The Da Vinci Code: A Series of Terrible Decisions.

For some inexplicable reason, I dust off my copy of The Da Vinci Code every year and give it an annual viewing. There's nothing about the film itself that makes the movie stand out as a particularly good movie, yet I feel compelled to give it a watch every so often because my inner child loves Easter-egg hunts and can't get enough of them.

Having never read the book which the movie is based off, it's very hard to say if a lot of the faults I picked up in the movie were derived from shitty writing on the author's or film-writer's sides. 

One glaring issue that was prevalent throughout the movie is that Robert Langdon is a dumbass. He's an intelligent dumbass, but a dumbass nonetheless. 

                                  Actor Tom Hanks, most popularly known for

                                   screaming at a Volleyball. 

If there is any fundamental message I took from the movie, it's that nothing should be taken at face-value and we should question everything. 

Not Robert Langdon, though, he's the exception. 

As the viewer, we get to see all the events unfold from everyone's perspective, giving us insight to how the story unravels. With this knowledge, we get a clear view of what is happening and are able to side with the protagonists in the story, which have been clearly outlined. The movie makes sense from this perspective.

However, thrust into Langdon's shoes, the story changes to a series of terrible decisions. 

So, let's start from the beginning and try to understand some of the logic into Langdon's decision-making:

Robert Langdon, a Harvard University Professor, is in Paris at the same time a prominent Curator in the Lourve is murdered. Langdon is then summoned by Interpol to the Louvre to try and establish a connection between the murder and himself.

Upon arrival, Langon is greeted by a detective which skimps out on many details about what is actually happening until they're at the crime scene. A naked body lies on the floor with a bloody pentagram depicted on his chest and a UV marker in his hand. 

Closer examination with a UV light reveals a message ending in "PS. Find Robert Langdon" next to the body. It would be at this point that the average person would start to question why the deceased would have asked for him...or even have had a UV pen on him at the time of death, but not Robert Langdon.

                               The Vitruvian Man has really let himself go. 

While examining the scene, a police Cryptographer approaches Langdon and gives him a cellphone, telling him there is a message waiting for him. Langdon hears the message, which is a voice-note from the same Cryptographer telling him he is in grave danger and he should not trust the detective. Langdon heeds her advise and treads carefully around the detective. 

Now, let's hold up a little bit. 

Some woman you have never met approaches you, hands you a message telling you that you're in danger and you're going to trust her over the Interpol detective? 

Riiiiight. 

                                   Come with me if you want to live. 

After hearing the message, Langdon excuses himself to the bathroom where much to his surprise, the same Cryptographer lady is there and informs him that she is the deceased's grand-daughter. She tells him he is in grave danger, that he will die if they don't solve the murder and that the Interpol detectives are tracking him. She reveals to Langdon that he has a tracking device in his pocket and convinces him to evade the detectives and solve the murder with her like an episode of Scooby-Doo. 

Any sane person would have taken a step back and seen that this woman was clearly struck with grief and was having some sort of mental episode after the loss of her grandfather. Any sane person would realize that you're in enough shit, just for having your name written at a murder scene, so running away with a crazy grief-struck woman that is rambling about conspiracy is probably not the best course of action, but not Robert Langdon. 

No, Robert Langdon decides right then and there that he trusts this little lady enough to become a fugitive and prime suspect for the murder, so they toss the tracking unit out of the window and wait for the detectives to chase the rabbit so they can have the crime-scene all to themselves. 

                                                        Race you to your grandfather's body! 

Langdon and Sophie start examining the crime-scene and start looking for clues. They find a breadcrumb trail of clues around the body and start examining the surrounding exhibits closer. I just want to point out that there were two very large blood trails which the previous detectives missed, for some reason. 

The series of clues left by Sophie's Dr Seuzz-like grandpappy leads them behind a Da Vinci painting, which once moved reveals a hidden item behind it called the Fleur-de-lis. They take this important piece of evidence with them and head off to solve mysteries a-la Nancy Drew Adventures. 

The two get inside Sophie's Smart Car and begin evading police. They head straight to the US Embassy where they are greeted by a French Police blockade which are searching for them. They have a small conversation about it and Langdon decides to continue his adventure with Sophie. 

