Ridley Scott Talks About The Themes Of Prometheus


In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Prometheus director Sir Ridley Scott spoke to them about the themes of the movie, the title, characters and more. Read the best parts below and if you want to read the full interview make sure to hit up the link below too.

You’ve talked about the idea of these post-apocalyptic films having been done to death. Is Prometheus your way of going in the opposite direction and wondering about the beginning of life?

It is, and I’ve got to check [for spoilers] very carefully here, but it is about the beginning of life and ’what if’. It’s a giant ’what if’. Has this ball that we’re sitting on right now been around here for three billion years or one billion? Either way, it’s a long f—ing time. It’s only our kind of arrogance that says ”We’re the first ones.”

Are we the first hominids? I really, really, really doubt it. In recent memory or legend we keep talking about wonderful, weird things such as Atlantis – what is that? Where does that come from? Is that real, was it real, is it a memory, did it exist? And if that did exist, did it exist three quarters of a billion years ago? There’d be nothing left now. How was that created and who was it?

How do the characters in Prometheus tackle these themes?

They have a different thesis about – what we were first talking about – being pre-visited, which is an old idea. But I think it comes out of a good place because it’s an entirely good question. Is there a God or is there not a God? Are we a petri dish here or not, and if we were a petri dish, of whom? What was the force, what is the entity that we can’t possibly even fathom, because it’s something we haven’t crossed that line yet?

What does the title mean for you?

The story of Prometheus is the idea that if you’re given a gift from the gods, do not abuse it and do not think you can compete. He stole fire and they had his entrails torn out everyday in perpetuity by an eagle as a punishment. Every night they’d repair and then the eagle would come back in the morning and rip his liver and his kidneys out again. It’s perpetual purgatory. Basically, don’t f— around with gods.