The Space Jockey is in fact an engineer...

Not really.I had on another forum where people were bringing up good point on how they might be two different species,such as the at the end of Prometheus appearing to be pretty different from the at the end of the film.A lot of valid points were brought up but i hadn't actually given any to them being different.To me the space jockey and the engineers were the same.

They were intended as the same species.

The differences in size and some little details are just production mistakes.

It hasn't ruined anything for me.

I love Prometheus and am happy to accept the concept that the SJ is an Engineer.

Wherever Sir Ridley wants to go is fine with me. I do still love Giger's original concept though!

RS has also confirmed they r the same, size difference isn't an issue unless someone says theyr all clones so infact should be the same size but what a lot of people forget is we and the engineers share the same base dna and we, humans, all differ in size and shape. even the engineers at the beginning of Prometheus wernt all the same size (alternate scene obviously) plus the SJ was done 30+ years ago. think if wer going to have the 'different factions' theory, then they could infact come from the same planet. but the relatively cloe proximity between lv223 and lv426 probably means these guys were on the same side. 

gives me an idea....gna start a new thread

Indeed,people keep claiming that the SJ is 15'

Muthur site says that the engineers are 9-10' tall.

I did a size comparison,15' seems too much,and 10' is most likely suitable size for SJ.

9-10ft is plenty and the engineer in Prometheus looked big enough to handle himself against most things. in the book alien river of pain, its even depicted an engineer going at it with a queen. maybe a step too far but an engineer-xeno one on one would be interesting. from what ridley says the engineers r nasty aggressive so I don't think the xeno would have it all its own way in that fight

That is good news to me. That leaves one less tangent for the movie to get caught up in.

I do like the idea of the SJ and engineer being the same yet different, like the SJ being the older big cousin so to speak, bit like the difference between super predators and the original predator. or as noland says 'the difference between dogs and wolves'. though done 100 times better than predators. don't get me wrong I enjoyed predators but didn't get won over by the super predators

predators should have taken place in space. none of the movies have bothered having an entire story in space. its always stuck on earth. there should be a movie on a space station and there should be a movie about humans that are captured and taken to predator island aka their home planet

that would be gold and we could get to know the predator better than we've ever been able

def more along the lines of what id like to see in a predator movie, something original and a good look into predator society. anno its off topic but still a good topic for a chin wag.

better topic than the OP. who cares if the space jockey and engineer are the same? these are alien movies. sure they are supposed to talk about more than the originals but the engineers are secondary to understand what the xenos are and where they come from. just sayin

I am sort of divided about this. On one hand it is good because it ties Alien and Prometheus closer to each-other and on the other hand the Engineers were portrayed so badly in Prometheus so that spills over to Alien and kind of taints it. My preference would be if they are not the same but kind of close. 

They are definitely one in the same. 

My theory on the Engineers is:

An ancient (billions of years old) humanoid species.

They are masters of genetics capable of terraforming and colonizing worlds throughout the cosmos. They seed life on habitable worlds so that they may create "humans" for the purpose of genetic experimentation so that they may harvest DNA as well as enslaving the humans into labor so that the Engineers may harvest the planet's resources. Once a planet of "humans" reaches a pinnacle point in their evolution, the Engineers wipe out life by cleansing the planet with the Xenomorph. The xenomorph, being the apex predator, destroys all of life and then die off (no more food source). Once the xeno dies off, the Engineers inhabit the plantet for their own civilization to live. The Engineers use the DESTROYING ANGELS (xeno) to bring a universal wave of extinction (the wrath of GOD)!

if it were not for ridley using his kids in the scene in Alien I could see that shoot being redone to get the correct scale in a special edition #2 blueray release. But I highly doubt it will get a reshoot.

it doesn't bother me that the scale was/is off. plus the fact the the engineer in Prometheus was not wearing an exosuit, just a helment ( or whatever its called) like the engineer was wearing in Alien.

Dark Nebula, Love the new profile pic

I was thinking about a possibility:

What if the Engineers are, as said by PerfectOrganism937, masters of genetics, but at some point, start experimenting in the attempt to create/clone them own species individuals, like we tried to do with the "human clones" attempts? And what if "humans" are simply the results of one of these experiments?

Humanity tried to 'recreate' its individuals, as replacing its true Creator. Would the Engineers have done the same? Could be the first Engineers that appears early in the movie be 'casting out' the Engineers we see later on? Remember LV-223 = Leviticus 22:3: "Say unto them, Whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, that goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the LORD." Could be the first Engineers some kind of religious/"tradition keepers" group, casting out the others for 'daring' to try this recreation?

@Farlander

I would also imagine they evolved to the point where sex is no longer needed for procreation. They "engineer" themselves. Perfect in structure. Free of disease. Able to live thousands of years. 

