he Beginning: Creation of Life

Ridley Scott: "[The] sequence at the beginning of the film that is fundamentally creation. It's a donation, in the sense that the weight and the construction of the DNA of those aliens is way beyond what we can possibly imagine." Source: The Playlist

Ridley Scott: "The guy at the beginning is simply donating himself, no stranger than the Aztecs or Incas would choose some poor bugger, at the beginning saying 'right, you're it, in the year you get all the girls you want, all the food you want, blah blah, and at the end of the year we're going to take your heart, take it out, squeeze it, and w're going to get jolly good crops and good weather next year.' It's no more than that, he's into a form of donation, except his DNA is so powerful, each molecule is like a timebomb. So, we only set our standards by what we know here, which makes us essentially naive. We don't, we can't conceive of galloping DNA: I release that on the desk, and in a second I've got a cotton wool ball going black. We can't conceive that because it's not in your frame of experience. So you've got to take your brain, put it on the side, and when you enter the movie just let yourself breathe." Source: Slashgear

Ridley Scott: "You're either going to believe in the fact that we're by entirely genetic luck, so from day one where you have atomic storms -- inconceivable storms that will go on in this nucleus, in which the dirt bowl will find some reason to start growth on everything -- was that created? That may have been accidental, because I think there are many of those out there. But then the idea that, is there a higher force in the universe, comes the question: is it God, or are there superior beings out there? You stand and look at the stars at night in the galaxy out there, it's entirely ridiculous to believe that we are it. You mean this is it? We're sitting in this room, I’ve got this fucking cappuccino, and up there there’s no-one else? I don’t think so!" Source: Slashgear

"Big things have small beginnings." -- David, citing Lawrence of Arabia

Is it Earth?

Ridley Scott: "No, it doesn't have to be. That could be anywhere. That could be a planet anywhere. All he's doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself. If you parallel that idea with other sacrificial elements in history -- which are clearly illustrated with the Mayans and the Incas -- he would live for one year as a prince, and at the end of that year, he would be taken and donated to the gods in hopes of improving what might happen next year, be it with crops or weather, etc., etc." Source: The Playlist

Martin Hill (WETA Visual Effects Supervisor), about the sequence: "Because we had such a short amount of time to tell the story of the DNA getting infected, breaking apart, and then re-forming and recombining to show Earth DNA, we had to make the designs of the different DNA quite graphical, quite illustrative of what they were." Source: MTV

About Weyland

Ridley Scott: "There's a scene in the script that we decided not to shoot, where we see the inside of that dream, and basically David takes a jetski out with a beautiful woman in a bikini, to a yacht, and on the yacht is Weyland. Played by Guy, without old-age make-up: this is his dream. And they have a scene together, and in that scene David says 'the engineers are dead, they’re all gone, mission failure' and Weyland says 'go back and try harder.' And we rewrote it so that we were going to play Weyland’s identify closed, give the audience a sense that [David] was talking to someone on the ship but not view them." Source: Slashgear

What Does the Black Substance Do?

Damon Lindelof: "I think that one of the things that I love about Ridley’s movies, and have loved long before I worked with him -- and it's very surreal to be on the inside of; thirty-some odd years after Blade Runner we're all still talking about whether or not Deckard is a robot. So there's a speculative part of it, so the question becomes 'what does the black goo do?' That is the question that you're supposed to be asking coming out of this movie. The movie demonstrates what it does in certain circumstances. So, here's what it does if it gets on worms; here's what it does if it gets on your face; here's what it does if someone just puts a little bit of it in your drink. So, now we see that that lots of this is headed to Earth. Now, you used the word 'weapon,' you're extrapolating that based on the theory [Prometheus captain] Janek has, because it looks like a payload to him: all these ships are loaded with this stuff, and they're headed for Earth. The intent has to be to wipe us out, or is it to evolve us, or is it for something else?"

Damon Lindelof: These are all hopefully questions and points of debate – frustrating for some -- but ultimately the kind of science-fiction... why the two movies that Ridley did decades ago are still being discussed, is this idea that when you walk out of the theater that you have to go into a community and start to discuss 'well, wait a minute, this is what I think happened,' and you're hopefully mirroring the conversation that the characters are having in the movie, and more importantly this is why Shaw says what she says at the end of the movie. Which is, 'I’m not going back to Earth and calling it a day, I need to know a little bit more about what's happening here.'" Source: Slashgear

Why does David Infect Holloway?

