Let's see some love for Guy Pearce as Weyland!!

PROLOGUE to my main post: Non spoiler issues when I went to see the movie;

First up I bought my Nachos and melty cheese and my melty ice cream, looked at the films list in the cinema and had to find a cinema member of staff!

I told them "Look, I've been waiting five years for this and I can't see 'Liaen Oven Can't' listed anywhere!  There's been a few name changes, from Prometheus 2 to Alien Paradise so I hope you've kept up with the current title"

The smart-ass tried to tell me the actual current title was Alien Covenant and I told them that's not what the advert on the bus said! Anyway I paid my money and honestly, I think it was money well spent!

My real reason for this post is to heap some praise on Guy Pearce!  I love his character of Weyland.  Also I think the Weyland and David prologue give a vital insight into the themes that make AC not just a gore fest.  I love how this part shows us some bits of our real culture like the art and design and Michael Angelo's creation, David-the statue.  Of course the statue is a pale white giant with familiar features again reminding us of the engineers.  The choice of music David plays, Richard Wagner's "The Gods Entering Valhalla" also makes us think of who the Gods are, who are the creators and who is the created?

I think the Weyland character is fascinating and does have some real world parallels.  Prime candidate is surely Elon Musk, the most likely person to get space exploration going with just the money from his own pocket rather than NASA or any other Country's Government space agency.  2nd place goes to Richard BRANSON (Branson? he's in the film isn't he?!).  If either of these two start going on about us being the Gods now, we should keep an eye on them! Especially if they also start a line of androids/replicants!

I really hope we see a bit more of Weyland again in the next movie.  I'm sure Ripley can think of another flashback that again sheds some light on some of the themes.  I'm really glad we saw young Weyland again after enjoying the TED talk prologue for Prometheus.  I actually wish now the TED talk was actually in the 1st movie,  I watched a fan edit with TED and all the extra/deleted bits thrown back in and I loved it.  Weyland has some interesting things to say about our history of discovery/creation/invention of tools from fire thru gunpowder to the printing press right up to androids.  Interestingly all of these things can be used for good or bad, it's our choice....

I don't see much written about Guy Pearce in the movie, everyone says "Fassbender gives a masterclass performance" but I genuinely think Pearce is a good actor too.  I love how his face falls when David is kinda getting a bit uppity and tells him to pour the tea!  You can see here that David is a bit surprised that he seems to be better than his own creator.  He is perfect, has a better brain, will never die of old age etc etc.

Their conversation is very important:

“If you created me” David asks of Weyland, “Who created you?”.
“All art and design are meaningless in the face of the question of where do we come from” he answers (or words to that effect).

So here's a toast to Weyland the character and Guy Pearce the actor!

I would even love to see a stand alone movie with a young Weyland and maybe featuring his pal Eldon Tyrell and his creations.  Maybe I won't get that movie but maybe a book or graphic novel?  I hope Weyland is somehow featured in Alien:Origins and sheds some more light on this universe :-)

PS Everybody watching The Eurovision Song Contest??!! Ukraine's band are on now and seem to have a giant engineer head on their stage!  They must have have been inspired by Prometheus and AC!