"The Space Jockey is really a suit."

I wish it was a "suit"....or "jacket" as we say in my business circles....I think Ridley meant a space suit, which I'm not happy with at all. But following your lead, I think it would be perfect irony if Weyland was on the Prometheus and got nabbed by the Engineers and made into the Space Jockey....be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. But.....in Alien, the Space jockey had been there for too long to be anyone in Prometheus, according to Dallas.

I personally suspect that the "SJ" is not a race, nor is the "engineer". At least not anymore, I suspect they are transgressions of biomorphic states of crew encountering the goo. Once the DNA interracts with the crew, the ancient DNA posseses them perhaps. Cacoons and morphs some new bio architecture out of them. Speculation is all..

Somewhere I remember a mention of Time travel being attempted by either us or the engineers to save or erase life on earth.

@Dave_b, that was in the shitty leaked script.

So, the SJ is either an exoskeletal suit, or a corporate muckamuck? Wow. Here this whole time I suspected that Mr. Weyland becomes one of them, a god, near the end of the movie....maybe that's what is meant by "The SJ is really a Suit"? Until then, I want to believe that what Sir Ridley meant was that the form of the SJ we recognize is really just a suit they put on, as displayed in the trailers with the elephant-nosed form in the chair. Y'know, [url=http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w420/ethon86/space-jockey-prometheus.jpg]this[/url].....whereas the Space Jockey, without the familiar suit, could in fact be [url=http://waterwolf.online.fr/prometheus/ingenieurs2.jpg]this[/url].

Where is Pren when we need him? LOL

Yes they have to go to "earth" in the past and bring hump back whales to the future , to communications with the aliens. Whale are extinct in the future .

I think those suits were only used before they terraformed the planet.

I read somewhere that the SJ and the original chair in Alien were just a part of the ship. I know that may sound strange, but remember we are talking about a bio-mecha combination lifeform.

Y'know, I am being a little tongue-in-cheek, here. :o) But it's still a long way (psychologically speaking) to the premiere so might as well keep up the pet fringe theories! I do favor the Weyland-becomes-SJ hypothesis, and the idea that the Engineers/SJ race reproduce themselves by re-engineering other lifeforms. (Making it immaterial whether they are "alien" or "us." They're both.) In the absence of time travel explanations, and going with the press statements/rumor mill, we know that the SJ console in Prometheus is not part of the derelict ship in Alien. And I'm fine by that, I can see it explaining the size differences between the fossilized SJ in Alien and the one seen in Prometheus.

The real "Engineer" is the dark liquid, a nanotech bio organism. They are parasitical, but they help evolve the abilities of their host. Think "The Thing" meets X-Files meets Stargate. That thing fighting Shaw looks small, unless the SJs are capable of changing their size or their actually beings that wear a suit within a suit. lol

At your service, BABY! OK. The Suit, or "suit" (whether or not you're a quotation-novelist, such as myself and Abordoli) is organic. The suit forms around the user once seated in the massage chair after spending time in the Hot-Boxophagus. But no...seriously, it's an organic suit that forms around the user. It enhanced the functions of the said "chair" and provides the user with what they need in the Star map room/Suit chamber (OOOOOH...Officially start calling it that, huh, HUH? WHAT. DO. YOU. THINK, GUYS?!) To answer everyone's "Is it a skeleton" question, case and point; Forever War. YES. NOT a separate creature (more than likely...99.99%). But it IS very much a skeleton. Because it has an organic structure. Clearly we see bone making up part of the suit. The tubing is most likely a breathing apparatus. Also organic. Possibly an organic supply of air, aswell. Maybe a bio-mech mix for the latter. But all-in all. It's a Suit AND a skeleton, but not a creature on it's own. However, once the Engineer ENTERS the suit, it might BECOME a separate creature WHILST in that state. Like i mentioned earlier, might heighten Engineer abilities. Increasing intellectual capacity even more than what it already is. Providing them with new abilities specific to the suit functions.

Like the bio-suit-armor we say in Independence Day?

Sure. Except with an exponentially greater purpose/complex functionality. Not just something to walk around in/use for protection.

That's very interesting, Prenihility, but it brings up another question: Why does the Blue Guy seem to be wearing the suit (at least from the waist down) when he encounters Shaw, which seems to occur before he goes into the star map room/suit chamber? Or maybe I'm looking at it wrong...

I'm thinking he meant "suit" in the sense of clothing, not in the sense of a corporate lackey.

I think by space jockey he is referring to the figure sat in its chair in the original Alien movie. We can see from released footage that this is a suit and the face with the long nose is actually a helmet that comes down over the face and what looks like ribs encloses around the chairs occupant as the chair activates. The "engineer" would be the one sat in the chair wearing the "suit" The chair ensemble is probably some sort of all in one armoured stasis chamber/pilot seat/space suit combined into one because the ship only needs a single crew member. If the ship is carrying a hazardous biological cargo it would make sense to combine all three so that if the cargo got loose the pilot would be protected while in hibernation and would not be vulnerable when awakened and would already be at the controls of the ship to take appropriate action