The Dark Side Of The Moon

leading from

The Orrery

 

album cover for Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon

a) In 2010 Ridley Scott was unveiling details about the Prometheus movie and then he mentioned that the film was the dark side of the moon. Obviously he wanted to express how shadowy the film was, but the other side to this seemed that he was throwing around the title of Pink Floyd's well known album released in 1973. Despite the phrase being used out of context with the idea of music, my sudden question became, how might this movie be inspired by Pink Floyd's music?

b) In the commentary for the Prometheus DVD released in 2012, Ridley revealed that they had been playing the music Dark Side of the Moon during the filming of the scene where David the android stepped into the Engineer's orrery for the first time. Ridley had nothing but the black set and needed something to help Michael Fassbender pretend that there was the magnificent holographic orrery around him and so he said to Michael, " Listen, I've got four 50-inch speakers. I'm going to play Dark Side Of the Moon. Is that okay?"

Pink Floyd - Rainbow Theatre 4 November 1973.

Michael replied "Fantastic" and so they went ahead

c) Something to point out is that Pink Floyd are well known for their elaborate laser and light shows during their concerts. Ridley liked to imagine the orrery scene being something that Pink Floyd would like to be seen playing in the centre of, and he could make such a boast because his production designer Arthur Max used to be the lighting designer for the band on their tours during the early 1970s

d) Another thing to point out is that this use of music is much like when Ridley played Mars Bringer of War (from Tomita's The Planets) around the set to evoke the mood of the scene to help Sigourney Weaver towards the end of Alien and that album was the one that Ridley originally wanted as the soundtrack .
SEE: "The Tomita Planets"

David in the engineer's orrery

1. Ridley Scott “The film will be really tough, really nasty. It’s the dark side of the moon. We are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would actually go in and clean up a planet?” (Ridley tells Mike Goodridge of Screendaily.com, 26 April, 2010) 
2. Stammers: When we filmed the scene, we didn't know how the effects would take form, but we knew it had to build and grow. Ridley set the mood by playing Pink Floyd music as Michael Fassbender watched the projections take form; and once it was fully on, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski used a gobo effect to create a refractive water ripple on the walls (Cinefex 130, p52)
3. Ridley Scott: Sell, this to Pink Floyd you know,
   Put Pink Floyd in the middle of that , they'd love it wouldn't they?
   Oh god, you know,  the reason why is on the day, I had nothing except the black set and David, so I said, "Listen, I've got four 50-inch speakers. I'm going to play Dark Side Of the Moon. Is that okay?"
   He said, "Fantastic."
   So we did this to Dark Side of the Moon. That was it. (Prometheus commentary, 01:13:20)