Is Ridley Scott trying to rewrite history with Prometheus?

Sparty, the behind the scenes photos show Fifield with prostetics making his head large and i swear he looks exactly like the mural beast. Those scenes must have been cut

Yep, this is a issue that I've done a lot of thinking about myself too. So here goes my 2 cents: As for the mural on the ceiling in Prometheus, IMO it does not specifically indicate the alien/xeno life cycle in terms of a "human" host. To me, it simply shows the alien/xeno life cycle... in terms of a "humanoid" type of host. So this could very well be signifying humans, engineers, or any other type of humanoid life form. The point being, it's not definitive, so there's room for speculation. And given this room for speculation, it could simply be that the mural represents that the engineers simply know the stages, and the end result of a union between a humanoid and an alien egg. And perhaps this mural was their way of documenting it. Okay, as for the the SJ and the ship from Alien... my theory is that the engineers had originally come across the xeno eggs at some time in the past, and maybe in some other part of the galaxy. In time, they had seen and experienced what the xeno life form was all about, and what it was capable of. With this firsthand knowledge and experience, they realized what a dangerous and potentially useful organism the xeno was, and therefore they decided to harvest them for their own uses. Now how long the engineers been harvesting, studying, and using the xeno's... who knows. But my guess is that in time, they learned that the xeno eggs were perhaps too unstable and dangerous to be controlled and used effectively. So they started tinkering with the xeno DNA and they eventually came up with the urns, which we see in Prometheus, which are much more safe and stable for them to use. But in order to produce the urns, they had to continue to study and continuously modify the xeno eggs, which required them to keep harvesting them. Now perhaps this is where the original SJ from Alien fits in. Maybe the SJ was simply traveling with new xeno eggs cargo, or perhaps just transporting the eggs to another location. Either way, it doesn't really matter, because the outcome was that at some point in time, and in some way or another... at least one of the eggs, either from his cargo or from wherever he came from, had become active and a facehugger had impregnated him. Then, either the SJ could sense and knew he was doomed, so he landed on the nearest isolated planet, or it was critical and he had to make an emergency crash landing on the nearest planet. Whether the SJ purposely crashed or settled down on LV-426 is a whole other matter. And whether his warning beacon was meant for his own race or any other race, is another matter as well. I think it's safe to say that if the other engineers learned of the infection and crash, and knowing how dangerous xeno's and eggs are... they could have easily decided to just leave the crashed ship and cargo there. The warning was to stay away, and they know the danger, so why risk anything more. They lost one member and one ship... so be it... back to work. That's my theory about the original SJ and the xeno/eggs in Alien. It's just my best guess on how to tie things together, and it seems to make sense to me. And I'm sure there are some holes in my theory that I haven't thought of. There are still many questions in my mind about other things, but perhaps some of the details are better left ambiguous. It's more fun and entertaining that way. Peace

I agree with the last little bit of your statement there Spartacus, however that would also perhaps seem overly simplified. Although I have to disagree with you about Aliens, I loved that movie just as much as the first, simply for the greater exposition into the universe created for that series. I would maintain though, that the proto-xeno really just shows us what happens under generally uncontrolled circumstances when you combine some of the basic "ingredients" necessary for a true xenomorph. The mural depicting a fully developed xenomorph on that wall gives a clue that the Engineers have long since worked out those kinks and have created the xenomorph we know already. I would say the occam's razor approach to this is basically that humans were bred for genetic stock, as many other potential groups were as well. And if you add everything up, this movie was nothing more than an example to give us a few clues regarding the bigger picture. Human beings have been a genetic component of the xenomorph and have unwillingly participated in experiments for a long time, I really find what Ridley Scott said in that interview alluding to Jesus Christ being an emissary of the Engineers to be quite inconsistent with what we know about them. They don't give two shits about human beings, we're livestock to them, they don't want to "punish" us, and as David said toward the end of the movie when Shaw asked why they were sending the ship to earth. Something to the effect of: "Sometimes you have to destroy in order to create". That ship was intended to expedite the production or research process. Just imagine how disappointed a more primitive society would be to realize we're just as violent and petty as they are, only we're more technologically advanced.

Post edit: add on A few other thoughts: - We don't know that the engineers are all gone, or that the one that was woken up was the last of their race. We don't even know whether they had different races or species of engineers. After all, the one we see at the beginning of Prometheus looks very different from the one at the end of the film. So they could still be operating in many other places and on many other planets, even after the Prometheus events. - The alien/xeno mystique is very much alive a well, because we don't know anything about it's origins. It's not stated for fact that they were created specifically by the engineers, at least not yet. They could have come from anywhere, and anytime. For that matter, we don't know that much about the engineers either. There's still plenty of mystery within the Prometheus/Alien world. Maybe the sequels will tell us more... maybe not.