Prometheus question -spoiler-

[Geth Reich]

Why did neither the female protaganist or her Ayran counterpart think to run sideways when being chased by the alien doughnought of doom?

The funny thing is that this could've easily made sense if the filmmakers had debris fom the Prometheus raining down both sides of the tumbling derelict, preventing Shaw and Other Lady from getting out of its path.

Even then staying in the derelict's path wouldn't make much sense considering it's either stay and certainly be crushed or move and possibly be crushed by debris.....

But I think it's already been established these so-called "scientists" aren't the brightest bunch.

 

[Best of the 3]

You want answers? You want answers!? Well here- you can have...

MORE questions!

IS THIS ALL YOU HATH? HAVE AT THEE!!!!


OT: I haven't actually seen it, mainly because I didn't want to see a Slasher in space, which is basically what it sounds like. I would have liked something that makes sense and was a bit more tecky sci-fi. But oh well.

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

to find out what would happen, the whole film is like why is david so curious about shit all the way though, he goes in to holloway's dreams, he follows the "glitching" beacon blindly just to see whats happening. <3 david and the scary little fucker that he is

 

[ElectroJosh]

The real reason is probably more mundane (but equally frustrating):

David was to the humans what the humans were to the engineers so his interactions with the human characters were an analogue to the interactions the humans would have with their makers (showing similarities/differences between the creator and the created). So when David does something don't think "is he following orders?" or "what is his motive?" - instead you should think "what does this represent thematically?". In reality a lot of the film can easily be explained in terms of its themes - it was far more impressed with exploring these ideas and relating them back to mythology than making characters do things that made any sense.

 

[sunsetspawn]

You want answers? You want answers!? Well here- you can have...

MORE questions!

This movie needs a solid Plinketting.

I actually liken it to Mass Effect 3 in that neither actually make much sense, but at least Mass Effect 3 waits until the end to make with the space magic. Prometheus's black goo just makes with the magic for the entire film, thus making every moment painfully contrived. When you add in the characters and their nonsensical behavior (and nonexistent character development), this movie was just a visual spectacle that people will be using to demo home theaters.

BTW, just found out that people on Twitter are using "Hold The Line" in the election regarding voters in swing states. Fuck those assholes, that shit was for Mass Effect.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

In the history of science I doubt there's ever been an instance where someone randomly administers someone with a totally foreign substance and have it cure the exact ailment they were looking to cure.

Actually, there are cases of precisely that. Indeed, smallpox was cured simply because it was noted that milk maids who had caught cowpox (a disease that only causes a mild rash in humans) didn't seem to catch smallpox. So, an experiment was conducted where subjects were exposed to an infected by cowpox, and then exposed to smallpox. When the test subjects failed to die (or even get sick), it was determined that cowpox was somehow a cure for the disease, or at least a preventative measure.

Of course, it was wildly irresponsible given the relatively limited data and risks to the test subjects should the correlation simply be coincidence.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

I chalk this up to the fact that Damon Lindeloff, who did a lot of writing for Lost, also co-wrote Prometheus.

 

[Spitfire]

David was ordered to "try harder", i.e. find out what the substance in the vases does, pronto. The fact that he picked Halloway, of all people, to be his guinea pig, indeed doesn't make a whole lot of sense - then again, I can't exactly say that the scene would've had more gravity if David had used a random crew member instead.

 

[Bertylicious]

Prometheus was all about babies wasn't it? And that fellow in hell what has his liver eaten by eagles for all time?

I seem to recall reading analysis where a bloke talked about the black goo used in love (oooh yeah baby) for making nice things like people, plants and fishes and making rape monsters when used in anger.

Basically it was all about magic and religion and spiritualism rather than science and such.

 

[Woodsey]

Well, since David could communicate with them and interact with all their shit I figured he'd be the best one to know about anything they discover. His whole part in the story is centred on the fact that he does, in fact, feel - and Holloway was being a massive twat to him.

That didn't really bother me. What did bother me were these:

Why does everyone completely ignore the fact that their ship was just attacked by the mutated remains of a former team-mate, forgetting his brutal rampage that killed several crewmembers in literally five seconds?

Why does the female protaganist forget about her husband's agonising flaming death in the time it takes to change scene?

Why did neither the female protaganist or her Ayran counterpart think to run sideways when being chased by the alien doughnought of doom?

