Two derelicts?

I guess it always seemed like a no-brainer to me: an advanced space-faring race (Jockeys/Engineers/Nom du Jour)...probably has fleets of ships. So, the possibility of two SJ ships in Prometheus...not that unreasonable. It was also discussed in other threads that the ship in Prometheus looked different than the derelict in Alien...again, possibly lots of ships, possibly many designs.

Yeah it does seem different. If you look at the SJ chair room in the Prometheus trailer, it looks alot bigger than in the Alien movie. . . Also it'd make sense that the SJ's would have more than one "Derelict" type ship.

The walls in lower photo are much different. They appear to have "secretions" that have made the derelict look more like the hive from aliens. There are also no "pods" in the lower photo.

RE: Derelict Chair There is no way to size-compare the two images because we don't even know if the Blue Humanoid is human size or not. Through casual observation, the chair in the original ALIEN looks vastly larger than the one in PROMETHEUS. Again because of the comparative size of the humanoids in the 2 images. Perspective distortion, yo!

Like many others, I too have picked through and tried to compare the various great and small visual differences between what we were shown in Alien and what Prometheus has to offer. My conclusion: We may be making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Unless the differences are [u]specifically[/u] alluded to and/or explained, the visual inconsistencies may simply be explained as a case of artistic-license on the part of Scott and his crew. Some things have been streamed-lined, some things may have been tweaked, some details added or subtracted. It's nothing with any hidden meaning. It's been over 30 years since the original and Scott (like any artist) may have a different eye for updating the visual-aesthetics of a piece of art that is over three decades old. It's usually us fans [i](and not the actual film-maker himself)[/i] that tend to keep a near fetishistic devotion to a subject matter.

I suppose the new derelict looks less biomechanic than the old one, but retains the general shape. The surface pattern of the outside looks as if it's been crossed with the ship from Event Horizon and certainly no longer looks organic.

Re: Biomechanic's reply... Although I'm willing to give the benefit of a doubt to the small stuff [i](the 'strut issue' or the walls of the derelict)[/i] and just chalk it up to an artistic license update on part of the director, I'm gonna' be holding the line on the CLEARLY fossilized SJ from Alien and the significantly different landscape of the planet itself. (Assuming of course that it is in fact LV-426 and not a different planet altogether.) I don't want Scott skipping over THOSE significant details. If Prometheus does take place less than 50 years before Alien, I'm expecting a damn good reason for the obvious differences in the appearance of the SJ corpse and the planet itself by the time Dallas and his crew pay a visit.

I agree with @Biomechanic and @Graphix67....don't sweat the small stuff...... ..with the struts, the chair hasn't even finished coming out of the floor, so there's no telling what they'll look like when it comes to its final position.... ...as to the wall, love your "nursery like a whale" theory @Biomechanic....very well put... ...and there do seem to be variations from 'Alien's derelict and the ship in 'Prometheus'.....the exterior, the pods, the walls, etc......let's just wait and see...they may be two ships.,.......the ship, keeping with a bio-mechanical theme, may be alive itself in a strange usual way.....That effect on the walls we see in 'Alien', the boney protrusions, may be a later stage in biomechanical development. As a general characteristic of the SpaceJockey race, their technology may adapt over time...hence the bio-mechanical nature of the xeno....it may just be an extension of their bio-mech-tech..... ...and concerning the crash site, that's a massive hip coming down from God knows what altitude...we've only scene a few short shots......it's possible it slides on imapct and comes to rest against that mountainous terrain we see in 'Alien'....the shots in 'Alien' are all from the front, the side from which our three Nostromo crew members approach from...we never see behide that behemoth ship...it could be as flat and barren behind it as we see in the few shots we have...

With regards to the wall differences, in Prometheus we see that the chair rises up from a lower chamber. Perhaps the original Alien SJ room is below the one we see in Prometheus. At any rate, its pretty clear that the chair can move at least up and down and may not be limited to a single location.

That's Brilliant @Enhanced Eddie....I hadn't thought of it that way and it would explain a lot......here's a pic that might go along with the theory.... [img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oE-wCzOVPzM/TvJoxt1E-SI/AAAAAAAAAU8/cCwf4co4DRI/s320/prometheus_teaser_3_6.jpg[/img]

Re: Craigamore... OK, just taking a leap from yours (and others) observation that the ship itself is "alive" in some form or another. My problem (as stated in an earlier post) is how Ridley will explain the clearly fossilized SJ from Alien if in fact Prometheus takes place less than 50 years before the events of Alien. And now I just may have my answer... Perhaps the SJ corpse and derelict from Alien APPEAR to be fossilized but are only in fact severely desiccated, dried-out and mummified. Afterall, it doesn't take a dead animal hundreds or thousands of years to dry-out and become mummified. If the SJ and the ship are living bio-mechanical objects then, when they "died", they just went under the natural decomposing process and by the time the Nostromo arrives 40 or 50 years later, that is what they find: Once living things that have dried-out and desiccated but not necessarily fossilized. Any thoughts???

