Prometheus: Star map invitations & mysteries of Planetoid Numbers?

 leading from 

 Prometheus: Starmap motifs scattered through Earth's history

and 

Prometheus: Afterthoughts

 

a)  Invitation or not?
On one instance, Damon Lindelof didn't want to state whether the Engineers wanted the humans to visit them, and on another instance he did want to say yes, but still there was was something fascinating about humanity deciding to perceive it as an invitation. He notes that looking at the cave wall image leads to different interpretations, such as "This is where we come from" or "We want you to come here" and there is a question about where we are drawing that from

b) LV426 - LV223 = 203 LVs
Next in line from Damon is the idea that the moon the Prometheus lands on is LV223 and we know that LV426 is in Aliens the name of the moon where the derelict in Alien is found and Hadley's Hope in Aliens is built. For some reason he asks because of that whether they are actually in the right place, and I don't actually know why. There are hundreds of LVs around the galaxy and 203 LVs labeled since LV223 was catalogued, and in Aliens just over 300 surveyed worlds.

c) Zeta II Reticuli?
It is possible that Damon expects people to assume that Alien took place in the Zeta II Reticuli star system and as far as I can understand, it simply took place in an unnamed star system where the nearest known one was Zeta II Reticuli. These days a lot of fans just want to assume it must be Zeta II Reticuli because it seems easier , as does the producer of the Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set, and indeed Jonathan Spaihts in the script that was released to the public online jumped onto the idea that the planetoid must be within the Zeta II Reticuli star system as well.

d) Open guesses
However Lindelof asks how close were they to where the pictures on the wall was directing them. He asks if the fact that they got where they did was because they were just extrapolating “This is the system that has the sun with the sustainable life.” and says that it is only guesswork. We don't really have much to go on let alone have a discussion about since nothing actually relate to anything like a fact in this universe. 

e) Those that were unaware
We have found out that the planetoid known as LV426 was the intended destination of the expedition in the earlier version of the script by Spaihts and so they changed it to another planet LV223 shortly afterwards. 

f) Cinefantastique reviewers thought that Prometheus took place on LV 426
Some people who went to see the movie, and here we can point out the seasoned reviewers for the Cinefantastique website, Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French and Dan Parsons, really were not aware that the planet where Prometheus lands in Prometheus was not the planet where the derelict ship in Alien was found. Steve Biodrowski could not believe that they were the same planets because the planet in Prometheus was much more Earthlike than the one in Alien that had an almost primeordial atmosphere. Lawrence French was so sure it was supposed to be the same planet because there was the crashed derelict space ship and the space jockey and felt that maybe the atmosphere had changed in the decades between Prometheus and Alien. They had gone to see the movie without reading the interviews and trying to be informed by other materials outside of the movie that would have spoiled the plot and indeed were not alone as viewers who imagined that the planets in Prometheus and the Alien movies were the same unaware of any significance in the name given to this planet LV-223 rather than LV-426 which came from James Cameron's Aliens film. Since the film has come out, these reviewers may well have found out why the planets seem to be different.

Source Quotes

1. IGN: Let’s get specific then – in your opinion, do these aliens want us to visit them?  
   
   Lindelof: That’s an excellent question and one that I’m not going to answer. But I will say that there’s something fascinating about humanity where we perceive it as an invitation. You look at a cave wall, there’s somebody pointing at some distant planets, and one interpretation is “This is where we come from” another is “We want you to come here.” Where are we drawing that from? I think another thing that’s interesting about the system that they visit is that the moon they land on in Prometheus is LV 223. And we know LV 426 is where the action takes place in Alien, so are they even in the right place? And how close are they to the place that these aliens on cave walls were directing them. Were they just extrapolating “This is the system that has the sun with the sustainable life.” So there’s a lot of guesswork.  (http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/06/11/the-secrets-of-prometheus-with-damon-lindelof 11th June 2012)   
2. Hey You Guys: Was there a juggling act with regards to explaining the unanswered questions about Alien while asking new questions?
   
   Lindelof: Prometheus is promoting a question which is where we created by these things and did these things invite us to this place? The answer to that is yes. 
3. Steve Biodrowski: When they landed, Alien, the planet, I remember the line because it's one of the few that survived from Dan O'Bannon's script, the atmosphere was almost primeordial and  it's certainly not the atmosphere we're dealing with here, there were not signs of.
   
   Lawrence French: Yeah, but the atmosphere could change after all that time
   
   Steve Biodrowski: Yeah,  but not that much, there's not that much time that lapses between the two for that kind of change and there's no sign of an Earth ship that crashed there, you know, and it's a totally, and there's, your know, there's no water or anything on the planet. The planet's almost Earthlike in this movie.
    
   Lawrence French: Well that's the
   
   Dan Parsons: Mmhmm
   
   Steve Biodrowski: Well, there's a lot of explaining you need to do to get from this movie to what we saw.
   
   Dan Parsons: Yeah
   
   Lawrence French: Except that you've got the alien ship sticking out exactly like it does and the space jockey, so it's just, it's too much for anybody who's seen Alien, I think, to to just ignore it, if you have to say, I mean, is there another space jockey on another planet, it could be but, I didn't. (Listen to Prometheus podcast at cinefantastiqueonline.com)