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"Philosopher King", "The Cave", alien, Alien Covenant, Blade Runner, David, Deckard, Dr. Eldon Tyrell, Edward Gibbon, Film, film review, Gladiator, history, King Baldwin IV, Kingdom of Heaven, Literature, Livy, Marcus Aurelius, Maximus, Metamorphosis, Ovid, Peter Weyland, Philosophy, Plato, Plutarch's Lives, Power, Prometheus, Ridley Scott, Rise and Fall of the Roman EMpire, science fiction, Tacitus, The Crown, virtue, War with Hannibal
Russel Crowe avenges Dumbledore after Johnny Cash asphyxiates him and assumes control of the Roman Empire, though that still doesn’t explain whether Tyrell or Weyland corporation was responsible for the synthetic tigers he fought in the coliseum. The reader may not understand this point, but trust me, Ridley Scott’s films are really just one big universe of interconnected characters and events. This has tons of continuity implications for the Alien franchise and that Robin Hood movie nobody
except for Max von Sydow and my mother actually went to see, but I’ll get to that later.
I’m not sure what honestly compels me anymore. My brain seems awash with ideas and thoughts and desires and cravings, and every now and then one of these chaotic messes of thoughts formulates into an action. This is just my way of saying I don’t know why I bought a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius on Amazon the other day. I believe part of it is because I have a friend who’s part of the bi-weekly graphic novel group Ground Zero Comics hosts, and because the pair of us talk pretty regularly. He also works for the City of Tyler, and so I seem him fairly often, and when I doI usually talk to him about history and science fiction, and recently he’s begun commissioning statues of roman deities from our 3D Printer at the library. I’m ecstatic that someone besides me wants a bust of Zeus, much to the chagrin of my fellow library employees. I asked him the other day, out of curiosity and also out of a sense of
awkwardness because I generally feel that I bore people when I talk to them, why he liked Rome so much. It took him a second but his honest answer was, “The world was new. It was being built.”
This just seemed to click with me and I’ve been processing it ever since. Sitting on my desk in front of me every day when I write is the three volume set of Gibbon’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. It rests between Plutarch’s Lives, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Tacitus’s Annals of Imperial Rome, Livy’s War with Hannibal, and of course Simon and Schuster’s Guide to Insects, because, well, it’s me. But these classical works sit in front of me everyday and I don’t often read them, a fact which is bothersome and also rather illuminating. I appear to have become one of those people: the kind who use books to say something about their personality without actually bothering to open them and make something of a personality for themselves.
Meditating on my own aesthetic, and my own penchant for ancient Rome was an excuse however to finally write about Ridley Scott again, because after finishing my rather brief analysis of Kingdom of Heaven (2000 words is brief by my standards anyway) I realized there was more to be said about the film, and my favorite character King Baldwin IV.
Kingdom of Heaven is not just a misunderstood film about the Crusades and religion in general, it’s also a fascinating study on the conflict of power which has often dogged the “Holy Lands” and how in the face of these struggles one is able to maintain integrity. The film follows a young blacksmith named Balian of Ibelin who inherits a plot of land in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and before he actually goes to rule he is invited by the King of Jerusalem, a man by the name of Baldwin IV who has, arguably, one of the most powerful entrances of any of Scott’s characters:
King Baldwin IV: Come forward. I am glad to meet Godfrey’s son. He was one of my greatest teachers. He was there when, playing with the other boys, my arm was cut. It was he, not my father’s physicians, who noticed that I felt no pain. He wept when he gave my father the news… that I am a leper. The Saracens say that this disease is God’s vengeance against the vanity of our kingdom. As wretched as I am, these
Arabs believe that the chastisement that awaits me in hell is far more severe and lasting. If that’s true, I call it unfair. Come. Sit.
[they sit down on opposite sides of a chessboard]
King Baldwin IV: Do you play?
Balian of Ibelin: No.
King Baldwin IV: The whole world is in chess. Any move can be the death of you. Do anything except remain where you started, and you can’t be sure of your end. Were you sure of your end once?
Balian of Ibelin: I was.
King Baldwin IV: What was it?
Balian of Ibelin: To be buried a hundred yards from where I was born.
King Baldwin IV: And now?
