Support NeoGAF

[DECK'ARD]

I'm still just staggered how supposedly intelligent science-fiction can be so dumb on nearly every level.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

Jesus the Xenomorph. That's the meaning of that cave paiting. And not to defend our ancestors but would you blame them for crucifying Jesus Xenomorph? Yeah, yeah, one should not judge on another's physical appearance but when you bleed acid.....

Wat? Jesus was a space Jockey, not a Xeno.

 

[daviyoung]

Then again, when dealing with a "nobody talks/reacts like that" kind of script, the guy playing an android has a bit of an advantage.

He could have played it like Winona Ryder, but instead he played it like Ian Holm. It's a great performance regardless of relative placement.

 

[DECK'ARD]

Jesus Was A Space Jockey is such a good name for a song.

 

[Keylime]

For people that hated the film, have you put aside your angst and tried to watch it again after reading all the hypothesizing online as to what's going on? Very similar to Lost, once you accept what the product is trying to do vs. what you want it to do, it becomes a very fulfilling experience (at least it does for me).

My second viewing was immensely better than my first, and I'm seriously considering a third viewing as the theories get better.

You have to accept that this movie is religion vs. science and that religion wins. What greater twist in the sci-fi genre than to challenge science itself?!

Spoiler

I'm being a bit crazy with this line, but I could totally see Scott saying that in an interview or something

 

[Solo]

For people that hated the film, have you put aside your angst and tried to watch it again after reading all the hypothesizing online as to what's going on? Very similar to Lost, once you accept what the product is trying to do vs. what you want it to do, it becomes a very fulfilling experience (at least it does for me).

No, because all of that makes the movie even dumber than it originally seemed.

 

[daviyoung]

For people that hated the film, have you put aside your angst and tried to watch it again after reading all the hypothesizing online as to what's going on? Very similar to Lost, once you accept what the product is trying to do vs. what you want it to do, it becomes a very fulfilling experience (at least it does for me).

Watching it the first time was like watching The Matrix the first time. Hearing Scott and Lindelof talk about it is like watching The Matrix: Reloaded. Watching it again after this is like watching The Matrix: Revolutions. It just makes less sense the more time you spend with it. Hoping for the equivalent of the Animatrix to save it, but even Ridley's denied the presence of an extended cut.

 

[Erigu]

Very similar to Lost

Indeed.

 

[The Elite]

For people that hated the film, have you put aside your angst and tried to watch it again after reading all the hypothesizing online as to what's going on? Very similar to Lost, once you accept what the product is trying to do vs. what you want it to do, it becomes a very fulfilling experience (at least it does for me).

My second viewing was immensely better than my first, and I'm seriously considering a third viewing as the theories get better.

You have to accept that this movie is religion vs. science and that religion wins. What greater twist in the sci-fi genre than to challenge science itself?!

Spoiler

I'm being a bit crazy with this line, but I could totally see Scott saying that in an interview or something

I really think science wins. Even if you read Scott's take on Space Jesus, science still wins. Earth is a Petri dish, we are the experiment, shit went wrong, they wanted to reset the experiment, their own bio-weapon turned against them.

Even though I like the film -

Faith vs. Science

Whichever wins, we lose.

 

[Keylime]

No, because all of that makes the movie even dumber than it originally seemed.

:lol

I guess I never held Alien on a pedestal, and therefore to me what this movie is doing is dramatically more interesting than Alien will ever be to me and doesn't somehow retroactively ruin it.

Alien is a great horror movie in a sci-fi setting...but it doesn't make you question anything. It doesn't propose any awesome ideas. It presents a corrupt corporation and a super killing alien and plays the traditional hero story. Done super well, of course.

Aliens is just a roller-coaster ride that Cameron pulls off as well as he always does...but that movie is also hollow. Survive the alien onslaught. A bit more corporate corruption. Hero wins in the end.

What Prometheus is doing is creating an interesting world around those two stories, for me. To me this movie's fault is largely in the birthing scene and the lack of response to it. For something so important, it's only ever referenced in a passing joke from an android. That part makes no sense at all...that not even Shah brings it up.

