The Slate Culture Gab Fest is sponsored by Bloodman, the chilling new novel by Robert Pobie.

Bloodman, available now as a Kindle e-book and in paperback.

And by Bing.

Only Bing brings together the best of search with Facebook and Twitter.

Try it today at Bing.com.

The following podcast contains explicit language.

Music The following podcast contains explicit language. I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest. Don't Drive Like My Brother Edition.

It's Wednesday, June 13th, 2012. On today's program, Prometheus, the prequel to Ridley Scott's

1979 space thriller, Alien, the story of sexual abuse in a legendary New York City private school. And finally, goodbye to NPR's car talk.

Joining me today is Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. Fresh from California.

Indeed, California, A, land of avocado, sunshine, and beautiful birds. Lovely. Any conclusions? It's nice there. Yeah. Only mental patients should live elsewhere. Basically. Good. And Slate's culture editor, John Swansberg, is filling in for Dana Stevens. Hey, John. Hey, Steve. How are you? I'm good. I'm fresh from Brooklyn, New York. Wish I was fresh from Los Angeles. Great to see you again. Great to be here. Let's dive right in. Prometheus, as I said, is a prequel to Ridley-Scott's 1979, I think, masterpiece alien. It's about a spaceship of Earthlings on a mission to discover what John Swansberg, what the origins of human life? The origins of human life. On a distant planet.

Yeah, that's... ship of Earthlings on a mission to discover what, John Swansburg, what, the origins of human

life? The origins of human life. On a distant planet? Yeah, that's about right. Okay, it stars Charlize Tehran as, is that, how do you say her name? I would go with Theron. I prefer your appreciation. Yeah, you make her sound like she's from a distant planet. Yeah, or South Africa.

Whatever her name is, she plays a heartless corporate overseer.

It also features Idris Elba, who listeners might know better as Stringer Bell from the Wire. He's delightful, even though he cannot settle upon one region from which to have his American accent.

And it also features Michael Fassbender as a Lawrence of Arabia watching robot.

John, tell me what you thought of this movie and tell me if you were able to make sense of it without somehow spoiling it as well.

That's a challenge.

So I saw a late screening last night that got over, you know, I think almost past midnight. And it definitely had the effect of making me go home and not being able to fall asleep. So I think that, you know, that was probably one of Ridley Scott's goals was to scare me and succeed. Right, because you were spooked and you thought an alien was going to come out of the waller or because you were contemplating the mysteries of human life? Definitely because I was spooked and I thought an alien was going to come out of the wall. It was not particularly drawn in by the larger philosophical, existential questions that this movie posits in its first third and then kind of flubs in the remaining parts of the movie. but having just watched a series of not to give anything away, slithery, you know, alien, the movie-like aliens, you know, gallivanting about this planet that they end up on, I was spooked. When I was walking over the subway grate on my way home, I definitely kind of skirted it. It looked like something an alien might come out of. So I was scared and I was entertained by the movie. But like I said

before, I just, I think the movie had the sort of overlay of, you know, where did we come from?

What is the nature of our existence? Who is God? That alien didn't really have. And I felt like the, you know, the movie wasn't better for having those, that sort of

overlay. Right. Julie, it seems to me that's at least one essence of this picture is that it

...