Prometheus has been out in at least England and France for a number of days now, and with the gracious spoilers of the cool crazy euros at www.prometheus-movie.com I have more than enough information on the monsters in it. Which is, you know, the whole fucking point of the movie.
This deal here is being written with two things in mind: trying to get some common names out into the public (prolly won't work but whatever) and to examine what connection these creatures have to the xenomorph breed of alien from all those other movies. Let's start at the beginning.
BLACK GOO
Now, I want to make it clear that I haven't SEEN the movie yet, it won't come out here for 5 days. Therefore all knowledge I currently have is extracted from what others have told me. Without this first hand experience, my understanding of easily the most enigmatic aspect of the monsters, the black goo, is going to be pretty bare bones.
I know that those ampules/canisters/urns are either made or or contain or are leaking this black goo substance. When the atmosphere inside the buildings they are contained in changes, there are some weird optical effects with the goo that signals some sort of change. I haven't seen exactly what happens, so I have no freaking clue what the deal is with this stuff.
What I know for sure is that the goo turns things into other things.
In the opening scene, an engineer (a term I've started using to refer to these bastardized retarded versions of the actual space jockey from alien) drinks the goo or something, and his body dissolves... then there's some stupid bullshit about Ridley flunking history class but that's not important. Think of it like the Elder Things who, in At the Mountains of Madness use Ubbo-Sathla's tissue to genetically engineer Shoggoths as organic tools that can form any organ necessary, but one of their experiments escapes and, 4 billion years later, you have the current roster of Earthlings. Lovecraft's monsters go back to the beginning and offer a way cool version of panspermia that, while still stupid because it doesn't address the fact that the Elder Things still had to have evolved on their own to begin with, at least doesn't interfere with real world knowledge even 80 something years after the story was written.
In Prometheus, the engineer creates DNA in the Cambrian period, when animals were old hat in the real world.
So, whatever.
But it's wishy washy. Expose some indigenous LV223 worms to the black goo and they turn into a Millbworm. Humans exposed to it become something only called a "Gray Man" so far. Except not every time, I think. It's hard to tell.
Whatever the specifics are, we can be sure the black goo is a substance that alters the DNA of the organism it comes in contact with. Yes, this means engineer have DNA. And Aliens, but we already knew that since they can be cloned.
LV223 WORM ---> MILLBWORM
Iapetus over at prometheus-movie.com came up with this name after I became exasperated with the sheer volume of names for the same thing. Cobrahugger, Cobralien, Xenocobra, Protohugger, etc. None of those work because:
1. It's not a hugger
2. It's not a xeno
3. It's not proto anything
"Cobra" sort of works based on the flaring of the wings and the pose it strikes prior to attacking, but "Millbworm" is a much cooler name as far as I'm concerned.
What I know about this adorable little fellow is that it is the result of a goo-mutated indigenous alien worm from LV223, and that it kills by jumping down a victim's throat. It's also adorable.
GRAY MAN
The second stage here is the only one that's actually in the movie. The gray man doesn't mutate into a xenomorph, this is just the only picture I have of it because... well, it's stupid looking.
Just some sort of crazy guy with a messed up face. Nothing to see here.
The real story is that Holloway, who is also exposed to black goo, has sex with Shaw at one point, leading to the creation of the... liverburster I called it at one point, but the truth is the difference between a "liverburster" and the bodyhugger is just size.
The creation of this thing is one part black goo and two parts human. This is important because the goo seems to affect Fifield and Holloway differently, and as we'll see with the bodyhugger, this is a process that MUST have occured many times before, so I think the complicated haphazard process in Prometheus is atypical, and the gray man is a sort of mutation that wasn't supposed to happen.
And remember, goo + engineer = earthlings. That includes humans, who are central to the creation of the bodyhugger in this film.
All I'm saying is that Prometheus makes it look like an accident when it's clearly intentional, so the Gray Man is probably not the REAL reason the bodyhugger is born. It just worked out that way.
BODYHUGGER
"Liverburster" form. The featureless-chestburster looking end facing the camera is actually analogous to the mantle of a squid. The "tails" are actually five tentacles arranged in a star shape... exactly like an Elder Thing.
This is a doodle by Blood from prometheus-movie.com and, as you can see, in the center of these tentacles is a facehugger ovipositor. This creature shares a function with the facehugger, but the results are different...
...maybe.
At any rate, it implants the "proto alien" into it's host. Which then bursts out. Sure, sure, sounds familiar and everything, but the thing is, we don't know what the hell a "proto alien" acutally is. So whether or not this thing is effectively a facehugger is completely unknown. It also isn't very important, either, because of what might possibly be inferred from the murals.
