Prometheus was the biggest disappointment of 2012, a movie that should have been amazing rendered instead stupid and dull. All evidence indicates the problems with the film begin on the page, that Damon Lindelof's script - a reworking of a script by Jon Spaihts - is broken on a fundamental level. Things don't make sense, and by that I mean just little character bits and pieces of scene to scene logic. The movie was, completely and totally, boned by the script.

Legend has it that Spaihts' original draft, called Alien: Engineers, was a much better work. More blatantly an Alien prequel, this script has already begun to take on mythological status. Just from interviews people have assumed this was the movie Prometheus should have been.

They were right.

Spaihts' draft is very similar to the finished film in many ways - except the finished film ruins or dumbs down aspects of his script. They're on LV-426 in his draft. The guys who get lost in the pyramid? The script acknowledges the stupidity and makes it a character moment. It includes this great line:

To Milburn and Fifield. The first human beings to freak out, get lost, and sleep in their suits in the ruins of an alien civilization.

The ship isn't called Prometheus. The connection between human and Engineer DNA is explained. The construction of the pyramids on Earth is explained! The scientists don't get stupidly bummed out when they find the Engineers dead - they're excited by what this means for science and understanding! Weyland wants to find the Engineers not for dumb eternal life, but for terraforming technology! And the end is better!

This is the movie Prometheus should have been. Look upon it and despair. Especially if you're Damon Lindelof.

http://www.prometheusforum.net/Alien-Engineers.pdf