alien distress call.

It wasn't a distress call, it was a warning emanating from the derelict. We can't know for sure, but most likely the pilot sent it out before he expired.

I was wondering how the SJ could send out a warning before it was killed by the Chestburster. Kane wasn't aware of anything happening to him after his impregnation. Now would the same apply to the SJ?

In my mind, the SJ's created, or at least played a major role in creating, the alien and it's life cycle. This would lead me to believe that, yes, the SJ would know that chaos is about to be unleashed, and he sent out a warning to pass go, collect $200.00, and don't look back!

i think the implication here is that the SJ knew what the alien was in advance so it knew what to expect - since we are lead to believe that it was carrying the cargo of eggs intentionally. of course we may never know for sure...

Maybe in addition to a distress call but the Space Jockey signing out in a last ship log similar to how Ripley signs out in the end of Alien 3.

@Kay I think either Shaw or Vickers sent the distress call. Reason being.. In ALIEN, "Ash" states that special protocol 937 was to bring back Lifeform,all other protocols recinded. Why did he/company know that their was a lifeform? It certainly wasnt by the Sj telling them was it?

Well a lot depends on how many Derelicts ships are there, was the one in Alien taking off from LV223 or retruning to LV223 Again with almost every aspect of this movie there are more questions than answers... Was the Derelict returning to LV223 with some new found or created Cargo when something went wrong? If they created the Xeno as a Weapon i am sure such a advanced race would have safety precautions to prevent such a disaster as far as escaped Xeno. Maybe Weyland other mission caused the other Derelict to land on LV426 and cause the mishap.... the Space Jockey then sent out a SOS or Warning to the other Jockeys... Maybe thats why the Jockeys then want to unleash some kind of revenge on us? But then surely the other Jockeys on LV223 would recieve that message and do something about it or just ignore it, they would know the planet has no life and so no danger for the Xenos to run wild as they are not gonna be able to get off that planet unless someone else comes across them and hence the warning. We just dont know, the inside of the Derelicts look different how does Ridley explain that difference if its the same ship?

"Why did he/company know that their was a lifeform? It certainly wasnt by the Sj telling them was it?" Well Alien was set 30 years or so after... What gets me is if they wanted to bring back the Organism, why send out a Cargo ship/ Space Truckers. Why not send out another higher class mission like Prometheus or a Military one? Maybe Shaw or/and Vickers survive, they get out a SOS from LV223, we dont know what becomes of those as yet, maybe the survive but then what happens to them? Maybe and what if David gets onto the Derelict and causes its mission to fail, David would then know the ship is carrying a Cargo that is deadly and thus sets off the Warning. Thats the thing we dont know, if one of the Prometheus crew set it off, but then how would they know how to activate it. We dont know if the Space Jockey sets it off....

@bigdave They do send out a a higher class mission. They do this in "Aliens". Remember in "Alien" Ripley asks Dallas about Ash, and he says he had worked with synthetics before but he got changed with Ash at the last minute! The Nostromo was sent in my opinion because they were expendable and they wanted the " perfect organism" at all costs. By sending in the "marine core" with all its state of the art fire power was only going to end in tears for both the marine core and the company. A distress call is only a distress call if the sender knows what it means leading me to believe that a member of prometheus sent it. If this Sj starts speaking human in prometheus ill be well gutted! lol

@jedimaster Dallas never talks about synthetics. He just says that the Science Officer was changed at the last minute, nothing about synthetics though...

@Gravity Sorry, i stand corrected but still dodgy that the science officer was changed at last minute in my opinion especially the way Ash turned out.

