Does Shaw knows that David killed her boyfriend and infested her?
Size of the Engineers vs Engineer from Alien
Prometheus made the space jockey too short. If you just? compare the scale of the original model in Alien 1, the jockey was nearly four times the height of a human. This new movie made them so small.
Why were there carvings on the wall or tombs that resembles Alien or the Alien Queens?
Fifield's Weed
About the Tree of Life. One more step in solving.
This thread answers following questions:
- Who are SJs /Engineers?
- What did David asked?
- What is this movie about?
If you don’t want to read the logical base, just skip to the end (but I advise to read all, for your self-education).
Start point: RS's kinterview keywords: Paradise, Book of Genesis, Satan, Prometheus
I’ve re-read the part about Expulsion, and found a thing which puts a lot of movie pieces together. Must admit, I wouldn’t even noticed this important thing in the Christian religion, unless the movie forced me to re-read it carefully. So, thanx, Ridley.
But first a little class of theosophy:
Christian church teaches us, that Adam and Eve were expulsed because they disobeyed god’s word: ate a fruit of Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is called the «Original sin». Well, that’s not true, if you’ll read the story of expulsion till the end. So how is it in the original text? Just open the book. There are two trees in the Eden: the first one you know (good and evil), but the second is a Tree Life. It produces fruits once in a month and these fruits give immortality J.
Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
Which means, THEY WERE AFRAID. This small piece of text, withheld by the Christian preachers, changes a lot of things:
- The gap between God (and angels) and his creature (us) is not huge at all. In fact we are almost the same.
- The power of God and angels has limits, they can experience fear, which means they have weaknesses, and they consider us as a threat.
Otherwise there would be no need to this:
Genesis 3:24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
By the way, speaking about cherub: It’s not one angel, it’s in plural and they can fly :)
Why does Christian church tells the short version of story? For 4 reasons:
- It makes people feel themselves as natural born sinners, guilty even if they didn’t made anything bad yet. This was good to increase believers amount and to rule them.
- It builds an image of God as a Father, who punishes his children for disobedience as itself, not it’s consequences. He punishes us for doubting his authority only.
- This increases the role of Satan, makes him a source of everything bad. It makes him an antihero in the religious drama called the New Testament. In the old one he was not such a bad guy.
- It suppresses the science, because this was the Tree of Knowledge.
Now let’s put all together. Previously I posted a tread about a third race, where I explained why SJs can't be our creators and why they are soldiers or servants.
Who are SJs/Engineers?
Considering new discoveries – yes, they are angels, God’s servants, guardians with different duties.
Besides RS told it :)
What did David asked and why SJs reacted that way?
It’c clear now. David asked exactly what Weyland told him to ask: "Give us the secret of immortality".
Whom he asked? The security guy, who must protect this secret from us. Of course he was pissed of by that question :).
What is this movie about?
It’s about religious misunderstandings. God is not a good and lovely father in the sky, he can be cruel, very cruel. Paradise is not something where you will go after the death, if you’ll be a good boy/girl in this life. It’s a distant place, maybe not so nice as we imagine, maybe dangerous. This place has a source of knowledge and a source of life, which is misunderstood by us as immortality.
In fact, the black goo could be the juice of that Tree, cause it produces life. And God could decide to keep us away of that tree, because it can lead to unpredictable consequences, including god’s and angels death, cause they are mortal.
86 NEW PHOTOS - Various artists (pre-)prod shots
This summer, Rob Sollis will be exhibiting at "Art in Clay", an internationally acclaimed ceramics show held in Hatfield House, Hertfordshire each year. Rob will be showing original pots as well as demonstrating the Raku firing processes used whilst making large scale ceramics at Pinewood Studio for Ridley Scott's new film "Prometheus".
