disappointed with the Space Jockey...

the coming...earlier you asked this..."someone earlier mentioned Ridley imagined it to be a suit all along, dating back to 'Alien', is this true?" This is Ridley in Filmophobia about how he's always looked back at 'Alien'... "...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?" I look at it this way...I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and not because he's Ridley, but because we haven't seen Jackdidleysqaut yet......and if [b]he[/b] always saw it that way, what's the big deal? As to Deckard being a replicant...this is a complicated issue...Now, the following is from Philip K. Dick who wrote 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' upon which Bladerunner is based.. "The purpose of this story as I saw it was that in his job of hunting and killing these replicants, Deckard becomes progressively dehumanized. At the same time, the replicants are being perceived as becoming more human. Finally, Deckard must question what he is doing, and really what is the essential difference between him and them? And, to take it one step further, who is he if there is no real difference?" It would seem pretty clear how he viewed Deckard in the novel. However, When Ridley says that he is a replicant in the film, I can believe and agree with it soundly for a few reasons.... 1) Ridley says Deckard is a replicant.....if the man who directed it says he is, well then, he is.....it's kind of simple 2) You have to go back to the history of 'Bladerunner' and understand what happened to it back when it was about to be released. The studio, unhappy with early screening results forced the awful and redundant Ford voiceover on Scott because they didn't believe audiences would understand the film or that Deckard was a replicant...as a result, Deckard film identity as a replicant is lost intranslation. Deckard as replicant was always the intention as can be seen here from an article detailing the film's lost script pages.....[url=http://io9.com/5181048/blade-runners-original-ending-yes-deckards-a-replicant]Blade Runner’s Original Ending: Yes, Deckard’s A Replicant[/url] "As Deckard stares at the sky, he concludes his voiceover: The great Tyrrell hadn't designed me, but whoever had, hadn't done so much better. 'You're programmed too,' she told me, and she was right. In my own modest way, I was a combat model. Roy Batty was my late brother." 3) The director's cut brings back and highlights specific elements that make it clear That he was a replicant...the following article helps explain this as well....[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/825641.stm]Blade Runner riddle solved [/url] "In the Director's Cut version, the biggest clue for analysts was the appearance of a unicorn on screen while Deckard is lost in thought. The image of the mythical creature appears again towards the end of the film when he picks up an origami model discarded by another character, Gaff. As the replicants had no memories of their own, they had to be implanted, and fans interpreted the appearance of the model as a sign that Gaff knew what Deckard was thinking because it was an image shared by other non-humans. " There you have it fellas....have at it...

I agree that the SJ being just a tall blue guy is kinda off. Just like the Alien being a bio weapon, if you ask me! It throws away a lot of its magic; if it's a naturally occurring organism, then it could occurr right in our back yards, and that's scary stuff! I think one of the things that got under everyone's skin back in '79 was that everything was just so out of the order we came to apreciate. The Alien is just an animal that can mop the floor with us. It's not an alien with fancy tech, it can literally kill us all with it's bare hands just for the sake of breeding. It can't be bought or convinced to do otherwise. It has no notion of moral. Only the survival of the species matters, above all. And (sorry @AlsoKnownAsNate) I think the SJ fit perfectly into that. Assuming alien life forms share morphology with us, let alone values of morality, is just waaaaay off and has a big component of "man being the center of the Universe" to it. Plus, I agree @the comming, it makes for a silly, impractical suite. Also I've just been checking the scene where the SJ is found in Alien and I can swear there are teeth in the "mask"... what's with that if it's just a suit? Ok, some will argue it could allow the SJ to feed on alien grounds and the suit would process the food into something usable. But still, just seems plain silly. On the other hand, a while back I posted somewhere (can't really remember where) that what is found in the Alien ship is JUST THE SUIT. If it's a bio-suit, could it be impregnated by the facehugger, even without a actual host? Just my 2 cents...

The unicorn footage was actually taken from "Legend." Scott added it into the Director's cut, long after Bladerunner was in the can. Dick never categorically states that Deckard is a replicant. Is it possible that Deckard was a replicant and not a human? Sure, but the entire point of this particular story, is that in all the ways that matter, the answer to that question, doesn't.

Oh craigmore, craigmore,....the coolest craigmore I could sincerely hope to encounter... I'm stuck with what is up on the screen, what I see working, the original finished story. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, meant to...just ..isn't. For me, it is what it is. I read all that, everything I could find at the time and as hard as I tried......it was still no. So here comes Prometheus, I've seen a few things, and.....we'll see. Got faith in the Guv'nor still, regardless.

I think it's important not to put Ridley or anyone else working on this film on a pedastal. Everyone is capable of coming up with less than brilliant ideas, or ideas that aren't as good as someone else may come up with. No one is a master of all that's creative. I think a lot of people are overestimating what the filmmakers can come up with, or how deep they are thinking about the themes and images in the film. Plus, the SJ being a suit is disappointing, but less important than the overall picture.

Exactly, Biehn-bandit. It's what they've done and what they do that matters, not what they look like. Besides, there's obvious dark irony in the idea that SJs are malevolently ruthless, technological "Gods" who engineered us in their own image.......and that dovetails pretty neatly with the way we've turned out, as well.

