Alien: Exodus

@BigDave

Thank you for having the graciousness to acknowledge my correction. The Engineers did not abandon mankind. They decided 2,000 years ago after six documented visits that they wish to redact mankind and replace it with their own sub creation. Mankind the audience of Prometheus looks for a deep meaningful and complicated reason for this decision. The answer is simple and expressed in the film. Prometheus refracts its audience. Did the Engineers judge anything significant happened at AD Zero quite possibly Ridley thought so. 

@ BioDegradable

“And it is even more questionable when you lay your own foundation for your story upon those already shaky assumptions.” This refers to my work in your post and the shaky grounds it was based on. 

I will now switch to male Australian for my reply. “You know nothing about how my books work so shut the f… up mate!”

Back to gentle English. There is a ten page 4333 word glossary which covers the rule book I wrote before writing the story.

You might, though I doubt it, find it interesting to note that whilst I have received very supportive criticism of many aspects of the story regarding its weakness's, which has only made me work even harder to raise my game not one single person has raised the endless BS that permeate this forum. I spent 25 minutes writing my rule book whereas I can spend 25 minutes on one paragraph of dialogue or situational experience because in the end Ridley and Damon did all the donkey work on what an Intelligent Creation might mean. I simply hardened the understanding of what it means made it more coherent filled in the blanks.

Its a remarkably simple story science, faith accompanied by knowledge go in search of their answers and none of them are right. LMG knew the movie he was in. So did Noomi who knew she was an uneasy confluence of faith and archaeological intellect and guessed that when she moved closer to the heart of an intelligent creation things would get even more challenging for her faith and her fathers. 

I do not buy your mock indignation, attention seeking or rambling light weight posts and I do not give a fig if you post another attempt at bait and switch. "My work" is way to precious and valuable to me to allow you to hijack it.

What exposes people like you is every so called answer you are after can be found in the quiet of your own computer but of course that does not allow you to rattle cages and create your own little dramas. Out !

@BigDave

You and I have diametrically opposed views about how to approach these matters but we are adults and agree to disagree but I am sorry that your thread has been taken up by this. 

@BioDegradable

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head, and shows what a mess we are currently in, regarding where these Prequels have ended up taking us....

If we go back to prior to the Prequels we was left pretty much a few Questions..

Special Order 937 where did this come from and how much did the company know.

But the Main Question/Mystery was the Derelict, its Cargo, the Pilot and what he was doing with the Cargo.

In Hindsight maybe this was a Mystery best left as such... as sometimes when you attempt to give answers the answers can end up disappointing to some Fans and NOT what they hoped for and currently i think where we are NOW is Testament to that.

But they attempted to address the Mystery with the Prequels, starting with Jon Spaights and Ridley Scotts ideas, that lead to Alien Engineers... were they decided to go the Chariots of the Gods Plot... which opened up a Massive Scope but one that was always going to be a Poisoned Chalice...  by the time we have Lindeloff come in, they decided that actually we dont need the Xenomorph Origins or Xenomorphs at all and we should concentrate on the Space Jockey Race, and the Creation Plot, expanding it to Philosophical Questions about Mortality, Creation a Soul and other Themes... which makes for a Pretty Interesting Potential Plot...   but one which distracts away from ALIEN but this was the intention at the point that Lindeloff signed off from the Project...

Setting up a Potential Meeting of our Makers for Answers with David and Dr Shaw being used to give us those answers or maybe not, certainly maybe not how Dr Shaw would have wanted.  Maybe we would have got some information on LV-223 more about its connection and purpose, but then it could have completely left the Outbreak and Purpose as a NEW Mystery.  It was quite a open ended PLOT as far as what it would cover or would not... but it certainly was intended to STEER away from ALIEN and the Xenomorph, and it certainly would have been showing us David and Dr Shaw arriving at Paradise... but what they find is the Big Question...

