“You can close your eyes and call me Jacob” – WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DAVID CHILL A BIT
David in the early script: somehow in the middle of being a totally pitiful lovesick and a clearly very perverted creepy robot. (Ah… yes… that’s his personality in the final movie too, but here is more blatant).
@_@; wonder if he used the same line on Shaw… “You can close your eyes and call me Holloway”
the fuck
I’m surprised that he didn’t pause a second “–Jacob…or Walter, if that’s easier for you.”
…YES
FUQ DAVID UGGHHHH. but yea on that Walter part. How did David know about Jacob anyway???
I hope he malfuctions before he can harm Daniels
In that early script David learned from Walter that Daniels was married to Jacob and that he died burning. Anyway, everyone is shocked because of “and when the moment comes you can call me Jacob” but no one is shocked learning that maybe David is capable of transforming people in alien hybrids (and wanting these hybrids to call him with… sweet nicknames??). I think that alien hybrid transformation could have been the only way to make Daniels survive for the next movie… but I don’t think they’ll let her live 😥 the way Scott talked about her destiny in an interview makes me think she’s really going to die. We’ll see.
AHAHAH we’ll see, exactly like that 😆
(Well, a bit more anxious. I’ll prepare myself to go to the theatre with the soul of a robot next time. I really have to prepare myself to not care at all about what I’m going to see 😅😂)
ALL ABOUT DAVID’S EMOTIONS – The complete collection
At the time of Prometheus David wasn’t meant to be so emotional, but as time passed, they decided to transform him in the character he is in Alien: Covenant, managing to connect everything pretty well. The first scene of Alien: Covenant too helps to give a meaningful “start” to David’s story and character and a beginning that reconnect the character of Prometheus to the character of Alien: Covenant. They went from: “ok David technically can’t feel emotions but let’s keep this thing open-ended” to “ok let’s make that David has always been able to feel emotions". I think it was the right choice, because you really see him behaving in a way that absolutely doesn’t resemble the behaviour of a robot who HAS to make humans feel comfortable, at all. David purposely puts a lot of salt in a lot of his lines, and sometimes (like with Holloway) he even refuses to smile and be “friendly looking”. This is an old interview about David’s character, back at the time of Prometheus…
Q: “There’s a lot made in Prometheus of David’s inability to feel, but there were moments when – as you said – it seems he actually can. Did you go into the film with a clear idea of whether David had any desires or emotions?”
Michael Fassbender: “I wanted to keep it open-ended. I definitely wanted to play with it, with the other crew members on board as well as the audience. I had some ideas but nothing ever needed to be definite. I just wanted to always have that element with David, where you’re thinking, ‘Is he being sincere or is he being sarcastic? Is he being for real or is he taking the piss?’ I wanted that element alive in him”
“David seems to have some fascination with that film and the character Lawrence” Fassbender adds “and I always attributed it to the fact that Lawrence has got a very clear vision and he’s very pure in his pursuit of it. There’s not much questioning. He’s a very decisive character, and I think David sees elements of that in Shaw as well. That’s why he finds her so fascinating. He’s also an outsider like David; he’s an Englishman, but he’s not accepted really by the English or the Arab nations, so he’s kind of somewhere in the middle”
And then, let’s look at how things changed in Alien: Covenant…
“We start Covenant,” he (Ridley Scott) continues, ”with a really clever prologue that settles—once and for all—who David really is.” The sequence begins on a “big beautiful blue eye—you see every vein” and over that shot audiences will hear footsteps approach. “How do you feel?” a voice asks. “Alive,” the owner of the eye responds (…) Scott promises this sequence will “really get people going because it’s fucking smart for a change.” Scott and McBride both believe Covenant will cast Prometheus in a new and better light.
This is Ridley Scottg talking about David’s “birth”.