That aside, though...I think the thought-exercises and questions this movie introduces is interesting. Not at all conclusive, but interesting.

 

[Erigu]

Alien is a great horror movie in a sci-fi setting...but it doesn't make you question anything. It doesn't propose any awesome ideas.

Then again, neither did Prometheus...

 

[Keylime]

Then again, neither did Prometheus...

Well it's obvious that some folks have no interest at all in engaging in hypothesis and theorizing and want to ensure that everyone knows that this movie should be labeled as a heap that isn't worthy of anyone's time...

This really does feel like a Lost thread!

I guess I'd rather see more discussing what's presented under the context of what Scott/Lindelof have hinted at in interviews as their intentions vs. just shouting that what was presented didn't meet certain expectations.

Everyone's opinion is valid, of course...but once you get passed the "I loved it" or "I hated it" responses, there are layers worth discussing in my mind.

Maybe I'm just drinking the Kool Aid on this one.

 

[LosDaddie]

So Prometheus was...pretty lame.

I wasn't even hyped for it, and only went to see it because we had a free babysitter, and I still left the theater disappointed.

The best thing I can say about the movie was that the visuals were top notch. The 3D was solid, too. I'll probably watch it again via Netflix down the road.

 

[R-User!]

Because we have seen Alien, and we expected more from Ridley Scott.

Whenever you expect something, prepare to be dissapointed.

The less you expect the more you are likely to be satisfied.

I hope you don't expect anything when going in to see The Dark Knight Rises... :/

 

[LowParry]

I hated the movie at first but the more I read into discussions and looked at the movie differently, the more I like it. The ending is still pretty stupid though imo. Should of been an after credits snip. Hopefully there will be a DC version. And there's still viral marketing going out for this? What's it all suppose to mean?

 

[daviyoung]

Well it's obvious that some folks have no interest at all in engaging in hypothesis and theorizing and want to ensure that everyone knows that this movie should be labeled as a heap that isn't worthy of anyone's time...

This really does feel like a Lost thread!

I guess I'd rather see more discussing what's presented under the context of what Scott/Lindelof have hinted at in interviews as their intentions vs. just shouting that what was presented didn't meet certain expectations.

Everyone's opinion is valid, of course...but once you get passed the "I loved it" or "I hated it" responses, there are layers worth discussing in my mind.

Maybe I'm just drinking the Kool Aid on this one.

I would agree with you, and I did agree with you until Scott and co. opened their mouths and started Architecting the crap out of their ideas.

We are to believe that everything the humans say in Prometheus is truth. They are not wrong about anything. I expected them to be wrong about it all, like humans would be in that situation. But nope, they're right. They did Engineer us, black goo is a bioweapon, it's easy to create life, it was an invitation, they were going to destroy Earth. It completely destroys any of the fun of trying to piece the story together.

 

[The Elite]

I hated the movie at first but the more I read into discussions and looked at the movie differently, the more I like it. The ending is still pretty stupid though imo. Should of been an after credits snip. Hopefully there will be a DC version. And there's still viral marketing going out for this? What's it all suppose to mean?

I'm growing tired of post credit snips. If you want to show something, show it pre-credits. With that said, I wouldn't have done the last xenomorph scene at all.

 

[DECK'ARD]

I hated the movie at first but the more I read into discussions and looked at the movie differently, the more I like it. The ending is still pretty stupid though imo. Should of been an after credits snip. Hopefully there will be a DC version. And there's still viral marketing going out for this? What's it all suppose to mean?

The Facebook monkeys seem to have done more work than the writers.

There's a renewed advertising campaign in the UK on TV seemingly aimed at combating the negative word of mouth as well. Proclaiming the movie event of the year, showing Shaw walking around with the fire axe and quoting The Sun and The Daily Star, it's pretty funny.

 

[Keylime]

I'm growing tired of post credit snips. If you want to show something, show it pre-credits. With that said, I wouldn't have done the last xenomorph scene at all.

Agreed there, I'm not really sure what that part accomplished.

 

[Man]

Just came back from second viewing.
Observations:
Upside down plant in Shaws quarters.
The 'pups' (probes) howl and cry.

