A Closer Look at the Bombing Sequence

@ Kethol, when you have evidence, your arguments are very strong. But when you try to work things out on your own....Jeez do you get it wrong.

when the urns explode, the contents does appear to swarm yogi. it is though more inconsistencies on the topic of the black goo that are hard to come down on one side or the other. we have the sacrificial goo which seems to bubble n move, then the goo that spills out of the urns that nothing swarms out of, then the bombing scene where it 'appears' to swarm. we need something definitive from RS on screen to explain

When the urns melt, the black goo sort of churns about and flows out down the sides, onto those worms. I wouldn't say the stuff "swarms" dude. When David rains it down on the engineers, it just rains down on them....like rain would....also blowing in the wind. Rain never comes straight down. These are drops of black goo, not insects. Sorry dudes.

Sothoth, I think when Ali81 is talking about the swarming he means from David's bombing, not the leaky urns from Prometheus. I just watched Covenant again today in HD and I agree. There are definitely small flying objects swarming through the air.

I think you misunderstood kethol too. He was quoting from the John Logan script, which I read yesterday, not the movie canon. I does indeed say that about the mote-midge things changing form, and David says in the script that the insect form came later. Also the words MACRO VIEW in the script means an up close enlarged view. Zoomed in, not zoomed out.

@ Thombach

Please stop being professionally wrong. Macro view means ZOOMED OUT, as in "Macroscopic". Micro view means zoomed in, that's why you use a "Microscope" to see small things *face palm*.

Those motes are tiny insects which fly about in tiny swarms. The swarm (macro view) can change shape, but not the tiny insects (micro view). Why is this hard to understand? Also ..the black goo in David's bombing scene, shows no sign of "swarming" at all...it is not flying about in a directed group or groups, which is what swarms are....it is raining down on mass and hitting engineers. You are using the wrong words. Raining drops of black goo do not make a swarm. Rain doesn't come down in swarms, it comes down in torrents. You'll be calling it a "flock" next. Jeez.

"small flying objects" - Those are small particles of black goo. Nothing more. Nothing less.

You are wasting your time Thombach :)

A macro lens in photography is used to take extreme close-up pictures. I have a very good one myself.

In photography, macro is zoomed in. But if the script is referring a macro view of something, that would be zoomed out.

Drucea, if you read the script or look at Kethol's quote from it, every time it describes the mote cloud, then says MACRO VIEW, it describes a zoomed in close up of one insect in the cloud. It is not even questionable.

Hox, the macro function on my camera is for a zoomed in view also.

Kethol, I know, I know. I was just trying to help him understand.

The Lindeloff Quote can be taken as ambiguous, due to the way it was worded, but it does point more on the side of the Hammerpede being able to infect people.

Lindeloff did say the Hammerpedes play a role in the Xeno Origins, well he teased this.. i cant remember word for word and which interview it was.. and it was a bit ambiguous as it came across as just his personal interpretation... he also said the Deacon was a Xenomorph Ancestor.

We do-not however know if this was via the clues in Prometheus or if indeed RS/Lindeloff had actually discussed in depth the Deacon/Hammerped/LV-223 Connection to the Xenomorph.

I always felt the Hammerpedes could be a strong candidate and even made  few posts/topics on the Xeno/Hammerpede Connection.

And the basis of the Deacon being a Ancestor to the Xenomorph...  this is basically not a Direct Ancestor as far as the events of Prometheus..  But more so that the Deacon Mural Predated the Dr Shaw ==> Deacon at the end of the movie.

And the Hammerpedes Predated the Prometheus mission and so those Worms + Black Goo = Hammerpedes... be it the year 2093, the year 200 BC/AD or any year the result would be the same.

And so the potential for Hammerpedes in the past is high, and if those worms are similar to worms on Earth, then they are likely Egg Layers/Producing.  And so infected with the Black Goo, the Hammerpedes could very likely have Eggs.

Then we have to ask why did it attack Milburns Mouth?

There was a Outbreak 2000 years ago, and maybe Worms could have been infected before... maybe this explains the Cryo-Pod Chest Busted Engineers?  and maybe this is what Lindeloff hinted at?

My Re-write of Prometheus which i abandoned did show Hammerpede Eggs, and did have Milburn Chest Burst a kind of Xeno/Neomorph Chest Buster.  I was visioning using this Prometheus concept work.

Well basically it would be similar to the Alien Chest Buster but using the color scheme of the Hammerpede, with a head like some of the Prometheus concept works.. that the Neomorph also was designed from

BigDave, I don't think what Lindelof said was meant to be ambigous. If you watch Prometheus and listen to his commentary when the camera pans down and shows the worms moving around in the goo, he tells you exactly what they are going to become. The same worms are shown crawling through the same dirt earlier in the scene, before the urns start to leak.

Macro when we are talking about Optics... is about viewing something as Small as we can with the Naked Eye... and seeing something that we do-not need additional Magnification

So a Macro View is looking at something from a Camera Perspective or Persons Own Visual Perspective as close as we can.   Where we get as close as we can to detail, without the need for for additional Magnification.

