Was it a pure luck?

Actually the line was "Big things have small beginnings" And I don't think that's the case. It was intentional of the Engineer that sacrificed himself, of that much I'm certain.

I don't know... if he was just upset and wanted to kill himself, why not just jump into the waterfall? Why drink the black stuff? It does have the feel of an exile scene. The flying saucer just leaves and he's looking at it all sad and stuff. It could be a kind of samurai-style seppuku shame suicide. Just... such a damn ambiguous and unanswered opening scene. Unlike all the annoying idiots... I say unanswered questions don't make a bad movie... they make an interesting movie.

Or these big hulking engineers were by and large a warmongering race, not interested in creating life for the sake of it, but horrible beasts to use in colonial wars. And perhaps some few idealists decided to spread their technological seed, to seed a planet with 'normal life' rather than things selected for their nasty killing characteristics, and that they did this without official authority from the rulers of their society. I say this because it fits with the mythology (the spark stolen from the gods without their knowledge, and also with Socrates drinking Hemlock rather than retract his criticism of the 'might is right' attitude of Greek rulers. He died but his ideas spread widely. That's a guess of course, but I think there is a deliberate reason why the death looks so ceremonial, and why the ship is a discus and not a Horse Shoe . I think it's meant to convey that there's competing groups in their society, and we got set up and visited by the one that doesn't send Trojan horses full of nasty surprises.

@Hadley's Hope I think you're onto something! Good theory. (God, do I have to see this movie tomorrow night at midnight?? After these reviews..............) Maybe I'll call in sick. : )

If its the Cambrian explosion its 530 Million years ago dude. That's when DNA began. (OK technically, its when DNA life started leaving fossilised remains). Abiogenesis aside, evolution obviously still operated, btw. Life fought, competed, died, evolved. Species rose. Species became extinct. DNA coding changed and was passed down. Despite the banalities of the script, its not a simple creationist/evolutionary binary. The suicide does seem ritualistic and purposeful. But if it was a mistake, why did the Engineers keep visiting? Why did they seed ideas and images that would guide humans to an abandoned weapons dump containing WMD mutagens?

A lot of why's. 1 Remark, humans weren't guided to that particular moon. It's a Bunch of Stars. A Big region with probably many more planets and moons. I'm more in the idea that as engineers stopped coming some 1000's of years ago. they are practically extinct. And what struck me on weyland site yesterday. is that in that universe they already colonised a big bunch of planets out there.

OK, guys. If his death was ceremonial and intentional, thak's OK. Totally acceptable. Then, why did the engineers hate us so much? Why did they plan to wipe out us? Is it like a "We made you, so we have every right to tinker with you, do you get it?" attitude?

Nostro Did they hate us? Did they plan to wipe us out? It's proven nowhere in the movie. And even if so, then still we don't know why, they might have a pretty good reason of their own.

Maybe we created them.

Kidding.

The interesting thing is that the movie did not leave us with the fact that this man's DNA changed. The movie left us with the undenyable fact that it destroyed the DNA of this man. It did not change it but caused it to completely break down, turning black, signifying the death of the DNA. So, this was not a seeding. Why remains a mystery to me, maybe he did not believe in the agenda of his society and so took the very stuff that would kill the humans rather than participate in this genocide? Maybe by killing himself in such a manor, he is guarenteeing that his DNA would not remain behind, instead of jumping into the falls, which then other organisms could eat and possibly use or be changed by this DNA. Again, total speculation. I wish Ridely Scott would come out and state why, so we could end this!