[SPOILERS] David: Creator...or RE-creator?

[Local Trouble]

Does anything in the movie rule out the possibility that David simply believes he created the alien even if the engineers had already created them in the past?  In other words, after tinkering with the goo and various lifeforms, he ended up producing an organism that he'd never seen before and was completely new from his point of view.  Naturally, he'd deduce that he created it since he had no knowledge of the derelict on LV-426.

[axiomatic]

If someone believes the world is flat, so be it.

Someone can believe the world is flat, sure.

But they're still wrong.

That analogy is less applicable when you're talking about fiction and art, which can have multiple interpretations.

Yes I recognize that you weren't the first person to make the analogy, but my point still stands.

In a way but this is a story and Ridley has told the audience that is consuming his work that this is what happened in his world. This is the way it happened and this is when it happened.

People arguing that he is 'wrong or misinterpreting his own universe' are sort of taking a weird angle to it.  The meaning of art is absolutely up for interpretation but not so much the factual part. You can't read a novel and tell me a character didnt do x when the novel and author both make it explicitly clear the character did.

There are enough inconsistencies within the two films where that explanation just does not fit. Even what is stated explicitly by David that the pathogen
does not interact with plantlife and becomes inert is shown to be false with the existence of the spores that result in the creation of the neos. So the character is contradicted by the very movie itself.

David is not really a pristine source of truth within the context of the story and a lot depends if you take him to be a rational actor or someone who lost touch with reality. Then there is the mural and the deacon and so on...

And I dont see that as an issue at all. Some fans prefer the logical matter of fact version because that is the kind of story they like. And some will focus on the more inconsistent parts and make up their own backstory. It's what fans generally do.

One thing I'm really curious about is if it was done on purpose like this or is it just bad storytelling.

[ChrisPachi]

Does anything in the movie rule out the possibility that David simply believes he created the alien even if the engineers had already created them in the past?

It's all very confusing, and probably intentionally so. For fans like me who what the xenomorph to be more than just an alien Frankenstein engineered by a crazy robot there is plenty to keep the dream alive: the murals in Prometheus, this little addition of the pre-existing egg in the novelisation and the vanishingly small space and time gap between David's "it's alive!" moment and the discovery of the derelict on LV-426.

That said though, it all kind of feels like nitpicking to me. The neomorphs on 'Paradise' are very close to the xenomorph, and they weren't engineered at all. The Deacon wasn't really engineered either. David doesn't really create anything, he just tweaks it a bit.

So I vote David: Tweaker.

[SiL]

Does anything in the movie rule out the possibility that David simply believes he created the alien even if the engineers had already created them in the past?  In other words, after tinkering with the goo and various lifeforms, he ended up producing an organism that he'd never seen before and was completely new from his point of view.  Naturally, he'd deduce that he created it since he had no knowledge of the derelict on LV-426.

Nothing in the movie rules out the possibility it's all a fever dream of Ripley's post Alien Resurrection.

[The Cruentus]

Does anything in the movie rule out the possibility that David simply believes he created the alien even if the engineers had already created them in the past?  In other words, after tinkering with the goo and various lifeforms, he ended up producing an organism that he'd never seen before and was completely new from his point of view.  Naturally, he'd deduce that he created it since he had no knowledge of the derelict on LV-426.

The only thing David says is that he created the "successes" that are in the cave, the novel has it where the Engineers did create them and David is copying them, there was an old egg or something. Huda mntioned in another thread that this egg can be seen in the workshop. I will try and look out for it on the my second veiwing.

