[Movie] PROMETHEUS

Sequel:
Yes. Scott and Lindelof have both stated that they intend to make a sequel and that Prometheus was made with the idea that there would be one. That is one reason why this film was a headache to fully figure out as a standalone film. Working title is Paradise.

Black Liquid - I am currently convinced that

Spoiler

1. What the guy drank at the beginning was NOT the same as what was found in the tomb room. His was simply a organic breakdown, no more.

2. The tomb room ooze, which was clearly based off the first DNA-breakdown ooze had additional properties - protoxenomorph rewrite.
Worms --> pseudo proto facehuggers
Fifield --> pseudo hybrid xenomorph (his looks only got 5% there, but his "folded up" appearance and his actions were all very xeno-like)
Halloway --> sperm genetic rewrite --> proto mega facehugger --> proto Xenomorph

 

The more I think about the movie and some of the theories...

Spoiler

the more the 'Jesus Was An Engineer Planted To Save Mankind" angle makes sense. If the engineer head was dated about 2000 years old, then maybe the engineers had sent back a "savior" to humans to see if they could revert their evil ways. But when humans crucified Jesus (engineer disguised), it angered the engineer race so much that they devised the dooms day attack ships and intended to send them off to erase mankind...but apparently something went very wrong.

I thought it was an interesting theory...but we'll probably never know of any links as Scott and Lindelof will probably never tell what their actual storyline intentions were/are.

 

If you haven't read the book (I haven't) and don't want to be spoiled, don't read the mountain of madness synopsis on wikipedia. This probably also gives you a sneak peak into how the potential Prometheus sequel would play out, which will still be disappointing with unanswered questions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness

 

This is so awesome. They had me at six-foot penguin cows. :grin:

 

Glad to hear they intend to make a sequel. Hope it happens!

Spoiler

To me the symptoms Shaw's sex mate suffered do share similarities with the engineer at the beginning. He seems to be going through a break-down too, just much slower since he consumed very little black liquid.

I think the monster-creatures were not from the black liquid itself, but were a seperate speci that the engineers made/discovered. When put together with the black liquid, they grow into different types of monster-creatures under certain conditions.

So they put the speci's DNA (green stuff) together with the black liquid in the same cylinder to form their weapon. But an accident happened before they launched their ships and the monsters wiped them out.

What Shaw's sex mate drank was the mix of the black liquid and the speci's DNA, which is why he himself colapsed and was able to implant Shaw with a monster embryo.

 

Wayyyyyy too much is being made of this 'goo'.


It's not that big a deal.

First, as EmJohn says, the goo the Engineer drank at the beginning was NOT the same stuff as in the vases. Different goo.

But obviously this race, which appears to have been relatively unchanged over millions, if not billions of years, has a vastly-more-advanced technology, and much of that is 'goo-based' - or perhaps a better way to think of it would be the way we think of 'nano-technology' today. Nano-technology, the way it is imagined today, in a somewhat advanced form, would definitely appear to be a sort of 'goo', just like in the movie.

So the goo the Engineer drank at the beginning was simply one kind of technology, for one specific (if completely stupid pointlessly suicidal reason) purpose: breaking down Engineer DNA and 'seeding' it into the biosphere.

Fast-forwarding millions of years, we find the engineers LOOK very similar, but what probably DID change was their culture, their politics, the philosophies, who knows what else.

But one thing is still the same: the technology is still 'goo-based', or at least still USES it in a significant way.

The goo in the vases is a different kind of technology, made for a different purpose. It *IS* a weapon. This is acceptable if you accept the notion that there are different kinds of goo for different purposes.

If you think of the vase-goo as 'technology' rather than simply 'mysterious black goo' - ie, think of it as science rather than as magic, then it is easy to make sense out of what it does, even though it SEEMS to follow no pattern of logic.

Again, think of it as an extremely advanced, and extremely SMART, weapon, created for the specific purpose of wiping out an entire species, or in this case, wiping out all life forms, possibly excluding plant life (plants being affected by the goo? that is never shown either way, so we don't know).

Think about what it actually does. Any life form with which it came into contact, even in a small amount, that life form was altered and ultimately destroyed. But not before aggressively seeking other life forms to either infect or destroy. Worms, human beings, even the engineers themselves apparently. It creates an indiscriminate exponential progression, which would in very short order completely cleanse an entire planet of an undesirable form of life.

The progression of one life form to another, ie the goo 'transforming Holloway' was simply one direct effect of the programmed technology, but the secondary effect was that the goo uses whatever means available and possible to spread itself. Therefore, upon entering Holloway, it 'learned' of Holloway's biology, knew of his reproductive mechanism, and immediately infected that mechanism and produced whatever hormonal pressure necessary in order to force Holloway to 'mate'.

It makes sense if thought of in this way.

It seems that DIRECT exposure to the goo produced the most immediate effect of transformation and aggression. Same thing happened with the worms. And with the amount of goo shown on just one of the ships, no doubt an initial attack would have very rapidly wiped out most of the population. The secondary effect would be for cleaning up any of the stragglers, hiders, any remaining pockets of resistance.

