Top Ten Unanswered Prometheus Questions
Prometheus was not exactly the Alien
prequel that fans were expecting, and it ended up dividing audiences. Some
people loved it, some people hated it, but across the board, everyone agreed it
gave us a lot more questions than it did answers—so many, in fact, the studio
actually used it as a selling point for the blu ray. “Questions will be
answered”, it said on the cover.
While I appreciated a
lot of the mystery within the film, I also hoped many answers would come in a
sequel. The sequel comes out next week in the form of Alien: Covenant…except, from the couple trailers I’ve seen, it
doesn’t appear to be gearing up to answer many of the big Prometheus questions.
I don’t know if Alien: Covenant will satisfy my
curiosity or not, but in the meantime, here are the top ten questions Prometheus posed and didn’t resolve,
most of which I really want to have addressed, either in Covenant or another sequel down the line.
Spoilers ahead for Prometheus, by the way.
10. Was Vickers an android?
This question doesn’t even matter anymore, since she got
flattened by the falling Engineer ship, but I still wonder about it. It’s never
confirmed in the movie whether Vickers, the skeptical Weyland representative,
was a synthetic product of Peter Weyland’s or a biological product. In the
third act we find out Weyland is her father, but hey, that doesn’t mean Vickers
is his naturally-born kid. Back at the beginning of the movie he says the
android David is like the son he never had, and then it immediately cuts to a
shot of Vickers, who looks pissed. Maybe
he made Vickers, too, but she’s more advanced than David?
It’s a question that’s been raised and debated by many fans,
but I have no doubt now that she was
an android. I won’t get in to all the extensive reasoning and evidence I have
to support it, but perhaps the most-crucial piece of info comes from director
Ridley Scott himself, who was asked if there would be an android in the movie,
way back when they were still filming in Iceland in 2011, and Mr. Scott
answered with this: “There may be two.”
Now look, Ridley Scott says a lot of stuff, so maybe he was
just messing with us. But if you watch Vickers carefully, there’s plenty of
things that seem to indicate she very well could
have been an android, from the way she dresses to the way she interacts
with David. This is actually my favourite unanswered question from Prometheus. It doesn’t really matter because
it doesn’t greatly affect the story, but it’s a fun guessing game to play, and is
logical if look at it from either way. Writer Damon Lindelof said she wasn’t,
but I don’t believe him. I’m okay with not having a firm answer. This is one
mystery I’m content to have left as a mystery.
9. What is the
Deacon?
Unlike the whole Vickers thing, this one I’m not okay
having left unexplained, and it seems like that’s the way it’ll remain forever.
At the very end of Prometheus, an
alien bursts from the dead Engineer’s body. It was nicknamed the “Deacon” by
director Ridley Scott, and has also unofficially become known as the
“Protomorph” because it very clearly is not
the same type of creature (Xenomorph) as seen in the original Alien films. So what is this Deacon thing?
What we do know is it had a much more complicated life cycle
than the original xenomorph. It started as black goo being ingested by
Holloway, who then impregnated Shaw with an alien fetus, which grew into a
giant facehugger-type thing (called the Trilobite) and then impregnated an
Engineer, which spawned the Deacon. The creature’s story was continued in the
comic series Prometheus: Fire and Stone,
but as for the film world, it makes one screech at the end of Prometheus before it cuts to black, and
that’s it.
When I watched Prometheus
for the first time and saw this thing at the end, I thought it was the perfect
way to end the movie on a disturbing, sequel-setting-up note. But now I watch
it and just feel like the writers forgot they were supposed to be making an Alien movie so they added this as a
last-minute tag just to remind viewers “don’t worry there are aliens out there!”. It seems we won’t be going back to LV-223
in Alien: Covenant, and there are no
intentions to return there anytime soon in any other sequels, so therefore
we’ll probably never see the Deacon again.
8. Why did David
infect Holloway?
What really sets the events of Prometheus in motion is when David takes a drop of the mysterious
black goo from one of the urns in the temple and puts it in Dr. Holloway’s
drink, thus infecting him and making all the other bad stuff happen. But why
did David do this? There actually is a bit of an explanation.
