David and The Orrery

Have you ever thought that David8 might have imagined the whole scene and Ridley Scott just showed to us what he had in his mind by adding some special effects graphics over the scene? The original scene might be a walking hallucinating David! More poetically, by unplugging the cable from Vicker's controls in order not to follow him in the pilot room, he plugged us (the watchers of the film) into his mind or better into the orrery.

Like the Matrix? Plugging into virtual worlds?

I think the big deal here is that David8 will smile, even when no one else around!

David is a machine and he is programmed to behave in certain ways. The only reason you smile when you are happy is because your monkey ancestors did a lot of communication with their teeth. David has no such legacy: only what he has been programmed with and what he can see. For sure he has been put on a loose leash by Weyland, but at the end of the day he is a machine without a soul. A mimic. Does he actually experience happiness? It looked that way, like when he found out that Shaw was still alive. But if he does, it's just machine happiness. That could easily be programmed in as a response condition when a threat to his existence is removed. Whatever David turns out to be, there are fascinating possibilities. Will he ever develop a soul, I wonder. And what, at the end of the day, is a soul? His future relationship with Shaw is going to be very interesting.

@ geopap The mention of some sort of dream explanation has been mentioned..and I have considered that storyline. Vickers saying she would cut the cord to David,, the use of the Dream Visors...and, as you mentioned, David turning off the feed to Vickers as he enters the orrery are all events depicted in this movie. For me the most intersting is the cutting Vickerd off,,not that he did...but when he pulled the plug, so to speak. The was something about the orrery that he didn't want Vickers to see...at this time. I hope it is not some sort of dream script,,because it cheapens in my mind the storyline. Instead of science fiction..the movie becomes more Science Fantasy. Not even 'Usual Suspects' relied on a dream element to explain that plot.

"..David is a machine and he is programmed to behave in certain ways.." @zzplural Having viewed the movie a few times it is easy for me to think of David as a programmed machine,,with a developing mind. . I guess a part of me wanting David to be sort of bridge between a robot and a human and look of examples in the movie where any programming would be suspended. The scene as I described of David in big chair seemed to be an example that a smile would not be a sub program routine..if there was no human to observe. If David is nothing more , as you suggest, than a result of programming,,,that was one hell of a programmer to detail responses for new experiences on an unknown world. You are right that David is nothing but a android/robot/programmed machine as percieved by the other movie charactors. As viewers do we know more than the humans in the movie..or are we just trying to impose our dreams(to pick up a related thread by geopap) or story hopes on this film?

Well, David's a very clever learning machine as well. But he must have pre-programmed conditioning. Otherwise he would be completely crazy and have no idea what to do in any situation. He might think that bursting out of a Christmas cake and pulling himself apart like a cracker is kosher. Actually, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he does go a bit crazy in the sequel (remember, HAL could only take so much in 2001, and Ash sort of lost the plot near the end). As viewers, we certainly see more of David's little secrets, which are well hidden from the crew. I don't think we're expecting too much to think that David's personality has a long way to run, and I look forward very much to that in the sequel. What it is to be a robot, what it is to be a human. Are we really that different, and in what way? I'm sure these are some of the questions that will be posed in the sequel.

sir ridley is causing so much pain...we are thinking so hard about every little thing haha! oh man i love this movie

If David 8 was remotely wet wired to Peter Weyland, then is it David 8 who is smiling or Peter Weyland? So is most of David 8's behaviour up to the point of Weylands death an extension of Peter Weyland and what comes after is the free will of David 8.

There doesn't seem to be any reason why Weyland could not be up to date,,with David's activities. This would include the scene where David cuts off the video feed to Vickers(just after entering the Orrery). Who is to say he doesn't just continue the video to Weyland,,or starts it since by trying harder,,he now has some results to show the Boss.

NOT A DREAM SEQUENCE/HALLUCINATION! David is seen pressing buttons (hard boiled eggs) and activating something before the Orrery lights up. He clearly 'turns it on'. I am positive it's real- it is the navigation system for the Engineers. (A star map) it also seem to contain info about which species live where- looking closely i can see rings of information circling each planetoid. It's like a starmap/record of who/what the Engineers have made/come into contact with. (Seemingly the entire known universe, lol.) And yes, IndyJohn, props to you buddy- David is like a little kid in there with wide-eyed excitement!! (He also displays hopefulness before anyone else wakes up, when he opens the ships shutters and sees LV223 for the first time. It's as if he knows about his potential freedom from Weyland even at this point!! How could this be? PS- Fassbender for President!

Even when I saw the movie the very first time, I felt that David's emotions were constantly increasing whenever he interacted w/the crew, especially w/Shaw and Holloway.... Perhaps David's happy face in the Orray Room was because RS played the soundtrack of Dark Side of the Moon as they filmed it.... I know whenever I listen to the Floyd, I aways get that stoner/sh*t eating grin from time to time, or maybe it's what I'm consuming at the time I listen to the Floyd, which is it? :)

What we are really getting into here is the basis of 'Do Androids dream of electric sheep', the Phillip K. Dick novel that Blade Runner is based on. The question is, what is the experience of being an android like? Of course we will never know, but we can only imagine. In Blade runner, the replicants were biologically based with human engrams implanted in their neural networks, and they were unaware of their own nature. Probably Rachel, for example dreams of spiders outside her window hatching an egg with a hundred baby spiders that eat their mother. We still are unsure of the purpose of dreaming in human beings. Is it a means of assimilating experience and making sense out of our worlds? David is an electronic android but by this time in the future who can say what they will know about biological neural systems such that they could emulate the networks in electronic format, with synthetic circuit neurons with thousands of inputs and one or more outputs. Then there also is the possibility that software could emulate human like responses or even dreams. The brain and it's resultant consciousness, or mind can be considered the last and greatest frontier. It may take future science centuries to unravel its mysteries, but I once had a physics teacher who reminded us that the rate of scientific development is exponential in nature so what may seem impossible today may be commonplace in a hundred years. For those of us who are fascinated by science fiction and future possibilities it gives us hope!

Well said.

Maybe hes smiling to himself because the engineers have learned how to combine mechanics with biology, so he might learn their secrets and become a real boy after all. Pinoccio!

THe future maybe already here. If any posters have visited a casino,,you already know that some machines can think and tease you by withholding winning combinations. Gamblers talk and yell at the spinning wheels,,,,but they just don't listen! Sometime in the future David will seem like a like an old model or child's play. David is a curious charactor that hints at this bio-mechanical development.. Now if I can stop dreaming...

When I watch the David discovers the orrery I am not sure what I am seeing on the screen. Certainly the Last Engineer is a hologram activiting the orrery fro some reason. maybe a goodnight story for him and the crew. Earlier David is pushing buttons that don't seem to be doing anything except to turn the chair around so it would be easier to sit and eventually run the console. The displays over the console and eventually fill the room seem real not holograms. Are they responding to david's initial button pushing? Is the holographic Engineer somehow able to push the buttons to activatre the world's displays? The running Engineer hologram wassd clearly just a display piece(except fopr the bit of messing up David's hair. Tghe orrey scene seems to blend the Engineer hologram with real displays for david to watch, wonder and i assume learn from. It is the timing that seems to perfect. Maybe it is one of those suspension of belief scenes and move on. It seems to me that with the hologram Engineer nothing would be displayed. With david pushing the buttons and activating the orerry displays that would be very cool. Independantly each seems to work. My problem is that both worlds blend together like a dance.