OK, but why where they so bad at wiping us out?
They had multiple bases on just that one planet, presumably others as well. Seems silly they could not accomplish wiping out one planet in 2000 years.
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OK, but why where they so bad at wiping us out?
They had multiple bases on just that one planet, presumably others as well. Seems silly they could not accomplish wiping out one planet in 2000 years.
evilromero
Member
Why didn't the engineers create the humans just to impregnate them with bio weapons? Seems more plausible to me. Earth is like a meat factory, full of hosts for their millions of weaponized eggs. A perfect planet to cultivate a massive army of aliens. So their intent wasn't to wipe out the humans, but rather use them to hatch their weapons. There's little logic in them just creating humans to only kill them all for no reason.
The Elite
BOSS
Could be that this installation was responsible for monitoring Earth. When it got wiped out no one back at home base decided to carry out the mission.
Vickers' main narrative purpose was to be the resident doomed corporate stooge. That Weyland is far more concerned with his artificial creation than her or any other human could be a parallel to what went on with the Engineers (and ties into the Prometheus myth). The inevitable sequel will probably look into that a bit more.
Vickers isn't a robot. The show already gauged audience expectations there and swatted that notion away with a joke.
Indeed. The Alien movies say next to nothing about the Engineers. There is just Space Jockey sitting in his seat in the space croissant in Alien, having seemingly birthed a xenomorph at some point in the past, and everything else was left to speculation. That was the primary reason Ridley Scott wanted to center Prometheus around the Jockeys.
The only reason SJ was in Alien is because Ridley and company wanted an evocative, epic shot that people would remember, and it very nearly didn't make it into the movie because Fox thought it was overly expensive for such a short scene. We can all be glad they relented, but there really isn't any deeper meaning there. All of that stuff was simply hit on by subsequent comics/fan fiction/fan speculation, but it was never a part of the franchise before now.
People were going to inevitably be disappointed because when a mystery is left a mystery, there is fertile ground for your imagination and the imagination of others to play a dominant part. The more things are given concrete answers, the less malleable the mystery becomes and the less your imagination plays a role.
cloud_sleep
Member
I never said that it changes Alien, just that, for me, the film's explanation of SJs feels forced. The film wants to link up with the Alien films but they wanted slightly larger humanoids as the SJs instead of the type of massive bio-mechanical elephantine creatures we saw in Alien. The spacesuit explanation doesn't really feel like it fits with what was shown in Alien.
My take was that this was how the corporation knew about the Xeno's. Its pretty clear in Alien that the android had intel on the alien before they ever got to to the planet.
One of the questions that i had from the movie was why did Weyland need to hide on his on ship? His ship his money his crew, so why do they keep it secret that he is on the ship?
Also how does the Queen Xeno come about. if the Xeno is created from the squid/facesuckers
at what point does a queen Xeno come into the picture?
One of the questions that i had from the movie was why did Weyland need to hide on his on ship? His ship his money his crew, so why do they keep it secret that he is on the ship?
Also how does the Queen Xeno come about. if the Xeno is created from the squid/facesuckers
at what point does a queen Xeno come into the picture?
radios shipping overview
Member
Prometheus definitely has some ambiguity, and like you say, a lot of it is due to plot holes. I would say the rest of it is Lindelof's LOST-style ambiguity that exists for the sake of itself. It's ambiguity without foundation that's just there to deliberately obscure plot points, rather than to add depth to the story.
I agree, it is just backstory. I always thought the idea of an alien pilot fused to the ship (did he grow into it, or did the ship grow from him?) and the bio-mechanical nature of the SJ interesting.
That it was "just" a humanoid in a suit did fall somewhat short of my imagination, but the larger questions still remain: why do they seed planets? Why do they destroy them? Who made them?
DancingCactus77
Member
Well. Imagine the SJ consumes a special black goo while sitting at the control and his body disintegrates and melts with the chair as an act of sacrifice and total devotion in committing his suicide mission of destroying life on other planetslike a suicide bomber.
This makes allot more sense than "space jesus"
radios shipping overview
Member
Oh man, don't give Ridley any ideas.
I don't know. I can't make sense of it based on the information available in the movie.
This would make sense if the movie didn't go to great lengths to tell us that "they changed their minds about us." The plot is pretty contradictory.
The multiple bases and ships was just for the Deus Ex Machina of setting up the sequel by them flying off at the end having destroyed everything else for the spectacle.
The fact it's on a different planet to Alien is to get round the plot hole that opens up with them only finding one ship in Aliens.