Vickers tells the captain 10 minutes after he asks if she wants to get laid and if she is a robot? Did she sleep with him?

 

[Ollie Pooch]

He could have played it like Winona Ryder, but instead he played it like Ian Holm. It's a great performance regardless of relative placement.

For me he was like a cross between Bishop and C3PO.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

You have absolutely no idea how close his joke is to the very first draft of Alien. Originally, the Chest Burster was supposed to represent an actual cock.

You see, the original idea of Alien was for it to be a horror story for straight men.

This is why that creative theory posted earlier about the Xenomorphs all being female doesn't work. The Xenomorphs are the most phallic creatures ever put to film. There is no way the Xeno in ALIEN, at least, is a "female"--it is a penishead with a penis tongue that even gets a mouth erection when it watches Ripley undress.

PROMETHEUS uses tons of sexual and rape imagery but that's par for the course in the Alien series. One of the things that disappointed me about the film is that it doesn't seem to say anything with it--it's just borrowing it from the other movies.

 

[The Elite]

Agreed there, I'm not really sure what that part accomplished.

I guess it was a bridge to please audiences and establish a connection with the rest of the Alien universe. I don't think that was necessary though. Also, the effect was subpar and the xenomorph is shot best in shadow. I thought Ridley knew that best.

 

[The Elite]

Just came back from second viewing.
Observations:
Upside down plant in Shaws quarters.
The 'pups' (probes) howl and cry.

Vickers tells the captain 10 minutes after he asks if she wants to get laid and if she is a robot? Did she sleep with him?

Is it odd that I expect Vickers to show up in the sequel?

 

[symphonask]

Scene was probably there to cement the fact that the thing that came out of Shaw was a facehugger.

 

[DECK'ARD]

Is it odd that I expect Vickers to show up in the sequel?

Would be par for the course with the way characters are treated in the film.

Maybe the next one can open with her pushing her head out of the ground and going "Phew!", it would cement the cartoon like nature of her death.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Scene was probably there to cement the fact that the thing that came out of Shaw was a facehugger.

It's blatantly obvious when it facehugs the Engineer though. That's enough. It actually would have been a reasonably "subtle" (in the loosest sense) direct link to Alien. Obviously a recognizable Xeno was going to come out of the love pairing of the giant facehugger and an Engineer.

 

[Replicant]

Wat? Jesus was a space Jockey, not a Xeno.

The film said otherwise:

 

[Nick Laslett]

Just came back from second viewing.
Observations:
Vickers tells the captain 10 minutes after he asks if she wants to get laid and if she is a robot? Did she sleep with him?

Yes.

And she is pregnant.

And see didn't die.

(Just my thoughts on first viewing)

I posted them earlier but This thread is moving too fast! I hope my second viewing will confirm ambiguity of Vickers fate.

 

[Keylime]

I guess it was a bridge to please audiences and establish a connection with the rest of the Alien universe. I don't think that was necessary though. Also, the effect was subpar and the xenomorph is shot best in shadow. I thought Ridley knew that best.

Scene was probably there to cement the fact that the thing that came out of Shaw was a facehugger.

As everyone is getting at, it just felt like a cheap fan-service shot. I do wonder if the thing coming out if the Engineer being black in color is relevant.

The worms were white. The squid-hugger was white. The resulting creature was black...pretty sure thats the first black creature made from the black goo directly.

Fifield was just going mutant. Holloway looks like he was going mutant.

...but the worm being white seems to imply that it mutated and ended up white.

Does the engineers being white have anything to do with it? Almost like the black goo somehow created THEM from humans? What if the final form of an infected human with the black goo is an engineer?!

Spoiler

I'm going full-on crazy-mode, folks!

 

[Man]

The zombie attack is the big stupid scene in this film. He looks like Bigfoot.
The Weyland reveal actually plays well surreal because Shaw practically O.D on painkillers and the music goes all dreamy.

 

[Nick Laslett]

Is it odd that I expect Vickers to show up in the sequel?

No it would be boss. Her mysterious 30 mins disappearance in this film was her contacting Weyland corp back on earth and setting in motion a contingency plan.

