New interview with Ridley Scott

I like 'Prometheus' as is.  However, from a personal standpoint, I can see a few more scenes being put in that would lend some support.  Again, just my personal thought.

I have no idea what it is: "studio interference", "artistic messiness", "butchering", "listening to preview audiences", etc.  But I wonder why it seems like Ridley Scott is the director with the most "drama" with theatrical vs. director's cuts.  In some cases, he revisits work many years later to re-edit.  And in many cases, he gets better response from his director's cut.

'Alien' - he went back and forth on this a little, but finally decided his theatrical cut was best

'Blade Runner' - we know the saga with this one

'Legend' - put Jerry Goldsmith's original score back in

'Kingdom of Heaven' - greatly improved character development and story support

'Robin Hood' - deeper characters and sub-plots, change of rhythm for the better

'Exodus: Gods and Kings' - sure sounds like there will be a director's cut (and may be a need for one based on reviews)

I like Ridley Scott's work.  I tend to like his director's cuts better (and many would agree).  I just don't see 'Prometheus' as any different or off limits to him re-editing it at some point, no matter how definitively he says the theatrical cut IS the director's cut.  History says a director's cut, overseen by Scott himself, at some point is not unlikely.  Although he could be more stubborn as he ages. :-)

Yer I would say hes done some great directors cuts and maybe Promethues would be slightly more coherent with the deleted scenes but it would only patch up a few of so many problems with it...not a major difference there. And no I think it was mainly Ridley and Lindelof's film with a possibly a tiny amount of studio interference or maybe it was more we just cant know for sure they do hide these things well...Ridley did say "they pay the bills" through a false joke smile at one point and made some hints the studio had some hand in doing things he didn’t like but again nothing came out that I saw. Who ever did the viral campaign for sure was not with it so many problems there still are parts unfinished now (even with some really good individual parts like the David happy birthday stuff)! Not sure if that was from the studio or not...

Just finished watching Scotts latest film (moses) and yes it was a bit bland not quiet as bad as I expected given the reviews. but had no real spark of genius I was hoping for. Was really like Gladiator but no were near as good even had a line from it :O ! I wonder if some of the critics hated him after that interview :O . I think its done OK in the money department as well possibly anyway...you would think it would. But yes another film not really that good makes me sad :( I think his last truly great film was matchstick men from Ridley if memory serves me well - gah!

@ Cremildo

I dont think you get my point or maybe dont want to try to see my point.

I agree that we do not know for sure what goes on behind the scenes but we have to think it would be a co-operation between Ridley and Fox, Ridley does have a Ego and i dont care if his fans think that he can do no wrong, what i mean by a Ego, is he is very proud of his work and comes across as someone who takes no BS.

Basically that means he makes and cuts the movie that he likes, which i think he would lean to suggestions of Fox but there is no way this kind of person who has a very Strong head and Opinion and is Stubborn would stand by and allow Fox to basically make him make changes that he did not agree with..

Ridley is kind of person who would rather stick his fingers up and say well, thats not my vision and so im off thank you very much.

This is me agreeing that a lot of Editing and Changes must have for the most part either been the way Ridley wanted to change things, or that he was in total agreement to what was discussed and changed during Editing.

He did say before the movies release that the Theatrical Cut is his Directors Cut....

My point is not to disagree with the process....

Just for me with this movie the scenes that was cut did add up to give more clues to what is going on and would have left us less scratching our heads trying to make sense of things...

We dont know the reasons for every scene being cut... Ridley did feel that some of them was edited as it effected pace of the movie and they had little to do with the plot.. these scenes could include...

The extended Janek and Christmas Tree Scene and Shaw talking to the crew about the purpose of the mission, which she already discussed at the briefing...

The Our First Alien, and maybe the finding of the skin from when the Hammerpedes must have grown etc.

And maybe for all we know the re shoot Fifeld attacks with Harris in well Toxic Avenger make up, was a scene where Weyland was not shot in the scene, but if feel he would have been as the CGI Fifield would have been like a overlap over the scene shot using Harris.

Maybe this scene and scenes before it inc Shaw Med-Pod Scene and after he wanted to cut and edit together in a way to cut some parts out that he felt added nothing to the story and so help with pacing.

The Alternative Shaw and David when she collects his head, maybe shows there is little chance of trust between her and David, and so the one we got kind of leads more to Shaw forgiving David a bit as after all he was following Weylands orders and now Weyland is gone he is free..  The other scene also portrayed Shaw as being changed by the events and becoming a bit more well harder and tougher and maybe also like the Engineer Fight scene, where Shaw was shown more to be taking no crap and giving as good as she got, maybe both those scenes portrayed Shaw as more of a hardened female role like Ripley and then they decided you know what we don’t want another Ripley Character.

