Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The Imagination of Science Fiction

At last, I went to see the latest Ridley Scott movie, Prometheus.  It was visually stunning, intellectually challenging, full of open-ended questions, and served up a helping of viscerally disgusting scenes of alien lifeforms destroying our weak human bodies.  The invention of digital photography has at last matched the power of the human imagination and Ridley Scott has imagined our creators, white giants of great beauty, who seeded human genesis with their DNA.  People far more intelligent than I are unable to conclude everything Ridley Scott is saying in this movie but I love that.  We are free to draw our own conclusions.

My son and I saw the movie then spent a half hour arguing afterward of the significance and motives of David the android.  My brother and I have been texting, the absolute worst possible method to discuss a Ridley Scott movie.   Try using a mere 120 characters of text to discuss whether the giant committed suicide as an act of dissidence or if he sacrificed himself in an act of creation!

My favorite Ridley Scott movie has long been Blade Runner, the director's cut, not the watered down version corporate Hollywood foisted on the paying public with its voice-overs and sappy ending.  Scott is such a rich and powerful man in the movie industry that he was able to make Prometheus without corporate interference.  It is a movie meant to be seen on the big screen so I must go see it at least once more before it leaves the theaters. 

In one of the most thrilling movie scenes ever, a white giant seated at the controls of his spaceship surrounded by holograms is the very image of the creator.  But this is a Ridley Scott movie:  the giant is preparing to take off for earth with a massive payload of alien lifeforms that require human bodies as part of their reproductive cycle.  Awesome.

No comments: