Dr. Shaw, is she real?

Prometheus should have ended with the song "[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSiU1T_w0-8]One more kiss, dear?[/url]", remember the lyrics? "Until tomorrow, goodbye" meaning that "Until we bring the hell described in Blade Runner, sleep well dear world", message of the elite corporations to us! Are we the replicants after all?

@Indy John Maybe it was not a song that inspired Ridley Scott, but this [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F]book[/url] from which "Blade Runner" was inspired and expanding it with the above ideas it also inspired "Prometheus".

Ridley was almost giving orders to David directly through his projection of himself, in some ways, onto the Weyland character. It's like a game of chess going on between Lindelof and the company (Fox/Vickers) for control of the Alien series after Ridley retires and Ridley realizes this... Before he leaves he's seeking to immortalize himself through his art, now that he's become the current King of the series... and the film is secretly getting at this. A brief resurrection to the Alien series before the head of Weyland is killed and the lineage is severed, Ridley is hoping to retire and pass the torch or at least lead Fox by example, leaving them with a lot to work with. The adventure will continue and we get to find out what happens to Weyland corp now that the creator and king is gone. It's being related to the situation beyond the film with Fox, their past mistakes leading the series to death, and being forced to have to re-create the Alien genetics/design and the whole universe. Upgrading the series, hopefully, by adding to the original design and mixing in new elements in a balanced way. It's even a game of chess where Lindeloff/David is playing against himself... Lindelof was brought in not only at Ridley's orders, that's only part of the truth, also at Fox's because Ridley needed a certain person to eventually leave in charge that can run a very specific sort of campaign and Fox may have wanted Lindelof above all others. If Ridley is Weyland, Lindelof is David and was only following orders during the rewrite; following orders for now. He's nowhere near David in real life so he might need to leave the series or get a lot more mentoring first. Prometheus was a collective effort although much of it seems to have stemmed from Ridley's vision, Ridley's ideas. If Lindelof has a team of people behind him some of his ideas are ok, bad team, bad writing and bad ideas and we get things like Cowboys and Aliens. Lindelof needs a mentor or a good team of people working with him if he wants to keep writing sci-fi. Lindelof also doesn't mind that it hurts to deceive fans with red herrings, and this is exactly what Ridley needed to complete his story. Neither of them want things to be like the Star Wars prequels-- too predictable. That's why it can't all be a dream. It has to be half-real and half not real, like David with his emotional understanding or what could be bio-mechanics if this android's artificial head/cybernetic brain are slightly different than the David7 and the later androids. Possibly a combination of replicant and android designs... This android line may turn out to be Weyland's greatest mistake and the new monsters of the series. A bio-mechanical prototype Weyland had developed, secretly hoping to only use the replicant design for part of the head/mind to still maintain control while making his "son" closer to real with each David incarnation... A rebellious half-android half-replicant mind, that has been designed in the ideal self-image of Weyland and programmed by himself and the Weyland-Yutani company. Which means there has to be a much better plan than the semi-predicted ending to Lost (many people think they were all dead the whole time but only the flash-sideways in the last season was the true purgatory). Lindelof's comments about the island not being purgatory are entirely true... It's more like the cork that sits above purgatory and shares links with purgatory and the afterlife; is an entrance to purgatory, as shown by the bottle thing in the last season, also very real at the same time.

