# Prometheus Discussion (spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 7, 2012, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980 "2012-10-07T11:51:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [October 8, 2012, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/41 "2012-10-08T22:42:10Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The opening scene is not on Earth, it is the “rebel” contaminating the planet the lab is on. Well, that makes even _less_ sense. At what point did the Engineers plant genetic material on Earth so humans would evolve similarly? Or were the Engineers _from_ Earth, and just another hominid species that developed earlier than homo sapiens and left Earth? Basically, why and how and when did humans and Engineers get near-identical DNA? ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/42 "2012-10-08T22:44:11Z")
> [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > not that your distaste is unwarranted, but a few points: the geologist and the guy w the flame thrower were two different people. there were a host of un-named, un developed secondary characters. flame security guy was a different dude. and i am not sure if the identity of the Engineers or their appearance was a big secret, esp. since they are the first thing you see in the film. Maybe I did confuse the flame thrower guy. If the geologist (Fifield) didn’t have one, still his entire persona made me think merc!merc!merc! soon after he was introduced. True, and one can easily connect the dots, but it wasn’t until they went into “it’s a helmet, not his face!” it was treated as a big reveal. I also am mad at this movie because we were going to do a double header with Avengers. The SO wanted to watch this one first, then got too tired for the second movie. Still haven’t seen the Avengers. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/43 "2012-10-08T22:56:50Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, that makes even _less_ sense. At what point did the Engineers plant genetic material on Earth so humans would evolve similarly? Or were the Engineers _from_ Earth, and just another hominid species that developed earlier than homo sapiens and left Earth? > > Basically, why and how and when did humans and Engineers get near-identical DNA? Shrug, but one gets the sense from the Scott interview that they did(he calls them space gardeners) and that they wanted to kill off life on Earth because humanity was unpleasant to them in some way(one gets the sense we are too violent and all that). ---
**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:** [October 8, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/44 "2012-10-08T23:12:34Z")
_We’re_ too violent? Admittedly, on occasion we fuck each other over for a goddamned percentage, but _jeez!_ ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/45 "2012-10-08T23:24:21Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > _We’re_ too violent? Admittedly, on occasion we fuck each other over for a goddamned percentage, but _jeez!_ watching Aliens right now, just passed that quote. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/46 "2012-10-08T23:27:24Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Maybe I did confuse the flame thrower guy. If the geologist (Fifield) didn’t have one, still his entire persona made me think merc!merc!merc! soon after he was introduced. > > True, and one can easily connect the dots, but it wasn’t until they went into “it’s a helmet, not his face!” it was treated as a big reveal. > > I also am mad at this movie because we were going to do a double header with Avengers. The SO wanted to watch this one first, then got too tired for the second movie. Still haven’t seen the Avengers. Fifeld was a douchecanoe. there’s no way to get around it. and why the hell did the other guy, the biologist have a country accent when he introduces himself but never, ever again in the film? also, Fifeld was the only person not to wear their “snoopy cap” under the helmet. because EXTREME HAIR and FACE TATTOOS! Avengers was ok. it’s not so pretentious so there’s no “this is stupid” moments, it’s just pretty much balls out action and fun. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/47 "2012-10-08T23:30:13Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > I haven’t seen this myself, but I’ve enjoyed reading everybody’s “WTF” reactions. I notice that the DVD release is being advertised with a “Questions will be answered” tag line, so _maybe_ the director’s cut will address some of these issues–or try to. I just Googled this, and [Bleeding Cool reports](http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/10/08/fox-wanted-extended-prometheus-blu-ray-ridley-scott-said-no/) that Ridley Scott was asked by FOX to create a new director’s cut for the DVD/Blu-ray release, but refused to do so, saying the theatrical version _was_ his director’s cut. The DVD/Blu-ray will contain deleted, alternate, and extended scenes, but they’re all apparently things Scott wanted cut from the final version of the film. ETA: > [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > –and i REALLY hated the music. I’ve since blocked the score from my mind and can’t remember what it sounded like, but I distinctly remember hating it and complaining about it afterward. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/48 "2012-10-08T23:53:08Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > Another stupid thing–why have Wyland be played by a young guy with old makeup? It was very distracting with no purpose. I kept expecting to see young Wyland in a flashback or something. But instead we just got to see a guy with a latex mask on the whole time. I think this sort of makes sense as a foreshadowing/cliffhanger thing. Since they’ve strongly hinted that there will be a second movie, and Weyland is searching for the cure to death, it makes some amount of sense to use a young actor to tease the viewer that he might show up as his young self again. I’m not saying I agree with that logic, but I can see that there could be some logic behind it. ---