Weyland spec ops force will arrive in 2 years and Vickers with baby will lead them to wipe out Engineers and their God.

Anyway that is the sequel I want... Human's actually kicking our God creator butts%2

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Yes.

And she is pregnant.

And see didn't die.

(Just my thoughts on first viewing)

I posted them earlier but This thread is moving too fast! I hope my second viewing will confirm ambiguity of Vickers fate.

No idea what being pregnant would have to do with anything, but how could she be alive, regardless? Even if she survived a gigantic ship rolling over her, she'd be out of oxygen in minutes. Even Shaw only made it with movie-seconds to spare.

 

[DECK'ARD]

Jesus as a xenomorph would be the best thing since Life Of Brian, and the sequel should be a fully-fledged Biblical epic.

No half measures Ridley, go the whole way.

 

[PIMPBYBLUD]

Was the suicide scene in the beginning ever explained?

 

[andycapps]

Is it odd that I expect Vickers to show up in the sequel?

Maybe we only saw the Android version of herself. Maybe there's multiple Vickers. Dun Dun Dun..

The hate in this thread flows so strongly. I love it. Even though I thought Prometheus was fantastic. It's funny that the movie seems to elicit such strong reactions for being ambiguous and for asking some rather deep questions about the universe. Alien didn't ask any questions about the universe, and wasn't a deep movie at all. It was slow developing, and there wasn't a lot of dialog.. With none of the dialog being memorable. Yet it's still in my top 10 of movies because of how well the whole thing was done.

The only main gripe I get with the movie seems to be with the black goo and what makes certain monsters come from the host that comes into contact with the goo? Is it something inside them? Is it random? Or is it their motivations as the LJ post seems to suggest? I'm thinking it's the latter, but I wouldn't mind getting some answers on that in the inevitable director's cut.

What was the movie that David was watching in his part with just him prior to the crew waking up?

 

[Messypandas]

Just came back from second viewing.
Observations:
Upside down plant in Shaws quarters.
The 'pups' (probes) howl and cry.

Vickers tells the captain 10 minutes after he asks if she wants to get laid and if she is a robot? Did she sleep with him?

we used to hang flowers upside down in my house, they live longer

 

[Keylime]

Was the suicide scene in the beginning ever explained?

It shows that the engineer taking the black goo ends up killing himself and creating new life as a result. I think that's all you need to take away from that scene.

Engineers can create new life through this black goo.

 

[linkboy]

Was the suicide scene in the beginning ever explained?

The Engineer was sacrificing himself to create life on the planet (99% believed to be Earth).

 

[Solo]

Engineers can create new life through this black goo.

Their black goo sounds a lot like my white goo.

 

[andycapps]

Their black goo sounds a lot like my white goo.

That's probably what all those jars were full of. Space Jockey semen.

 

[Keylime]

Their black goo sounds a lot like my white goo.

I wonder how "on the money" that joke really is... :lol

 

[Solo]

I'm gonna go jerk off in a waterfall now

brb

 

[Man]

Their black goo sounds a lot like my white goo.

Both create freaks?

 

[Net_Wrecker]

I'm gonna go jerk off in a waterfall now

brb

Just remember to kill them in 2,000 years.

Happy hunting.

P R O M E T H E U S

 

[The Elite]

I'm gonna go jerk off in a waterfall now

brb

 

[linkboy]

Maybe we only saw the Android version of herself. Maybe there's multiple Vickers. Dun Dun Dun..

The hate in this thread flows so strongly. I love it. Even though I thought Prometheus was fantastic. It's funny that the movie seems to elicit such strong reactions for being ambiguous and for asking some rather deep questions about the universe. Alien didn't ask any questions about the universe, and wasn't a deep movie at all. It was slow developing, and there wasn't a lot of dialog.. With none of the dialog being memorable. Yet it's still in my top 10 of movies because of how well the whole thing was done.

The only main gripe I get with the movie seems to be with the black goo and what makes certain monsters come from the host that comes into contact with the goo? Is it something inside them? Is it random? Or is it their motivations as the LJ post seems to suggest? I'm thinking it's the latter, but I wouldn't mind getting some answers on that in the inevitable director's cut.

