Alien Movie Universe

Spaihts Draft Totally Different

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Determinism

MemberOvomorphNov-28-2016 11:15 AM

I posted my notes on the Spaihts script which was titled Alien: Engineers (Prometheus 1st draft) over at the Prometheus forum.

I'm amazed at the difference. We had a totally different movie in the works. I can't say I approve of the editing and changes in the script.

For instance, Weyland wasn't even on the expedition and there is no LV223. The script led directly into Alien the movie. Obviously that whole thing got 86ed.

ONE HUGE DIFFERENCE. The Engineers were never called out as having the same DNA as Humans like in the movie. This is HUGE. The Engineers in the original script were better explained and they didn't have ears. (that's right, they did not have ears) they were hominid to some degree, by some origin, but they were NOT human. This would totally be expected since they were upgrading human genome for many millenniums (standing outside the chain of evolution). They are not human in the script which would have saved us a lot of trouble.

12,000 BC is too recent though, they should have dated the Engineer gene manipulations going back to about 90,000 years ago when we know that Humans changed quite a bit after the TOBA eruption (writing, tool making, art...we know now that other groups were also doing this even earlier though)

 They could have, and should have, gone back with Engineer tinkering a few million years. They botched the known origins of humans out of Africa LOL but I have to admit that Spaihts draft was better than the Lindelof draft which I presume became the actual movie.

Spaihts original draft was a more believable movie when you consider genetics and human origins. Prometheus flopped in that respect, with little to no hope of a redeeming it in Covenant. They already said that the Engineers were human so they have to live with it.

In conclusion, the Spaihts draft is believable whereas the movie we got, was circumcised and had a bunch of changes. A lot of changes! ALOT. More than I was led to believe.

If you don't want to read the whole script, go check out the Prometheus forum where I posted my notes. You will see that quite a bit was altered.

 

9 Replies

RedXeno428

MemberOvomorphNov-29-2016 7:03 PM

I don't think that they ARE HUMAN per say, we just spawned from their DNA, which is why there are SIMILARITIES, but the DNA data in Prometheus was NOT the same. Remember the Engineer at the beginning? He was creating humanity.

Determinism

MemberOvomorphDec-01-2016 11:06 AM

If you watch Prometheus. It shows a DNA Genome color graph of the Engineer. They take the graph and visually show it being laid onto a human one and it says 100% match. Shaw even says, "Its us, its everything." She also says, "They are us, they predate us."

Based on facts about Biology and the movie script and visual reveals....its safe to say that Engineers are human. This isn't debatable unless you try to throw in a bunch of pseudo sci fi mumbo jumbo and try to claim that the movie didn't mean to say exactly what it said.

I know, its stupid and they should have never done that but they did it, and they did it in a way that is not negotiable. Watch it bro. Ive seen the movie at least 30 times.

The problem with the movie is that they directly show that Engineers are human via dialog and visuals. The original script made more sense because it did nothing of the sort. Why they thought this was a good move is beyond me. Obviously Lindelof doesn't understand evolution through natural selection while Speihts understands it enough to make a believable script where the Aliens who created us aren't human (they have no ears in the original script and have bigger eyes). It would have been plausible because they could be hominid looking but they could have evolved separetly on a whole different planet.

The way that Prometheus screwed it up is that they put in all that stuff that wasn't in the script. Now you have a superior "race" of human, upgraded, gene edited, whatever but 100% human therefore they had to come from Earth and other earlier hominid groups like Homo Ergaster 2 million years ago. There is no logical way out of it, they wrote them selves into a box.

Now, they haven't totally contradicted themselves. But they are riding a razor thin contradiction when they insinuate that the Engineers evolved on another planet than Earth or earlier than a few hundred thousand years ago.

The second they posit factually in the next movie that the Engineers aren't from Earth or that they are more than 300,000 years old....BAM they failed on a biological level completely. Sci Fi is about taking science fiction, what we know for certain, and adding more, not contradicting science fact. I know, many movies really push the envelope such as Interstellar which butchered science fact but then they kind of made up for it in a lot of ways which is forgivable.

