Jacob Elordi as Frankenstein’s Monster Made Me Think of Another Sci-fi Movie, But the Connection Makes Sense

Netflix loves original stories. Stranger Things, which begins streaming its final season later this month, is inspired by plenty of classics, such as The Goonies, but it continues to forge its own path. The same can be said about the recent hit A House of Dynamite, a thriller film from Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow that pushes the boundaries of what a cliffhanger ending can be. However, when an adaptation comes across Netflix’s desk, it’s not going to ignore it. Greta Gerwig is cooking up a new take on C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, but that’s still over a year away. Any Netflix subscriber looking for instant gratification can load up their app and turn on Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.

Del Toro never walks the easy path, always looking to challenge himself. Well, when it comes to Frankenstein, he makes the tough decision to deviate from Mary Shelley’s source material in order to make the titular character’s Creature more sympathetic. The move pays off in a big way, showing one of the world’s most important fictional monsters in an entirely new light. And whether del Toro means to or not, his movie opens the door to comparisons to another important sci-fi property.

Frankenstein’s Monster Is More Human Than Ever in Netflix’s Movie

Frankenstein gets the party started by making Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein out to be misunderstood. His dad doesn’t give his mom and him the time of day, and when he is around, he’s abusive. Victor tolerates it because he has his mom in his corner, but once she dies, he feels alone in the world. The only place he finds peace is when he’s studying the human body and thinking up ways to cheat death, not wanting anyone to suffer the same fate as him. By the time Victor is all grown up, he’s closer to his goal, though the scientific community doesn’t seem to care. Fortunately, a lifeline arrives in the form of Henrich Harlander, a wealthy man who shares Frankenstein’s negative feelings about death.

With Harlander’s resources, Frankenstein is able to gather everything he needs, including cadavers. The pieces fall into place after that, and on a particularly stormy night, the Creature is born. At first, Frankenstein wants to spend time with his creation, but that feeling quickly fades once he realizes he’s not learning as fast as he would like him to. Frankenstein goes from hero to villain in an instant, abusing the Creature and showing him the worst of humanity. But the Creature remains open to accepting people into his heart, learning how to read from an old man he meets and cares for. The lessons he learns from the man enable him to forgive Frankenstein for his transgressions and to begin truly living. Another sci-fi character could learn a thing or two from Jacob Elordi’s Creature.

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Prometheus‘ Engineers Aren’t All That Different From the Creature

The Alien franchise draws plenty of cues from Frankenstein, focusing on the creation of life and what that truly entails. Prometheus dives deeper into the rabbit hole than its colleagues, introducing the Engineers, an ancient alien race responsible for creating most of the life in the universe, including humans. The CEO of the Weyland Corporation, Peter Weyland, funds an expedition to find the aliens and boards the ship himself, hoping to find a way to extend his life. After meeting his makers, he discovers that they aren’t interested in doing anything for him. Weyland dies a gruesome death, leaving his android David behind to pick up the pieces.

From a certain point of view, Weyland is like Harlander, who wishes to abuse unbelievable power for his own gain. That makes David the Frankenstein figure, as he’s the “modern Prometheus,” seeking to control something that he can never hope to understand, not caring about the consequences. The final piece of the puzzle, then, is the Engineers. While they don’t owe their lives to David, they do owe their destruction to him, which is a topic that the Creature can speak on. Also helping the comparison is the fact that the Creature resembles the Engineers at the start of his life. Leave it to humanity to turn something pure into a monster beyond recognition.

Frankenstein is streaming on Netflix.

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