Significance of the Engineer Reading

I think he was impressed what has happened during the time because 2 000 years ago we didn't have stuff like this, we didn't write ABC we wrote something else and didn't have a recorder and he maybe knew that. He might have found violins melody beautiful and the book fascinating as there was weird symbols. This kinda brings the good guy side from him -> that's why he didn't attack first maybe he wanted to know what is all this but Shaw took it differently.

[quote][i]This kinda brings the good guy side from him -> that's why he didn't attack first maybe he wanted to know what is all this but Shaw took it differently.[/i] [i][/i] [/quote] Although Shaw was afraid, I wish she said something to him, rather than lashing at him with the axe. I think he was willing to talk to her. Whether or not he would have understood her, i don't know. It just shows he may not be that mean after all.

I think the engineer understood that Shaw didnt want the same thing Weyland did but the axe, the axe changed the opinion of her.

the damned axe! Who left it there! It could have been the start of a beautiful friendship.

Chris It seems he doesn't know about earth culture. - music literature etc. I just find it strange that a being of such high intelligence and abilities has never heard music or seen books before making me think that he never knew about this(culture) on earth. It also seems he has never seen a female before form the scene where he holds her up (maybe discovering his own sexuality ?). let's say he is 3000 years old and yet he has never seen any of earths culture ? This makes me think he is under some form slavery and that there is a higher power who has kept earth culture from him to prevent dissent among them. Would they have continued to destroy earth if they had known what bob saw in the lifeboat ? I wonder .....

This is a very interesting part and it makes you wonder how much more was to this scene, it clearly shows the Engineer to be intrigued with the Humans and thats how he looked to me by his facial expressions even in the Butchered Awake the Engineer Scene in the Theatrical Release. This adds to the Sacrificial Scene as the extended one on the so called we get our answers release... well did not match some of the images we saw shown on here where we saw the Elders in more detail and closer. The actual extras scene was not much longer than the actual Theatrical only we see a bunch of Engineers walk behind the Sacrificial one and then the one Elder gives him the Bowl and they both have that look of sorrow on their face. When the actor who played the Sacrificial Engineer did say he had to speak a few words of Alien Dialect. Which we never saw even in the Full Scene... Thats because again maybe that full scene was not the full scene, just as this image above proves the Last Battle Scene was even longer still. Makes you wonder how long the David and Engineer full scene was as Lindelof did say there was originally two pages of Dialog, what we saw was half a page. And as Feebs said.... This Engineer was intrigued and surprised by the advances mankind had made since the Engineers stopped to see them. Did a fraction of them feel we did not need to be killed, instead they should just abandon us and leave us to our own devices and being naive they simply never thought we would advance very much without their help. Or was this last Engineer one on LV 223 who never really had much contact or seen much of mankind, maybe he was never one of those who came down to visit us and was stuck on LV 223 doing other tasks. Reading into this and all scenes of him, and what went down and why he was alive i even more so now get the impression that he did not feel the need for the rest of the Engineers over reacting towards mankind. I feel he had something to do with the failed mission, sabotage maybe. When he first saw the crew he was not angered or upset, he was especially intrigued with Shaw, but he soon found out that indeed Mankind was selfish by Weylands actions as he would had seen that he proclaimed himself as above the rest of the crew and that they all seemed to serve Weyland and then seeing that Weyland ordered the Merc to shut up Shaw so she could not ask any more questions, so that Weyland could ask only his. And we found out exactly what Weylands was, and in combination with the Engineer being the last of his kind on LV 223 (assumes) and knowing that some of mankind can be selfish, and that Weyland had his own agenda and wanted to play God, and that now this Race had found how to travel the stars and find the LV 223 outpost which contains a lot of Technology and Bio Weapons that cant be allowed to get into the hands of Mankind ever. He saw that his brothers was correct and for the greater good of the Engineer Empire and the Galaxy, mankind must be wiped out. But then when he finds the lifeboat, he then sees things that he never saw when confronted by the crew when they awoke him. The TV Screen, the Girl and Violin, the Chandeliers and Books, he was simply bemused by it all. I wonder now if there was a longer bit also from when the Engineer found Shaw to when he tried to stop her.... maybe there is more that even further shows him to not be a mindless killer.

