Engineers and Space jockeys

[Valaquen]

Somewhere Giger referred to the trunk as a breathing apparatus. Can't find quote, snippet, nada though. Maybe my brain's playing tricks with me. Always saw the Jockey as a being and a piece of machinery.

[OmegaZilla]

Could be that it was based on a breathing hose. Wouldn't be unlikely.
It is practically certain it was conceived as an alien thing, though: O'Bannon conceived it as an alien; it was an alien during production; all the film says on the matter is 'alien lifeform'. Had the idea been that of a suit, the film would've most likely implied it via dialogue or visually. It didn't.
In addition to that, Scott said the idea of a suit came in decades later.

[Valaquen]

Could be that it was based on a breathing hose. Wouldn't be unlikely.
It is practically certain it was conceived as an alien thing, though: O'Bannon conceived it as an alien; it was an alien during production; all the film says on the matter is 'alien lifeform'. Had the idea been that of a suit, the film would've most likely implied it via dialogue or visually. It didn't.
In addition to that, Scott said the idea of a suit came in decades later.

Yup. Jus' saying the creature, due to Giger's biomechanics, was partly organic, partly machine. Not specifically a suit, but perhaps a being that is grown or manufactured somehow. We can only imagine (which was part of the fun).

[Eva]

Somewhere Giger referred to the trunk as a breathing apparatus. Can't find quote, snippet, nada though. Maybe my brain's playing tricks with me. Always saw the Jockey as a being and a piece of machinery.

In this well-known early painting, you could argue that Giger envisioned these entities as wearing some kind of helmet with some sort of breathing hose attached at the front

[King]

Somewhere Giger referred to the trunk as a breathing apparatus. Can't find quote, snippet, nada though. Maybe my brain's playing tricks with me. Always saw the Jockey as a being and a piece of machinery.

In this well-known early painting, you could argue that Giger envisioned these entities as wearing some kind of helmet with some sort of breathing hose attached at the front

and if you look closely here


you can easily notice a bubble or what seems to be a dome over his head, which is supposed to be this creatures helmet.

[xii22loop]

1979 Ridley would create different things that what 2012 Ridley would do

[Xenomrph]

That's not the point. What Larsvader is saying is that it doesn't affect the story of Alien whether or not it was a suit.

The story is unchanged, but it heavily undermines a lot of the themes, as mentioned earlier in the thread.

[ChrisPachi]

I think a clue is provided in the way that the surfaces of the ampule room change and move, and the way that the lid of one of the urns grows and squirms like it is a living material. Whatever is causing that could go some way to explaining the state of the Jockey and how it is fused with its suit and the chair (although the way that it is fused to the chair seems far more structural than just random).

I was expecting them to go further into this idea - that the Engineer tech is made up of dynamic, possibly living things, but the only hint at such is in the ampule room. Everything gets very mechanical (and flutey) after that point.

[Ruinus]

That's not the point. What Larsvader is saying is that it doesn't affect the story of Alien whether or not it was a suit.

The story is unchanged, but it heavily undermines a lot of the themes, as mentioned earlier in the thread.

What themes are undermined?

[SM]

It's more preconceptions than themes.

[Xenomrph]

That's not the point. What Larsvader is saying is that it doesn't affect the story of Alien whether or not it was a suit.

The story is unchanged, but it heavily undermines a lot of the themes, as mentioned earlier in the thread.

What themes are undermined?

The Jockey's existence established that the Alien universe at large has weird and f**ked-up and unrecognizable extraterrestrials, but also established that it was a bleak and empty and lonely place - the characters come across evidence of an intelligent, technologically-advanced extraterrestrial organism, and it's long-dead and was apparently violently killed. Humanity continues to be alone among a hostile, uncaring universe, an insignificant blip likely doomed to meet some kind of unspeakable fate among the stars. The Alien itself ends up embodying that on a smaller scale, unstoppably killing or mutating the crew with little regard for how they feel about the matter.

'Prometheus' takes the Space Jockey and instead of making it a mere casualty of an uncaring universe, turns them into major players who seemingly craft life at will, and not just that, but they created humanity. Now humanity is special, they aren't some insignificant blip, they were literally created by the "gods" in their image. And the gods do care about humanity - the implication is that the Engineers have been visiting earth at various times throughout its prehistory, and even the one living Engineer we see in the movie cares enough to want to purposefully wipe humanity out with bioweapons.