And all the pseudo-science, "I believe" bullshit. $3 trillion because you found some cave paintings? Eugh. That they actually highlight the fact that this whole thing makes no sense whatsoever given, y'know, evolution, and then ignore the shit out of it anyway? DOUBLE EUGH.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

There's a number of possible explinations. Unfortunately the movie is too loosely (and rather poorly, I'm afraid) written to come up with a definite answer.

One possibility is that Weyland himself told David to do it, seeing as how he was acting on orders from Weyland the entire time.

Another possibility are the flickers of emotion you see in him when Holloway proves himself to be a giant ass and insulting towards the robot just because he's a robot. Androids are supposed to be devoid of emotion and such, yet you can clearly tell that David hates that guy.

More likely it's a combination of things. Opportunity, wanting Holloway to die as he knew that would likely happen, and scientific curiousity. I always went with the notion that he doesn't know exactly what will happen, but he wants to see what will happen. By analyzing the substance, he probably saw that it contained alien DNA. Granted, it was a long-shot, but if you're trying to make your boss immortal you might as well try it and see what happens right? "Now I just need a test subject. Well Dr. Holloway's a royal dick to me and I don't need emotions to be able to see that. So with a slightly less-than-random choosing process, I'll go with him to be the lab-rat and see what happens."

 

[jbassic]

Weyland is always doing stupid random things just for the sake of expiramenting. This could just be David testing the goo to see how it would interact with human biology.

 

[Korolev]

Why does David infect Holloway?

Why does Dr Retard Mcspazzoid try to touch the alien snake in the space tomb already described BY HIM as "something out of a Holocaust painting"?

Why does everyone completely ignore the fact that their ship was just attacked by the mutated remains of a former team-mate, forgetting his brutal rampage that killed several crewmembers in literally five seconds?

Why does the female protaganist forget about her husband's agonising flaming death in the time it takes to change scene?

Why did neither the female protaganist or her Ayran counterpart think to run sideways when being chased by the alien doughnought of doom?

Prometheus was a watchable film, but not even an oddly dolphin shaped Xenomorph can stop me from asking so many questions.

Why does David Infect Holloway? The film doesn't give a direct answer. I think it was just to see what would happen - he is curious after all, and Weyland asked him to "try harder" in the quest to find something, ANYTHING that would keep him alive. He also clearly dislikes Holloway, despite the film telling us that he can't feel emotions.

Why does the biologist touch the snake thing? Because he's an idiot, I guess? Yeah, there is no real excuse for this, other than "dumb-character is dumb" - but if he was that dumb, surely he couldn't have been allowed on this mission!

Why do people forget the rampage? Uhhh.....ohh... well.... hm. Yeah. Weird, huh?

Why does Shaw forget about Charlie's agonizing flamethrower induced death? Uh... shock? That's the best excuse I could come up with.

Why didn't they think to run sideways? Well.... the script says that they didn't think to run sideways? Is.. that.. a proper reason? Please?

Yeeeaaaah. Film's got pacing and plot problems. Not surprising given the writer.... was one of the co-creators and writers of LOST.

 

[zumbledum]

So I only just watched Prometheus and (like a fair few people) there are some things I don't quite understand. I searched online for an answer but couldn't find a satisfactory one.

The main part I am confused about is why David would infect Holloway?

I understand that David was programmed by Weyland in order to try and make Weyland immortal but that still doesn't explain David's action.
Infecting your lead scientist with a random alien substance which no one has any information on, was never going to help in making Weyland immortal.
Especially since Holloway and Elizabeth Shaw were the two heading the project and the two which would have had the most knowledge on any finds. A random crew member might have made a little more sense - but even then one would guess that the best that could happen by infecting someone with a random alien thingymajig would have no effect and at worst - and most likely - kill them.
In the history of science I doubt there's ever been an instance where someone randomly administers someone with a totally foreign substance and have it cure the exact ailment they were looking to cure.

I did enjoy that whole scene especially as David first asks Holloway how far he would go for this... but as said, the execution doesn't make sense to me at the moment.

I wish I could pick Movie Bob's brain on this, because I'm sure he could probably provide a satisfying answer.

well way i read it , We know its an Alien film David doesn't, i assume David things it might resurect one of the aliens basically he doesnt know thats the gene seeds of a bio weapon he thinks its a storage device for the genetics of the parent race.

