Prometheus concept and xenomorph origins: stronger emphasis on psychology than w

Cool theory - respect! Yeah, maybe.

I can tell you've been celebrating 4/20. All kidding aside, this is a great concept. I hope this movie winds up being more a psychological thriller than an action movie. This idea that the goo is just a tool to create life as one imagines it is great, and would really lend credence to the idea that the SJs are "gods". Humans are created in the image of the SJ. Aliens are a construct from deeply repressed human fears. From the trailers, it's obvious that the SJs and humans are at odds. Perhaps the humans learn to use the SJ's goo against them. They wind up using it to create an abomination to kill the SJs. They unleash the prototypical facehuggers/aliens on the SJs to win and what you see in the original Alien is the aftermath of this confrontation.

I love it. I don’t think I buy the, "humans manifesting the alien out of their neuroses", [not for [i]this[/i] film], but, for some reason, I am absolutely [i]convinced[/i] there will be some element of consciousness-projection, or telekenesis in this. For that reason, I also believe that Head is significant far beyond being there to just to cast dramatic shadows. We are conditioned to read something like Head as representational – perhaps it isn’t representational, or at least not exclusively. Perhaps it is at least as functional a tool or machine as a computer or turbine would be in our culture. I like the first half, a lot. One of the most interesting and mature proposals I've read on here.

I hope there is really no that kind of things .... that will ruin everything for me ( even if i respect the idea ) . I hate psychological horrors or monsters ...i did hate Event Horizon for that ... i hate all the japanese psychological thrillers ...give me real aliens ... Alien did work because it rappresented REAL people against a REAL beast ...primal fears , real situations , real thinking

I like the idea of what the telescope is used for but this is a scary idea. Did anyone watch Sphere recently, which explored these idea. If Prometheus is like Sphere I will be disappointed. The reason I am thinking about this as there are many set similarities between what we have seen of Prometheus and Sphere. The area in Prometheus where the spacesuits are hung is identical to Sphere's room where the diving suits are. Almost a perfect copy:-( Still very optimistic about Prometheus.

Frantz and Anotherglo... I find it different from the Sphere and Event Horizon . In both these films, the apparitions on the sub and the ship were conditioned by the presence of an object/entity. In the case of Prometheus, i believe that apparitions continue to exist even in the absence of the goo, they are not just an illusion, they are a real, physical creation, which leads to a physical, not just psychological conflict. They become real, they are transported to another planet. And since the movie is about the origins of life on earth, i offered an explanation for the way life may be created out of nothing (see the excerpt from the Bible i mentioned at the end of my initial post), although i can;t say what are the origins of goo and SJs. Maybe a sequel will shed some light into this direction :)

Respect to your theory rakshasa, i liked very much your description/interpretation of the key features from the Alien creatures. Very good!

This theory is wonderful and original... now there is finally something that I will be disappointed if the film doesn't go that way. The whole Alien being a manifestation of base fear is genius this theory fits with the whole Shaw and her distress over losing her farther. Scott and others disgust what the Alien was while making the film (this I saw long ago)... they all agreed that it could only be a demon, and that fits very well too. Whatever you believe a demon can only be pictured with the help of imagination and fear (or knowledge). This idea fits so well to all the things I have heard over the years... if the film does not do this I would take that idea (if I were a lesser man) and base a book or story on it!

i would imagine the film wouldn't go along these lines, it would be likely that a large portion of a prospective audience wouldn't get it at all, and the project would lose money, plus the more exposition a film has, for many it is less exciting. Alien doesn't really have a lot of exposition, it's more in the vein "show me, don't tell me". Most of the psychological theory would go over the dumbos heads. Regarding the origins of the Alien/xeno, to me it seems to be a hybrid of machine and animal, which points to David. The only way he will father anything. If we meet our creators maybe that sparks an interest in the act of creation itself for David, and the only chance he has is by using the technology stolen from the Engineers? Having an android in the original alien was a cool idea, but its been done to death in the alien sequels, i can only imagine having one in this movie is due to it being a large part of the driving force of the story arc. I'm intrigued that as far as we know we are unsure about the final act of the film, which is pretty cool considering its not far off from release date now.

That's a very interesting concept rakshasa, and well put i like it and i think it could possibly be embellished in part especially from a raw dna source. What makes it equally interesting is that if a fraction of what you say is interpreted that way its coming from an agnostic director in ridley scott. Very interesting thread i like it.

@ [b]rakshasha -[/b] I don't seem to recall this notion being brought up here before...and while it kinda reminds me of the similar shennanigans in EVENT HORIZON and SPHERE as others have mentioned, I'd personally be disappointed if things go down this kind of route. In fact, this outcome would be somewhat similar to the 'monster from the id' coming to life suddenly, as was conceived by the excellent classic FORBIDDEN PLANET... It's not long now before we all see what the writers have come up with...but I'd far rather that any horrors in this particular movie were the product of ACTUAL otherworldly evolution/or genetic manipulation due to an unknown race, rather than some mysterious manifestation that appears suddenly in the 'real' world brought about through our 'human thoughts/fears'... FORBIDDEN PLANET's underground 'Krell' technology is still a blast to watch however.

yes this would be similar to Sphere, but more so to the blueprint for this idea: Solaris (the older of you may know that there was a russian movie depicting the story before the Geoge Clooney' s one). Interesting idea, but I think Scott isn' t going along these lines.

