# A Prometheus Question - Alien Space Jesus? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 23, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681 "2015-01-23T15:32:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/1 "2015-01-23T15:32:01Z")
No biggie but something I’ve been wondering about since watching the movie and reading some of the fan-explanations about the story. Anyway part of the plot suggests to some people that Jesus was an ‘Engineer’ and that humanity killed him, so thats why they’re so angry at us. This is the first linked I pulled up, a quick scan seems to suggest that even Ridley Scott is on board with the idea. > **[Yes, More ‘Prometheus’… Did We Kill Alien Jesus?! Also, Viral Campaign...](https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3147686/yes-more-prometheus-did-we-kill-alien-jesus-also-viral-campaign-continues/)** > > Before I go deep into the mythology of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, website Movieviral has uncovered an image in the film’s end credits that leads to yet another viral website and video. You can click to link above to read all about it or just go... It all seems to pass without comment and with a lot of people nodding thoughtfully but…wait…wouldn’t people have noticed that Jesus didn’t look kind of like this guy: [http://www.popularmechanics.com/cm/popularmechanics/images/IV/face-of-jesus-01-0312-de.jpg](http://www.popularmechanics.com/cm/popularmechanics/images/IV/face-of-jesus-01-0312-de.jpg) But was in fact a seven-foot tall muscular bald albino dude, I mean someone might have commented on it, after all Judas wouldn’t have had to specifically point him out in the Garden of Gethsemane but just told the guards to look up a bit and yeah thats him alright. Am I missing something? (I pretty much feel I’m missing something regarding that whole movie) btw please no comments that Jesus wasn’t real anyway, if you believe that then thats fine, but its not the purpose of the thread ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/2 "2015-01-23T16:22:39Z")
I can’t read your link, but Scott wasn’t just on board with the idea that Jesus was an Engineer - he said that was [actually part of the script](http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/did-ridley-scott-just-ruin-the-mysteries-of-prometheus-20120614?page=1) at one point. In terms of how he could pass - the Engineers were clearly really, really good at genetic engineering. It’s pretty reasonable to assume they could have modified their guy to pass as a local before sending him to Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/3 "2015-01-23T16:58:45Z")
Although I haven’t seen the film yet I just wanted to note that just because > [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Ridley Scott is on board with the idea. doesn’t mean anything. He had a record of not understanding his own movies. \*cough Deckard is NOT a replicant ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/4 "2015-01-23T16:59:05Z")
The impression I got from the movie was that Earth was a failed experiment of some sort targeted by the Engineers to be wiped out by a cargo of weaponized face suckers. Where does Jesus come into this? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/5 "2015-01-23T17:18:29Z")
The movie, like Christianity, is enough of a jumbled mess that one can read it anyway they like. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/6 "2015-01-23T17:49:37Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > In terms of how he could pass - the Engineers were clearly really, really good at genetic engineering. It’s pretty reasonable to assume they could have modified their guy to pass as a local before sending him to Earth. That’s a good point, but there’s nothing in the movie to show that they could or did alter their appearance, in fact to a humans eyes they all look pretty much identical. > [@astro](#): > > The impression I got from the movie was that Earth was a failed experiment of some sort targeted by the Engineers to be wiped out by a cargo of weaponized face suckers. > > Where does Jesus come into this? Apparently humanity nailed the alien emissary (in the form of Jesus) to a cross, for which offence they decided to exterminate us as a species. I find this a morally questionable decision. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/7 "2015-01-23T18:11:40Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > That’s a good point, but there’s nothing in the movie to show that they could or did alter their appearance, in fact to a humans eyes they all look pretty much identical. How many Engineers did we see in the movie? The guy at the beginning who dissolved into the river, videos of a few running during the weapons lab disaster and the actual severed head of one of them, and the pilot. None of whom seem like they’d be required to have altered appearances for their own jobs. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/8 "2015-01-23T18:28:27Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > The movie, like Christianity, is enough of a jumbled mess that one can read it anyway they like. I turned it off about 3/4 of the way through. I had no clue what was happening, but that’s not uncommon for me and movies. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/9 "2015-01-23T23:22:09Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Apparently humanity nailed the alien emissary (in the form of Jesus) to a cross, for which offence they decided to exterminate us as a species. Ridley Scott has apparently said this in interviews, but since there’s nothing about this in the actual movie it seems like a waste of time to me to try to reconcile the depictions of the “Engineers” in _Prometheus_ with traditional accounts of Jesus. FWIW, while Jesus must be by far the most famous victim of crucifixion by the Romans, plenty of others were executed in this fashion. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/10 "2015-01-24T00:07:07Z")
