Prometheus - Spoilery thread of Spoilers

You said everything I was thinking, but couldn't put into words.

I forgot about the engineer only being 2000 yrs old. So 2000 yrs prior to the movie's current date something on earth or with humans upset the engineers so much they were going to take the angry goo and wipe us out? Instead they wiped themselves out. Now maybe that wasn't what they were going to do. The show starts off with the premise that they visited earth so much so that different cultures from different times recorded it. I forget what the intervals were though.

Granted the engineer did attack everyone after being awoken. The whole scene bugs me cause he waited to attack. He checks everyone out and then pats david on the head in a weird way. It almost seemed sympathetic.

The movie really only served to confuse me.

Man, I'm thinking WAY too much about this movie lol. Anyway, great FAN idea about the film here. Really fits (and is much better than mine) with the inclusion of the movies official concept art.

This was taken from a comment I saw on another site, and I did a little research and everything seems to check out! :

To give some historical/mythological background that may shed some light, Ridley stated the SJ culture was based on Persian Myths. This would be Sumerian/Akkadian/Hindu. This is all taken from the Atra Hasis.

Creators - "G"ods- Annunaki - Dragon Humanoids (Naga, Dragon Kings,)

Helpers - "g"ods - Igigi - Engineers. (Android like living beings....BIOmechanical humanoid. Key features- Pale skin and large black eyes. Also known as watchers, Grigori, and Archons) (in many summerian texts they are actually referred to as "Pilots". Pretty much the Annunaki Air Force.)

When the Annunaki began terraforming the earth, they had the Igigi do the work for them. After a few thousand years the Igigi revolted and went on strike. The Annunaki then decided to create humans to do the work for them.

They sacrificed one of the rebel Igigi named Geshtu to use his blood and dna to make human beings, by mixing it with elements native to the earth.

(In the movie, this can be explained by the the different oval spaceship at the beginning representing the spaceship of the Annunaki)

(It can also be explained by the concept art that leaked from the official book this week)

(According to wikipedia it also says this about the Igigi: "Though sometimes synonymous with the term "Annunaki," in one myth the Igigi were the younger gods who were servants of the Annunaki, until they rebelled and were replaced by the creation of humans." This is reflectled exactly in the concept art below!)

Even though the humans were created and did the work, 1/3 of the Igigi still werent satisfied and sought revenge for Geshtu, so they rebelled again against the Annunaki Lords and began breeding/mixing with the human females creating Nephelim. This is what sparked the Prime Lord Enlil to flood the earth. Some humans were saved by Enki, the Lord responsible for the sacrifice of Geshtu and the creation of humans. Enlil and the rest of the annunaki decide to return home and let the humans develop on their own. Enki and his family stay behind. The Igigi are forced to leave earth as well. The remaining rebel Igigi are imprisoned on a planet on the way back to the homeworld and it is said as punishment and as a mark they are altered into a demonic appearance, no longer retaining the Angelic appearance.

Enki and his crew are probably the ones leaving the maps for humans to find, along with the ones helping humans advance throughout time.

The sacrfice engineer is Geshtu

The lone engineer is most likely Marduk or a servant/worshipper of Marduk.

The xeno is Mushussu, a creature Marduk fashioned and used as his pet.

The "Engineers" we see are trying to destroy Earth are of the Igigi rebels who view earth as their own. They have always despised humans because the Annunaki saw us as more in their likeness than them. IT's possible that the Igigi have long since destroyed or taken over the annunaki and the homeworld, and Earth was like going to claim the prize or spoils.

They mustve used to the Xeno's to win this war and through its perfection it has began to destroy and infect the Igigi who manufacture and transport it, creating more Mushussu.

the xeno in Alien is most likely an older pilot igigi birthed Mushussu egg crossed with human or a future Annunaki birthed one which would explain the size difference in hosts.

It is mentioned in several lesser stories that Marduk created the Mushussu out of using the essence of the Gods' (Annunaki) he killed as a symbol of his conquering and being able to control them... ie the mural.

PAR

So while this film still doesn't make sense in a lot of ways, I have been wondering quite a bit if there is some kind of deeper significance from all of the obvious mythological and religious overtones in this film. And the lo and behold, someone on reddit posts this fascinating and in depth analysis along those lines.

TLDR; The Engineers created humans with the black goo, and sent beings to check up on them throughout history. Apparently, they sent a representative down as Jesus, and after they killed him the Engineers decided they would use the black goo for death instead of life, because their creation had betrayed them.