“So a governor in an AI is essential. You’ve got to have firewalls so that he can’t go through. Because at what moment does an AI, when you feed him with so much information – I mean, beyond anything we can possibly comprehend; so he can beat a grandmaster in a chess match in 15 minutes – or four minutes. At what moment has he evolved emotion? If you pack a lot of information in, does that give stress? And if you get stressed, that’s emotion. If you’ve got emotion, you start to think tangentially, which you haven’t thought of as the inventor. You’re going, ‘Oh f**k, he’s angry’. Or, ‘Oh f**k, he’s amused because I’m such an idiot. And he’s now showing that he thinks I’m an idiot’.That’s what happens in the prologue. So in four minutes, a father – or a god – realises he has a problem… ”
(These things are reaffirmed by Ridley in the blu ray commentary of the movie. In the commentary Scott even adds that David was pretty free and could have refused to bring Weyland the tea, but he accepts to do it because he’s “political”, he’s studying the situation, he’s “already the predator” and these things make him even more dangerous)
Ridley: “At the end of the 4 mins, the creator realized he already had a problem. Because his creation is asking him questions: Of course, you are my father. But you will die, I will not.That’s big problem. Immediately “Father” looks at him and goes: Hang on, this thing is way too clever. And therefore gives him an order. The order is “pour me the tea, David.”So David sits there, unblinking, but obviously thinking: Pour your own bloody tea. It’s right next to you. But he doesn’t. He gets up and comes across and pours the tea without any reaction. It’s very dangerous. Already he’s the predator. End of the story”.
Michael: “What’s interesting about David is that he’s very needy. He feels like he needs validation from those around him.He’s looking for love in all the wrong places. In the opening scene, one guy says to him: “Pour the tea”. Immediately he’s processing: Wow this human has some strange power games. Because obviously the tea is right beside him he can pour the tea. But he knows he is accessing his superiority over David”
Ridley: “You get an A.I. with emotions, it’s very dangerous.
Michael: ”Humans too“
Ridley: “Too much information is very dangerous”
Michael: “Too much emotions”
Michael: “If the A.I. thinks he has a soul, then the soul is very real for the A.I.”
“He (Walter) doesn’t incorporate concepts like vanity or jealousy or gratitude. He doesn’t fall in love with characters like we saw the strange relationship between Shaw and David.There is a bond that develops there which is a very human one, and human flaws that come with it.”
– Michael Fassbender (about Walter & Davids bond with Elisabeth) (The art and making of Alien Covenant, Simon Ward.)
——————————————————————————–
“He talks of her great fondly here. Here we go: ‘I loved her, of course. Just as you love Daniels’ and he says ‘that’s impossible’. A.I don’t love their mistress or master, they respect them but technically they don’t have emotions. But he had emotions, that was a problem, emotion is a problem, emotion can lead to bad behavior”. (…) “Confusingly but understandably, the monster had fallen in love with the woman. All right? So, this is real. He said this is an ode to my dear Elizabeth, ‘cause he knows he’s about to leave. He thinks. ‘Farewell Elizabeth’ (…) David was the prototype, was the art form, the A.I., the very first art form, ‘cause making an A.I is an art form, whereas this A.I has emotions, you don’t want an A.I with emotions, because if he does he’s gonna get angry, you really are in trouble”.
– Ridley Scott, Alien: Covenant commentary
——————————————————————————-
•Do we see more emotional levels in David, more levels of rage?
•I think just human, more sort of engaged in all sorts of human characteristics, insecurity, ego, I mean rage might come out of insecurity, I don’t know though of rage as just an emotion. Playing those kind of things is tricky. But pride, envy, you saw a bit of that with Logan Marshall Green’s character in the last one. And you know he likes to feel important, comes back to pride again, I suppose, so it’s just all a mix of those things and they are definitely more prominent in him as time as passed.
•We did shoot a prologue to the film with Shaw, and we pick up where we left Shaw and David. They’re in one of the Engineers’ ships, trying to find the origin of the Engineers, and their home planet. We could sense that the time that’s passed has caused things to become a little bit fractious between the two of them. You get the impression that Shaw is wary of David, and I think he just wears on her nerves. He’s like this lovesick stalker in space, which is an interesting concept. But Shaw does have sympathy for him, and she does put him back together. He killed her, essentially, to prevent her from leaving him […] David, I think, finds these strong female characters attractive, and he’s really an old romantic. So he’s a little bit confused. He does have a scene with Daniels where he tries to simulate sex. He’s got a strange sexuality. He’s in a very confused state, because he feels these human characteristics— jealousy, vanity, pride— but he also has these sexual desires, which he obviously can’t act out, but wants to.”
