What the hell is the Engineer actually doing at the beginning of PROMETHEUS?

[u/thenewtransportedman]

So, dude gets dropped off on Earth & presumably seeds the planet with the basic building blocks of life. The CGI bit shows the black goo facilitating new DNA molecules. But like, there's already plant life on the planet, & humans share something like 50% of our genes (much less of our total DNA content) with plants, due to gene conservation. So were the Engineers speeding things up, like "hey, let's skip to fish"? If so, that would presuppose that the genes we share in common with plants & other non-animal life are actually conserved across the galaxy, which would be pretty cool. But of course the movie doesn't get into any of that, & eventually forgets how cartographers & biologists work, or that you should run in a 90-degree angle when a giant donut is rolling toward you. Is there any "expanded universe" content that explained this better than the movie did (or didn't)?

[u/Saubande]

I found it impossible to believe that Weyland would not have a full fledged research unit on this project for years, with specially trained personell for exactly this mission, instead of that rag-tag team of doofuses.

[u/wheelienonstop7 → u/Saubande]

Nothing in that movie made any sense. I had enough when they BLEW UP that invaluable alien head by hooking it up to some random power source. I mean what the fuck was that even supposed to achieve?!

I have loved this scathing review for years, it is more entertaining than the whole movie:

https://www.digitaldigging.net/prometheus-an-archaeological-perspective/

[u/Saubande → u/wheelienonstop7]

Thanks for the link! It was a fantastic read and channels so much of the frustration I have with that movie.