Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PM
Quote from: Olde on Mar 25, 2017, 09:20:11 PM
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 06, 2017, 05:16:51 AMQuoteShaw: They created us. Then they tried to kill us. They changed their minds. I deserve to know why.
Naturally since Shaw's character is a Christian, she would want to know why the Engineers did this.
This is ultimately the essence of the movie and the most superficial part of the film.
There is more to the "essence" of "Prometheus" than this statement by Shaw which I explained in the my post which you quoted from (for instance with David's statements).
Is there? Is there is more to the "essence" of
Prometheus than the fundamental question of human existence, "
why are we here?"? A question that by your own admission is out of place for a movie to even answer because of the limitation of the medium? Oh please do go on. Because a number of other stupid things, such as geologists smoking pot, a fossilized head exploding after being poked with electrical prods, and a giant tentacle monster faceraping a giant albino could possibly be contributing more to this essence of the movie and I wouldn't want to overlook them.
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PM
1. There is a difference between a religious/philosophical book and a film.
Movies, especially science fiction films, are a visual medium which because of that, can only briefly touch on philosophical ideas compared with books.
- For instance the excellent "2001" can only briefly reference Nietzsche's ideas on evolution and the 'Overman' through music and disconnected sequences. "2001" is no equal in depth to Nietzsche's writings on these topics.
- "Blade Runner" can touch on what it means to be human but is not a complete philosophical statement regarding this which has been written about for thousands of years.
True, but it goes to my fundamental point that if the medium is unable to actually meaningfully address these questions, merely asking or evoking them is unacceptable. It cannot act like a smart film if at the very least it doesn't even offer an original interpretation of an answer. I do not dispute your claim:
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PM
2. Considering the limits of film, still a movie can be consistent with concepts which are mentioned in a book.
This is true. The 1997 film Starship Troopers is a much smarter film than people give it credit for, as it offers a bleak and sad interpretation of what life might be like under a totalitarian, fascist regime that praises violence as its solution to problems. It's not a great film, but it does what it sets out to do (answers a question).
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PM- Olde points to the Book of Job and states that it "answers this most basic of questions in a significantly more meaningful way".
And yet the answers from David in "Prometheus" are consistent with some of the ideas in the Book of Job.
The answers are consistent because the Book of Job is a profound work of literature (some would say scripture) in a more poetic, philosophical, and meaningful way, and Ridley Scott and other non-nihilists don't know how to offer an interpretation that both answers mankind's most basic question and is also original (e.g., strays from the answer offered in the Book of Job).
One of the key differences between
Job and
Prometheus is that Job actually gets an answer. Shaw doesn't.
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PM* The questions addressed here and overall in the Book of Job are;
- Why is God at first good to Job and then why does God allow calamities to be brought down upon this man?
This is the question debated in the Book of Job which is echoed in Shaw's question;
QuoteShaw: They created us. Then they tried to kill us. They changed their minds. I deserve to know why.
Two things. 1) While that is the question in
Job, a more basic and not inconsistent reading is Job and his friends'
desire to know why God does what He does. The situation is analogous to Shaw, who wants to know why the Engineers created us (i.e., why God created Man, or why God punishes Man, why God punished Job, etc.). 2) With five words, Shaw completely misses the entire point of
Job, when she says, "I deserve to know why." Saying she deserves to know why is the same as playing God. Who gave her, or anyone for that matter, the right to know why God did what He did? This is the underlying message of
Job, that mortals do not deserve to know divine answers. This is the key difference. Human existence may be just an experiment by God, but His reasoning is not for us to know.
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PM* What are some of the answers in the Book of Job?
- First, what God does is beyond human comprehension. (And Job accepts that.)
This is not contradicted by what David says in "Prometheus".
One idea which David presents (in his reply to Shaw) is that the Engineer's motivation is not worth knowing.
Shaw doesn't seem like the kind of person who would ever latch on to that idea.
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PMOne reason for this is because David realizes that the motivations of the Engineers cannot be known (echoing this part of the Book of Job).
While this of course does echo
Job, it doesn't make for good entertainment, or an original interpretation (as I said before).
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PMAnother reason (which I discuss below) is that the motivation of the Engineers can be underwhelming which is consistent with another part of the Book of Job.
QuoteDavid: The answer is irrelevant. Does it matter why they changed their minds?
I'm going to skip a beat and bring in another David quote on a similar subject.
