Leading from
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| Primordial ship over landscape design by David Levy |
a) Introduction scene spacecraft or Juggernaut alternative?
We find curious alternate alien space craft designs by Steve Messing and David Levy, both bearing a similarity as if they were alternatives based a same simple sketch. They're known to be alternative designs for the Juggernaut ship before Ridley went back to the old basic shape for the derelict.
Storyboards reveal the Primordial ship to be the vessel in the
introduction scene of the movie. The second storyboard may well feature a
different design to the first one but the landscape is the location in
the Isle of Skye used in Prometheus, which features a rock formation
known as the Old Man of Storr.
So are these concepts for one scene or
just a general landscape to present different ideas for the film if the writers commentary on the Prometheus DVD suggests that the ship design was supposed to be an unused idea for the Juggernaut. A lot of these different designs looked like either one strange sort of pretzel after another
Information from the Q&A with Neville Page, Steve Messing and David Levy at Gnomon on 17th September 2012 were recalled by members of the AVPGalaxy forum. A user by the name of Fangface recalled that there were different classes of Engineer ships to be featured in that opening scene and one ship had a guitar-like design to it, before the the content of the scene was trimmed down to a minimum.
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| Primordial ship design by Gulatin |
b) However both crafts are T shaped, presented with the bar of the T at
the front and so we will call that side the front even if it turns out
to be incorrect and the base and neck of the of the T suggest that is is
shaped like a stringed musical instrument such as a lute or maybe some
abstract design for a
pretzel or curtain hook.
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| Primordial ship design by Gutalin |
c) Along the bar of of the T are placed the engines of the crafts, and down the centre of the neck is a split. Well known science fiction spacecrafts with engines placed at the front are the General Grievous Starfighter from the movie Revenge of the Sith and a spacecraft featured in the Roger Corman movie Battle of the Stars.
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| Primordial ship design by Gutalin |
d) The David Levy picture has two hammer like tips facing forwards either side of the ship at the front resembling the flat hammer head like tips of the arm seen on the right of the
pictures of Giger's derelict.
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| Primordial ship design by Gutalin |
e) Steve Messing's attempted to create the engines in a slightly different way, using the pitta bread shaped structures suspended on the sides of the arms of Giger's derelict ship, and having straightened them out stuck them along the T shaped front.
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| Primordial ship design rendered by Steve Messing |
f) David Levy's design has almost smooth surface while the main body in the Steve Messing picture which has the main body seen to almost resembles a pretzel while the patterning across the surface
makes a greater attempt to resemble Giger's biomechanics
style
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| Primordial ship traveling over landscape |
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| detail of image above showing spacecraft |
g) The two new designs present spacecrafts that are symmetrical while Giger's derelict was asymmetrical.
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| Giger's derelict painting (Work 374: Wreck) |
- Fangface: "Yeah, if I remember correctly, there were different classes of Engineer
ships to be featured in that opening scene (with the elders getting out
and milling around, etc.). One ship had a guitar-like design to it.
However,
Ridley & Co. felt it all looked too much like a Star Trek film,
so they cut back on the ships and other Engineers.
" (Source AVPGalaxy.net, see: Prometheus Q&A with Neville Page, Steve Messing an...)
- AVPGalaxy's review of the the Prometheus scriptwriters commentary informs us that "The Primordial ship was originally meant to be the Alien
Derelict/Juggernaut ship in Lindelof’s draft, but Ridley Scott thought
it would be cooler to show something else." (AVPGalaxy.net 23rd September, 2012)
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