Fossil?

Dallas, captain of a tugboat (not a paleantologist or archeologist) said that the SJ looked fossilized. he said this because he thought he saw the skeletal remains of a long dead creature. Had ash been on the team he would have corrected him saying that it looked mummified or decayed, the latter of which is more accurate because what we saw were not the skeletal remains of a long dead creature but in fact the decayed remains of an exo-skeletal bio-mechanical suit. Dallas inferred what he thought he say, but he was wrong!

yea, clearly Dallas's strong suit was not "science". as he said to Ripley himself..."I Just Run The Ship".

I don't know if it was actually fossilized ( by our definition of the word "fossilize ") or only appeared to be fossilized. And I don't remember if it was stated that it was a fossil or if it was only assumed by characters in the original Alien or by viewers that it was a fossil. Whole lot of assumptions have been or are being made here (I assume). But that's obviously what we do here. And part of the fun!

Or the derelict in Alien isn't in Prometheus, which has been argued many many times, and I don't believe to be myself

It might be a completely different jockey and/or it might just "look" fossilised. If it IS fossilised, maybe they fossilise quicker? Could be a lot of things. Hopefully Prometheus might give us some answers.

@ Snorkelbottom and Spartacus - I would have posted differently if I had read your posts first.

i have said this before - I doubt Ridley will show two identical ships, in the same system, both crashing. Not only would it show the SJ's to be really terrible pilots, but it confuse the average viewer. IMO its the same ship, and what Dallas blurted out was an uneducated opinion - most peoples knowledge of fossils comes from those displayed in natural history museums (dinosaurs, mammoths etc.). Thus Dallas saw something dead and skeletal in appearance and associated it with the word fossil. When in actual fact he was looking at an exoskeletal, biomechanical suit that had decayed in the 37 years it had been sitting there.

The way i have always looked at this scene and the Jockey is Bio Mechanical that means living. So the suit could be like how a Snail has its Shell, if you see a Snail Alive and keep it as a pet when it dies, wait a few years and you will see the Shell will change colour and texture it will lose its shine. I have a unhatched Moth Cacoon had it for years and nothing has hatched from it. The Cacoon over the years has shrunk and its colour has become much lighter. The Space Jockey was fused to his chair and thus if the suit and chair fuse together and have died then its hard to tell the chair from the Space Jockey. Look at a Tree thats alove or a Alive Pine Tree, with its vibrant brown colour and green parts. Then look at a dead one and its colour is different and the green rubbery parts are now dried out, more of a brown colour and brittle. Thats what we see in the Alien Jockey, its dead and so mumified/fossilised.

Yes, agreed. Just remember the "bio-suits" are alien tech. When the occupant dies (let's assume, say, from a chectburster?), then the suit attached to the host dies. Perhaps it performs some sort of "shut-down" sequence similar to accelerated fossilization from our perspective?

This here is the problem, many people stick to the idea of the SJ in Alien being fossilized, all because one character said it, a character with no scientific expertise in such matters, and the fact that Ridley has said "What you saw in Alien was a suit". No fossil, a suit that has decayed, withered, dried out along with its host and has continued to decompose into the chair. Fossilization requires the organic material be squashed under the pressure of layers of sedimentary rock, eventually becoming replaced by the minerals in said rocks. that is not what happened to the SJ, is it!

I concur with Snorky Completely On Both The Derelict & The Whole Fossilization/Mummification thingy.

I cant get the 2 different ships thing into my head............because that would mean that there has to be 2 ships in Prometheus and weve only seen one. Plus i only think there is one especially if this thing is from further away than we think. No im playing safe that it is 1 ship and Ridley just thinks we wont notice the differences in design lol.

@Snorkelbottom What i meant by fossil was not that the Alien SJ is its bones, i meant that as the suit, and chair are organic they will die and fossilse/mummify Just as with other living things. Such as how a Plant looks when alive compared to one that dies.

@ Bigdave - I get what your saying, that some sort of process has happened after death. And we all concur. But the problem is some stick concretely to the SJ being fossilized because of what Dallas said in Alien, when it so clearly and technically isn't. Decayed, yes. Decomposed, yes. Petrified, Mummified or Fossilized, sorry but no, not technically anyways.

Think there is more than 1 ship in the movie and the suit does not need to be "BIO" Mechanical. Perhaps it is just mechanical. In the trailer it does not show it growing just unfolding over the BBG (Big Blue Guy). Like the guard suits that were in Stargate. What looked like ribs could have been their form of carbon fiber. Sure they looked like bones but...?

Plus, remember everyone... ALIEN led us to believe the SJ was a stand alone being. Not another being surrounded by a bio-mech. suit as Ridley has stated. We've all had to change our outlook and let go of long-held beliefs (a shame really, to me anyway). On the upside, I'm still in the process of creating an SJ suit (fully-wearable/ 7-8ft. tall / about a dozen or so pieces that need to be put on in order). So who am I to complain about it being a suit? I'll be posting pics of the chest piece with the head/shoulders soon.

