Invite us to their planet then kill us?

no worries"LV" ya know i luv ya

I dissagree completely and think the company is an Evil Lying Bastard just like the Space Jockey Race is and deliberately attempting to get more expendables into space so they can have their weapon as Ripley said.

@sparticus Why would a civizilizaton that couldn't even cross the alantic create a star map for a location to avoid that is tens of light years away? With a million stars in the sky pointing out the ONE to avoid is daft, imaging 7 civilisations doing the same thing is unbelievable at best. It would be like buying a satnav that is pre programmed with only one destination and that destination is a location that you should avoid. Or printing a book with websites not to visit It's a no go for me

I also say they have either completely misinterpreted those tablets or done it deliberately !!!

I don't think the 7 ancient references to the star system Prometheus ventures to are a warning to stay away, because the best way to ensure we never go there is to not inform us of its location - prevention is better than cure. I think it is an invitation, just not one with good intentions.

Apparently, either we would never have reached the point where spacefaring became practicable, or we reached that point much more quickly than we would have otherwise, [i]had not the Engineers intervened in our development.[/i] How could they then be shocked and surprised when we [i]inevitably[/i] show up on their doorstep? .........and who's to say we're the only race with which they've interfered?

The artists didn't even know what they were doing. But they were compelled or possessed to put down that image, by internal or external forces.

Oh Spartacus....."Ya know what enough is enough of this, I will tell you exactly what those stone tablets from Ancient times are...A WARNING TO "STAY THE F**k AWAY !!! A WARNING...DO NOT MEDDLE" !!!" While I agree with you that the tablets and such are NOT maps, I do have to say that I can't believe it's a warning to stay away...with the enitre vastness of space, there is NO point in showing humanity a star configuration AS a warning when they could have just never shown it to people at all...We never would have found that world in all likelyhood from a Jockey perspective....so why show it to us to simply warn us?...doesn't make sense. I think it's as simple as, and I'm speaking in the person of a Jockey's pov, You human beings worship us and THIS IS WHERE WE COME FROM........(much in the same way Greek gods told man they live on Mt. Olympus). It's as simple as that.....It's not an invitation to come and visit as Shaw and Holloway assume, because I don't think the Jockies expected humans to advance to that point. It's simply the knowledge of where they hail from.....

BY the way just so I am clear about how out of left field I know even my own theories can be/ are.... according to US, that is ALL OF US, YOU ME, AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO WENT TO SEE ALIEN WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT ACCORDING TO THE STORY AND THE WORD "CANON" AS WE KNOW IT... "The Jockey Possesses an air both elegiac and hopeful-the universe might yet offer nonlethal Alien Contact, and quite why he was and IS considered benign is hard to pinpoint, yet EVERYONE WHO SAW HIM mourned his passing-a lost soul staring through his telescope at the unreachable heavens forevermore." LORDY LORDY HOW I COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THAT VERY NOTION TODAY !!! AND THAT'S FROM THE ALIEN VAULT !!!

Spartacus for president!!!

"LORDY LORDY HOW I COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THAT VERY NOTION TODAY !!!" Totally agree there Sparky

Benignity, as with all things from the minute to the epic, is a matter of perspective.

@allinamberclad By advanced security measures i mean the lifeforms able to inhabit us and the pod inhabiting lifeforms. Its plausible to assume they are a security measure for the temple/ship. if we all agreed on the same plot we would have no discussion. I really like how everyone has an original idea of how this all comes together. Makes it interesting. We wont know who is right til June 8 and perhaps we still wont know from this movie judging by Ridleys creativeness.

@artyoh Are you sure you weren't the script supervisor on the production? ;•) I’m totally on board for all of this except possibly in #6 the part about ‘something far worse than death.’ I'll say again that everything about what the Prometheus crew encounters reeks of [u]desperation[/u] to me. The Juggernaut ([i]le croissant des étoiles[/i]) may be departing for Earth for reasons very different from why the Engineers originally visited Earth and ‘tampered’ with us to start with. It does seem that the ‘we are cattle’ theory is holding up nicely as the weeks progress, however. If the pilot of the craft is able to show up on Earth as a god (Quetzalcoatl, Krishna (or Kali (even better)), Annunaki, The running-quite-behind-schedule Jewish Messiah, Jesus, [i]et al[/i]), he might enjoy hanging out in a Penthouse suite at the Encore and being waited upon by the staff at the Park Hyatt Vendôme. Or, maybe he'd just bioreëngineer us into some of his long lost friends—perhaps starting with the 3 who got their chests congested at some point on his ship before the humans conveniently showed up.

@cragamore We [i]know[/i] the result of their meddling: a technological civilization capable of spacefaring. If they never wanted us to get off this rock, they presumably could have made sure of that quite easily. If they never intended for us to drop by, they clearly screwed up by showing everyone they met, precisely where to find them. Either the Engineers are generally incompetent, or they knew we'd ultimately show up.

[quote]Posted Apr-28-2012 12:39 PM | Moderate Benignity, as with all things from the minute to the epic, is a matter of perspective.[/quote] so eloquently spoken, Thank you for that Snorky, it helps to keep things in perspective.

@craigamore I can live with your description, that sounds plausible. @Biehn_Bandit I don't dig the its a trap idea. The stone tablets range between 4000 - 10000 years old. If you want humans for some purpose then doing it when we are defenseless is the perfect time to do it. If they could travel between the stars 10 thousand years ago then I'm sure they have better technology than HD TVs and internet porn so I don't think they'll be interested in letting us evolve to the point where they want to steal our technology. I think they came in peace to each of the 7 civilizations to help them evolve. I hate to mention the Atlantis word but seeing as RS referred to it in an interview... Perhaps they visited Atlantis and someone stole something from them, they got annoyed and wiped out Atlantis and haven't visited us since. As as a result, human civilization became civilized and we began to advance our technology. because of that they are not pleased when we turn up. Don't shoot me, I don't want to see any mention of Atlantis in the movie either but RS referred to it in an interview.