This july at 'Art in Clay'' In the grounds of ''Hatfield House''. Rob, together with a new body of work, shall also be demonstrating making and ''Raku'' firing tecniques he used to create unique ceramics for this epic production
See *robsollisceramics.co.uk* and *the-ampule-diaries.com* for more info. ]






















































































Collection of links - making-of Prometheus VFX
here is a compilation of links I collected about the making of the VFX shots in Prometheus.
You are welcome to post some more in the comments if you find any new material, so we can keep updating the list.
[please, try to link to the original source material. thx!]
---------------------------------------
fxguide.com - Prometheus: in-depth coverage on fxguide. ***HERE***
--- fxpodcast: Prometheus. 37mn podcast with Martin Hill (Weta Digital VFX Supervisor) about the advances in Weta’s Sub-Surface Scattering algorithms, the development of the Engineers, the map room, and THAT med-bed scene. ***HERE***
--- Prometheus: rebuilding hallowed vfx space. - In-depth coverage of a few select sequences in the film, looking at the work of the Prometheus artists who, under overall visual effects supervisor Richard Stammers, recreated the world of Alien so vividly and magnificently. ***HERE***
--- the vfx show #149: Prometheus. - 1h20mn Podcast - Mike Seymour, Matt Wallin and TyRuben Ellingson discuss the new Ridley Scott film Prometheus. ***HERE***
--- fxguidetv #149: Prometheus visual breakdown. - 36mn video breakdown of VFX on spacecrafts, holograms, the star map room and the Engineers. ***HERE***
thedaily.com - Prometheus uncovered. - Another 2mn42 making-of video similar to the fxguide one. ***HERE***
thedaily.com - Alien anatomy. - A 1mn40 making-of video breaking down the Sacrificial Engineer’s breakdown ***HERE***
lumapictures.com - Luma Lends Holographic Impact To "Prometheus". - Making of the holographic images made by Luma Pictures for Prometheus. ***HERE***
moving-picture.com - MPC on Prometheus ***HERE***
studiodaily.com - VFX Supervisor Richard Stammers on Prometheus. ***HERE***
hammerhead.com - Jamie Dixon (VFX Supervisor) for Hammerhead on 100 VFX shots in Prometheus. ***HERE***
fuelvfx.com - Fuel delivered more than 200 VFX shots as one of the three lead visual effects vendors on the film. ***HERE***
maxon.net - Prometheus VFX Art Director Steven Messing. - Original 3D Matte Paintings, Story Boards, Set Designs, Costumes and More. ***HERE***
thecallsheet.co.uk - A short interview with Waldo Mason about his work on Prometheus ***HERE***
weylandchronicles.com - we chat with Prometheus creature FX man Waldo Mason! ***HERE***
stuff.co.nz - Weta's part in making Prometheus. - Another 4mn37 interview of Martin Hill (VFX Supervisor @ Weta Digital) about the 200 shots they contributed. ***HERE***
cgsociety.org - MPC, Weta Digital and Fuel VFX talk about the production of Prometheus. ***HERE***
awn.com - Prometheus: Bringing Alien into the 21st Century. - Two page article about making-of and the respective VFX shots created by each company. ***HERE***
Isnt it obvious?
There are some questions people have about the movie. Alot of the confused or haters seem to say they are plot holes. The only plot hole I found in the movie was when Fifield was with Milburn and they got lost. Anyway here are the questions:
The Medpod that was in Ms. Vickers lifeboat was calibrated for male patients only. Why?
Most theories are that she is a android or somehow they anticipated someone getting impregnated with a facehugger. I believe like alot of other people that it was for Mr. Weyland. Peter Weyland and his daughter had differences on how the family business should be run. He did not show any respect to his daughter and considered David a son to him. She hates him for it and decided to attend the trip while he hid out in a secret capsule. She has her own lifeboat with a Medpod. The Medpod is not used just for surgeries. It can be used for other procedures including life extension. I feel that Ms. Vickers might have had some good feeling for her father and realized that this expedition is pointless, that he will be disappointed and she would use the Medpod to extend his life or at least ease his passing until he dies several days later.
