New Replies (Page 4,844)

we don't know what fossilization refers to in the near future. it may very well encompass what snorkelbottom describes, or it may not. but if the theory that the derelict discovered by nostromo is the one that came crashing down in the trailer(and there is a strong case to be made for that), then one either must admit that retconning has taken place or that there are other possibilities. one which i just described. true fossilization, the current definition has no account for being freeze dried in the vacuum of space, but it's possible that in the future when humanity becomes a space faring race, such a definition would be considered.

1) I hope not. Lost became a complete mess. 2) suits 3) We are all reading into too much. We've seen stills, the final cuts will look great I'm sure. Differences between the original and new wouldn't be noticed but for nerds like us. 4) Link is an open ended response. Could be very loose. I' honestly won't miss Xeno - it's overused now. The face huggers are not scary, I don't know how I feel about them as an ending connection.

1) There better not be time travel. That trope has become a cop-out for people who can't find an effective way to tell a story. 2) We've only seen the suits. And that's not even all that interesting to me. I'm far more interested in their [SJ's] behavior and their actions, and how they interact with the Prometheus' crew. 3) I don't care how the ship looks, to be honest. Sure, the environment will set the tone, but I'm not hinging my hopes for the film on how the ship looks. 4) The facehugger may be in the film, but I don't think it will be as important as we think. We have this notion that events in Prometheus have to lead to events in Alien. Surely, there will be some threads that are connected, but I'd rather the film's focus be such that its ending doesn't merely lead to "mining tug responds to encoded distress signal" as seen in Alien.

1. We will be lead to believe Elizabeth Shaw is our heroine who survives to the end but we will discover she is linked to helping bring the biomechanoid into the world partly because of her own selfishness. 2. B 3. B 4. C

1) I think that probably Shawn, who is described as "a believer", starts the plot deeply motivated by a quasi-religious desire to know the Engineers/Creators. We can bet that a major twist will be her disillusionment. But this is so predictable that I believe Scott has something else, probably bigger, under his hat. 2) I think we see the suits. This can come as a downside for most fans, but I really believe that the Engineers will be much less "alien" than that most people expect. The reason is, in the "Von Daniken" mithology Scott seems to be adopting in this movie, we are very likely created in the Engineer´s image. 3) The derelict in Alien is a) heavily weathered and b) embebbed in Xenomorph goo, that made a nest of it. So it´s only natural. Go see what most shipwrecks seems just now. 4) If xenomorphs really share their host DNA for body plan, we have to acknowledge that with the exception of Alien 3´s xenomorph (breed on the dog) all xenos we have seen are human-based ones. We NEVER saw the Engineer-bred xenomorph (albeit, if the Engineers are similar to us, the resulting xeno must be similar also), and we NEVER saw a "pure" xeno, if this thing exists. What I think we´re gonna see is this, the "pure" xeno. And maybe something else; i´m really curious about what happens in Shaw´s belly.

Well if these beings are creators of planets and species, they'll probably assume they're "better" then any other species that may exist in the galaxy. I mean ya can't blame them, I'd not wanna mess with a society who are able to do that!

-"Well if these beings are creators of planets and species, they'll probably assume they're "better" then any other species that may exist in the galaxy. I mean ya can't blame them, I'd not wanna mess with a society who are able to do that!" Interesting. But, at least from our point of view, that only shows they must fear something and need protection. It's like our own animals (us included), making themselves look bigger or different to ward off any potential predators (Ok, I don't mean literally the animals are planning this of course). Why would such an advanced race "paint their faces" sort of speak for fear of any other race? They must be vulnerable, big time. Then again, we we are not them, so it may mean something completely different to them. It would be interesting if we actually were to make contact with an Alien race and see what they come up with: Do they have art? Literature? How have they solved problems of long distance travel? Are they carbon based life?...

It's probably like you said about our ships having an industrial look, an appearance which is based on our technology, theirs is likely to be functional as well, based upon an entirely different technolgy which may even combine the use of runic symbols. Don't forget these Aliens are alien and as Arthur C Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced civilisation's technology would appear like magic to us.

"...and as Arthur C Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced civilisation's technology would appear like magic to us." I'm hoping the ship, its operation, and its inner workings *mostly* remain a mystery. Take a skilled programmer, for instance, and ask them to unravel spaghetti code that's written in Japanese kanji. It'd require intimate knowledge of the Japanese language to do it, and if the programmer lacks that knowledge, they would fail utterly. So I'm hoping that nobody on the crew, even David, is able to magically decipher the ship's full functionality due merely to their human intelligence (even androids are limited by the intelligence of their human creators).