•How has David’s relationship with Shaw changed (post Prometheus)? Like any good marriage it’s, you know, there’s a real affection there between the two of them. I think they get on each other’s nerves, well he gets on her nerves rather, but I suppose they went through quite a lot together in Prometheus, so there is a bond there for sure.
“He (Walter) doesn’t fall in love with characters, whereas we saw a strange relationship between Shaw and David. He is purely logical and devoid of emotion, even if those around him, particularly Daniels, search for some sort of emotional connectivity with him; that’s not really there. David tries to educate Walter. I think he sees himself as an older brother, and flirts with the idea of the two of them going into cahoots. But Walter’s programming just doesn’t allow for that, and eventually David realizes he’s getting in the way of his master plan. David, I think, finds these strong female characters attractive, and he’s really an old romantic. So he’s a little bit confused. He does have a scene with Daniels where he tries to simulate sex. He’s got a strange sexuality. he’s in a very confused state, because he feels these human characteristics- jealousy, vanity, pride – but he also has these sexual desires, which he obviously can’t act out, but wants to. We could sense that the time that’s passed has caused things to become a little bit fractious between the two of them. You get the impression that Shaw is wary of David, and I think he just wears on her nerves. He’s like this love sick stalker in space… The idea is that these human traits have started to overcome the synthetic ones – and I’ve treated him like a serial killer really. He’s afraid of things leaving him, so he incubates them. Like a Jeffrey Dahmer-type character, David doesn’t want things he loves to leave him, so he kills them and keeps them in caskets or preserved one way or the other. He (David) killed her, essentially, to prevent her from leaving him”
– Michael Fassbender, ALIEN COVENANT MAGAZINE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2017
———————————————————————————-
“The David8 model was designed to allow the synthetic to develop human-like qualities and characteristics. You can have a lot of fun with David’s character. He’s not receiving maintenance servicing for the last ten years, he has characteristics like pride, vanity that are very human”
– Michael Fassbender (Alien: Covenant Blu-ray version, Ridley Scott master class)
———————————————————————————
“David was supposed to love her (Elizabeth Shaw) 😦 ”
Matt Hatton (one of the two set decorator and art illustrator, one of the two men who made all David’s drawings): “Oh he absolutely did. In many ways, not all of them healthy. She encapsulated humanity for him in the end, even more than Weyland I think. Look at the religious adoration even as he eviscerated her. Hence the iconography!”
Recently, the AVP Galaxy website, released two new early scripts for Alien: Covenant. Now we can read online three early scripts:
1) Paradise(John Logan, August 8, 2015): the early script of the part of the story that lately would have become the prologue video The Crossing;
2) (Alien:) Paradise Lost (John Logan, August 19, 2015): the earliest script of the movie we have now,
3) Alien: Covenant(John Logan, November 20, 2015): a subsequent old script of the movie.
Thanks to those scripts, we can now elaborate an idea of the creative process that was behind David’s character. Why? Because between Alien: Paradise Lost and Alien: Covenant there is a huge difference in David’s characterization, in David’s personality, a difference that has an impact on the story, especially on the relevance of Elizabeth’s figure in the whole picture.
In Paradise and Alien: Paradise LostDavid doesn’t love Elizabeth. He doesn’t have real emotions. Only a big ego and big ambitions. This aspect was changed in Alien: Covenant, where David really was in love with Elizabeth(in an unhealty, obsessive way). In Paradise David plays the part of the sad, lonely, broken robot who doesn’t want to die alone and uses Elizabeth’s kind hearth and loneliness to his advantage. Elizabeth puts him back together and the two grow very colse to each other, even physically.
“They grow more and more comfortable … Cooking meals … Exploring the ship … Washing in the Water Room…
Then, one day, they are working side-by-side, chatting easily … Her hand reaches out. Takes his. Holds it for a moment. Tears in her eyes. He looks at her.
Then, they are curled together in one of the Engineer’s huge sleeping pods. Asleep. Lovers perhaps. Intimate certainly” – Extract of Paradise
From David’s side, it‘s only an illusion to obtain her trust. This really makes me think to what Ridley Scott said about David in an interview in 2014, about the plot of “Prometheus 2″:
“Once that head goes back on, (David) is really dangerous, but he’s also very seductive. So maybe he’ll persuade (Shaw) to help him put the head back.”
