SPOILER ALERT - Did you catch the Engineer kneeling/Genuflecting?

Greetings! My first post! Regarding the Last Engineer “bowing”. Upon seeing the movie for the second time I noticed far more about his actions after being awoken by David. I actually failed to notice his bow/kneel on the first viewing, I caught it on the second! Interestingly, upon awakening what the engineer chooses to do is go round to the side of the humans and go to one knee, as if he is trying to recover a bit from his awaking. He is definitely looking down at floor at first. I interpreted his position as kneeling, I didn’t think of bowing (to the humans) but I think it could indeed be interpreted as that. (maybe he was praying, giving thanks he is alive ?). Whether bowing or kneeling this position stuck me as very important! He looks intimidating due to his mass and obvious strength; however he is not face to face with the humans. Instead, on his knee he is presenting himself sideways, it is a non-threatening pose. But on the other hand it could be interpreted as a confident (or unconcerned?) pose - as it is also a somewhat vulnerable position – indicating to me that he does not feel under threat, and does not feel the need to be on the defensive either (or maybe he simply awaiting something e.g. orders?), or display his full height thus towering over everyone. He is composed while at the same time not domineering. He does not seek to immediately confront the humans in his presence. Instead they confront him - on his own ship and on his territory! He is also at their eye level and remains so when being questioned and despite their obvious agitation and visible weapon(s?). Personally I would have never predicated that he’d go to one knee/bow upon waking. I would have guessed he’d at least try to stay on his feet or put some distance between himself and them as the humans are an unknown quantity and try and figure out what the hell they are doing here. Why does he seem so unperturbed at first? While he is in the kneeling position I was immediately reminded of the upper body of "The Thinker", a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin: http://www.artble.com/artists/auguste_rodin/sculpture/the_thinker/more_information/analysis “The seating of the figure is interesting as it immediately invokes the contemplative mood of this piece that would have been hard to create were the man stood up or looking out into the distance. The hunched torso is simple but adds to the sense of power that is apparent but by no means threatening.” I was also reminded of genuflecting - bending at least one knee to the ground - from early times a gesture of deep respect for a superior: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuflection I know that perhaps he had to go down on one knee due to feeling weak or woozy but surely adrenalin would have kept him on his feet if he felt endangered or confused or he would at least had a bit of alarm written on his face. I think he rests an elbow on his knee. If he wanted to get up quickly wouldn’t he have placed both hands on the ground? (I will have to see how he gets up – I can’t remember!) His head then goes up and he listens to the questions asked and makes eye contact, whether he understands them is a mystery. I can’t say he does and I can’t say he doesn’t. He never utters a word so we are left to rely on body language. Once Shaw is stuck in the abdomen that is when he stands to his full height, indicating to me that he is feeling sudden alarm and concern by the violence he has just witnessed, it seems like an instinctive response, alarmed humans will naturally get to their feet too. The moment he chooses to stand is perhaps the moment things change and he becomes potentially deadly. If Shaw had not been struck would he have remained on his knee for a bit longer and would violence not have occurred? Or was the violence that ensued simply inevitable? After he rips off David’s head he lets out a roar, which I interpreted as fury. I think the kneeling/bow is very important but I can’t quite put my finger on it and I am glad it was noticed by others. Shaw says the cave paintings are an invitation but perhaps his bowing/kneeling was in fact the invitation ?!! How do engineers greet each other I wonder? This film may have its flaws but I have to say the Last Engineer meeting scene is brilliantly done and is finely nuanced and far more complex than it first seems, it also happens so quickly that it needs to be watched more than once. So much though must have gone into it.

@Dan, on David, I never got the impression David had an agenda either. It seems that he has objectives programmed into him (probably by Weyland) to gather as many specimins/objects of importance as possible. Peter Weyland being as powerful as he was probably looked at the mission as something he would return to earth with success and assumed he would survive. Perhaps his ego didn't leave room for doubt about his success. So on his return, he could examine what David brought back for him. Also, David appears to be programmed to not act violently toward any human. I noticed when David was confronted by Vickers in the hall about what Peter Weyland said to David, Vickers shoved David into the wall and threatened him in order to find out what was discussed. David didn’t bother to even slightly resist her attack. I don't think David would have been shoved into a wall if he were to intentionally stand still. Actually, I don’t think David ever acted against anyone at all. His comments might seem like he intends to cause harm eg. “Doesn’t everyone want their parents dead?” But we know David does not ‘want’, so this doesn’t include him. David’s actions toward Halloway could be considered “against humans” but perhaps it was one of those ‘loopholes’ you mentioned, in order to bring back a specimen in a human for further study, he wittingly aroused Halloway’s emotions and spiked his drink. (Perhaps analyzing that he could put Halloway in hypersleep to take his body back to earth for study) Then he gets lucky after Halloway is killed, and finds that Shaw is impregnated, (I don’t think he planned on the two to mate and plant a seed) and attempts to put Shaw into hypersleep until they return home. Shaw is one of David’s specimens. One more thing… At the end of the movie, when Shaw tells David that she is planning on going to the Gardener’s home planet instead of earth, you can see when she asks him if he can direct her there, he pauses and answers “yes”, but I think the pause was him processing all of the actions it would take to do what she intended and still getting back to earth with as many specimens/objects of importance he was programmed to collect for study in the first place. Even with Weyland dead, he's a slave to his programming. Sorry for all the rambling, looking forward to hearing any thoughts