Damon Lindelof: "I'd say that the short answer is: That's his programming. In the scene preceding him doing that, he is talking to Weyland (although we don't know it at the time) and he's telling Weyland that this is a bust. That they haven't found anything on this mission other than the stuff in the vials. And Weyland presumably says to him, "Well, what's in the vials?" And David would say, "I'm not entirely sure, we'll have to run some experiments." And Weyland would say, "What would happen if you put it in inside a person?" And David would say, "I don't know, I'll go find out." He doesn't know that he's poisoning Holloway, he asks Holloway, "What would you be willing to do to get the answers to your questions?" Holloway says, "Anything and everything." And that basically overrides whatever ethical programming David is mandated by, [allowing him] to spike his drink." Source: io9.com

About the Theme of Birth

Ridley Scott: "[...] I think dropping that stuff in earlier, [Shaw] saying 'I can’t conceive,' was absolutely the right, perfect thing to do. Which then, after that -- because they then relate to each other, consummate, and the following day by God she's pregnant -- once she's pregnant, I have to see it, I have to see what that is. And because it's extreme, galloping DNA, whatever that is that's creating this monstrous thing growing inside of her – he says 'you look three months pregnant;' in 25 minutes she now looks eight months pregnant – that's inconceivable for us, because we don't understand it. But I think probably way up there somewhere, it's entirely feasible. You've got to show it, you've gotta do it." Source: Slashgear

"The trick, Mr. Potter, is not minding it hurts." -- David, citing Lawrence of Arabia

Who are the Engineers?

Ridley Scott: "Who pushed Earth along? Have we been previsited by gods or aliens? The fact that they'd be at least a billion years ahead of us in technology is daunting, and one might use the word God or gods or engineers of life in space." Source: New York Times

Ridley Scott: "In a funny kind of way, if you look at the Engineers, they’re tall and elegant. They are dark angels. If you look at 'Paradise Lost,' the guys who have the best time in the story are the dark angels, not God. So boil it all down, and humanity was the offspring of some dark/rogue angels? That would seem to be the gist of it, and we guess that's where a Prometheus 2 would go if/when that should ever happen. Now Prometheus is ready to go off in its own direction on its own entirely different tangent that is not going to be reliant on the things we’ve seen a thousand times before." Source: The Playlist

Did the Engineers Want us to Visit Them?

Damon Lindelof: "I will say that there's something fascinating about humanity where we perceive it as an invitation. You look at a cave wall, there's somebody pointing at some distant planets, and one interpretation is 'This is where we come from' another is 'We want you to come here.' Where are we drawing that from? I think another thing that's interesting about the system that they visit is that the moon they land on in Prometheus is LV 223. And we know LV 426 is where the action takes place in Alien, so are they even in the right place? And how close are they to the place that these aliens on cave walls were directing them. Were they just extrapolating 'this is the system that has the sun with the sustainable life.' So there's a lot of guesswork. There's a small line in the movie where David and Holloway are talking about David's deconstruction of the language based on Holloway's thesis, and he says 'If your thesis is correct' and Holloway says 'if it's correct?' and David says 'that’s why they call it a thesis Doctor.' And the reason we threw that in there is that we're dealing with a highly hypothetical area in terms of who these beings are, what, if any, invitation they issued, and who is responsible for making those cave paintings. And did something happen in between when those cave paintings were made -- tens of thousands of years ago -- and our arrival now, in 2093, 2,000 years after these things have perished? Did something happen in the intermediate period that we should be thinking about?" Source: IGN

Why do the Engineers Want to Destroy the Humans?

Ridley Scott: "God doesn't hate us. But God could be disappointed in us — like children." Source: New York Times

Damon Lindelof: "I think that we had a very defined idea of why the Engineers put those paintings on cave walls, and why it is that they loaded ships full of death, as Shaw puts it at the end of the movie. So those answers are not definitively presented in Prometheus, though if you look through all the materials, I think that the evidence is all there to form a very informed opinion as to what happened, but I'm not going to tell you what my opinion is, as frustrating as it might be." Source: IGN

Damon Lindelof: "But I do feel like, embedded in this movie are the fundamental ideas behind why it is the Engineers would want to wipe us out. The movie asks the question, were we created by these beings? And it answers that question very definitively. But in the wake of that answer there's a new question, which is, they created us but now they want to destroy us, why did they change their minds? That's the question that Shaw is asking at the end of this movie, the one that she wants answered. I do think that there are a lot of hints in this movie; that we give you quite an educated guess as to why. But obviously not to the detriment of what Shaw might find when she goes to talk to these things herself." Source: io9.com

Ridley Scott: "If you look at it as an 'our children are misbehaving down there' scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, 'Let's send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it.' Guess what? They crucified him." Source: The Playlist

Ridley Scott, about the audio/video message transmitted by the humans: "Did you get what the message was about? [It was a message to the engineers.] That would be a constant, from takeoff you'd be constantly replaying that, hoping that somebody's gonna say 'don’t come any further, I'm gonna to blow you out of the sky.' In there, there would be every conceivable form of mathematics equation, and anyone who is superior is going to look at that for three seconds and say 'we've got chimpanzees on the way.' So, it's an assessment of who's coming, basically, it makes sense." Source: Slashgear

Damon Lindelof: "The gods want to limit their creations; they might want to dethrone God." Source: New York Times

"This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life." -- translation of what David says (about Peter Weyland) to the Engineer.

