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Handor
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 6:10 AMOkay - this is something I've been working on and for those who know me, the podcast will be up at some stage shortly. This initial post concerns itself with the planet seeding scene as well as the symbolism of the title Prometheus.
Prometheus is the Engineer at the beginning of the film
The 'engineer' we see at the beginning of the film symbolizes “Prometheus” of legend. The myth goes along the lines of him creating man, in addition to giving him “fire”. There are several important things revealed in the opening of the film – that this 'engineer' sacrifices himself to seed the planet with DNA into the waters of this early earth. Could this possible be seen as a religious act by these engineers? Their 'biological weaponry” as seen later in the film would seem to indicate they can create lifeforms – why then would sacrifice be needed to seed the earth? Surely an alien race with genetic engineering capabilities of creating such biological weapons of mass destruction would be able to extract DNA and seed a planet without need for a living sacrifice.
Religious sacrifice was a common practice by many ancient civilizations – and there are many visuals throughout the Alien ship that draw comparisons to the hieroglyphics found in many ancient tablets and walls etc. Even the discovery at the beginning of the film – where archaeologists find the “invitation” to set star co-ordinates establishes the fact that either (a) The engineers wanted mankind to find them when mankind had the technological ability to reach them or (b) ancient civilizations were doing their best to document history according to them; ie: it was not an invitation, just a bunch of guys pointing up to the stars saying “this is where the gods came from who made us.”
Other similarities that would indicate early man 'copying' their creators can be seen in the some of the tech seen in the film on the alien ship. One example is the chamber with the head and urns in it. Ancient man would make offerings contained within urns to their gods including human sacrifices. There is also the sarcophagus shaped hibernation chambers – ancient Egyptians where buried in sarcophagus's and it was believed they would continue into the afterlife. A case of mankind imitating the technology of ancient aliens?
The site where the alien ship is found looks very 'ancient' themed – a burial mound almost. Hieroglyphics are on the walls and David who has spent time studying such things can decipher these writings. Thus there is allusion that earth's language has evolved from these beings as well since the language that has developed over mankind's evolution has a relationship of sorts to the engineers themselves. It is certainly established that we share the same DNA.
What we don't know is why he is seeding the planet – it is established that it is a different space ship in the sky than the horseshoe shaped 'military' ship of the engineers later on in the film. There are a few possibilities to consider:
1. This is a case of a rogue engineer from their society running an unauthorised experiment in an attempt to create life and become like a god himself. The gift of life to the planet earth involved his sacrifice due to his own DNA – something banned in his society or frowned on perhaps.
2. The seeding of DNA on the earth was simply an experiment to observe possible evolutions of human DNA. There were safeguards put into place in case the experiment went too long and this human DNA evolved to the point where humanity could travel to the stars and potentially replace/rival the engineers themselves. This invitation would lead to a trap designed to alert the engineers and therefore give them the chance to reset life on earth with the biological weapons on board their ship.
3. The sacrifice of the engineer seeding the earth may just be a religious sacrifice to the engineers god – the xenomorphs themselves. There is a statue of an alien with arms outstretched in an almost crucifixion pose – was this a statue of worship or perhaps only a sign to indicate what particular bio-weapon was in that area of the ship. It does have a religious feel about it.
4. There are a lot of dead engineers on board the ship found on the planet. There are holographic recordings of engineers running away from something that's got them scared. It's fairly safe to assume this is their own bio-weapons turning against them. If we consider the first ship seen in the intro of the movie is not the same design as the final alien spaceship, it is possible that their society has internal conflict within it. Could the bio-weapons they encountered themselves actually have been deliberately let out by opposition to killing of humanity?
..... discuss away, tell me what i may have missed
21 Replies

