Prometheus and God
Eek! It's after us!
I saw Prometheus the other day and agreed with most of the viewers’ comments I’ve seen: amazing to look at, too diffusely plotted to really smoke, but includes one scene of sci-fi horror bound for the sci-fi horror Hall of Fame beyond a doubt.
But what anyone paying any attention to the dialogue will notice is that the entire film is essentially a meditation on the presence of God and the efficacy and humanity of faith (specifically in Jesus Christ) as opposed to the destructive dead end of scientism, materialism and their underlying nihilism.
These are rich themes for science fiction or any fiction. They bring drama to art because, whether you believe in God or not, French guy Blaise Pascal was right about people having a God-shaped hole inside them (though, okay, he didn’t put it that way exactly). And Leo Tolstoy, in his extremely cool book What is Art?, points out that when the elite lose their faith in God, the arts have nothing left to talk about but ennui and sex — which sounds pretty much like the crap we’ve been watching on screen for a lot of the last forty years.
So the yearning for Christ deepens the motivations and vivifies the scientific curiosity of Prometheus‘s heroine scientist Elizabeth Shaw, played wonderfully by Noomi Rapace. (She’s the Swedish lady from the original Dragon Tattoo movies and makes herself an American star here, I think.) And her ongoing religious clash with Michael Fassbender’s witty and sinister robot, cold at heart and envious of humanity, provides the soul beneath all the big metallic special effects and gives some purpose to the squishy monsters bursting in and out of various people’s various orifices.
Dear Klavan on the Culture:
Damn you for making me want to see this movie. I have a deep abiding hate for the Alien movie saga. When I saw the first installment back in a lush surround sound theatre near Times Square back in 1978 (or whenever the hell it was), it struck me that the only thing that made the viewers jump out of their seats was the way the soundtrack jumped a hundred decibels whenever the poorly illuminated creature pounced on her victims. Also it is my belief that the outline of the story was stolen from an old science fiction novel I read called “The Voyage of the Space Beagle.” But be that as it may.
I had happily congratulated myself on ignoring all the summer blockbusters that would debut between The Avengers and the Dark Knight. Now I must plunck down my hard-earned lucre and sit through more deafening disembowelments.
No sir, no sir. This will not stand.
Wait, the movie is not a meditation about G-d in general terms but is “essentially a meditation on the presence of God and the efficacy and humanity of faith (specifically in Jesus Christ)”.
You mean it is a specifically Christian message movie about the Crucifixtion, the Resurrection and the Eucharist and salvation by faith in the same? Sort of like the Narnia books that are Christian propaganda disguised as children’s stories?
Seriously?
The reviews made it sound rather interesting, but if that’s what the movie is really all about, it sounds like a very good reason not to see it.
Mr. Klaven, would you PLEASE review For Greater Glory (La Cristiada). A more Christian and liberty-oriented movie you will never see. American audiences should see it. And we want to know wht you think.
I agree with this review wholeheartedly.
The faith-and-scifi themes were not what I was anticipating at all, but I deeply appreciated the fact that the film treated both faith and the lack thereof in earnest fairness (in my opinion, at least).
In a way, the film was a mix of ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘The Grey,’ with ‘Alien’-type horror as a vehicle. And who can complain about that?
Good movie. But I wish the young woman, the scientist, had said : ” This is what I believe” instead of ” This is what I choose to believe.”
Andrew,
Re: “This is what I chose to believe”. This reminds me of one of the Catholic philosophers I studied in college, perhaps St.Augustine, who said that he could prove thru logic the existence of God but you first had to believe in God to make the proof. That is, you had to concede that if he could prove the existence of a superior being or entity, for instance one that is infinite in its existence, then you must concede that it is God.
It is that logic that brought me back to God.