What the movie was actually about(The truth about Prometheus)

@Hadley's Hope — I'm often MORE into the behind-the-scenes stuff than I am the commercial product that ends up on the screen in the theaters. It depends on editing and a whole lot more... :•)

i say she is right to want to know and is right to say she deserves to if mankind is ever to [i]not repeat the same mistake[/i] if that's what they think it was, a mistake on our part or some gesture or mistreatment of our world. We need to know what tat was!

well i like the ideas about sacrifice being an honourable thing to do. Maybe explains why the jockey was so angry when weyland asked for more life. but why send a human (jesus) when they could just turn up in their space ships themselves. I'm sure it would have a bigger impact

For me it was all about COURAGE and how much of it it is going to take to GET ANSWERS to man's biggest questions ! As an example on hand The courage of Elizabeth Shaw and her dream to get her own answers, and the courage it took to give up her life on earth to do whatever it takes to just attempt to discover those answers.

I'm with David - the reason that decided to wipe out mankind is immaterial. The point is they may not have our best interest at heart, and just because they created us, that doesn't mean we should follow them.

There was an interview where they asked Ridley about the space jesus theory and he hinted that they were going to include it in the movie but at the end they decided to pass on it because they did not want to create a much bigger controversy. As fluke said, sacrifice is one of the big themes of the movie. The engineers had that mentality. As david said(If I remember correctly) "sometimes in order to create, you have to destroy". This is exactly what happens in the first scene of the movie. Guess who else sacrificed himself for us? Yes, Jesus. This all ties in perfectly with the space jesus theory. I personally think the engineers were mad at us because instead of us sacrificing ourselves to create, we sacrificed others to keep ourselves alive.

interesting you say that, as the plan for Engineers in the movie was to wipe out the earth race 2000 years ago, but of course, from the scenes in the holograms, something went wrong. roughly 2000 years ago from 2093? jesus. hahahaha maybe he didnt abandon the idea after all.

Yeah Im pretty sure they did not abandon the idea competly. The christian symbolism is pretty big in the movie and most of it takes some thinking to find them. Just see the links I provided your minds would be blown I guarantee it. *Prometheus lands on Christmas. *Elizabeth having an impossible baby, just like the virgin mary. In some twisted way you could say she was having the son of "god" *Engineers wanted to wipe out humanity 2000 years ago. *LV 223- Leviticus 22:3 (From the bible)[i] "Say to them: 'For the generations to come, if any of your descendants is ceremonially unclean and yet comes near the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the LORD, that person must be cut off from my presence. I am the LORD.”[/i] *Janek and his crew sacrificing themselves in the Prometheus. Before they died they raised their hands, like if the were being crucified. Interesting that they were 3, just like when Jesus was crucified. *David washing Weylands feet. These are just some of the examples that are stated in the links I provided. All of this is not a coincidence. I really think this movie is deeper than what many people think it is. Most people didn´t understand it, me included, but reading things like this make me see it in a whole new way.

What I thought the end message of the film was is rather different. It was about the dangers of 'choosing to believe'. If you CHOOSE to believe, accepting easy conclusions that fit with your simplest/most comfortable position, rather than sticking to evidence and always seeking alternative explanations you will make lots of mistakes and may not realise it, even if the results are dramatic. Case in point. Star map cave drawings. Okay, lots of star maps. Some with pictures of big beings. Seems to suggest visits from an alien species. Doesn't actually prove anything other than that, right? If you see all these star maps and CHOOSE to believe aliens made men, (without ANY evidence - and bear in mind, Scene 1 influences us the audience a lot, but Shaw never saw scene 1, (which might have been some planet nowhere near us) You are now down the path of assumption, and if you follow this through at every step along the film, you can see how some people can assume Shaw is proven right at the end. And others can see that her search is irrelevant because she's looking for the wrong people to engage in philosophical debate, has probably killed the one person who would have explained everything, and that her line "I don't want to go back where WE came from, I want to go where THEY came from" is a piece of irony, dripping in [url=http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/8183]black humor[/url]. I won't spell it out completely, that would ruin the film. But consider for yourself how different this film would turn out to be if, instead of the two lead scientists being lovers and committed 'believers' , one was a skeptic, who peer reviewed the work, and that the biologist and geologist might have seen Shaw's paper before getting on the ship (which they probably would not have ever boarded if they knew). Would Weyland have gone up there? Would Janek have done the Kamikaze run, based on Shaw's worst case scenario of a[url=http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/8224] cryptic statement[/url] from David?

