Damn, they really are suits

@ Snorky I would suggest that [url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ossify]OSSIFIED[/url] is [u]even more accurate[/u]. [b]Fossiliaztion[/b] requires that the bone be surrounded by some other material that delivers minerals to it so that they can gradually replace the bone as it disintegrates. [b]Mummification[/b] requires that a living separate entity medically prepare the dead organic matter in a way that intentionally preserves it. [b]Ossification[/b] only requires that the existing (previously live) organic material firm to the consistency of bone after it has expired (as living material). I feel like the suits are "alive" (though not intelligent) in [i]Prometheus[/i] and the SJ's is dead and ossified in [i]Alien[/i] along with the chair. @VaderTime I agree. The suits in Prometheus are [u]totally revisionist history[/u], but the need for the iconic head forced their hand. Overall—I have to say, though—it's a rather creative and elegant solution.

I suspect that Ridley Scott had decided that the SJ/Engineers were a humanoid race long before he decided he needed a whopping big carving of a humanoid head in the temple.

Molecular - I wonder if this design was something Giger had for years before Alien and Ridley just saw it in his artwork portfolio and said "this is cool, let's use this" or did he tell Giger what kind of creature he was looking for and Giger designed it with Ridley's guidance?

@Rickk Look here, at this link. The Giger painting about 1/2 way down (Necronom V) is where the Space Jockey inspiration came from (the thing riding the xeno-looking creature's back). http://io9.com/5879560/everything-we-know-about-ridley-scotts-space-jockeys

@John D., Of course, but I'm pretty sure that once everyone (FOX included) saw the iconic head idea, there was NO going back. The head has to not only look human[u]oid[/u], but rather fully HUMAN to work with the shock value that it has in the storyline. “What if the ‘ancient aliens’ stories [u]were[/u] (‹‹‹ subjunctive) TRUE!...” The head is the punch line. So much so, that the French marketers have even pulled it out of the temple. The "suit" is the reverse-Engineered (‹‹‹ Sorry. I couldn't help that.) fix. The “missing link,” if you will.

I might be alone in this, but the original Jockey "skeleton" actually being the creature itself always bothered me. I simply could never imagine flesh covering those bones, especially when the arms don't look very skeletal but the head and chest do. Not to mention that the creature itself would look like a rather impractical and ungainly beast when not in that chair, and for some odd reason decided it would be better to fuse with his space-chair than just strap into it. The suit explanation is rather logical in my mind, and could still be pretty frightening. I'm sort of hoping for a scene in which a human crew member gets into a suit, and just starts screaming in pain and horror as the suit integrates/penetrates his body. Nightmare level stuff if you try to think about it long enough.

RickK, you make a great point- maybe Ridley did have the original concept and Giger just brought it to life. Interestingly, in the pic John D. linked the creature that inspired the SJ has more of a super long goatee than a breathing tube. =) In the original ALIEN mural depicting the xeno life cycle: http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/3499 They are clearly wearing suits and have more of the xeno-type banana cranium (though certainly not as pronounced). It's been speculated on the forum that the tube connects to the chair when the engineer merges with it; otherwise, it connects to the back or just hangs loose which would be extremely dorky. In ALIEN the engineer seems grown out of the chair, but we see them walking and running about in the Prometheus trailers so maybe we can discount the original (but incredibly cool) concept that they are born from the chair itself. I always thought that was impractical, if the engineer dies then the chair becomes useless! In Babylon 5, the Shadow ships explore a similar concept. The ship's systems fuse with a humanoid pilot's nervous system to attain maximum speed and allow the pilot to process numerous inputs simultaneously. So maybe the gun apparatus thing operates on a similar level. I thought that the suit could potentially protect the engineers from the face huggers and all those other little biomech horrors they were working on, but the Giger mural shows the sacrifice engineer laying down on the table with the helmet still on- so I threw that idea out. The suit... the gun/navigation turret... the weird biomechanical merging of these elements... they allowed the first film to really live up to it's name and it's one of the reasons I love it. Why should an alien species, especially in movies, always be defined through the lens of the human experience? You look at that stuff and go "What is it!?", but also there is an uneasy, almost evil sense to it and that's what made it brilliant.