What was David's motivation? How did he know that Shaw and Holloway would have intercourse after he infected Holloway?
If you listen closely to his words he stated that Shaw asked for quarantine procedures. It explains why she was in a hospital gown, probably given a sedative after she went hysterical from Holloway dying. He asks if she had relations with Holloway since he knows they are so close. In any medial situation when you know there was an outbreak you ask all the questions you can including sexual intercourse because some diseases can be passed on that way. He gave Holloway the black goo to see what would happen and because Holloway was a jerk. He was told by Mr. Weyland to Try Harder so he proposed a theory that something will be passed on between them just like any disease. Its common sense. He was intrigued about Shaw having a baby.This of course signifies a "virgin" birth since Holloway only laid a alien worm inside of her and not sperm. It also enforces the idea that he generally cared about her more than anyone on board. He watched her dreams, attended to her after she woke up from cryosleep, asked if she was ok from the storm, etc. The reason for this is really not because he has a crush on her its because he's facinated by her. A religious person who believes aliens created humans. He was trying to find out about the human condition from a melding of those two beliefs. He was testing her the whole time. He takes her cross from her and says that it was to check for decontamination which was a lie and he got her impregnated. This was to see how far she would go to get her answers as he asked Holloway. She asks for her cross back. He smiles at the end when he asked her that after all that happened she still believed. He just proved his theory.
How was Shaw able to run a marathon after having a cessarian? How come no one followed her after she ran away?
If you look closely she injected herself with at least three syringes which were filled with either adrenline or morphine. Then before she goes to the Engineer she takes more pills. After doping yourself up with that amount you probably wont feel as much. In fact the scene where she falls down in front of Weyland there is slow motion of the music and noise and a heartbeat after she injects herself. She is extremely doped at this point. And if you watch she was still in alot of pain and had a hard time running. She fell down several times. There wasnt much blood but I think it was taken out to not make the movie more violent or else there would have been buckets. And as far as no one chasing her if you look closely the edit of one shot melds perfectly into another making it look like one take. She is running down the hall and all of the sudden she is in Ms. Vickers lifeboat. You can see the airlock door and the connected door to the ship. It takes place so fast you will miss it if you blink. But I believe she locked the door after she went into the lifeboat. David didn't want to let the Captain or his crew know about it and during that time the Captain was occupied with the Fifield monster anyway so her situation is not that important.
ANSWER to : Why did the engineers want Humanity Dead?
THEORY # Four-hundred-and-Eight . . .
The engineers were a great race that explored the building blocks of life itself. They went searching amoung the star for answers, yet found the answers in the secret of the double helix that were within themselves all along. They learned the secret of life lay in secret of the DNA coding. Science gave them their answer. They had gained the knowledge of the gods. They could create or alter life itself. Like any sentient race - they have their own politics, beliefs, and religion. What if the Engineers split into two factions. Scientists vs Religious Zealots. Long ago the Scientists reached out across the universe and spread their SEED amoung compatible worlds. The sceintist so believed their prupose was to create life in the universe, they would turn their own bodies into the "spark of life" on virgin worlds. Their sacrifice become the SEED of an entire planet. They created MAN in their own image against the word of GOD. The religious Zealots would seek organic perfection and belief that GOD gave the Engineers the gift of knowledge to seek organic perfection. The scientists betrayed god by creating inferior races to worhsip them and their achievments. A civil war that spanned the universe between Science and religion left millions of worlds wastelands. The Religios faction wins the civil war crushing the heretics. The scientists are detroyed and their achievments turned into weapons. The Zealots forge a plan to cleanse the universe of the perverse spawn known as man. They will use the very technology used to create them. LV-223 becomes a military base. the seed ships become the harbringers of death. Life and Man in the universe will become ripe for the reaping and become the source of the new order. The perfect order. The perfect organism. The most powerful life force in the universe will use MANKIND as its food source. The perversion of man will become breeding grounds of the unltimate in Organic perfection as ordained by the gift of knowledge, passed down from the gods, to the engineers. They become the instruments of God and the method of Man's destruction. As they prepare to destroy the worlds of men in favor of the new Xenomorphic perfection, a lone Scientist remains and unleashes the seeds of Xenomorph destruction on the base. In a final act of sacrifice, an Engineer opens the gates of pandora and the black oil spills upon the holy grounds consuming the Religious Zealot/Engineers before they can launch. Once all in the base have been infected or killed, the weapon of mass destruction goes dormant waiting for thousands of years to be discovered once more. They have been created to stand the test of the ages. They give the gift of death to all who find them. They create new life out of that death. That life has but one purpose - kill every other living creature not themselves. They are unmatched in organic perfection and violence. There will be one God and one race. Once and Engineer who escaped the outbreak awakes from his sleep. he find himself surrounded with the inferior race of man. He finds himself alone in his task given to him by God. He must travel to their homeworld and undo what the blasphemors had done. They planted a BAD seed and wanted to be worshiped as Gods. He will set the world to right. He will present them the gift of death. He will show them their true place in the universe.