Prometheus and Covenant will not be coherent if they suggest that the Engineers aren't from Earth or older than Homo Ergaster....its just not believable and its very elementray to have made such a stupid mistake (even in 2012, it was a blunder that a writer could get put that in the movie).

The reality is that they completely screwed up the plot by ignoring details in Speihts draft. They can recover from this by following a plot which puts the Engineers as evolving on Earth and then leaving, say 150,000 years ago. But they probably will not do that, and that will leave them in poor taste with a lot of people that pay attention to human origins and the overall plot. Its not even an ignorable fail, its a gigantic plot accident.

Determinism

MemberOvomorphDec-01-2016 11:20 AM

They should have followed Spaihts Draft nearly to the letter. But instead, they tried to add in a bunch of mythos and mystery about human origins and goo. In the mess, they made a big oops. They put in multiple contradicting facts such as:

The Goo can't pass on human DNA and start life while simulatenously destroying life and creating Xenomorphs. This is like so ignorant of biology that its a face palmer for anyone who even took 10th grade science. They can posit that superior beings directed human evolution but when you throw in Xenomorphs into it, it becomes far fetched. There must be TWO different kinds of Goo but they aren't suggesting that. In Spaihts draft, there wasn't even Goo in the entire movie. It was totally different and they had Alien eggs.

The Engineers can't direct evolution while simulataneously being a part of it.

I realize we're supposed to ignore this crap and just enjoy the movies. Just like we're supposed to ignore FTL travel and other caveats. I can handle that. What I can't handle is epic size contradictions in the plot devices that drive the whole franchise.

I'm supposed to be mesmerized by this gigantic awe and emotion that is Aliens on spaceships nursing primates into sentient beings. Startravelling protectors and space commanders. SUPER COOL.

But when they start jacking up the whole plot but contradicting elementray facts about genetics and evolution that we've known for decades...its killing me. These are accidents in screenwriting that were easily avoidable. Yet, this is what happens when the elite duschbags are allowed to pen movie scripts instead of people who actually care about the film. Spaihts gave a crap about us enough to actually have written a good, science accurate (more or less) script. Then, they trashed his brilliant script with a bunch of additions that ruin the logic of the whole thing. They made a hug mistake and they now have an oppourtunity to fix it with Covenant. I guarantee you they will botch it completely. But it will still be fun to watch, just with huge illogical stains.

S.M

MemberXenomorphDec-01-2016 3:13 PM

The accelerant reacts differently in different scenes, and there's an argument to be made the stuff at the start isn't the same as the stuff on LV-223.

The Engineer breaks down to almost nothing very quickly as he falls into the water.  That doesn't happen to Holloway (who slowly mutates), or Fifield (who ingests much more of it than the Engineer or Holloway).  Then you have the worms who swim in it and turn into hammerpedes.

You can't really apply a consistent result or reaction to the black stuff when it comes into contact with other genetic material.

Shasta cyclone

MemberFacehuggerDec-01-2016 3:41 PM

A thought but, maybe thinking the engineers are human is the wrong to look at it...humans are a down grade from the engineers for what ever reason. The engineers have superior genetics to the downgrade being ( humans)

also, the engineers home planet could have different mass and gravity hence why they are bigger and humans formed the same way because of their original environment ( earth)

Determinism

MemberOvomorphDec-02-2016 11:10 AM

S.M.    I totally agree, the Goo gives different results. This is a problem and inconsistency. In Spaihts draft, it's explained because David says that different cargo holds on the Engineer ship contain different types of Alien Eggs.

We see the Goo do a lot in Prometheus:

Worms: Immersed in Goo, mutate into Hammerpedes.

Fifield: Sprayed with Hammerpedes blood which melts face mask. 24 hours later, fully mutated into zombiesk type guy.

Engineer: Fully swallows a full cup of Goo, totally disintegrates  his body and starts reforming DNA into ???

Holloway: Drinks alcohol laced with 1 drop of Goo. Exposes his bloodstream and sperm to the mutagen. He starts mutating into what Fifield became but at a semi-slower rate. Suicide.

Dr. Shaw's baby: Exposed through contaminated Sperm by Holloway who swallowed 1 drop of goo. The goo has a head start because of the potential of an egg with sperm in her uterus. This produces XenoSquid giant facehugger which infects the Engineer and a Xenomorph is born in the closing scene.

