This script, honestly I'm glad we got what we got, it is certainly an improvement actually. But some things strike out at me reading so far.
1) Engineer adults, children, etc. They play some kind of old ancient human sport. That's interesting. The setting is a bit too lush, I think scoping it back was a good idea, you don't want to go too far in that natural physical direction without CGI.
2) Planet 4 is not anywhere near the Core Systems, the Outer Rim, or even the Outer Veil of human colonized space. They weren't joking when they said this was the farthest out humanity has ever ventured, Shaw in the beginning says they're about 200 light years from Earth. And they didn't even make it then. They were close, but they she still slept, and and ate, washed. Could be anywhere within the 200 light year range. Which proves my suspicions that wherever this world was, it had to have been pretty far from human space not to be noticed. Making 7 years for Origae-6, from some region 200 light years away from human colonized space. Weyland Yutani clearly wanted to accelerate their colonial spread, this being one of many planned missions but....obviously they never came back so the idea was probably scrapped. It could be a typo, but it's nothing like the "inter-galactic" shit they were saying in the marketing of Prometheus. 200 light years sounds extremely far, but not unfeasibly far. Origae-6 must be one hell of an Earth parallel for them to invest that much to terraform it. It now makes sense why they would want to do Planet 4 instead, this was probably needed in dialogue. It's closer, beyond their most optimistic dreams. And Origae-6 is 7 years past the cruising speed of the Covenant which hit Planet-4 200 light years from Earth, with 6 recharges to go. It's a risky investment, and they should have added more dialogue on the weight of just how far Origae-6 was from Earth, nailing that this was probably a better choice. Just like Prometheus, ideas discussed around the table in concept that should have made it to dialogue.
3) They actually scan the planet and find out its exactly like Earth, Earth life. Earth bacteria. Earth everything. There isn't anything on the planet, minus some extinct life we see in David's art like actual trilobites (not the Prometheus kind, the actual Paleozoic kind), that make it really sort of a Lost World. They needed to establish this in dialogue in the movie.
4) The scene where they're searching around the Derelict and they find just a mass of dead Engineers in their suits. It seems that it wasn't so sudden in this draft where everyone died at once. They had the time to get into suits, but by the time they did it was too late. Someone nearly falls off a cliff in fright after seeing an Engineer suit with its helmet-shell cracked open and rotting flesh inside. Then he regains composure and another guy goes to help, before seeing that the entire hillside is just covered in the corpses of Engineers in suits. My guess? They planned on immediately investigating what the f**k happened and why this craft deployed it's payload, but it was too late anyways. It describes Engineer Suits ripped open, decomposing, ribs jutting out, not from the armor, from the inside. Half decayed suits, half decayed Engineers, lot's of gore. And a hillside covered in them trying to make their way to the crashed Juggernaut before dying.
That's an image they should have kept. There's a lack of surprise that broke my suspension of disbelief in the movie that they weren't scared shitless a bio mechanical space ship was just there. It still somewhat remains in the ship, but the shock of seeing such a macabre tapestry of bodies trying to get to the Engineer ship before all of them met their gruesome off screen fate we can only speculate on.
That needed to remain. Why the hell did they omit that from the shooting script? It's a hell of an image that gives depth to the impact of what happened that the audience is there with the characters. Freaked the f**k out about a giant alien ship with one end of the hill surrounded by almost a battlefield of hundreds of dead engineers in various states of decomposition or worse. Also black urns surrounding them. It's a really sudden shocking shot that would have been appropriate instead of "huh, guess there's an alien space ship. ain't that something."
This is more Alien in its ominousness and implication that isn't in David's Art like in the final.
There's bad ideas in this script, and also, really rich imagery that implies the depth of what the f**k they got themselves into that's appropriately met with fright and unnerve.
In fact there are "Hundreds and Thousands" of these corpses in Engineer suits. Various states of decay. Surrounding the backside and hills around the ship. Apparently not to pleased this Juggernaut deployed its payload. Why they omitted that, I have no idea. It certainly gives scale to the atrocity.
Quote
The entire Expedition Team is gathered. All are shocked.
SERGEANT LOPE
Looks like they had a war of some kind.
WALTER
It seems they lost that war.
WALTER crouches near one body, seeing the BONES are damaged
in OTHER WAYS. PITTED, IRREGULAR HOLES. EATEN AWAY in places. Broken in others. Ripped apart.
And the many SHATTERED BLACK URNS spilled out in the scree below.
It's a graveyard.
GRIFFIN
(to Oram)
Sir, your Chief Terraformist
officially recommends we evacuate this planet immediately.
Griffin is Daniels in this script. I cannot believe they cut this out.
The final is superior, no doubt. But they needed to keep this scene early on to establish
they had seriously f**ked up beyond their worst nightmares coming here. The film needed this image badly, instead of just casually reacting to a f**king alien spaceship. They should be freaked, if not by the ship, but the ocean of bodies. I mean I just can't believe they omitted that. The film needed that so badly at that point. A sudden realization "Well, we f**ked up." beyond the blood bursters. Those just being the icing on the cake of a gigantic "Oops"