The Great Stone Face of Man - is the target of their labors.
The Great murals tell the story of the war - and of the creature God gave the engineers to SEED the Universe.
The capsules react in the presence of MEN.
The Great Holographic display shows the unholy release of the black death before they could leave. Betrayed by one of their own. Death was their fate.
The very life cycle of the Xenomorphs destroy the weak and make the strrong.
The Engineers hate us for what we are - inferior - imperfect - against the nature of God. God is Strong. God is Perfect. Only the strong prevail. Mankind is weak, frail, mortal.
The End of Mankind is their penence for the blasphemy of their creation of mankind in their own image.
Once the sleeper was awakened - their worst fear had been realized - Man has left his ancestral home and crossed the stars to contaminate the galaxy. He had one chance to launch one ship and stop the plague of Man from Spreading by destroying their homeworld. One engineer could not pilot the ship and defend it at the same time. Surely they alien ship had weapons. He could not target and fire before the Prometheus rammed them. He tried to escape with his cargo of death - but crashed back onto the planet. Before trying a second time, he had to make sure all the humans were dead first. Then try with a second ship. If no one made it off the planet - all the others must be dead. He might just be alone. He could not have known the humans had begun the life cycle of a Xenomorph when he tried to kill the girl. He was not preapred for the encounter with the face hugger. Maybe they engineers should have kept a couple of guns around. Might have come in handy.
Time had changed the engineers and their purpose. The humans had followed a message left by representatives of a race now long dead. The engineers gave up science and intrumentality to embrace organic purity - in their machines, in their purpose, even in their clothing.
What do you think?
Stephen Hawking Reviews Prometheus
Cenk of TYT reviews Prometheus
Mythological references in Prometheus
To me the space jockey helmets looked like small elephant heads with a tiny trunk at the end (like a baby elephant). The Hindu deity Ganesha, who is often called the destroyer of evils and the lord of beginnings (among other things), has his head chopped off by shiva and replaced with an elephant head. This is interesting considering the dead engineer outside the door has lost his head.
One of the legends of the deity Bramha is that he created life by placing his seed in water, much like the engineer at the start of the film seeding the planet with his DNA to begin the life cycle.
The deity Kali is also depicted as a black female with white fangs who destroys all life during the universe's creation cycle. Reference to the xenomorphs perhaps?
The ouroboros (snake eating it's tale) represents the idea of life recreating itself. The engineers ship at the end bares a strong resemblance to the ouroboros images of the ancient world.
Big question
Engineer homeworld, devastated or intact?
Seems to me that if they were still alive, they would have returned to the weapons R&D facilities to clean up/resume operations. That is unless they considered the area too dangerous to enter... Still, if that were the case, they would have blasted the facility from orbit to clean the place up.
