Prometheus was one of the most anticipated films of the year
for me and many film lovers. A Ridley Scott film, in my opinion is always a
major event, he is after all one of the most important filmmakers of his
generation. As you might have gathered from my review for Prometheus, I love
Ridley Scott films for many, many reasons, still, I have no problems in
pointing out a disappointing one if I ever see one. For example, the last
Ridley Scott film to underwhelm me was Robin Hood (2010). I enjoyed it, but
wasn’t floored by it. Though well made, I found it boring. I wasn’t a big fan
of G.I. Jane (1997) either. Point is I don’t blindly love Scott’s films. No
filmmaker is free of making a dud or two; but Prometheus wasn’t a
disappointment in my book. I recognize that it isn’t perfect film though. Some
characters do pretty stupid things when they should be acting more
professionally; like that guy who starts playing with a potentially dangerous
alien life form like it was a cute little teddy bear or something? The idiot! But
can that scene really be considered a major flaw? Not in my book, there are a
lot of idiots out there, that guy happened to be one of them.
The interesting thing about a lot of Ridley Scott’s most
recognized films is that at first they weren’t big hits with the masses. Two
good examples are Blade Runner (1982) and Legend (1985); both huge flops when
they first premiered in theaters. Yet right now they are both considered some
of the best films within their genre. Now here comes Prometheus, again, a film
that a lot of people have felt disappointed by. It was not a flop in theaters,
or a failure in the true sense of the word (it’s still making money around the
world) the problem with it was that even though there was a huge hype
surrounding the film, it didn’t make as much money as expected. I think people
were expecting another film like Alien and Prometheus was anything but that.
Alien was a straight forward horror film, Prometheus isn’t. Ridley Scott’s
Alien (1979) was a far simpler film than Prometheus. Alien simply wanted to
scare, while Prometheus aspires to explore deeper themes about life and the
universe we live in; we can’t blame a filmmaker for wanting to go in a deeper
and more cerebral direction with his new films. But this shift in tone was not
received well by the masses. The masses wanted people running from Aliens and
shooting guns, what they got was a film that wanted to explain the origins of
humanity. The result was a smaller intake at the box office then expected.
Still, that’s fine by me; I don’t consider Prometheus to be a film for
everyone. It doesn’t have mass appeal. The masses love stupid films, Prometheus
was not.
The following article aspires to analyze Ridley Scott’s
Prometheus. If you haven’t seen the film, then please don’t read this article
because I’ll be analyzing major plot points and themes. If on the other hand
you have seen it, and want to read my thoughts on the films themes, then
continue reading my friend!
ORIGINS OF MAN - WHO MADE US?
The questions of who made us and where do we really come
from have always been a major issue for deep thinkers. The thing is that once
you eschew the many teachings religion has to offer about the origins of man, then you are
left with zero answers. The scientific mind will rarely acknowledge anything
related to religion because scientists by nature need proof. That’s what
science is all about, making a hypothesis, and then proving it. If you can’t
prove it, then it’s just a hypothesis or a theory. In religion, when something
can’t be proven, it’s called faith. For scientists, religious explenations are
closer to fairy tales than anything else, for the philosopher, this holds true
as well. Truth of the matter is we still don’t really know who made us; the
perennial question lingers on.
Prometheus is an interesting film because it’s one of those
films that dares to give explanations for the origins of man other than the
explanations that Christianity teaches. The daring part is that the film
doesn’t tell us that humanity was created by Christianities ‘God’, the film
tells us that it was other beings known as ‘The Engineers’. The idea that maybe
aliens designed us and that we are somehow linked to them is not a new one, for
example, it had been explored before in films like Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars (2000)
and Alex Proyas’ Knowing (2009). Mission
to Mars actually has many similarities with Prometheus, watch that film again
and you’ll see what I mean. The same themes are touched upon.
