Ridley Scott on the Alien connection with Damon lindelof (youtube)

[Vulgotha]

Actually the ancient astronaut is quite plausible. I'm not sure why people piss on it, Erik Von Daniken's original work (Chariots of the Gods) may have been debunked but the subject is still one that is up for earnest speculation.

[deepelemblues]

the problem people have with ancient aliens is that it's never been done well. except in 2001, and that was because because it wasn't really ancient aliens, it was ancient alien van nuemann probes. and it wasn't ancient aliens interacting with prehistorical human society or early antiquity, they were messing around with monkeys more or less. stargate ruined ancient aliens as a story if those aliens were interacting with actual humans sometime in the past. just totally ruined it.

i'd like this idea a lot better if it was handled in a more 2001-esque way. don't have them influence evolution directly or interact directly with ancient human society that'd just be a rip-off, but have them came to earth sometime in the far-off past and recognize there was the potential for intelligent life to evolve here, and leave a little present for us to find to direct us to them someday for their own nefarious purposes. we go find them, shit goes down.

[Deuterium]

Actually the ancient astronaut is quite plausible. I'm not sure why people piss on it, Erik Von Daniken's original work (Chariots of the Gods) may have been debunked but the subject is still one that is up for earnest speculation.

Of course, anything is up for "earnest speculation".  Sometimes I earnestly speculate that my neighbor's cat is plotting to kill me, in order to steal my identity.  I also earnestly speculate that the Apollo Astronauts did not, in fact, return with lunar rocks, but rather large chunks of Swiss cheese.

[Tangakkai]

The last movie that was inspired by von Däniken's work was AvP ... and we all know how that came out.  Amazing how quickly people forget those things.

No seriously, I think Prometheus will be a great, entertaining but also thought-provoking ride (typical Ridley). Visually the film will probably blow most of us away and the 3d will be something of the best we've seen. As far as story goes... it's on very thin ice. The astronaut theory is nothing too fancy, but let me just remind you, that the story of the original alien itself was nothing too fancy either, yet what we got was cinema history!

So to be honest... I don't care how bad the backdrop to this movie is... in Ridley I trust and I think he's made enough movies so I don't have to prove anything here.

I think if people will accept, that Prometheus is its own franchise and tries to tackle far bigger philosophies than 7 space truckers in a ship fighting an alien lifeform, it will be embraced even by the most sceptical minds. People just need to see it as its own thing.

[Roach Bitch]

Im liking that lower pitched "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" inception esque sound.

Would be cool if it's in the movie.

From 0:33-0:40? I feel the same way . Hope that (or something similar) makes its way into the film. It sounds very "ominous."

[T Dog]

Yeah, that lower pitch sounds creepy. Hoping the soundtrack for this is decent.

[OpenMaw]

Actually the ancient astronaut is quite plausible. I'm not sure why people piss on it, Erik Von Daniken's original work (Chariots of the Gods) may have been debunked but the subject is still one that is up for earnest speculation.

No, see, it's not, and i'll explain why below.

the problem people have with ancient aliens is that it's never been done well. except in 2001, and that was because because it wasn't really ancient aliens, it was ancient alien van nuemann probes. and it wasn't ancient aliens interacting with prehistorical human society or early antiquity, they were messing around with monkeys more or less. stargate ruined ancient aliens as a story if those aliens were interacting with actual humans sometime in the past. just totally ruined it.

i'd like this idea a lot better if it was handled in a more 2001-esque way. don't have them influence evolution directly or interact directly with ancient human society that'd just be a rip-off, but have them came to earth sometime in the far-off past and recognize there was the potential for intelligent life to evolve here, and leave a little present for us to find to direct us to them someday for their own nefarious purposes. we go find them, shit goes down.

That's really not the problem with it either, and I beg to differ about 2001 really doing anything spectacular with the idea in the film. In the novel? Sure. Not the movie. And even then, it's silly to imply that one day, primitive ape-man just decided to start using tools because a black razor sharpener gave us brain power.

The problem is when it literally says "Aliens are our Gods." and they were literally unchanged for untold millennia when they first started playing with us until today. That, first off, flies in the face evolution. Any life that might have visited us eons ago would be so very different by today, if it even existed at all, that any "Prometheus" type of story would be highly improbable.

Then you of course go to what we know of our own evolutionary background. As I said in another thread, Earth tells us our own story in the rock. We know more or less the gist of our history, and there really isn't any "mystery" about how or why primitive man began to use tools, form tribes, and eventually build cities. We learned. It's quite easy to understand how we got from there, to here in the space of a few hundred thousand years. We didn't need any help. We, the human race, are capable of amazing things. Even if it takes us a long long time.

As someone once said, learning to harness fire and the wheel make the discovery of the microchip look like something done on a whim for us.

[SpaceMarines]

Actually the ancient astronaut is quite plausible. I'm not sure why people piss on it, Erik Von Daniken's original work (Chariots of the Gods) may have been debunked but the subject is still one that is up for earnest speculation.

Of course, anything is up for "earnest speculation".  Sometimes I earnestly speculate that my neighbor's cat is plotting to kill me, in order to steal my identity.  I also earnestly speculate that the Apollo Astronauts did not, in fact, return with lunar rocks, but rather large chunks of Swiss cheese.

It's like no cheese I've ever tasted...