@Dan, on David, I never got the impression David had an agenda either. It seems that he has objectives programmed into him (probably by Weyland) to gather as many specimins/objects of importance as possible. Peter Weyland being as powerful as he was probably looked at the mission as something he would return to earth with success and assumed he would survive. Perhaps his ego didn't leave room for doubt about his success. So on his return, he could examine what David brought back for him. Also, David appears to be programmed to not act violently toward any human. I noticed when David was confronted by Vickers in the hall about what Peter Weyland said to David, Vickers shoved David into the wall and threatened him in order to find out what was discussed. David didn’t bother to even slightly resist her attack. I don't think David would have been shoved into a wall if he were to intentionally stand still. Actually, I don’t think David ever acted against anyone at all. His comments might seem like he intends to cause harm eg. “Doesn’t everyone want their parents dead?” But we know David does not ‘want’, so this doesn’t include him. David’s actions toward Halloway could be considered “against humans” but perhaps it was one of those ‘loopholes’ you mentioned, in order to bring back a specimen in a human for further study, he wittingly aroused Halloway’s emotions and spiked his drink. (Perhaps analyzing that he could put Halloway in hypersleep to take his body back to earth for study) Then he gets lucky after Halloway is killed, and finds that Shaw is impregnated, (I don’t think he planned on the two to mate and plant a seed) and attempts to put Shaw into hypersleep until they return home. Shaw is one of David’s specimens. One more thing… At the end of the movie, when Shaw tells David that she is planning on going to the Gardener’s home planet instead of earth, you can see when she asks him if he can direct her there, he pauses and answers “yes”, but I think the pause was him processing all of the actions it would take to do what she intended and still getting back to earth with as many specimens/objects of importance he was programmed to collect for study in the first place. Even with Weyland dead, he's a slave to his programming. Sorry for all the rambling, looking forward to hearing any thoughts

I'll go ahead and explain the xenomorph here too: 1) The one forwarding (star) address the Engineer/Space Jockeys/Gardeners did leave us (multiple times all over earth) is a site being set up with an idol surrounded by urns of transgenic virus set to release and did release upon the door re-opening. (for what happened to the Gardeners manning the site 2000 years ago ask me and I'll tell). 2) That virus is not just a single species ender, rather it is a "garden ender" for all multicellular life on an earth, aka a garden of eden- it will kill via aggressive transmission any multicellular creature from a worm, to a dog, or a human and it will employ the genes of the creature that it takes on as a bio-tool to kill the rest of those creatures - not just some - all the creatures in all the gardens that house the problematic species, such as earth humans. How so? 3) By whatever method [u]this virus is successfully transmitted by[/u], bite, scratch, spray, or (as graphically laid out [u]exactly visually[/u] by the wall mural next to the big head idol in the 'urn room') eventually by cell meiosis) that is how it continues. By cell meiosis you say - what does that mean? 4) When the infected scientist, Charlie Holloway, has sex with his anthropologist wife, Elizabeth Shaw, his infected sperm cells are the virally transformed single cell transmission organism into her normal human host egg. Note: (it wasn't a human to human infection, it wasn't a direct infection like Charlie and Fifield; it was spermatozoa to egg meiosis). So 5) That monster in the surgery bed (that eventually ‘mates’ with that last 'Engineer' before its tail dies) doesn't look vaguely human because it is a virulently transformed spermatozoa (coupled with a human egg) organism (Note: this is cinematically foreshadowed by the white worms in the soil transforming in the black muck of the isolation chamber into deadly snake white like creatures.) This means 6) It is a 'mid-species' transmission cell which is working from a single celled entity, a spermatozoa which has all human DNA and yet a sperm like body which were the inherited transmission method not just to infect, but to perform multicellular meiosis with a host creature (who is essentially is a multicellular egg to it). So just to be clear, 7) This is origin of the facehugger, a transformed single celled organism that can't truly live on its own, a spermatozoa coupled with a human egg. At which point, it,a face hugger, is an organsim with many of the attributes of the DNA it came from, plus some viral advantages like acid for blood, tough, amazingly aggressive, etc. You sure you wanted to know this? 8) So the 'new xenomorph' at the end of the movie is a virally transformed human sperm cell merged with a human egg cell. This begets a xenomorph who inherits the sperm cells characteristics, aka the facehugger, to implant its DNA in an egg to perform meiosis - this is a novel twist over simple viral infection on a DNA/cellular- the virus has become a multicellular organism. Don't believe it yet? Here have a look at this pic of it from the movie: http://www.prometheus2-movie.com/media_display_img.php?id=503 http://i1157.photobucket.com/albums/p589/jokerdeldesierto/315zuyw.jpg 9) Just as the mural shows, this is how it progresses from a virus into a creature. 10) Note as well this xenomorph has earth human like white teeth and pink gums on its two jaws. The pointier head and fully bodied birth might just be a growing stage we've never seen before. OR it could also be that the Xenomorph via meiosis always has recessive and dominate traits takes on some characteristics. OR - unjustifiably speculative - it might be that since this breed has an earth human father ('donating' the spermatozoa) and an earth human mother ('donating' the womb and egg), this is a version of a xenomorph coming from black goo virus to phenotype via earth humans and adopting their aspects. This might indicate that the Xenomorph from Alien, Aliens, etc. originated from black goo virus to phenotype taking on the characteristics of another, yet unseen race, but this is incredibly tenuous so I'd discount it. Want to know more or have something explained, just ask and have a lovely day.