The alien beings in Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars (2000)
Prometheus starts out with these amazing vistas of Planet
Earth. We see mountains, waterfalls, cloud formations, basically, planet earth
at it’s most glorious. The idea being that maybe the Planet was here long
before any life form came to it. Then, a huge spaceship leaves an albino, bald,
and extremely muscular alien being behind. The alien seems to be wearing
ceremonial clothing of some kind, leading us to believe that maybe this whole
event has a religious connotation for the alien beings. The being takes a sip
of something that begins to degenerate his body, soon, the being falls to the
water as his body continues to disintegrate in the depths. Then, the camera
does an extreme close up and focuses on the beings DNA which appears to be
disintegrating and forming itself back again; we are looking at the origins of
man. “Big things have small beginnings” a character says at some point in the
film, this was the small beginning of man.
So this is a brave film, because according to it, we weren’t
created by the Christian idea of ‘God’, it was beings from some other planet.
But of course, the question still remains, if they created us, and they are
‘The Engineers’ of humanity, then who created them? There is always something
bigger behind everything. Who is that one final being who created everything
anyways? I love it how the film attempts to answer some questions, but makes
even bigger ones.
THE QUESTIONING OF CHRISTIANITY
The films protagonist, a scientist by the name of Elizabeth
Shaw is a Christian. According to her, Christianity is what she’s chosen to
believe in because it’s what her father believed in, and therefore, his beliefs
where passed on to her, which is something that happens to a lot of people. You
probably ended up believing in Jesus because that’s what your parents taught
you, but does that mean it is right? Or even real? Maybe, maybe not, but like
Elizabeth Shaw, when one is confronted with the validity of their beliefs, the
answer is sometimes “because it’s what I choose to believe”, not because you
have proof, or because you know what you are believing in is right, but it’s
what you’ve chosen to help you get through life.
This is another theme that the film addresses, the idea that
we got to believe in something even though we might not be entirely sure if
it’s true or not. For example, my belief system is a bit more grounded in
reality. I personally believe that we don’t know the truth about anything, that
the universe is the biggest thing out there and that there is a lot we don’t
know. If it was by me, we would have sent out a spaceship to explore the
universe a long ass time ago, Star Trek style. I personally just accept the big mystery until
that fateful day when we’ll finally know THE REAL TRUTH.
But Prometheus is a film that questions Christianity a lot.
For example, when the scientists in the film are finally gearing up to meet
with the alien beings, Charlie tells Elizabeth that she should throw away her
cross, alluding to the idea that maybe Christianity is all fairy tales and that
what they are about to meet out there is the real deal. I found it interesting
how Elizabeth Shaw never throws away her cross. Maybe it’s because it belonged
to her father and it reminds her of him so it has more to do with sentimental
value than beliefs, either way, the cross Elizabeth Shaw wears through out the
whole film is an important symbol. It means that until she finds some real
answers, she’s not willing to let go of the beliefs she grew up with. After
all, that’s exactly what this movie is all about, finding answers to the big
questions in life and until Elizabeth
finds them, she’s sticking to Christianity. But I like the fact that her search
is never ending.
Elizabeth Shaw never looses her faith
At one point in the film, the character of Peter Weyland says
that because of all we have achieved so far as a race “we are the Gods now”. Somebody
created us, but we can also create life ourselves, even artificial life. Right
now, we can create computers and robots that think for themselves, but how long
before we can create androids like the
ones presented in these films? In Prometheus, humanity has reached the point
where they can create androids that live forever (!) and are almost
indistinguishable from man! In the film we are similar to Gods in the sense
that we can create. According to Biblical and Greek Mythology, the gods don’t
like it when we are like them. It’s the reason why they punished the god
Prometheus and sent him to Tartarus; a.k.a. HELL. According to the story,
Prometheus shared the secret of fire with man, in this way bringing us closer
to Godhood because of it. The idea being that knowledge is power, and ultimate
knowledge has made us Gods. What drives the characters in this film? The search
for answers to the biggest questions; its that thirst for god like knowledge.
Mans thirst to KNOW, which strangely enough is considered a sin in the bible. In
the tale of Adam and Eve, when they take a bite from the tree of knowledge, they
were expelled from paradise! So to the Gods, no matter what religion, knowledge
is not something they want us mere humans to have, knowledge is what makes us
like them.
WHY DO OUR CREATORS WANT TO DESTROY US?
