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Splortched
MemberOvomorphJune 09, 2012Just finished watching the movie and was confused until I started reading the discussions here. Now Prometheus seems to fit in very nicely with the other movies which retconning some things. I'm going to attempt to writing this in a timeline which explains how Prometheus fits with the other movies and what I see as a possible outcome of the next movie.
1. The first Engineer created all life on Earth by ingesting a form of the Bio-Former. His DNA is broken down into it's parts which in turn evolve separately into species that inhabit Earth. This doesn't explain how we are a perfect match to the DNA and yet other species can be so far from us, but we'll give Ridley a mulligan for an interesting concept.
2. David is unstable. Bishop tells Ripley that the A2 Hyperdyne (T2 Reference in Aliens, James Cameron hamming it up) unit that tries to kill her in Alien (Ash) "Were always a bit twitchy." He then tells her that the new models which Bishop is one of cannot harm anyone due to a behavioral inhibitor. Considering that David doesn't have this inhibitor along with the viral marketing campaigns it's safe to assume that his behavioral coding wasn't as developed yet as Bishop's was.
This explains the "conscience" we see in him, where he asks Holloway before spiking his drink. It also explains how he could be "programmed" by suggestion by Weyland. David doesn't seem to be able to make full decisions on his own unless directed to or, lacking that, a lack of direction where he can autonomously make his own choices. This is evidenced when Elizabeth tells him not to touch anything and he stops, apologizes, then proceeds with Weyland's suggestion to "Try Harder."
David is also very curious and seems to be programmed to try new things. We see that he is not only playful (basketball scene) but resourceful and genuinely interested in his surroundings. His eagerness in the map room, his experimentation with Holloway and the writings in the temple reinforce this. He has his mission from Weyland yet he is fascinated with learning and exploring, seemingly reaching a compromise between the two in a sinister way.
3. The head explodes due to electricity. (Let's assume that you've read 4 and we're going off the assumption that the Engineers have consumed a type of Bio-Former.) There could be several reasons for this but the logical conclusion is that the electricity is the catalyst in the Bio-Former.
One reason could be that the Bio-Former contains or is affected by electricity. This could be because it's made of nanobots, contains significant amounts of electrons or some other technical reason related to electrical science.
Another could be that due to the age and the cells being preserved to the point of almost no decay that rapid decomposition happened due to the introduction of a foreign material i.e. electrical shock. The neurosystem on the engineers may be more advanced and therefore doesn't take kindly to electrical shock. Who knows, it's a movie?
4. Elizabeth and Holloway create the first alien. Technically the Engineers are the first recipients of some form of Bio-Former as evidenced by their skin and appearance. Even as an advanced race, gigantic muscle mass for a humanoid either can be explained this way or they have really nice gyms in those Temples. The Bio-Former we see in the movie seems to have a different purpose than the one evidenced at the start which suggests that it can be manipulated for different purposes.
Elizabeth is impregnated by Holloway and removes a half human but probably more weaponized Bio-Former baby facehugger/chestburster from her womb. It would make sense that she wouldn't be more affected by his DNA other than reproduction due to a mother's immune system being significantly removed from most children, plus nature is weird.
5. Elizabeth's baby is the first queen facehugger, the first Bio-Former weapon that has the ability to reproduce. I read someone's idea that weaponized Bio-Former doesn't give a changed lifeform the ability to mate, which makes sense for a weapon. The purpose is to have it be a weapon, not a baby maker.
Inadvertently due to Elizabeth birthing the baby, the Bio-Former "fixed" Elizabeth's immune system in order to survive. The Alien we all know cares only for survival, so this makes sense that it would do anything it could to survive. Due to the tiny amount of infected DNA deposited in her the only way for the Bio-Former to work would be to secure itself into a gestation period where it could multiply and eventually become free. Elizabeth's condition fits with this idea too because it could be that she has endometriosis or some other infertility disease, so it could be that the Bio-Former found a way to circumvent this unlike normal sperm and voila, pregnancy.
Due to the Bio-Former having to adapt to a different survival method other than intended (direct contact), it gained a new trait and the first facehugger/chestburster is born. It implants itself into Engineer and we have the second chestburster/first alien drone.
