Ridley Scott may or may not be spilling details on how Prometheus factors into the Alien franchise, but a new clip from the film sheds a few shards of light on the connection, and cleverly so: Watch Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland (CEO of Weyland Corporation, to become the future Weyland-Yutani Corp.) give a riveting TED Talk, circa 2023, promising a bright new future to the tech set.
In the clip (directed by Luke Scott) Weyland touches on the Greek mythology of the fire-stealer Prometheus and the sacrifices humanity must suffer in the name of progress, hooking into Alien lore with mentions of a looming developments in lifelike "cybernetic individuals." "We are the gods now," he boasts, stirring the crowd. "I will settle for nothing short of greatness, or I will die trying."
Something tells me the latter might just happen (at least to Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, or Noomi Rapace) once the spaceship explosions and still-ambiguous scares start raining down on the intrepid crew of the Prometheus.
On the TED Blog, Weyland's TED Talk is described thusly:
Peter Weyland has been a magnet for controversy since he announced his intent to build the first convincingly humanoid robotic system by the end of the decade.
Whether challenging the ethical boundaries of medicine with nanotechnology or going toe to toe with the Vatican itself on the issue of gene-therapy sterilization, Sir Peter prides himself on his motto, “If we can, we must.” After a three year media blackout, Weyland has finally emerged to reveal where he’s heading next. Wherever that may be, we will most certainly want to follow.
"Sir Peter's" bio, meanwhile, reveals his pedigree:
Sir Peter Weyland was born in Mumbai, India at the turn of the Millennium. The progeny of two brilliant parents; His mother, an Oxford Educated Professor of Comparative Mythology, his father, a self-taught software Engineer, it was clear from an early age that Sir Peter’s capabilities would only be eclipsed by his ambition to realize them. By the age of fourteen, he had already registered a dozen patents in a wide range of fields from biotech to robotics, but it would be his dynamic break-throughs in generating synthetic atmosphere above the polar ice cap that gained him worldwide recognition and spawned an empire.
In less than a decade, Weyland Corporation became a worldwide leader in emerging technologies and launched the first privatized industrial mission to leave the planet Earth. “There are other worlds than this one,” Sir Peter boldly declared, “And if there is no air to breathe, we will simply have to make it.”
All of the above would seem to support rumors filtered out of Hungarian press this week citing Scott as explaining Weyland's role as connective tissue between Prometheus and the Alien films; the reports suggests that ruthless, progress-hungry capitalist Weyland is the person responsible for sending the Prometheus crew out to investigate the origin of mankind in the first place.
Prometheus hits theaters on June 8.
[TED Blog]