THE MURAL ROOM

Whew, BravoDelta, you have such a wide grasp of all available material.  It can make your head spin!  The question is, are all these threads from different drafts, re-writes, etc. to be considered in the story, or do you only consider what was ultimately "printed" in the final movie story-line, as "canon"?  The original intent of the many people involved was so different at times, even contradicting, that trying to make sense of it all, after a "version" was published, as a finished movie, is extremely complex, to say the least.

I have gained valuable insight into the plot, and indeed the various sub-plots of the Alien saga, which I appreciate.  But I am also confused by the labyrinth of competing theories being presented, and just how to re-assemble my personal view on things, to incorporate all this added info. 

I guess it boils down to Ridley's vision of the creation, and how an alternate version of religious canon might be created, by explaining all the mythological religious characters, as simply advanced races experimenting with the creation of life.  The re-occurring themes in ancient texts about the creation, superior beings, a fall from grace, etc. are explained from a technological POV, versus a supernatural one. (Who was it that said any technology sufficiently superior to our own would appear to be magic?)

All the symbology (murals, black goo, alters, sacrifices, etc) introduced in the Alien/Prometheus story attempts to explain ancient/Biblical myth/legend with suitably logical explanations, according to modern man, and his expanded knowledge or POV. 

This would be viewed as either heresy or enlightenment, depending on your POV.

As I try and make sense of it all, I think we are on the verge of actually finding this stuff out for real ourselves.  Not to get too far off-topic (sorry) but hiding actual UFO/ALien contact from the general population.  I think this is because learning the truth will stand all religious/philosophical theory on it's head, causing us to re-think everything we think we "know".

This is what Alien/Prometheus means to me.  A re-examination of all my core thoughts and beliefs, as to why we're here, who created us, and what we should be doing about it.          

the bible doesn't exclude alien life.prometheus isn't reinterpreting anything. it's all been in there from the start. i think that's what people struggle to grasp. both plato and the old and new testament were doing sci fi from waaaaayyyy back when. what the alien saga is doing is helping people reevaluate their understanding of what the relationship between fiction and reality truly is, and of course, the mundane and the supermundane. it isn't called the 'greatest story ever told' for no reason...it's called that because it's most likely the truth!

"This is what Alien/Prometheus means to me.  A re-examination of all my core thoughts and beliefs, as to why we're here, who created us, and what we should be doing about it."

This was one of Ridleys intentions... to open our minds to such subjects.

As far as the Bible, it depends it is a vary ambiguous book at times and things can be interpreted in different ways...  If you sway to the Ancient Aliens theory you can find some things that could add to that theory..... if you are a Scientist or Aesthetic you can have a field day pulling the book apart but there are a few Scientific parts (Koran is better) 

If you are a Hard Line Christian then it depends how literal you read into the material, when Angels are coming down on Burning Chariots is that really what happened?   When Moses spoke to a burning bush is that literally what happened...  or are these interpretations or metaphors?

So yes when we look at the Holy Books and then include some others like Dead Sea Scrolls and Book of Enoch there are some bizarre things in there but its how literal do we take them.

As far as how do we look at the Movie....

If we look at the movie as in Theatrical and throw out everything else... its kind of hard to get... Weyland Files made it a bit more hard...

Adding the other movies, helps to make some sense...  and Ridleys comments give us more clues.... the deleted scenes more so... and then other drafts can help us to understand...

But i can give a overall view of what the Movie Shows if we only accept Prometheus theatrical cut...  which is a very vague and a bit of mess Plot

The main problem I see, with producing all these confusing theories, is that info that is not deemed canon can be messing with our minds, to a point where we're not staying on target with the basics and what we know just from the movies themselves ... all the deleted scenes were deleted for a reason ... to set and 'maybe' change the whole main story line and then more so after they finished the movie and produced the final cut ... i.e. make it canon ... I don't trust any info in those deleted scenes, for this reason, as they could led to red herrings ... good info, I grant you but I wouldn't take it as trusted info ... they should all be left on the floor of the cutting room ... but that's just me ...

As for the cup of tea at the beginning of Prometheus ... with that 'stuff' now in the water ... if it 'is' goo or Xeno based, then are all the organisms, fish and whatever else is in there not turned into alien type species? ... I don't think it was goo ... just another prescription from Boots (chemist) that the Engineers created for themselves, to produce whatever they were trying to achieve ... life ... so would that then produce the mammals that came out of the water and turned into man? ... or something else? ...