No doubt the goo could be 'programmed' for the specific life forms to eradicate, leaving untouched the ones which were not meant to be destroyed.

Which then brings up the notion of why the Engineers were running. Obviously something had gone wrong at the weapon facility.

My guess is, the goo had to have been programmed with a 'fail safe', programming which would have prevented it from affecting the Engineers in any way. This would have made it safe for them to handle.

But for some reason, the goo became dangerous to the Engineers. Possibly a rebel Engineer reprogrammed the goo? Possibly a random error, or some natural disaster, we do not know.

But most likely, the Engineers were running from one or more Engineers who had come into contact with the dangerous goo and been transformed. Remember how badass and dangerous just that one Engineer was? Imagine how freaking scary one of them would be if it had been transformed by that goo? Again, the events as shown make sense in this context.

Next, the fact that these were very deliberately designed weapons, and very large scale as well, indicates that either the Engineers were warlike, or more likely were simply 'prepared for war' just as we are today. One does not need to be warlike to be prepared to win a war.

So rather than thinking that the Earth was the only target on the Engineers' minds, much more likely is that the galaxy was densely populated, and that there could be any number of planets which might for some reason need to be 'dealt with' by whatever means necessary, including the scorched earth type of attack of using the black goo technology.

This then implies that the goo at the facility was un-programmed for any specific race or genetic material, but was instead in its most base form, ready to be modified for its specific target. This would be the form in which it was also its most dangerous, as it would be deadly to any and all life forms, including the Engineers (assuming whatever fail-safes in place actually failed).

Think of it like working with nuclear weapons today: radiation does not discriminate. Any mistake or error in a weapons development lab will kill the people working on it, regardless of whose side they are on. Same thing here.

So the goo was 'untargeted' when the disaster befell the facility, and therefore forever at its most dangerous. This may explain why the facility was abandoned by the engineer race - it could have been their 'Chernobyl' - extremely dangerous to go anywhere near it, potentially a threat to the entire galaxy.

That's my two cents on the goo, at least so far anyway.

***

Oh and people need to forget the 'Engineer as Jesus' theory. It's plain stupid. EVEN IF that is what Scott and Lindelof had in mind, it is still completely stupid. It is the sort of thing which would have been thought up by someone who has zero understanding of Jesus or Christianity (which Scott alludes to - he obviously is not a believer, but he clearly also understands very little of it as well) - so while that MAY have been their intent, it makes no sense whatsoever, and is therefore a completely idiotic idea.

 

THANK YOU. Again that theory would make more sense if he was an engineer that came down on his own accord or was a messenger sent by the engineers' creator, in either case sent to sacrifice himself to save mankind. That his death would be the catalyst to destroying humanity makes little sense.

 

Honest question...I'm not one to really dive too far into plot and storylines...but why wouldn't the Jesus as an engineer be, at the very least, a remotely possible explanation? I really enjoy reading everyone's explanation/theory/ideas regarding this movie. With so much doubt and discussion regarding the what's and why's...it really showcases a brilliantly written script...or one that has too many ***kin holes in it.

In any manner...I'd love to see a sequel...but will probably be equally dismayed when some questions are answered and others pop up and go unanswered.

 

Thanks for the post Nero. You obviously have taken the thoughts to another level.

However if indeed the engineers made all kinds of goo, wouldn't you think they would make them look different so they can be identified?

I mean if they have these two types of goo, one to create an entire world of life and one to destroy an entire world of life, why would they make them look the same when their effects are this dangerous, why couldn't they make them one black and one red?

Which is why I still believe there is only one type of goo, and it has only 1 single effect on humanoid.

 

Look at medicine - when you get a shot from a doc/nurse...the stuff in the syringe usually looks the same. Just because the ooze all looks the same doesn't mean it is.

One thing I noticed that (vs the cargo hold), the tomb room had noticeably different containers - they weren't uniform size...which suggests that their contents were not the same (but appear to be, since they all oozed into one big swampy puddle on the floor).

It may be an unacceptable idea for many (/most)...but Scott has openly confirmed that the Jesus angle was exactly what they wanted to imply

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...ust-ruin-the-mysteries-of-prometheus-20120614

Also in the above link, there's further confirmation to the hinted theory that the Engineers/Space Jockeys are NOT gods - just as "god" created man and man created David....they're rolling the idea that "god" created Engineers that created humanity

Spoiler

Below - the elders, the creators of the Engineers...whom the Engineers eventually split off from (?)

 

I agree. Nero, can you explain why the Jesus as an engineer is so utterly idiotic? Your outrage seemed to be based on "Scott not understanding Christianity and Jesus" but considering that the Bible has been written and re-written so many times, who of us can truly say we "understand" Jesus.

I'm not saying JC was an alien, but I'd be a liar if I said that I could say without any doubt that I could vouch for any of his actions.