What was the movie that David was watching in his part with just him prior to the crew waking up?

Lawrence of Arabia.

Here's my take on the black goo.

In its original state (the beginning of the film), it is basically the source of all life. Its the primordial ooze (or soup) that biologists believe created life on earth.

The Engineers used it to create life on Earth, thus creating us and everything else on this planet. Basically, they kickstarted it and then left it to its own accord.

However, just like other things that have good uses, it has a dark-side too. That's what the goo in the later part of the movie was. The Engineers had decided that humanity was a failed experiment (probably because we killed one of them), and tried to weaponize the goo to wipe humanity.

I also think they view Earth as their personal laboratory, and they view us still being there as an insult.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they originated from Earth in the first place.

 

[The Elite]

Why do aliens always look so much a like? Where are the girl jockeys? Plotholes.

 

[Keylime]

Why do aliens always look so much a like? Where are the girl jockeys? Plotholes.

We'll find out in Prometheus 2 that female jockies are created by dripping black goo on one of the ribs of the male jockies.

 

[Lime]

Drew McWeeny looks into the unexplained plot points of the film

The only way we can really dig into it is to round up as many of the questions our HitFix staff and the readers and people on Twitter are asking, see which ones we feel there are answers for, which ones can't be answered at all, and which ones were created just to drive you mad.

QUESTIONS

Why did Weyland's presence have to remain a secret on the ship? Because his company and the world think he's dead? Who cares?

OUR TAKE: That's one of those decisions where the only reason his presence is a secret is so it can be revealed to the audience. The dude is a multi-trillionaire. He built the ship. He paid for the ship. If he wants to be on the ship, who is going to say no to him? There's absolutely no reason for it to be a secret except so we can have a start-of-Act-III reveal. It serves no purpose within the plot, so we have to assume it was done for the sake of the audience only.

Is Meredith Vickers human? Is she a cyborg like David? Is she really Weyland's daughter?

OUR TAKE: Yes, no, and yes. There's a moment early on where Ridley basically underlines things and circles them in red. It's during Weyland's presentation by hologram, when he refers to David as "the closest thing to a son I'll ever have." The look on Meredith's face pretty much sums up the relationship and the insane slight she feels at having her father admit that he loves his robot more than his daughter. The reason people are having trouble with this storyline is because Charlize plays it like she's totally a robot, and there's that moment where she throws David up against a wall and holds him there while she asks him questions, even though we just saw that he's got crazy superhuman strength. There is nothing in the text that commits to the idea of her as an android, though, and while I'm sure people will tie themselves in knots "proving" it, the text doesn't support it, so neither do we.

Why do they have Vickers go through the trouble of escaping the ship at the end just to have her die two minutes later?

OUR TAKE: So they could have two extra minutes of Charlize in the film?

Honestly, it's one of the most bizarre beats in the whole movie. They do so much cross-cutting to ratchet up the tension, and she just barely makes it off, and then she almost outruns the thing aaaaand… squish. It's a strange choice, but by that point in the film, the strange choices are stacking up left and right, and her death is the least of the problems.

Why does the Engineer want to kill the humans?

OUR TAKE: That's the question the whole film hinges on, isn't it? The film goes out of its way to never give the Engineers any articulated motives, so all we can do is watch what they do and listen to the few clues that are dropped in the film's dialogue, all of which is still just speculation.

Thanks to an interview with Ridley Scott, people are now connecting the dots in a way that the film simply doesn't, and I'm not going to give the film the benefit of something the director said at a junket if he didn't actually include it in the film. There are a few lines in the film where they state that whatever happened to the Engineers happened 2000 years ago, more or less. And since the film is set on Christmas, one could assume that is not an accident. When Ridley Scott tells one person that he originally wanted to include the idea that Jesus Christ was, in fact, an Engineer and that his crucifixion was the event that caused the Engineers to turn against humanity, that is certainly a provocation. But it's not in the film. In the film, the Engineers are utterly unknowable, which then allows the filmmakers to make everything feel like it is very important while never actually committing to any sort of explanation.