These are all very well...

Then we have cuts made because he was not happy with certain things or never wanted to give too much away.... this could well had been the Elder Engineers, as Ridley did not want to meet God in the first movie, so he either wanted to keep the Elders for the sequel, or who ever created the Engineers.

Maybe this means he has change of plans for whoever is above the Engineers and may either want to redesign the Elders or replace them, if this is the case or simply he did not want to reveal the Elders at this time, then that makes good reason to remove them from the Sacrificial Scene..

Other Scenes had to be cut to avoid conflict with other scenes, Ridley did feel the Last Battle Scene, kind of was detrimental to the Engineer in how Shaw seemed to put up a bit too much of a fight and he felt the scene diminished the Engineer.

They did another shoot, only this time to save time they must have felt they should reshoot the scene with burns on the Engineer as well if they had decided to redo the scene after that make up from the Battle with the Trillobite was shot, it would take too long to remove all of that..

Maybe they then felt they could re-shoot the scene with a more angry Engineer and Face Burnt and pass that off as he got it in the Crash..

Or maybe it was not a case of saving time with Make Up, but maybe Ridley felt he wanted to re-shoot the scene with the Engineer burnt regardless.

But in doing so, there was no way they could then keep in any of the scenes from when the Engineer got out of the Pilot Chair and made his way to the Life Boat, as well these would conflict with the re-shot and preferred Engineer vs Shaw Scene.... as well how can they keep those shots with no Face Burn and then explain how he suddenly got the burn as soon as he entered the Life Boat.

So again i understand why they was cut because of conflict with the chosen Shaw vs Engineer Scene with Face Burn...

Despite i felt the full scenes for Engineer vs Shaw and Full Sacrificial Scenes added more to the depth of the movie....

Then we come to a few scenes i cant figure why they was edited out..

That being the Engineer Speaks Scene, and the Green Orb replacing the Sacrificial Scene...

As i have said and you may not agree with this, but thats up to you. Everyone has their own opinions.... but i do feel a lot of the scenes was edited regarding the Engineers for one reason....

They have had a change of plan and mind as far as how to portray the Engineers after the movie had finished shooting...

If they wanted to tone down the Engineers to not have much individuality so that David for instance has more, and so our Engineers are just well Bio-Mech Terminators.... who are created and given a more limited purpose...

Then yes removing of the Elders, removing of the extended Engineer Speaks Scene, and the other shots of the Engineer in the Life Boat would all do that trick.. thats to re-hash the Engineers to be well Aggressive £$"!$%"£ and not be pleased with us..

So when that Engineer was woken up he was like WTF! what you doing here, your supposed to be dead.. oh well ill finish the job...

And the Sacrificial Engineer was toned down to well, being dropped off alone on that planet to well Sacrifice himself as the shorter scene the Engineer seemed to have less emotion and like robotic like in his actions, compared to the impression of being very cultural and emotional race that the full Elders, Engineer Speaks and Engineer vs Shaw scenes showed.

Thus i think the Engineers are going to not be our creators at all but just pawns and slaves to some other power and race, that simply use our Engineers to do our bidding...

The Engineers thus never created us... who ever created the Engineers may had just used the Engineers to create us, with as much concern as mankind does when we test products on say Guinea Pigs.

so yes Cremildo i understand what your saying, in that some changes was made because Ridley felt they affected the pace of the movie, others because maybe they had a change of plan as to who these Engineers may be in the scheme of things.. who knows..

I still think that many of the deleted scenes, and alternatives all basically added up to well give us more clues to WHY THEY CREATED AND VISITED US...... and also the connection between ENGINEERS AND THE XENO...

Removing of some Scenes, blurred or removed clues that pointed towards those two points above and led to a movie that made less sense..

That was kind of my point, in that many on here are trying to piece the Xeno connection, the Engineer Agenda and also the connection to interaction with Ancient Mankind....

I feel those scenes are cut because well they have had a change of plan as to how to portray the Engineers, and also the Goo...

i.e the Goo will now be basically explained as well the source of all creation.....  not forgetting the inconsistencies between Engineers DNA in us from opening Scene to Xeno DNA from the Urns..

Nope i feel they are going to show us this stuff basically created us and the xeno and everything....

Thus they are tone down as much Xeno DNA and clues from Prometheus in the Editing Room, and they are also doing same with the Engineers as far as being more well a culture and not just TERMINATORS...

