What is this page?
My name is William J Burkhardt, I am a twice published fiction author and an avid lover of the Alien franchise. I have read and listened to the audiobook versions of as many of the Alien books as possible, including the novelizations of each movie. Strangely enough, the one book I have found it impossible to get my hands on is the one for PROMETHEUS. This 2012 movie is arguably the possessor of the most divided responses from viewers. Personally, I really enjoy the Ridley Scott prequels and adore the fact that a single franchise can have such a breadth of material. If you are in the mood to see the Colonial Marines roll in and shoot up the place, there's plenty of that in book and movie form to enjoy. If you want a weird movie about creation and the mysteries of the universe, there's that as well. There are plenty of franchises that began one way and strayed pretty horribly from the place where they began (Star Wars, The Hobbit movies just to name the biggest offenders), but I have always felt as though the expansion provided to us by the Alien franchise, while not perfect, has been pretty damn interesting.
In spite of my love for Prometheus (and my love of debating and explaining it), I do agree that the final theatrical cut was convoluted as a motherfucker. In spite of the solid performances of Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green and Michael Fassbender, the rest of the performances were strictly on a level where you could honestly take them or leave them. Charlize Theron is an absolute clown. Idris Elba sounds like he's just making up his own dialogue sometimes. Noomi Rapace shines at certain times but is not a particularly fun main character to follow. And that's not just me unfairly comparing Noomi to Signorney Weaver. However you feel about COVENANT, Katherine Waterson played a more compact, less obtrusive protagonist that was far less exhausting to follow. There were indeed very strong character performances to be had, but overall, the cast left a LOT to be desired.
Sometimes you find a movie that is so obscure and confusing that you end up searching for explanations online, and the journey down the virtual rabbit hole inadvertently causes you to enjoy the movie more, rather than reject it as poorly done or as overcomplicated arthouse crap. The first movie I can recall doing a 'WTF DID I JUST WATCH' search was for the 1999 movie The Ninth Gate. Blade Runner was another one, which I normally caught on TV in bits and pieces; Harrison Ford would get drunk, get beat up by every co star and then Rutger Hauer is running around in his underpants, howling like a wolf. Prometheus was absolutely one of these kinds of movies, though I did not see it in bits and pieces late at night on cable. Eight or nine years later I happened upon the original script for the movie Prometheus... and fucking wow, the thing this movie could truly have been is beyond words. The cuts and omissions done were a thing bordering on pure sacrilege. You can read the script here:
PROMETHEUS-by-Damon-Lindelof.pdf (auricmedia.net)
After my first full read of the script, combined with the deleted movie material that was already available, I started throwing together some ideas and dialogue. The straw that broke the xeno's back was not being able to find an audiobook novelization of Prometheus the way I could every other entry in the Alien film series. That is when I decided to create this little blog and test the waters with creating the unofficial movie novelization (and maybe have it end up being the official novelization).
Thanks to everyone reading this and those who continue to support me.