In advance of the May 19 release of Alien: Covenant, the sequel to 2012's Prometheus, the usual movie trailers will be accompanied by a high-quality online short, the 2.5-minute Meet Walter, which details the origin story of the android successor to Prometheus's David, both played by Michael Fassbender.
Meet Walter is a futuristic fusion of molecular bioengineering, artificial intelligence, and mechanics. It's directed by Luke Scott (son of Alien: Covenant director Ridley), in partnership with chip maker AMD, creative agency 3 AM, and RSA Films. Yes, it's product placement, but it's artfully executed.
PCMag dropped by RSA Films in Los Angeles last week to discuss all things Walter. Deceptively unobtrusive from the outside—there's no sign out front—the building actually stretches back over 6,000 square feet. It resembles an architectural firm more than a film studio, with a vintage Triumph motorcycle parked outside and a Golden labrador napping inside the reception area. Large Indonesian-style ceiling fans sweep silently across the inner sanctum, and natural light filters in from a gravel-based atrium that provides shade fom the harsh Southern California midday sun when needed.
Inside, we were joined by Chris Eyerman, Creative Director at 3 AM, the newish joint venture between RSA Films and ad agency Wild Card. Eyerman recently moved to 3 AM after working on movie campaigns for Prometheus and The Hunger Games, and served as creative lead on Meet Walter. Luke Scott was also patched in on speakerphone from RSA Films's London office, while Robert Hallock, AMD's technology evangelist, dialed in from Austin, Texas.
Luke, let's start with you. Describe how Meet Walter came about.
[LS] I was given a really beautiful treatment that was a result of a discussion between Ridley, 3 AM, and 20th Century Fox. It was a highly evolved view of what it might take to create a robot/humanoid-like Walter, with a very high-tech focus. But I wanted to back it up a bit first. I knew we needed to recall the past androids, too.
Referring back to Ash, the first android in the original Alien movie?
[LS] Right. I wanted to go back, in some way, to the initial shock of Ash's appearance and especially when he has his head ripped off and all that white liquid came out.
Chris, you worked on the last Alien movie, Prometheus. How does Meet Walter build on what, following Ash in the original, we then learned about David?
[CE] Our starting point was to essentially juxtapose Walter with David, and the other androids we know from the Alien universe. Walter is the opposite of David, they've taken out some of the idiosyncrasies from David, who was much more human-like; in contrast, Walter is built to serve.
Luke, did Michael Fassbender have any input into this in-world short? Or did you tell him to 'hit the mark, lie down and we'll make you into an android (again)'?
[LS] (laughs). This project was somewhat dropped on him as an additional process he had to go through for Alien: Covenant. But he's a very gracious actor. Walter, and David, are both unique to him, as characters he's brought to life. But, yes, in the end, it was 'Please get in that plastic bag and we're going to smear you with muck' sort of direction from me.
Let's cut to the product shot of the AMD chip being inserted into Walter. Robert, is that an actual chip you made in the AMD lab and shipped to Sydney where they shot Alien: Covenant and Meet Walter?
[RH] Ah no, sadly it's not.
[CE] (interrupts) Our production design team made that chip after we had many discussions on what a chip from 100 years or so hence might look like.
[LS] In fact, we fired a few questions at AMD about how chips might evolve and they came back and said: 'It probably won't look a lot different, but the processing enabled by that chip is going to be extraordinary' so we started there.
It's always a bit of a disappointment to realize how little some things will change. But aside from the form factor, let's extrapolate on what it will do. Robert, explain how AMD's chips of the future will be powering A.I.
[RH] It's not inconceivable that AI algorithms could one day fit into a simple microprocessor. It's a way off, but not inconceivable. As a technology company, we are already starting to make products that accelerate artificial intelligence. We have a software stack and a hardware stack that can be bought off the shelf by companies investing in the AI space today. It's very delicate work for a machine to make associations that humans do, easily, all the time, for instance, the difference between a tree and a rose. We're really interested in speeding up the inference training and categorization part.
Reducing visual recognition and cognitive comprehension (rose or tree?) to a math problem to make it solvable by AMD tech?
[RH] Exactly. Our GPUs are highly programmable devices that can deal with any math problem. And, in the end, AI is really a very advanced, and elegant, math problem, and so we're using that programmable math potential for AI. As an example, our forthcoming product line, Radeon Instinct, can be installed within a massive server setup to create a very complicated neural network.
That might, one day, power a new superintelligent line of androids. But we can't put AMD on the spot and ask when the company will be powering embodied AI. Outside of the Meet Walter in-world short, of course. So let's hear from all three of you when you first saw the original Alien movie.
[RH] I wasn't born then [1979]. But my dad showed it to me when I was 10. It's a masterpiece.
[CE] I wasn't either. But it was the first R-rated movie I saw, and inspired my love of cinema.
Luke?
[LS] Are you kidding? I was in it. (laughs)
Related
- 'Morgan' Puts a New, Chilling Twist on the Usual Movie Cyborg'Morgan' Puts a New, Chilling Twist on the Usual Movie Cyborg
You were?
[LS] Yes! I was 8 eight years old, or so. My brother, Jake Scott, now also a director at RSA Films, and I, together with another boy, we walk across the planet's surface in small space suits.
Wow, okay. Back to Meet Walter for the final question. On the official site, there's a spec page and [fake] 'pre-order' form for your own synthetic companion, and Fassbender quotes 'how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge' from Frankenstein. Luke, please elaborate.
[LS] We used that quote to illustrate the self-reflexive nature of Walter. Mary Shelley was inspired by her mother, the writer and reformist Mary Wollenscraft, who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Men where she talks about grasping what lies beyond the boundaries of your own existence as true understanding.
So when, in Meet Walter, Fassbender says "he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow," he might be hinting at something of a Frankenstein theme in the Alien: Covenant. Guess we'll have to wait for May 19 to find out.