On Prometheus and Religion

Damon Lindelof: "Hey, a bunch of humans seeking out their creator. David knows exactly who created him, and he is not impressed by his creator."

Ridley Scott: "I do despair. That's a heavy word, but picking up a newspaper every day, how can you not despair at what's happening in the world, and how we're represented as human beings? The disappointments and corruption are dismaying at every level. And the biggest source of evil is of course religion. [...] Everyone is tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshipping the same god. [...] I'm really intrigued by those eternal questions of creation and belief and faith. I don't care who you are, it's what we all think about. It's in the back of all our minds." Source: Esquire

Damon Lindelof: "I'm most definitively pro-science, but I think that the movie advances the idea that, can the two live along side each other? Is it possible to be a scientist and maintain some fungible faith in the unknown? And are you rewarded for having blind faith? I do think that the movie is making the meta-commentary in saying well Shaw is the true believer on board, and she's the one who survives. So what are we trying to say by telling that story?" Source: io9.com

The Connection to Alien(s)

Damon Lindelof: "Essentially what I proposed to them was that the movie didn't need to lean as heavily on the Alien tropes that we were all familiar with. Eggs, face-huggers, chest bursters, acid blood, xenomorphs. I said that stuff can be a part of this movie, but I don't think it needs to be what the movie's about. There are some other really cool ideas in here that you can flesh out and grow." Source: IGN

Ridley Scott, about the ship shown in Alien: "I always thought it was a carrier. It's a vehicle that doesn't look like it crashed. It looks like it may have [been a] forced landing, but it landed. And why did it land and why was the pilot damaged? Because his cargo... something had gotten loose, in the cargo; had evolved, and had actually taken him out." [Source: Hero Complex]

Ridley Scott: "For all intents and purposes this is very loosely a prequel, very, and then you say 'But how did that ship evolve in the first Alien?' Then I would say 'Actually he's one of the group that had gone off and his cargo had gotten out of control,' because he was heading somewhere else and it got out of control and actually he had died in the process and that would be the story there. That ship happened to be a brother to the ship that you see that comes out of the ground at the end. They are roughly of the same period give or take a couple hundred years, right? Other than that, there's no real link except it explains, I think, who may have had these capabilities, which are dreadful weapons way beyond anything we could possibly conceive, bacteriological drums of shit that you can drop on a planet..." Source: Collider

Is the Ending the End of the Story?

Ridley Scott: "Well, from the very beginning, I was working from a premise that lent itself to a sequel. I really don’t want to meet God in the first one. I want to leave it open to [Noomi Rapace’s character] saying, 'I don’t want to go back to where I came from. I want to go where they came from." Source: The Playlist

Ridley Scott: "Because [the Engineers] are such aggressive fuckers, I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God. I'd love to explore where [Dr. Shaw] goes next and what does she do when she gets there, because if it is paradise, paradise can not be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous." [Source: THR]

Damon Lindelof: "I think that Prometheus wanted to have two children. One child grows up to be Alien (the movie), the other child grows up to become this other mysterious force where we're heading off in a different direction and contemplating why it is our creators wanted to destroy us. This is a fundamentally interesting question looked at on a theological level, but also on a sci-fi level as well. In constructing those questions, Ridley wanted to know what the answers were as well, and we talked about those at great length, and then he determined what it was he wanted to put in the movie." Source: IGN

Symbolism and Recurring Themes

Prometheus is laden with recurring symbols. This page attempts to collect them.

Mother and Child

The Prometheus and Alien movies consistently explore the mother and child theme throughout the storylines.

In Prometheus, Shaw becomes pregnant with the infected Holloway's child after it's revealed that she is unable to bear children.

Nostromo's board computer in Alien is called Mother Ripley plays the role of a matriarch to the crew of the Nostromo in Alien In Aliens, Ripley (with reference to her losing her own daughter while she was in cryo-sleep) acts

as a mother figure for the orphan girl Newt. Ripley gives birth to the Alien in Alien 3 and sacrifices herself and the creature to protect her

fellow humans Ripley "gives birth" to a new Alien off-spring in Alien Resurrection.

The Torn Abdomen The depiction of a character with their abdomen/side torn open recalls the original Prometheus myth, in which the titual character is punished by Zeus after stealing fire and giving it to mankind. An eagle perpetually eats Prometheus' liver while he is tied to a stake. It could be seen as the price for Prometheus' sacrifice, his gift to the humans that helps them evolve.