Really interesting ideas. I like the idea of the dangers of "choosing to believe". It can be applied to religion too.

Ah, I understand now. Ridley Scott has gone full retard.

I think it is very much a thrust of the film that flakey thinking (whether poor scientific or dogmatic religious thinking) is bad. I think there are tons of little religious and mythological teasers scattered throughout the film, which some people will bite on. E.g. The whole LV 223 =Lev 22:3 thing that mirrors the decapitation of the Space Jockey, also led people to look at Milburns death in terms of 'garden of eden snake' combined with Lev 21:20 which forbids those with defective eyesight from approaching the altar. And you can completely overlook, that actually he died because of his actions, which may well have something to do with the fact that he's in a cave with Fifield and Fifield has "tobacco" or as he calls it "yeah, sure tobacco". Cleverly, we are never SHOWN anything that rules this in or out. (And what amazes me, is people who insist it is just tobacco, because that's what the guy said it was. ) There's little bits like this throughout the film to steer you towards what you are already inclined to believe. There's hints of Janus (Janek) and Meredith the Celtic Sea Warrior who is afraid of dry land (Vickers). not to mention that they drop out of warp speed on the solstice (hello Pagans!) All there if you care to see it. If you believe we watched creation in scene 1. You'll probably believe that Shaw was right in the end. IF you didn't assume it was 4 billion years ago on Earth (no proof of that anywhere is there? It's just an assumption based on following scenes) you can reach a different conclusion. Notice that almost nothing in the film is conclusive. Sometimes the characters ASSERT a conclusion that the audience buys into, as do other characters. But does what is on the screen support it? Let's play a game. Restart the film. Some dude, a waterfall, some planet, some time. Sacrifice, perhaps he knew he would die, perhaps he was just told, go there, drink that, by manipulators we're not told. Scene 2. Some life arising somewhere.. that last planet or ours? Scene 3. A f*cking MONOLITH is in shot and it resembles the rising ship from scene 1. Stanly Kubrick would have appreciated this little tribute to his 'signal' of changing perception. Some cave drawings with dots, seem to be stars, and someone pointing. The number of these, at various locations and eras suggests a visiting race and a location in space. Skip forward, a ship in space. Shaw and Holloway ASSERT that these visiting creatures are engineers who made us. Notice that the only two who question this bald assertion, are the 'doubters' who will die in the 'temple' Fifield and Milburn (nice touch there Scott.) Everyone else seems to take this theory on face value. Later Shaw gets to do DNA test on a head... it matches. THEREFORE her theory was right... THEY made us... or did they? She's meant to be a scientist. You don't take your pet idea and see if data can be found to support it, you also look, does that data ONLY support that conclusion? Or could the biologist, if he'd lived have simply said "well, duh, look at all the cave paintings, and all the reports of alien abductions, of course these blue guys share our DNA,,, they CAME FROM US... slaves of some nasty Dr. Frankenstein. I hope we don't meet him, let's leave and get someone to nuke the site from orbit." Does that idea REALLY have any less proof than Shaws? Cloned slaves... clones all look the same, and tend not to have any features not useful for the purpose they were created for... nipples, bodyhair, most of their skin pigments. But no, they're not slaves made from us, they are 'gods' who made us... say the pair who are LOOKING for god, and who feel 'abandoned' not to have found god. When things go a bit messy later on, Shaw jumps to all types of conclusions. David, the only character to dabble in very strict logic, is also the one who carefully conceals things through omission and double meaning speech. This Space Jockey could just be "Igor" out to fetch more specimens for Dr. Frankenstein --- in order to create one must destroy right? But Shaw assumes "The END is NIGH " i.e. Earth is targetted for destruction. And so convinces Janek to kill himself by ramming the big Space Jockey ship. A lot is made of the whole Space Jockey waking up and killing Weyland (with Davids head - nice touch) and then Jackson and Forde. Was it due to the abomination of Weyland, having his god complex (he builds worlds and wants to be immortal) or due to a big grey slave, being told, through a slave android interpreter, that Weyland the great empire builder, and maker of slaves, wants his help? And then Shaw, for reasons we can all understand assumes that this giant is hunting her down... (again David's words - he's coming for you). But does this giant do anything other than grab her? He can't speak English. Perhaps he intends to drag her back to the bridge and show her via 3D hologram how he was enslaved, and used under threat of black goo, to fly more slave grabbing missions. Again, total conjecture, but so is the alternative. So, I present you two extreme views of Prometheus. There is a god who created us, and apparently he needs a starship. There are other species more advanced than ourselves, who when they meet us, treat us much like the imperialist conquerors treated the Africans, Mayans etc. Impress them with technology, fool some into worship, bring many for exploitation. Breed the strongest ones together to make better workers. Eugenics. In the latter case, Shaw is travelling the galaxy hoping to start a philosophy debate with the UFO equivalent of the KKK. The fact that either interpretation can be taken is a lesson in 'choosing to believe'.

