The James Franco character is in that teaser a good bit more and I think in different versions of the screenplay as it went along, he had a larger role, but his role was always to be an absent captain.
It had to do with the backstory of both Daniels [Katherine Waterson] as well as Billy Crudup’s character, Oram.
Originally, the James Franco [scene] was part of what was a larger storyline, involving learning a little more about his background and actually getting to see some of his dreams that he’d had while he was asleep.
Part of Ridley’s idea was that this was a ship that not only had this external problem, but it also had this problem that there was this captain who was not the original captain who is now going to lead the mission and maybe make some terrible mistakes.