When you consider those points i made, and look at Ridleys comments about no more Dragons and Gods crap....

That shows they are trying to well not cover the Xeno connection and maybe also the Star Maps shown from the many Ancient Culture Agrological finds Shaw and Holloway made... Dragons and Gods..

Anyway Cremildo hope you dont take my comments as a attack or aimed at you, like i have not with yours ;)

And yes i guess the term Butchered is well a bit of a overreaction.. Like i said i just felt that when we look at why Prometheus was planned, that was as Ridley said no one ever answered the Questions of who was the Space Jockey, why was he on that ship with that Cargo.

This means they intended to explore who the Space Jockey Race was and why his race would be carrying such Cargo....  He did not never say they set out to make Prometheus to answer what happened to the Space Jockey... as well common sense from what we see in the Alien Franchise tells us that, the clues are there.

We just never knew the Why, When, and Where from and where to...

But the Franchise followed by showing us the Xeno as far as Weyland would make better use in the Bio Weapons Division, this was a clue to them being a Bio Weapon, but Alien did not show us the Xeno was for the Space Jockey a Bio Weapon, it was just some Cargo it was carrying, well we cant even say that the Eggs was there or not from the movie, something could had laid them but how they was set out and with the Protective Laser Barrier its more likely they was Cargo...

Ridley off screen confirmed the Derelict was a Bomber of sorts and a Ship thats Cargo was a Bio Weapon... so they set off to make Prometheus by giving us a back story behind the Engineers, that being they created us and the virtue of Star Maps indicates they played a part in coming back to Visit and teach us...

Off screen Ridley said these Engineers seed life on many worlds, and that they had been back over many years to upgrade and evolve life on Earth. The other part of the movie they showed us that the Juggernaughts was indeed Warships that carry Cargos that could be used as a Bio Weapon... and earlier drafts they are shown to be using LV 223 to carry out and test various experiments in creating life forms that are related to the Xeno...

This element was toned down for latter drafts.. As they wanted to explore the Engineers more than the Xeno, and that we was given clues to goings on that they was conducting experiments on some kind of Bio Weapon or something that could act as a Bio Weapon that is stored on the Juggernaughts. This was the connection to explain and make a link that the Derelict was a ship designed to transport Cargo of Bio Weapons and the Juggernaught provides the same function.

As far as showing us where the Eggs came from and the connection to the Xeno and LV 223 and Goo, this was done in a subtle way that many scenes and concept work gave a lot of hints to..
Scenes that when changed and cut, seemed to provide less clues to the connection... which is something that some fans found annoying, some wanted answers, well i would say many did... some did not mind us not seeing Xeno Fest.... just some like me felt that there was scenes shot Originally that well left more dots to be joined to make a better interpretation and lead us more down a path...

Thats the movie we got in the end, seemed to leave very open and thus while gave great Topic for Debate, it meant that no one really could present a ROCK SOLID theory as to what really was going on as far as Engineers Experiments and connection to Alien.

Then we come to the Engineers, while they toned down Alien link, and further toned that down with the cut they released, they had for our Space Jockey presented to us that he was connected to our Engineers if not one and the same...

A ancient Race, that had been around for Millions if not Billions of years, a race who while not Immortal they indeed was very old and advanced, and they while not Gods, they was Genetic Engineers who had seeded many Worlds, and they had not only seeded life on Earth, but they had then came back over and over maybe further upgrading what they had created until Mankind was the result.

For some purpose we was Engineered, they had visited us to teach us stuff, the movie seemed to had hinted that the visits and interaction of Engineers with Mankind and visits to different
Cultures all lead to those cultures interpret the Engineers as Giant Godlike beings who left Star Map and also maybe played the part in Teaching Mankind stuff and evolving us technologically.

How else could David had been able to read and translate the Engineers language...  he learnt it from ancient Languages that Ancient Mankind had known and thus shows the only way the Engineers also know this language is they taught Ancient Man it...

This was a very bold plot and scope and much more interesting than giving is a Alien movie.... But again the cut we got seems to tone down some of these connections; the full Scenes seem to show us the Engineers saw us as important to them for some reason.

The Elder scene shows they are looking frail and aged, and we do not see any scenes of different sex's,  the Dialog seems to indicate that the Elders needed to Sacrifice the Engineer to produce Mankind for some great purpose and benefit for their own kind....

Was the Elders Frail because they are aged just at a slower rate and will eventually die.... can they not produce or can they not produce a female?  Ridley did latter say they could produce life in other ways and that the Sacrifice is just the way they choose to do so, maybe thats because the Sacrificial Goo is a way to break down and spread the seed of Engineers DNA more efficiently over the long run. Thus the Urns and Goo on LV 223 was a more efficient way to spread the DNA of the Deacon in the Mural..