[The_Foxcatcher]

so for those interested, this is what david said regarding creation in the film
"the pathogen was designed to effect all non-botanical life forms. all the animals. the meat, if you will. either kill them outright or keep them as incubators to spawn a hybrid form. highly aggressive"
"as you can see, i've become a bit of an amateur zoologist over the years. it's in my nature to keep busy i suppose. the pathogen took so many forms and was extremely mutable. fiendishly inventive in fact. the original liquid atomized particles when exposed to the air. ten years on, all that remains outside of the original virus are these gorgeous beasts. patience is everything. from the eggs, came these parasites. shock troops of the genetic sort, waiting for a host. entering the host. reigniting the dna, and ultimately producing, well, these enviable unions. my beautiful (something). soon enough i began a bit of genetic experimentation of my own. cross breeding, hybridizing, what have you"
so if we take this, and what happened to shaw, the sketches, and telling daniels that he's going to do to her what he did to shaw, i feel it's pretty safe to say she was used to help create the eggs
what i don't understand, and maybe the fact that the novel says he found eggs from the engineers indicates what this sentence means, but he says 'from the eggs, came these parasites'. what eggs? he didn't mention anything about eggs prior to this. so are these the engineer eggs the novel mentions? it would make sense, right?
also trying to get a grasp of what that means if true. so the eggs left by engineers had these parisites that he extracted and experimented on, with the black goo, to create his specimens, and then maybe used parts of shaw to create the eggs as we know them?
the fact he says 'soon enough i began a bit of genetic experimentation of my own' leads me to believe he is clearly following on from eggs that he found from the engineers. thoughts?

I was desperately searching for the explanation given by David about the infection to the Covenant crews "the pathogen was designed to effect all non-botanical life forms. all the animals. the meat, if you will. either kill them outright or keep them as incubators to spawn a hybrid form. highly aggressive". Thanks for posting it.

I earlier thought that the black goo mutated certain spore producing fungi (would fungus count as non-botanical?)

I think when he says "from the eggs, came these parasites' he was looking at the insect in the microscope, wasn't he? So I think he meant Insect eggs.

So with this I can comprehend that the black goo kills whatever non-botanical life forms it comes in contact. It also preserve some of the lifeforms as incubators (spores) and mutate eggs which then wait for hosts. So, over the years if there has been any lifeform which hasn't been killed by the black goo, would eventually get killed from infection and the resultant Neomorphs/Protomorphs shall kill even rest of the survivors.

But its evident that the Xenomorphs never existed before because its the result of David's genetic engineering & cross-breeding. And hence, David is the creator of the Xenomorph. 

[SiL]

One thing I'm really curious about is if it was done on purpose like this or is it just bad storytelling.

Scott's explicit that David made the Alien, so the latter, I guess.

[Robopadna]

Does anything in the movie rule out the possibility that David simply believes he created the alien even if the engineers had already created them in the past?

It's all very confusing, and probably intentionally so. For fans like me who what the xenomorph to be more than just an alien Frankenstein engineered by a crazy robot there is plenty to keep the dream alive: the murals in Prometheus, this little addition of the pre-existing egg in the novelisation and the vanishingly small space and time gap between David's "it's alive!" moment and the discovery of the derelict on LV-426.

That said though, it all kind of feels like nitpicking to me. The neomorphs on 'Paradise' are very close to the xenomorph, and they weren't engineered at all. The Deacon wasn't really engineered either. David doesn't really create anything, he just tweaks it a bit.

So I vote David: Tweaker.

Scott and Covenant are pretty clear David made every version of the xeno we have seen.  But he very clearly did not make the black goo (not even Scott can retcon that and he hasn't even tried).  The accelerant itself had this property (as seen in the Deacon specifically, which is on the wall in prometheus and appears at the end).  It's very murky how the engineers knew about the deacon, but they did and I think everything supports this so far.  David took that accelerant and made the xeno we all know.

[The_Foxcatcher]

Does anything in the movie rule out the possibility that David simply believes he created the alien even if the engineers had already created them in the past?

It's all very confusing, and probably intentionally so. For fans like me who what the xenomorph to be more than just an alien Frankenstein engineered by a crazy robot there is plenty to keep the dream alive: the murals in Prometheus, this little addition of the pre-existing egg in the novelisation and the vanishingly small space and time gap between David's "it's alive!" moment and the discovery of the derelict on LV-426.

That said though, it all kind of feels like nitpicking to me. The neomorphs on 'Paradise' are very close to the xenomorph, and they weren't engineered at all. The Deacon wasn't really engineered either. David doesn't really create anything, he just tweaks it a bit.