It just isn't very good writing, born from a very weak story and its shoehorning into the Alien universe. The contrivances and way they jump from one plot point to the next just opening up more and more questions and contradictions.
And for me when boiled down to the essence of the story it is actually telling, I came to the conclusion the film just doesn't support this level of speculation nor have a satisfying answer for any of it. Deliberately so, because it can't be told well. All pushed aside for a sequel and probably more of the same, or with whatever retconning necessary to try and make another angle work.
The biggest wasted opportunity for me as films go in a long, long time and made even more disappointing by how beautiful the world they created was.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Cheating death? Good. Cheating death AND being the first to make contact with humanity's creators? Too good to pass up for a guy with such a big ego.lefantome said:
It doesn't, because the film has already gone to great lengths to show how they are not capable of dealing with the xenomorphs that result from the black goo. Let alone transporting millions of them anywhere.
The xenomorphs are the plague, judgement from God, their attempted return just Space Armageddon.
Make everyone agree it stinks?
A place to have actual discussion of the movie without The Three Amigos chiming in every 5 minutes.
we.are.the.armada
Member
Shit, why start with humans? They could have had raptor-xenomorphs for 60 million fucking years
Silliness aside, I think that the SJs intentionally wanted to recreate themselves but decided to use a convoluted bio weapon on them for killing Jesus. I agree with you, their original intent wasn't to wipe out the humans until the 2000 year old event happened and gave them reasons. These SJs must be of a psychology and/or zealotry that cannot be understood by our reasoning.
Also, would anybody help me answer these questions I thought of? Thanks!
I think you'll find them called answers not troll comments (nice edit) and pointing out the illogical nature of most the speculation that has resulted. Fuelled by the illogical nature of the film itself.
No one wanted to love this film more than me, I'm sure that's the same for many people, and visually it delivered everything I could have wanted and more. But I'm not just going to ignore how broken the film is on so many levels, and I'm hugely disappointed in all involved from Ridley to everyone else who couldn't see the pitfalls they were going to fall into by taking the direction they have.
Such a waste.
It sucks that you didn't enjoy it, I don't know what else to say. I'm glad that I anticipated it as much as you did and still enjoyed it, though. Hopefully with time (or the director's cut or sequel) you'll be able to enjoy it as much.
we.are.the.armada said:
I can't see the questions at work for some reason. Is there any way for you to repost them?
Speedymanic
Banned
A friend had an interesting theory about the Alien shrine.
They 'worship' the shrine as a symbol of fertility, not death or destruction. The reason? They can no longer reproduce/something happened that made made them infertile.
This is why the engineer is so willing to sacrifice himself, it's the only way they can reproduce.
Anyway, during experiments to find a solution to their problem, they created the goo and happened to also create a facehugger and all that entails.
Thought it was interesting.
They 'worship' the shrine as a symbol of fertility, not death or destruction. The reason? They can no longer reproduce/something happened that made made them infertile.
This is why the engineer is so willing to sacrifice himself, it's the only way they can reproduce.
Anyway, during experiments to find a solution to their problem, they created the goo and happened to also create a facehugger and all that entails.
Thought it was interesting.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
So God was angry we killed Jesus, tried to punish us, but screwed up?
First, put me firmly in the camp that the script tried to tackle too many themes for a 2 hour movie, and as a result coherent characters, plot, and motivation were left on the cutting room floor or just were never there in the first place.
That being said, I think the inexplicability of some of the movie is intentional. If I had to boil the movie down to one topic the movie tries to explore, it is the relationship between the creator and the creation. We have humans and God, represented in the main character and her husband and Weyland. We have humans and the androids, represented in david's relationship with main character, husband, and weyland. And we have humans and Engineers. What little coherent dialogue we have in this movie tends to be focused on how humans view David, how David views humans, faith in God and whether or not it is pointless, and why Engineers did what they did and created what they created.
In this theme, Prometheus clearly is trying to say that the created can't understand the creator and perhaps more importantly the creator can't understand the created.