@Cervantes ... Damn you beat me to it ... agree totally with you ... I do like the original posted theory a lot ... but the idea of thoughts and fears materialising from any Humann memory is not a new concept ... re: Cervantes movie list above ... I would not like to see that in this movie ... we've had mind probing not so long ago? ... SUPER 8? ... Great idea ... I'm not slating it ... just my humble opnion ;) ...

An original theory that totally works. Good show, rakshasha.

Very cool ideas there, I was thinking that David is the catalyst in this. If the tech is thought controlled then the SJs would have extremely organized minds unlike us, whereas David is a robot governed by Human programming and concepts so he might be the connection. We often see stories where robots take human concepts too literally with disastrous results also imbuing mechanical constructs with feelings seems to me to be a paradoxical problem how does one quantify feelings like love or fear without using other feeling to express them. Prometheus was punished because he took fire and gave it to us even though from the gods point of view we were not yet ready for that knowledge maybe David is like the Fire. dunno im getting bit out of my league with this.

I do like the OP's thoughts, and it fits with what I was eventually going to get at with my CHAIR MECHANISM TOPIC from a week or two ago. Some have stated the chair is a cannon that shoots EGGS!! What? NO! I think It is a cannon of a sort, but it doesnt lauch urns or eggs, but "molecular material" that seeds "LIFE" by acting as a catalyst of a sort... They did not make things ONE AT A TIME from an individual egg, but seeded these molecular building blocks of life into the waters and the oceans of various worlds. That is how you would accomplish what they were doing on a global scale. Think of early life rising out of the primordial ooooz... crawling forth from the "waters" if you will.. I think that is part of the meaning of the Saucer scene with our "modern man" forming by the Waterfall.

i think the primordial ooze was probably long before the blue man at the waterfall.....and if they were able to make life through a long range "lifey-gun" then they wouldn't need to send a humungous flying saucer over to wave back to Mr Blue. i would imagine, as its in the star mapping room, to be a gun or telescope. I'm guessing they have long lifespans, if not immortality, and know that creating inteligent life takes a lot of time for its full evolution into something that can have a technology capable of space travel, with the invitation only extending to the front door so to speak, the portal being behind that front door.

I didnt mean that literally... The Engineers did NOT create the UNIVERSE... they are merely a species that evolved to the point that they could meddle and tinker in the development of other LIFE. That Waterfall scene is at MOST 100,000 years in the past... Not millions or Billions... Thats not what I meant. But I think WATER is a key element in the equation.

And the derelict is a flying mood ring.

Canada phil "That Waterfall scene is at MOST 100,000 years in the past" How do we know that? And how do we know where it takes place?

