Why such a harsh ending for Shaw?

You are absolutely right in bringing up these blatant plotholes. It makes no sense, but the alleged 'prequel' to Alien: Covenant (aka Alien: Awakening), will supposedly answer these questions.

I for one am just happy the irritating character has been killed off.

I bet she got sick from having been hit with goo infected fluids. She got a slow watered down degeneration of her DNA via the sex/baby thing from Promethus. David clearly had a reason for bombing the Engineers in AC. Its most likely he wanted to create life a "perfect" life and he realized, seeing what it did in previous encounters his opportunity to do so. I think her death will reveal motives in later movies. Its not like they killed her off like Newt Alien 3 style. 

There is one thing that we're not considering.  ADF is writing the Prequel to Alien Covenant.  So I am sure the "plot holes" will be filled by the story told in the book.

Note: Your imagination is better than anything you can see on a big screen, it takes you where you want to go not a director.

In the prologue, we see Shaw assisting David in piloting the ship. In Covenant, we only see a hollogram of Shaw sending a message in space by singing. So, according to what the two movies and the prologue gives us, I think she has just assisted David in piloting the ship.

But when we see her singing, in hollogram, was it after David dropped the black goo and the crash of the ship ? I don't remember the shot, when we see the hollo-ship sending the waves in space, was the ship in space (so, before cryo-sleep) ?

I covered parts of this in my Topic Here

I will gladly cover some in his thread...  i dont think Shaw was dying due to the infection, because we see she has Long Hair in the Crossing Prologue and unless this is another Massive Oversight (of potentially a number by Ridley Scott... For Dr Shaw to have grown her hair that long takes about 6-12 Months depending on Person.. (Excluding me lol)

So she appears to have survived enough time to grow her hair and in some of the Prologue she even seemed happy and not to unwell, but it looked like she was not in the best shape.. but then we have to ask what Nutrition she is getting.

David puts her in Cryo-sleep and off he goes....

It appears he genuinely had a lot of affection for Shaw, and he even says he loved her with a Tear in his eyes... he was either Lying.... or he genuinely grew fond of her.

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"

Nature Boy Song

Sadly Shaw did not feel the same for him, then things went sour... and in the end Shaw was used so David can finish off or begin his experiments.  (I doubt Shaw would allow him to use the Goo after she saw what it did in Prometheus).

i too believe that shaws role in a:c is questionable.  to build a character and story like in prometheus and for their to be a sequel in which her role was so small that after editing she doesnt make the film.  something doesnt fit.

maybe it was just down to the story which was rehashed but i think its more than that.

if im honest the lack of reveals and yet more holes in the story have really disappointed.

some of us spent hours theorising on engineer background and mythology, engineer texts and murals. 

for our time invested in those areas we got zero return.

like most of us i had worked out the plot as i wanted to by using any info i could get my hands on. that is fine, i wanted to do that.

however it was going to be about the reveals and that was what i was interested in. all those questions from prometheus and some from alien could be answered.

after viewing the tracklisting i thought there was only going to be 3 reveals. max. everything else would be what we saw during the film in the background, city, statues etc..

then i watched a:c and we got nothing. nothing of note. yes we will pick up some things on its release when we can have a good look but other than that nothing was spoke of.

all that for another alien action flick for the casual fan (imo sorry)

@sherris - I absolutely agree with you!! 

It seems to me we are getting another Lindeloff magic smoke movie, where anyone can make a real Xeno, if they try hard enough?  I am just going to say it, I have seen enough Xenos jumping around too fast & killing people in my lifetime!  Where are the Engineers & my answers?

Yesterday we were discussing Nietzsche & today we are talking about a movie that answers nothing.  I have to ask Sir Ridley, "What is your motivation?".  Looks like the $ to me?

*I am really perplexed at the direction we are heading?*

I have not meant to offend anyone, just expressing & venting my thoughts, again!

David was obviously already aware of the Neomorphs existing when we first see him in the movie, which means that by experimenting on Shaw he was trying to make them better. That's why Shaw's body is largely cut open, because David needed her organs and dna to experiment with the Neomorphs and create his own Xenomorphs. Allegedly he used her ovaries in conjunction with the black goo to create the eggs, and then, by extension, the Xenos. Remember David's quote "Sometimes to create, one must first destroy." He decided to kill Shaw, his love, for the sake of creating the perfect lifeform.