Here's one for you ... what if that's not Earth? ... just another experiment but this one goes wrong ... could that be the planet Covenant arrives at and lands on, after all these years later? ... it's had time to evolve ... Scott doesn’t claim it’s necessarily Earth (in his BluRay commentary) he seems pissed that people assumed it was definitely Earth ... that just came out in the moment ... no books or deleted scenes ... out side the box that one ... lol ...

Spaihts Vision

A L I E N Engineers was a closed book version of the story which backed into A L I E N and placed the derelict and the Jockey in situ. It provided the kind of connectivity that many in the audience were looking for. The key anomaly, and there maybe more if I chose to think about it, is the Pyramids are missing from A L I E N S. Nevertheless much of his foot print is in Prometheus.

Lindelof

His vision expanding the universe considerably and he deliberately left elements ambiguous so we could apply our own intellectual rigour to the proceedings. Once the movie got out Ridley started answering some of those questions rather than say hey guys make you own mind up though he politely encouraged that in some of his answers.

As an example

Is the sacrificial scene Earth - answer not necessarily but that is how life could have been catalysed and it makes sense since evidence of Engineer Visits exists in most ancient cultures.

There are more, the most intriguing one for me is the Deacon is a Proto Zenomorph (Lindelof) which means the Zeno we know and love is still in the future at the date of the Prom mission which leaves the dating of the crashing landing on LV426 in the future when Ridley has suggested it was within a few hundred years of LV223 incident. That is not ambiguous that is confusing !          

Deleted Scenes 

Most of the deleted scenes in explanation where not left out for reasons of inappropriateness to the story but like many movies for pacing. The things that David witnessed  in the longer scene are not necessarily rejected they are just not on the page. In Lindelof's script we get a better insight into the story not a different story. The differences are about presentation not fundamental tenants.

The Black Goo

In the official commentary the Vial liquid is a Zeno strained mutagen. There is nothing in the headroom to contradict that, there is nothing in the outcome of Charlie being infected or the worms ingesting it that contradicts that notion. The only question is about the catalyser at the beginning. It might be a spawning of Zeno life in the galaxy but everything in the commentary suggests it is bringing a life giving catalyser to a lifeless planet. Given there is a Paradise Lost moment between the opening scene and the LV223 incident and the Engineers look different, deeply religious pure acolyte at the beginning and suited militaristic look on wake up, to make the deduction that something happened and we are dealing with a different Goo seems to be highly probable. Do I have a sworn affirdavit from Sir Ridley on this no I have Lindelof's permission to think it through.              

A C has three challenges :-

1) Keep us thinking on the widescreen issues. The symbolism and philosophy of the story.

2) Make the connections to A L I E N less ambiguous.

3) Make the characters less distracting for those whom find stupid decisions and naiveté a problem. Some of the crew need to be noble and brave so the general audience care about them. That said do not takeaway entirely the notion that human beings do stupid and naive things thats what makes sci fi real making the characters flawed.      

Michelle i could not have put it any better myself... exactly the reply i would have put..

@Gem]n[

I understand your point... yes few things they had changed for reasons to maybe change the way they had intended... Elders Scene for one.

The movie is too ambiguous.. and its commentary and comments that are made by Ridley and other members of Production that help to give further clues to what is going on.... but it seems some of these contradict each other.

I hope after we get Alien Covenant and its sequel then things are made more clearer....

We dont get answers to the purpose of it all in Prometheus not clearly.... deleted scenes did help... but thats not to say they are going the way the deleted scenes would have shown us... especially the Full Elder Scene.

So we dont know the purpose or agenda.. it could have changed from the ideas behind the drafts prior to finishing Prometheus.

I think Lindeloff definitely made it ambiguous for a reason and that is to keep mystery and to allow each of us to not be able to come up with a different theory each... Lindeloff loves this element.

If they made Spaights Alien Engineers instead and to the letter...

We would have less to talk about...  but it would have a few questions remaining still and a few Plot Holes...

But even Spaights draft was ambiguous.. as far as the Engineer at the end being the Space Jockey... it does not have to be..

This could be as if it had taken place say in South America.... the temples are just like in South America... the Ship crashes near by...

But the Space Jockey could be a event say in a baron Russia...

