Did the "Engineer" concept exist in Alien of 1979?

Originally the crew of the Nostromo were to first find the dead alien in his space craft, seeing a triangle etched into the metal of the controls. That triangle represented the pyramid they would later find that contained the Alien eggs, however, due to time and budget constraints, they had to merge the 2. However, because of the storm they landed in they were not able to see the pyramid at first. The storm then later cleared up enough for them to spot the pyramid in the distance, and they set out again to investigate it. The Space Jockey was always a part of the original script, and Ridley had to fight the executives at Fox to even get it included at all. This should be able to explain better ;-) [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)]Alien on Wikipedia[/url]

Yes the Original Alien Script Star Beast had a lot of similarities with Prometheus. In fact if we replace the Engineers with just one dead in his Pilot Chair on his ship that had no Eggs. Then the Temple that had Leathery Urns and not Eggs or Urns in Prometheus then the movies would be very similar. Due to budget and restraints they had to combine the Eggs into the crashed Derelict, Ridley said he was not so fond of having the hold of Eggs under the ship but thats the way it had to be done. So i guess the Original Idea was aborted in father of now having a Crashed Ship with a Cargo of Eggs. The Original Script and Concepts would point to that maybe the Space Jockey was loading up a cargo of those Urns. The actual Alien Script went for him already carrying them prior to crashing. I dont know if Ridley had much of the idea behind who was in the Chair so much back then, i think when they had made the final stages of the Draft he ended up being there purely as a plot device to drive the movie along.

It was a huge mystery, always has been. What was that huge thing in the chair with a hole in it's chest and why was it carrying a cargo of eggs we know became the Xeno. That was the question on everyone's minds.

@Raffi. The original idea for the long dead alien pilot, from Alien, was concieved by Dan O Bannon and Ron Shusett(sic) they are the original screen writers of Alien, which was originally named 'Starbeast'. In pre-production, they had concept artists design the alien pilot, but none of the designs seemed alien enough to them. Dan O Bannon came accross H R Gigers 'Necronomicon' and showed the artwork to Ridley, so they got Giger on board to design the aliens. The Alien ("xenomorph") was based on a piece of Gigers artwork called 'Necronom IV' (my avatar). The space jockey, or as Giger called it 'The Pilot' was designed by Giger from Dan O Bannons descriptions, he also based the actual design of his Pilot, on the egyptian book of the dead's 'funerary barge'. Btw, the space jockey (pilot) was always a very important part of Alien, to the point where FOX wanted to scrap it but Ridley was adamant that it remained in the final film because it was such an important part.

It is also a question that Ridley has answered but not in Film, and one i think he may have to explain before we get to the end of Prometheus 3. Because if he does not, well in 10 or 15 years someone else could come along and make a movie that explains the Derelict and how the Xeno was created. And while the Xeno evolved into something he may not had foreseen had he been behind and Alien sequel as he was no part of it, he never got any creative control or input in what lead to Aliens, Alien 3 and hell even the Xeno in AVP. Will Ridley want to leave it uncovered so the door is left for someone to come along and explain it in a fashion that would make Ridley turn in his grave. The Explanation.... Well in a Nutshell picking points from Ridley is as follows. The Pilot in Alien was deemed as heroic in his action and benevolent. He was a brother to the Engineers in Prometheus and the Ship was a brother to the one in Prometheus also. The Derelict set off with its Cargo of Bio Weapons to go to a unspecified destination. It did not get far before the Cargo was compromised. Something happened for the pilot to get infected by one of the Cargo. Knowing that he was infected, he activated the Warning Beacon and set a course to the nearest Baron Moon to Quarantine the Organism. The Ship Crash Landed on LV 426 and Pilot got Chest Busted. The event occurred within a few hundred years of the events that led to the downfall of the outpost on LV 223.. This would indicate the Derelict had been on LV 426 some 1700-2300 years prior to either now or 2094.

It was reverse-engineered..... *whey* Seriously though, the eggs were originally in a silo

BigDave put it very clearly. I agree with his post for the idea of the heroic nature of the original pilot. I am not really aware of the origial script but I read the book from Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shussett and the book Ash is very clear as to how noble that entire race should be and his desire that humans could meet them among the stars... The only thing is, in the book they have not found the Control Room, nor any SJ body...just a barren room with a moving rod in a shaft, emiting the signal/message (it was a mesage explaining what happened there) and a shaft leading to the cargo hold...even that in the book is unclear, as one of the dialogues say that the whole room seemed to be under the derelict ship or building, and huge in nature. THe amount of time that that message was being emiited was a mistery as well, as Dallas points out there was no way to date the age of it all (the box emiting the message was pristine clear due static electricity so not even dust was over it) There was no SJ in the book, and the movie was way better in this aspect. Only a reference that the builders of the ship were benevolent...but then there is the fact that it was carrying a cargo of bio-weapons...ot not? At that point I think they were just laying mysteries...but Ash was clear that the xenomorph was not native to that moon...and it was an accident that led the Pilot to land its ship on that Moon...

I believe Giger scuptured the Space Jocky as a set piece for Alien. The artist has done amazing work. Ridley Scott did fight Fox to keep the Space Jocky in the production of Alien and thank goodness he did. It is interesting that James Cameron did not follow the story of the Space Jocky, but then his style for directing Aliens focused on action. How far back the Alien mythology goes I do not know. Dan O Bannon and Ron Shusett may have done some background work when writing the original script.....

There's an image related to the Alien life-cycle where some space man or human is being sacrificed and some thought it to be a part of the jockey life cycle or something. Who do you think those humanoids being sacrificed on the one image were?There's an image of a bald headed human being sacrificed for the alien life cycle on an alter. I think it was originally loosely planned that the humanoid group had some connection to the space jockeys and to us. And that the engineers are a representation of the being sacrificed in that image. A humanoid being that would have been present in the stars.