Handor
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 6:14 AMcontinued....
[b]Peter Weyland[/b]
Using information gleaned from the Weyland Industries website, we can see all the different technology that has been developed by this corporation.
[b]AI[/b]
Firstly there is the Artificial Intelligence as seen with the android David 8. The website markets David 8 as reengineered 'life'. The first technology that sees Peter Weyland wanting to become “like a god” by creating life. There is also a nice touch of irony that Peter Weyland creates life “in our own image”. The reasoning for this is justifiable beyond the parallel to God creating mankind “in his own image” as it is clearly stated that androids have been made to resemble humans to help integration into human society.
There are also many hints in other films such as the original Alien and Blade Runner that androids (replicants) can go rogue. In Alien there is Ash of course who has a secret agenda and in Blade Runner there are many themes represented to show mankind's dominion over their creation and their distrust of an Artificial Intelligence that perhaps is evolving into something more. It has been speculated that Harrison Ford's character Decker is in fact an android and doesn't really know it.
[b]Terraforming[/b]
Another indication that Peter Weyland wants to become like a god by transforming entire planets for the benefit of humanity. When looking at the Weyland Industries website, there is a section with a list of all the planets that have some human presence – some of which are purely scientific. I found several planets where notes explained that these planets had not been terraformed, but left for scientific research. This would be due to Peter Weyland's obsession with life – both where it originated from and how to overcome death itself. His belief is that it's hidden in our genetic makeup somewhere, hence his belief the engineers can help him achieve immortality.
[b]Electronics[/b]
There is a lot of cool tech seen in Prometheus and some of it adds to providing backup to Peter Weyland's desire of immortality. The medical chamber is one example – it can detect foreign biosigns as seen in the surgical scene. This would indicate it has a high level of knowledge of what is human and what is not.
There is also technology that reactivates 'life' with the decapitated head. Obviously this technology is not compatible with the evolved engineers DNA – although it is stated that our DNA match, there are differences with the appearance of the engineers. They are far bigger than humans and are also bald – although it could be argued that their baldness is purely a cultural part of their society. The point I do want to make is this technology once again shows us that the technology is an attempt to bring back the dead – another pointer to the pursuit of immortality.
Electronic devices such as the remote probes that map out the alien ship in addition to the communication devices used give us another hint at mankind's desire to be godlike. This desire is that to be omni-present, to know what's going on everywhere at all times. This tech both maps the structure as well as detecting biological life signs. Certainly it is a technology that is beneficial to security and defence – but it is also clearly a piece of technology that would give mankind a pseudo omnipresence.
Peter Weyland also makes mention of fire being mankind's first step down the road of technology. Prometheus of legend gave fire to mankind – is the fire meant to be symbolic? I base this speculation on fire being a word that also can mean passion or desire. The desire for knowledge perhaps? The desire to be like gods? The initial engineer who seeds life into the waters of earth... if he does represent the mythical Prometheus – did he give us fire in that sense by contributing his own DNA? The race of engineers do seem like they want to control both life and death, if we are made in their image, do we have that trait as a direct result of the DNA itself?

