Feminists, Freudians, and Fanboys, Unite!: A Review of Prometheus
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Your implied question is, “Is it good?” That’s trickier.
Your third question, if you’re a fan of the Alien series to
which this is a prequel, is probably something along the lines of, “Is it more
like Alien or Aliens?” (If you had to reread that question because you’d
forgotten than the sequel to Alien was not Alien II but Aliens, deduct five
points for insufficient geekiness.) The answer, I think, is that this movie
owes as much to Stanley Kubrick’s vision of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as it does to the original series.
It’s certainly faster-paced than that glacial epic, and there are aliens in it
(different kinds this time!), but it shares Clarke’s scope, beginning with the
invention of the human race by another (dubbed “The Engineers”), and sharing
Clarke’s fear that IBM… I mean HAL… I mean evil corporations (“The Weyland
Corporation” in this iteration of HAL) will eschew pure science for a quest for
power. Only this time the quest for power masquerades as a quest for philosophical
answers rather than profit. But, just as profit is a proxy for power, these
supposed philosophical questions turn out to be a base quest for immortality. Still,
the corporate overlord wants to gain rather than learn, while the hero is on a
purer quest for truth. The villain is as two dimensional as you would expect. The hero wants the truth, and love, and children, and to hold onto her faith, and isn't always sure which is which.
One of the advantages Prometheus has over 2001 is that it has a
larger cast of characters, so we get to see a spectrum between these poles.
Those provide the film with a richness that makes the reflection on the movie
more valuable than its ending, which feels reductive. And why wouldn’t it? The
body count in this movie is Shakespearean. And in a slightly-too-obvious way,
every character’s flaw leads to his or her demise. Still, the way these
Achilles heels are woven together (how’s that for a gross image? Something out
of H.R. Giger, perhaps? Then it’s perfect) demands some respect. The acting is
generally good. Charlize Theron, the only member of the cast to win an Oscar,
actually delivers the worst line reading in the whole movie, so that tells you
it’s not a Sci-Fi Channel Original. Noomi Rapace holds her own against
Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, both as a badass and as an actress projecting a
character with a complete internal world. Michael Fassbender’s android David is
so pitch perfect you won’t be able to decide if you feel sorry for him or hate
him, but you will absolutely be creeped-out by him.
If the characters don’t do it for you, there are the larger
themes. The Alien series has been poured over by academics, and Prometheus will
not disappoint them. Freudians get excited about all the orifice penetrating,
and Prometheus has aliens injecting themselves into mouths and bursting from
abdomens, but it also has some climbing in and out of eyes. (Calm down,
Freudians. You’re going to make messes of yourselves.) While the original had a
lot to say (and a lot to tease) about motherhood, Prometheus has both a
father-son relationship and a father-daughter relationship. (And there the
Freudians go.) Feminists love the gender power dynamics of the original series.
Well, get this: At one point in Prometheus we have a female character demanding an emergency
C-Section (an abortion?) from a female-voiced surgeon machine that has already
informed her that it is only designed to work on men. (Is that a million Ph.D. theses
I smell? Smells sweaty.)
As for the philosophers, the movie glosses over semiotics with the help of a robot who can read alien writing and speak their language (convenient), but it asks enough religious and philosophical questions to keep stoners and Philosophy 101 students saying, “Whoa! Dude!” long into the munchie period.
As for the philosophers, the movie glosses over semiotics with the help of a robot who can read alien writing and speak their language (convenient), but it asks enough religious and philosophical questions to keep stoners and Philosophy 101 students saying, “Whoa! Dude!” long into the munchie period.
As is always the case with Ridley Scott films, the questions
are better than the answers. When those answers are delivered at all, they are
presented as catch phrases, and we have to parse out nuance by evaluating the
character providing them because, on their faces, they are too simple to be
satisfying. Still, these questions are good, interesting ones, worthy of
conversation after the movie, so go see it with some good friends who are
willing to talk about more than which of the beautiful cast members they most
admired. And don’t be put off by the simplicity of the answers provided in the movie.
For good or ill, that’s realistic; the world is full of people who can sum up
their beliefs in bumper-stickers, so it stands to reason that some of those
people would be included in the crew of any interplanetary space voyage.
Luckily, the answers are not all the same, which is why second-guessing
Prometheus will be as much fun as the movie itself.
6/26/12 Addendum: I thoroughly enjoyed this, too. It seems about right:
6/26/12 Addendum: I thoroughly enjoyed this, too. It seems about right: