Four Things

1) Aliens/Xenos only live 4 days. 2) I do not know for sure? P.F.M.? 3) Prometheus 2 4) See # 3. Check some of the older threads for some very stimulating theories on these questions, too. "Danny, I'm a vedge!"

-The organisms are possibly more like machines and not "alive" as we think of it, and so perhaps they are not dependent on the same organic processes that we are. More to the point, rapid growth is a cool plot device. -I don't remember but I think David opens the urn before we see them leaking in the dome. So perhaps what happened to the urns in the dome had not yet happened to the urn aboard the ship. -Shaw saw plenty to suggest benevolence was not a component in the Engineers culture, then had a large parasite surgically removed from her abdomen. That along with Davids input was enough to change her thinking. -It's been suggested here that maybe the message was: "when you can, destroy this planet." Or, the purpose of the outpost may have changed over time. The domes were terraforming devices, maybe it was to be an Eden "one day you will come here. For tea." Or, it was just "you were conceived here."

As far as the aliens quickly gaining mass, you could make anything up. They are that way because the movie needs them to be that way. Maybe they have some kind of an internal yolk that they grow into? Maybe they metabolize compounds in the surrounding air? Nobody really cares. Terrific jumps in logic shouldn't ever be relegated to make sense in the sequel. That's not mysterious or intriguing; it's just lazy writing. Did you guys see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (either version)? There's a part where Mikael wonders "how does a girl get declared mentally incompetent and become a ward of the state?" Lisbeth answers his question. She says she lit her father on fire because he was abusing her mother. She doesn't give a long, in-depth answer; she just answers it. The sequel further explores Lisbeth's relationship with her father. That, my friends, is how you leave something to a sequel. You don't rush by something with everyone going "wait, what about that?" to which the movie is like "don't worry, we'll come back to that in the sequel!" Keep in mind this is probably the tenth time you've been told "wait for the sequel".

The fact that they live 4 days still begs the question, how do they gain in mass? If not through some plausable physical or chemical process then it's magic! So some of you might be more interested in Harry Potter. There is no way for these creatrues to gain the mass that they do! Otherwise, if the Engineers were to engineer anything it would be that aspect of the Zenos. Sorry, you can not combine H2O, CO2, O2, N, and a few miniscule trace elements and produce a squid of that size!!!!

P.S.: A body can't grow any larger than the yolk it's made of! Otherwise we could have a chick hatch from a regular chicken egg the size of a human being--it is just NOT possible.

P.P.S: if the Engineers were just harvesting humans, why would they bother to leave a map at all? Were they just a bunch of pompas asses saying "hey look how great I am? I come from here?" It sucks!

Yes, but this is an [url=http://www.shadowlocked.com/images/stories/pics/alien_giger/hr_giger_chestburster.jpg]Alien Chicken[/url]! LOL!

Ha, ha; so let's move the story into the 5th dimension why don't we, that way the Alien can have a snack in some other parallel universe: at which point it all becomes terribly bad science fiction!

This reminds me of the part from an old website called [url=http://www.anchorpointessays.com/essays.html]The Anchorpoint Essays[/url] where they ask just how the creature gets so big so fast. It's talked about near the end of Stage 2. They don't come to any conclusions, but they've explored possibilities.

They've had so many Alien movies and Predator plus Alien movies and now this one and they haven't considered it yet, it ain't gonna happen! It's a glaring flaw that they just want to pretend will be over looked. You can wish all you want that they'll find a way out of this but short of having a creature can that fuse and fish atoms via it's own matalbolism it ain't gonna happen! Hell, we could harvest those creatures to produce gold and silver--the alchemist's long sought after philosopher's stone!

P.S. of course A. Einstein says that such a creature would explode with a huge amount of energy :(

Yeah, man, I'm on your side on this, just to be clear. The monster is the way it is because that's what the movie needs it to be.

This is how I answer those questions for myself: 1 - Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey) said that the technology of an advanced alien race would seem like magic to us. (Of course we know it's because we need aliens ASAP to chew on people) 2 - David sprays something on the (intact) cannister in the alien room 3 - The captain put that idea in her head, combined with the alien baby she might be a little pregidous. 4 - Perhaps it's their closest outpost to earth. if I invited some lost tribe in the Amazon to visit me, I wouldn't expect them to come all the way to europe. I would invite them to the nearest town. 4.1 I still don't think it's all about military stuff, I'd be dissapointed if it turned out to be so in the sequell.

1. They live from 4 days to a week. 2. David sprayed something that sealed the urn and kept it frozen in the fridge. 3.Well what happened on board might give her a tiny idea about it. 4. At first it maybe wasn't a map to military base.

as discussed in Octavia E Butler's amazing DAWN (Xenogenesis 1 book) the Engineers might actually have NO homeworld, there might be no mythical PARADISE that is the Engineer base, especially if they're a 'trading/farming' race, as suggested in the film. That UFO-like spaceship lifting up from a primieval earth may have been their homebase, their Paradise. And GOD ONLY KNOWS what really goes on in there... it could be BORG-like... it could be SOMETHING TRULY MORE AWFUL... more Gigerly beautiful; looser morality, ethically broad, crueler, sexier, less recognisable, wondrous, horrific, just plain weird or architecturally perplexing. Hm, this train of thought reminds me of ever-morphing puzzle pyramids the Predators used to house their alien combat trials of manhood. Anyway... Suggestions for inside Prometheus's Paradise UFO-ship may have already been furnished by the pre-production dept: [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/concept_128.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/concept_133.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/concept_148.jpg[/img]

Spaights speculates that the original Alien grew so rapidly in size by eating wires and stuff on the ship. If it's about ridiculously advanced bio-engineering, why not?

What David sprayed on the urn stopped it from degrading I think. Like the stuff they use to preserve mummies if they need to transfer them. Usually they have to stay wrapped or in an anaerobic environment. Or else the mummies degrade rapidly and turn to dust once exposed to oxygen. The key is that the growth thing could be more like a cancer, multiplying cells and growing faster on some levels, mutating instead of breaking down or staying in stasis... With the urns the breaking down is because processes have gone on underneath the surface of the material and the bonds between molecules have weakened even though the surface remains in tact and preserved. Until David opens a door that was improperly shut. David sprays that stuff to make sure that urn doesn't disintegrate once exposed to oxygen and moisture after being in an anaerobic environment for 2000 years. The Ebola stuff is thematically tied into this too, because it's a disease that kills you in a horrible way.