In the synopsis of the original Alien script they say: "Inside they find, among other strange things, the skeleton of one of the unearthly space travellers". Of course, changes were made to the script, but initially the idea was that it was a skeleton. I always assumed it was a skeleton, but I couldn't figure out why it appeared to be growing into or out of the chair unless it was a fossil. But hey, I'm okay with Prometheus refining and redefining aspects of the story to create something new and also have it resonate with the original. It looks like a well-thought out film. I don't think anyone but the most fussy purist will be disappointed.

One thing to consider is that the SJ in Alien may be related to what happens in this movie only by custom. We may only come to understand how a derelict-type ship would come to be filled with xeno eggs and attempt to travel through the gulf of space. The whole derelict crashing component and revelation that the SJ in a chair similar to the one in the ship on LV426 is involved could be a very clever way of leading us in the wrong direction plot wise because we see those things and we immediately associate them with Alien. He's said over and over again that this is a new movie with new aliens that run the gammit from small parasites to intelligent life. I even think I remember him, or someone else involved with the film, saying that the OTHER branches in this story may end up becoming a franchise. Anyway, food for thought.

Oops, point was that the ship on LV426 may have crashed there long before this ever took place, but it was carrying out a mission similar to one that is "triggered" by the events in this one.

Just for everyones information, something being fossilized does not have to be buried or under great pressure to become that way. It can also become fossilized through materials that surround the item, including the atmosphere around something. Not very hard to tell the difference between something that would be considered fossilized compared to mummified, the fossilized item would be very hard and solid, like rock, so to go back and say Dallas didn't know what he was talking about is totally bogus. Every indication in the movie, was that the Space Jockey was very old and had been there for a very, very long time. But like George Lucas and Star Wars, Ridley wants to change his first movie to make it fit his new movie Prometheus and that sucks big time!

Alien Drone, We don't know that! We have no idea how the derelicts, SJs in this movie are related to the one in Alien.

What's been interesting from the early days of speculation on this site is whether the differently designed 'Derelict' craft is meant to be the actual one seen in ALIEN or not... A lot of 'production design' inconsistencies such as exterior/interior 'Derelict' differences, and surrounding landscape differences will be answered when know for sure that the craft that crashes in the PROMETHEUS trailer is the same as the one discovered in ALIEN or not... Depending on the answer, we'll also find out if this means that there COULD have been enough plausible time for the Spacejockey's 'suit' in ALIEN to have 'decayed' enough to mistakenly be referred to as 'fossilized', or not... If it turns out as some assume (myself included), that the 'Derelict' seen in PROMETHEUS is DIFFERENT to the one found in ALIEN...and in a different place...then the various 'continuity differences' are happily wiped out in a stroke. But if it turns out as others assume, that this is indeed the SAME 'Derelict' as seen in ALIEN...which crashes in the same place...then there's definately going to be a few inconsistencies to put up with unfortunately...INCLUDING a supposedly long-'decayed' Spacejockey 'suit'. So this is turning into one of the questions I most look forward to see being answered. Personally, I can imagine that not only will PROMETHEUS show a different 'Derelict'-style craft altogether...but we may also see some other slight variations of it too. How many remains to be seen... Can't wait to see who's right on this particular aspect.

One of the most interesting speculations from the early days of this site is whether the 'Derelict' craft seen crashing in the PROMETHEUS trailers is the actual one found in ALIEN, or not... This is going to answer a lot of questions concerning various 'continuity issues' where the 'production design' is concerned. Because it will answer whether there's a plausible reason for the exterior/interior differences of the PROMETHEUS 'Derelict', along with the surrounding landscape differences...and whether there's a plausible answer for why the Spacejockey 'suit' seen in ALIEN seems to have been 'decaying' for so long that it gets mistakenly referred to as 'fossilized'... If as some assume (including myself), that the 'Derelict' seen in the PROMETHEUS trailers is a DIFFERENT craft altogether, and in a DIFFERENT place too...then all the design inconsistencies will be happily explained away in one stroke. But if as some others assume, that the 'Derelict' seen in the PROMETHEUS trailers is the SAME craft that's found in ALIEN, in the SAME place...then some of us are going to be a little distracted with numerous 'continuity issues'! (Some have speculated that the 'Derelict' may 'shape-shift' a little, but that doesn't explain certain other differences unfortunately) So this is now one of the things I'm most looking forward to seeing answered, to see who's been right or wrong all along. My own take is that not only will the 'Derelict' craft seen in the PROMETHEUS trailers be a DIFFERENT one, in a DIFFERENT place to the one seen in ALIEN...but that we may also see other variations of the same craft in the movie too! How many remains to be seen...