My point being Spaights draft does not 100% suggest the event was the Space Jockey, it could hint at that being the case... but no more than Lindeloffs or Spaights as far as the Sacrificial Scene was Earth...

In Spaights case it was..

I think Spaights draft is flawed for many reasons.... Lindeloffs changes where better for some... ideally a merger would have been better.

@bigdave

"If you are a Hard Line Christian then it depends how literal you read into the material, when Angels are coming down on Burning Chariots is that really what happened?   When Moses spoke to a burning bush is that literally what happened...  or are these interpretations or metaphors?"

hardline christians are unimaginative in their interpretation of the bible because they are mostly terrorised, traumatised and vulnerable, low income individuals who are made to feel guilty for merely existing. the word for God in greek is THEOS(tone on the 'o'), which could be seen as being directly related to the word THEA(tone on the 'e') which means 'the view' - in short God in ancient greek or greek as a word could be interpreted as being the view of something - most likely the stars in the night sky. with that in mind, it could well be that 'atheism' and 'Christianity' are not as opposed concepts as one might think.

in all ridley scott's movies so far i see a very common theme manifesting itself, and i think the message is this:

if there is a God, then the path to him is secular.

The Mural if i tackle it within context of the Theatrical Cut and clues... and only what we see in the movie... or hear... and using Alien too.

Then it simply shows us that This Place (LV-223) and that Temple, these Engineers had conducted experiments on related to Xenomorph DNA, how and in which order.. is not answered...

These Engineers hold these experiments in high regard, its worshiped or just showcased... maybe as a look what we can do... or something more... it never explained..

Only that the Mural shows some connection to the Deacon at the end Genetically but its ambiguous so we cant say if its a Prophecy of a Event to come.. or that this Organism in the Mural predated the Urns that leads to the Deacon.

We know these Engineers are Genetic Manipulators, who Evolve and create Life... and so they could have created the Xeno and Mural Organism.. or the Xeno or Mural Organism could have been created from each other but only one was created by the Engineers by re-engineering the other.. but this is not shown.... its open to debate.

What is known is that those Urns contain something intended to be used as a Bio-Weapon... that is related Genetically to the Mural but also that its use may be to upgrade something rather than destroy.

If we bring the Frescos in.... again its do we only go by what we see, in which case the Egg one is so obscure in the movie that maybe we cant connect it?

But the Engineer and Creature one we can... this is like a Fresco in the Sistine Chapel but only as far as to showcase something very important to the Engineers in relation to their Agenda and that place (LV-223)

It could be taken as showing this creature is created by the Engineer and so its a God/Adam type Fresco... but then we have what looks like a C-Section Scar...  maybe we can say David created the Trilobite or Shaw  by the same token.

i.e the Engineers created this creature, but by a method that required a Sacrifice... i.e Face Hugging or other method... and then this creation was removed from the Engineer as per Shaws C-Section.

But its ambiguous but shows the Engineer was connected to how these creatures came to be perhaps?

But to me... the Engineers stance does not look the same, and to me it reminds me of the Prometheus Fresco

Make Prometheus Bald....

Replace Eagle with something related to the Xenomorph sent as Punishment...

Use the Punishment as a Metaphor... continued punishment having his guts ripped out to then have to endure it over and over....   Replace that with a what if Shaw was infected a few days after by the same Process and then had a C-Section again... and if she was put through this by David over and over.

And maybe thats what the Fresco is showing?

But again... this is not shown on film... the Fresco is ambiguous... some take it as Adam and God... but in reality all it shows us is a affiliation with the Engineers and that creature and it has to connect to the Deacon Mural and Xeno DNA some how..

Indeed Ridley was posing a Question...

When he made Prometheus he did mention this Question..

Where do we come from?

Where do we go when we die?

What is our purpose?

These are a few things he did mention in relation to Prometheus...

But he movie posed them as.....

Who made us... (Engineers in some connection)

Why?  Was never answered clearly..

Where do we go when we die?  Again never answered clearly...

But its a case of how deep down the Rabbit Hole is Ridley taking us?

@BD 

I think you describe beautifully why you need to separate out concepts 

Engineers experimenting with genetic construction.

Punishment for doing so

and the precise detail.

Mural - prophesy or representation of achievement.

Fresco - creator/creation worship or repetitive punishment.

