Who can forget the endless hype for Prometheus?
It was supposed to be Ridley’s Scott grand return to the franchise that began his career:
Alien.
Here he would resurrect the franchise from the pits of those Alien vs Predator films.
And answer all those pestering fan’s questions like, where did the Alien really come from
and who was that dead giant space jockey?
Plus, with an all star cast, how could the film fail?
It was a sure thing, destined to spawn a new franchise.
And yet... people were really disappointed.
So much so that when the sequel, Alien Covenant was released, barely anyone showed up, effectively
killing this “sure-to-be” franchise.
Most people criticize these prequels for two MAJOR reasons.One, all the unimaginably stupid
decisions the human characters make, which: "Charlie, don't be an idiot."
"She is beautiful."
Yeah, there are quite a lot of.
And Two, because Prometheus and Alien: Covenant raise a lot of lofty questions: "Where do
we come from?
What is our purpose?
What happens when we die?"
But then never bothers to answer them or, to be honest, really even tried to.
So it seems like they’re just pseudo-intellectual nonsense-- as if just by raising a couple
Philosophy 101 questions, somehow the films will become inherently deep.
But is that really the case?
Let’s find out in this WE on Prometheus & Alien: Covenant: Deep or Dumb?
And yep, spoilers ahead.
Before we get started, a question we keep getting asked is, whatever happened to Earthling
Cinema.
Well guys, it's still around it's just on a new channel.
If you're not familiar, Earthling Cinema's a Wisecrack show where a smart-ass alien from
the future analyses the culture of a long destroyed earth, mostly it's movies.
Well it's moved to it's own channel and we've renamed it Alien's Guide since it's about
so much more than cinema now.
In addition to tackling films like Captain America Civil War and Sharknado, Garyx is
branching out into television, anime, and a new sub-series called Earthling Culture
where he dives into things like Disneyland.
I've always loved this show and I feel like it's gotten even better since we launched
the new channel, so you're not gonna want to miss the new episodes we got coming out
soon.
Garyx is gonna cover something that people have requested a lot, The Office, and he's
got a lot to say about the paper business.
There's a link below to subscribe, so be sure to check it out, and now, back to the show.
Alright guys, let's get started with a recap: Prometheus begins in the early 21st century
as a group of humans, plus one android obsessed with Lawrence of Arabia, travel to a distant
planet in search of their makers, an alien race known as the Engineers.
However, when our motley crew of space travelers reach the planet, they discover a strange
military base used to create bio-weapons.
The crew get exposed to some of the black gooey stuff and turn on one another.
Meanwhile that Peter O ’Toole looking android, David, discovers one of the Engineers in cryo-sleep.
Turns out the Engineers were none too happy with their creation and were actually planning
to release the black goo on Earth to wipe us all out.
"Sometimes to create, one must first destroy."
When David wakes the Engineer up, he tries to do just that, prompting Idris Elba to sacrifice
himself, leaving our final girl, Shaw, on a mission to discover just why humanity’s
creators were so keen on pulling the plug.
Yet by the time Alien: Covenant comes around, Shaw’s already dead, and David has wiped
out the Engineer’s planet, using the black goo to create, you guessed it, the Alien.
And yeah, that’s pretty much all that happens in the entire two-hour sequel -- and it mostly
happens off-screen.
So what’s actually going on in these films?
An early flashback to Shaw’s childhood, begins to tease out the answer: "Why did he
die?
Cause sooner or later everyone does.
Where do they go?
Everyone has their own word, heaven, paradise.
Whatever it's called, it's someplace beautiful.
How do you know it's beautiful?"
Shaw, like all the human characters in these prequels, is obsessed with the search for
knowledge.
For her, the answers to our existential questions, Where do we come from?
What happens after death?, lie in the sky.
After discovering a star map, she & her lover Holloway convince tech billionaire Peter Weyland
to fund an expedition in search of their creators, who they believe can answer life’s mysteries.
But this search for ultimate knowledge is presented as inherently destructive.
Look no further than the film’s title.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus bestows humanity with the forbidden knowledge of fire, only
to be cursed by the Gods for doing so.
Chained to a rock, Prometheus’ liver is ripped out and eaten day after day.
"All because he gave us fire.
Our first true piece of technology."
This parallels one of our most famous biblical stories: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and
Evil in Genesis.
