Let me dissect all the bullshit in this movie bit by bit:
First off we have the Engineer sacrificing himself to create life. There is nothing inherently wrong with this sequence except for a major visual error, mainly that of a (hopefully not the same one later on) black goo disintegrating the Engineer in order to spread life. The problem is two fold in this sequence. The first is that of the black goo breaks down his body in a similar manner, not necessarily as explosive as seen with the head, as the other black goo later on It's quite obvious the head exploded earlier because the two scientists were trying to trick the nervous system into thinking it was still alive via shocking it. The goo breaks people down, yes. It would have broken the head down eventually, but the scientists didn't know about it and tried to shock it. Electricity + goo = explosion. That really isn't that hard to put together, and my friend who has never seen any of the Alien movies and is not into sci-fi at all was easily able to put it together. Makes me wonder how much some people pay attention.
This raises issues of what exactly is the black goo, something I will address later on as that is a clusterfuck in of itself. The second problem is why is he doing this? This isn't an issue in of itself as the writers are entitled to a few mysteries. This is problematic because of the later scenes with the Engineers, mainly that they wanted to kill us. So we now have a race that created us and then wanted to destroy us with no explanation on either side and an apparent switch in behavior. As some posters detailed in earlier posts last night/this morning, something obviously happened 2000 years ago to switch the Engineers' minds. What this is? No one knows. That's why Shaw went to find them, because she wants to know. It's not going to be detailed in this movie, simply because they are aiming for a sequel. It's as simple as that.
This leads into the second issue mainly that humans were given directions to a military installation. Think about that for a second. Why of all places, a military installation instead of some remote colony to establish contact(they obviously didn't want to give humans directions to their home planet in case we as a race turned out to be evil or warlike)? There you have it. In case we turned out to be evil or warlike. The engineers did not plan for their own demise, that much is obvious. They were smart and planned for contingencies. If humanity showed up in force and were warlike/whatever, why not bring them to a military/storage planet where they would be met with hundreds of ships filled with weaponry that would theoretically destroy us easily? It was an invitation, but was also a cautionary measure. "Yeah sure, child who I gave birth to and then left behind in their infancy. I know you might be mad at us, or we really don't know how you were raised, so I'm going to keep my weapon within reach, just incase I need to protect myself. Okay?
Now before someone states that it could have been a diplomatic meeting point before they decided to kill us, remember that they had the alien mural there as well as the 'side-exploding mural' so they had been developing these chemical weapons long before 2000 years ago when they decided to kill us. Then another issue with both theories is that there is an xenomorph mural, one that doesn't look so much like a warning but rather religious in nature. They key factor there is the head down pose of the xenomorph and the way it could possibly be referencing the crucifixion of Jesus. Not sure what the problem is here. Obviously the mural showed what was an option when dealing with things. I'm not sure what the issue is here.
Also note that Davis with his magical ability to read and speak the language of the Engineers, even if they do share Sanskrit roots, does not, out loud anyway, read any sort of warning sign. Magical? You clearly see David learning as much as he can about languages on the journey to the planet. Obviously he had no idea what would be useful, but when they were mapping the temple and he found that one plaque/control panel, he figured out which language(s) would be useful and how he could communicate with the Engineers, extrapolating what he saw on the panel as written characters in a language and figuring out how to speak. There is nothing magical about it.
Going back to the narrative, the next horribly written sequence is the infodump aka the meeting on board the ship. Apparently we have the crew, of a 1 trillion dollar project, not being informed what the hell was going on before they left. They signed onto a multiyear voyage without knowing what was going on and Weyland decided to roll the dice with a crew who didn't know what was going on. It's pretty easily imaginable that he was trying to keep everything hush-hush and didn't want it getting out that this planet could possibly have the key to immortality. It is not hard to imagine that he or his representatives went to each member of the crew and gave them just enough information to get them onboard but wanted to keep the meat of the expedition until they were past the point of no return.
Now let's talk about the crew of the Prometheus. We have Janek, Holloway, Shaw, Vickers, Milburn, Fifield and David. I won't discuss the rest because they get essentially zero screentime and die without any fucks being given. Some people are simply in movies to die to move the plot. Not everyone has to be characterized and given a half hour of screen time. Sometimes there are throw away characters. It just so happened that most of the crew in this movie were said throw-aways. Would it have hurt the movie to show who they were? I think so, simply because it was painfully obvious early on in the movie that very few, if any, crewmembers would live to the end. It was obvious after the first half hour who would live and die, and it would have been wasting screen time trying to give random people their due and try to show who they are. It would have done nothing for the movie, because every member of the audience consciously or subconsciously knew that everyone was going to die.