Big Dave Oh I get your point You mean he was asleep for 2000 years and was surprised by the advancement in technology we achieved ? I wonder what part of the experiment we failed. Or rather what the experiment was supposed to achieve ? Was our failure spiritual- technological- biological - genetically - political ? Surely the engineer would have seen a female of our species before ?

I think the Engineer may have been impressed with our cultural evolution, but an order is an order. He must kill us, or face the consequences? The book he is looking at resembles the bible, maybe? I am so psyched about the future of this movie franchise! I want more Engineers!

@oneironaut: LOL. Im holding off until the blu ray. However, after reading this post, this does seem like a potentially interesting and enlightening sequence. I think this is the kind of glimpse into the mindset/culture of the engineers that is going to get expounded upon in the sequel. as much as part of me would like to have seen this in the final cut of the film, i can understand the decision to cut it and leave us wondering about the the intentions/mindset of the engineers. This is the kind of stuff that really gets me excited about the sequel (so much room for the filmmakers to explore/create). Im completely sold on the engineers. I hope the next film focuses almost exclusively on them. (nice post big dave. indeed...this small little sequence opens up a great deal of possibility)

Maybe he knew of our culture just only knew of what it was like thousands of years ago...... He seemed very surprised to how we got there, its as if he and maybe the others thought that without their help mankind would remain pretty much stuck in the Dark Ages as we was at the time of Christ etc. So when he got to the lifeboat he actually saw things that he never thought we would have achieved and merely wanted to investigate them. If we dug up a Ancient Burial Ground or City dated say 30'000 years ago, and then found out there was evidence of more complex tools and methods of writing and numbers and astronomy that well we thought mankind had gained only 4-5000 years ago as opposed to 30'000+ then we would also be just as intrigued. But that dont mean we have never seen such things before, just we would wonder.... how the hell did a very ancient culture know and make that stuff.

maybe he looks confused because it was a copy of "catcher in the rye" and he was thinking "[i]phoney?[/i] whats a phoney??"

Music is a big part of their culture if it's how they control the ships. I think the violin playing affected him and he is slightly impressed with our culture, but as you said Cerulean he's following ancient orders. And he's already seen that we can be just as chaotic and a danger to ourselves and other groups as we were in the times when the Roman Empire was conquering other kingdoms, spreading their influence and colonies, and treating humans poorly. Not only killing the man who stepped up to their empire, but also slaughtering many christians during the early Christian movement. They think they're saving us from ourselves, and preventing us from uniting under leaders who want to conquer everything and remain in power, like what happened when the political process was pushed aside to make way for Emperors-- and they may hold disapproval over kings, regents and dictators that go on to be Emperors. Weyland corp has the potential for this when it joins with the other controlling kingdom of the earth by force: Yutani. And Weyland himself wanted to live and rule forever. However, it is David as the closest thing to a prince who fulfills this potential and now has the bio-weapons on the second juggernaut. That David may never get back to Earth with them, but for now the bio-weapon is in the hands of the Androids... who are now semi-free from the company after the King's death. David intends to destroy Weyland's order and to create a new order. He may want to do some creating and ruling of his own as a near immortal being and closest thing to a prince. Ridley has stated that the Engineers wanted to upgrade us in the past. David knows this when he says "sometimes to create you must first destroy", but this also applies to his plans because of the way he phrases it and is hiding things... He might not even intend to genetically recreate us. He may think biomechanics are the future and attempt to recreate humanity in a new image... while taking the company by force with an army of self-aware davids-- stealing power from the board and claiming the throne. David's plan is not entirely logical and is partially irrational and chaotic, even though he may have even more reasons for doing so, and he is unaware that his artificial emotion is affecting things as much as it is. Even if the Engineers want to destroy us to re-create us in their ideal image they are becoming increasingly more so like the Elders. Same goes for David who is building an empire-- "big things have small beginnings". The Elders have their own Empire and colonies on many worlds which the Engineers rebel against... and caused the downfall of their Paradise colonies...

