Lindelof:Hero or villain

Thanks BigDave when do you do think it'll be finished.

Also where can i read Lindelof's original draft?

But my draft would have not had no Xenomorphs.... there was not much from Spaights as i felt Lindeloffs draft was much better.

if it was not for Character Flaws... how on screen clues was not shown as much and the Xeno DNA...

Yes Fifield was not Toxic Avenger, i would have gone for one of the other Two Concepts that was never used... well a merger of these TWO

I would have had it when they go to see the Last Engineer, and David tells them to take their Helmets off and Shaw mentions about they dont know if the infection was Airborne..

Ford would not remove hers.. David would then just say "you agreed earlier the atmosphere was cleaner than Earths"

She would then notice Milburn....  The Hammerpede would jump out and go at her... it would curl around her neck and Flair Up showing its teeth and about to break the Glass... When with help she removed her helmet and the Hammerpede falls to the ground with it....  and Janek Shoots it....  we see Acid split out and Melt the Helmet and then see the Hammerpede move around until someone Flames it (one of the Mercs)  we then see it burning.... But then catch inside of it... some Eggs about a Dozen... they dont look normal Eggs.. yet not quite Xeno Eggs.

Yes i explain away the Merc... as after Jackson gets thrown and breaks his neck, my draft the other Merc Tries to Torch the Engineer but his Flamer does not work and the Engineer tosses him to a explosion..  

Shaw runs off.... and Ford just stands there.. the Engineer ignores her and she just falls on the floor having a heart attack due to Shock.

This scene covered one of the missing Mercs.... the other was with Fifield and Milburn,  he goes and opens the Mural Door... where we see more clues.... but Milburn and Fifield are afraid and soon leave.... and the Door Shuts down on the Merc.. he did not make it under in time and loses his arms...

Fifield and Milburn spooked and Fifield smokes Weed.. then he swaps helmets with Milburn for a few puffs... this would explain the Space Cobra petting...  And Fifield and Milburn Trapped inside...

David who has to open the Door again... when Weyland and Co come down..

just few bits like this that could made the movie so much better.

Ha ha... i misplaced it on a hard drive, but it was work in progress...  but a number of scenes was to be changed..

Behind the Mural Room would have been a Scene like from Star Beast

Not had been the same... but it would have had a brief look at Gigers Face Huger Concepts.

The idea was to show the other Room was a Sacrificial Chamber hinted at either creating the Mural.... or the Black Goo to go into the Urns.... it would have been ambiguous to decide which.

Screen time would not have been long and only the Merc got a  look inside...  

The Mural and Frescos i would have put a few more seconds on too...

The idea is that a bit more clues could have gone a  long way, a more Xeno like Fifield would have connected the Black Goo more.

Showing the Burnt Hammerpede had Eggs in a sack could be a ambiguous clue to the Xenomorph Eggs...  but it would be ambiguous because then you ask? Why go in Milburns mouth?

Shame as to cross reference some ways Spaights did Characters and Dialog and apply to some of Lindeloffs Goofy stuff would have made a big difference.

To evaluate Lindelof we need to know precisely what he contributed to the movie. Two elements he was very much responsible for :-

1) The growth of the mythos of the story which Ridley liked.

2) The low exposition.

On both counts I love the movie for those qualities. I haven't enjoyed thinking about a franchise movie more than Prometheus.

There were three structural failings with the film which may or may not be his fault.

1) The failure to make Peter Weyland's story clear. The Prometheus mission was a sham. His daughter recruited a lot of paid hacks to populate the ship and she never believed in the mission or cared about the idiots she recruited. The two things she was concerned about was the return of the vessel and thats why she made a connection with the other the Captain, he was important the rest of the crew were expendable. She obviously thought the Jesus sandals Shaw was a religious facist who was going to make a complete fool of herself. None of that came across clearly enough because Weyland's role was to low down in the mix. As Charlie  said is there another agenda here YES.

