Ao contrário de como alguns discos são dominados onde o começo / fim alternativo é uma opção alternativa ao assistir a todo o recurso, o Prometheus Blu-ray inclui o início alternativo e o final alternativo no Extras submenu como clipes individuais. Então não precisei me preocupar com a maneira de assistir ao filme: a maneira teatral ou a alternativa. A única maneira de assistir a todo o filme é a versão teatral.
O começo alternativo tem cerca de 2 minutos de duração, e o final alternativo é de cerca de 5 minutos, então eles não são muito longos.
As cenas alternativas de início e fim foram sancionadas por Ridley Scott. O início alternativo foi uma versão ligeiramente expandida da cena com o engenheiro no começo. O final alternativo era uma versão expandida da conversa de Shaw e David antes da saída de Shaw. Foi baseado no título original de Ridley Scott para o filme.
Portanto, essas cenas são canon. Além disso, tendo assistido eles, eles não mudam nada sobre o enredo. Eles só têm visuais diferentes e diálogos diferentes.
Para mais informações sobre o começo, veja o seguinte spoiler:
The menu before the alternate beginning reveals that the Engineers are seeding Earth with life, something which was questioned by many viewers. The actual text of the menu is:
Scene 7: Arrival of the Engineers
The Engineers touch down on prehistoric Earth for a sacred ritual devoted to the seeding of Intelligent life. Whereas the Theatrical version of the scene is devoted to the Lone Sacrifice Engineer, this early cut features several of his comrades, including the Elder Engineer. The ceremony was filmed with dialogue but unsatisfied with the result, Ridley Scott removed the dialogue entirely.
This sounded to me like the scene would contain dialogue. However, apparently Ridley Scott was so unhappy with how the dialogue turned out that he removed it altogether. All the beginning shows is a few more Engineers on Earth along with the Lone Engineer, and different shots of the Lone Engineer's sacrifice.
E para mais informações sobre o final, veja o seguinte spoiler:
The description of the alternate ending from the Blu-Ray's menu reads:
Scenes 141-150: Paradise
This extended scene reveals new information about the Engineer Homeworld as well as some alternate dialogue between Shaw and David. Note that one of Ridley Scott's original titles for the film was Paradise and it was even maintained as a cover title for secrecy during production.
In the scenes, we see an extended version of Shaw uprighting the vehicle she uses to drive to rescue David with more dialogue where Shaw demands to know what the Engineer said before he ripped David's head off. (This exchange was shown in another deleted scene) Then, upon arriving at the ship, Shaw asks David if he can use the Engineers' maps to navigate to where they came from and he says he believes he can (just like before) and goes on to ask why she wants go to. He reveals that there is no word in Human language to describe where the Engineers come from, but the closest would be the word "Paradise"
So it's the same plot (Shaw and David leave for the Engineer Homeworld) just new information about what they might find there.