Surely, when you're at the point in your life that a foreign police force is searching for you bad enough to blockade your embassy (which means that the case is severe enough to damage diplomatic relations), you'd stop yourself long enough to reflect on your current decision process, but not Robert Langdon. 

Then, just to wrack up the 5-star GTA wanted level, they peel away from the scene with the cops following them. This leads to a crazy car-chase through the streets of a very crowded Paris, breaking countless traffic laws and endangering people. Robert Langdon remains composed throughout this ordeal. He may not have the correct foresight into his current action's future consequences, but boy does Robert Langdon have balls of steel. 

There's just so much wrong so far, and it's only the first 30mins into the movie. Tomorrow's post will go more in-depth into Langdon's terrible decision making for the latter half of the film.

                   Robert Langdon doesn't do what he does for Robert Langdon. Robert Langdon                                     does what  Robert Langdon does because he is Robert Langdon! 

Outsourcing You.

Growing up in the 90's had it's perks. It felt like a time when things were progressing towards the future. Mom threw away those shoulder pads from the 80's, Dad bought a car that wasn't sharp and square and I was introduced to gaming for the very first time.

Since then, gaming consumed me. It became a pivotal point in my life, of which lots of friendships were formed from this mutual hobby. We would play games at every opportunity and discuss them among each other, share games, watch each other play games and pretend play we were the gaming characters.

Pre-internet, there were a lot of myths around games. Gaming rumors were spread via word of mouth, magazines and even on gaming-related shows like Cybernet. These rumors spanned from being able to jump over the flag in Super Mario Bros. to seeing boobies in Mortal Kombat's "Nudeality" finishers. However, no myth piqued our interest as much as the "Game Tester" myth. 

Like a scene straight out of Inception, the idea of being paid to play games became us, it consumed us and it was all we could ever dream of doing. While all the other kids had great and noble aspirations for the future, we had our hearts and minds set on working for a big game developer like Electronic Arts, Apogee or id Software. 

Since then, the gaming industry seems to have snuffed out the game-tester all together. Sure, large developers still have in-house game-testers, but the nature of the capitalist beast has evolved to the point that we now pay them to test the games, not the other way around as I pictured it when I was younger. 

This comes in the form of paid early-access games, pre-alpha releases and Kickstarters. 

It's understandable, though. People, by nature, are impatient. We want to be at the head of the queue, beat traffic to get home faster and in the gaming scene, it seems that we are willing to pay in order to play an unfinished product which is still in development. 

Game developers are more than aware of this, which is why this trend is emerging more and more frequently. The supple teets of the cash-cow have an allure that is difficult to resist and we, the consumer, are dumb and/or impatient enough to give in to this temptation dangling before us like a delicious carrot on a stick. 

The practice itself is not detrimental to the gaming industry, though. The games get additional funding while in development and at the same time, the game itself is being constantly scrutinized by the players, ensuring that a good quantity of bugs or gameplay changes will be fixed or changed for the benefit of the final product. Two birds, one cup. (I think that's how the saying goes). 

Obviously, a system where you're paying for a product before it's completed is bound to be a gamble to the consumer. If the game is scrapped, put in developer limbo or comes short of what was originally advertised, then you're out of your hard-earned money and somebody else benefits from your gullibility.

However, I saw something recently which blew my mind and left a most bitter, sour taste in my mouth. 

H1Z1, a zombie survival game being developed by Sony Online Entertainment just recently got an early-access release on Steam at the entry level price of $19.99. This is not an unusual price for an early-access game, as early-access prices are usually substantially lower than final release, full retail price. 

No, what was unusual about the price was the fact that there was a price at all, since H1Z1 will be a free to play game. 

If I could go back and show younger-me this, he would probably not be able to wrap his mind around the concept, and rightfully so. It feels like the greediest, most opportunistic thing that could be done and I'm surprised that not many people are up-in-arms about it. 

Sony Online Entertainment has justified this price by including event tickets (a marketplace cash-item) in the early-access release, but it doesn't feel equatable to that sum of money. What is boils down to is basic human greed at the exploitation of willing others and because of this, that kid inside of me with a passion towards the development and testing of games is withering away. 

It scares me to think what the future may hold for the gaming consumer. What other underhanded practices will emerge as things like this become more frequent and we keep giving in to them. 