What one could assume from the film itself, without any interviews or outside clues, is that at some point between the initial invitations being left on Earth and the moment where something went wrong on the planet where "Prometheus" is set, they decided that we were toxic, no longer worthy of the invitation they extended to us. They were preparing to take the black goo, which appears to be a biological accelerant, and evidently wipe us clean with it, when something went wrong, the ship was contaminated, and they were killed.

This does not address the one Engineer left sleeping, though. Based on his reaction, it seems that he is outraged at human presence on the ship, and when David tries to address him in the language of the Engineers, it sets him off on his murderous rampage. Again… without any further contextual clues, the Engineer just seems like a big dumb blue monster. In a way, this is a moment that mirrors the scene in "Blade Runner" where Roy Batty finally meets Tyrell face to face, only in that film, it is the creation that is so disappointed in the encounter that he has no choice but to kill his maker. Here, it is the angry god who reacts, throwing the last few anonymous cast members around after ripping off Fassbender's head.

The last exchange between Weyland and David as they both lay broken on the floor of the chamber sounds significant in the film...

Weyland: There's… nothing.

David: I know. Have a good journey, Mr. Weyland.

… but the entire film is full of these cryptic pseudo-heavy exchanges that sounds good without actually saying anything. I loved the open ended nature of "Lost" when it was on the air precisely because it was a TV show, and I knew they weren't going to explain things immediately. Here, though, it feels like the connections to "Alien" and the desire to kickstart a new franchise both hobble the film, forcing them to lay coy with things that should be answered while answering things that needed no answer originally.

Why does the Engineer go after Shaw? Why not just go to one of the other ships and escape?

OUR TAKE: An excellent question. First, it makes no sense at all that the Engineer finds Shaw with such speed and precision, and it makes no sense at all that David somehow knows what the Engineer is doing since he's just a head laying on a floor in a room. But the notion that he's got to kill Shaw simply doesn't track. He took off. He got in his ship and he tried to fly away, and then the Prometheus crashed into him. Why he would immediately react by going after Shaw isn't explained at all, and the later reveal by David that there are many other ships is infuriating. If that's true, are there also other Engineers asleep? If that's true, why didn't they go to Earth to finish the mission that this one ship bungled?

There appears to be a minimum of three ships on the planet in the first longshot we see. One is destroyed and crashes. That's the ship (we think) that's explored in "Alien." The second takes Shaw and David off the planet. Why wouldn't the terraformers discover the third ship in "Aliens" let alone "Alien"?

OUR TAKE: This 100% is not the planet from "Alien" or "Aliens." The film's production design seems to be confusing casual fans of the series, but eagle-eyed viewers can attest that this is a completely different planet that we've ever seen before,
which means that the ships we see in this film are not the same ships from "Alien" or "Aliens" at all. Same type? Yes. Same ships? Nope.

Why do Weyland, Vickers and their staff not react at all to a bloody Shaw coming into their quarters?

OUR TAKE: This is the beginning of a whole stretch of film where no one behaves the way we'd expect people to behave faced with these circumstances. Yes, it's a big deal that they're waking up Weyland, but when a half-nude woman covered in blood with a fresh surgical incision comes stumbling into a room, you would expect people to react. Nothing. Not even the slightest hint that this might be out of the ordinary.

Why doesn't Shaw tell everyone about the seemingly frozen alien in the surgery machine so they get it off the ship?

OUR TAKE: David knows full well what happened in the surgery machine. His comment to her, "I didn't know you had it in you," in a non-too-subtle jab at Shaw, but he seems completely uninterested in following up at all, even if he's the one who started that particular ball in motion. Even when he's got Weyland to contend with, it would seem like David could find five extra minutes to walk over, check out the still-very-much-alive creature that he knows was inside Shaw, and decide what to do with it.

Again… this last act of the film depends largely on people doing things that no one would actually do. It's all in service to the plot, not in service to good character writing. The characters in this part of the movie are almost exactly as smart as the teenagers in a typical "Friday the 13th" film, and for the same precise reason.

Are Fifield and Milburn the stupidest scientists ever? Why would they go back to the one room that an alien was killed in?

