The mystery surrounding Ridley Scott's Prometheus appears to finally be over -- and it didn't take six seasons and a despicable series finale to find out.
Screenwriter Damon Lindelof, the demon behind "Lost", openly spoke to Kevin Pollak's Chat Show about how he approached Scott's presumed prequel to Alien.
As much as my skin crawls when I hear his name, he makes some really
strong points; the boys over at /Film were kind enough to transcribe the
good stuff.
The 3-D sci-fi horror venture, starring Noomi Rapace, Michael
Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Guy Pearce, Kate
Dickie, Rafe Spall, Logan Marshall-Green, Benedict Wong and Emun
Elliott, takes launch on June 8, 2012 from 20th Century Fox.
"It started as an Alien prequel. That is what everybody wanted it to
be. Obviously, Ridley Scott has not made a science fiction movie in 25
years, since Blade Runner, so the idea that he’s returning to this
genre is huge. But there is a real issue which is — what is the state
of the Alien franchise at this point in our lives? There has been Alien
vs. Predator and all these things, and its been completely and totally
diluted. I’ve always felt that really good prequels should be original
movies. And the sequels to those prequels should not be the movie
which already exists because, with all due respect to anyone who makes a
prequel, but why would you ruin the greatest twist in the history of
cinema, “Luke, I am your father”, by showing me three movies which
basically spoil that surprise. You can do movies which take place
before Star Wars, but I don’t need to see the story of the Skywalker
clan. Show me something else which I can’t guess the possible outcome
of. There is no suspense in inevitability. So a true prequel should
essentially proceed the events of the original film, but be about
something entirely different, feature different characters , have an
entirely different theme, although it takes place in that same world.
That was my fundamental feeling about what this movie wanted to be.
And truth be told, it wasn’t script doctoring in the strictest sense
because the draft that existed before I came on was written by this guy
named Jon Spaihts and it was very good. And there were a lot of things
in the movie, Prometheus, which were Jon Spaihts and I feel like
somewhere in the media reconstruction of this story, the tale is that I
come in, I pitch an entirely new story, and its so original that
everything else gets thrown out and that’s what we’re doing. In my
brain, that’s not exactly what happened. But I also do feel that this
movie is the movie I would want to see as a fanboy, take place in that
Alien universe, which precedes the events of the original Alien, but is
not necessarily burdened by all the tropes of that franchise with
Facehuggers and Chestbursters, and all that stuff that I love… but its
sorta like, we’ve seen it before, can we do something different this
time? And thats the movie that Ridley wanted to make. And when you’re
working with an auteur, you basically just shut your mouth and listen
and try to transcribe and channel the vision of that person, and get out
of the way.
So I read it, and it was good. This was not a disaster. There were
really good ideas in that script. So I sent off an email…. Ridley works
with these guys, Michael Ellenberg and Michael Costigan. I basically
sent them an e-mail and said, here is what I think, and here is what I
would do, if you were interested, and the next morning … I get the call
and they are like “We like your take, can you come in to Scott Free?” I
walk into a room and there is Ridley Scott and an executive at Fox and
I verbally present, here is everything in the script that I like now,
here’s some of my thinking on it — what’s the lay of the land? What are
the issues that you guys are having? And we have a great 90 minute
meeting in which I do a lot of listening. Again, I don’t want to say I
went in and WOWed them, when what really happened was I gave a really
short presentation and then Ridley talked about the movie he wanted to
make. And then, they decided to hire me. I had to go down to Fox and
talk to Tom Rothman about what I wanted to do as well.
And then Sir Ridley Scott and I, and Michael Ellenberg, sat in a
conference room for four hours a day, three days a week, and sort of
went over it, again and again and again until I understood exactly what
he wanted to do and I wrote it. It took me two weeks to write it, not a
lot of time — the time consuming part was the collaboration because he
thinks, and I know this sounds like I’m brown-noising but, Ridley
Scott is a true genius and he thinks in visual terms far beyond the
comprehension of mortals like us but also understands story and mood and
tone."