It seems most plausible to me that if the Engineers are immortal, they do that through a process of ‘reinvention’ of themselves. They leave their ‘essence’ encoded in the gray matter (that moves once stimulated) and it infects intelligent species who are able to travel to their planet (or planets). They DO manipulate life through a hyper-advanced understanding of genetic engineering. The gray matter ‘infects’ visitors and bioforms them into sentient, physical beings of roughly the right size and biology to then operate machines that are left in place to be taken over by these regenerated Engineers. If a Human, Vulcan, Na’vi, etc. shows up (a roughly humanoid species), then the infection produces an Engineer (at least a plausible version of an engineer). That Engineer can then take off and head to whichever world sent the unsuspecting humanoid (or humanoids) in the first place. What does s/he do when s/he gets there? Have a big meal? Make 7 billion more Engineers? Re-institute government-sanctioned slavery...??? Hard to tell. Maybe that's another movie. BUT, What happens if something quite non-humanoid shows up; and gets [i]infected[/i]? Some life-form that the Engineers were not counting on might get re-engineered right there on the premises and go hide in the corner. Or perhaps it would go eat the rest of its original crew first and then lay some eggs, and then hide in the corner (until it died). And a few years later some Vulcans show up and a valid Engineer gets created. On the way to the ship s/he stumbles across a face-hugger. Whoops! But then, a few days layer s/he wakes up feeling better and hops in the cockpit to head off to Vulcan anyway. But dammit! There's a bun in the chest cavity. CRASH!! Baby lays eggs... and repeat (when something else humanoid comes along). The gray matter may be “multi-talented” in that if an intelligent species that is NOT humanoid shows up, the infection will intentionally produce something xeno-like that is very dangerous and in the role of a “guard dog” will intentionally destroy the non-humanoids. Of course, the above scenario could also be supported by this type of mechanism. There is no reason to believe that the Engineers are infallible. Something could always show up that their gray matter might engineer imperfectly. The Engineers don't necessarily just have one planet on which they've left (themselves embedded in) gray matter either... If they have been around as a spacefaring intelligence for (let's say) 1,000,000 years they have a very long term view of things. It would be nothing for them to inseminate resource-rich M-class planets with just enough of their “DNA” and language and wait for for 50K years or so for a fresh new civilization to produce 10 billion new vessels/vassals. Then they just go do with us/them as they will. After all, they grew/cultivated the damn things. Right? If there are 100s of 1,000s of Earth-like planets out there, they may just use them like petri dishes. “Oh, look! This one was fruitful and multiplied.” I feel it's simplistic of us to project our morality (and/or lack of it) on them. The cave paintings (across Earth) might merely be a test of “readiness” for stage 2 and whatever post-cultivation is. If the DNA and language dispersement doesn't “take root” well enough to produce a valuable petri dish result, then they need not spend the time and effort to check up too closely. They may just feel, “We'll know they're ready by their showing up back on our doorstep.” Kind of like prodigals. It may get really boring having one mind that lasts 500,000 years. The Engineers might just hibernate in the form of gray matter for eons and then “wake up” when one of their humanoid projects shows up to give them something interesting to do for another 10k years. And, each “monument” might belong to a different clan or family of Engineers. The speculative permutations are ENDLESS. :•) I doubt very seriously that the events of this film are not 100% physical. David may have something to do with the engineering that produces the xeno of the original film and aftermath, but I doubt it—at least not intentionally. I think it's more likely that he is a catalyst for infection—possibly knowingly; possibly not. If the Engineers’ mindset is fully based in biological systems, they (and their systems) may be more prone to ignore David. They may not find non-organic intelligence threatening (or particularly interesting). (Remember. Bishop was ignored by a xeno in [i]Aliens[/i].) It seems more likely to me that David might somehow activate “other infections” that might produce guard dog creatures like the xeno. There could be all kinds of things hibernating on that planet in that “monument.” The idea of a broad array of biomechanical “conveniences” used by a master race of genetic engineers is not new even to human literature. Japanese author Numa Shohzo in his 1956~ work details the concept of [i]Kachiku-Jin Yapuu[/i] ([i]Yapoo the Manimal[/i]). Warning!: [url=http://homepage2.nifty.com/equus/numa_manimal_01.htm]This content[/url] is partially sexual and even scatological in nature and utterly lacking any shred of modern political correctness. And, do we [u]KNOW[/u] that the entity ‘forming’ by the waterfall is ‘modern man,’ as in “human?” Of course, all of this is just coming from my having seen the trailers. So, who knows!!???

For what it's worth, the idea of evil entities being manifested out of the human psyche, or subconscious, or emotions, goes all the way back to "Forbidden Planet," with the Monster of the ID, and all that. Another film that sort of explored that idea (in a different manner) was David Cronenberg's "The Brood." Nasty little flick, that was.

@rakhasa... The simple answer is that number is what most of the scientific communities agree upon as the rough date "modern man" in roughly our current form first began to appear. I dont mean the much more primitive versions of us with still visibly sharper teeth and much more boney skull structures with pronounced brows, or things like the "Lucy" fossils of a couple million years found in Africa. Here is some good basic info on the topic that appeared in a recent PBS series.... [url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/humankind/o.html]Evolutions: Origins of Humankind...[/url] I think what RS has suggested is that the "Engineers" visited Earth and tinkered with our much more primitive ape-like form to change our path to what we are now.... and using info that we already know our SCIENCE has determined, that time would be somewhere between 30 to 100,000 years ago. With respect to the location of the scene, they shot it in Iceland, but that is irrelevent. For the purpose of this movie, it could simply be representative of ANY place on Earth 100,000 odd years ago.

I know the real facts, but my question referred to the storyline, not the reality. My English is not so good, i am not a native speaker and maybe i didn't make myself understood. My question was referring to the fiction, to the story told by the movie. What makes you say that the narrative in that scene occurs 100000 years ago, that it takes place on Earth and that is connected to the birth of the human species? I know the movie is generally connected to these issues, but i am not sure of tht peculiar scene...

[quote=Rakshasa][i]What makes you say that the narrative in that scene occurs 100000 years ago, that it takes place on Earth and that is connected to the birth of the human species? I know the movie is generally connected to these issues, but i am not sure of tht peculiar scene...[/i][/quote] This is my question too. How do we know or why should we presume that the opening ‘king’ scene of the trailer references event out of Earth’s (humanity’s) direct history?

Simple deduction.... Everyone seems to have a need to ridiculously complicate this thing. We only have 119 minutes folks, and they have said the story is going to be about OUR ORIGINS and what exactly the "Space Jockeys" were. And in case you missed the topic "The Art of Prometheus" a little while back, it came out that the real premise of the Engineers is that they have been visiting Earth for thousands of years and manipulating and tinkering with us during these visits. They did NOT create this planet. They simply "tinkered" with modern mans evolution to get us to where we are now. Since we already know much about our own history due to fossil records and carbon dating, that was the point I was trying to make... If that is in fact a scene showing the emergence of MODERN MAN, then it is at most 100,000 years in our past.

[quote=CanadaPhil][i]If that is in fact a scene showing the emergence of MODERN MAN, then it is [u]at most[/u] 100,000 years in our past.[/i][/quote] In this I would say your logic is unassailable.