I was originally going to post this as a part of my blog. However, seeing as how anyone actually interested in reading it would probably be limited to this forum anyway, and the fact that it would be too long for anyone to really enjoy/understand outside of people like you, I decided to just post this straight to here.
This is a list of the most interesting and most important questions to keep in mind while watching the film. I feel that this way you can enter and leave the theater with a better idea of what to look for and what was actually going on. Consider this a discussion that can enrich and enlighten your Prometheus experience.
First and foremost - please provide your own best answers to these questions now if you can, and we can look back here and solve them together later.
My own answers are in spoilers. Don't read them if you don't want to. Please, only provide your answers to any part of the questions.
What is Meredith Vickers' Alternate Agenda?Spoiler
1) She is a spy for Yutani who would like to see out the failure of the mission in order to bring about a collapse of the company.
2) She is Weyland's daughter under the orders to retrieve technology that could prolong her dying father's life indefinitely. Her hidden agenda is to try to sabotage any effort to find such technology so that she may inherit full control of the company.
Symn) Special link to the ship and Family. She is on the mission only for the sake of responsibility to her family. She is like a mother to the ship and shares a very special bond with it, but hates the origin of the mission and is distasteful of the fact that she must oblige them.
Who is the second Andriod?Spoiler
It is not Vickers as that doesn't play along with the rules of what androids are capable of. Other major characters can be eliminated as well on the same grounds.
1) There is another David robot.
2) Peter Weyland, by being more than 50% robotic, can be considered the second android.
Symn) Vickers - sister Android to David
What are in the ampoules? What role do they play?Spoiler
1) Black ooze which is the essence of creating alien species.
2) Storage containers for different species at varying stages.
Symn) The genomes of the deadliest organisms in the Universe
What were the murals changing into?Spoiler
1) They were likely showing the ritual for producing their alien creature.
2) Live instruction guide for creating xenomorphs.
Symn) Their history within the temple/on other planets
What happened to the Engineers? Why are they all dead within the temple?Spoiler
1) Their production of some other species or weapon went haywire while in cryosleep and devastated their group.
2) Some rogue Engineer from elsewhere, or a member of the group, sabotaged the procedure.
Symn) Civil War
Scott says the mission can be described best as a "challenge" to the Gods. If the Engineers are the gods, how do we challenge them?Spoiler
1) We take their stuff and skedaddle.
2) We take their stuff and try to beat them at their own game.
Why is the Juggernaut going to Earth? Who are 'they'?Spoiler
1) Earthlings were created long ago to complete theEngineer's next step of developing their 'alien.'
2) Pissed off about the mischief they've caused and going there to eradicate the humans.
3) The Engineer and his new made friend? I am guessing that is a combination of David, Peter Weyland, and a burned Holloway, who suits up Jockey style to save his life after getting torched by Vickers.
Symn) Use humans to proliferate their race
Is Peter Weyland on board?Spoiler
They say Peirce only has a minute role in the beginning of the film. However, in earlier interviews they refused to answer the question because they would have to get into the plot. If that was all there was – then why would they hesitate saying this info? This means that yes, 100%, he is on board.
This has been made ever more obvious with new clips and various other sources i.e. that one character on set gets a considerable aging makeup.
How does Holloway die? Vickers?These characters are pretty big in themselves, and come behind only David and Shaw. So how do they die if at all?
Spoiler
1) They don't.
2) Holloway gains biomech powers by putting on a Jockey suit. His infection drives him to go insane and is eventually fodder for Cuddles.
3) Vickers becomes Shaw's teammate and they help each other survive. Vickers might not make it anyway though. Also fodder for Cuddles.
Symn) Holloway is torched
What is the purpose of the giant face/head?Spoiler
1) It has been reported that he is a super engineer who is worshipped as a God – a super-being whose knowledge and power reaches far beyond that of an ordinary Engineer, even though he may look like them.
Three Engineers – Last, Ghost, and Sacrifice – who are they and what is their purpose?Spoiler
Sacrifice has already been answered. He is the one in the beginning who drinks a concoction whereby his body disintegrates into the water to create life.
The 'Ghost' Engineer is likely an interactive log of what was going on with the temple. He is like a holographic android that uses a dead Engineers memories to interact with anyone who might activate him. Though the Engineer is dead, the hologram sort of brings him to life by making his memories and thoughts intelligible. It is like a computer that uses your memory to answer other peoples' questions in the form of a holograph of your face/body.
The 'Last' Engineer is likely the one who is woken up from Cryosleep and the one who retaliates against the humans, as well as the one who tries to take the Juggernaut to Earth.
What can we expect from the xenomorphs? What will be the connection in the last 8 minutes?Spoiler
Lindelof said, "We can present iterations of that stuff in different ways." We are highly likely to see some form of xenomorphs and face huggers, just as iterations of their previous form or a transmogrification into something conceptually more useful or terrifying.
In this sense we will see no xenomorphs or facehuggers – but we will see iterations of these things and something more most likely. That is, hammerhead snakes are like facehuggers – who infect other organisms orally to bring about the next phase of the alien creature.
The connection can be:
1) Physical Resemblance to the Xeno
2) Creation of an Egg
3) Xenomorph itself, coming out of the Last SJ, secretly infected since the beginning
4) 3D facehugger jumping at you after the credits
5) The Juggernaut crashing on LV-426
What is Shaw sorry about?If you can remember – in one of the early trailers Shaw is heard saying "We were so wrong," and then "I'm so sorry."
Spoiler
1) Shaw has to leave Holloway outside the ship because he is infected.
2) Shaw is leaving a log behind for other humans to find – saying sorry she could not do a better job of figuring things out/saving everyone.
Symn) Guilty about leading her crewmates to their doom.
How do the survivors get back home/off the planet/all die in the end?Spoiler
1) The lifeboat is able to take them home.
2) An Engineer spacecraft gives them a lift to another planet.
3) They enter cryosleep in the lifeboat, hoping for a rescue team to come to LV-223 in the next 50 years.
4) They all die in the end, but for some greater purpose of course.
What are the stages of the new alien creature? Are there four or more? What are they?Spoiler
As David says, and quotes Lawrence of Arabia, "Big things have small beginnings," and since both films here are about size, about what matters, and how it comes to matter, I thought it was fitting to name each creature after locations in the film itself, for not only are the ideas, places, and elements grow to epic proportions, but so seemingly, does the creature in tandem with those things.
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{One}
1) Nefud
Interlude
Would you like any infectious biomechanic parasites in you drink, sir?
{Two}
2) Aqaba
Interlude
Hey Noomi - want to snog with the stud from
Devil?
{Three}
3) Daraa
Interlude
Hello Mommy, where are you?
{Four}
4) Damascus
Symn) -Parasite > seed > squidbaby > giant tenticlemonster (essentially the old version from Alien, just new manifestations)
I am really curious to read what you people are thinking about all this. I know many of you have already answered these somewhere before - but for the sake of keeping things tidy - it would be good to keep at least this part of the predicting to one place. Plus, it cuts down the burden of giving a full forecast.
Anyways - I have given you my thoughts. Please now, give me yours.
Please remember to use spoiler tags where they are necessary.