So again i felt the cutting of these scenes, kind of took away some of that purpose and culture and back ground of our Engineers. Gods and Dragons and all, does that mean Ridley wishes to not cover those connections.. Dragons as in LV 223 connection genetically to the Xeno and also why?  Gods as in Engineers connection to the visitations and Star Maps etc?

I do kind of understand if Ridley wanted to revamp the Elders as he felt they was too frail and not as Godlike, or indeed if he simply felt they are best explored in more detail in the sequel and so to not give much away and leave some mystery......

But then why add them to deleted scenes if the Elders will be shown in same likeness in Part 2... To me it points to a redesign of the Elders and maybe their Culture and a demotion of the Engineers to become merely servant and pawn to the Hierarchy on Paradises plans much like we created David for.

Regardless of what Prometheus is, we have to let go and accept it, as it is how it was finished as the way Ridley and Fox had intended it after they had reviewed the whole footage and maybe more likely considered where they want to further explore the Engineers in future. so to maybe fit in with how they wish to explore our Engineers and whoever else is at the top of the Hierarchy and also how they wish to explore exactly what the Goo does and comes from....

They had to edit and change some of those things in Prometheus maybe because in Part 2 they have come up with a slightly different idea and plans compared to what they had drawn up when they was working with Spaights and Lindeloff on Prometheus...

While Ridley wants to do a movie his way, he will have taken into account some of the negative comments not just from those who liked Alien Franchise but the General Sci Fi community and the fact that Paradise has apparently take so long and has had many more changes and drafts means that Ridley is hoping to give us something EPIC..  Something truly ORIGINAL and FRESH

And for that i am sure many of us cant wait..... Ridley did see that there was another Franchise to be made, a massive potential extension of the Universe of Alien, that went away from Alien.. which must mean our Engineers and their creators and whatever vast amount of experiments and life they have created...

Ridley will know however he has to get the sequel spot on, he has to give something AMMAZING... if he hopes to further explore this new Franchise and Universe.. And Frankly is something like this well worth the wait, than to rush job a sequel?

So in Ridley we must trust.... and like him or not, the guy does have talent and he is a LEGEND no pun intended...

As far as Prometheus goes then there is a lot i would have left in, includes all Engineer Scenes Full, i dont even think the Last Battle Scene Diminishes the Engineer either as Shaw hacked him with the Axe and he was still able to give chase to her.

Only way it would diminish the Engineer is if they wanted to portray them as being more nasty and purely killing machines like Terminators, thus he would not have toyed with Shaw he would have killed her as soon as he got his hands on her, and i also think the way the Engineer seemed intrigged by the Life Boat and the Violin Girl, i think again this showed the Engineers to be well Human in a way, when they wanted to maybe go for them being very sinister.

@djamelameziane

Sometimes movies dont do well at box office and get critisim but that does not mean they are poor.. yes Blade Runner got  bad press, people just never got it.. yet its a good movie very good and some of the latter cuts was better, The Thing was also not a big hit but latter a Cult Movie and a Good one it had a good use of characters like Alien for like Alien a basic plot.

Prometheus is a movie that grows on you the more you watch it..

As far as your comment about input from Fox and they pay the bills comments, yes many rumours some stuff Fox changed, Ridley did seem happy with Spaights ideas, but then he also happy with changes and said then that other draft was too Alieny... again  did he prefer the changes or not is something only Ridley would know for sure and something he maybe not come out and say if he did not like them... as well Fox pay the bills and i am sure Ridley wants to remain in some control of how the Franchise goes, as he lost that with after Alien.

But Ridley does not pass me as someone who would be a yes man if he totally hated the Lindeloff plot and he 100% wanted a more Alieny one like Spaights i feel he would have dug his heels in... so i think after they discused things they came to a mutral agreement and Ridley was fond of the change in direction.

As far as the edit of Prometheus Ridley has said this is the directors cut and there would be no others, he is happy and fox are with how the cut came....

There are as i said in previous posts some scenes that had to be cut i,e all that had Engineer in after the Crash, and pre entering the Lifeboat because he had no Burn mark and in the alternative scene that they felt did not diminish the Engineer as much he had a Burn.

Again this shot kinda showed our Engineer as well not a happy bunny, and thats why a lot of things have been changed, because Ridley and Fox have had a change of plan as far as what part these Engineers play in the Universe and also how they act and see mankind.