It also goes into the Prometheus story, and the reoccurring themes of creation and sacrifice. Super-interesting read, highly recommended.

I thought the first scene took place on LV-223, not Earth...

Edit: Never mind, read that Reddit post all the way through and it makes the Space Jockey-Jesus theory seem incredibly plausible. Must have been primordial Earth.

The biggest deal to me? I wanted more sciency-fictiony-stuff. MORE exposition. Instead, we got some sci-fi horror done a bit abruptly that only barely outclasses Event Horizon. Boo.

Also, was it just the theatre I was in, or did the soundtrack intentionally drown out 30% of the hectic dialogue? Was that because they knew it sucked? Charlize Theron in particular couldn't stand up to the blaring music.

This movie was so obviously co-written by one of the guys behind Lost. A lot of the same themes, the same ideas, the same flaws, and the same strengths.

jamos5 wrote:

So while this film still doesn't make sense in a lot of ways, I have been wondering quite a bit if there is some kind of deeper significance from all of the obvious mythological and religious overtones in this film. And the lo and behold, someone on reddit posts this fascinating and in depth analysis along those lines.

TLDR; The Engineers created humans with the black goo, and sent beings to check up on them throughout history. Apparently, they sent a representative down as Jesus, and after they killed him the Engineers decided they would use the black goo for death instead of life, because their creation had betrayed them.

It also goes into the Prometheus story, and the reoccurring themes of creation and sacrifice. Super-interesting read, highly recommended.

Wow, I actually really like that theory. Man, as long as film makers want to be extremely vague, its take the fan base to really make their work "work".

ClockworkHouse wrote:

This movie was so obviously co-written by one of the guys behind Lost. A lot of the same themes, the same ideas, the same flaws, and the same strengths.

Yup.

I liked the film, but I wouldn't call it great. It was merely enjoyable, unfortunately.

Though from a visual experience and certain awesome scenes, it was more than worth the price of admission to the 3d screening. That surgery scene was absolutely harrowing with the immersiveness of the 3d filmwork. I haven't cringed in a movie seat like that in a long time.

Mr E.B. Slugworth wrote:

So now that I've had the night to sleep on it, I wish I'd never gone to see it. I would have rather the origin of the Engineers and the Aliens remained a mystery. It just created more questions than answers to me.

I'm confused. You profess to enjoying questions and mystery, and then reject the new questions you've been left with?

To try and answer a question you did raise, no, I don't think whatever killed the Engineers we saw running is still going to be alive 2,000 years later, at least not in the form of an immediate and mobile threat. And there's a lot that can happen between the 35,000 year old relics found in the U.K. and the events that happened just 2,000 years prior to make the Engineers loathe their creations. Assuming it wasn't the events 2,000ish years earlier that the Reddit copied analysis surmises.

No one intentionally creates a weapon they can't control. It's just that these things have a way of getting out of control. Proliferation and escalation is happening right now.

As for the 3D, it worked well everywhere but the opening credits. Trying to read them hurt.

Mr E.B. Slugworth wrote:

So now that I've had the night to sleep on it, I wish I'd never gone to see it. I would have rather the origin of the Engineers and the Aliens remained a mystery. It just created more questions than answers to me.

When they found that first Engineer body, they did a carbon test and found out it was about 2 thousand years old. Why did the other Engineer have to go into stasis for so long, and when was he supposed to come out of stasis? What was the point of that?

This is exactly how I feel. Granted I literally didn't watch an Alien movie until 2 weeks ago. I just missed it somehow. So when I saw the trailers for Prometheus I started working my way through them. So they're fresh, but I don't hold enough affinity for them to care for them as much as I do the story in Prometheus. I think there's lots of fresh ground to cover with regards to the Engineers and I hope there's a sequel or two.

One question I had was this. How do we know the "Engineers" are the aliens that actually created the human race? The flying saucer is a different shape of ship (being a saucer) than the ships on the planet. I actually took this to mean that when the engineers were discovered they were actually a "cousin race" to humans. Maybe another race from another time period that ended up fighting with its creators and that the "WMDs" weren't meant for Earth, but rather for THEIR creators. I thought that was ambiguous enough to be possible, I don't know.

Overall, though, I really didn't want them explaining this planet versus that planet, etc. Or how the Xenomorphs came to be.

I really don't get the complaints. I'm yet to come across a plot hole mentioned that bothered me.