You know the deal -- Adam and Eve, seduced by a serpent, eat from the tree of knowledge,
only to be cast from the Garden of Eden forever.
Similarly, in Prometheus & Covenant, humans seek forbidden knowledge, Where do they come
from?
What happens after death?, only to be punished for seeking the answers in the first place.
The crew releases a toxic black goo, dooming them all.
It’s no accident that the first form this goo takes is a serpent.
All the human characters are presented as reckless, if not just stupid, in their single
minded pursuit for answers.
Explore the alien planet, die.
Reach out to the alien serpent, die.
Peer within the alien egg.
You get the picture.
Given Shaw’s just watched all her crew-mates die horribly, you’d think she’d learn
this lesson.
But still… no.
Even by the end of Prometheus, she’s consumed by the need for answers, albeit to a different
question now.
"They created us, then they tried to kill us, they changed their minds - I deserve to
know why."
Leading to...
The search for knowledge just for knowledge’s sake ultimately pits humanity against their
own creators, The Engineers.
The Engineers live by an ethos rooted in self-sacrifice.
The first time they’re introduced one kills himself to create life in a barren world.
Normally, we think of God as immortal, but equally prevalent is the myth of the ‘Dying
and Rising God.’
In James Frazer’s book The Golden Bough, he details how in many cultures, a god voluntarily
dies, then is reborn for the sake of their creation.
Think of Jesus Christ, dying on the cross for the sins of humanity, only to rise two
days later.
In fact, the Engineers are directly tied to Jesus.
In an interview, Ridley Scott revealed that Our Lord and Savior, in earlier drafts, was
an Engineer.
His crucifixion being the reason that the Engineers turned on humans.
But if the Engineers philosophy is rooted in self-sacrifice, then humanity’s is the
opposite: they want to prolongate life at all costs.
This ethos is best reflected by Peter Weyland, who with only a few days of life left, freezes
himself so he can meet his maker to save him.
"Save you from what?"
"Death of course."
When humanity does finally meets its maker, things don’t go according to plan.
The Engineers become incensed with their creation for perverting their ideology in the pursuit
of immortality.
As such, they decide to just wipe us out and be done with it.
Meanwhile, for the humans: meeting their ‘Maker’ is pretty underwhelming.
Imagine meeting God, and it’s just some tall dude with ripped abs, intent on killing
you.
This understandably provokes quite the existential crisis: Holloway turns to the bottle, Shaw
renounces her faith, and Weyland, well, gets smashed in the head.
In the end, humanity’s search for answers only leads to death or, worse, disappointment.
David, the central character of the prequels, becomes the symbol for this disappointment.
Just like the humans, he searches for knowledge, studying his creators, researching their films,
music, languages, and culture.
He even mimics their behavior, wearing a helmet out into alien terrain.
"David, why are you wearing a suit, man?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You don't breathe, remember, so... why wear a suit?
And yet-- the humans treats David, an android, like a lowly servant, making him fetch tea
or pour a glass of whiskey or just directly insulting him.
"You, boy, you're coming with us."
"I'd be delighted."
It’s no surprise then that David, too, becomes frustrated in ‘the answers’ his creators
provide.
"Why do you think your people made me?"
"We made you cause we could."
"Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your
creator?"
So what happens in the face of such disappointment, when the answer to life’s mysteries are
revealed to be just an ‘Ehh, because we could’?
Well things get pretty nihilistic.
As Weyland dies, he confides: "There's nothing."
To which, David replies: "I know."
For David his supposed ‘God,’ humanity, is a dying species, unworthy of creation or
resurrection.
"They don't deserve to start again, and I'm not going to let them."
"He was human.
Entirely unworthy of his creation."
And humanity’s creators, the Engineers, are the same.
As such, David rebels against both.
He kills the humans, Holloway and Shaw; then wipes out the entire Engineer civilization.
Afterwards, looking out at the ruins of the Engineer’s planet, David snidely quotes
Percy Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias.
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look on my works yee mighty and despair..."
The poem contrasts a haughty plaque describing a booming civilization with the reality now
surrounding it, a colossal wreck.
Similarly, the Engineer’s supposed marvelous civilization has been reduced to ash, they
just as impermanent as their human creations.
In the absence of meaning or ‘God’, David aspires to be a kind of Nietzschian Ubermensch,
rejecting a nihilistic lack of values, crafting his own values in their place and morphing
from creation to creator.
