why not just hire an older actor for Weyland?

yes is a bit of a stupid decision ...even because Guy Pearce would have been a great Crew member instead of Vickers

Not only that, the makeup job looked pretty freaking crap!

You see the problem with using a different actor is its fine when we are doing the young Weyland as a boy to man... But if we used a different old Actor, its going to look nothing like Guy Pierce. The make up to do old people is good nowadays so why not.... Only problem with Weyland as far as i was concerned was its a shame this movie was not 3 hours or split into two parts... Thus movie ends after the Engineer decided to suit up and get into the Chair.... Either way would have allowed a extra 40 min to give some depth to some of the plot elements..

the list of things wrong with this movie is almost alarming... i think it was made simply because some billionaires had money to blow.

I was hoping that Lance Henriksen would have gotten the role of Weyland, there would have been a more "live forever at all costs" aspect to the story line and a tie between the two franchises... but alas, I guess Pearce being a professed Atheiest fits Weyland's profile and boast, "We are the Gods now".

I think Frantz is right. Guy Pearce would have been a great addition to the crew. But what is done is done.

I think the extended edition might have added bits to it which will include the young Weyland speech scene. So I guess its for continuity reasons... But if they could make Josh Brolin resemble a young Tommy Lee Jones (MIB3)...then why not get another actor?

The whole Guy Pearce in old man makeup bit just did not work at all. He looked fake and there was no point to it. Would have been better if Scott had played Weyland himself.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. I think you missed the point. Weiland could be back for the sequel. Maybe they bring him back to life, make him younger again. I also thought the makeup was great. Stop being so bitter.

I have literally not seen one single good thing said about Weyland's old man makeup. That makeup seems to be even more universally scorned by fans than Milburn's judgment on the handling of unfamiliar life forms. So then, let me be the first. [i]I actually thought the old man makeup was just fine. [/i] Yes, yes -- you could tell it was an actor in old man makeup, but [i]you can always tell, can't you?[/i] Yes, he did look different from the made-up old people we've seen in other movies -- but there's a perfectly good reason for that. He's not supposed to look like a typical old person from our era, and he's not even a typical old person from his own era. Medical science has been advancing for 81 years beyond the current day, and Weyland has unlimited money to spend on every treatment known to science. They've been able to mitigate some of the effects of aging, but not others. How the hell do you know what a trillionaire 102-year-old will look like in 2093? It was [i]supposed[/i] to look unfamiliar!

- Maybe he wanted to work with Guy Pierce. - Maybe the people who do old man prosthetics needed a job. - Maybe they shot scenes with a young Weyland that ended up not being included in the film. - Maybe they want to win awards for make up and special effects Too many possibilities. We will never know until Ridley Scott replies to the thread. [quote]How the hell do you know what a trillionaire 102-year-old will look like in 2093? [/quote] Well now that you mention the date and year, I think he should look a lot younger than the way he does in the film. People's life span are increasing, 80 years from know it might be common place to live to be well over 100. Look at Charlize Theron, she is half Weyland's age today and looks more than twice as good.

I totally agree Skoobie. Spot on points you make. I saw the film again & thought the Weyland makeup is fantastic. It's really clean. I think this film is going to win lots of technical oscars... including makeup for this & the Engineers. Great work guys.

When you are spending this amount of money to make the unbelievable believable, why not get an older actor instead of making a younger actor look like a drip candle. There are so many older actors who could have nailed this part. My nominee would be Christopher Plummer but my wife had an idea which would have been intriguing on a number of levels: Peter O'Toole.

I agree with skoobie. Makeup is good enough now to make people look good as old folks. The setting and background of the movie, is why he looks like he does. We don't know what kind of sorcery he's done to himself to stay alive. With that said, it's easy to ridicule old-person make up and say its crap when you know what the person looks like in real life.

Silly apologists in this forum. The makeup looked terrible, and his overacting the limps and flinching doesn't help. O'Toole would have been a great addition as another poster mentioned. The TED conference is a non-issue as it's not even in the film. Citing that as justification is blind defensiveness.

Silly haters in this forum...

well having all the alien movies i think they shouldve kept lance henrikson due to the fact that that in " aliens ' the bishop android was modeled after weyland, so that pretty much ends the convo right there...how can you have 2 different weylands?...this was set before the 1st " alien " but weyland industries was still around so right there lance henrikson wouldve been a really safe bet because you have him in aliens, alien 3 and avp as weyland...and even in the directors cut lance said that he was modeled after the designer of the bishop android, so right there having 2 different guys playing mr.weyland is moot

I really think they used Guy Pearce in make up because there will be scenes going back in time, before the voyage, in the next movie, probably filling up missing parts to this first movie, and so Guy Pearce will have his presence as Weyland for sure. And yes, the makeup was really terribly done....even FaceOff guys culd have done something less precary... As for Lance Enriksen (I read it here) please...I like the actor, but it would tie to the sequels and in a nonsense way as the guy died on those sequels...there is a limit to what incoherence comes into surface...that is, if some here still keep Aliens and the AVP movies as canon (not my case, not ever...)

Sorry but that make up looked bad there's no way round it it was one of the goofs of this film unfortunately - hopefully we wont see him old again like that :O ! Sorry to the makeup guys (not sure if it was just the makeup anyway) - it just didn't work! But as for the reasons - yes they were going to shoot a scene with guy in a yacht in spain but it mysteriously disappeared and even tough they were there for quiet a while nothing has been linked to that shoot which is making people speculate! Also yes they had shot TED as well so the ball was rolling - it was too late to change course they thought but they seriously should of used someone like Anthony hopkins from the start - making him young or using a different actor would of been better and yes guy could of been one of the crew - he is a great actor...