(beware of spoilers, although not really in here)

Yup. I figured it was the 'engineers' giving life to our particular planet via combining their DNA and their black tar goo syrup, releasing it in our water. This spawned life on earth.

For the rest: That movie could have been the best scifi (horror) film of the past ten years, if they'd only set it up a little differently. Idea is great. Special effects are insanely beautiful. Great actors notably Fassbender (best android I have ever seen), altough I really hate that Rapace woman.. what a bad actor.. always over doing it. BUT why compose the script like that???? The script was completely off. Weird choices. Characters behave unlogical, no suspense, far too many characters, not enough alien mythology, not enough motivation for choices characters make.. Arghh.. I still cant believe how they'd miss their opportunity with what could have been an awesome film.

How does everyone else that saw it, think about it?

Interesting.

But it had the look of the dude already being there when the ship came, as if he expected to get picked up.

I got the sense he was in shock that the thing he drank killed him but maybe I was wrong about that.

The music was great. Nice score. I agree it was a near miss in terms of quality. Especially in the script/characters. Cinematography and music, editing and so on, all very good. Good production quality as well.

The opening itself was actually really great. So it's too bad that it had to start sucking.

For some reason I just can never take any movies that use "ancient archaeology" as a plot device seriously. I have a hard time explaining why. it's just so cheesy. maybe Indiana Jones doomed it for me?

However perhaps the best bit of the movie was whenever the viewer realizes that the creators of mankind had been attempting to destroy us, that they "changed their minds" as the characters say. Very good idea there, but as you said, not very well played out.

And what's with the old man. Lol. And all the secretive android shit. It just didn't have to play out that way. Oh well.

The guy who killed himself may have been a rogue and the ship came to capture him. He took the drink that killed him because he knew it would create life. The ship people didn't do when he dies they leave only to realize oh poop there's another race of intelligent people time to go kill them to stop competition!

But the ship didn't do jack squat. It just looked at him.

I still couldn't tell if it dropped him off, was supposed to pick him up, or just visited him, or maybe was just an incidental encounter.

However, Tyran, that theory is probably the best one out there given the name of the film.

The person at the start would be the Prometheus character, and the rest of his race are the gods. The gift of fire in this story is the gift of intelligence or consciousness that was instilled in life on earth, producing humans.

Seen that way the story actually makes much more sense so I'm inclined to think that was the idea.

They should have made it more obvious that he knew what he was doing though because when I saw it it appeared more like an execution than anything. And I also didn't pick up on the "spreading life" aspect of his death. I was sort of fucked up in the theater though so I suppose that's why I missed it lmao. However I can see them in hindsight.

@thucy. I know, the android does all kinds of random shit that doesn't get explained or even pseudo explained.

Also, the two 'scientists' behaved odd, not believable roles, especially the guy. He is on an expedition and then randomly takes his helmet off on a mission on a strange planet and stuff. That's just not how a scientist behaves, unless it has been established in earlier scenes he does. There are all kinds of examples of that. There were also way too many characters. Random deaths.. If you don't develop a character, his death won't have an impact.

Why did charlize have to die at the end? (beyond obvious reasons ;) ) She could have just rolled to the side like noomi in the end action with the donut spaceship rolling around. All the action is just to randomly put together. A waste, as the acting, effects and ideas behind were very good.

And... oh man.. the auto-surgery-robot scene could have been an instant classic if positioned and done right. What an insanely good scifi horror idea.

What would you guys rate it, from 1-10? I can't make up my mind about that, I was entertained, but when I walked out the 'chance missed feeling' prevailed..

"I am still trying to understand the opening scene. Anyone know what it meant?"

That was the scriptwriter performing a well-justified suicide to atone for writing a movie that was so god-awful that even a UFO showed up to express its displeasure. They managed to splice it in to the reels just before they shipped to the theaters as a sort of pre-emptive apology.

How Ridley Scott could create a movie this terrible is a mystery that will plague me the rest of my days. What a disappointment. I give it a '3'.

I agree with Tyran. It fits the name of the film and what David said, sometimes to create something you must tear it down.

My beef is with the ending. They answered the question throughout the movie then they decided to change all the themes in the end.

Damn test audiences

I think the alien planted life on earth against the wishes of his kind... when the ship left, he knew they weren't going to go looking for him, so he planted life on earth (maybe he is the inventer of the black tar, which is why it doesn't do the same thing during the rest of the movie?).

Ok, my opinions of the movie? It was good, but not great. Far too much obvious foreshadowing. "This room is a lifeboat!" Well, I know where this movie is going to end. "It does autosurgery!" Well I know someone is going to need surgery.....
It was just too obvious all around what was going to happen throughout the movie, and that annoyed me.

