Prometheus – Help needed

This is an article only for those who have already seen the film, don't mind knowing what happens and – ideally – want to try and explain what, if any, sense it all makes. With that in mind, please read on.

The film opens on a barren wasteland by a waterfall where a humanoid-like creature does something with a small piece of metal before falling down the waterfall. First question. Is there any significance to this event later in the film? If so, what is it, and when?

I follow the point of Noomi Rapace and her bloke finding the signs in the Orkneys; can follow the thread through the initial journey while David/Michael Fassbender is looking after everyone; and so my next question is – why does Guy Pearce appear in old man makeup at the beginning and end of the film, but never as his real self? What's the point of having a younger actor appear as a much older man? And what is his agenda? Eternal life?

Next question. What is David's role in the whole thing? Who is he working for? Are his loyalties divided? Why does he give Charlie Holloway a dose of something? Is it the stuff that impregnates Shaw and makes the foetus develop so quickly? Why does anyone want Shaw to give birth to a monster?

More pregnancy questions. Does the monster impregnate the alien android which then gives birth to a baby alien? If so, why and how? What is the intention of the alien/android who is awakened by the humans arriving? Why has he been sitting there for millennia waiting for a bunch of space tourists? How did he/it know they were going to arrive? Why was he so cross and bash everyone about? Why didn't he kill them properly, if he was cross?

Why does one of the blokes who was killed in the tunnels suddenly appear at the spaceship, throw a few people around, then get burned up? How did he survive if he was killed? What was the point of that scene? And going back further, how come no one noticed that the two guys who'd left earlier didn't seem to have take a vehicle with them?

What was the point of this planet? Arms dump? Launch pad? Why is there a big facial representation, and what are the cones on the floor? Why is the space ship trying to take off at the end? To destroy the Earth? Why? Did the androids go to earth thousands of years earlier – if so, why? Did the scriptwriters read too much Chariot of the Gods? Did Ridley Scott take any of it seriously? Are we meant to take it seriously? What have we learned about the human condition and the meaning of life as a result of seeing the film?

As you may gather, I have a lot of unanswered questions, and these are only some of them. Please don't tell me I'm being too literal and it's only a film. But if you can explain any of this stuff, I'd be very grateful.

By Phil Raby

Front Row Films

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