Balian of Ibelin: Now I sit in Jerusalem, and look upon a king.
King Baldwin IV: [Baldwin chuckles] When I was sixteen, I won a great victory. I felt in that moment I would live to be a hundred. Now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end, really, or what hand will guide us there. A king may move a man, a father may claim a son, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to
play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, “But I was told by others to do thus,” or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that.
Balian of Ibelin: I will.
I watched the scene again on YouTube, discovering in the comment section that not only had Baldwin been played by Edward Norton, but also that someone had labeled Baldwin here a Philosopher King. I admit I know nothing of the real King Baldwin IV of which the character is based, but I do know something of this title and it’s history.
It has been some time since I last read it, but Plato’s Republic is a book that I’m sure most readers have either read snippets of, or at least heard of the book. It is one of the many Socratic Dialogues the man wrote during his lifetime, and in it the man allowed his teacher Socrates to muse on the nature of power and society. “The Cave” metaphor is the component of the text that many writers, readers, academics, and philosophers have latched on to, and in fact some have made the case that The Matrix was just a reimagining of this old concept, but contained also in the text is the idea of the “Philosopher King.” This figure was exactly as the title suggests, a monarch of a fictional kingdom that, because of his position as a philosopher, would bring great benefit and strength to his kingdom because he is a man in love with wisdom and knowledge. 
A Philosopher, in the classical sense I suppose, is someone who is calm, patient, in love with a simple life, and desires only to learn as much as he can, and because of this knowledge and virtuous lifestyle, he is an ideal candidate to rule a nation or people because he will not be swayed by valor, ambition, greed, lust, or vanity.
I remember being 15 years old when the film came out. Well in fact I remember being a young teenager, I cannot in fact actually remember being 15. Such a reality now seems impossible. But I do remember the sense of awe in watching Kingdom of Heaven, and the eloquence with which Baldwin ruled himself and his subjects. He was the sort of leader I would want for my country, if not my species period.
It was looking at Baldwin then, that I began to observe that Ridley Scott often has such characters in his films, men who seem to be philosophers and who hold great positions of power. But upon closer inspection the question I began to ask is, are they really?
Looking at the film Gladiator, one of my mother’s favorite films by the way, Russel Crowe is a quote “hunksickle”, Scott actually goes to the trouble to actually make the first real recognized philosopher King a central character. Many historians have observed that Marcus Aurelius seemed to be the first real-life example of a “philosopher king” for the way he carried himself and Rome forward. In Gladiator Marcus Aurelius, played by Richard Harris the man who would come to be Albus Dumbledore only a few years later for a new generation, is a wise and human man who understands the nature of his mortality as well as the nature of human beings. Discussing the future of Rome with Maximus one can see his wisdom:
Maximus: Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe that they fought and died for nothing.
Marcus Aurelius: And what would you believe?
Maximus: They fought for you and for Rome.
Marcus Aurelius: And what is Rome, Maximus?
Maximus: I’ve seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.
Marcus Aurelius: Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end… he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher? The warrior? The tyrant…? Or will I be the emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish… it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter.
It’s not bold to say that Gladiator is a film which actually portrays the figure of the Philosopher King as a man who wants only goodness and security for his kingdom. Marcus Aurelius is a man who desires knowledge, but also stability for that is the sign of prosperity. He is a man who is concerned about the future of his people, and his country.
In this way Marcus Aurelius and Baldwin IV both seem then to be fine examples of Philosopher Kings, though this inevitably leads me to Dr. Edwin Tyrell and Peter Weyland.
Recently one of the two movie groups I’m a part of decided to watch the entirety of the Alien franchise. This involved starting at Prometheus, then going to Covenant, and then resuming the franchise with Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection respectively. This was greeted with delight and frustration because while everyone in attendance is a fan of the film Prometheus, Alien:Covenant tends to inspire a revulsion that borders on apish feces throwing. Despite the sever flaws in the second film, I recognized that Scott had really done something with these films, and the character of Peter Weyland, the terraforming trillionaire and synthetic humanoid producer is arguably one of the most important elements of the films.
The man is, without doubt, a figure with vision and sizable knowledge, but as the film progresses, Weyland is demonstrated to be anything but a benevolent philosopher. 
Though it was not contained in the theatrical cut, Scott did at one point include a “TED Talk” hosted by the character Peter Weyland, and it the man’s character is revealed:
Peter Weyland: [from TED Talks viral video] To those of you who know me: you will be aware by now that my ambition is unlimited. You know that I will settle for nothing short of greatness, or I will die trying. To those of you who do not yet know me: allow me to introduce myself. My name is Peter Weyland, and if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to change the world.
This would at first appear to be a man with an ambition to benefit society tremendously, but as the talk continues Weyland’s greed appears dramatically: 
Peter Weyland: [from TED Talks viral video] T.E. Lawrence, eponymously of Arabia but very much an Englishman, favoured pinching a burning match between his fingers to put it out. When asked by his colleague William Potter to reveal his trick, how is it he effectively extinguished the flame without hurting himself whatsoever, Lawrence just smiled and said, “The trick, Potter, is not minding it hurts.” The fire that danced at the end of that match was a gift from the Titan Prometheus, a gift that he stole from the gods. When Prometheus was caught and brought to justice for his theft, the gods, well, you might say they overreacted a little. The poor man was tied to a rock, as an eagle ripped through his belly and ate his liver over and over, day after day, ad infinitum. All because he gave us fire. Our first true piece of technology, fire… 100,000 BC: stone tools. 4,000 BC: the wheel. 900 AD: gunpowder – bit of a game changer, that one. 19th century: eureka, the
lightbulb! 20th century: the automobile, television, nuclear weapons, spacecrafts, Internet. 21st century: biotech, nanotech, fusion and fission and M theory – and THAT, was just the first decade! We are now three months into the year of our Lord, 2023. At this moment of our civilization, we can create cybernetic individuals, who in just a few short years will be completely indistinguishable from us. Which leads to an obvious conclusion: WE are the gods now.
One can almost hear Plato screech and Marcus Aurelius cast a resigned sigh of painful recognition. It seems at first a little difficult to say that Peter Weyland is not a true Philosopher King. He is obviously a man of real knowledge and education, all of which would suggest he is a man in love with wisdom. But upon examination it’s painfully clear that this acquiring of knowledge has not been simply for the sake of acquiring knowledge. And for all his outward concern for the “benefit” of humanity, the final lines of his speech reveal the man for what he is: yet another in a long line of insects desperate for immortality.
I might perhaps be being a little negative, and it might be better to look at Dr. Tyrell of Blade Runner as well before coming to any final conclusions. If my reader does not remember, Blade Runner was a film which explored the nature of humanity in a world where “Sythetics” or biochemically engineered human beings have been created and largely used as Slave Labor on “other-world” colonies. A “Blade Runner” named Deckard is brought back onto the LAPD to terminate four rogue synths which escaped one such
colony and made their way back to earth, and during his investigations he meets with the head of the Tyrell corporation, Dr. Eldon Tyrell.
Tyrell is a cold man who often appears guided by his own personal sense of charm as is emphasized in one memorable line:
Tyrell: Commerce is our goal, here. More human than human.
Apart from making me think of a great White Zombie song, this small line is real enough to damn Tyrell. Commerce is not simpatico with being someone purely in love with knowledge, it’s the sign of an individual concerned with profit. This is not to say a philosopher could not be a capitalist, but greed will blind a man to the truth and so weaken his personal strength. And Tyrell only makes it worse after he allows his assistant to be interview by Deckard who recognizes that she is a synthetic.
Deckard: She’s a replicant, isn’t she?
Tyrell: I’m impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Deckard: I don’t get it, Tyrell.
Tyrell: How many questions?
Deckard: Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.
Tyrell: It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn’t it?
Deckard: [realizing Rachael believes she’s human] She doesn’t know.
Tyrell: She’s beginning to suspect, I think.
Deckard: Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
To which it is revealed that Tyrell hasn’t told her. Tyrell is presented as a man who is not concerned with empathy for the people he has created, nor would he even recognize them as people. They are merely products designed to increase revenue and thus continue his existence as a leader of the world and thus insure his continued comfort and ego.
These four men together seem to embody the collected works of Ridley Scott, for while the man has created characters of real strength and virtue, he has also observed in humanity a real failing of character. My question at the end of each of the analyses is not to make some blanket statement about Scott’s carear at large, but again to answer a simple question: can they all be considered Philosopher Kings the way Plato foresaw such a being in the republic.
In my own mind the answer has to be no, because Tyrell and Weyland are clearly not Philosopher Kings, they are merely men who have perused philosophy and settled more on the title of Kings. Their ultimately failing is their desire to acquire some kind of
power, and rather than benefit society in a true form or fashion, they create at the expense of others thus reducing their empathy and their real love of knowledge. As Plato saw it the role of the Philosopher King would be not only to be intelligent, wise, and true to their humanity, but also to lead society into an ideal state akin to a Utopia. Though looking at this it becomes clear none of the men cited in this essay really match that title. And that’s largely because Utopia will always be impossible as long as human beings are hindered by their failings.
Greed, ambition, vanity, and desire will always bring about destruction in there world, and to Scott’s credit each of these films demonstrate how society and individual people can be impacted when any and all of these traits become the foundation of power in the
world. In Kingdom of Heaven Baldwin died and a vain ambitious man began a war with the Saracen Muslims. In Gladiator Commodus murdered his father out of a desire to hold power and appear strong. In Prometheus and Alien Covenant Weyland wanted to live forever and be a god and this ultimate brought about the creation of David, a being who brought tremendous pain to humanity. And finally in Blade Runner Tyrell was a man corrupted by his greed and apathy, all of which caused the synthetics to be butchered by a man who himself was caught in the morbid conundrum of his own morality.
My reader may object at this point, so what? What good is it wondering about four characters in fictional films and whether or not they satisfy some Classical archetype? P
eople suck, that isn’t new information, why should we bother worrying about the apparent goodness of fictional people?
These are all fair points, but as always my contester has missed something significant. Yes these characters are fictional people (though Baldwin was based on an actual dude), but fiction has always been about truth, that abstract notion that there is an explanation of reality that we can tap into and understand. The truth of the matter is, it’s through fiction that human beings are able to perform thought experiments where they can find their ideals, desires, expectations, and beliefs made manifest. In this way Scott’s collected oeuvre of characters allows the reader to try and determine what they ultimately believe about power. What kind of ruler or influential people would we want ruling the world? And it doesn’t even have to be as complex as that, what kind of people do we want to be in charge of us.
Whether it’s the President of the United States, the CEO of Apple or Facebook, the mayor of your hometown, or whether it’s even your supervisor at Barnes & Noble or a public library, the people who govern and inspire influence matter in our lives because their morality and integrity can have great weight over our lives. Good people will try to be good to those “beneath” them, and thus try to make the world, and their environment, better, whereas selfish and greedy people will only cause chaos and pain. Rulers like Baldwin IV and Marcus Aurelius are the sort of individuals most people would want in charge because they seem to understand the nature of integrity, whereas Weyland and Tyrell couldn’t possibly be bothered.
I recognize that this may be a tough sell because the idea of a “Philosopher King” is obviously something antiquated. Kings and monarchs are the stuff of bad CW programs and amazing Netflix series (check out The Crown, it’s legend-“wait for it”-dary) but power is the one constant of human existence and few directors have explored so incredibly as Ridley Scott.
I still am left awed at the wisdom of King Baldwin IV, and of the man’s supreme concern for the safety of the people he reigned. Though I am also deeply ashamed that it took me 14 years to see that the man had a thin mustache etched into the silver of his mask. Wisdom is important, though observation as ever eludes me.
project a few of my coworkers are working towards I’m just reminded more and more why I have found, and chosen, a career in libraries.
Walton to his sister Delores.
devoted the body to corruption.
destroys himself and the people he loves.
Wallace purchases the company after making billions in agriculture developments that have saved the population of the planet.
technology.
organisms known as engineers, massive humanoids that, upon waking, elect to destroy humanity and create something new in it’s place.
because, since the publication of Frankenstein this character is something of a recurring trope.
reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the heard of common projectors.
even a synthetic human being, creators cannot simply abandon their work or become apathetic to what they have made.
personal gain.
Heaven is a film which is largely condemnatory about religion, why isn’t this a “letter to a young atheist?”
