Sunday, June 10, 2012

Star Trek and Prometheus


Okay, you've seen Prometheus. (2012) And if you know something about Star Trek, it covered two subjects in Prometheus. Did Star Trek beat Prometheus to the punch? The answer is yes. There are two Star Trek stories that deal with the same subjects before Prometheus.

1. The search for our creator. One subject in Prometheus is the question of who created us. The two archaeologists Shaw and Holloway are searching for the Engineers. It's their belief that the Engineers created us.

The film, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), covers a similar story. Spock's brother Sybok searches for God.

2. Did aliens seed earth with human DNA? The question of whether aliens seeded earth with human DNA is answered at the very beginning and the middle of Prometheus. Not only does the movie state this but the alien race is humanoid.

During the sixth season (1993) of the TV series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was an episode called "The Chase." (Image from episode above.) An archaeologist named Galen (Norman Lloyd) discovers a code in the DNA of various life forms. He gets killed. So Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) takes the Enterprise all over the galaxy to find the meaning of the code. It's a program that projects an ancient humanoid alien who tells us that her race seeded the planets with their DNA. The purpose? The species that evolved would be a monument to the alien race's existence.

By the way, "The Chase" was penned by Joe Menosky and Ronald Moore. It is one of my favorite TNG episodes. It is perhaps the most Roddenberryesque of the series.

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