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You start with an archaeologist who completely sets aside all former evidence of human evolution (while possibly still accepting other plant and animal evolution) to take a cave painting image of a star map and jump to the wild conclusion that this is evidence that human DNA was engineered, another who thinks safe nitrogen levels in the air means no risk to breathing it, add in a crew member who does not play well with others, add in a biologist who thinks it's a good idea to taunt new life forms with his hands, a lab tech with no apparent interest in sample contamination, a ship captain with little care to reign in a reckless crew or even monitor where they are, and a robot who seems to be amused by chaos and turns out to be the biggest idiot of them all, and that's before the inane suggested motivations of the aliens...

I just kept imagining NASA employees *throwing* things at the screen in disgust at how unprofessional and stupid these characters were. I practically threw my hands up multiple times. The movie Contact did this story better. Stargate did it better. For crying out loud, Star Trek: The Final Frontier did it better. Setting aside "they're characters, and real people do stupid things too," (well, I guess that much is true) who greenlit this project for tens of millions of dollars after reading the screenplay?? It's just all very frustrating to me.

Matthew Huntley: I'm on-board with Bruce and Shalimar on this, though I disagree with Shalimar on the idea that the film should necessarily have "an answer." I think it's ballsy that it ends on an ambiguous note, and I didn't get the impression it did this just for ambiguity's sake. Ridley Scott seems to believe it's not the answer that's important, but rather the journey toward it. That goes along with Bruce's comment about "the courage to seek knowledge is more important than knowledge itself" (well said, Bruce!).

Another criticism I have is the way the film descends into standard shock and horror fare. Do we really need the "gotcha!" or sudden crescendo-type moments? And there were some aspects of the story that just didn't make sense, like after Shaw has the automatic surgery - nobody seems to recognize what just happened to her, even though that it's a very important scene.

The film is inconsistent and uneven, but it's ultimately memorable and it has me looking forward to the next installment.

David Mumpower: I am not with some of you about Prometheus. At all. This is one of the most pleasant surprises I have had from a blockbuster in ages. Several of you have noted the somber philosophical themes of the movie while expressing frustration that the big questions go unanswered. And my response to this is, "Have you never watched a Ridley Scott movie before?" Every couple of years, BOP gets mailed a review copy of yet another "new" version of Blade Runner because the original is an opaque exercise in existentialism. Scott relishes the conversation much more than he celebrates spoon feeding. Open-ended cinema is his bread and butter.

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