Prometheus

If you have yet to see Prometheus and don't want any spoilers, then maybe read this another time.

There were aspects of the movie that I greatly enjoyed. I liked the overall composition of it and the atmosphere. I enjoy the whole Alien franchise (except for the dreadful Alien vs. Predator movies), and it's nice how Prometheus ties some things together. I really liked the start of the movie, when David was on his own. Other people have drawn parallels to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I can see the connection. I appreciated the little HAL-9000 tribute. The computer sounded so much like HAL, and it was cute when he called David by his name.

So what's the problem? The science and the characters! There was so much stupid, I don't know where to begin. I'll start with the trip itself. So they think the creators are on this moon and want to fly up and meet them. It's in some distant solar system that may or may not be in our galaxy (!), and everyone has to be in stasis for 2 years, the duration of the trip. When they get there, they seem surprised that the place isn't bustling with civilisation. Okay, forgetting the unrealistic space travel scenario there, isn't it standard practice to send some probes first? Like what we do now? It takes only two years to get to this place. It's not at all unreasonable to send a little probe, have it take some pictures and beam them back, drop some of those flying probe scanners in, or even make a return trip. That's sort of the sensible thing to do. Weyland can wait at home in stasis if he wants to make the trip himself.

This is a bad planet.

I guess I can give them the benefit of the doubt. They discovered the location of an alien planet and a big company is paying for the trip! I suppose I would also be pretty excited and impatient, but it would be stupid to get carried away and go in blind like that. The behaviour when they got there, however, is inexcusable.

These people are supposed to be scientists (and some "muscle"). As soon as they land, they go all Leeeerooooy Jeeenkins on the place, against the suggestion of the captain (one of the more sensible characters). They just run in and start touching stuff, opening doors, etc. Their way of exploring the place was something you would do in a computer game, not really a methodical, scientific approach. Certainly not something I would expect from an archeologist. In the end, the whole exploration turned into a big mess of their own doing. Fools!

The whole exogenesis idea as described in the movie is silly. I think they could have been slightly more realistic and said that humans and engineers have a common ancestor of sorts rather than having exactly the same DNA.

I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going...

The motivations of the engineers is unclear to me (and to everyone else, it seems). They "create" humans and then wish to destroy them. There are some things about the engineers that I'm trying to piece together. In the opening scene, one of the engineers drinks the black goo. Why? Suicide? Or deliberate poisoning of the surroundings and spreading of the bio-agent by throwing himself into the waterfall? I'm not sure.

I have another big question about the engineers. Did they really want to destroy humans again? Everything we know about their intentions comes from David, who clearly has his own agenda. He read the glyphs and learned the language. He is the one who talks to the revived engineer before he goes on his rampage. For all we know, he could have threatened him in some way, and carefully engineered the situation such that the others would die (except Shaw, who he seems to like). All we know about the engineers is what David tells us.

I still enjoyed the movie overall, I just wish it wasn't so stupid.