Prometheus - What Was with the Alien Flute?
Ati
MemberPraetorianJanuary 16, 2018'Why do the Engineers, a race advanced enough to have mastered interstellar travel and unlocked the secret of life itself, have ships activated by the power of tin flute? Is it some sort of allusion to their culture inspiring ours, given that the flute is reckoned to be one of the earliest forms of instrument? Was the flute one of the Engineers’ gifts to us, along with life and language?
Sadly, we combed all three hours and 40 minutes of the disc’s making-of documentary in vain, and Ridley Scott says not a word about it in his commentary track. Jon Spaihts does mention it briefly, saying, “I’m not sure I’m sold on the whistle or the silly putty eggs”. The eggs, of course, are a reference to the fleshy buttons on the Engineer ship’s control console.
Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, we brought the subject up with Dr Anil Biltoo, the language consultant who both created the Engineers’ lingo and also appears in the film as a teacher hologram in a fetching white hat. Did he suggest the idea of the alien ship being powered by a flute?
“That wasn't in the script,” Dr Biltoo said, “and I have to say, I was quite shocked when I saw how they used that.”
The plot thickens. So if the ship wasn’t flute powered in the script, how did it work?
“There were some voice-activated sequences where Fassbender's moving around the pyramid and he reads glyphs,” Dr Biltoo explained. “He reads a writing system that seems to make sense to him. Now, in the script, he utters a sequence of words, and nothing happens. So he repositions the intonation, and something happens. The consoles light up on the craft, because they're speech activated. In the original script, they are not activated by flute.”
Dr Biltoo made it quite clear, therefore, that the flute didn’t spring from Lindelof’s mind, and Spaihts' bemusement on the commentary track certainly indicates that he didn’t suggest it, either. Although we have no firm evidence, the Prometheus Blu-ray does provide a few clues that Ridley Scott himself may have introduced the flute.
In one of the snippets of supplementary footage on the extras disc, we see Scott walk around a large storage room with his filmmakers, choosing various bits and pieces to dress the sets. There are tables absolutely covered in random objects, ranging from Thermos flasks and Christmas decorations to mugs and executive stress toys.
As the camera follows him around, Scott selects certain objects quite rapidly, suggesting that one character might idly play with this item in one scene, and those items over there might look quite nice on a shelf in Vickers’ private quarters.
Given that Scott frequently made snap creative decisions throughout the film’s making, could it be possible that Scott saw the tin whistle in this storage room (along with Janek’s accordion, perhaps), and said, “You know what? This could be the ignition key for the spaceship.”
Honestly, it reminded me of this:
Lest we forget:
Sorry.....i just wanted to be part of the moment :)
As for the David - Walter flute scene, it might be that Ridley Scott knew about the Disney take over of the franchise when he filmed Alien Covenant.
"He survived, he’s now in Disneyland in Orlando, and no way am I going back there. How did he end up in Disneyland? I saw him in Disneyland, Jesus Christ!"
This is the ultimate flute scene! 8)
That is a great description The_Foxcatcher and a very fitting reference to Shiva and the Engineers.
I remember that auximenes. Link had to play the flute to open the doors. That is a wonderful reference.
A producer described the Engineer holograms as tangible, spongy and that is why it affected David's hair when the hologram passed over him. Somehow the Engineer tech projects a physical form that the user interacts with, see green sphere below.
In Alien: Covenant, there was mildew/moss on the green sphere when Captain Oram ran his hand over it meaning this physical projection in the hologram (where moss grew) was in something like a standby mode but still projecting a physical form for moss to grow on. That would explain the repeating Dr. Shaw message because the panel was always on but not lit up because a hand had not run over it in a long time.
I like the Engineer tech (flute, spongy floating icons) because it was so foreign to what we build and in my opinion credible alien tech. The historical elements mentioned above add credibility to the tech user interaction. Our tech may evolve in radical leaps but there may be components of it (like a button or flute) that may stay in the user experience forever.
