Friday, March 10, 2017

Build Me a Michael Fassbender of My Own

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I suppose nobody questioned building an Ian Holm robot or a Lance Henriksen robot in the previous Alien films but I don't know, for some reason (and y'all know how deep my Fassbender affections runs, so let me get away with saying this) Fassy feels a little long in the tooth as the final robot design in Alien: Covenant, doesn't he? Here watch the new trailer slash commercial for "Walter"...
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I think what feels so suddenly discordant about a well-worn mug in this situation is the context. Ian Holm & Lance Henrikson's "character actor" mugs fit the surroundings of Alien and Aliens, which were dirty and working class. By contrast Walter is birthed out of a shiny perfume commercial - his synthetic exo-skeleton would look perfectly fine laid right beside Fassbender's real-life girlfriend's Ex Machina beauty-bot.

And so - and damn me for saying such a thing - it just feels weird that these sleek and surface-charmed science folks would create a robot that's so... you know. Weathered.

Like you couldn't give him a beauty treatment, Ridley? 
Maybe a little extra make-up?

Listen - I want a Michael Fassbender Robot. We all want a Michael Fassbender Robot, as long as he's, you know, built to scale. And I'm pretty sure there's the slyest of dirty-minded nods to why we all want this built-to-scale Michael Fassbender Robot in the trailer...

... when a very specific section of the robot seems to twitch, as seen in that gif there. And all of this is probably moot thinking since the film will probably give us a reason why "Walter" looks like "David," the robot from the first Prometheus film, and all of this make some sense in that context. (And remember the similar video they did for Prometheus with David?)


4 comments:

Theatre of Zen said...

Walter looks "weathered" my dear so that he can blend in better with regular human beings. That's the key to looking like a human, but still being a synthetic humanoid. Look human, but is so much more superior in intelligence, strength and stamina.

:p

Jason Adams said...

Well sure except all the "people" in this fake advertisement are more polished than he is. I'm not saying it's impossible that the unease isn't on purpose - this commercial's clearly meant to feel "off." But there's a real "building a sex robot" vibe to the whole thing and it just feels incongruous that the final product isn't a younger more pore-less specimen.

I say all of this with love in my heart for every well-earned wrinkle on Michael Fassbender's face ;)

Theatre of Zen said...

I look at it the opposite, Walter looked more real, more human, more approachable and trust worthy, not perfect, than those so called humans in the advert.

We both love our weathered fassy, so it's all good. :)

Sam said...

Agreed. Should have been Trevante Rhodes.