[SPOILER] The theory of everything.

[Aceburster]

  Ive mulled it over for a few weeks now and I think its time to produce my theory on everything I can wrap my head around in Prometheus. It came out big I sectioned it off with spoilers. Yes it came out longer than I expected (massive) but this movie is designed to make you think until your brain bleeds. Hope somebody digs it.


God Man and Machine:

Spoiler

  We see toward the beginning during Shaws dream a funeral procession which is a very intimate ritual in most any culture. "Why dont you help them?" "They dont want my help, their God is different than ours." This is an example of how different cultures can be xenophobic toward each other simply based on belief. We all share the same dna, we look similar, we act similar and our cultures overlap and often share a long history but belief often causes division between peoples, sometimes violently. For something that may not be explained in logical terms or held in your hands belief and faith are extremely powerful.

  If we flip back to the opening scene, we see what appears to be faith in action. A solemn looking man takes a sort of strange communion and within moments he has given himself to the waters of a planet to create simple life. No doubt this man has strong beliefs and faith that his sacrifice will bring about something greater. It may be the greatest honor for his people to have this opportunity. It would not be right to judge without context.

  As the story unfolds, we meet Shaw, a scientist who uses her skills to further her ultimate goal to understand her own faith and why we are here. Its the ultimate question for humanity, something we can all understand.

  Soon after, we are introduced to David. David is an android, devoid of faith and not created by the "creator" but by humans to serve a specific set of functions for reasons that its just not worth explaining to him because he just wouldnt understand.

  What is so interesting about David is that for two years he acts like a human simply because he wants to. He eats, he watches movies. Even at one point he bleaches his roots and combs his hair without a single soul to make more comfortable with his presence. It is made clear when Holloway and David discuss him wearing a helmet that he is programmed that way, but during those two years it was his choice. While his creators were away, he still felt the urge to live.

  He fawns over Shaws capsule and delves into her dreams in his spare time as well. Imagine what it must be like to see into the mind of the race that created you. What if you could see everything that makes your creator tick and realize they dont have all the answers either. He realizes that if his creators follow their trail then he himself may find the answers he is looking for about himself. In Prometheus Shaw hits a dead end in her persuit for answers but she doesnt give up and she doesnt lose her faith. She follows the trail of her creators in hopes that she will understand why she exists. Something we can understand. In turn we understand David.

  For all intents and purposes David is a real boy.

  We see David get looked down upon by Holloway anyway. From Davids point of view Holloway is part of the god creator race in his eyes but a man who doesnt seem to understand Shaw the way he does, doesnt have faith or an interest in his own soul, hes just a bro that likes the adventure and the danger involved with his work. David on the other hand is told that he doesnt even have a soul! But why? Is he not good enough? Why would his creators hate him so much that they wouldnt give him a soul? How come some douchebag gets all the benefits of life but spends his life jerking around.

  Holloway goes out of his way early on to put distance between himself and David noting that the Space suit is just a facade. David responds basically that "well you built me that way because you guys feel more comfortable around your own kind" Its sort of an answer as to some of the grand scheme of Davids design, but Holloway seems to think its a bad thing or weird. Xenophobic toward something that his own race created, what a jerk! They exchange a few more words and David makes a joke implying that maybe they are better off not being exactly the same. I think he implies a bit of superiority over Holloway considering hes the one who actually needs a suit. The audience starts to wonder what Davids intentions really are. We also see that something man has created can have an attitude, possibly resentment toward his creators for not having it all figured out and in some cases asking him "why".

  Once inside the craft Holloway recognizes that the air is breathable. This I think ties into Davids comment getting under his skin. He doesnt pull off his helmet because hes trying to be xtreme, but to stick it to David a little. Sort of to say see, i dont need a damn suit either robot! Suddenly the creator race is on the defense.

  David has a private chat, mind to mind with his personal god, the one who has been whispering into his ear this whole time to "try harder" David has to step it up and find some sort of way to please his god and theres no two ways about it, he HAS to. Which may mean a sacrifice...

  This tension plays out in a few subtle ways in the movie. Holloway at one point heavily implies "we made you because we could" as if to say Fk you robot im a human, youre a machine you dont understand what they are doing and I could care less about any of this end of story. David could have kicked his ass except his programming gives him the ability to turn the other cheek under all circumstances. He doesnt mind that it hurts.

  The only logical conclusion that David can come up with is that if he infects Holloway he is one step closer to figuring out what he can do to give his god what he wants, and he can trump Holloway by showing that he can create too and they are equal. To the audience it seems that David has turned on his creators for some unknown reason. Someone needs to stop him! They should shut him off! Who programed him to do this to a human being! In reality David is just doing what he believes is best, the only way he knows how. Arent we all?

  Finally to the Last Engineer. Some of them believe in god, some dont. Some dont want to face the reality that there might not be anything more to the universe. One may sacrifice his "earthly" body for something he cant prove exists while another may find projects and scientific experiments to dedicate his life to.

  The Last Engineer is on a sicence ship, but he is also a man of faith. Faith in what exactly we dont know. Shaw is the only believer aboard her vessel and perhaps out of superstition their race believes its better to have him on board while doing other things like... trying to figure out the meaning of life.

  This Engineer gets woken up to find a group of his civilizations creations staring him in the face. They were only created to fulfill a specific set of tasks! We only made them in our image so that we would be more comfortable around them! They arent supposed to be asking questions! What in the hell happened on Earth that these things found their way here!

  While the rest of his crew were off being eaten by experiments due to some unforseen force he waited in cryostasis for his turn to fulfill his duty. He was waiting for his chance to commune with God and become one with the waters of the universe.