2) The back and forth to the pyramid was clunky. The first visit should have achieved more (we should have gained a clear idea that the Engineers saw us as an experiment that they upgraded from time to time which would have led into the reason to redact us) that and Fifield and Milburn should have been ordered to stay to follow through on the pups and for more sampling collecting such as the little ALIEN guy. With the little ALIEN guy giving confidence Milburns naivety, though still incautious, like all of his behaviour makes more sense.

3) The company should have set off for the Engineer (ignoring and not caring about a silent Milburn or Fifield with Janek showing his true quality and arguing they should go look for them and been overruled) and been waylaid by a Zeno Fifield who should remind us of the danger they are coming into when we see he is Zeno related. The security detail should have dealt with him as the core moved to the Juggernaut and that would ratcheted up the tension.    

Other than that the denouement with the Engineer his emblematic response to Weyland, that after experimenting with us they wanted to redact us "because they could" and that the Prometheus now had to deal with the biggest threat ever in the series the end of mankind was great.  

That the derelict and space jockey was left as (this is how it could have come about) was fine. But when they were in the pyramid a positive connection with the life cycle should have indicated at some point the derelict took off from LV 223. Indeed in the closing pages if David had said there are more ships with different horrors on board that would have made it clear. We may off course find out through flashbacks and the prequel book that David discovered a Juggernaut with Eggs and flew it to Paradise as Michael said only Shaw and David remain "as far as we know".

Many of the criticisms I see about helmets and the like seem to treat the film as a Nasa public education film for how to deal with a known threat. Story and character carry a really great film and to present something cinematically and tell a story involves human frailty sometimes that has to be indulged in. With Prometheus the entire gambit of seeking eternal life was hubristic and ridiculous and a wrong call just as Prometheus should not have stolen the fire but for me its a damned interesting thing to explore.  

I also think if one sits there knowing a threat is round the corner and try to work out how to avoid it and test the participants against that view point I see little point in entering the cinema in the first place. If there is no suspension there is no engagement. Put more simply if you are going to attempt make the characters wrong from a perfect perspective forget it, if you do not like the story and the characters but like the franchise as a whole pass on that one. Like Ridley I think the Alien V Preditor is silly so I do not watch it.     

Great post Michelle Johnston. I'm glad to see more people got that the mission was a cover up and that the people hired were chosen not because of their proffesionalism but because they were expendable.

About Fifeld and Millburn collecting samples and "the little alien guys",i think your ignoring the fact that those didn't exist quit yet.The hammerpedes evolved from the worms in the antichamber when they were contaminated by the black goo,for which they were not present,but yes Millburn's actions are pretty naive bioligist or no.And yes they should not have allowed to leave.

"Also where can i read Lindelof's original draft?"

I think if you Google 'Alien Engineers script' something should turn up.

I will simply put it this way

I hate him for what prometheus could be but i love him for what it was.

Michelle Johnston

For the record i love all your writings ,it shows a huge ammount of intelligence on perception and interpretation.seriously!

That prometheus interpretation is spot on how the movie must work for the public general public

To the OP, my biggest issue was that I just didn't care about the characters except for David. Vickers was pretty good but could have been much better. Weyland......well we all know. Everyone else was forgettable and maybe that was Lindelof's biggest mistake.

Thanks S.M. for the info.

@Wrenchpole & Tiago Miami La

Thank you for your kind words. With a handful of topics I am an obsessive hobbyist and I am glad that perfect strangers can offer robust direct views recognising it comes from passion about the subject rather than a determination to always be right.

@ninXeno426  

Apologies I did not make my point clearer. I am referring to the little Alien creature that they found and put in a container that was cut from the movie. That scene featured everyone and could have set off a sense of achievement and that the reason for most of them to return was the storm, but Milburn excited by the little Alien character would be anxious then to check out for some more. Fifield was logical to stay behind to keep tabs on the pups.  

