Peter Weyland a Robot

I welcome tinfoil hat theories as much as the next person (and incidentally, Tyrell from Blade Runner is revealed in some DVD extra to have also been a replicant). However, here that does not work. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that if you are right, then the creators undercut a major theme of the film they were making. Weyland quested for immortal, biological, life. It is strange that he still has to die given the perfectly fine robotic bodies available, but whatever, we buy into the idea that he views robotic life as inferior. It's his quest for immortality that makes him send the Prometheus expedition. He is the king that wouldn't die, that doesn't want to be replaced, that desires his biological soul to live on, in a biological body, forever. Can he be a robot that only thinks he's Weyland? Yeah, sure. But, why would the real Weyland have constructed such a copy if, to him, it is the same as dying? And why would the creators undermine their themes? (There are other arguments, like the way he dies. His heart stops, while David doesn't have a heartbeat at all, ever. Weyland's blood that fills the bruise on his head is red, not white. Oh, that's just to make the simulacrum more believable, one could say. But if one said that, we're firmly in conspiracy theory territory, and might as well claim that the sometimes fragmented plot of the film is really just a dream of Elizabeth Shaw.) Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a man in bad old age makeup really is supposed to just be an old man.

I have slept since I wrote this thread wish now that I had not posted it, Though I mention a few items that seemed to indicate that Weyland might be a robot(after a revent viewing) your mention of more broader view is quite clarifying. @BLANDCorporatio I liked how you gave an answered my questioning post. THere is another element that should be considered looking at Weyland's actions as he knews he is getting older: He is getting more desparate to find the answers now and has little time for pleasentries. But to dismiss his daughter, threaten to kill Shaw if she is not quiet and keeping Vickers out of the fasmily tree(so to speak) just struck me as being more of an android thought process then a caring Father with vast orgasnization to make all dreams come true.

Indy, Weyland is much more likely suffering from the same malady as Lucifer allegedly was. The sin of pride and arrogance. Of thinking he is equal with God to borrow from my early Catholic upbringing. He has become sociopathic due to his monumental physical achievements in the material world. It is a very human weakness that those who find great material wealth and celebrity often find them selves in a bubble cut off and isolated from the common man and from their own earlier lives and childhood. Look at Citizen Kane played so very well by Orson Welles, who also directed and wrote it. That is Weyland, but you know this now that you have had some sleep:)

Yea If only the Prometheus was named 'Rosebud' I could have seen a more direct connection to their personalities and weaknesses. Is our fate as humans be to become more like Weyland and in that sense more insular than fellow humans? Weyland becoming more self absorbed to the extent of willingly cutting off his familay and crew members from even having a chance at survival seems even more extreme than I first realized. It is no wonder if Weyland had considerable input into robotic development that our David8 has taken on some of the same traits, robotic and all. So allm and all Weyland is just a human trapped in a human frail body thinking he was above all of the huamn frailities he wanted to overcome. God rest his soul.

The last Engineer sure didn't think much of him. If you watch the extended version where he gets David to tell him how he made him to be perfect so he would never age, and then went on to rant about being the same as the Engineer in that they were both creators like gods and gods never die, at which point the Engineer seems to get the gist of it and ripps David's head off apparently in discust with Weyland. When David did translate the part about Weyland wanting to live forever the Engineer said "Why?! The Engineers were by comparison physically powerful and ideal in form and their culture seems to value sacrifice and probably think of it as honorable and courageous judging by what little we do see of their behaviors. In regards to your question in relation to the human condition, not all of us are destined to become weak like Weyland. We are a mixed species with some reflecting higher principles and some down in the mud wreaking violence on their fellow man. That is the essential truth of mankind, that we are all for the most part capable of intrinsic decent behavior and express the beauty within us all or we can follow in the footsteps of those such as the National Socialists of Germany for example. We are all both strong and heroic if we choose or weak and selfish. If we can reign in our lower selves then someday maybe we can travel to the stars on gravity driven ships that warp the fabric of space time into a loop touching two distant points like a piece of rolled paper with two sides across the diameter of the loop. We will never get their if we continue to think linearly or continue to engage each other like savages warring over theology and power.

PS I tried to correct a couple of misspellings but the system here would not let me so I meant 'there' instead of their and disgust is missing the g. Oh well.......