Ironically, David was one of the least flat characters in Prometheus. A few characters like Shaw had clear motivations and personality traits. But the vast majority were more or less cardboard stock characters. David though, because of Michael Fassbender’s great acting and Ridley Scott’s interest in androids, becomes one of the more popular characters in Prometheus. Despite all this, David does have a great deal of mystery surrounding him, which makes it extremely difficult and interesting to answer the question posed above.

The most compelling aspect of David’s knowledge is how much he was able to learn and ascertain from studying the engineers. Considering that he did not require certain elements in humans like sleep, he was able to utilize his time to fully focus on learning languages and perhaps other things during his spare time. We only get a small glimpse of his activities during the pre-orbit scene. Because of the time period of the travel, we can assume that David has effectively gained even more knowledge than what we see. It’s unknown if the company had further information on the engineers, but considering that Weyland and Vickers, the two top brass, seemed ignorant of the situation, it’s highly unlikely.

The two main things though to come from his learning experience are his capacity to learn and speed. We can only presume that he has a near indefinite amount of learning potential that perhaps has the ability in the future to exceed that of a human. We can also assume that his deductive reasoning is far superior to humans as we see him being able to quickly determine how to fly the alien ship and invoke the hologram of the engineers.

I think though that we can limit his knowledge to a certain point about the engineers. What I mean by that is he probably up to the scene where his head is torn off does not detect the engineers’ hostile intent. Otherwise, he probably would’ve done a better job in acting as a mediator between the crew (especially Weyland) and the engineers.

The main knowledge that he is hiding but hasn’t explicitly stated up to this point though concerns the ampules. He did manage to privately study the ampule object and had some impression on what the liquid could do. This obviously is something that needs to be addressed as Shaw noted in the scene where David reveals the air did not affect David.

Yet there’s little clues provided to demonstrate whether David utilized anything from within the engineers’ vessel to ascertain more information about the black substance. He does realize that some of the stuff was organic. Yet was he able to further analyze what the substance could do? Considering that Shaw and Ford were able to simultaneously conclude that the blood of the engineer matched human DNA, we can infer that David has similar equipment and knows at least as much, if not more since he has his own sample.

Now, an interesting thought that isn’t directly related but can be connected is the notion of the God Particle. Occasionally in science, you’ll hear about physicists researching something called the God Particle. I believe Dan Brown’s book “Angels and Demons” attempted to address this idea. While the black substance isn’t exactly a particle, the black substance does deal in the subject matter of DNA and molecules. It is possible that the engineers have either created or discovered something like the God Particle.

The reason why I want to connect the God Particle to DNA/molecules and the black substance is that David asks Holloway, “How far would you go to get what you came all this way for — to get your answers?” It’s clear that Holloway, despite claiming to not be religious, has some sense of belief in something. Like Janek when Shaw asks why he decided to partake in this mission, Holloway too wants to find out something. Where we came from, why do we exist, what’s our purpose? These are the fundamental questions humans constantly ask themselves. So that begs the question why David would give the black substance to Holloway?

Some people argue that David may have done so maliciously because of jealousy for Shaw and/or his mistreatment by Holloway. However, David really isn’t abused but rather treated as a tool. Despite not being able to express himself emotionally, David, I feel, is exhibiting the closest thing to empathy for Holloway by giving him the black substance. I do believe that David has figured out that the black substance is like the God Particle and has some answer. It’s not the verbal answer that humans may desire but something great, maybe metaphysical.

Before moving on, I want to address one other issue that we can probably assume for the upcoming movie. We’ve seen the space crafts to be outfitted with their own hypersleep type of cryochamber. So assuming that the engineers’ home world is far away, he’ll probably do some similar activity in learning more about the engineers with their technology. Naturally, this leads to the question of how much knowledge/technology the engineers have aboard their craft but we won’t be able to answer that until at least the sequel.

On that note, I want to move away from David’s knowledge of the engineers to David’s personality and certain aspects. I did cover how I feel David is not acting in malice towards Holloway. As odd as it sounds, David does not strike me as a particularly “evil” android the way say Ash was constructed. His intense curiosity perhaps is the one the that makes him human-like and is that element of a “soul” that Weyland says he lacks.