The problem doesn't lie with the game developers, project managers or publishers behind these decisions. It lies with us, the consumers. The reason that a company can get away with charging you for something that is free is because we are willing to pay for it. We are showing them that there is a market, no matter what they throw at us or what unethical practices are put in place and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Until that time comes, I'm committing myself to not purchase or support any early-access, kickstarter or Alpha game unless it's proven itself to be worth the money, time and manages to please the kid in me that is still dying to test out games. 

Welcome to Mozambique!

I arrive at Nampula airport at 13:25. As soon as the small aircraft's door is swung open and I step out, I am greeted by a drenching humidity in the air that makes my lungs feel like I've pulled a bong with too much water in it. Beads of sweat instantly start rolling down the sides of my face. It's 36'c, welcome to Nampula, Mozambique.

The plane parked directly in front of the airport and it's a short walk to the terminal. Inside, there is a small desk with two airport personnel behind it. A petite Mozambican woman is weaving through the line with a hand-written piece of paper asking the passengers if we have had our Yellow Fever shots. None of them have had one, I blame the travel agents.

We're each given a small piece of paper for us to do our air-transfer documentation. No pens are provided. A few of us have pens with us and we soon become the leaders of this pack - the seeing among the blind, the saviors of Nampula Terminal. We fill out our forms and make our way to the desk. Everybody gets their stamps, it's going swimmingly. I present my passport to the two gentlemen and hear "ah Argentina! Lionel Messi! Football, no?" I say "Yes, football." They tell me to stand one side for some reason. The midget woman is still asking me if I've had my Yellow Fever shot. I'm getting real tired of this bitch's shit.

After everyone has collected their luggage and gone, I'm still standing in front of the desk. "You come." said one of the men and I grabbed my luggage and proceeded to follow. We walk through the apparently defunct metal detector and into the main terminal. It's small, hot and reeks of fish and desperation. He motions for me to walk up a small flight of stairs and into a dinky little room with three bewildered looking men sitting inside. He points to a couch and says "seeet", I seeet.

It's been 30mins now and nobody has acknowledged my existence. These three guys continue to do their work, oblivious to my desperation to get the fuck out of there. I watch them and learn their ways. It's a complex security system they have developed to handle the influx of new arrivals. One of the men takes the flight manifesto and writes all the people's passport origins on a piece of blank A4 paper and hands it to the guy on the couch next to me, that guy then takes the sheet and transfers all the information to a cellphone where he sends it in a text to God knows where. The third person is then counting documents. Hundreds of documents. These documents too, were a mystery I could not solve.

Looking around that office gave me some insight as to what sort of planning and management the country is enduring. There is a brand new Samsung air-conditioner above the windows with the power plug dangling in the air. I see that 20cm from the end of the plug is the plug point - an extension cable could do the trick, but there didn't seem to be one at hand. There is a small unoccupied desk in the corner of the room in immaculate upkeep, yet they decided to work here, on this couch, with documents on their laps. I presume it to be someone else's desk. I don't really care at this point, I just want to get my VISA.

Pushing towards the end of an hour and a short man dressed in military attire enters the room. He looks at me, looks at the other three people, looks back at me and then begins speaking Portuguese. I do the common "Don't understand" gesture with my hand, as if swiveling a plate in my open palm. He seemed to understand this and proceeds to talk to the other three fellows, they answer him, not looking up from their current task. It's at this point that Military Man loses his shit and begins raising his voice and waving his arms about. I don't really understand what he was saying, but I presume he was referring to them making me wait, because his body language wasn't exactly coming across as saying "You guys are doing a great job! I just thought I'd pop in here and let you know that!".

They shuffle whatever they were busy with to one side and reluctantly wave me over to a small chair in front of a whiteboard in the corner. There's a camera in front of me - it's a 2mp webcam from 1999 that looks like it came bundled with an AOL package. He lifts up a blanket and begins tinkering with a computer. "Front face" he says, so I front face. He takes a photo and motions for me to stand up and come over to him. There's a small fingerprint scanner on the desk and he holds up his right index finger and says "Finger first", I index finger firsted as instructed. He raises his left index finger and says "Now finger two", so I put my left index down on the scanner and finger two. "Muy bon" he says as he turns on an Epson printer that is so old, that the white finish has now turned yellow.

