Prometheus 2: Hell on Earth

No. No. Aaannnddd no.

Hmm...What Noob said ^^

I don't want to see this going real ! NO WAY !

I also agree with the Major.

Terrible title, terrible idea. No way in hell. 

Working titles always suck. (ALIEN: Engineers just as an example that is totally random.)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates this idea.  I suspect it's entirely possible, though.  It fits with all the news we've had thusfar.  I just hope it's not real.

I actually think this is all very comical.

Well, thank the heavens. I was worried I'd started a legitimate conversation, what with me documenting why I think this could be an entirely possible rumor.

Back to the vague one-liners, please.

I very much second that hope.

I've always been a tad concerned with the three movie idea, as finding the engineer home planet seems like there could be a lot of mystery there.  And if the next movie underperforms, we'll likely be denied that look at the engineer home planet, which would be unfortunate.  We barely got ONE sequel.

There's certainly room for interesting things to happen in this premise, I'd be most interested in the earth storyline, personally I think the WEYLAND corporation could make an interesting basis for a TV series.  But I want something more like Prometheus and less like the ALIEN sequels, and this definitely sounds more like an ALIEN sequel.

So at the end of Prometheus Shaw wants to go to the planet of the Engineers ...
and in P2 David will sent them back to Earth !
Does it imply that engineers are from earth, and earth was meant to be Paradise ???
Don't forget David is tricky ;) and he wants his parents to be dead !

I'm flabbergasted by the fact that some people are apparently buying this. I mean, Shaw dying in the middle of the movie? Puh-leaze. ¬¬

Ya...Right!?

@Engineer Tech Brett; Is your avatar of Tom from Father Ted?

I'm a massive fan of that program!

Father Ted

@Something Real: I wanted Prometheus to have more horror than it did, so I can second the notion that we could use some more pulse-pounding terror.

@Cremildo: I don't care if this rumor is real or not, I don't think anyone expects Shaw to survive these movies.  There's no way she'll be anything but dead by the end of this series.

[EDIT] And it's not like she was interesting or well-received either.

@granolaboy

David's definitely got some sort of "trick" up his sleeve, although I can't see them killing off Shaw so soon... I don't trust David at all though, so I dunno.. If some of the new characters are well written I could see it happening.

The way David suggests Earth + him saying he'll be free after Weyland dies is highly suspect. His perspective towards humanity also makes me wonder why he'd be so eager to go back to earth.

Shaw's father told us that Paradise means something different to everyone.

If this is true Paradise could relate to a Garden of Eden theme. Ideas about heaven on Earth and a mythical golden age that's long since vanished, Atlantis etc.

David's carrying hell with him, according to Ridley.  If Paradise can also mean "heaven on Earth", then David is bringing hell on Earth.

Ridley once said that if Atlantis existed 400 million years ago, then most of the archaeological evidence would be long gone, scraped away by the iceage etc. The Greeks tell us the first round of humans created by Poseidon were the Atlanteans. Prometheus created the fourth round of humans from clay after Poseidon created the Atlanteans...

The gods have already destroyed us once or twice in the myths. In the Sumerian myths too, not just the Greek myths..

Perhaps some of the Engineers originated on Earth before we came about, and some of them once called it home for a time.  I choose to believe that there are a couple factions of Engineers.

Maybe they wanna destroy us because it was their home first, and when they arrived here in the opening scene it was to initiate their genetics again, not our genetics. All about procreation and making Earth one of their colonies, there'd be a homeworld, but to them Earth is one of their colonies/their home away from home.

There were depictions of us sharing the same space with these giant beings. We interacted with them and quite possibly worshipped them in the past. We spoke to them, because traces of their language informed our languages.Aallowing David to break things down and trace the roots to reconstruct their language. They interacted with us long enough for the star map to be recorded. So if some of them did live alongside us at one point, then they might have called Earth "home" for a while. If David knows this, he could use it to steer the ship where he wants to go by choosing how to interpret Shaw's words.
David tricks people into giving him their permission to harm them.

I actually find this all very interesting. The only point I would like to pick up on is, what’s wrong with a main character dying midway? Pleases note the use of words here, as dying does not always mean killing off. Just look aat the writers involved and then ask yourself what is Transcendence about.

As for the engineers not being the main focus, does not meant o say they don’t form an essential backdrop.

I don’t really see Ridley, being as security conscious as he is about a movie, suddenly giving everything away to some blabbermouth, unless in this case it is done for a reason and the words used are cryptic.

@Batchpool 

Totally agreed. Like Transcendence, death could only be the beginning.

Weyland might have found out what happens when he dies...

I really think that Weyland is smart enough to do something similar to Transcendence, in a different way, and backup his consciousness before going on the Prometheus mission...

He had so much more grace in the past. He was like a walking zombie with "half a brain" in Prometheus, the way he got himself killed etc.  Weyland corp has technology that can trick the brain into thinking it's still alive, etc. They clone people way later. I think Weyland's still partially alive.

@ Hiveminded

Maybe thats what the Engineers are all about. They are mostly clones that are empty vessels waiting to be filled with a consciousness, and Jesus was a missed opportunity.

@Batchpool

The way they hired Paglen to write the script makes me think that ideas about the nature of consciousness and transcending death will indeed be in the series.

The dream visor might play into that. The subconsciousness could be a big part of what Weyland considers the soul. If David doesn't dream, then that could be why he likes watching Shaw's dreams. She has something he lacks, and by staring into her dreams and memories he's looking at everything that makes her. We know Weyland has beliefs about the soul, and possibly holds his own beliefs about life after death... And where the consciousness energy goes. Weyland did actually care about the "big questions" a little bit because he claims David doesn't have a soul.  Therefore he believes the soul exists and questioned where consciousness goes when we die.

Weyland's already cheated death by extending his lifespan, he tricked us into thinking he was dead in the memorial. Weyland's tech can "trick" brains into thinking they're still alive. There are ideas about death and rebirth within the film in the form of zombie fifield/the head. Weyland has all sorts of tech, making it possible that he looked into uploading his consciouness. David and Weyland can both be very "tricky". Both did the "trick" line from LoA (Weyland during the TEDtalk).

That line from Lawrence of Arabia may indicate that things go beyond flesh and blood.

I think weyland hints about wanting to transcend in the Thus Spoke Zarathustra lines he says. He might be afraid to cross the bridge into the biomechanical until he absolutely has to... i think part of his mind ended up crossing the bridge into the biomechanical when he died, was stored and able to be injected back into his body through the subconscious. Ideas about merging our consciousness with technology could be addressed by both Weyland and the Engineers.

Daviid is "tricky" with how he chooses his words, only making a "poor choice of words" at one point in the film..and it lets us know he could be becoming a "real boy", like Pinnochio...He remains vague and ambiguous to conceal the truth, but he always has to tell some part of the truth. When he says "i didn't know you had it in you" it's partailly a lie. He knew the alien was "in her", however, he gets away with it by using Orwellian double speak and remaining vague about "it". He pretends to be referring to her survival instincts, and although he made a "poor choice" he attempted to chose those words very carefully to mess with her, and gained practice lying (he did know it was in her, he seems to be programmed to respond in some sort of way when questioned)... David lies like a politician. Paradise means something different to everyone, so there's lots of room for interpretation or misinterpretation, leading or misleading people into believing certain meanings.. When children start to cry only for attention and begin to lie it's a sign of personality/individuality starting to develop.. David makes choices.. Lying is actually a sign of freewill in two year old humans.

David's only worked out the broad strokes. He uses his words to trick Holloway, he uses a double meaning to mess with Shaw/get away with telling a lie. For some reason David has to trick people into giving him permission to harm them, he's forced to answer questions semi-truthfully. If Shaw dies it might be partially her fault. David indicated he wanted to see his father dead, but his other parent is the human culture as a whole...He doesn't want to be "too close" to us, yet he likes our movies and makes himself look more like the character in Lawrence of Arabia. This android might not have the guts to pull the trigger on all of humanity...There are things David likes about our culture despite what he says. Imitation as a sincere form of flattery. The person he looks up to and models parts of himself after comes from the film he likes. David is developing preferences for things, gaining individuality and personality.