The Green Crystal


My Second Opinion
The first time I saw it, it was in 3D. Was it noticeable? Well, to be honest, the movie looked so good, I actually forgot it was in 3D, if that makes any sense. I just sort of relaxed. The special effects were very good, seemlessly blending CGI with green screens and real actors and sets.
For better or for worse, the editor really sliced the action scenes in this movie to pieces. I found them to be quick and edited, the footage often starting in the middle of an action shot instead of going from beginning to end in a single take. It reminded me of the scene in Alien where the helmet is "talking" to the monitor. Plenty of cuts and slightly different camera angles. In the trailer to Prometheus, there's a shot where zombie Fifield jumps off the top of the truck and lands on someone. There's no cuts, whatsoever. You see him stand, leap and land all in one shot. In the movie, however, there's at least three cuts during the pounce and they happen very fast. It's not the same thing as shaky-cam, but it is a little disorienting simply because the camera doesn't focus on one given thing for too long.
That being said, there are scenes where the camera stays still and points at something, usually the sets, which are all great. Free motion camera is used, though perhaps not as often as in Alien. This largely has to do with the fact that the movie constantly jumps back and forth from two different settings: the ship and the temple.
The music I liked very much. It was a big question mark going in, and I'm pleased to report that it worked very well. I expect people didn't like the uplifting tone to the opening theme (though it gets quite a bit of use throughout the film) because they went in expecting a horror movie. Let it be said, Prometheus is not a straight up horror film; it's an adventure movie and the music reflects that.
There are elements, however. A little violin leitmotif - I'll call it the "Jaws cue" - was played during the more suspenseful parts. Having music announce the danger could be misconstrued as tantamount scene suicide, but Spielberg did it in Jaws and it worked just fine. In that movie, you hear that minor second and suddenly you're on edge. Same idea in Prometheus.
So is Prometheus scary? Honestly, it's not scary at all, but it isn't a horror film, so it doesn't need to be. Instead, it's unsettling. Forbidden Planet is an unsettling movie. The part in it that troubled me the most was the description by Morbius of the fate of the Belarathon: "Vaporized, as the last three remaining crew members tried to take her off." That single sentence gives me the willies everytime without fail and it's just Walter Pigeon talking! Similar idea with Prometheus. We travel to the temple, and it's like a mausoleum; these Engineers are dead. Something bad happened, but we're never really told what. The mystery of the Engineers' demise made my imagination go crazy, much like it did in Forbidden Planet when I tried to envision what fate befell the doomed Belarathon and its crew, or the extinct alien race, the krell.
Bear in mind, just because a horror movie doesn't make us leap out of our skin doesn't mean it's a failure. The word "horror" doesn't really mean to terrify or to scare, as many people think. It actually means to disgust. Now, let's say I saw 2 Girls, 1 Cup. Look at the sentence "I was horrified by what I saw them do." Am I saying that I'm scared out of my mind when I use the adjective "horrified"? No, I'm not. I'm implying shock and revulsion, not fear. So what about Prometheus is shocking, you ask? Take your pick. : )
One of the best parts is the hammerpede sequence: We see an alien. Finally ostensibly in his element, Milburn is fascinated by this creature; it's alive and strange and he's never seen anything quite like it, but he's reading its description back to the Prometheus like any scientist would, with cold, hard facts.
So what's horrifying about this scene? Is it the infamous jump scare? Nope. The part where it latches onto his hand, much like an owner being bitten by his dog, does qualify as a jump scare. However, that's not the horror in the scene. The shocking part is what comes next. It seems like he can just shake it off, which he tries to do, but then it very quickly wraps around his arm. The speed at which it does this is alarming. Then things go from bad to worse very quickly.
The sound is important, here: you can hear it squeezing his arm. The sound FX act as the suspense, building up to the climax of the scene; it happens fast, but you can hear the tension mounting as the hammerpede's grip on Milburn tightens. He, and inversely we, are in Ripley's grip of doom.