 

I posted something a little while back, but the Engineers destroying mankind because we killed Jesus makes little sense in the context of the biblical narrative. Even if you were to only believe Jesus was simply a prophet, it still goes against his teachings.

I have no problem being open-minded enough to think Jesus could be an emissary for this Engineeer race of alien beings..that's a fairly interesting concept. But where Ridley's idea loses me is that we "murdered" him and the Engineers got upset and wanted to destroy us. We didn't "murder" him so much as he sacrificed himself. His death fits more in line with one of the themes in the film that you have to suffer and die in order to create. Again whether you believe it or not, according to the biblical story, he chose to be crucified, to suffer and die on the cross, in order to save humanity. Even just looking at his teachings, that of loving your friends AND your enemies, of forgiveness, then it contradicts the Engineers' motivations and ultimate actions of destroying us all. Now it may make more sense if the carbon dating on the head they found was say 500 or so years ago...essentially some time after Jesus came to Earth. That would then coincide with his eventual return, again if you were to follow his teachings. So let's say he comes down 2000 years ago and tries to steer us on the right course. He's crucified, but the Engineers, maybe even anticipating such an action, wait patiently a little longer. Humanity still chooses a path of destruction, time and again, over universal peace. So some time later they decide to come down and wipe us out and start over (Judgement Day). That makes more sense then simply wiping us out because they were angry we killed him.

As a Christian myself, I have no problem with someone wanting to use the narrative in such a way. But Ridley's supposed ideas suggest an ignorance of the material he's using.


----
And again I really hope he moves on to something else (which he already is) and doesn't come back to make a sequel to Prometheus. Maybe a director's cut will fill in the plot holes. But I like that the film doesn't answer the big questions, much like how things are in the real world. If done right, maybe I can get behind it, but I'm skeptical at this point.

Spoiler

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1687203/prometheus-sequel.jhtml

Now this is intriguing...sorry if posted already...

http://screenrant.com/prometheus-sequel-damon-lindelof-ridley-scott-sandy-178928/

 

Other interesting things out there:

On designs and initial ideas
http://io9.com/5917639/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-design-of-prometheus?tag=prometheus

Another write up trying to piece things together (title is a little over reaching)
http://io9.com/5919306/one-theory-that-finally-explains-whats-going-on-in-prometheus

 

Well, the mentality that came up with the alleged idea in the movie had to have gone something like this:

'We need a reason for them to be trying to kill all humans on Earth.. any ideas?'

'Well, remember like 2,000 years ago, there was that guy, Jesus, who said he was God? And the humans killed him?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, these Engineer guys are kind of like Gods, sort of. What if that Jesus guy was ACTUALLY one of THEM? And they get all pissed off when the humans kill him, and so they decide to kill all the people on Earth because of it?'

'Holy crap! That's a GREAT idea! Marge, get the writers in here! Pronto!'


..because that is about the level of understanding necessary to come up with the plan and actually go all the way through with it.

Because, oh, let's see, in no particular order.. Jesus was born, was a baby, grew up into a child, conversed with priests in the temple when still a child, grew up more and spent 20 years or so as a carpenter, and then several more years walking all around in front of uncounted witnesses, doing and saying things which are still recounted over two thousand years later.

Not to mention that the being-killed part was actually part of the plan, rather than some kind of outrage, it was going to happen anyway because that was the whole REASON he was there in the first place.

All of that, and yet there is this odd total lack of mentioning Jesus as this tall blueish bald alien. You'd think someone at some point might have remarked upon it?

And that is just a tiny thumbnail sketch.

The very concept that Jesus was an alien has been tossed around for decades, which has always been silly enough, but then to add on top of that the idea that the death of one single one of them at the hands of their 'creations' would set them off so badly that they would want to kill billions, wipe them out completely.. it's just preposterous.. and not the least because they seem happy enough to sacrifice themselves in order to spread around a little DNA, so obviously death is not that big a deal for them.

So yeah, if that is what Scott & Co. actually were thinking, then fine, whatever, it's a work of fiction, it's their story, they can do whatever they want. But if that is actually how they are planning for the rest of it to go, I doubt a sequel ever gets made, because no money-man is ever going to approve throwing 200 million dollars down that hole.

 

Despite an R rating and mixed reception, Prometheus has already pulled down ~$220M worldwide and is still making cash 11 days in. It's no Avengers, but it's already cleared its budget ($130M) with ease.

If they want to do it, a sequel is going to happen. At most, I could see FOX leaning harder on them for a PG-13 product, but that's it.

 

I'm really talking about the content. No question the movie has made enough already to warrant a sequel, but if, while in the discussions on exactly what Scott plans to actually DO in the sequel, he tosses out the whole Engineer-as-Jesus thing, and actually wanting to concretely flesh out that idea, the people holding the purse strings will likely balk.

They still have an audience to sell tickets to after all.

 

As ridiculous as the plot and characters were in this movie, I think we can conclude a sequel would be a disaster.