Prometheus Lost

There is a deleted scene on the Prometheus Blu-ray (3D in my house, dudes. Awesomes!) which I believe provides answers to this film. It’s an extended version of the prologue, the ‘Elders’ scene, where the sacrificial dude is given a blessing. It also contains the English translation of the script, revealing to us the sacred utterance.

 “Let your body become the dirt. Your blood become the waters. And may your soul become their way back to us.” 

This benediction says that this Engineer’s soul is “their way back to us”, but who exactly ‘they’ are, and where they must return from, is left ambiguous. Is this they us? We’d like to think so. So, is this dude dying for us? Is he creating us? And if he is, what part of him is becoming us, and what part does the black goo play?

Given that they share our DNA surely this is a possibility? It’s only our assumptions regarding the nature of the black mutagenic goo that make this seem such an impossible and impractical way to seed humanity. But if they are essentially us, are they not therefore a creation of the same god, or force, as we are? Our parents are our creators, but they are not our god.

This ritual, taken with the already mentioned benediction, suggests a sacrifice with a spiritual purpose. ‘Their way back to us’? A synonym for a metaphysical link? Or is it a route, a path, a road, a genetic bridge from one dude to another? Is this ritualistic sacrifice in some way giving us a metaphysical gift to help us find our way back to our maker? Knowledge encoded into our DNA? I choose to believe it is. It is the faith spoken of by theists, embedded within our soul.

Fact (of the knows it variety).™

“Sometimes to create, one must first destroy.”

So, is the dude creating life, or is the dude bringing death? DNA is so intrinsically linked to life that we always fail to consider whether the sacrificial dude may actually be introducing death. The purpose of this sacrifice is wholly ambiguous. Is it to clear the way for new life? Is the goo transforming the Engineer dude into a different organism, a monster, a daemon, or a virus, whose undertaking will be to purify all life? Or are our assumptions correct, and this is the seeding of life or the dawn of the human race? Is this an act of divine retribution, the end, or is it the beginning?

It’s both. Life and death are two sides of the same coin. Evolution is the destruction of weak DNA, the killing of a life before it can procreate, an act of providence for the competition, freeing up resources, encouraging the spread of the superior DNA. Life is death. Life needs death, not just to survive, but to thrive, to give it meaning and value.

Fact (of the priceless variety).™

 

This scene is a master class in the power of ambiguity. The outcome of this sacrifice is irrelevant. Its purpose is simply to bring the message, that life and death are inseparable, to the audience, while helping us believe Shaw.  Life is but the passing of a code from one organism to another. At some point in the history of all life on Earth, it has shared a common ancestor with all other forms of life. We are all simply life, in all its variants. Prometheus asks us to question life’s genealogy. Does Earth’s family tree have celestial heritage? The first life?

Fact (of the first cause variety).™

 

What is this common, cosmic-wide ancestor that unites life across the universe? The answer is here in the prologue, dudes. The black goo. The Logos. The Logos is the will of god. It is the physical representation of the ‘spark’ of life. The thing that grants us a soul, that means our body, made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and many other non-living atoms, is unlike any other form these molecules could take. It is the word of god, in the sense that he said “let there be light” and it was light. It is the substance that is within everything, it is everything.

The mutagen is not a simple potion, therefore. It is life. It is the divine spark that resides within our soul; the difference between the spiritual and the material. It is the innate knowledge that tells us we are more than mere molecules.

So, who are the giant white dudes, dudes? The Engineers, as Shaw calls them. Clearly a race that’s had an influence over our ancient ancestors. The cave paintings and stone tablets suggest this, especially when we consider the dates of each find, which suggest key moments in the development of the human race. They have protected and guided our progress, and they have watched over us since our dawn. And as any more developed culture has done here on our planet when introduced to new dudes, we must expect that these Engineer dudes passed on to us their religious beliefs. The cave paintings should then be seen as the ancient records of a visitation by extraterrestrial missionaries, or angels.

So, who inhabits LV223 then, dudes? Again, we can look at pretty much any creation myth to help us discern the answer, since they nearly all agree. A fundamental component of many origin myths is the dissension of a faction within the race entrusted by the god to look after his most precious creation; mankind. Invariably the conflict arises at the creation of humanity, or through perceived injustice where man is given, or promised, equal footing. A war begins, fuelled by arrogance and jealousy, and ends only when the rebellious angels are condemned to infernal damnation. These rebels are known to us as Fallen Angels.

When you consider the title of the movie is named after the titan, Prometheus, who stole fire, or knowledge from the gods to give to man, we are forced to make an assumption about the mutagen found on LV223. If this is the same as the substance imbibed by the sacrificial being in the prologue, the Logos, the knowledge, then perhaps it has been stolen? Either it’s physically been taken, or its idea has been copied. This also fits with the theme of mimesis.

Fact (of the copyright variety).™

The Engineers on LV223, therefore, are carrying a manifest that has the power to destroy the innate goodness of man. These rebels consider the corruption of mankind poetic justice.. There has been a civil war in heaven, and the rebels have been banished. We are the focus of the wrath of the fallen angels who are hellbent on destroying our paradise.

