Ridley Scott’s “return to the Alien universe” in Prometheus has been the subject of unimaginable speculation ever since the film was revealed to tell a related story – as opposed to serving as an outright prequel. For months cinephiles have poured over Prometheus trailers and set images hoping for a clear picture of where, exactly, the highly-anticipated film would fit into the iconic story of the xenomorphs. Fortunately, the Prometheus marketing has been (for the most part) pretty subtle – flashing a variety of mysterious and tense shots entirely out of context – leaving speculators with little information to analyze.
Now that Prometheus (read our review) has officially been released, information about the secretive production has come flooding in – and we have a much clearer picture of how Prometheus is connected to Alien (and the larger Alien universe). To help steer discussion we’ve put together a lengthy analysis of Prometheus and explained a few of the plot points that might have been confusing to some moviegoers. Does our Prometheus explanation match your theory? Find out!
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Oh, I get it now. The connection makes perfectly obtuse sense.
I bet that people were going to be hosts for the aliens so the engineers could rule the galexy with a bigger army of controlled aliens. ^_^
Or mabie they were suplying the preditors with the aliens and they knew they would need people to help populate the xenomorphs.
can i ask a favor from Screenrant?
I know the movie is out in a lot of places and a lot of people have seen it, but can you repost this article on Saturday. It doesnt come out where i live until friday and i havent had the chance to see it yet. The article title really interests me and would like to read it but dont want to spoil the movie for myself.
I’m asking if you guys can do this, link it again on saturday, or will i have to just flip back a few days to find the article again?
thanks, keep up the good work
We will be reposting, Nowhereman
No worries.
thanks, you guys are the best
what was the significance of the guy at the beginning eating the stuff…was he supposed to be the last of the engineers? Why did David infect Charlie?
These are my takes on it…
At the start I took him to be starting life on earth…
David infected Charlie because the scientists looking after Wayland were after any DNA that might extend his life – mutating a human with what they found before giving it to his boss was a ‘safe’ way to see what would happen.
I could be wrong…
David infects Charlie to start the life process cycle of the virus to see what it does most likely on orders from Weyland. The virus then reside as a spurmatozoa inside the testes of a male and impregnate a female who then gives birth to the progenitor facehugger which implants an egg into other animals from which spout fully evolved xeno-morph aliens whose characteristics are similar in appearance to the organism they gestate inside until birth. The final organism that comes out of the engineer from his impregnation by the giant squid is a queen capable of laying face hugger eggs without the viral cycle.
You forgot to discuss the opening which could explain why the Engineers want to kill humans — it’s the myth of Prometheus. One of the engineers took the mutating goo and created life based on their own DNA (ie…stealing fire). What if the other Engineers did not want to create life based on their own DNA? Thus the others are on a mission to wipe out Earth…
To answer rundmc’s question, i think David infected Charlie in an attempt to see if the goo could save Weyland’s life. Poor Charlie was a guinea pig…orders that people might find “distasteful” if you remember the David 8 viral video.
So black liquid > mutates > in women it produces a facehugger (and men just die) > which produce xenomorphs after they aquire a host. Hmm. On the black goo point seems alot like x-files to me black goo > infect humans via eyes > out comes aggresive grey > which then cocoons and changes to evolved grey..
Prequel or not Prequel ? …the Space Jockey is in this film and it looks exactly like the one at the very first Alien(film). Its obvious to me that this film is the birth of Xenomorph Aliens
i think you’ve got it wrong with the xenomorph aliens being a “later breed”.
They are in fact a less advanced breed of alien. The ship that crashed with the original space jockey was from the same time period. That means it set off on its fateful journey around 2000 years when everything was going ape s*** on that planet – as was revealed in the hologram messages.
Thats why the remaining engineer has been in stasis for a few thousand years when everyone around him were being killed or on the run from something – alien outbreak?
Also, they were probably going to drop those eggs from the original film on a planet – like Earth. It was a cargo, not laid by a queen that burst out off the pilot. In that film when the mist is broken you hear a beep – suggesting it was a cargo and would warn the pilot if one were to escape.
That’s why I included the bit about Shaw’s impregnation possibly being a mutation “detour” – meaning that the event on LV-426 was entirely unrelated and just the product of a similar (but different) outbreak of the mutagen that would eventually lead to inevitable Alien/Facehugger forms.
Ben, how many Prometheus message boards do you have. How do I look up all my posts on all message boards. is there a way for me to do that.