There seemed to be some Broad Strokes that would be followed, which included they would reach this World of the Would be Gods, or connected to them.... and discover these beings are not Benevolent or Gods... and that David would be bringing Hell with him.  (Black Goo).

I think the ambiguity of Prometheus and Scope, allowed for many debates, regarding Creation, the Engineers, the Black Goo, LV-223 and how it connects to the Xenomorph.  The Problem is not knowing how much of these would be covered and the Xenomorph and ALIEN looked to be passed by.

The Set up was interesting to a number of people, i feel Michelle certainly felt there was potential MISSED by the U-Turn Plot Change to please the Fanboys and Give us the Xenomorph Origins at the expense of most of the Set-Up regarding the Engineers, and Dr Shaw and what answers could be granted from her Quest for Answers.

So its become a mess... its become something that NOW has a tough time to please everyone... much harder task..

In Hindsight the Mystery should have been left, or explored the Space Jockey with something more ALIEN that is not connected to Mankind.  So that we never had that Pandora's Box that has been opened with the Plot for Prometheus.  But on the Flip side it seemed Ridley Scott had some very interesting things he wished to cover, that would have woven Mankind, the Engineers and AI into a Philosophical Thought Provoking Epic (potentially).... but at the cost of being a Distraction to all things ALIEN which for many Fans is what a Prequel should not be about despite Prometheus setting up a Story that WAS to steer away from ALIEN and certainly opened up a Passionate Clientele/Fanbase who wanted more than another Alien Resurrection.

The Xenomorph had been explored over and over.... but we still did not know its ORIGINS or how the SPACE JOCKEY Race are connected and their Origins and Purpose...

Such attempts at a Origins Prequel for both would always be filled with Expectations, that would Ultimately never be accomplished to every fans wishes...

@Michelle

Its always good to have different views on how things could/should have been explored...  your replies have not De-railed this thread at all...

Because actually the thread is intended to get us to think of how RS will tackle some of those Themes, and Philosophical Questions that it seemed he wanted to answer after Prometheus.  

Dr Shaw may have gone, but i think a lot of the things she may have found out, are things we could maybe had explored in the sequels to Alien Covenant. 

Creation, what does that mean, a Soul what does that constitute, were do we go when we Die.... what is Faith/Religion in context to the Franchise.  while we never get to see Dr Shaw Face those would be GODs for such answers...   i think RS is still trying to touch upon them in context to maybe showing us that the Answers are NOT quite what Dr Shaw's faith would have us to be drawn too...

But offer us a interesting outlook on such Questions....

The Soul seems to be a interesting one.... and RS is very keen on AI and so it would have been interesting to see where this would have gone at the time of Prometheus 2, to where this can go with Alien Covenant 2 set up....

The theme of Perfection and Evolution is something thats very Evident..  and so indeed that Quest for Immortality and what makes a Soul/After-Life could be something that does not exist... not according to Scripture....   But a None-Human Android like David who does-not have a Soul per-say.... but if they went for a Truth where Mankind does not possess one either (a Spiritual Form that lives on after Death).  Then indeed David could be the one who is closest to having any such thing... should his AI be able to be Uploaded and Transferred into a Network of Computers or from Synthetic to Synthetic...

When we look at it further as far as the FUTURE of our Evolution, the next Big Gains in Evolution could well be Artificial as we Genetically Engineer ourselves..  What happens when we can FINALLY Transfer our Human Soul (Memories, Feelings, Emotions and Personality) into a AI system.... we would maybe have achieved a Soul/After-life all but via Artificial Means..

I have been drawn to these being the things RS was interested in, and he may have explored these using Dr Shaws Faith as a Anchor Point and David being the Polar Opposite as far as a Created Machine that maybe goes in the Face of Biblical Concepts..

It would have been interesting to see where it could have gone, but i have always been drawn to the conclusion that what Dr Shaw discovered is going to be FAR from some Magical Being/Race that Created Mankind to Watch Over, Love and Cherish like a Mother Loves her Child.  That then had No-Choice to Destroy us because we Rebelled and had upset our Creators...

