Thanks for the spoiler-free opinion!

As has been noted before, the apparent plan is to use this as the launching point for a different franchise, albeit one still connected to ALIEN.

At the very least, I've no doubt it LOOKS great. Ridley Scott has an amazing eye.

Away we go...

http://www.slashfilm.com/early-buzz-ridley-scotts-prometheus /

One of the things I am beginning to notice in viewer comments about this movie is a recurrence of the word "awesome". To be honest, that is a word I have come to seriously distrust. Increasingly, when I see it or hear it, I am put on my guard. It seems to be the default description of something that is mind-blowing, visually, but ultimately empty.

I wonder just how "awesome" PROMETHEUS is. . . ?

I've been checking into some spoiler-free reviews that are more in-depth than people just calling it "awesome".

The general consensus so far seems to be: great visuals, solid performances, thought-provoking ideas, and that this is the first real mainstream sci-fi movie (that's not just an action movie with sci-fi trappings) to come out of Hollywood in some time.

Maybe not the best movie to go with your wife/girlfriend. She might hate you afterwards.

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My wife wants to see it more than I do.  Other than HUNGER GAMES, I've never seen her this excited to see a movie since we met. How serious are you here?

Dan O'Bannon's comments on the subject:

"One thing that people are all disturbed about is sex... I said 'That's how I'm going to attack the audience; I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the men. I am going to put in every image I can think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number.'"

http://www.cracked.com/article_18932_alien-film-franchise-ba sed-entirely-rape.html

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The movie probably palys like an issue of METAL HURLANT!

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This reminds me of Hitchcock realizing after the fact that PSYCHO was a black comedy.

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Sorry to rain on that particular parade, but the moment an "alien" is a human being in a rubber suit -- no matter how elaborate or well made that suit might be -- the odds that such a creature could "actually exist" shrink to around zero.

The forms aliens take in movies, unless CGI is heavily employed (not an option for the first ALIEN), are restricted by what I have long called "Central Casting Syndrome". I wrote an essay about this for the STARLORD magazine Chris and I did back in the early Jurassic. Mostly, aliens have to be played by people, and people are the result of a long chain of evolutionary accidents here on Earth. This particular form -- trunk, head, arms, legs -- is MOST unlikely to be found anywhere else. And, indeed, if the first aliens we encounter have a humanoid form, I will have to seriously reconsider my position on "intelligent design".

(And before someone points out that the Alien was most likely an engineered creature, note that the "space jockey" also has the extremely unlikely humanoid configuration.)

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Last night I was chatting with my bud, Gary Cody, and he asked if I was "looking forward to PROMETHEUS." When I said no, he groaned. Gary is used to me complaining about how movies mess up superheroes, so he automatically assumed this was more of same. "What's wrong with THIS ONE?" he asked.

"I just don't CARE," I said. And, sadly, that's what it comes down to. Based on the trailers, I am not seeing anything in this movie that entices me toward a theater. No, not even Charlize Theron in a skin-tight spacesuit. The movie reads as one giant retcon, including what appears to be a scene where humans from Earth cause the crash of the space-jockey's ship. Nothing about what I have seen WORKS for me as a prequel -- including the fact that ALIEN is a movie I don't see as NEEDING a prequel!