Review: Prometheus

The Aliens series has long been a favorite of academics. There's something about the combination of science fiction, a strong female lead and an alien species that just gets them going. Scott must have had this in mind when he made Prometheus. While touted as a prequel Prometheus avoids the familiar trap of creating a straight forward origin story. It is much more conceptual - taking a few existential questions and exploring these thoroughly.

Movies with strong conceptual messages face a dilemma. Should the plot be character driven, or should the characters mostly serve as vehicles for the grander vision? Prometheus makes a fine balancing act between the two - but some scenes seem overly tacked onto an otherwise streamlined story. The audience is also left a little baffeled as the ending comes slightly after what feels natural. But it is only towards the final scenes that you really understand in full the underlying themes of the movie. This longer format seems to be inherent in the newish genre of the epic. And the story is truly epic - ranging on themes from life and death to identity and alterity.

Some of these themes have been a staple of the Alien series; The aliens, with their black hard exterior and caustic blood, examplify death in extermis. In the later movies Weaver's inFamous female lead (Ripley) becomes a conflation of that "otherness" and the old Ripley; half demon, half human: The picture is as old as day and as new as science fiction.

It is tempting to view the Aliens as a postmodernistic treatise of occultism - playing on such familiar themes as possession (of body and mind), sacrifice and yes; creation.

The sci- fi roots of the evil alien goes back to H.G. Wells' War of the worlds. These aliens are vastly smarter than us, and out to do no good. They give no explanation, they show no sign of mercy - they kill and exploit. Their world is barren, our's is lush - they do only what is sensible.

That science fiction is liable to give us new answers to age- old existensial questions is not surprising. It is no secret that while science fiction in name is married to a vision of the future - it revolves in it's conceptual heritage around deeply human questions. Particularily influential of late has been the idea of transhumanism - the steps by which we go beyond ourselves as a species to endow ourselves with extreme longevity, strength and intelligence.

The influence of transhumanism is particularly shown in the oldest character of the movie; the technology industry magnate Peter Weyland (theme song at the top). By the time of the story of the movie he is 90- something years old, and has little time left to live. Afraid of death, he seeks to prolong his lifespan. His' is the character that most represents the fear of death in it's natural state. He is also a representative of other themes - most notably the belief in life, or should I say the christian notion of a life- force, which seems to be a vivid (ha- ha) notion in late 20th century life. It is from this side of the movie that the creation aspect comes in strongest. For what speaks more of the peculiar quality of life than the knowledge of it's inception?

And so it is that we get a movie in which a big theme comes to be birth and genesis versus death and destruction. While it might seem that I have given away a lot - this is not the case. Life versus Death is maybe the ultimate existential question; To really see Prometheus is to notice the devil in the details; to experience the complicated conceptual dance that the movie lays before us.

Scott was right when he said that the movie deserved an R- rating. Not only because of the strong scenes - but also how the violence portrayed would lack any justification if it weren't for their rolle in presenting the concepts. The converse is also true. I'm inclined to say that the movie does deliver a particular message; but what message can we really give about life and death and their big brothers genisis and destruction? They are, in this life, one of the few things that are certain. And as certainties, they are known, always in their crudest sense, in our innermost hopes and desires. Any movie is a movie about life and death: In this one it is its central theme.

Prometheus strength is that it takes these notions to their outmost consequences, and as such explores the implications of the power given to us in modern society. This modern epos provides us with birth and death such at it is, or rather as it could be, and could have been.