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Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Why is no one absolutely amazed by the fact that they've discovered life AT ALL?! They land on a planet with incredible pyramid structures and it's all very ho-hum (weird reactions include Charlie the scientist being pissed and getting drunk - not really sure why there wasn't anything to celebrate here... Oh, and as noted, the surly geologist who is just "in it for the money" - I guess in the future space travel and discovery is really passe... Then what's the point of making a scifi movie about it?)

There are expressions of wonder on Rapace and Green when they initially come upon the pyramid-like structure. And remember, most of the crew (including the captain) neither believed in Shaw's explanation of the star maps (the whole creator/God angle) nor were they ready to believe when they came upon the pyramid. Their skepticism could be a main factor which kept their enthusiasm dampened.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

The biologist and the geologist get stuck on an alien planet in a dust storm and NOBODY CARES?! "Oh, well, nothing we can do. Let's have sex..."

Till then they hadn't had their encounters, so they didn't know that there were unknown, lurking dangers inside the pyramid. Their probes had also pretty much scanned through the whole structure and didn't report back with any "living being" beeps - one more reason for them to think it was a lifeless pyramid.

Not to mention that the storm was a really bad one and hampered all sorts of visibility. There wasn't anything to be done but wait till it passed.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Idris Elba was incredibly wasted (hur hur literally and figuratively) and I ultimately had no feelings for him and his poorly two-dimensional copilots when they sacrificed themselves and the ship to save humanity.

I blame this on bad script writing, again. His was one excellent character and could have been given different shades/angles and if developed properly, could have been one of the major pluses of the film. As it is, Elba did a superb job with the limitations he was fed.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Michael Fassbender/"David" - Yep, listed as a con here because I feel as though his greatest moments were also really random... He poisons Charlie (Why? Because every son wants to see his father die and Charlie as a human is a surrogate "father" to androids? So why doesn't David poison or mess with everyone else?) I feel as though we're being lead down the path of the sentient android... Here we're in a world where we're trying to discover our makers and ultimately find out that our makers are out to destroy us (o, nihilism!), so is the point of him to turn the tables and destroy his own maker? I feel as though there was more here to uncover; he was such an interesting character, ultimately diminished to a laughable head in a dufflebag.

There are complexities to David which can be similar to Ash in Alien. As we find out that Weyland himself was on the ship and David was reporting back to him regularly, it is safe to assume he was working under direct instructions. The discovery of the goo was reported to Weyland and he was instructed to try it on one of the team members first to see what reactions, or lack of, it caused, before they tried it on Weyland himself.

And it's easily presumed that since the events of this film happened much before Alien, David is an older model than Ash. Like Bishop explains in Aliens, the Ash android itself had faults ("twitchy" in his words), so what's to tell that David's programming wasn't faulty as well? The filmmakers didn't want to go down the repetitive path of an android/robot/computer going suicidal (HAL 9000, the Red Queen, etc.) so they kept David as an android with shades of grey, most presumably because of following direct orders from Weyland himself.

And let's admit it, we did see Weyland didn't care much for the crew or their fates. He was a selfish bastard who was only interested in prolonging his own life, and because there was a chance that Shaw's prediction of Gods/makers could come out true, he tagged along in secret for the ride, in hopes of coming across a Fountain of Youth. (which David actually asks the Engineer on Weyland's behalf) If his intentions had been noble/true, he wouldn't have been in hiding inside the ship.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

I noted how incredible the self-abortion scene is... But then she's wandering around with her stomach stapled shut and no one bats an eye?? What about the two people she knocked out just to get to the self-surgery pod? Suddenly they're best friends? DOES NO ONE CARE THAT SHE JUST PULLED A SQUID CREATURE OUT OF HER BELLY?! DOES SHE EVEN CARE?! What a brilliant scene followed by incredible ambivalence... Made me wonder - What was the point of the scene at all?

