Why does david poison holloway in prometheus

They all hit a wall, at first, with this mission. And going back to his father, Weyland, and he's told to "try harder. Michael and I had a blast with it. It's something I haven't seen in science fiction, which is a sense of racism or bigotry towards androids and synthetic life.

I think synthetic life is inevitable, and along that line bigotry and racism if you will will be inevitable as well. Although I can't approach a role thinking of [my character] as a racist or a bigot. Certainly now I can look back and explain his disdain for Michael in that way. I kind of loved it David has been watching Lawrence of Arabia while the crew of Prometheus was in stasis for two years, why that movie? Lindelof: Ridley and I started talking about Lawrence of Arabia , for some reason, very early on in our process.

Why would he be obsessed with Lawrence of Arabia , and i think the short answer was: Lawrence is a stranger in a strange land. A white man who is entirely different, ultimately becomes the most pivotal figure in that movie, independent of his differences. That felt slightly analogical to what we wanted to do with David. What is Lindelof's obsession with rich old men who ruin their kids lives?

Lindelof: Well, I will say that I haven't had any experience with rich old men who have ruined my life. Some less rich old men who have been wonderful role models. But I think that the Keynesian "rich old man with nefarious intent" is a classic character in both regular fiction and both straight up genre.

And just too delicious to resist. On that same note, we've seen Lindelof tackle childbirth before specifically women losing the ability to have children or having it bastardized in some way in Lost.

Why was it important to weave human pregnancy into Prometheus? Lindelof: I think hardwired into the original Alien is this idea of fertility.

This idea of, for lack of a better way of looking at it, the sperm and the egg need each other to in order to form a new life. And in this gestational construct, the human being is the egg and the sperm is represented in the original Alien by a face hugger.

And in Prometheus it's represented in a different way. I just feel like the idea of taking these three generations of creators so the Engineers who created us, then us, and our creation synthetic human beings the robot David. We're going to take those three generations, we're gonna lock them in a room together, we're gonna watch them have sex with each other. And then we're going to see what comes out. That was the experiment that Prometheus was running. And whether it was successful or whether it was a failure, it sure was fun to write.

Have they actually mapped out a motivation for the Engineers, is it supposed to remain ambiguous? Will they be mysterious forever, or can we figure them out if we pay enough attention?

You saw he didn't like when al the rest made it pretty clear he's "justt" a robot. I did not see any evidence in the movie to support your claim. I did not understand David's motives and none of the suggestions in this thread make sense or satisfy this plot hole.

I thought this movie sucked and I was really disappointed. Shaw replied with "I can't" and started sobbing, and holloway cheered her up, I think this is the scene he was talking about.

Zeus is pissed and so decrees that Prometheus will have his liver ripped out each morning by an Eagle it grows back every night forever. This story is about Peter Weyland trying to steal the secret of immortality from the gods, but all humanity will pay the price by having everything ripped out :- I don't know why David poisoned Holloway but I think it might be possible that liquids from Holloway's dead body were going to be used to rejuvenate Weyland.

The need for this changes when Weyland learns that one of he engineers is still alive. He has been programed with scientific curiosity, but not with morals. So using a human as test subject for the mysterious substance is just logical for him. This mission from a scientific point-of-view was very disorganized.

There wasn't any preparation for alternatives. Vickers stated that Weyland wanted a "true Believer" on board. David took what he knew to the site- which was quite a lot, and initially saw no evidence of what he had been preparing for. He soon determined that the "faith" part wasn't going to pay off as Weyland believed hoped it would.

The answer "Anything and everything" relieved David of guilt enough to risk Holloway and the other crew Weyland too? Movie Buff Ovomorph Member 0 XP Jun PM This is an easy one Weyland was obviously on the ship for immortality David saw this Black liquid as a possibility for immortality so he tested his theory on a subject that he disliked ,this wasn't to outright kill him he did this to test the liquid and if it went wrong it was only a small loss for him.

This one wasn't a very hard one to figure out. It's plainly obvious When Weyland appears in the hologram he states he has days to live and throughout the movie we discover he seeks the key to life itself.

