Alien5: It's a Bug Hunt (pre-release thread)

[Gaith]

I mean I get that these guy were supposed to be just canaries for Weyland, but you'd think he'd want at least half-way competent canaries, no?

All your criticisms of the characters are valid, but ultimately, Prometheus is not a movie in which having credible characters is the point. The point is the parable of human arrogance, of flying too close to the sun, of looking into the Ark, of wanting to defy the natural law that everything dies, and spending more running time on giving the crew more depth would only have subtracted from that. I'm sure Scott was smart enough to think of these characters' shortcomings as believable professionals; he just didn't care: and so, we as viewers can either take the movie on its own parable terms, or take it on our own, and nitpick it to pieces.

... I know which side I'm on.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I mean I get that these guy were supposed to be just canaries for Weyland, but you'd think he'd want at least half-way competent canaries, no?

Especially since incompetent ones are more likely to accidently screw everything up and turn your mission into a bust.

 

[Timby]

Could you explain it to me? Please. I understand what you're posting but not what you're referring to.

In the opening, an Engineer drinks the black goo and then disintegrates or whatever. What happens after that is left to our imagination.

When Weyland & Co. finally meet an Engineer, the Engineer's immediate reaction is violent hate. It's pretty clear -- and this in the text, not subtext -- that the so-called Engineers see humanity as filth, an abomination. It ties in with the myth, that humans needed to be ruled and governed. Or destroyed.

I thought it pretty obvious that the Engineers started life on earth. You see him break up and some new DNA is created from his break up. But if the Engineers thought humanity needed to be governed, destroyed or ruled they could have done it already.

The Engineer who drank the black goo and started life on earth was a rogue. A rebel. He was Prometheus, giving the gift of "fire." The Engineers left the planet before seeing the results of his actions.

When the Engineer on LV-223 encounters Weyland, it realizes what Prometheus' act had created and its reaction is "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis." And so it kills Weyland, decapitates David, and sets out to destroy everything human it can find.

And why does this happen? Hubris. Hubris on Shaw's part, thinking that the cave markings were an "invitation," and hubris on Weyland's part, thinking that he was going to be granted immortality.

And in the end, it all ties into the theme of the film, that some things are better left alone. Even the Engineers realized that the black goo was more powerful than they gave it credit for and they didn't know the true scope of its characteristics.

Edit: And this is why Ridley Scott is an absolute master craftsman. He's brilliant at giving you tiny hints and then telling you, "You figure it out." He doesn't spoon-feed the audience every single minute detail, but rather gives tiny hints along the way, and this is largely due to his background as an art director prior to moving into film direction. This discussion reminds me of people who nit-pick Khan never taking off his other glove in The Wrath of Khan -- why do you think he didn't take off the other glove?

 

[Nightowl1701]

(Don't know how this turned from an Alien5 discussion into a Prometheus one, but until we get some more news on the former, well...)

The deleted alternate version of the Engineers' arrival on Earth (and its earlier scripted version) makes it very clear that this was not the act of a lone exile, but a religious ceremony of creational sacrifice.

"May your flesh become the earth, your blood become the water, and your soul your children's way back to us." - Deleted Engineer dialogue from that scene (paraphrased).

Somewhere between that and 2,000 years ago, the Engineers' whole M.O. changed. Instead of ceremonial cups and sacrificing of Engineers, we get the metal urns. And what may have originally been intended as a welcome center for humanity and other Engineer 'children' became a very different place.

What I think the Prometheus crew found was the aftermath of a civil war among the Engineers. A separate faction had arisen, obsessed with creating the "perfect organism." (Or maybe the Engineers from the film's beginning were the faction, and the more warlike ones the mainstream.) The Xenomorph was an early result of the experiments conducted on LV-223 (and the derelict that crashed on LV-426 originated there); they were working on a even deadlier version, the "Ultramorph," using the local worm life as their guinea pigs. (The 'Deacon' was merely the chestburster stage of that creature.) And Earth was going to be their testing ground for this creature, urn-bombed from above by another Engineer craft. (Why humans? They were created by the Engineers that had become that faction's mortal enemies.)

