DEEPER THOUGHTS ON PROMETHEUS

dejan

MemberOvomorphJune 03, 20122670 Views51 Replies

Fellow fans, Although we have every right in the world to get angry at the makers for failing to deliver on the character/story development front... ...after my second viewing, I realized PROMETHEUS delivers in original ways that we can only appreciate if we dispense with the conventions of classic narration. First off, its dream-like structure, in which characters are killed off or abandoned randomly, plot hooks and points mixed up, motifs rehashed and repeated, 3D combined with 2D, testifies less to the incompetence of the makers, than to a certain STYLE that is more invested in visual storytelling, than the use of more conventional (theatrical) methods such as you'd find in ALIEN. For example: when Elisabeth Shaw's boyfriend is suddenly killed - without any narrative justification - I think the scriptwriters are more interested in drawing a parallel with the death of Shaw's father from ebola - than the emotional dimensions of the event, as you'd have it in a conventional melodrama. Since the scene is followed by a shot of Shaw waking up on a hospital bed, it could even be construed that the whole thing is her nightmare. This is something you can either like or dislike - but in itself, it is not wrong. Then take the film's central (Gothic) theme: DOUBLING (MIRRORING, REPRODUCTION, REFLECTION). It is carried through quite consistently throughout the film, despite the shoddy narrative construction. The title is displayed on top of an image showing the duplication of cells. The plot of the film is a doubling of ALIEN's plot. The two female characters (Shaw and Vickers) are obviously two versions of the same female personality, both of them plagued by a traumatic relationship to the loss of the Father figure/God, both trapped by a patriarchal system in which the medical facility is ''optimized for use by men''. The character of David represents two genders, two types of androids, two kinds of agendas, et cetera. It even goes down to the level of action: when the Engineer first caresses David's head before ripping it off, you are instantly reminded of the way one of the grunts caressed the alien snake before it attacked him. And so on and so forth. Given that the film's horror is focused on fears related to reproduction, it seems that the central spiritual question it is posing has to do something with our narcissism; not just on the level of corporate individualism and competition, but also, as a deeper philosophic/religious question - are we able to really perceive the perspective of the other, the ALIEN VIEWPOINT. Because if we're not, than human history is merely repetition, and childbirth inevitably ends in Hell. When David reads Elizabeth Shaw's dreams, what he sees is her puzzlement in front of the fact that many people believe in many different Gods. It is this question, rather than belief itself, that she confronts on the mission.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

He views her colleagues as ******es, then takes one look at David and decides they are all a waste of space. I really think that whole thread is a reference to HAMLET. When David first encounters the living ENgineer, he is in hypersleep and David listens to his heartbeat (in the play, poison is poured in the ear of Hamlet's father while he's sleeping). I liked very much how Elizabeth Shaw (Ophelia) takes the role of Hamlet, asking TO BE OR NOT TO BE in the midst of mayhem - it was implicit criticism of the partiarchal system behind the corporation, which still observes women as unworthy of reasoning. Surely the sequel will explain what exactly was being hinted at, but I;m already p[leased with the direction it's taking.

rogerharris
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June 03, 2012

What im hoping is that when elizabeth and dave (nice name for a couple) reach the engineers homeworld, it will be run in a more colourful like michael moorcock "dancers at the end of time"... or star trek type government, and all that alien stuff. Well that was just that damn experiment some of our workers had to keep on the boil in case the shit hits the fan with the universe expanding and all that" [i]"oh, well you seem to have turned out quite reasonable and balanced mrs Shaw, perhaps we had made an error in our idea that we had to wipe you out after all, but could you do us a favour and let us have one of your continents for some of our boys down your way thanks ?"[/i] maybe, if they get george lucas to team up with david lynch !

dejan
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June 03, 2012

I was cringing a bit at that point, as I didnt like Ridley making such james cameron like obvious points which pertain to current times in a SF film. But truly great SF has always been a comment on the present, rather than the future. Anyhow I found it quite pleasingly ironic that the crew are staring right in the face of Big Brother and expecting answers from Him. Just look at all the millions of Christian believers and Islamic fundamentalist fanatics today who would rather have their destiny decided by a God, than take that destiny in their hands, to improve their living conditions.