 

[Delicious Anathema]

I too had some questions left unanswered from seeing this, being an Alien fan, but I'll just wait to see the director's cut version with Ridley's commentary.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

What if, this movie isn't so much a prequel to Alien, but a sequel to Idiocracy? I think the movie is starting to make a bit more sense to me now.

 

[Odbarc]

Better question:
Aliens and Predator are continuity as a same-universe, so at any point do Predators hunt the aliens from Prometheus? (Not the infected things)

 

[tautologico]

So I only just watched Prometheus and (like a fair few people) there are some things I don't quite understand. I searched online for an answer but couldn't find a satisfactory one.

The main part I am confused about is why David would infect Holloway?

I understand that David was programmed by Weyland in order to try and make Weyland immortal but that still doesn't explain David's action.
Infecting your lead scientist with a random alien substance which no one has any information on, was never going to help in making Weyland immortal.
Especially since Holloway and Elizabeth Shaw were the two heading the project and the two which would have had the most knowledge on any finds. A random crew member might have made a little more sense - but even then one would guess that the best that could happen by infecting someone with a random alien thingymajig would have no effect and at worst - and most likely - kill them.
In the history of science I doubt there's ever been an instance where someone randomly administers someone with a totally foreign substance and have it cure the exact ailment they were looking to cure.

I really enjoyed the film, and haven't had the issues with plot holes that every single other person on the internet seems to think ruined the movie (except the 'lets touch the beautiful worm' scene, yeah I can't explain that one). Maybe I'm just better at using 'headcanon' to con myself into thinking it makes sense.

I think you're placing too much on the shoulders of the two archaeologists, cause that's really all they were. Sure they got to the dig sites etc, but from that first scene on the ship it felt to me like they were there for completeness sake and experience - I wouldn't call Holloway the 'lead scientist', given it was the chick who did the DNA testing etc. I can't remember when but at some point in the film I think the term was "he wanted a true believer". Especially once you find out Weyland is on board and ice-***** is his daughter running the show, it's pretty obvious they're only allowed to be "heading the project" in the same way you give a child a toy steering wheel.

If you remember David had just received the message to 'try harder' from a cryogenically frozen Mr. Weyland, spurring him to do something more drastic having found that nothing seems to still be alive or useful for their purposes. Given that Holloway has been such a douchebag to him through the film (and yes he clearly resents it, this isn't a beep-boop-exterminate style robot), I think David just goes ahead and tries to 'make something happen' with his usual disregard for others' safety.

Remember when he set the hologram running in the caves? And opened up that door while everyone else was still freaking out over the body? Similarly he decides to just take the next step forward and put some of whatever stuff he found into Holloway's drink - at this stage they didn't really know it would kill him. To describe it as an execution imputes too much malice - it's an experiment, with an utter disregard for the consequences.

I hope that's more of a satisfactory explanation

I never had much trouble with this specific plot point, because I thought the "try harder" part was an indication, although it doesn't establish the reasons for David's action very well. But it's passable. However, I'm curious about how you explain the completely stupid, asinine and inconsistent behavior of the scientists in the expedition, as: 1) a biologist that's not interested in an alien life form at one point (which is bad enough) but then decides to pet a really menacing snake thing; and 2) a geologist that maps the whole cave using flying sensors and use them to guide the rest of the expedition in the beginning, but then gets lost trying to get back to the ship (while the ship is still receiving data from the sensors).

It's not just the stupidity of the actions, it's the inconsistencies with their previous behavior and an apparent lack of scientific training or interest in their respective fields. I don't worry about the small problems, but these 2 guys specifically were almost nothing more than clumsily-written plot devices.

 

[Dark Prophet]

I liked the movie that said it has issues, most probably came from rewrites in the script, it felt like they had already filmed some parts and and wanted to rewrite some other parts but didn't want or could not film agin the first parts so they just kinda stiched it together. I hope there will be a DC or something like that. As for David, he was an android first of its kind and he was supposed to have some emotions and feelings to make him more human (the David trailer) and it always works out, right. Remember he came before the android from Alien and I think we all know how that went.

 

[Winthrop]

I don't get why everyone says the movie's confusing, it made sense to me.

I think it's one of those movies that makes total sense when you're drunk.

The juxtaposition of these two posts made me laugh really hard.

OT: I thought he was mad at the guy because he answered the question of why they built him with "Because we could" and felt angry, disrespected, and unloved.