Meet David 8, Android of the Prometheus
Fox has released a new chapter to their viral marketing campaign for the highly anticipated upcoming sci-fi epic Prometheus, introducing the ship’s android ‘David 8’ (portrayed by Shame actor Michael Fassbender). ‘David 8’ is butler and maintenance staff to the ship Prometheus. Mashable reveals the various new marketing releases, including a faux commercial from Weyland Industries, a full-page advertisement and a code cracking puzzle on ProjectPrometheus.com.
The viral film, titled Happy Birthday David, portrays ‘David 8’ as a perfect model of android… perhaps somewhat too perfect? Bordering on strange? His calm tone is reminiscent of that of the HAL 9000, the malicious supercomputer of Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, and combined with his prim appearance (combined with an expression somewhat similar to that of David Bowie’s in The Man Who Fell to Earth – a performance that inspired Fassbender for this role) makes one a little wary of his character. The short film describes the ‘David 8’s emotional capacities, provoking the apprehension (when juxtaposed to our first impressions of him) that he could possibly be an antagonistic character. However even though that would normally be our first assumption, since media containing evil AI is all around us (WALL-E, the Portal series, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Terminator series etc), in Alien the android Ash was antagonistic but in Aliens the android Bishop was a protagonist, so ‘David 8’ could be either good or bad in Prometheus. Michael Fassbender did not watch Alien and Aliens in preparation for his role, but instead watched Ridley Scott’s previous work Blade Runner. Fassbender told Los Angeles Times last year how special Blade Runner was to him:
“It’s my favorite movie. I just love that movie. And really I love all the different versions, I just don’t care, I love that world and whatever you want to take from it you can take from it, nothing is fore-set in any way. I love that it’s a very feasible futuristic place, and again that quality that you’re in a thriller but you don’t know it. There’s always something at play and everyone has an agenda but none of it is really openly expressed.”
The full-page advertisement is to be displayed in The Wall Street Journal, showing a full-body image of the ‘David 8’ android, complete with shining blond hair (modeled after T.E. Lawrence, an individual who inspired Weyland Industries founder Peter Weyland – portrayed by Guy Pearce). The poster also shows collaboration with telecommunications company Verizon.
The code cracking puzzle lets one discover 8 emotions that ‘David 8’ is capable of using, yet they are mostly eerily indistinguishable under ‘David 8’s impassive expression.
This campaign has sparked more intrigue into the ‘David 8’ android, and it will very exciting to see the final result. Prometheus hits UK cinemas June 1st 2012.
News, video and image source – Mashable
Interview source – Los Angeles Times