Thank you Kraft, A Corporation to be Proud of, for once.

In a truly brave and amazing statement Monday, Kraft maker of Oreo cookies posted a picture to their Facebook depicting an Oreo cookie stacked with the colors of the rainbow, the caption underneath reading:  June 25 | Pride.

Almost immediately the picture sparked a controversy, with comments in the thousands. Although most were positive, many of the religious right left comments talking of a boycott. I myself found it a wonderful statement by a corporation for once. I’m so used to seeing and hearing utter nonsense from the corporate world that to hear anything positive like this makes me think maybe it’s not too late after all. Maybe some corporations are worth a little redemption, and even if this is purely a PR stunt, it’s a good one and worthy of our support. For too long have the corporate world stood silent, with very few companies coming out in support of anything unpopular. Let’s face it folks, whether it’s right or wrong, unpopular things tend to leave certain people and companies as pariahs for making bold statements like this one in the past. Companies tend to stay out of this kind of thing because of that, and its high time we ask them to do a little more. Only when everyone who stands for civil rights, including the corporations, stands up against religious persecution from the right, can we as citizens truly live free.

How can any of us be happy with freedom for some, and not for others? The 14th amendment of our U.S. Constitution protects all of us from inequality. It’s time we started fighting states that take the rights away from a group of citizens in defiance of our Constitution, and send them a message that we will not stand idly by. Freedom for some and not others isn’t truly freedom; its democratic tyranny and no one should stand for it, especially anyone who believes in American values, the Constitution, and “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Ask yourselves what our founders would think if they were alive to see our Constitution being trampled on. What about that pesky little document called the Declaration of Independence? “…all men are created equal,” “…born with certain inalienable rights.” These are not merely pieces of paper; they are a code for which we should all live by.

I, for one, will continue to enjoy my Oreo addiction.

I feel I have to mention that not content with the post being buried in Oreo’s timeline forever, today Kraft highlighted the post effectively knocking right back to the top, reiterating their position and standing up to the talks of boycott. Good for you Kraft, not allowing public opinion of the religious right to sway your position, and doing the right thing.

And for all those little religious assholes on Facebook talking about boycotting anything to do with homosexuality, meet Alan Turing:

Not only was he a mathematician, and early computer scientist, but as a Cryptanalyst, he is responsible for cracking the German enigma code in WWII, helping to result in an allied victory. He is considered to be the father of all modern computer technology. He was also a homosexual.

So feel free to boycott all modern technology. That means no cell phones, no computers, no Internet, and definitely no Facebook. So, have fun you bigot assholes, communicating over cans connected with strings, and posting your bigot comments in the daily newspapers. Facebook will certainly live without you, oh yeah and Facebook that tool you are using to spread your hate-filled speech, yeah they support Gay rights as well, oh the irony.

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Prometheus continued...

If you have not read my thesis on the film Prometheus, I recommend reading it first before reading this article. You can find it here.

I don’t really like to do this, but I felt it necessary after the comments I received in email, on the web, and through conversations with people. Not in a while has a movie been such a divisive topic of conversation as this one has, and never have I had so many people send me hate mail or praise me simultaneously before. So as I said, I don’t like to do this, but this article will continue my discussion of the film Prometheus.

First I want to say that since I released my thesis, I have received a lot of email on the subject as well as commentary for some things I have said, on this blog and on the web in general relating to the subject. I will try to fit as much of it in this article as I can so I don’t have to create a third part later to continue this discussion further.

If you haven’t read my thesis, I would suggest reading it first because it will give you a reference point to begin with, and understand some of what will be talked about in this article. It’s important to remember that although I draw many conclusions about the film Prometheus, they are not factual except where I have explained them as such and included reference to that point as I will do. All other references here and included in my thesis came from my own mind, based on inference made through watching the film. They are based in opinion and should be considered as such. And although some of the opinions expressed are clearly empirical, factual accounts from second or third-party observations are not reliable as evidence. That simply means that only those involved in the production of the film, know to any certainty what the motivations are, and what the content truly depicts, anything to the contrary is merely speculation.

So as I was saying before, I’ve spent the last week discussing the film and the topic of my thesis to many people, and have found some get it, some don’t and some don’t care either way. I will choose to ignore the people who don’t care, because if they don’t really care to discuss it, I don’t care to include them. So I will address to the point those who seem to get the film and those who do not.

To say that the film is a little intellectual is stating the obvious, but it’s something I have to be clear about. When a filmmaker makes a film like this he does so to create a buzz, get people talking, and asking questions. If he answered all the questions about the film, in there, what would be left to talk about after you finish watching it? Art is great because two people can walk into the same museum look at the same painting or sculpture and derive entirely different observations about what they have viewed. Movies are clearly meant to have the same motive. Interpretation is the lifeblood of art, if not for that we would have no reason to think upon it, or discuss it further.  I could see something like this being the way a walk through the museum would go if we thought the opposite:

Joe and his wife walk into the museum, he sees a painting on the wall depicting a picture of a man in a boat sitting on a lake, a giant fish in the air, mouth open pointing at the boat. “Joe what do you see?” his wife asks, “A man , a boat, and a fish,” he replies. “Yeah I see the same, let’s go check out the sculptures,” she says.

Having said all that I’m sure that many people seeing that painting may think the same things, but there are others who want to know why the man is on the boat? Or why the fish is big? Or why does the painting depict a man fishing for lunch, only to possibly become lunch himself? What was the artist thinking? Nothing is truer of human nature than our ability to be inquisitive and anything that combines the creativity portions of our mind with those meant to derive truly intellectual thinking should be welcome.

What I realized was that not everyone thinks this way, and either they don’t care to figure things out, or merely want questions answered for them, in either case when presented with such depictions they break down and declare them as shit, because they do not understand them or choose not to. I’ve always derived my answers from observation, and it saddens me when others do not.

So now, on to the topic at hand, Prometheus and some questions that need to be answered.

What is the black fluid?

The black substance is an organic fluid that has superfluid-like properties.

David states the fluid is organic when he touches it.

Superfluids are a really strange behavior in quantum mechanics. Sometimes when atoms become compressed together they transform into a form of matter called a superfluid. Superfluids do not like to be contained, and will flow up walls, in cracks and anywhere else all trying to escape. Superfluids find a way out of containers, even when it appears they are completely sealed off. In the movie, we can see that the containers appear to be tightly sealed together and there are certainly no breaches at the top or on the sides that would allow any fluid to simply form there, so we must conclude that the fluid that appears to sweat from the canister has found a way out, a property of superfluidity.

It has the ability to detect emotion and respond to it.

I’ve explained it a little in my thesis and will touch upon it further here. When the chamber containing the canisters is first opened, David enters and the scientists concern themselves with the head of the dead engineer. The canisters seem stable at this point. When the scientists enter the chamber further, the fluid begins sweating from the canisters, and Shaw indicates human interaction is responsible for this by saying, “I think we have infected the atmosphere in here.” When David brings one of the canisters back to the ship and opens it, the fluid inside appears inert again. David even touches the fluid, placing it on the tip of his finger, and the fluid remains completely stable having no reaction to the touch of the android David. Now I have heard a lot of arguments but I believe my conclusions about this fluid reacting to emotions are correct.

1. David has no emotions: Fluid has no reaction
2. Humans in presence of fluid: Fluid has a reaction

It doesn’t get any easier to understand here and merely requires a little deductive reasoning.

It is both used to create and destroy life and is responsible for creating mutation.

The concerns of life and death flow freely throughout this film and can be felt at the very beginning. The engineer drinks the fluid; it destroys his life, and creates new life. But the fluid also transforms or mutates life as well. Although we don’t see the fluid create the snake-like creatures found by the two scientists in the chamber, in an earlier scene we see David step on some worms buried in the soil on the floor of the chamber. Either the worms were killed in the process of creating the snake-like creatures or they were mutated into the snake-like creatures, in either case the black fluid is the catalyst. Catalysts are responsible for causing reaction in things without changing themselves. There is nothing in the film itself that makes me believe the liquid alters its own state after interacting with something else. When the scientist and Holloway are infected by the fluid, they begin to mutate. We can presume the sperm Holloway leaves in Shaw’s womb carries this mutation. Mutation is a funny thing because by its nature, it’s a random roll of the dice. So you can see that no one really knows what will happen when you interact with the fluid or what you get.

What do I know for sure?

The engineer drinks the fluid, he disintegrates, falls into the water below, and DNA comes together.

What I surmise is happening?

I believe that the fluid is used by the engineers as a catalyst for life in this instance. The engineer’s DNA is separated, mixed with the environment of the planet he is on, and thus DNA recombines (his DNA + something on the planet, possibly in the water) making life possible on this planet. The idea of the primordial soup stems from the belief that all the ingredients for life are there in the soup, and just require a little something extra to put them together. So it’s no stretch of the imagination to say that the DNA of the engineer and the ingredients of the planet can be mixed together, however it’s the special properties of the fluid that are needed to actually create life.

Ridley Scott has some interesting things that may clue us into his line of thinking:

“Do you know anything about bacteria? If you take a teaspoon and drop it in the biggest reservoir in London … drop it in, and eight days later the water is clean and then suddenly on the eighth day the water goes dense and cloudy, but by then it’s been sent to every home and several million people have drunk it, you’ve got bubonic.”