"This ain't their home. It's an installation. Maybe even military. They put it out here in the middle of nowhere because they're not stupid enough to make weapons of mass destruction on their own doorstep! That's what all that shit is in those vases! They made it here, it got out (just before they could use it on Earth). It turned on them. The End."

 

[DWF]

In the opening, an Engineer drinks the black goo and then disintegrates or whatever. What happens after that is left to our imagination.

When Weyland & Co. finally meet an Engineer, the Engineer's immediate reaction is violent hate. It's pretty clear -- and this in the text, not subtext -- that the so-called Engineers see humanity as filth, an abomination. It ties in with the myth, that humans needed to be ruled and governed. Or destroyed.

I thought it pretty obvious that the Engineers started life on earth. You see him break up and some new DNA is created from his break up. But if the Engineers thought humanity needed to be governed, destroyed or ruled they could have done it already.

The Engineer who drank the black goo and started life on earth was a rogue. A rebel. He was Prometheus, giving the gift of "fire." The Engineers left the planet before seeing the results of his actions.

When the Engineer on LV-223 encounters Weyland, it realizes what Prometheus' act had created and its reaction is "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis." And so it kills Weyland, decapitates David, and sets out to destroy everything human it can find.

And why does this happen? Hubris. Hubris on Shaw's part, thinking that the cave markings were an "invitation," and hubris on Weyland's part, thinking that he was going to be granted immortality.

And in the end, it all ties into the theme of the film, that some things are better left alone. Even the Engineers realized that the black goo was more powerful than they gave it credit for and they didn't know the true scope of its characteristics.

Edit: And this is why Ridley Scott is an absolute master craftsman. He's brilliant at giving you tiny hints and then telling you, "You figure it out." He doesn't spoon-feed the audience every single minute detail, but rather gives tiny hints along the way, and this is largely due to his background as an art director prior to moving into film direction. This discussion reminds me of people who nit-pick Khan never taking off his other glove in The Wrath of Khan -- why do you think he didn't take off the other glove?

There's no indication that the Engineer at the start of the movie was a rogue and as it was pointed out Engineers and Humans have similar DNA, so it's obvious he was sacificed to start life on Earth. And no the Engineer didn't kill Weyland because of hubris, there was no reason for him to be angry at all, let alone kill Weyland and behead David. And remember the movie was written by Damon Lindelhof and it shows.

 

[Reverend]

I mean I get that these guy were supposed to be just canaries for Weyland, but you'd think he'd want at least half-way competent canaries, no?

All your criticisms of the characters are valid, but ultimately, Prometheus is not a movie in which having credible characters is the point. The point is the parable of human arrogance, of flying too close to the sun, of looking into the Ark, of wanting to defy the natural law that everything dies, and spending more running time on giving the crew more depth would only have subtracted from that. I'm sure Scott was smart enough to think of these characters' shortcomings as believable professionals; he just didn't care: and so, we as viewers can either take the movie on its own parable terms, or take it on our own, and nitpick it to pieces.

... I know which side I'm on.

If that's the case then it utterly fails. In order for this to be a parable about hubris, then it'd help if all the characters weren't running around acting like brain-dead chimps. Otherwise it's just a story about stupidity. Poor writing by design is still poor writing.

 

[Mr Light]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree about the Engineer creating humanity being a rogue. That doesn't track.

 

[RoJoHen]

When the Engineer on LV-223 encounters Weyland, it realizes what Prometheus' act had created and its reaction is "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis." And so it kills Weyland, decapitates David, and sets out to destroy everything human it can find.

And why does this happen? Hubris. Hubris on Shaw's part, thinking that the cave markings were an "invitation," and hubris on Weyland's part, thinking that he was going to be granted immortality.

