Michael Fassbender talks David’s character development in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog. Fassbender fields some questions about David’s progression as a character from Prometheus to Alien: Covenant, explaining that:
“I knew that David was the idea of a prototype, and what would happen if you could have a robot that could essentially have human traits to it? That vanity was there with David, and that was an interesting characteristic to play with, within an AI or android or synthetic or robot. I knew that I could have a lot of fun with that. There’s also a neediness to him, there’s also very much a butler element to him, a need to please. There were a lot of things there that were ambiguous in terms of what his motivations were, and that’s always something fun to play with. So that now, as I said, he’s evolved. Those characteristics were set, so now let’s see what happens to them years later when they come upon him again.
That was definitely the upsetting thing for I think other members of the crew — the fact that he had these human traits as opposed to a very sort of logical, straightforward robot that is there to serve. There’s an element to David which is very self-serving.”
Fassbender also talks a little about his other character, Walter, reaffirming what he previously said about Walter being an updated model.
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Glad you got a laugh
Intentionality and influence are spurious points for argument. From what we know, O'Bannon and Giger were influenced primarily by Lovecraft in their approach to the creature. It's no accident that Giger's art book was called the Necronimicon. While von Daniken influence is possible, AFAIK, no one pointed to it in the making of the original film. And the mere existence of a pyramid does not automatically say "von Daniken." In this case, I think the answer is no.
First, we're informed by the cultural and architectural heritage we've inherited. That is, we think of pyramids because we've got pyramids. It makes sense to use pyramids as the pyramids on earth are quite old and impressively large. And yet, humans made them.
Next, we can't really think like aliens because we're humans. We can try to imagine things beyond the sphere of human knowledge, but we do so from our position within that sphere. In the end, our aliens end up looking like things we've seen right here on earth, and our alien places sort of resemble places found on earth, too. At the very least, the building blocks are accessible to our human minds.
Finally, it is at this point impossible to really settle the point. O'Bannon and Giger are both gone. We could ask Scott, but he has shown a willingness in interviews to say whatever is in his mind at the moment - You couldn't really trust his answer. So there we are. Lovecraft then, von Daniken now.
And was re-used for Prometheus and AVP, so it is there.
The art I'm referring to isn't by Giger. Originally the explorers were to enter a pyramid, and discover hieroglyphs much like AVP/Prometheus.
https://alienseries.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/sd.png
Although Giger did to artwork for some hieroglyphs:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-JopdaJWvN3w%2FT2ZfNRBweMI%2FAAAAAAAABhM%2F6A9qwu70y_g%2Fs1600%2FH.R.%2BGiger%2BAlien%2BHeiroglyphic.jpg&hash=8a184fe65640c2549466093868b3efb2c1457cd0
I thought the argument was that O'Bannon wasn't influenced by Von Daniken. But in the original script for Alien they enter a pyramid, do they not? Pyramids are found on Earth, hence the ancient aliens theory popularised by Von Daniken in the late 60s/early 70s. But Lovecraft's work also carries the some of the same ideas decades earlier.
*Fixed quotes. Hicks
Just a little thought concerning this point you've brought up - I agree that the shot where the 'Big Chap' dangles and then hits off the shuttle was the one truly poor shot of the alien in the movie, as it really looked like a guy in a rubber suit.
Thankfully, we'd all been immersed in a great movie by that point, and had been treated to many awesomely filmed angles of the 'Big Chap' by that point already. However, there's an alternative, unused shot in the extras where the 'guy in the suit' (on the rope) is seen through the window as it heads towards our viewpoint and bounces off the window leaving a slight smear with it's hand - I ALWAYS wish that Ridley had used this angle instead, as the shot looked far more effective and had far more of an impact I thought, as the 'guy in the suit' collided with a thud towards us. I seem to recall that it's missing the tail as well as Ripley (in white spacesuit) looking out of the window...so it must have been a test shot of some sort I guess. However, it could have been a terrific shot if it had been worked on a little more. Oh well.