Hmmmm.... I watched it twice and really don't see the Engineer bowing down. What I saw was someone that spent 2000 years laying down trying to stand up for the first time in 2000 years and having a little of struggle with it... I think you're reading too much into it.

Keep it coming.

@Fab_Deacon I respect that and thought that too for a while until I saw it a second time. Tell you what, knowing what I told you, watch it again and watch the whole series. How he coughs and then jumps up (startling Weyland - a distraction). how he gets into the very uniform and formal kneeling head to the floor bow. If you still think he's resting from space sleep and that isn't a bow, please let me know.

He has the same DNA as humankind. He is getting up from a 2000 year pod sleep. He is throwing up just like the humans do. Otherwise, there was no reason to introduce the humans throwing up into the script.

@Darrell41653, what would you like to know? Please be specific if you can. Also, I added some to the initial post and the xenomorph post - so perhaps reread. Let me know on anything you'd like to know and thanks for supporting the movie. Best, Dan

@LanSolo - Yes, you're exactly right. You understand movie formula up to a point as an audience member, but not as Ripley Scott does as a professional director. Why do you think Scott put all the hamfisted forshadows in? Why show us 'hamfistedly' David plop his finger into the drink he gives Charlie - with a special shot and big 'plop' sound? We were looking for that anyway right because we knew what David was up already, yes? Movies force feed ideas and facts, but take it up a step now. A good director can use those to hide things as well. So the thing I'd offer you might be missing is that to create mystery Scott has to plant understandings that will allow the audience to cloud the interpretation of the Engineer/Space Jockey/Gardener's bow because it tells a lot about what isn't known. Scott uses not just that, but also Weyland jumping back in suprise and an outburst by Elizabeth Shaw and then she gets hit. The Shakespeare phrase is what this is about "the lady she doth protest too much, methinks" In other words, why all those distractions right at that moment...[u]because if you watch it again now with what I told you, you will see it clearly[/u]. If you don't, post back man cause I'd love to be wrong.

@Dan321 questions. 1} if thats the granddaddy of face huggers, and the ship that crashed on LV 426 was 2000 years before, then how did that space jockey become infected with an alien that apears to only come from a virus infected human having sex with another uninfected human? 2} Assuming that the black goo is both a evolver and de-evolver of DNA {as shown in the beginning}, and not something whos purpose is to create Aliens { we know this becuase you either disentegrate, or your head explodes}. Then why the aleborate mural showing the creation of the alien species if it can only come from a unfertalized Egg, and not directly from anything in the tomb? You really do make some very valid points in your post, and it is well written.