However, David might be a slave figure. After all, there was the dialog between him and Shaw about wanting their parents to be dead. It’s a real bizarre interaction that comes out of nowhere but there’s a hint of motivation behind David. My guess is that he might see either humans and/or Weyland as slave drivers over him. In Blade Runner, we saw similar motivations in the robots like Roy Batty. Here, it feels as though Ridley Scott is attempting to bridge some of the concepts of both movies together. One could argue that the idea of life is self-preservation and propagation. It’s only logical then that David will “want” to persevere. For him to be able to pursue the things that make him happy (i.e. satisfy his curiosity), his parents/creators must pass on so that he’s able to be independent.

The thing in the story of Prometheus is that David is able to gain a certain independence once Weyland passes on. At least, the Weyland corporation cannot control him. This is an important thing that I feel should be explored in the upcoming sequel because I do not feel that his actions have been malevolent, but driven through the purpose of Weyland’s orders. I don’t know if he would be aware of Holloway and Shaw having sex, but it does feel that he was experimenting at least on Holloway once David understood what the black substance could do. That does not mean he necessarily agreed, which is why he had the courtesy to ask permission in a way first from Holloway.

Finally, I have to ask one last thing about David and it’s something that, as I mentioned before, we all ask ourselves: what is his purpose? Logically, David’s purpose is to serve humans and the Weyland corporation to the best of his duty. That’s something he’s been programmed with. But does David feel that he has a purpose beyond that?

That sentence alone is loaded just by the fact that I utilized the word “feel” in conjunction with David. Obviously, he has sensors to detect things but how he interacts with them differs. But can there be an internal sense of feeling that he is unable to describe and something he longs for? We see a sense of disappointment when Weyland describes David as never having a soul. Holloway often calls David “boy” making a reference to Pinocchio. Even if people assume that androids possess no feelings, we always have to wonder if, given superior computing capacity and algorithms for AI in the future, androids are eventually going to be capable of learning to the point of discovering their own sense of feeling.

This is something I doubt anyone can truly know and it’s a question I actually would not want the sequel to explicitly reveal to us. It’s an element that is mysterious and should be left to our imaginations. We can hint for an answer but anything straight forward would ruin things.

The post Prometheus: What Does David Know? appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I did a long write up a while back analyzing the film and possible implications. This blog will encompass my perspective just as a viewer. First, the film remains quite puzzling and feels like there’s a bit of Kubrick. One of the biggest criticisms has been the lack of answers. But part of that feels as though those answers will be revealed in the upcoming movie (granted it gets filmed). No doubt there are many questions left unanswered:

• What is the black goo exactly?
• Who are the engineers?
• Are the engineers connected to the one at the beginning of the movie?
• Why aren’t there any females seen with the engineers?
• What is the connection between the non-engineer life forms and the Alien saga?
• Why, indeed, did the engineers want to assault man/earth?
• Do the engineers, indeed, want to assault man/earth?
• What happened to the crew of the engineers?
• Why are there multiple ships on the planet? And if so why didn’t Shaw and David locate more engineers who could’ve been alive?
• Why is the engineer in stasis when they found him? And how long has he been in stasis?
• Was Vickers, indeed, a robot?

Some of these questions possibly can be answered within the movie (if no sequel is made). For instance, Janek’s acumen about what the engineers have done as well as the recent release of his cut scene with Vickers further allude to the purpose of the engineers in creating a secret weapon. Also, we see the engineer speaking to Weyland as well as an egotistical expatiation for Weyland’s purpose in accompanying the crew to the planet.

Those deleted scenes absolutely added a great deal more depth to the movie. Similarly, the battle scene between Shaw and the engineer demonstrated just before they fight how the engineer seemingly was gazing in wonder at the aesthetics of Vickers’ life boat. It seemed as though he admired what we had created, hinting that perhaps his species had long lost something special of their own.

If I found a flaw in the movie, it could’ve been the pacing. For instance, I felt that Fifield’s sudden cowardice to be revealed far too early in the movie and needed more time to develop. There wasn’t enough build up for him to suddenly turn and run away. Same with Milburn’s decision to accompany Fifield. It was obvious that their presence was primarily for comic relief as well as instigators for the ooze and hammerpede. However, the lack of development for them made their death scenes seem like cliches from any standard horror film.

Some people argued that there were simply too many characters to develop in the movie. I think that part is definitely true. David’s character felt the most developed ironically. But take Holloway for instance. I thought that there wasn’t as much tension between him and David that made it justifiable to inject Holloway with the goo by David. Then you get Vickers who, imo, was a completely wasted character. I love Charlize Theron but her character needed a lot more. For instance, what’s her true relation to Weyland? With her supposedly getting squashed by the alien ship, we won’t have a chance to see much of her in future films (unless they pull some soap opera twin sister deal).

