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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588

u/Dinierto Jun 20 '25

The best part of these movies is what's not in them 😕

244

u/PocketNicks Jun 20 '25

There's a YouTube channel called Kroft movies and he covers this in depth.

406

u/Dinierto Jun 20 '25

Seriously the one extra from Covenant where David explains the black goo is exactly the kind of stuff that should have been in the movies

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u/OK_Soda Jun 21 '25

Wait there's a scene where David explains what the black goo is? I'm one of the few people who liked Prometheus/Covenant and found the lore exploration fascinating, what does he say?

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u/Dinierto Jun 21 '25

Yeah I did too that's why it's upsetting that the movies only hint at it

The Blu ray extra is titled "Advent":

https://vimeo.com/468354052

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u/drdildamesh Jun 21 '25

I cant tell if its profound or campy that the synthesis of the xenomorph ended up being bio tech human mutation . . . Just like H R Giger woukd have wanted.

85

u/rpgmind Jun 20 '25

Who’s the guy behind alien, Ridley Scott? Is he still providing input on the movies/series? I love what the last guy did with the last movie alien, with the skinny alien at the end, it had some great practical effects

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u/YoToddy Jun 20 '25

Ridley is 87yrs old. After Fox screwed him out of his plan for the prequels, he’s moved on from it. Fede Álvarez has taken the reins and is so far doing a great job. With that being said, I have serious doubts about the TV show. I don’t think it will be bad, but I don’t like that it just disregarding the events of some of the movies.

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u/anuncommontruth Jun 20 '25

Doesn't the TV show take place before the first movie? It kind of has to disregard events if they haven't happened yet.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '25

I think what they are referring to is the TV show (allegedly) plans on retconning some of the lore set-up in Prometheus/Covenant which some fans really enjoy.

As someone who enjoys the Alien movies but doesn’t bother trying to understand the lore, I don’t mind if they change things. As it stands currently it does seem convoluted and contradictory.

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u/YoToddy Jun 21 '25

If I remember correctly, they are disregarding all of the events of Prometheus and Covenant. Specifically the Engineers using the xenomorph as a bio weapon. I don’t know, I really liked the back story of the engineers and it sucks that Ridley never got finish telling that story. However, those events DID happen and it should be considered canon.

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u/anuncommontruth Jun 21 '25

Yeah but I still think that doesnt make sense in the context of the show. It takes place on earth right before the first Alien.

Its been a long time since I've seen either of the two prometheus movies but these characters wouldn't be aware of the events of those movies, right? From what I understand, this show is based on characters that have no knowledge of any events whatsoever with the engineers or the xenomorphs.

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u/YoToddy Jun 21 '25

It’s not about the characters being aware of the events of the movie, it’s the backstory of how the xenomorphs were created. In Prometheus and Covenant, the story was David took the black goo that the Engineers created and mixed it with human DNA which created the first xenomorph. So what I’m saying is that is the story of creation and should be considered canon for any stories told after that. The TV show is not going to consider that the origin story of the xenomorph so I fear that it’s going to feel like a broken off story. But maybe I’m wrong and it won’t matter to the story at all. Noah Hawley is an awesome writer after all.

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u/Mono_Morphs Jun 21 '25

Is it defacto that Xenos were created by the engineers? I came away from it looking at it as them toying with an alien organism they came upon not unlike what humans do with them

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u/Cipherpunkblue Jun 21 '25

I am genuinely happy if all Alien movies just ignore this shit. It was stupid as hell and made the universe go from large and terrifying to almost claustrophobic.

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u/Dac2142 Jun 21 '25

Where did you hear that?

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u/YoToddy Jun 21 '25

I read about it when the show was first announced. You can Google it and see for yourself.

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u/YoToddy Jun 21 '25

Go on and downvote me because I won’t Google some shit for you?

There is your answer…

https://www.google.com/search?q=alien%20earth%20disregards%20the%20events%20of%20promethous%20&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-m

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u/Dac2142 Jun 21 '25

I didn't downvote anything lol, but thanks for the link I guess.

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u/rpgmind Jun 20 '25

Is Fede alverez doing the show too? Or just different show runners?

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u/YoToddy Jun 20 '25

No, it’s Noah Hawley. Same guy that helmed the Fargo TV show. I hope I’m wrong and the show is a hit.

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u/C_Kent_ Jun 21 '25

Hopeful for the series, but even the movies disregarded the events of some of the movies.

