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Saturday
Jun162012

On Prometheus, Ancient Aliens and Mankind's Insignificance

In the years before 1979, Dan O'Bannon wrote 29 pages of what would eventually become "Alien". Then titled "Star Beast", the project was put on pause when O'Bannon was contacted to work on an adaptation of Dune. Though that ultimately fell through, the production put him in contact with H.R. Giger.

O'Bannon went back to Los Angeles to live with Ronald Shusett, who had contacted him after seeing DARK STAR, a film O'Bannon had co-written with John Carpenter. Together, Dan and Ronald wrote the plot and pitched it to 20th Century Fox, who green-lit it after eight rewrites by Walter Hill and David Giler.

Originally thought to be directed by Dan O'Bannon, 20th Century Fox instead asked Walter Hill to do the honors. Thankfully he declined, which made the three producers (Giler, Hill and Gordon Carroll) ask Ridley Scott after being quite impressed by his debut film, The Duellists. Scott agreed and went to work, creating detailed storyboards inspired by Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey. These storyboards impressed 20th Century Fox enough to double the film's budget, going from $4.2 Million to $8.4.

H.R. Giger came along after O'Bannon introduced Scott to his works, especially his painting Necronom IV. He was tasked with creating all four stages of the Alien, the environment on the planetoid and the derelict spacecraft.

 

In 1979, everyone could see the result. Emerging as one of the true masterpieces of cinema, Alien soared with imaginativity (this should really be a word), excellent characterizations, extraordinary visual effects and a feeling of true Alien. O'Bannon was inspired by Lovecraft, among others, when he wrote it and that inspiration shines through - in Alien, the universe is big. Humanity is nothing but a speck of dust. We wonder a lot (What is this strange creature in the chair? What is the Alien? Is it an animal? Does it have a purpose? Is it engineered? What were they doing on this ship? Were they being transported? What for?), but there are no answers. All the mysteries are in the background. Their solutions, their answers, are not important to the plot, which boils down to a classic "Monster in the House"-story - people come to a haunted house (this time a derelict spaceship), people disturb/unleash something (this time an alien being), people get killed off one by one. This is not why we return to Alien, over and over again. The reason we return is because of the wonder, the horror, the aliennes of it all. The questions without answers - questions that are interesting to ponder, to think about. Questions about our place in the universe, about how little we know and, ultimately, about how incredibly insignificant we are.

These are the questions that drive Alien. They are the reason we return to the film, over and over again.

Now, in 2012, Ridley Scott himself has returned to Alien. This time to provide answers in the form of a prequel. Entitled Prometheus, we get the story of the Engineers, previously known as "Space Jockeys". And to do that, Scott, Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts does what every sensible writer/director would've done; they tie the whole story together with humanity.

Before we go further, I'd like to pause for a minute and get some things out of the way. Firstly, this post isn't about my opinions regarding these films. I love Alien with all my heart, I didn't care for Aliens, I enjoyed Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. Prometheus is, to me, the most entertaining and interesting Alien-film since the first one. I enjoyed it a lot. I was thoroughly entertained both times I saw it, and I continue to be. It has a lot going for it and it has a lot of flaws. It is not a masterpiece, and I don't think it'll ever be seen as one.
  This post is about the thematic flaws in the films, as a series. I am going to delve into why Prometheus shouldn't have gone where it went, and why it shouldn't have been a part of the Alien-mythology. But we'll get to that.

Prometheus is, as you probably know, about a group of scientists and such who visit a far-away planet in the hope of discovering mankind's origin. It's revealed in the film that Humanity, in fact all life on Earth, were created by what the main character, Archeologist Elizabeth Shaw, call "Engineers". So the crew of Prometheus, the name of the space ship, travels a few years to pay a visit to them. What could go wrong?

Quite a lot, actually. The Engineers they encounter are violent and the "station" they've found is revealed to be a sort of factory or storage for biological Weapons of Mass Destruction - specifically, black goo that turns into monsters. The tentacled kind. The Zombie-kind. And, later, the Xenomorph-kind. Then comes the reveal that the station is really a ship, with a course set to Earth, before something went haywire about 2000 years ago, effectively stopping the Engineers’ journey to (presumably) destroy all life on Earth.

Prometheus is very different from Alien, at the same time as it is similar. Both movies have people traveling into space and being killed by alien beings. Both movies are reluctant to give you any of the big answers, though they do give hints and some facts.

The problem is that in Prometheus, the characters are actively searching for the answers. In Alien, the crew of seven stumble upon these things. They react with fear, paranoia. They're scared. Desperate. They just want out.
  In Prometheus, they just grow more interested. Thematically, these two movies couldn't be more different.