Very interesting theory. I guess right now this is the kind of movie that makes you decide what you want to believe. I hope Ridley sheds some more light on the true meaning of the movie. About your theory, do you have any other proof of a higher intelligence than the engineers? Im quite intrigued.

It's a [u]movie[/u], not a philosophical treatise on the collective existential crisis of humanity. But seriously... Like [i]LOST[/i], there is a WHOLE BUNCH of esoteric STUFF thrown in to make it [u]feel[/u] very profound. It's a thickly woven, heuristic tapestry, but that doesn't mean that The Bible Code or [i]De Rerum Natura[/i] is meshed within its threads. We [u]want[/u] it to contain all of those answers. Some of us [u]choose to believe[/u] that they are in there, but it was (clearly more than [i]Alien[/i] or [i]Blade Runner[/i]) designed to be a product to be sold. Like one's smartphone or laptop, it's a framework into which one adds one's own content and [u]meaning[/u] by discovering parallels, hints and easter eggs. It comes with a bunch of default content installed, but everything you do with it after you pay and walk out the door is ultimately up to you. That's what ››› I ‹‹‹ choose to believe. :•)

Ha fair enough. I respect your opinion :•) Keep them coming!

Like I said there IS no proof - it;s meant to mirror real life. We cannot prove nor disprove god. The possibility suggests itself to me, because the Space Jockeys are all the same, with no nipples, no body hair and lacking in skin pigments. (Every species of intelligient life shows DIVERSITY, in appearance, strength, attractiveness to mates etc) These guys are missing some things related to attacting mates and having offspring. I think this is why we were not shown any female Space Jockeys. Why would they exist? If you're cloning your slaves, what is the point of a womb, birth canal, or of course breasts to feed offspring? We don't know if the greyish /blue guys have functioning genitalia. They are always covered. But a female with no breasts would be a striking anomaly. The DNA match can be interpreted as meaning the Space Jockeys came from us - and if so, then who flew down here to take the people that became these clones? Scene 1 (seeding life) is nowhere proven to be Earth. And even if we ignore the very deliberate inclusion of a shot of moss on an otherwise barren bit of landscape, the odds of seeding broken fragments of human DNA, and getting the whole tree of life, that culminates in what it started from, is like sowing three blue flowers next to three red ones in the amazon, waiting a few billion years to find out that all over the planet, three blue flowers grow next to three red ones. Add in the interaction with OTHER DNA and it's even more unlikely. The temple is a clue. Temples tend to have priests of some sort, and invoke a higher power. Also, the giant head in the temple seems slightly different from the Space Jockey head, and the mural on the ceiling is very reminiscent of the Cistene Chapel one of God reaching out to Adam... and yet it shows a humanoid, not so muscular as the space jockeys reaching out to something that appears to be changing into something. And the arms look very like a Xenomorph, while the torso and legs still bear some resemblance to the wider legs of a humanoid. The very subtle bow from the Engineer when it wakes, suggests it is normally summoned by a higher ranking creature, which may well be smaller than itself. I don't 'choose to believe' either one, the whole thing might be called a parable. Deliberately holding alternate plot interpretations in the realm of possibility. I don't know if that's the message Ridley intended anyone to take from the film, but what I take from it is , find your own meaning, but don't do it blindly.

