Number 11

The beaked creature in the art work is more elegant than the "monster' in the fresco and the position of the Engineer is not dominant but one of pain and sacrifice. Indeed that is what it is supposed to signify, which Ridley describes in the commentary. The Engineers are built for sacrifice and to experiment involves sacrifice. We cannot be sure the fresco and mural were created by the Engineers, nor the booby trapped response to the room. It could be viewed as a warning to mankind. This is what your superiors engaged in and with your coming into the room let us show you were matters may now go and the fresco changes to represent the life cycle egg. At the same time the storm develops and ends with the god head revealed on the pyramid.

It is entirely possible that Damon and Ridley put those in place to allow our imaginations to run over whatever ground we wish to chose. However in Covenant the story will take some of the elements of Prometheus and harden the elliptical messages into the narrative of the mythos.

I suspect at the very least we will understand where the fresco fits into the mythos once we have drunk from the Covenant.   

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@ Michelle

I really like your point that we cannot be really sure that the fresco or mural were built by the Engineers. This is probably going to be the worst comparison I have ever made to another film, but I don’t know if you have seen Sausage Party (or anyone else here) but part of that film looks at creating a belief in false gods. This is done to create a positive environment for the doomed. Perhaps the same approach applies to the engineers. Having something to worship gives meaning to their existence. An existence which serves the only purpose of being experimented on.

This does I think raise the question of whether what happened to the Engineers on LV223 was in fact an experiment to see what happens when there is an outbreak.

@Ati

I really enjoyed the Pyramids docu drama. Brian Cox gave it great authority. It is a perfect example of how you can fit some tantalising ideas which can not be explained into your own "theory" and in that sense that is where we are with some of Prometheus.

We know that the out break is a riff on Ebola indeed I had forgotten Shaw's Dad dies of it but we do not know precisely what the reliefs mean and in Damon's case he is allowing us to dream until we arrive at the next film. Indeed if Damon had written the next film he may have taken some of the ambiguity in a different direction to where we are going now.

Ridley is now calling the Deacon the forerunner of the Zenomorph, at the time of Prom it was reflective methodology.

I am very taken with Ridley's layered cake analogy and I think its entirely possible that some of what we see in Prom can be reverse Engineered (excuse the pun) into being the result of the "hierarchy" rather than the Engineers. 

What I do feel is Janek was either wrong and they were up to no good on Paradise or David brings it with him. I haven't discounted David bringing the Engineers down as a kind of Trojan Horse/Lucifer character. I think Elizabeth in Prom had to leave for Paradise believing it was a good news/bad news place rather than a bad news/bad news place so Janek's dialogue may have been narrative positioning rather than the revealed truth.  

@Batchpool

I am not up with the Sausage movie but I actually think you are not far off reflecting an element of the Engineers "truth".

The hierarchy have laid down the Engineers role and manifested them with a sense of specialness which at the moment of their break up like Peter Weyland may realise "There is nothing" and as David says "I know" 

After Eons for them to rebel against the ordained way, breaking their bondage and trying to find away out through their own sub creation seems to our understanding of myth entirely likely. its just as always in these myths breaking the rules leads to punishment and everything the mutagen released into the catalyser does represents punishment. 

@ATI

Goo and Eggs. If you read every draft of the first movie and even Prom there are many variants of their relationship.

The only one that matter is whats revealed in C O  V E N A N T. Black Goo in the rivers, reservoirs and food chains of agricultural earth circa 2000 would be a very elegant manoeuvre on the part of the rebellious Engineers for doing a billion Fifield's.

The Alien Life cycle feels like very personal retribution its very focused and the result of someone not trying to create a Deacon for further  sacrifice but for specific punishment through change. Someone wanting to tinker, someone who is thought of as merely a tin can ?

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@Ati

There are a series of ways in which one needs to decode what is said and take it back to the source. I prefer video interviews because you get whole conversation snippets rather than rewrites. 

The forerunner comment took me by surprise and comes from an interview with Sky Movies where he makes the point about layering, who made the Engineers and then the forerunner comment. Its a snappy interview and he talks about his film then Neil's and see how that bus goes.

Now we could have a long conversation about how the deacon is millions of years old and then xenomorph is millions of years old which followed it and they are all being rediscovered but the tone of the interview is setting the scene for the sky audience he explains Prometheus 1 (happened many years before ALIEN) which will be followed by what is now called A Covenant. It felt very clear, very linear rather than opening up something convoluted involving time travel or a convoluted history. The convulsion lies with the layering not the beast indeed he made the point very strongly he is creating something much bigger than the beast in a tin can. The beast is outcome its not "the" thing. Much more interesting is who/ why and if the Engineers are not Gods who made them - 11 months to go.    

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