Pope Benedict XVI needs to get a gig on rottentomatoes. The Vatican’s official house organ L’Osservatore Romano has editorialized against Ridley Scott’s sci-fi movie “Prometheus,” claiming it’s “a bad idea to defy the gods.” Hopefully, something was lost in translation.
The Pope, more than anyone, should know there is only ONE God.
Be that as it may, the newspaper, which is the voice of the Vatican, and therefore the pontiff, charged that the movie “mishandles the delicate questions raised by… the battle eternal between good and evil in yet another attempt to [steal] the secret of immortality.”
Right, immortality. It really exists right? Well, in the eyes of the church it does, or there would be no god thing. In other words, the editorial seems to be saying that Prometheus crew is trying to figure out how to become gods.
It’s hard to say if the church takes these editorials seriously. Does it think Scott is encroaching on its turf, or is this part of an effort to show that the Pope is hip to pop culture, too?
Scott apparently has the motivation all wrong as well. According to the church, “the journey of Prometheus should instead symbolize the search for the supernatural.” In the movie, the crew’s motivation came from clues that they thought might lead to the origins of the human species.
The Vatican, of course, has a long history of movie criticism through it’s newspaper. It went ballistic over the 2006 film “The Da Vinci Code,” for daring to suggest Jesus had a wife and child. On the other hand, it praised the sequel “Angels and Demons.”
For the record, the Vatican also had a problem with Scott’s 1982 film “Blade Runner” about renegade human clones, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Another encroachment on the god thing, apparently.
The Vatican also criticized James Cameron’s “Avatar,” fearing that it espoused the worship of trees and nature, instead, of you know, they guy who made them.
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