That said, in seeing the movie and extras as well as reading a few high level rumors put out by people (including Ridley Scott himself), I’m already starting to think about the follow up. First, the movie will certainly be about Elizabeth Shaw and David searching and discovering the engineers’ home world. This aspect Ridley Scott has admitted. The other part is discovering what these engineers are: hostile beings as opposed to the angelic inspirations man has believed in.

With that being the premise, the questions that need to be answered are the fill and linking back to Prometheus and possibly the entire Alien genre. The biggest question people are probably wondering is what the black goo exactly is. While I’ve covered some possibilities, I think the next Prometheus might go into more detail about the origin of the substance as well as the possible intent.

Next, I feel that the questions that Shaw asked the engineer need to be answered. Those questions are what happened to the engineers? What killed them off? And why is there a perception that the engineers want to kill humans and have a hatred for them? While Janek did propose one theory in his anecdotal in the extras portion, we cannot say for certain that he is 100% correct.

Another major issue that must be addressed is if more characters will be introduced. Obviously, Shaw and David will be a major part of the story. However, the characters of Vickers and Weyland still play a huge background role. In the case of Weyland within the context of the Alien genre, his presence is too big to be ignored. With him dead, there cannot be any denial that it’s impact will be felt on Earth and to humans. So the Weyland corporation will want to find out what happened to him and perform some kind of investigation for the expedition. In short, you cannot just fund $1 trillion dollars into a science expedition for fun, especially with the possibility of the discovering the most significant finding in human’s history.

With Weyland dead though, we open up the connection to the Alien universe in figuring out what the Weyland-Yutani corporation is. While the non-movie books/comics address this detail, we may very well see the union of names come into play. This is where Vickers can make her re-appearance. Her character is very strong in the movie and too brief as I mentioned. Yet since Janek suggested the possibility of her being an android, there’s a lot of room to play around her character. We know very little about the Weyland family outside of the fact that David is considered a surrogate son and that Vickers is the daughter. But what kind of daughter? Is Weyland like Dr Tyrell in that he has created androids for the sake of being a God and considers them all his children? And in assuming that Weyland has a great deal of power (and ego), it’s completely feasible to believe he has some biological family.

Next we need to determine what the relation is between LV-226 and LV-446. The system that LV-226 is part of heavily resembles that of LV-446. Yet when Holloway does the briefing at the beginning of the movie, he mentioned that only a single moon in that system can support life. So does LV-226 become LV-446? Or perhaps is there another moon in that system where the engineers are setting up some sort of military research post (as Janek alluded to)? Although Scott is attempting to veer away from the Alien series, the universe still is interconnected. I feel strongly that part of what we will see is how the ship and space jockey that the crew of the Nostromo found arrived on LV-446. If there’s a personal question that Scott himself must fulfill, it should be to answer what Alien, his original movie, hinted at.

From there, I think we need to see the connection between the vials and eggs on the original derelict space craft shown. All this time, we’ve assumed that the aliens were manufactured and/or tamed biological weapons for the engineers. For myself I’ve assumed all this time up until Prometheus that the eggs were the remnants of the crew from the derelict space craft. But with the introduction of Prometheus, the vials have made it less clear where the eggs were derived from as well as their real purpose.

Of course, we need to include the original alien itself. We have three elements to work with in the original alien adult form, the new deacon and the mysterious idol that the crew discovers in the chamber with the vases. Even if Scott included the deacon as a tribute to Alien, there’s no way that you can avoid such a critical character in the alien universe without a share of the spotlight. I feel that we’ll get more insight into the creature’s life cycle.

In general though, what has to be answered are the larger questions in life. I think we’ll see that the engineers themselves are not gods but are actually attempting to discover the answers to these questions themselves, which is partly why they manufactured humans. Maybe at a certain point they stopped caring about the questions and focused more on creating answers.

At any rate, I’m looking forward to the sequel. I think there’s plenty of bits that make a sequel deserving and I hope that Scott will direct it again. Maybe we’ll get to see a return of the hammerpede if anything since honestly it was the coolest alien in Prometheus.

The post Finally Saw Prometheus and Sequel Thoughts appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.