We find out later that Peter Weyland is on board the ship
and still alive, and David must take orders from him, so we can infer it was
Weyland who instructed David to infect Holloway, presumably to see what effects
the goo would have on him. But this isn’t confirmed, and there are still
additional questions left from David’s act, such as the issue of Holloway
having intercourse with Shaw. Did David know they would have sex that night for
sure? Did he know that Shaw would become pregnant with an alien squid baby? If
so, what was the point of that?
My theory is it’s just like in Aliens, how Burke wanted to smuggle xenomorphs back to earth by trying
to get Ripley and Newt impregnated and then put them in cryo sleep. David says
to Shaw they can’t remove her fetus and the best course of action is for her to
go back into cryo sleep. Sounds to me like Weyland at least wanted a specimen
to take home, if he couldn’t find eternal life from the Engineers, but I’m
completely speculating here, and a flaw to this theory is Weyland doesn’t seem
to care when Shaw removes the fetus.
Back to David infecting Holloway, it’s not properly
explained what the motives were regarding this act. Was David instructed by Weyland? Did either of them know what would
happen? Was it an experiment? I’m not really sure, but again, like the question
about Vickers, it doesn’t really matter anymore.
7. Why was no one
briefed on the mission?
This question is more to do with poor writing than something
purposefully posed by the script. I don’t know how I never noticed this the
first couple times watching the movie, but seriously, how stupid is it that some
of the scientists don’t even know why they are on this expedition? Vickers says
her company paid a trillion dollars for this mission. You don’t just drop that
much money on an exploratory mission and then not tell your whole team what it’s even about!
Here’s what we learn by the end: Peter Weyland wants to find
the Engineers so he can possibly find the secret to living forever from them,
and Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway want to meet the Engineers so they can learn why
they made humankind. But some of the crew don’t even know that they’re looking
for an alien race at all.
After everyone wakes up from cryo sleep, they have a little
meeting, and a digital Weyland comes out to tell them a bit about what’s going
on, then instead of explaining everything, hands it off to Dr. Shaw and Dr.
Holloway, who educate the others about their theory on the Engineers making
humans and whatnot. How was this not discussed at all until this point? The geologist character doesn’t believe
their theory, which is fair enough, but he just goes along with it like, yeah,
whatever, I’m here to study rocks, that’s all. The two guys who help fly the
ship make bets on what their mission is all about, too.
You could assume Weyland was trying to be secretive for
undisclosed reasons, but to me it feels like the screenwriters wanted an easy
way of explaining everything, so they just made it so the mission parameters
weren’t disclosed yet, that way the characters could explain it to those who
didn’t know and, by default, explain it to the audience. It felt lazy and
illogical. Even Shaw and Holloway question Vickers about a secret agenda they
don’t know about, which leads me to my next question…
6. Why did Peter
Weyland pretend to be dead?
This is once again an example of terrible screenwriting.
First, let me give some back story. In the original script for Prometheus (titled Alien: Engineers), Peter Weyland was barely in it; he never even
left earth. But in the rewrite by Damon Lindelof (who is frequently blamed for
some of the dumber aspects of the final film, and rightfully so), Weyland
became a much more important character. Ridley Scott cast Guy Pearce in the
role, and makeup effects were applied to make him look old (when in reality he
was only in his 40’s). But in the end, young Peter Weyland was cut from the
movie entirely, so what we’re left with is old Peter Weyland played by an actor
less than half his actual age who is so heavily covered in makeup he looks
plastic. It was a poor decision, I think, but isn’t so terrible-looking that it
takes me out of the movie.
With that explained, let’s get to the question at hand. As I
mentioned before, in an early scene the crew are welcomed by a hologram of
Peter Weyland, who says if they are watching this, it means he’s dead. This is
completely negated when, in act three, it’s revealed that surprise! Weyland was
alive and onboard the whole time!
This reveal falls completely flat for a couple reasons.
First of all, no one reacts. No one even seems to care. I mean, yes, people are dying and turning into weird mutated
beings and there are piles of dead Engineers and killer worm monsters, fair
enough, but still, you think they might be a little more surprised to find out
the head of the company who allowed them to go on this expedition in the first
place was secretly there? And another issue: why did his presence have to
remain secret? There’s no clear reason I can see, except Damon Lindelof wanting
to have a big twist/reveal moment, and this was all he could come up with. As
far as I’m concerned, the question of Weyland concealing his presence has no
answer, it’s nothing more than a plot hole.
