Prometheus: Possibilities of merging the universes of Blade Runner and Alien

leading from

Prometheus: Afterthoughts
and 
Blade Runner

a) Captain Batty in Jon Spaihts script Alien Genesis 

 

In John Spaihts script Alien Engineers, mercenary character Captain Shepherd was introducted as a career mercenary who has followed the highest paycheck to this job working for Vickers. 

 

Then in Jon Spaihts script Alien Genesis in 2010, curiously this character was renamed Captain Batty, 

 

The question about whether this somehow connects with Roy Batty from Blade Runner begin to arise.

  

1. NAVIGATION COMPUTER ROOM

   DAVID activates the navigation computer terminal: light bathes his face. His fingers fly over the keyboard, silently and swiftly, with superhuman dexterity. 

    

   DAVID (quietly) 

   Activate. Administrative override.

    

   EXT. MAGELLAN - DAWN

   Daylight filters through the clouds. The storm has passed.

   The Magellan sits intact on its landing struts.

   INT. MAGELLAN - VICKERS’S SUITE - SECRET ROOM - DAWN

   The high-tech room hums at a different frequency now. Indicator lights green and ready. Vickers throws switches.

   p57.

   Four HIBERNATION PODS slide out of the metal walls. From each pod, a muscular SOLDIER rouses from sleep. They are scarred and crew-cut. Tough customers. They wake like veterans.

   Their leader sits up and clasps his head with a wince. This is CAPTAIN SHEPHERD, a career mercenary who has followed the highest paycheck to this strange duty.

   VICKERS 

   Captain Shepherd.

    

    

   SHEPHERD 

    (squinting in the light) 

   Reporting.
    

    

   LYDIA VICKERS
   

   I’m your authority.

   
   

    

   SHEPHERD (CONT’D) 

   Understood.

     

    

   VICKERS  

   I’ll brief you on the way. We need to move.

    

    

   SHEPHERD
   

   No breakfast? (Alien: Engineers, p58)

    
2. INT. MAGELLAN - VICKERS’S SUITE - SECRET ROOM - DAWN The high-tech room hums at a different frequency now.

   Indicator lights green and ready. Vickers throws switches.

   Four HIBERNATION PODS slide out of the metal walls. From each pod, a muscular SOLDIER rouses from sleep. They are scarred and crew-cut. Tough customers. They wake like veterans.

   Their leader sits up and clasps his head with a wince. This is CAPTAIN BATTY, a career mercenary who has followed the highest paycheck to this strange duty.

   VICKERS Captain Batty.

   BATTY
   (squinting in the light)

   Reporting.
   Lydia Vickers. I’m your authority.

   BATTY (CONT’D) Understood.

   VICKERS
   I’ll brief you on the way. We need

   to move.

   BATTY Mmm. No. Breakfast. (Alien Genesis, 7/9/2010, p55)
   

Captain Batty by Ben Procter

b) Thoughts on merging the universes in the art department

 

However when it came to making the movie Prometheus, as thoughts were going through their changes

As it went through conceptional design stages, Ben Procter recollected that one day Ridley Scott came in one day and said "You know, I'm thinking what if it's the Weyland-Tyrell Corporation? Is that cool?"

Those around him responded "Dude, that's really cool. You gotta do it!"  

Scott continued "Maybe the bodyguards, you know, that come out with Weyland, maybe one of them says Batty on his uniform." referring to Roy Batty from Blade Runner

And so those who were in the room sitting around responded "Awesome! Do it, do it!"

And so Ben Procter was sad that they never got around to doing it. 

He appreciated the idea of the compatability between the dystopian futures of Blade Runner and Alien so that they might be the same universe. 

If they had a Weyland-Tyrell Corporation which later becomes a Weyland-Yutani it might be suggestive of the forever shifting nature of corporate mergers.

 

detail of Captain Batty by Ben Procter to show the name

1. Ben Procter:There's one idea that I'm very sad that we didn't do. Ridley, one day, came in and said, 'You know, I'm thinking what if it's the Weyland-Tyrell Corporation? Is that cool?' And we're like, 'Dude, that's really cool. You gotta do it!. Maybe the bodyguards, you know, that come out with Weyland, maybe one of them says Batty on his uniform."  but I thought that was a really cool thing that there is such a compatibility between the sort of, you know, dystopian future of Blade Runner and Alien that they may as well be the same universe. And if we're doing a Weyland versus a Weyland-Yutani, why not have corporate mergers shifting and make some kind of a connection there. I thought that was cool." (Merging Ridleyverses.(This information is taken from other people's transcriptions of the information in the capsule but I will personally check it properly when I find my copy of the Blu-Ray)
2. In one version of the script old man Weyland had some serious heavies accompanying him in secret
   cryostasis. Costume study. Yes, that's a compact version of the Aliens pulse rifle. Yes, his uniform
   says Batty. (http://www.benprocter.com/)
   

c) The question starts erupting again 

 

The question about Alien and Blade Runner taking place in the same universe has been asked ever since Blade Runner came out (see Alien's relation to Blade Runner ) and of course William Gibson thought about having a Blade Runner cityscape in his Alien 3 script.