My take on this comment is that evolution is an interesting topic, the idea being that you can drop something into something and get something else, maybe that was his thinking. I do feel like it’s a common theme throughout the Alienverse, squid impregnates the engineer, which then evolves into the first xenomorph. And presumably that xenomorph or another like it continues the path of evolution that result in the queen we see in Aliens, capable of laying the eggs we see in Alien, that birth the facehuggers that transform into the familiar xenomorph. I also find a particular line used by David when he has the fluid placed on the tip of his finger, a fascinating clue. He says, “Big things have small beginnings.” It’s a great line, and I believe a clue to the nature of the fluid.

Was the black fluid intended to be used as a weapon?

Once you realize the engineers do mean us harm, you can presume that the black fluid was going to be used as a weapon, however it’s unlikely that it’s what it was originally intended for. We don’t know its origin and so I can only surmise that either the engineers discovered the fluid, figured out its properties and its uses, or they engineered it as such. The fluid does seem to have many useful purposes, much like plastics, although these purposes are clearly biological in nature.

What do I know for sure?

The engineers on LV-223 were storing a lot of the stuff. The chamber was full of canisters.

Why would Holloway and the others remove their helmets in the pyramid, even if the air was breathable, couldn’t it contain microscopic life that could still harm them?

During entry of the moon LV-223 the Prometheus’ crew scans the atmosphere and determines that it’s comprised of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon-dioxide and other gases. Earth’s atmosphere is comprised of about 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen and 0.039% carbon-dioxide as well as some other gases. LV-223, however is comprised of nearly 3% carbon dioxide and as one of the scientists says as they begin their descent that would make the air about as breathable as breathing through an exhaust pipe. (However, I find it only fair to mention that carbon-monoxide is far more likely to kill you coming out the exhaust pipe of a car than carbon-dioxide.) So this atmosphere although very similar is still different enough to make it unbreathable for humans.

When the crew enter the pyramid there comes a point when the air inside becomes breathable. Someone suggests the engineers were possibly terraforming, as the air is even cleaner than on the Earth. Concerning the idea that Holloway would remove his helmet and the others would follow as a gross error in judgment irrespective of their surroundings, I only have a few things to say. It’s possible that Holloway is somewhat of a dare-devil or risk taker and it might just be completely within his nature to do something so risky. One could also surmise that the scientists believed that if the engineers intended to make the air breathable enough for humans or anything else that could breathe it to be able to breathe it, they might make it safe enough for it to be breathed.  A good way to look at it is that pool owners often task themselves with cleaning the pool and have a long scoop they use to grab the leaves and other gunk that falls into the water. But they also use chlorine tablets to kill bacteria in the pool, thus making it safe to swim in.

It’s not hard to believe that the engineers might value the same kind of processing in their air system, a filtration system that not only makes the air breathable but clean of microbes. Again, the scientist notes that the air is cleaner than on Earth, which can be taken two ways. It’s clean enough to breathe, and clean because it’s free of toxins and microbes.

What do I know for sure?

Holloway and the others remove their helmets; no one dies as a result of breathing the air in the pyramid.

Why does the biologist frighten at the sight of the dead engineers, but appear to be unconcerned when face to face with the living snake-like creature?

Fear motivates people in different ways and none of them are predictable. The way one person reacts in a given situation can differ completely from the way another person acts in the same situation. Having said that, biology is the study of life, not death. A cryptozoologist, pathologist, or paleontologist are all more likely to want to study the dead engineer than the biologist. When the biologist becomes aware of the living creature before him, that inquisitive human nature as well as the scientist in him, and his field of study of course, pushes him toward the creature instead of away. That does not mean he wasn’t afraid of course, only that his interest outweighed his fear. He begins playing with the creature, which likely relaxed him, making him less concerned, and causing him to want to touch it, which he does. I might also point out that a small snake might be a lot less of threatening concern than an eight foot long human-like creature, even if its dead.

What do I know for sure?

The man scares at the sight of dead things and not at the sight of living things. He wouldn’t be the first person. Ask yourself how many people you know that might run at the sight of a dead body but not at the sight of a stranger.

Why did David infect Holloway with the black fluid? And did Weyland have anything to do with it?

David opens the canister he has taken from the pyramid and removes some of the fluid. He then enters Holloway’s presence with a glass and bottle of liquor and offers it to him. He talks a bit to Holloway and asks him what he might do to get the answers he is looking for, and Holloway tells him anything. After pouring the glass full of liquor he taps his finger into the glass dropping in the fluid. Now there is a lot of speculation as to why David would do this in the first place. But I believe that although his motives are not entirely clear, it matters not to the plot in the end.

There are a few things to consider here.

1. David is an android; he is programmed and follows that programming like any machine.
2. He is as inquisitive as humans, emotional or not. He does more than a few things just to see what happens.
3. We don’t know for sure that David was following the orders of Weyland.

What do I know for sure?

David comes from Weyland’s quarters having spoken to him through an interface of the stasis pod, we know nothing about the conversation they had other than what he tells Vickers when she asks him. He tells her that Weyland instructed David to try harder. David spikes Holloway’s drink with the fluid, infecting him.

What do I surmise happens?

Well first of all we know that from Aliens, the sequel to Alien, that Bishop tells Ripley that previous models of androids do not feature the behavior modifiers that present androids feature that do not allow them to harm humans. We also know that previous to Aliens, in the film Alien the android Ash tries to kill the crew. Knowing Prometheus is a prequel to Alien that establishes the fact that David predates the androids of Aliens which we know have the behavior modifiers, but also the androids of Alien which do not, meaning David is unlikely to feature such a device. We also know David has no emotional baggage thus would not suffer from the guilt of infecting Holloway. Knowing that David has been in communication with Weyland it’s reasonable to believe Weyland asked David what might happen when the fluid interacts with a human, especially if David told him what happened in the chamber when he entered and when the rest of the crew entered. It’s also reasonable to believe that David might have merely wanted to see what would happen if he infected Holloway, knowing that the fluid would not interact with him.

Damon Lindelof, one of the screenwriters had to say on this:

That's his programming. In the scene preceding him doing that, he is talking to Weyland (although we don't know it at the time) and he's telling Weyland that this is a bust. That they haven't found anything on this mission other than the stuff in the vials. And Weyland presumably says to him, "Well, what's in the vials?" And David would say, "I'm not entirely sure, we'll have to run some experiments." And Weyland would say, "What would happen if you put it in inside a person?" And David would say, "I don't know, I'll go find out." He doesn't know that he's poisoning Holloway, he asks Holloway, "What would you be willing to do to get the answers to your questions?" Holloway says, "Anything and everything." And that basically overrides whatever ethical programming David is mandated by, [allowing him] to spike his drink.

Shaw tells Holloway that their tests on the dead engineer head prove that we came from the engineers because the DNA is identical to human DNA. But how is this possible, wouldn’t the engineers be more human if their DNA was identical?

This I believe is clearly where Scott and the writers blunder completely with the science. If the DNA was identical they would be human in every respect and so to explain what I believe the writers meant to say and not what they actually said was that the DNA is close enough to assume a common ancestor.

Evolutionary biology is based on the theory of the common ancestor. The belief is that all life derives its existence from the same genetic material and merely branched off into different lifeforms over time.

All life has DNA, and that means that humans share some part of their genetic code with the other forms of life on Earth including reptiles, birds, mammals, insects, and even plants. The theory is that if you were to go backward through time with each lifeform, reducing complexity, a reverse evolution of sorts, you would be able to find the common ancestors.

We have no actual idea when the opening scene takes place, but we can assume it’s before life begins on Earth. Assuming this is true, and then the engineers DNA mixing into the primordial soup allows the creation of the first microbes, which eventually lead to the evolution of humans, it is plausible to believe Shaw could have meant the DNA shared a common ancestor.

Why do the engineers want to kill us? Didn’t they create us? Was creating us some kind of mistake?

My thesis documents this premise quite well, so I don’t want to be too repetitive. I can only say that they do want to kill us, and they did create us. Whether it’s a mistake or not is all in perspective. Mistakes happen all the time, some are happy mistakes and some are the kind we all want to forget. The motives for destroying mankind are in the film if you can follow the clues to their logical conclusion.

What do I know for sure?

The engineers created all life on Earth. They nurtured us, followed our progress and even helped us advance. We drew pictures depicting their visitations to Earth on cave walls. Then about 2,000 years ago they suddenly stopped taking an interest in our development and instead decided we were not worthy of existence after all. Through an unpredictable occurrence, they failed in their mission of extermination and humans were allowed to advance further.

What I surmise happened?

The engineers made us, they helped us build all the things we needed to advance like tools, the wheel, roads, architecture, and with those tools we built the weapons of war. We turned the seeds of goodwill into a war machine and started on the path of destruction ourselves. Around the time of the Roman Empire, the engineers still believing humans worth redemption sent an emissary to help us named Jesus Christ, and we murdered him. The engineers deemed humans worthy of extermination instead of redemption and began a mission to destroy us.

What Ridley Scott had to say on this?

