Let's be honest, Prometheus wasn't what all of us Alien franchise freaks were expecting. It didn't help that it suffered from the whole Star Wars episode 1 syndrome. In that we have been waiting a god damn long ass time to find out something about the space jockey from Alien and this is the answer?
You know, it's not that it was BAD, so much as it was just a message... or an answer.. that was so fucking heavy handed and buried in metaphors and symbolism that you just want to shake Ridley Scott and tell him to keep it fucking simple, stupid!
How else would you react if you went up to someone who just watched Alien and their question is "How did the Alien Xenomorphs come to be?" and the actual - and I'm not bullshitting you here - answer is "Because Jesus was crucified.
The Jews killed Jesus and thus Xenomorphs came to be.
That is literally what happened. I, seriously can not believe that is actually a valid answer that we found out through Prometheus. Oh, did you not pick that up from your viewing of Prometheus? Well then, good sir, do I have a magical trip to take you down and it's fucking sad that it's true.
First off, we have to lay down the basics on who this name in the title is - Prometheus. He is in Greek Mythology the Titan that helped Zeus overthrow Kronos and the person who created man. He made us out of clay and then, in a move that angered the Gods, gave us fire. Because he did so he was chained to a rock and stabbed in his abdomen. Allowing the buzzards to pick through his organs. Thus life was created through the open wound...
Oh yes, this image is going to be so beaten into your mind by the end of this post that you'll think I'm the director here. We go back to Elizabeth Shaw, who was implanted with the super infected sperm of her husband, who previous to this was incapable of having children -- Miracle birth, anyone? And what does she have to do? She has to program the surgical machine for caesarean - note that it wasn't set to abort. Hmmm, I guess we could go into a long debate about pro-life/pro-choice, but we have enough on our plate already.
So the machine cuts her open and takes out new life. Man, that Prometheus life giving abdomen cut comes back again. Do we even have to mention that said removed life form later comes back and saves Shaw from the angered Engineer and completes its circle of love by planting the Xenomorph into it... leaving the movie end with yet another life bursting from the abdomen of a character.
Oh yeah, Jesus. Which did get stabbed in the abdomen, and in earlier scripts there was going to be a scene where Jesus, played and shown as a bald giant Engineer, is killed by the people. Thus making Jesus the killed Engineer that got the others to want to go back to Earth and destroy their creation -- Humans. So in a sense, or in entirety, Jesus dying lead to the series of events that produced a Xenomorph on LV-223.
And if you thought the bible references were already bad enough, how about this thinly woven fun fact of a bible passage;
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.So a character named Elisabeth in the bible, cousin to Mary, with a baron womb is suddenly able to conceive... God damn, Ridley. How about not slamming it on the nose so much. Wasn't that the purpose of NOT having that scene with Engineer Jesus? I guess he just couldn't help himself. Especially when the film was just filled with bible references. David washes Weyland's feet and the pilot of the ship, when they sacrifice themselves into crashing into the other ship, have their hands stretched out in the form of a crucifixes.
The central theme of the film seemed to be "I suffer and die so that others may live." But hey, I guess you would have to be half dead to miss that one, especially with Vickers and her fuck you, got mine mentality. Which I would normally have no problem seeing get struck down.
It's sort of hard NOT to laugh when the elderly Weyland gets smacked to death by his own creation. Which I guess goes with the theme of "if you're greedy and don't know when your time is up, then you're gonna get it." that the film seems to be rolling with.
Then again, all this mental gymnastics isn't going to change the fact that while there was a shit ton of messages, meaning and what not to the film, that it didn't really work on the level that it tried to.
I heard rumors that this was supposedly the beginning of a trilogy. I'm not sure who else is the key demo-graph for a trilogy involving a tough as nails she-scientist and her disembodied android head sidekick on a slow, silent adventure through space seeking answers about the nature of our existence. I'm pretty sure that I'm part of a potential audience of about 12 people.
But hey, maybe I'll go see the sequel, which is rumored to be called Paradise... It has been a while since I had some bible studies. I'm sure I'll write another post about this film as it has huge amounts of hidden bullshit behind it, a lot of which were good concepts -- just a shame that it was executed so fucking jumbled that it would turn off the vast majority
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