Well...if the planet IS LV426, then maybe the fact that it has supposedly no atmospehere (the atmoshphere processor in Aliens) has an impact on the drying/fossilization of the orginal derelict. But, it is obvious there is an atmosphere on the planet in the Prometheus trailer. I bet the planet in Prometheus is not LV426. It has an atmosphere.

Good point @Graphix67...but also remember, that's a suit in that chair. Ridley's confirmed that it is, in fact a suit..... From a Filmophobia article that I posted here about a month back: Ridley says, "I think one of the reasons why I’ve never gone back to science-fiction, even though I’ve often noodled around, thought about it, looked for story, looked for material, is that there’s a nice purity to the original Alien. It’s fairly pure. And this one does actually raise all kinds of other questions, because if someone could, a being, could be as monstrously clever to create something like we experienced in the very first one – I always figured it’s a weapon, and I always figured that [the ship in the first Alien] was a carrier of weapons. Therefore, who is that, inside that suit? That wasn’t a skeleton, that was a suit. And if you open up the suit, what do you get inside it? And why were they going, where were they going?" So, if it's suit, and we keep with the biomechanical, in essence--living suit, then it doesn't have to fossilized, merely "dried-out and desiccated", as you put it...

I say the derelict ship is millennia old in Alien, and Prometheus WILL involve time travel. The Nostromo crew observed the result of what occurred millions of years ago because the Prometheus crew will have time travelled into the past. SJ biotech ages and grows, including the ship. That is why the SJ command post is pristine and metallic in Prometheus (the very distant past). Over time the ship grows and becomes more biological and is susceptible to decomposition and fossilization. The Prometheus ship returns to our time after the events take place. This really makes sense to me and will work beautifully. Also, the terrain in Prometheus looks very different than in Alien. It would take an extraordinary amount of time for rock formations to grow around the derelict. And, the atmosphere is very different as well. But, what the hell do I know! It's just a theory that works perfectly well with me until Prometheus is released!

After reading some of the highly detailed theories here, I'm sometimes left wondering if us fans are putting more thought into this than Scott himself. I'd like to think that nearly every little discrepancy will be explained but then again, maybe not.

The terrain is completely different, the sky is significantly brighter in the "Prometheus" external shots than it [i]ever[/i] was in "Alien." The pad on which the "telescope" rests, is larger on the "Prometheus" set, the ribbed structure of the surrounding walls is quite different, beyond mere surface treatment, and there are pods which weren't present on the derelict. Simple "artistic license?" No, if Scott is trying to pass off this vessel as the same one we saw in "Alien," my personal BS meter will blow a fuse. I think the clear, obvious differences can best be explained by concluding that it's a different ship.

Time travel sucks, so does the idea. I have already taken June 8 off because I plan to see this movie. If time travel is used to "explain" anything from Alien I willget up and walk out of the theatre. As much as I am dying to piece together Prometheus and Alien and know of the SJ race, I cannot accept time travel as a "scapegoat" conclusion. There are different worlds, as evidence of the trailer. There are different ships, none of which are on LV426 as evidence of the trailer. My assumption is that the world where the Prometheus crew can take off their helmetsv and breathe the air is a beginning... it will lead them to a world where the must wear their suits.... as evidenced by the trailer. LV 426 may come in at the end of the movie, possibly where that ship is crashing from the sky. But from the trailer, as many times as i've watched it, there is no evidence that any of the main events take place there.

I would also add that Alien may be 33 years old as a screenplay, but it is timeless in its story and nothing can compare. It's still the first movie I think of when theres nothing else to watch.. has anyone ever noticed the scene with lambert and parker going to collect coolant and the alien is there, seen, even before they get to the coolant locker?

@jbsmit3@gmail.com HEAR HEAR. I hate lazy storytelling like that. And there definitely is 2 ships, is everyone forgetting the one you see above the waterfall? The giant saucer shaped one? No?....... :-D

@jbsmit3, I have to agree as well about the time travel. Is time travel okay in films? Sure. But is time travel acceptable in this particular film? No, I don't think so. It's used as a framework to help human beings understand what is happening in their miniscule little human minds. But unlike a lot of films, I wouldn't have a problem with certain things in Prometheus being completely incomprehensible--that's kind of the point of coming into contact with truly alien life. We shouldn't be able to go all "CSI" on their technology, writing, language, etc., and expect to learn much of anything from it. (Unless it's David, but even that is a stretch.) The only way I would accept time travel in Prometheus is if it's a technology used solely by the Space Jockeys, and in a way that does not directly involve the Prometheus crew. So I would have a big problem with the Prometheus crew being transported back in time with a Space Jockey ship and somehow causing it to crash, thus leading to a "fossilized" Jockey derelict being discovered in Alien and theorized (and actually true) to be millions of years old. Besides, let's suppose Space Jockeys are capable of more than "mere" time travel. What about inter-dimensional travel? Is a human being even capable of surviving in a higher dimension? We are complex meatbags, but at the end of the day, just meatbags. Maybe I'm going off in the wrong direction...