I think the KEY to how it would have been explored would depend on WHY we was created, WHY the Engineers was created, and maybe the Revelations are not far off WHY we had David Created.

If we look at every Mythos, Religion they share some common themes.  Connected to HOW/WHEN/WHY we was Created, but they also have some differences and i think what RS was going to show us could have been interesting and NOT something that would match what Dr Shaw had been brought up to Believe...

If this assumption is accurate... i feel it really could have made a Dramatic Arc for how Dr Shaws Character would behave.. It was likely she was never going to meet a GOD who fitted what her Faith had lead her to believe...

But again this is mainly what i have been drawn to, and who knows what route RS had intended to pursue it... but its always interesting to see what other people feel could have happened or how they would have tackled these things.

I think in part AC2 would have touched upon some of these things.... it certainty did not seem like it would be a David Creates Hordes of Eggs, waits for W-Y and Engineers and then we get a AVP kind of Movie!  Not how i interpreted RS Comments.... but i felt the 2nd sequel could have gone this route and Ultimately gave us a Alien Xenomorph Movie that would conclude or give clues to HOW/WHEN those Eggs end up on the Derelict.

I have a feeling that the connection between the LV-223 Engineers and David and the Deacon/Xenomorph could be revealed to be pretty close.

It makes little sense for  a Race of Humanoids who go around Seeding Worlds, to then just decide about 2000 years ago to then Replace us with some Xenomorph/Deacon Organism...

We have to ask was this the intention 35'000 years ago?

Was LV-223 always a Place to Produce Bio-Logical Weapons related to the Deacon DNA?  of had this happened at some point in future and was this done by at the time a Faction of Engineers... But now could be shown the Engineers in Prometheus were more closer to David and the Replicants.

The Answer to WHY we was created has to be the BIGGEST one in regards to Gauge why the Engineers would want to replace us with the Deacon...

If David is essentially similar to those LV-223 Engineers, then maybe Davids intentions for his Creation of the Xenomorph may mirror those intentions of those Engineers on LV-223 to Create the Deacon.

The Reason/Purpose of our Creation is the KEY to how any answers would unfold....  

Ridley Scott referred to those Engineers as Fallen Angels which could indicate those Engineers had rebelled against their Creators/Brothers and the intended Purpose and are Jealous over the Creation of Mankind.

If those LV-223 Engineers were Created or had Engineered themselves and in doing so had become Fallen... or they was created this way but Rebelled.... if these Enhanced Engineers do-not posses the ability to Create Life... not like Humans can, or indeed how those Planet 4 Original Engineers could...  If they are Created/Engineered to Serve a Purpose for those Planet 4 Engineers then we have to ask HOW does coming into contact with a Parasite that allows them to GIVE BIRTH to a Deacon be viewed by these Fallen Engineers. 

If they are tasked with using their DNA to seed and Evolve Worlds, at the command of those Planet 4 Engineers which they are Superior to... could we not see the same things happen with them as David has with how he views Mankind?   Would those Engineers then see the Organism (Deacon) as a Perverted way for them to Create and that this Deacon is more Perfect than their own Engineer DNA and so wish to EVOLVE and Corrupt Mankind with a Unholy Upgrade?

Similar could be used if we consider those LV-223 Engineers are just Planet 4 Engineers who Genetically Evolved themselves to become Superior at the Cost of losing the Ability to Procreate.... would they deem their Engineered Bodies as Superior to the Brothers on Planet 4?

If they encountered a Parasite that Lead to the Deacon... or related, would they then see this as a Perverted way they could Create, and from their Death rises a Organism they see as more PERFECT? If so then you could understand why they would want to then seed this Organism DNA to other Worlds...