OUR TAKE: As a whole, the film seems to be filled with scientists who have never heard of the scientific method. Fifield in particular is just a train wreck of a character, both in conception and execution. For some reason, he's a barking lunatic in some moments, then he's a shaky coward in the next moment, then he's smoking pot through his space suit's respirator. We see that he's the one who is running the probes that are mapping the entire structure, and that he is able to state exactly where he is because of a read-out on his suit. So why is it that he gets lost the moment he leaves the rest of the group? If he and Milburn are able to tell Janek exactly where they are when he asks, why can't they simply use the digital map they're building to find their way out? Once they are trapped inside, though, they proceed to make a series of monumentally terrible choices. Milburn, faced with a brand-new alien life form, and having already seen its terrifying little mouth, proceeds to try to pet the damn thing. This is a trained biologist? This is the guy you pick to fly to a planet where you may well encounter the first extraterrestrial life you've ever encountered? These characters are emblematic of the film's larger issues and the way things are driven forward by illogical behavior. The attack on them in the Big Giant Head room is well-staged, but it depends on them making pretty much every wrong decision that two people could make.

Is there no governmental authority on space travel? Wouldn't some body or agency need to know where this Weyland ship was going and why?

OUR TAKE: We have so little idea of the way society works at this point that it might help to see some glimpse of the bureaucracy they had to navigate to mount a trillion-dollar expedition. I am perfectly willing and able to believe that space will have been privatized to some degree by the point the film is set.

Besides, if we're going to accept that most of the crew of this trip allowed themselves to be frozen for two years, flown to a distant unexplored planet, all without having any idea why, then accepting that the ship left without telling anyone where they're going seems easy enough to accept.

If they are exploring an alien planet no one has ever been to before after an alien race has "invited" them, why is there no security crew? Why does no one have any guns or real weapons besides a flame thrower?

OUR TAKE: We definitely see some guns. They empty several clips trying to kill Fifield, to very little effect. In general, though, their behavior during the excursion is, as we observed above, totally nonsensical. When Holloway takes his helmet off because he think the atmosphere might be okay, that seems like a complete and utter breach of professional protocol. So of course, everyone immediately does the same thing, even after they see an Engineer's head explode from some sort of biological mishap. Since having a security team as part of their expedition makes perfect logical sense, of course they don't have one.

Is David evil? Why does he want to put Shaw - who never was mean to him like Holloway - into stasis with the alien in her instead of getting it out?

OUR TAKE: I don't think "evil" plays into it at all. David is simply dispassionate, utterly without empathy. When he contaminates Holloway, he's careful to first ask him for what David reads as permission first. When he realizes what's happening, David decides that studying the thing growing inside her is more important than any human compassion. Shaw is simply a subject to be studied, not a friend or a peer. It's just a matter of curiosity for him.

Of course, he's not curious enough to take two minutes to examine the thing once he learns Shaw cut it out of herself, but he's curious, nonetheless. David is fascinated by the Engineers, determined to see them close-up and at work, and he wants to see what their technology can do. He has already determined that humans hold him in a specific kind of contempt, expressed most clearly through Holloway's behavior, but in general, he feels no obligation to protect them. It's a safe bet that Asimov's laws of robotics do not apply in the world of "Prometheus."

A surgery machine just for a man? Seriously? You develop something that advanced and it only works on one sex or another?

OUR TAKE: Actually, it should work on either gender, but this particular one has been calibrated for a man. The whole reason it's onboard is to provide support for Weyland once he's awake again, so it's been calibrated for his particular biological needs. I'm guessing they could have recalibrated it for a woman, but it would have taken longer than Shaw had to do so.

When you've got two of your crew members missing and presumably trapped in an alien ship full of dead bodies, is that really a good time for the captain and the officer in charge of the mission to bump uglies?

OUR TAKE: It's like each scene in the film works fine as a scene, but when they are stacked together, the lack of logic from one to the next starts to get overwhelming. This is a good example. Idris Elba and Charlize Theron are both good in the scene and they play off each other well, but it seems like they've forgotten about any of the tensions that are building in service of a beat that goes nowhere.

Why cave paintings? And why would anybody fund a trillion dollar -- even assuming inflation -- mission on the basis of a few cave paintings? And why does Weyland assume that these cave paintings are going to lead him to people who will give him immortality?

