Prometheus explained (spoilers)

I think I've started to gather a rough idea of just what was going in the film. I've spoken to quite a few people who seemed to not have the faintest clue what was going on, so I'll try to summarise the plot in the easiest way possible: 1) The 'engineers' or 'space jockeys' are a technologically advanced species that are established on multiple planets and have ships capable of interstellar travel. 2) The engineers possess a very powerful chemical, which we'll call 'the black goo'. This substance has severe DNA altering/mutating qualities, capable of either changing someone's DNA molecules so rapidly they physically break down into the molecular level or even mutating their DNA so quickly they 'evolve' into a new life form. 3) The engineers may use the black goo as a biological weapon, but this is not likely to be its primary use. As seen in the film, one engineer arrives at a planet (in this case a lifeless earth), and uses the black goo on himself, allowing his whole body to be degraded into DNA molecules which then spread out into the sea, causing the beginnings of life on our planet. Why do they do this? As Holloway stated to David on the synthesis of androids, 'we made you because we could'. Probably creation for creation's sake. Playing at gods. 4) The concept of 'playing at gods' is taken further as the engineers monitor their creations, the most intelligent of which (and the ones who have evolved to most resemble their creators) - humans - worshipping them as gods. As to why the star maps are present in all the different cultures, I am not going to bother to theorise why. There needs to be information from Ridley Scott as to why - there is no real evidence to suggest whether they wanted humans to eventually leave earth to contact them or not. In addition, there is no evidence in the film as to why the star maps lead humans to that specific moon, which was simply an installation as opposed to a 'home planet' of the engineers. More information or a sequel is needed here. 5) Once the Prometheus crew explore the engineer ship, it becomes clear that something has happened in the ship itself to kill off most of them, with the exception of one who has entered into 'deep sleep' (maybe to avoid the conflict that killed off the rest of the crew, or maybe to ensure at least one engineer was alive to greet the humans - more on that later). This is one of the most grey areas of the film - based on the evidence we do have I would conjecture that for some reason some of the black goo was spilled long before the humans came, and somehow the 'aliens' (xenomorphs) we all know and love (or mutated life forms resembling them and their life cycle) developed on the ship, killing the engineer crew (the dead ones had holes in their abdomen, a uniquely xenomorph trait). On top of that there was a mural of a xenomorph inside the ship. This means the engineers must have at least been aware that the black goo, when associated with them, could give rise to the xenomorphs. Once again, more information needed. 6) For a reason (change in atmosphere caused by the opening of the door?) that is not directly explained, when the Prometheus crew enters into the chamber with the giant head statue, the black goo is released. A few worm like animals (either accidentally brought by the human crew, or just native to the moon) come in contact with it, and the way they specifically are affected is by being turned into the cobralien/hammerpede/vaginasnake. Bear in mind this creature is a dead-end in the film. It kills the researcher by burrowing down his throat, but that's it. It's not a facehugger. It is in no way related to the xenomorph or giant squid seen later in the film. Just an example of the extreme transforming powers of the goo - and a clue as to the goo's association with the xenomorph, since it apparently can turn animals into creatures than generally resemble facehuggers (both the cobralien and giant squid had pale fleshy 'skin' and weird vagina-like mouths). 7) There are only two humans in the film directly interacting with the goo - Fifield and Holloway. Fifield is exposed to the goo after he falls down because his helmet is sprayed with acid (another point of proof that the black goo can mutate animals into xenomorph like beings - remember that the xenomorph 'bleeds' acid). What happens to Fifield is sort of ambiguous, but he seems to mutate into a sort of ultra-mutant-human intent on slaughtering everything in sight. What ultimately happens to Holloway after David slips the goo in his drink is not shown - he is flamed before it is revealed. Many are theorising that he is breaking down like the engineer at the beginning, but I am not too sure about this. I think it is fully possible that he eventually would have been twisted into the Fifield-like mutant form. Or maybe he would just die. I think it is supposed to be clear that the black goo affects everyone (maybe even members of the same species) differently, although there is a general 'xenomorph-like' theme between most of the changes it causes. 8) A Holloway undergoing black-goo-caused DNA mutation has sex with Shaw. In my opinion, his infected sperm fertilises Shaw's egg, and the resulting fertilised egg is very rapidly mutated by the effects of the black goo into the giant squid she is forced to self-abort. As to the direct life cycle mutated Holloway --> Shaw --> giant squid, it's not totally clear, but doesn't really need to be. Once again the general theme is that the black goo is capable of a lot, and is the root of the xenomorphs. 9) This is where it gets tricky. As I stated earlier, there was one living engineer in 'deep sleep' on the ship. I'm not going to talk about Weyland's appearance; firstly, I thought it was pointless and silly, and secondly, it's pretty self-explanatory (dying tycoon seeks out alien race in an ultimately futile search for immortality). The reason the engineer attacked the crew seems to me because there was a sort of 'you have become too intelligent for your own good' vibe going on there. Maybe the engineer was insulted by the fact the humans, their creation, created their own life. Or maybe the humans simply were not supposed to ever contact the engineers at any point. Theories galore, but no hard evidence for this. 10) Now the point at which I get the most confused is why the engineer suddenly decides to take off and head for earth. The engineers seemed to have been planning this, because the holographic representations of the rest of the crew seemed to be a programmed event that would allow any number of engineers (in this case one) take off and head to another planet. I just can't shake off the fact that the engineers seemed to have planned the humans finding this moon - beyond the star maps, why would one engineer put himself into sleep and just wait for someone to wake him up? And why suddenly decide that earth of all places must be his destination? David conjectured in the film that they were heading to earth to use the black goo... To me this reeks of a sort of 'cycle'; go to a lifeless planet, make life using the black goo, wait till life gets intelligent, lead life to an installation/base, once it gets there return to the planet, use more black goo...? But where do the xenomorphs fit into this? The fact that there was a mural of one on the wall means that they are somehow linked with engineer culture… 11) In the strongest link between Prometheus and Alien, the surviving engineer eventually gets claimed by the giant squid (well – giant facehugger, since that’s what it essentially is). This is the strongest link between Prometheus and Alien, and proof that theengineers are intimately linked to the creation of the xenomorphs, since a creature looking very much like one bursts out of the engineer’s chest at the end. The cliffhanger the film was left on (Shaw attempting to go find the engineers) suggests that the sheer amount of grey areas in this film are hopefully going to be revealed, maybe in a sequel. I, for instance, don’t care about the specifics of how the worm was transformed into the cobralien (it is sci-fi, after all), but as this post has shown, we really know nothing about the engineers, their intentions, and the fact that the film was a prequel-of-sorts to Alien proves that the xenomorphs play a bigger part in the engineer civilization (the mural!) than it may seem. If there’s any ‘unanswered question’ in this post which was actually revealed, please let me know, otherwise whaddya guys think?