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Space Jockey Couldn't have Engineered the Alien

posted 8 years ago by simonhicks23
7 replies | jump to latest

Having recently watch Prometheus I was left extremely unsatisfied with the Alien's origins as it felt contrived and didn't seem to fit with what the original Alien movie subtly suggests.

Before even watching Prometheus it was pretty obvious from Alien that the Xemomorph, Derelict Space Vessel and Space Jockey were all created from the same bio-mechanical technology. For example the black bone/tube exterior and interior of the Derelict looks identical to the design of the Xemomorph, almost as if the Alien could have grown from the ship.

Then there's the Space Jockey which has literally grown out of the chair, thus the Derelict and Space Jockey are one and the same rather than whats depicted in Prometheus. In my mind I had assumed that the Derelict space vessel was completely biological which offers many advantages over metals such as titanium etc in that it can heal itself if it becomes damaged and constantly rejuvenates itself. The Derelict ship and Space Jockey were therefore engineered as one entity and acted as one life form. Its pretty obvious that the Space Jockey could not have evolved naturally based on the fact it grew out of the ship's pilot chair and is congealed both body and mind into the ship. Therefore it seems unlikely this life form was the ultimate creator of the Derelict or Xemomorph's, rather some other god like genetic engineers must must have genetically engineered these lifeforms millions of years ago. Alternatively perhaps the Space Jockey is the ultimate creator but what we see in the movie is one of result of them genetically modifying themselves to become part of their mechanical technology, i.e. like us integrating human DNA into a car or aeroplane.

Another thing again which seemed pretty obvious was that the Derelict was some kind of vessel that served a military purpose in that it was carrying the Alien eggs as cargo held in stasis under the blue mist (Perhaps the Derelict was the factory for these eggs rather than just the transport). It also looks like the Space Jockey is mounted into a large gun emplacement which perhaps fires out of the top of the ship much like a ball current gunner on an american world war 2 bomber. The base of the Space Jockey chair looks like it can swivel 360 degrees and fits with this being a vessel of war.

The fact that the Ripley deciphered the beacon from the Derelict as being a warning indicates the Space Jockey at least was benign or perhaps it was just trying to warn its own faction that it had crashed on the moon after being incapacitated by an escaped face hugger from the cargo bay below. As Ridley Scott mentioned previously the Derelict was probably carrying the Xemomorph's to infect some planet as a bio weapon in some long forgotten war and unfortunately for the Space Jockey one face hugger escaped from stasis and impregnated the Space Jockey. It must have then managed to fire out the warning beacon before the chest burster exploded from its chest causing the ship to eventually crash into LV 426 at some point.

The above is an educated guess and what I take away from the visual hints offered in Alien, which disappointing no longer seems to completely fit with where Prometheus is taking us with the humanoid engineers who conveniently happened to have engineered humans rather than being something completely Alien and ancient. I think most fans of Alien would have agreed it would have been better to have left this a mystery. Prometheus just doesn't seem dark or gritty enough to fit in with the reality that Alien depicted, it tried to be too profound and took it into the young adult action/adventure genre rather than being a serious science fiction horror like Alien.

[–] dgfan 8 years ago

Personally I've never been wild about the idea of the Alien being engineered in a lab. To me it just kind of takes away from the mystery of it. I've felt for a long time that the idea of the Alien being this prehistoric creature that has survived the hostility of the universe for eons is far more threatening than it being created in a test tube somewhere. Not knowing where it comes from or having any idea of its origins is far more mysterious.

[–] sevenlilxenos 8 years ago

Prometheus does not show that the SJ engineered the alien.

Prometheus does show black goo which:

Can be stored in vases and used a weapon, perhaps similar to dropping a bunch of Xeno eggs.
Can change a small worm into a powerful acid blood Hammerpede.
Can change a human (Fifield) into a powerful killing machine zombie.
If consumed by a human (Holloway) who then has sex with Shaw causes her to become pregnant with a baby squid which rapidly grows into a large Trilobite which face hugged a SJ leading to a Deacon.

Obviously there are many similarities, but there was no live Xenomorph (original Alien) in Prometheus.

Now we MAY learn in Alien Covenant a Deacon exposed to black goo weaponizes into the titular alien.

What I found most interesting was on the wall of the Big Head room was a painting and some type of sculpture of the original Alien. It left the impression that they are revered by the SJ so its still not clear if the Xenomorph is a naturally occurring creature or a biological WMD created by the SJs as apparently the black goo is.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] simonhicks23 8 years ago

From what I understood the alien shown at the end was an early version of the Xenomorph. Regardless of whether the space jockey specifically engineered the alien or not, what is certain is they created the black goo which in turn mutated into the alien, therefore the alien can't be a naturally occuring species. This is clearly what the movie was implying though like I said I felt this was a messy way of explaining it, I would rather have just had the space jockey having purposefully designed the alien perhaps from its own DNA as a bio weapon.

I would have liked Prometheus to have maintained that Lovecraftian horror the original Alien movie had, perhaps visiting a bio engineered planet like the Derelict spacecraft which was the lab or factory for the alien species. We'll see what the Prometheus sequel brings but I suspect it will be closer to Avatar than Alien.

[–] BubbleBobbleTaito 8 years ago

There was a sculpture of a Xenomorph so that last alien spawn in the end happened before.

To me it sounds a bit like mixing breeds. A goo infected human male impregnating a human female leads to a trilobite and leads to a Xenomorph after facehugging a space jockey.

Humans have been around for thousands of years and i doubt the space jockeys are the actual engineers.

The space jockeys may have tried to reproduce Xenomorphs (as we know them) and thats why they may have targeted our planet.

David may have figured this out by accessing the computers/data/logs of the space jockeys. Thats why David infected Holloway because he knew Holloway and Shaw were sexually involved. Nowhere in the movie it is shown David was ordered to do that, it seemed David was experimenting on his own.

It would also explain Xenomorphs being on both planets LV-223 and LV-426 without space travel by the Xenomorphs themselves. Who knows how many humans they abducted in the last couple thousands of years for testing purposes.

[–] Decomposed 8 years ago

For me the origins and nature of the Engineers as shown in Prometheus were a huge disappointment and a total disgrace.

I don't consider Prometheus to be canon to the Alien franchise. It's an interesting sci-fi movie with excellent visuals, but it takes place in a different universe.

For within each death there is always a new life, a new beginning - Dillon, Alien 3

[–] schlockhorror 8 years ago

It has excellent visuals but is otherwise a disgrace, yes. There is nothing interesting in it, in my view. What the makers and fanboiz think is "interesting" is, on closer inspection, merely stupid.