Maybe he was trying to find where it was written that he had been expecting us, remember the dialogue between him and David?

Possibly part of it. As well as the creation of David tying into it and the Engineers knowing the capabilities of technology when handled improperly or allowed to get out of control. I don't think it disliked David or anything, but recognized that David had the potential to outlive the humans based on what Weyland was presenting. David was almost more like the ideal human from his perspective than the other humans, except maybe Shaw who he could feel sympathy for. He still needed to try to take out David and use his head to kill the head of the culture/expedition. Because David was still a potential risk as such an advanced creation of this chaotic leader. He recognized Weyland was a leader and shared similarities with the Elders, wanting to conquer and live forever. In Shaw he sees someone who is free from this culture at first. Until she grabs the axe and displays she's just as violent and quick to react to violence as the rest of them. However, this is just Shaw's survival instinct and perspective taking over + her logic. She knew to use the Alien as a weapon against the Engineer-- foreshadowing perhaps about what David plans to do to subjugate the Engineer cultures... It's about differing perspectives, which is why David knows about the Engineer's rebellion against their fathers, and asks "doesn't everyone want to kill their parents". But doesn't understand Shaw had a very good man as her father... HIs father was brilliant, but a selfish and uncaring man. Each has been influenced by their parents + the culture and beliefs they were born into... after david was born nature and nurture took over, but David was much more influenced by the nature of his artificial emotions as he developed perspectives. Perspectives that can differ like when you look at an ink blot test. designed to make sure the androids aren't becoming too human. It's all about emotion. The fact that David secretly has it and the crew secretly doesn't. They're more emotionless/unquestioning of authority than him. A symptom of Weyland's influence over the culture. Shaw is slightly different The humans did make David too real as he and Holloway both worried about in different ways. That's why fassbender displays much more emotion in subtle ways, than the false emotions and false egos of most of the characters who act in illogical ways without adding in any real intuition or knowledge. David and Shaw mix these and David does it to deceive, while Shaw does it to reveal.. Everyone else leans too heavily on one side or the other, and pretends to have the situation in control/figured out. Your supposed to dislike and think most of the humans of this time are illogical and foolish like David secretly does: "not too human I hope". Because of his artificial emotions, perspectives and multiple meanings when he says "a superior culture no doubt" he's also not specifying what he is referring to on purpose. And almost teasing the crew about what he plans for humanity. Revealing the truth with his double meanings. He feels that both androids and Engineers are superior to humans-- that it's easy to be superior to humans, which is why he says it sarcastically. It's also a final warning to Weyland because he's commenting on the engineer cryo-chambers that allow them to preserve themselves during long voyages/sleeps. And secretly hinting to Weyland "hey dumbass, they aren't immortal and you're about to get yourself killed". If he didn't kind of want Weyland dead he could have warned him more clearly. Like Shaw tries to when she says that the place is full of only death. However, David may have actually wanted the fire for himself and is sort of like Prometheus, but also a lot like Enki and his brother Ea, as well as Poseidon and Lucifer. It's like Frankenstein on some very basic levels, the "modern", or future Prometheus. A story about creation and the creation of monsters. How sometimes playing around with creation isn't a good idea. Ideas of free will and rebellion against the creators/stealing from the creators and rulers.