I have a headache…
You’re not the only one mate… trust me.
I think some elements are really silly in the movie. Like the religious/creator themes, I mean we know how human life was created. Through natural selection, or are the engineers descended from earth primates and then we from them? Anyway it was a still a great scifi film, but left lots to be desired.
And the “Why are we here?” is a silly question. The “How” is a real question with real answers, but “Why” supposes meaning and purpose, which there is no evidence for. It would be like asking “What is the purpose of pebbles”.
Are you completely sure of this assessment on human evolution? If you are then you have some data that all other archaeologists dont seem to have. Most that I have read about prefix all their statements with the term “we believe”, which is sciency speak for “we think we are right, but we dont know for sure”. No the book is not completely closed on how we got here. Natural selection can only account for a small fraction of our evolution. There are jumps in evolutionary intellect in our species that are still unaccounted for. They may have been coincidental accidents, or they may have been something else. Our intelligence is supposedly related to our primate precursors evolving to consume meat thus leading to a larger brain capable of complex problem solving. Yet, other animals that have been eating meat since before we evolved an opposable thumb, still cant manage to put 1+1 together to get 2. So… dont be so sure that “we” have it all figured out… there may be more to our genesis than we know still. With the vast numbers of stars in the cosmos and the eternity in which they have resided there, the possibilities for an outside intervention is limitless and may just explain the god theory after all.
Very well said, Sneaky Pete.
Believing in God doesn’t make one silly or stupid. It’s entirely possible someone helped humankind along somehow, sure. If so, how did those people come to be? Keep going down that path of thought and God has to eventually come up. Also, ask what could have set off the Big Bang and you’ll get interesting reactions.
Short of it is religion and science ARE NOT mutually exclusive. Haven’t been exclusive for long, long before today’s big religions came into being.
Sharpe…. You say keep going down the path and God eventually comes up. Such a path never ends and is an infinite regression. Evolution is able to explain complex coming from simple beginnings. Complex from complex doesn’t answer the question because we still must answer where the original complex came from.
I’d say infinity and God are one and the same.
The end to the first Men in Black is a good visual example of what I mean. You see a creature picking up a marble to play with and it’s Earth. Isn’t that concept valid? And if so, why not have that creature be part of a toy from someone even vaster in power and scope? Etcetera, etcetera and you just plain come up with God in some fashion.
Just like I believe that there is probably something smaller than an atom even though we’re taught atoms are the smallest possible. I believe that infinity goes both large (the universes and whatever the universes make up) and small (atoms and whatever makes up atoms.) Either way you go, I think you run into God eventually.
Yes I understand what you are saying. In fact, scientist do talk about particles smaller than atoms and of course that could go on forever in a digression as well (assuming String Theory is not correct). As far as a finite scale going upwards which eventually leads to a creator is something we obviously do not agree on. To me, it makes much more sense that the universe would be infinitely old and not necessarily needing of creation if perhaps the universe goes through a constant fluctuation of expansions and contractions (That is if heat death does not occur). Though all in all it boils down to what you believe. I personally try to formulate my belief without prejudice or bias and based on the evidence we currently have available.
The atom is made up of the electron, the proton and the neutron; just saying.
It’s also opening the door to any ‘ol “theory” (note the quotation marks). Therefore there could be any explanation for anything. Personally I believe in the pantheon of Greek gods. Gods who have emotions, get bitter, fall in love, exact punishment, or get drunk and forget to do so explains the world pretty good for me.
But scientific theories explain facts, and have a track record of predicting other facts. “If A is true, than B.” “If there was a now-extinct intermediate life form there may be evidence of it in such and such a place.” There are an astonishing number of facts in the form of fossils and indications of past environments, when the reality is the vast majority of evidence has been destroyed by time, hasn’t been found, or is inaccessible to ever being found. It’s utterly incredible that we are able have any facts, but there are countless tons thanks to peoples tireless efforts.
Physics and Chemistry can deal with the here and now. Hypotheses about the past have to construct a story that explains ALL of the available evidence, and suggest what further evidence will support the story (prediction), or what evidence might change or disprove that story. When paleontologist are tentative (as all scientist are), they are merely acknowledging the limitations of their knowledge and the reality that future studies and technologies may alter expand and change the story we have so far. A “theory” in common terms is any idea, any thought. A Theory in science is the highest level of certainty. It’s a story that has held up to multiple levels of scrutiny from all fields of science, that explains all the evidence without ignoring any of it, and has been proven to successfully predict what new evidence will be found in the future.
