Tag Archive for: Ridley Scott

MOVIE REVIEW: Prometheus An Epic to Darwinism

I enjoy epic movies, particularly epic science fiction movies. Star Wars, Star Trek, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind are all epic science fiction. Ridley Scott’s new film Prometheus does not rise to the level of Star Wars, but its visuals are stunning. Many science fiction movies deal with human struggles; Prometheus tries to deal with the greatest question of all: Where did mankind come from?

Ridley comes firmly down on the side of Darwinism. Prometheus is no more than Darwinian propaganda.

The opening scene is of a human-like alien coming to earth where he self-destructs. His DNA then flows into the pristine waters of a new Earth, and from that comes mankind. This scenario is used by atheists to describe the origin of mankind. Some scientists and atheists suggest that lightning struck a primordial soup of chemicals and suddenly life began. Ridley promotes the idea that we came from extraterrestrials. That is the theme of the movie – man’s quest for his alien origin. A fool’s errand if there ever was one, as the movie demonstrates.

The characters are scientists on a quest to a distant galaxy seeking the “engineers” of mankind. What they end up finding is, surprise, the last of a race of extraterrestrials who are bent on killing mankind. At the end the alien species is co-joined with a slimy alien species to create a new alien species – pure Darwinism. Get ready for Prometheus II: Darwin Evolving, the sequel.

Of course Ridley does have one character who clings to a cross given to her by her father. That cross, symbolizing another reasonable explanation for the origin of man, is never fully developed. At the end it is this character who survives, wearing her cross. Ridley does not end his movie on a positive note but rather on a negative note. Because of that, he lost my interest and he devolved into commercialism.

I would like Ridley to address intelligent design by a supreme being – a.k.a. God – in a future movie. Now that would be an epic.

Ridley could have made the argument, that “yes there is a God” and he designed us. There are more rational arguments in favor of intelligent design than not. Perhaps the most powerful argument for the existence of God is offered by William Lane Craig, author of Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics and On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. Dr. Craig presents the Moral Argument for the existence of a supreme being as:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Ridley deals with this in his film. Each character is faced with objective moral values and decisions. Objective moral decisions such as: seeking immortality, using science to further nefarious ends, robotics, cloning and even the creation of alien biological weapons of mass destruction. Evil does exist within each of the characters in Prometheus and good does somehow triumph. However, evil is reborn in the form of another alien being, a hybrid portrayed in his original film Aliens.

I would have wished Ridley had delved into a rational and scientific analysis of God as the most likely “engineer” of us all.