So what exactly were Holloway's "eyeworms" then?

Started by motherfather, May 17, 2017, 05:26:43 PM

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So what exactly were Holloway's "eyeworms" then? (Read 7,950 times)

motherfather

motherfather

So, does anyone have an idea what creatures those eyeworms were meant to be that were crawling around Holloway's eyelids?

Were they normal worms that live on the eyes/eyelashes of humans? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demodex_folliculorum

Were they miniature trilobites?

Were they enlarged versions of the rod-like particles that can be seen floating in a single droplet of goo on David's fingertip?

Were they something else?

bb-15

Quote from: motherfather on May 17, 2017, 05:26:43 PM
So, does anyone have an idea what creatures those eyeworms were meant to be that were crawling around Holloway's eyelids?

Were they normal worms that live on the eyes/eyelashes of humans? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demodex_folliculorum

Were they miniature trilobites?

Were they enlarged versions of the rod-like particles that can be seen floating in a single droplet of goo on David's fingertip?

Were they something else?

I have a film theory about what the black goo did to Holloway and Fifield.
And recently I've come across information about some of Ridley's ideas which fit my theory.

* What the black goo can do;

1. To small organisms in the human body? As seen in "Prometheus", the black goo quickly changed small worms into large lethal snakes.
- Many small organisms can live in the human body.
One of them is the Acanthamoeba;
What can that do in our world?

QuoteWhen present in the eye, Acanthamoeba strains can cause acanthamoebic keratitis, which may lead to corneal ulcers or even blindness.[11] This condition occurs most often among contact lens wearers who do not properly disinfect their lenses, exacerbated by a failure to wash hands prior to handling the lenses. Multipurpose contact lens solutions are largely ineffective against Acanthamoeba, whereas hydrogen peroxide-based solutions have good disinfection characteristics.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthamoeba#Acanthamoebic_keratitis

2. I imagine the black goo affecting small organisms like that in a person's body.
- For instance, this "common single-celled eukaryote", the Acanthamoeba, quickly mutates into a multi-celled worm.   

3. This has now become a little black goo monster in a human, along with many other small black goo infected monsters.
And they begin to take over the host's body.
That would be what was affecting Holloway and what reached a more final stage with Fifield.   

* That was my film theory.
- Here is information from Ridley which supports this idea.
It comes from an article written by Omegamorph (who is on this site).

Quotethe story still hinged on the Engineers' bioweapon — a black fluid that triggers virulent genetic and physical mutations to whatever organism is exposed to it. The new creatures of the film would be inspired by abyssal animals, parasites, and other odd wonders of nature. "Ridley is a great and ghoulish collector of horrible natural oddities," said Spaihts, "real parasites and predators from the natural world. He had a tremendous file of photography of real, ghastly creatures from around the world – they're chilling, some of them! He would tell these tales with relish, of wasps that would drill into the backs of beetles and plant larvae, or become mind-control creatures. Terrible things happen, especially the smaller you get. As you get into the insect world or the microbial world, savage atrocities are perpetrated by one creature on another. And Ridley was thrilled with all of them. They inspired a lot of the designs and a lot of the ideas we tried."
https://monsterlegacy.net/2013/03/04/prometheus-trilobite-deacon-hammerpede-alien/

* This underlying concept fits what happened to Holloway and Fifield in "Prometheus".
- The black goo is causing rapid mutations of multiple tiny parasitic organisms in the human body.
- The parasites grow much larger.
- Then the black goo parasites take control of the human's mind causing the person to become an out of control monster.

;)

markweatherill

I don't see any 'rod-like particles' in the drop of black goo on David's finger. Just reflections.

And I think the black goo affects organisms with a view to mutating them into something capable of impregnating a host.

The little worms that become hammerpedes, being simple organisms to start with, mutate quickly but don't seem to go anywhere; they become an aggressive thing that gains the means and the instinct to penetrate, but doesn't appear to have a payload, so to speak. The one that entered Millburn just leaps out of his mouth after a while and nothing further is seen.

Holloway, a higher organism, is too complex to reform like a caterpillar into a butterfly, instead his cells are individually showing signs of change, and I think that's what his eye worm is. He obviously 'impregnates' (in an alien sense) Shaw with a cell whose DNA has been corrupted by the goo.

Fifield got an apparently massive dose of the stuff, which looks to have transformed him all at once and very quickly, resulting in an imperfect specimen capable of aggression and hatred only.

Well, just a thought.

SpreadEagleBeagle

Quote from: markweatherill on May 18, 2017, 05:35:07 PM
I don't see any 'rod-like particles' in the drop of black goo on David's finger. Just reflections.

And I think the black goo affects organisms with a view to mutating them into something capable of impregnating a host.

