By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News
Prometheus is the Titan who is said to have created human
life. According to the Greek myth, he made us from clay. Then—and here is where
Prometheus might have left well enough alone—he stole fire from the gods and gave
it to the humans. Apparently the gods disliked this. We humans are not supposed
to be on equal footing with the gods. That’s the thought. There is supposed to
be an unbridgeable divide between the human and the divine—the created and the
creator—that Prometheus failed to appreciate. And so the gods punished
Prometheus.
In Ridley Scott’s science fiction epic, “Prometheus”, a
handful of humans go to meet their maker. The story opens with scientists
discovering a series of cave paintings that support the theory that human life
on earth began when aliens came to earth long ago, deposited our genetic
material, and then flew away (this may sound far-fetched, but interestingly, some
well-known scientists actually believe it).
These cave paintings also appear to indicate where those aliens
live. So a team of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and an android board a
spaceship named ‘Prometheus’ in search of their Prometheus—their creator. They
go for a variety of reasons. Some go for money. Others go for notoriety. Some
go because they want to be part of a great scientific expedition. Others go
because they think the aliens may be able to solve their problems.
Hence, the Prometheus is home to a variety of characters
with a variety of unmistakably human motives and pursuits. But are these
pursuits noble? Will contact with the aliens fulfill the crew’s desires, or have
they stretched the bounds of humanity too far? Have they, like Prometheus,
bridged a divide that ought not be bridged? Will the aliens—the creators of
human life—turn out to be benevolent and gracious, or will they be vengeful,
monstrous, or even worse, indifferent?
These are just some of the questions that are developed in
“Prometheus”, and it would be a shame to answer them here. Indeed, there are
some questions that are raised by this movie that we may never have clear-cut
answers to. That, of course, does not mean that they should not be asked. It
just means that they are deep questions, and hard questions—problems that we
are invited to think about but not expected to solve.
Many of these questions and problems are raised by how this
movie’s characters speak to the nature and value of human endeavors. Maybe the
most interesting and important characters in this movie are Elizabeth Shaw
(Noomi Rapace) and David (Michael Fassbender). Shaw is a scientist. David is an
android. Shaw’s interests are both scientific and philosophical. She wants to
know why aliens visited earth in the first place, why they created human life,
and why they abandoned their creation. In other words, Shaw wants answers to
the big questions.
Like Shaw, David’s aim is to learn about the creators of
human life. But there is an unmistakable difference between the goals and
motives of David and those of Shaw. There is something Shaw has that David
lacks. It is some sort of spark. Maybe it is just conscious experience, or
maybe it is something like hope or faith—faith in humanity’s pursuit of understanding
and faith that there is something in our universe beyond what we have dreamt
of.
David does not get this. He is a machine that is designed to
look and act like a real human being, but David lacks, or at least seems to
lack, all of the traits that are distinctive of humanity. He cannot feel or act
freely; he does not experience emotion or any other conscious sensation. So David
is incapable of truly understanding human
experience or its deliverances.
It is difficult to say more about what David is missing. Yet,
Ridley Scott does a great job of showing us that David is indeed missing
something. “Prometheus” shows us that there is something special about the way
humans think and wonder about the world around us. And this is just one of the
many fascinating themes in “Prometheus”.
In fact, this movie has something for everyone. There is
action and suspense, there is an interesting plot and noteworthy characters;
and of course, there are all sorts of mind-blowing things to think about. All
this makes “Prometheus” a truly special movie.