@Batchpool: I have to disagree re: Ridley being tight-lipped.  Granted, I've only been following him in interviews since Kingdom of Heaven, but it's incredible at exactly much he spills about his projects to random YouTube interviewers and the like.  He pretty much gave away the entire plot of Prometheus if you pieced his interviews together (which I regrettably did).  Even more funny, when I was reading the script for ALIEN: Engineers, I cross-referenced a few Ridley interviews from the "Untitled Alien Prequel" days, and realized exactly how much he gave away about that version of the story too.

Even the "Space Jesus" idea was mentioned by him well before the film came out.

@HiveMinded & Batchpool: Interesting.  I hadn't thought about Shaw dying yet not being killed off.  And you make an interesting point about who penned it, as Ridley in recent years does tend to go for writers who have done works similar to what he's "going" for. (Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, and Prometheus are all solid examples of this.) So I suppose I wouldn't rule that out. But I do think he'd love to give people a shock by killing off Shaw, as it's one of the things he talks about fondly in reference to ALIEN. How Ripley was the unexpected hero, because he killed off the expected Captain.

I suspect that the new writer Michael Green was brought in to keep things more "grounded" after all the criticism of the first film.  He was responsible for KINGS, which I adore (I own the DVD), and I think he can do good work with the characters.  Possibly, the plot is where everyone wants it to be, but the characters and/or dialogue aren't yet.

@ Batchpool

Yeah, Green was probably chosen to smooth things out. I think working on "Kings" might have been important too. "A king has his reign and then he dies...it's inevitable..the natural order of things"... Vickers was hoping she'd become "queen". I don't think we'll see Queens in this series...

We might end up dealing with concepts revolving around kings...

Weyland was referred to as a king, ruled the Earth and the colonies. No female Engineers yet, and seems like the males might be in charge. All Davids are male in appearance. If David overthrows humanity or Weyland corp, it could make him King David, and then it becomes his responsibility to slay the giants. The medpod was programmed for males.  Weyland wanted a son so he built one.  Shaw was infertile, didn't pass on a viable egg producing gene to the Deacon. Deacon may have emerged with the inability to produce viable eggs, so it switches to a backup mode of reproduction...And leans on its male genetics..

If Engineers lost their natural ability to procreate, then females & the x chromosome might be important to them...There mght be something special about Earth, or how we split into two sexes. If they are us, and we contain their genetics, then we probably inherited the x chromosome from them...Although it might be dormant, or no longer in use in their bodies. All males would contain the x chromosome, but it might be non-functional in the Engineers. Bringing us towards ideas about the Garden of Eden and the Adamos, the myths about Pandora. This could be a parallel series about another side of the genetics we haven't paid enough attention to in each species,.. What we could be witnessing is a genetically engieered Alien that is the product of a species who lost the ability to create naturally... Shaw is infertile, and passed that trait on. If the Engineers don't have fully functioning X chromosomes, then the Deacon didn't pick this trait up yet.

Ridley said this would show "how the mommy and daddy met"..I think we've already seen hints about how the MOTHER and FATHER will eventually get back together.

"Transcendence"? Life after death? Having our heroine dying midway, a la Psycho? What's that got to do with Prometheus and Alien? In another thread, even time travel was brought up!

For once, I'm beginning to understand the problems most Indiana Jones fans had with The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In their point of view, bringing aliens to the Indy universe was too much, even considering the fantasy elements that abounded in the previous films. Such complaints always sounded more like incoherent fanboy nitpicking to me, but not anymore.

You people are now advocating foreign elements that could take things to la-la land, exactly like what happened in the preposterous Resurrection.

Have a nice discussion. I want to have no contact with such "ideas" - and hopefully Ridley doesn't, either.

@Cremildo

Some of the ideas being brought up are things mentioned in the film's supplemental material. Ideas that are trying to make sense of why Nietzche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' and the Last man/Eternal recurrence concepts were referenced by Weyland before he gave the TEDtalk. Weyland is a law only to himself, not for all mankind. He mentions how mankind is "a bridge and not an end" (the last man concept is when we stop evolving on our own). i think it's all about taking those next steps across the bridge and becoming biomechanical..Moving past our current state.

