Another thought that came to mind after this. We all want to see the xenomorph world, but what is there never was one. What if the xenomorph is nothing but a parasite that takes form of what it comes into contact with. According to this that may be the case. Its just a weapon to contaminate what ever it came into contact with.

I would also have loved to see what would have happened to the other two guys after contamination with the black goo, both were killed before it fully changed them. I did get creeped out but the way the red haired geologists legs were folded over his head like an insect when he showed up at the door.

i could be mistaken, but i thought those guys were guarding the room full of canisters... because they were on the other side of the door. david ran into them
as he walked OUT of the canister room and into the bridge.

i'm sure there's a much larger story going on somewhere that were just not privy to yet. perhaps the engineers were/are at war with some other species, and they
are weaponizing this black goo. that would explain why they seeded a barren planet with life, only to return later to test their weapon on it. the u.s. government
made towns in nuclear testing facilities to study the effects of an explosion... same concept, smaller scale. and without live "test subjects."

i'll also try and find some sort of timeline in the alien/aliens canon to see just how far this was in the future before the first alien movie. (alien doesn't begin with
a date, so maybe i can find one in aliens, and do some reverse math to figure it out.) because we can be relatively certain that the space jockey from alien is not
on the same ship as from this film. that ship had to already have been carrying eggs, since one of them managed to bust out of his chest, and he was sitting in the
driver's seat on the bridge... not in the prometheus lifeboat. so that means somewhere along the way, yes... the engineers know what the xenomorphs are, and what
their primary usefulness is.

There's this: http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1 which is very churchy and seems fairly true but is just wrong in some instances...
it is one guys interpretation or there's this that I read in THE ART OF PROMETHEUS:
It's the same ship. Ridley Scott has already established that. He's also said the xenomorph is now and forever more (as of this movie) a direct result of an Engineer having a chestburster event. This is the origin event. All the dead engineer bodies...the cave paintings.....the mural on the wall in the chamber...it's a warning of what they created.

The continuity is just messed up which is why people have claimed it's not a prequel to Alien. It's the same ship you just didn't see all it's chambers as seen on the 3d map which was huge and had about 25 rooms. At the beginning you see the "pup" go down into the egg chamber that they go down into in the movie "Alien" as the scientists are all standing around it....then they follow the holograms down the corridor and find the decapitated Engineer.
The mural on the wall in the biological weapon chamber clearly shows an Alien right in the middle of it, they flash to it 3X and the murals on the top wall changes into an engineer with eggs. They change shape when the atmosphere changes from a Cistine Chapel looking scene into a Destroyer type scene.
The black goop is an evolutionary accelerant and whatever it comes in contact with/creates has the whole acid blood/facehugger effect to help propogate it's species. The worms from the scientists boot come in contact with the goop from the cannisters...this is what attacks the biologist and the geologist in the chamber, two accelerated worms....The aliens can be whatever they are ingested by which is why we've seen cat-aliens, fish aliens, predaliens and even a human alien in later movies.

There are a few obvious continuity problems that huge Alien fans have picked up on, the most glaring being that nobody in Alien has heard of the Prometheus, it's voyage or the "famous discoveries" at the beginning....The Prometheus and everything on board is way more advanced than anything on the Nostromo and the Space Jockey in Alien was bioengineered into the chair, they say so clearly. The engine room was ten times bigger in Alien as well. They even have laser guns when in Aliens they have ballistic weapons...hundreds of years in the future. The tech is super advanced... just because we have the technology to make the movie look more space age doesn't change the fact that in the movie "Alien" this is a prequel for, mankind had only just started exploring space/hypersleep and robotics.

Why Ridley Scott chose to place the chest burster Space Jockey millions of miles away from where he's supposed to be and destroy 35 years of continuity, art, model kits, games and toys is beyond me or why Shaw's baby became a giant chestburster...well...that was just fucked.

if scott indeed said that this is the same ship/space jockey/xenomorph from the original alien film... he's an idiot that can't even remember the designation
of the moon the nostromo landed on. the chest burster space jockey the nostromo found was on lv-426. the moon that prometheus landed on was lv-233...
so maybe more than a mile away.

I read that the LV-233 is the moon and LV-426 was that planet with rings. The one you could see in the background when they landed.

that may be... but still doesn't explain how a crashed ship was piloted by a dead space jockey from one place to the other.

