Start and end end sequences and other questions

It's not that the opening scene needs explaining that annoys me it serves absolutely no purpose in the movie ok it shoes the engineers creating life on earth but the whole catalyst for the movie is we are looking for our creators and who they are so why show them in the opening scene surely would have been better served as a plot point later in the film maybe as a holograph image of the creation of man on the ship or as a flashback with David reading engineers records

I believe in the opening sequence the 'sacrifice engineer' uses a biological substance they have created to break down his body into its simplest amino acidic forms or DNA and produce life from there. Eventually this evolves to form Human life as the planet on which he does it is an early Earth. As for the ship, they are traveling to the homeworld of the engineers, to discover why humans were created and why they would produce the xeno bio-weapon to destroy humanity. Though it could be years before we see a film.

Well said Alex.....my sentiments exactley

The opening 10 15 minutes of the film where utterly pointless served no purpose what so ever the spac jockey drinking the liquid never gets explained yet the scene on the isle of sky is easily explaind 5minutes later in the prometheus hold so why show the pair finding the xave painting at all.as for the movie itself I'll have to disagree its far from excellent the visuals and cast the only thing saving it from being a 1 star film The planet that Prometheus landed on was LV-223 and I can only speculate but the ship at the end can only be going to a straight to DVD sequel

I haven't seen the movie yet. But, I think what we see is the introduction of life on Earth. Many, many years ago.

the opening scene probably wants to show the viewers how life started on eath..i.e where DNA came from. it also shows that DNA ultimately evolves life into a humanoid form - the ultimate form, like the engineers themselves. the quesion is why are the engineers spreading this DNA around the galaxy on habitable planets? what are the origins of engineers - who/what created them? why their change of heart from wanting to spread the DNA to wanting to wipe out humans? questions probably to probed in the sequel

woah - like I saw a totally different movie! seems some people need everything explained to them!

I think it is a rouge Engineer, a scientist, that is spreading this black DNA goo on presumably habitable planets around the galaxy, because he is in some sort of scientific conflict with the establisment among his own people. The Establishment among the Engineers response is to hunt him and possibly his allies and destroying them and their Life Creation Project and punish them with the Alien Life Form Bio Weapon. I think it´s some kind of religious war among the Engineers we are witnessing. There are those among the Engineers who are for the idea of creating life in the way the rouge scientist does and those who are against it. I hope you understand that I´m just brainstorming here on a basis that I´m not self fully aware of ... :-) But I can´t wait for a sequel where we get some more answers about the Engineers than we did in this movie. I mean who cares about the Alien franchise? Possibly teenagers?