Prometheus trailer... Remind you of Ancient Aliens?

Originally posted by Razziazoid
IRL, this theory gets mocked beyond belief by a lot of people, but when it's in a movie by Ridley Scott, then it's suddenly ok!

It's not "suddenly ok." It is quite alright for a fictional film, but not for viable scientific theory.

Originally posted by zacroyce
I think this movie is definately hinting at something. One thing I found interesting is that Prometheus is also the name of one of the moons of Saturn, and in the trailer for the film you can also see a ringed planet in the background when the ship 'prometheus' lands. Something that might not be coincidence is the fact that the planet in 'Avatar' is called Pandora, another one of Saturns moons.
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Entertainment Weekly had a Prometheus feature article a few weeks back that revealed the planet most of the action takes place on...

Zeta 2 Reticuli.

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull
Not only is Scott's idea based on ancient aliens but it's also based loosely on the work of author HP Lovecraft (who himself was likely building on theosophic writings of the past).

I do not know if one can say Lovecraft was building off theosophic writings, though he certainly did skirt some of the same ideas. But those ideas were not unique to theosophy (lost continents, reincarnation). And though Lovecraft did read theosophic writings (and would sometimes reference these in his work, along side other esoteric and occult works) his true feelings on the subject can be summed up in this line from a letter HPL sent to Willis Conover...

"The crap of the theosophists, which falls into the class of conscious fakery, is interesting in spots." source

Lovecraft was, above all else, a skeptic. In fact, he was supposed to write a book on skepticism with Harry Houdini (which probably would have made HPL a household name in his own time) but was curtailed by Houdini's death.

All this "ancient aliens theory" started with the book "Chariots of the Gods?" published in 1968 by Erich von Däniken.

Erich von Däniken was the pioneer.

It was originally started in the 1940's/50's with a series of magazine articles, which clearly influenced both Von Daniken and Sitchin. Those magazines were themselves surely influenced by the writings of Lovecraft (among others)

Charioteer of the Gods: H.P. Lovecraft and the Invention of Ancient Astronauts
(skeptic.com)

Von Daniken also got his influence from other writers who were pushing ideas about ET's visiting ancient earth;

Erich von Däniken’s Spaceman-Gods
(badarchaeology.com)

During an early career as a waiter, he was able to save for extensive travels in which he hoped to find evidence for an idea he had developed through reading the Bible (and, although he does not admit as much, it is clear from the outset that he got many of his ideas from his reading of the works of speculative writes such as Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, Robert Charroux and Peter Kolosimo): that extraterrestrials had meddled in human history. The piece of evidence he considers the most convincing that he has ever produced is the cover slab of the tomb of the Lord Pacal in the Pyramid of the Inscriptions at Palenque, weak stuff though it is. Moreover, his description and interpretation are not original: they derive from an article by Guy Tarade and A Millou in an Italian magazine Clypeus, published in October 1966. He saw it as a representation of a humanoid being in a space capsule and it became the cover image for the hardback publication of the English edition of Chariots of the Gods?. Subsequent books took his search for evidence farther afield and he even dabbled in analyses of religious visions (Miracles of the Gods) and Greek mythology.

So really what Von Daniken and Sitchin did was to take a number of already published ideas and 'formalize' them as a 'theory' in their books. as questionable as that theory might be.

Von Daniken, Sitchen, Wells, Lovecraft....

None of them 'imagined these things', formulating them into a theory.

You want to know where they got them? The bible and other religious doctrine.

They were able to see that the 'visitors from the heavens' are aliens, plain and simple. They have helped people to see the gods for what they were...extraterrestrials.

Now, for some reason people are intimidated by the notion that these men are correct; that there are higher advanced civilizations in the universe other than humans....it scares them.

They are in denial.

Originally posted by ButterCookie
Von Daniken, Sitchen, Wells, Lovecraft....

None of them 'imagined these things', formulating them into a theory.

You want to know where they got them? The bible and other religious doctrine.

No, Lovecraft was quite clear that his horrors were his own invention. He made fun of fellow weird-fiction author William Lumely for believing Lovecraft's creations were real and that he was drawing off some other source.

reply to post by WingedBull


I'm aware that in his personal life Lovecraft was a skeptic and atheist and that theosophy and aliens are merely material for his fiction. I never suggested that his stories were meant to be anything other than fiction.

Originally posted by WingedBull

Originally posted by ButterCookie
Von Daniken, Sitchen, Wells, Lovecraft....

None of them 'imagined these things', formulating them into a theory.

You want to know where they got them? The bible and other religious doctrine.

No, Lovecraft was quite clear that his horrors were his own invention. He made fun of fellow weird-fiction author William Lumely for believing Lovecraft's creations were real and that he was drawing off some other source.