But other than to two bearing similarities because of Ridley's thoughts about the future at the time, and that creatively they could be merged together and he would even refer to the android in Alien as a replicant, he never got at far as thinking about the two movies really being part of the same universe.

d)  Charles De Lauzirika's Prometheus blu-ray Easter Egg

 

d.i) Eldon Tyrell as a Peter Weyland's mentor?

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/Dictated by not read/BEGIN

A mentor and long-departed competitor once told me that it was time 
to put away childish things and abandon my "toys." He encouraged me 
to come to work for him and together we would take over the world and 
become the new Gods. That's how he ran his corporation, like a God 
on top of the pyramid overlooking a city of angels. Of course, he 
chose to replicate the power of creation in an unoriginal way, by 
simply copying God. And look how that turned out for the poor 
bastard. Literally blew up in the old man's face. I always 
suggested he stick with simple robotics instead of those genetic 
abominations he enslaved and sold off-world, although his idea to 
implant them with false memories, well... "amusing" is how I 
would put it politely.

Fortunately, I chose a different trajectory, employing 
innovation and ingenuity when launching the Weyland 
Robotics Division. Even our earliest synthetics displayed
tremendous intelligence, intuition and compatibility 
despite their admittedly unconvincing exterior. But now several"  
(Prometheus Blu-Ray set)

d.ii) Explanation from Charles De Lauzirika
 

Without any direct reference to Blade Runner or characters from the film, Charles De Lauzirika who produced the Prometheus blu-ray set decided to write a piece as an "Easter Egg" to add to Prometheus Blu-Ray set as a tongue in cheek reflection of the idea that Blade Runner and Alien take place in the same universe and worked as an in-universe frame work for the viral pieces that came out with the film. 

Those who watched Blade Runner will know that Eldon Tyrell's building was in the form of a pyramid that overlooked an LA of the future. However there were those who took it literally

1. Now, is the excerpt actually canon in the Alien/Prometheus universe? Not really, says de Lauzirika:
   

   "That was me having fun and being cutesy. I wrote all that stuff. I actually said this at the press conference they had in London, which is that if it's in the film, it's canon. I would argue that the viral pieces that are included in the Peter Weyland Files are canon just because they originated with Ridley and Damon Lindelof. I would say those, to some degree, are canon. But anything else - especially these which are kind of like little cute, embedded text graphics on the menus - I wouldn't take those too seriously. It's just meant to be an in-universe framework for those viral pieces."

   He apparently got the idea from fans online trying to connect the dots between the two acclaimed sci-fi universes, and thought he would have a little fun to see if anyone would catch on. Of course, everyone did:
   

   "As a Blade Runner fan, and because there's been so much talk before this even occurred with people on the Internet speculating that maybe Alien and Blade Runner and Prometheus could all exist in the same universe, it was just more of a wink at that. Absolutely nothing to be taken seriously. I mean, I sent it to Ridley and he had no comment. [Laughs] So, it's just icing on top of icing. It's not the cake. It's a fun, little side thing that's very superficial. And, by the way, it in no way officially establishes that it's Blade Runner because, if a lawyer were to comb through that, there's no reference to Tyrell or anything in Blade Runner. It's just a very lightly intentioned joke." (http://www.blastr.com/2012/10/prometheus_dvd_producer_r.php)

2. Charles De Lauzirika: I wrote that Weyland journal exclusively for the Blu-ray menus and the tongue-in-cheek connection between the Alien/Prometheus and Blade Runner universes in that particular text was made entirely by me with absolutely no intention of it being official canon. It's just for fun which is why I didn't mention Tyrell or replicants by name. However, if you watch the Prometheus enhancement pod titled "Merging Ridleyverses," you'll see that Ridley briefly considered making a more direct connection but even then it wouldn't be meant to be taken too seriously. That connection never came to pass, so there you go. (Charles Lippincott's Facebook page ,26th December, 2014 )