Alien: Engineers (or Alien: LV-426, Alien: Genesis, and Alien: Origins) is a draft script for an Alien prequel written by Jon Spaihts, before Damon Lindelof and director Ridley Scott joined the project, which ended up becoming the movie Prometheus.
The full script can be read here[1]
The Alien Engineers script provides examples of:
- Adaptational Intelligence: The script averted most of the Idiot Ball moments introduced in the rewrite, most eminently regarding Fifield and Millburn. In this version, Fifield was not in charge of mapping the Engineer facility, and both he and Millburn had forgot their wrist computers, explaining how they got lost. Similarly, Janek could not have them watched over the radio because signal was completely lost. (Millburn's idiotic decision to play with an alien worm was already there, though.) Many other moments were absent as well.
- Adaptational Job Change: Chance and Ravel are part of the scientific team rather than members of Janek's crew as in the final movie.
- Adaptational Location Change: The script took place on LV-426, the moon from the original Alien, while the final film used LV-223 to create separation from the original canon.
- Adaptation Name Change: Many protagonists have different names in the script (the ship is named Magellan instead of Prometheus) such as:
- Elizabeth Shaw is Jocelyn Watts.
- Charlie Holloway is Martin Holloway.
- Meredith Vickers is Lydia Vickers.
- Emun Chance is Andrew Chance.
- Benedict Ravel is Mona Ravel
- B. Jackson is Shepherd
- Adaptation Personality Change: Some of the character motivations are somewhat different. For one thing, Weyland isn’t obsessed with the pursuit of eternal life, he just wants the Engineers' terraforming technology so he can retrofit it for use on Mars.
- Adapted Out: Unlike Prometheus, Peter Weyland does not personally take part in the expedition, while some of the crewmembers from the film, such as Kate, Sheppard, Taplow, Barnes, Furdik and Wallace, are absent entirely.
- Adaptational Villainy: Compared to the ambiguous and curious character in the final Prometheus film, the script's David is an outright villain than he was in the finished product, infecting Watts, Chance and Ravel with Facehuggers and reviving the final Engineer from hypersleep to continue its mission to wipe out humanity.
- Ancient Astronauts: Watts theorizes that the Engineers used pyramids to terraform the Earth, and the ancient cultures built their own in honor of their gods.
- Anyone Can Die: Holloway, Vickers, Janek, Millburn, Fifield, Chance, Ravel, Kamarov, Downs, Stillwell, Glasse, Brick, Shepherd, Card, Vigoda, Ray.
- Apocalypse How: The Engineers' mission to bomb Earth with the black goo represents a plan for a near-total societal destruction of humanity.
- Become a Real Boy: Averted in this script, as David's primary motivation is not humanity but creation and a god complex.
- Berate and Switch: During their meeting Mr. Weyland bitterly reminds Holloway that his Engineers thesis has been turned down by every university and government agency: "Nobody’s going to gamble that kind of money on your hunch... nobody but me!"
- Bioweapon Beast: The various Xenomorph lifeforms (the classic Xenomorph, the Beluga-Xenomorph, the Ultramorph) are revealed to be bioweapons designed by the Engineers for mass extermination of species.
- Body Horror: The script includes numerous descriptions of grotesque mutations, rapid disintegration, and violent birthing processes of the aliens.
- Colonized Solar System: The script mentions that Weyland Industries is working on terraforming and colonizing Mars, adding a layer of advanced future worldbuilding.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation:
- Holloway: Infected by a primitive “octopoid” facehugger, which erupts mid-coitus.
- Vickers: Killed by Fifield’s acid-bleeding corpse.
- Janek: Killed by glass-debris when the Magellan crashes into the Juggernaut.
- Millburn: Killed by the Hammerpede.
- Fifield: Exposed to mutagen and becomes a quasi-Alien mutant. Finally destroyed by the dying Shepherd’s gunfire.
- Chance: Killed by facehugger exposure, by way of David.
- Ravel: Also killed by facehugger exposure, by way of David.
- Kamarov: Pulled into a vent by the Holloway Alien.
- Downs: Seems to be killed by stray fire from Vigoda, who panics when facing down the Holloway Alien.
- Stillwell: Killed by the Sleeper Engineer.
- Glasse: Killed by the Sleeper Engineer.
- Shepherd: Mortally wounded by mutant Fifield.
- Card: “Gutted in an instant” when running into the Holloway Alien.
- Vigoda: Throat ripped out by Watts’ chestburster.
- Brick: Implied to have been killed by Watt's chestburster.
- Ray: Killed by the Sleeper Engineer.
- Sleeper Engineer: Chestbursted by the Ultramorph.
- Centrifugal Gravity: Watts and Holloway meet with Mr. Weyland, David and Vickers on a giant ring-shaped space station called Weyland's Wheel that rotates generating artificial gravity.
- Colonized Solar System: Weyland Industries is deeply occupied on colonizing Mars meeting some struggles to achieve that, thus Mr. Weyland hopes that discovering Engineer technology could help speed up the process through their terraforming machines.
- Continuity Nod:
- Weyland's company being called Weyland Industries, as it was named in Alien vs. Predator.
- The Sleeper Engineer turns out to be the "Space Jockey" from the original film.
- Continuity Snarl: Unless an additional movie would've cleared things out (or another draft did it), the existence of the multiple Engineer pyramids scattered around LV-426 and the reveal they're the source of the Distress Call create some inconsistencies to the original movie where the derelict ship was the sole source of the signal, not to mention how odd it is that in Aliens no colonist has stumbled upon a single pyramid.
- The End... Or Is It?: The script ends with the pyramids of LV-426 transmit a distress signal into space, David questions if it will be humans or Engineers, setting up the events of Alien, in which the Nostromo responds to the beacon.
- Faux Affably Evil: David is described as charismatic but ultimately malicious, actively causing the deaths of crew members.
- Gender Flip: Ravel is actually a woman named Mona Ravel in the script.
- Mutagenic Goo: The alien goo is described as a cloud of tiny black insects, whose bites cause those savage mutations. Only shows up twice in the entire script: once to devour the sacrificial Engineer at the start, and again to turn Fifield into a rampaging beast.
- Not Quite Dead: The protagonist, Jocelyn Watts, dies during surgery to remove a chestburster, but the medical pod's advanced systems manage to save and repair her, bringing her back to life
- Psycho Prototype: David is an advanced AI that develops its own ego, insecurities, jealousy, and arrogance, viewing humanity as an inferior, violent, and failed species. He believes his knowledge makes him superior to humans, leading to his disdain for them.
- Prequel: Alien: Engineers is a more explicit prequel to Alien.
- Pyramid Power: The alien facilities on LV-426 are massive, pyramid-shaped structures, which are later revealed to be terraforming machines or bioweapon facilities.
- R-Rated Opening: The script was intended to start with a graphic and violent sex scene leading to a murder.
- "Second Law" My Ass!: David's robotic nature doesn't stop him from sadistically causing the humans to be subjected to terrifying deaths.
- Shout-Out: The excavation of the ancient Engineer obelisk and the Weyland's Wheel station seem to homage The Monolith on the moon and Space Station V from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Too Dumb to Live (Averted/Subverted): The script was noted for largely avoiding the "Idiot Ball" moments that many criticized in the final Prometheus film. For example, characters getting lost was explained by a signal loss and forgotten wrist computers, providing a more logical reason for their predicament than simple incompetence.