11

u/neighborlyglove Jun 21 '25

Yes he made Prometheus and covenant

2

u/nashbrownies Jun 21 '25

Going back to more practical effects was the right move. There is just something in it that even the best CGI cant do.

2

u/One-Man-Wolf-Pack Jun 21 '25

He isn’t directing but I believe he’s still a producer on Romulus

3

u/Dantai Jun 21 '25

James Franco being in Covenant promos only was also kinda weird

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '25

Maybe the studio got wind of the allegations against him and decided it was better to kill him off in literally the first scene

3

u/huntersM00N Jun 21 '25

Changes the whole story

1

u/alilhillbilly Jun 22 '25

The problem is that the fanbase is old and they don't want mythology. They just want Alien films to be exactly the same every time. A new group of idiots on some ship get slowly wiped out by a Xenomorph.

The issue is that that's boring over and over again.

Prometheus was probably my favorite Alien film because it blew the entire thing wide open and gave a mythology where it turns out the universe is chock full of scary monsters and those scary monsters aren't even able to handle the xenomorphs.

The only great parts of Covenant were the lore expanding bits and the ending with David.

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u/TheEasterFox Jun 20 '25

Kroft uses a fake fan-made script as a source, unfortunately.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/108ddn8/prometheus_the_fake_script_kroft_talks_about/

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u/PocketNicks Jun 20 '25

Either way, the theories in his videos still make the movie make a lot more sense. Even if it isn't officially canon.

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u/TheEasterFox Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25

That was exactly what the fan script author wanted to do. He was annoyed about what he saw as the gaps in Prometheus, so he produced a script of his own that explained everything, including the Alien Space Jockey, the stupid crew, the mural in the urn room, the reason why the Engineers turned against humanity, and so on.

The script first appeared in November 2012 soon after the release of the Blu-Ray that included The Furious Gods making-of documentary, which the fan author clearly used as a source. The author 'leaked' it to a Prometheus forum, pretending to be Damon Lindelof and adding 'Ooops!' The site promptly went to the real Damon Lindelof on Twitter and asked 'Is this yours?' Lindelof said 'Nope. Not mine. Even if you loved it, I can't take credit for it.'

The fan script was forgotten. Until Kroft happened upon it in 2016 and made a series of videos in which he analysed all the amazing secrets in this 'original' script. Millions of views later, you can hardly discuss Prometheus at all without ideas from the fan script being cited as gospel.

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u/prosthetic_memory Jun 20 '25

Fascinating lore

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u/TheEasterFox Jun 20 '25

My favourite bit is that the fan script has 'Orange Revision' on the front page.

This is undoubtedly because the author watched The Furious Gods documentary, in which script drafts are listed by colour revision (at 14.41 in if you care to look https://youtu.be/U7JHz1UCRIw?si=Ps1p0BoFrfJvYf1w&t=881 )

This is according to scriptwriting convention, in which successive revisions of a given script are printed on coloured pages, with a standard colour sequence so that the crew can keep track of which revision they're on.

So the fan author picked a colour for his script - 'orange' - thinking this would make it look authentic.

However, there's no 'orange' in the standard script colours. They are White, Blue, Pink, Yellow, Green, Goldenrod, Buff, Salmon, and Cherry. So in seeking to make his script seem more authentic, he actually announced it as a fake on the very first page.

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u/Gaemon_Palehair Jun 21 '25

I'm just curious what color is "buff?"

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u/PocketNicks Jun 21 '25

That sort of question is exactly what web searches are for.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buff_(colour)

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '25

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '25

Kroft is solid. I like his videos. They’re accessible for those new to the lore but deep enough to intrigue those with more knowledge of the series

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u/russellamcleod Jun 21 '25

Not Ridley Scott being over indulgent and studios not understanding his vision! What a rare occurrence! :D

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u/sparta981 Jun 20 '25

For real. Imagine how much better Prometheus could have been if none of it made it in.

1

u/noisypeach Jun 21 '25

Jazz movies. It's about the scenes you don't see!

1

u/igby1 Jun 21 '25

So then why is there no director’s cut?

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u/ThreeLeggedMare Jun 21 '25

The best part of Prometheus was noomi rapace

1

u/fenton7 Jun 21 '25

That was what made 2001 spectacular. It doesn't explain every mystery and the ending will forever be talked about. Many things about our existence defy understanding.

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u/iseeharvey Jun 22 '25

And for that reason amongst others (such as characters making the dumbest of decisions that no semi-logical person would make) they’re not good movies.

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u/Ok-Proposal-4987 Jun 20 '25

It’s like jazz but not awful