Thachicken
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June 03, 2012

I would also like to point out that at the start of the movie the ship that people have been debating makes a huge difference in how you would need to look at the Engineers. Are they Engineers or other Aliens? What planet are they currently on? Do the Aliens/Engineers on the ship know what the Engineer at the water fall is doing? Does the Engineer at the waterfall know the effects of what he is drinking? What was the intended result of the drink he drank? For example, lets say this is the Engineer home world, that ship in the background is an alien race that has defeated the Engineers. The Engineer in the foreground is undertaking Seppuku - a ritualistic suicide to retain his honor. Or lets go the other way. They are all Engineers, all with the same ideas, faction or whatever you want to call it. He is killing himself in a ritualistic way to seed life on a new world. Now of course, considering how the DNA strands were being totally and utterly destroyed by this thing, I would not really consider this an effective method of seeding life but ooh well. Anyways, depending on how you interpreted that opening scene, the entire movie has a new underlying thing now doesn't it. For example, the Engineers that survived fled to this new planet where they were trying to alter or create a new biologic weapon to fight the Aliens that had wiped them out. Then again, if they were seeding life, then somehow along the way we had displeased them to such an extent that they lost all hope for us and decided to wipe us out and were going to unleash a weapon on us that somehow backfired. If the entire theme of the movie and underlying context of everything can be changed by how you interpreted the opening scene, then much of the symbolism can be thrown right out the window and instead leaves this movie not as an expression of set factors but instead as an open ended debate on the human condition - expression, experience, life, love, hope, honor, friendship, comradeship and a million other cliches. I just think that as with occum's razor would suggest, your looking too deep. The most obvious answer is usually the right one and that is that RS and Lindelof don't work well together and it shows in the quality of the movie.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

Movies tend to have an underlying theme. They tend to have symbolism and metaphors. If you want to pound your chest and raise your ego and try and sound clever about seeing these things, go ahead. I've no clue where I showed that I wanted to ''sound clever''. This is something you read into my text. I'm simply motivated by curiosity and wonder. Of course you're right when you say that a metaphor or a symbol can have multiple readings. A work of art is never just one thing. My ambition is not to find ''the right meaning'' of Prometheus but to consider the many possible meanings, dominant themes, and styles. On the other hand a work of art that only exists to entertain, or that is only meaningful as a self-contained system, is no work of art. Art is something that happens in the encounter between the maker and the audience. So it's completely foolish to imply that Prometheus has no political, social, psychological, etc, relevance beyond entertaining. And for everything I said I tried to provide a visual reference, concretely, to what you actually see in the film.

rogerharris
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June 03, 2012

[quote]I really think that whole thread is a reference to HAMLET. When David first encounters the living ENgineer, he is in hypersleep and David listens to his heartbeat (in the play, poison is poured in the ear of Hamlet's father while he's sleeping). I liked very much how Elizabeth Shaw (Ophelia) takes the role of Hamlet, asking TO BE OR NOT TO BE in the midst of mayhem - it was implicit criticism of the partiarchal system behind the corporation, which still observes women as unworthy of reasoning.[/quote] She not exactly asking to be or not to be, its more like, look WTF is the problem here, presumably to be followed by " but look theres a spirtual dualism emotional struggle in some humans type blah "..which is a clear central theme of the film. Patriarchy doesn't think women unworthy of reasoning, but that they are not capable of taking reasoning to logical and extreme conclusions. Remember all the WMD, wars etc are the result of human reasoning and one side baiting another side to make a move first so they can claim reason (moral high ground). Reason is a misused term nowadays, as if its the wonder of everything. It is David who does the poisoning (still not clear why exactly except playful morbid curiosity, or that he liked being alone on the ship). Maybe its as simple as the engineer just takes one look at David and sees the humans (as the conclusion of reason) have created psychopaths as their higher form of engineering, which affirms his ideas (orders ?) that they humans have to be gotten rid of for reasons A,B and C (take your pick).