Then nothing happens.

We wait and wait for a print that is clearly not coming any time soon. I look at the guy and shrug my shoulders, as if to say "what now?" and he calls one of the other men over to help him. This was my most frustrating moment thus far from the whole experience and where the language barrier was the most prevalent. Watching these two working on this poor PC was like watching someone drive your car - sure, they can drive it, but you'll always have some criticism as to how they do it. I don't know how many times I saw them try print the document and watched as the print queue grew larger and larger with each push of the print icon. How do you even say "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" in Portuguese?

It's 20 mins after my Visa is supposedly done and I'm still waiting for this print. There's 4 people involved now, trying to get this print working. Everything from checking the ink, paper, plug points - everything. It's so fucking sad that me entering this country is solely dependent on a R400 canon printer from the early 2000's. Eventually, one of the geniuses does something right and it's spitting copies of my Visa one after another. How do you say "Just cancel the other jobs" in Portugese? I don't know, because if I did I would not have waited for this man to collect 30 identical copies of the same document, as if expecting the last one to be different.

I just got into the country and I wanted to go back already.

Zombies, Beans and Bandits

Dean Hall's (AKA Rocket) popular Arma II mod, DayZ, made it's way into it's own standalone game about a month ago and has already sold over a million copies in it's Alpha stage. That's got to say something about the unique gameplay design, or the current demand for this type of sandbox.

Having extensively played the Arma II mod of DayZ, I could not wait to get my feet wet in the standalone. So I picked it up on launch day and have been playing it on and off since it's release. It's time-consuming, unforgiving and has a really high learning curve, but beyond that, it's wonderfully broken and fun.

However, being an Alpha, there is a lot of stuff not yet implemented in the game at this current stage, so if you're the type of person that enjoys going on an Easter-egg hunt for increasingly better loot, you're going to have a bad time. There is only a limited selection of items in the game and a lot of them have no actual usefulness at the moment.

Besides the lack of loot, there is also a scarcity of zombies in this game. Being a post-apocalyptic, zombie survival game, you would expect the zombies themselves to be abundant, but they are seldom found in huge, threatening packs and even so, they pose no actual threat as they are now. You can literally walk circles around them and they will not be able to hit you. Might as well change the zombie model to carrots, because they pose the same level of threat to you.

So, since the loot is limited and the zombies are broken, what is there really to be achieved at the end-game?

Well, the truth of it is that if you have the loot you want, you can either log off until new content has been added, or seek out player interactions. There's no incentive to keep exploring and there's no real timesink to be had when reaching end-game, like building bases or planting crops. However, that's not to say that the end-game is dead, since there is always banditry.

Banditry is a bit of a broad term, considering that everyone in the game classifies you as bandit, should you do something against them. For example, I don't consider people that kill players on sight bandits - they are murderers/psychopaths. In my books, a bandit is a person that approaches you, interacts with you and ultimately holds you up and takes your stuff or kills you. Some times, they make you drink disinfectant or eat rotten fruit and some times, they take your clothes and make you run from town to town naked, wearing only a pink hat - That's banditry.

This is what the end-game comes down to. You can either be nice to everyone, eat your beans like a fucking neanderthal with a screwdriver and die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a bandit. The game bottlenecks you into player interactions as your end-game reward, and without it, all you would do is end up searching buildings, looking for food and water while waiting for content patches to drop so you can rinse and repeat.

How can ruining another player's game experience be any fun?

Ruining? No, no, no. You got real bandits all wrong. We don't want to ruin your fun, we want to enhance it. We want to give you an experience that you'll be laughing about for days. Killing someone on sight can be considered shitting on someone's enjoyment, but holding them up and making them sing "I'm a little teapot" while shooting around his feet? That's an experience you're not going to forget. We don't even want to kill you. All we want is for you to entertain us, since there is no actual end-game but this.

All of this got me thinking, though. How does the way we play DayZ and interact with people in-game reflect on us as society? Since there is nobody to regulate rules or laws, it brings out our inner demons and enforces the idea that we are all inherently evil, just waiting for the opportunity. You can't trust anybody in DayZ any more and anybody is potentially an enemy. It's the Wild West, minus all the cool looking hats and Mexicans.