Perfect Organism,

I find there to be a beautiful irony with what you said. These beings, in the rabid pursuit of perfection, were outmoded by their own creation (the Xenomorph)

@PerfectOrganism 937

If we think about it for a while, is there any explicit or implicit refferences to female Engineers throughout Prometheus? (I did read some post about possible refferences in the murals, but I honestly couldn't find anything by myself)

I strongly believe that Engineer hierarchy consists of a matriarch and a patriarch. A King and Queen so to speak. OR maybe the Queen runs the show. At the same time, I still believe that  the Engineers have evolved to the point where sex is no longer needed, so they may have evolved to no longer have sex organs and other than a slight variance in physical stature, there really is no difference in a "male" or "female" Engineer. Unless there is only ONE "female" Engineer and she has EVOLVED to be the master PROGENITOR. She could even be a BIOMECHANCIAL womb that GROWS the Engineer "males" to be her drones.  

@ ALIEN 426

I imagine for all the great scientific conquests the Engineers have been able to achieve, DEATH is the one thing they still cannot escape. Their quest to become IMMORTAL is the ultimate goal.

@PerfectOrganism937

The idea of the Engineers achieving some kind of evolving stage where they aren't either male or female is very plausible - note that Plato once described the androgynous as a form of proto-humans. However, I do think the ones we see in the movie are actually male; we recognize them instantly as male forms, there are too much traces of it. Other possibility would be that we only saw yet traditionally masculine groups: "religious" (the first group - the Priests in many religions are only male) and military.

The idea of their wish to achive immortal life also fits the attempt to clone/create their own - recreating something is the best way to understand its functioning in details and all that is needed to its working proccess.

That why there's a part of me that think there is two factions of Engineers. The Religious sect of Engineers use the black goo accelerant through sacrifice to create life. I wonder if the Engineers on LV-223 are a rebellious militarized faction and have weaponized the black goo to use for destruction. Who knows!

It's interesting to see the Engineer's reaction to music and literature in the deleted scenes of Prometheus. It's as if he's come upon something familiar. Perhaps the Engineers were more like us before they became so advanced. Once they started tinkering with genetic engineering they lost that part of themselves. They became almost lifeless. Maybe that's why they're given colorless skin in the movie. They're scientists playing in their laboratory. Humans are only one of their many lab rats. 

@PerfectOrganism937

Maybe two factions, or maybe different sectors of their society? Like religious, military, political, scientific, etc..!?

@Trevorl314

If the Engineers created us, we are the only known species untill now to have a Soul, consciousness, what means the possibility to express feelings and mind states through art, for example. Throughout Prometheus, we have the murals paintings, the flute, the cave paintings, things that may indicate that the Engineers, at their evolving stage, still do express themselves and share some kind of art - if it's considered to be something elevated in our society, wouldn't it be in theirs? I mean, we use to think about our "human things" - feelings, expression, possibility of creating art, as something that wouldn't exist in a high species, that would be more logical, rational, etc. But those "human things" are exactly what makes us different of the rest, and what gives us the ways to be superior to other species. Maybe the Engineers also share it, but maybe the Engineers we see in the movie are, as said before, some specific factions or from specific society sectors. For example - for a group with the function of space exploring and colonizing, would be pretty normal to have "colorless skin", living for decades, maybe centuries in space; What if there's other groups of Engineers in their home planet or other colonies?

Another possibility as to why they are so colorless is the environment they live in. If they live on a planet that has little direct sunlight they would have no need for darker skin. Also, their eyes are larger than humans, which could also be a result of their environment. Fish have larger eyes, at least some, because it allows them to draw in more light under water. 

Obviously, the murals indicate the engineers have some type of artistic flair, but not the same as humans. It's evident that their artistic expressions are entirely linked to their technology. The murals could be considered biological. The navigation system is somewhat biological. The flute was used to start the hologram system. 

My best guess is that the Engineers are more concerned with creating and destroying than anything else. Whether or not they enjoy the same pleasures that we do is yet to be seen. Of course, I'm drawing this loose conclusion based on the Engineers I see in Prometheus. They are more like fallen angels. 

A view inside the helmet. Trevorl314, great point about the local environment the Engineers live in on LV-223.

The Engineer pyramid structures provided an oasis with breathable air but the Engineers could obviously move around outside. They proved this after taking a shot from the Prometheus into the side of the juggernaut then the Engineer was able to run to find Dr. Shaw in the escape pod.

The breathable air inside the pyramid might have just been a consequence (opposed to the main purpose of the system) of the water vapor/cistern system (see below) inside the pyramid to collect large amounts of water below ground in vast containment caverns. 

You are also able to see this internal pyramid structure when Fifield sets free the spectrograph survey and the feedback goes to the pyramid scan on the hologram table in the cockpit of the Prometheus.