Even among this core seven, there are inconsistent characterizations and the only two that really have any importance, or even an arc, are David and Shaw. Before I delve into those two, let me discuss the rest. I'll start with Holloway who in no way acts like a scientist. The first beyond idiotic thing he does is take off his helmet in the cave despite not knowing if there are pathogens or whether the atmosphere is consistent throughout the caves. Did you miss the part where he did a scanning of the air? I'm 99% certain he said the words "The air is clean" before he took his helmet off. Hell, he even asked David. He's supposed to come off as a Daredevil scientist who really goes with the flow and is a bit adventurous compared to most scientists. He took the initiative. It's easy to think that doing things like that were what was able to get him so far in his career. When most would take the cautious approach, Holloway went headlong and took risks. I had no problem with him taking off his helmet. Not sure how anyone could.
The second is later on when he throws a pissy fit that the Engineers are dead. Apparently the idea itself of establishing that there is indeed intelligent alien life, one of the biggest discoveries in human history, is not enough for him. He had it in his head, from both himself and Shaw, that they were the gods that created humanity. That they were waiting on this planet, eagerly anticipating Humanity's arrival and wanting to show them the stars and the meaning of life. That last part was explicitly said a few minutes earlier in the movie. His "pissy fit" is COMPLETELY understandable. You're told for probably 5-10 years that if you arrive in one area at one time you will have every question of life answered and will basically become a hero to all of humanity everywhere, only to find out that everything went wrong, everyone is dead, and nothing is going to happen but maybe being on TV and being put in a few books as the guy who found a few dead creatures on a faraway planet? Ha. Ha. Ha. Nah, that's okay. I wouldn't expect you to take a drink or two anyway.
Then there is Vickers who acts like the soulless corporate puppet. There's something to be said when people are suggesting that she actually is an android, even though that evidence is horribly unsound and contradicts multiple things. Her character is only there for the big twist at the end involving her father and even then doesn't really serve a purpose. I'm really not sure what you're saying here. She was obviously put in the movie to show the more corporate/company side of the agenda going to the planet. She was meant to be there to keep everyone on track.
Janek, moreso than any other character, is the heart of the movie. He is the one cracking the jokes and making the self-sacrificial play when needed. There's nothing wrong with this. Elba is a boss.
Milburn's character was fine up until the crew found the dead Engineer body. He then breaks down and runs away despite being a biologist and discovering an entire new organism, something that changes again later when the plot demands it. Come on, man. You show up on a planet as a biologist who was raised and trained on Earth, a guy who has gone his whole life knowing that 99% of all lifeforms on Earth(if not more, by the time the movie is set) have been found. You have been taught literally anything and everything related to the field, and there are no surprises anymore. You show up on this planet and find a new lifeform, but it's dead. The planet is dead, and obviously you just saw a recording of them running for their lives. You wouldn't be scared? All this new stuff and the obvious fact that they were more advanced than you and still died horrifically? Tell me you would not be scared. Death scares people more than life. Finding dead bodies in a cave is a whole lot different than finding a little snake. I see nothing wrong with his responses in this movie.
Finally there is Fifield. Oh boy. He first establishes himself as some sort of mercenary who is only in this for the movie who then turns out to be an actual scientist despite his whole wolf-howling bit. At first he seems claustrophobic when he enters the caves as he hesitates for a second and you can see a look of anxiety on his face, this of course makes no fucking sense for a geologist. His character just seems to be angry and crazy in general with no backstory to him at all. For a geologist who was again, born and raised on earth with nearly everything explored and detailed and was not expecting to learn anything new ever who was on a brand new planet and had absolutely no expectations on what was going to be in the cave. He was scared because for the first time in his life, things were going to be truly new and could possibly harm him.
Now for the star two, and there are problems inherent with them. David's character is broken down as the movie progresses and Shaw's character is built up. David, as we first see, is exploring the ship and wandering about in general. Despite his robotic movements, he acts in a rather human behavior. We see him eat, play sports, watch television, and study. All traits that are assigned more to a human being rather than a robot. He even has curiosity as we see with him investigating Shaw's dreams. This later leads to one of the great faults of the movie, we don't know whether Weyland gave him the order to poison Holloway or if he did it on his own. The reason this is crucial is that we don't know whether he took the initiative, which would enforce the curiosity aspect of his personality, or just was following orders, in that he was just acting like any other robot. But it's obvious that Weyland told him to do it? There is a scene minutes before where Theron stops him in the hallway and asks what "He"(Weyland) said. Eventually, David tells her, that Weyland told him, to "Try harder." What would be trying harder? Gee, I wonder. How about using some goo you found on a strange planet and putting it in someone's drink. That would be trying harder.
