1. It's directed by Ridley Scott (RS henceforth).
2. It's an of-shoot of Alien (which is already a cult genre-bending movie).
and 3. It's directed by RS.
Before going into the movie I already heard a few bad comments about it from my friends. They said it was ghastly. But I knew they could never appreciate the Sci-Fi vision of RS and thought that they were being naive.
But still I lowered my expectations a bit and went into the cinema hall with an open mind.
But by the time the end credits were rolling I was frustrated. I had a lot of questions and felt disappointed. The first half was lovely with excellent visuals and a deep story. But the second half (although visually splendid) was the usual clichéd hollywood slasher movie.
On many occassions the movie looked silly. One character for example, a scientist, encounters a snakelike creature in a dark hollow chamber. Now any sensible guy would think like this- It's an alien. It's dangerous and it might kill you so STAY AWAY!
But NO! This scientist thinks like this- Whoa what's that! Oooo it looks like a snake... Awww its sooo cute!! Hmmm... Let me pet this poor thingy, all it needs is love... He reaches out to it and It eats him inside out. End of story.
But putting aside the silliness, I found the visuals to be very captivating and the 3D was very clean and never a distraction. Beautiful imagery.
Also there were a few references to Christianity. For example, in the beginning there is a scene where a Quasi-Alien Being sacrifices himself by drinking some poisonous liquid from a cup and jumping into a waterfall hence sparking the creation of life. A parallel can be drawn between this and the act of Jesus drinking from his cup to end his life.
Another reference- It is shown that the ship Prometheus lands on the planet on Christmas Day. And the main character "gives birth" to an Alien. Obvious reference.
I guess there are many more christian symbols in the movie but these are the only ones I could find based on my limited knowledge of Christianity.
Another striking point is that most of the characters die by the end of the movie, except for the one who has deep faith in God. So is the movie telling us that only a true believer of God will survive in the end? Is that a snide remark on Atheists? We'll never know.
But these are the kind of hidden symbolism that makes movie-watching a fascinating experience for me. It's like a vast mysterious jungle waiting to be explored.