Thematically, Prometheus should've given us answers. There are literally tons of questions, important questions, that aren't answered. Things like "Why do the Engineers suddenly want to kill us?" I'd say that was a huge deal, especially since it's the turning point of the entire story. Instead of answering it, we get some monster-action and a sequel hook.

But here's the kicker; Ridley Scott has, in interviews, said why. Or at least an interpretation as why. And the answer to why our creators wants to kill us, the very act that makes this all go tits-up, the ONE thing we did that makes the events of Prometheus, Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection happen is...

Space Jesus.

I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. To read an excellent interpretation of the film and this theory, follow this link.

So, what is wrong with this theory? Why am I writing this blogpost? Hell if I know. But since I'm already here, let me count the ways.

 

Saying that everything in this science-fiction series happened since we killed Jesus is beyond ridiculous. I could get over the fact that, once again, Hollywood (this time the GOOD people working there!) decided to use the already tired, trite and dull plot-point that is Ancient Aliens again to form a prequel to Alien. I could understand why they did that. It could be interesting, especially when Damon Lindelof and Ridley Scott was involved. "They must have something new to bring forth", I thought. "A twist on this old material, something that can make us think and wonder." And they did. Jesus being the reason behind the entire Alien-franchise isn't something I would've thought going into this. To be honest I didn't even think it when I walked out of the cinema. Twice. This didn't even occur to me till I read Movies.com's interview with Ridley Scott, where he says that this was, originally, a huge part of the script.

But come on. This is a science fiction-story. Why not go forward instead of back? Why not say that there was a war between the Engineers. "Good" Engineers vs. "Bad" Engineers. Pro-create and anti-create - one side wanted the universe to be their playground, the other wanted to create and study. War broke out and the Bio-Weapon stations, previously a place of prayer and harmony, a place to welcome and enlighten species that had gotten far in their evolution, attacked, seized control of it and made it into a production facility for WMD, which ended up going horribly wrong. End of story and look! No Jesus!

Alien was unnatural in its very origin. The designs, direction, screenplay - everything was so spectacularly different and, incredibly, still is. There's nothing quite like Alien out there.
  Prometheus, however, is very familiar. There are almost no original ideas - everything's been done before, by H.P. Lovecraft, by Alien and its sequels, by millions of writers and screenwriters. There's nothing new about Ancient Aliens, about Space Jesus, about the monsters in this film. These themes are the backbone of a lot of science-fiction; they've been explored billions of times and they'll probably be explored billions more. Nothing fascinates us as these questions - Where do we come from? What is our place in the universe? What happens when we die?

Ultimately, that is all they are - questions to wonder and be fascinated by. We'll probably never have answers to them. But ponder we will.

Alien pondered as well. It made us think, by showing us something we hadn't seen before. By never explaining or going into detail, just showing the horrifying consequences, we become scared, we think and we wonder.

Prometheus does much of the same. It makes us think, by telling us a lot, but never explaining or going into detail. It teases the questions, then rips the answers away.

Prometheus goes against everything the original film said. Where the original film made us think, Prometheus gives half-baked answers. Where the original film showed us how little we mattered, Prometheus shows us that if it hadn't been for us, for mankind, nothing like this would've ever happened. It makes one of the best science-fiction films ever made into a religious story about humanity being punished for our own sins.

 

Prometheus has no place in the Alien-franchise. The first time I saw it, I thought it was good, but it seemed held down by the fact that it was a prequel. The second time around, the Alien-elements worked better for me. And while the film worked, I think it should've been moved as far away from Alien as remotely possible. The ideas it explores are interesting. The story isn't bad. Ridley Scott directs it well, and it is (IMO) well-written, though not without its flaws. But it could've been so much better if it distanced itself even more from the Alien-franchise. The original Alien is about mankind's insignificance, about how we don't know anything, about how stupid we are and how little we matter to the universe. The Ancient Aliens-trope has nothing to do in this franchise, no matter how it's used.

I think that without the Alien-connection, Prometheus could’ve soared. Cut out the Xenomorph-cameo at the end, remove the Space Jockey-design and all other references to the original film (except the monologue at the end. That can stay.), and we’d had an original science fiction film with exciting questions. No one would’ve thought to connect Alien and Prometheus then - they would’ve been fundamentally different films. And we could all have had a good laugh at the thought of this being an Alien-prequel. That wouldn’t have made any amount of sense, now would it? 

 

(if you missed the point of this, press this link. Point 5 of his post is basically what I tried to write here)

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