There are many ways this could have been explored as far as the reason they would want to replace us.... some even speculate that our Creation was solely for that Purpose... but it seems the whole Creation of Mankind (especially if we assume the Sacrificial Scene was the way it began for us) is something that takes a Long Time and Investment if the intention was Create a Humanoid to be used to be a Host for the Deacon/Xenomorph.   And if this was the intention, then we certainly did not need any Teachings, what difference is 1000 Human Souls of the Covenant, compared to 1000 Cave-Men Souls when using them for the Black Goo?

I feel that LV-223 and its Purpose was not the same at the point of 2000 or so years ago, compared to what this place maybe have been 35'000 years ago.

That went a bit off Topic.... but what i am saying is i feel that RS is drawing us to see a connection between David and the LV-223 Engineers, be it via David being similar or that David would attempt with those Embryos maybe what had been done to those Planet 4 Engineers to become those Enhanced LV-223 Guys.

Michelle Johnston,

yeah, all this noise, but can you substantiate what it is upsetting you exactly? Just quote it. I mean, do you have anything to be angry and upset about of substance? What is it precisely? In any case, keep your odious attitude to yourself and in check.

As for "your work". Note, you never answered the question if you consider your posts on this board as part of your work. I have no idea what "your work" is about since I never read it, so obviously I can't judge it in any way...but I understand it must be important. Right, lets take a look.

Looking at your reply: "4333", "25", "25", "endless" one can see you like keeping some sort of superficial numerology/statistics. Take for instance the 25 minutes you talk about. Could it have been 24 minutes that you spent on "rule book"? Perhaps 26 minutes? Are you sure it is 25 minutes anyhow, and how precisely did you time it. In any case, is it significant that it is 25 minutes? Do you post after noon or right after midnight?

In your reply to me anyway, in 27 lines of it you used the pronoun "I" 11 times and "you/your" 10 times. Why is my person so important to you? Do I feature as much in your works? Do you know me? Anyways, what is it about you and your indignation you express here, what is it if not an attention seeking from you? Do you do it subconsciously, since apparently you accuse me of it, and this is a classical Freudian slip from you. I presume you think this is bad, which is bad only so if take this behavior to extreme and you indulge in it unknowingly to your person, ie you are a complete nutter. But do you actually see that all you are doing here is just attention seeking and looking for self justification? Btw, I don't condone your actions - go and seek such attention : test your ideas, share your writings etc. Create your own thread. Obey the rules and all that. But there is actually no reason to be such territorial about it. Remember - I don't work here. Your posts here are not your work. I can post anything I wish and I am free to do so as long as I don't break the rules of the board. Are your ideas sacrosanct? Of course not. If you don't think so, well, you are in a world of pain :)

Let me be direct here, well I just have to, since you are throwing a tantrum without actually being provoked, which is btw a pattern an adult will not practice much(anyway, if you think otherwise - quote it or shut it), let me guess: you are this religious zealot, who never managed to amount to anything substantive in your whole life, especially as a writer, yet in your mind you are this brilliant sci-fi writer. Or you are strongly opinionated and passionate. You like your superficial numerology, which apparently inflates meaningfulness of your text to yourself. I bet all your works is choke full of such superficiality. For example does it ring a bell: "they landed on this planet at 2:23AM. They spent one day(not an hour more or less) doing this and that. The next 24/5 hours doing that and precisely after 666 their adventure started on this plant this happened. Without knowing themselves they spent precisely this amount of time, because apparently there is this grand plan they are all following without realizing it themselves. And blah blah blah....". Anything like this? Haahaahh. If I am anywhere close, then I prefer to shut it myself as you are just a poor individual(which somehow correlates with a cliche stereotype of a zealot, mad on his superficial and nonsensical ideas, mad on utterly meaningless things like signs/numbers and numerology, bigging up some sort of idea fix - a nonsense really, in his otherwise meaningless life, doesn't it?) who somehow thinks her opinion is much more important that somebody else's.

Anyways, here you come with your dogmatic and obviously "precious" and therefore only correct interpretation of the events in the movie that you used to write your story. It is all fine and dandy. But here comes this "BioDegradable" and apparently talks "endless" rubbish/crap to no end, displacing and subverting the whole forum and your works. What is more offending ... is his posts run contra to what I, obviously a very important writer, Michelle Johnston, am talking about in my little text here. How dare he! He can't hijack it.