[u]It's a movie, not a philosophical treatise on the collective existential crisis of humanity.[/u] Why can't it be both a commentary on how others fool us, and how we fool ourselves, and unwittingly spread it to others, AND a movie. It's not necessarily a 'great message for mankind' , but it's a good twist for a story. We usually have experts and heros in films, what would it be like to have people who talk out of their asses with great confidence, and see where that gets them? Usually in a bad place (Event Horizon springs to mind in the sci-fi horror genre). But what if they still didn't realise their error? Prometheus. After all, it's not like "Don't be gullible" is a new or complicated message, or that movies like The Usual Suspects didn't make money from keeping us on the wrong track throughout. [u]Like LOST, there is a WHOLE BUNCH of esoteric STUFF thrown in to make it feel very profound. It's a thickly woven, heuristic tapestry, but that doesn't mean that The Bible Code or De Rerum Natura is meshed within its threads.[/u] That doesn't stop people from losing sleep going through thread after thread of Sumerian mythology or whatever other details they're hanging on while missing the wood for the trees. And if you think a commercial artist like Ridley doesn't see the viral potential for throwing all those teasers to make his film seem very deep. I like it because I'm interested in [u]why[/u] people think certain things, as much as what they think , and the film does have nods to confirmation bias, and other things, in an entertaining way, with black humour. [u]We want it to contain all of those answers.[/u] And Scott's been around long enough to know that. Hence he hired Lindelhof. [u]Some of us choose to believe that they are in there, but it was (clearly more than Alien or Blade Runner) designed to be a product to be sold. Like one's smartphone or laptop, it's a framework into which one adds one's own content and meaning by discovering parallels, hints and easter eggs. It comes with a bunch of default content installed, but everything you do with it after you pay and walk out the door is ultimately up to you.[/u] I agree with you.

Good thread. Yes, Scott is a very deliberate director, and the story really is [i]his[/i] vision. That's what people who hate on Lindelof are apparently unwilling to admit. It's [i]Scott[/i] who's fucking with his audience, and Lindelof was simply a tool to help him accomplish the task. Films [i]are[/i] a product to be consumed. Scott is always quite upfront about that. There's nothing wrong with producing a cleverly woven tableau that accepts a number of different real and imaginary templates. It engages the audience, provokes reflection and gives the product a life beyond the exit doors. That is added value. It saddens me when some folks complain about having paid to see this movie, because so much careful thought and loving care obviously went into its' production......still, I bet Scott would simply laugh.......... say "fuck 'em" or somesuch.

^ Here is a little something to support your idea. [url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/07/damon-lindelof-prometheus_n_1579083.html[/url]

@Spartacus or as the great David would say: How far would you go to get your answers? What would you be willing to do?

She is BRILLIANT, that's an amazing series of hyper-integrated links she pulls together. Good for her.

[quote=Hadley's Hope][i]I like it because I'm interested in [u]why[/u] people think certain things, as much as what they think , and the film does have nods to confirmation bias, and other things, in an entertaining way, with black humour.[/i][/quote] Good on you. Filmmaking is a rather unique profession. It gives clever, creative people who are capable of forming and sustaining a "singular vision" (at a directorial or key level) an opportunity to enjoy making something out of "nothing (but their own imaginations (and other peoples' money))," and in the tax bracket of anything backed by a studio, a great deal of [u]power[/u] over others. It's different from [u]just[/u] writing, because of the authority hierarchy in which it is embodied in its modern instantiations and the budgets that come along with the package. The creative people who make these shows typically have egos the size of an IMAX screen. That doesn't mean they aren't smart, good, nice people—simply that they are not "mere mortals," metaphorically speaking, of course. They have to be very good at "using the services of others" to get their stories told and that includes manipulating every aspect of what's going on through the entire project down through reigning over the audience. Arthur Max and Michael Fassbend are VERY aware of what they have to gain by working for Ridley Scott. It becomes much more ambiguous as to what that advantage is as far downstream as the ticket-buyer—but to the extent that we look to [u]him[/u] to approve our musings on what MIGHT be in there—we're still "reporting to him." And, often directors (and writers) recycle, mix and reassemble ideas whose etymologies they do not fully grasp. That makes for fascinating emergence and layers of *potential* meaning and entertainment that never could have been intentionally planned. THAT is why Prometheus resonates with me. Even when those at the highest levels get the details utterly wrong, it can still be oh so right if the viewer can see beyond the singular vision of the "mere mortals" who made it.

