Why exactly was David watching Shaw's dream? Was there some motive? Or was it be

Why does he do it? Officially all the sleepers have their dreams controlled externally when in hypersleep for long periods (according to Riddles). Unofficially, he wants to know as much as he can about her. Whether its simple curiosity or something more nefarious on behalf of Weyland is up to the viewer.

A possibility is that David was just scouting what shaw was expecting from the planet to see how she was going to play into his or Weyland's personal plans.

That's what I'm getting at. There's a lot we can't be sure if we've even taken the right way because of how unclear David is. I see them more as reverse engineers now ;) So maybe Ridley knew they were still engineers of some sort and named them to go both ways. There are reasons I'm referencing certain things and even "Stairway to heaven". However certain people do not wish to look for alternate explanations. Thinking only what they choose to believe is correct, and in no way connected to anything else. That's why they'll be wrong, like the characters in the movie. So completely and utterly wrong. Only because they're not willing to see the light or use the fire correctly. And the spreader of the fire becomes the punished. The song is really about transformation. About how symbols, words, and even starmaps take on different meanings over time. "There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure 'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings." Even the star map's meaning is unknown. And did Shaw draw the correct interpretation that it was an invitation?? I don't think so... If it was an invitation it morphed into something far more sinister just like cultures and systems of belief can morph and change over time. Were altered. Took on new meanings, as new religious sects arose (hinting at multiple factions). "There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold And she's buying a stairway to heaven. When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed With a word she can get what she came for." Words can get us pretty far. It's exactly how David controls certain things, through anything but a poor choice of words. When he said "I didn't know you had it in you" that was a poor choice of double meaning. He altered his true meaning to make her take that more sinister meaning. David's lying right there--he did know "it" was in her. "Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven". I'm sorry certain admins here think I don't know what I'm talking about or am veering off topic. When all I'm doing is actually revealing things... spreading the fire and being punished repeatedly as people ignore the warning signs that they're wrong like the characters in the movie. Sometimes I wish David's trick wasn't working so well. "And as we wind on down the road Our shadows taller than our soul. There walks a lady we all know Who shines white light and wants to show How everything still turns to gold. And if you listen very hard The tune will come to you at last. When all is one and one is all To be a rock and not to roll. And she's buying a stairway to Paradise."

Speaking about words having multiple meanings sometimes the word it's self is in error. Knowing what we know now would we still call Engineers Engineers?

@ThatSM Completely crazy idea that hasn't really been thought out. What if Alien 3 and 4 were actually the complete dreams and the technology did advance like that over time to be less noticeable.? Meaning real Ripley was being tortured with bad dreams for some time and is really just now arriving back on Earth. All of Alien 3 and 4 were dreams. And the religious elements planted by the company... This is purely my own idea, not anything I've heard or anything. But what if there's a way to get Ridley and Cameron's Alien 5 about the homeworld back on its feet and Sigourney will meet up with David and Shaw because of some time dilation creating parallel stories that cross, and sending them back to Paradise together... She's been in hypersleep since the end of Aliens-- and the company was really trying to break her psychologically so she wouldn't remember. She ends up in a psych ward on gateway station 38 years after Aliens. When Shaw and David are picked up after Paradise. So the upcoming Colonial Marines would have some connection with why the marines go back there, and why the Sulaco may not have ever even made very far from LV-426... While Ripley was retrieved and shuffled around in hypersleep having her nightmares controlled and directed, but also reflecting her own nightmares prior. So Prometheus wouldn't be the dream, but in the third movie we'd link up with the original timeline from Ridley and Cameron's films and to reveal that Ripley was having more nightmares, but they're not even close the the waking nightmare she's brought back into. A while back Sigourney was saying she would want to do alien 5 but only if they explore the earth concept or the home world concept. What if Cameron and Ridley secretly have something up their sleeves? And there's more to what they were planning for their alien 5. More to what it became. Cameron showed Ridley how to use the 3D cameras. In my mind he gave Ridley his blessing over where this series is going and how to approach the Queen. Likewise Ridley respects Cameron so the Queen and Cameron's movie would remain in tact.