It is tentative, but it’s not some uncertain wild, cross-your-fingers guess.
Carl Sagan would say he’d be the first one to welcome evidence of Alien life, but he had never seen any that held up to scrutiny. No alien metals, no traces of alien DNA, and no phenomena that didn’t have simpler, but adequate earth-bound explanations.
Dang Nostelg-O! Incredibly well said.
Unfortunately, it’s been said just as well many times in the past and those who didn’t get it then, won’t get it now.
Sneaky Pete… The book How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker (among other books such as The Dragons of Eden) explains the evolution of intelligence through a number of factors. None of them having to do with ‘eating’ meat. Though tracking down and killing animals does require a certain intellectual finesse (that being only but one of the factors).
Those unaccounted for jumps in our evolution, or gaps in the fossil record exist because the fossil record is incomplete. This is because it takes a very specific set of conditions and circumstances for fossilization to occur. Most dead things decompose, are consumed by predators or scavengers, or are destroyed by exposure to the elements. Fossilization is actually very, very rare and as such, there are comparatively few instances of intact fossils for us to examine. So in other words, we are extremely lucky to find the number of fossils we have but unfortunately, not every single transitional species of animal that has ever existed can be found as a fossilized example. Now mind you, that does not mean that those transitional species did not exist, it only means no fossils remains of them exist or have been found because the conditions required to preserve those forms did not occur during the time of it’s existence. In this way the fossil record can never be complete but there are more than enough fossils to extrapolate what existed in those gaps, even if we don’t have the actual physical examples of those transitional forms… in fact, many species have been extrapolated to have existed only later to be proven when a fossil was finally found.
But just because we don’t know something for sure doesn’t mean we can’t know something with an exceedingly high level of confidence. Nothing can be 100% known… even the fact of your own existence can only be proven as far as the limits of perception and interpretation, but evidence, like that of evolution, that consistently and overwhelmingly point to certain conclusions, though they cannot ever be declared 100% proven, are not as weak as your comment might suggest. Rather, evolution is as conclusively proven and demonstrable (and more plausible than any other explanation) as any scientific concept can be. We know less about gravity but still we can compute and execute complex orbital maneuvers and plot the movements of planets and stars with pin-point accuracy. And electronics and all our gadgets work based on the comparatively little understood “theory of electromagnetism.” The point is, we don’t have to completely understand the exact underlying mechanism in order to see how it works and physically manifests and behaves.
But part of the reason there is a missing link in Human evolution is also the same reason we are successful enough to have survived to wonder why: the lack of cataclysmic and sudden environmental conditions that would trap and fossilize the remains of some of our earlier forms. And, until we developed cultures where we began preserving or burying our dead, we can expect few opportunities for these earlier human forms to have found themselves lucky enough to have been fossilized. Primitive man had to find himself in a rare set of circumstances, or in the midst of some sudden cataclysm to have ended up a fossil, therefore, we don’t have a complete set (or they may yet to be discovered) of fossil examples of all human transitional forms… the environment was relatively stable (and therefore we thrived and evolved) and most remains were taken by nature and are gone, meaning, no conditions occurred that would have fossilized all examples of remains of these transitional humans. So that doesn’t mean that some outside intervention had to jump us ahead. It just means that no fossils were made for a long stable periods where significant change occurred, as most fossils are the result of these very rare special environmental circumstances and conditions.
But it might interest you to know that evolutionary science as a whole, looking at the entire fossil record, does indeed account for MOST ALL of the development of all species that exist today, dating back to the Cambrian explosion and beyond. So it’s not nearly as incomplete or iffy as you suggest… and by the way, Chipms can indeed put 1 and 1 together and get 2.
+1
yeah i actually had more unanswered questions After i watch promethius, i had only a couple questions about Alien, now i have at least 30. good movie but very lazy in the writing.Like someone else said, some of the comments on here provide better explanations than the movie did, very impressive explanations. i can honestley say i cannot see the writers digging themselves out of the hole they just dug. the same writer buried himself with the “lost” series. i understand some things should be left to ponder, but if you leave to many questions then it becomes a job in itself to explain the story, and becomes less enjoyable.