It seems the Engineers were already well aware of who the humans were and were already about to destroy them when the outbreak occurred. Something happened 2,000 years ago that caused the Engineers to give up their human experiment (the theory is that humans killed Christ, who was an emissary of the Engineers). For that Engineer that David woke up, those events were all too recent. He was already on a mission to kill all humans, so when he wakes up and finds them standing in his ship, he freaks the fuck out. It's not because he sees what "Prometheus" has created; it's because he already knows what the humans have done, and his society has decided they need to be wiped out.

 

[Timby]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree about the Engineer creating humanity being a rogue. That doesn't track.

Then why is the film called Prometheus, a reference to the bringer of fire who was banished from Olympus? Why was he left alone as the Engineers left the planet?

Yes, Ridley Scott did not spell everything out. That isn't a bad thing. (I don't give a shit what prior scripts said; a film evolves as it is made.)

Poor writing by design is still poor writing.

There's something kind of funny about a Babylon 5 fan calling something else out for poor writing. (I love the show, but Straczynski's writing is terrible.)

And remember the movie was written by Damon Lindelhof and it shows.

Damon Lindelof being the Internet's bogeyman will never stop being hilarious.

 

[Reverend]

Poor writing by design is still poor writing.

There's something kind of funny about a Babylon 5 fan calling something else out for poor writing. (I love the show, but Straczynski's writing is terrible.)

Translation: "I love that show you love but because you love that show your opinion is questionable"

Eh?

I can't decide if that's an ad hominem fallacy or just plain stupid.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

Although it's not as apparent in the finished film, wasn't there supposed to be other Engineers on Earth with the Prometheus engineer? There's some production photos around with a cloaked one.

Maybe their ship is sort of a rogue too, as it has a saucer design instead of the more organic vessels seen later in the movie and in ALIEN (and ALIENS special edition)

 

[DWF]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree about the Engineer creating humanity being a rogue. That doesn't track.

Then why is the film called Prometheus, a reference to the bringer of fire who was banished from Olympus? Why was he left alone as the Engineers left the planet?

Yes, Ridley Scott did not spell everything out. That isn't a bad thing. (I don't give a shit what prior scripts said; a film evolves as it is made.)

Poor writing by design is still poor writing.

There's something kind of funny about a Babylon 5 fan calling something else out for poor writing. (I love the show, but Straczynski's writing is terrible.)

And remember the movie was written by Damon Lindelhof and it shows.

Damon Lindelof being the Internet's bogeyman will never stop being hilarious.

The fact that the Engineer on earth isn't a rogue came from a deleted scene not just the script. And I'd certainly put JMS's writing ahead of Lindelhof's, the bulk of Into Darkness's problems can traced back to Lindelhof.

 

[Set Harth]

Luckily Lindelof has stopped having any influence over Star Trek.

 

[JoeZhang]

The fact that the Engineer on earth isn't a rogue came from a deleted scene not just the script.

But if you use deleted scenes in that way, Dante is murdered at the end of Clerks.

 

[Timby]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree about the Engineer creating humanity being a rogue. That doesn't track.

Then why is the film called Prometheus, a reference to the bringer of fire who was banished from Olympus? Why was he left alone as the Engineers left the planet?

Yes, Ridley Scott did not spell everything out. That isn't a bad thing. (I don't give a shit what prior scripts said; a film evolves as it is made.)



There's something kind of funny about a Babylon 5 fan calling something else out for poor writing. (I love the show, but Straczynski's writing is terrible.)

And remember the movie was written by Damon Lindelhof and it shows.

Damon Lindelof being the Internet's bogeyman will never stop being hilarious.

The fact that the Engineer on earth isn't a rogue came from a deleted scene not just the script.

Do we look to deleted pages from a published book to find its meaning? Or do we look at the text that's on the page?

Poor writing by design is still poor writing.

There's something kind of funny about a Babylon 5 fan calling something else out for poor writing. (I love the show, but Straczynski's writing is terrible.)

Translation: "I love that show you love but because you love that show your opinion is questionable"

Eh?

I can't decide if that's an ad hominem fallacy or just plain stupid.

It's called appreciating something in spite of its glaring flaws.