“…We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an "our children are misbehaving down there" scenario, there are moments where it looks like we've gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, let’s send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it. Guess what? They crucified him.”

I do want to say that one of the questions I have received is in regards to the murals? What do they signify and such? I have answered this I believe quite adequately in my thesis, however I have updated it to include still images of the murals to give you a better look at them so you can see what I saw instead of wondering yourself. If you have already read the thesis and just want to see the two murals here is the first mural depicting the spearing of Christ and the second mural depicting the evil monster, Satan, or xenomorph, you choose.

I just want to say in closing that Damon Lindelof during an interview stated that he had just finished explaining a few things on the commentary of the DVD release for the movie. What that tells me is that many of these questions and more will be answered in that commentary. I would also like to say that people seem hung up on the idea that the film simply leaves too many questions unanswered. I believe the answers are there if you look, but more importantly this is a story that is unfinished. Ridley Scott has already stated as much saying at least two more movies would be needed after this one. So for that reason people are complaining about open questions having only seen part one in a three-part story. Relax and enjoy.

I’m sure there are many more questions you may have about the film and you are welcome to email me or leave your questions in the comment section of the blog and I will try to answer them.

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Prometheus: An Amalgamate of Mythology, Religion, and Science-fiction, Worthy of a Second Look.

Before continuing, please note that this is a thesis that will contain spoilers to the film Prometheus and if you haven't seen the film yet, (What the hell is wrong with you?) you should see it first and then read this thesis.

A year ago when I heard Ridley Scott was making a prequel to the hit film Alien, I knew it was going to be spectacular. At that point I hadn't known yet what he would call it, but it didn't matter, as anything Ridley Scott makes, tends to be art meets science-fiction. So when I heard the name of the movie would be called Prometheus, I immediately knew that it was going to be something special.

Those who are unfamiliar with Greek mythology might not pick up on it, but the title immediately resonated with me, and I knew we would be seeing a creation story of some sort, though at this point little information about the film was available. So first a lesson on Greek mythology because it bares of some importance.


In the Greek mythology, Prometheus was a titan. Titans were very powerful deities who ruled the heavens until they were overthrown by another group of deities called the Olympians. Prometheus, one of the lower titans apparently out of boredom, created man from clay. Zeus and the other Gods were okay with this as humans were merely lower forms of life and did not have the means of innovation or thought process to become more than they were. To the Gods, humans were comparable to cats and dogs, or other play things we humans take for granted. To the Gods, humans were merely pets.

Prometheus not entirely happy with this, and with a sense of benevolent intent, gives humans the ability to walk upright. Zeus and the others again, seem to not truly pay attention. Prometheus walks among his creations, learns from them, and maybe with some foresight, believes they are worthy of more. (This is important, as I will explain a little later.) So out of love for his creations, Prometheus steals fire from Zeus and gives it to the humans. Zeus is angered by this, believing humans unworthy or unready for such technology, he punishes Prometheus. Prometheus is chained to a rock and an eagle is sent each day to bite into his chest and eat his liver, which grows back at the end of each day, so that the process may repeat again forever.

The etymology of the name Prometheus comes from the Greek words for pro (before)  and manthano (learn). Thus the name Prometheus translated means Forethought or Prethinker. That is important, because it means that he is intelligent and capable of seeing what will come, and this plays a vital part in this mythology. Prometheus can see what fire can bring mankind, and he can also see that it will anger the Gods, and so when he steals the fire from Zeus, he knows that it will most likely be his death.

So fast-forward to last week. I had seen a bunch of commercials, a few trailers and a lot of speculation about the film, but little actual information. Going into this film, I wasn't sure what to expect, other than what I have previously stated, knowing the mythology of Prometheus, I could only guess as to what I would see. I knew this film was going to be a prequel to Alien so I knew it was likely we would see something that had to do with the beginning of the alien species that plagues mankind after the introduction of the xenomorph alien from the Alien films. I also had heard that we would be introduced to the aliens who had created that xenomorph alien, and learn about them. Beyond those things, the only thing that I could discern from the trailers was that it looked fucking awesome. With that my friend and I went into the theatre and watched the film.

Two hours later, I came out of the theatre and had very little to say. This is normally something that happens to me when I see something with a convoluted plot that requires some time to sink in and process. My friend didn't say much either, which to me indicated he didn't like it much. Since then I have found that there are two categories and many sub-categories of that, which people find themselves lumped into. On one side are those who loved it, and on the other side are those who hated it.

Of those we find divergence as well involving those who hated it because the plot made no sense, or had too much dialogue, or just not enough action or bored them for whatever reason. We also find the people who loved it because it made total sense, had interesting dialogue, tons of action, or kept them thoroughly entertained. For these purposes I will simply ignore those who hated the film, as someone who hates it is unlikely to dwell on it long enough to discern any useful information from it. I have also found that of the people who have enjoyed the film, those who have understood what it really meant are very few and completely separate from those who just enjoy a good film. And I must admit you can enjoy this film without truly knowing what it really means, however once you understand that aspect, the film begins to become a more meaningful and splendid piece of artistic interpretation.

Two days later I found myself still thinking about this film and what secrets it was still holding from me. In my mind's eye I began to replay the film in my head and it became clear to me why this film is such an important and meaningful piece of work. I must admit, this is merely my interpretation of this film, though I believe it is the correct one, and I believe once you realize this fact yourself, you too will begin to see why I enjoy the film so much, and maybe begin to take from it the same things I have.

Let's start by taking in the first few minutes of this film. We open on a scene of a world with lovely green grass, stunning skies and beautiful oceans. A cloaked figure approaches the edge of a cliff, before him a waterfall that goes deep into a river below. The figure pulls the hood of his cloak down to reveal his face. He is not human, but he looks human-like. He appears quite tall in stature. His eyes are black and his skin is gray. In his hand the man holds up a cup. We see the cup contains a black liquid like substance, not very appetizing. He holds the cup in front of his face, takes a deep breath, pauses, and then drinks the liquid. Above the man in the sky is a circular object that clearly resembles an alien craft, and as the man drinks, the craft lifts away and disappears. The man is suddenly hit with pain, which can be seen on his face and he begins to disintegrate before our eyes. Suddenly he falls forward and turns into dust as he hits the water below. In the water we get a zoomed in shot that focuses on the formation of polymers that then coalesce into the double-helix molecule we know as DNA.

So in this scene we learn a few things about the engineers, as they are called in the film. Sacrifice or death is required to create life. This is an important theme as I will discuss later. Consider Prometheus himself. He knew that giving fire to humans would mean certain death, and he did it anyway. He sacrificed himself so humans could advance. In this scene we see the alien knows he must sacrifice himself in order to give life, and though he pauses, does so willingly. Throughout history sacrifice has been an integral part of societies. Mayans for instance would willingly sacrifice themselves because they believed it would bring prosperity to their people. Incas believed that sacrifice could be used to improve the weather. Sacrifice is always associated with goodness. People who is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of others are worthy of redemption, trust, and progress.

Sometime in the future we find some people digging in caves. They happen upon a discovery, a pictograph of a man pointing to the sky, and stars aligned above. Fast-forward a little and we find out that the doctors who discovered these drawings also discovered many more, all dating back to early civilizations. What we see is that although these societies lived in completely different times, they all painted the same depiction of a man pointing to a sky with an alignment of stars above. Now aboard the ship Prometheus and in a meeting, they explain that these depictions can mean only one thing, that humans have been visited by aliens long ago and for some reason they stopped coming. One of the doctors surmises that these aliens are our creators, engineers of the human race. Skeptical, the other members of the team who have been told nothing, dismiss these claims. We are told that they were able to take the alignment of stars, put them into a computer and determine where this system is. They then determined there was a planet in this system and a moon capable of sustaining life. It is called LV-223.

Now this is all important because having seen the opening scene of the film we know that these aliens have created us, and seeing these cave depictions it is clear they have been an intrinsic part of our existence thus far. But at some point they decided to leave us be, the cave depictions stop, and we are no longer visited by these aliens. At this point there doesn't seem to be an answer to this question. In fact, the doctors in this film have many questions, including this one, but mostly they seemed interested in understanding why we were created at all.

They fly into the atmosphere of the moon, and spot a straight line that points to a pyramid. The captain stands in front of a table, fixing up a Christmas tree. Ms. Vickers inquires as to what he is doing? He replies that its Christmas. Holloway, one of the doctors who discovered the drawings notices the straight line and points out that God does not build in straight lines, so this pyramid must be where we need to go. The captain tells Holloway that the sun will be going down soon and he should wait until tomorrow. Holloway tells the captain its Christmas and he wants to open his presents now. The crew led by Holloway and Shaw, the other doctor and heroine of the film, (Ridley Scott is famous for creating strong female characters and does so brilliantly in this film as well) head into the pyramid looking for answers. Now with them on this mission is an android named David, who has spent the last few years of the trip to this moon learning the ancient languages, comes with them in the hopes of being able to translate anything they find. At some point the crew run into a wall of symbols. David believes he can translate and begins pushing things on the wall. Suddenly, holographic depictions of aliens appear, and start running through the corridors. The crew chase after them and watch as two aliens disappear into nothing and a third attempts the same and falls down. The hologram stops, and the crew spot on the ground the body of one of these aliens, headless, lying before a giant door. Shaw uses a device and determines the body has been dead for 2,000 years.