We know from David's own dialogue that he doesn't understand humans. I think it is proved in the movie that human's dont understand David, even his direct creator Weyland. Weyland seems to trust David completely and it is implied he thinks he understands his creation, yet I think it is entirely misplaced trust. David's actions in the movie are almost inexplicably reckless, and that is the point. The other David-human interactions also are full of misunderstanding. David is meddling in everything: he just starts touching alien controls and making things happen. No one questions why he is doing this. Most in this thread would claim it is because the humans are just stupid in this movie; I propose another theory. It is a thematic choice to show that the humans have trust that they fully comprehend their creation, and thus he would never intentionally harm them or they think they could forsee the harm. The opposite is true. I believe every death in that movie can be traced to David's meddling. The whole chain of events is started by David's lack of caution. He opens the door to the shrine. More importantly, people tell David not to touch the vases and David touches them. I believe this sets off the reaction to the vases opening not the change in atmosphere. He also plays with the black goo. Several times in that scene people are saying "Don't touch anything." At least as far as I recall. Yet no one thinks much of David doing all these things. In fact, the entire movie the viewer is practically begging the human's to give a second thought to the actions of David. Yet time and time again every human in the movie seems to be placing unlimited trust in David. Remember that scene where David volunteers to go off alone to check on the malfunctioning pup. Even after all David has done, no one blinks an eye to place that kind of trust in him.
The 2nd creator/creation relationship is humans and engineers. This thread is proof that no one here understands the motivations of the Engineers. As for how the engineers view humans, there is less evidence of this, but I don't think I am out far on a limb saying that the one engineer in the film doesn't appear to have much understanding of the humans either.
Which brings me to the third relationship, humans and God. People in this thread have discussed how the faith and God talk seem out of place and seem tacked on just so the movie can claim to be asking "deep" questions. I think it is there because Scott is trying to link the creator/creation relationships discussed above with the ultimate creator/creation relationship: our relationship with God. If we can't understand the Engineers or David, real physical world creators and creations, how can we possibly understand God.
Edit. One random thought. The goo David first touches on the control panel, I immediately thought of the Alien saliva. Isn't there a similar scene in Alien or Aliens where a person stretches out the Alien saliva between his fingers. I think they were retconning in NANOMACHINES as part of the Alien physiology.
That being said, I think the inexplicability of some of the movie is intentional. If I had to boil the movie down to one topic the movie tries to explore, it is the relationship between the creator and the creation. We have humans and God, represented in the main character and her husband and Weyland. We have humans and the androids, represented in david's relationship with main character, husband, and weyland. And we have humans and Engineers. What little coherent dialogue we have in this movie tends to be focused on how humans view David, how David views humans, faith in God and whether or not it is pointless, and why Engineers did what they did and created what they created.
In this theme, Prometheus clearly is trying to say that the created can't understand the creator and perhaps more importantly the creator can't understand the created.
We know from David's own dialogue that he doesn't understand humans. I think it is proved in the movie that human's dont understand David, even his direct creator Weyland. Weyland seems to trust David completely and it is implied he thinks he understands his creation, yet I think it is entirely misplaced trust. David's actions in the movie are almost inexplicably reckless, and that is the point. The other David-human interactions also are full of misunderstanding. David is meddling in everything: he just starts touching alien controls and making things happen. No one questions why he is doing this. Most in this thread would claim it is because the humans are just stupid in this movie; I propose another theory. It is a thematic choice to show that the humans have trust that they fully comprehend their creation, and thus he would never intentionally harm them or they think they could forsee the harm. The opposite is true. I believe every death in that movie can be traced to David's meddling. The whole chain of events is started by David's lack of caution. He opens the door to the shrine. More importantly, people tell David not to touch the vases and David touches them. I believe this sets off the reaction to the vases opening not the change in atmosphere. He also plays with the black goo. Several times in that scene people are saying "Don't touch anything." At least as far as I recall. Yet no one thinks much of David doing all these things. In fact, the entire movie the viewer is practically begging the human's to give a second thought to the actions of David. Yet time and time again every human in the movie seems to be placing unlimited trust in David. Remember that scene where David volunteers to go off alone to check on the malfunctioning pup. Even after all David has done, no one blinks an eye to place that kind of trust in him.
The 2nd creator/creation relationship is humans and engineers. This thread is proof that no one here understands the motivations of the Engineers. As for how the engineers view humans, there is less evidence of this, but I don't think I am out far on a limb saying that the one engineer in the film doesn't appear to have much understanding of the humans either.
Which brings me to the third relationship, humans and God. People in this thread have discussed how the faith and God talk seem out of place and seem tacked on just so the movie can claim to be asking "deep" questions. I think it is there because Scott is trying to link the creator/creation relationships discussed above with the ultimate creator/creation relationship: our relationship with God. If we can't understand the Engineers or David, real physical world creators and creations, how can we possibly understand God.
Edit. One random thought. The goo David first touches on the control panel, I immediately thought of the Alien saliva. Isn't there a similar scene in Alien or Aliens where a person stretches out the Alien saliva between his fingers. I think they were retconning in NANOMACHINES as part of the Alien physiology.
