I'm not saying they will get rid of the ship. That is definitely staying.
I said CGI cinematics - I don't see it working as anything but the very start of the game, plus it is designed with character creation in mind - and that would need to be moved out of the CGI cinematics, before the potential new prologue.
I kind of hope it does though. I think that would be a lot better beginning to the game than Michael Bay cinematic intro and waking up in pure chaos.
BG3 is really over the top, but it's not an outlier - BG2 starts with escape from the dungeon, KOTOR1 starts with escape from a ship under siege, Mass Effect1, 2, 3 starts with more or less a cold open, Arcanum starts with our zepelin getting shot down, etc. etc. etc. Most RPGs moved away from understated openings to bombastic hooks a while ago.
Narratively I don't think this is a terrible idea - you want to start where the story gets interesting, and capture by Mindflayers is the inciting incident which brings all heroes together. And after the escape there is opportunity for downtime and calmer exploration in an unfamiliar wilderness. I take issues with storytelling itself, but as far as big picture storybeats go, I don't think it is unsalvageable. It's been done well before.
