disappointed with the Space Jockey...

@ 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.

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

Yeah, no doubt craigamore, I don't think we can go wrong with this movie. And really, if I wanted this movie to be a surprise, I should have kept my fingers away from the play button for the youtube trailer, but I couldn't control myself. Watched it so many freakin times. I got nobody but myself to blame for that. It's not like Ridley made me watch it at gun point. Temptation is a 'bitch'.

Thatzenoguy, NICE!

But even with everything they given us want-to-see-prometheusNOW!, I still think they have a hell of a lot up there sleeves that's going to shock and surprise us six ways from Sunday.....Think about how, with each new trailer, there's this collective..WHAT THE HELL?..on this site and we all go back to the drawing board, piecing together what we were right about and the vast majority of things, which we were totally wrong about.....This is still one big secret I can wait to see revealed..........

Honestly, the footage that we've seen could comprise only one hour. It's been described as an epic, but it's so called epic qualities have not been stressed as much as its other themes..gods, engineers, etc. An epic spans both time and space, more than a mere jump to the Planet of The Primitive Head..whats in the other hour is what excites me...the trailer is too easy, it purports to tell the story up to the point with Charlize and Noomi running for their lives, apparently with no ship to escape the planet. There has to be more, thats why the unprecedented secrecy on things is working overtime to muddle things among the best sleuths in the world.....us. The hardcore.

[quote]WhyDontTheyFreezeHim Member Send PM› Posted Mar-31-2012 4:15 PM | Moderate Im in two minds. It is a shame that the mystery is gone, but at the same time Im really looking forward to know more about them. Hopefully I like what is given. And if I dont, I will just somehow force myself to view prometheus space jockeys as completely different to the one seen in Alien.[/quote] I'm somewhat with you dude ;-) I always wanted to know how the original Space Jockey in Alien ended up there, but I'll be happy knowing a bit more about them. :-D

You guys should really read more Lem. You always assume aliens will think sorta like us. heh, we'll see.

"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." It's almost certainly a result of the hominid line which ultimately lead to us, becoming less hairy over time; the presumption being that completely hairless=more advanced.

I have no idea what you mean by "mystery". I didn't get a sense of "mystery" at all, it's just "Oh look, a dead thing in a chair." Adding a story to something is what makes it interesting. Also, why wouldn't a space jockey look that? They probably created mankind in THEIR image, just like androids look like us. It makes perfect sense.

What if the big blue SJ is only a hologram-a way for Lindelof and Ripley to be misleading.As we saw with the TED stream,it is possible that those SJ characters don't exist!This may be a way to throw us fanbous off-plus think of the marketing!Two days before the release the studio says "We misled everyone!Come see the real deal.Unlikely,but kinda cool anyway. Also they might be trying to get ideas from us for a sequel.

I don't mind. I'm looking at Prometheus as a separate movie. Connecting the dots is not that important for me. Prometheus is a 'hard' SF movie, a neglected genre. Ridley is directing. Strong cast. Even the CGI does not look like CGI. What more do you want?

What makes anyone here believe that a humanoid jockey has any bearing on what the jockey actually might look like? There is the actual idea of [i]suit[/i], and also the type of [i]suit[/i] an intelligent life form might need in order to communicate effectively with humans. If you are talking about an evolved species, odds are that it has transgressed any one physical form (i.e. suit). Squid, humanoid, beastie, whatever. You aren't likely to know more about the actual physicality of the SJ after Prometheus... Unless I'm right. And by right, I mean I'm still sticking with my recursive evolution theory--The SJ are evolved from humans. We are the creators of our own destruction, over and over and over. Seems I'm alone in these thoughts, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me as something truly profound. Yeah, yeah, but we'll see--and likely, the answer will be ambiguous.