So I vote David: Tweaker.

Scott and Covenant are pretty clear David made every version of the xeno we have seen.  But he very clearly did not make the black goo (not even Scott can retcon that and he hasn't even tried).  The accelerant itself had this property (as seen in the Deacon specifically, which is on the wall in prometheus and appears at the end).  It's very murky how the engineers knew about the deacon, but they did and I think everything supports this so far.  David took that accelerant and made the xeno we all know.

David did create the first Xenomorph but David did not create the Alien lifecycle.

It's evident by now that the Black goo will mutate a lifeform such that it's steps of reproduction will ultimately lead to a parasite which impregnates a host with buster. If an egg  is mutated, it will result into a facehugger.

The facehugger and the adult buster will be different depending upon the source of eggs and the DNA of the host.

So, David did not create Alien lifecycle. It's just that his version of facehugger and the adult buster i.e. The Xenomorph are different than what were created earlier in the history.

Also note that the facehugger on the Mural of Prometheus is different than the classical facehugger.

DAVID USED THE SCIENCE OF ALIEN LIFECYCLE AND ENGINEERED HIS OWN VERSION OF FACEHUGGER AND THE RESULTANT XENOMORPH.

[banecat]

i'm still kinda unsure on the quotes i posted from the film regarding creation, someone mentioned they think he said the parasite came from the spore, and that this was specific to creating the neomorph. it's pretty clear though, that he engineered his creations with a combination of black goo and animals etc, and probably shaw's organs

[OmegaZilla]

nvm make it 60

[The_Foxcatcher]

Just realized...

By having David create Xenomorph,

-Scott side-casted - almost cornered the Xenomorph as one of a random variant. 

-The seed was sowed in Prometheus by introducing the black goo. When the Hammerpede appeared, it showed us that there could arise random number of exciting new possibilities.

-Scott already knew that the Xenomorphs has been overplayed a lot to the extent of cash-grab cross overs such as Avp and he was not liking it. At the same time Fox wanted to bring back the big boy in.

-By introducing Neo-morph, he ignited an all new lifecycle. The sequel can introduce yet something new and bizarrely different.

-Now the franchise is more about biological outcomes from the Alien DNA and not just the Xenomorph.

-The sequel to Covenant will expand the universe to even further possibilities and may not showcase Xenomorph at all.

-Covenant could be the last Xeno fan service.

Think guys....almost all sequels to Alien concentrated on Xenomorphs and Xenomorphs only. They didn't do anything beyond (except Queen Alien and human hybrid Alien).

SCOTT SUCCEEDED IN GETTING THE ADMIRATION FOR NEOMORPHS OVER XENOMORPH AS EVIDENT BY THE POSTS ON THIS ENTIRE FORUM.

By having David create Xenomorphs, he almost cut the hands of guys like Bolmpkamp and Fox who were thinking to go towards the same old road of overplayed Xeno fan service. 

If only we would all expect from next Alien movie, it would be : VARIETY.  And the variety is because of Scott. Hats off to him.

[D. Compton Ambrose]

I still haven't seen this flick, but could Ridley just be trolling us?  Also, I just watched this video to bring myself up to speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCrVnlNk4eA

So even ADF is contradicting Ridley now?

Now that I've seen the film, I'm beginning to lean more toward you and Xenomorph on this one. I used to be firmly in the SiL/Predaker camp, but now...

[Robopadna]

Does anything in the movie rule out the possibility that David simply believes he created the alien even if the engineers had already created them in the past?

It's all very confusing, and probably intentionally so. For fans like me who what the xenomorph to be more than just an alien Frankenstein engineered by a crazy robot there is plenty to keep the dream alive: the murals in Prometheus, this little addition of the pre-existing egg in the novelisation and the vanishingly small space and time gap between David's "it's alive!" moment and the discovery of the derelict on LV-426.