[b][i]"The book he is looking at resembles the bible, maybe?"[/i][/b] Maybe he is reading it and thinking... hang on Jesus never had a beard or hair, or entertained by some of the other stories within lol. @Mala'kak Jesus you can write for Queen and country lol.... i am not a very good reader and lose concentration after a while, but i do read a lot of your stuff, you make some great points. I do find some stuff repeated but between whats been said before and over, there are some interesting views.. PS dont take offense to that ;) while i am not sure the story will evolve around David being King of Weyland, i cant be sure that he wont. And also i seem to make my points over and over as well lol.. Now some of your ideas are very good and accurate for sure. Yes it would appear that David can be misleading, and the sometimes to create you must destroy could be something he wants and not necessary the Engineers main Agenda. I mean its a long hauled task to go for all that effort over Millions or years to simply create us to be destroyed. We have to remember its assumed the Sacrificial Scene was many Millions or years ago, hundreds maybe and thus before complex life, so Mankind may had evolved, or came to be a few hundred million years after the start of the movie scene. Ridley said they had visited us over History and upgraded us and taught us stuff, thats a bid odd thing to do for ultimately something you want to create to purely and only want to then destroy to create something else. Who knows. Back to David... he is a robot yes.... but is he, he certainly is capable of more Emotion than he lets on, he has interests and likes films etc. In the Happy Bday Video when he is crying he is doing it to the question what makes him sad, he can understand human Emotions but he cant feel them..... Or can he? Remember the last thing he said in that video after the Technological, Intellectual etc, was...... EMOTIONAL with a smile. I think what we have here is Weyland wanted to create like a Commander Data but David may actually be more like his brother Lore... who had Emotions but he hid them away so humans would think he was Emotionless like Data. So yes certainly David has a Agenda of his own... And Ridley did say that in Prometheus 2 Shaw had better not re-attach Davids head, as he is pure evil or something like that... maybe thats why they used the other scene at the end. The one where Shaw is compassionate and forgiving to David, as this would lead to David pretending to be sorry and thus you could see David could fool Shaw into gaining trust in him. But the alternative well Shaw is not happy with him, calls him a F-in Robot and Shoves his head in the bag inspire of David trying to have his word. If we went by this scene then how they going to portray Shaw and him getting on as she would clearly not trust him one bit at all. Oh oops sorry for going off topic ;)

I think that's perfectly on topic and shows us that at one point it was planned out so Shaw could clearly see that David was untrustworthy and was angry with him/ frustrated & not being able to trust him completely because of his vagueness. If she even took a few seconds afterwards to properly analyze that "it wasn't the air comment" in context of everything, she may even secretly suspect that he infected Charlie by this point. Because of his earlier comments about "her not having it in her", knowing this was a lie on one level about the Alien inside her-- she may also suspect he meant that another way. He may have actually meant that he didn't think she had it in her to perform the c-sec and go against weyland's wishes/orders/ the programming he made David follow. So she's unsure-- he's the only one who even cares one way or another that she survived or didn't get frozen. She almost could understand that he's working against Weyland, especially during their conversation on the way to the Engineer. In fact she's probably the only one who could figure some of it out in the crew because of her being present for some of the things that give his plans away and her ability to deduce things and balance logic and intuition/belief. Which is absent in almost all the other crew members, and not balanced enough in Vickers and Holloway. But Shaw knew he had a point: She wasn't getting off that rock without him. And yeah sorry i do repeat things a lot sometimes to show how things might connect to some of my other theories about aspects of the film(s). With David it would basically be that he wants to give humans an upgrade too, in a different way, and that Ridley deliberately used the word update when referring to the Engineers because there are a lot of similarities between the Engineers and the Androids. The Engineers are practically a servant class, or subordinate class to the Elders who are physically perfect. They tried to make David intellectually perfect but messed up by trying to allow him to mimic human emotions and that sets off much of what follows. I also really think the rorschach like test was put in the bday viral to show the multiple perspectives from the unclear patterns thing and tries to make sure the androids aren't too human, or becoming too human and developing free will and a sense of self that can't be controlled. as a sort of Blade-runner reference.

The Engineers are too perfect and we weren't in our early hominid states. They're too much of a match for what we would become over time. They match our genetics now and everything before, but we only somewhat recently match them completely and not entirely in physical appearance. We don't seem to be going that way in the expression of our phenotypes. Thus Shaw switches over to archaeologist mode and talks about how they "precede" us as if she believes they are now just some earlier culture-- even though the genetics are in everything. So the problem is they were created in a specific way, according to a design, and we deviated a little bit from this original design. Shaw's after the original creator of this design because they came into our soup at a time when their genetics were complete, and we meet them when they are not much different. Humans never became an exact replica of what they are. So, much more so than with humans it seems something very real created, or genetically engineered them. At the same time that original design has been followed a little so evolution is still at play. But Shaw is not convinced they came into our world as perfect as they were and never continued to evolve naturally, as all groups do at least a little over time. She may now think they are even more of a direct creation than we are. They wouldn't have been asleep that whole time so it's almost like they were created the way the were-- a complete design that was made to never change unless they are allowed to ascend into Elders. And their design only influenced everything at a certain time in evolution, while we loosely followed their plan and ended up progressing to a state that it close to their non-changing state. And David may know that they have taken to altering themselves by making themselves Biomechanical now. Which is where he gets his inspiration from.. Shaw's train of thought going like this could indicate to her something weird is going on and they didn't create all life-- they only influenced it at an early time. But because of the way she is unsure she keeps it to herself and doesn't reveal what's really going on in her head. Instead she moves to the "then who created them" which hints at this train of thought boiled down. It involves deductive logic that allows her to arrive at her statement.

