Ok, so here are my initial thoughts in no particular order, I encourage anyone else so inclined to post their own or give their own spin on things.
Overall, I liked it, and in particular something I've been waiting for ever since I saw the alien ship scene back in Alien I - while I liked all of A1 I was definitely a little sad to see that ship and its secrets left behind when the characters returned to their own ship, so it was nice to revisit that and delve into it more.
As far as I could tell the glop in the research lab was designed to allow one to quickly propagate themself as a species, e.g. the alien who drank it in the beginning was sacrificing himself to kind of kickstart the human race - the glop basically disintegrated his body and then spread it through the waterways of the area to (presumably) fuse with local creatures and cause their DNA to switch over to the aliens' template, over some period of time... which is why we look like them and not apes.
We also know that something went wrong (apparently they did further research on the glop and it ... turned) and they since changed their minds, coming to hate us or at least desire our imminent destruction, and which was deliberately left for the next movie to explain why.
David (android). I liked him. As far as I could tell his actions were driven by a sense that having been artificially created, the power of creation is something he therefore reveres, and so the chance to create life (and thereby become godlike in a sense) using the alien glop was a temptation too great for him to resist. I just wish they could have done something to make his motives more certain and less about guessing.
Also I REALLY would like to know exactly what he said to the engineer... >.>
Meredith Vickers (Mission Director). Basically the only character with real common sense, I thought she was well done except that despite her bossiness and suggested powers of command, she never actually did any leading or even gave the sense of being able to do so - it was like Ridley Scott would forget her for a while and then have her make some vague manager-like noises only to be casually ignored and disappear once more. Her one pivotal act was to torch the infected archaeologist, which was great as a scene but it did nothing to help establish her creds as a leader - would have been better if she'd ordered someone else to do it, they freeze up, and so THEN maybe she grabs the flame thrower and does her thing.
Also when running from a giant rolling donut most people would move to the side rather than trying to outrun it... that was almost like something out of Looney Tunes... >.>
Elizabeth Shaw (Ripley 2). I liked her in Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, and I thought she was a great successor to Sigourney Weaver's character, particularly the youngest version in Alien I. Or at least I had that sense - the problem was that outside of that one VERY intense scene in the robot ER machine, and her quick encounter with the engineer at the end (would have liked to see her lead it back to the sick bay not just be lucky enough to be right there when it attacked her), she didn't really have the chance to do much of that think-fast-and-outrun-the-critter vibe that Ripley was famous for. But that one scene did go a long way - yeesh!
BTW I was wondering why was the robot ER programmed for male anatomy when it was the property of Meredith Vickers... but on reflection I think that's because it was actually for her father.
Charlie Holloway (Shaw's BF). Did not find him convincing. I could see him as an intern maybe, but he was just too slick and unfocused to be someone a trillion dollar mission was (partly) based around. Archaeologists approach their work with much more care - everything they do goes into the papers they make their name with, and one wrong move can be all it takes to make people not take their work seriously. And they're no stranger to biohazards and quarantines and general safety precautions - the crap they deal with in actual tombs can be very deadly to the body. So him taking his helmet off didn't seem likely. He would have been documenting like crazy, and moving at a snail's pace.
Rafe & Sean aka Beavis & Butthead. Can someone explain how is it that they left the research complex first, but when the storm hit, everyone else BUT them got back to the ship. What, did they get lost or something? That didn't make sense. But now and then they had good moments. Like, initially on discovering their predicament, they are scared and want to get away from the red blips on the holo-map - good. But where do they retreat to? The room everyone originally fled from with the squiggly things on the ceiling and now-overflowing jars of alien glop puddling all over the floor. I mean they're putting down their sleeping bags in and amongst these things. Really? Not setting off their squick-sensors even a little?
And then Sean gets turned into a zombie. We already have to accept predators, now zombies too?
Captain & flight crew. A little too willing to embrace Shaw's assumption that the alien was headed back to earth as opposed to just trying to get the hell off that planet & go home, and to gleefully commit suicide. Usually people in that predicament, faced with a sudden speculation from someone else, will tend to doubt and question if only because the truth is too horrible to directly contemplate.
But again, I did like the movie as a whole - the sets and Alien tech were incredibly cool, I thought they did a great job of staying true to Giger's original concepts while also expanding them and building on them. The engineer was cool as well - usually when they use human-looking-aliens in movies it sucks, but this was a rare exception to that rule. I think it helped that while the humans (or at least their android) learned to emulate the engineers somewhat, the engineer survivor was just a cold, menacing MF who did not interact with the humans other than to smush them.
It's just hard to really empathize with the characters when basically all the trouble stemmed from what I consider really stupid-bordering-on-suicidal behavior e.g. humm think I'll go check out those inhuman roars and groans and creepy lights in the basement armed with a flashlight and toilet plunger!
But yeah, cool flick and I'll definitely be watching the next one.