Maybe it's because the zombies are not really a threat and we don't actually need to work together to survive them? When we are the biggest predator in the game, it's very difficult for social cohesion to happen without a common threat or enemy figure. Perhaps when the zombies get fixed we will see some new type of social dynamics, where people will group up to help each other, instead of grouping up to kill each other.

Until then, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to hold you up, make you sing, feed you things that no person should be fed and ultimately make you my tap-dancing monkey, since it's the greatest form of enjoyment that I can currently derive from this game.

Choosing a game is a game in itself.

This past Wednesday, my company sent to another part of the country for work and because of that, I've lacked the opportunity to put a bit of gaming in. The short break from games actually came at an opportune moment, since just before I left I had felt a bit jaded from the games I was playing in general.

The funny thing is, I always have this burning urge to play games. I absolutely love gaming as a hobby and the escapism it offers perfectly balances out all of the stress and worry that I get from my job. However, I've got a particularly addictive personality and tend to latch on to things that give me any form of gratification and just take it way too far, and because of that I've got this huge catalogue of games that at times seems like a great, white mountain to climb. 

All of these choices overwhelm me to the point that while I do feel like playing games, the options of what to play are so abundant and my self-restraint is so minimal that I just end up staring at all the game icons on my desktop and don't really end up playing anything at all. It's like trying to pick out your favorite friend from your whole group of friends.

So to make my choices easier, I look at all my games and see what they have to offer. Which game has the most interesting mechanic, or unique approach that differentiates it from the others. Not exactly a bright way of trying to pick one out, since these days every developer is trying to break the mould and not produce something similar to another developer. So each game is unique in it's own way and offers something different, thus making my decision just as hard as it was when I was staring at icons. 

However, I'm missing the point entirely and taking these two days away from gaming made me realize that. 

I'm fucking spoiled. I'm like one of those girls you would find on My Super Sweet Sixteen who bitches at their parents that the cake doesn't have enough layers, or that the Mercedes they got me is of the wrong colour. 

When I was a kid, I had a Super Famicom and that was the only console available for me at the time. Sure, the Sega Megadrive was out during the same period, but who had that kind of money to spend on a "TV game"? I had 4 games at best and I played the absolute shit out of them. I played those games so much that I knew every level, powerup and optimal route for fastest completion. I had that shit down. 

This was mostly because back then, games weren't releasing at the rate that they are these days. I was lucky if I saw a new Famicom game once a year and even if I did, my parents wouldn't get it for me, so I had to make do with what I had and I fucking loved it. Even though I had played those few games so many times, I loved it because it was something else for me. It was creative and it poked at my brain and stirred my imagination in a way that kept me entertained for hours. The gameplay wasn't all that important, but the concept that I was a little blue robot man, jumping and shooting at other robots immersed me in these games for hours. 

These days, with games getting produced quicker than sneakers in a Chinese sweatshop, it's all about what the game has to offer. Which is the shiniest, most innovative, most praised game? These are the things I have to ask myself when making a purchase in a market that is so saturated by choice, that the signal to noise ratio is completely out the window. 

Well, while I was away my friend gifted me Assassin's Creed Black Flag. I have never been particularly fond of the Assassin's Creed series, but since it's a gift, it's only courteous to at least try the game before it ends up on the dusty shelf of games I might play when the zombie apocalypse is upon us.  So, I've been reading up on it and what it's about and the whole pirate theme really piqued my interest. It was at this point that I decided I'm going to revert to my younger self and let myself be immersed in the games as I used to, instead of focusing on all the shiny, gimmicky shit that apparently makes the games good. 

Tonight, I'm becoming a fucking pirate. 

Dear 'Prometheus' Slanters,

Dear 'Prometheus' film nay-sayers,

Firstly, let's get that great, big, face-hugging elephant out of the room. Prometheus is NOT an 'Alien' movie. I can see how you could construe it that way, being a Ridley Scott film and thus taken as a prequel/sequel to the films. Instead, Prometheus is set in the same universe as 'Alien' and shares concepts from it, but the overall plot and objective of the film is far from it's survival horror relatives.

So, let's break down the basics of the film, before going in-depth about the overall message. What's the superficial plot?