In the movie, the torn abdomen is shown in a number of scenes:

When Shaw has the "baby" removed during surgery, a large scar remains. The wound recalls the "belly birth" damage caused by the emerging creatures in the

Prometheus and the Alien movies. The mural in the central chamber in the Engineers' spaceship shows a Prometheus-like character

with his side torn open.

Birth Through Death or Sacrifice

The xenomorph's life cycle in the Alien movies involved implanting of an egg via the "Facehugger," which essentially dies to deliver the seed, followed in turn by the carrier "giving birth" to the creature by giving up its life.

The sacrifice/birth theme is echoed in Prometheus, where the Engineer in the beginning sacrifices his life to seed the planet.

The movie ends with the crew of the Prometheus sacrificing their lives so that (presumably) Earth will live.

Fire

In a movie named Prometheus, the fire death of the infected Holloway via Vicker's Flamethrower can't be a coincidence.

T. E. Lawrence's quote repeated in the movie (that the trick is to not mind that it hurts) refers to snuffing out fire.

Fire becomes the one of the primary weapons in defeating the xenomorphs throughout the Alien franchise.

Fire is also what ultimately kills Ripley in Alien 3.

Religious Symbols

The cross: Shaw wears a cross around her neck as a sign of her continued belief in a higher power. She reclaims the cross after it's taken from her by David. There are also instances of characters spreading their arms, invoking a Christ on the cross-like image, such as when Holloway asks to be killed Vickers.

The serpent: The first stage in the evolution of the Alien/xenomorph resembles a snake. Mutated from worms that came in contact with the black goo, the snake alien could be seen as result of the crew members' temptation/quest for knowledge.

Christmas: The events on LV-223 take place between Christmas and New Year, creating a thematic link for viewers between the encounter with the Engineer and one of the possible breaks with mankind (see: Creation Gone Wrong).

Creation Through Sacrifice

The theme of creation through sacrifice runs core throughout the movie. There are many sequences that suggest that the Engineers view the creation of life through sacrifice and death as the natural order, suggesting that anything that runs counter to it violates this ideology (see: Creation Gone Wrong).

Here are the sequences that drive forward the themes of creation and sacrifice:

The Opening

According to director Ridley Scott, the opening sequence, which may or may not take place on Earth, shows one of the Engineers sacrificing himself; essentially donating his life to a higher, undisclosed purpose.

"The guy at the beginning is simply donating himself, no stranger than the Aztecs or Incas would choose some poor bugger, at the beginning saying 'right, you're it, in the year you get all the girls you want, all the food you want, blah blah, and at the end of the year we're going to take your heart, take it out, squeeze it, and we're going to get jolly good crops and good weather next year.'" (Ridley Scott, Official Quotes)

The black substance the Engineer drinks is the catalyst for transformation and creation of life itself. The movie itself does not spell out why the Engineer sacrificed himself, but Scott's mention of the similarities to human sacrifice suggests that the goal was to provide the "spark of life" and set into motion the chain of evolution -- a process of creation of new life forms through sacrifice/death of what comes before it. 

David: "Sometimes to create, one must first destroy."

Prometheus

In classic Greek mythology, Prometheus, son of the Titan Iapetus and god of forethought and crafty counsel, was entrusted (alongside Athena) with the moulding of mankind out of mud and wind. He is said to have given to men something of all the qualities of other animals.

He falls from grace when he betrays the gods, first by stealing the sacrificial meat from their feast and giving it to man, and then by stealing fire from heaven and delivering it to the mortals. Zeus punishes both mankind and Prometheus. He creates Pandora to deliver misfortune to men and has Prometheus seized and bound to a pillar where an eagle sent by Zeus would devour his liver for all eternity. Prometheus is often described as a heroic sufferer, who through his sacrifice, gave fire (life) to humans.

The myth the movie takes its name from is not just referenced in theme, but also more directly through the mural shown in the chamber with the stone head effigy and black substance

containers inside the Engineers' ship. The image clearly depicts Prometheus with his side torn open.

Peter Weyland himself references the myth, quoting T. E. Lawrence:

"T.E. Lawrence, eponymously of Arabia but very much an Englishman, favoured pinching a burning match between his fingers to put it out. When asked by his colleague William Potter to reveal his trick, how is it he effectively extinguished the flame without hurting himself whatsoever, Lawrence just smiled and said, 'The trick, Potter, is not minding it hurts.' The fire that danced at the end of that match was a gift from the Titan Prometheus, a gift that he stole from the gods. And Prometheus was caught, and brought to justice for his theft. The gods, well, you might say they overreacted a little. The poor man was tied to a rock, as an eagle ripped through his belly and ate his liver over and over, day after day, ad infinitum. All because he gave us fire. Our first true piece of technology, fire..." 