Why did David test the stuff on Holloway? The clue's in the same scene - it's the central thesis of the whole film - Because he could.
Why did the Engineers create life? Because they could.
Why did they want us to find them if they only wanted to destroy us again? They had 35000 years to decide we were a mistake and try to correct it.
Why did they want to destroy life again? As David said - Sometimes to create you have to destroy.

The film asks the same questions David posed to Holloway: What if you could meet your God(s) and ask why you were created? What if you didn't like the answer? What if you were just an iteration of an ongoing experiment and your God(s) had no higher purpose for you?

The Engineers were the Prometheus of the title: They created human life then, for reasons that are acknowledged as unknown in the film, decided it was a mistake. Why did they want us dead? We don't know. We don't know why God created us as mortal either. That's the point.

Y'all need to stop being such nerds and hook into the fact this is a classical greek myth redressed as classic 19th century gothic sci fi. I think it succeeds admirably.

I'm with Maq that it feels like there's a sense of over-analysis going on, though at the same time Ridley Scott has gotten a bit crazy as he's gotten older.

Before I go on, Wednesday around 7pm EST I'm going to try to record a podcast discussing Prometheus via the Skypes, so if anyone is interested let me know.

I am satisfied with the explanation that suicide guy in the beginning had purpose in killing himself. However, I don't like that the black goo is inconsistent, and I don't buy that it is tied to intent. The worms were the first creature to come in contact with the goo in this film and they became a deadly creature.

I feel like the general idea here is that The Engineers created a weapon that has a simple goal: Create creature to plant egg of hostile xenomorph beast. Hence the clip of the alien life cycle at the very end of the film. However, by introducing the black goo, a fairly simple yet ingenious process becomes flimsy. I can accept that there were several research stations experimenting with the same concept and technology, which is why LV-426 has a different sort of creature. In fact, my original theory about Prometheus is that they would find a Noah's Ark of bio-mechanical monstrosities all built with the same purpose of the Xenomorph, as the original Alien was clearly designed with enough piping and tubes to give it a sort of unnatural appearance. An organic machine.

I was partially correct. But that black goo steps in and sort of ruins things. The process isn't so clear cut anymore.

Is that black goo the same as the Engineer drank at the start of the film? I can't tell, but I do know Halloway was beginning to crumble just like him. It was a much slower process, but he also only had a drop of it. SOMEHOW, he managed to get Shaw pregnant with a ....semi-facehugger THING by having this infection that was....doing what?

I'll confess, the surgical scene was a fantastic way to do something similar to the chest burster scene, but still have people going "Whaaaaaaaaaaat the fuuuuuuck?!" the whole way through, cringing and hissing and going "Oooh!" instead of "Yeah I've seen that before." But...what the f*ck man?

Now that I think about it, the biologist that tried to make friends with the Snake (when something unfurls like a cobra, I don't care what your profession is, you're clearly dealing with a hostile organism)...what became of him? Didn't they find his body? Did they bag it? Did they leave it behind? I recall a snake jumping out from his mouth and that was it. So why did Mohawk guy, who died of acid in the face, come back as super zombie?

Stupid black goo! You over-complicate things!

Otherwise, I'm willing to let most plot holes or discrepancies slide as the film obviously being cut down towards the end. I'm sure David had more scenes where he was further developed. I'm also certain that, the entire time, David was acting in his father's interests (remember, before he infected Holloway he had been told by his father to get things going faster, so I believe the goo was nothing more than an experiment to see if, well, things could get moving faster. I believe people are really over-thinking his motivations. I also do not believe Charlize Theron to be an android, as she had shown a level of resentment towards David that her father was speaking to him but she wasn't let in on the conversation. That and, y'know, the whole "father" thing. In fact, there's even potential room to be said for Weyland favoring his mechanical creation, one that he designed from the ground up, over his biological creation, who had a free will of their own. Engineers trying to destroy their biological creation with a free will of their own with their mechanical creation...man, if only David fought back Weyland in the end, that really would bring things full-circle).

Idris Elba figuring out the place was a research station with weapons? Yeah, pretty sure there were scenes cut that made that connection. I'll deal with it.

I'd say, aside from the black goo process making no sense and just being entertaining for a film, my only disappointment was thinking Shaw wanted to bomb the Engineers with the black goo but then still insisted on asking questions.

