so i think i know what the ampule is

I am actually of the belief that it is four vials, each containing human genetic material.

Snorks, Why does it have to be human? Why not xeno, human, sj, and engineer in the soup? Rick

I believe it is human genetic material in the ampules because they are found in a room with a big, giant human head! David studies it and the humans realise the truth, we didn't evolve we were created, by the Space Jockeys, the big question is why?

Why does the head have to be human? I mean the blue guy has a human face, but he's not human. It could be their genetic material.

Could be. Or they could be one and the same thing, what if the blue guy is a highly evolved human, what if we are clones of the Space Jockeys/Engineers. Imagine David checks the vials from the ampule and finds human DNA, and then when studying the Space Jockey head/helmet they also find human DNA.

That would be kind of cool. Could be like what everyone has been speculating about regarding the Annunaki. They could be the missing link to our genome similarity with the previous hominids.

This is just theory/speculation but... 65 million years ago the Space Jockey's visit Earth and see it overrun by the dinosaurs. Knowing the dinosaurs will never evolve into an intelligent race they unleash the Xenomorphs upon the Earth. When only the eggs remain they are collected and the Space Jockey's leave the Earth alone for, lets say, 64 million years. Upon returning the Space Jockey's see that mammals are now the dominant species, and upon looking at the apes realise there is a race suitable of becoming intelligent. One sub-species of ape is "manipulated" genetically and eventually evolves into Homo-Sapiens, us. Fast forward to Prometheus - We find evidence of the Space Jockey's on Earth that leads us to a distant star system. Upon arrival we uncover the truth as already explained, but we also discover that genetically we are evolving away from our ape ancestors and slowly toward the DNA of the Space Jockey's. We are destined to become them, replace them... we are their heirs.

Intervesting.......berry intervesting........ I don't know......love speculating though..... What intrigues me about any approach to the ampule room, you have ampules of multiple sizes, implying variation of some kind.....how does that play out in the "all about everything school"/grand scheme of things where "things that appear to be small, will turn out to be enormous."

Excellent observation @craigamore regarding the different sizes of the ampules! I double checked a still from the trailer and lo, they are differently sized! I wonder if the ampules hold the raw shapes for different organisms that exist on earth? Like a Space Jockey version of Noah's Ark? So that shot of David pulling something out of the the ampule they brought back are the basic frog and toad forms?

Basic anything forms....who knows................

lol that dinosaur story is fucking ridiculous..they kill off the dinosaurs because they know they wont evolve? that doesnt even make sense of course dinosaurs would evolve they are in fact evolved forms of previous species...are you guys getting high or somthing' your making hypothesis based on a fanfiction or just completely out of thin air

@ 20thCB - no need to be so insulting towards another persons post. And by saying that the dinosaurs wouldn't evolve I meant into an intelligent species.

I think its very possible the vials / cylinders, could well be primordial varying genetic coded material that is the basis for all life on the barren planet called earth. We know the purpose of filming in Iceland is to portray the beginning of time. It makes perfect sense to me that what's been hinted at by ridley, that the basis of life is part of this epic story . Epic in its themes as well as its scope.

@ altered state - that makes a lot of sense, especially if one of those vials contained our genetic material as I mentioned early. To discover that life on Earth was sown by another race would fit within the epic scope idea and pose the question of why?

Yes snorky . I mean all dna has the capacity to mutate from the effects of radiation from the sun and other environmental conditions. It supports the theory of evolution as well. The question is how did all those amino acids, and carbon compounds, get to be mixed into the primordial soup called life. ?

To me when you consider the conditions on a very young planet the almost absence of an ozone layer due to volcanic eruptions etc it stands to reason that creatures evolved with very thick skin and lots of hair ( Dinosaurs woolly mammoths and apes etc) for protection against the sun . As the earth became more stable life began to emerge with an abundance of plants which release's carbon dioxide and creates a more stable ozone over Millenia therefore the rest of life responds by mutating /evolving to adapt to its new environment.