That said though, it all kind of feels like nitpicking to me. The neomorphs on 'Paradise' are very close to the xenomorph, and they weren't engineered at all. The Deacon wasn't really engineered either. David doesn't really create anything, he just tweaks it a bit.

So I vote David: Tweaker.

Scott and Covenant are pretty clear David made every version of the xeno we have seen.  But he very clearly did not make the black goo (not even Scott can retcon that and he hasn't even tried).  The accelerant itself had this property (as seen in the Deacon specifically, which is on the wall in prometheus and appears at the end).  It's very murky how the engineers knew about the deacon, but they did and I think everything supports this so far.  David took that accelerant and made the xeno we all know.

David did create the first Xenomorph but David did not create the Alien lifecycle.

It's evident by now that the Black goo will mutate a lifeform such that it's steps of reproduction will ultimately lead to a parasite which impregnates a host with buster. If an egg  is mutated, it will result into a facehugger.

The facehugger and the adult buster will be different depending upon the source of eggs and the DNA of the host.

So, David did not create Alien lifecycle. It's just that his version of facehugger and the adult buster i.e. The Xenomorph are different than what were created earlier in the history.

Also note that the facehugger on the Mural of Prometheus is different than the classical facehugger.

DAVID USED THE SCIENCE OF ALIEN LIFECYCLE AND ENGINEERED HIS OWN VERSION OF FACEHUGGER AND THE RESULTANT XENOMORPH.

I think you are simply repeating what I said  David did not make the accelerant.  The deacon establishes the pre existing property of the accelerant.  He did not make the neo morphs (I could be wrong on this but wasn't this just the reaction of the accelerant with the flora to produce those spores?).  David DID create the egg/xeno in all the movies we have seen.

[Denton Smalls]

Does anything in the movie rule out the possibility that David simply believes he created the alien even if the engineers had already created them in the past?

It's all very confusing, and probably intentionally so. For fans like me who what the xenomorph to be more than just an alien Frankenstein engineered by a crazy robot there is plenty to keep the dream alive: the murals in Prometheus, this little addition of the pre-existing egg in the novelisation and the vanishingly small space and time gap between David's "it's alive!" moment and the discovery of the derelict on LV-426.

That said though, it all kind of feels like nitpicking to me. The neomorphs on 'Paradise' are very close to the xenomorph, and they weren't engineered at all. The Deacon wasn't really engineered either. David doesn't really create anything, he just tweaks it a bit.

So I vote David: Tweaker.

Scott and Covenant are pretty clear David made every version of the xeno we have seen.  But he very clearly did not make the black goo (not even Scott can retcon that and he hasn't even tried).  The accelerant itself had this property (as seen in the Deacon specifically, which is on the wall in prometheus and appears at the end).  It's very murky how the engineers knew about the deacon, but they did and I think everything supports this so far.  David took that accelerant and made the xeno we all know.

David did create the first Xenomorph but David did not create the Alien lifecycle.

It's evident by now that the Black goo will mutate a lifeform such that it's steps of reproduction will ultimately lead to a parasite which impregnates a host with buster. If an egg  is mutated, it will result into a facehugger.

The facehugger and the adult buster will be different depending upon the source of eggs and the DNA of the host.

So, David did not create Alien lifecycle. It's just that his version of facehugger and the adult buster i.e. The Xenomorph are different than what were created earlier in the history.

Also note that the facehugger on the Mural of Prometheus is different than the classical facehugger.

DAVID USED THE SCIENCE OF ALIEN LIFECYCLE AND ENGINEERED HIS OWN VERSION OF FACEHUGGER AND THE RESULTANT XENOMORPH.

I think you are simply repeating what I said  David did not make the accelerant.  The deacon establishes the pre existing property of the accelerant.  He did not make the neo morphs (I could be wrong on this but wasn't this just the reaction of the accelerant with the flora to produce those spores?).  David DID create the egg/xeno in all the movies we have seen.

That's what I'm curious about because while he mentions the goo effects animals only, that doesn't account for the spores unless they were a byproduct of some animal on the planet.

Could it be possible that the spores were literally feces from a hybrid creature?