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly," said Macbeth, and he's right, more than he knows. Ridley is quick to impart Macbeth's unintentional wisdom on us by having the attack happen fast. Imagine if it didn't, but took 2 hours to execute (akin to the climber's dilemma in 127 Hours). The tension would vanish. Instead, it takes about a minute of of buildup following the initial grab and 10-15 seconds of nerve-wracking dismemberment.
Keep in mind, this is an adventure film first, horror second, and some of the pivotal scenes, like Holloway's demise, go more for the heartstrings than the stomach or the jugular. Everything is quick. Fifield's attack is quick and over with before you know it, for example. The onslaught of the Engineer is also fast. He's majestic, almost god-like, and the sight of him scattering the crew like bowling pins is awe-inspiring, but it isn't frightening and it doesn't need to be.
Then there's the medipod sequence. It's the centerpiece for the movie and takes a little bit longer for obvious reasons. I won't argue about the plausibility of Shaw running around post-surgery. She's in pain and her actions reflect that. It is enough. Still, who's to say running around like that is impossible? My grandfather knew a man who was shot in the abdomen; the bullet tore his guts clean out of his belly. So what does he do? He scoops them back in and runs to the doctor! This was back in WWII, long before medipods existed; Shaw was operated on with machine-like precision and given any quantity of space age painkillers (which she repeatly consumes and injects herself with throughout the movie). In the end, it's a movie. Suspend your disbelief for maximum enjoyment.
The acting was good, overall. I enjoyed Shaw, but also Holloway and David; all three were given enough scenes to make me sympathize with them on some level. Vickers wasn't bad, constantly fighting for control. I especially liked Ford and Weyland, though they're not given much screen time. Still, Katie Dickie's body language is great. "Even your way of standing perfectly still, they were all my spies!" King Haggard said in The Last Unicorn. Suffice to say Katie gives us plenty of "spies." I liked Weyland, how he was this frail old man, but everyone still bent the knee to him. I got the impression he was powerful, simply based on how other people treated him.
The movie isn't perfect. It has a lot of ideas and many of them, while good, don't get fully explored. The movie feels toned down, being rated R yet still being trimmed a little bit too much for its own good. Certain scenes feel pointless, but they're few and far between and they're over with quick. The cast is a little too big, too. In Alien, it was seven (not including the cat) and it felt just right. In this movie, certain people die without you even knowing their names. It's not all a bad thing. Red shirts are common way for the monsters to threat to flex their muscles. People line up to see that.
I must add that I don't consider the movie's "plot holes" a flaw. Fifield and Milburn get lost? Well, someone has to die. The crew takes off their helmets in a room with a breathable atmosphere? It's a movie, go ahead. In the end, it seems pretty pointless to complain about something like people taking off their helmet in a room with breathable air when they arrived on the place in a spaceship that travels faster than light. Ripley said it best: "It's a movie, not science class."
How does Prometheus compare to Alien or Aliens? Sort of a tricky question, because it's nothing like them. In fact, it's more like 2001, Forbidden Planet, or Jaws. I liked Prometheus, but for completely different reasons than I liked Alien. Is it better than Alien? I can't answer that easily because in order for that question to really apply they'd have to be the same genre. They're not, suffice to say that they're both very good at what they do.
Prometheus Ice Pop

If Ridley decided (after going to hypnotherapy) to market the shit out of Prometheus and FOX was behind him would this make you mad?
If everywhere you looked was Prometheus, breakfast cereals, android milk drinks, baby sized space suits ...
my little ALIEN night lights.

Would you buy into these products or cast them aside?
What if some of the main cast got in on the act and started doing TV commercials (in character).
How would this change your view of the movie?
Would having more merchandise across the board, keep people hungry for more or dilute the overall experience?
Who was Meredith Vickers?
Despite the discovery that Humans are not only not alone, but were born from another species.. everyone remains pretty chill about it. Who was Meridith Vickers ( Charlize Theron ) and was she the biological daughter of Weyland or a clone? Why did David refer to her as Mum? What was the significance of Idra’s remark on the bridge asking her if she was a robot?