News Home RSS Feed

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Prometheus Aims to Explore Origins of Life on Earth

Written by Kirk Baird

Ridley Scott’s new Alien forerunner Prometheus is as much about the age-old big question — the origin of life on Earth — than it is a horror film with extra-terrestrials. But Prometheus, released in theaters this week, isn’t the only science fiction film to explore man’s attempt to reach into the stars and find our maker.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: William Shatner directed this 1989 theatrical outing of the U.S.S. Enterprise crew as an obsessed Vulcan claims to communicate with God, takes over Captain Kirk’s ship, and speeds everyone along in a voyage across the galaxy to meet our maker.

2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact: Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey dealt with man’s attempt to contact alien life near Jupiter — the same aliens that brought life to our planet and helped it grow. In the 1984 follow-up, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, humankind must deal with the consequences of contacting that life. The films are based on two of the novels in Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey series.

Contact: Jodie Foster plays a young astronomer who is given the opportunity to travel into space and meet the alien species that contacted us in 1997’s Contact, based on Carl Sagan’s novel. What she learns in the process is that humans are not alone in contemplating the meaning of life and the origins of our universe.

No comments:

Post a Comment

We'd love to hear what you think! Just be sure to leave your name and email address or your username, so we can respond appropriately.