Eh, I saw this movie last night... I had some hopes for it, but was left feeling blah about the whole thing. There were points when it seemed really great (the first hour or so), but then it just devolved into a typical popcorn movie, with people behaving stupidly and predictable situations and the ending seemed rushed. This one just goes into the same column as Alien Resurrection, and the AvP movies as far as I'm concerned- AKA "Lets pretend these movies never happened"

I thought it was great.
I mean, I haven't seen a good sci-fi, "thriller" if you will, like this in awhile.
One, the movie LOOKED sharp as hell. I saw it on a large screen, but felt like I was watching it on IMAX. Just incredible clarity from CG to cinematography. It was shot on the RED camera (camera geek here) and just goes to show it how good digital has gotten. 4K resolution is just eye-blowing!
Love the CG on the ships and planet it self, and the detail of it all.

As for story, I thought it was a good little backstory from Alien.

From what I heard, this isn't so much a prequel as it is "parallel" with the first Alien.
Damon Lindelof said that is there was a Prometheus 2, it would be happening at the same time as Aliens. Now what they can do on a sequel with only 1 and a half characters, I don't know. I actually hope they don't do a sequel and just keep it a mystery for awhile.

I also think they answered a LOT of questions on the origins of the Alien parasite, but at the same time that opened up another world of questions with the Engineers. Where did THEY come from, What MADE them, and so on.

I haven't watched the first Alien in awhile, but my theory is Ripleys ship comes across the one they crashed, the first "alien" we see at the end of Prometheus is the one that breeds all the eggs we see in Alien, and then boom, all the evens happen...ahhh, I'm not even sure if that lines up.

Either way, I think there was a lot here to be digested on the first viewing. Many details and research to be had to dig deeper (just like LOST).

Definitely can't wait to see it again pay attention more to the little things.

Glad I am not alone in this. It was okay, and I enjoyed the experience, but by no means a great movie. Plus the so called philosophical undertones were very shallow, no deep dive into any material. Maybe the 6 years in college getting a philosophy degree has jaded me. I guess I should be happy with anything that makes people think beyond their normal thought patterns. Overall very watchable, but not a must see. Super glad that the future of medical technology is an arcade claw machine. I hope they start filling them with plush squid aliens I would waste tons of quarters (or is it dollars now) on that.

Just saw the movie, so now I'm wading through this thread. I went into the movie blind - didn't want to know anything about it so I could watch it with fresh eyes. I loved it. I'll be watching it again. Really like all of the details that weren't fully addressed, that create more questions and are open for interpretation and discussion. I'd be willing to bet that there's at least one more movie after this that'll draw on several unexplained details.
It also ties in nicely with Ancient Aliens (the History Channel show), which we're currently watching.

What got me was how cavalier the "scientists" were about interacting with an ALIEN PLANET. "sure, lets take our helmets off! Nevermind airborne pathogens/contaminates!" "Lets handle the alien samples in open air with bare hands, sure!" "Oh, there's an alien creature we know nothing about- lets talk to it like it's a child and try to handle it!" The only person who had it right was Charlize Theron.

Did anyone here notice this the first time through?

http://i.imgur.com/oDzET.jpg

no, what is that?

A paypal logo? It's a fucking little colored dot... Even on imax. UNLESS...that same orange dot came up in Alien!

Its the entire task bar, start button, etc from a windows7 machine.

No doubt to be edited out once it goes to DVD.

SOMEONE PLEASE DRAW THIS.

Ha...you and Bryce are RIGHT! I never even picked that up...what a doofus, one is LV423 and the one in ALIEN is LV223! It doesn't even have rings in ALIENS! Maybe I read it wrong in the book, I wondered why the planet has a completely different look, terrain and weather!
Did you read that synopsis I linked to? That whole churchy stuff was really interesting but I hope the movie wasn't really entirely linked to Christ's death and creationism because that would be shit. The wall mural looks more like the Cistine Chapel roof then a guy giving birth like that dude says...he's reaching out and touching some sort of creature.
I agree with what everyone said that it started out great then devolved completely. I've never seen a woman have a ceasarian then run around for a couple of hours...roll about...wrestle shit...winch shit....she gets up and bolts out of that operating room, my wife was shaking and in shock when our little alien came out AND she couldn't move her legs.
I just read this on a blog somewhere and thought it was spot on:
1) David the andriod has no feelings nor is he able to feel emotions. Yet he seems to endlessly show emotions and feel things.

2) The guy who actually maps the alien facility gets lost. He has the map. He made the map. The map is at his finger tips. He gets lost in the facility along with another scientist.

3) The two lost scientists left to "get away from" the scary room with all the containers (and the big head). They were terrified and decided to get the fuck out of there. They were so scared they began to panic before fleeing the safety of the group. Why then did they choose to return and camp in that room alone? Oh ya..monster attack was needed. Ok.

