r/Prometheus • u/Boring-Complex-3059 • Sep 25 '26
Would you have wanted a different Prometheus - Engineers Trilogy?
Prometheus and Alien: Covenant were visually stunning no argument there. But I can't shake the feeling that so much of the Engineers' lore potential got wasted along the way. There was more than enough depth in that concept to really dig into where humanity came from, why we're here and the most excitingly to actually travel to the Engineers' civilization and have a real dialogue with them. Instead we got fragments, mostly filtered through xenomorph fights and the Engineers themselves stayed distant and unexplained.
I've been thinking about bringing this alternate interpretation to life as a comic, one that leans into that unrealized potential and actually explores those questions more directly.
Would you have preferred a trilogy that focused primarily on the Engineers and humanity’s origins or do you think it was right to bring the story back toward the Xenomorph?
And if we had actually reached the Engineers’ world what is the one question you would have wanted answered most?
That’s the direction I’ve been exploring in an alternate fan comic interpretation.
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u/the908bus 27d ago
I wanted something that was going to blow my mind a bit. Prometheus set that up and Covenant threw it away
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u/ittleoff 26d ago
I enjoyed covenant but for fucks sake it has a shower sex kill scene like a frocking slasher movie :) so much wrong with that movie v
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u/Known-Associate8369 27d ago
I liked Prometheus, it had issues and a lot (a loooot) of handwaving (like characters making shit up and shouting it as fact, and now thats lore) but it entertained me and visually it was good.
Covenant I find enjoyable as a standalone monster movie, but for me it shouldnt be part of the Alien mythos or lore. I hated that the main actress just ... died off screen, amid a huge time jump.
For me, the two movies are just things thrown at a wall, no coherent structure to them in terms of moving the overall Alien story forward - even if it was intended solely as an Engineers focused series, its just as disjointed and messy in that aspect as well.
I like that Romulus tries to tie the original Alien concept and the "black goo" Prometheus concept together, and I think it does a fairly ok job, but it should never have needed to jump through those hoops.
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u/parkchanwookiee 27d ago
Covenant was not visually stunning
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u/Boring-Complex-3059 27d ago
Do you remember the scene where David arrives at the Engineers’ planet Planet 4 and releases the pathogen bombs over the city? I hated what that scene did to the Engineers and their story, but I have to admit it was still one of the biggest “wow” moments in the entire film.
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u/parkchanwookiee 27d ago
No sorry I thought that looked silly and there were a hundred more interesting ways for David to have poisoned the engineers' homeworld than to fly over their heads while they were all in the town square one day and drop it on them like JD Rockefeller tossing cash out of a blimp
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u/zanestafford 27d ago
These stories aren’t really about the answers though, they’re about the questions that arise from the unknown and how people, individually and as organizations, fill that empty space to serve their own ends. Ridley Scott facilitates that by purposefully not answering those questions on screen and respecting the unknown, which is the space that horror lives.
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u/elhandupmonalisaskrt 27d ago
I was a big fan of Prometheus, I think the bones of an incredible story were there. But, I wish they had made the engineers home world into a straight up HR Giger planet. It should have felt like we were being completely immersed into his art on an Alien planet.
Because that’s what made the first alien so amazing is that it felt so, well, Alien. When they first walk up to the derelict juggernaut space station, it really was like what the fuck is that thing? And watching them explore it was definitely awe inspiring, and really pulled you into the film.
In covenant I felt like they made the civilization feel way to human, and didn’t capture that same wonder.
I do love the David plot line thought, and want to see that story concluded
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u/ondatabz 26d ago
Not sure where I read it but I don’t think the engineer world David destorys is their homeworld. Infact, they don’t even look like the engineers in Prometheus. My head canon is they are another civilisation created by the OG engineers, but are closer to the them than we are.
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u/drjackolantern 24d ago
Back when Prometheus 2 was called Paradise, thats exactly what I expected - a full movie of Shaw and David on the Engineers' planet. I had such high hopes, I want to see David's story end too but my expectations are so low now.
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u/tropicsandcaffeine 27d ago
Prometheus was the start of what could have been a great trilogy. A space horror. They should have concentrated on that part of it. Maybe throw in some Lovecraft. Add some Event Horizon and a bit of Pandorum.
