After Avengers, Ridley Scott‘s secretive Alien semi-prequel Prometheus is perhaps the most anticipated film of 2012, so when the opportunity arose to listen to screenwriter Damon Lindelof, star Charlize Theron, and director Ridley Scott talk about the film, I punched fellow Reject Jack Giroux in the face, stepped on a Twilight fan, nut-sack bashed a security guard and then patiently waited in line to gain access to the panel.

It started off quickly with a production package of Prometheus goodies that I’m going to tell you all about, after you click the Read More button to your right.

The video that was shown wasn’t in 3D, and it wasn’t really a sizzle reel of Prometheus. Rather, it was a mixture of Ridley Scott talking, sequences from his previous films to get you pumped, and a couple of brief looks into the world of Prometheus. So what do we actually see? It’s hard to explain.

This definitely isn’t the Nostromo, a dirty working class ship, rather most of what we see is clean and new. There is a brief look at something small and possibly alien crawling across a finger, Michael Fassbender shedding a tear, Charlize Theron looking sketchy, Idris Elba looking boss, and then things spinning out of control with semi-nude Theron push-ups, a concerned Elba, and some alien egg looking things.

What does it all mean? Not sure, but this is definitely a neat looking piece of science fiction. Since Scott is going to great lengths to keep much of this under wraps, not a lot of the film was revealed, but when the director said, simply, that he wants to “scare the shit out” us, he got my vote, and my dollars, to see this flick.

After the footage, Lindelof spoke with Charlize Theron on stage before they were joined by a joke-cracking Ridley Scott and Noomi Rapace live via satellite from a beautiful waterfall in the far off land of Ice…land. Theron spoke of wanting to work with Scott, of how the initial version of the script didn’t blow her away, and how her character was “a suit” who was definitely going to be trouble. Kind of like a really sexy Paul Reiser type character.

Scott was unavailable to be in San Diego as he’s working on the last few days of filming at the waterfall which will actually be the first sequences we see in the movie.

Repeatedly throughout the panel, Sir Ridley Scott described how the “Alien DNA” was in the film, but that it was an entirely new science fiction movie, not a full prequel or something completely related. He added that he hoped by the end of the film we’d understand what he meant by that, before quickly adding Fox hopes that as well. Zing.

Happily it can be reported that the film won’t make heavy use of CGI, as he was taught as a younger filmmaker that “If you can do it live, do it live.” It looks better and it’s cheaper – something Scott stressed. Doing real effects is cheaper. CGI is not cheap.

Perhaps disheartening for detractors of 3D, Scott was taken with the technology, describing it as a great experience and a wonderful exercise that provides depth to all scenes, even simple ones of mostly dialog.

At the end of the panel, Lindelof played the role of foil and questioned Scott about the PG-13 rating and whether or not it was a handicap. Scott’s answer, which used terms like “covering his ass” and not really thinking too much about it really seemed to imply that he just shot the film he wantedwith some coverage that is R-Rated and that, at a later date he’ll watch the film with the Fox executives and they’ll make whatever decisions they have to.

So with all of that, should we be excited about Prometheus? Of course. It’s a Ridley Scott science fiction film. Did the footage shown blow the roof off the place? Not in my opinion. Yes, it was cool and neat and shiny. It looks like a Ridley Scott science fiction film full of great actors. Something interesting is definitely going to happen, but if viewed solely on the footage shown, we didn’t see much. We’ll get more excited at a later date when we see more.