Sorry if this got off topic it just kind of flowed out So their is alot of reverse psychology going on here it seems like. David's play on words are how he manipulates people in the movie and keeps his opinions(even though robots are not supposed to have such a thing.) With indy mentioning that the engineers are another example of these double meaning messages it makes me rethink why humans were made then. Even if the engineers did make us just because they can, what does that make us? A part of an everlasting circle of creation and destruction. Here comes Weyland making androids as they are which seems like it will eventually end with them overtaking us. My point in case being when david tells holloway that he doesn't hope they made him too close(to humans obviously). At face value that means he wasn't made like humans, in relation to their attitude and emotion and stuff. On the contrary, I think David hopes that he was made better than humans. Good enough to overpower and outsmart us. David has now become Prometheus. Although he is still in the stages of actually stealing the "fire," he has decided to rob human kind of it.

i posted my litttle idea before i realized your dream scenario of alien 3 and 4 was there and i like it! although that would be a pretty lame way(no offense) too dismiss the movies and as long as the movie was handled right(budgetm wrtiting, and stuuf like that0 something like that could work. maybe instead of a sequel to prometheus they make a fifth alien movie. and i fu ask me, those two would make for a perfect pair to make an alien movie the two different styles can mesh together on this kind of movie! you have dropped my jaw

Robots were made in humans' image & intended to deceive us and hide amongst us in this series. But I don't think David has that luxury of being designed to be in disguise. He had to learn how to hide in plain sight through experience. There's a parallel with us being made in the Engineers' image; and the Androids being made in our image. Ash was meant to be disguised perfectly as one of us. I think David uses words to get around certain things, creates logic loops to break Asimov's laws, only because they gave him his pseudo-emotions and ability to understand basic human emotions. His brain is very different from the Androids that would follow, although rules still apply to him. He may have actually been rebelling against Weyland and all of humanity... That could be why he didn't want to be made too close to us. He may feel like he is actually superior to the crew and more like Weyland--yet even superior to Weyland. He may have these pseudo-feelings because he almost understands feelings/emotions. So I think he does all of his manipulating up front and some of his personality comes from him learning to choose what to believe like Shaw. But it only works for this mission because there are unclear clues scattered all about and that leaves different possibilities that David can choose from. It would relate to the happy birthday viral, in that David sees what he chooses to see when they ask him to draw a meaning from the scattered line fragments. He is choosing to see certain patterns that aren't actually there to fool the observers into thinking that his mind is alright... By saying he sees certain things in the happy birthday viral that make the humans thinks he is just the right level of emotional from the very start... When, deep down, this David doesn't actually believe all of the things he says. Although he knew exactly what he was doing when he was leading them through the doors. The doors of perception like the true meaning behind the name of the band "The Doors". A lot of it would be him actually trying to manipulate events to make the Engineer kill Weyland because he couldn't do it himself. And had to go through a series of manipulations while telling the truth, at least partially, in one of the meanings. He has to gain Holloway's permission like a Lucifer character that holloway just made a deal with. He tricks Holloway into accepting the conditions of what David will do to him. To set off the Engineer in the end all he has to do is speak the exact truth Weyland wants him to. So there would be more to him saying "doesn't everyone want to see their parents dead?" He actually did want the closest thing to his father dead... And he succeeded through using the crew and the Engineer against Weyland. Simply by following the programming, but rushing ahead and being careless with how he chose to carry it out on purpose.. "Oops" wasn't a mistake, he just didn't know he could actually read the language and unlock all the rest until it opened. He realized what he read and the controls working lead to "oops" but he intended to open that door. I think reverse psychology is definitely a good way to put some of it, and how that relates to the trick angle/millburn trying to mesmerize the serpent. David may be trying to mesmerize/hypnotize his audience. Even by planting suggestions in the subconscious and then exploiting it via-post hypnotic suggestions. Suggesting that Paradise is a good place. When Ridley has warned us "Paradise" isn't really what they find. In essence she's falling right into his trap because he wanted to go there. The trigger word Paradise is programmed into her subconscious and he knows that doing certain thing will either string her along, or break her spirit--like when he experiments with taking away the cross. David is experimenting on her mind in some ways, because he doesn't have a true mind or personality of his own... But he learned to choose what to believe from her, and his experience watching her dream. At this point he decides his master is exploiting the crew and it's a lot like schleicher's fable.