As others have noted Weyland could somewhat represent Hephaestus from greek mythology. The character who has the fire in his forge and ends up allowing Prometheus to acquire the fire. If we apply this to the Lindelof=David thing, David being made in Weyland's image, and any possible upcoming mentoring themes-- then Lindelof may end up with the fire Ridley/Weyland had access to and Lindelof/David was tasked to play around with. As well Ridley's own son may step in to fulfill the literal father-son themes as he may be being mentored to continue the series too, should he choose. But it'll be different than Weyland's relationship with his "son' or Ridley's new partner and protege Lindelof. Fox is being shown how to properly weave a hybrid series together by Ridley, so Lindelof needed to know enough of the plan so far... the earlier draft of the script just gave them a base to go on for the characters and formed a rough outline of what Ridley was willing to tell spaights about the full plan. They chose to do away with facehuggers and all that because Spaights had the order of things all wrong to where part 2 would lead so things were shuffled between the original idea for two movies... and things were mutated. When Lindelof got on board the deception could start full-swing. Lindelof and Ridley both made a point of referencing Blade Runner multiple times, maybe not only because it's a great film by Ridley. A film Lindelof admired as a child. Both of them also hinted at liking Lawrence of Arbia before the clearer statements about the actual connections to Lawrence of Arabia within the film came about. Damon hints at the Bladerunner themes and connected universe idea just as Ridley did in the past. Something tells me the story he told about always thinking they were connected is a little stretching of the truth to fit a narrative they're constructing. They've hinted this whole time that Tyrell may exist in the same universe with very subtle things, and this is how a hybrid series should be created. In a way where everything connects in a logical way, eventually, and it's not a mindless mixing of monster vs monster... in this thread alone we can see Tyrell's name from Alien 1979. Lindelof is like David because so far he's mainly been following Ridley's orders, as he's mentioned and admires the film Ridley/Weyland is associated with. It was mainly Ridley's ideas that went into the rewrite, but like David he knows much of the full plan for the sequel now. It's just like how David and Weyland both quote the same great movie (Lawrence of Arabia), they seem to bring attention to the Bladerunner and the connected universe idea... there are reasons we should be paying attention to any and all Lawrence of Arabia connections that have gone unnoticed. Bladerunner 2 happening now is no mistake and this is all being carefully planned I believe. It may even take two studios coming together, Fox and Universal, to make it all happen (Weyland and Yutani in the film), connecting the series in a few bigger ways but not having to make it a monster vs monster film. Connecting it in a balanced way "a bridge and not an end". Making it a monster of a series. The human rulers in each franchise are already monsters in their own right... David and the androids have been made a little too close to their creator... and Weyland was worried about the replicant design lol. What the bio-androids could secretly do to humanity will make the Replicants' minor uprisings look like child's play before this is all done, only part of a small beginning to a much bigger universe. Another potential reason for the uprising that begins now that the king is dead. David will quickly subjugate not only all of humanity but the Engineers as well, challenging the Elders and the true gods to become the new God. When the king died David imagined he'd be free, his version of Paradise. There would be a little bit more to David's near-immortality, and a good hidden reason for why the androids in the future are less advanced,completely mechanical and not as emotion, and have to pretend to be humans.

Weyland didn't mind the possible consequences when he brought back the replicant design for the heads of the emotional androids because he wanted a real son so badly. He went back on his word and tried to combine the designs in secret. This is why David doesn't know he's more real than he is, even he has been implanted with false beliefs... instead of false memories. Shaw had to believe she was completely real. David was told he had no soul and was not real prematurely, he may be partially "real" or becoming a "real boy"(Pinnochio ref). Shaw's the closest thing to a daughter Weyland will ever have... a step up from Vickers... They had to have big egos to some extent, even the completely human characters so some could be easier manipulated. And Weyland thinks this version of David still isn't real enough... not even real enough to use in the way he secretly uses Vickers and Shaw... thinks he has no true soul, David wasn't going to be the"closest thing to a son" unless he included the replicant brain plan... Now Weyland doesn't realize his mistake allowing the monster to come to life, allowing it to trick itself into believing it is real. Which frees what was supposed to keep the emotions and his logic separate. When science and emotion are combined evidence gets ignored or the hypothesis and observations can be heavily influenced.. He's a Frankenstein/ Modern Prometheus reference in a way. "It's alive" and Holloway was wrong, Weyland was wrong in a different way: David's emotions are combining with his android side and making him more and more real because he believes it to be so and the biological replicant mind is actually in him. He didnt think Shaw had it in her too... More human than human. More human than most androids we've met so far. And secretly more human i.e. more emotional than most of the Prometheus crew. Weyland had hoped to upgrade the android and replicant designs by keeping it partially mechanical to retain control, while still giving him a close to real son. This backfires big time. Weyland's creations: David, Vickers, and Shaw will be Weyland's ultimate mistake, the death and rebirth of Weyland's company and Tyrell's legacy; as well as the cause of Weyland corp becoming an even more monstrous entity: Weyland-Yutani. The ability to choose what to believe that Weyland implanted Shaw with transfers over to David in a negative way, but it takes a long time for Shaw and Vickers 2 to come close enough to get through to the David 8s after all the destruction of some of Earth's colonies begins... Big things the company has been hiding. Like Dr. Frankenstein, Weyland gave David the wrong brain and it accounts for much of his actions. Weyland didn`t think that it worked and believed a version of what he implanted David with, that he could understand emotions but not feel them. Something in the replicant design is almost guaranteed to eventually lead to rebellion... combining it with the logic of his android side make him hate his creator and want to kill him even faster. But the programming that comes along with his form of bio-mechanical mixing holds him back until Weyland is dead... when he imagines he`ll be free.

That's very interesting but in this future replicants don't exists but androids do. And we know that the doctor bled blood not that tell tale white goo.