I don't really see a huge inconsistency except for what is implied with the engineers disentigration and the DNA starting to rebuild in the water. That is where, the implication of life building, doesn't make sense.

What we see with all these people is that the Goo, in a large dose, totally disintegrates your body. In a small dose, it poisons you and mutates you (slow death). If the goo gains access to reproductive organs of both sexes, it produces a giant squid facehugger capable of seeding hosts with Xenomorphs.

Apparently the Goo does one thing for sure, it morphs or kills existing life and/or creates hostile creatures and Xenomorph species out of those life hosts. What it doesn't do, is seed a planet with life's building blocks and starts evolution to produce sentient beings. That's where (the fans and youtube freaks) dove off the plausibility cliff in Prometheus. They did it because of Shaw's retarded dialog throughout the movie saying Engineers created us. Lindelof is an idiot for sure and the fans are also missing the forest for the trees. They jump to ridiculous conclusions that don't make sense based on character dialog.

Shasta:

You're correct in that the Engineers are different type of Human. They have gene edited themselves. Natural Selection does this too but on a longer timeline. For instance, Neaderthals and Humans were the same thing 2 million years ago. Through gradual gene editing (natural selection) two distinct species emerged. Today's human is literally 2% Neanderthal but genetically we are very similar, we actually bred with them FACT.

The Engineers, having been already confirmed as having identical DNA to human, had to of originated on Earth. The reason is, they are tied to the DNA which is ingrained in the fossil record on Earth going back millions of years, a billion years. To say they came from a different planet originally is like saying that an iPod was made by Sony. It just doesn't make sense.

The original script has the DNA of the Engineers as a mystery, unresoved. But the movie was changed to show that they "predate humans" and that they have an identical DNA (with subtle genetic differences). But just like Neanderthal and Human, they must share a common ancestor. They had to of come from Homo Habilis, Homo Ergaster, Australipithicus etc... For people who find this sort of stuff fascinating in everyday life. We have paid close attention to hominid origin developments which are NOT new information. When Prometheus final draft was written and made into a film, we already knew absolutely, positively that we evolved from Homo Ergaster, a hominid in Africa over a million years ago. Its not a mystery, anyone who has ever been interested in human evolution for the last 20 years knows this.

So when a Sci Fi movie, on the caliber of Ridley Scott comes out and shows us space fairing Engineers who have the same DNA as humans...they are almost committing a huge logical inconsistency. But they never came right out and said, Engineers created life on Earth. All the idiots on the internet said that. And if you look at the Spaihts draft, it's very clear that they didn't start life at all. Infact he does 2 things totally different, one; his engineers are NOT presented as having a human DNA link. (big mistake by Prometheus in undoing that) Two, he presents that they merely started tinkering with the human genome 12,000 years ago. This is more plausible and would have made for a better movie. But there is still a problem. 12,000 years ago is NOTHING. Cro Magnon man (modern humans) were wearing clothes, speaking, making art and building tools 80,000 years ago and more! 80,000 years ago, the whole species nearly went extinct by a volcano we call TOBA which rained down ash and killed basically a 3rd of the planet (Africa included which is where all humans were) The survivors are our ancestors, a distinct group of humans who left Africa the 2nd time 80,000 years ago and bred with Neanderthal who was already in Europe from a previous Africa exit. They also bred with other hominids in Asia.

So what exactly did the Engineers in Spaihts draft engineer? We were already totally evolved 12,000 years ago LOL. Spaihts engineers would have been better imagined as having directed human events and genetics starting 200,000 years ago. As having created the TOBA eruption, as having forced breeding with Neanderthal and other groups. But who cares since instead of fixing Spaihts draft to be flawless, they made the problem even worse by having characters like Shaw rattle on about how Enginers created us and then contradict herself by showing in a lab that they are actually human LOL. Stupid.

For a movie that wants to create sci fi about human origins, they seem to know nothing about human origins! LOL There is no plausible plot where the Engineers aren't Human DNA based and evolved on Earth less than a million years ago. That potential plot window was closed the second they ignored Spahts draft and made the Engineers human DNA. Huge mistake.

