The Metroid Prime Trilogy is about cancer.
I often wonder while playing it how much teamwork went on between Retro and Nintendo, because the central theme of the series is virtually unique to Japan: radiation. In fact, I can’t think of any other whole culture in which "radiation" could be considered an honest-to-god theme along the lines of destiny or daddy issues. Some may say that the theme is more broadly about corruption, and that radiation is merely an aspect of this. But it’s pretty hard for me to look at the conflict of the series (outside force falls from above to envelop the world in destruction and lasting radiation that warps everything it touches) as something that isn’t intrinsically about Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
The enemy of the series is twofold: Metroid Prime (later taking the form of Dark Samus) and Phaaze, a sentient planet. The latter is, in essence, a galactic tumor. It has no purpose but to grow, corrupt, and destroy its host. It metastasizes through meteors, turning other planets into lifeless husks until nothing remains but Phazon. It never speaks, it isn’t itself anthropomorphized (allowing the human-like role to be filled by its agent) and it has no greater ambitions. It is a primal, mindless, unrelenting force of destruction from the inside out.
Dark Samus, on the other hand, is a personification of the individual effects of cancer on its victims. After Samus defeats its original form, a gigantic corrupted Metroid (which, fittingly, first resembles a crab) the monster literally steals Samus’s image. Phazon may be the cancer, with Phaaze at its malignant core, but Dark Samus is what we really fear most about the disease: something is trying to take our entire body away from us.
The third and final game in the trilogy makes the theme of cancer most obvious, what with the introduction of Phaaze’s larger plot and Samus’s own deteriorating health, but Phazon’s role in all three games is cleanly tied with cancer. It starts at a source and spreads. It grows whatever is exposed to it. It feeds off life. It lies dormant, underneath the surface of visible symptoms.
There are other elements of the series and Metroid as a whole that are obviously also present, such as isolation and human-versus-nature; to me, the most powerful image in the trilogy is when Samus removes her helmet to take one last look at the ruins at Tallon IV, showing that despite her incredible feats she’s still only human. But when I remember Metroid Prime, I don’t think of Samus going it alone like in Super Metroid, or wiping out aliens left in right like in Metroid II. I think about the time when I suited up, powered through and killed cancer.
-Jay
Metroid Prime's Meta-Narrative About the Future
A theme that pervades all of the Metroid Prime Trilogy is the conflict between tradition and progress, past and present.
For example, Prime features the hunt for the Chozo Artifacts. Ridley disrespects the Chozo's legacy by vandalizing the Artifact Temple, thus incurring its wrath and suffering defeat at their hands. In Echoes, the Ing are a brutal and tribalistic species that take over the Luminoth's advanced technology and machines, turning their own future and progresses against them. In Corruption, there is all the Lore on Bryyo detailing the fall of the Reptilicus due to their inability to reconcile their ancient shamanistic ways and their technological revolution.
This could be a meta-narrative of how Retro Studios was treating the series at the time. Having been handed one of Nintendo's star franchises, they would have to be very careful to not tread on Metroids past. The intervention of the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto really influenced Primes direction; when he saw their early third-person prototype, he quickly shot it down. Their demo disrespected the legacy of Metroid by excluding the iconic Morph Ball - however, it also didn't push in any new directions, and Miyamoto suggested they make it first-person instead. Using this harsh criticism, they retooled the entire game. In the end, it was all for the better.
As we can see here, working on an iconic IP can be tricky. You need to respect its legacy while also taking it to new heights. You can't stay in the past like the primitive Reptilicus did, but you also can't completely disregard the wishes of history like Ridley did. Samus herself seems to have hit a nice balance - she utilizes her ancestral Chozo Power Suit and its various upgrades, but also implements new technology from the likes of the Luminoth and the Galactic Federation at the same time.
Overall, it seems like Retro Studios' experience working with Metroid informed some of the Prime series' narrative and thematic direction.
- Unknowni123