Lawrence summarizes the realization that in order to achieve something, you have to make a sacrifice.

BIRTH OF THE CREATURE

The sequences detailing both Shaw and the surviving Engineer "giving birth" to the proto-alien creatures both tie in with the image of Prometheus, the life giver, with his side torn open. Shaw uses the surgery chamber to open up her own insides and extract the creature, while the Engineer battles the rapidly grown-up creature fearlessly, and -- as it seems unwillingly -- gives birth through his own death.

Salvation through Sacrifice

The end of the movie picks up the sacrifice motif once again. The crew of the Promotheus stops the destruction of mankind by sacrificing their lives and crashing the ship into the Engineers' craft.

Creation Gone Wrong

Connecting to the theme of the Engineer's sacrifice for the creation/support of life (see: Creation and Sacrifice), one of the key theories around the conflict between the Engineers and humankind involves the Promethean quest for knowledge and fall from grace in the eyes of the "creators."

The Sin of the Quest for Knowledge

Prometheus -- the name of the ship in the movie (and the movie) itself is of course a not so subtle clue to understanding Weyland's quest and the subsequent events that cause the Engineers to turn on humanity. The Engineer's sacrifice at the outset of the movie suggests that the cycle of sacrifice/creation is core to the beliefs of this alien race -- and any depature or challenge could be seen as a fall from grace. 

The cave paintings and artifacts presented by Shaw and Holloway suggest that the Engineers were in tune with their creation for many years and checked in on mankind's progress throughout history. The very quest by Weyland to set out to "talk to the gods" and gain the selfish knowledge about prolonging his own life could suggest to the Engineers that man is no longer content with his place in the chain. 

Vickers herself spells it out when she says to Weyland: "A king has his reign, and then he dies. It's inevitable."

The moment mankind refuses to accept death (which was not the case with the primitive humans the Engineers previously visited), the cycle is broken and the Engineers could consider humans to be a failure and beyond redemption.

Two other scenes support this notion. When the crew reanimates the head of a deceased Engineer, who cries out in horror, possibly at the "sin" of being given life after death (you could of course also argue that he's in agony. His body is gone), and when the surviving engineer kills Weyland -- who defied death through technology and is accompanied by a creature of his own making -- with his own creation (David).

According to linguist Dr. Anil Biltoo, David says the following line when he faces the surviving Engineer (Source: TheBioscopist):

David: "This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life."

This reaffirms the Engineers' decision to end the lives of their creations and send their ship to "reboot" Earth.

While Shaw tries to find out why the Engineers -- in human terms, "hate" -- mankind, the truth is that humans may simply not matter enough to deserve such a strong word. Echoing the disdain and aloofness of the crew in regards to their android crew mate David, the Engineers, as Ridley Scott put it himself in a New York Times interview, don't "hate us. But God could be disappointed in us — like children."

Turning on the Creator

The symbol of the cross appears in Prometheus in form of the necklace around Shaw's neck -- but Ridley Scott himself references Crucifixion and a possible cause for why the Engineers turn on mankind in an interview (see Official Quotes):

Ridley Scott: "...there are moments where it looks like we've gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, 'Let's send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it.' Guess what? They crucified him."

When the crew of the Prometheus finds the dead, decapitated Engineer and views the holographic recording of the Engineers running (fleeing?) to the room with the black substance, the body is dated as being 2,000 years old. Along with Scott's quote, this could suggest that mankind's Fall from Grace occurred when the Engineers tried to intervene when mankind was led astray two millennia ago. The Engineers sent a messenger messiah (meaning an "annointed"), Jesus, either as a member of the Engineer race or possibly in human form, and saw him killed by the human race. This could be the impetus for the Engineers' decision to disavow and possibly eradicate mankind.

At the same time, the story of Jesus could also tie in with the Creation and Sacrifice myth.

Self-Preservation

Taking this further, the Engineers could have come to the realization that their creation would ultimately turn on them and usurp their status as creators. Weyland's own creation, the artificial lifeform, David, puts it into words: "Doesn't every child want their parents dead?"

The Engineers may now have known what they were creating when they "seeded" Earth (and other worlds) -- or they could not have predicted what the creation would become in the end. Thus humans entering the space age, setting out to explore, and ultimately playing God themselves, could have been the ultimate threat to the Engineers. Hence the surviving Engineer wanting to terminate all the visitors (including David) when they awaken him. The cargo of the black substance could have been a weapon destined for Earth as suggested by the dialog in the movie.