If a pebble had awareness, that wouldn’t be a bad question for it to ask. We are not pebbles. To want to know “why” isn’t pointless if there is a creator responsible for who we are. In the film, the engineers are by no means Gods who are responsible for all life. They are however responsible for human life. Wanting to know what they had in mind for us would in no way be a silly question. And Weyland also wants to them to save him from death which is also not an inherently silly goal.
Connections to Alien: spaceships, an android, a space jockey (who is not the same from the film Alien), and creatures (which are not the same creatures from previous films). Do I have this right?
*whines a bit* Whhhyyyy was Mountains of Madness canned because of this??? The only similar theme is searching for creation/creators. And if movies weren’t supposed to share themes… well then more than half of movieland is in trouble. Lovecraft’s writing was based closer to religion and the breakdown of man’s mental state, not on crazy aliens. *grumbles*
I still can’t see this movie. After watching the first Alien many years ago and having nightmares for weeks I swore off. Then I saw the trailer and heard that evil evil evil evil evil EVIL music and it was for sure I can’t watch it. Even though I want too. BLAAAAH!
Why would the engineers, via the cave paintings, guide humans to the “storage” moon?
And just to be killed by the first engineer they encounter to boot?
Simple really, its like herding cattle into a slaughter house. Show them the stall to go down and they will obligingly follow to their doom without hesitation.
Engineers grew us to be what we are… spread like a virus with an insatiable curiosity for the unknowable.
So they give us a “treasure” map knowing that instead of them having to come round us up for a slaughter, we will do all the hard work for them and go straight to them willingly, once we have simmered and aged enough to be ripe for the picking (that is an allegory to our advancement as a species enough to be able to make a journey on the magnitude required).
Another possibility is that the Engineers were not all operating from the same play book. There may be a ‘let’s uplift humankind’ faction and a ‘goo them from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure’ faction.
To give us knowledge of who they are and where they came from.
They taught civilizations that kind of information, the humans painted it on cave walls and created gold items depicting it and then the Engineers got worried at how humanity was developing and evolving and decided to kill us all.
What I hated in one review I read after coming back from the movie last friday was that the person in question (Alex Zane I think) called the Ancient Alien theory “silly and ridiculous” despite it standing up in reality as a possibility and the storyline in Prometheus also giving a real credence towards the theory being a possibility.
I believe the AA theory could be how we were created and honestly, look at the world now. Wouldn’t you wanna destroy humanity too if you were an Engineer?
Because the cave paintings were a warning …not an invite….she makes it clear when she says …we have made a mistake….this place is death…etc
…so like Alien when ‘Mother’ translates the ‘distress call’ as a warning.
A few more questions I had coming out of the film that don’t yet seem to be posted:
1. What was the recent looking goo on the control panel that David first enabled supposed to represent (if not that there was something more recent getting around that ship)?
2. Why would the Engineers be running into the chamber with all of the stored virus to escape the unknown thing chasing them? And what happened to the ones who did get into the room?
3. Within the chamber with the stored virus, there was a murial which contained a very Alien looking being. Does this not mean that the aliens actually existed well before this point in the timeline (i.e. over 2000 years before the Prometheus lands on the planet)? (especially with other dead Engineers found in a state where “things came out of their chests”)
5. What was the sporatic lifeform signal that popped up every hour?
6. Why would trained scientists take their helmets off in a new world just because the atmospheric conditions seemed to be ok? Have they never heard of airborne diseases?
I am not a huge Alien fan but these things stood out for me and I thought someone may be able to help cast a light on them.
Thanks
I thought that the mural looked similar to the Aliens as well. I thought that it might be the Queen and when everything else was “melting” she would be released. Alas no
If you look at Trailer 2, at the 1:35 mark there is a carved image on the wall of the classic Xenomorph. If you take into consideration the carved image and if the Predator films are considered canon, The Predator films indicate that the Predator species have been hunting the Xenomorphs for thousands of years; you would have to assume that this film doesn’t introduce the creation of the Xenomorphs. I’m thinking the writers are indicating that the Space Jockey/Engineers were creating bio weapons and/or conducting biological experiments that utilize the symbiotic biology of the “already existing” Xenomorph species.
In fact the writers may have intended to imply that the human race was created by the Space Jockey/Engineers using a combination of their own DNA and Xenomorph symbiotic biology. We may find out in later films that the Engineers/Space Jockeys wanted to wipe out humans because they found some flaw in their Xenomorph based biological “seeding” technology.
