer touches David’s head and there is a moment of stillness. I think at that moment the Engineer realized that David was a fake human, a mere machine. In effect, his existence was a mockery of the art and religion of the Engineers. That enraged the Engineer. After all, we’re talking about a species that built an enormous human/Engineer head in their ship!
Here’s an idea: what if the the facilities on LV-223 are set up by the Engineers to wipeout mankind only if they became too advanced and therefore a danger to them? this would mean they planted the murals all over earth so that if we ever got smart enough to act on them and show up on LV-223, then they would wipe us out with the Xeno. It seems there was an accident some 2000 years prior that wiped them out (mostly anyway) so that was some poor planning. Seems like they wanted to make sure we didn’t outpace them, also explains why the Engineer got angry when David spoke to him – he realized just how advanced man has come that we can create life too!
I also am curious how the Engineer/Space Jockey could stay inside the sleeping pod in statis for 2000 years. What’s their life expectancy? Wouldn’t he die within that time? And when woken up, how come he is not be drowsy or sick like humans are? Instead, he’s wide awake and ready to kill instantly??
And why wouldn’t whatever attacked the other Engineer/Space Jockeys open up or break into his sleeping pod and kill him as well? If it were a face hugger or Xeno, it was evident in Alien 3 that they can access the sleeping pods and kill or implant it’s victims while they are in statis.
My third question is this, if the atmosphere is toxic to humans on LV-223 and we are similar to the Engineers, why didn’t that Engineer have on his space jockey suit when he came to the escape pod to kill Shaw? He obviously had it on when he tried to take off in the ship. When it crashed, he decides to get naked, run outside and find and kill the last remaining human?? Just another of many, many plot holes in this film.
Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoyed this movie. I saw it opening night here in Tampa, Florida and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Although, it’s nowhere near as great as “Aliens” was (one of my all time favorite movies period) I’d put it just under the first “Alien” film and way above that dreadful abomination called “Alien 3″ <- which I think should be erased from cannon for it's horrible plot and killing off of Ripley. I liked the "Resurrection" and "AVP" flicks more than I did "Alien 3".
I digress here, but I'd give "Prometheus" a solid 'A-' grade. I sure hope there's a follow up film directed and produced by Ridley that clears up some of the many questions we've all had. Methinks if he treads down the "Jesus was an alien" theme that will get all the bible-thumpers and Catholics in an uproar though. Not that I care, but it would be instant media attention for the sequel that advertising money alone just can't buy.
Why did they explode the jockey’s head? Served no real plot purpose! Cruel sexy Noomi!
Look, i’m sorry if someone brought this up already as I don’t have time to read every comment. But, i haven’t seen anyone address this issue yet.
The film hints that 2000 years ago there was a Xeno outbreak at the weapons facility, Engineers are shown with their chests busted open. That would suggest that there was a facehugger.
The film then establishes that the facehugger was conceived through a combination of human egg and exposed human sperm.
So how exactly was a facehugger created 2000 years ago in that outbreak? Black goo causes the Engineer’s DNA to break down. It doesn’t cause them to create facehuggers. At least, that’s what this film TOLD us.
And the Engineer found at the beginning of Alien on LV426 was obviously trying to escape the outbreak 2,000 years ago. Seems like he made it off planet, but not that far before he succumbed to the chest-buster.
The green stone was a light used to mesmerize xeno life forms. That is why the engineers were running into that room. They were going to activate the light to sedate the infected engineer. Kind of a control mechanism they put in xeno DNA. This green light is an ode to Harry Dean Stanton’s novelization of Alien in which xenos are mesmerized by a green light.
Scott has been quite forth-coming about what is actually going on in Prometheus and what a sequel would include. He’s acknowledged the engineers’ motivation to cleanse earth was our crucifixion of one of their emissaries, Jesus. If we killed him, we would certainly come for the rest of them one day. The engineers had cut their losses with their failed experiment until the xenos saved us at the last second.
The sequel will explore who God truly is. Scott says the engineers are too aggressive to be Gods and to think of them more as dark angels. We will see the engineers’ home world and the big question is whether or not anyone will be home. I’m leaning toward extinction since the engineers never followed up on their mission to cleanse earth.
I’d love to see how they wiped out the dinosaurs for us. I’m guessing no xenos were used since we have no fossilized remains.
Can people stop saying religion is 2000 years old, it’s a LOT older, only Christianity is that old.
