An alleged early Prometheus draft by writer Jon Spaihts has surfaced online today. The draft, named Alien: Engineers, was uploaded this Tuesday to the website Scribd.com, the largest online library. The document shows the Alien Prequel that became Prometheus and contains many of the unused plot points that were revealed on the Prometheus Blu-ray release from this October. There’s a debate over whether or not this script is legitimate, however Jon Spaihts has confirmed moments ago via Twitter that this is indeed the real thing. You can read the full script here at the source or download it here.
“Fifield stumbles along. Exhausted. Pouring sweat inside his suit. He is hopelessly lost. He slams into a resinous structure that topples to the floor. Things break. He whips his light around in jittery paranoia. Taps at his comm controls, getting only static. In Fifield’s headlamp beam, the blackness is filling with motes of light. A blizzard of tiny flying insects. SCARABS.”
Thanks to antovolk for the link.
Too much script reading.
No. In the Spaiths script, Vickers is killed by Mutant Fifield after she goes to the pyramid attempting to stop David.
That's a good point! Thanks for clearing that up, LarsVader.
Some random thoughts/observations :
-I kept picturing Naomi Watts as Watts! - maybe he called her that as that was his preferred actress for the role? (it did seem to be a Naomi Wattsish type role)
-I like that Holloway was older/more mature - not a space jock frat boy constantly trying to bully David! Who as the 48 year old Holloway? Val Kilmer?
-the fun critised stuff in the film seemed to make more sense here (Milburn going with Fifeld...the hammerpid attack...crashing the ship into the Juggernaut)
-Watts hanging the ultra morph head above the door - what is this AvP 3?! that said id have liked to see a huge engineer bred alien chasing Shaw/Watts like the end of Aliens: Apocalypse - The Destroying Angels (which this script was even more similar to than Prometheus) but I guess that would've taken away from the threat of the engineer
-the crashed juggernaut was supposed to be the Dereclict from Alien right? So how would the Space Jockey look so anicent/fossilised? (unless the suit was already aged - it isn't described though)
-someone already mentioned this but - seems abit much that all the pyramids were undiscovered by the Aliens era
-it seemed to be more of a blend of Alien (discovery of the ship/all the horror/xeno stalking crew on the ship) and Aliens (all the action/colonial marine like space soldiers/xenos being shot left right and centre like spacebugs - in fact all the aliens seemed to be too easily killed.) as opposed to just Alien
-the holloway xeno taking on genetic characteristics in its skull behind its dome was quite chilling - im surprised that aspect wasnt explored before in any of the previous films...
Too late for that unfortunately.
And since Shaw still is on the ground in the movie suddenly the main motivation for whole escape-pod thing is gone,
but I guess Ridley still wanted to have it in the movie like it was planned and budgeted.
One of many points that should have gotten straightened prior to production, but like Ridley said, they had to move on.
I am almost sure that they know very well that this movie is far from perfect,
but if they had done it otherwise there probably would be no movie to talk about. *cough*rothman,etc*cough*
Cheers for backing up my point with your factual analysis. And whilst i appreciate that films have unrealistic things in them from time to time, why bother showing her getting out then getting squashed seconds later cos she can only run in straight lines. It would have been less rediculous if say the Juggernaught landed on her crashed escape pod. Then picky folk like me wouldnt have anything to moan about.
Dont get me wrong, i enjoyed the scene as well, but what was the point of her escaping to then be squashed pretty much straight away
You see her eject and her pod flies over Shaw, it lands and you see her get out of it, before Janek fires the ion engines and smashes into the juggernaut. Aside from the tacked on camaraderie happening on the ship this scene is a bloody ripper I reckon.
To treat this matter with the kind of attention your highly intellectual brain deserves, I'll go over this point by point.
* Janek ejects the lifeboat whilst Vickers struggles with her spacesuit. Twenty seconds to evacuate.
* At eight seconds Vickers is ejected from the escape pod.
* By the time the countdown reaches two seconds vickers has landed and is out of the escape pod. NOTE - The countdown does not equate to the time remaining before collision.
* At two seconds the remaining crew speed the Prometheus up for impact.
Perhaps you should start paying attention to the film before posting in future. Sweet dreams.