@artyoh...this is pure speculation....."We know the result of their meddling: a technological civilization capable of spacefaring". We don't [i]know[/i] ANYTHING for sure....the point of an alien race 'meddling' in our affairs is for the Jockies and Ridley to know at this point.......You;re making an assumption with no evidenciary support. Sure, I gave my opinion, but I don't KNOW.....no one does..NO ONE.....

what a great thread...

@Spartacus no, it was earlier then the AMC report of 2 huge corps fighting each other. the thing I am thinking of dates from nov 2011 or so. I am gonna go play in search of.

@Spartacus [i]BY the way just so I am clear about how out of left field I know even my own theories can be/ are....[/i] We should arrange a forum trip to watch the movie, I bet we are all wrong with our theories :-)

I never said anything about a trap. In fact, I don't believe in that idea at all. I'm not even sold on the idea that it's any kind of message from the engineers at all. One possibility I'm thinking of is that it's like that scene from Close Encounters where Richard Dreyfuss character is compelled to make a sculpture of the mountain where the aliens will touch down. The star configuration could be something that's shared, in grained subconsciously, across cultures.

"@artyoh...this is pure speculation....."We know the result of their meddling: a technological civilization capable of spacefaring". We don't know ANYTHING for sure....the point of an alien race 'meddling' in our affairs is for the Jockies and Ridley to know at this point.......You;re making an assumption with no evidenciary support. Sure, I gave my opinion, but I don't KNOW.....no one does..NO ONE....." Of course I know nothing as an established [i]fact[/i]. I'm simply arguing logic. If spacefaring capability wan't either a direct or indirect result of their meddling and they didn't want us to find them, their predictive capabilites are highly questionable.

I wouldn't say it's a trap either, not from the SJ's point of view, maybe from ours though, remember its all about perspective - their measure of moral and ethics is going to be alien to us.

The problem I have with this "The star configuration could be something that's shared, in grained subconsciously, across cultures" Biehn_Bandit is it is exactly what you said...VERY Close Encounters....TOO much so in fact........While I DON'T KNOW what the point of the star map is acutually as NONE of us does, my hope is that whatever's going on is as original and unique as it can be, because I get the sense that Ridley is going for exactly that; an original take on human - alien contact that none of us is prepared to imagine beforehand,,,,,

"predictive capabilites are highly questionable"...again, an assumption artyoh...part of understanding the dynamic of human - alien contact is that we can NEVER assume motive, thought process, intent or purpose...the defintion of what is alien concerns something unkowable and that is crux of all of this...the why isn't even within our graps yet and, if things go as I hope they do, will NEVER fully be there for us to figure out....and that's what's terrifying about this prospect of contact..

"I bet we are all wrong with our theories :-)" Man LV, I hope you're right, bro. I wanna be blown away!:DD

@craigamore The thing is, I don't think Ridley Scott is THAT original or creative, not any more at least. I've said elsewhere on this site, Scott is formidable in most aspects of filmmaking, but a genius writer and story conceiver he is not. Neither is Lindelof, in my opinion. Then why the hell do I want to see this movie? Imagery, atmosphere, monsters, basically. There will be cliches and well worn story beats though. I'm extremely skeptical that ANY filmmaker can come up with something that's not similar to something else that has already been done, or come up with something that we can't imagine. And I only use CE3K as the closest example I can think of. In that film we are dealing with the compulsion of one man, not a compulsion shared across cultures and time that leads to discovery and then action put in motion by discovery. I haven't watched or read every bit of sci-fi ever made, but I think the idea of shared human subconscious imagery is original enough, especially among Hollywood tentpole films.

@craigamore This is rational. The intention just cannot have been, "warning" - it makes no sense, at all. Even to a modern human, the nature of those images shows a clear implication as we are programmed for the symbolism of imagery: of all the possible interpretations - "warning", is not one. Presumably the higher intelligence that either instructed or prompted the humans that created these images, (presumably by their own hand), would have appreciated they were at least intelligent enough to understand the most basic, and very clear, implication contained in them: [i]"I, (who is, or was among you - and who is [i]not[/i] you), came from: there"..[/i] All the rest of it and the purpose of making that clear association and embedding it in human consciousness is debatable but, to me, your interpretation perfectly stands reason. I’d only raise my hand as follows: While it may be worth keeping in mind that at least several of the human societies that created these images, by their own hand, were actually quite sophisticated – (they weren't grunting proto-apes: they had developed language and social structure. They must to have done, or there would not have been much point in communicating with them) - they were not Spacefairing, so yes: perhaps the development of that level of intelligence and technology was a surprise. However, I find it very hard to imagine that, where Intelligence already exists, the possibility and expectation of continued development of that Intelligence would have been beyond the anticipation of the Species we are discussing: that may have been meddling in our development for millennia? Also “Worship”, usually denotes a lot more pomp and permanency? Where are the huge temples? Where are the huge raised stones? Where are the rituals, documented and embedded in our History?.. Instead, we have some cave graffiti. That had to be “uncovered”. Uncovered at a Time that seems to have co-incided, somewhat, with our ability to actually go to the places on the graffiti. Bit of a co-incidence these things weren’t discovered 100, 200, 300, 400 years ago, no?….We would have been just as able to understand the simple associations of the images at that time… But we wouldn’t have been able to actually get there. Strange.

@craigamore AFAIK, there's no universal requirement for aliens to behave logically, but there [i]is[/i] a requirement for consistency of internal logic within a story for it to remain coherent for a decidedly human audience.