Peter Weyland describes mankind's progress in one of the viral videos that accompanied the movie's promotional campaigns:

Peter Weyland: "100,000 BC: stone tools. 4,000 BC: the wheel. 900 AD: gunpowder - bit of a game changer, that one. 19th century: eureka, the lightbulb! 20th century: the automobile, television, nuclear weapons, spacecrafts, Internet. 21st century: biotech, nanotech, fusion and fission and M theory - and THAT, was just the first decade! We are now three months into the year of our Lord, 2023. At this moment of our civilization, we can create cybernetic individuals, who in just a few short years will be completely indistinguishable from us. Which leads to an obvious conclusion: We are the gods now."

Lindelof summarized the danger of mankind seeing itself as a creator in an interview with the New York Times: "The gods want to limit their creations; they might want to dethrone God."

David, an artificial lifeform created by a human, stood in front of the Engineer as "living" proof that humans had moved from creation to creator. The Engineer's immediate reaction was to resume the mission to deliver the black substance to Earth and "reset" man's evolution to maintain the Engineer's status as the unchallenged rulers of the cosmos.

Because They Could

The quest for knowledge and ultimate expression of doubt is best summarized via a direct quote from the movie:

Charlie Holloway: What we hoped to achieve was to meet our makers, to get answers why they made us in the first place. David: Why do you think your people made me?Charlie Holloway: We made you because we could.David: Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator?

What if the Engineers were indeed cosmic gardners -- creating life not for a purpose or because they are on a deeper quest for knowledge, but because they could. Like a child with a chemistry set, were the Engineers essentially jump-starting eco systems and life on many worlds with the mere goal to create for creation's sake?  

This bleak and nihilistic view ties in with the mystery of why the Engineers were loading up a ship bound for Earth with the destructive/creative force in form of the black substance. They were simply going to continue their experiment, perhaps replace mankind on Earth with different lifeforms just because they could.

The movie ends with Shaw wanting to know more about the motivation of the Engineers. She has retained her faith, the belief that there is a higher plan -- and she will be eternally questing for answers. The journey of life continues for her -- even if the motivation for creation will eternally elude here because it is in fact unknowable.

On the flipside, Peter Weyland has reached the end of his. After being essentially killed by his own creation (the Engineer strikes him with the severed head of David), Peter realizes that his quest to "change the world" is at an end and the end has no meaning.

Peter Weyland: There's nothing to learn. David: I understand, Mr. Weyland. Have a safe journey.

Who Are The Engineers?

Tall, elegant, gray, muscular -- the Engineers in Prometheus look like chiseled Greek statues of gods and heroes. In the movie, we see an Engineer giving his own life to "donate" his genetic code for the creation of something new, with the implication that he started life itself on a planet that could be Earth. The movie later shows that the Engineers were active on many worlds, including our own.

Ridley Scott himself describes the Engineers as similar to the dark angels in Milton's Paradise Lost and confirms that they effectively fathered humanity (see Official Quotes).

The depictions of oversized men, presumably the Engineers, pointing to a constellation found throughout human history, seems to suggest that they checked in on mankind from time to time. It also suggests that they were interested in their creation. It is, however, unclear if the gesture is meant to be an invitation or simply an explanation of the race's origin. In the Alien movie, it is suggested that the crew mistakes a warning ("stay away") with a distress signal ("come and help us").

When the crew of the Prometheus faces the last surviving Engineer on LV-223, he is almost immediately hostile. This suggests that something has happened between the creator and his creator since the creation of the cave paintings and depictions. (For theories on what could have happened, see: Creation Gone Wrong)

What Happened to the Engineers on LV-223?

The holographic footage the crew of the Prometheus encounters on LV-223 shows the powerful Engineers panicking and running away. One of the Engineers gets killed by the closing door on his way into the room with the large stone head and urns containing the black substance. The

bodies of (the?) other Engineers are found elsewhere, while one single Engineer survived in stasis, with the ship set to take off and carry its cargo and the Engineers onboard to Earth.

Given the presence of the black substance and how it reacts when activated, the facility on LV-223 was possibly used for bio-engineering, perhaps for military applications as Prometheus Captain Janek suggests. When the crew of the Prometheus enters, they literally change the atmosphere in the room with their presence and activate the liquid (similar to how the proximity of lifeforms activated the eggs in Alien).

But the chamber containing the urns looks more like a temple than a research facility. Could the large stone head in the middle of the room be the face of the Engineers' God and Creator? And perhaps the mural of the familiar "Alien" xenomorph on the wall (see: Connections With Alien) depicts judgment, or the Destroyer? Perhaps the Engineers were using this temple as a chamber of worship or to test their faith.