Also, as I feel you might retort with something along the lines of 'how could anyone land an escape pod from a ship in six seconds?!' I say: If these are the details that truly anger you and sap your enjoyment from a movie, stop watching them.
Im away to my bed Virgil. Let me know in the morning your thoughts on this matter, once you've finished talking nonsense.
1) Because her escape pod lands before the Prometheus hits the Juggernaut.
2) Perhaps it's to do with all the derby crashing at either side of her as to why Vickers is running straight on. But who cares when it's officially the most stupid thing to ever happen in the history of all of cinema EVER.
Apologists gotta apologise I suppose.
Spoiler
Even daft things like the music was annoying me, built no tension at all.
Apart from David saving Shaw, there are no real scenes of the humans banding together. The only other one is the Janeck crash scene which feels a little too surreal the way it unfolds to be honest.
As we speak i have paused it about 10 minutes into my second watch at it. And it confirms what i thought on first viewing. Its a very poor intro. Dont get me wrong, the Jon Spaihts script isnt perfect, theres no doubt you could write a thousand better versions. However, the thing he did and i think its the main thing thats wrong with the movie, is theres no build up. Theres no suspense, we dont know who has wot agenda. It makes it less of a film. We should know more about the work of Watts and Holloway. Their attempts at getting funding for their project. Weyland and his agenda. It would have set the tone brilliantly. Instead he filled it up with shite dream scenes for no reason.
Character development wasnt a priority in Alien / Aliens, but we live in a different time with different expectations. And loads of wee things like why the f**k did they use Guy Pearce as Weyland He just looks like someone in old guy make-up. Why not use an actual old person
Biggest annoyance to me was Holloway though. The guys meant to be some world authority on archeology. Found evidence of possible aliens who are our gods. Believed it enough to ask for funding. Then when he got there was an absolute cock who hit the drink. Annoys the hell out me how unreal that is. I tried to complain about that a while back and some daftys tried to argue the case that Holloways character wasnt unrealistic. Bad bad bad.
So, here i go with the 2nd watch. I'll hopefully update with something worth saying
I would like a real discussion on this one. You can approach any actor in the world. Why do we have who we have for Holloway. And why is he being directed to react this way His whole approach is so lame. I mean, youve worked youre whole life on something so important, finally got the funding, are the first humans to land on a (possible) alien world, and youre so f**kin ham. landed on the planet, janek says 6 hours left dont go out, he says "its christmas and i want my presents" then calls david 'boy', come with me. piss poor
Same point again i suppose, but to take in the size of what is supposed to be happening here, ie the first human expedition to an alien world and the extremely interesting side story of the shady Weyland Corporation that is funding it, we need more time to build the story up. We are on the alien world within 25 minutes of the start of the film and know virtually nothing about anybody, and subsequently couldnt care less about any of them.
Not that im saying it was a brilliant film or anytjing, but i always felt the film Contact dealt with the human aspect of what this sort of thing would mean. Its problem was it didnt deal with the actual alien contact well. However, you could see what it meant to people, different agenda, etc. The speed of Prometheus negates all that. Vickers is lost, Holloway is a douche, etc.
Well, I mean, he must have done something right....right?
Source of the hierarchy, Egyptian symbolism..
Concerning of the Shadow 19 and the Passengers.. Shadow 19 is Spaihts' breaktrough script, he said he has rewritten it over a hundred times.. And rewriting is a big chunk of a screenwriter's work.
I am sure he had much much less time for rewrites for the Alien prequel project than for Shadow 19. If I remember well, the names of Fifield and Milburn suddenly appears after forty pages or so in the recently leaked draft, without previous setting up, which means he was changing names during the writing. You would usually get back and changed the names on the previous pages. The fact he didn't even bothered to change them means a) it was so secret that they didn't have anybody to re-check the scripts b) it was constantly evolving and c) time limit, which was probably caused to start production on a certain date because of the schedules of the talent.
Why this man is all of a sudden the "golden child" of Hollwood, completely escapes me.
When it comes to Damon Lindelof...my feelings are even stronger in that sense. Oh well.
Thanks AvPGalaxy for the pictures
It would be interesting to organize an interview with Spaihts for the website get his views on the film and the making of etc. (and what he meant with that description )
No, I'm taking it literally:
Sounds exactly like a white, fleshy T-1000 to me.
And this?