Here Scott clues us in on a couple of things, for one it's Christmas day, and he continues when Holloway doesn't want to wait until tomorrow because it's Christmas. The body scene is again quite a significant moment for them, they now have a glimpse at the engineers and find the body of one of their creators. Clues are handed willingly by Scott throughout this film, and this is one of them. This body has been dead for 2,000 years. The aliens were running away from something, though we do not know what it is, we know they are frightened by it and try escape.

David is able to open the door to the chamber and the crew get a first glimpse at the alien, a head is lying at their feet. David then walks into the chamber, he is surrounded by small metallic urns, stacked aimlessly about. The crew pick up the head and put it into a bag. When they enter the chamber something changes, the urns begin to sweat, unnoticed by the crew. A crew member can be seen stepping on earthworms in the dirt. Flashlights shine all around, and someone notices on the ceiling above two murals on opposite sides. On one side we see a glimpse of one of these aliens, a gaping wound on his side, and a spear poking into it. On the other side we see a mural depicting the familiar site of one of these xenomorph creatures we have seen in the alien movies before. Shaw begins to notice the urns sweating, a black liquid pooling on top. She comments that, “I think we have infected the atmosphere in here.” David is seen in the front of this chamber taking one of the urns and placing it into a bag.

By now the picture of what is going on is beginning to become clearer. The engineers have created us, and taught us until one day they suddenly stopped, something changed. What changed you might wonder? Well remember the clue Scott dropped before about this alien having died about 2,000 years before. We must also consider the mural above as a clue. In this case we see a man depicted on the wall who is held up with his flesh torn open, a spear inserted into him. Have you realized what's going on just yet?

This is where things get truly interesting. For another clue we must consider the juxtaposition of the two murals against each other. To the left, the first mural is of a man who is being speared, held in position, his hand upon the head of the man spearing him. Now of course this is a depiction left open to interpretation, much like the entirety of the film itself, but its very clear what this mural depicts. The crucifixion of Christ is an image that is affixed in the minds of most people and the similarities to this image and the mural on the wall are too many to ignore.

Christ is considered as the epitome of goodness, and makes the ultimate sacrifice for mankind, allowing himself to be crucified at the hands of men. Remember this is an act of pure good, at least by Christ. Now in the second mural we have the opposite, a depiction of the xenomorph as a symbol of evil, a demon, Satan himself maybe. But whatever the case these two are in direct contrast to each other. Now assuming this is all true, and Scott is really trying to clue us into this, his subtlety is undeniable. Now this is where we must presume somethings.

The black liquid coming from the urns, resembles the black liquid we first see in the cup that engineer holds just before he drinks it. Now as we know already this liquid creates life, but it also destroys life. When the engineer drinks the cup willingly, the liquid seems quite inert, however in the presence of humans it seems to have a reaction. This is supported by the evidence of David entering the chamber. The urns do not react to his presence, and only react when a human enters the chamber, and this should too be considered. I will continue now, and explain where I am going a little later.

Back on the ship we find out two of the crew members who went on the mission, leaving prematurely have gotten lost on their return and are stuck in the pyramid until morning, as a storm has moved in. They begin to explore and find the chamber that was opened by the rest of the crew earlier and upon entering discover the urns are covered in black liquid and puddles have formed on the ground. They walk into the room and have a seat. Suddenly in one of the puddles something moves, and a snake like creature appears coming out of the puddle of liquid. One of the men seems interested in playing with the creature. He attempts to touch it and it grabs on to him. The other man attempts to cut the creature off, a liquid sprays onto the man with the knife and we discover it is an acid as his helmet melts into his face. The other man falls back as the creature invades his suit, finding its way into his helmet, and diving into his mouth.

It is here we learn the nature of this liquid, we know that it is used to create life, but remember we also know that it destroys life. Remember the earthworms that are previously seen, when the crew enter the chamber. We can see first hand that this liquid can become anything, there is a component we do not yet understand, something that has an affect on what it creates.

Back on the ship our crew take this head and put it under some kind of scanner, determining that this head is only a helmet. David removes the helmet and they get their first true glimpse of the engineers. They begin to run an electrical signal through the head and try to reanimate it. The eyes of the engineer begin to open, he looks around and a distress can be seen on his face. A change begins to takes place, veins start to appear, and the look turns to horror and suddenly the head explodes.

In this scene I believe Scott wanted us to know that the nature of humans is to be inquisitive, to search for answers and experiment with just about anything we can. I believe this is also the time we see that this reanimated engineer appears distressed, maybe at the sight of his human resurrectors, or maybe just disgusted by what they have done. It isn't really clear why the head explodes, except it is possible the engineer willed it himself.

David stands before a table in a laboratory and removes the urn he has taken, from his bag. The urn seems perfectly stable. He unscrews the cap, and removes a cup very similar to the one we see in the opening scene of the film. In it we see the black liquid, completely inert and he touches it, rolling it on his finger, no reaction.

This scene is again very important, and maybe a significant clue to the nature of the liquid inside the urns. We know that in the presence of David the liquid has no reaction, we know that in the presence of the first engineer the liquid has no reaction, but in the presence of humans the liquid clearly reacts. The picture becomes clear in the next scene.

David enters a room and approaches Holloway. The men begin chatting, David offers Holloway a drink and pours him a glass of booze, we see David tap the edge of the glass dropping the black liquid into it. Holloway asks David if he wants a drink and David tells him that it would only be wasted. They two men exchange words and Holloway seems distressed in someway. David is curious about this, and Holloway tells him he would not understand because he has no emotions, he is unable to feel anything.

It is at this point that we understand the true nature of the liquid, and the picture suddenly becomes unclouded. This liquid reacts only in the presence of emotions. We also know that the engineers were not emotionless creatures, this is clear because of the reaction of the head when reanimated, the pause and accepting face made by the engineer in the opening scene and the engineers who seemed fearful while running from the unseen force in the corridor. So we know these engineers have emotions, and we must consider this when considering the nature of the liquid.

So first in the opening scene the liquid seems inert, in response to the emotional state of the engineer, content, relaxed, accepting, and ready to sacrifice himself. Remember that acts of sacrifice are considered synonymous with goodness. Now consider the fearful nature of the engineers running from the unknown force. They are not relaxed, and seem unwilling to sacrifice themselves. We must then take into account the time of these events, 2,000 years ago, and the depiction of Jesus who was surely one of these engineers. So now consider this, 2,000 years ago, humans filled with rage, hatred, and fear, captured Jesus and crucified him.

All that emotion by humans, and the response by Jesus, is one of sacrifice and forgiveness, his final act of good. Now until this point these engineers have been loving, benevolent creatures who seemed willing and able to assist in our development, and then things change. We allow our emotions to paralyze reason, and we murder the emissary of the engineers. These benevolent aliens have a sudden change of heart, they have realized the folly of their creation and decide its time to destroy us.

So back on LV-223, apparently a place where they keep this liquid, the engineers angered by our insolence, plot our destruction. From their point of view this must seem like the ultimate betrayal, parents who have given their children everything, even sacrificing themselves in the process, only to have their children give them the proverbial middle finger. These engineers must have been completely incensed beyond belief. The problem with this is we know what this liquid does now in response to emotion, we were clued into it when the humans entered the chamber.

Humans are considered emotional creatures, something that the engineers must have known, and counted on. What they did not count on, I imagine, would be their own demise at the hands of their creation, this black liquid, which likely responded to this anger they had for the human species. It seems very likely whatever was chasing the engineers around those corridors was a product of the liquid. The emotional concept is also supported by a lack of response by the liquid in proximity and contact with David, an android, who has no emotions.

Holloway enters Shaw's quarters. They discuss her faith, her cross clearly seen hanging around her neck. Shaw shows Holloway a DNA scan taken from the head and compared against human DNA. The two are identical. She seems quite elated at the idea, and he then asks her why she still wears the cross if she knows that God didn't create man, that the engineers did. She tells him her faith has not waivered, after all, someone had to have created the engineers. At this point the two of them have sex. Holloway wakes in the morning and walks over to the mirror, he stares into it and notices something in his eye. We see what appears to be a tiny worm-like creature move in and out of his eye, he seems alarmed but does not tell Shaw about it. The two of them are called to the bridge, the two men that are still in the pyramid are no longer responding to the radio and everyone needs to go out and find them.

We know that David has infected Holloway with this black liquid and we know that Holloway and Shaw have had sex, though not much more is said at this point, we can infer this is not good.

The crew return to the pyramid, and David goes ahead separately to investigate something else. When the crew enter the chamber the captain finds the urns are covered in black liquid and the puddles are everywhere. He asks if it was like this when they were here the previous night, and Shaw tells him it was not like this. They then find the body of a dead crew mate. Holloway collapses, Shaw looks at him, his eyes are strangely colored, and she believes he has been infected with something. She instructs everyone to help her get him back to the ship. Upon reaching the ship, Ms. Vickers, the representative of the Weyland corporation, refuses to allow them to board the ship. She opens the bay door with a flame thrower in her hand, and tells them they can get aboard but Holloway cannot. She seems unwilling to change her mind and tells them she will use the flamethrower if they try to bring him aboard. Shaw is screaming and telling her he can still be saved, but Vickers is not listening. Holloway, lets go of Shaw and the others and walks to the edge of the door. Vickers tells him not to come closer, and he tells her it is alright and he tells her to do it. She pulls the trigger and fries Holloway where he stands, he falls to the ground and dies.

