Seeing Prometheus made me realize how much I want to see a certain type of movie that I have never seen

I was FAR more interested in the search for another alien species, the archaeology and exploration side of it much more than the horror elements which were really poor.

I would love to see an intelligent movie about making contact that is realistic and not set in a Star Wars or Star Trek universe.

I do not want to see an alien invasion again. I do not want to see evil aliens, again.

Meeting an alien civilization or even going to a planet that had alien life would be awesome.

Close Encounters is sort of that, but not really.

The beginning of Stargate captured it a little bit but then devolved quickly.

Contact, was OK but it was as much about demonizing religion and politics as anything else.

I want to see something like Hogans' "Gentle Giants of Ganymede" books, that would be awesome

I think if they took out the Alien stuff and the horror stuff, there was a hidden gem of a movie experience in Prometheus that would have been more interesting than what we had

Anyone else agree with me?

I think Contact would be your best choice, though the movie has, as you note, a lot of problems. 2001 is the greatest science fiction movie ever and does concern some of the issues you seek, but it really does not give a meet with an alien race. If done right, or ever, Rendezvous with Rama would be your best choice. But if it were to get made it would get crapped up like almost every Dick book has--yes including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Aside from the aforementioned, the Alien Nation series might be up your alley.

The downside is that the story will need drama to be compelling - drama means conflict, and the bigger and more expensive the film would be, the simpler that conflict would have to be for general audiences to grasp. Spend $200,000 on a TV show and you can have your exploration of interstellar relations. Spend $200 Million on a film and you need clear-cut bad guys versus good guys with explosions you can hear in space.

I'm with you, johnnysyd. The first half of Prometheus promised such a wonder. It's a damn shame the second half had to happen.

You should check out THIS ISLAND EARTH (1955). The aliens need our help in that one.

FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH (1967, aka QUATERMASS AND THE PIT) is another interesting sci-fi film with the theme of ancient aliens and a construction crew digging up their spaceship while excavating ground for a London subway.