4) One of the two scientists is a geologist who states his passion is rocks. He passes countless alien rocks and stone work, and fails to even care or blink an eye at them.

5) The two lost scientists show incredible fear when told a life form is near and decide to do anything to not go near it. When it shows up, the bigger pussy of the two decides the creature is funny and plays with it like its a puppy. Then acts like its playing a game when it hisses and becomes "cobra like". Then he pokes it a few times before it kills them both.

6) In the movie "Alien" the giant alien in the chair (The Engineer) is found dead in his chair. In Prometheus he dies elsewhere leaving the chair empty. I guess we are to assume another alien showed up and decided to die in that chair later on.

7) Everyone they send to make "first contact with aliens" is stupid, acts stupid, unprofessional and comes off as common trash. Including the scientist smoking bong hits from his space helmet. The most expensive and well planned exploration ever embarked on by mankind and Wayland, with all his resources and endless money...sends a dumbed down version of the scooby-doo gang.

Some of you may say this isn't important but it is. The alien baby squid becomes a 1 ton giant squid. It has nothing to eat, nothing to grow on. It gains hundreds of times its own weight in size in under a few hours. This is a slap in the face to the basic "Law of conservation of mass".

9) The human technology of this movie is superior to the technology of the movie Alien, even though it takes place before "Alien".

10) How come after Shaw knocks out two crew members "who are just trying to help her" then runs to have her guts ripped open by an operation machine, then returns covered in blood and nobody asks a damn question or even shows up saying "hey that I FART A LOT just hit me with an object!". Its like the entire thing never happens and nobody cares she's covered in blood and committed assault. And they refuse to even ask where the alien fetus is.

11) You can not run after your stomach muscles are severed in the manner shown when Shaw goes all Pro-choice and removes her alien baby. No matter how many staples you use, those muscles are used for core stability and after such an operation you wouldn't be running anywhere, no matter what alien (or falling ship) is chasing you.

12) If something is rolling towards you, like a ship, run to the side not forward/along its destination of momentum.

Does anyone enjoy movies anymore?

It seems most people just want to pick apart everything about a movie...never happy.

It may just be something with sci-fi... I mean, I -love- sci-fi books, especially recent, actually-sorts-of-makes-sense sci-fi by Alastair Reynolds or Iain M. Banks, for example. But movies... movies always go for effects and leaves gaping plot holes and unbelievable characters all over the place. I hate that they give a bad name to sci-fi.

I'll enjoy a movie and not take it apart if it doesn't take itself too seriously or try to explain whatever future science with complete bs. Otherwise, they're just asking for it.

^ thanks oli... that's some of the explanation i was trying to come up with.
and unless i'm mistaken, nobody actually said they didn't enjoy the movie... rather they're expressing disappointment with certain aspects of it.

as for me, it's the astounding lack of common sense (in order to build "drama") that completely takes me out of the experience... for example:


duh!

That scene when she got crushed reminded me of the scene in Austin Powers when the guy was in the air plane hanger yelling no as the steam roller came at him from 100 years away.

I was amazed they did that as well.

Bah, I wish I hadn't read this thread. I liked it a lot more before you guys pointed out all the dumb stuff in it.

I personally really liked the claw machine self-surgery scene. I was as close to the edge of my seat as I could get without falling out of it.

Essentially, all of the criticism I'm hearing is just squabbling over details - details that really aren't integral to the plot of the movie. I also think that there were a lot of items that weren't explained on purpose - either they're going to be brought into the next film, they'll be in the director's cut, or they were left open ended to give the viewer the ability to fill it in with their own thoughts.

the nostromo was a weyland yutani m-class star freighter, a very expensive piece of equipment. (42 million in adjusted dollars... and that's minus payload, of course.), and vickers said weyland put up the trillion dollars to fund the expedition to lv-233. so yeah... very different operating budgets.

speaking of yutani, though... are we EVER going to see these people? i mean, we've gone through weyland's left and right, and there's only been one yutani character as far as i can remember, and we saw her for all of a minute at the end of avp:requiem.

Saw the movie Friday night and I am still thinking about it. So many questions unanswered but I kind of like that. My friends and I have been going back and forth on theories but we'll probably get some of those questions answered when part 2 and 3 are released. Much transpires from the timeline of Prometheus on LV-223 to LV-426/Alien movie which will probably unfold later in the series. This is just the beginning. Interestingly enough, I did find this fascinating article on the movie. I've been scouring the net to see everyone's theories. Some I agree with, some I do not. But this one points out some really cool things I had not thought about.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/what-is-go ... -theories/