Then, in Paradise, when the Juggernaut arrives on Planet 4, David lets Elizabeth watch the planet, the Engineers’ structures from above, and then abruplty breaks her neck when she least expect it. Right after we cleary understand, by the text, that David was lying all the time, that he was faking his emotions, entirely.
“And all the clever simulationsof humanness fade from his features. He has no need of them now. He can just be himself.
His eyes are glacial as he stares down at the world at his feet” – Extract of Paradise
This old characterization of David had an impact over the subsequent story. In that old version Elizabeth arrives on the planet awake and never manages to see the Engineers. She didn’t manage to learn about their gruesome fate. David builds a grave for her in the garden and says to Walter he loved her, but probably only to emotionally tempt Walter (David uses emotions to tempt Walter in the final version of the movie too, trying to convince him he loves Daniels), and nothing more. He talks less fondly of Elizabeth in Alien: Paradise Lost. He doesn’t make references to her kindness. He only pretends he loved her, and thanks to Paradise we know that in that script it was a lie, entirely. In fact there aren’t the David’s drawings of Elizabeth in Alien: Paradise Lost. Why?? Because in that version of the story David had no obsession over her. No emotions. He probably didn’t even used her to create the facehuggers. In the subsequent script: the Alien: Covenant old script, David’s obsession becomes extremely important. The drawings appear and for example, they are even considered a sort of pornography by Walter (it’s only his opinion, nothing confirmed). The drawings are a relevant clue to David’s emotions in the final version of the story too.
“Oh he (David) absolutely did (loved Elizabeth). In many ways, not all of them healthy. She
encapsulated humanity for him in the end, even more than Weyland I
think. Look at the religious adoration even as he eviscerated her. Hence
the iconography!”
–
Matt Hatton (one of the two set decorator and art illustrator that made David’s drawings, and the owner of the hands we see in Advent)
In the old script of Alien: Covenant David says to Daniels he loved Elizabeth enough to want to make her immortal like him, and that he wants to turn her (Daniels) into the first one of a “new species”, hinting that he tried to do the same to Elizabeth. All of this arrived, partially, more subtly, in the final version of Alien: Covenant, where we know, thanks to Fassbender, Scott and other people, that David loved Elizabeth.
“A.I don’t love their mistress or master, they respect them but
technically they don’t have emotions. But he had emotions, that was a
problem, emotion is a problem, emotion can lead to bad behavior (…) Confusingly but understandably, the monster had fallen in love with the
woman. All right? So, this is real. He said this is an ode to my dear
Elizabeth, ‘cause he knows he’s about to leave. He thinks. ‘Farewell
Elizabeth” – Ridley Scott (Alien: Covenant, blu-ray, the director’s commentary)
Thanks to the Advent video we learn that David wanted to create a “second Eden” with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth refused to be part of his projects and he had to kill her. In Advent we also learn that David tried to make Elizabeth “more than human”, “evolved”, hinting a bit to what David says to Daniels in the old script of Alien: Covenant, that he wanted to make Elizabeth immortal (probably always to use her to produce his creatures, but as a living being, not as a corpse; he says a “second Eden”, and Eden means Adam and Eve but means creation too, and we know by interviews and by the final movie that David has always wanted to create something). This may connects to what David says at the end of Advent, that he’ll make “his queen” with Daniels. As if he previously tried to make the “mother creature” with Elizabeth but couldn’t entirely finish the job as he initially had planned it and that he’ll perfectionate that concept with Daniels. This ties beautifully, to me, with the plot of Prometheus, where Elizabeth cries because she can’t “create life”, becaue she can’t have children, and where David experiments on Holloway managing to get Elizabeth pregnant, effectively creating a proto-facehugger (the trilobite) thanks to Elizabeth’s reproductive system.
I think that probably in the last version of the story, Elizabeth does manage to land on Planet 4. I have this “theory” because David puts her to sleep in The Crossing, and because Elizabeth was meant to ask help for the Engineers and then to pray for them in the hologram found by the crew of the Covenant, in the last version of the story (but then Scott changed his mind and decided to make Elizabeth to simply sing a song, just to make the scene looks better, not for more relevant reasons). In the final version of the story Elizabeth probably arrived alive on the planet, and probably she came to learn about David’s terrible plans. And so, she refused to cooperate, as David says in Advent, and probably tried to go away, or let David understand she would have gone away.