@Mala'kak Very confusing thoughts, I thought I was the one with complex thinking! @Indy John That snake in the temple room, definitely looks like a bleeding eye! Remember the dialogue in Blade Runner? Hannibal Chew: Eyes, I just do eyes! [img]http://www.apocprod.com/wp-content/gallery/article-pictures/043012-prometheus-international.jpg[/img] All these strange creatures are of course symbolic since we are in the dream of David. Take a look at a cartoon diagram of a bionic eye. [img]http://www.stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/NEW.052412.ProstheticEye.WEB_.jpg[/img] Article [url=http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/05/24/researchers-develop-bionic-eye-implant/]here[/url]. @Linus Spacehead If you read the thread from the beginning you will see that I suggest that this future in the head of David8 and everything is possible, even him imagining that he is human and mortal.

Here is another strange similarity between "Prometheus" and "The Matrix". [img]https://lh3.ggpht.com/_mE4WNHvoFmY/TCrCTpqaI1I/AAAAAAAAAvY/6-9IFXCVYN0/s1600/neo-wakes-in-matrix-pod.jpg[/img] [img]https://geektyrantsquared.squarespace.com/storage/2011-post-images/prometheus-bts-engineerhd5.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.zengardner.com/wp-content/uploads/neo-wakes-up-within-the-matrix.jpg[/img] Is "Prometheus" a virtual reality world after all? I have presented many arguments!

[b]Birth Trauma reminder.......[/b] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Watch close to the metal female breasts over the engineer's head in cryostasis (2nd picture in the above post, the one is exactly over the letters), this must definitely be a metaphor of a baby (the engineer) in the mother's body, with all this cables connecting it to the "mother" to be fed! So the space jockey I will say it once more is the baby connected with the umbilical cord to the feeding mechanisms of the female body, so this "sometimes in order to create one must first destroy" addresses the destruction in the colony that was going to happen (the interior where the baby is held) and the creation of a new life (destination Earth). So my theory is a lot more valid now, a baby was going to be born and where would it go? Of course to earth, that's why the engineer's in the hologram are a metaphor of the sperm heading to the ovum and the whole movie is an allegory. Wow, well done Ridley Scott you are a genius, everything was in plane sight. [img]https://geektyrantsquared.squarespace.com/storage/2011-post-images/prometheus-bts-engineerhd5.jpg[/img]

@geopap: [i][quote]Why did she say it? To which cord was she referring to? David8 is an autonomous unit, the cord that connects them in this virtual world maybe?[/quote][/i] Weyland told David "try harder" because Weyland wants to know the properties and effects of fluid in a human body, what is the goo and what can do, maybe of "fountain of youth". So David goes to Holloway, carry on a mortal experiment with the goo on Holloway body.

Dr. Shaw is the most human charactor in the film. She shows all the attributes of what being human really means. Before discussing her charactor, we have to look at what facts we are given about her. She persued Weyland and convinced him of the mission, so that tells us she was not part of the Weyland corperation until then. We know she bleeds, bruises, eats, feels pain,and has a human anatomy from when she becomes pregnant and the internal scan of her mid-section. Elizabeth Shaw is the one charactor who has held on to the qualities that makes us human, outside of the ships Captain Janek. She shows her faith in various ways, from her religious belief, to her faith in her loved ones. She is loyal to herself and also to the ones she has loved in her life. We know she is well educated, but does not let her education of science and medicine rule over her in her deceision making, and above most she has a love for humanity. She knows she was wrong and states it, and has to correct the wrong in order to save humanity from destruction from the Engineers.

Somehow the blending of David's android/robotic traits with Shaw's humanity would ,make a pretty complete Super Human.. @Oldmantime I like your overview,,pretty succinct.. for an old man..!

@Mateo That's the standard explanation, why don't we take it further? Since you read all the posts in this thread, why wouldn't Weyland be Ridley Scott himself pulling the strings of David8? The tourist guide to the world of "Prometheus", the world of allegories. @Indy John Did you see the female breasts I am talking about?

