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[Shouta]

So where do those tapeworm type aliens come into place? Is that what happened because the goo infected those worms? That's the only logical explanation I could come up with.

Yeah, the idea is that the tapeworm was a mutated version of the maggots/worms seen on the floor. Those seem to be a state prior to the normal xenomorphs from Alien because they still seem to share a few characteristics. In particular, acidic blood and diving into the hosts body. I think the one that left the glasses' dude body had change a little more to look like the classic facehugger we know but that far. I didn't get a good look at it though because of the cut.

Anyway, I think the worm version we see is the basis of the Xenomorphs. When Holloway is infected with it, it wast he worm version and did something similar as to what happened with Fifefield, mutated his body and took it over. When he sexed up Shaw, the worm went along with it and produced something a new intermediate stage that resembled a facehugger, and then that took over the Engineer at the end and created the early stage xenomorph we say at the end of the film.

I think they wanted to hint that the Engineers knew the outcome of what would occur if they let this keep going as shown by the mural in the chamber. It showed the form we're familiar with. It feeding and evolving off Engineers/Humans to create that would make sense, I guess.

 

[JB1981]

how does everyone know there will be a directors cut?

also at the end of the day this just feels like a story that didn't need to be told. what did we learn from this movie that we didn't already divine from the trailers?

and of course the movie ends hinting at a much larger and much more interesting story. this was a frickin waste. it wasn't even tense or scary!!! the trailer was 100X better than this

 

[David Incorporated Esq.]

I feel like I just watched two halves of two different movies just spliced together.

Man, what a disappointment.

 

[Gvaz]

Again, The worms are called Hammerpedes, and the octopus is called a Trilobite.

That being said This should be required reading for everyone in the thread.

 

[hlhbk]

Over all the movie sucked. The ending made no sense, and it never should have been made. Just a few WTF moments off the top of my head:

If the Alien isn't around yet the why is there an Alien in the mural on the ship, and the Alien ship was made entirely of the same stuff as the hives that Aliens make?

How the hell does android get to go along at the end of the movie when he killed her boyfriend, causing her to get impregnated with an Alien, and was going to force her to cryo less than an hour before?

How exactly is the crew of the Sulacco supposed to find the eggs and the alien with his chest burst out when he didn't have that happen on that ship?

I could go on and on but how sad is it that the guy who created the series effectly put the final bullet in the head of the franchise. PLEASE FOX DON'T MAKE ANY MORE ALIEN MOVIES!

 

[shintoki]

Yeah, the idea is that the tapeworm was a mutated version of the maggots/worms seen on the floor. Those seem to be a state prior to the normal xenomorphs from Alien because they still seem to share a few characteristics. In particular, acidic blood and diving into the hosts body. I think the one that left the glasses' dude body had change a little more to look like the classic facehugger we know but that far. I didn't get a good look at it though because of the cut.

Anyway, I think the worm version we see is the basis of the Xenomorphs. When Holloway is infected with it, it wast he worm version and did something similar as to what happened with Fifefield, mutated his body and took it over. When he sexed up Shaw, the worm went along with it and produced something a new intermediate stage that resembled a facehugger, and then that took over the Engineer at the end and created the early stage xenomorph we say at the end of the film.

I think they wanted to hint that the Engineers knew the outcome of what would occur if they let this keep going as shown by the mural in the chamber. It showed the form we're familiar with. It feeding and evolving off Engineers/Humans to create that would make sense, I guess.

Its a perfect organism. A survivor.

A substance that adapts a creature to any environment it is in. No sense of morality, only on survival. It could explain the differences on why the black ooze constantly produces new creatures. Takes what the host is and re adapts it to its environment. Like what a machine would do.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Dumb question: How was she going to survive with no food or water?

Question: Will she hold up the flute with one hand, and David's head with the other?

 

[U n i o n 0015]

It was a definite disappointment. Dare I say that it needed to be slower. There were moments were the horror should have been so tense, but the cuts were so quick that it just completely took me out of the scenes.

The story kept bringing up interesting things, but never coming back and giving us any satisfying explanations. But I suppose that makes sense with a movie from the co-creator of Lost.

 

[CF_Fighter]

How exactly is the crew of the Sulacco supposed to find the eggs and the alien with his chest burst out when he didn't have that happen on that ship?

Well the ship in Alien was the Nostromo, Sulacco was Aliens. Also, the moon in the movie was LV-223. Alien took place on LV-426. We don't know how the SJ ship ended up on 426. Maybe 426 was another facility designing a different version of the Xenomorph bio-weaponry. We won't know about the 426 until a possible sequel, or ever.