Fine...remove Lovecraft..

the point is still the same

The ancient astronaut theory has been in many science fiction films and TV shows for quite some time now in bits, some of the most recent examples being the Transformers movies and The Fourth Kind. Prometheus is just the most blatant film so far inspired by the ancient astronaut theory, and video games are loaded with it. Now we see this theory being taken more seriously as actual history, the propaganda getting more intense as time goes along. Since this is cinema we're talking about, it is very important to understand that cinema can actually be one of the most effective tools to disseminate propaganda. Its the reason why the Soviet and Nazi regimes considered the cinema to be an important part of their propaganda. Jacques Elull in his book titled “Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes” explains in extreme detail why this is the case, here are just two passages from the book.

"Thus all modern propaganda profits from the structure of the mass, but exploits the individuals need for self-affirmation; and the two actions must be conducted jointly, simultaneously. Of course this operation is greatly facilitated by the existence of the modern mass media of communication, which have precisely this remarkable effect of reaching the whole all at once, and yet reaching each one in that crowd. Readers of the evening paper, radio listeners, movie or TV viewers certainly constitute a mass assembled at one point. These individuals are moved by the same motives, receive the same impulses and impressions, find themselves focused on the same centers of interests, experience the same feelings, have generally the same order of reactions and ideas, participate in the same myths-and all this at the same time: what we have is really a psychological, if not a biological mass. And the individuals in it are modified by this existence, even if they do not know it. Yet each one is alone-the newspaper reader, the radio listener. He therefore feels himself individually concerned as a person, as a participant. The movie spectator also is alone, though elbow to elbow with his neighbors; he still is, because of the darkness and the hypnotic attraction of the screen, perfectly alone. This is the situation of the "lonely crowd", or of isolation in the mass, which is a natural product of present-day society and which is both used and deepened by the mass media. The most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass: it is at this point that propaganda can be most effective.” – Pgs. 8-9

Your Brain Waves Change When You Watch TV - reduces you down to an alpha or suggestible state within seconds

”Finally, the propagandist must use not only all of the instruments, but also different forms of propaganda, though there is a present tendency to combine them. Direct propaganda, aimed at modifying opinions and attitudes, must be preceded by propaganda that is sociological in character, slow, general, seeking to create a climate, an attitude of favorable preliminary actions. No direct propaganda can be effective without pre-propaganda, which, without direct or noticeable aggression, is limited to creating ambiguities, reducing prejudices, and spreading images, apparently without purpose. The spectator will be much more disposed to believe in the grandeur of France when he has seen a dozen films on French petroleum, railroads, or jetliners. The ground must be sociologically prepared before one can proceed to direct propaganda. Sociological propaganda can be compared to plowing, direct propaganda to sowing; you cannot do the one without doing the other first. Both techniques must be used. For sociological propaganda alone will never induce an individual to change his actions. It leaves him at the level of his everyday actions, and will not lead him to make decisions. Propaganda of the word and propaganda of the dead are complementary. Talk must correspond to something visible; the visible, active element must be explained by talk. Oral or written propaganda, which plays on opinions and sentiments, must be reinforced by propaganda of action, which produces new attitudes and thus joins the individual firmly to a certain movement. Here again, you cannot have one without the other.”- Pg.15

Understanding this, to give some perspective, the video below documents the decades long psychological warfare campaign by Hollywood and the thousands of movies that portrayed Arabs and Muslims as evil, primarily as a bunch of fundamentalist terrorists, almost all before the 9/11 attacks and the farcical War on Terror, this period in history they were conditioning every single living generation for.

Reel Bad Arabs - Hollywood Brainwashing Exposed - How the movie industry villifies an entire people:

reply to post by ButterCookie


Only time will tell, even if not certain, I don't see why the big 'No' crying. Too many things point in this direction, no not the claim that there has been a nuclear bomb, no not half of what those on History channel claim, we are talking about the overall things, but hey it's all a coincidence!

Some seem to be so far just myths, others have shown they are reality, when things that were just myths turned out to be true, make your own conclusions what else could.

Originally posted by ButterCookie
Fine...remove Lovecraft..

the point is still the same

Wells was an atheist.

And I'm not sure anyone knows the point you were trying to make.

Originally posted by WingedBull

Originally posted by ButterCookie
Fine...remove Lovecraft..

the point is still the same

Wells was an atheist.

And I'm not sure anyone knows the point you were trying to make.

I was sarcastically naming all the authors that you state that merely looked at aliens as fiction...

And by the way, Wells was very much into the cosmos and extraterrestrial life, while he was an atheist.

Originally posted by ButterCookie
I was sarcastically naming all the authors that you state that merely looked at aliens as fiction...

No, you weren't. The post I responded to was not a response to anything I said (if it was, it certainly was not clear); you were claiming people such as Wells and Lovecraft did not make up their aliens but pulled them from the Bible and other religious sources. That is not true at all. Nor is it true, as you claimed that I said they thought of alien life as mere fiction.

reply to post by ButterCookie


Europe. Movies are released earlier here, same with The Avengers. Saw it a week before it was released in the US.

