Aurora - Nature Boy

I think that Walter does indeed NOT have the best interests of the crew in mind. He's definitely primarily for the company and most likely follows the same directives as Ash. However, I think the song is referring to David and his curiosity and his "transcendence" of his programming so to speak. 

I want David to be the good guy. In my head, making him "the big bad" is too easy. Especially since he was kind of a tragic character in prometheus from a certain point of view.

I think this song themed for David journey.

And tells as from Daniles' perspective. 

The songs lyrics also work with the Jesus narrative Scott alluded to in 2012. The lyrics may be reflecting a basic theme of AC.

I should preface this by noting something for those unfamiliar with the contents of the Bible. Christians often refer to the story/purpose of god sending Jesus Christ as the establishment of a new COVENANT between god and man.

Imagine if you will...

"There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
(strange = synthetic, enchanted = obsessed with engineers)
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he"
(referencing David who traveled very far to Paradise and became enlightened or "very wise" by what he found)

"And then one day
A lucky day he passed my way"
(when the crew of the Covenant/Daniels encounters him)

"Then we spoke of many things:
Fools and kings"
(Weyland/Promethus' crew = fools, engineers = kings)

"Then he said to me
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is to love and be loved in return'"

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

(Possibly the big reveal that the engineers decided to destroy humans because they sent us an engineer to teach us how to heal our civilization by loving one another and being loved by our creators. This would be the "greatest thing" we needed to learn because when we didn't and crucified the engineer called Christ, the engineers decided to destroy us)

That is interesting and well thought out. Jesus purpose was to teach us and then die and resurrect to forgive sin and sit at the right hand of the father.

By biblical accounts Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed, no one murdered him. In John 18 they fall down every time Jesus acknowledges his Identity.

It stands more to reason that if there is any connection between Christ and engineers, He was their opponent, not their messenger. His presence caused them to want us wiped out, not his sacrifice, but I highly doubt it's going anywhere near that direction.

Myrddin365

If I remember correctly, when conceptualizing Prometheus, Ridley was originally going to piggyback off the whole "Jesus was one of the many Elohim" theory.

He decided not to explicitly present this theme as he said it was "too on the nose" though it is possible he still intends for the theme to have a subtle presence that the viewer is able to piece together without any of the films stating it directly. 

I'm just extrapolating based on what we know about the Engineers and the biblical account. We haven't found any spouting "Love your neighbor" yet. 

Myrddin365

"We haven't found any spouting "Love your neighbor" yet."

No doubt, and even if this is Ridley's intention, I don't think we will find any engineers spouting such a thing.

I'm just imagining what Ridley may have originally intended. Ridley doesn't seem to like religion so I'd imagine he'd be going more for something like the idea that the elohim are actually malevolent and they sent Jesus to teach us to live in peace with each other so we wouldn't ruin earth or each other (which if others on this site are correct, may be because they seeded us so that one day we might serve some sort of purpose of theirs).

It's not impossible that Ridley might be looking to tell a story of a superior race who created us for a selfish purpose and sent us religion to control us. When we didn't take the bait and killed the messenger, they decided we were a garden that had become contaminated beyond saving so they decide to cut their losses and start over.

It's just that Christianity was too successful for anyone to be mad about what happened to Jesus.  Literally billions would spread his message over the next 2000 years. And in that time frame the Earth's population would increase exponentially. 

The rebel faction may have recognized the Jesus strategy from other planets and realized that it would cause the planet to stabilize more and have a population explosion, so we could be seeded or harvested or whatever and that's why they wanted a black goo annihilation of our planet.

Im not saying Christianity caused the population explosion, it's just correlated, and in this context it would make more sense for that population explosion being the thing the rebels wanted to prevent. By all relevant measures, the seeding of Christ was an unmitigated success.

Christianity has been successful in some regards, but perhaps not in the way the engineers might had hoped (were this actually the narrative). In proposing the idea that the engineers intended to subdue us with Christianity, I originally was talking about an outcome where Christ would have successfully turned all humans to the doctrine. An outcome where the doctrine would have overcome the systems of power and organization humans were entangled in. Something along the lines of the fabled age of Aquarius. 

Basically a scenario where the engineers preferred for us to survive and multiply but did not intend for us to continue evolving in knowledge, technology, and power structures.

At this point, the motivations of the engineers are fuzzy. Ultimately 2000 years ago someone got pissed and decided planetary genocide was a great idea until the lab rats got away from them. How much that has to do with the rise of Christianity will forever be a mystery.

Myrddin365

Agreed with exception to the idea that it will forever remain a mystery. Ridley could flesh this out in AC or later films. If he does, I hope he keeps it a little ambiguous. I think stating outright that it's all about JC would kill my enjoyment. Nothing against JC, but that would be so specific it would make the film feel cartoonish.

QES- agree. Some ambiguity should remain. Artistically, being able to speculate and discuss unanswered questions is similar to analyzing other art forms such as paintings or songs.