 

[nitewulf]

i really liked it. i know it wasn't uber scary, and had its stupid moments, so its not a masterpiece...but it does flesh out the mythology nicely, has some great characters (Idris Elba showing why he is a BOSS yet again), and action.

 

[FreedomFrisbee]

Dumb question: How was she going to survive with no food or water?

Well, she has the cryo things that the jocky was in, plus whatever space travel capabilities the ship had.

 

[Morn]

How exactly is the crew of the Sulacco supposed to find the eggs and the alien with his chest burst out when he didn't have that happen on that ship?

Because it wasn't the same ship or even the same fucking planet.

And the name of the ship in Alien was the Nostromo.

For someone bitching about them fucking up the franchise, maybe you should know a bit more about it?

 

[Ether_Snake]

Yeah, the idea is that the tapeworm was a mutated version of the maggots/worms seen on the floor. Those seem to be a state prior to the normal xenomorphs from Alien because they still seem to share a few characteristics. In particular, acidic blood and diving into the hosts body. I think the one that left the glasses' dude body had change a little more to look like the classic facehugger we know but that far. I didn't get a good look at it though because of the cut.

Anyway, I think the worm version we see is the basis of the Xenomorphs. When Holloway is infected with it, it wast he worm version and did something similar as to what happened with Fifefield, mutated his body and took it over. When he sexed up Shaw, the worm went along with it and produced something a new intermediate stage that resembled a facehugger, and then that took over the Engineer at the end and created the early stage xenomorph we say at the end of the film.

I think they wanted to hint that the Engineers knew the outcome of what would occur if they let this keep going as shown by the mural in the chamber. It showed the form we're familiar with. It feeding and evolving off Engineers/Humans to create that would make sense, I guess.

So basically the engineers created humans so they could go back one day and drop eggs to make them morph into Xenomorphs, some super bio weapon or whatever. Humans are crop-hosts for future Xenomorphs.

But it's dumb because the fucking alien space ship can obviously fly back to Earth easily, so why "lure" humans to the military base planet thingy? Why are the engineers just sleeping and waiting forever?

 

[Dahbomb]

I can't be the only one who thought how strange it was that the 2 guys with the Captain decided to give their life for some "greater good" without even an argument or a "but".

Captain: "Ship is about to take off with a bunch of biological weapon straight to earth... I HAVE to crash this ship into it while I pilot it sacrificing myself and all crew aboard"

2 guys: "Great idea... WE'LL JOIN YOU!"

 

[Ether_Snake]

I can't be the only one who thought how strange it was that the 2 guys with the Captain decided to give their life for some "greater good" without even an argument or a "but".

Captain: "Ship is about to take off with a bunch of biological weapon straight to earth... I HAVE to crash this ship into it while I pilot it sacrificing myself and all crew aboard"

2 guys: "Great idea... WE'LL JOIN YOU!"

But the captain said whatever was on that planet, he would not bring any of it back home (err did he forget he was on a scientific mission?).

CASE CLOSED

 

[Sidzed2]

So basically the engineers created humans so they could go back one day and drop eggs to make them morph into Xenomorphs, some super bio weapon or whatever. Humans are crop-hosts for future Xenomorphs.

But it's dumb because the fucking alien space ship can obviously fly back to Earth easily, so why "lure" humans to the military base planet thingy? Why are the engineers just sleeping and waiting forever?

They weren't just sleeping and waiting. They were about to return to earth 2000 years earlier when an infection of the black goo broke out and they killed each other (presumably because they Fifeld-ed each other). In the end, one engineer made it to cryosleep in time.

 

[CF_Fighter]

They weren't just sleeping and waiting. They were about to return to earth 2000 years earlier when an infection of the black goo broke out and they killed each other (presumably because they Fifeld-ed each other). In the end, one engineer made it to cryosleep in time.

Yep, the invitation was left far before we fucked up, when the Jockeys thought we would develop space travel as a peaceful race like them so we could have a big happy reunion one day.

 

[JB1981]

Again, The worms are called Hammerpedes, and the octopus is called a Trilobite.

That being said This should be required reading for everyone in the thread.

man that was a crazy read. very interesting

 

[Shouta]

So basically the engineers created humans so they could go back one day and drop eggs to make them morph into Xenomorphs, some super bio weapon or whatever. Humans are crop-hosts for future Xenomorphs.

