Thundercracker wrote:
I wonder why they cut out the other Engineers from the opening?
I find the contrast of appearance between the Engineer at the beginning and those later in the film interesting. The one in the beginning (and those in the deleted shots) with their pristine robes seem like they could have a religious and spiritual nature. The act of the Engineer drinking the liquid seemed very ceremonial and like a right of passage (even more so in the deleted shots and storyboards).
The Engineers in the holograms and the one awakened from cryo-sleep appeared very militaristic in nature with their armor-like exo-suits, bio weapon machinations and malevolent behavior. The ship in the opening was also a more classical saucer shape design as opposed to the derelict.
Could there possibly more than one sect of Engineers? Those that perhaps want to seed life throughout the universe through self sacrifice and those who want to eradicate life using biological warfare. Probably just reading to much into it.

I haven't seen this film yet - completely forgot about it until I read through this thread the other day to be honest - but I'm quite looking forward to the blu-ray now.
Thundercracker has touched upon the most interesting aspect of this for me - by holding back on what we actually learn about the Engineers for the final cut, the onus is on us to decide why it is the people that created us might also want to destroy us.
And the instinct is to presume humans didn't turn out as planned/have f**ked up/have done something to piss the Engineers off etc... to presume it is all about our point of view.
But the truth is - if
we have changed over time, so might they. For me (again, without having actually seen the film) its inviting us to look at where we came from, and where we are at now as a race... and then imagine, do the Engineers really
need any kind of motive instigated by us to have changed their beliefs so drastically over time? Do they/should they necessarily all think alike and act alike anyway?