This is great. Seriously. Very very well thought out. I am curious if Lindelof & Co thought it through on this level, or whether you are thinking like them. In otherwords, are they over or under-thinking this. Very cool brother.

hi Dan OK I see what it is your talking about but I must say that I cant agree with you as when he wakes up he leans over to cough he then looks at Weyland and gets up starts to walk towards them and then falls to his knees with a thud and a grunt that says to me its not a bow you don't bow by cracking you knees on the floor and grunting with it, so I'm sorry but that I'm not buying it but the rest is fine and enjoying what you are saying

@schwartzcoff hi what Dan is saying is that the alien on lv426 is the finished produce and the other alien is a fluke it wasn't meant to be and that it only shares DNA with its cousin. but saying that i have my own theory that this is the beginning and will evolve later to the alien we all know, its evolution. DNA is a platform on which to program what it is you want to make think of them as building blocks and instead of building say a house yourself you tell a machine to do it for you, now change this into a biological block (a cell) now the cell is told what to do to multiply and to keep multiplying till it as finished the job in hand, a sperm cell has a set of instructions but only half the egg has the other half separate they are both useless but together they have a complete set of instructions, now ok ok i know we all know this ;) now if you know what you are doing and can manipulate DNA just as the Engineers do and in the film prove it at the beginning buy sacrificing himself so his DNA can start from scratch to create us. they first design what it is they want how it should look then come up with a way to do it so they create us then design the contagion that will merge with its hosts DNA much like a sperm cell and the egg and creates a new life form now has always the first few will never be stable and this is where evolution comes in, the same as we adapt to our surrounding it will do the same and so the image in the wall is what they wanted not what they did. not facts just how i see things.

Hey, Good critical thinking. I really like a lot of the thoughts, but the quote "every king has its reign, and then he dies," is not really related to what you are talking about. I think you are extrapolating a little too far. Charlize Theron says it to her father, Weyland, to try and make him understand that he can't live forever. She is saying that he should not have come millions of miles away in a space ship, hoping to find aliens, for the sole purpose of allowing him to live longer. He is near death, and he came to the planet for that reason. He is a rich, powerful man, with the one of the most, if not the most, successful companies in the alien movie universe. Like a king... Definitely the metaphor they were going for. I really think you are stretching wayyy too far by saying he came there to retire the space jockey species.

@schwartzcoff - I mentioned it gets wordy if you delve, but here's to it. I'll answer #1 here and #2 in another post. On question #1 - the supposition "if thats the granddaddy of face huggers..." a) It is not known to be literally the granddaddy of the facehuggers in the movie Alien, inversely it also can't be eliminated as such. Why is that? b) Because the Xenomorph will eventually show up in any infected population. How do we know that? c) Because the Xenomorph progression from black goo virus (real viruses are just DNA or RNA) to full phenotype (xenomorph) appears on the mural wall that David read so intently AND more importantly we watched a lifecycle in Prometheus transition from black goo viral DNA strand to full phenotype. d) So because it is the established and repeatable progression of the xenomorph, we can't know if the outbreak in the movie Alien is directly related to our Xenomorph OR a separate outbreak with the same result. Is there anything else? c) Oh, sure! We haven't even seen what happens if a female human with a viable human egg gets infected with the black goo virus and fertilized by a human sperm. Assuming the mother survived long enough, one would infer we would get a xenotype with single egg cell phenotype characteristics instead of sperm. I, however, digress...so d) We only know that in the movie, Alien, the spermatozoa egg cases were already laid inside the ship. Meaning a xenomorph was born: perhaps originating from a spermatozoa case itself or perhaps originating from infected single sex cell meiosis. On question #1, the other supposition "how did that space jockey become infected with an alien that [i][u]appears to only come from a virus infected human having sex with another uninfected human[/u][/i]?" Answer: a) If you meant the last space Jockey in Prometheus, he's human too. b) If you meant THE space jockey, from the movie Alien, once the black goo virus successfully transitions from virus (genotype) to multicelled organism (phenotype) (as noted earlier), it, the adult Xenotype, can produce its own spermatozoa egg cases as seen in the movies Alien and Aliens, etc. c) If you meant the space jockey whose head explodes in the Prometheus 'examination room', he caught the black goo virus - not sexually transmitted version. d) Please clarify, if I didn't quite get your question as there's a lot of infected space jockey's out there.

