Prometheus' creation mythology compared to another sci-fi classic. . .

I love Stargate...the show especially....but these two premises exist on two entirely different planes of storytelling...and it's not even really fair to compare them...it doesn't do justice to either. 'Prometheus' projects to be far more dark and disturbing, as well as the fact that the interaction between our species and whatever the crew encounters fixes to be infinitely less civil, political or social.....I liken the events we expect to see, based on the little evidence we have as well as our experience from 'Alien', to be comparable to ants confronting the human race. The disconnect there, from an ant's perspective to ours is beyond comprehension and sort of the point. Isn't it? Humanity's perspective in 'Prometheus' confronted with that of the SpaceJockey's race seems wholey indefineable and thus completely, terrifyingly unimagineable. 'Stargate', both as film and tv series, is a dramatized socio-political exercise in action/adventure. It's more involved in personal, social and political relationships set against an incredibluy detailed and concieved sci-fi back drop. To me, there two entirely different things. .......but start thinking about this aspect of 'Prometheus'.....remember how Sigourney Weaver referred to the crew of the Nostromo as seven little indians and now picture those little indians in 'Prometheus' as seven to ten ants examining your shoe before you step on them....that what Shaw, Vickers and company are up against...that's the kind of fundamental, visceral and bewildering experience waiting for them.

It has also got similarities with the movie "2001:A Space Odyssey".....Finding a monolith on the moon which lead them to another monolith near Jupiter which turns out to be a portal to another star system. The movie also deals with terraforming, Android, Aliens and alien influence in human evolution.

Stargate...? [img]http://oi42.tinypic.com/15x0ltv.jpg[/img]

