Want To Read The Original Script For ‘Prometheus?’

Prometheus is not supposed to be an Alien prequel, according to Sir Ridley Scott, despite the presence of:

• The Weyland corporation.
• The ship we see in the first Alien, right down to the Space Jockey.
• The eggs that look just like Facehugger condos except metallic.
• And just about everything else we see in the movie.

All of this adds up to pretty damning evidence on the screen that Sir Scott was lying through his teeth. But believe it or not, the original script by Jon Spaihts is online, and it was actually far, far less of an Alien prequel, despite having Alien in its actual title.

The script, called Alien: Engineers, actually would have made a great movie and it kind of hurts to see what might have been.

What kills are the missed opportunities. It’s never been fully discussed by the movies, but it’s been hinted, heavily, that the Xenomorphs are a weaponized species, and this script has more of those, seven in fact. There are acid-spitting centipedes, there are octopi-esque Facehuggers, and there’s a much, much bleaker ending that I’m surprised wasn’t kept.

Surprisingly, the infamous “C-section” scene is in this draft: If anything, actually, Scott made it even more of a body-horror gut punch, and believe me, on the page, it’s stomach churning. There’s quite a lot of Spaihts’ work in the movie, in fact, right down to snatches of dialogue.

Overall, though, it’s more Aliens than Alien, a hard-edged bug hunt of an action movie with perhaps less on its mind that Sir Ridley Scott wanted. The philosophical aspect of the finished film is practically non-existent here, and that undeniably gave it a flavor this draft lacks.

That said… Maybe we can see those acid-spitting centipedes in the next movie?