Analysis of a genre - Prometheus

The trailer begins with a long shot of a space ship travelling through space, this tells the audience straight away the genre of the film, as space and space ships are some of the most iconic aspects of the science fiction genre. The long shot also tells the audience how vast space is and creates a sense of isolation due to the emptiness around the space ship. The space ship can also tell the audience what period the film is set in, without having to use captions, specific characters or narrators having to tell the audience. The long shot then fades to an extreme long shot, this almost acts as an establishing shot as it shows the scenery around the space ship, which happens to be a planet different to Earth, which is also iconic of the science fiction genre, that being uncharted planets millions of miles away from Earth.

Another iconography of the science fiction genre could be the director, which in this case is  Ridley Scott who is well known for his 1979 commercial breakthrough with 'Alien' and other iconic science fiction movies like 'Blade Runner'. Ridley Scott is also the director of this film, as 'Prometheus' is a prequel to 'Alien', so will share similar iconographies. The film uses low key lighting quite frequently throughout the film to convey its dark ideologies of world destruction and how things aren't what they seem, as the main themes within the film are exploration and the unknown, as it questions if God is real, or if aliens exist, which in the 'Alien' universe they obviously do. A reason we know some of the themes of this film are to do with exploration are because of the caption near the end of the trailer that says 'They went looking for our beginning.' This caption gives the audience the plot line so audience members can make their decision whether to see the film or not, as themes of exploration will appeal to fans of science fiction and adventure/action hybrid genre fans, like 'Indiana Jones.'

Characters in a film can also determine the genre of a film, as even though this trailer doesn't reveal much detail into characters whatsoever, there are still iconic science fiction characters within the film, like Dave the robot and the captain of the space ship, which there is captains of space ships in many other science fiction films, like 'Star trek' for example. This film will obviously also have aliens in it, considering it is a prequel to 'Alien', which yet again are iconic of the science fiction genre.

The non diegetic music in the trailer can also determine what genre a film can be, which in this case is the strange high pitched sound which plays throughout most of the trailer, the reason this can determine the genre of a film is because of how unnatural it sounds, which we tend to find unnatural sounds being played in fantasy, horror or science fiction genres mostly.

This trailer has a lot of enigma codes in it which leaves the audience with questions to be answered, as it doesn't reveal many action codes as, as we get further into the trailer, the trailer then begins to rapidly cut to different sections of the film in no particular order which confuses the audience and may tempt them to want to watch it, to get the answers they want. It also creates suspense and shows how rapidly the film can change, to signify how easy problems can occur.The only action codes we get from this trailer are the ones in the first half which shows the space ship landing. The reason enigma codes can determine this film to be science fiction is because enigma codes ask the audience questions, like this film raises the big questions of life.