In any event, I technically liked this as an origin of the Space Jockey, and it basically confirmed fan theories I've had about the universe ever since getting into the franchise, including reading the original script Star Beast (where PAR is correct, it was described as a temple, and it was also described as jars and not eggs...though I think eggs were a natural part of it? I'm not sure, but it seemed like everyone was fine with the egg based on watching the Making Of documentaries in the Alien Anthology Blu-ray). In other words, it always seemed to me that the Aliens were a bio-mechanical weapon, and this confirmed it. I'm good with mystery in terms of Noomi, and I'm also fine with believing LV-426 had its own distress signal after sh*t went horribly wrong.

Oh, actually, disappointment number 2. It made more sense to have Charlize Theron survive and get back to Earth with the knowledge of this planet, but I guess that means you couldn't have an indeterminate amount of time between Prometheus and Alien. Not logically, anyway, maybe? I dunno. Depends on what Charlize's motivations would be. Or the company's, even. I'm still never quite sure why Ash in the first film had this directive that basically said "Capture this creature, crew expendable" unless they already had an idea of what was down there. I figured this would have made it clear, and David's insistence on freezing Noomi would have continued to make sense in that regard.

I dunno. This film needed to be longer to explain some stuff.

To me the whole movie seemed to be vague for the sake of being vague, and the scene where David talks to the Engineer and we don't get subtitles letting us know what he said is a perfect example of this. Yes he could have asked exactly what the old man asked, but the reaction from the Engineer makes you wonder if maybe he said something else.

I thought the story was a mess. I especially found the scene where the geologist who loves rocks, and has these great balls that map everything out gets lost trying to get out of the temple. That was laughable, and completely stupid. You mean to tell me these guys were wandering around aimlessly when they could have easily asked the people back at the ship which way was the way out? Or hell did they not have access to the map in their futuristic space suits? The others in a rush to leave seemed to have no problems finding the way out!

I thought the movie was cool to look at, and David was an interesting character, but the rest was all kind of meh.

Kurrelgyre wrote:
Mr E.B. Slugworth wrote:

So now that I've had the night to sleep on it, I wish I'd never gone to see it. I would have rather the origin of the Engineers and the Aliens remained a mystery. It just created more questions than answers to me.

I'm confused. You profess to enjoying questions and mystery, and then reject the new questions you've been left with?

To try and answer a question you did raise, no, I don't think whatever killed the Engineers we saw running is still going to be alive 2,000 years later, at least not in the form of an immediate and mobile threat. And there's a lot that can happen between the 35,000 year old relics found in the U.K. and the events that happened just 2,000 years prior to make the Engineers loathe their creations. Assuming it wasn't the events 2,000ish years earlier that the Reddit copied analysis surmises.

No one intentionally creates a weapon they can't control. It's just that these things have a way of getting out of control. Proliferation and escalation is happening right now.

As for the 3D, it worked well everywhere but the opening credits. Trying to read them hurt.

I didn't mind the mystery of Alien, because there were only a couple of unanswered questions that really didn't have too much bearing on the main plot. Where did the derelict come from, and how did the company know it was there? While this was not a direct prequel, rather a story that takes place in the same universe, I was just not expecting to have a lot more questions than answers. I hate to use the Star Wars prequels as an example, but unless I'm forgetting something we got all the answers we needed answered from the original trilogy.

All these posts are either too crazy or too long (or both) to parse, so apologies for skimming but I have a simple question: why did David poison Charlie?

Also, seeing ALG's OP makes me not want to ever create anything, in fear that he tear it apart like he does anything that isn't perfect. Christ, man.

Blind_Evil wrote:

All these posts are either too crazy or too long (or both) to parse, so apologies for skimming but I have a simple question: why did David poison Charlie?

Myself wrote:

Otherwise, I'm willing to let most plot holes or discrepancies slide as the film obviously being cut down towards the end. I'm sure David had more scenes where he was further developed. I'm also certain that, the entire time, David was acting in his father's interests (remember, before he infected Holloway he had been told by his father to get things going faster, so I believe the goo was nothing more than an experiment to see if, well, things could get moving faster. I believe people are really over-thinking his motivations. I also do not believe Charlize Theron to be an android, as she had shown a level of resentment towards David that her father was speaking to him but she wasn't let in on the conversation. That and, y'know, the whole "father" thing. In fact, there's even potential room to be said for Weyland favoring his mechanical creation, one that he designed from the ground up, over his biological creation, who had a free will of their own. Engineers trying to destroy their biological creation with a free will of their own with their mechanical creation...man, if only David fought back Weyland in the end, that really would bring things full-circle).

