Why was the engineer sleeping?

Between any 2 simple questions about the film there can be a million complex and/or convoluted theories put out by the fans/critics of the film. You asked "Why was the engineer sleeping?" I ask "Why was the engineer the only one of his kind who was both alive and who did not have a head and/or chest burst?". I will accept/assume that a Xeno (or Xenos) somehow gestated, got loose and then took out and collected the Engineer’s that ended up in the pile of bodies that “Highfield” and Milburn came across but how (and when) did the sleeping Engineer’s 3 fellow “flight deck” crew members get exposed to the black goo and/or Xeno? Was it before or while they were in hyper-sleep? And where did the 3 “flight deck” chest busters go once they “busted out” of their hosts bodies? Oh, this movie keeps sucking me back in! It's enticing, exciting and frustrating!

Maybe, they all went into cryosleep hoping there would be some kind of cure for them in the future for whatever got them... ala Weyland. Or they went into cryosleep for their own protection, hoping that whatever was going on would pass. As if they were some type of chosen ones to not mee the same fate. But three of them we'rent as lucky s they thought. This still leaves the question, what were they expecting to do with the ship? As it hadn't left for any course they may have been planning? There wasn't anyone else to pilot it. Was one of the three that dies supposed to have woken first? He could have just been left there forever. Had he been asleep for 2000 years?

[u]MVMNT[/u]: After my first viewing of the film I came to the belief that the Engineer's on the "flight deck" crew worked and slept in shifts. "Prometheus" gives us proof that a single Engineer can operate the Juggernaut. Until just now I used to think an interstellar flight from LV-223 to Earth should involve more than one Engineer but then it hit me that David was the only crew member who was not in hyper-sleep during the trip from Earth to LV-223. Writing that thought makes me think about the notion that on some level David was superior/different to the Engineers in that David did not require hyper-sleep during the flight from Earth. So, David and the Engineers are simultaneously both more and less than one another and also more and less than human in their needs and abilities. Do you remember if the scene in which David activates the holographic footage on the control deck of the Juggernaut suggests in any way that the Engineer at the controls makes his way to his sleep pod? I meant to look for that info when I saw the film for the third time but then I got sucked into watching the footage of the star map. The reason I ask is because I wonder if the other Engineers who died in their hyper-sleep chambers were expecting the Engineer who was at the “flight deck” controls to perform some type of action that we do not know about it, something as “simple” and direct (and non-nefarious) as piloting the Juggernaut.

synthetic 69 The Engineer at the controls was not shown taking a position in a sleep pod, the camera stayed with David and the various projections, and yeah there was all kinds of 3D candy going on in that scene to overload one's focus. And dammit I missed whether or not a homeworld was indicated within the map. I did see later the Last Engineer plot a trajectory for Earth. This film from the very beginning has been about the continual 'reveal' factor...the PR campaign, the film itself with required multiple viewings to get it all down...and finally the home version, containing footage from many scenes that provide definition and clarification for the film, skillfully edited to make the theaters happy and the disc buyers more to discover. It's too bad so many people were put off by this film...just didn't have the patience to absorb it.

[u]Forever[/u]: Thanks for the post. i just got back from seeing the film for the fourth time and I did my damndest to ignore the star map and focus only on the figures of the Engineers. Here's some things that struck me about the scene: - We see an Engineer kneel at a wall that is beside the "flight deck" platform in order to perform an unknown task. - We see some (2? 3?) of the Engineers manipulating the hyper-sleep chambers. - I may very well be wrong but I was not convinced that I saw more than 2 hyper-sleep chambers that have "chest burster" holes in their canopy/facade. - The holographic playback signal ends abruptly as if it were interrupted. On a separate note, I'll tell you this: I may be wrong but I'm increasingly convinced that there is a possibility that the last surviving Engineer was coming to save Shaw from "Cuddles". In that scene the Engineer crosses over to Shaw and does not lay a finger on her before she hits the "open" button that releases Cuddles. I'm really thinking the "We were so wrong" line is a statement about how the film filters the version of events that take place in the film through the eyes and minds of some characters who are myopic in their naivete (Shaw) or grandiosity (Weyland). Then there's David, who's brilliant, scheming, manipulative and knows more about than anyone else about what's going around him, including the Engineer.

synthetic 69...Thanks for the refresher, I've got someone here that saw the film with me all the times that I did and he concurs with your fresh observations, especially about Shaw and the Engineer. Now, I feel this.....that he could have killed her in the juggernaut, ran her down and did her in...but he didn't. Was it what she said to him before she was silenced? Did he discern the difference between her pleading and Weylands brutality? I think so. And in the lifeboat, even after he plows his way in and grabs her, he's got plenty of time to break her neck but he doesnt. I dont have the part of the missing scene where he's holding her by the neck with one hand while she's got the fire ax but it exists...he could snuff her out there again..but he doesn't. I think he was giving her a chance to tell him why he shouldnt kill her....and then, in her panic and fear, she lets loose his death. I hadnt even THOUGHT of the possibility that he was hauling ass over to the lifeboat to save HER....good one there....if David could warn her that the Engineer was on his way, maybe he knew why, but didnt tell her everything....he could only know the Engineers intentions if he communicated with him. Why the hell didnt the theater have the home release for sale right there at the snack bar hahahaha

Great reads! Anyone have a pic of the chest-bursted canopy chamber things? I did not notice that..

But, then there's the scene of the Engineer raising Shaw by her throat. [img]http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/6995/2qcicli.jpg[/img] Also RS himself said they cut the scene of her hitting him with an axe as that showed weakness in the Engineer that diminished his imposing threat toward her.