(by the way, I laughed at your suggestion that GIGER might have thought the 'Deacon' baby looked like a 'dinosaur'! Thankyou, as I KNEW there was something that was bothering me about it's appearance that I couldn't quite put my finger on - it's not just the fact that it's kinda posed like one on it back haunches shiffing about, it's also the the fact that it kinda 'roars' like one too)
All of which is more or less irrelevant for a number of reasons.
1. A lot of that stuff was straight out cut from Alien. It's not there.
2. Even if it had been in there, most of it would have been with H.R. Giger's style (Like the hieroglyphs that were made but never used.). It would not have had a Chariots of the Gods vibe. It would still retain the "At The Mountains of Madness" feeling. Lovecraftian, distant, ALIEN, horror...
3. Total Recall is not Alien. They're different stories. Even then, O'Bannon never implied anywhere in any bit of the scripts available that the Jockey or Xeno were related to us at all. It was an A L I E N. Not from here. Unknown to us in every sense. Heck, even in TC they don't even imply that the aliens were related to us. They have very different hands as we see from the atmospheric generator's control.
The original Alien referenced Von Daniken with the concept art showing pyramids. In fact, AVP and Prometheus went back to a lot of the original ideas not used for Alien. Giger and O'Bannon were influenced by Von Daniken. You can see Egyptian influences in some of Giger's paintings. O'Bannon worked on Total Recall which has the ancient aliens idea.
This^^^
I have to disagree with anyone who tries to claim the alien wasn't intentionally biomechanical in Alien.
I think that the Alien being BIOMECHANICAL was something very deliberate during the making of of that film. Even if it wasnt in the original script, great pains are taken in the film to relate the monster to the ship, in subtext, but also in design. You simply cannot deny that the Alien is meant to blend in with the ship/camouflage with it. In addition, giving it acid for blood, having the robot relate to it/become fixated on it, the ship's MOTHER seemingly nurturing it - there are even hints that the Aliens are able to communicate with the ship and that thread continues into Aliens.
Spoiler
That's all in addition to the Biomechanical nature of the Derelict and the Space Jockey "growing out of the chair."
It may even make MORE sense if the android introduces this aspect to it and the reason for the Biomechanical aspects disappearing in later films is because it works its way out of the monsters replication from human to human through each film?
I really doubt david creates the Alien in the end.
It seemed very rooted into Prometheus that black goo would lead to Alien-like creature anyway.
Plus the SJ had mural with it, so it's likely it already existed.
David must have much darker/sinister purpose.
Spoiler
Sure, the 'egg' and subsequent 'facehugger' stages look purely 'biological'...but we definately end up with METALLIC teeth by the time the 'chestburster' arrives, and it's not unreasonable to assume that all the 'tubing' design details on it and the eventual fully-grown 'Big Chap' are somewhat BIO-MECH in nature.
I always looked on it's 'bio-mechanical' traits as just coming to the fore at that mid-way 'chestburster' stage, and along with it's 'acidic blood', it all added up to the 'Xenomorph' being a VERY 'alien' creature indeed.
And I certainly don't recall Ridley ever going on record to contradict this same general assumption by many others, concerning this creature's overall 'biology'.
As far as I know, the creatures in ALIENS, ALIEN3, and ALIEN RES all kept the metallic teeth too...cementing that particular feature into their look. But, on the other hand...Cameron chose to give the 'Queen' itself some 'translucent', non-metallic teeth...so that's a bit of a conundrum I give you - however I choose to just 'ignore' that particular anomaly as not being important in the overall 'bio-mechanical' scheme of things - at least they looked dangerously sharp...unlike a certain young 'Deacon's 'enamel' dentures, which looked disappointingly un-threatening.
The fact is, between Ridley's original onscreen 'Big Chap' and his otherworldly 'space jockey', things DID look decidedly 'bio-mechanical' in nature overall...and if EVERYTHING continues to point to a purely BIOLOGICAL make-up where his creatures are concerned in these PROMETHEUS follow-ups...then that leaves me with a big 'discontinuity' issue to overcome with my way of looking at his original movie's creature.