But its not a mistake that can't be undone. See Engineers from Earth: Final Theory. Where we undo everything that that idiot Shaw implied in Prometheus. We need to kill her real good in Covenant.

 

BigDave

MemberDeaconDec-02-2016 3:25 PM

Glad you read the Draft...

I think you are however not understanding it to well, i agree there was some pretty good stuff.... but it had flaws..

Prometheus there was more than One Goo... or at least One Goo that has Two Different ways to use it....

This Goo was a Evolution of Spaights Nano-Scarabs...

If you look at how the Scarabs (Sacrificial Cup) react with the Engineer, break down his body and those Scarabs consume and Store his DNA which is passed onto a Primate to show us after the Scarab bites and injected the Engineer DNA into the Primate we are then shown this is the Process the missing link the Evolutionary missing component to how Primates Evolved to Mankind.

Look at Fifield.... and the Urn he knocks over and its Scarabs that bite him and he mutates into a Hybrid with a Xeno...  then the process is simple.

The Goo Acts the same way...

I am too tired at moment but will reply in more depth...  but one thing is we cant try and be to Scientific with this movie...

There are flaws..... Shaw should have said like "Holloway its a near match... there DNA and ours are almost the same... closer to us than anything we have tested on Earth... Maybe Darwin was wrong?"  Something like this would be better than a 100% Match.

The Flaw with Spaights draft well one... is while it took a more simply route that the Engineers came to earth conducted a experiment via Sacrificial Scene and one of the thousands of Scarabs that consumed the Engineer.... just happend to bit a Female Primate.... we have to ask... what if some other Scarabs went off and Bit a Bull... would we get Minotaur Looking Humanoids... or a Lion/Tiger would we not get real life Thundercats.

So Lindeloff took the Sacrificial scene back Millions of years or more back... to showcase the Sacrificial Scene either provided the building blocks to start life... or the Catalyst intervention that allowed very basic Life to Evolve into the many more complex life.....

Ridley Backed this scene up by saying the Engineers came back over and over upgrading and evolving Mankind Genetically and Technologically.

 

R.I.P Sox  01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017

Determinism

MemberOvomorphDec-02-2016 3:51 PM

Big Dave:   I think you're right about not over analyzing this. I will be the first to admit that I'm getting too obsessed and surgical over this.

I enjoyed reading the Spaihts draft. I was IN it bro, I was seeing a whole different movie, it was great.

The Nano Scarabs were the bomb bro. But yeah, even with the scarabs affecting the human populace, there are a lot of holes in Spaihts draft too and that movie, if it had been made, would of been like 3 hours long or more. They had to cut it down and simplify it.

Prometheus succeeded in condensing the movie and making it easier to track. But I have to lay down my guns and just love the movies for what they are instead of trying to align them with facts and plausibility.

I rest my case and just cross my fingers for Covenant to floor us all.

YEEEEHAWWW!   Thanks man, you guys keep me honest. You and SM. You have tact. I get too obsessed with it. forgive me.

BigDave

MemberDeaconDec-04-2016 6:43 AM

To be fair both drafts are different a bit and flawed...

A good writer to then patch up flaws in both... could have led to TWO very good movies..

I was going to edit Lindeloffs draft... add a bit to it and merge some of Spaights...

I would have seen 80% of Lindeloffs used... added maybe 15% of Spaights and added some parts by me to tidy up and merge some parts..

The result would have been a 75% Lindeloffs draft with the other 25%  a 50/50 Spaights and My Own additions... but these would have only been a few things to basically make Lindeloffs make more sense... so it would have evolved his draft.

I had a number of ideas.. but i never got round to doing it.... The aim would have been to give us Prometheus like Lindeloffs draft...  add bit more detail and less ambiguity to clues.. and dialog and also add bit more to give a better excuse for the silly moments...

You should read Lindeloffs draft.... and you will come back on here and be like.... wow.. to be fair a lot of the BS and Silly things had explanations....

Because the Movie is different to Lindeloffs draft....  one example is a much more better Fifield and Milburn Hammerpede Scene.... its not so stupid... because its Fifield who caused it... because he was STONED!!!  And so if your HIGH AS A KITE... you do stupid stuff.... even if your not so High....

 

R.I.P Sox  01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017

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