The Origin of Man is Not on Earth

it was never mentioned, dates/locations for EVERY OTHER opening scene, just not that (ULTRA IMPORTANT) one.

You're kind of led to believe it's Earth, because why have the scene at all if the movie was about OUR beginnings? Also, having the Detifloss waterfall as the setting in that scene is pretty recognizable for Earth. True, it COULD be "anywhere" but I think it was used purposely to tie it in to an Earth location............

I guessed the poster saying, 'The origin of man is not on Earth', to mean our originators are not from the Earth?

Yes it was on Earth, the crew even confirms it here: [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dc_zsM2p34&feature=youtu.be]Engineer as his DNA unwinds and he falls into the waterfall of primordial Earth. [/url] Cerulean Blue is correct, they mean our creators are not from Earth, as in we were engineered and not evolved.

I can hardly wait for the Blu-Ray!

I think there's a little back and forth between being Engineered and them influencing and speeding up evolution. I think the original Engineer design is completely Engineered-- for one they have no nipples but are still a match with us... Meaning they still have that x chromosome in their genetics somewhere, but it's been repressed. When they lead to our creation the two sexes are able to both express themselves again. And we have an organization system that favors women being one of the dominant themes in the ancient world before all the great civilizations/cultures referenced in Prometheus come about. Think about it, the links to religion and how Eve/Pandora might be being referenced. Adam is created first, but Eve is created by taking part of Adam's rib-- part of his genetics and separating it out of him. I think the original genetically engineered Engineer design influenced and sped up all of evolution. All life on Earth became hybridized with them; while early hominids were able to keep morphing into a recreation of the original design. They had to destroy that original design and let it rebuild itself for us to be created. We're more like a recreation of them that has slightly different characteristics. This is the Engineers' form of creation-- to create they must first destroy an existing design and let it hybridize, or force it to hybridize to add new elements to it and let it rebuild itself. Even the Elders may not have immortality and instead if any immortality is seen it will be a form of death and rebirth-- tying in with some of the religious themes. There's no immortality only death and rebirth. This would be how the Alien morphing cycle works to a more monstrous effect. It completely destroys the organism being morphed then joins it with the Alien genetics on a genetic level to overwrite the biological material and recreate it as something else-- forcing the organism being morphed to rewrite itself as the Alien genetics. Turning the organism into an egg in the old movie(s); while having slightly modified morphing skills and being able to morph dead lifeforms in Prometheus. When the Deacon is born as a re-creation of the Alien it carries slightly different characteristics-- prefers the morphing cycle and can reanimate dead cells. (Shaw's infertility, Fifield monster) Call it an intelligent design, if you will :) An intelligent design that rewrites the existing life by combining itself with it, or even life that once existed-- as a hybrid form of Engineer and original Earth elements. Like guided Panspermia that only changes and heavily influences the existing life by making us follow their original design. We have Shaws' statement that says that they're everything... So in a way the original human design was created elsewhere, but like the Deacon the genetics are following a much older design... To me this tells us the original design was created in a way where when broken down and added to a planet's developing life it can hybridize itself with the existing life. After being broken down, it speeds up, morphs and guides/changes the course of how we evolved on Earth... Making us lean towards that original design eventually, but having slight variations from it and being the newest version of them... a recreation in the way the Deacon may be the reborn hybridized version of the Alien genetics... Additionally this might tie into Ridley's statements about how they returned to try to upgrade us in the past. To make sure the design hadn't strayed too far from their original intentions. This could be the explanation for some of our sudden leaps in Evolution over our history as a species. There are still some somewhat unexplained things like the 200cc increase in Cranial capacity that suddenly emerges 200 000 years ago, and is commonly associated with increases in culture and changing the way we were thinking. What if they're saying Evolution was guided towards a preexisting design? And that some of the strange things like the Cambrian explosion could have a sci-fi reason for them in this series? We were so wrong about them being gods... Even the Alien Trilobite carries associations with the Cambrian explosion and evolution, but the earth Trilobite is also the precursor of all human life. The first creature to have a spinal cord. So even by using the word Trilobite they're suggesting themes that have to do with evolution in our ancient Oceans. The earth Trilobite is our ancient ancestor. And in this view its design would have been easy to rewrite and then keep morphing towards the Engineers' original design. So they could be saying that evolution happened, but it didn't happen naturally. They're saying that evolution and the morphing/ emergence of new traits and random mutations is not a random thing. Scientists/geneticists who actually believe in some form of intelligent design make some pretty strong arguments because of some of the weird things and repeating patterns that we don't understand completely about evolution yet. For engineers to create something new it may be easier to follow an existing plan up to a certain point. To reverse Engineer something and then combine it with new elements in new ways to use the parts of that original design for a whole new machine. Designs that work well