The little worms that become hammerpedes, being simple organisms to start with, mutate quickly but don't seem to go anywhere; they become an aggressive thing that gains the means and the instinct to penetrate, but doesn't appear to have a payload, so to speak. The one that entered Millburn just leaps out of his mouth after a while and nothing further is seen.

Holloway, a higher organism, is too complex to reform like a caterpillar into a butterfly, instead his cells are individually showing signs of change, and I think that's what his eye worm is. He obviously 'impregnates' (in an alien sense) Shaw with a cell whose DNA has been corrupted by the goo.

Fifield got an apparently massive dose of the stuff, which looks to have transformed him all at once and very quickly, resulting in an imperfect specimen capable of aggression and hatred only.

Well, just a thought.

Sounds about right.

bb-15

Quote from: markweatherill on May 18, 2017, 05:35:07 PM
I don't see any 'rod-like particles' in the drop of black goo on David's finger. Just reflections.

Agreed. No visible tiny rods.
To me the slime that David picked up on his fingers in the tunnel, and was looking through, is like the slime which is seen in the other Alien movies.
He was not looking through the black goo at that moment imo.
- That leads to the question; how could that kind of slime be in the tunnels if the Xenomorphs and Deacons have been gone on LV-223 for about 2000 years?
Could other creatures produce slime like that or could the slime be preserved on the walls of the tunnels?
- What did David see in the slime?
There was a movement of tiny bubbles/particles which indicates that it was active in someway.

Quote from: markweatherill on May 18, 2017, 05:35:07 PMAnd I think the black goo affects organisms with a view to mutating them into something capable of impregnating a host...

Holloway... obviously 'impregnates' (in an alien sense) Shaw with a cell whose DNA has been corrupted by the goo.

Holloway imo showed one aspect of the black goo it infects a sperm and that infected sperm then infects an egg.
- Overall however, the black goo infects any uninfected organisms it comes into contact with, mutating them into monsters.

Quote from: markweatherill on May 18, 2017, 05:35:07 PMThe hammerpedes... doesn't appear to have a payload, so to speak. The one that entered Millburn just leaps out of his mouth after a while and nothing further is seen.

I think that would be the effect of the black goo on most organisms, mutating them into monsters with no sexual reproduction.

Quote from: markweatherill on May 18, 2017, 05:35:07 PM
Fifield got an apparently massive dose of the stuff, which looks to have transformed him all at once and very quickly, resulting in an imperfect specimen capable of aggression and hatred only.

I agree that Fifield changed quickly (compared with Holloway) because he got a bigger dose of the black goo.
But I don't see Fifield as an "imperfect specimen".
To me this is what the black goo would do to a large, complex creature. 
The black goo mutates small organisms in the complex creature like sperm and parasites.
- Eventually the parasites will take over the complex creature (such as a human) which results in the monster Fifield.
To me that is what would have eventually happened to Holloway if he had not been killed by Vickers.

;)

motherfather

motherfather

#5
Quote from: markweatherill on May 18, 2017, 05:35:07 PM
I don't see any 'rod-like particles' in the drop of black goo on David's finger. Just reflections.

Im looking at the DVD right now - 49mins: 36 seconds into the movie. In the droplet, ignoring the arc/string of pearls reflection of spotlights in the uppermost part of the droplet, look down to the lower 70% of the droplet.

OK admittedly not fully straight and rod-like, but certainly curvy worm-like. Lots of them jam packed inside the droplet. Independent movement/motility, and not settling down -unlike for example particles in a snowglobe.

bb-15

Quote from: motherfather on May 18, 2017, 10:00:25 PM
Quote from: markweatherill on May 18, 2017, 05:35:07 PM
I don't see any 'rod-like particles' in the drop of black goo on David's finger. Just reflections.

Im looking at the DVD right now - 49mins: 36 seconds into the movie. In the droplet, ignoring the arc/string of pearls reflection of spotlights in the uppermost part of the droplet, look down to the lower 70% of the droplet.

OK admittedly not fully straight and rod-like, but certainly curvy worm-like. Lots of them jam packed inside the droplet. Independent movement/motility, and not settling down -unlike for example particles in a snowglobe.

LOL, I'm going along with this scene hunt (which I enjoy doing).
For convenience I'm looking at "Prometheus" on my iPad.
(Yes, I've got all the Alien franchise movies on iTunes/Blu-ray. :D)

* With the iTunes version, 49mins: 36 seconds is right after David's chat with Weyland (in stasis) before the android is confronted by Vickers.
- In my iPad version, the moment where David touches the goo on the wall of the tunnel begins at 34mins: 38 seconds.