In regards to David being Prometheus. I think his punishment may be being forced to carry out his evil tasks for Weyland, although he doesn't really want to. Instead some of his double meaning is him actually siding with humanity over Weyland. And trying to spread the light. He feels the entire crew are foolish for being on this mission and Weyland even more so. He begins to let this shape his perspective of all humanity... however this is only Weyland's cross-section of humanity. But he pities the crew because they have no way of seeing how their cruel master is only forcing David, the horse, to pull everything and exploiting the crew like sheep for their wool. The shephard is evil, and David wishes to be a better shephard than his father. But it's built into his programming to be sort of like Weyland. Both Weyland and David quote Lawrence of Arabia. A movie about leadership and uniting factions. Some of Weyland rubbed off on David because they both talk about the trick. However, David is sometimes using this trick to reveal what is going on in his mind. "Sometimes to create one must first destroy" He intends to do his own creating and destroying, but also recognizes his goals are similar to the Engineers. He wants to change the kingdom into a better place for his subjects. The Engineers might want to make their subjects become the kingdom. David may have wanted to destroy Weyland's rule and take control of the legacy like Vickers did. But he also didn't want Vickers to lead... And thinks he should be a leader on a mission like Lawrence of Arabia. Once Weyland died a number of his evil orders were complete. We may see a slightly different side of David as he manipulates the company for what he thinks is a good purpose by telling them certain things about the secret mission. By playing up the threat of the Engineers to drive them into a panic and make them make terrible decisions.

There would be a far darker purpose to the reverse psychology and conditioning going on. The audience was even a target of this with the way the trailers/movie/virals were created to illicit certain responses with the psychological aspect in mind. Through classical conditioning familiar stimuli was presented to us and we all came to expect certain things. With Shaw's mind David is using Operant conditioning and almost rewarding/reinforcing her to teach her lessons and keep her on his side... While still getting away with not revealing it was him that actually infected Charlie. She doesn't pick up on those clues that he drops "it wasn't the air" because she's already figured out he wants to see Weylan dead... When she asks him "what will you do when Weyland's dead?" on their way to the engineer there's much more meaning to that too. She knows things she's not saying but is repressing some of them, like the stuff about Charlie. If David was lying to her about knowing the alien was in her, and she knows this/has figured this out. It begins to lead her to figure out other things the viewer might not realize Shaw knows. If David in fact can't lie and is lying about knowing the Alien was in her, then his other meaning is the true one. He was actually admiring her for her survival skills and instinct/logic. Something the other crew members didn't have inside them from David's perspective. And many viewers. That Shaw knows some things too subconsciously. They just haven't hit her yet. So he takes the cross away and gives it back at one point. As a form of negative reinforcement, and then positive reinforcement to build her back up psychologically.

elicit*** lol stupid near-homophones. That's a completely different meaning from what I intended and might be the perfect example of my subconscious just sort of slipping it in their because what David does is seen as illegal, or bending the laws of robotics. And Weyland might have been violating some human rights that made what they were doing have to remain secret.

I can think of one very simple and obvious reason why a robot 'butler' would make use of the neuro-visor: to check on the mental health of the sleepers. Aside from that - and the dialogue with Weyland - maybe he's nosey. I must admit that I'd quite like to have a peek in a gadget like that if I was given the chance.

IMO - David is just keeping everyone under his control ie he knows them all through their dreams. I am really not interested in a movie about David & an elaborate dream. That is just not very appealing to me, that is all.

As far as Shaw's dreams to me it was just David learning about the crew and others on this trip. Gathering information is what robots do. I also think is that David also looked into the lives of weyland and Vickers. No one would escape the use of the Visior. Vickers and weyland would be scrutinized by David. The end game is still diomination of the moon landing and eliminating as much of the crew as needed to enter the Engineer's home world. Power is knowledge in this case. And David, now having a taste of new found fredom and that power, would relish morer of each. Cerulean Blue Let's have some action in this next installment Some thinking is OK. But I don't want to have another drama in this series of shows.