In context to the Draft, it is implying a Close Up view of the Motes.

As far as the Bombardment goes, i have not seen Alien Covenant now for over 11 weeks maybe 12 weeks and i had only seen in 3 Times at the Box Office.

But what i recall (and i have not seen in repeated detail or ability to pause etc as a Home Viewing can).  Is the Urns explode and it rains down Black Goo.

This seams to rain on Engineers and then after the first few are covered the rest of the stuff does seem to have some Inteligence to how it seeks out the Engineers, like it is homing in and swarming....  i recall seeing some of it appear as particles that fly off and buzz around the Engineers.

The Engineers skin is like attacked by this and then the Engineers start to Spew Forth from their Mouths, and Nostrils Black Liquid like Substance, and then some appear to have parts of their body break open where the Liquid takes a Intelligent Shape much like the Life-form from the Movie THE ABYSS before it then turns again into liquid.

Once i have the DVD/Blu-ray i can study it more in depth.

@Thombach

Sorry i dont mean as far as what they was becoming, i meant as far as comments he has made in the past alluding to the Purpose of the Hammerpedes... and the one comment in particular could be taken as ambiguous meaning the Black Goo infects people, but it would say its was less ambiguous and hinted that the Hammepredes could infect people.

This maybe they perform a similar task to the Face Hugger which would fit within context to the whole Alien Life Cycle and while we never see this in the movie.. it makes Logical Sense and exploring this would have given us more CLUES between the Black Goo and Xenomorph... which is where my Re-work of Prometheus attempted to add such things back into it.

Regarding the Mystery...

I think to some degree maybe FOX in Hindsight feel some things should have been kept a Mystery... Prometheus explored more so the Space Jockey Race and opened up a whole Creation/Gods like Plot...  

For some this was not a good route to take, for others they felt it was interesting and expanded the Universe and it left some Big Questions.. 

Prometheus had set up clues, which are not as SPOON FED as some would like...  which was to show the Engineers played a part in our Creation... we just never know WHY!

These Engineers then had been conducting Experiments on LV-223 with the Black Goo that was connected to some Xenomorph like Organisms and clues are it is connected to the Xenomorph but it was never SPOON FED... HOW

It was left Ambiguous to WHY the Engineers Created this stuff... but it appeared even if the Intention was not only to just use on MANKIND..  The Engineers had intended to use it on US.

WHY? Because we had done something to upset them, and had not turned out the way they intended (there is a whole debate to go into details for this) but there was a Point the Engineers some 2000 years ago just decided they needed to Wipe the Slate Clean and use the Black Goo to Destroy us.

But the movie is ambiguous that we can never 100% be sure if this was a Act to Destroy us completely, or a act to Evolve us into something Else.  

And so many Questions remain as for more Details to WHY.. and Dr Shaw had Questions that was kind of answered, this being WHY they want to destroy us...  but others was never answered such as WHY they Created us...   The movie hints via dialog with David/Holloway at possible reasons but these are never from the Engineers Mouth...  so there is a lot of Mystery to explore.

Why was we created?  What changed the Engineers minds to need to Destroy us?   Was the sole Purpose of LV-223 just to create a Weapon of Mass Destruction to be used on Earth, or was their more to it than that...

Who created the Engineers?

These are things that many hoped a Prometheus Sequel would cover... but they would mean the Xenomorph would be a lesser part.

So things was changed...    ALIEN had TWO Mysteries... The Space Jockey and those Eggs... and Why/How the TWO ended up being there....   This was the Premise of the Prequels

These evolved to Prometheus that felt that expanding on the Space Jockey, and hinting at  this Race Creating/Experimenting on some Horrific Biological Warfare that somehow seems connected to the Xenomorph was more important than Spoon Feeding the Eggs Creation and Derelict Event.

They now seem maybe this route was a mistake of sorts and that covering the WHY as far as the Cargo and how it came to be and what it was intended for is what they should have covered and not gone into exploring the Engineers or giving a vague experiment connected to the Xenomorph.

So as  YOG mentions, those simplistic Questions are kind of Answered.

SPACE JOCKEY... Why that Cargo?

Answer this Race had Created us, and felt at some point they should Undo this Creation and they used LV-223 to Facilitate a Weapon that would be used to Create us.   WHY?  this is a bit open to debate, but its simply they felt we had done something or turned out to be something Against their Original idea/plan and its a case of Wipe that Slate Clean.

So the Answer from Alien is... the Space Jockey was a Ancient Race, who was involved with Mankind, but then saw Mankind as a Flawed Project, maybe even felt Threatened and so they attempted to Destroy us by Creating Bio-Logical Weapons. 

This does not answer the Xenomorph though... and so along comes Alien Covenant to show that the Space Jockey Races Experiments/Black Goo which they could not control/contain has been used by Mankinds Creation to Destroy those Engineers (those on Planet 4) and then from the results David experimented and Created a Perfect Organism he intends to use as a Weapon to Destroy all Humanoid Life.

