Jon Spaihts and Ridley Scott were excited about the prospect that there actually was a faction amongst the engineers, and among them was a Prometheus like figure who was excited about the notion of elevating a much more primitive species to essentially take the Engineer's place. He wanted to bequeath the universe that they had left behind to inheritors. It wasn't just the technology, but some of the culture and even some of their DNA.
The idea was that surely the Engineers had been intimately meddling with human development both biologically and culturally for aeons, and so by implication they have moulded the humans of earth into their own image.
The Engineers were approaching a moment of transition where like the alien race in Arthur C Clarke's story Childhood's End were moving out of the physical plane into a more energetic sphere or even out of this universe and into another. It would have been as if they had played all the games that they could play in this sand box and were heading for green pastures.
But
they were dealing with a civilisation with a schism, and on the other
side of this, there were the abolitionists among the engineers who found
this experiment to be blasphemous and profane, or at least beneath the
dignity of their species.
So that seemed to Jon Spaihts to be a nicely coiled spring that could create consequence and conflict in subsequent installations of the sort, with the notion that there there were engineers who were sympathetic and unsympathetic to the human project
- Jon Spaihts: In Greek mythology the Titans loomed large, and in particular Prometheus who stole fire from the gods to bring it to people seemed like a very relevant touchstone for us mythologically?(See: Transcript for Script Apart podcast Episode 41: Prometheus with Jon Spaihts)
- Jon Spaihts: Well built into, erm, the premise of Prometheus is an implied schism among the engineers themselves. if they've played the role that Holloway's certain they have, then they have been meddling very intimately with human development both biologically and culturally for aeons (43:00) and they have by implication moulded us into their own image. Our faces look like theirs. Their faces don't look like ours, they were first. They bent humanity towards themselves. (See: Transcript for Script Apart podcast Episode 41: Prometheus with Jon Spaihts)
- Jon Spaihts: Well
why? That's very interesting. And one argument might be that they like
laboratory scientists had concluded some experiment, and just like
laboratory scientists who calmly decapitate the white mice that they've
been meddling with for months to study their brains, they're ready er to
wrap their experiment up in a tidy manner (44:00) but
I and Ridley were more excited about the prospect that there actually
was faction amongst these people and that there was among the engineers a
Prometheus like figure who was excited about the notion of elevating a
more primitive species uh, to essentially take the Engineers's place and
part of our idea for that was the engineers as a species were
approaching a moment of transition a Childhood's End like levelling up,
perhaps out of the physical plane and into a more er... energetic sphere
or perhaps out of this universe and into another. That they've played
all the games that they could play in this big sandbox and are headed
for greener pastures. And the Prometheus wanted to bequeath the universe
they left behind to inheritors, and inheritors er, not just of some of
the technology and some of the culture, but even of some of the... the
DNA (45:00) ) of
the engineers themselves. Um, but on the other side of this schism
there are abolitionists among the engineers who find this experiment
blasphemous and profane, at least beneath the dignity of their species.
And that's a nice coiled spring that can create consequence and conflict
in subsequence installations of the story, er the notion that there're
sympathetic and unsympathetic engineers to the human project (See: Transcript for Script Apart podcast Episode 41: Prometheus with Jon Spaihts)
 |
| Deleted scene from Prometheus |
Spaihts asked himself why the alien life form seemed to be perfectly adapted to kill human being when it clearly didn't evolve where human beings were from, that it was capable of pupating inside a human bodies and was compatable to our chemistry.
Even its invasive proboscis to him was perfectly matched to our anatomy like a humming bird's bill to a flower, and he wondered how that could be.
His answer was that these alien gods made them to kill us and that was the seed of the story which he could jump in and start telling.
b.iii) What Spaihts failed to know about the alien species
The fact that Ridley had the idea that anything that the alien face hugger pounced on was likely to be impregnated, such as a cat, a dog or even an elephant, escaped Spaihts' notice. Also David Fincher's Alien 3 featured an alien beast that had bursted from a dog that fell victim to a Face Hugger, so it wasn't just the human species that fell victim.
See: Alien: Life cycle of the beast
However in the final film Facehuggers were replaced by urns full of the mysterious black substance would seem to transform any living creature.
And so we find in Alien Covenant, it would probably end up killing all animal life off.
- Al Horner: And
in your draft, David finds a hatchery under the pyramid as its called
where instead of urns with black goo, the engineers were kind of
engineering these creatures who were designed to kill humans and they
planned (42:00) to take them to Earth, but they made their creations too well and these creatures ultimately turned on them and killed them.
There's an ambiguity left around why the engineers were doing some of these things. So just to unpack a few of the questions, first of all like how did you land on this idea that ultimately this was a movie that was going to be about meeting our maker and discovering that they weren't some benevolent god but kind of like a legion of warmongers in a way and er, yeah was there anything that you wanted to express about man's proclivity to war and violence in that because it's so bleak but it would also explain a lot about the history of mankind er.. that you know, our makers would have their own violent tendencies?
Jon Spaihts: Well built into, erm, the premise of Prometheus is an implied schism among the engineers themselves. if they've played the role that Holloway's certain they have, then they have been meddling very intimately with human development both biologically and culturally for aeons (43:00) and they have by implication moulded us into their own image. Our faces look like theirs. Their faces don't look like ours, they were first. They bent humanity towards themselves. It was a hubristic project and yet here is this death ship and here is its navigation system aimed at Earth with this harbour of perfect predators of such a design that they could ravage our planet killing only human beings, leaving the rest of the biosphere intact, and essentially erase the engineer's project perfectly. (See: Transcript for Script Apart podcast Episode 41: Prometheus with Jon Spaihts) Jon Spaihts: er does the xenomorph seem to be perfectly adapted to kill human beings when it clearly didn't evolve where human beings were. it's capable of pupating inside a human body. Er, it's comparable with our chemistry. Even its gross invasive proboscis
Al Horner: (chuckle)
Jon Spaihts: is, is perfectly matched to our anatomy like a humming bird's bill to a flower and how could that be? And the answer was well that's because these alien gods made them to kill us and why and that was the seed of the story, and I sort of jumped in and started telling it. Erm, and in the space of half an hour I sketched out what remain most of the major movements of the film that was shot (See: Transcript for Script Apart podcast Episode 41: Prometheus with Jon Spaihts)
"Prometheus: The Engineers background story" was posted on 4th February 2023
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