Awesomes® or what, dudes?

And you knows it!©

The Prologue: A Cryptic Message

Has there ever been such a perfect prologue, dudes? From the moment the Engineer dude stands at the top of the waterfall to the unveiling of the franchise’s iconic title, the audience is getting a cryptic message about the philosophical themes and motifs buried within the movie ahead.

Fact (of the masterful variety).™

The DNA double helices unravel, providing the perfect metaphor for cryptography. The audience must unravel the information shown on screen, especially David’s riddles, in order to understand the story. It must be decoded. This motif runs through Prometheus like the black goo that rushes painfully through the dude’s veins...

Which leads nicely into Gnosticism. The Gnostics claimed that Catholic leader dudes were ‘Waterless Canals’. They didn’t have the light, the spirit, running through them like how water runs through a canal. In the moment he acts like god, the dude at the top of the waterfall doesn’t have 'light' running through him.

Faith is also a strong theme in Prometheus, dudes. But not only religious faith but also hope and trust.

And, as he stands on top of the waterfall and thinks about his last moments, this being doesn’t appear to be under duress. He's demonstrating free will. A central theme of Prometheus, which is explored not just by the human dudes.

As the lid is removed from the ceremonial cup we're being shown a Pandora’s Box moment The Pandora’s Box myth of course being closely linked with the myth of Prometheus. This won't be the last time that big things have small beginnings.

Fact (of the plagerised line variety).™

There’s MARTYRDOM in its purest ideological form. A big theme in Prometheus which tells us much about the intention behind the making of Prometheus....

There’s life, death and rebirth; one of the main themes within the Alien franchise.

We see creation through virgin birth, which is a huge theme throughout the history of religion.

Then there’s metamorphosis, like so many other myths. We're seeing one life form being changed to another right before our very eyes, dudes. This is an intended act of vandalism by Scott. It's the defacing of his own masterpiece, driven by his ambitious vision of a superior artistic achievement. It’s like when the The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu burned a million pounds, dudes.

 

One entity literally deconstructs to form another. The film deconstructs myths and philosophical ideas and presents a new story that shows us how most creation myths warn mankind against the exact same things, such as hubris, the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, and the ignorant quest for endless life. Prometheus also deconstructs its own franchise.

There’s the theme of misopedia, which is the rejection, even the hatred, of ones own offspring. This is a theme that appears throughout mythology and theology, and is at the core of the Gnostic creation myth.

The deterioration of the dude’s tissue introduces the theme of degeneration. This is a motif touched on later in the movie when we see the decrepit frame of Weyland.

As mentioned earlier we see the franchise’s famous, stylised, opening title which slowly reveals the name of the Greek god whose name means foresight; Prometheus. Both foresight and hindsight are being big themes in the movie. There’s David’s prescience on the one hand, and the eerie, phantasmal holograms of the Engineers on the other.

There’s a huge Nietzschean influence, with themes such as Perspectivism, the Eternal Recurrence, Untergang, and the Will To Power. Then there’s a more specific allusion to Thus Spake Zarathustra, with the Ubermench, Untermench or Last Man, and of course, let’s not forget that we’re seeing with our own eyes that God is Dead.

Fact (of the deceased variety).™

Ambiguity is itself a theme in Prometheus. This entire scene is drenched in it. Where are we? Which planet? When? Is this happening relative within the movie's time frame or is it happening millenia ago, dudes? Is the Engineer dude seeding life or introducing death?

There’s a strong theme of mimesis since God made man in his own image and the Engineer dude is doing the same here. And there are even more examples. His polished, marblesque perfection is the image we associate with our ancient ancestors. This dude appears to be created to replicate the art of our past, but the internal logic of the film says the art of our past is inspired by this pristine looking dude, dudes.

Then there's anti-mimesis, alluded to by the shot of the DNA. A brilliant example, since our vision of DNA, the twisting double helix, is as much an artistic impression as it is a photographic likeness, inspired by the caduceus symbol invented by our ancient ancestors. How they knew that the building blocks of life looked this way is an unanswerable question. Then there's the plot itself, man repeating the Prometheus myth. And the most obvious example of anti-mimesis is, of course, the huge influence Lawrence of Arabia clearly has on the android dude, David.

Then of course there’s knowledge and immortality represented in this prologue by the helices and the replication of the cells, since DNA is information and is passed on for infinity from life to life; true immortality. Prometheus also questions the logic of man's obsession with immortality, but it does so through the only non-living character.

And finally we come to the black goo; The Elixir of Life. But, I'm not so sure the black goo is a mere potion, dudes.

I believe that the word that best describes this shit is a word that spans the three relevant disciplines of theology, philosophy, and physics. An ancient Greek word used to represent many concepts that they felt were perhaps one and the same. A word that means truth, reason, will, order and knowledge. But, to those in the know it was considered much more than that. The Greeks called it LOGOS. The word of God. The truth of God. The will of God. The substance that binds and shapes the material world.

Fact (of the mind-blowing variety).™

Awesomes!®

 

And you knows it!©