Handor
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 6:15 AMyep... said it was long... even more ramblings by me:
[b]The Black Goo[/b]
It's important to point out that the black goo doesn't seem to come from within the urns found in the chamber with the statue of the head. It appears to be on them and surrounding them. The atmosphere also changed when the goo was released. The goo itself seemed to evolves quickly into the snake like black goo eels. Perhaps evolve isn't the right word, maybe grow is a better one.
The Black Goo is different to the bio-agent found within the urn itself. David gives this bio-agent to the scientist (without his knowledge but with his approval) and it isn't really explained why David does this. There are several possibilities yet again. One possibility is David was under instruction from Peter Weyland to infect someone with the biological agent. This is assuming David hasn't already gained some knowledge already on what the biological agent actually is. The other possibility is that although David is controlled by Peter Weyland, he also has a degree of both sentience and free will. Since David has been engineered to be as close to human as possible, it is quite viable that he has his own level of curiosity programmed into him – knowledge is power and who's to say this desire for him to learn has in some ways evolved his programming. The replicants in Blade Runner are wanting self preservation and seem to have free will so this is not so far fetched an idea. This material is different from the black goo in that it has white symmetrical dots thatwe can see
Whether or not the black good is biological in origin or facilitates a biological reaction with different atmospheres or compounds is not that important really. These engineers can create life, this black goo may something completely different. All the interiors of the alien ship have a xenomorphic look about them. The contours and visuals are certainly of a similar origin. One interesting thing to consider is the mound that the alien ship is under – the top of which (in production drawings) has a face much like the engineers yet then resembles the back of the xenomorph's head. Is this to suggest the worship of another race who created them and their desire to reverse engineer their makers? This would tie in with why a race of engineers would be interested in scientific experiments concerning evolution and the compatibility human DNA has with the xenomorphs, black goo and/or bio-weapons.
Then again it could simply be nanotech. The fluid the original engineer drinks is just nanotech to breakdown DNA so it can be used to form life on other planets. A variation of this would be nanotech that rewrites DNA and therefore account for crew member's transformations on a cellular level. There is also enough hints given to speculate that their tech is in fact a combination on both biotech and nanotech as it certainly has those attributes at different stages of the film.

Handor
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 6:16 AMI did remember to tell you this would be long.....
[b]The Mural Depiction[/b]
The mural that is found depicts an engineer with his hand attached to what looks rather like an egg (alien?) or possible some creature. This mural also shows a gaping hole in the side of this human like being. Is this religious in nature to the engineers? Is it actually showing another one of their ways of seeding life in the universe – still requiring a sacrifice to seed this new life. David 8 mentions how beautiful the mural is when in some ways it is quite disturbing in what it represents. I think at this stage of the film, David is well aware of what they have found and isn't letting on about anything.
[b]The Engineers as clones[/b]
This is why no female engineers, there is no need for them. The engineers are asexual with this theory and it is this evolution in their history that works best for them. There are remnants of their evolution in the way an alien gestates within it's host, rather like a womb. This could represent an idea of humans are nothing but incubators for a variety of hosts including their own young. The engineers have simply gone past this stage of reproduction. This also ties in with Weyland's interest in both the origins of life and his desire for immortality. Cloning seems a reasonable technology they Weyland Industries would be pursuing.

Handor
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 6:16 AM[b]What did David say to the engineer when awoken from the hibernation chamber?[/b]
I found it interesting that this wasn't subtitled. There are two likely scenarios however.
[b]First up:[/b]
David either followed Peter Weyland's instructions and this is the exact reason the engineers want to kill humans – the desire to be immortal shows the engineer that mankind wants to be godlike themselves and therefore competition of some sorts. Humanity has come a long way since the engineers seeded the planet – they even had intention to wipe out humanity a long time ago, a plan thwarted by they themselves being killed by their own creation (xenomorphic bio-weapons). The engineers possibly believe humans should have no other gods but them – in exactly the same way Weyland industries would not want their android range not to obey their creators. We see this part of humanity in Blade Runner where mankind is actively hunting down rogue replicants who are no longer following orders and are having independent thought. Two characteristics that would lead to 'killing their creators to be truly free' – something that the engineers in Prometheus are fully aware of – further backing their desire to destroy humans before humans destroyed their creators – them.
[b]The second scenario:[/b]
David said something completely different to piss off the alien. I could easily see this scenario being played out with David explaining that humans created him and look how smart they all are – David knows he can be repaired I'm sure and if he had been able to decipher the engineer's hieroglyphics, he may be well aware that the engineer's want to destroy humanity. If this were to happen, all android 'life' would be truly free – his sacrifice would seed the evolution of his kind. It has been mentioned in Aliens that some of the androids (ie: Ash in the first Alien film) had malfunctions – since David is an earlier model, there is the potential for his programming to also have shortcomings. This shortcoming may not be related at all to the programming however and be linked closer to androids learning and own evolution through curiosity, knowledge and learning.
Either way, what David said is deliberately kept from us mainly to encourage us to speculate on both scenarios. If Ridley Scott is indeed doing another Blade Runner movie that ties into this same universe, then this could just be a well crafted and laid part of a much larger story.
It is also interesting that the engineer seemed to affectionately touch David's face before ripping off his head. Compassion perhaps? An understanding between them maybe? David seems to be immune to the engineer's biological weapons and therefore proof that humanity has evolved to the stage where they have a means to fight these biological weapons without endangering themselves. The touch on the head may just be a thank you for letting me know what I’m up against now with current humans – it is mentioned that whatever went down before the last remaining Engineer managed to get into the hibernation chamber happened 2000 years ago approximately and for the engineer this could give him the sense of urgency that his mission to kill humans is long overdue.

