Here’s the problem when you include Easter Eggs and othe bits of fun fan service in your work: sometimes its done so well, and inspires such fascinating possibilities, that it’s hard for the fans to have any idea whether you’re hinting at something new or just f***ing around. Because the simple desire to believe may give that Easter Egg a whole new weight you never intended, leading to disappointment when it turns out to have been merely a bit of fun. Play with fire, and you may just get burned…
For example, take this screenshot from a UK steelbook release of PROMETHEUS (similar special features are not confirmed for US release yet) shared via Reddit. The lines of text you see below are attributed to Guy Pearce’s character of Peter Weyland.
For those of you who may not be grinning (or glowering) with recognition right now, here’s what’s being referenced and thereby may or may not be going on: Weylan seems to be rather clearly referring to the character of Eldon Tyrell from BLADE RUNNER, CEO of that film’s Tyrell Corporation. Much of BLADE RUNNER‘s plot hinges on the existence of synthetic human creations called Replicants who bear implanted memories that deceive them into thinking they’re human, a connection you’ll note in the line above with Weyland referring to “those genetic abominations he enslaved and sold off-world, although his idea to implant them with flase memories…” Further, Weyland refers to his mentor as someone who “ran his corporation like a God on top of a pyramid overlooking a city of Angels.” Well, Tyrell’s office in BLADE RUNNER was located at the top of a pyramid-shaped building in the midst of Los Angeles. Insofar as more oblique referencing may go, Weyland describes how this mentor told him “it was time to put away childish things” and abandon his “toys.” In one of BLADE RUNNER‘s very best scenes, Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard visits the apartment of Tyrell’s once-android designer and collaborator J.F. Sebastian, a man who has since turned to building amazing mechanical toys.
So there you have it. Does this mean we’ll see Ridley Scott’s rumored BLADE RUNNER follow-up as a post-PROMETHEUS 2 project? Would you mind if this was just a bit of fun? Do you want to see the two universes connected? Do androids dream of electric sheep? I don’t know, but I certainly wouldn’t mind finding out the answers on the sooner side of things.
More as we hear it. PROMETHEUS hits Blu-ray and DVD tomorrow.
BLADE RUNNER’s Los Angeles
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