My apologies as well I only have the dvd and have never witnessed that scene,I thought you ment the hammerpedes.Forgive me im kind of new here.I thought your piece was great regardless.

the great thing is everyone has theyr own wee bit of theory on what will happen next. we also seem to view the earlier films a little differently as to characters and meaning. shows just how special the world that ridley scott created for us is to people. brings people from al over the world together for discussion and to exchange ideas. I myself am in bonny yet bl00dy freezing scotland

Your from Scotland!Im from the United States(you probably guessed that already though).

lol I guessed most on here r from the US

Thats probably true lol.

It's probably morning over.Right now its 1:30 at night over here.

0945 here just now

Now i know when you're not active during the day its because your probably asleep over there.Its the same here, i typically log off in the next hour or two.

I work shifts so im actually on here when im working hahahaha

@Ali81

With a name like Johnston I am 25% Scot I climb the Munro's from Glencoe twice a year. Right now its 24 degrees in Singapore and I am on my way to Paradise (New Zealand) but I am travelling on an A380 rather than a Juggernaut !

Inevitably each of our takes on these films can depend on your point of entry. I am like one or two others A L I E N centric that was my intro so I love A A3 The Assembly Cut and find Aliens very entertaining. After that I am out I know several people who share that placement but there is huge following for ALIENS who loved the whole US Marines vibe and really want "their" follow up to that movie. Personally that doesn't interest me because as executive producer of A R Sigourney has already re written the rule book once and cheated death to do that again just for another fight between her and a Queen again seems gratuitous and repetitive but thats a nostalgia vibe and I understand why people want it. Nostalgia does not interest me nor does an overtly action movie I preferred the suspense of A L I E N thats why there are some nervous of A C being fan service rather than breaking new ground.  

Michelle, like u im not huge on nostalgia but I get why a lot of people are. I think ridley will introduce more new things as the series progresses but hes smart enough hel still stick to some aspects he knows have been successful in the past for the nostalgia lovers, but I got the sense before Prometheus that the reason he changed his intention of an alien prequel was to explore new ideas and concepts in the engineer universe. I hope he has just put together a mix movie here, a bit of engineer, a bit of xeno/ new forms of xeno to bring back those who criticised prometheous for not being alien enough yet keep those who came around to his prometheus concept happy, a compromise if u will. hopefully, and this is just my own view, is hel go more engineer/answers theme in the AC sequel than alien movie. as iv said several times we do have another alien movie to come next so a change of pace would be welcomed for me. hopefully, though unlikely I think, hel not have killed shaw off as her character is a fresh one and isn't ripley-esq wich wel probably get with daniels and newt 

I'm on through out the day but spend most of my time on at night.Though thats when its the most inactive.

@Michelle Johnston 

Again, very interesting post, never thought you'd criticize Prometheus but that's irrelevant. What's relevant imo (of course!) are the 3 (obviously script related) issues you pointed out that I forgot to mention. 

1) Two issues

a) Peter's story wasn't more pronounced other than the simple fact that he wanted eternal life. If you can't establish a character more and bring more depth to a MAJOR character, there's no interest from the audience, "there's nothing".

b) this idea in the first place to partially build a story upon. I don't care about his personal desire, I care about what the company wants, that's what I call "larger scope", not Peter Weyland's philosophy. 

If this happens to be the "true" mission in the first place, I'm not impressed or interested. What a silly plot.

2) Back and forth between the ship and the pyramid. Yep, I counted 3 times and by the third time I started yawning.

They should've spent more time and like you said achieve more in the pyramid to increase the suspension build-up in there, and let us have more time as tourists to admire or examine the crew's actions and the surroundings just like in Alien. That makes for potentially great mystic storytelling.

3) Engineers, who are they again? I don't need explicit details, it could be as ambigous as possible but the problem was the shifting in focus away from them to the crew and back to them at the end were they were used merely as monsters. That's not very deep.