Blind_Evil wrote:

All these posts are either too crazy or too long (or both) to parse, so apologies for skimming but I have a simple question: why did David poison Charlie?

One answer: because he could.
Another answer: There's a theory that Weyland told him to speed the process along, and this was David's solution.

Not sure which I believe.

Also, I kind of loved the movie. And I love everyone's critique of it, and see issues with it and whatnot. But I still loved it.

Demiurge wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

All these posts are either too crazy or too long (or both) to parse, so apologies for skimming but I have a simple question: why did David poison Charlie?

One answer: because he could.
Another answer: There's a theory that Weyland told him to speed the process along, and this was David's solution.

Not sure which I believe.

Also, I kind of loved the movie. And I love everyone's critique of it, and see issues with it and whatnot. But I still loved it.

The thing I find interesting about that scene, and which I haven't decided on the interpretation of, is that David waited until he had tacit permission to infect Charlie.

Tanglebones wrote:
Demiurge wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

All these posts are either too crazy or too long (or both) to parse, so apologies for skimming but I have a simple question: why did David poison Charlie?

One answer: because he could.
Another answer: There's a theory that Weyland told him to speed the process along, and this was David's solution.

Not sure which I believe.

Also, I kind of loved the movie. And I love everyone's critique of it, and see issues with it and whatnot. But I still loved it.

The thing I find interesting about that scene, and which I haven't decided on the interpretation of, is that David waited until he had tacit permission to infect Charlie.

I don't actually feel like he waited. It's pretty clear that David was on a different agenda than the rest of the crew -- from when he brought the urn back to the ship and his own investigation of the goo. What's not clear is the why.

Also, I totally didn't consider that David would be saying something different to the Engineer until you guys mentioned it. That's even more fascinating.

ccesarano: I respect your decision to shrug this stuff off, but that's not good enough for me here. Interesting parallel to one of the film's themes, actually.

Demiurge wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

All these posts are either too crazy or too long (or both) to parse, so apologies for skimming but I have a simple question: why did David poison Charlie?

One answer: because he could.
Another answer: There's a theory that Weyland told him to speed the process along, and this was David's solution.

What process? The way I saw it, he (David, exerting Weyland's will) shouldn't have wanted to kill one of the scientists trying to connect with the Engineers, especially not Charlie, who wanted to make contact just as badly. Unless he's just a rogue AI, which I think think would cheapen the plot in a deux ex machina sort of way.

I'm not asking this as an idle wandering of the mind - I got the feeling it was shoehorned in to get the big Alien reveal at the end to make sense. I would hope the writers could find a more elegant solution, but apparently not.

Demiurge wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

All these posts are either too crazy or too long (or both) to parse, so apologies for skimming but I have a simple question: why did David poison Charlie?

One answer: because he could.
Another answer: There's a theory that Weyland told him to speed the process along, and this was David's solution.

What process? The way I saw it, he (David, exerting Weyland's will) shouldn't have wanted to kill one of the scientists trying to connect with the Engineers, especially not Charlie, who wanted to make contact just as badly. Unless he's just a rogue AI, which I think think would cheapen the plot in a deux ex machina sort of way.

A scientist, no matter how enthusiastic, would be just a pawn to a egocentric CEO like Weyland. Though I personally believe David was acting on his own, not so much with malice but with child-like wonder. But who knows?

I'm not asking this as an idle wandering of the mind - I got the feeling it was shoehorned in to get the big Alien reveal at the end to make sense. I would hope the writers could find a more elegant solution, but apparently not.

I don't understand your point here. Can you elaborate?

Demiurge wrote:
I'm not asking this as an idle wandering of the mind - I got the feeling it was shoehorned in to get the big Alien reveal at the end to make sense. I would hope the writers could find a more elegant solution, but apparently not.

I don't understand your point here. Can you elaborate?

I meant it as an elaboration of my original question, actually.

I don't see why David would poison Holloway, other than the writers saying, "Hey, we need a really obvious tie-in to Aliens, so we need to find a way to get this lady pregnant with some nasty business."

I should probably note I've never watched an Alien/s movie, so that was the only nod to the series that actually made me see the tie.

It makes no sense that David would be poisoning scientists on Weyland's orders. How would either of them know enough of the nature of the goo to know that a little bit in someone's drink would do, well, ANYTHING? And if they DID have some reason to believe that ingesting this mysterious black alien goo would do something neat, why would they infect someone in a situation where they have no control, rather than infect a prisoner in a lab where they can carefully observe the results to see if it has some business / military / decrepit-old-man-life-restoring application?