**Author:** ![Gerald\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Gerald\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gerald_II)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/49 "2012-10-09T00:56:29Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The opening scene is not on Earth, it is the “rebel” contaminating the planet the lab is on. > > Also the Jockey in stasis went apeshit and killed everyone because Weyland asked him for more life, the Jockey’s entire culture is built around sacrificing your own life so the idea that someone spent all this effort to preserve their own life is culturally offensive to him. I didn’t really get that from the film. It seems like the Engineer wanted to finish the job of finishing off Earth. That’s why the humans sacrificed their lives to stop the ship from going back to Earth. But if the story followed your description, it would have made the movie so much better. Neither would group would be the bad guys, but different species with conflicting philosophies. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/50 "2012-10-09T01:09:18Z")
so in [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dc_zsM2p34&feature=youtu.be), the guys who did the opening sequence of the film say it was Earth DNA (not on the foreign moon). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/51 "2012-10-09T01:35:11Z")
I was puzzled by the reverence toward the spaceship that the traveller had in the opening scene. My initial take was that it had found directions to this site and thought that drinking the liquid was the final part in a _good_ magical spell, only to find itself deceived in this notion. Obviously this raises the question of why the aliens didn’t just kidnap someone and start the dna process from there, but movies don’t always have to make sense. But I can make up a scenario under which this makes sense: – A mysterious creator seeds life on several planets, including DNA-identical space jockey races. But this life is not spacefaring, (maybe the creator didn’t want rebellion.) – Creator goes away. – Another race, maybe not even from this galaxy, sends out replicating machines to seed intelligent life throughout the universe. It places tests of general intelligence on inhabitable planets, which will lead the intelligent to a certain place on the planet, meanwhile summoning the probe. Also contains instructions on what to do when you see the probe – drink the liquid. – Liquid then quickly “evolves” life. – Probe waits around, then picks up traces of highly evolved life, then transports the best samples to another planet and starts over. – Space jockeys from another planet intercept one of these probes. Maybe these ones were too smart for the probe. From this they learn the secrets of spacefaring and DNA manipulation. – Profit! ---
**Author:** ![GreedySmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a698b9/32.png) [@GreedySmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreedySmurf)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/52 "2012-10-09T03:29:39Z")
Interesting article [here](http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/alien-prequel-prometheus-is-now-a-blade-runner-sequel/story-e6frfmvr-1226490111128) about an easter egg in the DVD release suggesting Prometheus is in the same ‘universe’ as BladeRunner. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/53 "2012-10-09T13:27:43Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I think this sort of makes sense as a foreshadowing/cliffhanger thing. Since they’ve strongly hinted that there will be a second movie, and Weyland is searching for the cure to death, it makes some amount of sense to use a young actor to tease the viewer that he might show up as his young self again. Perhaps in the form of a synthetic. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/54 "2012-10-09T14:28:27Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Shrug, but one gets the sense from the Scott interview that they did(he calls them space gardeners) and that they wanted to kill off life on Earth because humanity was unpleasant to them in some way(one gets the sense we are too violent and all that). It’s because we killed Jesus. No really. That’s what they were shooting for with that whole 2000 years ago thing. It’s just that they came to their senses a bit and realized audiences probably wouldn’t go for “Jesus was an engineer/alien messiah and you nailed him to a cross.” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/55 "2012-10-09T16:57:28Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > And how do you know this? > > If he didn’t say it in the film, or give you some method of deriving it, then his storytelling is deficient. If you’re inferring it yourself, why should we take your word for it? I came to the same conclusion Grude did after watching the movie. It makes more sense than that it was the scene where Earth is seeded for life, if indeed Earth WAS seeded for life. It explains how the aliens got infected with the goo. And it clears up the timeline issue: the scene happened 2000+years ago, not billions of years ago. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/56 "2012-10-09T17:05:02Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I came to the same conclusion Grude did after watching the movie. It makes more sense than that it was the scene where Earth is seeded for life, if indeed Earth WAS seeded for life. It explains how the aliens got infected with the goo. And it clears up the timeline issue: the scene happened 2000+years ago, not billions of years ago. Your response touches on something unrelated to my question – i was asking how he knew the motivations of the Engineer who got awakened without a snooze alarm (and was therefore very grumpy) who responded to his first question in Og knows how long by decapitating an android and killing the leader, not about the opening scene. I also have to apologize. I hadn’t read the few entries previous and didn’t realize that the forbearing _grude_\* had already answered, and did so again. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/57 "2012-10-09T17:23:18Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > It’s because we killed Jesus. No really. That’s what they were shooting for with that whole 2000 years ago thing. It’s just that they came to their senses a bit and realized audiences probably wouldn’t go for “Jesus was an engineer/alien messiah and you nailed him to a cross.” I bet you could pitch the idea to Mel Gibson, though. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/58 "2012-10-10T01:03:00Z")
i am actually starting to buy into the heavy christianity overtones. LV223 correlating so distinctly to Leviticus 22:3, the 2000 years ago thing, the “crucified” xeno, all the Shaw jesus stuff, all the overly dubious religious imagery, actions and language (several cases of people doing the “hands to god/jesus christ pose” stuff). the religious clerical initial engineer. it has been theorized that the initial scene _was_ on earth and that perhaps the engineers are a future version of humans, evolved, and that we may be dealing with time/space issues as well. i don’t know anymore, but i’ve come to the conclusion that unless more stuff is explicitly laid out in the DVD via extras or commentary, we won’t know til the next movie. probably time to get a life. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/59 "2012-10-10T01:08:53Z")
^also the “christmas” stuff. several other things i can’t recall right now. whatever. we get it: jesus! ---
**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:** [October 11, 2012, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980/60 "2012-10-11T03:35:42Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > Another stupid thing–why have Wyland be played by a young guy with old makeup? It was very distracting with no purpose. I kept expecting to see young Wyland in a flashback or something. But instead we just got to see a guy with a latex mask on the whole time. I immediately thought the same thing. The moment that character appeared I thought, “That’s a young guy in crappy age makeup”. But I think it looked crappy (unrealistic) because they wanted to imply that a century from now lifespans are a little longer (and he was the president of a genetics company), so they wanted him to look like he was 120+ or something. Still, it was a mistake. They should’ve just used an old actor (without any extra aging F/X). > [@Morbo](#): > > Buried in the other thread, but [this](http://redlettermedia.com/red-letter-media-talks-about-prometheus-spoilers/) review sums it up perfectly for me. Yeah, that does pretty much hit every point on the head! > [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > so in [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dc_zsM2p34&feature=youtu.be), the guys who did the opening sequence of the film say it was Earth DNA (not on the foreign moon). Although it didn’t occur to me till later, I do feel that opening scene was supposed to be Earth. His ship dropped him there and was leaving. He knew what he was doing, he was sacrificing himself by drinking that goo which would dissolve & disseminate his DNA in such a state that it would bond, modify, and evolve into us (modified versions of them). This jives with the idea of the awakened Engineer freaking out over Weyland coming all that way just wanting more life. As for why the Engineers would leave a map to a WMD factory, well that may not have been that originally, or maybe it was the wrong moon/planet in that system. The worms/snakes/squids seem to me to definitely be the most primitive version of the Xenomorph. Maybe its DNA splicing ability (the Aliens inherit some DNA from their hosts remember) was the original source of the Engineers’ DNA dissolving, planet seeding chemical. Maybe after developing & making it there for generations it got away from them and wiped them out the way the Xenomorphs tend to do. Maybe they realized this before it wiped them out, and they were stockpiling it to ship to all their seeded planets to eliminate their mistakes. Maybe that \*was \*the Engineer’s home world and all those egg/containers were supposed to have good, Engineer-dissolving, planet seeding goo in them, ready for shipping throughout the galaxy, but then they realized too late that their stockpiles of black goo was all contaminated by the mutant Xenomorph DNA and, again, it got away from them before they could destroy it. This would again jive with the angry Engineer, knowing that his species had both created great civilizations but then inadvertently unleashed a deadly mutation on them, and here’s this old pipsqueak that just greedily wants to live forever. And is it just me, or wasn’t there an adult Alien-era looking Xenomorph semi-hidden in the ornate decoration above the giant Engineer head? If so, then most of everything else I’ve said would make no sense… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prometheus-discussion-spoilers/636980.md?page=4)