Prometheus should have been the best Alien movie, but Damon Lindelof ruined it

Is it better than the last movie we got?

By David Wharton | Published 1 hour ago

When Prometheus When Alien hit the big screen in 2012, legions of Alien fans were eagerly awaiting a return to this universe. Even all these years later, some still call it brilliant. Some are still convinced that it is an abomination full of gaping logical holes.

And many seem to fall into the same camp as us: they admire what the film is trying to achieve, but are confused by the characters doing one stupid, illogical thing after another.

There's no question that both director Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof (“Lost”) should have addressed these issues at the script stage, the draft of which was used in the final film and who shared screenwriting credit with Jon Spaihts.

What many don't know, however, is that it was an earlier draft of the film Prometheus popped up briefly online, giving us a fascinating glimpse into a different path the film could have taken.

The script originally appeared on Prometheus Movie (it was removed for copyright reasons), but was confirmed as genuine by screenwriter Jon Spaihts via Twitter.

Jon Spaihts wrote the original Prometheus script and it was called Alien: Engineers

Because of the quick distance, you had to read quickly at the time, but enough people were aware of it to realize in the first pass what Spaihts was trying to do with it.

So what did it do? Prometheus what did it look like before Lindelof got involved? Spaihts wrote the pre-Lindelof version of the script, and it was Spaihts' draft that really helped get the project off the ground.

Then called Alien: EngineersSpaihts' script contained a Prometheus that was much more directly related to that extraterrestrial franchise, and not the “spiritual predecessor” that eventually made it to the big screen.

One of the plot points in the original script was that we would see the first expedition to search for the Engineers underwater at an obelisk site in the Mediterranean, rather than on the Isle of Skye. There they found the map coordinates to find the engineers.

The black goo wasn't supposed to be a factor, but rather a swarm of insect-like creatures called “scarabs” that attacked and ate the engineers. And the Prometheus ship was supposed to travel to the moon LV-426, which you would know from the original extraterrestrial Movie. Instead, they traveled to LV-223 with all its statues and research stations.

“Alien: Engineers” was intended to be more of a direct prequel to the Alien series

The biggest overarching feature of the original Prometheus script was that it was intended to be a more direct prequel to the Alien series, rather than a loosely connected series of events that provide some (but not much) background information to what we'll see “later.” “would see. .

At the end, Prometheus was fine for what it was, although there was definitely a missed opportunity here in the context of the overall Alien franchise arc. It should have just been a direct prequel that sets up the rest of the Ripley story. But Lindelof got a little astray and we were left with an engineer who ripped Michael Fassbender's head off.