This movie had a lot of great ideas that were poorly executed. First off there were a glaring inconsistencies...How is it, with the ship all mapped out, did the two characters that died in the beginning managed to get lost when the others found their way out with little difficulty? And why did they open up the ship to check out movement outside (with the crew accounted for) without giving the least thought to the possible danger involved (considering all the bad shit they just went through). Then there was a complete lack of character development in many cases. Of the three that gave there lives in the end to stop the alien ship you only had a feeling of the captain's motives. The other two went to their certain deaths happily.....the one guy was just smiling away with no apparent fear for their certain demise. And even when there was character development it was uneven and incomplete in many cases. Charlie Holloway, rather than being excited that they had found sooo much of what they were looking for or deeply concerned about the deaths of two of their team was moping away at a pool table because there was no alien to talk to? Noomi Rapace's character was one of three characters that was fleshed out but even then there was that breakdown about not being able to have a child....it just appeared out of nowhere. The android was, ironically, the only character that was "fleshed out".
As far as running in a straight line from a falling object...( or, in other movies, being chased in a car) doesn't it just drive you crazy...
I would give it a 4 out of 10. It was visually stunning. It could have been so much more. I hope there is an extended version with about 45 minutes of extra footage...mostly character development and a filling in of plot inconsistencies....it might be a good film then...maybe

I would give it a 7 or 8 out of 10. Sure, there were inconsistencies, and some characters weren't fully developed, the philosophical aspects weren't fleshed out enough...but I still thought it was a really intense, awesome experience. Not to mention the whole movie was gorgeous.

As for the androids motives that weren't explained, I'm not sure if I follow what you're talking about. He infected Holloway so he could witness what the liquid would do to someone.

The prologue, so to speak, I think was just to show the audience that these engineers were creating life. Ridley Scott has mentioned that this scene isn't necessarily set on Earth.

I think you misunderstood me...the Android was the only one whose character was fully fleshed out and, therefore, whose motives were clear.

presuming you were refering to what I wrote.....if not....sorry

Well fuck Ridley Scott because the movie is at least twice as good if you know that the Engineer at the beginning is a Prometheus figure.

Nah, that was in more in response to Aurelius. Your criticisms mirror mine for the most part.

What the heck is wrong with those retarded scientists? "Ok, we found some big buildings, lets go explore!" Maybe they should have mapped it out first? They had those flying orb things, surely they could have waited a few hours and know where the hell they were going instead of walking around randomly. Also, what would possess you to take off your helmet? Alien planet with something "manufacturing" oxygen, surely assuming that it is totally safe is unreasonable. Once again, back away from the freaky snake thing! It probably doesn't like you.

Am I just a wuss, or were they a little overconfident in their "these things won't kill me" mentality? The movie was very pretty, but the scientists acting illogically kind of ruined it for me.

Look up Red Letter Media Talks about Prometheus - Spoilers on YouTube. Says it all.

I think it is a terrible movie due to everything. Acting sucked except for the android....Realy a robot is the best actor. Plot holes may be the worst I have seen, one that no one has brought up yet is the probe that kept picking up movement/living substance. Am I to believe a alien two rooms away is setting off this probe once ever hour, is the room spinning!
The whole reason I went was to see the explanation of alien origin and instead I come out of the movie with way more questions. I would have loved the movie if I had no idea it was a part of the Alien movie line. I wanted sooooo much more from the movie.

Check out the link it is a 7-8 min funny cause it is true review.

I think the movie pretty well answers what the aliens in "Alien" were for.

They were weapons designed to destroy humankind after a "Prometheus" figure Engineer created us, the rest of them attempted to use the Aliens to destroy us.

That part, at least, it did well. Explaining all that shit. Lol.

Except... why were The Engineers worshiped as gods by pre- and early- historical man if only one of Them created mankind after going rogue? Why did They decide only 2000 or 3500 years ago to exterminate earth-humanity? Wouldn't they have decided to do that long before?

I think this is what Danaman is talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0
Well worth a watch. I agree that the deep concept behind the movie was excellent... but the execution absolutely sucked. Hopefully now that Lindelof is dead (as shown in the opening sequence), we never have to worry about dreck like this bubbling into movie theaters any more disguised as something really cool.

You could say it was in our DNA. Who knows. Or some technology was also left behind. There's no explanation offered by the film so you just have to assume it happened somehow.

But why do the Engineers need to create a "biological" means of destroying us? We are nothing compared to them and why wait.
Thucydides your "who knows" is the issue. Why do the wall drawings lead us to there experimentation Planet? How in 50 years does the ooze turn to Aliens, where does the Queen come from? Is that what the Engineer creature will turn into?
There are far too many questions and uncertainties. I half blame myself for the high expectations I had for the movie.

@Danaman Why do you think Ridley Scott kept saying it was not an Alien prequel? Because he did not want people like you going to the theater and getting upset when they realized it didn't directly lead to the events of the original film, like a true prequel should.

What iMurk said. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

And, they answered the why... Because they could. It isn't important. They just did it. The same thing with the Aliens they created. They could create them. Make up your own reasoning. Maybe they wanted something that they could test and it got out of hand. Maybe they wanted to create something that matched their own DNA fingerprint so they knew what the effects would be on themselves, However they screwed up and they found out first hand.

My minor annoyances with the movie were that their were too many characters, their were some unnecessary scenes and the final scene where she still wants to find answers is BS. the entire time up until then the movie made the point that the reason why was irrelevant.

Yeah, I don't understand why people are so upset that it was left open as to why the Engineers created Humans. There's literally no way to satisfactorily answer that question. Any answer you give is going to seem stupid or fall short.

I don't understand, because I thought *as a prequel* it did its job rather well.

In a movie meant to be as mysterious as this one, the fact that you can pose so many questions Draug doesn't matter to me.

I think they answered the question of why pretty solidly, or at least coyly suggested it when David and the human were talking about why people made androids.

e.g., they don't know themselves, just because, does it matter

Lol Draug isn't in this thread. And imho, a true prequel would lead directly into just about everything from Alien, like how everything on LV-426 got there.

Note, it could be the first of a prequel series. Phantom Menace didn't lead directly into A New Hope.