In our view Prometheus is so aware of this as to be centered around the problem of ‘misreading’, whether it is of archaeological evidence and ancient myth, more recent literature and modern film, or even scientific method and knowledge. (See an overview of many of the film’s source texts.) Both as a work of art and as a site for reception, Prometheus seems to suggest that, for better or worse, ‘misreading’ is a fundamental feature of human knowledge. From this perspective, at the very least we may see Prometheus in light of how it responds to its own mythic tradition, the Aliens film series. Perhaps more adventurously, misreadings may be understood not as failures to comprehend or to revere the past, but as creative acts of reception suggesting new, hybrid possibilities for the future of human knowledge and the humanities, perhaps even — in the case of science fiction as of Greco-Roman myth — humankind.
Well, interesting at least.