@Jones - Technically androids are computers/machines, and it's been proven how quicker they can calculate things then humans so they should actually have more knowledge then us I'd have thought. . . Also, I think that SJ as a race are so advanced that they look upon species like us humans as mere insect like in significance. Till the events in this movie. . . When humans prove to be more dangerous then previously thought, which I think could lean to the SJ somehow forming/creating the xenomorph to rid them of us. But this backfires on them. . .

@ Lyle - personally I hate the possibility of the Alien/Xenomorph being created in Prometheus. The creature has always had lovecraftian undertones to it that, to me, suggests its a very ancient being, maybe as ancient as the Space Jockeys Regards the topic, I like to think of this as an Aesthetic issue. Our technology is probably best described as post-industrial. Everything has function, and that function is labelled and catergorized. We do this with signs and markers. The Space Jockeys design seems to be from a different viewpoint. Although highly advanced the technology is hidden behind corridors and ornaments and details that are more classically designed. Rather than advertise their technology, it is hidden behind a facade of ancient grandeur, adding to the "magical" view of their technology we would have.

@Lyle, True about androids to a point. They can perform functions they were specifically programmed to do much faster than humans (see Kasparoff-Deep Blue chess matches, some of which Kasparoff won). What I'm getting at is that if we as humans were to encounter something truly alien, it would be so incomprehensible that not even our most intelligent computer would likely be able to make sense of it.

I don't think the visual aesthetics are of any importance to the SJs, to us they seem ornate but I think the 'look' of the interiors are just a result of their biomechanical tech (vains, tubes and skeletal structure) which is 'grown'... Where we would hide the electrical cables/wires/circuits behind trunking for safety in space/neatness due to them being fragile, the SJs tech is living/soft and can withstand impacts so don't need protecting.

I agree with keYserSOze. Their ship, suits, equipment, etc. is not ornate. It is simply biomechanical. The ship is not manufactured, its is genetically engineered and grown. And therefore it has what appears to be ornate tubes, veins, and texture much like anything that grows/is alive. The same can be said of the Alien in "ALIEN". (Its bio mechanical). It looks partly mechanical because it was designed/genetically engineered as a working system for a specific purpose/function. But its grows like an organism. These are just my opinions based on what we've seen so far.

I think it has a lot to do with how the ship is created/built. Our ships look the way they do as a function of the materials used, process used to assemble the components, and the task required of the crew members. Also, the size and shape of our ships is largely based on the ships purpose. The SJ ships are created totally differently. I can't see a group of SJ workers welding pieces of the ship together. The ship to me looks like it was grown or extruded in some alien process. My guess is that what we view as "ornamental" and "artsy" is mostly a byproduct of the ships creation. Also, if the ship is biomechanical, then by default it has biological systems. I'm guessing this would factor into the look of the ship.

I've always thought that the ship is a gigantic living organism lying dormant until a prey comes into its trap. Kinda like those carnivorous plants which prey on insects. Have you seen the inside of a sea shells? Those pattern based on Golden Ratio is beautiful, "artsy." Nature is not only a mad scientist, she is a fantastic artist.

arthur c clark is a completely ludacris ass...he claims we will b e ruled by A.I...sorry but pc's are objectsthey arent conscious

really, all pcs are tempermential, makes them conscious, and female IMO

what decoration? it's just their structure and architecture. also 20thcenturybuick, you reveal your stupidity(if your lame theory threads haven't already) by that comment. think of the subtext. he was really saying that humanity will be dominated by technology, which is completely true. we're typing on computers, we have phones and pdas that are all highly interconnected through technology. what happens when this technology fails or works against us? that was his message in regards to hal.

-"what decoration? it's just their structure and architecture." Architecture involves art, mr. rude. We could survive in very sturdy and safe square blocks, or caves or holes in the ground designed by engineers (which happens all the time) till the end of times. Those interiors could have been left bare, unless, as pointed out, their shape is the form of their function (as the old design paradigm goes). But since we are dealing with a fantasy story, anything can go I guess....

Why? because of all them eggs. The Derelict was carrying the eggs as cargo, hence the blue laser and the design of the egg chamber.

