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Prometheus Mutations Chart

Prometheus Mutations Chart

Innovative CBM user Alexander sent us this nifty chart he made to help understand the Prometheus movie. Good work dude!

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By ComicBookMovie - 6/21/2012
Tell us if this better helps your understanding of the movie in the comments below...

Not sure who to send this to. I've seen Prometheus twice now and have discussed it many times. One thing that came up many times was the many mutations that took place and why they were all a little different. So I took to some mind mapping software to try to outline what happened and to better understand things. I'm not sure it's perfect, however, I look forward to this provoking discussion and seeing if there other takes on it, or missing elements.

I think it is safe to say that this DOES contain spoilers!


Click on the pic to embiggen.
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returnhangar - 6/21/2012, 9:29 AM
yeah i stil think it was shit tried to be too smart and failed
elessarundomiel2382 - 6/21/2012, 9:29 AM
1st. killed by??? PREDATORS

2nd. Who are the "DEACON"??? XENOMORPH???
angus666 - 6/21/2012, 9:34 AM
The reason I didn't like Prometheus is because I don't want to have to do a grade school project to figure out a movie.
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 9:34 AM
there were 2 liquids
the ooze in the ampules that david stole and the goop that the ampules were in that leaked onto the worms
LucasMend - 6/21/2012, 9:36 AM
Deacon? I call that "Early Xenomorph" :P
thalidomide - 6/21/2012, 9:40 AM
@angus666

LMFAO!!!!
SUPERMAN2013 - 6/21/2012, 9:41 AM
Why did the ooze just start coming out when they arrived? Why after thousands of years?
ThreeBigTacos - 6/21/2012, 9:42 AM
Superman: the same reason an egg opened up when the crew arrived in the original Alien- they're suspended until motion or another living creature is present.
amxt - 6/21/2012, 9:45 AM
References to "Deacon" and "Hammerpede" are from Wikipedia, under the "Creature Effects" section.
thamorse - 6/21/2012, 9:46 AM
I remember watching the the first Alien and wondering where the Space Jockey and the Xenomorph came from. After seeing Prometheus, they both seem so much less interesting now. I imagined some weird Xenomorph homeworld, completely designed by Geiger. This rogue biological weapon angle is the lamest possible origin they could have come up with.
BattlinMurdock - 6/21/2012, 9:49 AM
I was more interested in seeing the GORGEOUS CHILD that came from Idris Elba rocking Charlize Theron while two of their own team got cobra****ed.
Niuhll - 6/21/2012, 9:50 AM
They mentioned when the door opened that they changed the atmosphere in the pyramid. It was airtight and thats why the head was so well preserved, it had been infected by the goo, but it wasn't allowed to mutate.
BIGBMH - 6/21/2012, 9:50 AM
@teabag "secret of the ooze" haha! so that's what michael bay was talking about when he said the tmnt were aliens! secret crossover, it explains so much!
6of13 - 6/21/2012, 9:51 AM
I don't believe that the "disintegration" of the lone engineer and his DNA could result in humans, especially when human DNA is relatively similar to other great apes. The fact that human DNA is about 98% the same as that of chimpanzee is because humans and chimps share a common evolutionary ancestor. It seems dubious to think that the lone engineer's DNA was responsible for all life on earth. I could maybe, if ever so slightly, imagine that the engineers were responsible for influencing the DNA of early apes creatures resulting in a separate species of early hominids whose evolution eventually gives rise to humans.
6of13 - 6/21/2012, 9:56 AM
It seemed to me that the lone engineer was murdered.
Ranger14 - 6/21/2012, 9:57 AM
You shouldn't have to need a chart to figure out a movie, as far as I am concerned anyway. Being thought-provoking is fine, but having to figure out what the heck is going on is another matter.
rjs - 6/21/2012, 10:02 AM
can someone explain why the little worms were there in the ground in the first place?
6of13 - 6/21/2012, 10:03 AM
@Thamorse I also imagined a Xenomorph planet. I think that it would be a for more interesting angle of how different life is physically and behaviorally on other planets. The idea of a technologically advanced race (like the engineers) being threatened by intrinsically instinctive but intelligent creatures like the Xenomorphs is fascinating.
6of13 - 6/21/2012, 10:09 AM
@rjs I can only guess that the worms were some type of parasitoids indigenous to the planet. However, judging by the hostile conditions of the planet, there probably was not many other creatures for them to use as hosts. At some point they came in contact with the black goo agent that mutated them into the "hammerpedes". They probably remained dormant until they sensed movement in the great hall.
Berger45 - 6/21/2012, 10:10 AM
What I absolutely dispised about Prometheus was the part of Shaw's cross and her "faith". Provoking and idiotic. If I were running around in that movie, I would not believed in anything else than mortality.

The whole point of us coming from the engineers are somewhat stupid. If they seeded our earth, if you will, and all life are based on their dna, then why the hell do we look almost completely alike them after 3,5 billion years? Mutations and ontogeny would have changed so radically. So did they seed the earth, then came dinsosaurs et al, then a little furry creature survived that would result in us ancestry, then we ended looking up like them? I love science fiction, the whole science with fiction.

