In the upcoming Alien: Covenant, the sequel to the Alien prequel Prometheus, Michael Fassbender will be reprising his role as David, the scheming android with some suspiciously human emotions. Fassbender is too good to be playing just one robot though, and he is actually playing one other android character in the film, named Walter. We've actually seen far more of Walter than David in the promotional materials, but it's pretty easy to mix the two of them up. In the actual movie, however, the two will have very distinct personalities to help set them apart, according to Fassbender...
I wanted Walter to be more Spock-like --- devoid of human characteristics or emotional contents that are programmed into David. I want him more like a blank canvas one can project things upon.
Alien: Covenant is one of the hot summer movies coming out this year, as Ridley Scott introduces what seems to be the origin of the Xenomorphs and the extremely unlucky crew of explorers that finds them. Among that crew will be Walter, the android of the ship (it wouldn't be an Alien movie without one). Michael Fassbender once again gets his robot on in the film and he tells Entertainment Weekly that he approached Walter very differently from his portrayal of David in Prometheus. Walter is more "Spock-like" and devoid of those pesky human emotions that drove David down a pretty dark path.
Viewers will remember that although David was created by humans to serve them, they also added some emotions to his programming, which usually turns out to be a bad decision. Though David was ultimately acting out the orders of his master Weyland (Guy Pearce), he had a sick amount of fascination with the devastation caused by his experiments with some black ooze on the crew -- experiments that eventually led to the creation of a Xenomorph. Apparently, the Weyland Corporation learned its lesson and designed the Walter model with fewer emotions in order to not creep out their customers.
It's not exactly known what David has been up to all these years since the events of Prometheus, but it doesn't look to be anything good. Rumor has it that David has continued his experiments, using the whole population of a planet as his focus group. If he does eventually come face to face with Walter, one would imagine that he won't be a very good influence.
Alien: Covenant is directed by Ridley Scott and follows the crew of the Covenant as they embark on a mission to colonize an uncharted planet. They soon find that the planet isn't as uninhabited as they think and soon find themselves prey to a horrible monster.
Alien: Covenant is set to give audiences the heebie-jeebeis on May 19, 2017.