PROTO ALIEN
The "Proto-Alien" certainly is related to the xenomorphs, this can be assumed safely based on the appearance, because it wouldn't look like this if it wasn't the intention of the filmmakers to imply a connection with the previously seen xenomorphs.
WHAT the connection is is completely unknown.
One idea that a lot of folks seem to be implying for no good reason is that THIS is the Jockey Alien we've been waiting for for 33 years. This is a totally valid possibility. If this is the case:
1. it means the bodyhugger really IS a facehugger, but that...
A. it implants adults into the host rather than chestbursters OR
B. this is the Jockey BURSTER, and just so happens to have fully developed limbs sort of like the bambiburster, and this might explain the absence of a tail.
However, it could be a completely separate branch of creature, a cousin of the xenomorph, if you will. In that case some possibilities are:
2. This creature isn't a "Jockey Alien," but a "Jockey Proto-Alien." As in, this is the base, not the variation
A. So if this creature had a similar life cycle to the known xenomorph and somewhere along the line facehugged a dog, the result wouldn't be the "Dog Alien" we've already seen, but a unique variation potentially called a "Dog Proto-Alien."
I. Which brings us to the logical conclusion that the "strain" or "branch" of xenomorph we are already familiar with is simply the result of a bodyhugger impregnating not an engineer, but something else, most likely a human.
That last bit happens to be my own personal theory at the moment, but just to be clear, my endorsement doesn't mean I know anymore than you do. In fact, I probably know less, since I haven't even seen the damn movie yet.
The last of the popular theories is that this really is a PROTO alien and:
3. The creature we see here is somehow responsible for creating the known xenomorphs in their current form through some unseen process and this is merely a proto-form caste early in it's development.
There is one theory, however, that is not dependent on any of these previous assumptions, and could be true of all three. Remember this mural?
It's been noted that it appears as if the figure is wearing a crest similar to a queen alien, but the body seems "off" from a normal xenomorph. One logical conclusion upon seeing the proto alien is that this figure represents the "queen proto alien." Now, this could mean a jockey alien queen as a normal xenomorph, it could mean that this branch of the bodyhugger ALSO has a queen stage, or it could mean this queen might be a missing link between these prototype creature and the advanced xenos from the other films.
We just don't know.
However, I really need to step in for a second and say that Ridley doesn't seem to be the kind of guy who is capable of coming up with ideas this interesting and complicated. And Lindelof "wrote" lost. So, these chuckleheads have no fucking clue and I guarantee they didn't come up with an answer to reveal in Prometheus 2. In fact, Ridley already said that Prometheus 2 will have even less to do with Alien.
So, it follows that, if we're shown something that look like a queen form of the alien at the end, it's probably just that: a Queen Alien molted from the proto alien. This pretty heavily implies the proto alien is effectively the jockey alien, because I sincerely doubt the ability of these writers to come up with such a cool idea as a branched xeno tree.
But then again, maybe I'm dead wrong and it's not that at all. WE JUST DON'T KNOW.
So please, for the love of pete, stop calling it a fucking xenomorph. You have no proof.
This deal here is being written with two things in mind: trying to get some common names out into the public (prolly won't work but whatever) and to examine what connection these creatures have to the xenomorph breed of alien from all those other movies. Let's start at the beginning.
BLACK GOO
I know that those ampules/canisters/urns are either made or or contain or are leaking this black goo substance. When the atmosphere inside the buildings they are contained in changes, there are some weird optical effects with the goo that signals some sort of change. I haven't seen exactly what happens, so I have no freaking clue what the deal is with this stuff.
What I know for sure is that the goo turns things into other things.
In the opening scene, an engineer (a term I've started using to refer to these bastardized retarded versions of the actual space jockey from alien) drinks the goo or something, and his body dissolves... then there's some stupid bullshit about Ridley flunking history class but that's not important. Think of it like the Elder Things who, in At the Mountains of Madness use Ubbo-Sathla's tissue to genetically engineer Shoggoths as organic tools that can form any organ necessary, but one of their experiments escapes and, 4 billion years later, you have the current roster of Earthlings. Lovecraft's monsters go back to the beginning and offer a way cool version of panspermia that, while still stupid because it doesn't address the fact that the Elder Things still had to have evolved on their own to begin with, at least doesn't interfere with real world knowledge even 80 something years after the story was written.
In Prometheus, the engineer creates DNA in the Cambrian period, when animals were old hat in the real world.
So, whatever.