Anyways, I enjoyed the movie. My friend(biologist) thought it was not well planned out that part. And also completely absurd, as I found; the whole Shaw and engineers evolution.
TheGambitFreakIsBatmanOfCBM - 6/21/2012, 10:25 AM
Good job, man! This solves the track and order of which things occur. While I am curious as to what the Engineers are up too, I always want to get pissed scared by some Xenomorphs! Please for the love of God Ridley Scott, if you make another, your making it R, might as well make it like '79 Alien and scare the living hell out of us, give us more suspicion and a sense of rummy.
LoudNoises - 6/21/2012, 10:30 AM
Can someone answer a question for me about this movie? Warning: Spoiler contained in question, lol...


Why did David put some of that mutation stuff from the container into Charlie's Vodka? Was he simply performing an experiment to figure out what effect it had on humans? It almost seemed like David had another motive. Why would he be so willing to put Charlie's life at risk or even knowingly kill him?
angus666 - 6/21/2012, 10:37 AM
@thalidomide it's true lol.
Greengo - 6/21/2012, 10:37 AM
FIRST!
Greengo - 6/21/2012, 10:39 AM
@LOUDNOISES: Something to do with discovery and David being instructed to try harder to whomever he was talking to in the helmet with the yellow visor immediately prior to that scene.
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 10:40 AM
who says that they seeded the planet before the dinosaurs?
it makes sense that it happened either during or after the dinos came about. i see it not that they seeded all life on earth, as you can clearly see grass during the tea drinking scene, but rather they seeded earth with their dna to make humans and primates long after life had taken hold
Greengo - 6/21/2012, 10:42 AM
The Engineers ARE the missing link. BOOM
LoudNoises - 6/21/2012, 10:44 AM
@Greengo

Right, I recall that. Weyland was instructing David to "Try harder" in the sense that he was trying to discover the secret to living forever. David didn't necessarily know the black goo would kill Charlie, he was just trying to figure out what it was. Makes sense I guess. Thanks!
HarrisonBergeron - 6/21/2012, 10:47 AM
The one good part of the movie was the opening sequence and it went right over the heads of even the people who say the movie was smart.

If you extend the theory of evolution all the way back, way before apes, way before reptiles, way before fish, all the way to the beginning the well established and accepted theory is that life started when primordial goo spontaneously became alive and evolved into very simple single celled organisms, then to multiple celled organisms and on and on until it was fish, who grew legs, etc. etc. Look up 'abiogenesis'. This is what was depicted on the screen after the DNA all turned black and disintegrated, it started evolving into single and then multiple celled organisms.

All Prometheus did was throw out the idea that the life did not spontaneously come from inorganic material, it came from the DNA of alien engineers.

The movie did nothing to show that Engineers only created humans. It quite clearly showed that they created all life on Earth.

The part where they say that humans have the exact same DNA as the Engineers was just stupid. They tried to dumb down actual scientific fact and instead were left with a scientific impossibility. It is fact that all animals on Earth share common DNA, humans and house flies have something like 30% similar DNA; this makes sense if we all evolved from the same source. What is retarded is saying that humans have the exact same DNA as a species that is not exactly the same as us. We aren't 10 feet tall, we aren't strong enough to tear the heads off of cyborgs with our hands, etc. To say that we have the exact same DNA as the Engineers would be the same as saying that we have the exact same DNA as Cro-Magnons. It just isn't accurate.
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 10:50 AM
what was the difference in the two liquids?
was the one that seeped out due to atmospheric change from opening the door, a safeguard against the stuff in the glass vials? in case the vials leaked?

was the first goop like when your soda can sweats when you take it out of the fridge on a hot day?

if the two mix, do they cancel each other out? is that the point of having them in such an "egg white and yolk" combination inside those metal egg-like canisters??
jj2112 - 6/21/2012, 10:52 AM
I have read an interesting theory about the first Alien movie. The ship, the jockey and the xenomorph were partly biomechanical, a fact which has mostly been ignored in the sequels. The ship was a biomechanical structure and the eggs and the pilot were just created by it, as there was no queen alien in the first movie. The derelict had just one purpose, the destruction of sentient life, perhaps it came from a dark dimension, full of Giger-designed nightmares, to our side. Somehow, someone attacked the pilot and implanted a xenomorph in it, thus disabling the ship and interrupting its mission.
LoudNoises - 6/21/2012, 10:54 AM
@HarrisonBergeron

