Creating viral videos to promote movie releases is nothing new, but in one sense, I’ve never seen anything quite like this Peter Weyland talk at TED2023. For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about, Peter Weyland is one half of Weyland Yutani, the mega corporation we all and love from the Aliens film series. TED is a yearly conference that invites the brightest minds from around the world to speak on various topics, such as technology, medicine, and various social issues. TED is a real organization, and I find it fascinating that Ridley Scott – director of the upcoming spiritual prequel to Aliens – managed to convince them to host one of his fake talks.
This video features Peter Weyland (played by the awesome Guy Pearce) talking about the history of mankind, from our humble origins right through to the development of nano technology. The video is done in the format of a real TED talk, but to a much grander scale. It seems that TED has grown exponentially between now and the year 2023. If you’re still confused, watch the video and all will be explained.
Peter Weyland at TED2023: I will change the world
Before watching this, I had no idea that Guy Pearce was such an incredible speaker. Peter really does come off as a man of ambition and grand vision. Who would have thought? An actor who can act! Aside his exceptional speaking, I love his story of Prometheus. Yes, Prometheus is the name of the movie, but the director could have simply left it at that. Ridley Scott isn’t the first person to borrow from the Prometheus mythos, with other writers such as Mary DeMarle doing the same thing for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but it’s still an interesting bit of story, and one that I imagine will be especially relevant to this movie.
Prometheus hits theaters this June. If you’re looking for more information on Peter Weyland, head over to the TED website. Aside from having a bit more Prometheus promo material, TED is full of hundreds of amazing talks from incredible speakers; it’s well worth the visit.
If all trailers were this good, I could watch them without foregoing the movie.