Why Prometheus may disappoint

I think it is at this point that I should go ahead and state a possibility for many of you. The majority of you may leave the theater disappointed because this film most likely cannot deliver the exposition necessary to explain all the mysteries we’ve been milling over the past month (who are the engineers, why did they make us, what is the function of the xenos, what are the cobra-aliens, what is the ooze, etc…) in the allotted time of the film. Ridley Scott recently said in an interview that this film will not be” a science lesson.” He has also said the film leaves room open for a sequel and, from the collection of scenes shown in the trailer and the early reviews, it seems like we may leave the theater knowing very little and with lots of questions still lingering in our minds. In our rabid desire to support the film and soak in every little thing revealed through trailers and featurettes, we may have made this movie out to be something that is not. That is, by injecting importance into every scene and tidbit, we have made the film out to be a science fiction epic instead of a science fiction horror. There is a big difference between the two as Ridley has said that his main intention is to scare the sh*t out of us. Most likely, this will be a horror thrill ride with trappings of scientific depth and existentialism that serve to set the mood as opposed to form the backbone of the film. The meat and potatoes here will most likely be scares and slimy critters with an emphasis on tension and suspense. From my time on the forums I have realized that I’ve built this movie up to be the end-all, be-all science fiction magnum opus that will tackle the issues of human creation, alien civilization, and the existential angst that comes with finding our place in the universe. This is, of course, ridiculous to expect from a film that is, at its core, a horror movie set in a science fiction universe. We most likely will never get any definitive answers about the Engineer’s culture, their Homeworld, their motivation for spawning life on earth, why they design creatures, and where they come from. The most likely outcome is that we will leave the cinema knowing only as much as the crew knows. And from what we’ve seen so far, it doesn’t look like the Engineers and the crew members are going to sit down for tea and crumpets to discuss the how and why of things at any point during the movie.