dallas!dallas!
MemberOvomorphMay-06-2012 1:55 AMIn an interview published in the New York Times a couple of days ago, that is how Ridley Scott described Prometheus. Now, is that exciting news or more worrisome? I am hoping by steroids, Scott is referring to maybe 'roid rage and its horrors and not some beefed up slightly more intellectual version of Aliens. Not that I would have a problem with that, as long as folks don't try to compare it to the "ultimate trip" that is 2001.
But I was reading an interview with Kubrick in a response to another post and I swear to God that sometimes I think I am reading Scott speak and about David. What follows is a bit I put in my reply. Feel free to lock if it has already been discussed.
HAL 9000, here are the words from the master himself. it is from "The Kubrick Site", Elmis' interview with Stanley Kubrick.
"Why was the computer more emotional than the human beings?
This was a point that seemed to fascinate some negative critics, who felt that it was a failing of this section of the film that there was more interest in HAL than in the astronauts. In fact, of course, the computer is the central character of this segment of the story. If HAL had been a human being, it would have been obvious to everyone that he had the best part, and was the most interesting character; he took all the initiatives, and all the problems related to and were caused by him.
Some critics seemed to feel that because we were successful in making a voice, a camera lens, and a light come alive as a character this necessarily meant that the human characters failed dramatically. In fact, I believe that Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, the astronauts, reacted appropriately and realistically to their circumstances. One of the things we were trying to convey in this part of the film is the reality of a world populated -- as ours soon will be -- by machine entities who have as much, or more, intelligence as human beings, and who have the same emotional potentialities in their personalities as human beings. We wanted to stimulate people to think what it would be like to share a planet with such creatures.
In the specific case of HAL, he had an acute emotional crisis because he could not accept evidence of his own fallibility. The idea of neurotic computers is not uncommon -- most advanced computer theorists believe that once you have a computer which is more intelligent than man and capable of learning by experience, it's inevitable that it will develop an equivalent range of emotional reactions -- fear, love, hate, envy, etc. Such a machine could eventually become as incomprehensible as a human being, and could, of course, have a nervous breakdown -- as HAL did in the film."
This is just part of the interview. There is another section where he talks God and advanced life and its powers. I have been saying for awhile here and elsewhere this is going to be hugely derivative of 2001. And Scott seems to be saying so himself. Does this make you all happy? Or something else?