Tuesday 31 October 2017

plot explanation - What did David say to the engineer in Prometheus?

In href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/">Prometheus, when the android
David is talking with the Engineer, first he stumbles a bit and stays crouched, then
they are all asking him questions and David seems to translate it. Then they all stand
up, the Engineer strokes his chair and snaps.


My question
is, did the Engineer destroy David and go on a rampage because of what he said, or did
he have another reason for that? If so, What did David say to the
Engineer?


itemprop="text">
class="normal">Answer


Edit:
Now we know. In an interview revealed at Total Film with Dr. Anil
Biltoo:



Well,
according to Dr. Anil Biltoo, the film’s official translator and linguistics consultant,
David did as he was asked, translating his words as follows: “This man is here because
he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more
life.”



The rest
of the text of this article stands unedited except for the interview inserts, in
italics.


We are forced to reconcile the
reaction of the Engineer
with:



  • His/it's original mission, to
    destroy the Earth.

  • His/it's momentary pause as it
    analyzes the situation upon awakening

  • His/it's decision
    to kill the team and continue its primary
    mission.




Does David betray his creator? His pathological hatred of all of humanity is
obvious to us, but not necessarily to them. Would he use the opportunity to ask a
different question than he was asked or would he comply out of duty (or programming). My
suspicion is David asked exactly what he was told by Weyland. Not that it
mattered, the Engineer answered only with his actions to kill the
team.



My
supposition still stands and is supported in the rest of the Total Film interview
review:




So there we have it. David wasn’t up to anything sinister, it just
turned out that the Engineer wasn’t best pleased to be interrupted by a member of the
species he was charged with destroying. Apparently, the scene was initially written to
involve a much longer conversation, so perhaps more details will emerge in the deleted
material on the DVD. Or even in a
sequel...



Why
wouldn't David say what he had been asked to? He is not concerned with the question or
the answer. For him, it is academic at best. He has already made his decision about
humanity and given the information he has up to that point, he assumes the Engineers
already have their own less than stellar opinion of humanity as
well.



However, given the
purported intelligence of the Engineers, and a time-table of their last visit
(approximately 2,000 years ago, during a very warlike period on Earth) once he saw how
violent, humanity had remained, he realized he would have to complete his mission. He
did not seem conflicted in any way.



My suspicion was he
recognized what David was and could extrapolate how long he had been asleep, which may
have given him greater motivation to deliver his payload, fearing a galactic outbreak of
this violent species. The Engineer did not seem surprised to see us, likely as a
diminutive and less impressive form of
itself.



I had the impression
the Engineer did not fear humanity, so much as their lack of individual control. He was
privy to, in a matter of seconds, hierarchical dominance behavior, aggression, anger,
and directed violence. From the aspect of a species that creates life, certainly an
undesirable outcome. Perhaps the same reaction we might have if a beloved pet suddenly
attacked us. We would put it down, for its own good. The Engineer maintained a
surprising level of apparent emotional control during his attack on the team and his
subsequent launching of his ship. He did not appear to have any issues with completing
his mission, so his belief in the necessity was apparent in his actions.



I would also have to credit
this Engineer with some degree of forethought. He was the only one on this ship to make
it back to stasis and secure himself before the pathogen was able to reach him. I
suspect he thought it would be safer to be in stasis than dying in the
halls.



David's experience of
humanity soured him on meeting the Engineers and even though he was intellectually
curious about their technology, he showed no real interest in the Engineers, themselves,
likely considering them as potentially dangerous as he considered mankind. Maybe moreso,
since humanity was based on their DNA. If he did give the Engineer an account of what
happened or how they came to be here, rather than Wayland's requested information, I am
certain, he was surprised with his/it's reaction. It was certainly not an expected
outcome from David's perspective.




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