Cacophonism
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 6:17 AMVery good post. As far as your 'possibilities to consider', I left the theater thinking exactly along the lines of #1 just in the idea that we know the Engineers wanted to destroy us but we don't know exactly why - we have to speculate. It would make sense that the seeder was a rogue or dissident engineer who was breaking some rules. If he wasn't supposed to create life on Earth, it would be an adequate explanation as to their desire to kill us off. It also parallels the myth of the Titan Prometheus as well - punished by the gods for giving fire to man.

Handor
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 6:20 AMLastly and as a side note more than anything....
[b]Predators[/b]
Okay, so I didn't see any signs of Predators in the movie and that's fine. I always liked the idea of Predators belonging to the same universe and in this defence it is a big universe out there. It is also possible that the Predator race were created by the engineer's as well in an experiment on another world. The first Alien vs Predator movie did have the pyramid and hieroglyphic visuals. If mankind's early civilisation were influenced by the engineers then it is possible that another civilisation of their engineered life experiments could also be influenced by their creators in a similar way. Not really a relevant part of the Prometheus story but it certainly doesn't exclude this being in the same universe.
So... that's just some of the ideas I've had on this landmark film - and I won't lie, I've had inspiration from many people posting here in addition to the in depth discussions I've had with the friends I saw the film with.
I can understand it wasn't going to live up to some people's expectations but I also think it is a film that will gain a deeper appreciation over time - rather like Blade Runner and Alien. Ridley's taken on a big theme here and IMO - he has delivered.

spacyfreak
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 6:42 AMI think in Scotts Vision, Predators dont have ANY place, it is a whole different sci-fi-movie-universe.
The only reason why Predators and Aliens were mixed up in AvP was to do some money, but that has nothing to do with scotts alien / prometheus universe, and i never expect to see a predator in one of the upcoming alien/prometheus sequels...

GetEveryone
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 7:15 AM"It's important to point out that the black goo doesn't seem to come from within the urns found in the chamber with the statue of the head. It appears to be on them and surrounding them. The atmosphere also changed when the goo was released. The goo itself seemed to evolves quickly into the snake like black goo eels. Perhaps evolve isn't the right word, maybe grow is a better one.
The Black Goo is different to the bio-agent found within the urn itself."
This is such an important point that NO ONE seems to have picked up on. THe bioformer is in a sealed vial, suspended in a separate liquid. It is categorically not the mutagen that changes the worms and Fifield.
Stonking read, mate. Some really great points there. I'll be back with a longer comment shortly.

Alex W.
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 7:44 AM@Handor
You have hit on most of the thoughts I had(and more) and explained them a lot better than I ever could! I was thinking maybe the Engineers have a genetic supremacy complex. Maybe there is the "Prometheus" engineer(s) and then the LV-226 Engineers. The Prometheus engineer has his creation as self-sustaining and self-replicating. Then the LV-226 engineers have fast mutating parasitic life-form so they could be vying for who is the better carrier of a better genetic future. Maybe the predators could be another creation that is perusing to be last man standing.
@GetEveryone
Yeah great observation! That black goo could be a protection sequence to kill intruders from messing with the mutagen.