In 2006, I wrote a short synopsis for an [i]Alien[/i] film that would disregard the sequels and return to the original taxonomy and mythos of the first film. I was a huge fan of [i]Alien[/i] and disappointed by the sequels (even [i]Aliens[/i]) which I thought sacrificed the subtlety and mystery of the original movie in favor of action, etc. So anyway, since I was living in Hampstead at the time and Ridley Scott has a house there, I stuck a print-out of my story idea through his mail slot. Naturally I never heard back, nor did expect to. I was pretty sure RS would never return to the [i]Alien[/i] franchise, which popular opinion considered "dead in space" by then ([i]Alien Vs Predator[/i] being the gravestone). Imagine my surprise, etc... Don't worry, I'm not about to do a Sofia Stewart (self-claimed true author of [i]The Matrix[/i] & [i]Terminator[/i] films) and start saying they stole my idea, especially since we don't know the plot of [i]Prometheus[/i] yet. However, what has been revealed does include a few interesting similarities, at least to the extent that I wonder if my idea didn't inspire RS, at some level, and even if he's long forgotten about it. I can hardly wait to see the finished film. Here's the synopsis anyway, doc created 6/5/2006. I post it at this thread because one of the ideas it maybe has in common with RS's film is that of the Alien as the progenitor of humanity (also found in [i]Mission to Mars[/i], BTW, and the BBC classic by Nigel Neale, [i]Quatermass & the Pit[/i]). ALIEN WORLD This movie is the sequel to the FIRST movie in the series (1979, directed by Ridley Scott), and will ignore the other sequels entirely, just as if they had never existed. A team of astronauts return from a space mission to Pluto and are placed in quarantine. The press is refused access to them and there is no word on the results of their mission. The mission was to investigate the possible existence of ancient alien ruins on Pluto, photographed by an unmanned space shuttle the previous year. The press insists that it is against the law to deny the public news of the mission; they demand access to the astronauts, quarantine or no. Curiosity is aroused, and much speculation occurs as to what really happened on Pluto. The government finally informs the press that the astronauts are bound to secrecy by the National Security Act. In information quarantine, the crew is isolated from one another and questioned intensively by the Company. Meanwhile, a gutsy reporter, Foster, persists in trying to communicate with the crew. Though she is unable to penetrate Company security, as a result of her efforts she finds herself dealing with the artificial intelligence “Mother” (as seen in the first movie); although she successfully uncovers certain clues (regarding the nature of the mission), she fails to make sense of her discoveries. Finally the crew is released from quarantine, sans one of their number, a female who apparently died while in quarantine. None of the other crew members was found to be carrying any extraterrestrial diseases. They are told in no uncertain terms not to divulge anything of their experiences on Pluto, on pain of death (execution for treason). Foster, the persistent reporter, finally persuades one of the crew members, Greg Samson, to talk. Samson is suffering from repeating nightmares and is in danger of losing his sanity.It transpires, in his talks with Foster, that (as in the first film) the Company deceived them: the space mission had the actual end of bringing back an alien life form for study as a possible weapon of war. The crew was sent to the alien world, given almost no information as to what to expect, and barely escaped with their lives. What actually happened there (though not divulged until near the end of the movie) is the following: the crew ship landed and the crew found itself unable to leave the ship for 48 hours (NB: the Luis Buñuel film, The Exterminating Angel). Finally, able to leave at last, an explore team of four members is selected to leave the ship and investigate the supposedly alien ruins. Samson and three others (including one female) enter a surreal nightmare world with no familiar features. The entire crew is abducted, isolated, and kept prisoner in the Labyrinth. There they are programmed for future ‘activation’ to occur when the alien invasion takes place. The crew have in fact been given specific information that will aid the human race when the time comes. It will aid it, NOT to resist the invasion, however, but rather to accept and succumb to it when it comes. One of the crew, the female, is inseminated with an alien life form. The others know only that she of all of them was especially traumatized by her experience, and had the least recall of what happened. The explore group return to their ship 24 hours later, with no real idea of where they have been. They have some video footage but nothing that is conclusive. The captain of the ship is unnerved by everything that has happened, and decides to leave, even though they have apparently failed in their mission. Back on Earth (a possible cameo for Sigourney Weaver, to explain nature of the beast), we learn that although the alien in the first film was unusually hostile in nature, the aliens are highly intelligent. Although predatorial, they are capable of reasoning, strategic action, and so forth. They are in fact vastly more intelligent than human beings. What the aliens seek is a new world to inhabit; to this end they have chosen Earth. They are telepathic beings that have evolved beyond technology (NB: the Krell, Forbidden Planet, “no instrumentalities“). They have been aware of Earth but unable to reach it, hence their need for human hosts to bring them here. One alien is enough, however, to constitute a full invasion. For one thing, even over such vast distances, the alien is in telepathic communication with all the others. For another,it is able to reproduce without a mate. Finally, as in the first film, it is completely indestructible by ordinary weapons. Once it arrives on Earth, it is effectively unstoppable. It has used human ambition to get there. The Company attempts to learn from the alien, and to breed more of them, and most of all to train it to serve its own ends. The alien is far too intelligent to be employed as a living weapon, however, and it quickly outsmarts its captors, and is free on Earth. It begins to breed at once, and to kill humans wholesale. Its agenda is to reduce human population by nine tenths, and then to use the remaining population for host bodies. Terror reigns! No one is safe! Meantime, Foster and Samson are exposing the alien plan just in time to witness its implementation, i.e., too late. As soon as the alien is released, civilization begins to fall apart, and Samson begins to remember what he was programmed to do while on the alien planet. At first he resists it, but it is impossible for him to do so for long. What he has been shown is a truth that no one is ready for. At first, Samson fights his programming and the knowledge he has been given. What he as been shown is that the Alien is neither humanity’s destroyer, nor even its adversary, but rather its evolutionary successor. When the alien uses a human host, the human in question is not merely being destroyed, but also recreated. The physical vehicle is of course destroyed, but the awareness of the individual survives. All his memories and feelings are incorporated into the much wider spectrum of awareness that the new being—the alien—represents. Hence the aliens, so far as they use human hosts to reproduce, are in fact [i]evolved[/i]—or transformed—humans. The catch is that—as in the case of the first film—the new being is necessarily an expression and extension of the old, meaning that all the unconscious urges, fears, desires, etc, of the human host will be acted out by the alien successor. To this end, the Alien is most selective about its hosts, and seeks out those human most capable of embracing the transformation without fear. To this end, 144,000 humans have been chosen; they are not chosen at random but for their specific genetic characteristics (which in turn dictate their emotional, psychological being, etc). The rest of humanity is to be slaughtered without mercy. Civilization itself is totally decimated, not by the aliens but by humans, in their mad attempt to resist the alien hordes (all the major cities are nuked). This all facilitates the aliens’ takeover plan. As the alien population rises and the human one drops, humans begin to actually see through the eyes of the Alien. They perceive a whole new biologic perspective, a cosmic point of view, by which they are linked to the biosphere of the Earth. At this point, those able to comprehend the new influx of information or sensory data (with the help of Samson) realize that the Alien is in fact the original inhabitant of the Earth. That it was the first life form to evolve there, but that humanity—which the Alien had created for its own uses, as a host body and slave species—eventually drove the aliens out. This they did not by force but simply by learning [i]to act as individuals[/i]. The Alien was not prepared for this, having not engendered its slave species with any such capacity as “free will.” As a result, the Alien left humanity to its own devices, out of respect for this new and mysterious “free will,” and moved to Pluto, where it kept a close eye on humanity’s development thereafter. Samson explains that, as an evolved life form, the Alien was compelled to respect all other life forms, and so gave humanity a certain time period in which to develop its own individuality and pursue its destiny. If, after the culmination of this period, the Alien perceived that humanity was evolving into a higher life form, then it would leave it alone, and seek another means to perpetuate itself. If, on the other hand, it saw humanity destroying itself and devolving into a lower life form, then it would feel free to return and complete its original agenda. This entailed the splicing of alien with human DNA in order to create a new hybrid species (which is the alien as seen in the first movie, a specifically [i]human[/i] version). When Earth’s civilizations are destroyed, the handful of humans that survive do so only [i]by losing their own “humanness.”[/i] At this point, we see through the eyes of the Alien, a new world of organic wonders. The Alien hive mind (telepathy based) is combined with human individuality and free will, whereupon the new species is capable of leaving Earth as a collective body, and thereby joining the Universe. This is our HAPPY ENDING. Love it, or lump it, folks.

