1. What Audiences Were Promised
Like it or not, Prometheus is a reboot of the Alien franchise. When Scott announced he was connected to the prequel some years back, it was probably the most exciting movie news many of us had heard in a long, long time. Like many other Alien fans around the world, I was elated that finally, the man who had created what most consider one of the finest science fiction films of all time, was about to return to the universe and answer the questions that had been raised in the original film. For many, including myself, the Alien films came to a close at the end of the third, as Ripley falls to her death in Fury-161, so by the time of the release, it would be 20 years since I last really enjoyed an Alien film. But unfortunately, in turning Prometheus into a stand-alone film that's merely "in the same universe as Alien", Scott not only managed to not answer a single question from the original film, which was kind of the point in doing the Alien prequel in the first place (him raising more questions in Prometheus was never the issue, and I expected it all along), he also didnt deliver the scare the shit out of us film event he promised. With Spider-Man, you actually get what has been promised all along: a different angle to the origin story as delivered in the first Toby Maguire Spidey film (ok, not totally untold, but at least not an all-out remake), and a coming of age drama that happens to be about a superhero. It seems director Marc Webb has taken the odd leaf or two out of Nolans recent Batman films, with the sense of contemporary realism and adding more depth to the characters then we had seen before (well, as realistic as a film with a protagonist dressed up as a bat or a spider can be), which is certainly not a bad thing.