rogerharris
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June 03, 2012

or maybe it was just visual. Knock Daves head off made for good cinema, subsequent scenes visually and also kept consistency with the previous treatment to robots in aliens movies. Ridley scott isnt that deep as in the George lucas sense of mythology. Hes more a mans man type of thinker, everyday thinks more like a working class hero. A lot of his movies are about strong characters and how they respond, maintain integrity, compassion etc when constrained within tight and oppressive systems OR how they step up to the plate as individuals when big brothers groupthink sheeptank F**S things up.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

or star trek type government, and all that alien stuff. I was thinking of STAR TREK more in relation to David himself, although the relationship is highly ambiguous (DOUBLE) as are most other things in the film. David has Spock's rationality and sense of wonder, but that is quickly undermined as in the ''star map'' scene where the magnificent map suddenly turns off and you're left with darkness. Suddenly it seems there is no system, no grand purpose, no big design - just the lonely empty universe. AGain, I think this resonates with the situation we face today, in the late stages of capitalism, where we feel like we've reached the end of history on the one hand, but have the gnawing sense that the Apocalypse could be just around the corner what with all the environmental destruction and economic malaise. The plot with Elisabeth and the Engineer reminded me of Kubrick's SHINING, especially because she's carrying an ax (like the Shelley Duvall character in Kubrick's film). It's basically the Daddy/Father figure/King coming back to stalk her. That the father is then fucked in the mouth by the hydra/facehugger is in line with the ALIEN's neatly subversive attack on the patriarchal system, the ''male rape motif''.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

Hes more a mans man type of thinker, everyday thinks more like a working class hero. Don't get me wrong, I never for a second in my life thought Ridley Scott was the world's greatest director - he is an excellent craftsman, and a very good industrial designer, hence the incredible look of most of his movies. ALIEN is incredible as a piece of visual design, but that's not in Scott's direction, which is just conventional advertising direction actually. But I think credit in Prometheus as a film is much more to Dan O'Bannon, Walter Hill and the much-maligned David Lindeloff, who I think is a very talented writer.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

It is David who does the poisoning (still not clear why exactly except playful morbid curiosity, or that he liked being alone on the ship). Well David is also QUEER (I underline queer, because I don't mean that he is a homosexual, rather, that he is gender-ambiguous) and in this sense subversive to the ruling patriarchal order of the King and of the Weyland Corporation. It makes sense that he would want to kill the father. But I agree that he doesn't do it out of evil or malice, more out of philosophical type curiosity; like Hamlet, he wants answers to existence. But what I aim at more generally is that all this ambiguity is what is actually WELCOME. The complaint of the large majority of fans (and critics) that things are not well-rounded, coherent, explained, I see as the strength of the film. And I think by having such a strong reaction to this chaos, the fans are showing that the film activated them even when they didn't like it.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

Are they Engineers or other Aliens? I think Shaw puts that question in the film, she asks who made the Engineers during her discussion of birth and creation with Holloway. Which is interesting, because it points to the idea that you can always imagine a puppeteer behind a puppeteer, a reason behind the reason, endlessly, until you come to the question, why do I need somebody else to guarantee my existence. In other words, you are always ALIEN to yourself. Do the Aliens/Engineers on the ship know what the Engineer at the water fall is doing? Does the Engineer at the waterfall know the effects of what he is drinking? What was the intended result of the drink he drank? Well I think visually that scene harkens back to the Close Encounters/Extraterrestrial school of science fiction, especially because of the oval shape of the spaceship, and the Engineer's big dark eyes, so we can legitimately assume that he was either left behind, or cast out as the black sheep of the group. Whether or not he decides to dissolve is I think less important than the idea of this fall (the fall of Prometheus) that is to say that human DNA is the result of corruption, of a cosmic mistake.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