Unfortunately yes, that is the only theory that fits with the film as a whole.
The original premise is still intact, and even if they changed their mind they left far too much still in there supporting it to the exclusion of any other possible explanation.
Personally I think they still ran with it and just tried to shroud it in ambiguity, but their handling of the themes in far too simplistic and hamfisted a manner meant rather than coming across as profound which was always going to be difficult it comes across as ridiculous.
Speedymanic
Banned
What if there was sabotage afoot on LV 223?
An engineer who didn't agree that humans needed wiping out decided to release the goo/mutate some worms.
we.are.the.armada
Member
Can anybody confirm that the scream heard during the first holograph playback is in fact similarly the xenomorph scream at the end of the movie?
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BravesCountry
Banned
why does it bother everyone so much that we barely got any answers? Wasn't that a theme from the movie that they explored with David, asking why we needed explanations? explanations to mysteries always seem to disappoint anyways, as David hinted at as well, as opposed to being able to speculate with our imagination.
It answered too many questions that didn't need to be asked, and not enough of the ones that did.
Mystery replaced by absurdity, answers negated by contradictions.
Speedymanic
Banned
1. Many reasons. The main being that no-one bar Weyland a few people knew about the mission. As he and his daughter didn't return, they chose to take over the company instead of acknowledging where they had gone/sending out a rescue party/bothering to do anything.
It's hinted to that Weyland became an almost tyrannical figure in his company, the man who wouldn't give up power/die no matter what, stands to reason those left behind would be happy to the see the back of him and disregard all knowledge of where he went, etc.
2. I don't believe they were in that sector. Is there any evidence to suggest they are?
3. No-one knows yet who Yutani is, I'm guessing it was a competitor who took over the company or was brought into the fold after the events of Alien.
Jack Scofield
Member
You can still think of the space jockeys as these mysterious ancient creatures if you want, regardless of what Prometheus shows. When Alien was first made, no one (not even Scott) knew what exactly the space jockey was. It was meant to be intriguing and unknown, so when you rewatch Alien, just remind yourself that no one knows what these creatures are, or whether they're machine, animal, or some fusion of biometrics. Prometheus, while a good movie, is just sanctioned fan-fiction at this point. It was written after the fact, and you shouldn't let that hinder your enjoyment or mystery found in Alien.
I feel the same way about the Star Wars prequels. When watching the Original Trilogy, I have no problem separating it from the newer movies. When there's a discrepancy or inconsistency between the two trilogies, I'll always believe what it says in the original story over something written decades later.
I understand the conflation of the carbon dating results, but I feel the "space jesus" arc is too literal of an interpretation, particularly when that assumption shorts out the majority of the interesting circuits of the film in pursuit of closure. I have seen the still shot of the bas-relief sculpture behind the "altar" at the opposite end of the initial chamber referenced as a xeno lifeform in a particular pose, although there are many times where I just wanted to stop the movie and act as a disembodied camera examining all the details, this was but one.
If these beings were interstellar alchemists seeding planets with DNA dispersal through self sacrifice I would assume a particular approach and multiple test subjects. I understand the perception of the cave paintings reinforcing a state of consistent localized monitoring given the time scales and geological changes, but as others have said there were multiple planets in the cluster depicted, just like there were multiple installations on the planet surface featured in this movie. This is simply a hook to get people invested in the story by embedding it within human evolution and our development. It's easier to be satisfied with the given answers than to enjoy the process of looking for new ones, unfortunately.
There are certain conditions that need to be met for the self sacrifice as depicted to even make sense in the context of seeding development. How long did they spend terraforming Earth, if at all, prior to this event? Did they even bother, or did they only select "natural" virgin candidates? As we know it is not relevant whether this is Earth or not, another strong point for this not being an isolated incident.
If they had the capacity to perform this selfless act of procreation all over the universe, wouldn't the fact that we have evolved so similar to their image, yet so far away from compassion and cooperation be enough to warrant our dismissal or tweak our developmental path? Why send an emissary two thousand years later only to see him murdered in a violent fashion, as if they wouldn't see that as a foregone conclusion? Why would a race so powerful and intelligent occupy an entire planet just to house a weapons program of such vast proportions that it required such levels of quarantine, all in the name of vengeance upon their offspring? That's too convenient and frankly too human of a conclusion.