Also I don’t think the whole “waiting for humans to advance” threat idea carries any weight. In 2000 years, the engineers would still be a hell of a lot more advanced than us through their own evolution. Plus, if they did create us, they’ve had space travel technology for a good few million years and then some. We’ve only had it for a split second in their time line.
We do know that they had plans for us, but for us to reach them is a big no no as means of harming us. It was mentioned at the end of the film “I want to know the answers as to why they changed their mind” meaning sending a weapon to Earth or worse or maybe better. The “invitation” still doesn’t make sense, but then I don’t think they drew the paintings, advanced Engineers wouldn’t draw such basic pictures on a cave. More like they visited us and told the civilization at the time, “we’re from this star system”.
David is still integral to the plot, he’s helping to fly the ship at the end.
Very interesting comments and many valid points. That Earth is a crucible for developing the perfect life form is what I think the whole SJ episodes are about and the perfect life form doesn’t like its parents or any rivals. Like a Doomsday Weapon superior to its creator. Ash and Bishop both mentioned about the aliens being perfect life forms, but also there were a ton of unanswered questions in Alien in 1979. I remember the criticisms at the time saying it was only a haunted house movie in outer space. I found Alien cold, nihilistic and quite flat. Suspenseful and terrifying, particularly the chest burster scene, but overall I had a hard time watching the movie in 1979. However, a few years ago TCM had a science fiction festival and they showed Logan’s Run followed by Alien and I was blown away. And of course in 1986 Cameron made me get interested in Alien again because Aliens is one of the best sequels ever made and far superior to Alien. Blade Runner left me cold, Someone To Watch Over Me left me cold, Black Rain was an awful mess, and I kind of gave up on Ridley Scott. Until Gladiator which now seems over blown but still watchable and Black Hawk Down is great, and I went back and watched Thelma & Louise and realized Ridley was making pretty decent movies. And I think he hit a home run with Prometheus. Alien is such a technically superior movie to Logan’s Run which I never realized and they are only three years apart! But, then again, Silent Running, Forbidden Planet, and the original Day the Earth Stood Still were technically better than Logan’s Run starring Farah Fawcett (My friend Steve and I laughed for days when ABC promoted Logan’s Run as starring her with Michael York and Peter Ustinov). Oh well. Anyway, back to Prometheus, I found it a far superior movie to Alien. I’ll probably get roasted for that. It’s not perfect but it is technically a masterpiece and I actually found myself rooting for characters, particualry Shaw, Vickers, and David. In Alien the only character I could even come close to liking was Ripley and that may have been her underwear in my 17 year old mind. Prometheus got me thinking more than any movie since The Dark Knight (I know, I’m a pop culture junkie), but the reaction it is getting is much more wide and varied that Alien and all that I heard until Aliens was “haunted house in space.” And that’s what it is. And looks superior despite budgetary concerns, musical arguments, and editing for violence. The one thing I worried about the most on Prometheus was the music and while I knew that Maestro Goldsmith wasn’t around, Mark did a wonderful job and the music, while a little too “circusy” at times, really kicked into gear when necessary and that might have been Gregson Williams contribution, but it worked. I like Prometheus and finding it encouraging that at least this time people are talking about more than a “haunted house in space.”
Best,
Brian
Reminds me of pulp fiction, wondering what was actually in that briefcase
My bet is on the theory that the SJs were much like us, plagued by dissent and infighting. Wars broke out. A particularly heinous sect developed the black goo as a bioweapon.
I don’t think that the black goo the SJ drinks at the beginning is the same as the black goo the crew finds at the installation. Same medium but different contents. And contrary to what others say, the SJ at the beginning was seeding human life on Earth. I mean, there are enough unanswered questions here, and if you start doubting the few signals we have, we’ll never piece together a coherent theory.
Anyway, the evil SJs intended to infect Earth with their sinister goo to give rise to a large population of Xenos, which they would use in battle against their SJ enemies. Only they couldn’t control it, and it got to them first.
Exactly what transpired at the installation — whether there were chestbusters or just evil, crazed SJs killing the others — I don’t know. And how that one SJ managed to enter the cryo chamber, I don’t know.
Anyway, the cave paintings depict benign SJs warning us about the evil SJs’ plan (and I agree it’s a bad warning). We know that the warnings date back at least 30k years, and we know that the decapitated SJ was around 2k years dead. Maybe the installation and the evil plan are over 30k years old, but something went wrong early on; then other SJs attempted to go back and harness the weapon, only to be killed themselves. That is, maybe the decapitated SJ is not part of the original squad, but a member of a later mission.