The Engineers were left out for the most part when ironically Ridley wanted to tell a story focused on them #allengineerslivesmatter

"If there is no suspension there is no engagement" 

You said it Michelle, and I'm fairly certain you and a lot of others here could've done a much better job with the script for this film given full artistic control. 

It's unfortunate that, apart from discussing interesting details about Prometheus, I feel as if some people have to manufacture solutions to the flawed writing, but it's nonetheless admirable and positive.

Deep Space did have a point as well; that it's what we choose to focus on. I could look past the errors if they weren't so obvious and so many, and had they been fewer I'd be more inclined to like this film. 

personally I am a big fan of Prometheus, like a lot of movies it has its holes yes but were they intended as the finished product is what the director puts into it from the script, which is after all pretty much a base to start off with. ridley, for the same reasons he didn't choose spaights' script, may have decided some information was best left to mystery and he didn't want revealed at that point. the going back and forth? yes I agree after the first time it got a bit pointless. I got the first reason as they had just got there and with a huge sandstorm on its way the best and logical place for shelter was the familiar surroundings of the ship. after that though, they r explorers seeking answers so it def would have made more sense for the majority of the party to remain in the facility. as said in avp 'u can go back to the ship,but eh,wer staying'.

and I didn't need anymore insight into weyland. we got the 20 min deleted scene where we see an obviously highly motivated and intelligent man who wants to change the world, probably for the better at that point. however he is older now and theres always been one constant he has never understood or been able to change, death. he has realised his own mortality and how short his live has been and wants eternal life and the man he is now is still highly motivated but now he is a man who will step over his own to get what he wants

But it doesn't apply imo because it was cut out. That deleted scene, slightly cut down, should've been in the film and would fit nicely after the sacrifice scene and before the Prometheus crew introduction.

The speech was so vital to the narrative as it gave us a good picture of what he wanted and how delusional he was. He was a key figure and got less screen time than unintentional comic relief duo Milburn and Fifield.

agree, I was actually quite interested in seeing the speech. cut a bit and put right at the start wouldv given the audience a good portrait of the man he was when he was younger with visions. I think he is portrayed as highly a motivated workaholic (which ties into his relationship with Vickers) who had good intentions behind wanting to change the world but somewhere along the line his own mortality hit him like a freight train and he became more delusional in his later years, seeking the answers to the one question hed previously not given time to and cannot answer himself. he has been able to change a whole world and the path of an entire species by terraforming yet he cant do anything to help himself

I don’t think that Spaight’s draft was close to AVPR, come on. That is to exaggerate.

He was hired to make an Alien Prequel, connected to LV-426 and so on. It had far better characters, included alien connected monsters and so on. It stuck to the alien universe.

Lindelof made the characters worse, almost totally removed the Xeno , filled it in with themes that has got nothing to do with the Alien universe, and so on. Mankind's origin from giants (Engineers) might be an interesting thing to make a movie about but that shouldn't be in an alien movie because that isn't what the franchise is about IMO. Make another franchise about that but keep it away from Alien. Things did not make sense and you had to look things up on web pages that only a small percentage even bothered to look up. I do not think that is the same as good writing or deep ideas. Exactly, too many goofy things. Who was the person that allowed him to rewrite the script and to get away with it?

Sorry but I don’t think that Lindelof is a genius by far. Some of his ideas might have been alright but he did much damage to Prometheus (see the paragraph above). Hopefully he won’t be involved with future Alien related movies but also a lot of what happened with Prometheus is to blame on Fox it seems so he isn’t the only one to blame for how Prometheus turned out to be. There are many parts when it comes to making movies so to just blame it on one part doesn’t make sense. I don’t want this to be like Lindelof is the only one to blame and that everyone else that were involved in the decision making are innocent. It is like a hockey game, if the team loses it is because the team didn’t play well enough, you just don’t blame it on one in the defense.

