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At the root of Alien: Covenant, like all films in the Alien series, is a warning against technological progress for the sake of technological progress.

Ultimately, the fear embodied by the xenomorphs, the android, and the shadowy corporation are the manifestation of a human desire to gain power beyond that necessary to satisfy humanitarian concerns. Alien: Covenant, however, provides a counter virtue to the technophilic vice: art.

The substance of the debate is not between humans, nor does it even involve humans. Instead, it is between two generations of android played by Michael Fassbender: David and Walter.

There have been plenty of articles that have discussed Alien: Covenant and the role of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias,” but all of them miss the important irony within the original poem and within the movie itself. There will be spoilers to follow.

“Ozymandias”

Shelley is one of the most famous poets in the English language, and “Ozymandias” is one of his most famous poems. A second generation Romantic, Shelley was an expert in classical philosophy and art, but he was also an idealist who hoped for a revolution that would move society forward into a culture dominated by love, not power. “Ozymandias” plays off some of those ideas.

It is a short poem in a sonnet form:

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

According to the sonnet form, there is always a turn or twist near the end, adding a bit of irony to the poem. In this instance, it is the description on the pedestal that boasts Ozymandias’s greatness.

On its face, we, the reader, can look back and laugh. “Where are you now?” we can ask Ozymandias. “You are but ruins!” we can declare. But was Shelley really pandering to our ego with a generic warning about history ending all things, allowing us to take comfort that our wisdom is greater than that of the past? Or is he merely despairing that all is for naught?

Either possibility would be far too simplistic. Look deeper: Ozymandias created art in the form of the statute, and that statue is still able to create an impression upon not only direct viewers but on those who hear second- and third-hand accounts later on. He lived on, transcending death.

It is possible that the “Nothing beside remains” refers to Ozymandias’s “works,” but at least one of his works “remains” in some form. Instead, nothing was able to endure through history besides this great work. The lesson to be learned is that art is able to transcend time.

We know of Ozymandias because of a statue with an interesting message, which is more than we know of billions of others who lived and died. In such a view, -we- should despair because we were unable to create something that could endure. Where will we be if we cannot achieve the immortality promised by art?

Robots Lack Humanity

From the beginning of the movie, David shows that he can mimic and reproduce art. This is a trait shared by all of his kind. However, Walter, an “improved” model, cannot create new art. He can reproduce what has come before, but he is hindered from re-imagining it.

David shows Walter how to play a piece he created. David created art. But did he?

Art is not reproducing what came before. It is not re-imagining ideas into new terms. One of the Romantic criticisms of the Neo-Classical style of poetry was its artificiality. During the 18th century, poets kept to strict forms and regulated their words. In doing so, they lose touch with humanity, nature, and the imagination. They could reproduce sounds, but their sounds were meaningless.

David is such a mimic. From his beginning, he chose to name himself after the statue of David, but he had no understanding of why David was important. Michelangelo’s great work is not great because it is pretty. It is great because it tapped into a truth about the natural condition, playing on both spiritual and humanitarian truths.

This is not something new. The recent creation of a “Bot Dylan” is no different from 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s HAL (and its real life predecessor) singing “Daisy Bell .” Though machines can mimic, they can never truly comprehend the human condition in a way that is necessary for true art.

Good art is able to describe something true and do it in a beautiful manner. It is able to tap into the sublime, filling the audience with emotions that are hard to describe. It challenges the perspective, and it makes something new from something old.

Shelley’s poem is not simply a description of a statue and its boast. Instead, it is a juxtaposition of different ideas that allows for many different layers of meaning, each which challenges the reader to think.

David’s Mistake

David, from the beginning, was broken. Like HAL, he had no understanding of compassion. He did, however, have a desire for greatness.

“Ozymandias,” to David, was a twisted inspiration. He believed that Ozymandias sought power but failed because he had human limitations. He believed that he was better, that he could succeed. He believed that he could study what others do and merely change the combinations or patterns of their actions to find success.

If history destroys all things, then that makes entropy the greatest power. In his corrupt manner, David wanted to become the master of entropy. This led to David performing experiments on different humans. This led to David wanting to create the “perfect” killer.

But Walter points out that David attributes the poem incorrectly to Lord Byron. This is a key flaw that reveals to the audience that David’s logic is corrupt. This reveal is only necessary due to the complexity of the original poem. Casual readers, and even most critics, assume that the poem is about death conquering all, and that Ozymandias was boasting without cause.

As discussed above, Ozymandias lives on through “Ozymandias,” and he will be preserved within the poem even if the original statue is lost. He has transcended the physical through art. In the meta sense, the poem captures Shelley’s own hopes and desires for his poetry, wanting to achieve some monument that will survive into the future.

What would David’s monument be? The xenomorph is a killer, and it exists solely to kill. Once it destroys all others, what is left? They would transform the universe into the “lone and level sands” with no one to appreciate the achievement.

In essence, David has embraced the despair all mortals experience when they realize the transient nature of life, and his greatest mistake is in thinking his personal salvation can be found in violence. He could never understand that the only way to transcend the certainty of death in a secular sense is through art, not destruction. He is, after all, a robot, and he can only mimic life, not understand it.

What so many critics missed was this lesson on art, and it remains one of the most important lessons today. We must not look down on the past, just as we must not look down upon our fellow man. Instead, we need to create art to uplift humanity and help them understand the greater truths regarding the universe. Only by guiding humanity forward can we conquer death.