But it's dumb because the fucking alien space ship can obviously fly back to Earth easily, so why "lure" humans to the military base planet thingy? Why are the engineers just sleeping and waiting forever?

That's the question actually. Why create humans but then only to destroy them later? It may have been an experiment and they wanted to start from zero again, perhaps. It wasn't very clear in the movie. It was just some wild inferences by the cast.

They also didn't lure the humans there, I believe. I think we're supposed to take it as they stumbled upon the planet because of markings left by earlier humans. I would assume that was why the Engineer that survived reacted the way he did when David conveyed Weyland's message.

 

[PairOfFilthySocks]

Thank fuck I saw this at the ripe old age of 21. That tentacle shit at the end would've fucked me up so bad as a child.

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

The entire creation aspect of the story I found to be rather obvious, when things started picking up. Outside of the cell scene in the beginning, it was no where near that cleverly written(the references to theology and such). It was almost offensively overt and shoved down your throat countless times throughout the movie.

Besides, it didn't help that the silly actions of the characters took away from some of the underlying themes. Can you blame someone for not picking up on some of the things the guy talks about in the article, after they just watched a scientist try and pet a space snake with an angry vagina for a face?

edit: This is mainly in regards to that article...

 

[Keylime]

Just finished my second viewing...I went from luke warm to good. Definitely a bit more character work needed, but a lot of the gripes people have come off as jaded when you're actively looking for reasons why the movie does what it does.

Liked it a lot the second time.

I'd type a lot more but I broke my wrist and typing sucks.

 

[tycoonheart]

That's the question actually. Why create humans but then only to destroy them later? It may have been an experiment and they wanted to start from zero again, perhaps. It wasn't very clear in the movie. It was just some wild inferences by the cast.

They also didn't lure the humans there, I believe. I think we're supposed to take it as they stumbled upon the planet because of markings left by earlier humans. I would assume that was why the Engineer that survived reacted the way he did when David conveyed Weyland's message.

I thought the marking was left by the engineers themselves. Or at least some of them were made by the engineers. Remember there were drawings of their solar system, thats how the scientists were able to figure out where to go.

 

[Shouta]

I thought the marking was left by the engineers themselves. Or at least some of them were made by the engineers. Remember there were drawings of their solar system, thats how the scientists were able to figure out where to go.

Yeah, they were left by the engineers. However, I'm not sure if an invitation works really. Why invite humans to 223 of all places? That's not their homeworld and it was left their prior to the event that would cause the engineers to want to destroy humans.

 

[we.are.the.armada]

A
That being said This should be required reading for everyone in the thread.

Presumably through the black slime, which evidently models its behaviour on the user's mental state. Create unselfishly, accepting self-destruction as the cost, and the black stuff engenders fertile life. But expose the potent black slimy stuff to the thoughts and emotions of flawed humanity, and 'the sleep of reason produces monsters'. We never see the threat that the Engineers were fleeing from, we never see them killed other than accidentally (decapitation by door), and we see no remaining trace of whatever killed them. Either it left a long time ago, or it reverted to inert black slime, waiting for a human mind to reactivate it.

Wait, I've been out and about since seeing this silly movie so I don't quite follow well here. How is the black liquid manifesting itself something from the projections of human thoughts/emotions? How could that turn the worms into hammerpedes? How could that make Shaw have a trilobyte baby?

When Fifield/other guy find the dead jockeys one of them claims that something burst out of one of the corpses.

The movie fell apart after that squid baby. Shaw knocks out bad hair lady and security dude with super human strength and somehow nobody knows or cares that she removes the squid baby in the medbay in Vicker's personal escape shuttle bed room.

Nobody even mentions it. Nobody cares what happened to Shaw or how she escaped that quarantine room or what she did with chulthu baby. Nobody cares that Weyland is alive.

Bad writing. I'll think about it more in the morning :/

Also, why did the engineer just start massacring them? Wouldn't he be fascinated that his descendant race caught up to his kind? He's just a generic slasher flick monster, almost.

 

[outunderthestars]

Yeah, they were left by the engineers. However, I'm not sure if an invitation works really. Why invite humans to 223 of all places? That's not their homeworld and it was left their prior to the event that would cause the engineers to want to destroy humans.

Technically they simply pointed humans towards a series of stars. They assumed that the moon 233 or whatever was the best chance of finding life. The Engineers could live on another planet/moon.

 

[Ether_Snake]

man that was a crazy read. very interesting

Wow this makes it all even worst. Xenomorphs are sent to kill humans because we crucified Jesus, lol.

