Rubens, Saturn devouring his son (1636). |
"What is at issue, it seems, is not the horror of alien life but of life in any form; not the existence of monsters but the monstrousness of existing. The dread that rises to the surface here hints at a culture variously afraid of sex, afraid of Darwin, afraid of DNA, afraid of aliens—afraid no matter which way it looks, forward or backward—and finding its way at last, as a last resort, to a planet of death. After that, the only destination left is the Great Unknown: or more precisely (and perhaps we have this to look forward to as a sequel) the home planet of the Manichaean demiurges who engineered us randomly and then just as randomly set out to eradicate us."
Geoffrey O'Brien on Prometheus, directed by Ridley Scott (which I haven't seen). "The day of the android," The New York review of books 59, no. 13 (August 16, 2012): 6 (4, 6).
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