SPACE wasting Jockey

Well it depends if it were built for a purpose..say a huggeeee xenomorph queen laying eggs...it would need plenty of room...

you should be banned to have raised this argument ... ;D ok ok i raise my arms ...discuss ....:S

it seems that in Alien the egg chamber is way to big to fit into the derelict, so it could have been beneath or elsewhere..

Mark Crawley raises a very good point! I mean, the ship itself, and the room with Space Jockey bench, is way too big if you consider what might be necessary. But then again, the star map demands some space too. Though it doesnt fill the whole room completely. Intriguing...

We as humans waste space regularly and you ask why they, with their possible God complex, do it? .... Also, it's obvious the room under the derelict in 'Alien' is not part of the ship, especially since Ridley stated that it landed and parked on LV-426. Was probably a structure underground.

The egg chamber was below the derelict....something prepared that space and layed the eggs! The original SJ was huge, so to scale the space makes sense. Prometheus appears to be scaling down the SJ's dimensions a tad...artistic license I presume, unless the film reveals some surprises.

its a good point..@Frantz theres no such thing as a dumb question....besides maybe the ones Paris Hilton asks why would an alien race waste so much space? maybe the space is functional, like an biodome, they need the space for internal heat/atmosphere, to create a climate or maybe it is purely to intimidate their enemies, by demonstrating the vastness of their architecture..the same reason why pyramids and other useless structures were built by kings

Why do "we" build our monuments so big? Because we can. PS. Those SJ's/Engineers sure love their classical art! 1. Sculptures. 2. Frescos 3. Reliefs 4. Ampules Looks more like a museum than a spaceship to me. (Unless of course, all the art is found in the temples.)

Waste of space? Check out Vickers' stateroom on Prometheus.

I was going to say something similar to what db said. Style over efficiency. The SJs are very cultured.

In Constantinople the Romans built the Hagia Sophia which has the largest open space ever constructed up to that time. Visitors from other lands thought that only gods could have built such a space. It was used by the Eastern roman Emporers to impress and intimidate potential rivals. The Emperers also had other "stage craft" like a steam powered thrown lift and quick costume changes. the visitor would bow down to the emporer and when he arose the thrown would be much higher off the floor and the emporer would be wearing different cloths. These must be gods!

I disagree. The reason for SO MUCH EMPTY SPACE is so the ship can hold an entire xenomorph hive including: Empresses, Queen mothers, Queens, drones, etc., etc., etc.

I agree with "the coming", it could be a biodome. Kain does say it's like the bloody tropics in here !!!!

I highly doubt when the movie production crew was designing the Derelict they were using science and engineering as direct template in its design. I'm sure they were going for something that has never been seen before, and they succeeded. That being said this is where our imagination could come into play, and scientific SPECULATION could be introduced. The reasons for all that space? -Considering the amount of energy required for space travel, and the level of technology of the space jockey, the ship could be utilizing some type of plasma for energy (ie this ship doesn't run on fuel but a very advanced form of nuclear technology that is seen in stars). All the metallic veins seen on the ship could serve as magnetic coils to contain the plasma. This would make a lot of sense considering no type of material could withstand temperatures of a plasma. In this case, space is used to hold the plasma. -References are always made the ship/space jockey is biomechanic. We suspect that the space jockey uses an advanced bio-mechanical technology that uses the cellular resources of its host to synthesize new tissues and organism. The ship itself could be some type of bio reactor that does just that on larger scales. -The initial intentions of the ship itself, according to some sources(its been posted in many other threads here), is that it was some type of galactic/planetary bomber. The ship in Alien itself is just empty of cargo. In Prometheus, we don't know whether the ship is empty or not because none of us have watched the film yet. Good question overall. However I don't think it's the type of question that's going to be answered in Prometheus. It just may not be central to the story (or it maybe if the ship is examined in the movie: personally, I would like an explanation but it's not necessary).

