I need to talk about Prometheus
And I need your feed back because yeah. Cut for major spoilers but I really want to know what other people think. These are my ideas but I need others to bounce them off of. Cross posted like whoa.
1. The Engineers/Titans
So here’s my theory: The Engineers came to earth early in human development, maybe at the divergence point when humans started being more human-y. They came because life at that time was mailable and compatible with their own DNA. They came, scoped out the place, and then left one lone guy to drink the magic black tar which disintegrated him into the water source (a scene, I might add, that reminded me a lot of a scene from Blood Music by Greg Bear where the scientist’s infected girlfriend is dissolving in the shower and goes down the drain) which gets his DNA into the human’s DNA and mixes and mingles. This is why humans share similar DNA with the Engineers, but are not exactly the same - humans are smaller, maybe not as smart, but would still be compatible with the Engineers.
My thought is that earth was a seeder colony, and the seeds that were planted were to be for a subservient race. Compatible with the Engineers but in no way superior to them. The Engineers were coming back to earth not to kill it, but to set up their new society now that earth was populated with a race that The Engineers could easily control. As a comparison: humans are to The Engineers as androids are to humans.
So why was The Engineer that they woke up all super cranky pants and violent? Well, there could be a number of reasons. First, early on we saw the humans being woken up from stasis and they were groggy, disoriented and probably moody. This guy wakes up and some puny human thingy talks to him in his own language and we have NO IDEA WHAT DAVID TOLD HIM (also, David and The Goliath much?). It’s quite possible David intentionally pissed him the fuck off. Second, something happened on that outpost. This was obviously not The Engineer’s homeland and it was also clear that they were fleeing from something and it could be that when he went into stasis he was in a state of panic. He wakes up, in the same place and he could be all WE HAVE TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE WHY AM I STILL HERE SHUT UP TINY LITTLE MAN.
Also - and I’ll make a note of this else where - we’re dealing with an unreliable narrator. The POV of this movie is shone through the eyes of the humans and so far Dr Shaw has implanted in our mind the idea that The Engineers are kind and benevolent and there is NO REASON for us to think this. This is what Shaw believes and, because we are following her, this is what we are led to believe. In all reality, The Engineers could be douche bags. Serious douche bags.
2. The Black Tar Stuff
In the beginning of the movie we see one of the Engineer take a shot of the black tar stuff and dissolve which, I have to say, did not look painless. It look like it kind of sucked. A lot, in fact. But the guy looked reverent before he took the shot - he wore a robe, was solemn, this was an important thing for him to do. I think he was the sacrifice to the greater good. Sacrifice is messy guys, it’s not painless.
The reason I think that this was religious in nature is because when we see first see the Black Tar Stuff (also, helloooo X-Files!) it’s in a room with a giant head and the whole thing feels sacred. The room and the stuff inside was obviously important because we see the images of The Engineers running into the room. A guy tried to get in and got his head cut off by the blast doors. There was a huge pile of guys with their heads exploded piled outside of the door - they were trying to get in (for whatever reason). I don’t think the Black Tar Stuff was bad.
This is where the unreliable narrator comes in. Implanted in our minds is the idea that it’s a weapon because Janek said it was. What reason does he have to think it’s a weapon? What reason does he have to think this is a military outpost? Much like Dr Shaw gave us the idea that The Engineers were good beings based on her own ideas, Janek believes that is because he had a really fucked up encounter with a super mutated zombie thingy and this was the only explanation he had. He saw the Black Tar Stuff turn someone into something and assumed that it was bad because of that. Dr Shaw now takes this idea and turns it into the thought that The Engineers are coming back to wipe out the human race (for a reason even she does not understand). She leaped to the conclusion that The Engineers are pissed at the humans even though she has no reason to believe so. We are lead to believe that the Black Tar Stuff is bad only because our unreliable narrators told us that it was bad.
3. The Worm Thingy/Alien Hybrid/Science is Hard
Yeah, okay, this is where things start to get really murky and either the writers have no clue or they let the science get away from them because yeah.
