I like good, inspired marketing, and I think the following video qualifies. It’s a new trailer for director Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated sci-fi film Prometheus. The trailer, as you can see, is disguised as a TED talk from the year 2023, given by Peter Weyland, the extremely confident, boundary pushing CEO of Weyland Industries. (If the name sounds familiar, it might be because Weyland-Yutani was the company that sent the ship Nostromo into space in Scott’s epic film Alien, which was supposed to have taken place several decades after this TED talk took place.) Prometheus, as Weyland reminds us in his speech, was the Titan who, according to Greek mythology, was responsible for stealing fire from Zeus, and giving it to man, hastening our evolution. As Weyland, who is played here by Guy Pierce, also reminds us, Prometheus was punished for his actions by being bound to a rock, for all eternity, while an eagle repeatedly tore out and devoured his ever-regnerating liver. As I’m looking forward to seeing the film, I’m disinclined to dig too deep, for fear of finding out too much, and ruining the surprise, but this much I do know – the film is supposed to be about, at least at some level, the extraterrestrial origins of man on earth. What’s more, it’s said to have been influenced by one of my favorite authors (from when I was in grade school), Erich von Däniken, who posited the theory, in his book Chariots of the Gods
“The (space) journey, metaphorically, is about a challenge to the gods. NASA and the Vatican agree that is almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way. That’s what we’re looking at (in the film), at some of Eric von Daniken’s ideas of how did we humans come about.”
He’s also been quoted as having said the following.
“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 go in and clean up a planet?”
I could go on, but I have others things that need to be addressed tonight. Here, in the meantime, is that clever trailer I was talking about. I hope you enjoy it.
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And, if that’s not your speed, check out this trailer for MOVIE: The Movie, which features an asteroid-dwelling Black Hitler.
I’m intrigued by that last part of the second Scott quote, where he seems to imply that the “Aliens” may have been developed by the gods to go in and “clean a place up”. Or, at least, that’s my reading of it. Is he saying that the Aliens (from his earlier films) were created with the intention of wiping out the work of Prometheus to create mankind? If so, I think this is pretty fascinating.
I don’t talk about it publicly, but I’m inclined to believe that our civilization is the result of tampering by extraterrestrial agents. Publicly, I say that I believe in evolution, and maintain that the line of ascent as laid out by Darwin makes sense. What I really think, though, is that we got some help making the jump from what we were to what we are. Of course, I have no idea who may have given us that boost, but I suppose it could have been a rogue agent; someone like Prometheus, who got it into his head that our species could, with the right assistance, could become godlike. And, I suspect it’s also possible that his actions were met with rage by those whom he served. I’m inclined, like von Däniken, to believe there’s some truth in these mythological stories, and, from what I’ve read, it looks like Scott might share that sneaking suspicion.
This, sadly, is not what TED talks are evolving into.
Case in point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W_6SfMZxoLc
The trailer for the movie is now on-line, and it’s incredible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHcHYisZFLU&feature=youtu.be
Another great new viral ad for Prometheus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOOJl5lWNfM&feature=youtu.be
An observation from Reddit:
apz1 23 points 1 hour ago
The shot of the Weyland logo on his index finger possibly offers context for the shot from the trailer where Fassbender is looking at an index finger and says, “Big things have small beginnings.”