The Prometheus that Never Was - Jon Spaihts

Thanks Patient, let's hope Sphaits gets a sniff in on the next film, seriously- that pic above is ghastly in all the right ways.

There are some interesting things in that movie, it now does appear that someone at Fox drafted in Lindelof who basically changed a lot of stuff that Ridley and Sphaits had drafted. So really did Ridley have as much creative control? We can see many elements of Lindlofs ideas that he has, that he then never really thinks of any rational explanation to why and how, but he passes it off as Ambiguous. Reading the Holloway scene and Shaws that Sphaits had plans for and what happened i now think a hybrid scene would have been better. David infects Holloway with something, (Goo) Holloway then develops a Face Hugger inside him that chest bursts during love scene and face hugs Shaw. But Shaw removes the Chest Buster. But as the movie goes it works, has flaws and a lot of lose ends and inconsistencies, but hey they can pass them off as giving us Ambiguity. And the original draft by Sphaits was well too much of a Alien movie to be fair.

thanks for sharing, interesting read... I've often felt I would have enjoyed Prometheus more if they just allowed Sphaits to tell his story.

I wouldnt have been interested in something as straight forward "alien" as that.

look, you've all got this wrong... Original premise: EXPLAIN THE SPACE JOCKEY, and his cargo. That's the whole reason for making Prometheus, "You know, in all the Alien sequels, nobody's really looked at who/what that ancient giant creature was fused to the chair and why there were facehugger eggs as cargo." sir Ridley esq. Neither Spaihts nor Lindelof helped Ridley formulate a single answer for a) who that creature was and b) why its ship was carrying eggs. Sorry, you can all whine all you want that xeno-this and engineer-that but it's all to cock. The simple, basic and underlying fact is this, "Prometheus didn't explain what it set out to, and it wussed out of an R-rated extravaganza." Prometheus didn't give a reason for SPACEJOCKEY + CARGO, it just went off on a weird Michaelangelo sculpture tangent.

"There are some interesting things in that movie, it now does appear that someone at Fox drafted in Lindelof who basically changed a lot of stuff that Ridley and Sphaits had drafted." I'm confused by this statement and who wanted more of an alien movie and who wanted more of a Engineer/SJ origin movie. I thought Ridley wanted more of the latter but your quote ("Ridley and Spaits...") makes me think Ridley wanted more of an Alien movie. ??? I wanted Prometheus to be more of the origins of the Engineers/SJ's and origins of the xeno species and how they all came to be. So I tip my hat to which ever party is responsible for making sure this wasn't another Alien-esque movie.

[quote][B]And the original draft by Sphaits was well too much of a Alien movie to be fair.[/b][/quote] True, but given what finally was released- It would have been better to stick with the original draft. I enjoyed Prometheus, but was disappointed only because it was too much new and not enough familiar. A new adventure would have been fine, but reinvention was far too much in this case.

@Custodian/FreePlanet: [i]"look, you've all got this wrong... Original premise: EXPLAIN THE SPACE JOCKEY, and his cargo."[/i] Well, I've got a pretty good idea who/what the Space Jockey is now and we already know what his cargo is. I am extremely grateful that we are now where we are, and avoided seeing the original space jockey. Why? Because there's loads more to be explored in this alien universe, and I want to see at least a couple more movies in this genre. I'd be delighted if, after a couple more movies, we end up on LV_426 and we come full circle to the original Alien. By which time, I expect you and a lot of other people will have substantially changed your mind about having everything on the plate in this single instalment.

@Custodian Yes thats correct Ridley did say he was surprised that no one in any of the other Alien movies went on to address who the Pilot in Alien was. Who was he?, where did he come from? and why that cargo? Reading into things about Sphaits draft it does seem that there was more Xeno than Space Jockey, and it was even to be set on LV 223. I am glad they went the route they did but i think the script could have been executed better, and yes we still dont have the answers but i think we would do down the line. Its clear now that if Sphaits is called in for Prometheus 2 that they could well bring in Yutani and maybe explore the Deacon as that appeared to be the direction. the new direction seems to be close the door on the Xeno and follow the Engineers.

Prometheus lost sight of what it should have been about How can it be "too Alien"? It's a prequel. That's like saying - "Having a Skywalker in Episode One is too Star Wars"

To all That's what I thought right from the start . Ridley wanted to finish the question he asked so long ago : what was his cargo etc.......and then it seems someone at fox "asked" him to hire Lindelof . What I am not sure about was it Ridley's intention to make more than one movie right from the start or was that fox's idea as well ? Seems Ridley got "directed". Still thinks its a great movie and I love it .

I also agree that it looks like 'Ridley got directed', but those who take this film at face value (with all the changes from the original SpaceJockey/Eggs idea, that rich historical vein) are suffering STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. Now, don't forget I love Ridley's vision. But he's GONE OFF ON ONE. He's ELSEWHERE IN THE (alien) UNIVERSE trying to fabricate a new line that veers away from the Alien/Eggs/Facehugger/Xeno altogether. He IGNORED his own (thirty-year important) question, his own raw material from 1979. Abandoned it on LV-426, where Spaihts (and the designer) say it was always to be set. I mean, this is weird anyway because the fuckign croissant wasn't 'grown' on the barren LV-426. It had to have LANDED there, or semi-crashed as it fell out of hyperspace with zero momentum or something. Back on track, you can't see the truth of RIDLEY SCOTT NEVER MADE THE FILM HE INTENDED because this hurts too much; despite ALL THE DIFFERENCES his own film presents to the viewer. Despite all the weirdnesses in narrative or timeflow and Weyland and all the rest. Prometheus is BOLDLY GOING WHERE NO FRANCHISE HAS GONE BEFORE, its fifty year mission to explore new ideas and new characters, to ignore the (legitimate) questions it set out to answer: who is (ancient) spacejockey? why that (face-specific) cargo? Blame Scott, blame Fox, but look with real eyes and see the lie, sold to you all.

LOL @ custodian. We've all got it wrong. Per usual, you've got everything figured out. Ridley Scott got pinned down and forced into making this farce etc etc. ad infinitum. good gracious. please. I bet you are one of those conspiracy theorists arent you?

You know we'll end up after three movies not even finding out what happened to the first space jockey don't you at this rate...

Generally, we already know what happened concerning the original jockey. Lets move on to more important business.

joeyjoe, really, WE DON'T KNOW what happened with the original LV-426 (Ganesha-like) SpaceJockey and his cargo of Eggs with one-size-fits-all 'facehuggers' in them, assuming that every enemy would have a(n accessible) 'mouth' to slot that ovipositor down) a) Prometheus never mentions any primordial or ancient "SpaceJockey", certainly not a fossilised one like Alien had, just the back-engineered chair/telescope/interface. b) Prometheus never mentiones the facehugger eggs. And it probably never will. Prometheus just went off on its own track -- now, I don't mind that, but it was MARKETED (for a very long time) as The Alien Prequel, which it clearly doesn't want to be, for whatever reason. It's its own franchise, yeah great - now gimme movie two and three and four and .... you get the idea.