Sunday, June 10, 2012

Prometheus

     I just saw Prometheus the other day and really enjoyed it.  There are some in the atheist community that are calling the movie "antiscientific" and downright embarrassing.  I mean, the main character of the movie dons a cross necklace and  seems to value  her personal  beliefs more dearly than science.  I could just envision  many atheists stampeding for the exit signs on that notion alone.  I, on the other hand, wasn't basing the value of the movie on a particular characters beliefs but simply on the entertainment value, or fun factor  if you will.

     There are basically two ways you can view a movie like Prometheus, merely as entertainment or with a magnifying glass that is hellbent on criticizing every inaccuracy down to the most minuet scale.  Indeed, there are noteworthy blunders in the movie,  like Theron suggesting that they were 35 light years  away from planet earth and equating it to half a billion miles; there are characters that act extremely foolishly and stretch credulity to its outer limits. For instance, one particularly stupid engineer decides to get way too close to a hissing snakelike creature that eventually breaks his arm and takes a dive down his throat.  All the while, I'm thinking to myself that nobody would be so foolish, but it did made for a great scene.

     I guess my point is that movies are rarely very accurate factually. They are generally quite contrived in many areas too.  You can nitpick just about any historic or science fiction  movie out there and find a litany of misinformation.  If you want facts, you should probably stick to textbooks and research journals, but, if you want entertainment, you go to the cinema.  

     As an aside, it is unfortunate that the scientific minded are still generally depicted as dry, nerdy, unattractive and weak while those of faith have this seemingly greater inner strength that motivates them to survive and overcome insurmountable obstacles.  Science is still denoted in the movies much like mainstream America perceives it, dull and lifeless.

1 comment:

  1. Prometheus was the best movie of the year!
    And Elizabeth Shaw was not even a Christian. The cross represented the faith in finding her watchmaker creators. Her dad asks her what she believes in in the dream, panning out her search for the truth.

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