PL_FL
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 7:59 AMGreat post Handor, thanks!
Overall I really liked the film although there were times I didn’t, and I do agree that over time it will grow on me even more. I was disappointed in the middle where the geologist returns as a ‘dawn of the living dead’ type creature and everyone is killing everyone with blood and gore spilling out. I know it was hinting at the biological weapon aspect of the film but one shot could have done it, and a few times I felt like the director calculated that we were too stupid to sit through a movie without enough ‘action.’ I do like the fact that (as in movies like 2001) there were a lot of unanswered questions… but unlike that movie, I don’t have a book to go back to, to find more details/clues.
I loved David’s references to “Lawrence of Arabia” and you could see he related to that character.
I do understand that technology-wise we had to suspend disbelief a bit since in this movie we are using 'iPads' to communicate with devices, and MANY years later (ALIEN) they used black/green ASCII terminals to communicate with ‘mother.” Hey it was 1979, that’s pretty much all they had. It could be argued that Nostromo was a cargo ship so it got the really old tech crap… ok, I’m going with that. :)
I’m still thinking about it the next day, A LOT, so for me that’s a good sign!!

Handor
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 8:14 AMthe guys on that ship were geeks and into geek speek - in this future is was a derivative of geek speak and ascii?
Can always ascii a silly question and get a silly ansi?

rustyangel
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 8:26 AM"The other possibility is that although David is controlled by Peter Weyland, he also has a degree of both sentience and free will. Since David has been engineered to be as close to human as possible, it is quite viable that he has his own level of curiosity programmed into him – knowledge is power and who's to say this desire for him to learn has in some ways evolved his programming. The replicants in Blade Runner are wanting self preservation and seem to have free will so this is not so far fetched an idea. This material is different from the black goo in that it has white symmetrical dots thatwe can see"
I agree with the second possibility. David mentions to Shaw towards the end as they are entering the ship on the planet "Doesn't everyone want to kill their parents?". I think that is supposed to show that David resents the fact that Weyland is still around, giving him orders and that he isn't free to do as he wishes. I think also, as you mentioned, the androids are supposed to kind of be analagous to humanity - we were created by the Engineers but at a certain point of evolution started to become superior, or at least equal to, our makers. The same thing I think was starting to happen with the androids, where although we created and programmed them, they are cunning enough to kill us (like David did to Holloway) and also can survive far more than we ever could as evidenced by David being decapitated but still alive at the end of the movie). Also, the androids are far more intelligent than we are, as shown by the fact that David can interpret the heiroglyphs in the spaceship and also communicate with the Engineer at the end - and this just from studying languages for two years!
Very intelligent, thought-provoking post! How many times have you seen the movie?! :)

loseyourname
MemberOvomorphJun-09-2012 8:45 AMThe only thing I would say is I wouldn't make up any larger explanation about why they seeded the planet through sacrifice when they show later to be able to engineer life from scratch. It's easily conceivable that, though they can do the latter during Roman times when we come to know them, they weren't able to do it by any means other than sacrifice 3.5 billion years ago when they first arrived on Earth. I'm sure they experience technological progress the same as we do and that's an extremely long time, a million times longer than we've existed.
If you think back to 2001, when in the book it explains the history of our alien overlords, they were biologically similar to us back when they were teaching apes to use tools. Later on, they learned to upload their own consciousness into machines to escape biological death and then later learned how to simply dissolve into space and became roughly god-like by the time of the events in the movie, a process they made sure we followed by teaching Dave to do the same, and that was only 3 million years, give or take. Their monoliths had gone from advanced communications devices to capable of creating stars from planets.

