I cannot thank you enough, honestly.

for some flickering animation, Some intuition is telling me the letters appear outermost first and then inward.

ive made a mockup with your opening, for some reason it's taking forever to render these few minutes tonight.

I'll edit this post and throw a link below tomorrow.

things I've noticed, it's a nice cold open, without giving too much away, it makes the film nicely bookended with shaw alone, and feels dreamlike while it lasts,

however, it does take away from a slow 2001-ish feel to the opening. From its first seconds it screams-big budget space action film, without organically getting to that point. It obviously feels like a setup, that can't get much resolution to when we get back around to the derelict crashing. Cutting back in to waylands speech or her and holloway on the isle of sky doesn't change much from showing her eager transmission at the end in my newest clip.

The difference is that, in context, that segment is signifying her death, and passing to the afterlife/meeting her maker etc., for which she is venturing forward.

I've tryed using her final transmission audio from the theatrical as well, because of that final "and I'm still searching" line for the same purpose. (Didn't work, way too upbeat for a woman sobbing on the ground)

Anyhow going BACK to waylands "we are the gods now", again, sounds like a great closing line, but we desperately NEED that kind of foolhardy ambition, "science for sciences sake" attitude from wayland from the start, yes we get that from the rest of the speech, but the audience in film acts as we do, "is this guy serious?"

I've also toyed with opening the film with the Leviticus 4:26 passage, dare I say a bit preachy to begin the film with?

Maybe it's just the booze.