prometheus opening scene

"What if I told you the cup that the Engineer is holding and would later drink from...is the size of a small wastebasket! or a large soup bowl."

I would say your Bat $"£%^ Crazy.... ;)

Joke... indeed this was the case (what you said, not Bat $"£%^ Crazy)  Originally the Altar had a Bowl almost IF-NOT identical to the one used by the Sacrificial Engineer, only compared to Holloway it was Larger.

I have Scaled (approx) the Sacrificial Cup (Engineer) to match the Bowl in the Trailer to show about how large the Engineers Hands would be compared to Holloways if THIS was the same Cup/Bowl.  And then also how Small the Sacrificial Bowl would be to the one on the Alter if the Engineers Hands where Human Sized.

It looks much larger, but this is just the Sense of Scale, something Ridley Scott thought Camera Angles and 7ft2" Actors could create the Illusion with..   I had to scale the Bowl to Match (Approx) by 60% which would mean the Engineer would have been 10ft Tall.  But that Hand looks more than TWICE the size. (it is NOT)

Mike Myers is 173 CM and so 2.13X Larger than  Verne Troyer (81cm) yet he looks less than HALF the size.

Here is a Engineer Scene, if i take the Engineer and Scale him to the same Scale Difference (Approx) as the Holloway and Engineer Hand in previous image.   This is what the Engineer would be like if he was Scaled to 10ft (approx)

So you can see this NOW 10ft Engineer looks larger than 10ft but he is about 10ft, but i scaled the Engineer to this size,  compared to Holloway and Weyland... NOW Weyland looks Taller because he is in the Foreground i want you to ignore this, well this is kind of the Scale Trick that Ridley Scott would use to make the Engineers appear bigger.. but it failed in some shots.

But the image to the right would show HOW big a 10ft Ian Whyte would have looked on Set.   What we have to remember is the Engineers were supposed to be 15ft Tall (Alien Engineers) , then Scaled to 12ft for Paradise Draft but then as of Production for Prometheus they had the idea these were 10ft Race.

If the Intention was 10ft Race, and this was about the size of our Sacrificial Engineer, and they Scaled the Bowl/Cup for the Altar to give the impression that YES those Engineers who seeded us are TRULY GIANTS but then you never used Effects like in (LOTR/Hobbit) to make the Engineers appear 10ft, then after Shooting has Finished when you look back you can see those Engineers on LV-223 are not as Large as the Difference in the Bowl/Cup used for the Sacrificial Scene and other for the Altar Scene.

This would be a GOOD reason to replace such a Error of Scale and its why i think the Cup/Bowl was replaced with the Green Crystal.

IF effects was used to create a Engineer Race like in that image i posted of what a 10ft Ian Whyte would looked like, then you can imagine the sense of AWE those Engineers would have created and NO-ONE (well only those who think its Skeleton) would Question the Engineers are the Space Jockey.   But alas this is just a Consequence of Budget and a lack of using some effects that The Lord of the Rings used, and also what Game of Thrones has used on our very own Engineer Ian Whyte to make him the GIANT (Dongo)

BigDave The size again? I for one think that it was good that they ret-coned as the human (the Engineers have the same genes as humans) physiognomy can not be enlarged for ever. The largest recorded human was slightly less then 9 feet tall and according to https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/may/06/thisweekssciencequestions3 you could not be taller but still live long. Of course you could explain it away with voodoo science but what would a race to engineer themselves to be as big? 

Thanks BigDave!

Very cool about the size...

I can see Engineers living on planets with differing gravity....high gravity low gravity. Millions of worlds...different radiation/food/gravity/etc.....

If I were the Engineers...I'd take slaves from Earth...morph them...fill them full of drugs/goo and have them fight my battles and delver my cargo.

"we do not understand the relationship between the catalyser and the mutagen its not Damons fault its Ridleys"

I think it was a case of it appeared they had a idea what this was, but Prometheus the Mutagen (instead of Scarabs) made it less clear, its funny how a few changes can make something harder to understand.  The Engineer Sacrifice were Scarabs had Consumed every Molecule of the Engineer but Stored these, so they can pass the Engineer DNA onto life that it comes into contact with.  Such as the Primate, showed us Engineers DNA was carried within the Scarabs and passed onto the Primate that then created a Hybrid, thus a Engineer/Primate Hybrid becomes Mankind.  It was more Direct/Spoon Fed.   In Prometheus we only see the Engineers Sacrificed DNA reform, and we can infer from this that this is what leads to either the Creation of Life, or Catalyst to Evolve Basic Life.    Then when we go to the Scarabs a 2nd time, they attack Fifield and he does not get Broken Down, he instead is Mutated into a Xenomorph Hybrid (actually had a lot of Xenomorph Traits) so this appears to be the same Process of where the Scarabs attacked/bitten the Primate... only we can infer that as Fifield mutated into Xenomorph Hyrbid then those Scarabs got that DNA from a Xenomorph or related Organism.   With Prometheus we see Fifield was mutated into something that seemed to NOT really have much Xenomorph DNA, while we could make a connection with the Hammerpede,  IF Fifield was more Xenomorph then we could have made a clearly connection.

This is how i interpreted it on here, before Spaights Draft was leaked, after his Alien Engineers was leaked i was quite pleased to see i was very close/spot on.  I was under the impression that in Principle the Scarabs got replaced with the Goo but they essentially had the same Role... But this is when FOX start to come up with things to try and clear up how it worked in Prometheus by releasing a Weyland File that kind of NEVER added up with what was shown..  When John Spaights Scarabs was the True Rosetta Stone.   So we then arrived where the Goo was now a McGuffin and i feel the Advents reveal it is a Form of AI, was a means to make the GOO less of a McGuffin.   And i think to a degree YES this new information while on one hand may be a Lazy/Quick FIX to explain the inconsistencies, on the other it Actually could be used to Explain it all well. 

Going with this Reveal, I still wonder HOW/WHERE they can Reprogram this AI Goo... does it happen in Labs, before its shipped into Urns?  Does something on the Ship allow it to Program HOW it would react (But then why the other Outposts?, i can only assume they are all the Same but they have Many so if ONE BATCH is spoiled, the rest wont be, in the other Complexes).  Or Does this GOO have a AI that works all on its own, or can sometimes which means the Engineers had Created/Obtained something they cant Control.  And so potentially the GOO can React in ways they have no control over?

"When I was deciding on a rule book for my novella"

I think this is something they should have done with Prometheus, there must have been certain ideas for certain things, but it appears as they progress through Production, Shooting, Editing and even afterwards... they have changes of ideas/minds to certain parts.   Thankfully they now APPARENTLY have a Alien Rulebook for Future Reference, but would this mean they STICK to it?  As surely this has to have in it the Xenomorph is Created by David and by a Process that required Humanoid Reproductive Cells/Organs.

"If I may, without being biased, if I look at the AC as a story of creation and evolution of a new life form by our beloved David, how exactly did AC march towards inevitable?"

@BioDegradable everyone is entitled to their own opinion and nothing is set in STONE as they can change things again, But RS had confirmed that Alien Covenants intentions was to get us close to ALIEN and WHO/WHY would someone make such a Horrific Bio-Mechanical Organism.  It was intended as a Part of a 2-3 Movie path to lead us to the Back-Door of ALIEN and so it was revealed that the WHO and WHY was David it loosely showed us HOW, and WHEN it more so indicated WHY and by WHOM and what the Reveal of David Creating the Xenomorph means, is that the MYSTERY now is HOW/WHEN/WHERE and WHY does Davids Creations end up on a Engineer Ship and Crash Lands on LV-426.   Ridley Scott has indicated that we are NOT-QUITE there yet (Xenomorph in Alien) so this Creation has some Evolving to go, and then has to End up in Thousands on a Engineer Ship, well the Set-up is the end of Covenant, with its Thousands of Colonist, and how RS has confirmed the Engineers will return and be one of the 3-4 Parties who will be arriving at where ever David ends up.  This has to be the Source of the DERELICT most likely.  Its a case of WHEN/HOW do they cover the events that lead to Davids Creations becoming Thousands and then getting onto a Engineer Ship and WHERE it is going and WHOM the Pilot is... this is a bit of a Mystery.  But it could be setting up that its a Engineer/Related or David/Synthetic and its Heading to LV-223 or Leaving LV-223 but to where?  Depends on WHO the Pilot is revealed as.  My bet is EARTH or another World these Engineers/their Hierarchy come from.  And so we can kind of Guess where its going and what will happen, but without knowing the exact details, so there is some Mystery Left, but i feel this would be Solved by the time we get to the Final Act leading to ALIEN

