They went looking for our beginning. What they found could be our end.
Why it is hard sci-fi
A scientific mission funded by Weyland Corporation lands on LV-223 to investigate a star map that recurs across human prehistoric art. The setup is rigorous. Cryosleep transit, atmospheric assays, biocontainment, and a science crew with specialists. The film loses discipline once the crew are on the ground and several characters violate basic procedure, which is the films central weakness. The hardness is in the setup and the production design.
Science inside it
Genetic engineering as a creation mechanism, panspermia, biocontainment failures, and the effects of an engineered weaponised pathogen on a human host. The film also leans on the idea that the Engineers seeded human DNA on Earth, which is a panspermia variant rather than a religious claim, and the genome alignment is treated as evidence rather than faith.