Quote from: Scorpio on Dec 28, 2017, 02:31:42 AM
I love how people claim to know Giger's intentions. He was a surrealist. His work is open to interpretation. That's why you can't find any quote from Giger, because he wouldn't say what it is.
Dude,
you were the one claiming to know Giger's intentions, and saying that his intention was the be-all end-all of whether it was a suit or a skeleton. Keep shifting them goalposts and hoping no one notices though, I guess.
Also there's a difference between "can't find a quote because it doesn't exist" and "can't find a quote because of lack of access to resources. Nice try, though.
And as stated, there *is* a quote from Giger saying that the Jockey and his chair are a fused, singular entity that can't be separated, so Prometheus' depiction does in fact undermine Giger's quoted "intent".
Also it's possible for a work to be open to interpretation while simultaneously knowing the creator's actual factual for-realsies no-foolin' intent. "Open to interpretation" doesn't mean "it's impossible to know what the creator was thinking", it means "what the creator was thinking doesn't matter". I'm a real strong proponent of the view that the creator's intent doesn't matter, but if for the sake of argument people want to discuss what that intent
was, that's a whole separate discussion and one I'm fine with having. With regard to 'Alien', we actually do know the factual creator intent on whether the filmmakers meant it to be a skeleton or not back in 1979, and Ridley Scott himself acknowledges that 'Prometheus' is a divergence from that.
Quote from: Scorpio on Dec 28, 2017, 02:31:42 AMBut if Ridley Scott, the director of Alien and who worked closely with Giger, says it is a spacesuit then that's fine by me.
Ridley Scott, who
while working closely with Giger back in 1979, said it was a skeleton (per the quote I posted). Only 30 years later did Scott change his mind, independent of Giger. That's an important distinction.
Quote from: Scorpio on Dec 28, 2017, 02:31:42 AMIt doesn't undermine the original Alien at all. The idea of it being just a skeleton would undermine it. We still don't even know what it is, it's more than just a spacesuit. It's some kind of strange alien technology.
And that's where you're missing the point - you're seeing it merely as alien
technology, a tool to be used. You're approaching it from the angle that the spacesuit is biomechanical and uses a fusion of biological and technological elements, but is still divorced from the wearer (as evidenced by the fact that the wearer can put the suit on and take it off at will). Technology, but with biological elements.
Giger, as quoted, drew it as a biomechanical
organism, that the Space Jockey itself including the chair it was sitting in, were all one living, inseparable thing. Biology, with technological elements.
Quote from: Scorpio on Dec 28, 2017, 02:31:42 AMThank god fanboys have no say in these movies or we would just get dull rehashed ideas.
I really like how you keep trying to pigeon-hole people with different opinions than yours to make it seem as if they're automatically inferior. They're "fanboys", or they "don't understand", etc. Corporal Hicks already made a lengthy post upthread about ways to better handle the Space Jockey concept than just "it's an albino dude in a suit".
Or, my personal favorite way to handle it would have been
don't even touch the topic and have Prometheus be unrelated to 'Alien'. Let the Space Jockey be a weird and creepy mystery open to the audience's interpretation. No matter what way it gets "explained" is going to disappoint some group of people, and nothing useful is gained from explaining it anyway.
Quote from: SM on Dec 28, 2017, 08:52:13 AM
Quote"They have a new idea for the script that I should visualise. The skeleton of the astronaut, which used to be in the spacecraft, should now be placed in the landscape, blending in so that it can't be distinguished, and the crew wouldn't notice it until they see it on the recorder, back in the [Nostromo]. Like the film Blow-up, where the figure hidden in the bushes is only discovered once the negatives are developed."
Quote"Another change. They want the skeleton of the alien Space Jockey to lie in the cockpit again."
Courtesy Valaquen. Of course.
Oh hey, some quotes from Giger where he says it's a skeleton.
The funniest part is I tried to give Scorpio an easy out by saying "it's both a skeleton and a spacesuit" and rolling with that compromise, and he
seemed to get it, and then he kept pushing the issue anyway and now here we are.
But like he said, it's all open to interpretation.