...which will just increase my contentment of choosing to look on these 'prequels' as merely being an 'alternative', expanded universe type of storyline, unconnected to the original movie's 'actual' backstory whatsover.
the facehugger looks 100% biological too. so the biomech aspect would then originate somehow from the embryo taking human traits? doesnt sound right. it looks biomechanical, true. never means it's actually biomechanical. its got an exoskeleton fcol. its shaped differently, it's alien.
also, where in what alien movie has there actually been mentioned 'biomechanical' ? i know it looks like that, and the giger art is definately biomechanical, but should we actually see the creature as such?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a concept he's had in the back of his mind for decades now. Val may have some quotes over at Strange Shapes.
I dont think this is possible given what we already know. I know this is something people hate, but to me, since we know the creature already exists, and that the goo somehow mutates/takes apart DNA, and restructures it, into something like the Alien... This is why I actually promote the idea that the Black Goo is a nanotech biomechanical agent. Seen this way, the Engineers just created all these different strains of nanotechnology that serve to restructure genetic material, and if it can fuse technology with mechanical parts, that leave room for some intense biomechanical horror in future episodes, but it also allows for the idea that David isn't RESPONSIBLE for CREATING the Xeno, but just that he messed around with it and fused mechanics with biology. Instead this would suggest that he simply did what the Engineers must have already been able to do.
HOWEVER - I think Ridley Scott will be taking this a step further, and what we will be getting is DAVID doing things like this^^ in order to create 'The Perfect Organism.' Meaning, that David will be trying to build on what the Engineers have done before to PERFECT the ALIEN, and that is why I believe we will see that David WILL try and introduce his own-self and formulas to it. David creating life. The way we created him. That seems to be the overarching theme here. For better or worse.
I didn't say it mattered. I was just saying that Ridley has probably heard of Lovecraft. That's all I was referring too.
Prometheus had some nice Lovecraft touches in it. Parts reminded me of At the Mountains of Madness.
just like Milburn and Fifield when they are stood with their flashlights observing the gigantic pile of dead bodies 😉
I'm sure he's at least heard of Lovecraft. Especially if he talked to O'Bannon in personal conversations who was a Lovecraft nut. The original monster in O'Bannon's script was very Lovecraft inspired.
given how diehard fans of lovecraft that both O'Bannon and giger were and that the Alien comes straight from the necronomicon of giger ALSO that O'Bannon wrote alien as taking place within the mythos of lovecraft and also how heavily steeped in mythos lore prometheus actually is ( for those that actually read lovecraft anyways 😉) idea bet that Scott absolutely knows about lovecraft .
I dont think Ridley is the type of guy who's aware of Lovecraft.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2017/01/19/michael-fassbender-offers-insight-into-his-alien-covenant-roles/
Well said.
As far as David creating the classic beast is concerned, yeah I share your concerns, but Haag gave me reason to suspect it won't be so clear cut. Any process of demystification will always be hard, especially with a fairly unforgiving, established fandom, but if it turns out that David is merely re-creating or re-animating a process some Great Old One already performed, I'd be fine with that. I don't see Scott messing with the grandeur of the original Derelict scene other than perhaps providing more context, but nothing more. It all remains to be seen!
Put those two things together and it loses some of what made the original derelict and space jockey scene great.
Really I'm onboard with wherever this story is going except for the idea of David creating the alien.
Well, hang on a sec, in Lovecraft's mythos the Great Old Ones ruled on Earth for a time and then proceeded to fall into a death-like sleep, well, per Prometheus, many died and one fell asleep. Thus humans are still irrelevant ultimately, it's more that the preconceptions and/or expectations the fandom held about the Space Jockey were subverted and Prometheus tonally was not horrifying enough, and yet, because Scott has to address the Engineers' 'creator', that presents an opportunity for more Lovecraftian cosmicism (better executed and actually horrifying, hopefully!), since if it is something akin to an "Outer God"; something truly alien, both Engineers and Human beings are irrelevant alike.
