FILM « In Which We Examine The Nature Of Creation »
Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 10:26AM 
Robotic Faith
by LILY GOODSPEED
Prometheus
director Ridley Scott
124 minutes
In the case of Prometheus the title’s nod to the classical Greek Titan is almost insultingly intentional. The mythological figure is known for bestowing humankind with the power of fire along with his subsequent and sadistically creative punishment from the Gods. Prometheus attempts to place itself on a similarly grandiose scale. In a sweeping elimination of millions of years of evolutionary progress, Prometheus reveals that extraterrestrials were the so-called “Engineers” of human life on Earth. At the start of the film, a pasty almost-human-looking alien disintegrates his body into primordial waters, and his DNA seemingly reconstructs into a new line of native Earth-based life. Prometheus then jumps to the year 2089, where archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) find awe-inspiring evidence of this original creation.
Fast-forward to the year 2093. On a streamlined spacecraft, humanoid robot David (Michael Fassbender) wanders about the empty ship, biding his time studying ancient linguistics until the human members of the crew wake from artificial slumber. Eventually, the team is assembled, which includes the aforementioned archaeologists, a few more feisty scientists, a smart-mouth pilot named Janek (Idris Elba) and an icy commanding officer Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron).
The ship has landed on a moon named LV-223, on which this motley team of scientists has traveled in hopes of answering questions about these Engineers and the bigger question of human purpose. Once there, the crew makes some unexpected discoveries. This is not the Engineers' home planet but a military base, and the Engineers' own weapons, which are organic, parasitic aliens, seemingly killed them while stationed here. Now those parasitic aliens, in various forms of maturation, are set on the destruction of the crew. Get ready for the deaths of numerous expendable characters.
The film’s impressively ambitious philosophical scope is not inherently misguided or unsuccessful. Yet Prometheus at times forces stilted dialogue and overwrought character development to definitively prove the existential importance of its thematic goals. Dr. Shaw’s Christian faith is constantly being questioned, as if the film is reminding the audience that this movie is about the meaning of life, and that’s really important. Rapace is a skilled actor, so it’s even more disheartening to see her attempt the cheesy line, “It’s what I choose to believe.”
The film also pursues extraneous storylines. Early on, David plays a holographic recording of the CEO of Weyland Corporation to the crew, as the company funded the expedition. Mr. Weyland (Guy Pearce), although apparently deceased, expresses his overwhelming commitment to the spiritual importance of the mission from beyond the grave. Eventually Weyland is revealed not only to be alive and on the ship (gasp!), but devoted to finding the Engineers simply to attain his own salvation from death. The plot twist is superfluous and unnecessary, though perhaps it solidifies a character motivation for David who hopes to impress his father figure.
The tragedy of these clumsy plotholes and dialogue is that Prometheus is an incredibly successful movie in other ways. The aesthetic execution is close to perfect. The grayish landscapes of LV-223 and primordial Earth are haunting and expansive. The streamlined symmetry of the inner ship is flawless. The spacesuits look Tron inspired and are desperately suitable for future cosplaying.
The last forty-five minutes of the movie can only be called “thriller movie porn,” with a face-paced sampling of ship explosions, flamethrower fights, and squirmy squid aliens erupting from surprising organs. On a purely visceral level, Prometheus easily achieves the same level of suspenseful anticipation that Alien is famous for.
Michael Fassbender’s performance is stunning, which is paradoxical since he succeeds in portraying a dispassionate robot. The character of David lacks human empathy, as evidenced when he infects Dr. Halloway with a parasitic spore without much concern. Despite this handicap, Fassbender’s David is also the emotional center of the film. We see brief glimpses of inner conflict, or at least some robotic version of conflict. He messes with his co-crewmembers, but does so in part to fulfill a strange father-son relationship with his creator Mr. Weyland. David watches Lawrence of Arabia in an attempt to parrot the cadence of human interaction; he exhibits signs of curiosity as he explores and discovers aspects of Engineer technology. David and Vickers, revealed as Weyland’s biological daughter, even have moments of sibling tension.
David is also engaged in Prometheus' deeper metaphysical issues. The film directly compares human’s creation of this robot with the Engineers’ creation of human kind. When David asks Halloway about the purpose of his own existence, Halloway bluntly answers, “We made you because we could.” David immediately retorts, “Do you imagine how disappointing it would be for you hearing the same thing from your creator?” This trillion-dollar space mission was funded to answer the meaning of human life, yet David is offered no answers of his own.
This issue of creation is the most intriguing thematic thread of the film. Prometheus makes a lot of lip service to Elizabeth Shaw’s “faith,” but the movie is much more successful in examining that relationship between the creator and created. In fact, the scariness of the parasitic aliens comes in great part from their disruption to this natural dynamic. Parenticide is mentioned numerous times, the most famous and publicized of which is Vickers' declaration: “A king has his reign and then he dies. It's inevitable. It's the natural order of things.”
For me, Prometheus is a lot like Lost which makes sense as Damon Lindelof is behind both projects. Both ask unsolvable questions, and fall flat in attempting to answer them. Yet, when Prometheus eases on the overly aggressive religious posturing and lets the mystery of creation remain a mystery, the film triumphs. When it examines the nature of creation, instead of attempting to explain it, Prometheus is a beautiful and surprisingly thoughtful movie. And if that’s not to your liking, there’s more than enough blood, guts and goo.
Lily Goodspeed is a contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in New York. This is her first appearance in these pages. She twitters here and tumbls here.
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Reader Comments (1)
I think that I almost agree, except that I'm not sure that Lindelof is really trying to answer all of these questions, which, I suspect, is what makes a certain kind of viewer love his contraptions while many others are driven insane by them.