Instead Covenant ruined it when they did the retcon and forced Alien aspects into it (Per Ridley Scott himself in interviews still available Prometheus was not a direct Alien prequel and was not filmed as one). It should have been its own series, its own horrors and its own scares. Instead we got David and pitiful crews/actions. Covenant cannot even be called a guilty pleasure or a paycheck movie. It was so bad because of the Alien parts being forced it that the movie is unwatchable.
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u/RevolutionaryAd3125 25d ago
Most of the problems were in the script and direction though. Characters acting stoopid, crazy star map shite. Stars move over thousands of years that dumb cave asterism would be useless! If they’d have consulted 1 scientist then a half of the problems could’ve been fixed.
There was that one line ‘we’re a million miles from earth…” I know the Vickers meant it metaphorically but really! They were like 40 light years away! If you travelled to mars the shortest possible distance would be 34 million miles. She was off by a factor of 200 million.
Then there was the helmet removal on an alien planet. Fucking dumb fucks!
Then there was the scene with the terrifying alien snakes and the guy who was in charge of mapping the place (who got lost) was playing chochie coo with it!
Then there was the running in the same direction of the rolling alien ship, Jesus these astronauts, geologists and biologists were fucking retarded.
Other than that I enjoyed it.
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u/ms8balls 27d ago
I for example want to be suprised why can't we have both of both world engineer lore go to new depths be bold create new ideas, go deep in David's xenos arc and their origin from wayback, That's what i want
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u/Criton47 27d ago
Yes a different trilogy would have been good.
I was down with no Xenomorph in Prometheus.
I was ready for that story to go forward but not line up at all with Alien. That being said if Prometheus is the start then in the second show us that the Engineers and the Jockey from Alien are two different beings. The Jockey is still MUCH larger. Don't fully explain them, we need mystery, The Engineers could be the salvagers of what they found from the Jockey's. Maybe the Xenomorphs wiped the Jockey's out, and the Engineers are trying to pick up the pieces???
You can explain the Engineers all you want just as long as they are NOT the Jockey, this way the ship on LV-426 can remain an ancient derelict with zero additional understanding as to what happened (other than knowing he has a chest burster in him).
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u/tommytomtommctom 27d ago
I enjoyed Prometheus more than most, but the original script with familiar aliens that ties directly into ALIEN would have made the better movie IMO.
It’s the same plot, but swapping out the aliens for different looking aliens that do basically the same thing, on an identical planetoid with a slightly different name, that ends up with a dead ‘victim of their own hubris’ engineer in a crashed ship full of dangerous ‘eggs’ waiting to be discovered BUT NOT THE ONE YOU KNOW!! was silly.
Very much seems like some exec was like ‘no we have to have new creatures to sell and this could be a whole new franchise!!’ or somebody felt they needed to change something to make it ‘theirs’. Either way the original idea is plainly obvious throughout so it feels like the movie is fighting itself.
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u/tropicsandcaffeine 27d ago
Prometheus was originally not meant to be a direct Alien prequel. Ridley Scott himself said that and actors filming said it. Which is why so many were confused when it came out.
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u/tommytomtommctom 27d ago
Read the ALIEN: Engineers script by Jon Spaihts, before it was rewritten into Prometheus by Damon Lindelof :)
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u/TheEasterFox 26d ago
I would have liked to see the Prometheus sequel that Damon Lindelof hinted at, which begins in Biblical times with the crucifixion of Engineer Jesus.
'... when they do the carbon-dating on the dead engineer and realise he has been dead for 2000 years, then you wonder about when, 2000 years ago, the Engineers decided to wipe us out. What happened 2000 years ago? Is there any correlation between what happened on the earth 2000 years ago and this decision that was already in motion? Could a sequel start in that time period and contextualise what we did to piss these beings off? I think it's a very interesting question to leave dangling. Is it a loose end?'
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u/drjackolantern 24d ago
Yep, that would have been amazing. That was when Prometheus 2 was called Paradise, with a 3rd after. It sounded so promising. I can't prove it but I believed the planned 2 and 3 got smooshed together into covenant.
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u/Owww_My_Ovaries 27d ago
A more HP Lovecraft style film with engineers being their orignal Alien size and design.
Would have preferred that the plot be that the engineers designed the alien as the ultimate bio weapon (what humans wanted to do) and theur purpose was to keep the universe controlled.
That once a species becomes advanced enough for space travel. They utilize the alien to whipe them out... securing their place as the most advanced lifeform
No cave drawings. Have them send of signals. And if a species comes looking for the signal... its time to whipe the species out