 

[shapeshifter]

While it does seem there must be a simpler, non-suicidal way, I thought the Engineer got dropped off with the intention of sacrificing himself to seed the planet Earth with life.

And of the Engineer later killing humans, while not specifically stated in the film, I was of the understanding, (one possible 'personal' interpretation) he did that because knowledge of their existence [may be] forbidden fruit.

In a similar way visiting the Thalos star system is forbidden because once people learn the power of illusion they give up living their own lives - knowing of the Engineers may kill Human ambition because they answer the question of where we came from. He couldn't just let them go with that information. [/thinking out loud]

 

[DWF]

The fact that the Engineer on earth isn't a rogue came from a deleted scene not just the script.

But if you use deleted scenes in that way, Dante is murdered at the end of Clerks.

Yeah kind of like the unircorn dream in the director's cur of Blade Runner.

 

[DWF]

Then why is the film called Prometheus, a reference to the bringer of fire who was banished from Olympus? Why was he left alone as the Engineers left the planet?

Yes, Ridley Scott did not spell everything out. That isn't a bad thing. (I don't give a shit what prior scripts said; a film evolves as it is made.)



There's something kind of funny about a Babylon 5 fan calling something else out for poor writing. (I love the show, but Straczynski's writing is terrible.)



Damon Lindelof being the Internet's bogeyman will never stop being hilarious.

The fact that the Engineer on earth isn't a rogue came from a deleted scene not just the script.

Do we look to deleted pages from a published book to find its meaning? Or do we look at the text that's on the page?

I only saw the opening scene as it was shown, you seem ot be the only interpreting the scene differently. There's no proof onscreen to back up the idea that the Engineer was a rogue, but we do see he's remains forming new DNA and we know that the Engineer's have similar DNA to humans. And there are called Engineers for a reason.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

The Engineer who drank the black goo and started life on earth was a rogue. A rebel. He was Prometheus, giving the gift of "fire." The Engineers left the planet before seeing the results of his actions.

When the Engineer on LV-223 encounters Weyland, it realizes what Prometheus' act had created and its reaction is "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis." And so it kills Weyland, decapitates David, and sets out to destroy everything human it can find.

That is inconsistent with events in the film. If the so-called "rogue/rebel" Engineer perishes with the creation of humanity as shown and no other Engineers are aware of humanity's existence until they make contact on LV-223, then who were the giant humanoid messengers leaving instructions to find LV-223 that were on the cave walls of multiple ancient civilizations?



The Engineers were obviously well aware of humanity's existence long before their visit to LV-223, and given that they made no attempt to destroy them during that time, were either content to let them be as long as they remained on Earth, or whatever the disaster was that befell their base on LV-223 interrupted their plans to return to Earth and wipe us out until they were re-awoken by Weyland.

Obviously something changed that made the Engineers leave Earth (possibly all that nonsense Scott said about Jesus being an Engineer in interviews) and become angry with their creation, but the creation of humanity was certainly not a rogue operation that the Engineers were unaware of. They shepherded us for millions of years until relatively recently in human history before finally deciding we weren't worth it.

I appreciate that you're trying to make the events of the film fit the Prometheus myth, but it just doesn't hold with what was shown onscreen. I think you're giving it more thought than Sir Ridley did, who in my opinion seemed to throw out a mishmash of ancient Greek and Hebrew mythology to give the film a veneer of profundity that it didn't live up to, ultimately.

 

[Timby]

That is inconsistent with events in the film. If the so-called "rogue/rebel" Engineer perishes with the creation of humanity as shown and no other Engineers are aware of humanity's existence until they make contact on LV-223, then who were the giant humanoid messengers leaving instructions to find LV-223 that were on the cave walls of multiple ancient civilizations?

The way I've always read that is that earlier forms of humanity, in those ancient civilizations, most directly descended from the Engineers, had something in their heads that they didn't understand, and so they were scratching on cave walls. As humanity evolved, getting farther away from the Engineers, they still had the desire to search but they didn't know what for -- until they found the cave etchings.