* Now I'm thinking that we are talking about different things in the movie.
- Maybe you are referring to when David takes the urn from the freezer on the ship?
He unscrews the top of the urn at 50mins: 39 seconds.
At 51mins: 10 seconds David pulls the black goo pods out of the urn.
He then breaks off a pod which has a clear liquid.
David turns the pod over and there is a black substance on top which slowly floats to the bottom in small inky blobs.   

* Is that what you are referring to?

;)

motherfather

motherfather

#7
Yes. Freezer room. He shakes a black droplet out onto fingertip. I have the steelbook triple dvd french version. The closeup of droplet on finger is maybe only a few seconds, but if you have a big screen and slow playback down, its easier to see.

David later slips Holloway the mickey in his drinking glass.

(On a seperate note, David also plays with green slime between his fingers while trying to use the control panel to get into the ampule room. There, there are completely different particles in that green slime that aeem to make a fizzing electrostatic sound when David stretches it between his fingers.

Since I had the DVD in anyway, I was curious to see how careful the crew were when re-entering the now flooded with goo ampule room. Answer = not very. Not much tiptoeing going on. Lol! It looks like the crew were walking straight into puddles of goo. Unless it lost its potency on contact with air. Or nobody thought of telling the actors to imagine tiptoeing through potentially helmet and boot penetrating puddles.)


whiterabbit

The black goo droplet definitely seemed to be alive and bubbling from the inside on David's fingertip. I assume it would mutate everything with in a organism. Which could perhaps put an emphasis on the importance of "being clean" when showing up on God's doorstep.

Snake

Guess we'll never know for sure, because it's never mentioned again in the movie.  :-\

But the real question imo is: why didn't he tell anyone he's got eye-worms? He doesn't even say this to his own girlfriend...
I definitely wouldn't keep something like that a secret and would have wanted help or a cure asap!

It reminds me somewhat of Spiderman. Peter just got bitten by some mutant-freak-of-nature spider and he decides to simply sweat it out on his room?! He doesn't tell anyone! So he's willing to actually take the risk of dying  instead of seeing a doctor immediately, just to become Spiderman?

I doubt any rational person would do this.

oduodu

My guess is they were sperm that got infected and were mutating and swimming al over his body in the arteries and veins and eventually found there way ti his eyes.

bb-15

Quote from: Solid_Snake on Jun 15, 2017, 05:22:17 PM
I doubt any rational person would do this.

- Irrational behavior which happens in our world can be put into a film.

Quote from: Solid_Snake on Jun 15, 2017, 05:22:17 PM
I definitely wouldn't keep something like that a secret and would have wanted help or a cure asap!

- What one person would do is not = to what everyone might do.

Quote from: Solid_Snake on Jun 15, 2017, 05:22:17 PM
But the real question imo is: why didn't he tell anyone he's got eye-worms? He doesn't even say this to his own girlfriend...

- From "Prometheus" it looks like Charlie Holloway abuses alcohol.
And a person who is very drunk/hungover can doubt what they are seeing.
Imo Charlie drinking champagne from a bottle (starting when the Engineer head reanimation experiment happened) was not the first time that he got completely wasted drunk.
- Chronic drinking / hangovers, can greatly impair a person's senses.
For instance there can be hallucinations due to alcohol.

QuoteAlcohol-related hallucinations are a relatively common occurrence among people who are acutely intoxicated, or those who are undergoing withdrawals from chronic alcoholism.
http://alcoholrehab.com/drug-addiction/hallucinations/

- People with alcohol problems can hide their symptoms.
This is why the Alcoholics Anonymous organization is anonymous. Alcohol abusers often want to keep the problem secret.

- Ridley expects the viewer to know what getting very drunk / hungover is about.
I had a discussion with my son (who doesn't touch booze) and he was baffled by what Holloway did while drinking in the movie.
Myself, being a heavy partier in college, understood what was going on with Holloway just fine.

;)

bleau

Quote from: whiterabbit on May 19, 2017, 11:09:12 AM
The black goo droplet definitely seemed to be alive and bubbling from the inside on David's fingertip. I assume it would mutate everything with in a organism. Which could perhaps put an emphasis on the importance of "being clean" when showing up on God's doorstep.

I noticed this as well, but it is really quick. AV Setup, Blu Ray, 52 Vizio. Def looks like little worms or something in the drop.
We'll have to wait till Prometheus 4k comes out later, might see it more easily.

QuoteBut the real question imo is: why didn't he tell anyone he's got eye-worms? He doesn't even say this to his own girlfriend...
I think he was still drunk and a little hungover, Charlie seemed like a boozer.

Gash

Quote from: motherfather on May 17, 2017, 05:26:43 PM

Were they normal worms that live on the eyes/eyelashes of humans? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demodex_folliculorum


This was always my assumption.

whiterabbit

The human body is full of Bacteria. Trillions and trillions of those little guys. The Black goo probably mutates them as well as human cells.

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