I highly doubt when the movie production crew was designing the Derelict they were using science and engineering as direct template in its design. I'm sure they were going for something that has never been seen before, and they succeeded. That being said this is where our imagination could come into play, and scientific SPECULATION could be introduced. The reasons for all that space? -Considering the amount of energy required for space travel, and the level of technology of the space jockey, the ship could be utilizing some type of plasma for energy (ie this ship doesn't run on fuel but a very advanced form of nuclear technology that is seen in stars). All the metallic veins seen on the ship could serve as magnetic coils to contain the plasma. This would make a lot of sense considering no type of material could withstand temperatures of a plasma. In this case, space is used to hold the plasma. -References are always made the ship/space jockey is biomechanic. We suspect that the space jockey uses an advanced bio-mechanical technology that uses the cellular resources of its host to synthesize new tissues and organism. The ship itself could be some type of bio reactor that does just that on larger scales. -The initial intentions of the ship itself, according to some sources(its been posted in many other threads here), is that it was some type of galactic/planetary bomber. The ship in Alien itself is just empty of cargo. In Prometheus, we don't know whether the ship is empty or not because none of us have watched the film yet. Good question overall. However I don't think it's the type of question that's going to be answered in Prometheus. It just may not be central to the story (or it maybe if the ship is examined in the movie: personally, I would like an explanation but it's not necessary).

I always looked at that great space as having been constructed post landing/crash. Since the eggs sat at the very bottom, a great deal of interior space was indeed wasted and hence a good mystery.

I'm with @Franz. It's the [i]presupposition[/i] in this that's mistaken. [i]Presupposition[/i] as to purpose, from our perspective, is completely irrelevant. The principles and considerations that would concern us, are unlikely to be ones that concern, "them". Setting the intellectual aside, even from a basic, Production Design, perspective, there is nothing that conveys, "otherness", and "alien", than structures that break our, "rules", of perception and order - forget the size, is there a single right angle in the place? It all comes from the same place: it is supposed to represent that which is alien. Post-rationalizing it serves a purpose if required to drive the Story onward from a basis of, "Why [i]does[/i] thing resembles a bone", for example - but, if not needed to drive the Story onward, questions from a basis of presupposition are without rational answer and would be to cause yourself a headache for not much profit. [i]You[/i] ask, why would they "waste" space and materials? [i]I[/i] ask, what evidence have you, apart from you own [i]human[/i] perspective, that any space or materials have been "wasted", at all? The answer will be,"none". You have answered your own enquiry - a race like this would be quite unlikely to, "waste", these things: so, it is not very likely that, "waste", is anything like what they have done. You just don't appreciate how these things have been used and don't understand the reasoning, because you are a human and not an alien - and there can be no reasoning that satisfactorily. You will have to make your answer up - and, of course, it will be wrong.

I'm really with @Franz on this. It's the [i]presupposition[/i] in the question that's mistaken. [i]Presupposition[/i] as to purpose, from our perspective, is completely irrelevant. The principles and considerations that would concern us, are unlikely to be ones that concern, [i]them[/i]. Setting the intellectual aside: even from a basic, Production Design, perspective, there is nothing that conveys, "otherness", and "alien", better than structures that break our, "rules", of perception and order - forget the size, is there a single right-angle in the place? It all comes from the same place: it is supposed to represent that which is alien. Post-rationalizing it serves a purpose if required to drive the Story onward from a basis of, "Why [i]does[/i] that thing resemble a bone?", for example - but, if not needed to drive the Story onward, questions from a basis of presupposition are without rational answer and they would only be to cause yourself a headache for not much profit. [i]You[/i] ask, "Why would they, "waste", space and materials?" [i]I[/i] ask, "What evidence have you, apart from your own [i]human[/i] perspective, that any space or materials have been "wasted", at all"? The answer will be: "None". With that, you have practically answered your own enquiry - a race like this would be quite unlikely to, "waste", these things: so, it is not very likely that, "waste", is anything like what they have done. [i]You[/i] just don't appreciate how these things have been used and don't understand the reasoning, because you are a human being and not an alien - and there can be no reasoning that satisfactorily. From the limitations of the perspective you have set yourself, you will have to make your own answer up - and, of course, it will be practically meaningless.

Did you guys saw the preview magazine pics? there's a huge body lying on th e floor, it probably fits the original space jokey size... Maybe they are really gigantic like the one in Alien and for that, they need a lot of space. :)

In the original script the derelict spacecraft was seperate from the 'pyramid' structure that held the eggs. Due to budjet constraints they couldnt film in two seperate locations so they merged the scene. The derelict craft was on top of that tunnel network holding the eggs. Two seperate things.