Spaihts or Lindelof's Draft?

Spaihts draft

As I have stated in the past, I much prefer the changes David Lindelof made to Jon Spaihts script.

I really liked Spaiht's script! The scarabs were a nice touch and his version was ALOT less complicated! BUT, I've always loved the idea of the SJ being dead for thousands, if not millions of years when the Nostromo crew come across him! On the other hand, Lindelofs story is WAY too ambiguous, and at moments it's nonsensical and lacking. I do like how he made it ambiguous, BUT, imho he made it WAY too ambiguous. So to answer your question I would say neither. I'm sure somebody else could have done a much better job than both of 'em.

I like spaights for making sense but lindelof did have the better outline of a story. So just about spaights wins for me.

Lindiana Jones all the way baby! Sorry Spaightsey, just wasn't quite enough for me.

I think the key was always put together the best of both scripts, because both have good and bad things.

Spaiht's script was a pretty good Alien prequel, and in RS's hands would have been a fun movie, if it had been finessed. But Lindelof's hit on all eight cylinders. It was an appropriate story for Ridley to execute, and I love the result. It opened the door for RS to explore all the fantastic things he obviously wanted to depict and gave us one of the most bizarre and genuine science fiction films of the last decade, or decades. Flawed? Maybe. Depends on your needs. Mine were met with Lindelof's story. Thank you, Damon!

A merger of the two would have been nice IMO. Meaning... I liked Jon Spaihts version for it's 'full' effect towards the Alien franchise and however much Damon Lindelof's version added some food for thought, and lots of discussions here on the site, it in many ways had too much mystery and needed some grounding... Just my opinion. I still watch Prometheus from time to time while moderating Scified, and however much I love the movie for bringing us all together, it lacks a lot of the 'fright' of 'In Space No One Can Hear You Scream' for me. Sorry for the rant! Haha ;)

@Major Noob; Hehe NP, I fixed the posts for ya. :P

I would have to say Lindelof and a little bit of Jon Spaights but imo he couldn't capture those strange and very mysterious questions. It was the Altantean idea that was a turn off for me and those scarabs were just too weird. Black goo makes way more sense than trying to use a biomechanoid insect to carry and inject someone with its jaws.

Svanya-thank you so much! Annunaki- agreed!

I think Spaights would had led to just another Alien Resurrection. Lindeloffs was good, but Spaights has to take credit for the basis of most things Lindeloff evolved, i dont mind ambiguity but sometimes Lindeloffs has a lot of inconsistencies. I will start with few points.. 1) LV 426 vs LV 223 I think this was a very good change, for many reasons and most of all in that surely there would have been far too many clues left behind from the events of Spaights script on LV 426, that the company would surely had came across. Spaights Script also seems to try and hint maybe the Sleeper Engineer was the Space Jockey, which again leads to how come in Aliens and Alien we did not find evidence left near by of any visit from the Magellan and its Crew. 2) The changing of the Bugs to Goo, i felt this was a great change also, i was not really fond of the Bugs, only that the clues left for how the Scarabs worked was less confusing and contradicting than Lindeloffs Goo. Oh well its late and i am tired lol and this could be a massive essay to cover all points so i will Summerise a few more.... i liked the Holloway Chest Buster Idea, but for the flow of how Lindeloffs Goo and it being put in Holloways drink that leads to Shaw getting pregnant and having the Trillobite chain of events i preferred compared to seeing the crew just hunt down Holloways Chest Huger fest.

Bigdave Somewhere around november 2012 I read an interview where damon lindeloff said that there deifinaitely were ansers to the mysteries of prometheus. And I believed him. Like the ashole I am . Fianlly after reading the spaights and lindeloff scripts I began to realise that they simply moved scened deliberatley out of order just so that it wouldn't make sense. Lindeloff draft was perhaps the better. The ambiguity was neccsary . But the level they changed it in p1 and deliberately just changed scenes out of to the extent that it just wouldn't make any sense is ridiculous. I thinks they are both fine scripts. But will go lindelof draft because if prometheus was shot from this script then it would have been a better movie. But the statement from lindeloff that there are answers - yes to his draft that would have been true but not to the way they buthchered p1. There simply is no answers - period . It is nit solveable.

