Space Jockey seat 'back engineered' by the Engineers?

MVMNT has posted a very nice thread about the SJ chair. Check it out [2 and 3 posts below yours]

Interesting theory, @FreePlanet. Personally, I've tried not to look at too many side-by-side photos of the Jockey from Alien and the one from Prometheus. I've bought into the whole notion of it being a suit and not a complete organism. I like where Ridley has taken the story, the reinvention and the mystery. The "real race within what we thought was a creature" idea. It's inventive and allows for a whole new layer to the story... The problem is that when I see the 1979 version and the 2012 one together that little voice in the back of my head starts screaming [b][i]"These don't match up!! Not at All! Why is the chair the same organic texture as the jockey in one, but it looks like a futuristic lazy-boy in the other!?! The haters are right! This makes no sense. Noooo…"[/i][/b] Is there some kind of a support group for this condition? :(

I agree there's the ARTISTIC LICENSE argument of Ridley Scott 'wanting to update and improve' what will become THE FOCAL POINT of his 'Alien prequel + two more movies' namely THE COMFY CHAIR of elephantine croissant flyers, but .... This concept, THAT THE ELEPHANT PEOPLE GOT OWNED AND THEIR TECHNOLOGY MAGPIED, to me seems a logical and valid reason for the size inconsistency between two films and the way the Engineers go about their business ref: Pilot has obviously been 'modified' to have a more Giger-themed outer casing.

[url=http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/9072] Leif Beckmann's Space Jockey chair reference maquette - images and talkthrough[/url]

Is it possible that the ALIEN SJ is indeed a gigantic organic creature but was not conquered by the (Humanoid) Engineers. In fact, THEY are the Engineer's masters? They really are that big, still exist in the Prometheus universe and that will be the tie-in to Alien? In this scheme, the Engineers are not reverse engineering their tech but using it as per their orders. Yes? No? Maybe?

I've had a similar thought that they are two different creatures. The Engineer in Prometheus is at least 2 feet (maybe even 4 feet) shorter than the big critter in the chair in ALIEN. The pilot chair itself looks to be about the same size in both movies. It's kind like the U.S. making a stealth bomber, and a couple of years later, the Chinese or the Russians all of a sudden have a plane that looks just like it. The derelict in ALIEN looks like it's weather worn and thousands upon thousands of years older than the 2000 year old ship in Prometheus.

This is freakey I was just about to post almost the same thing with the same 2 pictures :O . But yer so sad the old SJ looks way cooler in design I think it was probably down to logistics with the redesign and its supposed to be the same thing. The old SJ looked really old and totally out of this world I imagined him as possibly 100000's of years old or more and so old he was molded to the seat maybe even overweight somewhat the last of his kind etc. etc.. I am so glad they took the elder engineers out though to redesign them - perhaps we will get something much cooler like the old SJ or sommin else...

I like the idea that the Elephant People are the Engineers' masters ... either way, I hope this is extrapolated on in the prequel's sequel. [img]http://media.noupe.com//uploads/2011/06/ganesha.jpg[/img] Here's ganesha playing his/her SPACE FLUTE :)

There will be a LOT of people that see this film that have either not seen ALIEN or were even old enough to when it came out. I think it's a given that processes and storytelling have had some way to go to rationalising the changes in the chair. The engineer is billed at 8' now by the way. We all know it was never that in ALIEN. They had to use children to make it look bigger!

MVMNT, I'm definitely old enough to have seen the original Alien, and I agree with you; hence my post. It's been stated in this thread that YOU have also done 'seat threads' -- What do you reckon to my theory? Did you appreciate Ganesha's flute? Is the whole Greek Gods concept (as marketed) a massive distraction scheme for revelations in Pro2 and Pro3 -- this galactic_history_buff hopes so.

I think it does not have ANY significance how large the "new" chair is. The "old" Spacejockey lookd much more "real" and "interesting", this new one is like from a alien-video-game - "too clean". I would like it if the "original" spacejockey race does really look that way and that it is NOT a suite for alien astronauts. [img]http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120210173755/avp/images/a/ae/Concepts-alien-space-jockey.jpg[/img]

Nuck, as I've stated elsewhere, I kinda like that Elephantine-no-legs image but for the suggestion that they 'lay eggs' -- as you may or may not know/care, I'm an alien purist where the cycle goes, facehugger chestburster alien captured-human-morphs-into-egg when then contains a facehugger.... :)

interesting idea but I think this is just minor redesign for production reasons and how the films visuals fit together :) ... like the change from smooth head alien to rib-headed aliens , purely to make the costumes easier to mass produce. Explaining things away its possible that different engineers (and their equipment) have variation in size and materials. e.g. we make many things of 'metal', yet different metals have different characteristics and appearance. I think it would be terrible if the sequels unfold "lost" style with deeper mystery-behind-the-mystery (turtles all the way down..). SJ's and aliens and various bio-engineered variants - thats enough

Ooops, sorry, the SIZE of the Engineer Chair (and the pre-production design with elephantine cryo-occupants), for me, PROVES that this CHAIR is back-engineered. SIZE, in this case, is very revealing, adaption of old-tech evident. As I've said in 'other threads', I'm (not hoping for but) expecting announcement of the PARADISE TV-SERIES: it's only a Fox-gesture away.