OUR TAKE: Some big strange assumptions are made by these characters. While it is indeed odd that all these different cultures on Earth ended up painting the same pattern on walls hundreds of years apart, what's even more odd is trying to work out what actually happened. Did the Engineers spend signifiant time on Earth in the past? Did they come back repeatedly over time to make sure ancient man painted those invitations on the walls? If they really wanted us to visit them, why would their invitation lead us to a planet where they don't live? Weyland's assumption that they could extend his life essentially means that he is Roy Batty in "Blade Runner," desperate to look his maker in the eye so he can ask for more. Perhaps this is simply wishful thinking on the part of a dying man and not a logical belief, but it does seem to be a very expensive whim to indulge.

Based on the seemingly pointless presence of Patrick Wilson, do we assume that Shaw's deceased father has a greater importance of some sort?

OUR TAKE: That is a strange and distracting bit of casting considering how little he's in the film, just as it's a strange choice to have Guy Pearce buried under truly awful old-age make-up when it would have made more sense just to hire an old guy. It's not like Pearce does anything in the film that an older actor couldn't. Wilson's fine in his scene, but it does make us wonder if Shaw had more flashbacks that were cut for time, because Wilson seems to bring unnecessary star power to a two-minute role.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I've seen a lot of scorn heaped on Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts this weekend, and I think it would probably be a good idea for people to dial that back a bit. This is, in every way, a Ridley Scott film, and if it has a primary author, he is that author. Yes, Lindelof and Spaihts wrote the script, but they were taking their marching orders on this one from the guy who's been living with this kernel of an idea for over 30 years. Ridley's the one who was fascinated by the Space Jockey. He's the one who wanted to explore these ideas. He's the one who ultimately signed off on everything.

For one film to contain an opening image as provocative and interesting as the Engineer seeding the planet with his own death and a closing image as pointless and annoying as that proto-Alien posing for the camera to show off its teeth is impressive, and in both cases, they are images in search of a context.

Ultimately, my biggest question about the film is "Why didn't Ridley just make the 'Blade Runner' sequel instead?" It's obvious watching the film that David is the character he's most interested in, and the questions he explores with David would work just as well in the "Blade Runner" world. If Ridley wanted to play the game with a character who might or might not be a Replicant, as it appears he's doing with Vickers, then why not do that in the actual "Blade Runner" world as well?

In fact, this whole film would have worked just as well in that world, and there wouldn't be the need to reverse engineer the origins of the Aliens at all. After all, in "Blade Runner," everyone has left the Earth. We see over and over that "Offworld Living" is the ideal, the thing that people want now, and that anyone left on Earth is riffraff and trash. With mankind starting to spread across the universe, taking with us these new life-forms that look and sound exactly like us, wouldn't that be an interesting time to run into the beings that made us? This film could have taken the entire creator-creation dynamic even further.

I've seen plenty of tension online as people have started breaking into camps over the film, but even with all of my questions and complaints about the film, I stand by the "B-" ranking I gave it. It is a remarkable visual experience. Sitting through it the second time, I was floored once again by what Scott and his production team accomplished. I'm glad to have seen Fassbender's performance as David, precise and methodical and beautifully nuanced. I'm glad to have seen how Ridley Scott adapted to the use of 3D, and I'll point out that the 3D version of the Scott Free logo is sort of awesome.

I believe that the makers of the film, from Scott to the screenwriters to everyone else involved, wanted this to be a provocative experience, and they wanted people to have conversations afterwards, and they wanted to push buttons and ask questions. I wish the ambiguities were such that I felt energized by them instead of annoyed, and I wish they'd broken loose of the monster-movie structure of much of the film in favor of recognizable human behavior and smarter, deeper scares.

Hopefully this re-review of the film has helped answer some questions for you or helped to dig into the text in some way. There are plenty of interesting theories out there right now, even if I don't fully agree with them, so if you want to keep reading or talking about the film, there are places to do so. And if you have questions we didn't address here, please… that's what the comments section is for. This is meant to be the start of a conversation, not the conclusion of it.