Echoes from the Satellite

In my last post, I discussed a film, Quatermass and the Pit , which dealt with aliens altering human evolution in the distant past. This time, I'm going to talk about another film that focuses heavily on this concept, Ridley Scott's Prometheus .  I am a huge fan of the original Alien . I saw it in the theater when it came out in 1979 -I had an older brother who took me - and it made an impact on me, not only for the bizarre yet beautiful  H.R. Giger creature designs, but also because of the intriguing lifecycle of the alien, and the mystery of the  derelict  alien spaceship. Like many people, I wondered about how the alien eggs got on that ship, what happened to the space jockey, and who were these people who wound up crashed on LV-426? There were so many questions that were left unanswered. When Prometheus was announced, I was filled with a great sense of anticipation and excitement, because it was going to be a prequel to Alien , and would provide answers to so ma...

 One of the most basic questions humanity has always had is, How did we come into being? For some, this question is answered by religion. For others, science reveals the truth. But regardless, the origins of mankind, of our rise to prominence as a species on planet Earth, is fascinating to consider. Human beings as individual organisms are not very impressive compared to other creatures. We are not especially strong or fast, we don't have claws or fangs, and our skin is soft. The advantages we have though, are our intelligence, and our ability to work together, to cooperate. Over many thousands of centuries, we were able to develop societies and cultures and advance ourselves to a point where we were able to take our first steps off the planet. But what if we owe  our intellect, our drive, our ability to work together, to the intercession of an outside intelligence? The idea that aliens could have interfered with mankind's evolution is one that has been around for some time, c...