Just curious but where else besides in talk about special effects is it mentioned that the egg chamber had a blue laser? I always thought it was a luminescent mist and was there to alert the eggs of movement.

Blue laser, blue mist same thing. either way, as you said it was there no either alert the eggs or alert the Jockey. thus the eggs were cargo, Ridley has been saying this all along.

Ridley has been saying this all along... Do you have the links to his interviews? love to read his point of view on it

"The Derelict was carrying the eggs as cargo, hence the blue laser and the design of the egg chamber." This theory has a problem: some people did calculations about the likely dimensions of the derelict, and, if I understand the numbers right, the egg chamber should be outside the derelict´s body. See here: http://time.absoluteavp.com/alientech.html EXTERIOR PORT PRONG (hammerhead) – 161.6 m (530’) long STARBOARD PRONG – 174.3 m (571.7’) long INGRESS/ EGRESS HOLES – 5.5 m (18’) high x 3.1 m (10.2’) wide HEIGHT AT ‘BRIDGE’ AREA – 33.5 m (180’) high LENGTH OF ‘BRIDGE’ AREA – 43 m (141’) long WIDTH (AFT) – 116.6 m (382.6’) wide WIDTH (AFT BETWEEN PRONGS) – 61 m (200’) wide INTERIOR EGG ‘CAVE’ – 39.6 m (130’) high SPACE JOCKEY CHAMBER – 12.2 m (40’) high If the SJ chamber is the bridge, Height of the bridge - SJ chamber = 33,5-12,2 = 21,3m. Weel, the egg chamber is thought to be 39,6m high. So, except for some poetic license, the egg chamber must be the fruit of the works of something else besides the Derelict´s projectists. The problem is, I agree that the chamber has all the signs of have been projected and built. I really think that all of this is so inconsistent that it will be disregarded in Prometheus.

Whomever did those calculations needs to take a break, no offence. The average viewer and the sensible fans just accept that the egg chamber is part of the Derelict. @firetothegods, its mentioned in many interviews and in the dvd commentary

Ridley contradicts himself. He has said that he believed the ship might be a bomber but in the Alien script there was suppose to be a separate pyramid with the eggs in them and he said for economic reasons that pyramid was turned into a cave underneath the derelict. He could make it a bomber and take artistic license but that would change Obannon's original idea. No one can say for sure right now which way it will go. Maybe the Prometheus screenwriters have an entirely different take on it.

Right on snorkel. I think it is silly to over analyze all of this...

So what exactly is the right amount of analyzing that will keep this forum from dying yet doesn't pass the silliness threshold? Can you give a percent?

@BM, True the original ideas was the pyramid but they changed it to what we saw and Ridley has stuck to the bomber idea like glue ever since. Scripts and screenplays change, whatever ideas are used at the start get changed, streamlined etc. ideas evolve over time. In Alien he already changed O'Bannons ideas and O'Bannon agreed with the changes and helped with the changes (it was O'Bannon that suggested Giger after all). Knowing how stubborn and driven Ridley is IMO the bomber idea he has always advertised will be expanded upon, to a degree, in Prometheus - This is probably why the Prometheus/Magellan impacts with the Derelict, as shown in the trailer, to stop it from delivering its deadly cargo.

You can speculate all you want and it's nice to speculate, but I think "not fully understanding the Biology" doesn't prevent us from enjoying the ALIEN series.

To answer what this thread was originally for. I feel we can't ignore Cameron's alien life cycle. Yes there were many eggs in stasis. There is no other reason for the blue light special light alarm thing that made noise when Kane went through it. As to where those eggs came from...who knows. But Ridley himself said the Derelict was a type of bomber. I believe that had the Alien not died on the Nostromo it would have finished converting Bret into an egg. Eventually a face hugger would have gotten on Dallas who then "birthed" a queen. Have a queen in the life cycle makes sense. However if circumstances like in alien, a drone can reproduce in the absence of a queen. That is what makes the xeno remarkable and dangerous my fellow nerds.

