Here we have our full interview with Damon Lindelof, co-writer of Prometheus. During our chat Damon discusses the themes of the film, what he set out to achieve with the story, and where a possible sequel may take us. He also reveals that the original script draft was very much a proper Alien prequel, complete with some very familiar creatures. Be warned though, if you have yet to see the movie and want to go in blind I would advise you skip it, as we discuss a few very spoilerific things about the ending..
MC: So I don't think Prometheus is going to be what most people are expecting..at all! It certainly wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but I think in a good way overall..
DL: Well in this day and age when so much of the movie gets out there, with so many trailers and all, it's hard to hold back any surprises. So I'm glad that you got something that you weren't expecting.
MC: Yeah, I thought there were a lot of weighty ideas and concepts, and it was more thought provoking than I expected. Was it a challenge for you to balance that with the more traditional sci-fi shocker elements that come in towards the end of the movie?
DL: Yeah well I think when you take a job like this, working for a gentleman like Ridley Scott, your job is really to help him realize his vision. And I think that he was really interested in these larger philosophical ideas, but he didn't want to be overly pretentious about it. So the idea was, if the first Alien movie was about people unwittingly stumbling into a haunted house, this movie was going to be about people actually looking for it - and then the obvious question from a storytelling point of view is, why are they looking for it and what are they hoping to get out of it. So sure, all of these horrible things eventually happen to them but it's like, "we brought this on ourselves".
MC: I was certainly intrigued by what ended up happening. They essentially meet their maker, their maker turns out to be..not very nice! Where do they go from there? Do you think these questions and ideas could be explored further in a sequel?
DL: Sure, that's certainly a question that Shaw (Noomie Rapace) is asking at the end of the movie. Ok, I've met them, they created us but at some point they changed their minds about us - I want to know why. So hopefully if audiences are as eager to find out the answers to these question as Shaw is in the movie, we will get to explore them further in subsequent editions. But I think one of the reasons we were so reluctant about calling Prometheus a prequel is because we never really believed it was one. I think this movie essentially has two children, one will grow up to be Alien, and the other will be this big question mark that involves these beings that created us - all hopefully explored in future movies.
MC: The prequel thing is interesting because I remember when the movie was first announced it was flat out called an Alien prequel. Then it was its own thing completely, and then it was both! Is this something that was reflected in the writing process, or did you always have an exact idea of what Prometheus was going to be?
DL: Well I , like you, first heard about it as a fan - that Ridley was contemplating an Alien prequel, and was really anticipating what that might be. Then I got a call saying Ridley wanted to talk to me. So after getting over the shock that they hadn't contacted the wrong person, I was sent the original script by John Spaihts, which while very good was definitely an Alien prequel. It had some of the larger ideas about wanting to find our makers, but also had things like the eggs, face-huggers, chest-bursters, Xenomorphs etc - all making appearances very early in the movie. So I read and I thought these others philosophical ideas about finding our origins are strong enough to power the entire movie. So we can tip our caps to Alien, and deal with some of the more familiar tropes, but we don't need to do that until the very end of the movie. And that was an idea that Ridley intrigued by.
MC: So speaking of familiar things popping up at the end, I assume that was supposed to be the Alien Queen we see in that final shot?
DL: That is a very interesting theory my friend, one that I will neither confirm nor deny!
MC: Fair enough, don't worry we'll put spoiler tags all over the article! So has their been any talk of a sequel in an official capacity then?
DL: Oh there's always talk, but we have to sort of wait and see how audiences react to this one first. I will say that it took 30 years to come back to Alien, hopefully it won't be another 30 before Ridley decides to revisit Prometheus! I do know that he is definitely very curious about where the story will go, and there was a lot of stuff that he wanted to include but said he'd rather wait until the "next one".
Prometheus was by no means perfect (You can check out my review
Here) but I would definitely love to see a sequel at some point. Many thanks to Damon for taking the time to chat. It was just announced today that he will take over rewrites on the script for Marc Forster's adaptation of
World War Z starring Brad Pitt.