Erik Von Danniken

Promethian Man

MemberOvomorphJune 04, 2012946 Views5 Replies

Much to my chagrin, I've seen interviews and discussions which state that Ridley Scott was influenced by the works of E.V.D. Reviews also like to throw in Von Danniken. My problem with this is - of all the researchers into the field of Ancients aliens/ancient mysteries, V.D. is the least credible ( just most popular ). I'd be sad if he was the first go-to person on this subject that Ridley Scott/Lindeloff/Spaith took notice of. V.D.'s most famous works so far as l'm aware do in no way touch upon the directed panspermia-like origins of all life on Earth as the prologue of Prometheus suggests. Prometheus' prologue and the film itself more closely touches upon the works of ( not only of course ), Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock in the book 'The Mars Mystery', where they hypothesised that an 'extra-terrestrial third party' may have travelled through our solar system and seeded life on certain planets including our own, and may have created us in their image. The illustrations which accompanied their discussion ( in the live lectures I attended, and also shown on an episode of Paul MacKenna's TV series discussing the Mars Mystery book ), curiously enough depicted 9 - 12 foot humanoids, eerily reminiscient of the Engineers.

Drekinus
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June 04, 2012

I'm shocked that someone brings this up, finally. Don't worry, the public will dismiss the ancient astronaut theory as science-fiction and will move on with their lives. Religion and conventional knowledge are too important in our western society. I haven't read Chariots of the Gods, but am an avid watcher of that famous documentary on the History Channel. It's great that it asks so many questions, and I love having my mind boggled. To me, Prometheus is a mainstream media acknowledgement of everything I've been interested in for the past couple of years.

Mr.Yutani (Detective Hudson)
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June 04, 2012

Hmmm...you're on to something...

Promethian Man
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June 04, 2012

I do love watching Ancient Aliens, but I personally don't believe the conclusions of the guy with the hair or Von Danniken ( i.e. that our ancestors were too stupid to come up with tech and science without the help of aliens. ) Our human ancestors definitely created amazing feats in architecture/science/astronomy/etc. many of which we cannot match even today - somehow we've lost that chapter of our past, but I don't think aliens are the explanation. What E.V.D. and similar writers are doing is explaining one mystery with another mystery. I prefer the more sober approach taken in the Mars Mystery, and the other works of Graham Hancock, Bauval, John Anthony West, Robert Schoch, Andrew Collins, etc. That's not to say, somewhere in our far past there may have been some sort of influence by non-terresrials. I simply do not know. I like the line in the movie uttered by Holloway which I won't spoil, but it's what he says about life and what it means that is intriguing.

Drekinus
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June 04, 2012

It's an issue of perception and convenience. As it is repeated many times by Giorgio Tsoukalos (the hair dude) there was no reference point to define the people who brought new knowledge in the ancient times. Our ancestors had to describe them with terms and concepts that they were familiar with, images and ideas that were more comforting than a blatant, terrifying truth. We're the same nowadays. We want new ideas to be presented in the form of understandable media, we don't want to adapt or adjust to something that is so beyond our understanding that it shames us. It's a normal attitude and makes us ask the important questions. It's also what drives our civilizations to repeat history instead of learning from the past. In this case, we're talking about tens of thousands of years in the past. So these concerns are way beyond our practical needs, and so we will dismiss them until they would become more relevant.

The Machine
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June 04, 2012

Prometheus was riddled with Chariots of the Gods references which I found fun but can understand that the casual viewer might not appreciate. I would not be surprised if some people found the film offencive to their religious sensibilities. I read that book, it has to be taken with a pinch of salt, like all religions and theorys, its a good read. I would rather be aware of all the possibilitys before I make my mind up on whats going on, which I still haven't because there is still so much left to discover in our short time here. Look at what we are doing right now, we are scanning the known universe for signs of life and in the meantime we are altering life on our own planet to suit our needs with what tech we have available to us, not to mention the stuff you will never hear about, now is it so hard to imagine that a civilization born earlier than us would not follow a similar path? After all we are life, and life tries to survive, expand even at its most basic level, these are basic traits of all life. We send probes out into space with messages and dna, at our level, imagine what more advanced creatures are capable of.