If this is the idea behind the movie, it makes it all even dumber.

 

[Scarecrow]

It seems to me that the xenomorph we're more familiar with is the endgame of whatever the black goo is (as depicted on the mural). The mutations trend towards the asthetic and functional qualities of the alien and/or face hugger, its final evolution form (so to speak).

 

[we.are.the.armada]

Wow this makes it all even worst. Xenomorphs are sent to kill humans because we crucified Jesus, lol.

If this is the idea behind the movie, it makes it all even dumber.

Yeah check my post 1375 - possibly the stupid thing in the entire read. The guy is breaking a speed record for jumping to a fucking conclusion unless I'm missing something.

 

[Ether_Snake]

That's the question actually. Why create humans but then only to destroy them later? It may have been an experiment and they wanted to start from zero again, perhaps. It wasn't very clear in the movie. It was just some wild inferences by the cast.

They also didn't lure the humans there, I believe. I think we're supposed to take it as they stumbled upon the planet because of markings left by earlier humans. I would assume that was why the Engineer that survived reacted the way he did when David conveyed Weyland's message.

How did humans know of the planet? Had to have been purposely transmitted to them.

 

[Dahbomb]

But the captain said whatever was on that planet, he would not bring any of it back home (err did he forget he was on a scientific mission?).

CASE CLOSED

I know that the CAPTAIN said that and thus it sort of made sense for him to stick to his guns but what about the other two? They didn't say anything like that and they certainly didn't seem like the type of characters who you would expect to do something like that. I guess chalk it up to poor character development, maybe they had it in them all along but the movie made no attempt to develop them aside from their little on going bet.

 

[outunderthestars]

How did humans know of the planet? Had to have been purposely transmitted to them.

They said they chose that moon because it looked the most likely to support life.

 

[BoSox06DH]

Reading that article by Cavalorn brought up a lot of things I never noticed, and I'm more curious about the film after just watching it.

 

[Angry Fork]

Just got back from seeing this and have a lot of questions, I'm gonna read through this thread but figured I could get a response anyway from people with better knowledge of the mythology and Alien 1. If there are no actual answers I'd be interested in hearing popular theories also thanks.

1. If the big humans have identical DNA to regular humans, why are they so big? And monstrous muscle-wise, with black eyes and so on.

2. I'm confused about the role the big humans play and whether they're good or bad guys. In Alien 1 when the original crew lands on the planet don't they all agree eventually that whatever beacon they got was a warning to stay away? I got the impression the jockey was part of a race of explorers like humans, got fucked up by the aliens, and on the verge of death left a warning to future explorers. But now it seems like big humans capture or create these things? What is the purpose of the big humans/jockeys what do they do exactly? And what were they running away from in the hologram?

3. What was that beginning scene about? The drinking of the dark liquid shit and then melting away. On what planet was that on, why did he do it, etc.

4. Did the big human understand what David was saying?

5. Why did he want to go back to earth to destroy it? According to the main girl. Do Jockey's capture these alien things or create them, then ship planet to planet and let them go?

6. Why is the big human so angry and punching/throwing everything?

7. Was the planet in Alien 1 the same as the planet they landed on in this? Or 2 completely different areas? The original jockey/ship from Alien 1 isn't seen or hinted at in this movie right?

8. Why did David want the girl to be pregnant and put the black drop in the guy's drink? Did he just not like him or something? Wanted to wreak havoc in the ship to put attention away from Guy Pearce old guy or something?

9. Where did the huge Octopus go? Does it die after injecting the Alien in something?

10. What is the overall order of creation/evolution? Where does the black liquid stuff come from? And does each container of it hold the life liquid that can eventually turn into that huge squid? And then the squid finds a host to put an Alien into? What about the Aliens from Alien 1 where it was more like a face mask or something and it was a baby alien that grew exponentially. This Alien just came out already very large, what's the difference/reasoning?

 

[Shouta]

Reading that article by Cavalorn brought up a lot of things I never noticed, and I'm more curious about the film after just watching it.

It's a pretty good post by Cavalorn. It probably hit the nail on the end, in fact. It's just so silly. It fits though when you think about the storyline. Engineer dead 2000 years ago, importance of Shaw's father's cross, the goo not reacting to David but reacting to the humans. I can dig some of it but it's just so poorly tossed together.

 

[Ether_Snake]

They said they chose that moon because it looked the most likely to support life.

