Why reanimate the head?

Perhaps he was running from whatever infected him?

I agree, it was one of those moments or times where just because you can do something doesnt mean you should. Cool to watch, but yeah, I don't really get it.

What I got from it was that the dead head was still showing cellular activity, so they thought they could reanimate it and maybe watch its brain activity... Remember David was watching Shaw's dreams?... So they could basically apply the same and get images from him... The program Fringe has done that... Why it exploded? I think they "energized" it too much... and yeah, they needed a gross out scene! LOL

The lab apparatus for [size=200][b]emergency containment[/b][/size] should move [b]fast[/b]. Not like the conveyor belt at a frozen syrup factory.

They treated the perfectly preserved Engineer head like an ordinary specimen.......no respect. The most obvious point in this movie, is that if God was a monster, it would go a long way in explaining why we behave the way [i]we[/i] do.

Artyoh, that is a deep comment. We are created in their image after all based on the story that is being setup... I think on a movie perspective it was done for a scare scene and also to show they are mortal, not god-like beings with David's comment.

I've read posts where folks claim the Engineers are somehow, actually benevolent creators. Bullshit! they're only better at being monsters than we are. They seed life, sure, but only to harvest and exploit it...... just as we do. It's the ultimate irony, and I'm so glad he went there.

You might think he was trying to run away from some monster based on the playback, but reanimating the head shows that /he/ was the monster others were running away from.

I also think it was another tip of the hat to Alien when Ripley reannimated Ash's head...

Like everything else, they did it because they could.

I thought this bit in the movie was crap, it would have been much better if they did an operation on the head and open it up to see what kind of brain or nervous system it had.

This was one of the dumbest scenes in the whole movie. I was not sure if i should laugh or cry, so i did eat even more popcorn.. Find some alien head (wow), find out it is just a "helmet" (aha..). Put the helmet off (behave!). And what we find - a nice, big CGI head. Well. But than the circus just started,as they come in 2 seconds to the idea to play around with some electricity just to see what happens. (what a shit..). And it comes to live (disney, here we go..), and then... hmm. What could we expect THEN? The head talking "..Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen..". Not at all. It explodes and the green slime makes the glas dirty. What a CRAP. I normally like those scenes very much, even the scene when nostromo does some "research" on the dead facehugger was brilliant. Audience likes to watch scientists over the shoulder when they analyze some kind of alien creature. But this was SICK. So what COULD they do out of this "engineer head on the science table"-scene? 1. Open that helmet 2. you see a complete head, conserved for 2000years by the "helmet protection" 3. as it comes in contact with air, it disintegrates in minutes alternative 3. They find some interesting tatoo or implanted equipment in its skull. No "new" life with childish electro-experiments, no childish green-slime-explosion...

I thought they discovered some infestation on the head that if stimulated would continue with its prime directive. That makes sense becasue it has BURST genes in it whihc is mandatory for the ALIEN to be born with...That is what we glimpsed...I bet the body of the head had something in it....

I think the real reason for the scene was to show that this Engineer was exposed to the black goo and was going through the same mutations as Fifield....