Similarly, given the nature of the Engineers exhibited in the film, for the previous explanation to be the defining event in their presumed patriarchal dismissal, they would have to - as David explains it - present themselves to the humans in the most comfortable form possible, that of their own. Otherwise I don't see how an 8 foot tall bipedal alien that can walk on water for all we know would allow itself to be crucified by people with such relatively infantile technology and physical capacity, particularly when his entire mission is one of spreading the interstellar gospel as it were. "In the beginning, there were space bros, and ye have become most un-space-bro like", yeah, right.
I want to know what the Engineer says when he straps into the seat, because the expression on his face seemed very introspective and satisfied, as though his decision or position as the remaining guard in hypersleep was finally culminating. As far as I remember it is also one of the only scenes other than the initial opener that does not show the Engineers in a state of abject fear or rage. I find the two interesting in the sense that in the establishing shot he is also introspective but clearly vexed on some level, as if experiencing slight trepidation. Then again on fundamental levels that is true, creation entails a lot more ambiguity and responsibility for cultivating different possibilities, destruction is a resolute and definite end.
I've seen the prior look before, on individuals who understand the transformative power of a chemical they are about to ingest that will undoubtedly take them to very interesting places that may or may not be within their control or levels of expectation, and will definitely be beyond their scope of experience and personal intuition. It seemed as though the Engineer was holding the Philosophers Stone in his hands in a state of reverence, consumed as sacrament.
In that same context, David activates everything on board the Engineer installation, because he is the only one who has the capacity to interface with them due to - and I may be misremembering here - deconstructing every language on Earth down to its root elements in the past two years on board the ship. His motivation and cooperative capacity throughout the film is not entirely clear, so again this provides another layer of ambiguity. What we see is David activating a lot of key sequences, what we don't see is him literally translating any of the controls or resulting displays for our convenience.
Does his interaction "select" Earth upon entering and activating the control room? The proceeding holographic recording seemed like the ceremony to ordain or install the hypersleep candidate, but I perceived his actions as though David was joyfully interacting with the interstellar map itself unaware of any consequence, and that was not just the end half of the holographic recording. It is clear that the Engineer goes through a lot of initial sequences on board the bomber after strapping in, presumably basic functionality and calibration checks prior to takeoff, but is it fair to assume Earth was the intended target of the payload? I'm not willing to assume the Engineer was so frantic as to act ignorantly, blindly taking off without checking his course, but he did just wake up from a few thousand years of hypersleep and again we could have no indication of his cognitive functionality at that point other than being very agitated given the circumstances.
I found his reaction to their presence to be absolutely perfect and I would have expected no less. Why speak when they can't understand you? What was the Engineer going to do, sit down in a lotus position and play the greatest hits of his people out in psychedelic holographic form for these degenerate offspring to grok? Waste of time, particularly if the longstanding mission is to mutate them through direct interaction and he's already a few thousand years late. Not only did they fail in adjusting the evolutionary trajectory of these wayward children 2000 years ago, but now they are at his doorstep begging for more life. No longer are they primitive people bashing each others skulls in with rocks, now they are primitive people raping the entire universe for resources in the pursuit of the fountain of youth, or at least as much for the wealthiest capitalist among them. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.
Similarly we are assuming the payload was engineered for us specifically, which I find to be silly. These are interstellar alchemists who have clearly spent more time experimenting on themselves than anything, and the resulting chain of genetic mutation that everyone is obsessed with is simply a result of exposure, not the design - as others have said, the floor of the initial chamber was seeded with worms which created the initial snake form. Look at what happens to the other half of the Scooby-Doo team & the infected scientists progeny, the squid-baby. If the mutating properties of the substance are so powerful as to transform a creature in scale and power that rapidly - we're talking a dozen hours at most - why presume it is deadly?
Because it "destroys" human life based on the events we know from Alien, where the organisms behavior is modeled around an insect like infestation and reproduction through human hosts? Too simple. The genetic catalyst simply changes lifeforms, and change is one of the most consistent aspects of life. Nothing is static or existing in a vacuum. It broke down the Engineer forms into an genetic miasma - it arguably does the opposite for those who are lower down on the evolutionary scale. The concept of that scale being a reverse pyramid is a little strange, but that's something that needs to be accepted by default as a result of the Engineer seeding activities - maybe they became too inbred or sterile and needed to introduce or farm new genetic elements from various precursor elements of their own DNA - regardless, it seems shortsighted to start applying arbitrary labels to the goo on a per-scene basis.
