What is the current 'theory' for the storyline? (possible spoilers)

[Winkie Bear]

I went and read Mountains of Madness after it kept cropping up in discussions on here, and whilst I think it's a potentially good template for Prometheus (I reckon the Shoggoths are the xenos)....

BUT

I found Lovecraft's style to be utterly interminable, pompous and melodramatic. Just my opinion of course.

I do think that the SJ technology will revolve around symbiotic biology - they think nothing of popping on a facehugger as a breathing mask, or using members of their own race as receptacles for new biomechnoids.

[EGM1966]

Everyone dies in the end. Mostly.

Probably the perfect summary at this point!

[Zeta Reticuli]

Is Prometheus going to flat out state that humans were made by a higher intelligence being? Who all along has also been giving us knowledge? And that the universe is full of alien life. I remember a Ridley interview where he said that he believed it was mathematically improbable for man to be where man is without help. Then is he going to mix that with HP Lovecraft? Where we have us, then space jockeys and then the shit hits the fan and just keeps getting worse. Maybe even to the point that the entire reason we want the alien is because we need it to save our own skin? However all along no one wants to admit the truth to the public because it is just that horrible of a nightmare.

i just had a great idea.

Prometheus could be the starting point of a Space Jockey "invasion" so to speak. or maybe its just a rather small group of SJ remnants that want to attack earth and destroy it, so not a really big "invasion", but you know what i mean. the SJs want to destory earth.
so Weyland Corp pretty much f*cked this up, but simultaneously they find out about the ALIEN creature (maybe even in Prometheus?), which is the ultimate weapon, created by the Space Jockeys, and the only thing in the universe that could stop them.
so when Weyland Corp back on earth realise that earth is going to be attacked, they more or less spontaneously decide that one of their mining vessels, the Nostromo, goes to search for that ALIEN creature because mankind needs this bioweapon to survive.
this would also explain why in the first three alien movies the WY corp is so eager for the Xeno creature.
assuming that LV-426 was the only place where Xenos ever had been found, after Ripley nuked the place it was the Companys last chance to find Ripley on Fury 161 to get hold of their ultimate Weapon against the Space Jockeys.

so to sum this up:
ALIEN Trilogy = Weyland-Yutani's search for the anti-Space Jockey weapon
Prometheus (+sequels) = Weyland-Yutani's story of direct encounters and struggling with the Space Jockeys (maybe eventually they find another way to defeat them)

[psychonaut25]

Everyone dies in the end. Mostly.

Probably the perfect summary at this point!

I think Shaw will survive..or Vickers...my bet is on Shaw.

[Kol]

Is Prometheus going to flat out state that humans were made by a higher intelligence being? Who all along has also been giving us knowledge? And that the universe is full of alien life. I remember a Ridley interview where he said that he believed it was mathematically improbable for man to be where man is without help. Then is he going to mix that with HP Lovecraft? Where we have us, then space jockeys and then the shit hits the fan and just keeps getting worse. Maybe even to the point that the entire reason we want the alien is because we need it to save our own skin? However all along no one wants to admit the truth to the public because it is just that horrible of a nightmare.

i just had a great idea.

Prometheus could be the starting point of a Space Jockey "invasion" so to speak. or maybe its just a rather small group of SJ remnants that want to attack earth and destroy it, so not a really big "invasion", but you know what i mean. the SJs want to destory earth.
so Weyland Corp pretty much f*cked this up, but simultaneously they find out about the ALIEN creature (maybe even in Prometheus?), which is the ultimate weapon, created by the Space Jockeys, and the only thing in the universe that could stop them.
so when Weyland Corp back on earth realise that earth is going to be attacked, they more or less spontaneously decide that one of their mining vessels, the Nostromo, goes to search for that ALIEN creature because mankind needs this bioweapon to survive.
this would also explain why in the first three alien movies the WY corp is so eager for the Xeno creature.
assuming that LV-426 was the only place where Xenos ever had been found, after Ripley nuked the place it was the Companys last chance to find Ripley on Fury 161 to get hold of their ultimate Weapon against the Space Jockeys.

so to sum this up:
ALIEN Trilogy = Weyland-Yutani's search for the anti-Space Jockey weapon
Prometheus (+sequels) = Weyland-Yutani's story of direct encounters and struggling with the Space Jockeys (maybe eventually they find another way to defeat them)

i like it!

[escroto]

Is Prometheus going to flat out state that humans were made by a higher intelligence being? Who all along has also been giving us knowledge? And that the universe is full of alien life. I remember a Ridley interview where he said that he believed it was mathematically improbable for man to be where man is without help. Then is he going to mix that with HP Lovecraft? Where we have us, then space jockeys and then the shit hits the fan and just keeps getting worse. Maybe even to the point that the entire reason we want the alien is because we need it to save our own skin? However all along no one wants to admit the truth to the public because it is just that horrible of a nightmare.

i just had a great idea.