Thus the whole, where did the Black Goo come from, why did the Engineers Create us, and want to Destroy us as far as in detail and who created the Engineers... are not things that i feel will not be explored and left to MYSTERY

It is now the Path of David and how from TWO Face Huggers he can amass a Army of Xenomorph Eggs and then the Big Question NOW is How does these Eggs get onto a Engineer Ship, from where did this Ship come from and how those Eggs become Thousands and end up on that Ship... and who is the Pilot.

These are now the only things the Prequels will concentrate on i feel.

@BigDave

Nope, the hammerpedes were never intended to be xenomorph "ancestors". They were and are something seperate. See this old production diagram of creature relations. Note the fact that hammerpedes give rise to "centipede"s, just as mutant Holloway gave rise to the trilobite. -

who made the xeno family tree?

@ BigDave

I just watched the goo bombing scene for the 5th time in a row and i can see no evidence of black goo "swarming" or "flying round" engineers. It is raining down on them..because it was dropped on them.

Ok I just found and read the script myself, it does appear John Logan is refering to Macro view in terms of lens, so yes its zoomed in. I didn't have the context because I didn't have the script. So yeah, looks like those mote insects can change shape, in early production of this movie at least. *Shrugs* changes nothing for me, they are still separate from the black goo and the black goo does not swarm.

@BigDave - When you said Lindelof quote I thought you were referring to the Lindelof quote we were just discussing yesterday.

The Hammerpedes may eventually infect people with a chest burster or something similar, but I don't think any of the film makers ever said that. If just seems the goo altered their DNA and mutated them into something else.

Something infected all those dead Engineers though. They all had burst holes in the chests. They were all running toward the temple room when they died though. That means the accident that released the virus happened somewhere else in the dome. They were all chest bursted but we don't see dead facehuggers lying around. I think they may have been infected with something small and fast like the mote insects that produced the neomorphs.

@ ali81

It's listed with a bunch of Prometheus concept art here - http://www.avpgalaxy.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=308

thombach, we don't see inside the other engineer pods in Prometheus so several theoris could be possible here such as facehuggers burned their way into the pods while the engineers slept. the bodies are still inside the pods. the engineers wake, leave the pods and some time later a neomorph or xeno erupts from their chests. this may be what the engineers are running from and would explain the shreek in the holovid the crew see?

yogi, cool. I cant see it as AVPG comes under games and is blocked at my work. but I take concept art with a pinch of salt. to me neither u nor bigdave are wrong, its open to interpretation imo as many things that are concept art don't exist. its concept, such as the balugamorph, all the other concepts of the engineers ships, the first draft etc.

Ali81, Not the Engineers in the pods. I mean the dead ones in the passages that Fifield and Milburn found. They were exploded from the inside.

Soth, that family tree chart is from Johns Spaiths version, which had all the chest burster stuff in it. Lindelof dropped all that and just made the worms mutate. 

@ Thombach

The black goo has a different effect with each genome it interacts with. I think with the engineers it is quickly lethal, but causes them to quickly produce a parasite also, as we see with David's bombing. I think the engineers in the temple suffered the same fate as the ones David bombed. Some of the goo got out and infected them somehow. We don't need to see the parasites lying about..they could have walked off and died some place else.

thombach, ah I get what u mean. never really understood that part of the movie tbh. though it does look like the bodies have been purposefully pilled up so someone has done this which may explain the lack of facehugger bodies as their bodies could be elsewhere

@ Thombach

That tree is from a slightly altered plan to the Johns Spaiths version. Johns Spaiths version didn't include a "Trilobite", it had the "Sexburster" which became the "Belugamorph". Also there was no mention of "liquid" with Johns Spaiths, or "hammerhead eels". It seems like it's part way between Spaiths' and Lindelof's scripts.

the john spaights script is awesome, I loved reading it and would have been good to see on screen. alas, it didn't, so nothing in the script, unless it made it into lindelofs script and then the film, can be used to make a point imo 

Holy crap. I've just read the John Logan script. I..might have to change some of my theory on the Neomorph life cycle and black goo......Jeez. this script seems to have those egg sacs coming FROM the black goo itself, then David uses the egg sacs to make the Xenomorph eggs by adding other DNA to them (possibly Shaw's). What is the canon status of this script?

Ah it's so ambiguous in wording. Maybe I'm just reading it wrongly.

this is why its all over the place yogi. I would tend to go with 'did it make the movie or dvd extras/ directors cut' as canon with regards to Prometheus and AC. the issue is that most people who watch the films don't read the scripts so for the majority, its only whats in the film and extras that exist to them. we read the scripts and look and theories about things they will never get to know about but wer more alien buffs than the majority are. maybe that has a negative effect on us sometimes? we look at early drafts and include parts that didn't go any farther than first draft yet we include it sometimes

@ ali81

I agree. but some of those "little mysteries" I was talking about are much more "solved" in this script. It has David spelling things out much more clearly, so I wonder if in later scripts these facts were removed or what?