If the entire theme of the movie and underlying context of everything can be changed by how you interpreted the opening scene, then much of the symbolism can be thrown right out the window and instead leaves this movie not as an expression of set factors but instead as an open ended debate on the human condition - expression, experience, life, love, hope, honor, friendship, comradeship and a million other cliches. If I remember my media theory classes well, both a mainstream Hollywood film and an indie arthouse film declare their main themes and motifs in the opening scene, and there are no exceptions to this, it's like your basic rule of film grammar. Clearly in this scene you see that this alien creature, who is later designated as our creator, dissolves (whether by sacrifice or fall), influences or creates human DNA and is somehow the driving force of cell replication *the title PROMETHEUS is displayed on top of the image of replicating cells. Whatever direction the film later takes, its main theme has been stated - genetic reproduction or if you will the mystery of life. The main dramatic conflict would be the question from HAMLET. Is existence a mistake, a fall, a failure, or is there a higher purpose to it. Reformulated by Shaw - why are the Gods angry with us. I would say that this framework is quite consistently, and clearly, set up, and most of the film's other themes relate to it, and it doesn't really take a rocket scientist or a deep analyst to sense this.

rogerharris
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June 03, 2012

Dejan surely you aren’t saying Ridley is putting all this in from these sources of patriarachy ? I really don’t think theres a lot more to it, or at least not all this stuff on patriarchy. Well why ? Ok there are other director influences on deep strong visual style, because that’s Ridleys thing he like to excel at. Like moving art. If you have seen kubriks, 2001, you will see clear scene references at start and the end in this movie (the old mans room is like the old mans room in 2001). Except they aren’t chasing blank monoliths and an acid trip, but up against a very real and dangerous system more powerful than themselves. I am guessing Ridley makes this stuff moving art for a practical reason. because he probably enjoys getting a scene really so real he ends up hyperstimulated immersed behind the lens puzzling, “well what would I do if I was in the situation”, which helps overall flow. chaos creates ambiguity, which appeals to some of us. Ridley having done historical war in many movies creates and captures the chaos, like some of the old big time stuff like Sam Peckinpah where the budgets were massive and the stories really got across just how chaotic and mad life can be in western times or world wars etc, and what people have to do. Hes an old style director of the 60’s 70’s ilk. AND thank F for that, because that was the peak of cinema and the last of the post WW2 generation directors making their statements on screen. It appears todays generation don’t understand where hes coming from, but like you say, the effect occurs as a result and he is one of the few left who can stir things up from time to time.

rogerharris
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June 03, 2012

[quote]The Engineers, I'm sure you also noticed, are hyper-masculine, I didn't see any women among the Gods. They could be gay, but they seem to me more like Ubermenschen. They are also apparently a militaristic species.[/quote] OK maybe you hit on Ridleys dillema then throughout his films history. Notice in the duelists the main character keith plays who is sensitive has to wrestle the entire move with a sh**head (Keitel) who hounds him through his life, just because keith has an ounce of sensitivity (feminine trait). Keitel is also interesting to Ridley because he has complete integrity in his pigheadedness and Ridley makes a big deal about getting that ubermale aspect across. Of course Keitel could be a narcissistic repressed homosexual and the duelists is all about an NPD reaction. However NPD is not all of man is it ? And the military races have integrity. At the start the engineer calmly disposes of himself (as does Keitel willing to do without a fuss, at the end of the duelists). Ridleys film have a common theme of the interplay between sensitivity, integrity and corruption between or within various characters (or groups), mixing male or female traits. Perhaps thats all it is. It would be simpler to look at Ridley scotts personal background, film history and favorite projects if you want to understand his movies, or probably send him an email !

rogerharris
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June 03, 2012

[quote]Well I think visually that scene harkens back to the Close Encounters/Extraterrestrial school of science fiction, especially because of the oval shape of the spaceship, and the Engineer's big dark eyes, so we can legitimately assume that he was either left behind, or cast out as the black sheep of the group. Whether or not he decides to dissolve is I think less important than the idea of this fall (the fall of Prometheus) that is to say that human DNA is the result of corruption, of a cosmic mistake.[/quote] simple reason, he had to commit hari Kari because he F**ed up and got stuck on the Alien planet lab, Why the disc ship ? Doesn't Ridley shoot in sequence, so later scenes could become more advanced from a post production POV, while earlier scenes, opening shots may be screen tests for the 3d cameras as notice its more expansive than any 3d real shoots ive seen so far. When i looked at those and saw the disc ship i thought, now being a director faced with that composition problem, and playing around with new cameras, a disc poking through clouds, would be far easier to put over such a natural scene and maintain depth of field.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