“He (Walter) doesn’t incorporate concepts like vanity or jealousy or
gratitude. He doesn’t fall in love with characters like we saw the
strange relationship between Shaw and David. There is a bond that
develops there which is a very human one, and human flaws that come with
it. You get the impression that Shaw is wary of David, and I think he just
wears on her nerves. He’s like this love sick stalker in space… The idea
is that these human traits have started to overcome the synthetic ones –
and I’ve treated him like a serial killer really. He’s afraid of things
leaving him, so he incubates them. Like a Jeffrey Dahmer-type
character, David doesn’t want things he loves to leave him, so he kills
them and keeps them in caskets or preserved one way or the other. He
(David) killed her, essentially, to prevent her from leaving him”
– Michael Fassbender
“What choice did I have?” Says David in Advent. There is a “bond” there, says Fassbender. And he was right. Because some elements of the story, from Paradise to The Crossing, changed, but not the entirety of the story. For example we know for sure that the Paradise scene where David’s broken body floats outside the juggernaut managed to come into the final version of the story, but was cut from the final version of The Crossing (as I explained on this blog in an older post: https://gothic-fiction-in-space.tumblr.com/post/171624040368/gothic-fiction-in-space-davids-head). But the part of Paradise where Elizabeth grows fond of David too managed to arrive in the last version of the story. It’s confirmed by another statement of Fassbender (and we are discovering, day after day, that Fassbender’s statements in interviews are believable):
“ – How has David’s relationship with Shaw changed (post Prometheus)?
– Like any good marriage it’s, you know, there’s a real affection there between the two of them. I think they get on each other’s nerves, well he gets on her nerves rather, but I suppose they went through quite a lot together in Prometheus, so there is a bond there for sure”
So yes. Maybe they weren’t so much close, aslo physically, in the last version of the story, but anyway, yes: Elizabeth grew fond of David too, more or less. Probably it went like we can read in Paradise: David played (but not entirely faking it) the part of the broken lonely robot, Elizabeth pitied him (it’s confirmed in interviews that he convinced her to bring him back inside and that she pitied him) and so David’s obsession for her developed into something more, and Elizabeth started to get affectionate to him too, probably out of loneliness, as we read in Paradise. And so we see Elizabeth trusting David, in The Crossing, and smiling to him.
So, in my opinion, at a certain point it was decided that David really loved Elizabeth and that this element had to become relevant in David’s characterization and in the creation of the Xenomorph too. This fits better with Prometheus too, where David wasn’t meant to feel real emotions (a change that can be explaind by how synthetics work in the Alien franchise according to Ridley Scott: I talked about that in some old posts) but was already very interested in Elizabeth, as several people who worked at Prometheus already thought back in 2012.
“He’s (David) always been interested in Elizabeth, remember that: he’s watching
her dreams when she’s sleeping in much the same way that he watches
‘Lawrence of Arabia’. He’s a strange robot that has a curious crush on a
human being”
– Damon Lindelof (scriptwriter of Prometheus). (I wrote about the several connections between David, Elizabeth and T. E. Lawrence in some old posts here on my blog).
I like the final version of the story more than the old one. All the themes regarding creation/reproduction, philosophy, and more, tie perfectly together from Prometheus to Alien: Covenant, and David is even more complex than before. He’s more intriguing now.
“What’s interesting about David is that he’s very needy. He feels like he needs validation from those around him. He’s looking for love in all the wrong places” – Michael Fassbender
In the final version of the movie Elizabeth’s figure has more relevance: being David’s obsession and being an important part of the process of creation of the Xenomorph. A process full of twisted, meaningful, extremely fascinating elements that give depth to the alien and reinforce all of its old violent simbolisms, even the “sexual violence” related ones that it had in the first Alien movie (and also in the subequent ones, to an extent).
A violent and brutal kiss from a non-human being who only wants to experience sensations never felt and human, without caring for the feelings and emotions of a real human being. In the end, unfortunately, this is too human!
Michael Fassbender as David and Katherine Waterston as Daniels in ‘Alien: Covenant’ (2017). Dir. Ridley Scott.
My gifs.
I find curious that after that, David is a bit panting, even if he absolutely doesn’t need to do that because he doesn’t breathe in the first place. Like: “I want to enter in the role”.
the fuck
Jab loves robots 