Yet another interesting tidbit from that sci-fi film that people are still debating has come to light. We recently got a look at an unseen alien from Prometheus courtesy of some behind-the-scenes images, and we also shared a couple of featurettes that reveal how the opening sequence of Ridley Scott’s thriller was created. Now some information has come to light that answers one of the more pressing questions audiences were left with when the film ended: what exactly did David say to the Engineer towards the end of the film?
Hit the jump to find out. Obviously spoilers for Prometheus follow.
You may recall a pivotal scene towards the end of Prometheus in which David (Michael Fassbender), a very old Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), Elizabeth (Noomi Rapace) and a few goons decide it’s a great idea to wake up the last surviving Engineer for a father/son chat. He comes out of hypersleep, David says something to him in the Engineer’s language, and the Engineer proceeds to rip everyone to pieces. The dialogue between David and the Engineer isn’t subtitled, but now Dr. Anil Biltoo of the SOAS Language Centre in London, who served as the Linguist Teacher on Prometheus, has revealed exactly what it was that David said in an interview with The Bioscopist (via Ropes of Silicon):“This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life.”
Most people figured that David must have said something incredibly offensive that triggered said Engineer’s rage, but this interaction was actually a small part of a larger conversation between David and the Engineer that was cut from the film. My interpretation of the scene in the context of the film was that it didn’t matter what David said to the Engineer, he was going to kill the humans anyway. He had just been awoken from a super long nap by this pesky little offspring that he and his people had already deemed worthy of extermination, so why wouldn’t he murder them and get the hell out of there?
Screenwriter Damon Lindelof admitted that the film originally had subtitles for the scene, but Scott felt strongly about not including them (Lindelof says he speaks at length about this on the DVD commentary). The director told Steve that the Blu-ray of Prometheus will include 20 – 30 minutes of deleted scenes, so hopefully we’ll get to see the extended David/Engineer conversation subtitles and all when the disc is released. Until then, hit the comments to discuss how the revelation of David’s words might impact your interpretation (if at all) of why the Engineer’s Rampage was initiated.