In this moment the crew of the Prometheus suspect that something on LV-223 is not right. One man is already dead, one is missing and one has become infected. We must also look at this moment between Holloway and Vickers closely because it bares significance as well. In this moment Holloway knows what needs to be done, he accepts his fate, and sacrifices himself. Seem like a familiar theme? And it seems of particular interest that fire, the gift from Prometheus is used to cleanse Holloway, another clue by Scott?

David finds himself at a door, upon opening it we see a chamber similar to the one we see in the Alien space jockey scene. The only thing missing is the seat in the middle of the floor that holds the space jockey. David begins looking around the chamber and finds a chair that resides next to a console. He presses some keys on the console and the holographic images of engineers appear again, this time walking about the chamber. One engineer steps down and sits into the seat and begins punching buttons of the console. Suddenly a map of the galaxy and beyond seem to appear in the center of the chamber. David steps up and begins interacting with this three-dimensional representation of space. As the engineer pushes buttons, the map circles around David and planets come into and out of view. We begin to see the vastness of what appears before us. David recognizes one of the planets and touches it. It moves slightly and he grabs it. Holding it in his hand, we can clearly see the African continent, this is Earth. Suddenly, it all stops, and the map disappears. David walks around the chamber and sees a tube, in it we see one of the engineers in a suspended form.

We now know the engineers have likely done this before, we can even suspect that maybe its a kind of manifest destiny of sort. Maybe this is simply how the engineers reproduce and expand their influence in the galaxy. As we see Earth, we see many, many, other worlds. If we already know that these engineers have done this on Earth, we can presume they have done this on many if not all the other worlds we see on the map. We also know a couple of things, the engineers are benevolent, at least until you piss them off.

We know they create life presumably because they can, or because they want to populate the galaxy with their DNA, their way of reproduction? We also know a little something about environmental effects on life. We know that different environments produce different forms of life, so we can assume although Earth produced very similar lifeforms to the engineers we don't have to assume this will be true everywhere the engineers have left their DNA. We also know that this liquid is mimetic in nature. So that means that it can take many forms, or any form you could imagine. I will talk a little bit about this more later on, but for now keep this in mind, it is important.

Back on the ship Shaw awakens on a table, she is concerned that others are infected, scans must be run on all crew members. David asks her if she has had sexual relations with Holloway, and Shaw seems completely shocked. He tells her that she is three months pregnant, a fact she argues, telling him that they had sex the night before. She wants to see what's inside her, he tells her that its not a good idea and tries to get her to sit back on the table, she begins to fight him and he injects her with a shot. He tells her that they will put her in suspended animation until they get back to Earth. She falls asleep. An unspecified time later we see her getting slapped on the face, a woman stands over her asking her to respond and telling her they are going to prep her for suspended animation. Suddenly she jumps from the table and knocks the woman out. She runs from the medical bay straight toward Ms. Vickers' quarters. We learn from an earlier scene that Ms. Vickers has special quarters that act as a life boat that can separate from the rest of the ship, it is completely self-contained and even includes its own medbay, that also includes an auto-surgical table. She runs into the medical bay in Ms. Vickers' quarters and instructs the machine to do a cesarean section on her, it tells her it cannot because its not configured for that. She programs it manually and jumps onto the table in the machine. The machine closes its doors around her. It scans her and begins to cut into her abdomen with a laser. Once it has finished, it inserts a pair of forceps into her abdomen and pulls the baby out. We see a squid like creature with four tentacles, about the size of a baby, and shaking violently, held into place by the forceps. It quickly staples her abdomen as the creature continues to violently shake, and the doors open, she jumps from the machine and closes the doors. She then presses a button, the creature stops moving.

In this scene we are face with an ongoing theme of sorts that Scott tries to depict. He wants us to understand the nature of this liquid, it gives life. Shaw has given life. We know from experience that had she not removed the demon spawn, it certainly would have killed her, thus destroying life as it also does. We also see the continued theme of a wounded abdomen, symbolic of the sacrifice of both Prometheus and Christ, though Shaw seems unwilling to make any such sacrifice herself. Another theme which fits in here that I will briefly talk about now, but continue a little bit later is the act of birth and significance in religious context. In this scene Shaw is unwanting of this pregnancy and aborts her baby, symbolic of Christians who do not support the right of women who abort their children, but as we find out a little later, things do not appear to be as they seem.

Shaw painfully runs through the ship and finds a room with an old man and a few others inside. David is helping the old man, and as Shaw steps inside she sees that the old man is Weyland himself. He is suppose to be dead, but she realizes he was in suspended animation aboard the ship. She wants to know what he is doing, and he tells her that he bought into her dream and he wants to meet his creator. She tells him they are all dead, and he tells her not all of them, there is still one left. He believes that this engineer can grant Weyland life again. He believes that if the engineers can create life, they can surely stop death. On the monitors the captain can see that the other missing crew member's camera is operational and seems to indicate he is outside the ship. So the men in the hold open the door to the outside to let him inside. When the door opens they see a suit laying on the ground. One of the men approaches the suit and turns to talk to the other man. The suit rises up slowly and we see the distorted face of the crew member. He looks like a very angry cro magnon man. His face is roughed up and bloody. He grabs the first man and kills him, he enters the ship and starts killing crew members. The captain and the rest of the crew head for the hold. The men left alive in the hold get into a vehicle and run over the infected crew mate. He is still moving and the captain shoots it with a flamethrower. Shaw leaves the old man and meets the captain. He tells her this place is bad news, she is leaving the ship to go with Weyland. He tells her those answers she wanted, its all bullshit. This place isn't what she thought it was. He tells her its the kind of place you build when you want to create weapons of mass destruction and this is what that liquid is. He then tells her he cannot let any of this stuff leave this place and go back to Earth.

Scott brings us back to the theme of life and death, creation and destruction again. Here we see Weyland who is suppose to be dead is actually alive, although without intervention will actually die soon enough. Weyland does not want to die and believes the engineers will be able to save him. We again see what this liquid is capable of, it has turned the crew member into a stark raving lunatic, possibly in response to his emotional state when infected. The captain makes clear his intentions. We also see the inquisitive nature of man again as Shaw suits up to go with Weyland back to the ship, even though she knows nothing good can come of it.

Weyland, David, Shaw and various other members of the crew enter the chamber in the ship that David entered before and found the engineer in. They approach the engineer and David opens the tube. The engineer stands up and walks forward. His face resembles that of a child unaware of what is happening. David speaks in an ancient dialect, and the face of the engineer changes. He grabs on to David's throat and tears his head from his body. Anger is clearly seen on the face of the engineer as he slams Weyland to the ground and begins carnage on the others. Shaw runs. The engineer presses a few buttons on the console and the familiar space jockey chair appears, coming up through the floor below. Shaw exits the pyramid and runs for the ship. The ground beneath her begins to move. The engineer snaps the familiar helmet on his head and we now see the familiar space jockey from the original Alien film. Shaw jumps over the gaping holes in the ground and continues to run toward the ship. The captain radios to her, and she tells him that he needs to stop that ship. Vickers wants to know where everyone is and Shaw tells her they are all dead. Vickers tells her to get back to the ship that they are going back to Earth. Shaw tells them they need to stop that ship or there will be no Earth left for them to go back to. The captain tells Ms. Vickers it might be wise for her to head to her quarters and use that life boat. She runs away. The captain tells his men to head toward the escape pods, he'll handle it from here. The men tell him he doesn't know how to fly the ship alone, they are going to stay. The captain turns toward the alien ship which is now high in the sky. The lifeboat must be set to sense danger and ejects itself from the rest of the ship, it goes flying off into some rocks. Ms. Vickers jumps into an escape pod and jettisons herself from the ship. Her escape pod hits the ground in a crash. The Prometheus flys higher into the sky on a direct intercept course with the alien ship and collides in a stunning explosion. Suddenly the alien ship begins to fall. It crashes into the ground standing up. It's weight begins to shift and the rest of the damaged ship begins to fall on its side. Shaw and Ms. Vickers look at each other and run like hell. The ship continues to fall, and Ms. Vickers slips. The ships falls on her and crushes her. Shaw is luckier and she escapes getting crushed, barely.

When David lets the engineer out, the engineer does not immediately attack the crew. I believe this is because he does not truly know they are human yet. It is only when David speaks an ancient human dialect that the engineer attacks them. This seems to support the idea that the engineers have seeded much of the galaxy beyond Earth and may have helped many civilizations. It is pretty clear from the engineers reaction that he knows that the language David is speaking comes from Earth, and he knows exactly what happened on Earth.

So here we see that anger from the engineers, the anger that likely caused the original release of whatever killed the engineer they found outside the chamber. We have to assume that the engineer suspended himself, quite possibly to escape whatever was originally released. We still have no clear answer to what it was, although its possible whatever it was has long since died itself, or returned to the black liquid form. The engineer fueled by the returning rage he has for humans seems intent on returning to Earth, possibly to bring to fruition that which they originally intended.