But it's wishy washy. Expose some indigenous LV223 worms to the black goo and they turn into a Millbworm. Humans exposed to it become something only called a "Gray Man" so far. Except not every time, I think. It's hard to tell.
Whatever the specifics are, we can be sure the black goo is a substance that alters the DNA of the organism it comes in contact with. Yes, this means engineer have DNA. And Aliens, but we already knew that since they can be cloned.
LV223 WORM ---> MILLBWORM
1. It's not a hugger
2. It's not a xeno
3. It's not proto anything
"Cobra" sort of works based on the flaring of the wings and the pose it strikes prior to attacking, but "Millbworm" is a much cooler name as far as I'm concerned.
What I know about this adorable little fellow is that it is the result of a goo-mutated indigenous alien worm from LV223, and that it kills by jumping down a victim's throat. It's also adorable.
GRAY MAN
Just some sort of crazy guy with a messed up face. Nothing to see here.
The real story is that Holloway, who is also exposed to black goo, has sex with Shaw at one point, leading to the creation of the... liverburster I called it at one point, but the truth is the difference between a "liverburster" and the bodyhugger is just size.
The creation of this thing is one part black goo and two parts human. This is important because the goo seems to affect Fifield and Holloway differently, and as we'll see with the bodyhugger, this is a process that MUST have occured many times before, so I think the complicated haphazard process in Prometheus is atypical, and the gray man is a sort of mutation that wasn't supposed to happen.
And remember, goo + engineer = earthlings. That includes humans, who are central to the creation of the bodyhugger in this film.
All I'm saying is that Prometheus makes it look like an accident when it's clearly intentional, so the Gray Man is probably not the REAL reason the bodyhugger is born. It just worked out that way.
BODYHUGGER
"Liverburster" form. The featureless-chestburster looking end facing the camera is actually analogous to the mantle of a squid. The "tails" are actually five tentacles arranged in a star shape... exactly like an Elder Thing.
...maybe.
At any rate, it implants the "proto alien" into it's host. Which then bursts out. Sure, sure, sounds familiar and everything, but the thing is, we don't know what the hell a "proto alien" acutally is. So whether or not this thing is effectively a facehugger is completely unknown. It also isn't very important, either, because of what might possibly be inferred from the murals.
PROTO ALIEN
WHAT the connection is is completely unknown.
One idea that a lot of folks seem to be implying for no good reason is that THIS is the Jockey Alien we've been waiting for for 33 years. This is a totally valid possibility. If this is the case:
1. it means the bodyhugger really IS a facehugger, but that...
A. it implants adults into the host rather than chestbursters OR
B. this is the Jockey BURSTER, and just so happens to have fully developed limbs sort of like the bambiburster, and this might explain the absence of a tail.
However, it could be a completely separate branch of creature, a cousin of the xenomorph, if you will. In that case some possibilities are:
2. This creature isn't a "Jockey Alien," but a "Jockey Proto-Alien." As in, this is the base, not the variation
A. So if this creature had a similar life cycle to the known xenomorph and somewhere along the line facehugged a dog, the result wouldn't be the "Dog Alien" we've already seen, but a unique variation potentially called a "Dog Proto-Alien."
I. Which brings us to the logical conclusion that the "strain" or "branch" of xenomorph we are already familiar with is simply the result of a bodyhugger impregnating not an engineer, but something else, most likely a human.
That last bit happens to be my own personal theory at the moment, but just to be clear, my endorsement doesn't mean I know anymore than you do. In fact, I probably know less, since I haven't even seen the damn movie yet.
The last of the popular theories is that this really is a PROTO alien and:
3. The creature we see here is somehow responsible for creating the known xenomorphs in their current form through some unseen process and this is merely a proto-form caste early in it's development.
There is one theory, however, that is not dependent on any of these previous assumptions, and could be true of all three. Remember this mural?
We just don't know.
However, I really need to step in for a second and say that Ridley doesn't seem to be the kind of guy who is capable of coming up with ideas this interesting and complicated. And Lindelof "wrote" lost. So, these chuckleheads have no fucking clue and I guarantee they didn't come up with an answer to reveal in Prometheus 2. In fact, Ridley already said that Prometheus 2 will have even less to do with Alien.
So, it follows that, if we're shown something that look like a queen form of the alien at the end, it's probably just that: a Queen Alien molted from the proto alien. This pretty heavily implies the proto alien is effectively the jockey alien, because I sincerely doubt the ability of these writers to come up with such a cool idea as a branched xeno tree.
But then again, maybe I'm dead wrong and it's not that at all. WE JUST DON'T KNOW.
So please, for the love of pete, stop calling it a fucking xenomorph. You have no proof.