I maybe in a 30 year denial here...but I still think the SJ in ALIEN and the SJ's in the Prometheus holograms are actual creatures. It's possible that the big blue guys have suits and helmets (or adaptations within the chair) that allow them to fly the juggernaut at FTL speeds I suggest that the suits in the hallway are statues (they seem to like statues, or at least huge heads in that complex). Please RS....don't let me down...... M

I'm holding on to the hope that the SJ's and Engineers are two different species, and the Engineers designed their suits and architecture as a homage to their gods (which would explain the original, much larger SJ and the slightly different more bone-like architecture of the derelict as they were seen in Alien) and Ridley is just giving us the "man in the suit" routine to save that revelation for a surprise. Of course I'm probably expecting too much & I'll just be slightly disappointed if I'm wrong but not too embarrased to admit it.

Ridley did say that he has always considered the Space Jockey to had been a Space suit and was suprised after all those years no body asked the question of who was in that suit and why.

Pretty clear once you see the footage of the suit forming around the user. I think it's cooler. And plus, that would mean two species, the Engineers, and the...Chair-bound things. There's only room for the Engineers, anyway... :D Also, if i see another person using this avatar, people are gonna f***in' die.

....the images of the jockey from Prometheus to me seems almost cute....nothing like the horror that was lying in the chair in alien....but ok i know that was a mummy and mummy's are never pretty....still I just want it to look more scary...perhaps it has not completed it's transformation and will be looking a bit more frightful at the end....tho this might be a very timid benevolent creature for all we know?

@Mithra Sorry, but the 'verdict' is 30 years of denial. :•( They’ve clearly solved the "humanoid problem" of Prometheus with a well-"suit"-ed solution.

@sukkal I'm taking my ball and going home...([i]walks off in strop and slams door behind him[/i]) But you can see the huge difference in scale between the SJ in the chair in Alien and the pics we see so far from this film. Also the really prominent lower jaw........([i]grasps at straws frantically[/i]) sob M

No! I refuse to believe they are just suits. And it's kinda inconvenient way to store a suit like that, how do you start wearing it quickly if it's posing like statue? I say the suits are living, like David 8. They are servitors to their creators. Especially as the blue guys seem to use cryochambers or similar technology. This would mean they are not capable of extra-superluminal speeds, or opening wormholes or anything, as this would mean cryochambers are useless for them. So they sleep while their eternal servitors maintain and fly their ship. So on the story: Servitors (=SJs) make an uprising, manage to kill 3 of 4 blue guys, but the last blue guy finishes them using some very dangerous bioweapons. Maybe some of the SJs or one SJ flees using one juggernaut, but only after he's been infected with the bioweapon (producing the derelict on Alien). Perhaps these SJs created alien and facehuggers in secret, with the purpose of eliminating their Blue masters and humans (Favourite children of Blue guys). If the story happens to go along this, then it would make sense for the blue guy to decapitate David at once when in contact with him (as he has been just recently been betrayed by a servitor created by him) About the last blue guy: He was probably wounded gravely, and was healing himself in cryotube. The room where prometheus crew gets infected with bioweapon was sealed off after the blue guys confortation with it's treacherous servitors.

So I waited 33 years to discover the Space Jockey is just Mr. Clean in a Haz Mat suit ?

Yes I'm liking the Servitor theory. Hopefully it's never spelled out in the film (for the hard of understanding) but remains a theory.

BigDave is correct Ridley has said they've always been suits......from December's [url=http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/1094]Filmophobia Article[/url]... "I think one of the reasons why I’ve never gone back to science-fiction, even though I’ve often noodled around, thought about it, looked for story, looked for material, is that there’s a nice purity to the original 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. [b]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?[/b] And why were they going, where were they going?"

To me every one is wrong here period...and the reason is this. Disclaimer: {except for Craigamore who is dead bang on the money with that quote.} And I say this with all due respect, cause it's all a real nice effort...and great reading and also...completely wrong !!! In "Alien" that things' Bones are exposed and bent outwards. If the suit was mechanical or even Biomechanical in nature when we first saw it there is NO way the Bones are exposed that way they're trapped somehow or at least a little bit by the mechanics of the suit and most of the mechanical parts would have been there in tact with a hole in the middle of it all where the Xeno punched HER way out. I say the very idea of the derelict being alive is and always was a [b]GIGER[/b] idea and not a Scott idea. I say not one blessed piece of direct evidence has ever been presented in any version of Alien to even suggest otherwise. There was never any mention of any "suit" 33+ years ago bar none. There was never any indication what so ever of anything other than this... [b]A lasting impression that whatever it was that just killed everyone save Ripley on board the Nostromo, Killed That "poor" Jockey as well! The truth is all we have known for a fact about him for over 3 decades now is that he was a Tragic figure starring up at the stars trapped, and contemplating as he died...what might have been.[/b]

Thanks Sparty....