35,000+ years of research or something more???

That is but one of the problems I have with the script

I've been pondering along these same lines for a while now. I've decided that there are three possibilities: 1)Like you mentioned, the planet might not have been solely a weapons facility. There could have been other things on LV-223 that we didn't see in the movie. 2) The planet was converted to a weapons facility 2000 years ago as preparation for the planned assault on Earth after they changed their minds about the human race (for whatever reason). It was a benign outpost before this point. 3) The Engineers left directions for us to a weapons facility from the very beginning as a kind of "fail-safe" - they never intended for humans to reach the technological capability for space travel. They felt confident that if we were to ever reach that level of technology we would follow the trail of clues left for us to LV-223, where we would encounter the weapon that would destroy us. We'd bring back samples of black goo (or the resulting hostile alien organisms) back to Earth to wipe the rest of the humans out. #3 may be a bit of a stretch, but it would make a nice sinister plot twist, wouldn't it? >:D

I've gone full circle to one of my earliest ideas...that the pictograms were not an invitaion, nor a warning...they were simply acknowledgement by early Earth cultures of a higher intelligence of extraterrestrial origin. The Engineers on 223 were not expecting humans to visit in my opinion and simply being found there by the Prometheus crew doesnt mean to me that they were the same guys in the pictograms. I also dont think that the 223 Engineer was hostile until he perceived correctly Weyland's intention, probably highly offended by his attitude. As for how he felt about Shaw, I dont' think he was necessarily going to kill her..he certainly had the chance but she caused his death first.

Shaw said it was an invitation, but she's wrong about just about everything in this film. An invitation would probably be a bit more detailed no? Probably would have the actual moon on it or at least indicate which star (rather than let Fratboy Holloway guess (using faulty logic) which one he has to go to? The drawings seem to me, to be the way an early human would recall the 3D hologram on the ships navigation bridge.

its one of the script problems. In my opinion this wasnt exactly planned, they jsut wanted to begin with an ´astonishing´ ancient astronaut start but didnt think it through..

Great post Hadleys! Engineers may have been grabbing life forms from all over periodically for their xeno experiments

Kane77 if it wasn't planned, and they just wanted an 'astonishing' ancient astronaut start, why not include a zoom in on Earth, to show conclusively where this takes place, why all the effort to instead imply it with that clever little subliminal suggestion in scene 2 (or 3 depending on whether the mitosis montage counts as its own scene) It's deliberately left open, and so many things can be assumed, rather than being conclusive. WAS that Earth? Did they seed us? WAS that an invitation? DID They plan on wiping us out? If it was a court case rather than a film, you could raise 'reasonable doubt'. If cuddles hadn't finished off "Igor", then his lawyer would have a summation like this... (assuming he hasn't hired[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akwU-ddEloI] Lionel Hutz[/url] ) [i]"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit that my client is innocent of these wild accusations of entrapment and conspiracy to commit genocide. The prosecutions case is based on nothing more than the imaginings of a rather flakey scientist, led by the nose by a murderous android. - You must acquit"[/i] :p

They were not expecting humans to visit by themselves. But if you notice that - the air is so clean INSIDE that it's perfect for humans, - It's so so poisonous OUTSIDE, that we would pass out in seconds, and be dead in minutes from Carbon Monoxide poisoning, -and yet the Space Jockey can run outside, to Shaw's lifeboat, and casually rip open an airlock door to get in. - the way from the ships underground hangar to the tunnels, is sealed off from the outside, so it is breathable for humans - the spacing between urns in the chamber seems to match the scenario of one human per urn, but not one big space jockey per urn [img]http://www.houriganwebworks.com/images/Urns.png[/img] That suggests to me, that humans have been brought back here, on all these visits.[img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheusO_screencap3.jpg[/img] One of the pictures depicts a giant pointing to the stars, while humans bow, so more likely he is showing THEM, not later generations, where he is going to take them (in their minds 'to heaven') to be used for whatever nefarious purpose the place was built for. [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/Frank1818.jpg[/img] They didn't indicate anywhere on the map where LV 223 was, or that they wanted anyone to come there. Holloway describes how he arrived at the LV 223 destination. After matching the pattern of six stars, he simply eliminates all but the IDEAL star, then looks for planets around it, and a reasonable atmosphere. Why does he not discuss EACH star that is ADEQUATE, rather than IDEAL for life, and look at their planets and moons? Perhaps, as a believer, he assumes Heaven will not be around some 'less than perfect' star? If this is their neighborhood, and they've been space travellers for tens of thousands of years, surely they would have outposts in their local systems, much like Weyland has done? Would a UFO landing on a Weyland colony assume it had guessed correctly the location of our homeworld? Or would it assume, it was 'in the neighborhood'? Holloway and Shaw think they've been proven right by finding an isolated outpost with HUGE do not enter symbols on the roof, that they don't even seem to notice. [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheusV_screencap22.jpg[/img] And the idea that they were going to wipe out Earth with a single ship 2000 years ago was planted in Shaw's head (and some of the audience) by David's cryptic statement. If you watch how David speaks in the film, he is perfectly capable of plain, straightforward answers, but when he wishes to deceive, or insult (both lying and insulting may be strictly against his programming) he uses vague answers that can be interpreted differently. He knows Shaw is religious and fearful at this stage, so it's not much of a leap from 'destroy' to 'Armageddon' for her. But what if EVERY mission to Earth over the past 35,000 years involved destroying humans, by sacrificing some of them on LV 223, or turning them into unnatural creatures (Space jockeys, Xenomorphs or soemthing else.) Then David is describing a routine run to Earth, and allowing Shaw to think it is something much more. (Not strictly lying, but deliberately misleading) After all there are two more visits to Earth more recent than the deaths on LV 223. Most recent is the 7th century visit to Hawai'i. (nobody had reached Hawai'i until the 4th Century - it was one of the last places settled by humans) So if the plan was to wipe us all out. Why didn't the two later ships do it?