Lump it....

I liked Stargate, I thought it was really neat and its idea was fresh.

Yeah I know there's obviously differences in the premise, I'm not stupid. . . I was stating that both movies share a SIMILAR creation mythology, which evidently they do. Both deal with the creation of life/civilization on Earth and both deal with humans making contact with these creators, with not so good results. Sounds similar to me. . .?? Just cause Stargate the movie dealt more with the militaristic side of things, if you read into the storyline, it's obvious that they share a similar theme overall.

@habidm - agree with the 2001 comparison and the number of similar themes - plus RS has always been a huge fan of that movie. @Samsun - enjoyed the read. Always thought that the Xenomorph in Alien was hyper intelligent... I don't think it was a fluke that it hid away in the Narcissus shuttle when the Self Destruct Warning sounded. I also like your theme that the Xenomorph was co-evolution to adapt to new worlds - it used the host indigenous animal. Not sure aout telepathy, but would not rule it out when it comes to the SJs or Xenomorphs as vastly more evolved species. It has often been supposed that being eyeless they used sonar or equivalent. Perhaps they achieve "telepathy" (non verbal communication and understanding of another's thoughts at a distance) by some other generated electro-magnetic wave... But anyway, am looking forward to RSs take on this.

I'd have to say that a creature that has the ability to evolve to use the most indigenous species on a specific planet, would definitly have to be "created" in some way as that is a far too perfect trait to have for an animal to have in my book. . .

All I can say if non of you ever been to south America, I highly rec you see the nazca lines,The "sky people" as they are called are still talked about today in that country....BTW the "thing" prequel was pretty darn good, tied right into the 82 John carpenter version.....

Yeah I'd like to see them Chumbrother!

Speaking of the Thing, as good as the last two were, the original The Thing, was more horrifying to me. Something eerie about it to this day.

....is this new 2011 thing out yet....I mean on DVD....i want to see it....soooo badly!!...it seems those whom already has seen it think it is either crap or brilliant....for some reason people don't like CG....i love it!!...I always thought the only thing the original lacked was a bit of CG!....tho when I say I love it...I mean decent CG...I have seen some really bad cg..if they can combine it with animatronics and actual setpieces and decent makeup...thats when it really shines !!.. @Samsun I liked your story....bit weird...but an interesting read none the less!

Well, back to Prometheus. . . Just how exactly do you think Ridley Scott will show us the creation of life on Earth, so it's been rumoured??

Interestingly, Peter Watts wrote a short story with a similar thrust to my own movie idea, from the point of view of The Thing: [url=http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/]here[/url]

There are endless examples of this throughout the history of Sci Fi and Fantasy movies and of course pre dating celuloid. Any Alien species with the capability of making it to Earth would be consideded as advanced in comparison to Humans as the tech needed to travel such great spans of space and time would be in essence advanced.... Star Trek, 2001, 2010, The Thing, V, Falling Skys and on and on. Good topic though.