Heres a good interview with the BBC

"I think it was John Updike who said something like, 'We've been here for about three billion years, why did nothing really significant happen to us physically until about 70,000 years ago?"

"Is he saying maybe there was something half a billion years ago which was a civilisation equal to ours? If you had a cataclysmic event, there would be nothing left but atoms, particles, therefore could we have existed before and if we did, who or what destroyed it.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Originally posted by zacroyce
I think this movie is definately hinting at something. One thing I found interesting is that Prometheus is also the name of one of the moons of Saturn, and in the trailer for the film you can also see a ringed planet in the background when the ship 'prometheus' lands. Something that might not be coincidence is the fact that the planet in 'Avatar' is called Pandora, another one of Saturns moons.

More likely, James Cameron named his planet after the Greek Myth about Pandora's Box, and the consequences of opening "Pandora's Box", and Ridley Scott named the movie Prometheus after the Greek God who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humans.

Considering the plots of these movies, Cameron's reference to "Pandora" and Scott's reference to 'Prometheus" obviously have much more to do with the Greek Myths than they do with the moons of Saturn.

reply to post by SageBeno


24 September 2009: Production has started on the sci-fi action thriller The Illuminati, starring former Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda star Kevin Sorbo and directed by David Winning ("Andromeda," "Stargate: Atlantis," "Earth: Final Conflict") which will be released in 2010. io9 posted an interview with Sorbo regarding the movie and here is an excerpt. I read that there are a lot of Human/Extraterrestrial back and forth, what kind of cool aliens will we be seeing? Will there be a lot of "creatures" and special effects, be it CG or makeup? Or is it more of a "bad guy in disguise" idea? The "creatures" and the Illuminati warriors may be one and the same, and you're going to see some very cool stuff. One of the conspiracy theories is that at a certain point the Illuminati bred or mated with reptiles in order to develop a "super race" that highlighted the "reptilian" part of the brain - which, again, actually exists. In fact there is an actual term "Reptilian brain" which comes from the fact that a reptile's brain is dominated by the brain stem and cerebellum which controls instinctual survival behaviors and thinking. By mating with reptiles - the Illuminati possess that capability. So... the "creatures" again are based in reality - but that makes them all the more scary and cool. Other films and comics have played with this - but not like we do in the Illuminati - where we've created a world and "creatures" that again are futuristic and nothing you've seen before - but could be real. In certain situations the reptilian part of an Illuminati will take over and then the "creature" is forced to show itself - kind of like a werewolf - but different. And will our viewers see that? - yeah! But can't say more at this point.

The Illuminati are a group of comic book superheroes who joined forces and secretly work behind the scenes in Marvel Comics' main shared universe. The group was formed very shortly after the Kree-Skrull War. That war was depicted in Avengers #89-97 (1971-1972), however the Illuminati were not established to exist (via story retcon) until their first (published) appearance in New Avengers #7 (July 2005), written by Brian Michael Bendis. Their history was discussed in the special New Avengers: Illuminati (May 2006).

Earth: Final Conflict is a Canadian science fiction television series based on story ideas created by Gene Roddenberry, and produced under the guidance of his widow, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. It was not produced, filmed or broadcast until after his death. The original title for the show was Battleground: Earth, but the producers changed it because it sounded too much like L. Ron Hubbard's novel, Battlefield Earth. The executive producer was Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. The Taelons are a fictional race of humanoid aliens appearing in the Canadian science fiction television series Earth: Final Conflict.
The arrival of the Taelons on Earth at first appears to be an unmitigated blessing, with their advanced technology bringing great prosperity. Later it appears that they may have a more complex agenda. The Taelons are an offshoot of another alien race, the Atavus. While there is some debate as to the exact events and their sequence, some members of the Atavus race broke off to devote themselves to the pursuit of spiritual perfection, which eventually led to a state of existence as pure energy. The Taelons started out as a cult in pursuit of immortality.
According to British writer David Icke, 5 to 12-foot (1.5 - 3.7 m) tall, blood-drinking, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids from the Alpha Draconis star system, now hiding in underground bases, are the force behind a worldwide conspiracy against humanity. He contends that most of the world's leaders are related to these reptilians, including George W Bush of the United States, and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Icke's conspiracy theories now have supporters in 47 countries and he frequently gives lectures to crowds of 2,500 or more.

Originally posted by Razziazoid
reply to post by ButterCookie

 

Europe. Movies are released earlier here, same with The Avengers. Saw it a week before it was released in the US.

Cool for you!!

No spoilers please when you get back!!

reply to post by ButterCookie


It was a good movie, although a little shallow and some plotholes. Cinematography is absolutely excellent. Some characters are standard horror movie fodder though, which is too bad since I expected more. Fassbender, Rapace and Theron deliver a very strong performance.

Go see it!

7.8/10

reply to post by Razziazoid


Thanks! I will be there on June 8th!!