It's more preconceptions than themes.

Not much of a difference, especially when you can support those preconceptions from the movie (and it helps that they were preconceptions supported by the filmmakers).

[Ruinus]

'Prometheus' takes the Space Jockey and instead of making it a mere casualty of an uncaring universe, turns them into major players who seemingly craft life at will, and not just that, but they created humanity.

Uh... but that Engineer dead in the derelict in Alien is still a mere casualty in an uncaring universe. That it's part of a major space-faring civilization doesn't lessen the impact that, at the end of the day, it's still a corpse sitting alone in a dark ship, crashed on an uninhabited planet and that, only purely by chance did anyone else stumble across his tomb.

Now humanity is special, they aren't some insignificant blip, they were literally created by the "gods" in their image.

You remember how David and Holloway (though mostly Holloway) were pissed that their creators made them "just because they could" or because it turns out that they are just "some experiment"? Shaw believed there was some significance behind mankind's creation, Holloway didn't seem to share that opinion. David certainly didn't find any comfort in the idea that mankind build cyborgs simply because they could.

You, I feel, are making too many assumptions about the Engineers. They created us... but how many others did they make? How much time did they invest in our creation? The idea that we are now "special" simply because we were made by the Engineers doesn't automatically have to be true. It could be, for instance, that the Engineer society as a whole didn't know about mankind, we could be the product of one small science division for some random experiment, or just because they could, or simply setting us up as practice dummies for some bio-weapon.

Or, to use some other analogy, I draw alot, in class I doodle. Is every doodle special or important? No. It's just something I did to pass time.

And the gods do care about humanity - the implication is that the Engineers have been visiting earth at various times throughout its prehistory, and even the one living Engineer we see in the movie cares enough to want to purposefully wipe humanity out with bioweapons.

On the other hand, if they cared, truly cared, they could have left some machine or device that told us exactly where to go, gave us their full language or similar. Instead they left cave drawings. Maybe the Engineers (or a group of Engineers) weren't watching us around the clock 24/7 for thousands of years. Maybe they had a logbook somewhere titled "Experiment: Earth -> someone go check in in 500 years."

As for the idea that the Engineers deciding to kill us, are ants special because a child decided to kick over their anthill?

I mean, let's look back at the themes you said were undermined.
The Universe being a bleak, empty and lonely place.
That's still true. Out of the 2 other extraterrestial species mankind has discovered both are hostile (up to this point). One of them is a rabid animal that can't be bargained with and the other is an intelligent race that (again, up to this movie) wants to go out and destroy Earth because why not? It seems that mankind can only count on itself as two other species try to kill it, each other Or conversely, mankind has found 2 species, a group of rabid infesting animals and the remains of a long dead intelligent civilization. That's pretty bleak to me. Space is still huge and empty and it's still lonely.

Humanity continues to be alone among a hostile, uncaring universe, an insignificant blip likely doomed to meet some kind of unspeakable fate among the stars
Humanity is still alone. Either the Engineers are long dead and gone, all their pretentions to "god" status failing them in the end and therefore leaving mankind alone with only 1 other extraterrestial life around or the Engineers are still alive, somewhere. If they are, it doesn't seem like they are in any hurry to go back and destroy Earth, or don't want to anymore or whatever. In which case mankind is still alone if they can't open some form of communication with the Engineers or the Engineers don't care enough to talk to them.

Humanity, and now the Engineers, are still insignificant blips likely doomed to meet some kind of death among the stars. How big is the Engineer empire? The galaxy? That's an insignificant blip amongst 100 billion galaxies. They are still an insignificant blip in the grand scheme of things... they're just a larger blip than mankind is.

[Xenomrph]

I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[King]

the Lovecraftean feel in Prometheus wasn't there, in alien it was, thats what made it so eerie and spooky. prometheus is a sci fi movie not "horror" like alien was, i'm pretty sure if it was horror they wouldnt have made them humanoids because frankly seeing this.


doesnt creep me one bit.
sure it still not bad for a sci fi film but if you look back at Lovecraft all his creations dint look human, they looked unearthly and scary something that can drive a man insane, the engineers seem threatening although not disturbing . the universe indeed feels shrunk down it almost seems that wherever humans go they'll find some form of a relation to them which is ridiculous in my opinion.