(1) The start of an ALIEN-related movie showing real-life barren but beautiful scenery on a virginal planet accompanied by awe inspiring beautiful celtic themed music. The shadow of an immense starship hovering above the ground, chaperoning a lone humanoid figure that looks like a marble statue as he willingly accepts his body being torn apart by a catalytic liquid agent to kick-start the creation of new life. The engineer looks to the sky as he drinks and the gigantic starship tilts to the vertical position and soars off in silence into the heavens.
Original and very well executed.
(2) Classical music choice: Chopin's "Raindrop", or more correctly "de la goutte d'eau" --> "Waterdrop".
Not only is it a beautiful piece of music that acts as a perfect sombre background for the 'quirky world of David' at the start, but also a clever foreshadowing for the subject that is to come later...
If the juggernaut canisters had been dispersed in Earth's atmosphere, the black oil would rain down and destroy all organic life on Earth (or cause it to mutate into undignified horror!!??).
Also a neat tie-in with Ridley's 'Black Rain'?
(3) David wandering the ship on a two year journey of discovery.
A clever introduction to the android David, exposing his quirky side and interests. I particularly enjoyed the scene where David stops mid stride to inspect a speck of dirt on the floor.
Visual mime comedy gold.
(4) David wetting his finger before pressing the control buttons on the wall of the Prometheus bridge to 'warm up' the control panels and expose the viewing platform...
Compare with:
David encountering the green liquid coated runes in the Engineer pyramid that act as some kind of conductive medium to facilitate touch response to interact with
their control system.
For me, the first 10 minutes of Prometheus were the best 10 minutes.