Most of the crew were in the docking bay fighting the mutant, remember? Those who were left were also headed that way after the alert which went off throughout the ship. Maybe they didn't notice her "stapled" condition, and assumed by seeing her blood that she was involved in the fight with the mutant. Nobody else knew she was pregnant except David, did they?

And when she stumbled into Weyland's room, the initial reaction was one of surprise by the crew attending to Weyland, including David, who didn't expect to find her there. And yes, they noticed her blood and her staples, and immediately helped her down and draped a blanket around her.

And Shaw herself didn't tell anybody what happened to her inside the pod, either. Until she got to Weyland's chamber, that is. As for the staples and her roaming around after that, she DID inject herself with plenty of painkillers(?) before and during the surgery, remember? It does take awhile for the kicked-in stuff from injections to lose their influence.

The flaw I see in that entire sequence is that the surgery pod's computer didn't announce the newly birth as a possible contamination and didn't quarantine it somewhere. Really glaring flaw this.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Weyland on Board - Ugh. So THIS is our payoff in terms of WHY they were flown there? REALLY?! Old rich dude wants to meet his maker? Sigh. Disappointing.

Weyland has absolutely 0% interest in meeting his maker. Unlike Shaw, Weyland had only selfish interests in this mission. Presumably, all his efforts to prolong his life had backfired so he was in this for the chance - what if Shaw's predictions came true? He could really meet the Gods and get something on the lines of the Fountain of Youth from them.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Payoff #2 - Black Ooze and biochemical warfare - Another big disappointment; seems like we have black ooze on our hands that reconstructs an individual's DNA... If that's the case, then of course I'm wondering where do the xenomorphs come from (see, the black ooze seems to be pretty unpredictable when it comes to creation... yet there's a xenomorph on the wall in the black ooze canister room... And, yes, we get a xenomorph in the last 5 seconds - born of human, engineer, and squid creature... But it just seemed odd and random... OH BUT ISN'T LIFE ODD AND RANDOM?!)

It's debatable - either the Engineers who roamed worlds creating life, created the Xenomorphs as well, or they were an indigenous species which the Engineers came across during their flights through the universe. There is a third angle, the whole bio-weapons development, but that gets affected when we see the "chapel"-like sequence. Clearly the Engineers revere the Xenomorphs, which made me tilt towards the indigenous species origin.

But then we see what happens when "infected" Charlie impregnates Shaw - that brings out another explanation for the Xenomorphs. Created as bio-weapons by the Engineers (possibly out of some planet's indigenous species's DNA or from scratch), they turned out to become pure and perfect killing machines, which is why they were revered by the Engineers.

And remember, not all black goo works as the same. The cylinders looked identical, but maybe they had secret markings on them to distinguish them from each other. Something which David couldn't see.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

How heavily can we be hit on the head with the CREATION OF LIFE themes here? David wants to see his maker die... The Engineers want to destroy their progeny... I feel as though this is just Philosophy 101 being served up via University of Phoenix... BIG TOPICS with PRETTY PICTURES but ultimately nonsensical and disappointing when it comes to payoffs. Sure, you can make the argument that we are SUPPOSED to be left wondering - But if we are, why does this movie even exist? This movie is supposed to show us where we came from, right? It's not like Scott is particularly subtle when it comes to that. Also, the whole biochemical warfare coming back to bite you - sigh- been done (yes, common theme in the Alien franchise... but can we grow on this please??)

Ultimately, what ever is created, has been destroyed. Humanity's history is dotted with such examples. The filmmakers only expounded on this. Even our race isn't eternal - someday, like the dinosaurs before us, we will be replaced as well. Maybe we have sped up the process by tainting our environments and atmosphere, and have gone past a "point of turning back".
(Remember The Abyss's climax?)
That could be why the Engineers want to destroy their creation - us - because we didn't turn out to be what they hoped we would evolve into. Specially when there are more perfect species (such as Xenomorphs) out there.

(Contd.)