Michelle, dear, get off your high horse. If you don't like some of the ideas I post here - fine, but don't come and post shit full of snide and bile. In fact I would appreciate it if you post objective critique. Also, this is not a "bait and switch" or any other strategy I am employing here, I swear. Just accept that your works and ideas are utter rubbish(which I bet they are) to some anyway and just post something relevant instead. Don't take this so seriously. Also, you mention that I am not alone who is doing all this cruelty to you - you mention "people". Who are they? Did you consider that they can be in fact a same person posting behind his quiet computer? This scheming slimy bastard? Is this a conspiracy against you? Just that, if this a fully blown nut-case scenario I am dealing with, I am telling you hereby expressly : I have only one account here :) I don't have an agenda against you or your works - you are just too trifling and inconsequential for me to have an agenda against. If you think otherwise well...what a despicable little drama queen. "My work". lol. GTFO.

BigDave, I have to apologize to you and your thread. But will you stop posting endless crap? Especially since it violates my rule book I have here written on a napkin in 2 minutes 23 seconds (cue "223").

just recently came across a HARDtalk episode with Martin Rees, a UK astronomer/cosmologist/astrophysicist (with Stephen Sackur, for brits available here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0btjmbp/hardtalk-sir-martin-rees-uk-astronomer-royal ), where he was talking a bit about AI, transhumanity(beyond the organic stuff), space travel and spirituality. Many of the things we are talking about in this very thread.

BTW, you can read his recent book, which is supposedly the tour de force, about the topics depicted in Prometheus and A:C : "On the Future: Prospects for Humanity".

Table of Contents:  

With that context given, the point is this: here is a cosmologist(necessarily an educated, scientific man) giving his views on the topics of P and AC. And the deliberations are remarkably similar with what we are presented by Ridley. This actually shows that Ridley does listen to prevailing scientific theories and consults people in the field before doing his movies.

However, we are quickly reminded that the answers to the questions posed, at this point in time, can only come from imagination. Which is why, if you want a semi-accurate story about how it all might play out, you might want to underspecify things and be deliberately vague with your answers, whatever they might be.

I think this is where a lot of frustration comes from wrt to the movies. Some wanted a rather bold exploration with all the questions substantiated and answered. And why not? We already have the beast, have engineers, space travel, mind reading neuro-link and David the embodiment of AI which is not coming anytime soon despite all the "AI" noise in the mainstream media - why not go all the way then? Why the ambiguity with all those imaginary things already on the screen.

On the other hand we have people who would say, "you might want to pipe down on all those topics, because this is not an A L I E N movie any more". The others are frustrated that this is not a melodramatic love story in space.

And indeed, as promised by the writers, every answer is already given on the screen: the answer(and therefore the questions) is irrelevant. But they made a very picturesque movie(s) about a fantasy. And taking a look at the book by a scientist you can convince yourself, thinking individually, that any answer is indeed irrelevant because it involves using wishful thinking. So, once again, bravo to Ridley and his team. They gave a gripping story, wrapped in a beautiful visual presentation. It is only unfortunate they didn't make a fortune out of it.

Michelle J:

“For the record it is completely clear to Damon Lindelof executive producer and writer and Ridley Scott director and Michelle Johnston viewer but not you and you are not alone. No worries.”

I have heard some explanation that it was because Jesus was an Engineer or someone that they sent to us and that we crucified him. I am not sure of this answer is correct but that is what it was about. My preferred answer is because we treat the planet and ourselves bad. To me if they are too vague and think that everyone of even many people will bother to lay the puzzle and come up with the answer then they are wrong because there are many other things in life to do than to spend time at solving a damn puzzle in a movie where the explanation should be more obvious. I am not against smart movies where you got to think. That is fine, but sometimes it gets too vague and that is also not good. I blame it on bad writing and/or execution of it and yes both Lindelof and Scott played their parts in it.