That's not what I meant: If humans made markings of the alien planet's location, that location had to have been given to them by someone, presumably the engineers. So there was a desire for humans to reach them. But why? By the time the humans get there, the place is apparently a messed up military base with black goo that drives people crazy, and the engineer punches everyone and tries to fly off to Earth.

I know that the CAPTAIN said that and thus it sort of made sense for him to stick to his guns but what about the other two? They didn't say anything like that and they certainly didn't seem like the type of characters who you would expect to do something like that. I guess chalk it up to poor character development, maybe they had it in them all along but the movie made no attempt to develop them aside from their little on going bet.

I was kidding, it's just dumb.

It's a pretty good post by Cavalorn. It probably hit the nail on the end, in fact. It's just so silly. It fits though when you think about the storyline. Engineer dead 2000 years ago, importance of Shaw's father's cross, the goo not reacting to David but reacting to the humans. I can dig some of it but it's just so poorly tossed together.

His post doesn't make sense in some cases though. He never explains why the engineers have been killed by something, which would go against his whole idea. They got killed by something themselves.

 

[Erigu]

There's no director's cut of this coming.

Scott said as much, yes, but it seems he's constantly changing his tune in interviews, so I don't know anymore...
(the criticism the movie is currently getting might make a director's cut more likely than not though)

I just cannot believe that after all the years and finally going through with it, Ridley shot this sad excuse for a script. The movie showed he still has it from a technical perspective, but his judgement of scripts is very suspect.

According to the writers, he had a lot of input on the plot, and I have to say I was a bit taken aback upon reading the guy's recent interviews... I felt they often sounded like incoherent ramblings...

I would like to have been able to read Spaihts' draft before Lindelof got hold of it. Not that I know who is responsible for some of the really bizarre logic, nor do we know if there were scenes cut out that would make things in the film make much more sense, but I would still like to read his "Alien prequel" draft.

Same here.

It's just frustrating because with some really fucking obvious fixes that should have absolutely not went over someone's head like Ridley Scott it could have definitely played ball with Alien, I feel.

Frankly, I never was on board with the idea of a prequel dealing with the Space Jockey(s), and the "ancient aliens created mankind to their image" stuff bothers me (it shits so much over Darwin, you'd better have a solid mythology/excuses to pull it off)... Can't say I'm seeing that one getting anywhere near Alien, even with a miraculous director's cut. As a movie, it pretends to be a lot more than its predecessor ("hard scifi" dealing with "big ideas"), and I find its foundations far too shaky for that kind of weight.

Anyone bring up the idea that David is in love with Shaw? Only looks at her dreams, only goes out to save her and even impregnates her the only way he can.

Experiments on her boyfriend, too.
But I can't argue he seems consistently interested in her throughout the movie, so...

David infecting the dude scientist was pointless, him dying would have served no point, same thing with the girl getting pregnant with the alien. In fact David was being WAY too careless overall, manipulating all sorts of crazy biological material, for no apparent reason whatsoever, other than to make us understand that he's dangerous.

Agreed.
I've seen some supporters of the movie get annoyed at people asking why David did that, and I get that David is curious / was told to "try harder". I do.
... But come the fuck on, you don't haphazardly infect a main member of your expedition with some unknown alien agent, set him loose and sit back. Especially when it's established in the movie that David is interested in his own preservation (in fact, he put it above Weyland's interests when Vickers threatened him, and he put Weyland's interests above the safety of other human beings... recipe for disaster, anyone? who the hell programmed that guy? Asimov am doubly cry).

obviously, the goo in the first scene of the film is NOT the same goo that causes all the problems later in the film

If you want that to be "obvious", don't use black goo in both cases. It's not rocket science.
(that being said, I don't think they're supposed to be separate things... I might even have read something to that effect in a recent interview...)

Pretty sure we would have figured something was wrong if she was magically three months pregnant all of a sudden, no need for the sterile thing.

But we so needed that "I can't create life" line!
Holy shit at that script, seriously...

[Damon Lindelof] said in the interview that Prometheus was right in his wheelhouse, and that the myth-building element of writing such a script was not entirely dissimilar to what he’d done on Lost.

No shit.

Either way it went, whether she was his actual daughter (slow-aging or whatever) or a robot, it changed nothing to the story, and now she is flattened dead like a pancake.

I think it's funny how the she ejected from the ship just so she could conveniently land right next to Shaw and then stupidly die. Man, that was really worth it.

the life that was implanted on earth wasn't just humans or else it doesn't explain how we evolved from primates (or at least how our DNA is like 98% identical to theirs). Humans was probably an evolutionary step towards becoming the engineers the final goal and maybe given a few extra million years humans would've evolved to become the engineers.

