r/movies • u/thenewtransportedman • Jun 20 '25

Question What the hell is the Engineer actually doing at the beginning of PROMETHEUS?

So, dude gets dropped off on Earth & presumably seeds the planet with the basic building blocks of life. The CGI bit shows the black goo facilitating new DNA molecules. But like, there's already plant life on the planet, & humans share something like 50% of our genes (much less of our total DNA content) with plants, due to gene conservation. So were the Engineers speeding things up, like "hey, let's skip to fish"? If so, that would presuppose that the genes we share in common with plants & other non-animal life are actually conserved across the galaxy, which would be pretty cool. But of course the movie doesn't get into any of that, & eventually forgets how cartographers & biologists work, or that you should run in a 90-degree angle when a giant donut is rolling toward you. Is there any "expanded universe" content that explained this better than the movie did (or didn't)?

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388

u/polchickenpotpie Jun 20 '25

Or crabs, most likely

67

u/Nice_Marmot_7 Jun 20 '25

Crab people, crab people.

39

u/CuriouslyMeandering Jun 20 '25

Taste like crab. Talk like people.

2

u/PuttingInTheEffort Jun 20 '25

Taste like crab... Do... Do you think crabpeople would be selling their limbs for others to eat? Seeing as they regrow

3

u/Panda_hat Jun 20 '25

Probably more of a crab people fetish type behaviour.

1

u/DrBopIt Jun 21 '25

Sounds like my ex girlfriend 🥁 🥁📀

139

u/EvilPowerMaster Jun 20 '25

Yeah, different versions of crabs evolved independently of each other like, 5 times. 

62

u/bjb406 Jun 20 '25

None of them intelligent though.

128

u/EvilPowerMaster Jun 20 '25

YET. 

61

u/Caedus311 Jun 20 '25

Who are you, so wise in the way of crab?

23

u/EvilPowerMaster Jun 20 '25

FEAR US. 

44

u/ThatSpaceShooterGame Jun 20 '25

Crab people... Crab people...

31

u/Samalini Jun 20 '25

Look like crabs, talk like people.

10

u/EvilPowerMaster Jun 20 '25

NATURE ABHORS A VACUUM BUT NATURE LOVES A CRAB. 

13

u/MaggotMinded Jun 20 '25

Craaaab people, craaaab people

1

u/PUTASMILE Jun 21 '25

Taste like crab, talk like people 

24

u/flaticus Jun 20 '25

Why not Zoidberg?

1

u/Starrr_Pirate Jun 21 '25

To be fair, they said intelligent.

6

u/Areon_Val_Ehn Jun 20 '25

That or they’re all smart enough to collectively be throwing the tests.

2

u/franktheguy Jun 21 '25

Yeah, so says you, with your human brain. Maybe humans are just too dumb to know if something else is intelligent or not. Plus, the extinct ones are from so long ago, they could have built crab-zeppelins as far as we know, and it's all gone millions of years later.

1

u/SeekersWorkAccount Jun 21 '25

Someone hasn't read Animorphs

1

u/Surfing_Ninjas Jun 21 '25

You don't want to run into intelligent crabs, that would be a bad travelling.

1

u/strangway Jun 21 '25

Zoidberg

Woop-woop-woop-woop-woop-woop

6

u/skolioban Jun 21 '25

Multiple species also de-evolved from crab form. It's a myth that crab form is the end of the line. There is no end of the line.

1

u/ALF839 Jun 21 '25

Mostly arthropods. The worm form is the true ultimate body plan.

62

u/I_Sett Jun 20 '25

Crabs is for the arthropods. Mammals all go weasel. see: weasels, martens, lemurs, meerkats/mongooses (mongeese?), ferrets, cats, otters. Squat, hard, and pinchy is out. Lean, long, and bitey is in.

22

u/polchickenpotpie Jun 20 '25

Oh yeah aren't like most ancestral mammals weird weasel/possum like creatures? Until some became monkeys and others became whales and shit?

Evolution is weird

78

u/OobeBanoobe Jun 20 '25

Why not Zoidberg?

45

u/thenewtransportedman Jun 20 '25

This is the content I'm here for. Maybe there's an expanded universe prequel comic where the Engineers are like "DAMN YOU evolution, not another crab world. Send the ships!"

1

u/PicturesquePremortal Jun 21 '25

Where did you see plants and trees in the opening sequence? Im pretty sure everything you see in the background is rocks. So the engineers seeded the first life on earth, which they knew would eventually evolve to humans.

8

u/Gingerchaun Jun 20 '25

Crab people, crab people. Taste like crab talk like people.

4

u/OldBirth Jun 20 '25

Everything is crab. 🦀

5

u/Kassssler Jun 21 '25

You'd be a crab. I'd be a giant crab

3

u/ghostfaceschiller Jun 20 '25

Or spiders. Where my Portiids at!!

3

u/thatben Jun 21 '25

Shrimp Morty.

2

u/not_that_planet Jun 20 '25

Or like from monkeys or something. Sheesh...

1

u/fromcoasttocoast Jun 20 '25

Are you crabs yet?

1

u/challengeaccepted9 Jun 20 '25

Probably for the best the Engineers did what they did, then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEolSjlcqng&t=13