mysteries and enigmas in the movie Prometheus

galacticnorth
MemberOvomorphJune 08, 2012756 Views2 RepliesSome that struck me:
- the artwork in Weylands 'compartment'....it is curious to say the least. Some of it very spacejockeyan....conspicuously so.
- the fascination with heads...a particulary curious and telling aspect of the movie. The big head, the severed engineer head.... They are both found in a room that is later referred to as 'the room where you found the head'. The engineer head is the main character in one scene later on. Particularly Shaw and David are shot in several scenes just focusing on their heads...In shaws case the camera dwells on her head a long time. At the end David is reduced to a 'talking head'. Prometheus is in cerebral territory ...it is also about creation in someones image.
- self-referencing in engineer culture. Abounds! Big head placed as a kind of idol at the center of vials of bioformer. The head of course an engineer head with signs of sacrificial change. Crucial to understanding the psychology of the engineers and our connection to them.
Right inside the opening to the temple there is a wall shaped like the legs of a facehugger. The shape is strongly reminiscent of a couple of specific shots in Alien.
The basic domed phallic shape of the xeno head is seen several places. The top of the temple....on the 'derelict class' ship, artwork inside the temple.
The protofacehugger on the engineer is oddly enough reflected in a statue within the temple.
- Most curious of all and worthy of its on bullet: seen from certain angles one of the 'ends' of the derelict class ship looks like a hand with a pointing finger. The exact same image is seen with one of the hands of an engineer in the pile of dead engineers. The hand and finger mirrors exactly the shape at the 'end' of the ship. The hand in the pile is center focus in one shot.
- Reproduction is referenced all over the place in both engineer culture and their biological creations/degenerations. vaginal entrances and orifices...phallic protrusions and functions abound. The xeno mural is extreme being really a penis (xenohead) coming out of a pair of female lower lips.
-Self-referencing withing self-referencing: the shape of the derelict class ship (itself looking like an organism with head, anus, vaginal entrances in the center) is mirrored in how the 'cobralien' curls in some scenes.
There is a curious and disturbing visual similarity between Holloways naked back leaning over Shaw, and a later shot of the protofacehugger leaning over the engineer....though the later shot is made extra creepy by the 'pelvic thrust'.
- maybe not a riddle but still worth looking at closely: David quotes Lawrence of arabia (Peter O'Toole repeatedly and also mirrors specific movements of Lawrence).
Davids facial expressions belie his words revealing the emergence of a soul.