freak out in a moonage daydream, baby

We finished watching "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in SF class today. Char, you missed a lot--the discussion was unusually interesting.
Prof. Snow pointed out that the movie was based on "Chariots of the Gods," by Erich von Daniken, and therefore ranked right up there with movies like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" as portrayals of God-aliens, particularly with the imagery of the clouds (classic Old Testament stuff) and the little alien-angel prayer meeting right before the humans are sent to board the spaceship. I don't quite see the similarity. Klaatu's Jesus-like message and the "alien as mythical creator" idea are very different; one is taking the idea of alien as "other" to a logical and fairly misanthropic extreme, and the other is...well, it takes some major leaps of logic to conclude that alien astronauts created the human race, particularly in the absence of a huge shrieking monolith.
Remembering what ghostgecko had said about the new Lovecraft/alien gods book he bought (I need to find a copy of that, and also I really need more Lovecraft books), I brought up Cthulhu as an example of other alien gods. Of course, Cthulhu was significantly more malevolent than the little aliens in "Close Encounters", or Klaatu, although the name Klaatu does sound quite a lot like Cthulhu. And Lovecraft's stories send exactly the opposite message of any savior stories, alien or not. (Or, depending upon how you look at Christianity, maybe not. Malevolent universe? Sure, if you believe in the devil. Things Man Was Not Meant To Know? Yeah, you don't need science if you believe in God.) Still, there is the common thread of a certain kind of deception: that what we believe to be divine beings are nothing more than advanced aliens. (Idea: Where do Cthulhu and his buddies come from, anyway? How did they evolve? Are they just howling monsters, or do they have their own civilizations with real social structures?)
We eventually decided that Lovecraft was postmodern before postmodernism was even invented. Well, for (as I have said before) a certain concrete definition of postmodernism: The insignificance of humanity in the face of an uncaring universe, the alienation of the sympathetic character from universal human experience, a certain amount of arbitrary horror and absurdism...fun stuff.
(And in case anybody was watching that South Park episode, Xenu bears a remarkable resemblance to Cthulhu...) Oh, and some kid brought up the "fact" that "Well, maybe humans really were created by aliens, I read this cool book by a real professor of Sumerian mythology..." "Yeah," I said, "haven't you ever watched "Evil Dead"? The Necronomicon is written in Sumerian." "So what, you're saying that the alien astronauts were really Cthulhu?" "Dude," I said, "that's an awesome idea for a story." And I meant it. I'm going to have to revise my already-whacked-out theory about the Necronomicon and magic and "Snow Crash" to include this.
Also rented "The Man Who Fell to Earth," starring David Bowie. My God, is Bowie pretty. I'd forgotten just how pretty he is. But that's not the point! This is another "alien as savior" story, but in this case, it's alien as degraded savior, who falls in love with a brainless twit and gets addicted to television. Bowie has a thing for that, I think: Look at "Ziggy Stardust." Alien comes to Earth to save it from some kind of destruction, becomes a rock star, and loses sight of his mission in the stardom and worship.
Right, what was the point of this? Oh, yes, writing. I need to do some more of that tonight.