I really don’t think theres a lot more to it, or at least not all this stuff on patriarchy. When I say patriarchy I am merely referring to the male-dominated economic system of today that is capitalism. Despite improvements in women's rights, the system, you'll agree, is male-dominated. The desire of the patriarch is always to reproduce himself, whether by having children, or by making himself immortal, like Weyland. For this goal he is prepared to commit all crimes. This has always been a theme in the whole ALIEN universe, starting with the first ALIEN, which introduced a female SF heroine. The Engineers, I'm sure you also noticed, are hyper-masculine, I didn't see any women among the Gods. They could be gay, but they seem to me more like Ubermenschen. They are also apparently a militaristic species. In PROMETHEUS, Shaw symbolically rejects her traditional function as the bearer of children, of the Father's progeny, deciding instead to search for answers - a role that in the traditional (patriarchal) narrative would be given to the son, eg. Hamlet. This is what I see as ''subversive'' to the way things are done in mainstream SF movies.

rogerharris
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June 03, 2012

[quote]Whatever direction the film later takes, its main theme has been stated - genetic reproduction or if you will the mystery of life. The main dramatic conflict would be the question from HAMLET. Is existence a mistake, a fall, a failure, or is there a higher purpose to it. Reformulated by Shaw - why are the Gods angry with us.[/quote] Ridleys films are consistently about survival first, then if we make it through with our integrity and humanity intact, then we deserve a little break to ask some questions like, why did i have to go through all that S**t !! I dont see a lot more to it than that.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

a disc poking through clouds, would be far easier to put over such a natural scene and maintain depth of field. Well I don;t know if you have direct experience of film-making (I do, professionally), and those kinds of decisions are seldom made without planning. A technical solution may accidentally present itself as handier than some other solution, but that is never the reason why you put something on screen. So I think it matters a lot for example that Prometheus is hawk-like, resembling a bird of prey, that the ''mother ship'' in the beginning is oval, or that the warrior ship looks like a boomerang. These kinds of considerations you always make, whether as a graphic designer, or as a film-maker. The meaning of the form is more important than the aesthetic, although aesthetic is also important. However I do not respect Ridley's talents as a director primarily because I think his choices are utterly conventional - in ALIEN, for example, it all works on close-ups of eyes, that's how you do it in TV commercials when you want to quickly capture an emotional condition. Where I think he is remarkable is that the design is so coherent, it creates a whole world, where everything fits inside a big pattern.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

Ridleys films are consistently about survival first, then if we make it through with our integrity and humanity intact, Absolutely, but what does this mean? ''Survival first'' is the Darwinian credo: a species primary purpose is to reproduce. The alien is a very Darwinian creature, it exists to eat and fuck. Christianity claims the opposite - the meaning of life is in death, to live life is to overcome it. Now in Prometheus, he wants to go further and explore why we (the humans) deviate from the Darwinian norm by asking questions about our origins and our purpose.

dejan
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June 03, 2012

It would be simpler to look at Ridley scotts personal background, film history and favorite projects if you want to understand his movies, or probably send him an email ! Actually the idea that formed in my head as we were talking is that Ridley reads this, realizes just how brilliant we are, and then puts us on the scriptwriting team for PROMETHEUS 2 for like 20 million dollars. This is why I';m being kind to Lindeloff while everybody else is shitting on him. I don't wanna burn my bridges. The other option is to continue this thread for another six months, in which case we are feeding Fox's merciless marketing machine with gratis fodder, while THEY are making the 20 mil. Pessimistic as it may sound, I think we'll end up with NO DOE. But we might at some point write a best-selling book.

DEEPER THOUGHTS ON PROMETHEUS

dejan

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