Yes that was my biggest problem with the movie aside from the Engineers height not fooling us to the supposed draft heights. There was so many scenes we never saw, even in deleted ones, for instance there is a scene out there that clearly shows a different angle of the Trillobite grabbing the Engineer and the Engineer has no burns at this point. Then we have scenes where the Engineer is shown leaving his pilot chair and running across the LV 223 surface with no mask and no burns. Then we have the Engineer reading a book he finds in Vickers Quarters. Also the Sacrificial Scene there is a longer one where we have Engineer Dialog, and the Engineer attack scene he also has few words he speaks after being shot at. etc. And we also have the Weyland in Hanger during Fifield scene that we saw in the trailers. Its like you say and i have, and i said this after first watching and before all these extra scenes was released... the movie did not flow well, it appeared as somethings was cut and some things not flow in right order. And the more and more stuff we see from behind scenes etc, we now get the picture that with Prometheus it was as if some parts of the movie was cut into pieces and then reassembled with some scenes cut down, some cut out and some even put in a different order to how the movie was shot. Again i am not sure we can blame Ridley for this and we cant blame Lindeloff and so it has to be Fox that are to blame for what we ended up with.

As far as Lindeloffs draft goes and the movie, well some things i would liked from Spaights was a bit more Xeno in some scenes... Fifield and Milburn scenes could been better.. I preferred the animatronic Fifield that was not used. And i would rather the crew when they found Milburn we never saw the Hamerpede come out of his mouth, maybe we could seen a shot before showing it leave his mouth or not? But i would loved if when the crew find Milburn they find one of these.. 1) Milburn appears to be mutating into a strange cocoon/egg.... so we see the Hamerpede was in process of Morphing Milburns body in a nod to the Alien DC scene and Star Beast Script. 2) We got to see a Chest Buster, and that the creature that pops out was either.... i. Part Hammerpede and Milburn so looked like traditional Chest Buster but with Hammerpede Head.. ii. Or that it was part Hamerpede and Part Traditional Face Hugger. So we are left with the Hammerpede either implant something that becomes a Chest Buster or that the Hammerpede evolved into a Chest Buster and the Chest Buster in question would either be a hybrid Chest Buster that would grow.... Or that it would be a type of Face Huger. But as soon as it either escaped or just as it was bursting out, the crew manage to shoot it and we see Acid being sprayed etc. Either of 1 or 2 would have given us a more Alien connection without being fully gung ho Xeno fest like Spaights draft. I mean they could have found Milburns body not being dead, but him coughing and not well and have them try and help him up first.. This would be before the Holloway collapse scene, and would give more credence to why Vickers would not let Holloway on board not after the Engineer head and Milburn either Chest Buster or Egg Morph Scene.

Bigdave Yes you did say it right from the start but I clung to this flimsy belief that after hearing lindeloff say that there were answers that it simply was a case of working it out. Even ridleys said at some stahe that the answers were there you just had to search for them - learned my lesson - the hard way.

lol Yes indeed Lindeloff said the movie has answers but then he also said that the movie has answers that each person can interpret differently, and thats just his style of writting... confusing yes you bet ya, but then the same goes for Lost! If Lindeloff was on board for Paradise it should be Paradise Lost and maybe even see connection to the Dharma Initiative lol.. What is more is Ridley and Lindeloffs comments contradict... Lindeloff sends us down the path that the movies Alien links are as a precursor to Alien i.e the Xeno Evolves from Prometheus. Ridley goes for the Goo being a evolution of the Xeno. So what is it? Xeno = Goo or Goo = Xeno well both Ridley and Lindeloff hint and different outcomes...

Bigdave I judt spent a year believing lindoff and definitely thought he meant very specific ansers that they them selves have formulated that is not open to speculation - but then I may have misunderstood$

Bigdave If only we saw holloway starting to mutate into something where the jaws were starting to become elongated and the eyes were star ting to disappear and the tong was becoming a jaw like structure - that would have been enough - that the xeno mural was infact. A depiction of the xeno before it was injected with the stuff the sacrificial engineer drank or orally faorced into it and as it broke down. A force field cre ated by the green crytal laser/holographic devise captured it and beamed it into the ampules. The wall is literally able to hold a xeno so that the process started there the other murals is living bio mechanical recoreds of the original process of being facehugged to get the xenos for the process to able to begin.

Bigdave Yes that's a good question. For now will stick with the xeno being their first and the goo coming later.