5. What is the black
goo?
Unlike some of the other questions on this list, there’s a
pretty clear answer, as found through varying sources, but here’s a brief
explanation from the Alien wikia
page:
“Chemical A0-3959X.91 – 15, also known as Agent A0-3959X.91
– 15 and referred to colloquially as the ‘black goo’ or ‘black liquid’, is an
extremely potent and virulent mutagenic pathogen, composed of millions of small
micro-organisms, that was manufactured by the Engineers as a biological weapon,
presumably for military purposes.”
That pretty much answers my question. Except it doesn’t.
The rules regarding the goo are not concrete and easy to
follow like the life cycle of the xenomorph. The urns (A.K.A vases, A.K.A
ampules (why does everything have to have so many different names?)) start to
leak the goo because of a change in atmosphere and the goo gets on some worms
in the soil, which turns the worms into albino snake-like creatures called
Hammerpedes. But then, when scientist Millburn is hit in the face with the acid
blood of the Hammerpede as well as
the black goo, he mutates into a savage zombie-like monster. And then, when Dr. Holloway ingests the goo, he just mutates and
gets sick. And poor Dr. Shaw gets impregnated with the Trilobite from him.
So basically the one rule is there are no rules?
Fans have analyzed this movie to death, so there are some
possible explanations for how it works, exactly, but the whole point of my
question really is, if this black goo was some kind of mutagen, then why were
the Engineers using it as a weapon? When the black goo “got out” and “turned on
them”, as Captain Janeck says, what happened, exactly? Did the black goo kill
them? Did they mutate from it? The
black goo is perhaps the best example of the way Prometheus created more questions than answers.
4. What is all the
stuff in the temple?
This is a multi-part question that all has to do with the
room that became the central focus of the movie’s marketing campaign: a dark
chamber with the giant metallic head of a humanoid in the center. Two of the
characters in the movie ask what the deal is with the giant head. It can be
inferred to function as some kind of statue meant for worshipping, but whose
head it is (a particular Engineer, another deity, or a generic representation
of their race) and its exact purpose isn’t explained.
On the floor around the head are many of the ampules, which
I already covered, but why are there ampules both in this seemingly ceremonial chamber
as well as the cargo hold of the
ship, located in a different part of the temple? In addition to the strange
giant head, there are murals on the wall, which provoke more queries. In one
mural is what looks like the xenomorph. This is the only glimpse we get of an
actual xenomorph in the whole movie. Or is
it a xenomorph? Some fans have
speculated the creature on the wall looks more like the Deacon that appears at
the end rather than a traditional xenomorph, which is definitely in the realm
of possibility. But does that mean the Deacon has existed in the past, before
the whole infecting Holloway and impregnating Shaw fiasco? Why is there an Alien on the wall? Do they worship it? Revile it?
How long ago did they make it?
In front of the mural is a green crystal. What does it do? What purpose does it serve? Dr. Holloway
makes a point of going over to it, inspecting it, and then he says “This is
just another tomb.”
I’m sorry, what?
You got that from looking at an Alien painting and a green rock?
Another briefly shown mural on the ceiling depicts an
Engineer looking down and holding what could be an Alien or another Engineer or
something else entirely. And then, just to mess with us, the ceiling mural
changes when David touches the black goo. Why did this happen? This one room is
nothing but a giant riddle, and the worst part? I bet Alien: Covenant will not have any
answers about anything in it.
3. What happened in
the opening scene?
In the opening scene, an Engineer approaches a waterfall
with a ceremonial cup that has some black goo in it, he drinks the goo as a
U.F.O hovering overhead takes off, then the Engineer’s body breaks down on a
molecular level and he falls into the water, where his DNA restructures.
What the hell?
There’s no clear explanation given for what exactly is
happening here, but let me try to offer some interpretation. For a long time I
just assumed this planet was earth and this was the cockamamie explanation for
how humans evolved, but there’s nothing to actually indicate that this is earth. It could be any planet at any
point in time. But that still doesn’t really help explain why human DNA is the
same as Engineer DNA (among many other things). It seems like this act of
drinking the black goo in the cup is a ceremonial thing, but it’s not really
clear whether the Engineer knew he was going to melt down from drinking it and thus
was sacrificing himself (the more common notion) or if he was perhaps betrayed
somehow and this was an accident. What the hovering U.F.O has to do with
anything, I don’t know. 