get reused, and in evolution ones that don't lead to dead ends. However, sometimes the same design for organs/the organism's parts and other arrangements of cells/genes/bodily systems seems to pop up in completely unrelated species. Following the same design. This is because on a basic level so many things inside a body have followed multiple different designs that are common in other species in nature. Some creatures adapt and change over time and generations to have different eyes that see better in the dark, for example. This could pop up and develop in any species that needs to see in the dark. Advantageous traits get passed forwards by way of reproductive success. And plans/designs that seem to work for organisms all across the board sometimes show up as an adaption in a species that is not evolutionarily directly linked to others that have that characteristic. All because everything is actually linked to a single celled organism before it starts to differentiate. In this case eventually being hybridized with Engineer genetics after a long time. It was just revealed that the Engineers were here only about 500 000 million years ago. They didn't create all life on earth, it's more like 50-50. At times evolutions seems to follow a pre-existing plan that allows organisms to upgrade themselves in ways that are already wired in deep down for them to adapt with over time and generations... So the advantageous traits keep showing up and we keep changing as a species. But here it would mean that the Engineers' genetics allowed the hominid line to evolve in an unnatural way-- speeding everything up and explaining gaps in evolutionary theory-- particularly in the last 200 000 years. The Alien can take advantageous traits from organisms and pass them on to the chest-burster generations... a big part that ties this all together and could mean that the theory that they harvest genetics is correct. For a lot of these reasons I'm now looking into that theory: SubsumeYou's idea that he brought up yesterday that the Engineers do in fact harvest genetic material and advantageous traits for their own purposes. But maybe they were originally working for the Elders... It's similar to how a sperm works. When the seed is planted it penetrates into the awaiting life (the egg) and deposits the half of the parents genetic material that it contains. The egg in this case is Gaia or Earth, and already contains half of the genetics for what we will become, and allows us to differentiate from the Engineers: our other parent. They break themselves down so the genetics can be combined, but it's like when humans mate-- you get some of the traits from the one parent, and some of the traits from the other parent Gaia. So the Earth goddess aspect is huge in this, and females/the female side are the true creators of life... The sperm only morphs and adds its genetics to the already existing other half of the genetics. It becomes a 50-50 thing, half the genetics from one, half from the other because the gametes contain only half the chromosomes. The sperm joins with the egg and becomes a part of it, but it's the egg that grows and develops into the full organism. This is very important. Shaw was infertile so the infected Holloway sperm only morphed and reanimated a dead cell and completely rewrote it. There is very little female influence on the Deacon, because the genetics had to reanimate the dead cells before morphing and developing the egg. As i said if they're a genetic match for us, then deep down they have to have a similar arrangement. But we've picked up genes that are able to be expressed in different ways and we've reverted to having two sexes. Why have we not seen female Engineers? is there something different about them? do they exist? is there sexual dimorphism in the species? What's their culture like? Is there a patriarchy or a matriarchy, or even simply a hierarchy? These are all questions the archaeologists should have asked. But in this culture even Shaw is somewhat unquestioning of authority and illogical at times. Have you ever seen American Beauty?? All the characters in that movie are secretly crazy except for Lester, who is less crazy and a product of his environment. Lester's doing bad things in American Beauty as the only way to escape the miserable situation he's in. He wants freedom from it, because all the people of this time around him suck (except partially Shaw), and are secretly completely crazy and void of true emotion. Weyland doesn't even care one way or another what happened to Shaw. David actually did, which is why he tells her he didn't think she had it "in her", with an almost triple or quadruple meaning to that line. David 8 has an emotional 'understanding'. David is Lester in a way... everyone in the crew are slaves to their false egos and semi- emotionless/irrational nature or Weyland. In a way they're all the true robotic slaves to Weyland corp. While David is becoming more real, displaying more emotion and complicated actions, gaining free-will. Becoming "not too" human he hopes... He's secretly breaking free from Weyland and more emotional and logical than all of the crew. The crew are all supposed to be morons except Shaw, as a reflection of the culture Weyland helped morph, shape, and create with his own image of a god-king in mind. They're all slaves to the king, while David is the prince who knows what's going on and wants to break free. Wants to see his parents die... he's a product of both his father and the culture of that time... Which connects to a lot of the above in this long ass post. Someday I'll break it all down and recombine it to show u how I think it all connects more clearly by upgrading it. Morphing it and changing it to reflect the patterns and designs. I won't go deep into how it connects to all the David stuff here. David wants to see his king exposed when he thinks he has clothes on... All the fools go along with what Weyland is selling, and David subtly manipulates the situation and Weyland's original plan. David's a weird mix of emotion, intuition/belief, and science. David is choosing what to believe so he has some form of free-will (a trick he perfected thanks to Shaw/Shaw's fathers advice).