The way I make my deductions are based on related evidence. The Fresco is emblematic and I do not think corroborative evidence exists and in filmic terms its value is it changes not what is in the fresco, the vast majority who saw the film cannot even have seen the detail, however the mural can be contextualised.

1) The scream in the hologram suggests the creature existed and terrorised the pilots.

2) Charlie whilst looking at the Alien shape fused into the alter says "This is just another tomb" and turns the flash light on the centre of the mural. Every element of that 20 seconds is meant to convey a creature is buried there in the headroom. The cup though removed from the trailer is focusing on the notion of sacrifice and would have made the connection as to how the Deacon met its end but in filmic terms knowing the deacon is "buried" there is more important. 

Individually we do not have to agree with these interpretations in order to understand the concepts and one can read more into things than is there but i am encouraged by Daniel's exultation to think it out myself. Indeed in story telling terms making precise connections with A L I E N is not crucial as long as it does not outright contradict the developing mythos. 

@T_C you are correct that Ridley is offering a vision of a materialist view of creation but curiously you will notice by considering the texture and rituals of the headroom that this creation myth still has a sense of religiosity. Notions of worship and symbolism are still present. I think the cult-us of the Engineers still invokes hierarchy and engagement with a set of values. The difference is it is entirely devoid of sentiment or "love". The reasons the Engineers failed is because they felt humiliated in their bondage and wished to break out from it. in that sense the creator failed and made them corruptible and dare I say "unloved". They were born to sacrifice and interesting the only way out that is described in elements of the mural was to sacrifice themselves through subjugating themselves to the Lifecycle an interesting metaphor for mankind.

Where Covenant could be very powerful is the incoming crew display and communicate love between each other and toward those absent (The Ripley Child) and then go up against the most appalling union of two elements of sub creation the Engineers and their own Synthetic. A L I E N films have tended to make the entrees hard nosed and unsympathetic its time for the nobility of mankind the best elements to face the foe. It has to date best been articulated by Ripley and her protection of Newt that is the core of the success of ALIENS I hope with these colonists we will see more enabling us to better see the mythos more clearly as distinct from our own (not that we are doing particularly well right now).         

BravoDleta excellent interpretation, as usual, thank you!  I must admit I never came up with half the stuff you guys figured out.  Deleted scenes, alternate re-writes, etc, may or may not effect the story.  Depends on whether they conflict with it, or just slowed down continuity and was edited out for flow.  So yeah the additional material may help expand/explain story, or just confuse the issue!   

MJ:  Now you are really getting somewhere.  I think the exposure of human love to the engineer culture would be an awesome concept to explore.  When I was active duty, I can truly say I loved those guys I was with.  I would fight and die for them.  That is truly Man's finest trait, IMHO.  The fact that you have to shoot at us (or otherwise threaten our existence) to bring out the best in us, yeah, maybe we could improve on that, but the fact remains we would voluntarily die for each other, as opposed to be forced into some kind of ritual suicide. 

So now we are getting into the concept of free will.  And the difference between an "angel" and a human.  And the jealousy of the angels against the human race. How would an engineer react to that (as opposed to the selfishness of that dick Weyland). 

TC: It all depends on your interpretation.  I was one of those people brought up in a fundalmetalist Christian home.  I was taught a very literal interpretation of the Bible, as described by BD.  So to these folks, God being an "extraterrestrial" is gonna freak them out.  They ain't gonna stand for it.  But it would seem you have a much more liberal interpretation of it, which would allow for a Ridley theory.     

@Diz 

By the way it occurs to me if Charlie Holloway hadn't been such a "callow youth" type we might have regarded his death in front of Elizabeth with more connection. I understand however that as a plot point for David he had to be some thing of a D..K to enable David to pursue his curiosity with the Zeno strained .B G. 

I actually found the very serious Elizabeth swept off her feet by the smooth talking Charlie very believable where I think Prom went astray is the Fifield/Milburn axis. One of them should have been a risk averse spotty engineer geeky bureaucratic compliance type (which could have explained how they never reached the ship rather like Vickers improbable death not thinking out of the box) where as Milburn should have been the idealist so his naiveté together with the deleted lead in scene would have made more sense of his incautiousness. In addition  before the male rape by the worm happened Fifield should have got into a furious argument with him.Playing up the potential gay guys one overt, one angry was not helpful to the overall narrative though I liked the morality of the weakling Fifield played against the Zeno sponsored Fifield (he to got what he wanted but not quite as he expected).    