In Prometheus The Engineers of humanity have now turned into
the would be destroyers of humanity. The big question that arises in the film
is why? Why do they want to wipe us out? One scene has Elizabeth Shaw
confronting The Engineers, asking them why do they want to destroy us? This
idea of Gods destroying their creation is not new at either. If we go back to
the bible itself, God was once so displeased with humanity that he wiped it all
out, save for eight people he thought were good enough to save. I’m speaking of
course of the biblical story of Noah’s Ark
and how he and his family where saved from the worldwide deluge that God sent
humanities way. This is the idea that we are presented with in Prometheus as
well. The Engineers have created a deadly life form that they intend on
releasing upon humanity. When David, the android of the film finally discovers
how The Engineers computers work, he learns that their final destination was
earth and that their deadly cargo was destined for us; what they really wanted
to do was destroy us. The idea being that our creators are ashamed of us, same
as God was ashamed of having created humanity in the bible.
This idea is an interesting one when we take in
consideration how messed up the world truly is. So many shameful things happen
ever second of every day on our planet, that if alien beings were watching us, analyzing our behavior,
I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to wipe us out. Let’s see, nuclear
weapons, child slavery, rapes, violation of human rights, despotic governments,
greed, murder, war, famine, you name it, if it’s evil, its happening on Planet
Earth! If there is a God, and he’s
watching what’s going on down here, he HAS to be ashamed. I would have pushed
that restart button a long time ago; as one of the characters in Prometheus
says: sometimes, in order to create, one has to destroy.
ACCEPTANCE OF DEATH “EVERY KING HAS HIS DAY, THEN HE DIES”
It’s interesting that one of the main characters in
Prometheus is an android who will live forever, way past the lifespan of its
own creators because this film is all about humans wanting more life. Same as
the ‘replicants’ in Ridley Scott’s own Blade Runner (1982), one of the humans
in Prometheus is after more life. I’m talking of course of Peter Weyland, the
owner and founder of The Wayland Corporation, the company in charge of space
exploration in the Alien universe. You see, in the film Peter Weyland is dying,
but before he dies he wants to meet The Engineers in order to ask them for more
life, same as the replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner wanted to meet his
creator to ask him about: “Something a little more radical…death” If you
remember that scene, Batty then picks up Tyrell and tells him “I want more life
fucker!” I found it interesting that the need that the androids of Blade Runner
have is now the need that humans have in Prometheus. Basically, we don’t want
to die. As I said in my review for Prometheus, I think it’s fitting that Scott,
now 74 is asking these questions. He must feel like Roy Batty or Peter Weyland
himself; getting close to death, and not wanting that day to arrive.
Rutger Hauer as replicant Roy Batty in Ridle Scott's Blade Runner (1982)
All these great things we see and do, they all fade away as
soon as we die, sometimes forgotten forever. How many lives blink out of
existence, never to be thought of ever again? The character of Roy Batty said
it very poetically in Blade Runner: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t
believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-Beams
glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in
time, like tears in the rain…time to die.” Of course, since this is a film that
addresses big questions and themes, the theme of death could not be left out.
It is mans greatest enemy and one of the grandest themes one could address in a
film, which is why I appreciate a film like Prometheus, it touches upon so many
important themes, leaving them there for us to ponder and think about after the
film is over. On Prometheus, the final thought on death is mentioned when the
character of Meredith Vickers tells her father Peter Weyland: “A King has his
day and then he dies” That is the truth about death, we have our days on this
earth, we better make the best of them because then we die, and the ride is
over.
THE SEARCH FOR THE REAL ‘TRUTH’ NEVER ENDS
Finally, one of the things I loved the most about Prometheus
was its ending. When Elizabeth Shaw finds that other ship and takes off towards
the planet where ‘The Engineers’ supposedly come from. To be honest, that ending
offers up so many awesome possibilities for a sequel. What planet will
Elizabeth Shaw arrive at? What discovers await for her out there? Will she find
the true engineers of humanity, or something greater? Whatever Elizabeth Shaw’s
out come maybe, I loved the fact that her final words were her signing off and
saying that her search never ends, that her search for truth continues. This is
my goal as well, the never ending search for the real truth. Well, my friends, this
has been The Film Connoisseur. I should reach the frontier at some point, with
a little luck; the network will pick me up. This is Franco, one of many survivors
on spaceship earth…singing off.