Knight Baron Godfrey.
regularly
Baldwin was being played by Edward Norton, and I had no conception that the King wearing the White robes and that metal mask was in fact based on a real human being.
fundamental truth: virtue is in action, rather than ideology.
essays, and so what was once “Recent” at the time of writing was actually months ago. My “process” aside, if you can call it that, I did take the time to watch the film Blade Runner this year with a group of friends. I’m a hermit by nature who tends to enjoy his isolation because it gives me time to read what I want and watch the movies that I want without having to worry about what’s new with the people I spend my time with. But, I still recognize that part of self-preservation is having some kind of social contact with people who aren’t my cats and dogs and immediate family members. That and the demon who lives on my bookshelves voted for Trump and won’t let me forget about it.
watching the original film, I took my wife to see the sequel film Blade Runner 2049. I can honestly say that I’ve never been so terrified to see a movie. Blade Runner is an important film to me, and I’ve seen lately how Ridley Scott has attempted to expand some of his previous films with sequels and prequels, successfully with Prometheus, and tragically with Alien Covenant. I was waiting for Ridley Scott and the director Denis Villeneuve to turn the Blade Runner universe into something akin to a Marvel movie where characters are nothing but action figures and product endorsement.
are fighting in a ballroom in the ruins of Las Vegas, the hologram projections of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and show-girls flicker in and out of existence providing only snippets of sound. It’s not that there isn’t any speaking, talking, or music during Blade Runner 2049, it’s just that after a while the reader becomes aware that the world and the design of the world, coupled with electronic music that honors the original film tend to be far more important than any of the dialogue.
just another sound in this universe. And so looking back to the original Blade Runner my question feels terribly important: Are the two films actually just silent movies?
Dvd and Blue-Ray, or else played on TCM (We miss you Robert Osborne) are always accompanied by some kind of musical score. My little sister’s copy of Nosferatu includes two different scores, one of which is a horrifying as fucking-fuck organ. And recently when I checked out a Blue-ray of Metropolis I discovered it was a remastered cut in which the producers had sampled hit songs from Eighties pop bands to play over the film. This is all just a way of saying that Blade Runner 2049 and Blade Runner, despite the sound in their films, could be construed as Silent Films.
Vangelis, who produced the music for the original Blade Runner, manages to create a world that, while it isn’t dying, is more electronic than it is real. Along with his score, which manages to balance sound and silence brilliantly, are the various sounds which make up the world. When Deckard is studying the details of a photograph the clicking of the computer and the various switches broken by his drunken “enhance” let the reader disappear into the film. Watching the original Blade Runner, at least to a contemporary audience, is like listening to the sounds and world of a video game.
Having watched a few Silent movies, and I do mean few, I’m usually struck by the concern for visual detail. Part of this might have been fortunate accident on the part of these filmmakers, however it is important to remember that many of the great masters of the early genre of film created wonders the likes of which have only been dreamed of by many current film makers. A film like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, yet another brilliant horror film from the early days of film which still manages to be actually terrifying, pays attention to the “place” of the story, allowing that “place” to become it’s own language.
or else the constant concern with the idea of procreation sex is constantly part of the landscape of Blade Runner 2049 culminating with K’s initial walk through the ruins of Vegas.
one room being nothing but a small island in a room filled with water which shines reverberating light across the walls. Even if language is spoken in these rooms, it’s obvious over the course of time that the words are immaterial.
private room decorated with gold and columns, or else if it was the Doll Room of Sebastian’s home colors created their own language. The designs of these rooms, and the details packed into them often allowed for the dialogue to be rather secondary if not irrelevant. Even if you heard batty asking Sebastian to help him into Tyrell’s office, the reader was probably more concerned with Prius’s make-up or else the way Sebastian’s home was a menagerie of toys, robots, and rotting walls. When Deckard is walking through the streets of Los Angeles the color of the light-up umbrellas, or the asian script made up of neon lights manage to tell the viewer more about the world than any of the later exposition. If nothing else about the “place” manages to capture the reader, then 
surely the ever-present rain should be enough to create the feeling of the world and what it is about.
would understand the message of the shot. Likewise if they see a director holding the camera still while two people eat in silence the scene will have it’s own meaning and context. This idea of film creating its own language is something which has existed since the early silent film era, and directors and artists have tried to build that language into something meaningful since the establishment of the medium.
of the language of cinema. The images and lights and colors are far more important because they communicate more about humanity than most of the dialogue.