To Lindelof it might be obvious/clear since he is responsible for parts of the script (but so is also Spaight’s) so he knows but I am thinking about the viewers that will try to interpret what he (Lindelof) says and that is the thing that gets muddled since he is vague in his writing. It is vague in the way that it is because it takes time for the viewer to understand the big picture. If it would have been better written and/or executed then this should not have been the case then it would just be to add 1 and 2 and then you have the answer but this is not the case here.
“In a low exposition narrative characters do not say things merely for the sake of it. They mean something, a tent pole audience is very bad at picking up those cues wanting "tell us what your going to tell us, tell us and tell us what you told us." a standard technique employed in presentational learning.”

OK but then they should not be surprised if there is a lot of criticism against their art or what they present. In this way this critique against Prometheus is justified because you can not expect everyone to go back to it 100 times or what ever to try to find out what the movie is trying to say.

What is presentation learning? I tried to search the www for it and did not get a very good answer.

I totally agree with Big Dave that the movies (P and AC) are vague (maybe less so AC) so they are open to interpretation. This is a bit annoying at times and sometimes it also makes for interesting discussions.

BD mentions the crucifixion pose of the Xeno. If why they abandoned us is clear then that imagine would also be clear but they are not.

“The Plot Change to David creates the Xenomorph is a Prime Example. Something that could be changed in response again to Fans not being HAPPY” - BD

A hundred times yes, that was one of the major faults in Alien Covenant.

Big Dave:

I agree that the movies are not clear about things (for example why the Xeno is in a crucifixion pose, or why the Engineers wanted to get rid of mankind) and are a bit vague but that is interesting because that give us things to debate about. If they would be obvious then we would have figured it out after two or three views but they do not because that depends on who is viewing it. This could be both good or bad depending if you like to debate about things or just look at something and think "oh so that is what it is about".

Maybe they were not sure about what kind of things that they wanted to have there or maybe they regretted some things in Prometheus so they changed it on AC. Who was responsible for the Xeno is one of the things.

They should have explained the crucified Xeno a bit. I am not a fan of having it there just to look good. I want it to be a point to it and at the same time not have it to just look cool.

“It was vague, and many elements where never meant to have any deep connection...“

Then do not have it there, otherwise it just gets confusing especially if it is in a movie that is connected to the alien franchise which have always been thinking movies. If it is too vague some people might think that “oh well I give up“ if it is too vague so people might not care in the end like you try to climb a mountain and after four failures you say F it and give up.

"The Interesting Question becomes after this FAILED... WHY had they not come back to Finish the Job?"

Maybe they tried before and failed so they were afraid of another failure? It is just a guess, I do not know. Perhaps their weapons were too unstable?

"We have to look at the Engineers on Planet 4 for that and ASK... did they know about our Creation and intended Destruction? We have to look at the Engineers on Planet 4 for that and ASK... did they know about our Creation and intended Destruction?"

I wonder if the writers thought about that? Some writers might think that  "we show this and that" but their ideas for have it there might just be scratching the surface so to speak. They think about it but not as deeply as they need it to be for the story to work, that is my guess.

"Something that could be changed in response again to Fans not being HAPPY.."

I think that they should change that because the way that it is right now is not good at all. It is even worse than the design of the Newborn.

"… i feel it really could have made a Dramatic Arc for how Dr Shaws Character would behave..... i feel it really could have made a Dramatic Arc for how Dr Shaws Character would behave.."

But then they need to get the character right from the start otherwise less people will care to follow him or her.

"The Answer to WHY we was created has to be the BIGGEST one in regards to Gauge why the Engineers would want to replace us with the Deacon..."

Maybe they wanted servants that they wanted to rule over to make some of their work, like you do machines to perform tasks that you find boring. I do not know why, it is just a guess. Holloway said something like because we could and then David says something similar back, maybe it is just that easy but it could be done better.