I think this poster means that life did not start on Earth that evolved to us, but that we was created from the Engineers and thus our DNA is not native to Earth, and thus the movie is going the route that had the Engineers not seeded Earth, then there would be no mankind on it.

Janek's another exception to David's view of humanity as inferior. Only because Janek is partially right about the weapons stuff and understands the dangers/duties of leadership when in a war-zone. Janek resigns control of the situation even though he's the most fit out of the humans to lead them while in danger. In the deleted scenes he watches things on the screen as the Engineer is awoken because by this point he has to take action in some form. He has to know whats really going on and how to respond appropriately. He chooses to give up controlling the situation until it gets too unbearable and he has to take action, and make his ultimate choice. He only starts taking action in the end, then crosses paths with Shaw. Janek makes the call that Vickers couldn't make in order to hopefully save everyone with their sacrifice. Vickers runs away from this leadership decision and tough call because she is afraid finally. Her true emotions that have been subdued finally show. Vickers was never fit to be a leader because she could not make that call even while afraid of and informed about the bio-weapons. She doesn't really make her choice based on perspective or belief. She breaks down and her false calm/in control ego breaks down, and we're left with the true Vickers who is useless and can't combine instinct and logic... to know to run sideways. Or even to just let instinct take over. Vcikers keeps running straight to her fate with her linear movements leading to her dead end.