They were running from a Baby Deacon not a sweet Baby Jesus as Will Ferrel would say. LOL.

@sukkal, I knew you'd be into the behind the scenes stuff when I spotted the symbol for 'zero -g' from the "Alien" designs.

Very interesting discussions. I question the authenticity of having cave drawings in Scotland that are 35,000 years old. Scotland was under a mile thick icesheet at that time. Human habitation would not have been possible even with help from the engineers. What would be the point?

[u]Very interesting discussions. I question the authenticity of having cave drawings in Scotland that are 35,000 years old. Scotland was under a mile thick icesheet at that time. Human habitation would not have been possible even with help from the engineers. What would be the point?[/u] Possibly just the name of the place "Skye" the Isle of Skye, suggestive of Sky and a great monolith called the Old Man of Storr [img]http://wwwDelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1598/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1598R-15564.jpg[/img] Which was filmed in such a way as to resemble a silhouette of the rising ship from Scene 1. And now that there's a picture and a name... someone's going to think that it MEANS something... Old Man... well the engineer was dead for billions of years... etc.

Wow. Stickify this shit. Very interesting. I mean, I got some of the symbolisim but didn't get that much. @Fluke...They didn't send an Engineer and ship because they wanted man do pretty much do it on their own. Present someone with a god saying "you better straighten up" and they'll straighten up. That would just make it too easiy. @Hadley's Hope...I'm with you on the tobacco issue. When he sucks on the tube it clearly makes the noise of a water bong. It' so obvious. Crazy to know that people think it's not pot. My eyes just rolled a 360 in my head. Also, there is proof it was earth. It's stated to be earth in the Art of the Film book as well as other places. Scott has said it himself even though more recently he has stated that it doesn't matter whether it's earth or not. Also, the Engineers do have nipples. See [url=http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/8304]here.[/url]

I want this to be stickyfied so everyone can read it and keep commenting about it. Maybe some of you guys that are veterans to this site can help me with that?

Good thread..saw that blog right after my first viewing

The actual images were modified from those of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave]Chauvet[/url]. The timing was plausible from that perspective, but not for that far North, granted. [img]http://heracliteanfire.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/chauvet_cave_painting.jpg[/img] Skye is somewhat mysterious in the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_Skye]etymology of its name[/url], though.

I am only going to write in short burst, as wadding through a massive paragraph with A.D.D. is rather fun, so here goes only a brief one tonight and more tomorrow (nice talking with you @The Truth). Well see things that other may or may not see or especially feel emotionally. We are a whole, yet we are also individuals. With that said, breaking down the subtle meanings and motives behind any work is at best an individual interpretation based on that person's own experiences (we all understand that, yes), but in order to impress those ideas to others and have them actually consider those views... now that is an ideal. This movie I knew would be a monster, not because it was produced by Ridley Scott, but because it would be a vague, thought-provoking exercise of man's inner most desire... and that is to finally meet his/her maker. This journey, like all journeys are an individualistic and extremely person. Here is an example, I was once trying to explain what it felt like the first time I was on my submarine and we had a battle stations drill... because our boat held ICBMs in it's belly, every drill is a reality... I was afraid, terrified at moments thinking what would or could happen at that moment. I attempted to explain that to my brother, but I knew I failed. Not because he did not understand it, but because I could not verbally convey those emotions I felt. This was simply a primer for understanding the limitations of how I feel about the movie and the underlying meanings and symbolism it contains. Ultimately, I wish to understand everyone's emotions about the topic, and will seek to understand how they come to these ideas. Paul [img]http://i1157.photobucket.com/albums/p582/mr_lincolnlog/KnowYourXenoLarge.jpg[/img]

So basically you are saying that this is one of those movies that is open to interpretation? I like that, I kinda agree with you(If thats what you are trying to say).