In that regard I don't understand the concept that the goo has binary properties, or that there is good goo at the beginning and bad goo at the end. If it's an evolutionary catalyst through extreme genetic mutation and life cycle propagation shifts than it does not sound like a traditional weapon to me. The idea of a "traditional" weapon should not exist for a race so advanced, and at no point do you notice any physical armaments occompanying the Engineer or installation - mounted on racks, mounted on the ship - not a single instance. Maybe the idea of the substance is to not only seed life from a certain point of genetic compatibility, but then also to re-habilitate or coax it out of developmental hangups through periodic applications for those offspring that are considered retarded or otherwise developmentally struggling?
As if we don't genetically modify crops and spray them with all sorts of localized chemicals to support their development and reduce loss via pests, infections or other forms of biological predation. Similarly what happens when we as the creators get exposed to these manipulative industrial chemicals? Mutations, cancers, awful unexpected damage at a cellular level. This is probably the most consistent theme of the movie, the creator and their creations, and what their applications, interactions and perspectives towards each other really entail for the future.
What do we see on the holographic recordings? Nowhere is there a single physical entity that is not a suited-up Engineer, and if I had to make an assumption it would not be that Joe the Engineer in training fell asleep on the interstellar genetic missile assembly line and released a spore cloud of it into the local atmosphere that began to run wild. Could it have been an event like the surface storm featured prominently in the film? I suppose, given fatal implications even for the Engineers, but that would not entirely explain the complete dereliction of the installation.
I am not sure if this is bad memory again, but I am recalling the atmosphere not changing in the room until the humans removed their helmets. The initial scientist removes his helmet in an attempt to verify instrumentation and cognitive intuition through potentially dangerous self experimentation, all in service of making a point. I am assuming this means that without the presence of their waste byproducts from the process of respiration, the atmosphere would have remained stable and the jars never would have begun to sweat. Although this seems like a bit of a sticking point for me, because if the Engineers can create a structure so massive and powerful as to condition the local atmosphere, how could the tolerance shift of a few humans throw that completely out of balance? Granted, it was probably something that was never planned for, and I have to assume there are some similarities in terms of how we are designed in that regard. It seems unlikely, but it seems more unlikely that the presence of sentience activates the goo. I am not willing to assume it is alive or analogous to the symbiote from the Spiderman series, that's too woo-woo for me and destroys alot of the fundamental interplay with the embedded organic mechanical designs and the visual/conceptual horror work crafted so well across so many decades.
I think the questions the film raises are more interesting than the half-baked answers I have seen forced upon the narrative in an attempt to make sense of everything. The negative comments are also generally very dismissive in tone, which I find a bit premature given the nature of the themes and the embedded incentives for a followup. I would rather watch this movie a few dozen more times than read another vehement dismissal of what it attempts to achieve.
I wish I could be a space jockey, playing my space flute, squatting a few tons, spraying my genetic material all over the universe. Otherwise we're stuck on this rock repeating the same old nonsense. I'm ready to dose.
If these beings were interstellar alchemists seeding planets with DNA dispersal through self sacrifice I would assume a particular approach and multiple test subjects. I understand the perception of the cave paintings reinforcing a state of consistent localized monitoring given the time scales and geological changes, but as others have said there were multiple planets in the cluster depicted, just like there were multiple installations on the planet surface featured in this movie. This is simply a hook to get people invested in the story by embedding it within human evolution and our development. It's easier to be satisfied with the given answers than to enjoy the process of looking for new ones, unfortunately.
There are certain conditions that need to be met for the self sacrifice as depicted to even make sense in the context of seeding development. How long did they spend terraforming Earth, if at all, prior to this event? Did they even bother, or did they only select "natural" virgin candidates? As we know it is not relevant whether this is Earth or not, another strong point for this not being an isolated incident.
If they had the capacity to perform this selfless act of procreation all over the universe, wouldn't the fact that we have evolved so similar to their image, yet so far away from compassion and cooperation be enough to warrant our dismissal or tweak our developmental path? Why send an emissary two thousand years later only to see him murdered in a violent fashion, as if they wouldn't see that as a foregone conclusion? Why would a race so powerful and intelligent occupy an entire planet just to house a weapons program of such vast proportions that it required such levels of quarantine, all in the name of vengeance upon their offspring? That's too convenient and frankly too human of a conclusion.
Similarly, given the nature of the Engineers exhibited in the film, for the previous explanation to be the defining event in their presumed patriarchal dismissal, they would have to - as David explains it - present themselves to the humans in the most comfortable form possible, that of their own. Otherwise I don't see how an 8 foot tall bipedal alien that can walk on water for all we know would allow itself to be crucified by people with such relatively infantile technology and physical capacity, particularly when his entire mission is one of spreading the interstellar gospel as it were. "In the beginning, there were space bros, and ye have become most un-space-bro like", yeah, right.
