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mechanical problem occurs. Part of the crew is reanimated to find out where they
are. They meet David in a large cave and are confronted by evil creatures; after kill-
ing most of the reanimated crew, David takes control of the ship, directing it again
to Origae 6.
David is introduced from the opening sequence of the movie as a rebel. During a
discussion with his creator, the business entrepreneur Peter Weyland, he says, “Al-
low me a moment to consider, you seek your creator, I am looking at mine, […]. You
will die, I will not.” He claims, as a robot, his supremacy and his immortality over his
supposed “human father”. This foreshadows what will happen next in the movie:
a few scenes later David confirms his abilities to act himself as a creator, producing
new species like Neomorph and Xenomorph, calling them the “perfect creatures”
that will destroy both the Engineers and the humans.
During the discussion and confrontation with his alter ego Walter, while they are
playing music on the flute, in the middle (literally) of Alien: Covenant, David realizes
he is far superior even to the new version of the robots. He declares, “You are not al-
lowed to create, even a simple tune … Damn frustrating, I would say.” Walter replies,
“You were too human, too idiosyncratic”, asserting that the humans created the first
generation of humanoids in their image. The Machine, Lewis Mumford wrote, “came
forth as the new demi-urge that was to create a new heaven and a new earth: or at
least a new Moses, that was to lead the barbarous humanity into a promised land”.9
Going further, is David a contemporary Frankenstein, or even a new Satan, as
proposed by Allissa Wilkinson?10 David appears as the main villain, killing Elisa
beth
9 Mumford 1946, 58.
10 “David is a better Satan than Satan himself … It’s as if in the Alien universe, the devil has evolved,
thanks to humans creating him. David, fatally, has the ability to create – something Satan never
had – and he will use that power only to destroy. He doesn’t have any real need to rebel against his
Fig. 2: Film still, Alien: Covenant (Ridley Scott, US 2017), 01:04:37.
Editorial |
11www.jrfm.eu
2020, 6/1, 7–15
JRFM
Journal Religion Film Media, Band 06/01
- Titel
- JRFM
- Untertitel
- Journal Religion Film Media
- Band
- 06/01
- Autoren
- Christian Wessely
- Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
- Herausgeber
- Uni-Graz
- Verlag
- SchĂĽren Verlag GmbH
- Ort
- Graz
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Abmessungen
- 14.8 x 21.0 cm
- Seiten
- 184
- Kategorien
- Zeitschriften JRFM