@schwartzcoff - On your Question #2 You asked: Let's break your question down: Question #2 - supposition 1: "Assuming that the black goo is both a evolver and de-evolver of DNA {as shown in the beginning}, and not something whose purpose is to create Aliens { we know this becuase you either disentegrate, or your head explodes}" Answer: 1) The black goo used in the beginning reflects with metallic gold and other colors and hence is different in appearance than the black goo found in the urn room, which when David looks at it carefully, appears to have a matrix web in it. 2) When ingested, the black goo in the beginning of the film parses the subjects DNA essentially disintegrating the subject in a few seconds. (Presumably to beget eventual multicelluar animal life as displayed on screen in the sequence.) When ingested or absorbed directly, the black goo in the urn room approximately 16 hours later begins to affect change on the subject (Charlie), possibly leading to violent disoriented behavior (Fifield), and possibly leading to imminent cranial explosive pressure (nameless space jockey in lab). So 3) With different appearance and effect, I infer these are very probably two different substances that bare a resemblance, aka black gooiness, because they are of the same base bio"techno"logy. Much like the alloy bronze and the alloy steel bare a strong resemblance to each other's physical characteristics, but are different and have different qualities. So why the first goo? 4) Space Jockey's are Gardeners not Engineers. They [u][b]grow[/b][/u] via DNA/RNA their "technology" they don't construct it like earth humans do (that's the big difference.) How do we know this? 5) From the stromatolite grown space jockey building structure we see in Prometheus to those structures complete inner coating with "clear bio-algae" or "clear goo" (remember on David's finger on the control panel? It isn't all black goo you know. Also, the biologist may have been right - those streams on the floor may have been water, but may also have contained waste products being flushed through the build's flora...hence all that water.) Even the Gardeners' atmosphere and even control panels were bio"techno"logy. Want a more explicit example? 6) Okay for example, that is how David reads about how to use the cuneiform carved glyphs. - step1: swipe your finger on the bottom hieroglyph line to collect the green algae. Now you can use that finger to step 2: activate glyphs in sequence. The building appear stromatolite grown (oldest living things on earth - google it) from the look Even their ships with ribs, suits, and weapons (the xenomorph) are clearly organic in origin, but I digress. So why the first goo? 7) Because the Gardeners culture is an alien one to ours. Want to understand it? Then understand this 8) all their "technology" is living and just like they are 9) all of their "stuff" is grown from DNA (and possibly RNA) just like they are (and we are). [u]So all their grown technology are actually family relatives.[/u]. Think about that; They are related to their organic ships that have visible rib sections, their organic suits, their buildings, the control panel algae (or goo) and all the rest of it/them. To their entire "tool kit". 10) they don't craft techno-logy only bio-logy. For example, if only because non-grown "technology" is alien to them, they would never create a non-DNA based intelligence, like David. (and they might have good reasons for this.) But this isn't the most important part. So what is the most important part? 11) That unlike us, they don't distinguish themselves from their "tool kit". Put another way, they are in their tool kit. So what? 12) So they use themselves to seed a world with DNA (via the first goo you asked about). (We don't know the circumstances around the that starting sequence of Prometheus where the Gardener takes drinks the goo. Perhaps seeding a world with your DNA is a great honor. Perhaps it was a punishment. We don't know the reasoning in that instance.) What is clear though is that Gardeners don't separate themselves from the Garden quite like we do. On the second supposition of question #2 "Then why the aleborate mural showing the creation of the alien species if it can only come from a unfertalized Egg, and not directly from anything in the tomb?" Answer: I think I answered this above. Let me know on questions and thanks! Dan

@flacnvinyl - Glad you're enjoying it! The movie is a treasure trove of what is classically called 'hard science fiction'; I suspect from reading these boards that a lot of viewers (even those that love it) are missing a lot of the great stuff.

@Darrell41653 - As you wish Darrell, I will keep it coming if you or someone asks the right questions...and there are no wrong questions. Glad you're enjoying it.

@Draconis- Hey, you wrote: "I see what it is your talking about but I must say that I cant agree with you as when he wakes up he leans over to cough he then looks at Weyland and gets up starts to walk towards them and then falls to his knees with a thud and a grunt that says to me its not a bow you don't bow by cracking you knees on the floor and grunting with it, so I'm sorry but that I'm not buying it but the rest is fine and enjoying what you are saying" Hey Draconis, I'll just note - I don't want you to buy it. I don't want you to believe it. And I totally see what you're saying, I saw that too. What I am saying is, don't believe me - I wouldn't believe me, just watch it again now that you know OR don't watch it again. Remember, memory is more about what you were thinking when you laid down the memory than it is about what you actually observed. This is because when you lay down a memory it is a chain of neural connections and often consists of strengthening existing neural connection bundles. Hence memory is literally more about what you were thinking (which existing bundles you were accessing as relevant) when you laid down the memory. Hence looking at your memory, you literally can't observe what I'm saying. The only option I know of is to observe the event again (which you can because its a movie - too cool.) So don't believe me. I really don't want to believe me. (PS what I really want is for you to see what I missed and tell me about it which is totally and completely up to you of course!)