“Big things have small beginnings,” says David, the inscrutable android played by Michael Fassbender in Prometheus, as he inspects a dollop of interstellar goo that may or may not be Man’s main ingredient. It’s one of the (many) high-minded themes jostling for attention in Ridley Scott’s first foray into sci-fi since 1982’s Blade Runner. But it’s also a cornerstone of storytelling that Scott would have done well to heed: Big Ideas feel mighty hollow without a handful of details to give them life.

Speaking of life and its beginnings: It’s a quest to meet their makers that sends the crew of the good ship Prometheus, led by scientist sweethearts Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), to a distant moon and jumpstarts the viscera-soaked mayhem that follows. It’s no spoiler to say that they find what they’re looking for—and their maker isn’t as happy to see them. But instead of following through on some of the more intriguing ideas the film presents (Does a creation owe a debt to its creator? Should a creator create just because it can?) screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof abandon those questions in the second act to focus on offing their thinly drawn characters in increasingly icky ways.

But maybe that’s asking too much of Prometheus. This is, after all, a prequel of sorts to Scott’s allegory for really bad indigestion, Alien, which, although terrifying, didn’t pretend to be anything beyond a slasher flick in space. As summer blockbuster-wannabes go, Prometheus is visually stunning; the opening five minutes alone offer some of the lushest outdoor cinematography this side of the Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth series. And at times—including one scene that will force any expectant father to rethink his decision to be present in the delivery room—the tension is unbearable. (In a good way.) Ironically, though, it’s David, the android with an agenda, who gives the flick its heart. As he struggles to make peace with his own artificial beginnings, David comes to the deliciously disturbing conclusion that you don’t have to be alive to give life. Or to have fun playing God.

Prometheus is in theaters nationwide June 8.