Happy Birthday, David

Happy Birthday, David
Cast & Crew
Directed by	Johnny Hardstaff
Starring	Michael Fassbender
Release Information
Release date(s)	April 17, 2012
Production comapnies	20th Century Fox
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Running time	3 minutes
Country of Origin	United States of America
Chronology
Preceded by	TED Conference, 2023
Followed by	Quiet Eye: Elizabeth Shaw

Happy Birthday, David is a 2012 short film directed by Johnny Hardstaff and starring Michael Fassbender. Created as part of the viral marketing campaign for Prometheus, the film serves as a fictional advertisement for the David 8 line of synthetics.

Plot

The film begins with a newly-manufactured, hairless David 8 android coming off of the production line, sealed inside a clear plastic bag. The advertisement then cuts to a completed, fully active David 8, who is questioned by an off-screen interviewer, asking what he can do, what he thinks about, what makes him sad (David begins to weep as he replies) and, finally, if there is anything David himself would like to say. Throughout, the interview is intercut with footage of various Davids going about their business or relaxing — this includes two Davids playing each other at chess, a David examining some flowers, a David undergoing a Rorschach test, a David examining a large-scale aerial urban plan he has just drawn, a David performing a response time test, and a David painting a model figurine of a man. Finally, the David being interviewed wishes himself a happy birthday, before pressing his finger to the screen, revealing the Weyland Corp logo laser-branded on his fingerprint, and reciting the David 8 slogan: "Technological. Intellectual. Physical. Emotional."

Cast

• David .... Michael Fassbender

Release

A shortened, teaser version of the video was made available exclusively to attendees of the Prometheus panel at the 2012 WonderCon event, held in Anaheim, California on March 17. During the panel, attendees were given exclusive Weyland Corp business cards, which contained the address of the official Prometheus website as well as a phone number. Calling this number resulted in the caller being sent a text message that then linked them to the video. The full short film was given a general release through YouTube exactly one month later.

Trivia

• A similar faux-advertisement for a new synthetic model, Meet Walter, would later be produced as part of Alien: Covenant's viral marketing campaign, this time promoting the Walter synthetic line.
• Each of the short films included on the Prometheus Blu-ray is accompanied by a transcripted message from Peter Weyland discussing the video and its content. Of these, the note accompanying Happy Birthday, David contains an oblique reference to the events of the film Blade Runner (which, like Alien and Prometheus, was directed by Ridley Scott). Although no names are mentioned, the message clearly refers to the character Eldon Tyrell from the film, as well as the "replicants" manufactured by his company and his death at the hands of Roy Batty, one such replicant. The general aesthetic similarities between Blade Runner and the Alien franchise have long been noted by fans, with some suggesting that the two could quite easily co-exist in a shared fictional universe; while the reference on the Blu-ray is seemingly intended as nothing more than an in-joke, the way it links the two series is nonetheless worthy of note.