Most of this summer's anticipated big blockbusters-- The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, even Battleship-- are sequels or based on familiar properties, and technically Prometheus is no exception. It's been described frequently by director Ridley Scott as "containing the DNA of Alien," and a lot of geeks everywhere are anticipating it as possibly the third Alien movie they always wanted but never got after Scott's original Alien and James Camerons' Aliens.
But at the same time, the marketing for Prometheus has really only hinted at its Alien roots, and a sizable portion of the summer moviegoing audience they need to show up will likely have never seen Scott's original sci-fi movie. So the marketing has been even more creative and intriguing than usual, focusing around the corporation Weyland Industries that sends the Nostromo ship into space to begin with. There was the model of the ship itself, the TED Talk given by Peter Weyland himself (Guy Pearce), and now there's this video to introduce us to David, the robot played by Michael Fassbender. It's pretty spectacular-- take a look below.
Fassbender has seemingly been praised for every single performance he's given, but seriously, can we talk about how amazing he is in this? Yes, the production of the viral makes a big difference-- the cheery but slightly sinister music, the unseen narrator asking him questions, even the whole color scheme is meticulously designed and really effective. But Fassbender's performance, moving his head less than a real human would, or carefully orchestrating that single tear for emotions he doesn't feel, sells David as a robot almost instantly. The robot character is a clear nod to the androids played by Ian Holm and Lance Henriksen in the first two Alien movies, but all respect to those two, Fassbender might be capable of blowing them both away.
Prometheus opens June 6, and for all the marketing we've been seeing lately, I still feel like it will carry a lot of surprises. You can catch up on everything else we know about the movie in our Blend Film Database.
