What did the sacrifice at the beginning have to do with anything?

it's OUR PAST or OUR FUTURE jury's still out :)

My thoughts are that perhaps it's a right-of-passage honor amongst their people. Imagine that one's demise could produce an entire new civilization. That would be a great honor and he'd be remembered as a great hero. Could the the "Head" be the sacrificial Engineer??? Perhaps it's a religious experience for them or just the most efficient way.

I think his question is a bit simpler. The Engineer sacrificing himself created life on earth(and yes, it has been confirmed it's earth) thus creating us.

what if the beings at the beginning are the same beings we've been taught are angels... and their relatives on LV223 are the ones who were "cast out of Heaven" (Only they can be explained scientifically). This would set the reasoning as for why they would want to destroy the Earth. Jealousy and spite. then there are these guys... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim

Ridley said it can be any planet actually, the intro just shows the process of seeding life, it doesn't show the process of designing it with specifics and a purpose, like it would take to design a xeno or a human being.

Guys, I have not seen anyone actually in any thread on here discuss what in the hell all those little capsules were. We know David puts a bit of goo from one into Holloway's cup, and he gets an alien disease, but Shaw receives a fetus, and that fetus grows into the almost "caterpillar" stage of the traditional "Alien" from the "Alien" movie series. At the end, this turns into a full-fledged bi-pedal, that apparently these thousands of jars on the Engineer ships are carrying. They were manufacturing a weapon. This weapon is the Alien. At the beginning, The engineer near the waterfall appears to drink this fluid. His DNA breaks up, and new cells are formed. We just dont know if he is turning into an Alien, or sacrificing himself.

I think the Alien at the begining of the movie is starting life? but, was he suppose to start life? The goo in the cannisters have a worm that was the weapon for Earth. but, in mixed with the worm on the moon making the Alien?The alien that comes out of the Engineer is the first Queen?

Right one scientific theory regarding life on Earth is that the building blocks where brought to Earth over a Billion years ago via a Comet or Asteroid etc, these comets contained Amino Acids that then contained the basic building blocks for life, basically the starting point for Evolution. So this movie is taking that idea of Evolution with the Creation Myth and combining them. So that it is a Alien Race who uses a substance that breaks down his genetic structure and DNA into a basic form of building blocks that started Evolution and not via a Space Rock or Space Ice that crashed on Earth.

I can put my 2 cents in here - seen the movie 3 times now. I am starting to believe that the room was a climate controlled facility. I caught Shaw saying that the entire atmosphere rushed out when they opened the door and the vials were sweating. The vials were never meant to be exposed to humid wet conditions in the rest of the caves. Because the containment of the room was broken and the vials exposed to a more favorable climate for growth or activation the vials began to ooz its contents. One other point I made in another post – the wall/door that Holloway spent time looking at – you know the green crystal on a pedestal and the familiar looking Queen Alien on the door/wall? I think that that room contained the vials for the Alien we so long to see again. The queen signifies the contents in that room. Remeber in AVP how the predators kept the queen frozen/in stasis till needed? Just a thought to throw into the mix.

I am not sure the creation ethos goes with Prometheus. I dont think its a case of the Engineers at the start wanted us dead, i feel that they created us for some reason against the wishes of their Gods/Creators or Elder Cast upon their home world. I would be willing to assume that when Shaw finds the Home World they would not even know about what went down on LV 223 or the creation of mankind. or if they did then i would imagine that they did not want us destroyed. Either the Engineers on LV 223 wanted to cover up their stealing of the greater powers Fire by destroying what they created from it.... or that a Rogue Faction on LV 223 wanted to wipe out the greater powers creation and maybe also topple the greater power. By Greater Power i mean the higher cast of Engineers on the home world or their creators.

I have to watch a second time but I swear the Prometheus ship's fly-over images before they land shows the same rock formations that are in the opening sequence (Sort of striated grey rocks that look kinda like beef). I don't think it was earth at all. I think it was a test of a weapon destined for earth but it over ran the entire moon and killed all of the "engineers" and all other life. No more water falls or anything else, just abandoned facilities....and you know Lindeloff just loves those abandoned facilities.

i have watched this film two times already but many of its aspects are in the fog. may be there was a conflict of wills amongst the engineers. one group wanted to replant earth with an entirely new species(after wiping away the humans or using them to an end). while the other group wanted to preserve the human species which led to a conflict.the multiple bodies could be of the ones against the idea.but why the ship failed and the engineer in cryo is unclear.perhaps there was some sort of a technical malfunction and the launch did'nt go as planned. the hologram showed them to be at ease anyway.

@Engineering I see you subscribe to Occam's Razor (i.e., The simplest solution is usually the correct one). Perhaps. If the Engineers value efficiency, this would be appropriate.

@brainula What if the engineer that drinks the black goo at the start of the movie is on plant LV-223 not earth. Maybe he is a rouge engineer and decides to drink the black goo to stop the other engineers from building weapons of mass destruction. He drinks the weapon falls into the water and infects the water supply causing a chain reaction that creates the aliens and kills the engineers off. Thoughts?

Guys....the scene at the beginning was Earth. Wanna know 1000% why? Because its The Isle of Skye. Namely, a very FAMOUS waterfall. I'm assuming yourve never been there- but imagine people who HAVE seeing the movie. Very easily recognizable. It'd be like filmin a movie in Nevada, and saying "Gee idk where they're supposed to be- maybe another planet???" Well, for people from Nevadan, they'd see it and go "Hey look-It's NEVADA." Also, they FILMED the LV 223 exteriors on the Isle as well.

I don't think the sacrifice represents the begining of life on earth. LV-223 has a similar atmosphere, but the high concentration of CO2 precludes to be breathable for humans. However, the inside of the engineers' spacecraft has a safe atmosphere, that probably means they have similar oxygen demand as us. Now, the engineer at the begining of the movie is naked in a safe atmosphere. That only happened on earth when life was stablished as procariot autotrophes built up for a couple of thousand million years the current oxygen rich atmosphere. Engineers didn't bring life to earth. Unless they made the atmosphere too. In that case, if they made everything, if we need another good, isn't that too boring? I miss Alien.

Is that the first Queen that comes out of the last Engineer? Is she the one that lays the eggs in the ship that the Nostromo finds on LV-223?