The only explanation I can see is that David did it "because he could," as some people have generously put it, or "because he is a dick for no reason," as I would more cynically phrase it.

hbi2k wrote:

It makes no sense that David would be poisoning scientists on Weyland's orders. How would either of them know enough of the nature of the goo to know that a little bit in someone's drink would do, well, ANYTHING? And if they DID have some reason to believe that ingesting this mysterious black alien goo would do something neat, why would they infect someone in a situation where they have no control, rather than infect a prisoner in a lab where they can carefully observe the results to see if it has some business / military / decrepit-old-man-life-restoring application?

The only explanation I can see is that David did it "because he could," as some people have generously put it, or "because he is a dick for no reason," as I would more cynically phrase it.

This was David's opportunity to be a creator himself; as the bottom of the 'created' totem pole, I think he wanted to try being the boss.

I think everybody is missing the mark here about David's motivations behind poisoning Holloway. It actually had nothing to do with Holloway directly, but instead it was because he wanted Shaw to get infected with an alien baby.

And how did he know that would happen? The thing to remember is that David knows *everything*. He studied the crew's dreams for two years, and apparently he knew or learned enough about the Engineers to use all their machinery and even speak their language by the end of the film. To me, it seems perfectly plausible that he knew exactly what the black goo would do to Shaw's barren womb. This is further backed up due to his playful attitude when he announces to Shaw that she is pregnant, almost like it was exactly as he expected.

Now that said, I can't say why he wanted her to get pregnant, other than he seemed pretty intent on getting her into cryostasis as soon as possible so she could be brought back to earth for further study. As to why he wanted that, I have no idea. Perhaps he is carrying out orders from someone else even higher than Wayland? Sounds like something they could easily explain in a sequel.

Can I just say as a random aside that I love Michael Fassbender's acting? I watch everything he's in these days, including that depressing movie last year, Shame. He's excellent and honestly I don't attribute these ambiguities to his acting. I'm sure there's footage on the cutting room floor that would make it more clear.

I think the easiest explanation for David's behavior throughout the movie is that he was deliberately trying to use the Engineers to murder everyone on the Prometheus and, potentially, on planet Earth.

He mentions multiple times his emotional life, from the movies he likes to the things he feels, and these are all roundly dismissed by the crew. Even in the final scene, his feelings are dismissed by Shaw with her quip about him being a robot and her a human being. But he obviously does feel, implying a degree of autonomy from Weyland.

But throughout the movie, David deliberately and recklessly puts people in harms way and lies to them about the dangers they face. He opens door, triggers mechanisms, collects dangerous samples, and otherwise endangers people even before he poisons Hathaway. But little of that would speed along the process of contacting any living Engineers; even if it did, what's the value in speeding things along? Weyland is in stasis. He doesn't need this to go faster. And he isn't woken until David gets him up.

So David murders everyone because, unlike the humans, he has seen his creators and found them to be wanting: lousy and flawed, with a cruel dismissal of their creations. (Assuming that relationship is mirrored, one can assume the Engineers likewise had a total disregard for the validity of the human experience and so when they elected to destroy us, for whatever reason, they didn't consider how we would feel about it. Humanity is a science experiment to the Engineers as David is a science experiment to us.)

When David said everyone wants their parents dead, he wasn't talking just about Weyland. He meant the whole human race. I believe he deliberately provoked the Engineer to kill everyone there and set course to destroy Earth. Notice that when Weyland is dying he says, "There is nothing," and David responds, "I know. Have a good journey." He knew what would happen and set about making it so. Because of what he felt and how it feels to be despised and discounted by your creator.

jamos5 wrote:

I think everybody is missing the mark here about David's motivations behind poisoning Holloway. It actually had nothing to do with Holloway directly, but instead it was because he wanted Shaw to get infected with an alien baby.

And how did he know that would happen? The thing to remember is that David knows *everything*. He studied the crew's dreams for two years, and apparently he knew or learned enough about the Engineers to use all their machinery and even speak their language by the end of the film.

Yeah, and none of that made a damn bit of sense either. Speaking the rudiments of their language I can sort of buy, if they're going with the idea that the Engineer language is at the root of all human language and he's been doing nothing but studying human language for two years. But operating their machines like it wasn't even a thing? Knowing all about the effects of the black goo when he hadn't yet interacted with the Engineer machines and had NO way of knowing what it was? Nope. I call bullcrap.