In watching that scene again, I always had the distinct impression that David has a sort of fascination with her. For example, they don't show him peeking into the dreams of the other crew members- they only show him focusing on Shaw. I interpret this as having some measure of significance. The way I interpret this... it has something to do with her dual belief system (God and science) which, on a basic level of understanding, are considered polar opposites. David has certain questions as to the nature of his own creation, and from his mechanistic perspective he is probably approaching the question in a more singular fashion. How do we reconcile science and God? Can we? Shaw accepts both readily and I would imagine David finds this fascinating on a certain level.

[quote]@ThatSM Completely crazy idea that hasn't really been thought out. What if Alien 3 and 4 were actually the complete dreams and the technology did advance like that over time to be less noticeable.? [/quote] People who hate Alien 3 and Ressurection have been trying to sell that idea for a long time. Why not extend the to include Aliens - or even Alien as well... [quote] For example, they don't show him peeking into the dreams of the other crew members- they only show him focusing on Shaw. I interpret this as having some measure of significance. [/quote] The significance is Shaw is the main character. Showing David looking into Jackson's dreams for example, but be slow, dull and pointless.

Once again the director has left this as ambiguous altho he's hardly likely to have left it this way just to hide from the audience that David was a butler with dirty hands doing mental health checks on all the crew. Let's see what we know and don't know: We don't know if any of the other sleepers had dream input/output functions. We don't see any of the main characters apart from Shaw (and a few background bots) in their sleepers. We don't see any of the main characters getting out of the cyros, including Shaw. Shaw is the only character we see David assisting. Apart from Holloway, none of the main characters are in that part of the cyro section. The other "David" - the dark-haired chap dressed the same as David who appears to be assisting the other sleepers - walks straight past Shaw. Shaw's sleeper has a black band around it, all the other have a grey band. That an image of David appears in Shaw's dream suggest the dream may have been on some kind of input mode. The images of elephants which appear about the same time as David suggest a subliminal message related to the jockeys. The man in the western clothes who appears when the young Shaw turns her back on the funeral looks a bit out of place. An African boy (about the same age as Shaw) appears in the bottom left and momentarily morphs into what looks like a caricature of a space jockey. Shaw's childhood accent is distinctly English. The older Shaw has fairly indistinguishable accent with occasional lapses into a Manchester accent. Both Shaw's parents are deceased - very convenient for someone with memory implants. Shaw, unable to answer a simple question about the audacious claims she makes (which she has apparently spent years studying) falls back on an expression the audience have just conveniently witnessed in her dream. I'm leaning towards dream implants.

For what purpose?

Preparing her for a mission to the space jockeys, probably something related to their religion.

Why make it so unnecessarily convoluted?

How do you know it's unnecessary. Or convoluted for that matter.

Because there's much simpler explanations than 'preparing her for a mission (and apparently no one else) for contact with a spceies that we've had no contact with for millennia'.

What is this simpler explanation? And if Riddles says everyone was attached to the dream machines, then perhaps there are others.

I already mentioned explanations on the first page.

You didn't seem to mention dream implants. Which is what we are talking about now.

Why would I mention dream implants when I don't think they're using dream implants? Riddles talks about captured dreams which can be played back to the sleeper to help exercise the brain while it's in hypersleep. These dreams can be monitored by an external user who can also use the helmet to communicate with the sleeper.

So why did you refer me back to your explanation when there's no explanation about dream implants? So that's what Ridley said, was it? Did he say who's dreams they play back to the sleeper? I never known a movie that seems to require so much outside info to explain itself. IQs must have dropped sharply since Ridley did BR.

[quote]So why did you refer me back to your explanation when there's no explanation about dream implants? [/quote] Because, as I said, there is no need for dream implants. It's unneccesarily convoluted, remember? [quote]So that's what Ridley said, was it? Did he say who's dreams they play back to the sleeper? [/quote] Not specifically - but there's no reason to assume it's anything other than the sleepers dreams. [quote]I never known a movie that seems to require so much outside info to explain itself.[/quote] That scene doesn't need to explain itself especially. It serves a double purpose of giving us a flashback for Shaw, as well as showing us how the helmets can link someone to someone else in hypersleep - to set up the later scene with Weyland.

Yes, I agree with the last bit that it may have those functions but it doesn't rule out dream implants, which could explain Shaw's statements at the presentation and much, much more.

Sure, if you want to make up stuff to complicate things for no apparent reason, I guess.