@FreePlanet i've never seen that Ganeshan space flute before. It certainly removes the total ambiguity from it's presence in the film. I doth tip my hat to that spot. Maybe they sourced input from various religions and beliefs, much like the Engineers may have as they saw their creation evolve every time they visited. I'd have thought they evolved as much as we did over the same time frame. Which if there is a dating between the original derelict and the Prometheus timeline. They size difference could be an evolutionary factor?

I 'suspect' we'll find out that the Engineers (well, the Elders at least (not their Pilot-drones)) are MAGPIES and have 'borrowed' from 'most of their conquests/engineered races. The [i]GaneshaFlute[/i] was 'found by accident' -- one of the REAL JOYS of the internet. Dallas's word FOSSILISED associated with the GaneshaChair aka Alien Space Jockey makes me think A LOT OF TIME has passed i.e. more than 2,000 years. For me, the ever-meddling Engineers may have created the Elephant species that eventually came up with the Derelict-vehicles/indestructible-tech.

PLUS, I think the Space Jockey may NEVER HAVE BEEN such, maybe more of a SPACE OBSERVER, as you'll see from this production sketch where he's CLEARLY acting like we always suspected, i.e. a TELESCOPE with a domed shaft of light pouring down. [img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m57xrqpmUW1r0k8h6o1_500.jpg[/img] Sure, you could then say that it 'might' be like the ANCIENT EGYPTIAN 'path to the stars' where (somehow) the 'merely looking' at the stars with the Space Jockey Chair means you can transport there, the way the Ancient Egyptians built starpath passageways from the crypt to the outer wall of their burial pyramids at Giza [i]et al[/i]. You see it, you can warp (your whole egg-carrying cargo ship) to it -- this is another reason why I was SO UPSET by the completely cliched 'have a post-abortion heroine escape the blasting rocket exhaust' scene in Prometheus. Plus, in this way, the see-it-go-there Ganesha-aliens in the Space Jockey Chair become the supergalactic equivalent of the GUILD NAVIGATOR 'folding space from Ix' in Dune. Much more alluring than a simple Engineer outer spacesuit, ffs. No?

it's so hard to SPECULATE because there was NOTHING IN THE FILM to help answer the question, "Who is the Space Jockey?" other than some smaller scaled version of the tech used as a) a helmet/body suit and b) a back-engineered version of the Derelict (somehow) reappropriated to convey BLACK GOO around the universe. Note: I've only seen the film once (I'm waiting for the 'fuller' version on DVD) but did I REALLY see FLAMES coming out of the back of that Shaw-driven derelict at the end of the film? Flames? pfffft

".. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "..I've had a similar thought that they are two different creatures.." In looking at the two pix..I think even to an outsider ..they are in the family tree so to speak. Yes some details are different..but the similarity is there..and i think are of the same race. Different creattures:..no..

[img]http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2010/12/10/aztec_2.jpg[/img] A picture of Aztec warrior and his helmet fashioned after a bird of prey. Just like the Engineer fashions his underwater/space helmet after his prey of choice, the Space Tapir (from the original ALIEN movie). I think that Space Tapir is a separate race altogether. Or maybe the Space tapir is like a lower intelligent organism which the Engineer admire/worship just like the Aztec warriors or United States Air Force appropriate symbols like powerful birds of prey: eagles. Another example is how American football team uses Native American icons as their mascot. And I like the idea that the Engineer incorporates technologies from conquered races all over the universe. How does that tie into the breeding of Xenos, I am not sure, but the ship, the chair & helmet styling/tech in PROMETHEUS is not the same as what Kane & company discovers in the ALIEN derelict. They are merely appropriated, incorporated maybe superficially, like a hunter displaying his trophy of stuffed animal heads in his wooden loft.

Space Tapir? laughing a lot!

what i think : 1) space jockeys should look elephantine like they did in alien, looks creepy and mysterious that way 2) should be at least 14-20ft tall 3) communicate telepathically 4)should not have created humans, but instead are more of a lone mysterious highly intelligent being with a sinister purpose.

The skeletal elephant of Alien it looked more bigger than the space tapir that from Prometheus. God!!! I really hope that this is like the Greek or Sumerian mythology.

Nice theory but wrong. The size discrepancy is just a ret con issue.