"Now the next act might be the march towards inevitable, but even that can be dealt with masterfully"

I think this is something that could be MORE Disappointing but it can be something that can FIXED.  Before seeing Alien Covenant i felt this was going to be a Prequel, but i was wondering if it would reveal some Ancient Explanation of the Xenomorph where David would be shown to take this Blue-Print and make his own, and by what David does or how he discovers the Engineers previous work, THIS would show us how the Xenomorph came to be... But i was also about a 3rd worried that it could go the route that David Creates the Protomorph.   But by the time i had seen the 3 Main Trailers i had shifted to it being a 70% chance this movie would show us David created the Xenomorph, where i hoped he would have just Resurrected it (Jurassic Park Style) or Engineered his own Variant.

"Some are upset that engineers (and the whole mythos mystery) are just a sideline plot tool, some are upset that David created Xenomorph"

To continue from the last Quote i replied to of yours, these are concerns/disappointments that can be FIXED by introducing them, have the Engineers back, have them EVOLVE Davids Creation, introduce in the 3rd Act a more Alieny kind of Actions Scenes, with all HELL breaking loose.

Your comment about the "bean counters" is valid, as it appeared and i have said this before that AC was a attempt to give Every/Most kinds of Fans a Little of Everything they could want, it tried to cater to all Factions of the Fanbase, but all it did was not give EVERYONE enough.  and Rightly so that despite the disappointment that David Created the Xenomorph...   there still is that Underlying Theme of The Story of Creation and i do think RS needs to be allowed to have what he intends, as trying to second guess and please Fans has lead to the Mess that Alien Covenant has left the Franchise in to a degree. So i think they should RUN with Ridley Scotts Vision.  Because i do think as he had claimed, he was ahead of the CURVE with his intentions prior to having to "give them $£^%$^$ Aliens" as Ridley Scott had said..

"Also, now I see that I was being completely unreasonable, overthinking and balking over details"

I dont agree with that, i think the Ambiguity has allowed many people to try and interpret the Franchise, i think actually what this has done is allowed for MANY different Theories and Interpretations that it has produced a COOKING POT of Ingredients that any WOULD-BE writer could do No Harm in looking at many of these contributions by Fans such as yourself.  While sometimes i am pushed more to certain things by how i interpret clues and RS comments i do find other peoples interpretations to be VERY interesting and Appealing. ;)    I think many Minds on here if we Brainstormed could come up with a Plot Continuation thats Better than what seemed to be COOKED up at FOX HQ ;)

"Excuse me what about a million and one other unanswered questions which poor Big Dave could spend the rest of his available life span worrying over."

Dont go there ;)  I feel my Prometheus 2 if i had continued with it and Part 3 would have ended up longer than The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit ;)

But certainly such was the BOLD plot its how do you cover it and expand on it without distracting from what a Majority of Fans find interesting, and so a lot of detail/set up has to be omitted for Pacing.

I agree that they should have had a idea WHO the Space Jockey was when ALIEN: Paradise Lost was announced, i think its SAFE to assume they did before Prometheus and RS even mentioned WHO it was... which was  a Engineer, but at the time of all this we had to bare in mind the Engineers were intended to be 12ft Tall.   Who knows how many Changes and what Process was going on from 2013-2015 but i think during the end of Prometheus and work on a sequel with Jack Paglen Coming in, i am not convinced at this point in time the idea was that DAVID creates the Xenomorph, and the Derelict THUS was not there 25 years prior to ALIEN but things have changed and Progressed and as it appears we are NOW heading to ALIEN, i think RS is pretty sure who will end up in that PILOT CHAIR will it be David?  that would be a GREAT Fear, and i think would upset more fans than the David Created the Xenomorph Route... but we dont know what the Plan is, and it can be Subject to Change...   I think at the time of the Press Release, Marketing for Alien Covenant, they had all the Answers, they know where they are going.   