Yeah, as others stated, you gotta like these characters in order to identify with them.  Shaw I didn't have as much problem with, as others; I think you need an idealist in the mix, but like anything else, you can take it too far, if not tempered with a little practical.  Holloway is just what his name suggests.  Milburn and Fifield.  Yeah that was a real mess.  Little too one-dimensional characters.  Fifield needed some redeeming qualities.  Milburn needed a little more common sense.  You would think these guys got some basic survival/ self-defense training as part of the package to go into space.  They acted totally stupid when under pressure.  Again you would think some kind of training/ screening would go on before sending these dorks into space?  What was the pre-arranged SOP for dealing with Alien life forms?  In the military these are called "Actions on..."  Kind of boggles my imagination that a crew would be sent into space without any of this?  But then again, that's from a former-mil perspective.       

Indeed Character building and utilization was a flaw... they was merely used as a Plot Device.

Michelle again.. i could not have put those things better myself.... we have to look at the Purpose...   The source did try and hint those Gods where not Angry but maybe Jealous a bit and that David carries the same sentiment a bit towards Mankind.  I think they (source) have tried to hint that David and our Engineers are not too different....  i think this is in context of their purpose and how they may eventually feel about this.

The whole Plot and Agenda is so broad that the possibilities are near endless...  They was sending us down the Ancient Aliens route.. where all Religions and Mythos are based of a actual interaction between Mankind and the Engineers and their Hierarchy

But i think Prometheus 2 was to set us down a path to loosely connect it with Paradise Lost and Prometheus Mythos but not too literally... they actually said the nuts and bolts of related themes are more connected to the Matrix movie.

so it would be interesting to try and work out the Purpose...

When i look  at those concepts.. and Alien Franchise and try and make 2+2 = 4

Then a common theme is PUNISHMENT...  and maybe we need to look at Prometheus Punishment and Why, and Satans Punishments and why... and try and draw a common ground in context to each other that ties in with Alien and Prometheus...

This would at least hold some clues for us..

I know some early theories was the Jesus was a Engineer started to go around... and some connected the Mural to that... but Ridley had said this is not quiet the case...

But it should had been looked at Mankind was no longer performing the purpose that was intended, and showed signs of Rebellion and behaving in ways that was against the wishes and intentions of the creators.

And they had tried to put us on the right path... but that never worked and so the Xeno Strain was a result of a reaction to us and punishment... but off course also sometimes to create one must destroy.

But i think this notion can work, but it has its flaws... we simply dont know what the true Agenda is, as Ridley keeps making changes and comments that can contradict other comments.

To a degree that is..... but i think maybe we need to look at it on one hand as not having these creators actually be some Benevolent Race towards our purpose as in the Bible would suggest....

But then the question is, why would they be upset with how we turned out, if they are not Benevolent anyway? 

Where does the Prometheus Myth fit in? 

Where does the Paradise Lost fit in?

Surely these mean we have at least TWO FACTIONS with maybe different Agendas towards us... Two kinds of Hierarchy maybe as we could see in Titan/Olympian or God/Angels or Annunaki/Igigi  and thus Mankind/Androids.

"TC: It all depends on your interpretation.  I was one of those people brought up in a fundalmetalist Christian home.  I was taught a very literal interpretation of the Bible, as described by BD.  So to these folks, God being an "extraterrestrial" is gonna freak them out.  They ain't gonna stand for it.  But it would seem you have a much more liberal interpretation of it, which would allow for a Ridley theory."

well think about a movie like independence day...what is that film REALLY about? also, i find your use of the term liberal problematic and i want you to qualify it in terms of how my approach is 'liberal.    

@BD

Development 

One of the audacious elements of the Engineer mythos is they are more involved in our development than our own myths. Our gods have withdrawn to leave us to fulfil the story we are in where as the Engineers tinker. They seeded and then returned when we were Cro Magnon (Caves) and later still more developed cultures (Sumarian etc). Mankind may well have been moving along quite nicely but its the Engineers who wanted to break out from their bondage. The matrix elements were possibly sanctioned behaviour repeated visits to LV223 but at some point the Engineers not us stole the fire and began re ordering things. This is a common theme in creation myths that Angels get to big for their boots and start interfering with the design. In this mechanistic world that Ridley has created altering the design is probably a huge big deal.    

