Would you Prefer David 8 To Be A Hero Or Villain?

[NickisSmart]

Had some thoughts on this topic. Decided to record them.

[Enoch]

Remember what the leaks stated:

Spoiler

Covenant crew received a transmission... and it appeared to be Shaw singing some old song. I remembered what Wayne Haag said about Bocklin and that his art influenced the overall mood of the movie. It instantly reminded me of his famous painting Odysseus and Calypso (1883). Calypso was, in Greek mythology, a nymph, the daughter of Atlas the Titan, who lived on the island of Ogygia. She attained fame in Homer's Odyssey, in detaining Odysseus for seven years as her 'immortal husband'. She enchants him with her singing as she weaves with a golden shuttle on her loom. However, Odysseus realized that he wants to be re-united with his wife Penelope, and the gods finally release him. Calypso is shown, in front of a cave on the beach, holding her lyre rather than weaving. Odysseus is at the far left, staring into the distance (although he faces away, so the actual direction of his gaze is not seen). He would appear to be homesick for Penelope, wishing that he was released from Calypso's control. This is a stark image of a barren landscape and empty relationship.



We know that H.R. Giger himself reserved the place of ultimate rulers for female characters as seen in many of his works. What if all the losses which Shaw endured, the disappointment in everything she has done and her eventual loos of faith caused her to become a dark character full of resentment and anger. Just like in ancient myths...The daughter of the world is cast into the underworld. By hermetics she is called Kore Kosmou ("Virgin of the World") and by the sumerian tradition Ereshkigal. She becomes the mistress of the underworld, the 'sacred whore' aspect, in contradiction to Innana, the virgin aspect. Its now obvious that we ll have two "lead" female characters, the one is antagonist and the other is protagonist... David is just someone in the middle, an ex servant who is now under the control of deluded woman... Just presenting another alternate scenario... There is a great chance that  I m just wrong...

[close]

[echobbase79]

I haven't read any other posts in this thread because I don't want to read possible spoilers, but to answer the original poster's question, I'd like to see David start off as a villain and then go to being a good guy by the end. I doubt that will happen because I'm pretty sure he's the main of villain of the story, but then again what's Walter after? There's something strange about him as well.

I really just want to see this movie.

[Sabres21768]

What is David's' motivation for

Spoiler

destroying a whole planet of Engineers?

[close]

I've read through so much trying to find an answer, but haven't found anything.

[Ultramorph]

What is David's' motivation for

Spoiler

destroying a whole planet of Engineers?

[close]

I've read through so much trying to find an answer, but haven't found anything.

Spoiler

He needs to destroy before he can create.

[close]

[SpeedyMaxx]

I think the David outlined in the leaks as well as the David in the original Jon Spaihts draft of Prometheus/Alien: Engineers is frankly a much more black and white, much less interesting character -

Spoiler

another broken android warped by programming to become a black hat mad scientist.

[close]

Say what you will about the final form of Prometheus, I always felt they nailed the ambiguity of David's gray character. This is not that.

[cliffhanger]

btw, don't forget this behind the scenes production still



it is clearly david's lair.
there are black goo ampules there.
david defo will play with black goo.

[Jon-Donson]

I see Walter being an 'ash' like character. He's aware of the company directive and may even reprogram the ships computers during hibernation much like ash did. This would give him reason to fear David as he has transcended his programming and become aware.

[whiterabbit]

Yea, Walter's main objective is to bring David home.

[Enoch]

David's experiments -  fitting music

Patrick Doyle really did a tremendous job on this fine movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si-h8138kPI


Live version is also cool; As always Diego Navaro is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4FZ4y4WIzw

[Jon-Donson]

Yea, Walter's main objective is to bring David home.

Yep great theory, David is actually more valuable to the weyland yutani bio weapons division than the xeno on the basis that he alone understands the black goo. No doubt David and Walter will sync up faster than a Bluetooth connection.

[Richman678]

Well based on what we know about Prometheus.

David: he is loyal to Weyland Yutani and especially Peter Weyland. The engineers killed Peter Weyland. David does not deal in feelings though he is an android. So rage wouldn't drive him to seek revenge.  He loves T. E. Lawrence too, which I honestly don't know much about.

Shaw: she is spiritual. She was upset too with the Engineers. You can tell by her questioning when the one awakes. She's also probably still upset about Holloway being killed. She's also a skilled biologist.

Personally there's enough for both of them to join forces to kill the engineers. If only one can be a villain, then Shaw has more of a motive than David. Would Shaw put other humans at risk to kill engineers??? I would say no.....however she might be dead when the Covenant gets there.

Maybe neither is a villain. And both try to help the Covenant when they realize their weapon is unleashed at them.

[Corporal Hicks]

Yea, Walter's main objective is to bring David home.

Yep great theory, David is actually more valuable to the weyland yutani bio weapons division than the xeno on the basis that he alone understands the black goo. No doubt David and Walter will sync up faster than a Bluetooth connection.

Problem with that is Weyland (now Weyland-Yutani) don't know what David knows. At least as far as we're aware. He and Shaw seemingly went off the grid after the Prometheus was destroyed. As far as the bosses are concerned back at Earth, the Prometheus mission was a bust.

I see Walter being an 'ash' like character. He's aware of the company directive and may even reprogram the ships computers during hibernation much like ash did. This would give him reason to fear David as he has transcended his programming and become aware.

Fassbender compared Walter more to Bishop than Ash though I can't remember where that specific quote comes from. Here's one from the Collider report:

"Walter is very much a synthetic minus any of the human traits. So when the David 8's came out, there was a resistance from people to that model. Because it freaked them out a little bit. Because he was demonstrating a lot of human qualities, and his programming was veering towards human characteristics, like ego and vanity and pride. They found that to be not so much useful as opposed to making people uncomfortable, so they designed the following models with fewer of those human traits. Well, none of them really. So Walter is just a very straightforward, logical synthetic really. He's more like a Leonard Nimoy/Mr. Spock type character"

http://collider.com/alien-covenant-david-michael-fassbender/#walter

[zoidy]

It's quite clear that Fassbender is really the only cast member who has told us anything that could be seen as a huge spoiler - ie he has basically told the media that Walter is NOT like David, Walter is a straight up Bishop hero, not emotional like David.

Why would he tell us that?

Personally, until I see the movie ... I don't buy it at all. We are being set up to believe Walter is a hero, like Bishop.

I think we should compare the similarities between David, Walter, and Ash, rather than look at Bishop. We're missing Ash in these discussions, and in fact - oddly? - he is the one that Fassbender etc aren't referencing. But Ash is pretty much going to be the next version in the timeline, no?

Put it this way - David was a unique Weyland experiment, emotional, and as we know dangerous. Weyland-Y then created Walter, seemingly with the emotion removed. So what's the difference between Walter and Ash? Ash wasn't overly emotional, but had had the 'lifelike' quality put back so he could blend in.

I'd say that's the only difference between Walter and Ash - Walter is known to be an android by the people around him, he isn't pretending to be human. Ash is made to appear like a human and people would not now.

But they both operate under Weyland-Y instructions, likely to the exclusion of all other considerations (eg human life). Unlike David, who is unconstrained (insane), or Bishop who cannot harm humans or by omission of action, allow them to be harmed.

Walter is Ash. Just less realistic.

I'm looking for an A+ for this thesis    Even though I'm likely completely wrong.

[Jon-Donson]

Great thesis, definitely agree that David is set-up as a villain and Walter as either neutral or showing hero potential like bishop. Fassbender has repeatedly said that David is more human like than in the previous film, I think to make that work effectively in a story he needs to have the textures of a human, good and evil with shades of random ambiguity. Whereas Walter can't really show these textures as a fully maintained android. It's impossible for him to override his top level objectives, unless a key objective is to protect the crew which I find hard to believe considering he's been programmed by weyland yutani in all likelihood to treat Human life as expendable in the context of enriching their bio weapons division.