JSM –
I don’t think we can take Predator as canon in this case but it’s an interesting idea. It is certainly possible that they didn’t create the xenomorphs and merely harnessed the DNA from that existing species – turning it into a biological weapon.
I agree, I think that if the same goo they used to impregnate earth with humans was the same stuff as the mutagen, then humans vast consuming, fast multiplying, virus like qualities might have been inherited because of the xenomorph’s DNA, they realized this and so to stop humans spreading across the galaxy like a plague they decided to destroy them. Although I do also like the idea of 2 different factions of Engineers as this links the Prometheus myth in well.
not sure what to think of this film till i watch Alien again and have some questions answer for me, but as a stand alone film Prometheus is a good sci fi flick with stunning visuals
“On Seti Alpha Five there was life!”
Anyway, I loved Aliens then saw Alien which was good but all those after sucked badly. So I don’t intend to see this one and enjoyed the article.
I just also want to point out to the person saying the moons are different because of atmospheric conditions that the Aliens moon was being terraformed and can not be ruled out therefore without other reasons.
So the talk of different moons FORCED me to type the above quote. Planetary bodies are renamed on occasion and mistakes in cartography, especially on a galaxy-sized scale, would be very possible.
That’s possible, but it’s worth taking the creator’s intention into account. If they were meant to be the same moon, I don’t see why they would have made a point of calling them something different. If they left the moon in Prometheus unnamed, or had a vastly different name (i.e. not LV-XXX), then yeah I could see the point in that because it would keep the audience speculating whether they are the same one or not.
It’s something that could potentially be changed at a later point, but they made it pretty clear that they are intended to be different moons.
And that’s the whole thing about Aliens, you just can’t trust them, occasionally you meet a nice one, Starman, E.T., but usually they turn out to be some sort of big lizard.
i like it.
i took mr scotts advice, its not aliens, it is set in the same universe.
anyone who is into daniken and zitchin will dig this, im pretty sure ridleys been reading them from the plot.
though there are flaws, like idris elba being hilariously blase about the fate of 2 lost scientists, fraking out in the pyramid, over a pile of dead jockeys.
and the same 2 scientists, one whose job it is to map the place, gets lost, and then returns to the chamber that had him running like a little girl. and the whole, that alien snake, its cute let me stroke it. NOOOOOOOOOOO.
and rapaces abortion? wtf did she not tell anyone about it? byb the way guys theres an alien squid baby i had aborted, its chilin in the med bay.watch out.
other than that, yeah its sweet. and theres 2 factions of engineers for all those saying “why did they makes us, then decide to kill us?”
Never thought there could be two factions of engineer. That would make alot of sense just like the movie “Predators” there were two different kinds of Predator and they hated each other.
Think of it like this. we were created by the engineers 35,000 yrs ago or something, maybe more. Do you think the engineers today have knowlege of that? do humans have knowlege of what our species did 35,000 yrs ago? maybe a little tiny bit, but not very much. i would be VERY surprised if current engineers know exactly who we are, unless their ancestors kept EXCELLENT records to remind them. So my point is the engineers that created us and probably nurtured us are Dead, been dead for thousands of years. The current ones obviousley have some good reason to want us dead. so it doesnt mean theres 2 Factions of engineers. It means the old engineers that cared for us are simply gone. and the new ones have their own plans which will probably be revealed in later movies.
so what did people think of Prometheus? live up to hype? disappointed? a good Alien prequel? a good stand alone movie? am still undecided ✮
Good enough for me to want more!
i thought the film was amazing, i have to say ridley scott has pulled out all stops on this film…..i will be honest ive just seen the film about 54 minutes ago (sad i know) haha : ) but i think it is so clever how they have twisted the whole film around with little trails of evidence leading to the first alien film are dotted all around the place. i mean ive read every comment on this page and i agree with every one of you, and i know for a fact that this is what ridley scott wants us to do. every one of these theories people have mentioned above me are great but also could be a dead end trail which keeps you guessing and wanting more. i have to say, their are a few bad reviews on this film already but i think their far from wright, i mean, he hasnt gone and made this film to be JUST another alien film, which is where the bad reviews are coming from, hes come up with a completely new story line existing to the original alien film which is great : ] and i know for sure their will be another film soon, im a mega alien fan and have bin for years, and this new take on it is going to reboot and make the franchise popular again if not more. i have to say i was gutted about the alien at the end because i really wanted to see a queen lay a load of eggs, because with the graphics to date and in this film (WHICH ARE INCREDIBLE) it would of been ace to see a modern revamp of the queen : ] all in all though the originals will always be the best and the classics but so theres no need to beat them but this is up there and on the same level easy. but people please comment to me about then new film because i will be happy to talk about my opinions of the fill or a general chat and just to say GREAT CREDIT to RIDLEY SCOTT on this new film : ]
there, their and, there please use responsibly. also unless you can back this up “and i know for a fact that this is what ridley scott wants us to do” = IMO this is what ridley scott wants us to do. FTFY
If your going to criticize someone else’s spelling, perhaps you should look at your own punctuation and include capital letters in your sentences? Just a thought…
thanks for that dude, at least some people on this world understand, even though this isnt a english lesson : ]
Were here about the film not about spelling, why comment on that, you read what i said so at least you could read it, and i struggle with spelling and english no need to be over the top on it, stop trolling : ]
If you’re going to be pedantic it’s there, their and they’re…..