I want to know what the Engineer says when he straps into the seat, because the expression on his face seemed very introspective and satisfied, as though his decision or position as the remaining guard in hypersleep was finally culminating. As far as I remember it is also one of the only scenes other than the initial opener that does not show the Engineers in a state of abject fear or rage. I find the two interesting in the sense that in the establishing shot he is also introspective but clearly vexed on some level, as if experiencing slight trepidation. Then again on fundamental levels that is true, creation entails a lot more ambiguity and responsibility for cultivating different possibilities, destruction is a resolute and definite end.
I've seen the prior look before, on individuals who understand the transformative power of a chemical they are about to ingest that will undoubtedly take them to very interesting places that may or may not be within their control or levels of expectation, and will definitely be beyond their scope of experience and personal intuition. It seemed as though the Engineer was holding the Philosophers Stone in his hands in a state of reverence, consumed as sacrament.
In that same context, David activates everything on board the Engineer installation, because he is the only one who has the capacity to interface with them due to - and I may be misremembering here - deconstructing every language on Earth down to its root elements in the past two years on board the ship. His motivation and cooperative capacity throughout the film is not entirely clear, so again this provides another layer of ambiguity. What we see is David activating a lot of key sequences, what we don't see is him literally translating any of the controls or resulting displays for our convenience.
Does his interaction "select" Earth upon entering and activating the control room? The proceeding holographic recording seemed like the ceremony to ordain or install the hypersleep candidate, but I perceived his actions as though David was joyfully interacting with the interstellar map itself unaware of any consequence, and that was not just the end half of the holographic recording. It is clear that the Engineer goes through a lot of initial sequences on board the bomber after strapping in, presumably basic functionality and calibration checks prior to takeoff, but is it fair to assume Earth was the intended target of the payload? I'm not willing to assume the Engineer was so frantic as to act ignorantly, blindly taking off without checking his course, but he did just wake up from a few thousand years of hypersleep and again we could have no indication of his cognitive functionality at that point other than being very agitated given the circumstances.
I found his reaction to their presence to be absolutely perfect and I would have expected no less. Why speak when they can't understand you? What was the Engineer going to do, sit down in a lotus position and play the greatest hits of his people out in psychedelic holographic form for these degenerate offspring to grok? Waste of time, particularly if the longstanding mission is to mutate them through direct interaction and he's already a few thousand years late. Not only did they fail in adjusting the evolutionary trajectory of these wayward children 2000 years ago, but now they are at his doorstep begging for more life. No longer are they primitive people bashing each others skulls in with rocks, now they are primitive people raping the entire universe for resources in the pursuit of the fountain of youth, or at least as much for the wealthiest capitalist among them. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.
Similarly we are assuming the payload was engineered for us specifically, which I find to be silly. These are interstellar alchemists who have clearly spent more time experimenting on themselves than anything, and the resulting chain of genetic mutation that everyone is obsessed with is simply a result of exposure, not the design - as others have said, the floor of the initial chamber was seeded with worms which created the initial snake form. Look at what happens to the other half of the Scooby-Doo team & the infected scientists progeny, the squid-baby. If the mutating properties of the substance are so powerful as to transform a creature in scale and power that rapidly - we're talking a dozen hours at most - why presume it is deadly?
Because it "destroys" human life based on the events we know from Alien, where the organisms behavior is modeled around an insect like infestation and reproduction through human hosts? Too simple. The genetic catalyst simply changes lifeforms, and change is one of the most consistent aspects of life. Nothing is static or existing in a vacuum. It broke down the Engineer forms into an genetic miasma - it arguably does the opposite for those who are lower down on the evolutionary scale. The concept of that scale being a reverse pyramid is a little strange, but that's something that needs to be accepted by default as a result of the Engineer seeding activities - maybe they became too inbred or sterile and needed to introduce or farm new genetic elements from various precursor elements of their own DNA - regardless, it seems shortsighted to start applying arbitrary labels to the goo on a per-scene basis.
In that regard I don't understand the concept that the goo has binary properties, or that there is good goo at the beginning and bad goo at the end. If it's an evolutionary catalyst through extreme genetic mutation and life cycle propagation shifts than it does not sound like a traditional weapon to me. The idea of a "traditional" weapon should not exist for a race so advanced, and at no point do you notice any physical armaments occompanying the Engineer or installation - mounted on racks, mounted on the ship - not a single instance. Maybe the idea of the substance is to not only seed life from a certain point of genetic compatibility, but then also to re-habilitate or coax it out of developmental hangups through periodic applications for those offspring that are considered retarded or otherwise developmentally struggling?