One theory suggests that the black substance is in fact activated by the presence of "sin." As shown in the movie, David, a machine, does not trigger the substance -- and presumably many Engineers have walked among the urns without causing the black goo to spill out. When the sinful humans walk among the urns, the liquid is released and corrupts whatever creature is near. 

Whatever the cause (presumably revealed in a possible Prometheus sequel), an accident occurred in the facility and the Engineers were wiped out. The dead Engineers found by Millburn and Fifield show signs that they "gave birth" to alien creatures.

The Engineers were either planning to carry their deadly cargo to Earth to eradicate humans because of an event that drove the two species apart (see: Creation Gone Wrong) or as part of a plan because humans were merely an element or a step in the process of evolution or of deliberately creating xenomorph lifeforms.

Divided Engineers?

The enemy pursuing the Engineers when they are seen fleeing in the holographic recordings is never shown. It is possible that there may be factions of Engineers -- those that created humans (for whatever reason, be it as servants, out of the desire to give life, or even as weapons), and those who opposed them. Thus, it could be that the ship the crew of the Prometheus boards was in the end in the hands of a rival faction, intent to wipe out the other Engineers and their creation -- mankind.

There are also theories that sabotage ultimately brought down the other Engineer space ship shown in the first two Alien movies -- could a rival Engineer have placed a xenomorph egg or substance container onboard of the other ship?

How does Prometheus Tie in With Alien?

Ridley Scott bills Prometheus as a "loose" prequel to Alien. 

Time and Setting

Most of Prometheus takes place in the last week of the year 2093, between Christmas and New Year's Day (the events on Earth take place in 2089) -- a full 28 years before the events in Alien. 

Even though the worlds and the crashed/landed spaceships resemble each other, Prometheus is set on a planetoid with the designation LV-223, while Alien takes place on LV-426 (aka Acheron). According to Ridley Scott, the two planetoids are in the same star system. 

The Ships

The two ships in Alien and Prometheus are different. According to Scott, the derelict spaceship seen in Alien was similar to the one shown in Prometheus, but was in fact a "brother," not the same ship. He suggests that the ship originated from LV-223, carrying dangerous cargo and landed on LV-426 more than a millennium before the events in both movies.

This suggests that the xenomorph infestation on LV-426 originated from the facility on LV-223 and that the events shown in the holographic footage in Prometheus may be related to how the (then known as) "space jockey" Engineer died. It is unknown whether the ship on LV-223 carried eggs that hatched and infected the Engineer(s) or if it was carrying the containers with the black substance shown in Prometheus.

A sentence found in the original script for Alien mentions a container similar to the ones shown in Prometheus near the body of the dead Engineer. Note that the scene that shows the object was never filmed: "It is a large, glossy urn, brown in color, with peculiar markings. Broussard stands it upright. It has a round opening in the top, and is empty."

The Xenomorph

Prometheus ends with the surving Engineer on LV-426 getting killed and infected by the squid-like creature given life by Shaw and Holloway. A xenomorph hatches directly from the dead body of the Engineer that resembles the traditional, eye-less Alien -- with the marked difference that it does not undergo the traditional Alien gestation cycle (egg -> Facehugger -> Chestburster/Alien). The Alien is fully formed when it emerges. 

While it may be tempting to see the appearance of the xenomorph at the end of Prometheus as the beginning of the Alien creature, there are some hints that this is not the first time the Engineers have encountered it.

This mural is seen in the chamber holding the black substance:

The mural suggests that the Engineers had either already encountered the xenomorph or thought of it and were trying to engineer it -- possibly as a bio weapon akin to how Weyland-Yutani later seeks to utilize it -- or that they had already succeeded at creating it. The latter would suggest that the initial creation of the Alien requires the sacrifice of both an Engineer and a human being. As it mixes its DNA with more species, it becomes more advanced and ultimately evolves towards its most "perfect" (and perhaps deadly) form.

Either way, the Engineers cared about the xenomorph enough to create the mural. And whatever events took place in the facility on LV-223, the ship was planning to carry its cargo to Earth. One possible theory is that in their quest to genetically engineer/create new lifeforms, the Engineers merely saw humans as a step towards creating perfection -- namely the xenomorph. 

What is the Black Goo and What Does it Do?

This page collects theories about the Black Goo. The exact workings of the substance is not explicitly explained in Prometheus (though it could be the subject of future films). The movie lets us hear one theory, uttered by Prometheus Captain Janek, who believes the alien ship's cargo of urns is a payload, a weapon built to destroy. David, the android, seeks to uncover its purpose by testing it on Holloway.