Before Weyland is revived we catch the end of a longer, secret conversation between Weyland and David. It is obvious to me that David is preprogrammed to carry out his instructions whenever he comes into contact with anything that may fulfill his quest, like opening the door without permission, secretly aquiring the black goo and infecting Holloway.

He quite simply infects Holloway to test the effects of black goo, he is against the clock so no time for lengthy tests Weyland has days to live!! He seemed to have an appreciation for the line, "The trick is not minding that it hurts. I think it was davids way of looking for 'consent' so to speak for his actions. If i remember correctly david said to hollaway " how far would you go to get what you are looking for", hollaway said " i would do anything" thats when david gave him the drink.

I also believe that hollaway saw david put his finger in his drink. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What was David's motivation in Prometheus? Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 5 months ago. Active 6 years, 5 months ago. Viewed 28k times. Improve this question. Luckycat Luckycat 1 1 gold badge 3 3 silver badges 3 3 bronze badges.

He and his character gave me more questions and things to think about than the "obvious" questions about the Engineers". Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. There are 3 possible motives for David. He wanted to test the black-goo to " try harder ". David was receiving orders from Weyland as he told "Try Harder! The scene where David spikes Charlie's drink happens after the 'try harder' scene with Vickers.

David goes to Holloway, asks him how far he is willing to go to find his answers, and Holloway replies he would do whatever it takes. David takes this as an invitation to experiment with the goo on Holloway , ultimately at Weyland's request.

David is simply following orders. So my guess is that, he probably wanted to test it , just in case it turned out to be what Weyland was looking for, an immortality potion or something He wanted to kill the crew to gain his freedom. David starts to hate the humans. Note how antagonistic Holloway had a jerk towards David. When Holloway asking David why he's wearing a suit as much to say 'you're not one of us, why are you bothering to try?

Holloway to remove him as competition for Dr. Shaw He seemed to pay more attention to her from the start by looking in on her dreams and taking special care of her when she awoke from cryo. I think when he tried to put her back into cryo he was trying to do what was best for her. I also thought that, at the end, when he said he was afraid she had been killed that he was being genuine.

David: I was scared you were dead. We could go on. Contact with the alien goo seems to have a range of effects: the engineer at the beginning more or less crumbles to dust; it seems to cause worms to mutate into snakelike creatures; one crew member becomes a marauding zombie-like monster while another apparently absorbs the substance into his DNA, resulting in Elizabeth being impregnated with what seems to be a rudimentary facehugger, which somehow grows to enormous size and then impregnates an engineer with what turns out to be a rudimentary Alien… It's all awfully muddled.

The most charitable conclusion is that this is seriously protean stuff capable of speedy adaptation to suit whatever environment and host it comes across. It seems bonkers to cast a young man as an old man — it's not as if Ridley Scott was short of options for the older gentleman and Pearce spends the whole movie clad in prosthetic wrinkles.

That seems a relatively small reason to influence the casting of the film itself, but perhaps Scott is keeping his options open for flashback sequences in a possible sequel? It's his ship and his expedition, after all — and even if he wanted to keep his involvement secret ahead of time, why not reveal his presence to his employees once they'd been woken from hypersleep?

It's not like they'd be going anywhere. Perhaps he just doesn't like socialising? It seems somewhat rash of David the android to deliberately infect one of his fellow crew members with alien goo. Is he just working out the robo-resentments he seems to nurse against his human fellow travellers? It seems more likely that this is part of Weyland's plan to harness the power of the goo in the service of his own immortality.

If so, Holloway's fate offers a pretty good reason to hold off. Even by the standards of science fiction, the idea of someone having their belly sliced open while conscious, watching the removal of a baby-sized squid monster, getting stapled up and immediately being in fit shape to barrel around, running and fighting, is outlandish.

It seems impossible that the filmmakers didn't realise this, yet no obvious excuse is offered. Does the miracle medicine pod double as some kind of strength-endowing, pain-suppressing supercharger?