I think that in the next movie David and Shaw travel to the SJ’s home and discover all of this. They accidentally infect the home planet with the evil goo, or maybe the queen Xeno that emerged from the SJ’s chest has stowed away on their departing ship. All heck breaks loose, and the SJs are wiped out. An attempted escape ends in a crash on a desolate moon, where Ripley and Co. later land.
The last SJ, whom we see in Alien, manages to send out a warning message to stay away. David and/or Shaw manage to relay some info back to Earth. The evil corporation puts two and two together and knows what’s on the moon. But displaying the same evil that undid the engineers, the corporation directs Ripley and Co. to land and attempt to harness the weapon.
I don’t know if someone has posted this before but what if this alien queen we see at the end of the movie can not put eggs by her own? And the diseased Milburn is infected with some kind of Alien King that will eventually copulate with our queen thus breeding a new Alien queen who is capable of put eggs by her own? Maybe I’m overthinking it.
Ok… can someone tell me… i’ve read as much as I can now… and it’s all great and I think thefilm is brilliant… especially to get this many people in the world talking – when was the last time a film did this! Top form RS.
But… Given the Engineers had created an “air” station (ie can breath in the ship)… 2 points:
1) At the end when the ship crashes on Vickers and Shaw runs to the POD to see her offspring flapping around the containment chamber… How quickly did that Engineer take to get to her!!!! You’d at least though he’d have been shook up with such a crash!
and
2) secondly – how the hell did he get to her without a suit – one which he could breath in!
Out of the whole film – this is the bit that’s bugged me… They can’t breath without their suits outside… yet he’s runnig around all over the place at the end with no suit or Air…
Odd…
Still Love the film and can’t wait for Shaw and David to get it on and make Alien Robot babies! roll on 2014…
:-)
good article and comments on here. you and benji are clearly prometheus gurus.
Some very interesting comments on this site. A lot of food for thought!
In a sequel, I’d like to see a bit more of how the Enginners are connected to the Xenos, i.e. more details on how these Engineers created the Xenos, or how they discovered them, used them…
In Giger art piece Hieroglyphics for the first Alien movie (SEE LINK – just click or copy/paste in browser the following http://www.museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=20287 ), we can see the Xeno life cycle, with the Engineers actually present. Egg, facehugger, host (which seems to be an Engineer), and chestburster are all present. What’s interesting and peculiar is the Xeno-and-slightly-human figure at the top of the image. Its body and limbs surround the protrait, and it or she is laying the egg in question. Could this be the first type of Xeno Queen? It would be interesting if they explored this in future films.
Also, I have some books at home which mention that the Enginners created the Xenos and their Queen as weapons of destruction and creation. But the Xenos here are described as first generation, with characteristics of Human, Xeno and Engineer species (a mixture of organic, humanoid and biomechanical). The books refer to Giger’s art piece Li II (HERE’S THE LINK – just click or copy/paste: http://www.artbrokerage.com/artist/H-R-Giger/L-I–II-43246 ) as a possible representation of the very first Xeno Queen, with characteristics of all species (which are in fact one species). It’s beautiful, yet eerie!
Lastly, I would love to see the Xeno and/or Engineer Homeworld in a sequel. Hopefully it will have the look of the Engineers’ ships and technology and the kind of biomechanical feel of the Xenos, a bit like some of Giger’s artwork of Alien Landscapes. Here is one of many (just click or copy/paste the link): http://www.newarteditions.com/hr-giger-print-biomechanioden-kunstverein-biel/
Cheers!
Did anyone else notice that the Med-pod in the Vickers module was set up for a man?
This can imply that she is actually a robot and there was a need to save *somebody* in case anything blows up.
1. The first engineer was on Earth to create life. once he falls into the water you can see his DNA being transformed into anew DNA followed by a cell multiplying. It is widely considered that the first life on Earth originated in the water, so this fits that perfectly. Of course you ask, well then why attack us in the end? Well when the humans were speaking to the engineer, he was listening and seems quite intrigued, however when David, a artificial life form speaks to him saying who knows what, he gets agitated and attacks david, weyland kind of tries to defend him and he attacks weyland the guard shoots him and kills guard. Now he feels we are aggressive and mean harm. Just my ideas of what went on, who knows
I know I am late to this discussion, but I will drop a few cents anyway.