But let’s not digress, when someone makes a film about grammar we’ll talk about it then
Shouldn’t that be…. they’re, their and there?
Totally agree! Also, you’re and your. C’mon, that’s ‘spelling 101′… ‘wright’? Oooppsss, I mean ‘right’…
I’m also confused by this whole evolution process. So at the start of the film the Space Jockey/Engineer ingests the black goo and his body breaks down falling into the water and then we witness new cells forming, thus explaining how life was created yes?
But that doesn’t exactly explain how humans are the way they are. When this goo comes into contact with living organisms, they mutate becoming larger and more violent, . Surely then this is how we would be? Granted there are violent people in society but we’re not all phallic looking and going round mindlessly attacking each other. And why did it not affect the plant and animal life? He is clearly on a lush green planet so it makes sense that there are already living organisms just not people.
Also, in response to Bellcurve:
The black goo didn’t kill anyone – Holloway ingested it resulting in his mutation, however, when he impregnated Shaw (romantic eh?) she herself wasn’t mutated but her eggs were.
Another also, is this purely Scott’s vision of the Alien universe? Please don’t accuse me of blasphemy here but in Alien vs Predator the Alien was created as the perfect prey by the Predator. This is another point that confused me and I half expected the Predator to be a mutated version of the Space Jockey. Or could they possibly be distant cousins? Or, far more likely, was the injection of Predator into the Alien franchise just a Hollywood money making ploy??
yea AVP was just a money making scheme, they originally came from the comics AVP which inspired them to make a film which, why not when both film franchise had made a lot of money so they made them together to inspire and give a different view on them both, and also when they say the predators made the aliens, they did say that but what they ment was they grew them as in, reared them so the could battle, hence the queen laying eggs in the first AVP, because they were a formidable foe to battle with. dont think to much into the AVPS their just a spin off really, and as for the start of prometheus, yes i fought that but you have to think about it when you say we dont go running around killing people and being animals, we were at one stage in the evolutionary process animals, we killed, eat, slept, did what nature needed us to do, so if you could imagine the space jockey gave us life on earth as it is today that would have bin millions and millions of years ago which we would have evolved into what we are now, knowing whats right and wrong, that might be why the space jockey in the film wanted to kill us, because what they have created (HUMAN BIENGS) have adapted and grew well as a race as we are now, and they cant harness what we have achieved and apart from they wouldn’t want to wait billions of years in the process for themselves to evolve, so we are catching them up in the evolutionary process and maybe surpass them which they are afraid of hence why the would want to kill us, if that makes sense : ] hope that helped but its just a theory god knows what ridley scott has planned, great film though : D
I kinda liked the first AVP film (despite the slow-mo running scene) because of the fact that it gave some insight into that world but I’ll ignore it now lol.
HEADACHE ALERT!!!
By “harness what we have achieved” though you’re implying that the Space Jockeys are omnipotent beings, and they’ve always had this innate knowledge. I was going to suggest that it’d been thousands of years since they last visited Earth and we weren’t technologically advanced then so how could they feel threatened. Sure they would’ve witnessed us creating cave paintings and harnessing the power of fire but they would have no idea we would become so technologically advanced.
It’d only be if they’d had this history of evolution themselves that they would’ve felt threatened. But then that’s making the assumption that they evolved from something which begs the question who created them…..