Dude, the dead of Aliens and People happened inside the PYRAMID, not inside the Ship. As far as I know, the Nostromo explorers were never inside the Pyramid, they only got inside the ship.
The script says the Magellan was cleaned from the surface by the dust/static storm, so it will take more of a archaelogical research to find the pieces. As for the module, yes, I think the sequel was going to explain that.
The hangar was on the underground, and the pyramid, well, it's supposed the Nostromo landed next to the ship, they maybe didn't even notice the pyramids.
Pretty clear this was going to be an important plot point for the sequel.
I don't want to fight over this.
I just think that it does not tie up so neatly.
And out of that, it explained the origin of the Juggernaut from the First movie; so, yeah, it tied-up with Alien and complished its purpose.
So much inconsistency.
For example; the Nostromo crew should have stumbled upon Watts' ultramorph adorned ship module and such.
And since they didn't stumble upon her camp I speculated that they simply must have landed on top of her,
me including a reference to a xeno some demented people allegedly saw being crushed by the Nostromos landing feet in ALIEN.
And I found her behavior very cast-away-ish, decorating her home with trophies and talking to a head.
That's the Tom Hanks image for.
?
the script or early concept art?
The original Giger Alien shows up on the script. and is the one that Watts (Shaw) gives "birth" to.
The differences between these aliens are explained by David. There are many different compartiments with different eggs on the juggernaut, and each have been "tinkered with" differently. Holloway and Watts each "get" different facehuggers. There's no clear "protoxeno" here. No "evolution" into the Alien. The black ooze can mutate animals but doesnt give them the hability to give birth to "facehuggers" who then mate to produce the alien. There's none of that "Lindelofian" overcomplication in here.
One idea though. Spaihts script has a "hatchery" with many different eggs. Lindelof's version has the "Head" room with many canisters of varying size. Maybe their contents really are different. And fifield did get something different than Holloway. Someone has to get Lindelof at gunpoint to explain that mess. He'd probably just say "i dont know.. and isnt that cool? And mysterious?" Gah!
Kind of a white, latex T-1000 with teeth.
So I guess it wasn't an Alien that the Nostromo crushed while landing on LV-426,
it was Shaws/Watts' little cast away camp that it landed on!
Spoiler
Both the Lindelof and Spaihts versions of the hammerpede scene did not have Milburn acting the way he did in the film. Only the Spaihts version actually addressed the possible reason that both of them (in Spaihts' it was Milburn, in Lindelof's it was Fifield) handle the hammerpede - which was much smaller in both scripts - with impunity.
As for them getting lost, the Spaihts version actually made some form of sense - they lost their map. Lindelof didn't ignore 'tons' of exposition - he ignored basic exposition.
I prefer some of the characterization and the ending of the Lindelof version though. Seeing David and Shaw begin their travel into the stars was just a perfect way to end the film. Lindelof's self professed aversion to plot exposition is plainly evident when comparing the film to the spaihts script. Lindelof just ignored tons of exposition that would have averted some of people's problems with the film. (Milburn being overconfident in his suit's protective habilities, how they get lost etc.. etc..)
Somewhere between the two there would have been a better version of Prometheus.
Here's hoping whoever writes/directs the sequel gets to use some of the unused elements in this script.... The Holloway chestburster. The room with the squidlike facehuggers... The Carlos Huante Beluga headed Xenomorphs and Mutated Fifield... the scene between David and Shaw(Watts) with him holding the facehugger right near her face.... that would have been amazing to see on the screen. Also, neat use of Mutated Fifield... he "talks!"
I like the descritiption of the Holloway Xeno:
Spoiler
This Xeno kills a shit ton of people by himself. Do like that.
It's the depiction of the Watts xeno and the Ultramorph that bother me. (They get killed way too quickly) Lindelof did well in replacing those elements with the Trilobite and the Engineer confrontation... I also prefer the Engineers in the final film to the way they are written here.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fightersgeneration.com%2Fnx2%2Fchar%2Ftwelve-by-genzoman.jpg&hash=d3b4a740d3941861260120d5aae7c5127a563fbe
Damon's draft JUST LEAKED.
Awesome. Thanks a ton, Ikarop.
... actually I think I'm cool with that. I don't think it's bad, but I didn't find it any more interesting than a well-written fan-fic.