Deneba321
MemberOvomorphJun-10-2012 5:24 PMSPOILER WARNING - what you are about to read may spoil your surprise of this movie and it will ruin your surprise of a sequel, plus it may ruin your chance to figure this out on your own or with your friends. You were warned this a TRUE SPOILER. So if you like mystery..STOP NOW!
There's a lot to explain, first (here) I'll just note the important observations I haven't seen elsewhere:
1) "Every king has his reign and then he dies. That is the natural order of things."
In the scene with the living space jockey, aka Engineer, but more appropriately called a "Gardener" than Engineer (explained in the posts below). When the 'last living' Engineer comes out of the pod, please note: The Space Jockey IS BOWING DOWN waiting for the earth humans to act. (Don’t believe me. go back and watch it for yourself.) The Engineer then kneels and is genuflecting. Why do you think that?
3) Director Scott makes the bow a little tricky to take in by simple misdirection. Scott has the Engineer cough (and we were given a directorial-push about humans waking up from hyper sleep early in the film). Then the aged Peter Weyland startles and jumps backward, then has David steady Weyland, and then has Weyland and Elizabeth shouting all during the bow. Watch it again and I promise that you’ll see the clearly. After bowing to the floor (which naturally could be taken for hyper sleep exhaustion) and all the ruckus, not the Engineers cautious move to kneeling (as in ancient times) on one knee. It is unmistakable. So what?
4) So only after he, the Engineer/Gardener, realizes that the earth humans are not there to command him, rather they are fighting each other (note his surprised expression) and Weyland has David clearly explain to him the earth humans are there for assistance from him, the earth humans want help from him, the Engineer!
5) Then the Engineer gets it: these earth humans are here and apparently unfazed by the black goo (explained in posts below) and are not here: a) to join with the Engineers (bow back perhaps) or to replace the Engineers (retire the space jockey race aka "Every king has his reign and then he dies. It is the natural order of things."). Only then does the Engineer proceeds to stand up, look at them, examine the robot and caresses it perhaps thinking such a well spoken small human is a fitting replacement. Only then to realize that it is a non-DNA based intelligence (why this is important in posts below) and then immediately take it apart, and then bash the earth human 'king' with it. (In case you missed it Weyland isn’t just corp exec, well he is, but he’s closer to the human earth King (He's leading the colonization of space.) Because Gardeners, aka Engineers/Space Jockeys, know something that apparently isn't clear to all of you. What is that?
6) "Big things have small beginnings"
David says this with the drop of the black goo on his finger, but it actually refers to David, non DNA based intelligence, us - the new engineers, and to the goo as well -death to all humans but not to immune beings like David. So this quote refers to us and more particularly to David and that is the reason why earth humans and the 'Engineers' must part ways. Why?
7) "humanity is just a bridge"
Earth humans are a bridge to a non DNA form of intelligence, David.
see link http://www.whatis101112.com/ I suppose it is possible some of the engineers just don't want to be replaced by earth humans, like Weyland doesn't want to be replaced by his daughter, but that's a bit overly simplistic for a multi-billion year old culture, no? Remember, these guys seeded DNA based life on an untold number of worlds. What's worse than the xenomorph (who after all is just a closely related DNA cousin), a new order of non DNA life that might kill all their Garden of Eden planets, of which Earth is one. That is a true conflict of interest, yes?, for a multi billion year old culture.
If you like, I can post the whole thing, but there's a lot to it - so it is long and seems a bit type here, but ask and I'll post all the explainations, but in brief. Also, if you read this, please could you post a reply here? That will keep this thread on the message board.