Punishment 

The punishment was the consequence of the Engineers playing with fire. Would the hierarchy have sanctioned a world view where we and other species were radically transformed by the Zeno strain I think not. The zeno strain is an accident which has bitten the Engineers on the bum. Mankind bungled along quite nicely for 2000 years whilst LV223 lay desolate destroyed by the mutagen getting out. I am cheating (The scenes of an apocalypse) well not really we know David is the sole survivor on Paradise so there has been a catastrophic event which has left the Engineers race in tatters.

So its not the hierarchy that wanted to punish us it was the Engineers who went beyond their brief and used us as play things (because they could).      

We enter, stumbling in driven by Peter Weyland's megalomania, with everyone losing their lives on LV223 except Elizabeth and in the grand scheme of things is pretty small beer. But we keep on interfering now driven by W-Y.

I am inclined to think the cosmic punishment is toward the extinct Engineers that we happen upon. What we will see in C O V E N A N T is the most interesting bit of stumbling where one of our sub creations echoes the Engineers and breaks its bondage. How will this end for David a journey to self realisation and redemption or will someone be forced once and for all through there redemption to put an end to his curiosity and his creative achievements taking the deadly cargo, now realised by Davids machinations and the juggernaut off to ….. or some thing else.  

@michelle johnston "Where we enter stumbling is with Peter Weyland's megalomania driving it"

i'm going to repeat myself here: weyland doesn't understand why death as a phenomenon must exist. he is trapped in his little world of earthly pleasures and 'power' and is blind to certain spiritual things or sufferings. have you seen the film 'there will be blood'? he is very similar to the character of daniel plainview in that, which is to say, a very intelligent, but merciless man. when he speaks to the crew members, he is in almost the same exact stance as the tarot card of the fool. now the tarot card of the fool shows a man with a dog and a satchel. the satchel contains all that he needs, should he bother checking it. weyland has become so overtaken by wealth and power, that he has forgotten his satchel, and as such, his self - which incidentally, is also the definition of 'sin' - forgetting one's self. i hope that covers it well enough.

TC:  Your approach would be liberal in that you are open to a Ridley interpretation of Biblical events, as depicted here, versus the fundamentalist or arch-conservative, who wouldn't even consider it.  Their strict interpretation of the Bible is of divine beings, not superior races.  Does that make sense? 

BD: Bringing the black goo discussion over here from the Alien re-make thread.  Very good point about the various stages of it, after being exposed to other DNA. Yes very much like a tool with no good or bad intentions.   Left up to the intentions of the user.      

Michelle J: I have read some that you have written in this thread and I will try to write a reply I hope that it is OK.

The room with the big head was an interesting part of the story, it should just have been explained better. Some additional dialogue could have helped a bit.

I think that it makes sense to think of the black goo as a mutagen but I also think of it in terms of biological warfare where it messes with the DNA and so on. You wrote that it contains a Xeno strain but I think that it wasn’t very well explained in Prometheus or at least could have been done better (the Xeno connection).

As far as the deleted scenes go I think that many of them helped to make the movie less confusing. It was stupid to leave them out, I wouldn’t mind a movie that would be half an hour longer than intended if they explain things that we need to know in order for the movie to make sense.

You write about the three challenges that AC will have. I find two of the three things important namely:

1. Make the links to Alien clearer
2. Better characters because most of the characters in Prometheus were bad (including Holloway that you mention in one of your posts)

As far as Milburn and Fifield are concerned I didn’t care about them. To me they were just two goofy MF’s in space that did moronic things. When they died I was like: ”OK two dumb people less”. If that is your reaction when they are people that you should feel a bit bad about when they die and when you react like that then something is obviously wrong.

Some people have videos on Youtube when they discuss Prometheus and as far as I know that stupid behavior of Fifield and Milburn is a thing that many people think is silly. One reviewer called M and F the Scooby and Shaggy of the movie. I never found them to be gay, just stupid.

Diz: I think that Shaw was very unlikeable too, she was just irrational. To be honest I would have preferred if the captain would have survived in some way (I am not sure how that would have been done though) and Shaw would have died because she was just annoying.

