4. Parent Issues
Prometheus deals with the trials and tribulations of parenthood. Whereas the mind-fuck that was
Alien explored the twinned terrors of sexuality and childbirth,
Prometheus inverts this relationship and conveys that, in life, parents and children are most often not destined to get along. The key mythological basis here are the constant games of one-upmanship that occurred in Greek mythology between the titan Prometheus and the chief Olympian Zeus, but on a more global level its an echo of the tribulations embodied in the Titanomachy- the archetypal war between parent and child which was the great "War of the Titans and Olympians" that shook the Greek mythological world to its core. Almost everyone, and indeed every
thing in the movie, is involved in a relationship characterised by parent issues: >> Shaw has lost her mother and father, which is the key reason for her steadfast and resolute faith. Of course she wants there to be something else beyond the veil of this world, because she desperately she wants to see her parents again >> David is effectively in thrall to his father, and is keen (if such a phrase can be employed regarding this complex android character) for a way out so that he can begin to explore his creative potential >> Meredith Vickers is locked in an odd power and love struggle with her father, Peter Weyland, and is jealous of Weylands own affections for his son, David >> Humankind is struggling to come to terms with its true place in the Universe in light of the revelation that it was created on Earth by its ancestral parents, the Engineers >> Shaw has a child- aka mini-Lovecraftian tentacled squid-like atrocity- which she (rather understandably) rejects Ultimately
Prometheus takes its cues from Greek mythology which is replete with stories of children and parents not getting on in any way shape or form.
Key line: David - Want? Not a concept I'm familiar with. That being said.... Doesn't everyone want their parents dead?"