“Big things have small beginnings.”

It’s a memorable line from a film that should have heeded its own advice.

Ostensibly the beginning of the Alien franchise, Prometheus is anything but small. It’s a bloated affair, crammed as full of b-movie clichés as it is of Big Ideas, and weighed down by both.

It begins with no less than the origin of life on Earth, set in motion by a mysterious alien. The story continues 77 years in our future, with a husband and wife archeological team finding clues that seemingly point mankind to the stars. After two years of space travel, they awaken from cryo-sleep on board the Prometheus, part of a crew sent to accept the alien invitation.

As they are briefed on their mission by a representative of the Weyland Company, it becomes clear that the crew has largely never met each other, and several have no idea of the mission to which they’ve committed years of their lives. If this makes you question their intelligence or behavior, get used to it. And if the whole opening sequence feels a little familiar to long-time Alien series fans, it might be because Alien vs. Predator began with almost exactly the same elements, including aliens entwined with humanity’s past, archeologists finding common threads across civilizations, and a shipboard Weyland briefing.

Ironically, continuity links with Alien hurt instead of helping. Sure, it’s neat to see the “space jockey” again, even if he seems much smaller now. But the Big Questions that the movie asks about these “engineers” are far removed from the questions fans have been asking for 30 years. The movie would also have been stronger without any references to the classic alien creature. The final reveal of the alien in its most familiar form should have been the stuff of fanboy goosebumps, but instead felt shoehorned in, and gave us the worst looking CG of the movie.

But Prometheus doesn’t just borrow from its own franchise. There are ghosts of Contact, with a female scientist searching for God after losing her father. Some of the creature moments are surprisingly reminiscent of John Carpenter’s creature style. And these casts of misfit characters as blue-collar scientists and heroes are always reminiscent of movies like Twister, Armageddon and a dozen other films. Fortunately for the cliché mill, they’ve all taken Horror 101, which teaches them exactly when to wander off alone, and when to sleep together with disastrous plot-furthering results.

Even so, the movie holds together up to a certain point. Director Ridley Scott delivers great visuals as well as a compelling, atmospheric buildup. In the first hour, it’s still possible to believe that you’re watching a good movie. But somewhere along the way, Prometheus falls apart.

As a stand-alone film, Prometheus is a messy mix of concepts, half-baked characters and questionable plot choices. As part of a series, it fails as a companion to the minimalist masterpiece that is Alien. Director Ridley Scott has said this movie has the same DNA as Alien, but apparently none of that shared DNA was on the writing team. For all its A-list ambition and production values, Prometheus ultimately continues the b-movie missteps of a series that lost its way 20 years ago.