Makes you wonder why the Engineers go through all that trouble to (eventually) recreate a DNA nigh identical to theirs instead of simply using cloning...

I do wish they would have had her acknowledge David's treacherous behavior, at least for a brief moment, when she went back to get him. She honestly didn't have a choice in the matter, but Shaw didn't even bat an eye.

Obviously, all the "where's my cross?" stuff was a lot more important. Big ideas, man.

Dumb question: How was she going to survive with no food or water?

Faith!
Or David unlocking the Interstellarbucks of the alien ship by randomly pushing three buttons, as usual, I guess.

Movie started showing its cracks when the geologist and his buddy randomly get scared and decide to walk back to the ship alone.

I was already shaking my head when the guy explained how they found LV-223.

So those five dots are... stars, right? Okay, I find it a bit hard to swallow that they could determine which stars those were exactly (there's a lot of those in the sky, seriously!), but fine, couldn't quite have ancient paintings be ultra-elaborate, suspension of disbelief, okay.

Then, the guy calls those five dots a "galactic system".
A what? I mean... I guess those could actually be galaxies instead of stars, yes, but that wouldn't be a very helpful map, now, would it?
Ah, well.

"And that system happens to have a sun."
...
I... I'm going to assume you're saying "sun", in the sense "a star that very closely resembles ours". Not that it helps all that much (even if we were talking about a "galactic system" of five stars, I don't know that the closest one to our Sun would necessarily host the spacefaring alien species you're looking for).

"Orbiting around that sun is what seems to be a planet. And around that planet, a moon capable of sustaining life."
... So the jury is still out over whether or not the planet really is a planet... but its moon can sustain life. That's some crazy future science you're using, there, guys.

neildegrassetyson.gif

And of course, Shaw then completely fails to explain why she thinks those giant figures in the paintings created mankind.
"That's what I choose to believe."

One hell of a scientific expedition. This should go well.

In Alien 1 when the original crew lands on the planet don't they all agree eventually that whatever beacon they got was a warning to stay away? I got the impression the jockey was part of a race of explorers like humans, got fucked up by the aliens, and on the verge of death left a warning to future explorers.

I'm pretty sure that was the initial idea, but they then decided to move the alien eggs to the Space Jockey's ship (they were to be found in a pyramid structure somewhere else on the planet, originally), making it look like Elephant Man was carrying a lethal cargo.
Still bothers me a bit, as I don't think the "placid" design of the Space Jockey fits very well with this new implied agenda (even if I do think the change helped with the pacing).

Was the planet in Alien 1 the same as the planet they landed on in this?

Nope. It was LV-426 in Alien, and LV-223 in Prometheus.

 

[brandonh83]

Frankly, I never was on board with the idea of a prequel dealing with the Space Jockey(s), and the "ancient aliens created mankind to their image" stuff bothers me (it shits so much over Darwin, you'd better have a solid mythology/excuses to pull it off)... Can't say I'm seeing that one getting anywhere near Alien, even with a miraculous director's cut. As a movie, it pretends to be a lot more than its predecessor ("hard scifi" dealing with "big ideas"), and I find its foundations far too shaky for that kind of weight.

Well, this is just me but I don't put Alien on a pedestal like some of you. I put it on a pedestal in terms of it being a really good movie and easily the best sci-fi/horror hybrid out there, but it's not a whole lot more than a well made slasher movie. So I do think with some work that Prometheus could have been just as good, albeit in its own way. As it stands its flaws and logic holes are far too great, whereas the original Alien didn't seem to have any worth noting.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Then, the guy calls those five dots a "galactic system".
A what? I mean... I guess those could actually be galaxies instead of stars, yes, but that wouldn't be a very helpful map, now, would it?
Ah, well.

"And that system happens to have a sun."
...
I... I'm going to assume you're saying "sun", in the sense "a star that very closely resembles ours". Not that it helps all that much (even if we were talking about a "galactic system" of five stars, I don't know that the closest one to our Sun would necessarily host the spacefaring alien species you're looking for).

"Orbiting around that sun is what seems to be a planet. And around that planet, a moon capable of sustaining life."
... So the jury is still out over whether or not the planet really is a planet... but its moon can sustain life. That's some crazy future science you're using, there, guys.

THIS, this was so weird. "It has a sun" wat.