I have this theory, the Black Goo is a weapon produced by the SJs, and there are many factions of SJs (just like us, since we share the same DNA). When they found out that the black goo have evolved, they wanted to make sure the last planet that their fellow SJ that committed suicide with the black goo, did not have some unexpected side effects. The “hippy” SJs have been on earth, living with man kind but did not let the “up-tight” SJs know that the dissolved Sj’s DNA have gave life on this planet called earth.
And it involves the popular christianity believes (sorry, its not happening since i’m an athiest).
Now let’s start with my first theory.
First, the black goo is actually a weapon of mass destruction. It contains the enzyme that the RNA uses to break down the DNA and replicates the DNA. However, the SJ (Space Jokey or “Engineers”) have engineered to make sure it only breaks down the DNA and cells on molecular level, thus you can kill or wipe out an entire civilization or the planet without having harmful sign effects. If you think about it, these SJs are very efficient and “green”.
Now that brings us to the first scene of the movie. Where the barely naked SJ drank the black goo. Some have proposed that he was creating life, however from what I saw, he was committing suicide.
What had happen was a side effect, if you will. To quote Jurassic Park “Life finds a way”. This black goo have evolved without the SJ’s knowledge. It not only breaks down the DNA, it also replicates itself, to pass on its genes. Much like a virus. A virus is not self conscience, nor is it considered alive. Yet, within a host, it replicates itself using the host and spread itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
It is possible that at middle stage of the primordial soup, the raw cells were created, however without DNA Nuclei to be active. Now with the black gooed SJ DNA replicating in the soup, we can see how life would kick start.
Now why did the SJs waited a few millenias then suddenly decided to wipe us out which was delayed by an outbreak on its weapon facility 2000 years ago? It is quite possible that they have discovered an unexpected change to the subjects that was affected by the Black Goo. And like any government agencies or drug companies, they will likely rule out the initial mutation as the “abnormality” and would keep an eye on that irregularity until more cases shows up then they will open a further investigation into such irregular event. And it is also possible that not all Weaponized Black Goo were undergoing the same mutations just some batch were experiencing such mutation maybe due to the gravatational constraint or electronic impulse giving by that system’s sun that gave these batch of weapon a mutation. Remember, we are all mutations of our species.
Now in the cave paintings that shows a giant (aka “hippy SJ”) pointing towards a star, may demostrate a sign telling human not to go there. Afterall, we have pictures telling you to mind the gap between the train and platform, and caution, hot coffee.
The black goo on LV 233 have evolved so much that you can see from the corpse of SJs that were shot in the head, the black goo no longer breaks down the DNA. In fact it is hijacking the host to further its own surivability. The worms are another example. The worms that touched the black goo have evolved into something else, an organism that wants to get inside of a host. To do what? perhaps to propagate? Which we will see once the final evolution into the final stage of Alien, the face hugger’s will to find a host and propagate.
Now there are also failed hijack, which lead to disgruntle mutated hosts that does not propagate, but become violent and ended with head explosion.
Noticed that throughout the movie, all the SJ looks the same. There are no minor diviations between eachother. And also it seems to suggest that why the Black Goo could not complete the its full evolutionary process is because that the Sjs are genderless… Shaw introduced a major mutation to the black goo because she is a female. Something that the SJs don’t have. The SJs display of a male body but may not contain a uturis or ovaries. And this maybe the agent that factors in to the new evolutionary form of the black goo. Or maybe gender is required for the Black Goo to take more powerful effect? Which is why this black goo is a weapon. Which backs up that the SJ in the first scene was not creating life, but to end his own.
Very late to the discussion but I was watching the digital download of the movie and the jockey that got decapitated seemed to be falling behind the rest and we seem him alone at the door, we don’t see any other jockies running into the ampule room at that point. It also looks like there is a corridor that goes straight ahead and veers right and the ampule room is off of this corridor. The other jockies went straight and with whatever was on its heels so close the lone jockey tries to take refuge in the store room, better to be there with a wall between it and the possible monster.
The main problem I have is who is Prometheus? Did he kill all the other engineers to prevent Earth from being wiped out, or conversely was he acting alone in his desire to kill humans (assuming that’s even what was going on)?
The monster that attacks the space jockey near the end. How has it gotten from the ship to the rover? It was not freed from the med-pod after it’s “birth” as the whole ship would have known about it.