Shaw knows now what has to be done, and she knows that it will require a sacrifice. There again, another common theme. The captain has already told her he cannot allow whatever is on LV-223 to escape back to Earth, she knows what his intentions are. When she tells him what the engineer is doing, she knows what is going to happen. The captain tells his men that they can leave, but they choose to stay with him, and thus we have three men who are equally willing to make a sacrifice. Colliding Prometheus into the alien ship, Scott is showing us that mankind is worth redemption.

Shaw rises from the ground and heads for the lifeboat. Upon entering the ship she sees its in complete disarray resulting from the crash. She hears a sound coming from the medlab. A huge tentacle slams against the window of the lab door. Whatever this thing is, its a lot bigger than it was when she pulled it out. She wants to run. David radios her. He tells her that she needs to get out of there, he's coming. We see the engineer entering the lifeboat. He grabs Shaw and tosses her against the medbay door. She slams on the button door and it opens slightly. A tentacle reaches out and grabs the engineer. She fights out of his grasp and watches in horror as this thing appears before her. It's simply massive. She runs away. The thing grabs onto the engineer and pulls at him, the engineer continues to fight the monster. Suddenly it opens its mouth wide and a tentacle shoots out at the engineer. He falls to the floor and the monster falls on top of him.

We see that the engineer is still fueled by his rage, and goes after Shaw. This of course leads to his demise at the hands of the monster, again clue to understanding that emotions are ultimately responsible for this situation. The engineer allowed himself to be overcome by emotion and like before a monster kills them.

Shaw sits outside waiting for her certain death when she hears David again speak in her ear. He tells her that she should come get him so they can leave. She tells him there is no way they are leaving this world, and he tells her there are other ships. She gets David's head and brings him outside the ship. He tells her that he can fly the ship and plot a course home. She is unwilling to accept how things have gone and tells him that she does not want to go home. She asks him if he knows where their home planet is located, he believes he does. She wants him to fly her there, he agrees. We see the ship fly away, and hear a voice over of Shaw. She has questions and wants answers and she isn't going to stop until she gets them. Fade to black. We come back to the medbay, the engineer is on the floor, the monster slung over. Suddenly the engineer bursts open and we see an old familiar sight, the xenomorph. It opens its mouth and another mouth pops out, showing its teeth. It screams.

In these final scenes we see once again that human inquisitive nature. Shaw is unwilling to let all this be in vain and wants real answers. David, we presume has memorized the map of stars and planets and has likely figured out which one of them is the home world of the species of engineers. At this point the Shaw flying away in ship thing is merely a means to create a sequel.

I don't really love the idea of a sequel to a prequel, but I'm also intrigued by the possibilities Scott has created thus far. He has managed to give us some answers, a whole lot more questions and has tapped into the inquisitive nature of man. You want to know where Shaw is going, and what she will find when she gets there. The xenomorph popping out of the chest of the engineer is designed to answer at least one of the questions, where did the xenomorph aliens come from? Now many people will take the similar nature of this creature to the original, but not exact likeness, to mean that this is not exactly a direct prequel.

Let's examine a few things. This is clearly a prequel, until this point the humans have no knowledge of the existence of the aliens, so we can assume from this that means it happens before the introduction of them in the film Alien. Some will likely be concerned by difference between the xenomorph at the end of the film and the one depicted in Alien. To this I can only say, we have no real idea what happens after the events of Prometheus.

Because of this we must assume something does happen, if we know the events of Alien happen in the future, which we do know, since we know this film is already a prequel. I spoke earlier about life being determined by its environment. Let me say a few things about this. We know that certain evolutionary mutations are determined by environmental factors like weather, exposure to elements, a decrease in the availability of certain elements, etc.

We also know from the alien films that the xenomorph takes on the characteristics of its original host. This is clearly evident in Alien 3 with the introduction of the dog xenomorph. So it seems to me that even if the alien we see at the end of Prometheus resembles the xenomorph in the film Alien only slightly, we cannot be sure what evolutionary changes take place to get it from the film Prometheus to the film Alien. We must also consider the mimetic state of the black liquid, as this too falls in line with the universe that Scott is creating. The liquid can create anything, and it creates good when it senses good, and it creates bad when it senses bad. We also know that it can both create and destroy life, evident by the creation of DNA which brings life into the world and the creations of the xenomorph alien which brings about destruction.

Let's go back to the murals on the ceilings in the chamber of urns. Remember the juxtaposition of the two murals. In one we see Jesus Christ depicted by a gaping wound, which could also easily be Prometheus himself, if not for the spear. And on the other we see the xenomorph. In the first we see ultimate good and the other ultimate evil. We see in the first, the sacrifice of life, an act of pure good. And in the other the depiction of pure evil, a creature created by the kind of emotions responsible for the murder of Jesus Christ. We can also draw conclusion from the murals as well. On the left, one can say this is what you have done. On the right, this is what happens.

Going back to the theme of environment for a minute, not to beat a dead horse, but when the Prometheus gets to LV-223 we find the moon is a very similar composition as Earth, with only minor differences. Breathing outside is impossible, but the crew finds that the air inside the pyramid is quite breathable. This suggests to me that humans look very similar to the engineers because we require very similar environments to them, but other worlds using the same DNA may produce quite different results, and the life that arises there may not look much like us, or the engineers.

This of course feels like it might be a real thorn in the side of the engineers, after all, humans are truly molded in their image, a theme found in modern religions like Christianity. The depiction of Christ for example is of a human man with a beard and long hair. He looks like someone who could be your neighbor despite being the progeny of God. Knowing that humans were so similar to the engineers might they have taken special interest in us, maybe more than any of the other planets they had certainly populated with life? We don't really know this watching the film, but it feels like this is the case, and may have been the catalyst for the anger felt by the engineers when we betrayed them.

I also talked a little bit about the scene involving the auto surgical machine and abortion by Shaw. I only wanted to bring this back up because it clearly has some significance in light of the view on abortion by Christians. What is interesting to me is that Shaw appears to kill the baby in the medbay using some kind of spray inside the machine. What we can assume by it coming after her later was that it was merely an anesthetic and not some kind of poison.

This is of significance because again it starts with an unwanted pregnancy and abortion we see but an unwillingness to kill something she knows is bad news. She knows enough to get this thing out of her, but not enough to actually kill it? Some people will say she may have thought she was killing it when she pressed the button and sprayed it. I don't believe so, and I will explain. As we know she understands biology, and medicine because of her work on the engineer's head. We also know that she tries to get the machine to perform the cesarean section automatically but it is unable to do so. She then has to manually program the thing, certainly an advanced step and one that only someone with knowledge of medicine and biology would know how to do.

That makes me believe she knew very well how to use the machine and knew very well what she could do with it. She may have known it wasn't designed to kill anything, after all, it was designed to save lives not take them. She would have known that it likely had anesthetic. You might wonder why she chose not to use it when she got into the machine? Simple. She wanted to be lucid. When the creature was sprayed down, it stopped moving. Had she used that on herself, she would have likely been put to sleep, with this thing still inside her. So now that we know she didn't want to kill the thing, why?

I thought about this long and hard and I concluded that Scott must have wanted to pose a question that must plague anti-abortionists. If you knew that you were carrying the next Hitler, would you abort your baby? Let me put it another way, if you could save the lives of millions by terminating the life of one, could you do it? This to me seems to be what Scott might have been thinking when he wrote this scene. We can also assume Shaw might not have wanted the thing inside her, but she was also a scientist and although the thing was clearly dangerous it deserved further study. We might also consider the fact that when she removed it from her body it was very tiny and she had no way of knowing it would grow up to be so big, so fast.

I just want to say a few final things before I wrap this up. I feel that Ridley Scott has created a masterpiece here. Many people who have read my blog will surely wonder why I give such high praise to a man who is clearly drawing connections in between religion and science, two things which do not mix well. You might also wonder why I enjoyed this film so much knowing its content was based in religion in some part and knowing I myself am an atheist. To that I can only say, I enjoy well written, well thought out, well conceived stories, whether they are themed in fiction or non-fiction. I enjoy immensely the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, and J.K. Rowling. This doesn't mean I believe we are likely to get attacked by a band of Orcs, have fire rained down upon us by dragons from above, or believe that wizards and witches roam freely all over England fighting the forces of darkness who seek to end their existence with spells like avada kedavra. I am completely able to discern fantasy and reality and can enjoy the creation of these works for what they are, remarkable examples of fantastic entertainment.

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Corporate Interests, and 14 Years of DMCA Abuse

In 2005, Google submitted to the government of New Zealand a brief discussing that government's proposed copyright law. In that brief, Google noted that since the enactment of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, 57% of all take-down requests were issued by corporations with competing products, and 37% of all requests were flat out not valid. Since that time those numbers have certainly only increased. In May of this year, Google began publishing it's DMCA take-down data in an act of transparency, with staggering results. Google responds to over 1.2 million requests a month, astounding numbers to say the least, but what should concern you is that more than half of those are invalid claims filed by competitors and more than a third are simply false claims. If we do the math on that, about 684,000 take-down requests each month are invalid because a company is trying to undermine another companies competing product and 444,000 take-down requests are completely false outright, having no valid copyright claim to begin with. These numbers of course are based entirely on the 2005 report issued by Google, although seven years later, those numbers will have surely increased, as all indications is that they would.