Yeah, I agree. That was definitely interesting suggesting that the engineers were responsible for the first single cell organism on earth. In fact, that was so good I wish they had spent just a little more time fleshing out abiogenesis in the movie so that was more evident. Maybe the directors cut will expand on that more.
MoonDoggyX - 6/21/2012, 10:57 AM
There was only on Allspark Black goo in the film. I goo that leaked out of the canisters is the same stuff that David infected Halloway with. You can tell because it mutated Halloway and the geologist the same way. The crap that the engineer drank is the same stuff, because it looks the same and the movie doesn't tell us that its different. And IF it is different liquid, then the whole opening scene doesn't belong in the movie.
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 10:59 AM
@greengo - exactly!
@harrisonbergeron, yes and no

what people missed... was the different shaped alien craft.(saucer shape)
and the fact that the "ceremony" as it were, may have been a sort of suicidal sacrement to whomever the engineers gods are. they may worship a higher being themselves and seed planets as a gesture, ala a tea drinking ritual.the whole film is a chiken and egg scenerio, which came first? the engineers who made us, well who made them?

right on with the biogenesis, that is what explains the different variations of mutation from simple worms to the more complex squid etc.depending on how it was infected, as well as what happened when he drank it.
i suppose the goop was engineered specifically to interact in a certain way with engineer dna and was dangerous and volitile if exposed to anything else, hence the need for the baron planet lab where they make the stuff in mass quantities.

sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 11:05 AM
no there were 2 liquids, the canisters were a direct homage to the eggs from alien, in the way the looked when first entering the room and the basic shape and structure.(and obviously contained seeds of life)

metal egg shaped canister filled with a liquid, (that reacts to the change in atmosphere from condensation, and leaks) bearing a capsule with another liquid inside.just like the egg white and the yolk.
jj2112 - 6/21/2012, 11:06 AM
@Harrison - I thought exactly the same about the opening scene, but that would mean that it takes place billions of years ago (not just before someone did the cave paintings, as some guy posted here). Maybe that's why they show a different, older ship and the engineers don't have the biomechanical look they have in the movie's present. But then it makes you wonder why they didn't evolve at all during that time, being so keen on manipulating DNA and all...
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 11:07 AM
if there was only 1 liquid then david need not have broken open the glass thing to get at the other goop, he could have simply dipped his finger in that puddle.
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 11:18 AM
Fifield Micheletto, VATICAN ASSASSIN SPACE ZOMBIE!!!!
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 11:20 AM
ughhhh!!!!!

the whole cross thing and faith blah blah blah.....
was about who made the engineers!!!! who made them!!!!
SpiderFan35 - 6/21/2012, 11:23 AM
lol @ Tea, good stuff

Well after reading that helpful chart and all of the comments...I still don;t understand a [frick]ing thing! :P

I leave you with this (for those that haven't seen it already)



:D

GiftedYoungster - 6/21/2012, 11:30 AM
The theory i read was that the black goo mutates based on the users mental state.

Engineers = Selfless = Creation of (some) life

Humans = Obsessed with self preservation = A creature that can barely be stopped on way to trying to kill everything around it (fifield transformation)

This movie was amazing, sorry if some of you didn't understand it. Or wasn't enough Alien.
GiftedYoungster - 6/21/2012, 11:35 AM
@sansClaymore

I like to think of the cross thing as more of a satirical dig at american christians, the ones who always think then win any argument by saying: "God this, bible that. . ."

Also Veronica Cartwright in Alien was told by Scott that she was "the audiences point of view in the situation".

I feel like Shaw could have been that in this film too, just more to the faithful audience.
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 11:35 AM
Is that first planet in the prologue Earth?

Movies.com got director Ridley to answer this one:

Ridley Scott: No, it doesn't have to be. That could be anywhere. That could be a planet anywhere. All he's doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself.

skidz - 6/21/2012, 11:35 AM
Moral(s) of the story, don't let your creators get it on with worms, don't drink or inject alien goo (even if it evolved into every living thing on earth) that comes from your creators and don't have sex with mutants.

Last problem, though, where or what did the engineers come from?
GiftedYoungster - 6/21/2012, 11:38 AM
@sansClaymore

In the OST the song that plays is titled "Earth" and in that SFX doc that was on Main yesterday the artist said "Earth" as well, but I guess it's up to Ridley.

@skidz Exactly . . . Sequel . . . Not a problem just not need-to-know-information right now.
GiftedYoungster - 6/21/2012, 11:38 AM
***The song that plays in that scene***
UltimaRex - 6/21/2012, 11:40 AM
@angus666. Actually doing any kind of thinking before, during or after Prometheus lessens the enjoyment of the movie.
Dunejedi1 - 6/21/2012, 11:41 AM
@ thamorse. I thought the same thing at first ( about them deep-sixing the
aliens homeworld possibility ), but this film doesn't really ruin that. They could have been dropped off somewhere that they turned into their homeworld. Agreed, not as cool as if they had evolved there with other predator/prey species.

@sansClaymore. F-22's and Cessna's were created by the same species, but for different purposes. Different spacecraft doesn't automatically imply different races.
SpiderFan35 - 6/21/2012, 11:45 AM
If anyone gets tired of trying to figure this out, don't forget that we can always waste more time discussing LOST. :P
sansClaymore - 6/21/2012, 11:46 AM
i went in with one question.
how did the original engineer from alien come to wind up crashed on that planet.
left without the answer and a handful of more questions.

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