Prometheus

[Azisien]

Saw the movie. Guess I'll fall in the middle of this thread's spectrum. It was an okay movie, but it had a pretty long way to go for greatness.

PROS:

Really visually appealing. Loved the designs. A lot of stuff looked pretty retro, even if it had a lot of modern paint (holograms, Serenity-looking ship). I did not see it in 3D, unfortunately.

Strong start. Some of the Big Questions are asked. Hype building.

Action and gore were pretty solid.

Fassbender as Android. This was easily the coolest part of the movie for me, because right away I assumed (and I think, rightly) that David understood everything going on in the movie, whereas this was more of a mystery movie for every other character. Understanding the Engineers' language would change everything. If there was signage on that ship, David could have been reading it the whole time, and all the other characters would just be like, durrrrr, dunno what dat iz. David's motivations in general are also pretty mysterious, even to the end.

The ending where Shaw and David Head fly off in an alien craft. Isn't that just the coolest reward ever for surviving a Sci-fi horror movie? Congratulations, you have unlocked God Tier Interstellar Space Craft. Time to go find them and, possibly, nuke them from orbit.

Edit: Adding a small pro. The vagina squid beast that kills the Engineer was awesome. So Lovecraftian. I would take stuff like that to stupid Xenomorphs any day. Weird Terrors from Outer Space shit.

CONS:

Answers/lack of answers to Big Questions largely unsatisfying/not present. Maybe this was intentional, but it all seemed like moderate guesswork on the part of the characters. I mean, people in the movie SAID it was a military installation with a bio-weapon. Yeah, in an off-hand comment on the bridge. Was it, though? There was little mystery beyond the initial questions, and no analysis. I guess it's hard to analyze when the vagina squids start attacking.

I gotta agree with Hawk, it distinctly bugged me how stupid many of these characters acted in the face of unearthing perhaps the origin of life in the galaxy. And just being like, GIDDY, when a fucking vagina squid python thing pops out of black ooze and starts hissing. What the fuck? I studied biology and dig animals and plants and shit but if a vagina squid python ever hisses at you, you back the fuck up.

Why did the Engineer come after Shaw at the end in the life capsule? That seemed like such a forced scene that tried to shove a little more - admittedly competent - horror into the movie. And it does nothing good for the movie. If the Engineer survived the crash, and really was so deadset on killing Earth, then he should have gone off to another ship site and launched? Not chase after Shaw who ---- wait, how did the Engineer even know Shaw was there? Did she smell like plot? Anyway, the only other thing this scene does is indirectly connect it to the Alienverse? Which I couldn't give two fucks about, this should have been a new IP.

Edit: small expansion on my final point. The movie had more potential if it was a new IP because it could have been a more focused experience. I imagine in this case the creators were sort of backed into corners, hoping not to step on the toes of the Alien movies, etc. And the movie suffered as a result.