David's android character arc is the main reason why the 3rd prequel needs to be made. If
Covenant was a very shallow film and the ending was simply "...and the bad guy wins" then that would be a valid end (and no 3rd film necessary).
But there's a deeper layer to this particular bad guy. Scott and the writers were laying out a philosophical message, embodied in David's motives, that is yet to be properly concluded. Those motives being the fulfilment of David's "Will to Power", i.e. his rise to Ubermensch, as described in Friedrich Nietzsche's 19th century philosophy.
Lest anyone think I'm getting wanky and making a rather tenuous connection, I will point out that this subtext was first introduced in Ash's speech in
Alien '79: "...A perfect organism...I admire its purity; a survivor unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality." The writer, Walter Hill, was describing Neitzsche's "superman" or Ubermensch, the superior being who has outgrown the need for God's values of morality, charity, or compassion.
QuoteWH: And of course, our best character was the Alien.
FI: Can you elaborate?
WH: For example, David and I joked about calling him/her Nietzsche, you know, Beyond Good and Evil. Seriously, that was one of the things in making the thing fly – we articulated that notion in a way that got to the audience.
https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/interview-with-walter-hill-2004/
In other words, "Perfect Organism" is Walter Hill's code for Friedrich Neitzsche's "Ubermensch."
Nietzsche was, as is well known, the favourite philosopher of Adolf Hitler, and inspired Hitler's belief in Nazi Aryanism and fascism in general. Ridley Scott's next film featured a super-race of Nexus 6s, one of whom was Roy Batty (blue-eyed and bleached blonde hair), designed to harken to Hitler's Aryan super-race. This imagery was recycled (Scott did a lot of this in
Prometheus) in Michael Fassbender's look for David; David is another one of Scott's Aryan androids.
Regarding David's feeling for Shaw, Nietzsche says that the Ubermensch feels emotions, but does not let them get in his way. So it's plausible that David loved Shaw, but inflicted his atrocities on her anyway. Remember, one of fascism's guiding principles is, "
by whatever means necessary." Love would not have barred David from doing whatever he felt needed to be done.
At one stage Scott was keen on directing a film version of
Tristan and Isolde (an opera by Richard Wagner), and would have been aware of the association between Hitler, Wagner and Nietzsche. Hence David's choice of Wagner's
Das Rhiengold/Entry of the Gods into Valhalla, played at the end of
Covenant.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/richard-wagner-a-composer-forever-associated-with-hitler-a-892600.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche_contra_WagnerSo David tries to live up to the ideal of the Ubermensch. Not only does this explain the philosophy underpinning his behaviour, but also the desire to sire his progeny, the "perfect organism"; i.e. the xenomorph. But can
Covenant really be the end of the story? If so, then doesn't that make Scott's message a demonstration of the superiority of fascist philosophy? Yuech! I'd like to believe that it only seems this way because the prequel plot is unfinished. The final act is where the storyteller's cards are truly revealed. I want, and I hope, that Scott will show us how flawed David really is.
TC