"What seems to be a planet"..... SEEMS? But you're sure about the moon and the life part though. lol

 

[Shouta]

His post doesn't make sense in some cases though. He never explains why the engineers have been killed by something, which would go against his whole idea. They got killed by something themselves.

Hrm, maybe his idea that what killed them was their goo reacting to humans and on their way back it mutated and killed them all. With no more creatures to help it continue spawning, it basically goes inert which would explain why the ship is like it is. Though it doesn't explain the pyramid.

His idea behind the goo would make it seem like they weren't there going to destroy humans until they found out what occurred when they interacted with the it.

 

[Magilla]

So disappointed. So many unanswered questions. I thought I was just "not getting it" after I left the theater. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

[osu61303]

I just saw the screening and enjoyed it. That giant tenticle monster really reminded me of Nyarlathotep from Lovecraft. And come to think of it, Space Jockeys with their helmets and suits sort of remind me of single tentacled Cthulu. Interesting design choices! Beautiful artistic direction overall

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

I do have one question. My memory is possibly failing me, but didn't David mention something about Shaw's father's death?

 

[Dahbomb]

1. If the big humans have identical DNA to regular humans, why are they so big? And monstrous muscle-wise, with black eyes and so on.

Evolution. Humans evolved around the atmosphere and gravity of earth whereas the jockeys had their own path of evolution. It's like monkeys to humans sort of. Maybe after a few million years humans evolve to look like the engineers/space jockeys.

2. I'm confused about the role the big humans play and whether they're good or bad guys. In Alien 1 when the original crew lands on the planet don't they all agree eventually that whatever beacon they got was a warning to stay away? I got the impression the jockey was part of a race of explorers like humans, got fucked up by the aliens, and on the verge of death left a warning to future explorers. But now it seems like big humans capture or create these things? What is the purpose of the big humans/jockeys what do they do exactly? And what were they running away from in the hologram?

Space Jockeys are just advance beings and they created both humans and xenomorphs based on this movie's story. They are explorers but they are scientists too and just like humans are obsessed with creating life (like the android) they too have similar obsessions. Don't think the warning left is the same from Alien, maybe there is a proper build up to Alien in a subsequent Prometheus movie but this movie didn't have the same spacecraft nor was it on the same planet. And Space Jockeys created the genetic essence of the xenomorphs (the perfect organism) but it sort of back fired on them and they were probably running from other space jockeys turned Xenomorphs. Seemed like a failed experiment gone horribly wrong.

3. What was that beginning scene about? The drinking of the dark liquid shit and then melting away. On what planet was that on, why did he do it, etc.

A space jockey comes and essentially kills himself to transmit his DNA on to earth. He was on earth and he did it so that the planet can have life of it's own. From that event, we came into being. They pretty much say it outright throughout the whole movie. It is also implied that these jockeys came to earth from time to time but stopped about 2000 years ago around the time of Jesus's death (there are Christian themes all over the movie and probably have deeper meaning).

4. Did the big human understand what David was saying?

I would say so and from the looks of it, it also recognized that David wasn't biological.

5. Why did he want to go back to earth to destroy it? According to the main girl. Do Jockey's capture these alien things or create them, then ship planet to planet and let them go?

Seems like the ship was on course for earth before the incident. It seemed like the Jockeys weren't pleased with the progress of mankind in general post Jesus era and probably planned to extinguish them using their biological weapon. The weapon turned on them and one of them saved himself via cryo sleep. He is probably resuming the mission of human extermination. Maybe he's going to his home planet... this part of the movie was very up in the air IMO.

6. Why is the big human so angry and punching/throwing everything?

He probably felt threatened? Maybe the Space Jockey sees us as we see Xenomorphs... dangerous beings that have no right to be alive.

7. Was the planet in Alien 1 the same as the planet they landed on in this? Or 2 completely different areas? The original jockey/ship from Alien 1 isn't seen or hinted at in this movie right?

These are different planets and different space crafts.

8. Why did David want the girl to be pregnant and put the black drop in the guy's drink? Did he just not like him or something? Wanted to wreak havoc in the ship to put attention away from Guy Pearce old guy or something?

Curiosity most probably. He didn't have emotions so he didn't care what happened to the humans as long as he got some answers about the organism. Maybe he thought the black drop would do good rather than harm.

9. Where did the huge Octopus go? Does it die after injecting the Alien in something?
Yeah it should've died after injecting the egg inside the new host.