I have a feeling we might get some vague information from Alien: Covenant that could be used to
fill in the blanks on what’s happening here, but I doubt we’ll ever get a
proper explanation. It was a very mysterious and intriguing way to start Prometheus, but to never come back
around to it with any kind of explanation was rather frustrating. The biggest
questions about this scene, for me, are to do with what’s in the cup and who is
flying the U.F.O. Is the stuff in the cup a variation on the same black goo
found on LV-223? Is the U.F.O. an earlier model of the ship we see the
Engineer’s flying later? Or is it another species entirely?
Maybe an even better question is, does any of it matter?
2. What was the Engineers’
overall plan?
This is the question Dr. Shaw and the severed head of David
are left with at the end of the film. “First they created us,” Shaw says, “then
they tried to kill us. I want to know why.”
Yeah, so do I, Shaw. So do I.
Shaw and David know that 2000 years ago the Engineers on
LV-223 planned to exterminate earth using the black goo, and somehow, the goo
got out of control. Most of them all died, someway, but a few locked themselves
in one of their ships and went into cryo sleep (presumably waiting for the goo
to go away?), and then all the events of Prometheus
played out. What Shaw and David don’t know
is why the Engineers wanted to
destroy earth after they apparently created us in their own image, so Shaw’s
plan is to find where the Engineer’s come from and get some information.
This journey for answers is what I presumed the Prometheus sequel would show us, and I
think that was going to be the plan originally, but alas, it seems Alien: Covenant is telling a very
different story. So when will we get the Engineers’ full plan disclosed to us?
Probably not in Covenant. This leads
me to the biggest question still left at the end of Prometheus…
1. Where did the
Alien come from?
Oh, right. The whole point of the movie Prometheus existing, or so I thought, was to answer this question. And yet, it didn’t even
come close.
So…what happened, Ridley Scott? You were supposed to tell us
the origins of the creature from Alien
in a single movie, and now it has expanded to how many movies?
Actual article headline: “Ridley
Scott has six more Alien sequels in mind”
Now here's an updated headline: "Ridley Scott teases two Alien: Covenant sequels, not four"
So I guess he doesn't know, either? I’m highly skeptical all of these movies
will be made.
We had Prometheus,
which I enjoyed as a stand-alone sci-fi adventure, but it was a far cry from
the simplicity and pure horror of the original Alien, and now instead of following up Prometheus with a similarly-styled film, the sequel is going back
to more of an original Alien feel,
which I think is great. But, now it’s an Alien
movie again, instead of an Engineer
movie. So clearly we aren’t getting a firm answer on where the Alien came from,
because it seems like it’ll already exist at the start of Covenant and, as far as I can tell, it already existed at the start
of Prometheus, too. Therefore we have
to wait until the next movie to find
out where it came from? Or will it be the next
movie? By then I’m not sure I’ll even care anymore.
What I liked the most about Prometheus was how much mystery it maintained while also exploring
something I had barely given any thought to: who that guy in the chair was in
the original Alien. I loved learning
about who the Engineers were and a bit of what they were doing with the black
goo and mutation and creation of life and whatnot, but now in Covenant, it doesn’t seem like we’ll get
much more of that. Obviously the black goo has something to do with where the
xenomorph came from, but what, exactly? Instead of further exploring it, the
sequel now just seems like a distraction from the main question.
Let me make it clear that yes, I am very excited for Alien:
Covenant. I just wish Ridley Scott was following up more closely on what he
established in Prometheus. He himself
even said he didn’t think the xenomorph was scary anymore and that’s why Prometheus became the movie that it did,
but now I see a sequel with Alien
right in the title and the xenomorph in all the trailers and I wonder, does he
even know what story he’s trying to tell anymore? At what point will we see the
Engineer ship full of xenomorph eggs crash-land on LV-426, or will we see it at
all? Hopefully, by the time this overindulgent and overelaborate story of
prequels is over, we finally have an answer to where the Alien originated,
otherwise, what was the point of any of this?
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