When they came into the temple you get a shot of the guy’s foot print and there are these mealy wormy thingies in the dirt. Maybe they are from the outside that he tracked into the temple like giant head room with him? Anyways, I think these are creatures that are natural to the planet that The Engineers were currently colonizing. Instead of reacting to the Black Tar Stuff like everything else does, it…does something else entirely. It turns into those proto-Alien things that attacked the biologist who was all “Hey freaky looking snake thing, aren’t you pretty, let me pet you OH GOD OH GOD GET IT OFF ME HOLY FUCK”. I think that this is what attacked and wiped out The Engineers.
Prior to this movie, the wormy thingies got involved with the Black Tar Stuff. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was planned, like one of The Engineers wanted to stir shit up, WE’LL NEVER KNOW, anyways, it started to…evolve, mutate, whatevs, and contaminate the rest of The Engineers. Out of fear/panic/whatever, The Engineers started racing to the Big Giant Head room for either safety, sanctuary, and also to keep the wormy thingies out of the Black Tar Stuff. Because the room was sealed and all this happened 2000 years ago, the now mutated wormy thingies that had attacked everybody now died out and everything would have been great if the guy hadn’t tracked in the worms with him when they reopened the room. Way to stir shit up guys. Way to go.
And here’s where things get really I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. David gives Dr. Holloway a drop of the black stuff. Of course it does not react to David’s finger because David has no natural skin for it to react to. He feeds it to Dr Holloway and it…does stuff? It kind of destroys him? But we don’t know for sure because Vickers torches the fuck out of him. And he asked for it too, why? Because he was in pain or perhaps it’s the same reason why the Engineer at the beginning tossed himself/fell into the water - it allowed his DNA to be dispersed. ANYWAYS - right after he gets infected, Holloway and Shaw get it on and BOOM! She’s pregnant. But she’s pregnant with a wormy thing? How the hell did that happen? THIS PART DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. The wormy thingies in the cave, sure, but his super screwed up DNA from the drop of The Black Tar Stuff and her being sterile and everything (side note: I do NOT take her reaction as being “baby crazy” as some people put it because Holloway made a very shallow comment about all being a god is is the ability to create life. She was all “so I can’t create life, what the fuck does that make me?” it doesn’t mean that she wanted children or didn’t want children, but if anybody goes OH GOD WHY DO WOMEN ALWAYS HAVE TO BE PORTRAYED AS BABY MACHINES JESUS I think it’s important to point out that her being childless was not a choice that she was able to make on her own and that’s important to note).
So yeah, where does the wormy thing in her belly come from? I HAVE NO CLUE CAN SOMEONE HELP ME.
4. Remaining Plots and stuff
Look, I’m not even going to touch on the whole thing about Weyland looking for immortality, Vicker’s whole “shocking” reveal that she’s Weyland’s daughter, I mean…that’s just kind of there because I don’t know? Because the writers felt it needed to be in there? It was an idea that seemed good but needed more time to flesh out? One of the writers for this movie was also a writer for LOST and yeah, there were a lot of “WTH is this story line being told?” It’s important on its own but added into the movie it seems…muddled.
I could also spend sometime talking about David and the whole android thing and the parallel I made early about humans and androids and The Engineers. He seemed to have a lot more going on that what he was just programmed for and seemed to have ulterior motives even though we are told there is no way for him to have them. BUT WHAT IF HE DOES. Once again, unreliable narrator here - we believe what we have been told but there could have been so much more going on with him and his powers than we are lead to believe. I mean, he had 2 years in space with no one to talk to. Hell, he could have hacked himself and reprogrammed himself. He could very well hated Weyland for treating him just as an android and nothing more and, as he stated, wished his parents (Weyland) dead.
I did like that Dr Shaw and David’s head went off to have a road trip to find The Engineer’s homeworld. Dr Shaw, I think, now has different questions to ask and David…well, who the fuck knows.
5. Final Thoughts
As much as this movie is a study in unreliable narrators, the theme of this movie, I think, is "What you choose to believe and why you chose to believe that." Shaw chose to believe that the Engineers were benevolent. Weyland chose to believe that they could grant immortality. Janke chose to believe that the Black Tar Stuff was a weapon. The biologist chose to believe that the alien wormy thingie was harmless. All of these choices of beliefs led to actions and those actions gave us the movie. Of course, we as the audience have to ask "why are we believing anything that these people are telling us?"
What do you guys think?