[SM]

He's right, Kol. It's a really stupid idea. Prometheus will likely be an overall very good experience, but it has a major flaw in it's backstory using that as a springboard. It hurts believability.

Pssst... it's not a documentary.

[Capovin]

OpenMaw- the ancient astronaut theory actually isn't as implausible as you seem to think, it doesn't "fly in the face of evolution" in anyway (which the theory evolution itself still has it's kinks to work out) because beings evolve and adapt according to their environment, if there is no need to evolve, if they are not forced to evolve, they will not. Yes we understand the basic gist of how things got started on earth and with mankind, but theyre all just theories at the end of the day (which btw I suscribe to) based off what modern man has deduced from evidence we've found, but in no way does that actual evidence preclude the possibility of alien interference, obviously throughout the ages we have changed our ideas of how everything started based on new evidence and if you think that won't continue to happen you're kidding yourself. We know a lot, but not nearly everything. The human race essentially rules the earth, and we are one of many, many species on the planet, no other species before or after us has reached our level of cognition, we speculate dolphins are as smart as us based on the size of their brains, but if you've seen a dolphin in action-you know that's not the case. What makes us humans as a species so damn special? Why are there so many correlations between religions? Both past and present? Why have we had a concept of "god" since our inception? You can speculate why, but you don't know, because nobody really does.

[Wobblyboddle77]

Janek pilots the prometheus into the engineer ship to stop it for leaving for earth to unleash it's cargo. David is in the orriery (starmap room) communicating with the engineers/jockeys showing them earth and explaining it's importance. The engineer/jockeys suits are bio-organic, and are living organisms capable of changing to suit any environment.Weyland uses Shaw as a carrier of a creature (the proto-xeno) but a jockey/engineer attacks him with some acid. When we see the crew running outide in the trailer, they are on top of the temple, and the temple is actually a ship carrying the giant head.

[ChrisPachi]

What makes us humans as a species so damn special? Why are there so many correlations between religions? Both past and present? Why have we had a concept of "god" since our inception? You can speculate why, but you don't know, because nobody really does.

The problem is that there are well understood and common sense answers to all of those questions, however AA proponents either don't understand them or outright choose to ignore them. I agree that alien intervention could be made to fit into known history in a semi-plausible - or at least less ridiculous - way, but it has become more and more clear that Prometheus is going the whole hog on a 'theory' that is plain old dumb.

It's like coming home to find your pet cat sitting on your kitchen bench next to a freshly baked chocolate cake. The type of logic behind AA might cause you to assume that your cat baked the cake, but because you aren't a complete idiot you wouldn't assume that at all. You would possibly assume that your spouse baked it or that your mother dropped it over, because those explanations actually make sense. Assuming that the Nazca lines are landing strips for alien spacecraft is even more stupid than assuming that your cat can bake a chocolate cake.

It's not the alien intervention idea I have a problem with, it's the Von Daniken idea.

[Capovin]

I have to disagree with that cat analogy,but you could reverse it, we are fairly aware of a cats limitations, in regards to the nazca lines or the pyramids, we are fairly aware of the limitations of man at the time, we still don't know exactly how they accomplished what they did without the technology or knowledge we assume they didnt have. So possibly an outside more advanced force that we don't actually see (such as the wife who baked the cake) did it. I don't believe that at all but an argument could be made for it. Much more plausible than a cat baking a cake at least.

[ChrisPachi]

I have to disagree with that cat analogy,but you could reverse it, we are fairly aware of a cats limitations, in regards to the nazca lines or the pyramids, we are fairly aware of the limitations of man at the time, we still don't know exactly how they accomplished what they did without the technology or knowledge we assume they didnt have. So possibly an outside more advanced force that we don't actually see (such as the wife who baked the cake) did it. I don't believe that at all but an argument could be made for it. Much more plausible than a cat baking a cake at least.

Well put, I see what you did there. We do however know how and why the Nazca lines and the pyramids were created and both explanations are no way outside of mankind's limitations. Anyway, I think we can both agree that the alien intervention hypothesis can work, it's just my own opinion that the AA elements showing up in the Prometheus back story are dodgy.

But screw all that because... you know... Derelict!

[Kol]

I have to disagree with that cat analogy,but you could reverse it, we are fairly aware of a cats limitations, in regards to the nazca lines or the pyramids, we are fairly aware of the limitations of man at the time, we still don't know exactly how they accomplished what they did without the technology or knowledge we assume they didnt have. So possibly an outside more advanced force that we don't actually see (such as the wife who baked the cake) did it. I don't believe that at all but an argument could be made for it. Much more plausible than a cat baking a cake at least.

with this example he shows you only how ridiculous he finds the ancient astronaut theory & your attempt to make it plausible or just relevant.
to be honest: i'm tired of these discussions about the AA-theory cos the most of us find it offensive in some way. at least they are nitpicking about. i personally wont speak that specific about it anymore, cos only a few of us take it at least a bit serious.

nobody can proof nietzsche's theory about the eternal recurrence (of the same) being true, but at least people recognize his intention and live with it a proper life. taking life by it's hand and the ambition of becoming superior. now is this a bad thing?

ps: nobody complained about the transformer movies and it strands of the AA-theory and that's a mainstream-movie, too. 

But screw all that because... you know... Derelict!

that is the most important thing, after all.