I would like to mention about ambiguity. There were some in Alien (for example it wasn’t clear what the SJ was) but that was alright. A movie doesn’t have to answer everything but when the ambiguity is over the top and that is just one bit of many bad things then it is to me a result of bad writing.

Sure, he had a better draft than what the movie turned out to be (I have read it) but that isn’t a very difficult thing to do. I have watched scenes from Prometheus that were cut that should have stayed there so it would have made more sense so the editing was also a big problem when it comes to it.

Spaight’s draft while not perfect had better characters that didn’t do stupid things as far as I remember it and made more sense. I am happy that they have other writers for Alien Covenant. Let’s see how AC turns out, low expectations are probably a good thing.

Neomorph: I also think that people over-reacted, I don’t like bullies which it seems that some of the behavior against him was at least on the edge of being.

^ This guy gets it

Man, a lot of hating on Lindelof, some rightfully so.

Prometheus was a jumbled mess of a movie that looks like it was edited by Helen Keller.

The frequent jumps from the ship to the pyramid looks like they were intertwined too much. As ya'll have said, it should've been more time in the pyramid and less back and forth.

The religious implications that were thrown in I think was just a plot device to throw people off. Lindelof loves that crap, just watch the first few seasons of Lost. He is a great idea man, but when it comes to implementing them, he gets crazy and starts throwing more wrenches in as he goes and before he knows it, he can't remember what the original device was. He also comes up with annoying things that don't need to be there (I'm looking at you FLUTE THAT STARTS A HIGH TECH SPACESHIP!).

All in all, the movies was meant to setup future installments by asking serious questions. The debate amongst all of us is what are those questions? Who created us? Why did they want to kill us? Where does the Xeno fit in? How does David fit in? It's a lot to take in with just a 2 hour prequel set in, and for that I give Lindelof a pass. Too much to tackle in a short time, anyone would be screwed.

if anyone had truly heard what ridley scott was trying to say was that Prometheus is NOT an alien movie. this is the point I was trying to make. lindelloff has been given such a hard time for his script, but remember it was ridley who choose it over the spaights script and the reason for that was the spaights script was done as an alien film, which ridley decided against. lindelloff gave him the script he wanted. remember, it is the director who paints the scene not the writer. u can take a great script yet the final product is garbage and take an awful script and the movie gets multiple nominations. Prometheus/ lindeloff, in my opinion, both get a hard time of it mainly because it wasn't 'alien' enough, which is wrong. Prometheus is not meant to be an alien movie. it is an early sample into the world of the engineers and over time these 2 worlds will connect. we have a whole forum where people r discussing things and giving theyr theories on many topics and wev seen some wonderfull ideas and this is in part down to Prometheus. it may not be one of ridleys best, alien and blade runner r on a different level but those films r so hard to follow and out do anyway, but for what Prometheus was intended to be, a stand alone film to start us off, it was a good start IMO. spaights' script gave too much away I think and I wouldn't be surprise if we start seeing a lot of aspects of his script popping up in later sequels if not in AC 

@ali81 Exactly.

Ridley wanted to make a movie in the same vein of Alien, even the same universe, but be a separate entry and that's why he chose Lindelof's script.

Problem was, general public wanted a connection and I'm pretty sure so did the studio, as they saw it as a reboot for the franchise. So Prometheus was kind of slogged as an in between movie...not quite a prequel, not quite a stand alone.

Sorry. The flute always bugged me. I felt like I was watching an Alien movie and then suddenly David pulls out the Ocarina of Time and I'm in Hyrule.

Also probably correct Hicks/Hudson about the film being stuck in between.The whole "don't call it a prequel" campaign lead to a lot of confusion,but after seeing the film i understood why.However i still consider it a prequel(perhaps it can be called a soft reboot of sorts).

The flute is something i often forget about.i saw someone else mention it and did think perhaps it was a little silly.

Soft reboot is a good term.

Yeah, I liked it don't get me wrong. I was just confused as to what they wanted it to be.