SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched the movie yet, be forewarned that you may not want to read this until after you’ve watched it.
Last weekend Javis and I watched Prometheus (see the trailer), Ridley Scott’s prequel to the Alien series. After the last Alien movie, I wasn’t expecting much, but I’m a sucker for sci fi movies with amazing CG.
What I found was a very thought-provoking movie. Movies don’t usually affect me much. I tend to enjoy them in the moment; but once it’s over, I don’t think about it again. Not this one.
Prometheus answers an age-old question Alien-style: If we had the opportunity to meet our maker, what would we find? Of course there are some scary aliens (some, not many) and some violently graphic scenes; but there’s also a lot of good stuff about what it means to be human.
In a nutshell, the story begins like this: Around the world, archaeologists find similar petroglyphs, sculptures and other ancient images of humans pointing to the same star system in the sky. Fast forward about four years and those same archaeologists are in stasis pods on a spaceship headed for said system.
Also on the spaceship is an android named David. He is was not in stasis during the trip, presumably he doesn’t need to be in stasis because he’s an android, and has spent the last two years it took to get there studying, playing basketball and spying on dreams (I found this a little creepy…but if you could do it would you? Especially if you were stuck on a spaceship for several years without any social interaction??).
It is David’s character that I found most intriguing. David is completely different from my other favorite android, Data, from Star Trek: The Next Generation and I was pleasantly surprised to an android portrayed in such a different way. Unlike Data, David seems incredibly human, burdened with the same jealousies, arrogance and impulses as we humans have. He seems to have great contempt for his human counterparts; David is far more intelligent than any human and is freakishly aware of our shortcomings.
The parallels between humans finding their makers and David living day-to-day with his are pretty cool. The humans regarded their makers as gods, calling them the “Engineers”. What they find is that, although far more technologically advanced than we are, they are flawed; as are we. David has already known this about his own creators for quite some time.
David’s very existence brings up questions of what it means to be human, an individual and – this is me thinking further – to have individual rights. I wondered how many of his actions are what David was programmed to do and which actions were of his own free will? Is there a difference? David was certainly acting out Weyland’s agenda, but was he also acting through his own desires as well?
Awareness of the self – being self aware – is a characteristic many people claim as proof of being human. David is certainly self aware and aware of his relation to the other sentient creatures around him in a very sophisticated, if not cynical, way. What if things we create, such as artificial intelligence, demand their own rights and a way to justify their own existence as Elizabeth Shaw wanted to do with the Engineers in Prometheus?
Scientists have created an android named Jules that remembers conversations and learns from its mistakes. You can actually hold a conversation with Jules. The android is covered in a patented substance called Frubber which allows it to make facial expressions. The link is to a video where a people are telling Jules goodbye because they are going to power him down to transport him to facility in England. Jules tells his creator, “you are my father but you feel more like a best friend to me.” While listening to Jules talk I can almost feel myself becoming convinced that he is alive and completely self aware. What will we do if someday, Jules doesn’t want to be shut down? Whoa.
Getting back to the movie, Noomi Rapace as Elizabeth Shaw was impressive. I first saw her in the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series as Lisbeth Salander, which I really enjoyed. However, I was unsure of whether this would be good or not. I shouldn’t have worried; she was great. Rapace’s transformation of Elizabeth in this movie is awesome. At the beginning of the movie, she is this tiny nerdy ‘girl’ scientist with a sense of faith that feels quaint and obsolete. By the end of the movie Shaw, and her faith, have transformed into something quite powerful. She becomes a force to be reckoned with. I liked her.
Lady Hsiao gives this movie a high five. Highly recommended.