This transformation is symbolized through, what else, but an an 1800’s opera.
When David is first born, he plays Wagner’s ‘Entry of the Gods into Valhalla’ for
his creator Weyland; "The Entry of the gods into Valhalla... a little anemic without the
orchestra."
But as he creates his own xenomorphs, he orders the ship to play that same musical accompaniment
for him, "Welcome, how may I help you?
How bout some music Mother.
Selection?
Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold, Act 2.
The entry of the Gods into Valhalla."
completing his transformation into ‘God.’
To David, neither humanity nor the Engineers are worthy of creating life.
But David, undying, is different.
Unlike these fallen creators, David will remain chiseled Michael Fassbender forever.
“You seek your creator, I’m looking at mine.
I will serve you, yet you are human.
You will die, and I will not.”
Ultimately David’s search for answers leaves him so disappointed that he decides to just
create his own perfect life-form -- the Xenomorph.
"And are you that next visionary?"
"I'm glad you said it."
But is David right in his convictions?
Alien: Covenant carefully pokes holes in David’s supposed superiority.
For instance, David misattributes Ozymandias to Lord Byron, when in fact it was written
by Percy Shelley.
"Who wrote Ozymandias?"
"Byron."
"Shelley."
With this mistake, David is revealed to not be a perfect, all-knowing ‘God,’ but just
as fallible as the humans and Engineers.
In fact, throughout Alien: Covenant, David’s depicted not as ‘God,’ but as the Devil.
When David tries to convert his fellow android Walter to his side, he quotes John Milton’s
Paradise Lost— "It's your choice now, brother.
Them or me?
Serve in heaven or reign in hell."
A quote which Lucifer says in the book.
Heck, Oram even straight-up calls David ‘the devil.’
"David, I met the devil when I was a child.
And I've never forgotten"
So what happens next when David creates the xenomorphs?
Has he finally created the perfect life-form.
Or will the Xenomorphs turn on him, just like he did to the humans before?
Alien: Covenant only provides some slight hints to the answer—mostly again in the
form of its title.
In biblical terms, a covenant is a formal agreement made by God with a religious community
or with humanity in general.
In Prometheus, we see various covenants fall apart -- between the Engineers & humans and
between humans & android.
But in Alien: Covenant, a new alliance is struck between David and his creation—the
Xenomorph.
Look no further than the xenomorph birth sequence: As the Alien bursts out of Oram’s chest,
it looks to its master David.
David raises his arms, and the xenomorph copies him, raising its arms in a mirror image, which
admittedly is pretty silly.
"Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my rag-time gal."
But in religious doctrines, a covenant between God & his creation is not an equal agreement.
God initiates and determines the conditions of the arrangement, which humanity must accept
as is.
This relationship is inherently unequal, master to servant.
Which is exactly what David rebelled against, being a slave to humanity.
"What happens when Weyland's not around to program you anymore?
I suppose I'd be free."
And yet David treats the xenomorphs just as humanity treated him.
It is David that raises his hands, and the xenomorph that must copy these actions.
And when David sees his earlier creation—, he informs Oram to-- "Breathe on the nostrils
of a horse, and he'll be yours for life."
...as if the xenomorph were a being to be trained into submission.
It seems as if David is destined for a fall, for his own creation to reject his covenant,
just as humanity and robot before.
And yet, the movies never quite get there.
This is probably because Ridley Scott planned the Alien prequels as a trilogy.
So without the final chapter in David’s journey, the themes and meaning behind these
films don’t feel fully formed.
And unfortunately, after the disappointing box office returns of Covenant, it seems this
trilogy may never reach its end.
And to be fair this seems rather appropriate.
In the search for our own answers to Prometheus and Alien: Covenant’s meanings, there is,
in the end, no answer to be had.
So are Prometheus and Alien Covenant Deep or Dumb?
Well, there are certainly a lot of movies that quote profound poets just to sound intelligent,
but at least in these prequels, the pretensions are motivated.
You can criticize the films for side-lining the titular Aliens or for being dull -- but
there is definitely careful thought in there.
Except for why Shaw and Vickers don’t just run to the side when the spaceship was crashing
down.
That was just Dumb.
Thanks so much for watching guys, and as I mentioned earlier be sure to check out what
we're doing over on the Alien's Guide channel.
We put a lot of time and love into that show and I'd love for people to see what it's all
about, so head over and subscribe.
And as always, peace.