My high school English teacher once assigned an essay on Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." She was pushing the idea that the novel was one big Jesus allegory, with its hero McMurphy dying for the salvation of the other patients, but I couldn't agree. Kesey had worked in a mental institution, he'd been involved in psychiatric drug tests, hell, he had even tried electro-shock therapy so he could convincingly write of the experience. Wasn't the novel exactly what it seemed to be, with no allegory required? And wasn't the insight, observation and imagination needed to write this novel amazing in and of itself?
No, said my teacher, it's about Jesus, and she gave me an "F." She never convinced me of her position, but she did — in a roundabout way — sell me on Kesey's thoughts about "The Combine" and how authority needs to insist upon control and conformity. In her head, great books had to be about something bigger than reality, and what could be bigger than the Bible?
It's a mode of thinking that has completely infected modern sci-fi/fantasy filmmaking, from "The Matrix" series through "Harry Potter," "The Lord of the Rings" and even "Superman Returns." Ridley Scott now seems to be the latest victim of grandiose allegory, as evidenced by "Prometheus," his prequel to 1979's "Alien," the first (and best) of the long-running series. "Prometheus" sets its controls for the heart of the creation myth and struggles under the weight.
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