Ridley Scott Explains Why The Engineers Wanted To Kill Mankind & David’s Motives

The Empire Podcast has released a new episode focusing on Alien: Covenant. As well as discussing the film, the Spoiler Special episode also includes an interview with Sir Ridley Scott recorded during Alien: Covenant’s press rounds.

Scott talks a lot about Alien, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, re-iterating a lot of points that he has previously spoken about (including some brief mention of the sequel). Of interest, though, was Scott talked a little about some of the questions left hanging from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Discussing how the Engineers would go around seeding various worlds with life, Ridley went on to say:

“If the planet went wrong, they would want to wipe it clean. But that could take 500 years. When they revisit –  because different visitors would come back and see we’re not doing so well – they would look at these human beings that are jerks, that are killing the planet, killing themselves, can’t settle down, they’re like a bunch of children. We should wipe it clean.”

Scott goes on to talk a little about the Engineer’s tool of choice, the black goo, and re-iterate the nature of it as discussed in Alien: Covenant. The black goo would wipe out all non-plant life.

Later on in the interview, Scott also clarified David’s motivation for wiping out the Engineers as seen in The Crossing prologue and the brief flashback scene from Alien: Covenant.  In discussing David’s creation of the Alien using the black goo, Scott had this to say about why David killed the Engineers:

“He hates them. He has no respect for Engineers and no respect for human beings.”

Be sure to head on over to Empire to listen to the whole episode. Thanks to Ingwar for the link.

Keep a close eye on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest on Alien: Covenant! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien fans on our forums!