It’s amazing how notoriety through word-of-mouth can utterly derail a film’s reputation. Prometheus is a film that people love to hate, or at least mock for its perceived shortcomings. Such as the black goo, the unanswered questions around the Engineers, and the now-irrelevant sequel-baiting ending. It has a respectable enough Rotten Tomatoes score of 73%, but a quick glance at the reviews on the site shows that opinions are all over the place. Even when they’re positive, they start with some variation of: “I liked it a lot. Having said that…” If the movie was a punching bag, the internet is Captain America in his introductory scene of The Avengers. Interestingly enough, both Prometheus and The Avengers came out the same summer, and the irony likely wasn’t lost on Joss Whedon, considering his rocky relationship with the franchise.

Ironically, the film’s notoriety and bad reputation almost work in its favor for a newcomer willing to give it a shot—this is speaking from experience. If you go in expecting disappointment, there’s nowhere to go but up. Since there have been so many videos dissecting the film’s themes and supposed plot holes—CinemaWins has an excellent video defending and explaining a lot of what happens in a non-contrarian way—the end result is a film that isn’t as confusing as it must’ve been for audiences back in 2012. If you accept it as a standalone space exploration film, it’s a solid movie, but if you consider it as part of the Alien series, as far removed as it is, it’s commendable for its efforts to attempt to do something tonally and stylistically different from the other installments.

For a film series to have longevity, filmmakers have to be willing to take risks and mix things up from time to time. Alien is one of those franchises that hasn’t exactly done that and suffers from having a core concept that’s so simple that you can’t really expand upon it. Similar to the Terminator franchise, lightning managed to strike twice, and after that, storm clouds just lingered into an overcast day—which isn’t to say entertainment can’t be found in either; it’s just unlikely that it’ll ever reach those highs again. That being said, Alien: Romulus was a lot of fun. What makes Prometheus interesting is that it took the world of the Alien series, mainly the basic concept of 9-to-5 space employees who aren’t heroes from a space opera but rather a group of everyday people who happen to work in space, and dropped them into an outlandish scenario that isn’t just the same formula with a different coat of paint. The characters aren’t dropped into a nightmare-like scenario like in Alien. They’re dropped into what’s essentially a dark episode of Star Trek.

While the film is technically a horror film and is often roped into that genre, it doesn’t feel like one. Maybe this comes down to personal opinion, but while the film certainly has horror elements in it, the general tone and vibe of it make it feel more like a film about exploration and discovery and the risks that come along with it rather than an all-out scary movie about the dangers of the unknown. The film dips its toe into the pool of horror but never dives in. Besides the absence of a xenomorph, you can immediately see the tonal difference in the contrast between the original film’s and Prometheus’s perception of space. Alien’s opening credits pans across the silhouette of a planet while the eerie and foreboding Jerry Goldsmith score plays. It immediately establishes space as a scary place, and there’s no one around to save you if something goes wrong. Compare that to the opening shot of Prometheus, which shows a gorgeous wide shot of the curvature of a planet that glows from the light of the sun while the Marc Streitenfeld score plays. The sound of the flute immediately gives the theme a sense of hope and optimism.

This is cemented later with the transition from Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) looking at the cave painting, dissolving into a wide shot of the Prometheus flying in space. What should be a dark and empty void is presented as a landscape of stars and nebulas, making it look inviting and visually appealing. The small size of the ship conveys how far away the characters are from Earth, but the high speed at which it goes from one side of the screen to the other implies excitement and agency to get to its destination. Without a line of dialogue, both films convey how the audience should feel about space travel. Prometheus shows space as the final frontier; Alien warns that if you’re not careful, space could be YOUR final frontier.

Along with space travel, the set design and general aesthetic feel like a 180-degree flip of what an Alien film is supposed to look like. When you think of Alien, you think of dark, enveloping shadows, industrial-looking interiors, and a feeling of claustrophobia. Prometheus is the inverse of that. The film’s events occur almost entirely in the daytime, and the ship’s interior is sterile, clean, and brightly lit. This is a post-Star Trek (2009) sci-fi film, which means spaceships have to look like Apple stores—which is interesting, considering Steve Jobs is technically one of the crew members on board—but it makes sense if you’re going to travel aboard a ship, you would want it to be a comfortable place to live, and the set design makes the ship look like a place that you believe people would like to climb aboard. If the Nostromo was a cargo ship, the Prometheus is a luxury cruise line.

When you condense it down, the only true horror aspect of the film stems from the infamous black goo. It’s a MacGuffin that’s been the subject of so much debate and scrutiny that it’s bizarre that in Alien: Romulus, they chose to bring it back and give it the same esteem as when a Star Wars film mentions Death Star tech. The funny thing is that even though a lot of people had a problem with the black goo, it’s the closest thematic similarity to the xenomorph that the film has. Because it reacts differently to different forms of contact, whether someone unknowingly consumes it or gets submerged in it, you have no idea what it will do. It’s technology that’s beyond the characters’ understanding to the point where it becomes alien to them.

For a franchise that isn’t known for taking many risks, down to the fact that Aliens proved that you can do a sequel that’s the same thing but bigger and it can be just as revered as the original, Prometheus is a unique experiment of filmmakers trying to see what they can do with the world that’s established and try to do something new and exciting. It’s the Alien franchise’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Whether or not you think they succeeded or whether it works as a standalone movie is up to your own preferences. However, when you compare it to the legacy sequels that are made today that rely on your love for the familiar to bait you into watching it, Prometheus deserves a little recognition for not just settling on resting on the laurels of what came before it and attempting to try to pave its way for something new.