Ridley Scott’s Prometheus
and Alien: Covenant —
the contemporary horror of AI
by Robert Alpert
“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race…It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."
—Steven Hawking, English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author[1] [open endnotes in new window]
Science fiction is one of the earliest movie genres. Georges Méliès’ silent feature A Trip to the Moon (1902), together with Auguste and Louis Lumières’ shorts, such as “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory” (1895), are typically considered the key movies in the divide that French movie critic Andre Bazin later famously characterized as between “those directors who put their faith in the image and those who put their faith in reality.”[2] While Bazin clearly sided with the latter, the placement of faith in the image by the directors of science fiction movies has allowed science fiction movies to address the most pressing social and philosophical issues of contemporary times. For example, produced during the 1920s in a politically divided Germany, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) focused on the Marxist struggle of workers in a capitalist society. James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) explored both the hubris of the male scientist described in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) as well as the repressive sexuality of Western culture. Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) advocated for a liberal belief in the collective submission to a technocratic elite.
Of course, faith in the image has oftentimes resulted in science fiction movies that have reveled in the sensuousness of the image and hence in the excitement of a visual adventure, especially with the technological advancement of special effects and the introduction of digital production. Where, for example, the innovative images and musical sounds of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) coincided with the film’s philosophical investigation of human evolution, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) created a pleasurable sense of wonder through light and sound that underscored the film’s childlike nostalgia for a simpler time. The science fiction adventures of the 1930s Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials found a visually enhanced equivalent in George Lucas’ THX 1138 (1971) and his later space opera adventures beginning with Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and continuing through The Force Awakens (2015), Rogue One (2016) and The Last Jedi (2017).
The contemporary resurgence of science fiction movies arguably exceeds the 1950s, the classical period in the United States for disaster-focused, science fiction movies. These contemporary movies often dramatize, through the frequent depiction of an increasingly global and technologically remote cultural environment, a collective unease with and fear of metaphysical concerns. While science fiction franchises such as X-Men and Planet of the Apes serve as both explicit fantasy adventures and implicit political commentary, movies such as Interstellar (2014). Arrival (2016) and Midnight Special (2016) are speculative essays on highly philosophical, cultural concerns. That many movies, such as Autómata (2014), Ex Machina (2014), Chappie (2015), Marjorie Prime (2017) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), focus on artificial intelligence highlights how human identity is itself at issue.
... continue reading