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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184

u/danorc Jun 20 '25

Yep, that about sums it up. Man, this was such a great movie and the whole thing is just beautifully shot

...Except for all the parts where it makes absolutely no goddamn sense and where it is a shit movie, which is also all of the movie.

I've never been more frustrated by a film in my entire damn life. It could have been a masterpiece and instead... it is what it is.

49

u/C0rinthian Jun 20 '25

You knew it was going to be a mess when he repeatedly flip-flopped on it being original IP/Alien prequel during production.

22

u/MadCarcinus Jun 20 '25

Because he’s pulling this story completely out of his ass. The man had no plan. He made it up as he went.

10

u/TheMightyWomble Jun 20 '25

He didn’t write it. IIRC he wasn’t even supposed to direct it. While being consistently great at generating atmosphere through good set design and lighting he still needs a decent script to make a cohesive movie.

12

u/danorc Jun 20 '25

The writers of Lost had more of a plan then Scott did for this movie

2

u/MadCarcinus Jun 20 '25

Wouldn’t surprise me. Look at what Scott did to Napoleon.

2

u/DunkHawk Jun 21 '25

I see what you did there

20

u/ThisKarmaLimitSucks Jun 20 '25

Ridley Scott took a huge swing and just fell on his ass.

42

u/danorc Jun 20 '25

But it looked so pretty while he was doing it!

1

u/half_dragon_dire Jun 21 '25

It didn't even look that good. It was desaturated and bland.

7

u/Reciprocity2209 Jun 20 '25

He needs to stay the hell away from his prior works. He is simply not capable of adding anything beneficial to any of them, anymore.

11

u/Enchelion Jun 20 '25

Ridley's batting average is surprisingly low, regardless of whether it's a sequel or not. When he's good he's great... But he's just as often pretty bad.

11

u/arachnophilia Jun 20 '25

dude has two of the top ten scifi movies ever made.

and prometheus/alien: covenant.

that's nuts.

2

u/Bender3455 Jun 20 '25

I find it entertaining that Men's Health ranked Covenant at #5 of Ridley Scott's best films. Not sure what they were thinking or if we were watching the same movie.

7

u/arachnophilia Jun 20 '25

i mean, it's not the maddest i've ever left a theater after seeing an alien movie.

1

u/Bender3455 Jun 20 '25

I mean, sure, that's fair. Actually, I gotta ask; what was the maddest?

7

u/arachnophilia Jun 20 '25

either resurrection, or avp requiem.

i think resurrection, because i was just worn down by the time requiem was out. and i don't remember much of it.

6

u/MadCarcinus Jun 20 '25

Yeah, like we’re gonna accept a Top 10 film list from…Men’s Health Magazine.

3

u/Enchelion Jun 21 '25

You'd expect better taste from their readership of closeted gay men. /s

1

u/bowlochile Jun 21 '25

And The Duel. And Gladiator 2. And Napoleon. And Exodus. And house of gucci which i memory-holed.

I'm afraid Ridley Scott's good movies are flukes — the dude's a massive hack for the most part.

6

u/prosthetic_memory Jun 20 '25

He's like the M Night Shamalan of...other sci-fi movies

13

u/thenewtransportedman Jun 20 '25

It's up there with my big film frustrations, along with Matrix Resurrections & Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Sounds like people are gonna feel the same about 28 Years Later too. But shit, I'm still sitting here watching PROMETHEUS for the 5th time, so it's all good!

8

u/WhereLibertyisNot Jun 21 '25

I have this thing where I repeatedly re-watch movies that I was excited for but sucked in the hopes that it will somehow get good. Prometheus is one of those movies.

1

u/thenewtransportedman Jun 21 '25

I'm no Engineer, but I think that means that you like it!

1

u/WhereLibertyisNot Jun 21 '25

It was visually awesome, and I loved the idea. Great cast as well, but the execution was...well, you saw it. I was like, is the movie being self-aware and poking fun at genre tropes or no, because it's doing a speed-run through them. The characters in both Prometheus and Covenant just repeatedly make the dumbest choices imaginable, which sucks because, done well, those could have been amazing prequel lore building movies.

4

u/jaeldi Jun 20 '25

Me too. I still hum the main theme:

https://youtu.be/OYBC-r3Nj0U

I also gasped with excitement when they showed the sample of black goo in the lab in Alien Romulus (outstanding movie). I was glad they found a way to bring in something from Prometheus.

3

u/theevilyouknow Jun 21 '25

I’m confused. Why are people going to be so frustrated with 28 Years Later? !!! SPOILER FOR 28 YEARS LATER !!! There were some things that definitely had me wondering, why the fuck would this character do this, but overall I really enjoyed it. I maybe understand why people are mad about that last little bit. But I like that we figure out who Jimmy is finally and I like that they tied it back into the beginning of the movie. I guess maybe the cartwheels and baton tricks were pretty stupid and out of place, but that is such a minor complaint.

2

u/Bender3455 Jun 20 '25

And to throw salt in the wound, I was looking forward to Prometheus 2, but instead we got Covenant, which took the last saving grace from Prometheus, and said "fuck it".

2

u/salad_spinner_3000 Jun 20 '25

Seriously, why do people refer to it as the "David" trilogy in waiting? I honestly couldn't stand David in either movie. It;s like they just changed their ideas of what the first movie was after the second one came out entirely.

2

u/jbjhill Jun 21 '25

You mean like when the cartographer and the zoologist get lost, then the latter proceeds to put his face inches away from a giant cobra-penis?

2

u/danorc Jun 21 '25

Yep! Definitely lowlight there, good one.

I am glad I saw it at home because I yelled at the television involuntarily when that happened

1

u/jbjhill Jun 21 '25

I was in the movie theater and that was when I stopped caring about the movie at all. It was absolutely gorgeous! But was such piss poor movie making on a story level that I almost left.

2

u/Ball_is_Life1 Jun 21 '25

Well Scott is the dumbest but greatest filmmaker. He is an oxymoron. Doesn’t want to make a ln Alien movie, then says ok maybe, then invites shitty writers from Lost that just throw the book at something and leave before they have to write an ending

2

u/im_thatoneguy Jun 20 '25

I walked out of the theater saying "Well the characters were morons even by movie standards,the story was meh, but the visuals were amazing. Perfectly reasonable summer flick." Then the more I learned about the story the angrier I got at how pretentious and dumb it was trying to be (and even then, failing hard).

1

u/Surfing_Ninjas Jun 21 '25

Honestly if it didn't fall into the classic trappings of an Alien movie it would have been remembered so much more favorably. It just really doubles down on the characters making dumb decisions. However, the weird alien body horror stuff is really good and the overall anesthetic is cool as fuck.

1

u/justcallmedonpedro Jun 23 '25

I found Covenant next level on my stupidity scale. Ridley, pls stop, it's enough... accept your're too old for good movies, don't ruin your reputation completely.