Irregardless the audience starts to see him becoming more inhuman as the movie progresses. We then have him getting his head ripped off and of course, there is no panic because he's a robot. Despite the fact that his 'life' might end there, he seems perfectly at peace with it. Until, as you can guess, the very end when he wants Shaw to save him. This is contradictory in that he is now showing a human response despite earlier scenes with a lack of an emotional response.Ridley, or Lidelof(whoever you care to blame), however then go back to his breakdown into a robot with the line by Shaw that he isn't anything more than a robot. The main character herself is driving this point home in another "smack-you-in-the-face-with-it" line. Do robots fear? Do they ever get scared? That is a very human emotion, and I really doubt that David can feel fear. Why wouldn't he be at peace with potentially dying? And when he wants to be saved, its simply to continue his mission. In his mind, it's either "Okay, I can die here and there is nothing I can do about it. Might as well be content. Oh wait? Shaw, you're still out there? Cool, come pick me up and I might be able to gain new knowledge. 'Sgo!"
Now as for Shaw, she suffers from the issues of consequential response in the narrative so her characterization really suffers from this as well. The main thing with her being a fundamentalist and having faith in the Engineers is obviously gone at the end, with her literally killing her god. She doesn't exhibit much of an emotional response to many of the traumatizing events in the movie such as giving birth to a squid, her boyfriend's death, seeing the Prometheus explode, nearly being flattened to death, killing an Engineer, or even helping David at the end despite there being the suggestion that she knows he killed her boyfriend or atleast she knows he was involved to a certain extent. The only consistent thing about her is the extremity of her belief, to the point that she is willing to work with David despite the fact that he tried to kill her less than a couple of hours ago. This of course deosn't make her relatable at all. Why should the audience attach themselves to a character that has shown themselves to be damn near idiotic? That's a question the movie doesn't answer and stands in stark contrast with Alien. She was obviously crying, puking, emotionally distressed and drained by the end of the movie. It's not hard to imagine that she was running on fumes, dehydrated, tired, and in shock towards the end. So many traumatic experiences so close together without time to stop and think about anything would obviously make her seem inhuman, simply because in those situations, in real life, are people rarely truly human. They run on instincts and without thinking. She was completely realistic in the last half of the movie and I expect no other reactions from her.
So back to the narrative, and the many issues found within. The crew land on the planet and magically in less than 10 minutes, find the structures. It's a movie so I'll give them the benefit of time but it does hurt the idea of scale and exploration in the movie. I give you this point if you missed the last 10 minutes of the movie. David said there were many ships(and many temples). If there were hundreds of those temples scattered around the planet, the crew would find one eventually.
Anyway the crew lands and take the vehicles. However before they do, they have an extremely, and I emphasize the word extremely, stupid sequence in which Shaw doesn't want weapons brought with them. She has no clue what is on this planet, it could be wild animals or any sort of environmental hazard, and doesn't want anything to protect herself with. Her gods were supposed to be there. She did not want to offend them. This is not hard to put together. Come on, man(or woman, if you are one. I don't mean to offend.), just think about some things before ranting about it, please?
So anyway they go inside the temple and in a very convenient bit of movie magic, they can breathe inside the temple itself. As to why they were possibly terraforming? My first assumption would be for the Engineers themselves however at the end we have the enraged Engineer come for Shaw without the ability of a suit so it implies he might be able to withstand the hostile outdoor environment. However let's just go with that being a technical error for the time being. It's said as they enter the atmosphere that "if you don't have your suit on, you're dead in two minutes. With how big the engineer was, it's not hard to think that he was able to escape the crashsite and get to the escape pod in less than two minutes. Granted, this is some wishful thinking and could, in fact, be a technical error.