I had to rewrite this so many times because I was answering my own questions with more questions!! An easier answer would be “It’s in the script!” Lol.
haha yea i see what you mean lol it is a catch twenty two, i suppose i felt as if they’ve watched us evolve and into this what we are today, because if they could make us and have all this advanced technology to put us on earth and travel through the universe surely they cud watch us from a distance, like the control machine they use to fly the ship….that looks like a telescope, lol but again we dont know their history to know how far their intelligence and origins come from : / im hoping that is explained in the second film : D
The goo he ingests at the beginning of the film may not be the same goo encountered later in the film.
The later goo may have been a weaponized version of a more benign technology.
Goo itself may be nothing more than DNA solvent. The engineer took some goo to seed the water with his DNA. Nothing really mutagenic about it, he just sacrificed himself to seed the Earth. Human evolved from that basis.
The goo encountered by the scientists may have simply been goo + mutagenic bio weapon cooked up by some nasty Engineer.
Predator stuff isn’t cannon.
Mmmhuh yah, ok, ofcourse, yah yep, exactly, I told you that b*tch crazy… oh sorry what were you saying Laura I wasn’t listening like I generally don’t to all women including my girlfriend who should be bare foot and baking me a cake in the kitchen!
Just kidding sorry, go on
I can’t believe that only a couple of people have commented on the very clear Alien in the Mural when they enter the room with the big head.
This means that the engineers must have had some experience with face-huggers before Shaw got pregnant with one.
Also, I’m afraid to say the film was really quite poor, ridiculous in many places and quite a major let down.
I loved this movie. Peter Bradshaw – bite me.
The visuals in Prometheus are exquisite.
I gasped at the opening scenes as a giant, ripped humanoid stood terrifyingly close to the edge of a tumultuous waterfall. I marvelled at the crisp, beautifully rendered interiors of the Prometheus ship and it’s lovingly detailed digital technology. I was almost tumescent at the sight of the gorgeous Charlize Theron doing press-ups in her skivvies!
There are a number of continuity errors and ill thought through logic of which Dono463 above points out – but don’t let these trifles spoil your entertainment of what is a marvellously directed work of premium, grade A science-fiction.
I think it is telling that the comments here are so divergent. From asking about the merits (or not) of panspermatozoa/alien originated genesis to the origins of the classical alien xenomorph, great movies inspire debate and get people animated. This is one of those movies.
For my own part I am entirely wedded to evolution. It perfectly explains the origins of life on our planet and on yet to be discovered life on other planets, including the vast variety of life and the movement from molecules to amino acids to protein, dna, cells etc. Even if it were the case that life was ‘kickstarted’ here by an alien race, they too evolved from lower life forms and inorganic matter. We don’t require any gods in this equation of life.
Of more pressing concern to me is the origin and make up of Dark Energy and Dark Matter which 95% of the universe consists of and which is driving its expansion.
The ‘Alien’ mythology has been expanded beyond recognition. Prometheus asks more questions than answers. Was the balck virus ingested by the ‘Engineer’ (I guess we’re not calling them Space Jockey’s anymore?) at the start used only to facilitate his genetic disintegration and from these disparate and broken genetic threads the genesis of life on Earth? Or has this genesis the threads of Engineer AND xenomorph dna?
If the alien mural suggests that the xenomorphs are ancient, what then do we say about the black virus? What are its origins? Is it a manufactured bio-weapon? Does it over generations mutate into different classes of xenomorph after host infection, and if so does this mean it is a mutated form of xenomorph with xenomorph dna but NOT the original xenomorph/facehuggers that we know and..er love?
I have no idea but its fun to speculate although maddeningly fidgety waiting for a sequel and some answers!
I may have to see it. It sounds like it’s promoting the “Intelligent Design” agenda, or at least promoting half-baked “aliens created us and the pyramids” ideas. I’m afraid I’ll be too disgusted by the trampling of reason to enjoy it. In fact I know I will.
But it looks pretty, and it is getting people talking.
It makes no sense that any DNA could cause life to proliferate, take millions of forms in plant and animal species, and wind up 1.7 billion years later in the exact order again. No way. DNA is full of mostly “shut-off” relics of our past ancestry (“junk DNA” [and I'm not saying it doesn't have an effect and is really "junk." That's just what someone decided to name it]). There are too many chance changes along the way. An organism that reached our level of intelligence could just have easily retained complete vestiges of it’s ancestry like fur, tails, scales. Or we could have simply not ever happened at all.