@T_C I agree with the view that Peter Weyland is a fool by your definition but he is also caught up in the wider movement of the application of the Promethean Myth "We are the Gods". But back to your point about being the fool which moves me on to 

@T_D 

The notion of foolish (self interested and sinful) behaviour is a thematic quality which applies to so many of the crew they do not have the discipline (Diz) or comradeship of a military group or the quiet logic of a group of scientists. It actually feels like a lot of Wolves from Wall Street chancers, risk takers and arrogant. Pot smokers, drinkers and promiscuous to boot . Indeed they remind me of a Bi polar group off their meds. Now there is to much of this and whenever I discuss Fifield and Milburn I have your strongly held views in mind (which many share). its no excuse but if I remember the script changes the clunky narrative involving them came late. It could have been done a whole lot better.

Mutagen "is a physical or chemical agent that changes the genetic material, usually DNA, of an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level". To describe as biological warfare the payload of a Juggernaut bound for earth gives context but overall the Engineers are doing more than neutralising mankind they are intending to reorganise and change it. I am sure you agree it is  biological warfare but it is more sophisticated than say anthrax.

T_D: Well Shaw is just being Shaw; I thought that going to another planet without a clear SOP on how to deal with Alien lifeforms was a bit moronic.  Her comment to the contractor about not taking any weapons was bad judgement at best, and total negligence at worst.  The righteousness of your cause does not protect you from evil.  That's what weapons are for. 

On Janek, I had this thought I shared before, about the DNA of Janek possibly combining with black goo from urns, after the collision of the ships.  I mean it's close to the opening scene of engineer DNA combining with other DNA to form new life. Perhaps a bit more ballistic approach, but, yeah.  You could only hope this re-combination would be a bit more noble than Fifield.

As DB stated, the Dark Horse comics explore this a bit, as black goo exposed to Alien terrain creates lush jungle scapes.  So there might be some interesting possibilities on LV-223. 

MJ:  Yeah I mean if you spend a billion or two on something you might want to invest in some crew/crew training to react to events in a way that not only accomplishes the mission but might also reflect positively on the human race.  Compare all these morons to the crew from "The Martian".   

@Diz his crew reflect HIM. i mean imagine, you meet intelligent alien life for the first time ever and instead of saying hello, or a handshake or even just introducing yourself and having a conversation, you just start shouting MAKE ME IMMORTAL I DESERVE IT

Bloody Hell... off topic a bit lol ;)

Where to start... ok the silly things..

They are Plot Devices nothing more, and actually Lindeloffs draft gives better Characters than we see on set.... that has to fall down to the the Actors and Ridley not Lindeloff...

Read Lindeloffs draft and some of Spaights and well some of the Dumb and Dumber moments of Fifield and Milburn are explained...

*They both thought the other had the Map

*Fifield was High as a Kite and he instigated the interaction with the Hamerpede because he was off his face... and he was a unstable person.

Vickers hand picked the crew... she may have tried to save some of her inheritance and picked a flawed crew that was bound to fail.. apart from Crew who affected her well being and Agenda which she picked good members....

Spaights does a better job of her Agenda.

Diz

Member

Posted Jul-19-2016 1:31 PM

TC:  Your approach would be liberal in that you are open to a Ridley interpretation of Biblical events, as depicted here, versus the fundamentalist or arch-conservative, who wouldn't even consider it.  Their strict interpretation of the Bible is of divine beings, not superior races.  Does that make sense? 

not really sorry no. divine beings ARE superior races, are they not?

"Their strict interpretation of the Bible is of divine beings, not superior races.  Does that make sense? "

I understand that but there could be more to it than meets the eye..... The source claims the Engineers are just tools well hints to that, there is a multiple Hierarchy but then there is a greater Power at the Top

They seemed to hint to more than a tale of Engineers who genetically Engineered us... and then Xeno Bio-Weapon.  They claimed that the whole Agenda is more than our Galaxy...  we could be talking Big Things!

I have had a bit to drink and its 29C at night at my home and i am used to working in a 3-4C Environment lol

So forgive me if i forget stuff lol.... but the source hinted at stuff like Terraforming and Worlds and how the Tools to create these can be deadly in the wrong hands just like the creation tool.

So maybe there is something at the top of the chain that is more Devine?

Ridley had mentioned about God, he even said if the Engineers are the forerunners for Life, then what makes Worlds able to be viable to support life so the Engineers can carry out their duties..

Where is the Big Guy in all this....

well to that effect and so maybe yes there is more going on than we are led to see so far.