Prometheus: Origins of "Elizabeth Shaw"

leading from

Prometheus afterthoughts

a.) Noomi's character named after a Dr Who assistant? 

The character Elizabeth Shaw's name was used in 1970 for an assistant to the doctor in the British TV sci-fi series  Dr Who, the character was also known as Liz Shaw and was played by Caroline John and assisted the Doctor played by Jon Pertwee.

Liz Shaw from Dr Wh

1. It is still unknown as to whether this was a deliberate homage to the TV series or not. (see wikipedia entry Liz Shaw) Jon Spaihts revealed that the Elizabeth Shaw name was not in his drafts so he isn't responsible for this seeming Dr Who reference. Jon Spaihts on 16th of March told Ikarop "Entertainingly, the character "Shaw" wasn't named Shaw in my drafts. It's the only character name that changed." Dr. Elizabeth Shaw - or simply Liz Shaw - was a civilian member of UNIT. An accomplished scientist, Liz assisted the Third Doctor while there. This often involved her winding up in the same life-threatening situations as the Doctor.  (see also http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Liz_Shaw)

b.) Reason for the change of Elizabeth Watt's surname
On 9:00 AM PDT 5/16/2012 The Hollywood Reporter reports that Noomi Rapace's character Elizabeth was initially named Elizabeth Watts but was changed to avoid confusion with Fox executive Emma Watts. However, if the surname has been changed for the reason as given and it has nothing to do with the Dr Who character then we might ask what the reason behind the surname changed was and if there is no connection with Dr Who at all, we might take note of this as a coincidence. (source Hollywood Reporter) but in the script Alien Engineers, we find the character is named Jocelyn Watts.

T. E. Lawrence

c.) Elizabeth Shaw's surname named after Lawrence of Arabia's false surname. Wikipedia: "In August 1922, Lawrence enlisted in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftman under the name John Hume Ross, at RAF Uxbridge. He was soon exposed and, in February 1923, was forced out of the RAF. He changed his name to T. E. Shaw and joined the Royal Tank Corps in 1923.  So this would make it likely that the surname was chosen just to carry on with the Lawrence of Arabia theme that was a central part of the Prometheus film with the Peter Weyland character showing an interest in the historical figure T. E. Lawrence and David the android showing an interest in the movie Lawrence of Arabia and dying his hair to become like the character. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence)

1. I found this information out on 12th July 2012 when I read in the Alienexperience.com forum a post by Tryfan915, he reported on 10th July 2012: "I'm not sure if anyones mentioned this before, but I was reading the booklet that came with my Lawrence of Arabia DVD and the name that T.E. Lawrence used to try and keep out of the public's eye was Shaw. After the motor cycle accident he was taken to the Military Hospital at Bovington Camp were the staff were surprised to receive anxious enquires about Aircraftman Shaw from amongst others Winston Churchill." Whether others have found out this information and reported it on other forums isn't known to me, but that's where I took notice.