I’d imagine that if we dumped our DNA into some environment that could support it (the old earth couldn’t have. Life altered the environment. The first organisms didn’t have oxygen. That came along later). But lets say that we could do that. Life could take too many different forms that it would ever come up with the same combination again. Like I said DNA has vestiges of a specific evolutionary history, so it’s not like it’s some perfect code that is very precise and specific to every thing. It’s not like a perfect book, like “War and Peace,” in it’s final printed version. It’s more like the book with every little note and draft and correction and edited part all taped together, along with every work that inspired it’s development, every newspaper clipping, etc. And on top of that the author is immortal and constantly revising it, while still keeping it together at the same time. Not an easy read.
But allow for a moment that “the engineers” somehow knew present day man would be the “end result” (like how we are now is “the end”). Compare this to how a baker lets yeast rise (eat and fart) to make bread rise (even then atmospheric differences and ratios of ingredients make it hard to perfectly control). But lets say the engineers have made this as predictable as some industrial premix full of chemicals. This begs the question: Why such a long strung-out process? And if I grant that it’s not a perfect process, then what changes have they made to this process in the 1.7 billion years since they tried it on Earth? Maybe sequels will reveal other “humans” with 100% identical DNA from other parts of the Galaxy.
If the Engineers where more or less human 1.7 Billion years ago, they’re DNA would be similar to ours (the active parts anyway). So the suggestion is that their DNA has not changed for 1.7 billion years. It is suggesting that present day man is the end product, the end of the evolutionary line. Again I just don’t believe that. Even if man maintains our current way of life and nothing disrupts it from now until the end of time, our DNA could still undergo changes. Certainly over time certain traits will be favored and become the dominant expression. Like Sickle-cell-enemia. In Africa carrying the trait, without it actually expressing itself, give someone resistance to malaria. The downside is that when it does express itself, it kills. But Americans of African descent, over only the last few hundred years, are less likely proportionally to carry the trait. In the US there is no advantage to carrying it, and there is a huge disadvantage. Over a few hundred years, that trait is not as prevalent.
That’s all I’m going to say unless I actually see it. Obviously I’m not avoiding spoilers so feel free to offer any ideas in the movie that may have addressed what I’ve said. I’d love to read them.
Couldnt that gun shoot the pods/seeds to other planets and either destroy them or mutate the planet. ??? I have a great theory but I don’t want to write so much haha ..
The question is was the black goo the Engineer had at the start of the movie to mutagen or not? If not then I would go with the idea that there are 2 different factions of engineers, and one faction chose to give life to Humanity, like the Titan Prometheus stole fire from Zeus, but then the other faction found out and attempted to destroy humanity (which may have been prevented by an act of terrorism by the rival Engineers, releasing the virus on the military instillation before they had the chance to destroy Earth).
OR presuming it was the mutagen he ingested at the start of the movie humanities vast consuming, fast multiplying, virus like qualities might have been inherited because of the xenomorph’s DNA, they realized their mistake in there life seeding process and so to stop humans spreading across the galaxy like a plague they decided to destroy them.
or maybe a mixture of both those ideas
Ok, lets go with the ‘mutagen’ theory. If the engineers realized they made a mistake, why would they then try to destroy humans with the same mutagen?
The sequel might explain more. What I disliked most about the film was that it seemed like Ridley and Co. were being intentionally ambiguous about a lot of things, like they were trying to force us to speculate. None of the mystery came off as natural.
As far as the connection to Alien, couldn’t they just tie that up in a sequel?
That whole thing with the spacejockey, and his chest blown open could be explained in Prometheus 2. The scientists had no idea that the Space Jockey helmet was actually a space suit right? Maybe they were setting up a way for them to almost retcon the scene from Alien where they say it’s fossilized. How would a salvage crew know any better than a bunch of scientists?
I’ve never liked the kind of writing that produces all kinds of things that point everywhere and don’t commit to any one direction. Is that hard? Make up anything and then say, “the answer lies ahead, but we’re changing direction.” It can work when the actual writer has an idea of where they’re going, but isn’t revealing it. I don’t get the feeling this is the case here.
I heard the writer on the radio saying that when he was a kid, he read Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, but he’d look up the answers in the back before he’d guessed the solutions. So his Dad tore out all the answers. He said it made him comfortable with figuring things out, but not knowing for certain what the true answer was. The difference is that the writers of Encyclopedia Brown DID have a answer and they created clues that could lead one to the correct answer. They didn’t just write wild tails where nothing ever adds up or makes any sense.