My post wasn't about the plot or the philosophical ideas of the film being dumbed down and made simpler but instead about perhaps audiences being upset that not everything or most everything was explained and given a concrete answer.

ah, gotcha! I have not heard that complaint either in teh few forums that I have been reading which tend to be more fantasy/scifi-focused (RT, RLM, etc.). This is an issue of the general-going public.

Spaihts wrote an Alien prequel script, complete with facehuggers, eggs, chestbursters, and drones.
Sometime after his completed draft but prior to shooting the decision was made to back off from the "Alien-ness" and make the film a prequel that doesn't actually lean on the prior films. So Lindelof was brought in to rewrite large portions of the script and remove the blatant Alien stuff creating new monsters instead.

I think many complaints are based on the fact that the film should've been over 2.5 hrs but was cut down to 2, and that like The Abyss the story will be clearer once that stuff is back in. The rest is likely Lindelof's doing as being involved with Lost for so many years you know he's good at obfuscation and confusion.

As for sequels, no decisions have been made yet as to if they even will make one (although it's a good bet one will be attempted at least as far as the script stage).



The Jedi Master

The film has made very good box office business so far (especially international) so I think the decision whether or not to make a sequel will be entirely based on creative and personnel reasons. Scott most likely won't be back but hopefully they'll get a good director and cast to make a possible sequel.

Oops, moving this to the spoilers thread.