Lempit 1 Man Meets God, Then Becomes Him Human Transformation, and Transhuman Aspirations, in Ridley Scott’s Alien, Prometheus, and Blade Runner Jessica Lempit Film Criticism LaB Prof. James Final Paper Due 12/11 Lempit 2 Slick, advanced technology, strange or dystopian politics and the rich mysteries of space are the most common suBjects of speculative or science fiction films. Transformation is typically achieved through engineering or complex socioeconomic systems. In Alien (1972), Blade Runner (1982) and Prometheus (2012), director Ridley Scott imagines earthier and perhaps more familiar future transformations: those of the human Body in conversation and in conflict with technology and Biology. Ridley Scott positions the human Body as a site of transformation and vulneraBility in the future, simultaneously making our familiar anatomy foreign, and suggesting that our technological feats may soon outpace our physical capacity. The motifs of evolution, reproduction and violent transformation are leylines in these three films, presenting visions of the future in which human biology is no longer the pinnacle of nature’s innovations but a fecund ground for more advanced life—either as hosts for alien forms, or as the creators of artificial intelligences (AI) and synthetic life. Alien opens onBoard the commercial mining ship Nostromo, en route to Earth after completing its venture, its crew resting in hypersleep chambers. However, the crew is woken prematurely when MOTHER, the ship’s computer, intercepts a message broadcast from an intelligent origin—and the crew, legally, must investigate it. Nostromo lands on a foreign planet wracked By a violent storm. Crewmembers venture into an aBandoned, alien ship, finding first an enormous humanoid skeleton, riBs Broken open, seated Before a weapon, and then a vast room filled with eggs. Kane (an incredibly young John Hurt) approaches an egg, which opens—and an alien lifeform attaches itself to his face, its tail tight around his neck Lempit 3 and an appendage deep in his throat (this organism is now commonly called a ‘facehugger’). Nostromo leaves after determining there are no survivors to rescue. Soon it is evident that the alien threat remains on the ship, picking off crewmembers until Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the sole survivor, finally overcomes it. Alien was Ridley Scott’s second feature film, and remains one of his Best received works. Scott’s early background as a BBC set director/designer and TV commercial director are reflected in Alien’s meticulous visual construction and narrative economy. The Nostromo is a marvel, with a solidity and realness that comes from Scott’s attention to details like steaming pipes, wall texturing, and the complex tangles of electronics inevitaBly found on a spaceship. Alien is filmed in contrasts of dark and light, and oBfuscating effects like flashing emergency lights, deep shadows and Broken pipes heighten the fear and suspense felt By the audience. Though some of its visual effects have aged, particularly the nuclear explosion that finally destroys the Nostromo—which looks more like a faded illustration on a math textBook than a mushroom cloud—and the clunky, off-white computers, the alien (or xenomorph) effects have remained frightening and disturBing, due in some part to their imaginative design By artist H.R. Giger and their physical, rather than digital, execution By special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi. However, much of the xenomorph’s—and the facehugger’s—staying power as objects of viewers’ fascination, fear and revulsion are their traumatic interaction with humans, their resemblance to and exaggeration of familiar human forms—and their transformation of the human Body into something alien. Lempit 4 The famed “chestBurster” scene from Alien exemplifies Scott’s transformation of the human Body. Kane is Brought back to Nostromo quickly after the facehugger attacks him, having eaten through his glass helmet with a release of acid, penetrated his throat with a slick, tentacle-like appendage, and wrapped his face and neck in its fleshy Body, craB-like legs and muscular tail. Kane is sedate, unresponsive, presumaBly Being fed air By the creature, whose lungs inflate and deflate gently over Kane’s cheeks. The ship’s Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) and Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) attempt to remove the facehugger, accidentally releasing a powerful acid that eats through the ship floor when they cut one of its ‘fingers.’ They perform a scan that reveals the organism is pumping oxygen, and perhaps a fluid, into Kane’s Body, and ultimately determine there is nothing they can do to remove the alien without killing Kane or endangering the crew. The medical scanner shows the facehugger pumping oxygen, and perhaps genetic material, into Kane. However, the creature detaches of its own accord some time later, leaving Kane apparently healthy. The facehugger’s corpse is found later. The crew is relieved, and Lempit 5 decides to eat with Kane before reentering hypersleep. Kane eats, relaxes with the crew, and appears to Be enjoying himself—when suddenly, he begins choking, then seizing, laid flat on his Back on the taBle. The crew attempt to staBilize him when a burst of blood appears through his shirt. Still seizing, the bloodstain grows larger until a snakelike creature erupts from his chest. Erect, slimy, and sharp-toothed, the creature seems to look around the room Before screeching and slithering quickly out of the room, to the horror of the assembled crew. Kane twitches gently, But is clearly dead. This parasitic lifeform transformed Kane from a functional human Being into an incubator or ‘womb’ for a more advanced species—a “perfect organism” in the words of Ash, its “structural perfection” complemented By its lack of “conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.” Kane’s male Body is un-gendered by the alien, who penetrates him in a quasi-sexual manner, impregnates him with its young, which later is ‘birthed,” bloody and violent, out of his body, which had sustained it during growth. This reading is supported By Scott’s direction of Both the medical exam and Birth scenes: the phallic tentacle in Kane’s throat is releasing something into him, represented By pinkish particles on the scanner screen; the crew surrounding Kane at the taBle resembles a medical team aiding a woman in laBor, crowding tight around opened legs and wearing white coats. Scott perverts traditional human reproduction, making the natural process of insemination, gestation and Birth strange through the alien’s mimicked process. Humans have outpaced By xenomorphs, advanced creatures that Bastardize our reproductive systems to use us as fertile ground for their own young. Scott proposes that this Lempit 6 transformation makes humans unfit for life in the far future; our imperfect Bodies, with no natural defenses and beleaguered by conscience, are little better than fodder for organisms with stronger instincts and a more aggressive nature. Our bodies are vulnerabilities in the future, not strengths. Prometheus is Ridley Scott’s 2012 return to the universe of Alien, after three sequels of varying quality were produced under the direction of James Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, in addition to several ill-conceived crossovers with the Predator franchise. In Prometheus, Scott refocuses the Alien franchise’s narrative from the creature-feature formula of its sequels Back to the more philosophical Bent of the first film. Prometheus, which visually recalls much of Alien, though with a clean, contemporary aesthetic, centers on the work of archaeologists ElizaBeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), who have collected enough evidence from various ancient cultures suggesting an alien race in a far cluster of stars to convince a dying corporate chief, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) to fund an exploratory space mission. Weyland, and Shaw, are oBsessed with finding their “makers”—an alien population they believe is the original source of human life. The team, led By Weyland’s reluctant, cold daughter Meredith Vickers (a stiff Charlize Theron), travels in hypersleep to a distant planet, discovering the remains of enormous, humanoid creatures in a buried spaceship, as well as metal casks seeping with a black liquid. David (Michael FassBender), the ship’s AI, introduces the liquid into a drink he offers to Holloway, curious aBout its effects. Holloway and Shaw sleep together. The next day, the crew returns to the alien ship Lempit 7 to continue their research. David discovers a live alien, still in hypersleep, and a map projection with a highlighted path to Earth. Holloway Becomes violently ill during the mission, necessitating a return to Prometheus, their vessel. It Becomes clear that some alien material has infected Holloway; Vickers, fearful of allowing him Back onto Prometheus, Burns him alive at his request. Shaw is devastated, But is even more horrified when David informs her during a medical check that she is three months pregnant—when she had been infertile. Shaw is revolted and terrified and self-aborts the alien fetus with an automated surgical pod. Meanwhile, David has woken the humanoid alien—an Engineer—from hypersleep, intending to interrogate it for Weyland. The Engineer attacks David and Weyland and attempts to pilot the ship, containing the deadly black liquid, to Earth. Shaw convinces Janek (Idris Elba), the captain of Prometheus, to destroy the alien ship, which he does. However, the Engineer is still living, and attacks Shaw, the last survivor, who feeds it to her offspring—a now enormously huge, tentacled monstrosity occupying the surgical room. A xenomorph Bursts from the chest of the now-dead Engineer. Shaw, with David’s functioning head, manages to escape, seeking the Engineer’s home planet. Though multiple Body transformations occur in Prometheus—the self- destruction of an Engineer to seed Earth with DNA, the mutilation of a crewmember by an alien organism, Holloway’s infection, and the Engineer made host By Shaw’s parasitic offspring—the most disturBing is unquestionaBly Shaw’s impregnation with an alien fetus and her self-abortion.