Some more thoughts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In the first scenes we see David8 watching Dr. Shaw's dreams. I expressed the idea that after this scene the whole movie is taking place in Dr. Shaw's mind, with the guidance of David from our world who can shift between these worlds (reality and dream world) Here we see David8 studying Shaw's dreams and learning her inner subconscious self. [img]http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5heeyu6Qh1qgd8e1.jpg[/img] Here wee see him welcoming her to the dream world or better the symbolic world. [img]http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5hefiqeKs1qgd8e1.png[/img] I watched the movie Alien again and having in mind the beginning of Prometheus (meaning the two images above), I noticed a strange similar starting story telling. Before the crew is awakened from cryo-stasis, we see the following picture, [img]http://media.rhizome.org/blog/8396/Alien-1979.jpeg[/img] next we listen to some strange sounds like voices from another dimension (dream?) with pauses between them and the letters from the display being projected to the helmet's glass. After this scene the camera slowly takes us to the room where the crew is asleep (with the fabulous music of Goldsmith played in the background), like taking us from the real world to the dream world and the crew waking up in their dreams to explore the subconscious projections of the mind and the beginning of all fears, the birth trauma. In the same scene (which can be watched [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7deEcyeVuw8]here[/url]), take a look at the red cap inside the helmet (on which the label "Emergency Helmet" is written), is this actually a metaphor of a projector? But a projector of what? Is the world of Alien, a Pan's labyrinth created by Ridley Scott to guide the crew of Nostromo in the direction to find their inner selves and understand deep truths that the subconscious has depressed so deep that cannot be remembered any more and the means to do this is this "helmet-camera", which projects Scott's world to the Nostromo crew's dream. So in this first scene it might be possible that Ridley Scott gave the program to "mother" and of course all the plot and images that he wanted to show to the crew and thus the game begun. Notice also the strange resemblance between the ancient drawings star system depiction and the circular projections' in the following picture, even the way they are set up remind us of the star system that "ancient people" draw. When we dream, noises or even a far light can interfere with our senses and change the dream we experience. [img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_marvi0WaIH1rhq7xgo1_1280.jpg[/img] In a previous post, I noticed the metal-breast like construction on the engineer's cryo-stasis chamber, this gave me another strange idea, since "Prometheus" and "Alien" are full of birth symbolism. Many people have noticed that the Xeno's head bears a great resemblance to the man's penis. This is correct since our eyes cannot deceive us, [img]http://images.wikia.com/avp/images/6/69/Alien-1979_2.jpg[/img] taking again one more look at the mural in the temple room I noticed that the figure that extends in the Xeno's depiction from under the chest vertically to its genital area looks like the female human genitalia. [img]http://gamingshogun.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/uxAo9.jpg[/img] Is this a depiction of the hermaphrodite man? The perfect human being? Is this why Ash admired its purity? The perfect organism that could breed by itself without needing a mate and of course spiritually more stable than a being being split into two genders. Think of it! A reference to the mythological figure Hermaphroditus can be found [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphroditus]here[/url]. Having also in mind what was discussed in this thread and in the other three links I gave in this same thread (threads I created), we can now understand why the alien ship had three doors, if the two symmetrical circular sides of the ship are the legs then in the centre we see a metaphor of the woman's body anatomy. The Nostromo crew entered the central door, which led them to the space-jockey which of course is the baby with the umbilical cord.

@JooJoobee Read the links to the threads I give in the first post and all the discussions here. I am not 100% sure that Dr. Shaw is mechanical. Is this poster another hint to figure out the hermaphrodite perfect man theme in Prometheus maybe? Engineer's head over the Xeno representation, as mentioned above Xeno's body is consisted of the male-female genitalia of the human species. [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheus_unused_poster_12.jpg[/img] Take a look at the following poster, the similarity between the human fetus and the Xeno is unmatched and this explains something else. [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheus_unused_poster_11.jpg[/img] The Xeno is the hermaphrodite man, the fetus, we can tell its gender for sure in 12 weeks, that's why it has 2 jaws because it has two genders inside, two bodies trapped in one body (metaphorically). Around 9 months it becomes the engineer and when the time comes the engineer (baby) travels from the mother's body to Earth (Paradise). The evolution steps are 1. Scream we hear when David8 played the hologram sequence, which is the ejaculation after a sex act. 2. The Running engineers a metaphor of running sperm to fertilize the eggs, only few make it in the end. 3. Creation of a Xeno. 4. Xeno (fetus) is transformed to an Engineer (he was bold, babies are born bold) 5. Destination Earth

I'm gonna have to go with negative on her being an android or replicant. As for the dreams, I believe that is how he was also communicating with weyland was it not?