So the air is breathable and Holloway and crew, as I already pointed, stupidly takes their helmets off. Also thank god for that security camera footage to help speed everything along. Whew. It recorded exactly what is needed for the plot to progress and is played at the exact right time. Although it apparently didn't record anyone coming out of that room and there wasn't any bodies in the room itself. Oops. Oh and let's not mention the stupidity of going into the room in which the outbreak possibly started from. The engineers went to the bridge to start their journey. They then went into their cryo-stasis. There were three or four engineers that ran into the bridge, and there were three or four stasis-pods. Only one of which was still functioning and housing a living Engineer. The others were dead because their systems failed. There is a minor(possibly major) plothole where you have to wonder why the ship never took off, but if you put pieces together and figure out that everybody but three or four Engineers on the ship died, the ship probably could not take off. However, it takes off later so I'm not really sure what happened between the point where they go to sleep and the ship never takes off. Plot hole, I give you, even if it wasn't the one you're talking about. And there is no evidence whatsoever to make you think that is where the outbreak began. Nada. They were obviously running from something behind them, down the hallway where no one really went. The outbreak presumably started down that-a-way.
Jumping now to the part where the geologist, I repeat the geologist, gets lost in the caves despite the rest of the crew easily able to get themselves out in a quick manner. The geologist who also is in radio contact with Prometheus. Then we have pickup scene by Janek created for the excuse for Fifield and Milburn to lose contact with the Prometheus.You're right, it was dumb. Nothing we can do about it.
Now right after Janek scares the everlasting daylights out of them, they head back to the headroom where they find a cute, and by cute I mean creepy, little snake thing. Of course right after being scared, Milburn wants to play with the thing coming out of black goo. This is a perfect example of events seemingly being written independent of each other. So both end up dead in a rather violent manner, which of course nobody notices, as everybody was getting laid while Fifield and Milburn get laid out, or the computer itself records. Like I said earlier. He was scared of dead things. He was excited by living things. Simple as that. The dead things looked semi-human and were massive. I would guess that he thought "They're more advanced, bigger, fast, stronger, and in every way better than me, yet they died here. Fuck this." and then, when finding the alien, "Oh, hey, you're small and look somewhat similar to things I have roots and knowledge about back on earth. Come here and I'll study you."
So we now come upon the issue of the black goo(excluding the opening bit). *Long paragraph about the goo* I've got nothing to say about this, mainly because this was my main issue with the movie as well.
Jumping forward to after Shaw's abortion, we see her stumble into Weyland. Nobody mentions her physical state or where the squid baby is. David doesn't ask and the people who trying to put her into stasis, don't even look at her. I would also like to mention how they didn't bother to chase her after she hit the both of them. Everyone is pre-occupied with Weyland, a genius, playboy, billionaire philanthropist, who was thought to be dead but instead was there with them. Makes senes.
David also has a nice chat with Shaw in which he states that he wants to kill his parents, a piece of foreshadowing or so I thought, however nothing comes of it except to give the whole bit about Shaw's father being dead. So Weyland being the evil atheist wants to cheat death as there is nothing, and ends up getting killed. So what was the purpose of his character again except to waste time? Was it to expand Vickers in a shallow and obvious sequence? It's not like David had much of a chance to do his powerplay or even attempted to do so. I assumed,when watching the movie, that David did not follow Weyland's direct orders and translate as he told him. Instead, I would guess that he attempted to offer something or create a truce/flatter the engineer. Hence the head-pat. He could have potentially tried his power-play, but failed. Meh. And Weyland's inclusion was to move the plot along. To get everyone back to the ship and to wake the Engineer up.
Now we have the captain deciding to kamikaze the alien ship in order to stop it from reaching Earth. He already telegraphed this in a very obvious line prior so no surprise there. The real surprise was how cavalier he was about it and his copilots as well. Hands up everybody! He seriously makes a joke right before crashing his ship which ruins all tension and the seriousness of the moment. Why should we take his actions seriously if he didn't take it seriously himself? My buddy said it best as we were walking out. "I would have rather have gone down with the ship, yeah. I mean, the planet killed literally EVERYONE on the ship except for me and my buddies, I wouldn't want to chance it down on the ground, where I would probably be beaten to death or starved to death, or whatever else. A quick, painless death would be better than that." It makes sense that the two others went with him. The hands-up was to alleviate the pressure/knowledge of coming doom. Might as well go out having a last bit of fun, no?
Next we have the squid thing all grown up and enormous in a matter of hours. The speed is pretty incredulous and obviously done for the sole sequence dealing with the Engineer, even though it could have been handled in a different and probably better manner. It was said from the beginning that it would have a quick incubation/growth to adulthood, as said by David. She was in cryo three months ago, yet somehow she was three months pregnant. The thing crew quickly.
As to who played the flute? Let's wait till the sequel. I hope this was a joke. Do you really have to be told who played the Flute? Come on.
