I'm not sure why it needs to be the first either... I thought it was very clear that the Engineers had done this before. It was all extremely ritualized even from the beginning sequence that happened however many eons ago. The initial engineer meticulously 'praying', taking the vial of substance, ingesting it, being 'reborn'...etc. Very clear that this wasn't the first time to me. Then at the end, it all comes full circle with the humans doing (seemingly) exactly as the Engineers thought and attempting to find immortality and fuckin' shit up per norm. The only part that seemed a stretch to me is
how it was done through infestation of the human body, then having sex with another, and finally infecting an Engineer. Even so, I don't think it's too much of a longshot to think that they'd have human experimentation before...after all, they are the creators and have infinitely more knowledge than we.
I liked it, except for this:
What I didn't get was why the violent Andrew Luck wannabe came back to life as a Superman.
That is the only part that felt weird to me. But even that made a little sense and I could see where they were going. It felt like an amalgamation of what the ending sequence and the beginning sequence were except he 'skipped' a few steps and ended up being the failed experiment. I don't exactly get the powered up form but it does make a little sense when you consider what the Engineers were trying to turn us into...which we see at the end. I thought it was cool and as Ink said, people just
loooove to blow shit out of proportion (or get really angry when they don't understand). I'm also with Orby and Zant on the whole 'we have to spell it out for the audience' though, which...actually turned out to be all too true given the initial reactions to the movie and how many people really did not know what the hell was going on, so I suppose they really did need to spell it out for many people.
Which is fine, I'm not going to act like I got everything on the first viewing, it took me a second and third viewing to see all the little details.
In the end, it's all about what you get from the movie, as it is with any other medium. A vast amount of people seem to have this idea of black and white with movies/books that they need to get it exactly right and exactly as the author/director/writer intended or it's all horribly wrong and fuck everyone else's opinion of it. I don't see anything that way anymore. I get what I get from the movie and if you get something different, fine; but it doesn't make what I get out of it any more right or wrong. Sure, if you say something like "Well, the Engineers wanted to turn humans into cotton candy and accidentally put licorice in the equation and we got the Xenomorphs"...then yeah, maybe you should watch the movie again. But nothing has to be exactly a certain way, not to me anyway. Thinking like that seems obtuse and unnecessary. Yes, I'm sure every director and writer wants the audience to get a certain thing from their work, but it doesn't always have to be this perfectly spelled out shmorgishborg of ideas that are exactly as the director/writer meant it.
I liked it enough to be excited about a second! Bring it!