I think at the time of ALIEN: PARADISE LOST its interesting to see how close these ideas are to Alien Covenant as the NAME-CHANGE was made like a Month or so latter...  but at the time RS announced Alien: Paradise Lost he made a FEW Remarks that seemed to infer some other Hierarchy/Big Guy above the Engineers and who may even be more Powerful a Being/Race or whatever because RS indicate there is something BIGGER to come that has more of a impact than Bald Humanoids going around to Primordial Earth like Worlds, Sacrificing themselves to Create Life.  Who was the Big Guy implied, and is this only Relevant to what Paradise Lost was, and NO-LONGER applies to the Direction of Alien Covenant?

The introduction of ANOTHER Layer/Race or being would be interesting and would give them Freedom to have something that is NOT as Human as our Engineers, but then it could be just another Caste of Engineers, or Nothing at all..    While we can HOLD our Fingers Crossed for another Race/Being that is 12ft Tall.....  we could just as easy have a 7-7.5ft Engineer or a 6ft Human/Synthetic as the Space Jockey..  But you have to ASSUME by the time Alien Covenant had been released THEY knew who they had planned for that Reveal, as far as who is in the Chair.

I have said this before, if we look at ALIEN then Dallas kind of made TWO assumptions in regards to the SPACE JOCKEY

1) It looks Fossilized, its Bones Bent Outwards.

2) It looks like its Grown out of the Chair.

We can maybe RULE out the First One as Incorrect, i dont hold out for this being a Skeleton.  And Prometheus set us down the Path that we are not seeing a Skeleton.  But what can PONDER.. is Dallas Incorrect about his 2nd Assumption?  if not then well the Size Difference is Irrelevant is something Grows out of its Chair.

"Sorry guys and galls"

I totally 100% Agree with the Entire Post which followed that Quote BioDegradable we all come to different conclusions, i know i do repeat myself a lot and a lot of points can be lost in the Chore of Reading Essays.

We can all have ideas and theories that appear to make sense, some can be Lavish and Grand... but the Bottom Line is are we OVERTHINKING it?  So the Bottom Line really comes down to how much Thought are those working on the Project Thinking about... do they even have answers, or are they just Pushing a Plot Device A-Z where the detail is not important to them.  Where in Reality it could be like a Make-it-up as they Go along, where the Reality is they have no Real Imaginative Path they are going.

It is hard to second Guess Ridley Scott, because he does appear to comment about the Franchise in some Context, then to go back and attack a concept, (Beast is Cooked, $"!%£^ Aliens) to then seem to imply this concept is still important "it has to be about HIM, but you can Evolve HIM"

The only one who holds the Answers is Ridley Scott, but its case of how much of his ideas now are the same as when he began working on the Prequels in 2010 and how much is Shaped by what FOX want.  There is a chance that those Answers he had may be not as thought out, or as deep as many on here have pondered.   Hopefully NOW and with the supposed Alien Guidebook all Future movies must take into account, that they now have a SET Path from A-Z as far as to Alien but also ideas on how to expand the Franchise and we can just hope these are Coherent and not Contradicting.

" In other words, he has been concealing his true identity."

I think this is plausible, i think and its just in part my interpretation, that indeed AI will be revealed to be playing a Very Big Waiting Game to gain Control away from Humanity.  I feel RS would be taking us down the AI runs the show while Humanity is not in the know.. well most of us.

With David its not so plain and simple to judge his intentions, he could be playing Dr Shaw at a very Good game of Chess/Cat and Mouse. I think Dr Shaw came across as a very Naive, yet Faithful and Faith based Person, so would be someone ideal for David to Pull the Wool over her eyes.

We get to the point in Prometheus where David needs Dr Shaw and he needs her, and the TWO different Endings (well when Dr Shaw puts his head in a Bag) sets up TWO different Crossing Points.  I tend to lean towards the comments of RS about David  even going years back before Alien Covenant, where RS does suggest that ONCE Davids head goes back on he can become Dangerous.  But as RS says years after, he can be VERY Persuasive.

I do think David does start to Care for Dr Shaw, but i am drawn to him getting more out of control/evolving Emotions (since he is free from Weyland) but i am drawn to David starting to see Dr Shaw as more than Platonic and interprets her signals wrong and starts to gain Romantic Love for her... this does not mean he wants to have Crazy Robot Sex with her.  I feel this Love was not Reciprocated this worries Dr Shaw how he then starts to ACT, and i think she then Rejects him, and then tries to escape and David takes this Rejection that Dr Shaw does not care for him and only views him as a Machine like other Humans.. and David goes Crazy from this point.