That's the scene I was talking about right there. But then Ridley said this was an Alien prequel....where's Giger's Alien? Ridley and Lindelof have gone round and round with all kinds of statements about this film and I beleive this whole "diminshed Engineer" thing is simply another dodge. It's a critical scene that I think Ridley is saving to be discovered by the true full audience of this film...the home viewer, the real moneymaker for films today.

this is not a prequel. and its not an "alien" movie. It a lot more. Ridley really blew my mind... He also said, hey, its just a movie! But Ridley knows that there´s a lot more than video games, monsters and stuff the way the ship is presented is very accurate of "how extraterrestrial ships are" they are: organic. We really come from them. David is the king david, like the hebrew king. Elizabeth is the new EVE. both of them are the most sensitive (yes, including the robot) This is a very very beautiful film. A great great screenplay. Music. Great casting. Michael Fassbender is really AWESOME!!! his performance is sutile and refined but with such power!! He see how he step by step evolves, and shows more and more HUMAN FEELINGS!!! He is in love with Elisabeth, he is there for her, for a purpose!!!! A great movie.

@Gabous....Damn right....and it ain't over yet.

[u]Gabous[/u]: Nice post. [u]Forever[/u]: Thanks for the new post and the kind words. Regarding David, you wrote: “…he could only know the Engineers intentions if he communicated with him.” Last night before I went to bed I had a thought about the film that is driving me nuts. I’m going to try to get it out in a clear and concise fashion. It’s related to something that [u]Hadley’s[/u] wrote about in this thread: [url=http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/8308]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/8818&page=2[/url] (Note: I’ll be upfront and say that I’ll likely mangle some of the wording of bits of “Prometheus” dialog that I’m about to quote/reference. I’ve done some browsing in order to try and find video clips and/or transcripts of the scenes that I’m discussing, so perhaps I won’t f*ck this up too badly). Near the end of the film when David alerts Elizabeth to the imminent arrival of the Engineer at the “life raft” he says the following words to her: “Elizabeth? Are you there?” “He’s coming for you.” At this point in the film we are well aware that David has a directive, a desire and the ability to re-package/circumnavigate both fact and standard human morality via the manipulation of the spoken word (e.g. David to Charlie: “How far would you go to get what you came all this way for, your answers? What would you be willing to do?”). In the above quoted words that David spoke to Elizabeth he does not say why the Engineer is traveling from the crashed Juggernaut to the “life boat”. If [u]Hadley’s[/u] is correct and David did speak to the Engineer a second time then it is entirely possible that David imparted to the Engineer the fact that Elizabeth had been indirectly infected by the Black Goo (B.G.). That means that hypothetically the Engineer could be looking for Elizabeth in order to either save her from Cuddles or kill her because she represents a female host for the B.G. The latter notion touches upon various thoughts and observations that people have put forth about how the B.G. interacts with its hosts/those it infects. We know that David infected Charlie with the B.G. after putting Charlie through a maze of warped Android logic that he had no idea he was entering. Thus, the phrase “He’s coming for you” can be interpreted as being factual while it is simultaneously also a partial truth because it is but a single fact that is part of a larger truth that is being intentionally obscured by David. His words to Elizabeth about the Engineer lack both context and intent. David is giving a partial truth to a woman who is physically and emotionally traumatized and who has come to believe, rightly or wrongly, that the Engineers intended to wipe out human life on Earth. If David was trying to play Elizabeth against the Engineer then all that David had to do was to give Elizabeth a simple fact and she would of course react to that information via her own fears and survival instincts even if the truth was that the Engineer did not intend to to kill her. I have now seen the film 4 times and I increasingly think that lines such as “We were so wrong” and “He’s coming for you” are representative of a profound act of misdirection on the part of Scott and the script writers (note to the Lindelof haters: for the love of G_d, please do not take my last comment as a reason to start a new war over how Lindelof is worse than Satan). I just cannot help feel that this film is just one part (one half?) of a larger project that Scott undertook when he began working on “Prometheus”. Christ, I hope that I made some sense in this post.

synthetic, good post, fun read. I definitely see truth in your analysis. And looking at the picture on the previous page, of engineer holding Shaw by her neck... just look at that bio-suit he's wearing, or fused with. That thing is aesthetically similar to the xenomorph build. What's up with that?

Jack It's exactly what you said it is..a suit, his outer skin is literally engineered as a suit that interfaces with the juggernaut's pilot chair....and who knows what else maybe.

[u]Jack[/u]: Thanks. In regards to your remark about the suit, [u]Forever[/u] beat me to the punch. The film seems to show that that there are at least 2 different "breeds" of Engineers, those whose skin seems to be designed in the manner of a multi-purpose "activity suit" and those who do not have that "suit" and instead just have "regular" skin. Although the "suit" seems to be part of the "skin" of the Engineers who are wearing the "suits", we have no idea if there is any way for the "suit" to be removed or deactivated.

I would hazard a guess and say that suit doesn't come off...it IS them, at least that particular model or variation of Engineer...that's his role, that's my guess. The same goes for the Waterfall model, that's his role as well...jeez these guys do a lot of dying and getting killed...I'd be more inclined to find some safe mortality and back off that Godhood thing.

[u]Forever[/u]: The sacrificial Engineer and the ship that seemingly deposited him on the planet where he drinks the Black Goo both display distinct visual differences in comparison with the hyper-sleep Engineer and the Juggernaut upon which he is found by David. At this point there is no way of knowing whether or not these visual differences represent (a) the fact that there are simply various groups of Engineers who in their culture fill different roles (e.g. religious or military) or (b) the fact that there are different factions of Engineers who have different/opposing agendas or world views. While I enjoy all of this theorizing I will be glad when the day arrives that there is more clarity about what it is that we have seen unfold in "Prometheus".