Yep you are correct, he only mentions that he always traveled with the same science officer until that last trip, for me it would be far more interesting that the ship in LV426 is another derelict from ages ago and that the warning signal is meant for the rest of the alien engineers, gods, space jockeys or whatever you want to call them. It always appeared to me that the fossilized space jockey was kind of alive or at leas awake without being capable to move or talk. It is also kind of interesting why Ridley omitted 2 scenes IN THE DIRECTOR'S CUT. When Dallas mentions the science officer replacement and when Ripley tells Ash that the distress call was a warning

Cryo: The science officer replacement and the distress call being a warning were not deleted scenes. The problem with all these scenarios: the "distress call"/"warning", did the company know what was there, the inclusion of Ash on the ship, why send a cargo ship? etc,... is that the original was written without the care in the world for sequels or prequals. These were just minor plot holes that took nothing away from the movie itself. Shit, the only reason that the cacooning/man-to-egg scene was deleted from the theatrical cut was for story pacing. The whole bio-weapon theory was concocted years later by Scott. It didn't matter how it tied into the original movie, it sounded like a good idea at the time. I could post my ideas about the whole "warning"/derelict/Ash theory, but it would be just that ... mine.

@thesnark go on post your ideas. Im interested. After all was that not what the origional poster was after?

Sorry if I was misunderstood, I meant that those scenes with Dallas/Ripley and Ash/Ripley were in the original theatrical release but were not included in the director's cut ( at least in the blue ray version that I recently bought ). Also the audio for the scene when they hear the signal was replaced for an almost unhearable sound compared to the disturbing noises Ben Burtt did originally ( that you can still watch at You tube ).

I agree with you SNARK, all of this conspiracy theories about the Company knowing what they were going to find, were not really thought too deeply in the script. Movies usually have this plot holes or leave open questions and let people speculate; imagine if everything is explained, where is the fun. Actually the whole ash robot concept was really an input from the producers or Fox, don't remember which one, but it wasn't Dan Obannon or Ridley.

The rational for sending Space Truckers was to circumvent the bureaucracy. If you send in marines then then would, in theory, isolate the organism and request instructions. Wetland-Yutani would then have to get permission from the Earth's government (who controls the marines ) to bring thus dangers life form back for study. With Space Truckers you get a crew in distress and infected. There are now emergency protocols in place to get these people safely back to Earth. The company can argue they had to act hastily to save what was left of the crew by transporting them to Earth.

@Cryo: i know exactly what you are referring to with the original alien transmission. the Ben Burtt version was also included in the deleted scenes on the ALIEN Deluxe Edition Laserdisc, i do wish Scott had kept that version of the signal when he released his directors cut of ALIEN ah well...

Cryo: Sorry! Didn't know about those scenes being deleted. How strange. They are pivotal to the plot and story. Both of those scenes gives you the idea that Ripley started not to trust Ash. (He should have known it was a warning, and he was a last minute replacement.) As to my theories... they are based on the first two movies alone, and therefore do not line up with Scott's assertion that the derelict was a 'battle-wagon' with bio-weapons. (A story redux that doesn't make damn sense!)

Preston: This is a sticking point with many Alien fans. One I do not adhere to. If you know something is there, and you want to get it, you plan how to do it. You don't leave it up to chance! And when the first attempt at getting it fails, you still pretend you don't know what's there, and spend a shite load of money setting up atmospheric reactors on the planet and start terra-forming it, just so a bunch of scientists might stumble across the derelict again!! And THEN YOU SEND IN THE MARINES? Sorry, it just don't add up.

SNARK I think Ridley for the director's cut did not wanted to point out too much at Ash, because now any kid watching the movie for the first time may guess that he is not trustworthy and has a secret agenda for the company. Actually he also omitted the scene where Dallas asks mother how to terminate the alien and she only answers " unable to compute " For the Weyland Yutani theory, is way too complicated already because everyone is trying to tie in with aliens and alien at the same time, even if they hate aliens

in fact, according to commentary by Ridley Scott as well as Dan O'Bannon, Ash being an andriod and the whole "company knows" was added to the script by the producers. originally i believe the crew was just woke up because they picked up a distress signal. the idea of the company knowing about it and sending them there to bring back lifeform was kind of dropped into the script at a later stage. im not sure if that also include the signal being deciphered as a possible warning or not though... but it may explain the loopholes a bit

oops, somehow i missed the fact that his was already mentioned above