I watched Alien again tonight with someone who'd never seen it (always fun that), and the SJ looks and is described by Dallas as being 'fossilised'. It simply looks like the skeleton/exo-skeleton of an organism, right down to the distinctly un-humanoid body proportions (super tall, huge chest cavity, long arms).
The route they went down was the SJ being an exo-suit made with biotechnology (which, it follows, would decompose/harden) and it works, they even addressed Dallas's comment about it appearing to 'grow out of the chair'... but the proportions of that original SJ anatomy... they'll never be able to write their way out of that. I'm able to gloss over this personally
Didn't Ridley say it was always a suit? I know it wasn't written that way by O'Bannon, but over the years before Prometheus I thought he commented on it being a suit?
I've always liked this drawing of the Space Jockey.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg06.deviantart.net%2F4d1f%2Fi%2F2010%2F314%2F7%2F7%2Fspace_jockey_ii_by_bloommer-d32jg3r.jpg&hash=b20ce92e2bf79e9f45b18b7906a80c66c2bc9ae6
And whether the 'Big Chap' is shown to be cooked up by David in COVENANT or not, if this 'Xenomorph' just turns out to be yet another NON-'bio-mechanical' creature, then that will only confirm my way of looking at it for me.
I'm certainly looking forward to what COVENANT brings, due to the fact that I'm curious to see how Ridley chooses to tackle the numerous headscratching elements his PROMETHEUS movie threw up. However, I'll enjoy it more by imagining it's a totally seperate thing to the more 'Giger-esque' vibe of his original ALIEN movie.
This is how I feel as well.
Its a major part of the "alien"ness of the series in the first place. The cthulhu-esque eldritch dread and terror has already been seriously eroded by Prometheus and its ancient astronaut "they are us" story.
Good point about the cannon fodder, and it definitely implies it was manufactured by someone/something for that very purpose. Not taking anything away from Cameron's film. It was masterful in its own way, and I'm extremely glad it was made. I just think the alien aspect got lost somewhere after that film. Alien 3 was a retread of Alien, and was beautifully made, but it didn't go any further into the mythos. I personally liked Resurrection's story, and enjoyed the mutant aspect of it all. None of the sequels other than Aliens really dived into the greater narrative, and tha's ok because it was about Ripley and the company. With Prometheus though, now we're talking about engineers, deacons, potential Gods and Devils, and all the stuff in between. I think David making the xenomorph we see in the original series is fine because of how it was played out. With subsequent films we can get more into the Alien universe, and I think that is what a lot of us wanted. It's just my opinion, but I'd rather have the film universe with xenomorphs, engineers, deacons, and who knows what else is coming more than just another xenomorph tale.
Sure it does. In the first instance they managed to get passed those sentries to the pressure door. When that didn't work, they doubled back and tried the direct attack in the hall. When that seemingly failed they doubled back again and tried from above. They adapted very quickly.
*sigh* They were always intended to be "cannon fodder" in that sense. That's why they bleed acid in the first place.
That was a problem O'bannon wracked his head over for days and days while writing. "Why don't they just shoot the f*cking thing?!" Because he wanted to avoid the cliche "bullets cannot stop it!" He wanted a believable creature. An actual, honest-to-God organism.
So when the marines arrive with their rifles and start pulverizing the aliens, that is as O'Bannon always intended. And even with that, Camereon still made them tough-as-shit. "We can't afford to let even one of those bastards in here." Handguns having little to no effect unless used as point blank range. There ability to change tactics, to circumvent defenses.
Also, ALIENS was a huuuuuuuge success and catapulted the series into an actual franchise. I would not say it "starts" there at all. The series would not be nearly as big if they had just done another gothic-horror in space.
That and its just so contrived.
That's not entirely true. If anything, it makes the series even more complex. The xenomorphs being reduced to cannon fodder bugs almost killed the series imo. This would add some complexity. Prometheus has opened the door for more creative ideas going forward imo.
...and you just destroyed the entire series...