@QueenElizabethShaw

interesting comments and like the break down of the Nature Boy Song...  i think we need to not read too Literal into the Jesus and Biblical connections..

I feel they are trying to show us... hey the Bible, Jesus etc its not real.. not a real account anyway.. just one of the interpretations that change generation to generations..

I mean its not trying to say.. yes there was God, Jesus the Devil.. but there was not Cronus, Zeus and Prometheus...  its more a case of those Religions and Cultures are interpretations of these Engineers and their purpose and visitations to Earth.

People was wondering the Jesus connection dont make sense.. Jesus is not a 10ft Bald Engineer....

I would expect they are now going to show us that the in context to the Franchise Jesus was just a Emisary.... they could even go the route that Mohamed was the same... a Hybrid brought to Earth to set us back on the intended path of worship.. because we have behaved in ways against there wishes.

I would also say the Sacrificial Engineers Scene, and Alien Covenant Diaster covers the same Race who are now Human Size... and the Taller LV-223 Engineers are just to them as David is to us..  but Biological.

It would be like Weyland creating not David 8's... but imagine they created Terminators....    so the LV-223 Engineers were maybe a Creation for a Purpose Engineered to be bigger and meaner and tougher...  like if we on Earth Engineer Super Soldiers... and Cloned say 7ft Agile Large Built Humans.

I think we need to read into the Nature Boy scene a bit different... 

Yes we see the Nativity but we need to look at it in context to that Scene and trying figure it out.... where i makes sense that we are seeing the First or Early David with Weyland..

We know Weylands Pride and Agenda, where he wishes to play God and Create his own Life... and he creates David as God created Man.... Weyland would talk about creation, life and death.. immortality/mortality... the SOUL.

The Nativity Jesus.. is to show us he was created by God, he was different to Humans... looks the same... but he is different he is Enchanted... Immortal... .. David is a Enchanted Humanoid too... he is to a degree Immortal... he can perform feats that would be beyond what a Human can do.

They are both... like Man... but different.... one created as Gods favored Son... incarnate... the other Weylands Son incarnate (Weylands ultimate aim was that maybe one day these David Androids could provide Weyland with the key to immortality). So Weyland sees himself as a God...

The Chair represents... due to the Dot in Circle... the Sun, which links to the center of Creation... its is also a sign of God/God's but its also a sign of Spirit and Soul...

Its to showcase the whole set up of that scene regarding Weylands ambition to become God, and unlock the key to immortality.

This is the Enchanted Boy/Jesus connection...

BigDave

You're more or less thinking along the same lines as me. The only thing I hadn't considered before reading your posts is the idea that a lot of this Jesus/Christmas symbolism are allusions to David's relationship to Peter reflecting the idea that Peter wants to become god and his son may in fact play some type of messianic role in a dark and twisted sense.

If this is where Ridley is trying to take us I'll be very happy with the film

This is a reply i forgot to post before as internet went down so saved it on the date 9th January... came across it today so posting it a bit late.

Indeed that is what i was getting at ;)

Indeed the scene looks like this...  the shot of the Mountains and lake... very beginning of Prometheus looking .. regardless if this was Earth, Paradise or some place else..

They Key importance of that Scene is it was to showcase CREATION... which the Nativity does too  The Dot in a Circle also represents Sun, Creation... certain Gods... also the Soul and Spirit..

all themes connecting to potential this scene and Ridleys comments.

I would bank on this shot being David from 2025, with Weyland.. talking about creation and life and death..

Weyland sees himself as God... and David is his only Begotten Son like Christ is to God... etc..

I think they would also show us David Prototypes have their Memories transferred to next model...  so 2025.. David 1 if he is upgrades to a David 2 (which may be upgrades on that Model than a rebuild)  then his memories and data are passed on.... once the Models advance to more Production so they make say 5 or so... then the first of them say if David 3 had 5 made.. would have Weylands Sons Memories... then when a David 6 comes out again his memories are passed on.

So we have David 8 who is the first of his model who will have 69 years or Memories and a Soul... compared to the thousands of other David 8's that would not be Weylands Personnel Son.

This is where i think its going....

It's a beautiful song and fitting to the AC trailer.

Although it’s an old song by Nat King Cole, it does seem fitting to interpret this lonely, sad, enchanted boy as David who travels very far (perhaps also an inner journey)?

Apart from the lyrics, I really like it's somewhat eerie tone to it, foreshadowing the terrible events to come in the film. 

neo, yes the track just seems to fit seamlessly to the trailer as did the music for the Prometheus trailer. ridleys movies always have had exceptional musical scores and the trailers r no different. I remember he gave an interview on the bonus dvd for alien where he stated the first showing of alien bombed due to the sound system in the theatre so they did a second showing but researched the theatre more and he got such a different reaction from people. he definitely knows the value of good music to accompany the onscreen story

I think qes made a very good interpretation.

The jc could not be the only reason but our act started something,we defently caused something to them from that moment forward things changed and ac will enlight us more.