Well, basically this:

1. Anthropologists/Scientists discover a connection between ancient civilizations. Each civilization has a different depiction of the same galaxy far, far, away. 
2. Upon closer examination of this early cave-man depiction, they establish that the system referred to has a planet, much like ours, which is capable of sustaining life.
3. They present this theory to a mega-corporation called Weyland Industries, which decides to fund the trillion dollar mission to explore said planet.
4. Upon arrival, they find existing structures, which appeared to be long-abandoned. 
5. When exploring a structure, they find that it's previous inhabitants suffered through something horrible and met their demise.
6. Further investigation within the structure yields vats of a black, unknown substance. 
7. One of the crew becomes infected, does the beast with two backs with his girlfriend and later on gets killed due to the severity of his infection. 
8. He then comes back to life as a superhuman alien-zombie, only to be killed again. 
9. The infected crew-member's girlfriend then has an alien baby, which she had to c-section out of herself in a crude manner.
10. They discover one of the "Engineers", or humanoids who created the structure, still alive and re-awaken him in the hopes of communication.
11. Engineer kills everyone. 
12. From here on it's your standard horror flick, with lots of screaming, running and blood. 

Hmm, reading it now that I've typed it out does seem rather bland. What's there to like about the film? Why do I think it's one of the smartest films I've watched yet? 

Well, for one, there's so much symbolism and suggested themes here that it's very hard to take the movie at face-value. 

What's the overall theme then?

Basically, it's the story of creation. How we came to be and our misconceptions of our creation, being justified by our own man-made religions. 

So, let's take a look at the film, and fuck it, we'll do it from the start. I'm going to break the key scenes down to two sections, being Depicted (what's being shown) and Symbolized (The symbolism of the depicted scene) where applicable:

The death of an Engineer. The Life of a planet.

Depicted: A lone Engineer is by the water's edge of a waterfall on some unknown planet. He looks towards an ascending ship as it takes off before opening a small canister of what is presumed to be "the black substance" (hereforth referred to as "lifegoo") and consumes it. His body is quickly consumed by the lifegoo and he falls into the water, while his cells are broken down into DNA and washed away.

Symbolized: This is the fundamental creation of life. The Engineer, consuming the lifegoo only to be broken down into DNA from which life on the planet will flourish. The ship leaving before he consumes it shows that there was no intention of it happening any other way.

Notes: This is a very important scene in the scope of the movie, as it gives us insight as to the function of the lifegoo and the intention of the Engineer. There is a slight hesitation before he consumes the lifegoo, which is indicative of the Engineers acknowledgement of what the consequences to him would be if he consumed it.

The struggle to hold on to faith.

This is another important point that I need to touch on, as I've been tugging on the importance of it back and forth, but felt it needed to be included, which is the struggle to maintain faith and the symbolism of Elizabeth Shaw's crucifix. 

It is commonly referred to throughout the film and numerously shown in scenes, but what is more important, is the scene where David (the android), removes Shaw's cross and keeps it when he suspects her of being infected. 

It seems a bit fishy, but if you keep in mind that he took the cross from her, prior to meeting the Engineer, it will make a lot more sense later on as I break the film down further. 

Inside the structure.

Depicted: The crew enter the structure and find a closed room with a decapitated Engineer at the doorway. They enter the room and see a great mural with the depiction of a humanoid, with his abdomen bust open. There is another mural of a Xenomorph and vats of the lifegoo littered all over. They spend what must be 10 minutes in there, before Shaw notices there is a change and says "We have affected the atmosphere. The mural...it's changing." and so it seemed to decay by their presence. 

Important things to note in this scene: 

1. The mielworms being stood upon as they entered the room.
2. The vat of lifegoo with the lifegoo leaking from it.
3. The changing of the mural by their presence.

Symbolized: This is our first introduction to the corruption of man. Our presence changing the mural shows us that we are not quite like the Engineers, as we thought we were. The scene of them stepping on the Mielworms is important in the sense that the Mielworms had always been there, so surely they must have come in contact with the Lifegoo at some point during the 2000 years they were left in isolation with them. However, by us coming in contact with them, and them in the contact of the lifegoo, did they turn into an eel-alien creature. 

What happened 2000 years ago? 

Depicted: They do carbon dating on the decapitated Engineer corpse and establish that it died about 2000 years prior. 