I also are drawn to David having a few reasons for WHY he may want to Create, which i have covered on here a number of times.. but could end up a Essay ;)

@ignorantGuy

The whole Giants idea was to fit with the Size of the Space Jockey but also connect them to the Gods of Ancient Mankind who are depicted at times as Giants.

The Problem arises with the DNA Match... which if we take too Literally would then mean as pointed out those Engineers have to be HUMANS and why are they so different.   Would Engineering ourselves change the DNA so much that its not a Match?

I think they should have shown that we  are a NEAR MATCH so they could have gone.  

SHAW: Look at the Data, this is nearly a exact match to Human DNA, only a number of Genomes that appear different.

HOLLOWAY: Which means?

SHAW: That we came from them?

HOLLOWAY: Exactly, it proves all you need is a Splice of DNA and a Petra Dish to Create.

I think another thing in reading too much into a DNA match is Mutations, you do make a Good Point that the Taller Someone is, like some Giants of our kind 8ft+  Humans do Live for Less...  but i guess the Question is would doing a DNA Test on a Sample of a 8ft Human or a 3ft Human show they are NOT a match?

Chimps and Humans Share 98.8 percent DNA i am not the best Biologist to determine how much of a DNA Match a Small Person like say Verne Troyer RIP would have with a Average Human, but i would say its practically a 100% Match.  It would be Mutations in the Genomes that account for the difference in Size etc... the same Genome Differences that determine the differences in Race, yet we are all 100% Human.

I think its a good point to suggest any 100% Match would mean they are Human, but then i think we have to allow for some differences in Genomes etc.

The intention was 12-15ft but they scaled this back because of the cost/time to show us a 12ft Race on Screen, so it was for Practical Reasons why our Engineers are downsized.

They could introduce another Race for the Space Jockey, but as i said with the Dallas Observation "it looks like it is/has grown out of the Chair" could be applied to allow for a 7-8ft Humanoid to well appear to grow to a 13ft Space Jockey Corpse.

Going back to this SCENE/TOPIC then it is NO-WAY to indicate as i have said before that this Scene is on EARTH, it is just to show HOW the Engineers go about Sacrificing themselves to ALLOW for their DNA to Create Life.

It is UNLIKELY that the Earth is the ONLY place they have Visited and Seeded Life and Evolved Life, and in CONTEXT to the PLOT then we cant be 100% Sure that Mankind had Originated from some other PLACE and we had been taken to Earth in the Distant Past.

Ridley Scott had indicate that the Earth had LIFE before Mankind and the Engineers would go around and RE-SET their Worlds when they become Displeased or Concerned about their Creations.

Could the Engineers had played a ROLL in the Destruction of the Dinosaurs... i think YES in Context to the Plot/Franchise, could the Earth have had a Intelligent Civilization before Mankind that the Engineers also had taken CARE of so that they can USE the Earth to Seed/Take Humans too?  Again i think thats POSSIBLE.

I think also we cant RULE-OUT that some Engineers Decide to USE their Creation Tool to Create and Evolve Life on some Worlds and Experiments that are something that THEY have NOT been Authorized to do so. They likely have a Ritual Culture some kind of Religion/Cult and WAYS/RULES to Follow, but this does-not mean that ALL of the Engineers would FOLLOW these WAYS and so some could want to go and DO their OWN thing, to Create their Own Society or Sub-Species.

I have said this quite a BIT (Not Thousands of Times) it seems the Engineers are into Creation of Life in a BIG WAY, and that to them its seen as a HONOR and Privilege to DONATE their Body/Soul into Creating something so that they are Immortalized to a Degree in that their Donation means that the LIFE that comes from their Sacrifice is THEM/THEIRS.

The Engineers Plot is BOLD and Potentially has MANY ways it could be Explored or Interpreted and THINGS are NOT set in STONE and so they can CHANGE the Back Ground for the PLOT as they wish or EVEN just leave it AMBIGUOUS.

I think the BASIC way to look at the OPENING SCENE is that YES it could be Earth, it could be Planet 4 and it could be ANY Number of other Worlds, it is just to SHOW us HOW the Engineers begin their Seeding/Evolution of Worlds and this RITUAL has likely been Carried out on Countless Worlds across the Galaxy and BEYOND.