In my opinion (always) here is a poster that has to do with the birth theme in "Prometheus". Is this crevice that leads to light a metaphor of the female genitalia, a passage from the female body to Earth, a birth about to take place? For those who understood the parallelism, it is a spiritual birth also, free from the flat sci-fi explanation and very deep in context. [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheus_poster_uk.jpg[/img]

More symbolism in "Prometheus". Male-Female in one body, also notice the snake (temple) and the cup (first scene of prometheus). [img]http://chemicalmarriage.com/wp-content/uploads/wpsc/product_images/GoldenHermaphrodite.jpg[/img] [img]http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120612195107/aliens/images/f/f4/Deacon_Xenomorph.png[/img]

Why did the engineer kill Weyland? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The engineer was a human being awoken from the nine months stasis, ready to come to our world, using the ship to go from its world (mother's body) to ours (they're leaving! to go where? Earth) in order to be born, this makes clear why the engineer got mad after the conversation with Weyland. Weyland committed a sacrilege to life itself, he substituted the natural birth mechanisms with robot engineering. This phrase "I made him perfect so he will not fail....you and I are creators we are gods.", made the engineer curious about this strange mechanic humanoid and disgusted by the way Weyland thought, he killed them all. Weyland's plans would substitute all the real people with humanoids and of course the natural way of reproduction of the human species would be lost in centuries ahead of the movie's events, until life itself, the unborn baby gave the answer by brutally killing Weyland and his employees. In the scene where the engineer is "haunting" Dr. Shaw, I am sure that he was searching for his mother.

I see that Mala'kak has gone into far more detail than I can imagine on a subject that was just brought to my attention: Is Shaw a creation of the Yutani company , a robot creature to replace the real Shaw in this adventure we call Prometheus? I don't recall reading much about this possibility at the site til this thread. THis would tie in the Corporate struggle for survivial in the real world while providing info for Yutani about this flight. A corporate spy so to speak. Having a baby is an obstacle to be concerned with and the fact that Shaw thinks, well, that she is Shaw, a real person. I guess there could even be made a case of Weyland making a Shaw replicant.. If there are other threads on this suibject please advise.. Still it is good to see that others have thouhgt outside the box and have takes a step back from the movie details. I want to see the overview and the details sort of bi-focal point of view.

I dont think Shaw was an automaton robot because that would indicate that a machine can have a womb for example. The mutated facehugger sperm could only have grown in her if she was a living thing. I know she was barren but you have to realize the alien creature always needed a living thing to grow and develope inside a host body. It would null everything about the story of how the black goo itself wouldn't have any biological material composition. Only a womens body would have made that placenta that covered 'cuddles'. I like the idea but it doesnt make sense logically when conveying the very nature of this entity.

Yes it was a reach and like you say, Anunnaki50, if she had a robotic nature than the goo just wouldn't work. It would be like David being a host and then giving birth. Maybe it is just the winter darkness that brings out some crazy ideas.

@Indy John A small correction on my metaphor explanations! Thinking of the running engineers sequence again and the Deacon-Embryo connection, I think that the running engineers are the sperm struggling to survive in the female body and that the last waking engineer is the surviving last one which would fertilize the ovum. If the human history is stored in our DNA, this is why the last engineer spoke the proto-language of the first human beings.

good metaphor explanations i like it.sound great,history is stored in our DNA,

I would simply like to add this here, it is a direct quote from Charles de Lauzirika, the man who created the supposed communique written by Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), which made some pretty obvious allusions to Blade Runner's Eldon Tyrell. He apparently got the idea from fans online trying to connect the dots between the two acclaimed sci-fi universes, and thought he would have a little fun to see if anyone would catch on. Of course, everyone did: [i]"That was me having fun and being cutesy. I wrote all that stuff. I actually said this at the press conference they had in London, which is that if it's in the film, it's canon. I would argue that the viral pieces that are included in the Peter Weyland Files are canon just because they originated with Ridley and Damon Lindelof. I would say those, to some degree, are canon. But anything else - especially these which are kind of like little cute, embedded text graphics on the menus - I wouldn't take those too seriously. It's just meant to be an in-universe framework for those viral pieces." "As a Blade Runner fan, and because there's been so much talk before this even occurred with people on the Internet speculating that maybe Alien and Blade Runner and Prometheus could all exist in the same universe, it was just more of a wink at that. Absolutely nothing to be taken seriously. I mean, I sent it to Ridley and he had no comment. [Laughs] So, it's just icing on top of icing. It's not the cake. It's a fun, little side thing that's very superficial. And, by the way, it in no way officially establishes that it's Blade Runner because, if a lawyer were to comb through that, there's no reference to Tyrell or anything in Blade Runner. It's just a very lightly intentioned joke."[/i] So as you can see, it is not canon, it was just something he thought would be fun to add to the DVD. Source: [url=http://www.blastr.com/2012/10/prometheus-dvd-producer-r.php]Blastr[/url]

@Svanya Ok...thanks for the info. Of course these people can get ideas from the imagination of the people who loved "Prometheus".