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PMQuoteHolloway: What we hoped to achieve was to meet our makers. To get answers. Why they even made us in the first place.
David: Why do you think your people made me?
Holloway: We made you because we could.
David: Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator?
I have a real problem with this line, which it seems that many viewers have a hard-on for, as it pretends to be smart. First of all, do I even need to address the question of how or why David knows what disappointment is? He's a computer, he follows programming. How does he know what "disappointment" is? His retort to Shaw indicates that he
himself is disappointed or dissatisfied with the answer instead of taking it in as data. His response is making an ethical judgement on her information, that "because we could" is not a valuable enough reason. He could have equally reacted with gratitude. Or he could have accepted it neutrally, with neither acceptance nor dissatisfaction, because he's a frickin' robot who has no emotions.
Secondly, even if David did have emotions (which he doesn't, because he's a machine), it also assumes that humans would also react in disappointment, even though millenia of human history have proven that people make up their own
raisons d'être. In fact, the film not only shows that there's nothing preventing Shaw from refusing this answer (since she is a Christian, after all), but actively tells us that
she would create her own answer, in the form of one of the film's pivotal lines "It's what I choose to believe." On separate occasions, she has been shown that even if she's unhappy with information, she can just choose to believe whatever she wants (for instance, the fact that she's still a Christian even though by the movie's logic, she should by all accounts be an atheist).
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PMAnd this is consistent with the Book of Job.
I don't have a problem with the movie's "consistency" with the Book of Job, because I've read it before. I'd like to experience something new, different, and original, though.
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PM3. Looking at it as a whole, one final answer from the Book of Job is that God is a creator and God is also a destroyer.
God in the text points to the mysteries of existence and the universe.
And the reality of life and the universe, which God is pointing to, is that it involves creation and destruction.
They go hand in hand.
And this fits David's summary of the efforts of the Engineers.
QuoteDavid: Sometimes to create, one must first destroy.
This is another thing people point to. It's more in line with some religions than others, but there is no real point of it in Prometheus. Remember, at a certain point in the movie, they have to have yet another race against the clock to stop some big bad aliens from coming to Earth to destroy it (it was already old in Alien: Resurrection). The problem is we never get a reasoning for not only humanity's creation, but also its destruction. Maybe the creation was because it was an experiment, that's fine, but that's not reason enough for its destruction. You can't just pose these questions as facts and expect the viewer to just accept any old arbitrary answer. Because we're smarter than that. We know that it's to create movie tension. You can't just tell the viewer the intentions and expect them to go along with it because we know that there has to be some kind of dramatic tension to keep the plot moving, otherwise it's a boring movie. And it still is, because humanity's destruction doesn't mean much when the director just posed these existential questions and answered them by having a tall albino arbitrarily rip an android's head off in response.
Quote from: bb-15 on Mar 27, 2017, 07:17:49 PM4. Finally, I'll again point out; Films do not replace libraries of books about religion and philosophy.
Movies can only touch on religious / philosophical topics due to the nature of the medium.
But the brief references in a movie can be consistent with the more extensive exploration of ideas in a book.
That is the situation between the Book of Job and "Prometheus". The film is consistent with the book.
Imo at least. 
If a film cannot and
will not answer, or at least
offer an interesting, original interpretation of pivotal questions that, yes, border on the religious (religion is partly founded on answering these questions), then it should not bring them up in the first place. If it does, it certainly should not be rewarded or praised for simply asking the question "Why?" and then evading any answer. If it is going to be entertainment, then it must entertain. If it is going to pose serious questions and take itself seriously, it must be prepared to be compared to one of the big boys: religious and philosophical texts.
Prometheus does neither: it takes itself seriously in an intellectual masturbation session until it has to actually contend with much more intelligent works, at which point people find any reason they can to excuse it from comparison. If it's not going to take itself seriously, then why should I? It should be treated it for what it is: a masturbatory space novella.
Lastly, nothing you said contradicted or rebutted what I said. I said that the Book of Job answered some of humanity's oldest and most fundamental existential questions in a much more interesting and elegant way. I will also say now that it does so in a much more believable way than in the scenario offered in
Prometheus, regardless of one's beliefs in God. That
Prometheus suggests similar possibilities for these answers as in
Job shouldn't be a mark of excellence or even adequacy. What few answers it has, but more often than not its mere diversions to actual answers, are mediocre and sub-standard, which is why the movie will be remembered more as a failure to reach its potential than as any kind of accomplished film.