I think they wanted to get back to the Xenomorph and Alien links, and so to ignore Prometheus but they had to cover some parts of it in Alien Covenant... with limited time frame to tell the Story Ridley wants to connect to Alien, having to do another movie that bridges the gaps between Prometheus and Alien Covenant could be deemed not needed if they cover these in the ADF Book.

A Interesting thing is that Noomi Rappace did come on set for Alien Covenant to do some scenes, these are most likely the Hollogram and Prologue Crossing Scenes.... but there maybe could be a few more extended ones of this that could be added as Flash Backs in the next movie.

Although i feel they are now moving forwards and anything related to Prometheus will be forgotten... or maybe not.. this depends if David takes them to LV-223.

As far as the Hollogram goes its a interesting one, i am not so sure the Technology would mish mash Audio from a different time to video of another... but again David could have maybe edited it?

We have to wonder was it by Pure Accident that just this signal got out?  I would think looking at Davids Agenda, and how it could appear he is stranded on Paradise/Planet 4 that he had taken this recording and broadcasted it to Lure in a Rescue Mission.

Indeed Proton.... and the Neomorph actually may not be a creation by David at all, it may be a result of the Black Goo, most likely spillage from the crash..

The Spores had been growing in the Cargo Hold, among the Vegetation and Moss etc... the Black Goo does not effect Plant Life but then Fungus are Technically not Plants and so its likely some Fungi gets infected with the Black Goo that maybe spilled from a Urn that was not Weaponized and Activated in the Bombardment.

Thats the most Logical conclusion i can come up with... and so David would see these Organisms and Experiment with them?

Or even if David creates the Neomorphs too, regardless we do see his workshop has a number of experiments that are related to the Xenomorph/Neomorph which we can assume takes on Traits off the Host and this means looking at the Experiments and Drawings that at least 8-10 Humanoid Hosts would have been needed to conduct such experiments...  so the Question is where did David obtain them?

Which is why i made this TOPIC 7 weeks ago

@BD 

"... Drawings that at least 8-10 Humanoid Hosts would have been needed to conduct such experiments... so the Question is where did David obtain them? ..."

Survivors of the initial attack. Or beings that weren't in the city.

@Tiwaz

I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm thinking there were at least a handful of survivors (that David experimented on further).

In Prometheus, David mentions how he was initially unaware that Shaw had at least some survival instincts in her.  In terms of evolution, the "survivors" of the bombardment would be the ones who pass their genetic traits on to the next generation.

David may have went looking for any "survivors" after they fled from the city.  Puncturing Daniels' equilibrium by introducing her to the bioweapon, the Engineers, and David, causes her to adapt to the new environmental circumstances...

The Neomorphs appear to utilize a type of spores they obtained from the surrounding environment to breed - instead of relying on the human sex spores.  I tend to agree with BigDave that the Neomorphs were likely the result of spillage, and they're basically a new strain of Xeno that was unintentionally created as a byproduct; David may have indirectly or "accidentally" created them...

@CarynDelacroix

Makes sense.

"Survivors of the initial attack. Or beings that weren't in the city"

Very open to debate... partially due to some oversights that lead to some Plot Holes.... you see it appears Davids Workshop is actually the Creature Design Team Workshop, we have Human Baby New Born/Unborn Skulls... Chicken/Turkey Skeletons, Rat Skeletons and someone on Instagram said they had a Cat Skeleton that she took home and explained that these was used by the Production Team for inspiration as far as Anatomy

Its Logical the creature design team studied these so they can incorporate anatomical elements into the designs. It will explain the anatomy of the Aliens in this movie and how they move.

The workshop had many concept works include some of Dane Hallets Works.. which include this one.

This appears in the background along with a number of other concept works.

Ridley and Co must have then thought lets add all these to the movie to explain the various experiments David had done...  which ULTIMATELY raises a few Questions...

Which i think will lead to some of the more detailed Debates about this movie, and SIMPLY PUT...  For David to conduct such experiments, he must have obtained various Organisms, which has to include Humanoids to carry out said Experiments.

But then the Place is Void of any Life, No Birds, No Animals.. Nothing.

All good theories guys! Maybe there were animals there once upon s time and david used the last remaining ones up on his experiments, then used Shaw because she was the last thing left?

one thing is for sure, with all the decaying body parts and bits and guts in that workshop - the smell must of been horrid!