@ BigDave I really think it's half and half. Like I've said before the are certain patterns to the movie, and the half and half thing is one HUGE pattern that runs through nearly everything in the film. Most of the characters can't balance their logic with intuition (emotion and belief), leading to their deaths. As seen in the some of the monster concept art certain hybrid concepts are at play. It's almost a hybrid film-- an alien prequel and not a direct prequel, it's kind of both. In the universe but mixed with many new elements. A parallel story. A branching story or evolution. A parallel creation. Many things recreated and morphed slightly from the forms we're used to-- new Weyland as one example. I don't think what you're saying is too far off, because I think the Engineers need to seed planets that already have some existing life. Without their influence and original design we wouldn't have been recreated in their image. Like how the Deacon has been re-created in the image of the Alien and much, much more that I won't type now. It makes it a half and half thing. Without the native elements of the earth that their DNA is seen joining with-- we wouldn't be here in this form. But it also works the other way: without them seeding the Earth & their half of the contribution, we would have never been overwritten and progressed towards their design. It makes it totally like a sperm and egg thing... like Panspermia in a way. Shaw's infertile egg is a slightly different case. Or maybe not... not sure yet. There could be a way to link the two concepts because Holloway's sperm is mutated by the black liquid (even though it may be a diff form than the stuff at the beginning). This means it's doing faster mutations, reanimating the dead cell and combining with it. However the mutation, and nature of the sperm to mutate, revive and develop the egg is sped up by the Alien genetics. The egg is almost entirely rewritten to make the organism produced develop into the Trilobite. The sperm wasn't doing much of the work because Shaw was infertile. The Alien genetics morph and mutate the egg, rewriting it and simply using it as biological material in the process. The thing grows and changes shape very quickly. It's very purposeful that this ties into Shaw's inability to produce viable eggs. Me thinks it means we won't be seeing any Queens or Eggs in the near future... And that for the most part the eggs have been overwritten.

From what i made of the opening scene was that the process showed that the Engineer was ordered to take the substance as a Ritual Sacrefice, and its because of his Ritual Sacrefice that led to the eventual creation of advanced life on Earth. Here is what the process showed.. 1) Drank the substance, the substance ran though his blood stream then entered and affected every molecule in his body. this caused his whole body to break down and apart at a molecular level. And we see his DNA change black and then break down to tiny molecules. 2) We see most of his disintegrating body fall into the Water Fall, where we then see shortly after the process of his DNA reverse, we see the black breaking down DNA, reform back to normal DNA and then we see a scene of cells spiting and multiplying. But we have overlooked a important element..... The World all Ready had Trees and Plant Life, thus for these to grow and survive there had to be CO2 on the planet and one way of producing that is from bacteria and simple organisms. The first traces of life on other planets would be when we detect CO2, as that could indicate some biological process that creates it. Therefore i assume that the Engineers appeared on a World that had basic life, and the process of the Substance was to break down the Engineers Genetic Material so it would fall into the water and fuse with basic lifeforms like Bacteria and then this process mutates and evolves these bacteria so that they become the start of complex lifeforms. Thus..... this scene may not show the creation of Mankind anyway, it shows the start of Evolution from Basic to Complex life and how the Engineers played a part in the process. Ridley said that the Engineers came back many times to upgrade us, i can only imagine that they came back to conduct further experiments and genetic upgrades to lifeforms on Earth to create more advanced ones and eventually Primates and that after that another upgrade was to evolve some Primates to Humans. Thus maybe the movie is hinting that without the Engineers interference Primates would not had evolved into what Humans are today. Now the movie is left very very open and in such a fashion that Ridley can change anything as far as the plot goes. He could have it that humans was created not on Earth, but then later sent down to Earth. He could have it that the planet we saw at the start was not Earth as well. He could even have the Deacon become the full Proto Xeno, while he said that the events on LV 426 happened thousands of years ago, in the movies this has not been declared as a fact and hell we could even see some kind of quantum leap that leads to the events via some kind of time travel by some event that effected the Space Time Continuum. However i think that they are intending that the Deacon is a new bread of Deacon created by a random set of events.

dude....you guys really got alot of time on yer hands...are you kidding me?

@Svanya No. Ridley already says the scene isn't necessarily earth, and that it's not relevant that it is. The scene was meant to depict the engineers seeding a planet in its early stages of development. The Youtube link you provided doesn't mention anything except the poster writes "primordial earth" in the description (which he/she was misinformed about).

The planet at the very beginning of the movie sure looks to be Earth?

Yes, well given that RS didn't want to key in a young planet with a green-screen (he wanted a real waterfall, a real location, etc) It does look like earth and that's because it is! lol Greenland I remember RS saying.