In the original script and director's cut of Alien, the alien created the eggs without the need introduction of a queen or bug-like society concept (which is a way better concept and way more alien than what Cameron came up with--the queen idea makes the structure of alien existence too tangible and less alien). I'm pretty much with Snorkel on this whole thread, especially concerning the sequence of shots showing Kane being lowered from the Jockey chamber to the egg chamber. (Then again, if you look closely, the tunnel of the egg chamber does a lazy s-curve in the distance, which the derelict does not do. Though admittedly, continuity in those days was not as big of a deal as it is now.) Another example of things being changed from one movie to another.. Alien: Kane doesn't remember anything from the planet. Aliens: Ripley says that Kane said he saw thousands of eggs...THOUSANDS. She's rather emphatic about what Kane doesn't remember. And while Kane gives a weak play by play as he's lowered in, he never mentions the number of the eggs OR the size of the chamber. He just sounds really impressed by what he's seeing.

Well to add once more, the novelization (which is taken from the script) makes it somewhat clear that the area where the eggs are does not seem part of the ship. Stating that Kane was being lowered further than Dallas felt the bottom of the ship to be. It also Added that the proportions would not make sense, then followed by the line "make sense to what?" SO it is even vague about in there. Which means nobody here can positively say it is one way or the other. period.

I do not know whether to post this here, but I have a different theory after seeing the proper SJ masks in a previous article: it seems like the facehugger and the SJ are one and the same. Where with humans the facehugger drops off after putting its load in the belly of the victim, it seems to remain on the face of the SJ. The nose of the SJ which forms into some kind of tube or trunk (like an elephant) reminds me a lot of its tail, so that it seems the facehugger envelopes the face from the front and then remains there.... Like some kind of symbiosis or sumthin. It would give the story an amazing twist, like humans are needed for aliens to have their lifecycle, breathe a queen, create new eggs, therefore creating new facehuggers so that new SJ's can live. As if they are not able, because of their biology or I do not know, to breathe new aliens. So the SJ's need us to breathe new facehuggers so they can continue their existence as without the facehugger they wouldn't be complete. This theory however, does not match with the hole in the chest of the SJ in Alien in the derelict ship.... However, no one ever stated that this hole in the fossilized SJ was the result of an alien.... Once again, I do not know whether to post this here and whether this has maybe been opted already and I'm just repeating yesterdays' headlines... It seems to me a very sound theory and I just had to get it off (out of, to coin it daftly) my chest:-)

AshV, it has been brought up here before (mainly by me) and it was basically laughed at and flamed out of "speculation", because.....you know, some peoples speculations are more important than others . LOL

I also think if the xeno is a perfect specimen, it'd make sense to have multiple reproductive paths. There are frog species that can change sex. Frog reproduction is quite interesting, as various species have different ways of reproducing--in one species, males storing fertilized eggs in vocal pouches, and in another, females store fertilized eggs in a membrane on their back. Perhaps a queen becomes present in proximity to a large number of potential hosts. So in a lightly populated environment like the Nostromo, there'd be no queen, because it's relatively quick work to convert a small crew. But if a queen is present, she could presumably produce multiple eggs faster than a lone xeno could, with less energy expended. Thus, enter the queen in Aliens due to the higher population of the colony. Whatever the case, speculation makes for good mental exercise. :)

@Mindbender: in The Netherlands we have a saying that no one ever has a good idea alone;) @Jones: very nice trail.... If it is the perfect creature, it would indeed find a way around reproduction if there weren't any hosts.... Food for thought indeed!!!

I dont think Sir Ridders give a flying fuck about queens and all that jazz. So if Prometheus does conclude with the Derelict crashing on a planetoid orbiting LV-426 in a system close to Zeta II Reticuli, then we shouldn't be surprised to [i]not[/i] see a queen alien. From all Ridley's interviews, the impression I'm getting is that metamorphosis from victim to egg is his preferred genesis. "They do uncivilised and perverse things" is what I'm clinging on here - although some special individual on this forum immediately jump to rape. To each his own.

@ Mindbender, this idea of novelizations pretty much falls into the same pigeonhole as original scripts. Although the Novel is based off the script a film can vastly change from the "Final" script to the release of the film - rewrites, cut scenes, unfilmed scenes, editing (which can restructure an entire film). Furthermore a script turned novel would actually produce a novella, what fills 2 hours of screen time will barely fill 200 pages, and as such scenes are usually added, and not necssarily canon ideas. Add to all of this the novel has to be written while the film is being filmed and cut (usually changing in the process) so that it can be released in conjunction with the film as merchandise. Don't get me wrong novelizations of films are fun to read, but should never be considered canon.