Prometheus (spoilers)

[Mother]

The engineers are roughly the same size as predators

And

The creepy snake things had similar mouths as predators

[caperix]

My biggest problem with Prometheus was the previews had me beleaving that it would explain Alien.  The previews showed the ship crashing that matched up to the ship in alien & they showed the pilot in the chair that was very similar to Alien.  But after seeing it I am left with more questions.  The movie felt like it had hours cut out of it that may have better explained things.

[derby]

My biggest problem with Prometheus was the previews had me beleaving that it would explain Alien.  The previews showed the ship crashing that matched up to the ship in alien & they showed the pilot in the chair that was very similar to Alien.  But after seeing it I am left with more questions.  The movie felt like it had hours cut out of it that may have better explained things.

but scott has said over and over again that prometheus wasn't going to be a direct prequel to alien.

it's not even the same planet; LV-223 (prometheus) vs LV-426 (alien).

[sugarcrook]

Didn't go into the theater expecting an Alien prequel and enjoyed the hell out of the movie. I think the Engineers are much larger than Predators, but I'd love to see that throwdown.

[derby]

Didn't go into the theater expecting an Alien prequel and enjoyed the hell out of the movie. I think the Engineers are much larger than Predators, but I'd love to see that throwdown.

i think predators are ~8ft and i've seen engineers estimated to be 7ft+ so i'd say they're probably about the same height.

that said, mr engineer didn't fare so well "hand to hand" with the giant face hugger, so a predator likely wouldn't have much trouble, either.

[cokey]

That thing was damn huge..

[krolik]

I got the impression that the "alien" was one of a number of different weapons the Engineers had created.

[CairnsDuc]

that was the way I took the discovery of the Planet, it was a Weapons Depot/Weapons development area.

This was just my way of reading the film and the few things I took from it, I am most likely wrong, but it explains in my mind at least some of the things that were not answered.

- The Engineers running away: I took it that one of the "Creatures" they had developed/made had gotten away from them and was chasing them, how many times has an accident happened during the Development of some new Weapon or Technology and people are injured or killed.

- The Star Map: it would appear that the Engineers were trying to destroy the human race, so in case they fail, these little markers were left behind so if we are smart enough to figure out what/where they are, we send up a ship, and Bang, nice little prize of death and destruction waiting at the end of the Journey, If your trying to destroy a race, you wouldn't leave Maps sending them to your home planet now would you.

- The Captain of Prometheus said it during the Film, it's some sort of Weapons Depot, it makes sense to move it somewhere where it's a long way away from home, so if things go badly wrong, there is little to no chance of that Weapon making it home. But a number of people have said why didn't we see the "Alien" like we see in the Alien movies, again, my 2 Cents, this is a weapons Depot, so there will be a number of "Aliens" or "Weapons" to suit different species and planets.

I did find the Casual regard of the Scientists a little annoying, rather than taking a proper, safe "steady as she goes" approach, they just stroll in and start dicking around with things don't know or understand.

The 2 guys that get left behind after everyone leaves the Dome, why would you try to play with some Alien snake that came wiggling up to you, I'm sorry, but I would running away screaming like Ned Flanders!

Also, I find David intriguing, he gives the black goo to one person, he tells no one that Weyland is on board, I don't think he is Evil per se, but he does have an agenda, but who set that agenda? Weyland, Weylands Daughter? if you recall in the Promotional film for David, he says that he can do things that may be considered unethical or unpleasant. you'd have to think the entire time he is there he is constantly talking to Weyland, who is desperately trying not to die, He spent a Trillion dollars building a ship to go across the Galaxy just on the off chance he could find an engineer to save his life, so it wouldn't surprise me if he told David when the Black Goo was discovered, give it to someone and see what it does, it would not surprise me to learn that Weyland ordered that, risk 1 life to save his own? A man with his Wealth and power no doubt would have no qualms about destroying someone else for his benefit.

Again this is just my $0.02 worth.

[NFG]

I've been having this conversation with a lot of people.  We all wanted this movie to be amazing, and we were all, to some extent, disappointed. 

What it seems to boil down to is three opinions:

1. People who aren't critical about their movies, disengage their brain at the ticket counter and just wanna see stuff happen.  They're easy to please, don't want to hear any criticism and usually think you're wasting your time when you can't get your head around how stupid large parts of the movie were and pregnant dog about it.  Who cares, it's just a movie.

2. People who really liked the ideas in the movie, and hold that up high without critically examining the lack of support the movie offered these ideas.  Engineers, space ships, aliens, excellent CG, enigmatic statues.  Great stuff, man!  Who cares if the characters were dumb as lemurs?

3. People who love a good story and really couldn't get past all the dumbass shit piled onto this movie in an attempt to obscure it.  I fall into this camp, definitely: whatever cool ideas existed were trumped soundly by bad writing and retarded characters who, as a basic story premise, went on a journey to the ends of the universe without knowing why.  The longer I think about it, the less it makes sense, and TBQFH it pisses me off.