Putting piracy aside for the moment let's talk a little bit about the DMCA. The DMCA is a law that was enacted by Congress and signed into law on October 28, 1998 by then President, Bill Clinton. The law is simply the enactment of two treaties that were created in 1996 called the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty of 1996 and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty of 1996. Those treaties basically outlined the protection of computer information and digitally created works as copyrighted works and made them subject to copyright laws and protections.

At the time, corporations like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) lobbied Congress to enact laws to protect their digital works from being copied and shared on the Internet. Their argument was that this law would be required to stop piracy and only by making such things a crime, could they have the protection they needed to survive as a business model. Let's face it, the RIAA does almost nothing. If you want to show an example of a company that abuses the laws, steals from it's clients and cries wolf, this would be the one, but I digress.

Critics of the DMCA launched a campaign to try and stop it from being enacted into law. Many law professors came out against it saying that it would enact a law that stifled free speech and free expression. Companies who made their money through web technologies also came out against the law, stating that such laws would only stifle creativity, innovation, and competition. Programmers and cryptography experts argued that this law would create a stranglehold on technological research involving cryptography and create a blockade that would prevent certain technologies from ever being developed.

Of particular note was the fact that a line could easily be drawn in the sand and on each side those who were for the act and those against the act could line up. What was apparent pretty quickly is that all those companies in favor of the act, were those who benefited from it. Corporations who's business models were based on closed-source intellectual property, anti-competition and stifling free expression, were quick to come out in favor of the act, and those corporations who favored open-source, freedom, and competition were against.

The only problem with that was that those corporations who lobbied heavily in favor of the DMCA did so using their wallets, and bribing Congress is a sure fire way to get your law passed. The heavy hitters like the RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft all made their money through unfair business practices, destroying their competition, and closing their technologies off from the public. They profited heavily on the consumer and were now pushing Congress to ensure those profits continued to rise.

Now in the 14 years since the law was enacted, if those corporations were correct, we should see a definitive correlation between the enactment of this law and the decline of piracy. Instead what we find is no such correlation exists. In fact, every year piracy increases. But if this law was meant to stop piracy, why doesn't it work? Answer: It was never really meant to stop piracy.

Although where you would expect to see the correlation of a decrease in piracy to follow along as more and more such laws are enacted, instead you find the opposite. Instead this increase is most likely attributed with the increase in individuals who are now connected to the Internet. An increase in availability and widespread adoption of broadband technologies has both given consumers more access to content but has also with that given consumers an ability to get just about anything quickly and easily.

So if the DMCA was never meant to stop piracy why was it enacted in the first place? Well to answer that let's take a closer look at the provisions that are included in the DMCA.

Title one of the DMCA deals specifically with the WIPO treaties. In part of the title one though,  is contained a section that dictates the anti-circumvention provisions. This specific section provides a monopoly by which Macrovision is guaranteed sole proprietary control of technology designed to prevent the redistribution of analog video. This provision includes technologies that are specifically designed to prevent copying of video to digital media through an analog device.

So for anyone keeping score: corporations 1, freedom 0.

The US Government in this one section has given a corporation the exclusive right to produce technology that will prevent anyone from being able to copy video from one source to another on any device that features this technology. Not only that, but the provision requires that all such devices carry this technology. At this time, I will stop and mention that when this law was written this technology was difficult to circumvent, however now this technology is all but useless.

Now if the government was writing a law that simply followed the treaties, they could stop right there and not go further, however more provisions were included.

Title two specifically deals with online copyright infringement liability, often referred to as the “safe harbour” provision of the DMCA. Now at first glance this provision seems like a good one, get a notice of copyright infringement and respond by removing said content and you are not considered liable for the infringement. Just as another note, this provision is nonsense anyway, when are gun manufacturers liable for what people do with the guns they make? Answer: Never.

So knowing that the DMCA isn't really about stopping piracy, what is the purpose of just such a provision? Answer: Content control. With this provision all content on the Internet, under US jurisdiction at least, must be analyzed and determined whether it is safe for consumption. With this one provision all corporations have a say in what you are allowed to say and do on the Internet. If they don't like it, they have been given a way to remove it. And now you have seen what this provision is really about, censorship. Of course censorship isn't always about controlling the content consumers have available to them, sometimes its about stymieing competition.

As I've already stated, more than half of all take-downs by Google are from corporations in direct competition with the product they are claiming violation with. Although these claims are completely false and the corporations know they have no claim, it does not matter. The process of removal is simple and the process for getting the content back, is not. I will talk about this at length, a little further in this article but for right now I will continue with listing the remaining provisions.

So as censorship benefits the corporations: corporations 2, freedom 0.

Title three concerns computer maintenance and has since been updated. As part of the provision it deals specifically with the copying of computer programs for temporary use or repair. This provision was originally intended to allow those who need to repair computers some leeway in that area with respect to copying information to and from the computer. The most significant wording that is found in this title is that although all other such copying is prohibited that copying of computer software for “activation” is allowed.

As if right out of the nomenclature of Microsoft terminology, activation sticks out like a sore thumb. In this title the only time you are allowed to copy a software program is during the process of activating that program to the computer you have purchased. In easier to understand terms, since normal activation requires a purchase, you can copy the software to the computer you own and make the software usable if you have purchased it.

In this provision, the government is stating that copying any software to a computer you do not own is illegal unless you are doing it in the process of repair. So to better help the morons in Washington, this particular provision disallows anyone the right to download anything to their computer if they have no first purchased it and plan on activating it. It says nothing of open or free software, but why should it? It's pretty obvious these laws were designed to inhibit the advancement of open technologies.

Since software activation only benefits a corporation: corporations 3, freedom 0.

Title four is full of miscellaneous provisions that include the exception of copyright restriction in use of collective bargaining. That means if two people who own some kind of intellectual property were to swap information, they are allowed to do so. There is also a provision that allows the exception of copying of video for rebroadcast by news organizations and such.

There are also provisions for libraries and education that allow that some information can be copied to allow the education of people who cannot be in direct contact with said content. So what does all this mean? Well with the exception of the collective bargaining rules, the rest is designed to allow “fair use” and I will talk a bit about that later. For now understand that these provisions were meant to give certain organizations and people an advantage and others a disadvantage. Basically the government is stating that libraries and news organizations can copy stuff but no one else, its that simple.

This one could have been a toss up, after all it deals primarily with fair use rights, but since those rights have been restricted to allow only libraries and news corporations, and understanding that the DMCA take-down notices stifle fair use as you will read further on, I'm giving this one to the corporations. After all, their slick misdirection and unfair business practices allow them to bend the laws in their favor and although libraries are as of yet not corporate entities given enough time, anything is possible.

For their slick abuse of fair use: corporations 4, freedom 0.

Title five contains a provision that was included specifically to concern a flaw in copyright law that didn't allow the protection of boat designs, however this provision essentially protects all designs with its wording. It has no purpose being in this law but was likely included as a pork barrel consideration late in the game. Essentially some boating company handed one or more members of Congress some money and said can we add some protection for boats in there and so it was included.

This nonsensical provision only has one victor: corporations 5, freedom 0.

Now although many exemptions have been added since, let's stick to the nonsense as it was written at first. By design this law was meant to protect corporate interests and stifle innovation and competition. The simplest way for a corporation to accomplish this task is to include Digital Rights Management (DRM) with whatever digital product they have released. Under the DMCA such DRM cannot be circumvented, even if the DRM prevents the legal use of the product. I have spoken at length on DRM in a previous article and I suggest you read it if you are interested in my tribulations with DRM.

So now that I have explained the DMCA, it is the safe harbour provision I want to talk a little about right now. Under this law any website who is found to be hosting infringing content must remove said content upon request of the content owner. Failure to do so within a reasonable amount of time, can result in revocation of the safe harbour provision, resulting in the possibility of litigation.

Since the inception of this law corporations like Google have created tools that will allow content owners an easy way to have infringing content removed. For instance on YouTube, Google makes use of several tools for controlling content, one is automated but another is not. I will discuss both of these and try to explain how they work and why they are not a good idea.

The automated tool Google has made available is designed to examine any video that has been uploaded to YouTube for a particular signature either by video or audio fingerprinting. This tool basically examines the content of the video and attempts to match it to content that it has in a database that contains information that is provided by copyright owners.

The way this works is that a copyright owner takes their audio and/or video and digitally fingerprints it. The digital fingerprint is comprised of a string of information contained in the audio or video and applies a mathematical algorithm which results in a unique string. This unique string is then added to the database, and used by the automated tool whenever content is uploaded to YouTube.

When your video is uploaded it is then compared to the database and if the content matches a string in the database a predetermined action is taken. In some cases, the video is removed and the user is informed that it contained infringing content. In some cases the video is allowed to be posted but ads are included that provide income to the copyright owner each time the video is watched.

Because this tool is fully automated it is subject to gross abuse at the hands of anyone and everyone. A prime example of this is a company Rumblefish. Like the patent trolls who registered and buy copyrights for the purpose of suing anyone who uses it, these guys register similar content in the hopes of controlling just about everything that no one would ever consider to be copyrighted.