As if we don't genetically modify crops and spray them with all sorts of localized chemicals to support their development and reduce loss via pests, infections or other forms of biological predation. Similarly what happens when we as the creators get exposed to these manipulative industrial chemicals? Mutations, cancers, awful unexpected damage at a cellular level. This is probably the most consistent theme of the movie, the creator and their creations, and what their applications, interactions and perspectives towards each other really entail for the future.
What do we see on the holographic recordings? Nowhere is there a single physical entity that is not a suited-up Engineer, and if I had to make an assumption it would not be that Joe the Engineer in training fell asleep on the interstellar genetic missile assembly line and released a spore cloud of it into the local atmosphere that began to run wild. Could it have been an event like the surface storm featured prominently in the film? I suppose, given fatal implications even for the Engineers, but that would not entirely explain the complete dereliction of the installation.
I am not sure if this is bad memory again, but I am recalling the atmosphere not changing in the room until the humans removed their helmets. The initial scientist removes his helmet in an attempt to verify instrumentation and cognitive intuition through potentially dangerous self experimentation, all in service of making a point. I am assuming this means that without the presence of their waste byproducts from the process of respiration, the atmosphere would have remained stable and the jars never would have begun to sweat. Although this seems like a bit of a sticking point for me, because if the Engineers can create a structure so massive and powerful as to condition the local atmosphere, how could the tolerance shift of a few humans throw that completely out of balance? Granted, it was probably something that was never planned for, and I have to assume there are some similarities in terms of how we are designed in that regard. It seems unlikely, but it seems more unlikely that the presence of sentience activates the goo. I am not willing to assume it is alive or analogous to the symbiote from the Spiderman series, that's too woo-woo for me and destroys alot of the fundamental interplay with the embedded organic mechanical designs and the visual/conceptual horror work crafted so well across so many decades.
I think the questions the film raises are more interesting than the half-baked answers I have seen forced upon the narrative in an attempt to make sense of everything. The negative comments are also generally very dismissive in tone, which I find a bit premature given the nature of the themes and the embedded incentives for a followup. I would rather watch this movie a few dozen more times than read another vehement dismissal of what it attempts to achieve.
I wish I could be a space jockey, playing my space flute, squatting a few tons, spraying my genetic material all over the universe. Otherwise we're stuck on this rock repeating the same old nonsense. I'm ready to dose.
I'll do my best, of course these are all just my guesses (in bold)
we.are.the.armada said:
symphonask
Member
Forgot about the commentary tracks. Ridley's ones are always a good listen.
Also, Lindelof confirms that he's on a commentary track also, lol. Love to hear what was going through his mind while writing some of those scenes.
Also, Lindelof confirms that he's on a commentary track also, lol. Love to hear what was going through his mind while writing some of those scenes.
Damon Lindelof said:
According to the timeline on the site, at this point Yutani is a rival company making robo-prostheses
Why don't you read it? Its very well written and thought out.
I pretty much agree...
David "the one who hates his parents" TELLS them they are going to wipe out earth after HE fucks with the machine. HE programmed the coordinates for all we know because he really didn't like humans. And why should he? They treated him like shit for most of the movie.
Very, that's the kind of post that I really wanted to see in here. Read through it once, going to do so again.
Lol
This thread is fun to follow along at work. I liked the movie so the theories are pretty entertaining. Glad that the blu ray will have an extended cut as well
TheJollyCorner
Member
why oh why couldn't they have used some of those original designs from the art book (i.e. Fifield's bizarre human-xeno hybrid and the more pale proto-xeno)??? 
Fifield especially could have benefited from the idea that he was 'morphing' into a form with more xeno qualities due to the black goo. The look alone was really creepy and more disturbing/tragic. Much better than The Hills Have Eyes zombie. :/
Fifield especially could have benefited from the idea that he was 'morphing' into a form with more xeno qualities due to the black goo. The look alone was really creepy and more disturbing/tragic. Much better than The Hills Have Eyes zombie. :/
BravesCountry
Banned
Deck'ard is probably writing out an equally long rebuttal right now, can't wait to see the response.
The Albatross
Member
Massive unanswered thing. What causes the space holograms to be played? Why were they recorded in the first place?
BravesCountry
Banned
I'm pretty sure David was messing around with a control panel on the ship, and by chance activating the hologram recording. It could be some type of security system recording, considering the ship probably needed heavy security for its payload.
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