Perhaps Weyland (who, I gotta say, looked like the least convincing old man I've ever seen!) couldn't get smart scientists, so he gathered the ones who'd suffered severe head trauma and were incurious to the point they were basically suicidal.  From that point, everything makes way more sense, but without that foundation you've got people who are not believable, and - like a horror movie where they just.  keep.  going.  in.  there - you can't enjoy it.

[IZ]

Totally forgot to comment on the snake the scientist was playing with. Agreed,  how stupid was that?!?  He just goes up to it and immediately attempts to play with it and talk it?! 

Weyland looked like Val Kilmer in old man disguise from The Saint. So not believable. Why didn't they just cast an old man?! I thought he would become young again or something to that effect at the end.  Why waste the makeup??

Weyland was obviously the one telling the android to give the scientist the black goo.

[Dannyboy]

Somebody mentioned the noise used in the trailers.  I saw the trailer for Alien yesterday and that same noise was used almost 33 years ago.  It wasn't in that movie either.

[Mother]

In the beginning you see an engineer commit suicide by drinking the black goo

It shows his body melt and his DNA reform into something new when he fell into the planets water supply

So we do know that the goo is evolution-in-a-cup

No idea why he did this as he was watching the strange black ship leave

One theory is that he was dropped off by the ship with the sole purpose of drinking the goo in order to seed the planet with life from his sacrifice and thus that is where humans came from

This idea is kinda supported by the ritualistic way he performed the suicide.

Another theory is that he did it because he saw the ship arrive ( lots of unknowns here with nothing to support it really)

Another theory is that he was either sabatoging the engineers by releasing the goo into the water of the planet.
(you know them liberal alien types always trying to screw up government funded projects)

Or

During the above mentioned seeding process something went wrong and evolution got away from them.
(the idea here is that the giant organic atmosphere processor dome that was terraforming a possibly dead planet but the planet wasn't dead and the goo mixed with some unknown indigenous life)

This would explain where the creepy snakes came from and why the other engineers were running for the cryo chambers

We saw after they brought the severed head back that it melted just like the guy from the beginning so it makes me believe they were running to the cryo chambers on the ships to halt the process.

I'm assuming that is why they were in their suits so they could survive the spread of the evolution goo that was now everywhere

(cuz water flows to the sea, evaporates, makes rain... Evolution rain)

This also makes me think that they were not trying to wipe out humanity

It makes me think they were dicking around with creating life because they could
( referencing the conversation between David and poisoned scientist guy)

And

They realized it got away from them

Upon waking you notice that the engineer talks to and then touches David before going into a murderous rage

I think this is because the engineer saw that the life they created was attempting their same folly and decided to stop it.

This draws a similarity between the evolution of the aliens that the engineers made and the androids that the humans made. They are both remorseless survivors that are very hard to kill, the "perfect beings" that fascinate the androids so much in each movie.

Fascinate them because they see them as an organic reflection of themselves, not chained by the programming of their makers
(referencing the dynamic between vickers and weyland spoken by david during the poisoning. vickers wants to be free of daddy, and David wants to simply be free)

I believe that it was at this point the engineer realized humanity had to be wiped out
As the androids (or maybe the humans)were just as large or even larger threat than the aliens

As to the predators

I think they are a controlled evolutionary version of the engineers

Created to deal with (hunt) the alien issue that the engineers created

Or

They are what the engineers became

After they were face sucked by the creepy snakes



There is some tickling in my brain about the goo and various atmospheres

It is referenced in both Prometheus and Alien

But I missed that part and something about a wall forming into an alien head picture

I had to pee

[Speedbag]

I had to pee

Pretty astute analysis. 

[Triple J]

Just saw this last night. Overall I give it a  . My only real complaints were how reckless the "scientists" were, and how tough Dr. Shaw was after her operation. I suppose you could assume that since they had that fancy surgery machine that they also had a way to speed healing. She seemed a bit too tough though...oh well. The 2 guys playing with the snake thing...WTF...I would have been out of there. I also would have told Shaw to pound sand when she said no weapons. The father thing with Theron was also stupid...that was dead obvious as soon as you saw he was on the ship. Still a good movie overall though. The sequel should be interesting with Shaw/David. 

I'm still confused as to if the Engineer at the begining was on Earth, but it makes sense that he was and he was seeding the planet for our life. It would seem the ship dropped him off just for that purpose, and we're just an experiment.

Given that the Engineers had been watching our progress over the centuries by the various heiroglyphics (sp?) on the cave walls over time, it seems the weapons depot planet may have been created to develop an organic weapon to destroy life on earth...hence the facility to replicate the earth's atmosphere...they needed the weapon to be able to survive on Earth. Their Earth experiment was either over, or they didn't like the results, so they wanted to end it. Like others have said, the weapon got out of hand, so they stopped everything crygenically. When David and crew awoke the Engineer, he just resumed his mission to destroy us.

I'll need to watch Alien, Aliens, and Prometheus a couple more times though.

[Monsterlover]

Just saw this last night. Overall I give it a  . My only real complaints were how reckless the "scientists" were, and how tough Dr. Shaw was after her operation. I suppose you could assume that since they had that fancy surgery machine that they also had a way to speed healing. She seemed a bit too tough though...oh well.

While I do agree, I think when the alternative is death most people cowboy up and ignore a lot that they normally wouldn't.