Prometheus could be the starting point of a Space Jockey "invasion" so to speak. or maybe its just a rather small group of SJ remnants that want to attack earth and destroy it, so not a really big "invasion", but you know what i mean. the SJs want to destory earth.
so Weyland Corp pretty much f*cked this up, but simultaneously they find out about the ALIEN creature (maybe even in Prometheus?), which is the ultimate weapon, created by the Space Jockeys, and the only thing in the universe that could stop them.
so when Weyland Corp back on earth realise that earth is going to be attacked, they more or less spontaneously decide that one of their mining vessels, the Nostromo, goes to search for that ALIEN creature because mankind needs this bioweapon to survive.
this would also explain why in the first three alien movies the WY corp is so eager for the Xeno creature.
assuming that LV-426 was the only place where Xenos ever had been found, after Ripley nuked the place it was the Companys last chance to find Ripley on Fury 161 to get hold of their ultimate Weapon against the Space Jockeys.

so to sum this up:
ALIEN Trilogy = Weyland-Yutani's search for the anti-Space Jockey weapon
Prometheus (+sequels) = Weyland-Yutani's story of direct encounters and struggling with the Space Jockeys (maybe eventually they find another way to defeat them)

great idea, but there's a problem, the Derelict wasn't destroyed by the nuke; it was really far from there

[psychonaut25]

Is Prometheus going to flat out state that humans were made by a higher intelligence being? Who all along has also been giving us knowledge? And that the universe is full of alien life. I remember a Ridley interview where he said that he believed it was mathematically improbable for man to be where man is without help. Then is he going to mix that with HP Lovecraft? Where we have us, then space jockeys and then the shit hits the fan and just keeps getting worse. Maybe even to the point that the entire reason we want the alien is because we need it to save our own skin? However all along no one wants to admit the truth to the public because it is just that horrible of a nightmare.

i just had a great idea.

Prometheus could be the starting point of a Space Jockey "invasion" so to speak. or maybe its just a rather small group of SJ remnants that want to attack earth and destroy it, so not a really big "invasion", but you know what i mean. the SJs want to destory earth.
so Weyland Corp pretty much f*cked this up, but simultaneously they find out about the ALIEN creature (maybe even in Prometheus?), which is the ultimate weapon, created by the Space Jockeys, and the only thing in the universe that could stop them.
so when Weyland Corp back on earth realise that earth is going to be attacked, they more or less spontaneously decide that one of their mining vessels, the Nostromo, goes to search for that ALIEN creature because mankind needs this bioweapon to survive.
this would also explain why in the first three alien movies the WY corp is so eager for the Xeno creature.
assuming that LV-426 was the only place where Xenos ever had been found, after Ripley nuked the place it was the Companys last chance to find Ripley on Fury 161 to get hold of their ultimate Weapon against the Space Jockeys.

so to sum this up:
ALIEN Trilogy = Weyland-Yutani's search for the anti-Space Jockey weapon
Prometheus (+sequels) = Weyland-Yutani's story of direct encounters and struggling with the Space Jockeys (maybe eventually they find another way to defeat them)

great idea, but there's a problem, the Derelict wasn't destroyed by the nuke; it was really far from there

And aren't Jockeys extict race allready??

[The PredBen]

Well, I'm not going to lie, none of these posts really made me feel more 'updated' on current theories. "They all die in the end." Really now, how clever.

[Eva]

- Ridley Scott:

The surprise is in the story.

This particular screenplay is about... who made us... where do we go afterwards and how valid is that?

The characters find an establishment which is not what they expected it to be. A civilization, but what we find in it, is very uncivilized behaviour

This is imo the core of the film - the ramifications of us figuring out what sinister agenda our Gods/makers had in mind when they made or shaped us. How deeply will our discovery affect us and what are we going to do about it?

[OpenMaw]

Oh God, this makes me think we were bred just to have stuff put inside of us.

[The PredBen]

- Ridley Scott:

The surprise is in the story.

This particular screenplay is about... who made us... where do we go afterwards and how valid is that?

The characters find an establishment which is not what they expected it to be. A civilization, but what we find in it, is very uncivilized behaviour

This is imo the core of the film - the ramifications of us figuring out what sinister agenda our Gods/makers had in mind when they made or shaped us. How deeply will our discovery affect us and what are we going to do about it?

We must remember technological achievements do not have to equal moral advancement. But yeah, that is a good 'core' for the film. Now I'm getting excited for this again!

[Eva]

Oh God, this makes me think we were bred just to have stuff put inside of us.

Yeah... I mean, I don't buy the 'standard alien invasion' idea - it's been done to death in like 500 films already and I don't think that concept interests Ridley in the slightest.

What would be extremely unsettling, controversial and new ground, is the idea that humans were made just to be part of a biomechanoid lifecycle of a higher being. Like the various parasites existing in nature, growing inside other animals as part of their natural lifecycle...

Those facehuggers in Alien sure were a perfect match for a humanoid head, weren't they? And there were thousands of them on that single ship... 

[dbostejano]

^^ I think you may have hit the nail on the head.....

[Naissus]

Perhaps the Derelict ship was on its way to seed Earth for the next generation of Space Jockey when something went wrong with the new batch.

[harlock]

Well I think Holloway's answer to David's question of "why make me?"

Spoiler

"Because we could."

[close]

That may be just why the Engineers made humanity/terraformed Earth. The Engineer is supposed to be beyond good and evil after all.