We're not just pulling it out of thin air. It'd be different if absolutely none of that stuff was even remotely brought up. Immortality was being sought after by Weyland, so don't be too surprised if he found another way to accompllsh that.

M-theory was brought up in the virals.  The Weyland timeline said they had data that pointed to M-theory being true (multiple worlds, multiple universe theory), making FTL travel possible, if you can go FTL, then timetravel isn't far off... This is the reason that many people, like myself, have entertained the notion that some sort of time-travel will eventually be involved. Although, I've discarded the notion of straight forward time travel in my theories... I believe that mentioning M-theory in the virals leads to parallel timelines and not necessarily time travel.

The human subconsciousness is one of the biggest questions we have left to answer. If you're really looking for where we go after we die that's a good place to start...

Weyland's no fool. He's a man of science who happens to believe that the soul exists....

Quantum mechanics now predicts that consciousness moves into alternate dimensions when you die. Lots of ways Weyland can return. Some more likely than others..

The conscious mind never really knows what the other side is up to...LV-426 is also called Archeron: the river of woe in the Greek underworld.. Weyland had control of his subconscious state, he could become a lot like Hades. I'll bet you a billion credits that Weyland will be back. You can pay me when we reach "the other side..." ;)

Thanks for the feedback SomethingReal! 

I might have to edit it down. I get carried away with this movie. TBH there are still so many different paths it can go down.

IMO they could easily do something with the M-theory references. Although I get why most wouldn't want to see parallel timelines. It's just something interesting to consider.  It's definitely not at the top of Fox's list of boxes to check off. I just don't think it's something we can completely dismiss. Forwards and backwards time travel probably won't ever occur in this series, it'd be more like sideways travel if it happened. Still a big IF..

they don't have to touch time travel/parallel timelines at all if they don't want to. M-theory's only mentioned in the virals. I can't find anything in the movie that would necessitate alternate timelines etc coming into the mix.. So to be fair, the time travel stuff is something that's waaaay less likely than taking other paths to the "other side"...Maybe just a way to traverse time/space faster and bring certain characters back together later, if they want. I'd put more money on some of the patterns/foreshadowing surrounding David being followed up on.

If the do kill off Shaw, they could bring her back as a clone just like in the Alien movies.

This probably can relate to the Engineers being clones themselves.

Interesting to say the least.

Do clones possess souls?  Or are they "only flesh and blood"?.

Ripley 8 lost all her memories. She had to be taught to speak English and be human again by the ex-Weyland scientists. This shows the Marines/scientists didn't move her consciousness into the clone bodies. Perhaps FATHER didn't want to give all her memories/experiences back, or didn't have a copy of her consciousness.

Weyland believes David can never have a soul..This implies he thinks the soul exists in some form or another..Does he know about the soul? Is there a way to clone a soul? Would a clone contain the soul of the original?

Consciousness uploading is nothing new to sci-fi. They'd have to find a way to do it that's a little bit different.  Different than Transendence and Lawnmower Man as well. That could be why Jack Paglen was hired to write the first draft of the sequel, a similar yet different concept. Lindelof said there are Bladerunner ideas in Prometheus. I think this means the dream visor plays a much bigger role in things than we think, and viewing dreams isn't its only purpose.

The clone of Ripley could only remember Newt in dreams and nightmares... Could this be evidence that her subconsciousness was linked to the original Ripley? Evidence of the collective unconscious? Ripley 8 was also linked to the Queen's hive, she could feel it moving behind her eyes. Zombie Fifield lost his head to the Alien organism, although it wasn't cut off, and didn't burst. His head and body were transforming, but under the surface so was the brain.

The Hammerpede regrows its head after it's cut off...It regrows its own brain. It's perfect, it doesn't need someone to reconnect its head. The decapitated head symbol runs through the whole series. Reattachment of heads and tricking the head back to life are recurring symbols. First it happened with androids in the originals. Now we see the Engineer head "tricked" back to life. David's head will be somehow "reattached" and the Hammerpede regrew its head automatically. Humans are having their subconscious minds watched/analyzed to better manipulate them...