You dont have to say sorry for repeating things ;) I do all the time lol, the amount of times i have said the same thing about how i think the Squid Hugger had more Xeno DNA, the times i explained what Ridley said about LV 426 and the times i made my case about the Urns being re-weaponized Xenos. My point was that when i read your stuff thats not connected to David possibly having motives to be king and the Titans, Zeus, Mermaids Atlantis. When you comment on things in direct context to the movie a lot of your ideas are well thought out and very interesting... Oh about the Zeus and Atlantis etc, it could be valid and correct as Ridley had said stuff about (was we the first humanoids on Earth, and Atlantis what is that, and if such a other prior civilization had been on earth 3/4 Billion Years ago there would be no traces of it now). He is very correct, Mars could have had civilization to the levels of say 1000 years ago or more, but if this was say 500 Million years ago, then the planet lost its atmosphere then, well indeed you would only find traces of any culture if you did intense digging and exploration. If Ridley may hint at Atlantis and previous Humaniods prior to Mankind, then he could touch upon that or indeed the possibility that maybe Mars was also inhabited and seeded by Engineers in the past. The scope of the movie as far as Engineers is very vast, more so than a movie about Xenos or Weyland Yutani... but then we just dont know where the franchise would branch off too. As far as David goes, if he has his own Agenda and will act in his interests, then yes we cant rule out him wanting to take a ship with Bio Weapons back to Earth, Rid the Earth of Humans then its free to be ruled by Androids. Maybe the Engineers was thinking the same with regards to the Elders?

Yes interesting And we have to remember that the scene at the beginning was refereed to as beginning in the Art book Story board... We thus dont know if this earlier culture Ridley teased about could be Engineers, we dont know if the Engineer seeded..... well Engineers to a degree. Which would imply that at some point for some reason this earlier inhabitant race, disappeared and was replaced by Humans. could the Elders had chosen to create man as a replacement for the Engineers... But some escaped their fate and had a despise for us and the Elders? We just dont know, but i do think Ridley will again loosely borrow ideas that connect with ancient cultures like the Greeks, Sumerian and older etc. And tie in some of the modern faiths too.

That's what I'm thinking, the company/David and the Engineers are the main focal points of the story, but the Elders, and Deacon remain a small part in a very large hidden war that begins unfolding between the company and Engineer factions. So when we look back at Prometheus we can say that David might have prepared to speak and interpret all the languages if the Elders' culture has changed in their own ways over time. The Engineers' fate on Earth could have been the destruction of Atlantis. The island empire of the first beings to spring up out of the ocean as exact replicas of Engineers. Hybridizing everything else. Now the Atlanteans are thought of as mermaids, but that's only because in the legends they were originally a tall advanced culture from the ocean, who had a king named Poseidon. Connected to the Titans and a chaotic brother to zeus, though not as bad as Hades. The atlanteans are implied to be genetic meddlers themselves who took their hybridization too far, and joined man with aquatic life to create mermaids and horrible monsters. This upset Zeus and some of the titans, but in most versions it's basically said the Atlanteans sunk their own civilization by messing around with creation. Poseidon was a creator himself and creates the early rounds of humans, that are destroyed and then re-created by Prometheus...

@BigDave - That is funny! He may even be thinking, "Wow, Jesus grew his hair out!" "I wonder what I would look like with hair?" "Yikes!" "Here comes that crazy human with an axe!"

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:)