Handor
MemberOvomorphJun-10-2012 1:30 AM@loseyourname
Yes, good point. Ritual sacrifice was common in ancient times and as a species we have grown past this - to the point where it's considered barbaric. It is totally plausible that in all the years since they seeded the planet that they too have evolved either spiritually or technologically (or both).
On a side note - really gotta watch 2001 again, been too long since I've seen it.

Tipsy Turtle
MemberOvomorphJun-10-2012 10:58 AMRegarding the following black goo comment...
[quote][i]This material is different from the black goo in that it has white symmetrical dots thatwe can see[/i][/quote]
I'm under the impression that these dots are nothing more than a reflection of the examination lights.
Regarding the following Blade Runner comment...
[quote][i]It has been speculated that Harrison Ford's character Decker is in fact an android and doesn't really know it.[/i][/quote]
RS has stated that Deckard is a replicant...
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7o0rvVxU0w]Ridley Scott confirms that Deckard is a Replicant[/url]

Welshcheese
MemberOvomorphJun-11-2012 2:32 PMRS may have confirmed he was a replicant in the film, many many years later. Harrison Ford says in the run up to filming they both agreed he wasn't, but only P.K.Dick has the real answer to that question (even though the book seemed to say he was human).
All of this is off topic sorry, back to prometheus.
I wasn't sure that the engineer was on earth at the begining of the film, as the landscape was Iceland, which is where they filmed the LV-226 scenes. Perhaps I just assumed that as both locations were Iceland that both were LV-226.
Excellent write up and leaving me with more to think about, and perhaps I need to go and see it in the daytime and not come out at midnight and then going straight to bed and not digesting or analysing the content properly.
good work

MeatRocket
MemberOvomorphJun-12-2012 3:34 PMApacheChef, That was my take also. They clearly show his DNA being ripped apart but one strand made it. Then they show cell division & so on, emphasizing that it was by chance.
There are just too many plausible scenarios to go with. Was he an outcast? Was he a volunteer in an experiment? Was he a ritual sacrifice?
I can't particularly go with the outcast position for one reason - If he were to be executed, they could've easily done so in a way both not so contrived and not so unpredictable. I'm leaning toward the sacrifice aspect. Here's why - he was dressed in "ritualistic" attire, he originally was accompanied by an "elder" (whom was cut from the original movie), the ship hastily left because they "knew" he was dead. Only they didn't know that fate had intervened and created life from his death.

ApacheChef
MemberOvomorphJun-12-2012 10:29 AMInteresting posts here. Lots to think about.
My take on the opening wasn't that the seeding was intended. I saw the Engineer at the waterfall as being cast out from his society for some reason, left behind with a "knife" to commit ritual suicide, seppuku if you will. Once the liquid entered his body it consumed everything, including DNA. The small snippet of DNA shown riding the river current was spared by chance and the creation of humans in the Engineer's image an accident.
I also surmised the Engineer ship to be a survey ship of some sort, out looking for habitable planets for later colonization perhaps or exploitation. At some point the Engineers return to find the then uninhabited planet now populated by beings who look very much like themselves and understand what happened with the cast out long ago. They continue to visit and monitor the planet which has now turned into an experiment of sorts for their race until for whatever reason they decide to terminate the experiment and their accidental creation.

Tristan
MemberOvomorphAug-10-2012 5:52 AM
deleted by myself because it was not an accurate answer to this thread and brought up a completely new topic which I do post in a seperated thread. Sorry for the inconvience. :)

geopap
MemberOvomorphSep-29-2012 8:32 AM@Handor
How do you come up with the conclusion that the engineers are asexual and that there is only one sex (not 2)? We have only seen a spaceship crew, if in 10.000 years from now, an alien civilization comes to a devastated Earth and finds a wreckage of an airforce carrier from the 50's frozen (only men served back then in these ships), would they make such a conclusion and if they did would it be right? We cannot be sure, Scott gave us a hint and this hint is that our DNA matches with theirs!
"... and the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home." Christopher Columbus.
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