I am not fully against the suit idea, but these are my issues: 1. the breathing apparatus, the SJ seems to breathe fine in the surrounding room, so what purpose does this serve once in the suit? they are in the same room? yes? (ash voice) 2.like someone said earlier the original SJ is a skeleton with teeth etc...we can now 1. either ignore Alien and treat this separately or 2. accept it is a direct prequel but then the teeth and very biological look of the fossilised skeleton will need explaining you can't say it is a direct tie-in to Alien and then have a HUGE discrepancy between the two space jockeys/suits in both movies... I am not complaining btw this is all just friendly debate...If I ever directed a movie I think I would sit down for 3 months on a forum with a sci-fi community like this, it would be a great method of determining all the plot holes and closing them up, coming up with new ideas etc...I think directors sometimes are a bit 'aloof'

The problem started from the point when some "genius" decided, 'hey, why don't we make the space jocks the progenitors of humanity? Won't that be cool!' From that point onwards, the enigma that was the space jocks was lost. Moreover, it gave credence to (if not dictated) the notion of an anthropomorphic creature beneath the "suit". Linking humans and space jocks 'de-alienizes' Alien. This film no longer gets to be called a prequel for free. No it's a spin-off at best, but if it proves itself worthy, then it earns itself the privilege to be called a prequel.

Well for me the plot has me worried. The archaeology reminds me of AVP (I enjoy those films btw, but I expect more from RS). The origin of humaniy element reminds me of the ending to the new BSG (which I hated). The time-travel, portal stuff reminds me of Stargate. All truly terrifying. Having said all that I will still go to the cinema as an optimist, hoping to be entertained.

@AlsoknownAsNate. Maybe it's more than just a suite. One can never tell when listening to Ridley. Ridley grabs your attention by not really giving a lot away. Imo, the other Alien movies really didn't ground anything, seeing that the concept for those movies weren't Ridley's. I really don't see the connection due to the different type of mood and environment in the first movie. "Elephant-esque species just seems too of a George Lucas universe." I just don't see that. To me that's an insult to Giger's vision and Ridley's concept. What we see in the first movie is something on a level that George Lucas can only dream of. The unknown, where the rules of nature are not like are own but very convincing. Don't get me wrong, Lucas work is good, but when I hear English accents on another planet in Star Wars, it's both comical and not convincing. Star Wars is a movie with a bunch of special effects and semi o.k. plot. Alien is a movie with some of the best artist vision and concept storu that takes us beyond our human perception and into a world of creatures and possibilities that are very convincing.

"The archaeology reminds me of AVP (I enjoy those films btw, but I expect more from RS)." mods can we escort this gentleman to the door please? just kiddin...to be honest the archeology thing sounds like a mirror of AVP for me, don't like it....but Ridley might execute it well

@Canada phil: bloody he'll! Interesting parallel you suggested there! Instead of the elephantine figure being the humanoid god in a suit... Impregnating things or somehow overseeing and engineering... The poor guy is strapped the chair - like Prometheus to the rock - and is impregnated and 'burst' out of repeatedly - like Prometheus' eternally pecked liver. Horrible thought. [url=http://alienage11.com]Alienage11[/url] comic of 1979-83

Now what really brings my blood to a boil is when some prequels try to "explain" something, and this "explanation" not only wasn't asked by anybody but actually destroys the myth of the original, and I am not only talking about Star Wars. They do it all the time in all kinds of franchises. I am very VERY worried Prometheus might do the same, especially when I look at Mr. Blue here. If he IS a space jockey, another fascinating myth is crushed to dust, namely the original space jockey, a creature not sitting in that chair, but being a part of the chair! Giger biomechanoid! THAT was the brilliant thing with "Alien": a world full of things we and the Nostromo-crew were completely unable to comprehend. This was the magic of "Alien", also expressed in it's title. And now? That biomechanoid being isn't the space jockey! It's not even a being anymore, it's just a mere suit! For some blue humanoid guy with some alien-characteristics on his skin! After 33 years of waiting and wondering "Who are the space jockeys?" I can't accept "some big blue guys" for an answer. If the smurf-guy was a "mutated" Prometheus crewmember, I could live with that. But he just cannot be THE space jockey. He just can't.

I am actually glad that the jockey is a humanoid. While the idea of an "elephantine" creature as a biomechanoid that's stuck to the chair and fossilized seems incredibly interesting, the same elephantine creature walking around seems a bit silly and too "Star Wars-ish". The fact that the SJ's are humanoid makes them all the more eerie to me. And just because its not an elephantine creature stuck to a chair doesn't mean its no longer a biomechanoid. I think its clear that the suit and the SJ are meant to be biomechanoid. (i.e. "Guyver" style.)

I'm somewhat disappointed too. The loneliness of the SJ struck me also. I love the idea of a fossilized being. I always thought part of the beauty of the Giger designs depends on the incomprehensibility of biological meets mineral meets technological.