If the Dinos were killed off by the Xenos, then why is there no fossils record of them or of Dinos with big holes in the head? Did the space jockeys come back and clean up the evidence (like the cleaner in Le Femme Nikita)? Considering the massive effort it would take to rewrite natural history so it looks like our current understanding, it makes much more sense that the jockeys just gave us a nudge or collected samples. As for the mini mount Rushmore in the ampule room, why is it caucasian and not african or Asian?

The producers will not allow Scott to rewrite either the accepted scientific evolution of man or the creation stories held dear by each particular religion. What he will be allowed to do is have aliens abducting humans or show some type of interaction. I still see the Giants as portrayed in myths and legends turning out to be tall blue guys from a different planet.

Scott can rewrite what the hell he likes, it is science[b] fiction[/b] after all.

yeah they made mankinkind, and the question why might be interesting, i dont think it will be the primary question. it will be: what went wrong? and humans being there at the point of their own conception will mess things up into a horror-sci i pun im sure of it

dont get me wrong, a good sci fi pun...

I prefer my science fiction to be heavy on the science part. The fiction is the future applications of science and how the creation of character. Otherwise it is fantasy, which is fine (let Scott and Gieger redo LOTR so we can see some really messed up orcs). I guess I just don't see releasing xeno's on a wolrd to cleanse it for teraforming as a very efficent way to do it (along with really messy). Scott can do anything he wants with the story but I think if we look at his track record, he is tried to work with in the framework of the real world.

I beileieve that those vials contain EXACTLY what was wrtitten in one of the earlier leaked fake plotlines. "BIOFORMER" a viscous liquid which can be programmed and used to develop several different species of creatures but all of which are commonly used as TERRAFORMING BIO-WEAONS that make it possible to inhabit otherwise inhabitable planets.

@Snorkelbottom - "Scott can rewrite what the hell he likes, it is science fiction after all." - You obviously have no idea how the movie industry works.

Re: the "things that appear to be small, will turn out to be enormous." I expect Prometheus will be a big slap in the face to humans' understanding of science and religion. Science - We're a miracle (and pinnacle) of evolution and life as we know it. We can achieve the technological sophistication to understand the universe and its inner workings. Religion - We were conceived by a loving God as his ultimate creation, granted Eden and the plants and lesser beasts as our domain. Humanity inflates itself to believe it's the most important lifeform, the most highly evolved. I imagine that through the events of the film, we discover that we are very nearly of no consequence at all in the universe. We're vestigial and prone to being removed, like an enlarged appendix. We were a failed experiment from one of those ampules, ultimately marooned on an Earth-prison to squander our existence and eventually disappear altogether.

@ bunny - I have a wealth of knowledge of how the film industry works. There are countless films that propose different theories than those proposed by science or religion. Fiction can be whatever the hell it wants to be... For example Mission to Mars and the film adaptation of Doom propose that humans originated from Mars. This goes against both the evolution theory and the creation theory. Thus Ridley can do whatever he want's in Prometheus.

@Bunnypmf .... I assume you have never seen the conclusion to BATTLE STAR GALACTICA then ? that totally rewrote human understanding of our origin. I dont recall there being any fuss made about it or 2001/2010 for that matter. If you start censoring creativity in a scfi context you disregard some damn good stories and you stifle the creative process.

@mcy...Who says the ampule room figure is a monument to man ? If it was then that in itself is wrong because there is a huge amount of evidence for prehistoric man . We have plenty of examples of neanderthal man and its progressive stages of development, so the fact it slightly resembles Caucasian is neither here nor there . I mean are you saying it should be asian or black/african what about aboriginal or even an eskimo its silly to play the race card when we dont understand what it represents yet.

@bunnypmf...if anyone's challenging either standard..it's probably Hollywood.....and being a former film major, I'll tell you right now...as long as they think'll an idea will make them money, Hollywood producers will greenlight ANYTHING......

@alteredstate...I wasn't trying to play the race card. I really have no idea what the head is for. What is the point behind them? Who knows? Maybe the head is a copy of some poor soul that got taken as a sample. Maybe the head represents a human's ideal genetic expression. Maybe the head shows what the first pplanted human looked like. Maybe the head is a memorial to a scientist or engineer. My question was does it matter that it looks caucasion? And FYI neanderthal man is a not a human ancestor but was a competing species that humans might have breed with.