David's obsession with creating life led to a game-changing decision in Alien: Covenant.
Ridley Scott directed Alien: Covenant, the second entry in the Alien prequel movies. It brings back Michael Fassbender's David from Prometheus.
The horror film revolves around a colonizer ship named Covenant that crash lands on an alien planet.
After the crew encounters two Neomorphs, they are saved by David, but his far more sinister intentions are later revealed.
David's Decision to Kill the Engineers in Alien: Covenant Explained
In Alien lore, the Engineers are an ancient extraterrestrial species with access to the most advanced technology in the galaxy. They are also the creators of mankind.
In a flashback sequence, it is revealed that David unleashed Steatite Ampules, a bomb-like weapon, on the same planet where the Covenant crash lands, killing every Engineer who lived there.
But why did he do it? He is motivated by his desire to learn more about the black goo and his belief that Engineers and humans are inferior to synthetic (aka android) life forms.
His hatred for Engineers and humans alike is further showcased in Alien: Covenant after he describes them as a "dying species grasping for resurrection," pointing out, "They don't deserve to start again."
David wants to create a new life superior to what currently exists and potentially rule the world.
Speaking with Empire in May 2017, Alien: Covenant director Ridley Scott explained David's bold decision to kill off the Engineers in the movie, simply saying, "He hates them:"
"He hates them. He has no respect for Engineers and no respect for human beings."
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in May 2017, Alien: Covenant screenwriter Dante Harper gave his thoughts about David's daunting scene of killing the Engineers, sharing that director Ridley Scott was "very, very passionate" about the sequence:
"That’s an image Ridley was very, very passionate about from the beginning of our conversations... The image itself is this moment that should be a greeting that becomes a horrible bombing. It reminds us of footage from Vietnam, for example. That was something that was clearly one of the most powerful images Ridley knew had to be in there, and we did many different versions of it and I can tell they probably played with where it was in the film well after I was working on it."
This act of killing the Engineers is just the tip of the iceberg since David's hatred toward them and humanity essentially serves as the spark that eventually leads to the creation of the perfect organism (aka the Xenomorphs).
Alien: Covenant is streaming on Hulu.
Read more about other horror movies:
Alien Romulus: Biggest Spoilers from Plot & Ending Explained
Longlegs Director Confirms What We All Suspected About the Ending
Netflix's Newest Dark R-Rated Mystery Thriller Delivers a Family's Worst Nightmare