I find any art form of sufficient talent worthy of semiotic analysis. [quote]It's a movie, not a philosophical treatise on the collective existential crisis of humanity.[/quote] That would be a subjective matter of opinion, dogma being just as much a flawed belief system as blind faith, which seems exactly analogous to pitting Science against Religion, or any other dialectical argument one could think of. I’m a little perplexed as to why the search for meaning need be threatening, or necessitate dogmatism even if it's the dogmatism of stoical nihilism. Philosophy seems a wonderful way of exploring these themes, of course it’s just a movie, was anyone suggesting it wasn’t? I agree utterly that this movie appears to be a thickly woven, heuristic tapestry. The movie also references a great deal of symbolism, symbols are used to indicate meaning, although not necessarily to be revelatory. Art forms function on multiple levels of comprehension, in fact one could lodge a fair argument for such semiotic to be the basis of a definition of art in general. Ambiguity offers a space in which to appreciate many differing aspects of interpretation. Even if the director of a film intends only one such meaning to be ’THE’ correct one, or ’THE TRUTH’ - The very notion of truth as Physicists are rapidly discovering brings into question an object subject dichotomy. That is to say that even after relativity and quantum mechanics, ‘truth' seems to be becoming evidently subjective even in the hard sciences, although most working physicists would probably deny such a glaring heresy, as such admissions are not good for the church of science, by which I mean the academic status quo. After all science outwardly espouses the importance of disproving ones own theories whilst committing the glaring error of dismissing that which has been refused or declined peer reviewal, perhaps as sometimes happens because of political dogma or even because the theorem in question commits the ‘sin' of threatening the scientific paradigm, the status quo. From at least one perspective science can be revealed as a belief system. The whole idea of confirmation bias seems to be incredibly ironic, after all who decides what is and isn’t a confirmation bias in an Art Form, or a world where one’s opinion is subjective, this might at first look like a solipsistic argument, but I feel that would be simplifying matters to avoid complexity, in other words I don’t see Art an as / or interpretation. To my mind any appreciable art form should primarily be fun, both for the creator and appreciator and for some people that might mean semiotics whilst for others perhaps it means stoicism, (a school of Hellenistic philosophy ironically enough). I don’t feel anyone has the copy write on absolute truth quite probably because the very notion would be erroneous. There are in fact very few axioms and ‘reality' doesn't appear to be one of them. Or to quote Robert Anton Wilson- “Reality seems to me to be what you can get away with†Or as the famous Zen koan asks "who is the master who makes the grass green?" Having said that, who the hell likes commercial hype? Perhaps it’s a fact of a society based on conformation bias, after all, when the global monetary systems threaten to rock the boat, a very [u]real[/u] form of existential quandary abounds. Historically this is often reflected intentionally or unconsciously through art and artistic movements. (see 1930’s depression era art) As for finding meaning, as the video in this post suggests it would seem that doing so can always be open to further interpretation, this might be the reason one doesn’t feel the need to stop developing a theorem when it appears to function, new interpretations and challenges can always be lodged, and why not when such fun can be had in doing so? As for the dialectic of Guile V’s Gullibility this seems comparable with empiricism V's phenominalisem in that both are dialect simplifications of experiential reality that appears to be far less exclusive and yet not entirely holistic, nor some verity of mediocre compromise. I can see nothing to lose from an exploration of meaning, after all to remain inert to the world we live in would be somewhat sociopathic, just like David. The error comes when one persistently [u]acts[/u] on apparently erroneously held beliefs or from blind faith, in fact even acting on a belief needn't be problematical if one doesn't hold one's beliefs to be immutably true, though there seems to be nothing to say what will be erroneous or not, not even societal sanction, except perhaps for ones personal integrity of comprehension. What is true might turn out to be false and what is false might then later turn out to be true, that is because truth and fallacy are themselves dialectic argument. (please see general semantics) Hence to that extent all human beings are fallible, ironically enough what could be wrong with that. *laughs*

^ I don´t think Ridley inteded to give a straight meaning to this film. Like several people have suggested this is the kind of movie that makes you decide what you want to believe. It only gives you certain clues but never really points to a sole direction. About the symbolism, I also agree with you. The symbolism wasn´t placed there to be "revelatory" nor to preach Christianity. Now that I think of it, idk why was it placed there in the first place but to deny the existence of said symbolism is just wrong. It´s clear as water, it is not coincidence.