In a case the CEO of Rumblefish has claimed was a mistake, a man who was sitting out in a field taking video and recording himself, wanted to post his video to YouTube. Upon posting his video to YouTube the man was informed that it violated copyright, and although it was infringing on the copyright of someone else, it would be allowed with ad support. The man immediately questioned the violation and requested that YouTube reinstate the video without ad support, after all he had taken the video himself, and it contained only no copyrighted material. Upon looking at this video, YouTube determined the claim to be valid and reinstated the video.

Whenever this process goes into effect, Google must send the claimant a notice. When Rumblefish received the notice, they examined the video and reinstated their claim of copyright. And so began a dispute that would bring us to the most ludicrous of places. When Google informed the man that his video had been disputed by the copyright holder, he requested a reason for take-down, and it was determined that the sole reason for take-down was the sound of birds singing in the background.

That's right, this man recorded himself but took no notice of the birds that were making noises that flew above him. And although he had violated no copyright that he knew of, he posted his video unaware of the background sounds. You see Rumblefish being the predator corporation it is, has registered the sounds of various seemingly innocuous things with the intent of claiming copyright whenever they are used. In this case, Rumblefish had registered the sounds that birds make when they sing, but other such sounds can be found in their library. Now blaming Rumblefish solely for this would be unreasonable as its not contained to their business model alone. In recent years out of Brazil several companies have popped up registering the sounds of many things you would not even stop to think about in everyday life, but these guys do.

Imagine a company who has registered the sounds of clicking keys on your keyboard as you type, the sound of dog barking, or the sound of wind as it blows. You might ask what is the purpose of such a thing? Answer: Money. These companies who exist for no other reason than to claim copyright on something you post on YouTube or another video service, and have ads included in your video that give them money anytime someone watches it. You may think that this sounds ridiculous, but consider this. It costs them nothing to register this claim with YouTube and they have nothing to lose by claiming copyright and only something to gain whenever someone watches one of these videos.

So now I'll talk a little bit about DMCA take-downs that are not done automatically but manually. Now this requires a little know how, but once you have done it once, its like riding a bike. Usually a lawyer drafts a letter and sends it off to Google informing them that there is infringing content, included are any links and a request to have it removed. In almost all cases Google, rather than try to figure out what violates copyright themselves, removes the content as requested. This has resulted in millions of requests and removals over the years and knowing that a staggering number of these claims are false, should give you pause.

In 2002, Google began publishing these letters after a feud between the Church of Scientology and the website xenu.net went public. The church began to criticize Google over their response to these letters of which they had made many, and in response Google published these letters and made it policy to publish all such requests along with any search results. In this letter the church claimed that xenu.net was violating its copyright by using photographs that depicted church members and church specific locations.

For reference xenu.net is a website that seems dedicated to the critique of the religion of Scientology. At first glance this seems like a clear case of fair use, which allows for the use of copyrighted material for use in satire and criticism. Obviously the church disagreed, and filed at that point eight letters to Google requesting they remove this satirical content from search results. Let me make it clear, the church didn't like being made fun of for their beliefs, so rather than take it like every other person out there who has had their feelings hurt, they respond with baseless legal threats.

In a few other instances Microsoft has repeatedly abused the DMCA by requesting that Google remove several sites from its index that have zero infringing content. That's right, Microsoft deliberately sends take-down notices to Google to remove sites that it arbitrarily sees fit to have removed. In one case a site that listed information about what Microsoft programs had been downloaded over bittorrent, but contained no infringing data itself, and no links to any torrents.

In another cases Microsoft has deliberately had sites removed from Google's index which offer open source software, something that is in direct competition with the closed source software that Microsoft makes. In another case Universal sent a take-down notice to Google to have a promotional video removed that contained copyrighted material that included an artist who made the promotional video and gave permission to someone else to distribute it. So basically an artist offered up his services to a company and gave them permission to use the video and Universal had its competition removed from Google.

There are also many cases of movies that have been freely distributed by their creators being removed for copyright violation by members of the MPAA, simply because independent film companies are in direct competition with them. The list goes on and on. If ever there was a law that was designed to be abused, this was it.

So what happens when someone files a false copyright claim and DMCA take-down notice? Answer: Depends on how much money you have. If a corporation does it, nothing happens. However, if you or I do it, it is punishable with hefty fines and possible jail time. When a person files a DMCA take-down they are doing so under penalty of perjury. That means they certify that they are the copyright owner and they have the right to request removal. And in a perfect world that would mean something, but this world is far from perfect.

Fair use is a great concept, but copyright law, like the DMCA, in this country has simply obliterated it. Fair use is suppose to provide an individual the right to use a copyrighted work in certain instances without requiring the permission of the copyright holder. Examples of this include commentary, criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research. Because of fraudulent DMCA take-down notices content that would be considered as fair use and in particular those concerning acts of free speech, are often censored.

I've already talked about the criticism of Scientology as an example of this but it's not the only one. NPR famously used the DMCA to remove a political advertisement that offered a contrary view, Universal Music group issued DMCA take-down letters trying to have a podcast removed that frequently criticized one of its artists, NBC issued a take-down to have an Obama ad that went viral removed, Diebold issued a take-down trying to have a critical review of its e-voting machines removed after this review discussed flaws in the machines, and one of the more famous take-downs, Warner Music issues millions of claims on seemingly random videos that are clearly allowed under fair use, all because they had a dispute with Google over advertising revenue.

I believe the most telling part of this is the length that these corporations will go to control this content and the lies they tell when all goes wrong. After all, if no one complains than no one is the wiser to it, but all of these examples have come with public critique and the only response to this seems to be that it was a mistake. Yes, in all these cases these corporations claim that this is being blown out of proportion and they are merely mistakes. To this I say, once is a mistake, twice is negligence, and three times is malice.

 I don't even know what a hundred times, or a thousand times, or ten-thousand times is, but its certainly no mistake. The intent of these corporations is clear and we as free people have a responsibility to fight whenever we can. Now I don't think an individual fighting this fight will have much effect on it, but a company like Google certainly will. Google and companies like it that routinely respond to these DMCA requests should stop responding immediately, and instead require the copyright holder to litigate this matter. The DMCA has never been challenged, for many the risk is simply too great to challenge it and its easier to simply take down the content than to not do so. But what is needed here is a corporation that benefits from Internet technologies like Google to challenge the DMCA, which although I have not talked about, clearly violates the constitution of the United States in at least two ways.

First, it violates the first amendment by stifling free speech, something completely unacceptable in a free society. And second it violates Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 which grants Congress the right to protect created works in a limited fashion by granting the creator a limited monopoly on said works. The broadness of the DMCA and its power to remove content without due process and without consideration as to whether the work is either even copyrighted in the first place, or owned by its creator, violates the constitution in both principle and practical fairness. Only when a corporation with the means to challenge this law steps up, will it ever be removed.

As I see it a few things need to happen to fix the DMCA take-down abuse in the meantime.

1. Websites like Google must begin charging copyright holders a fee for each take-down notice they file. Only when a fee is imposed of significant cost can this kind of abuse begin to be curbed. A reasonable charge should be around $20 to $30 per request. If this particular violation really is hurting your bottom line, than a $20 fee is nothing in comparison to the money you must truly be losing by allowing this content to stay where it is. (sarcasm!)


2. All automated tools must be turned off, and all requests must be filed in writing. Now although this would seem to make life harder for copyright holders to file claims, it is both a benefit to the U.S. postal system and the lawyers who are paid to file these letters. After all, its unlikely that these corporations are going to hire a dedicated team of teenagers to write and mail these letters out, and although the frequency of take-downs letters issued would certainly go down, any letter issued in this way would again be of benefit to the postal system which has seen its service go down with the invention of e-mail.


3. All letters issued by copyright holders must be reviewed before anyone removes anything. That means that fee you are now collecting to process these asshole requests can be used to pay someone to sit at a computer and actually review these supposed infringements.


4. If it is determined that the copyright holder has filed a false or invalid request, they must pay an additional fee, sort of like a bounced check fee, to make punitive the action of filing said false claim. By doing this, the assholes who are paying all these fees will begin to suffer a monetary loss and understand what it begins to feel like when someone pulls down a file or link that clearly doesn't violate anyone's copyright and ends up costing that person money. Only when it begins to affect these assholes will they understand what it really means.

And finally although I didn't include this as a part of those rules, I believe it should be something considered anyway. Websites that use the safe harbor provision of the DMCA and take down content upon request should make these manual requests conditional. That is, when a request is filed, a person must certify that they are making a valid claim and are responsible if the claim is found to be invalid. In this case, if the claim is found to be invalid it should be the responsibility of the website who followed the request to go after the person making the request for damages, both with the intention of making these actions punitive but also practical by recovering any money that may have been lost as a result of the fraudulent and invalid request.

I do not feel that doing any of this is harmful to anyone but corporations and individuals who believe its easier to stifle free speech and fair use, rather than suffer mild irritation, and frankly those who would willfully try to restrict the free expression of anyone deserve a little harm done to them, at least monetarily where it will matter to them the most.

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