I agree that Prometheus left me with more questions than answers, but at the same time, it didn’t really disappoint me being that it made me think after watching it twice at the theater and I bought a copy the day it came out. Let me explain, I enjoy thinking of all the possibilities of what a Prometheus sequel could have in store. I have my own idea of the reason the “engineers” created us and why they decided to eradicate us. I like to think that there’s a possibility that the engineers had a civil war, one side that wants to create and another that wanted to destroy us. Maybe that is why there was only one left alive. The good guys figured out the bad guys plot and released the black ooze onto the ship to stop them. The one left alive put himself into the sleep chamber so that by the time someone woke him up, all the Aliens had died off. I only think this because at the beginning of the movie, the engineer sacrificed himself to create humanity. I hate to think the engineers are all evil and want us dead. Also, the alien ship that dropped off the engineer that sacrificed himself was completely different from the ones that were going to earth to destroy humanity. Maybe the good side has the flying saucers and the other have the horse shoe shaped ships. Still loved the movie but I’m gonna hate having to wait 3-4 yrs for the sequel!!! Hopefully Ridley Scott won’t let someone butcher this sequel!
I think there is a problem with the scene of the Engineer sacrificing himself to spread DNA: it can clearly be seen that that planet (possibly Earth) has trees, so DNA is already there at least in the vegetable form. We may argue that the Engineer started animal life form…
I watched the film on blu-ray last weekend, The story starts with one Engineer or with the deleted scene there are more engineers.
He raises the jar filled with a biological cocktail, pours it into his mouth to dissolve his body down to one DNA piece, then jumping into the waterfall to carry his remains off.
This is the seeding process for the human race on Earth!
The process would take millions of years not a couple of thousand years!
Also the animal kingdom would develop too! The seeding is not just about the Human race. We see the embryo stages during the development in the womb of Animals and Humans.
That is the pattern of life, Life is everywhere, in the seas, on the land and in the air. Humans take start taking over the order of life, The Humans development starts in 1800′s with in 200 years they landed on there moon.
The biggest Unbelieveable thing of the whole film is this, here we are in 2012!!! That in 2093 we are able to send a spaceship to Zeta Reticuli, 39 Light years away, Flight time 2 years 6 months, Very Much Faster Than Light!!! In 81 years! The Ion drives would not get them there in Century!
The design of the spaceship, too fragile! they would be dead in 3 months from cosmic radiation! Yes I know the OLD Man has trillions of Dollars, but thats only money! Not advance knowledge!
If you look on the Internet, you can see that 10 men and 2 women went to Zeta Reticuli back in the !965 for 13 years, By the Eben people from a planet called Serpo, that orbits Zeta Reticuli.
I like reading all of the speculation. Since this is fiction, it can be made up any way the writers choose, so don’t waste your time, you’ll just have to wait and see what they come up with.
Ridley is not stupid, and he knows there are too many inconsistencies when you try and compare the 79 Alien to Prometheus. Simple questions like “why was the space jockey in his seat in Alien when he died in the escape pod in prometheous?” He knows those questions are there, and the answer is, because you haven’t seen the full story. We as an audience are looking at the ship and saying that’s the one from Alien, but who says it is? We already know there were are least two on the planet, and therefore they are a production craft with many more on other planets/moons also. So, the untold series of events will lead us to the true begining of Alien, I believe Ridley will give us that satisfaction.
Since the “deacon” alien born at the end of prometheus was the result of the mix of the squid, which was found by the engineers, and the engineers themselves, the fact that they collected these squid samples in the containers means they were always in proximity with the engineers, where ever they traveled, so the opportunity for the alien we know can present itself in any chosen scenario.
I think the engineers got into serious trouble with these things which ultimately screwed up their plans. I’m curious se see what Shaw discovers next as the ship will no double guide itself home.
festivals and wine-tasting events are held at the gloria ferrer caves & vineyards. in addition, the estate is a popular destination for weddings. the view from the
Okay, the opening scene was clear to me, one faction of the Engineers was peaceful. Hence the linen cloth. They determined that the military group (all in uniforms) on LV-233, were cheating, creating a weapon, ready to deploy and were going to target Earth (at some point) so it was decided to “change the game” provide another choice.
They gave “Humans”(Us) life and some understanding or instruction as to where to go….When they were ready…..The kind of “sacrifice” made, was one of love.
The reaction of the one survivor left, was evidence that this group of military scientists didn’t want us or anyone else to “care” about them. Eventhough their race was either extinct or had moved on from taking life…..No matter, destroying was the only thing on the agenda.