I feel the trailer is way too revealing. We know now that Shaw gives birth to the squid like creature, her boyfriend gets infected, the mohawk guy mutates into something and they're trying to torch him, prometheus crashes into space jockey vessel, that the space jockeys leave for earth, and that Shaw will most likely survive. I can pretty much see where the story is going. I didn't want to know these details before seeing the film. Plus, when I saw the teaser, I had the impression it was an R film. But seeing the full trailer, it looks PG-13ish. So I'm still looking forward to the film, but I'm not as stoked as I was originally.

Apologies to fans but i must place my anger here. Either Ridleys leading us towards a jaw dropping wow moment or were gunna see a tall man with pale skin moving around briefly in the movie. The latter idea doesnt do it for me and I hope Ridleys tricked us all along to surprise us in the end. The Space Jockey moment in the original worked brilliantly and left you with a chill as you asked - what is that thing. To find its a tall man in a suit doesnt marry to the atmosphere of the original. (why would such a thing need a suit when it shapes its surroudings around its own DNA) You`ll watch the movie and think - a tall man acting a part. I still stand by the view that the Jockey looked like a aged corpse and this aspect should match the living form of the Alien in this movie - not a suit. I think the film will not live up to the hype and become another phantom menace - something that fits poorly into the universe it tried to be part of. I feel, even the space suits should have looked more primative. Tall man with pale skin....cmon, the trailers nolonger excite me now we can see this so called Jockey. WE WHERE EXPECTING SOMETHING ALIEN!!!!! The writers claim its not a prequel. Well that makes sense as it seems they do not match the imagination of Alien in their work. Explorers find a world, tamper with an unknown intelligence and find it abuses them. A tall, fit looking man like being is behind the abuse....wow....yawn. We see the "Alien" and then go home thinking good movie but poor to what I expected. Will a sequel arrive where we experience Predetors to some degree? I trully have lost faith in what the hype brought to me. To those who disagree - enjoy your movie, for I cannot. x .... Its a tall guy that wears a suit....much like the tall guy that adorned the Alien suit in the original Movie. At least he caused fear whilst a new movie shows us a man later wearing a suit.....yawn

Right, Biehn_Bandit, you're correct. I mean come on! Legolas under the weight of the lead with the gravity of both Irons and Neeson in close proximity? ooops..that was kinda uncalled for, I guess.

Oh, but I'm not disappointed wih the look of the space jockey. I'm tired of aliens looking like insects, octopuses, and all that crap. I think an intelligent sophisticated alien life form would have a beautiful symmetrical form, so I'm with ridley on this one. No elephant looking creatures PLEASE. The only thing that gets me is the hair. Why are aliens with a human like body always bald.

I didnt see the jockey as malevolent in the first film, I just. Thought it was a victim trying to help others avoid his fate. If he didn't send the warning who did? Why would he send the warning?

@ Myrddin365 you're right The novel, script and movie are all clear that the SJ in Alien was trying to help others avoid his fate. If Ridley screws with that in any way that makes me roll my eyes . . . I'll just have to get on this board and rant. And grow even more cynical. Like "Wait a minute, Robin Hood, A Good Year . . . what the hell was I thinking?"

"I can pretty much see where the story is going.".....I feel that way too sometimes..want-to-see-prometheusNOW!..but then I remember that they're showing us exactly what they want to show us. We can thin we know what the deal is all we want and be completely wrong.... I remember when the triale for 'Dreamcatcher' came out and made you want to see it...it looked interesting...and then you go and see this thing and it is NOTHING like what you thought you knew it was...WHAT A GOD-AWFUL MOVIE THAT WAS BY THE WAY.....I feel fairlt confident that 'Prometheus' won't be so terrible...that's a reasonable assumption...dontcha think?

"The novel, script and movie are all clear that the SJ in Alien was trying to help others avoid his fate.".....that's true dallas!dallas!, but who says they were trying to warn us or anyone other than their own kind....the signal can still be a warning and they can be a nasty, malevolent, evil bunch of indifferent baggards to anyone that isn't them.....

I always saw the Space Jockey's ship as a plague ship...broadcasting a warning not to board, which was interpreted too late by Ripley and Co.

Prometheus is going to attempt to surprise people rather than leave them in mystery primarily because the movie is heading in a very religious direction and religion has very little room for mystery. This isn't to say the movie won't have any mystery in it but I don't think we'll be leaving the theater with a half empty cup.

Prometheus is going to attempt to surprise people rather than leave them in mystery primarily because the movie is heading in a very religious direction and religion has very little room for mystery. This isn't to say the movie won't have any mystery in it but I don't think we'll be leaving the theater with a half empty cup.

We're all forgetting something. Space is a big place. If Ridley wants to tell the SJ's story, so be it... The end of that amazing 33 yr. old mystery. There's plenty of space... and mystery left. I wouldn't be surprised if he teases us with a newer, creepier, "something" in Prometheus for us to ponder in the decades to come.

Here is a resource from a wikia SJ article: A lesser-known history of the Space Jockey's race comes from an older source than the DVDs. According to "The Alien Portfolio" by John Mollo and Ron Cobb, Cobb tells of Alien creator Dan O'Bannon's backstory where the Jockey's race had simply landed on the planet on a course of exploration and had encountered the eggs there. Since the planet was dying, and they didn't realize how dangerous the eggs were, they loaded their cargo hold with the eggs and prepared to lift off. Before they were to take off, one of the crew was parasitized and "gave birth" to an alien. The crew eventually killed the alien, but at the cost of hulling their ship. As they were dying out, one of them had set up a transmission warning other ships not to land there and suffer the same fate. Read the full article here: http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Jockey

I already have a theory on that, db, bet you do too