Catalyst for Evolution

Since the substance is shown to have both destructive and life-giving properties in the prologue of the movie (where the engineer sacrifices himself), and based on comments from Ridley Scott, the substance is believed to be a catalyst for evolution. When exposed to it, a living subject's DNA appears to rapidly change. In the case of the worms, they are transformed into snake-like creatures, the engineer who ingests it is deconstructed and his DNA in turn creates new life. In Holloway's case, we do not see the outcome as he is killed by Vickers. It is possible that he is "evolving" -- or that he is breaking down similar to the engineers.

It is not yet known if the difference in effects is based on metaphysical properties or whether the substance is ingested or merely touched, or if it's about the amount the subject is exposed to. What's for certain is that the substance reacts to living things -- David remains unaffected.

DNA Code for the Aliens

Chavalir asks: Is the black substance the DNA code for the Aliens that the engineers want to release on Earth? This Theory is bulit on:

The Alien drawing we see on the wall when they enter the room with all the black goo. o The black goo needs a "host" in which it can reform the DNA/ Evolve the DNA into

something like a "Facehugger" This would translate well with how and why Facehuggers need a host to become an Alien.

Simply beacuse it was born from a foreign DNA and need A foreign DNA to finish its DNA code so it can become a creature again..

So basically the black goo depending on what it hits will always try to become some sort of "Facehugger" inorder to become an Alien. So the end result will always be an Alien.

In classic Greek mythology, Prometheus, son of the Titan Iapetus and god of forethought and crafty counsel, was entrusted (alongside Athena) with the moulding of mankind out of mud and wind. He is said to have given to men something of all the qualities of other animals.

He falls from grace when he betrays the gods, first by stealing the sacrificial meat from their feast and giving it to man, and then by stealing fire from heaven and delivering it to the mortals. Zeus punishes both mankind and Prometheus. He creates Pandora to deliver misfortune to men and has Prometheus seized and bound to a pillar where an eagle sent by Zeus would devour his liver for all eternity. Prometheus is often described as a heroic sufferer, who through his sacrifice, gave fire (life) to humans.

The myth the movie takes its name from is not just referenced in theme, but also more directly through the mural shown in the chamber with the stone head effigy and black substance containers inside the Engineers' ship. The image clearly depicts Prometheus with his side torn open.

Peter Weyland himself references the myth, quoting T. E. Lawrence: "T.E. Lawrence, eponymously of Arabia but very much an Englishman, favoured pinching a burning match between his fingers to put it out. When asked by his colleague William Potter to reveal his trick, how is it he effectively extinguished the flame without hurting himself whatsoever, Lawrence just smiled and said, 'The trick, Potter, is not minding it hurts.' The fire that danced at the end of that match was a gift from the Titan Prometheus, a gift that he stole from the gods. And Prometheus was caught, and brought to justice for his theft. The gods, well, you might say they overreacted a little. The poor man was tied to a rock, as an eagle ripped through his belly and ate his liver over and over, day after day, ad infinitum. All because he gave us fire. Our first true piece of technology, fire..." 

Lawrence summarizes the realization that in order to achieve something, you have to make a sacrifice.

Why does David infect Holloway?

David was tasked by Peter Weyland to discover a way to prolong his creator's life. He asks Holloway: "What would you be willing to do to get the answers to your questions?" Holloway says, "Anything and everything." This enables David to move ahead and knowingly infect Holloway to help him find the answers to Peter's own quest of prolonging life.

What does David say to the Engineer?

"This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life."

Do the Engineers Really Want to Go to Earth to Destroy it?

The hologram that shows the Engineers' ship's destination clearly shows the planet Earth -- and the ship itself is loaded to the brim with the urns containing the black substance. The movie doesn't directly answer the question whether the Engineers are planning to destroy humankind or if they are planning on evolving it through the catalyst. 

What does the Black Substance (aka Black Goo) do exactly?

The exact workings of the substance is not explicitly explained in Prometheus (though it could be the subject of future films). The movie lets us hear one theory, uttered by Prometheus Captain Janek, who believes the alien ship's cargo of urns is a payload, a weapon built to destroy. David, the android, seeks to uncover its purpose by testing it on Holloway. Since the substance is shown to have both destructive and life-giving properties in the prologue of the movie (where the engineer sacrifices himself), and based on comments from Ridley Scott, the substance is believed to be a catalyst for evolution. When exposed to it, a living subject's DNA appears to rapidly change. In the case of the worms, they are transformed into snake-like creatures, the engineer who ingests it is deconstructed and his DNA in turn creates new life. In Holloway's case, we do not see the outcome as he is killed by Vickers. It is possible that he is "evolving" -- or that he is breaking down similar to the engineers.

It is not yet known if the difference in effects is based on metaphysical properties or whether the substance is ingested or merely touched, or if it's about the amount the subject is exposed to. What's for certain is that the substance reacts to living things -- David remains unaffected.