10. What is the overall order of creation/evolution? Where does the black liquid stuff come from? And does each container of it hold the life liquid that can eventually turn into that huge squid? And then the squid finds a host to put an Alien into? What about the Aliens from Alien 1 where it was more like a face mask or something and it was a baby alien that grew exponentially. This Alien just came out already very large, what's the difference/reasoning?

The black liquid stuff is made by the engineers as the "perfect organism". It takes different forms depending on the host and condition of infection. Basically a perfect storm of events had to have happened for the black liquid stuff to end up as the Xenomorph Alien you see in the previous movies. The life cycle that is proposed in this movie is:

Black liquid is exposed to host -> Host is now contagious and can infect other hosts and sexual reproduction will make a new life form -> new life form is basically called the "Trilobite" and it's the precursor to the face huggers/alien queen -> Trilobite attaches to a host (in the case of the movie, the space jockey) and injects egg inside it -> egg grows into a larvae and PRESUMABLY turns into the Alien Queen or a Xenomorph Adult form

After this it depends on which canon Ridley adopted for the movie. If he followed the Aliens version then the thing that popped out of the Space Jockey should've been the Queen Alien and it is capable of making more eggs by itself. Eggs have Face Huggers in them and they need a host to turn into full Xenomorphs.

The other option is that the thing that pops out is a Xenomorph proper but is the Space Jockey version of it (Xenomorphs take some characteristics of its hosts). That Xenomorph would then need more hosts and it uses the hosts to make new eggs and thus continuing the cycle.

This is my interpretation of it, I could be wrong on some facts as I haven't been following the movie pre-release and someone can correct me.

didn't David mention something about Shaw's father's death?

Killed by Ebola virus which is a painful death not too different from the way her husband/fiancee was dying from the black goo infection.

 

[Oozer3993]

Worst problem with the movie:

"half a billion miles from Earth."

So you're just a little ways past Jupiter?

I do have one question. My memory is possibly failing me, but didn't David mention something about Shaw's father's death?

Yep. David somehow knew that Shaw's father died of Ebola. At least, I think that's what he said. He whispered it so it was a little hard to hear.

 

[Erigu]

Well, this is just me but I don't put Alien on a pedestal like some of you. I put it on a pedestal in terms of it being a really good movie and easily the best sci-fi/horror hybrid out there, but it's not a whole lot more than a well made slasher movie.

But that was the idea, and the movie definitely accomplished what it set out to do.
Prometheus, on the other hand, claims to be "hard scifi" dealing with "big ideas", and...

 

[Trurl]

I'm surprised at how mixed or negative Gaf is toward Prometheus. It's a rare treat to see a film that has action, suspense, is visually stunning and makes the audience use their brains (regardless of how messy or dumb you might think the underlying plot is, at the very least watching the film was intellectually stimulating). Perhaps I'm not being as critical as I should be because I'm starved for a movie like this, but oh well. I loved it.

 

[Dahbomb]

(it shits so much over Darwin, you'd better have a solid mythology/excuses to pull it off)

I don't think it shits on Darwinism because Darwinism doesn't explain where the first piece of biological "cell" came from. Once that cell was made it basically replicated into various organism not just humans (my interpretation) which explains how we have close DNA to monkeys/apes and evolved from. The space jockey were the goal target of the black goo and the humans were almost to that level and maybe in a few millions years they would become giants too.

And then someone asks Shaw to abandon her cross because this new discovery basically disproved god to which she replies "but where did THEY come from?" And so on...

 

[Ether_Snake]

Hrm, maybe his idea that what killed them was their goo reacting to humans and on their way back it mutated and killed them all. With no more creatures to help it continue spawning, it basically goes inert which would explain why the ship is like it is. Though it doesn't explain the pyramid.

His idea behind the goo would make it seem like they weren't there going to destroy humans until they found out what occurred when they interacted with the it.

Reacting to what humans? The space jokeys are already dead when the humans get there. They got killed by something.

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be exactly as the dude said in the movie (cause that's why he said it, it was the "let's tell the audience that didn't figure it out yet what's happening!"): just a bio weapon that turned back on the space jokeys, and they originally wanted to go back to Earth to kill the humans with those weapons, which is what the jokey wants to do when he gets waken up (but then why did he wait to get waken up if he could have done it himself before anyway?).

Any way you look at it the story makes no sense. What killed some of the engineers in the bedroom?

 

[Angry Fork]

Thanks a lot for all the answers, really cleared everything up for me. Now I want to watch it again knowing what I've just read that I wasn't able to connect for myself.

What are the main questions in this thread people are saying have no answers to at all?