Symbolized: It's safe to assume that one of mankind's greatest events happened about 2000 years ago, being the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This ties up in the same timeframe as the deaths of the Engineers on LV223.

David at the steering wheel. 

Depicted: David finds the command quarters of the ship and through some investigation, unlocks a recording of the Engineers, prior to the events that led up to their deaths. It's depicted that they had charted a course for earth and placed themselves in hyper-sleep. One of the Engineers remains alive in a hyper-sleep chamber.

This gives us some insight as to the Engineer's intentions. They intended to return to earth, but their purpose is unknown. This scene mostly justifies the finding of a live Engineer and is important for a later breakdown. 

Wayland's agenda and David's objective.

Depicted: Upon returning to Prometheus, David is shown in a scene wearing a head-unit and seemed to be communicating with Weyland and receiving orders. He then takes a drop of the lifegoo, places it on his finger and spikes Holloway's drink with it after having a discussion about existentialism.

What can be drawn from this scene:  Weyland is looking for any form of longevity. He uses David as a tool to drug Holloway with the lifegoo, to see how it would affect him and if he could use it to prolong his own life. There was no malicious intent with the drugging, but a blatant disregard for others by Weyland and it shows just how Weyland would go to achieve his goal. 

The virgin birth and the beast within.

Depicted: Prior to transforming into a monster, Holloway had intercourse with Shaw. It is established before the actual deed that Shaw and Holloway have tried to conceive a child, but Shaw is unable to have children for unknown reasons. After Holloway is killed, Shaw is quarantined by David in fear of infection, but soon realizes that Shaw is pregnant with a monster. Shaw breaks free from isolation, runs to a surgery machine and has a cesarean to have the monster removed. Once removed, we're shown that this monster is a tentacled squid-like creature. 

Symbolized: Again, another image of the host with it's abdomen torn open. The creature that protrudes from her is violent and wants to kill her. Again, through sacrifice comes life symbolism which we are repeatedly shown in the film. 

Weyland's death.  

This is my favorite scene in the movie, as from this point on, the puzzle pieces start falling together. 

Depicted: Weyland, David, Shaw, Ford and some random security guy enter the command room of the ship. They awaken the Engineer and David communicates with him. The Engineer looks at them, astonished for a second, gently strokes the head of David, only to decapitate him and kill Weyland with David's decapitated head. 

"There is nothing" were Weyland's final words and beautifully fitting to the situation. So deliberate, yet subtle.

Symbolized: This is the moment when we meet our maker, but instead of having answers fulfilled, we are destroyed by them as we are not worthy. The scene of Weyland being killed by the Engineer, using David's head is a grand moment in symbolizing our makers, killing us with the "life" we have created. I'll explain everything I derived from this scene in my interpretation summary below:

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The Engineers have a hard-on for creating life. Their belief of "through sacrifice, comes life" is numerously shown throughout the film in:

1. The opening scene.
2. Holloway's death scene (he sacrificed himself to Vickers, so as to let the others on the ships and then comes back to life as a monster)
3. The cesarean scene.
4. The crash of Prometheus into the ship scene. 
5. The giant squid eating the Engineer to become the Xenomorph scene.

There are much more, but these are blatantly apparent and need to be noted. 

The lifegoo is not a weapon. It is a substance with life-creating properties which changes purpose according to the nature of the host. The mielworm transformation is indicative of this, as they only changed to something dreadful once coming into contact with humans (which is why the short scene of us standing on them and the following scene of the worms wriggling in the lifegoo is important). 

The Engineers are not "like us", they are us. They are what we eventually would evolve to - the pinnacle of human evolution. They are bigger, stronger, completely hairless (look at Darwinism and how we have slowly been losing our body hair over human evolution) with magnificent intellect. 

The depictions on earth, through various different ancient cultures all have the same overall message. Beings pointing to the skies, to a cluster which LV223 is on. Basically, an invitation to us saying "When you become like us, you can find us here." 

I used to, but no longer subscribe to the notion that Jesus Christ was an Engineer. Instead, we know that the Engineers have been observing our evolution and my belief is that they observed the horrors of the Crucifixion of Christ (which is why David removed Shaw's crucifix prior to meeting them. It wasn't for "contamination", but rather because David had an idea that their dismay of us derived from Christ's death and didn't want the symbolism of the crucifix to be present when meeting the Engineer.). 