  Whatever David said to him got his attention. It wasnt until the Engineer touched David that he realized that the humans had created artificial life. This crushed his belief about the cycle of sacrifice and rebirth that his people knew. This was blasphemy and called into question everything he spent his life preparing for.

  It was this that caused his blind rage and intent on wiping out earth. Surely he could make it right, he could cleanse the earth like his race always had, and re-create the ritual to be with "his god" Clearly a case of clashing beliefs under what could be the very same God. They share our dna and well... you know how that goes with humans and belief.

  In the end you can say that Shaws baby was a miracle put into scientific terms because some unforseen force knew that the Engineer wouldnt play nice and he had to protect the ones who still believe.

[close]

Urns:

Spoiler

  The stuff in the ampoules (stuff that got Holloway) is reverse evolution in a drink. I think this stuff is universal in that it can break down an organism into its component parts to spread the seed of life. I dont think for a second that the Engineers invented this stuff, i think they found it. The revelation of finding this stuff created the religious sect of Engineers who believe its their duty to do gods work and spread his message through planet seeding. You feed it to a chicken and fling it into the drink, then you get a whole planet of life that shares a percentage of chicken dna and one race that will spring forth with 100% of it and be delicious. On earth we share common dna with lots of things, the more we share the closer they are to us. Easy.
 
  I believe that Engineers craft their technology from living things. The whole biomech concept goes back to the first Alien and they didnt scratch the look in Prometheus. I think that their ships and suits are "engineered" from living things they find and manipulate to further their persuits. The ampoule stuff may have something to do with the process and would be another reason they seem to revolve around it. I dont however think that they can create life. I dunno about sexually but I mean they cant grab some atoms of this and that and make it alive. They need existing stuff.

  The black goo is engineered Xenomorph dna. The reason for this could be that its more space efficient to have a goo on board for space saving reasons or it could be that Xenos in their natural form are just too much of a pain to deal with. Grabbing an idea from... Ancient Aliens, some suggest that Noahs Ark may have contained tons of dna samples from earth so that all of the creatures could be stored. If someone wants to make the claim that the Jugernaut is Noahs Ark and Xenos are an extinct earth creature knock yourself out, im not going near it.

  Anyway I see it as a deployment issue. Do you duct tape an ampoule to a Xenomorphs head and throw it out the door of your ship hoping it gets some juice on it? Does someone get to be the lucky guy who tries to shove some down ones throat? The best way to store a Xenobomb and maybe all of their creations is to make a contaner of a two part solution. One part creature, one part catalyst. I think the reason they dont do with with themselves is the same reason we wouldnt do that to ourselves, its unceremonious at best.

  So why does the black goo act like the stuff in the ampoules to an extent? Well the Engineers and the crew of the Prometheus found out the hard way that even in their most basic form Xenos are still bastards. It could be the polar opposite of the ampoule stuff at its most basic level like a light and dark thing, and though youd need to combine both to get regular Xenos popping out, this stuff by itself has much more legroom to evolve in different new ways and can absorb traits from hosts as well as grow rapidly... just like a Xeno already does without the restraints of the evolution it took naturally.

I mean really, if any form of dna in the universe were to come crawling out on its own to infect things it would be Xeno.

[close]

Ancient Aliens:

Spoiler

  The Engineers created us in their own image. I think its the merging of spirituality and science. They know that they are playing with dangerous forces by trying to create life in their image but its how they live.

  The Ancient Aliens theory basically says giants from the stars created ancient man and played with experimental forms of life, and in some cases wiped humans out because they were unsatisfied with them. It wasnt until God stepped in and kicked them all out that for the most part it stopped. Lots of ancient cultures share this sort of story if interpreted as such so its not really a stretch. It all just comes down to the height of your hair and what you want to believe. 

  I think that this fits with Prometheus in that Engineers would seed life as a sacrifice to God, heck many ancient civilizations sacrificed the crap out of themselves for their beliefs so maybe they picked up the habit from aliens. Their scientists would monitor their behavior and once things got out of hand they would wipe out life, maybe by dropping Xenobombs or by flooding, or maybe both... you do have to get rid of the Xenos after you get rid of the humans right?

  Another reason for wiping out humans over and over could be that maybe not that many planets can actually support life the way the Engineers intend. They would have to keep re-using the same places over and over for the ritual to work. They didnt exactly pick LV-223 because it was a fantastic place for life to breed.

[close]

The confusing stuff:

Spoiler

Why is Vickers in this movie?

  Its to show favoritism and jealousy over one of mans creations (his daughter) over another (David) Which plays into what I think the Last Engineer was thinking when he saw the crew.

Why is Janek so fine with everything including getting himself killed?

  Its symbolic. For whatever reason Janek knows what must be done, and hes there to ensure it happens. (or doesnt happen) I tend to think that the crew of the ship are like some figures in the bible, where reasoning might not be clear, but some force is making sure that the right things happen. Janek senses that but doesnt wanna talk about it.

Why the exploding head?

  Even i dont have an answer for that.

[close]

To infinity and beyond!

Spoiler

  So were left at the end of the movie with a headache watching a ufo blast off with a religious chick and a dismembered head in it. Where to go from here?

  Ive explained before that I think David will transcend beyond his android form to be a part of the Alien universe in a significant way. but what about Shaw? Her faith will lead her to her rightful place in the stars. HINT HINT!

[close]

  Theres lots of religious stuff in there, you wont catch me defending it tho so feel free to poke holes in it. Just callin it as I see it.

[Eighty_Five]

Your theory sounds good to me.