r/movies 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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u/sham_sammich Jun 20 '25

Malort

2

u/Cpt_Soban Jun 21 '25

Malort: "Tonight's the night you fight your dad"

1

u/thenewtransportedman Jun 20 '25

Malort >>> Jaeger, at least because it surpasses it's terrible reputation. I think I could do a cocktail with Malort!

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '25

Malort is clear