The Engineers themselves, neutral by all standards (much like Christ), witnessed the crucifixion and decided that we were a lost cause. Yes, we did sacrifice Christ (or he himself did), but no life came of it, only more death under the guise of a noble intention (the Crusades, witch-hunts and various atrocities performed by the Catholic church). They wanted to destroy us (basically reformat the planet and try again), but witnessing our history corrupted the Engineers themselves. No longer were they neutral, but rather "corrupted"  by the "sins" which we, their creations performed. They felt ill-emotions towards us, and because of that, were no longer a worthy "neutral" vessel from which the lifegoo could be used on, which is why things went awry for them around the same time Jesus died. 

Now, here's why I like that scene so much. 

In the scene where Weyland is killed, the Engineer does not instantly try to kill the humans. Instead, he stands and watches them, almost amazed at how far we have come. He looks taken back by David and his knowledge of their language and for a brief second, there is some emotion on the Engineer's face as he strokes David's head, as if he is proud that we've managed to overcome our strife (failures as creations) and reach a level of technological prowess to be able to follow their callings and find them. However, his fascination and admiration is short lived, because as he touched David, he realized that he was not human. Instead, a "fake life" which we have created, completely void of the sacrifice required to create life and defeating the Engineer's overall purpose. This, coupled with Weyland's request for an unnatural longer life was all the Engineer needed to realize that as far as we had come, we had not gone anywhere at all as a species. 

"There is nothing" was absolutely fitting as not only did it describe that there is nothing here that he came for, but also touches on our purpose in the universe. 

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Some info regarding symbolism in the film:

• LV-223 = Leviticus 22:3 "Say to them: 'For the generations to come, if any of your descendants is ceremonially unclean and yet comes near the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the LORD, that person must be cut off from my presence. I am the LORD."
• Prometheus the Deity - In Greek mythology, Prometheus (Greek: Προμηθεύς, pronounced [promɛːtʰeús]) is a Titan, culture hero, and trickster figure who is credited with the creation of man from clay, and who defies the gods and gives fire to humanity (theft of fire), an act that enabled progress and civilization. He is known for his intelligence and as a champion of mankind.

Regards,

Nahuel Graziani

Dear, Moron who drives a shitty little car at 60km/h in the fast lane

Dear, Moron who drives a shitty little car at 60km/h in the fast lane,

How are you doing? My, oh my, it's been a while! Well, it hasn't really. It's been exactly 5 hours since I was stuck behind you on the highway, staring at the back of your car which you choose to use as an invitational canvas to portray to the world what kind of life you live. The Johnny Walker "keep walking" sticker, telling us that you like to party, but that you keep it classy when you do. The half-peeled Apple sticker on your bumper, indicative of your consumer habits and brand loyalty. Your family stick figures, showing me that not only are you are capable enough of supporting a stick-figure wife and offspring, but also that you have a canine companion that is important enough to be considered part of the family and represented in this adhesive art form.

I feel some sort of bond developed between us during the 25 minutes that I was stuck behind you on my way to work. The cars that kept overtaking you on the left didn't seem to deter you in the least from your slow-moving habits, and quite frankly, that's admirable. A man that sticks to his principles! You don't get many of those any more, but you defy social norms and stuck it to THE MAN by showing us that nowhere is it indicated that there is a minimum speed limit on our roads to be adhered to.

Just want to point out that I did notice that your car smoked quite a bit during shift-changes, and I'm not certain if that's entirely attributed to your rings being shot or the strain your car took on itself to haul you and your gigantic fucking balls around to your various destinations. I assume you have gigantic balls, because I did notice that while other drivers passed you on the left and flung profanities at you, they could not dull the enjoyment you seemed to be deriving from Miley Cyrus' - Wreckin Ball song you prided yourself in blasting at a full 11.

So, to close off. I'd just like to leave you with a little tip: DRIVE IN THE FUCKING FAR LEFT LANE, DOUCHENOZZLE! Nobody likes you, the way you drive, your fucking stick-figure family and passion of Johnny Walker and Apple products. We all go home and talk about you, bitch about you in the office and by God, if I had a monster truck, that stick-figure family would have been one stick-daddy smaller.

Kind regards,
Nahuel Graziani