"Prometheus": A Movie Review. Part IV.

[Friedrich]

July 12, 2012 at 2:04 P.M. The format at this group was altered,
again. I was delayed in returning the group to the old format. I may
have to do this, every day, before writing at Google Groups as part of
new harassments aimed at censoring me.

I will struggle to continue writing at this group and to return to
blogger's dashboard, soon, if it continues to exist. Please see the
TNT series "Perception" then "Magician's Choice" at Critical Vision,
blogger, then "What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "'Brideshead
Revisited': A Movie Review."

III. A Severed Head: Scientism.

There are warnings in this film about contemporary Western culture's
abandonment of religious traditions in favor of recent self-
understandings, allegedly based on what science tells us about
ourselves. Abandonment of mythological meanings leaves humanity
alienated from the cosmos and its own actions.

We are said to be brutal, selfish apes, driven by genes; whether as
cold administrators (like Meredith) without time for compassion, or as
robots transforming persons into unwilling experimental animals. (Dave
asks Halloway: "How badly do you want to know?")

Meredith offers a wicked comment on Euro-politics in an age of
austerity. Does the character of Meredith illustrate the cruelty of
Ms. Merkel's policies for Greece? Or Spain? Is Dave or Meredith (Ms.
Merkel?) more of a "robot"? Are both beings only "severed heads,"
representatives of Modernity as the worship of impersonal reason?

The film certainly suggests that instrumental reason divorced from
human values leads to suicide. Is humanity flirting with suicide
(death instinct) as a result of highly rational decisions for
INDIVIDUAL nations that have insane consequences for the planet and
entire human species? Mr. Scott thinks so. Many others agree with
him.

Science gives us space travel as well as nuclear weapons and
concentration camps. This may explain Mr. Scott's Polish sources in
this movie. After all, Auschwitz (symbol of the misuse of technology
to create gas chambers) is located in Poland. Poland is a nation
trapped between two greedy and powerful neighbors -- Russia and
Germany. Poland is also a nation forced to choose in the twentieth
century between Marx and Jesus. As in this movie, Jesus won that
competition.

We need science and faith. The search by Shaw for our human origins or
the "gods" continues, as the curtain falls on our story, even as she
chooses to pursue her quest further into the cosmos while WEARING her
crucifix.

Conclusion.

Solutions to the "severed head" phenomenon are found in new modes
(Postmodern) of scientific thinking that are sensitive to values and
ambiguities, as features of of scientitifc study, because they are
aspects of human nature.

"Prometheus" is best classified as "Techno-Noir," a style pioneered
way back in the eighties in the "Terminator" (James Cameron) and, more
recently, in Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" as well as the soon-
to-be-released remake of "Total Recall," also by Mr. Spielberg. This
genre is characterized by a fusion of traditional Noir characteristics
from forties cinema with sci-fi features dating from the fifties and
later. Ms. Rapace does an especially fine job, as does Mr.
Fassbender, in his role.

Mr. Scott -- like James Cameron -- offers Joseph Conrad's solutions to
life's mysteries: courage as we sail into the abyss, unapologetic
faith or hope in humanity -- despite the horrors of our nature --
confidence in human reason tempered by wisdom along with the
fundamental need for beauty. Most of all, love and compassion as our
best qualities and slim chance for survival.

As a possible final statement from an important director, I cannot
think of a better conclusion to a life's work or hope for humanity
than "Prometheus."