The glasses that I bought not only served as my ability to see, they also managed to serve a secondary purpose: aging the individual who compliments them. I post a lot of photos of myself on this blog, and so my reader is able to see I wear thin wire frames in the shape of perfect circles. I’ve noticed that people really seem to like them and I’m used to people offering compliment in the vein of “I love your glasses.” However they don’t just say this. As I said before my glasses “date” the person offering the compliment because one half of them will usually say, “I love your Harry Potter glasses” while the other half says, “I love your John Lennon Glasses.” This second compliment has started to dwindle and so I have to remind people about this second person. It’s because of John Lennon that I picked these glasses in the first place, but I was part of the Harry Potter generation and I’m actually rather terrified of the day when people stop calling them Harry Potter glasses for that would mean I’m becoming a rather old man.
for the humanoid slave robots) and humans was something called a voight-kampff exam which is an eye exam. You also have the fact that the film begins with an eye looking over a wide city-scape. When Batty, the central replicant who wants to extend his life, confronts his maker Tyrell he murders him by digging his thumbs into the man’s eyes before cracking his skull. There’s also the scene in which Batty confronts Hannibal Chew, a genetic engineer who makes eyes, and one of the other replicants slowly places eyes on his bare shoulders and Batty offers up this brief exchange:
illuminate only the figures of the people moving about the place. Advertisements tend to be more real than the human beings walking around because despite their mass-production reality, there’s a human charm to them. The near constant rain becomes not just an atmospheric aesthetic, but part of the landscape of the world. And all of this combines together to establish a place that was labeled as “cyber-punk” that has helped create a new genre in and of itself of science fiction.
Tyrell corporation has created humanoid robots known as “replicants” which serve mainly as payless workers (slaves, let’s call it what it is), and the story begins when four replicants escape the off-world colonies. A former police detective named Rick Deckard is brought back onto the force in his former position of Blade Runner. His job is to hunt down the replicants and terminate them (kill them, let’s call it what it is. The rest of the story follows Deckard as he tracks down the replicants who are themselves trying to sneak into the Tyrell corporation to see if there is a way to extend their lives since Replicants are controlled by a four-year life-span.
Batty is the leader of the replicants, played brilliantly by the elusive Rutger Hauer, and as driven more than any of the group to find some way of extending his life. Throughout the film there are small shots of his hand trembling while looking like dying tissue, and I believe it’s this idea of degeneration that actually inspired me. Going to the eye doctor is repair; it’s a check to make sure the system can still run. While my hand doesn’t regularly crinkle into a trembling fist which is itself a portend for my ultimate death, I have observed the fact that my body is beginning to show some signs of wear. And thinking of such wear I’m immediately reminded of the therapist monologue in the Pickle Rick episode of Rick and Morty:
I remember watching the film for the first time with my dad, and true to form he would often whisper the line before the actor or actress would. This habit, which I happened to pick up from the old man, may be annoying to some but I enjoyed it and still depend on it for it’s one of the traits that makes my father the man he is. Saying the lines early always impressed me as a kid, because it seemed like dad possessed some kind of special knowledge about the world that I didn’t, and while that may sound corny I truly attest to the fact that it impressed the shit out of me. One of the reasons I wanted to become an intellectual was because of Mom and Dad and Papa (my grandfather); because all three of them spoke with such knowledge about books, films, politics, history, and that knowledge was something I desired for myself. I wanted to be the guy who knew and understood things. I looked to my parents for guidance about what it meant to be a human being.
She began a draft of a story and Byron so loved it that he insisted she write the rest of it while he went with Percy off to the mountains, most likely so that the two of them could bang.
only encounters in Final Fantasy games or else at a Wiccan convention, but if the reader doesn’t know what one is an Alchemist was something akin to a wizard or soothsayer. Most of the “philosophy,” and I use that word lightly, has to deal with transmutation: the transforming of minerals and objects into other materials. If the reader has ever read the Harry Potter Series the Sorcerer’s Stone, or to my British readers Philosopher’s stone (Americans generally distrust Philosopher’s yet not Sorcerers for some reason), the stone that is referenced and eventually found beneath Fluffy’s trapdoor is rooted in an ancient Alchemical concept. Victor becomes absorbed in these medieval lessons reading voraciously until his mother dies of scarlet fever just a few weeks before he’s about to leave for the University in Ingolstadt. While there he learns that all of his learning is outdated and new ideas such as physics and chemistry are replacing these old concepts, but Victor holds to his early learning eventually deciding to make a name for himself in defeating death.
Jokes aside this passage precedes Victor’s description of his life as he assembled the ill-fated and iconic “Creature” by robbing slaughterhouses, charnel houses, and even graves for body parts which he assembles in an apartment he rents out before eventually bringing said “Creature” to life.
Cybernetic movement creating synthetic human beings like David. Charlie, drunk and frustrated at the seeming failure of the mission, speaks to David:
synthetic human being made of meat and independent consciousness and the difference is the fact that we label the latter a “human being.” Without resorting to too many clichés (specifically the old “more human than human”) humans imprint and replicate themselves upon the space and place they operate in, and as robotics has progressed two camps have emerged. Boston Dynamics has developed humanoid robots designed for combat, and in Asia robotics is principally being channeled into the sex industry. It’s clear that regardless of the purpose human beings will continue to follow the root etymology of the word robot which means slaves. This is all just a way of saying that human beings are driven to create more realistic robots, but to that I ask the question:
stories there is too much of a power dynamic in place. Rather than nurture or assume responsibility Weyland and Victor (and in some way the Engineers) pursue their egos hoping desperately that their creations will help them overcome the grim reality of death.
about Prometheus because Alien as a franchise was made up of fascinating films because they were so different than most of the science fiction I had encountered up to that point. I’ve never been much of a fan of Star Trek, and the only reason I really love Star Wars is the everyman feel the franchise has going for it, but most other science fiction always felt too “clean.” The atmosphere was always hundreds to thousands of years in the future and in that time man developed a way to dispose of waste so that his world was crisp, pristine, and devoid of grime. This in turn meant that mankind in science fiction was always in a place where there was no difference in class. Watching the first Alien there is a clear recognition that society hasn’t changed so that class isn’t an issue. There are levels of workers on the Nostromo, ranging from science officer to ship engineers, and two of the workers Brett and Parker regularly bring this up.
Dietle titled Alien: A Film Franchise Based Entirely On Rape. Before I stopped reading Cracked regularly (the website got so buggy and slow after a while) this essay was forever one of my favorites because I had read few essays online that had such precision, and which shocked me so much. Dietle actually quotes Dan O’Bannon directly and once the reader reads it they can’t unread it:
alarmingly like the man is no mistake, and Ridley Scott plays this up in the film by having David style his hair and body after O’Toole in the film Lawrence of Arabia. David watches the film regularly, and quotes the film three different times during the film:
film explores the ideas about the origin of life, and while ship Prometheus does float through the stars, the heart and soul of the film is leveled firmly on the ground. Prometheus follows two researchers who have amassed a body of data of various civilizations varying from Sumerian, Mayan, Egyptian, all of which show a large humanoid pointing towards a cluster of stars. Charlie Holloway and Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) give their presentation and the reaction should demonstrate that the film is not avant-garde science fiction:
viewer should be left with. His answer, was actually his fiancé Victoria’s answer. I could rewrite it, but honestly quoting it verbatim is the best way to keep such a great idea intact:
little work, Vickers wants her father to die so she can take over the company, and the worms in the Giant Head room just want to eat the biologist who’s name I honestly can’t remember. Each character, apart from the worm, pursues this motivation doggedly often without regard or concern for the other people around and them and each of them, apart from Shaw, are ultimately undone by their own ego and this seems a fitting reason why a film like Prometheus deserves the attention that it does.
off Engineer (who himself gets face-raped and gives “birth” to the first xenomorph), and David’s talking head in a bag. Prometheus is a film reminding the viewer that, while pursuing questions about the origin of life are noble and worthwhile, the answers will have implications and consequences.
Weir’s novel, I have had an opportunity to examine what makes this story so special. In a word, it’s sublime.
grandeur or irresistible power; that inspires awe, great reverence, or other high emotion, by reason of its beauty, vastness, or grandeur.”