I’m not sure where this idea is supposed to go. Where do we even get the idea that Engineers are angry at us? The only species to have been successfully exterminated by the xenomorphs is the Engineers themselves. So their story is" “Your race killed our unarmed and unprepared emissary, without knowing what he was. So we’re going to punish you… right after we spend two thousand years developing a weapon that we can’t quite control ourselves.” Ooooh… big bad Engineers. I’m taking my Legos home and they can’t play with me anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/11 "2015-01-24T00:36:46Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > The only species to have been successfully exterminated by the xenomorphs is the Engineers themselves. So their story is" “Your race killed our unarmed and unprepared emissary, without knowing what he was. So we’re going to punish you… right after we spend two thousand years developing a weapon that we can’t quite control ourselves.” Well, we don’t know that all the Engineers are dead. IIRC, characters in the movie believe that they’ve found some sort of military outpost and not the home planet of the Engineers. The movie ends with the heroine setting off to find the home planet…I guess so she could let them know that they’d failed to kill us the first time. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/12 "2015-01-24T02:46:54Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Well, we don’t know that all the Engineers are dead. IIRC, characters in the movie believe that they’ve found some sort of military outpost and not the home planet of the Engineers. The movie ends with the heroine setting off to find the home planet…I guess so she could let them know that they’d failed to kill us the first time. Yea I had the same reaction, make sure and let them know we’re still here now ya hear! The Engineers created life on earth, as seen in the opening scene. Apparently they have a culture built around sacrificing your life for the greater good(I worked this out from background info). David and Weyland confront the Pilot, the Pilot is amused and disgusted SO MUCH by an android and absurdly old man seeking more life he goes apeshit and tries to complete his earth extermination mission.(Someone who worked on the movie admitted David asked the Pilot “This man comes seeking more life, can you give it to him?”). ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/13 "2015-01-26T00:08:28Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Well, we don’t know that all the Engineers are dead. IIRC, characters in the movie believe that they’ve found some sort of military outpost and not the home planet of the Engineers. The movie ends with the heroine setting off to find the home planet…I guess so she could let them know that they’d failed to kill us the first time. LV-426 also had an Engineer ship full of dead giants. Since Prometheus occurs before the original Alien movie, I suppose it’s possible that the Engineers were wiped out because of the actions of our heroine from Prometheus. Or that LV-426 is just a second instance of Engineers being killed by the xenomorphs even though they survive elsewhere. (Quick, someone do the Bayesian statistics on that 🙂 ) Still… if the Engineers are so petty that they’re after us for killing Engineer-Jesus and so ineffectual that they killed themselves twice and us not at all after 2000 years, that doesn’t really speak well of them as a species, does it? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/14 "2015-01-26T00:27:00Z")
If that’s the direction he’s going I think Ridley Scott has lost it. Prometheus was huge mess of a movie on multiple levels and (for me) really tarnished his reputation. [Ridley Scott Explains Prometheus, Is Lovably Insane](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/10/ridley-scott-explains-prometheus-is-lovably-insane) ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/15 "2015-01-26T04:31:42Z")
Although I ultimately liked it, I agree that the film could have been better. However, [here’s a very good video examining and explaining most every complaint people had about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpEx7pdp2-Q) Bottom line, not giving all the answers, and having some answers just raise even more questions, was sorta the point… ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/16 "2015-01-26T08:44:22Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Although I ultimately liked it, I agree that the film could have been better. However, [here’s a very good video examining and explaining most every complaint people had about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpEx7pdp2-Q) Bottom line, not giving all the answers, and having some answers just raise even more questions, was sorta the point… Unless he explains why the biologist wanted to hug the alien monster, why the mapping dude would get lost, why people would run with-not-away-from a large falling object, and so on, then I don’t really care whether the big idea stuff was alright. That wasn’t the part that made the movie unwatchable. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/17 "2015-01-26T16:48:01Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The Engineers created life on earth, as seen in the opening scene. I don’t think they were starting life on Earth. The engineer wasn’t wearing a spacesuit, and Earth didn’t develop an oxygen atmosphere until after life got started. I think he was just _modifying_ (or changing the direction of) the life already here. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/18 "2015-01-26T18:44:26Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > He had a record of not understanding his own movies. > > \*cough Deckard is NOT a replicant He is in the movie. I don’t think it’s debatable without second-guessing Scott and ringing in outside info. _Blade Runner_ was scripted, shot and edited to frame Deckard as a replicant. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-prometheus-question-alien-space-jesus/710681/19 "2015-01-26T20:37:04Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The Engineers created life on earth, as seen in the opening scene. We assume this, but he could have just dumped his own crud in the water. Sure, there was a reaction, but we cannot say THEY created life on earth from just that. Especially since the ‘scientists’ in the movie didn’t see this. They have cave drawings that pre-date humans. Those who made the drawings were here before we were. From this, they conclude (and are certain) that those who made the drawings _created us_. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.