Soo...
I remember how there was this huge thread on IMDB where people discussed the space jockey. What it was and where it came from and what was its deal. This was before Prometheus came out.
But what did you think the space jockey was before Scott decided it would be a albino Star Trek alien?
Oh, how I miss those IMDb days... Thanks for your efforts to reignite this flame!
As for our friend, the mysterious SJ - I ignored Prometheus in my headcanon the second I saw that stupid "it's just a helmet, bro" reveal.
So in my head, it is as much a mystery as it was before 2012. And well, let's see. There are two prevailing theories on the nature of the SJ / species, and I subscribe to neither of them at this point. It's better to be up in the air.
First theory is that the SJs are benevolent space faring guys, landing on this planet, finding eggs, and as benevolent - and clueless - as they are, they bring them onboard, and you have your trouble right there. Only one of them remains alive long enough to set up a distress / warning beacon. He does that, because he is a good guy, and... end of story. ADF's novelization supports this - in that, the deciphered message contains this very statement: they landed on the planet, found the eggs, brought them onboard, met a horrible fate, and set up the beacon. Clear cut as that.
The other theory is that the SJ ship was kind of a "bomber", using the eggs as bioweapons (developed by them) to conquer planets. No benevolence there. However, the aliens gained control over the ship, forcing them to land. They set up the distress / warning beacon since they did not want any other species to get their hands on their bioweapon and learn to master it. In support of this: the biomechanical nature of the alien, and the similar design of the ship to the aliens - also biomechanical. This indicates they might have manufactured them.
Well, those are the somewhat "official" explanations from pre-2012. I prefer not to ruin the mystery. It could be one, it could be the other, it could be something entirely different / incomprehensible scenario that explains the state of afffairs in the Derelict. We don't know - but it's fun to speculate :)
Gun to my head, I would pick #2 - for me the alien seems artificial, manufactured.
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, I remember those two being the main theories.
I remember thinking about how the alien "grew into the chair". That it was made to be in that chair. Like a biomechanical computer for the ship.
Prometheus was a disappointment. I think it would have been wise to keep the dead alien race part. They could discover more about the remains, speculated and given new clues to stimulate our fantasy, but kept the focus on the xenomorphs. The orginal script seemed to be much more like that. Having it be about diverse variations of xenos on the planet. But I cant compleatly hate Prometheus either. Its a movie I am very ambivalent about. In many ways I hate it, for all the reasons said a 100 times before, but I cant help but see what could have been. The potential. The things that worked as well... NOT the Jokey for course, but other ideas. I hoped that Covenant would have done a course correction. Made some smart "but this is what it REALLY was", but it just became worse. And yet I hoped that a third Scott movie would have finnaly explain it and it was REALLY, REALLY good because... 1) the space jockeys werent those proto-humans. They were just created by them. And 2) David didnt really make the xenomorphs we see in the original movie, but he just played with the DNA and made some version of his own. I doubt that would have happened, but...
I liked the idea of the unknown and the "dead universe" of the original alien. Like how the xenomorphs werent the original "shape" of the creatures at it was a hybrid of xeno and human (Kane´s baby). And the" dead universe" was that the universe werent "filled with life", but was cold, dark and the little life there was just wanted to kill us.
Agreed, the unknown and dead (Lovecraftian!) universe was cheapened by Prometheus, stating everything is about us, humans, they are our creators, etc. It makes the universe smaller and less mysterious. Same with the "grew into the chair" thing - the film just up and contradicted that as well. No respect for the original.
Don't get me started on Covenant... Pro at least had some new ideas (not good ideas, but new ones), while Covenant while not respecting the original Alien films, did not even respect Prometheus (killing off Shaw offscreen...), so it had zero chance of being a half-decent movie. It was mindless horror, but even the horror was not very well done. Baffling, hogy Scott dropped the ball with these films, I can't fault the studio for not allowing him to make a third. I think we are better off.
Whenever I rewatch Alien and Aliens, I can still feel the original intention of the creators, so I am just ignoring Prometheus and Covenant as not canon. I am for sure better off that way :-)
I'm largely with you on Prometheus. There are a few movies like that, where the potential outruns the actual movie and you wind up kinda liking the movie because it always makes your brain go to interesting places, even if they're only places that the filmmakers didn't actually put into the film.
Ultimately, I think the Alien series is a dead-end because the original gave us very little to go on. That gives us the feeling of dread and of the unknown in a vast, cold universe that we kinda get when contemplating the cosmos. In other words: the more answers we get, the less fun the movie is. Alien - the original - left everything up in the air and unexplored, but gave us enough tantalising details to make us afraid and curious. Every time the filmmakers push us into the universe of Alien, they give us more to go on, which paradoxically makes it all less interesting.
If they were going to show us the truth about the xenomorphs, I wish it had been to show us that the xenos were actually the "original" species and humans are "younger". And implied (not told, not stated outright) that the xenos were almost using us (and other species) as cattle. Putting humans into a symbiotic, subservient relationship with the xenomorphs would feel "icky" and creepy, and it would give us more of that cosmic horror that the original did so well.
They also shouldn't have complicated it too much. Frankly, making everything some big web of, "Oh, these are the Engineers, and they made us and the aliens and..." on and on it goes - that makes everything complicated and narrative-based. Alien isn't about that. It's about cold, brutal truths. Truths like, "Hey, guess what? You're prey." Or, "There's nothing 'meaningful' out here." Or, "Your allies and "parental" watchdogs? They sent you to die so they could retrieve something they want."
Every time the filmmakers push us into the universe of Alien, they give us more to go on, which paradoxically makes it all less interesting.
The Force is a perfect analogy. It was held in a nebulous middle ground that needed no thorough explanation, but also seemed well-established.
Sometimes expansion of lore and explanation makes an imagined world better, but it can just as easily blow up the foundational elements that make the world fantastic and enjoyable.
I think I sort of assumed more of a theory #1 scenario - that the space jockey was just another poor sod who happened upon the xenomorphs and got bursted. I feel like maybe I should rewatch Alien to get a better feel for that moment, but that's my gut instinct: the xenomorphs weren't made by this dude.
The similarity in architecture is an interesting counterpoint, however... I suppose I'd argue that the xenomorphs adapt to the species that they gestate in. We've seen xenomorph dogs, for instance. To me, I think maybe the alien was possibly influenced by the space jockey?
Another possibility is that the aliens take over not only the hosts, but the ships. Maybe the ship was in the process of being converted over to being as alien as the xenomorphs themselves.
Side note, but while I forgot most of Prometheus shortly after watching it, I always thought that the space jockey was wearing a helmet, but also that whatever was under the helmet wasn't exactly human, either, and would be similar in form to the helmet enclosing it anyway. I had no reason to think that, it's just what I thought when I saw the jockey.
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"Another possibility is that the aliens take over not only the hosts, but the ships. Maybe the ship was in the process of being converted over to being as alien as the xenomorphs themselves."
....
I thought so too. Parts look really xeno and other did not. Then again all looked Geiger in design. I dont know.
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"I always thought that the space jockey was wearing a helmet, but also that whatever was under the helmet wasn't exactly human"
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Again I agree. It was either a suit or exoskeleton but the thing inside was NOT human.
Yeah, it's hard to tell what is supposed to look the same because of a common in-universe origin and what looks the same because it was all designed by H.R. Geiger. It'd be like thinking Porco Rosso's mechanic worked on the Dola Gang's airship just because Hayao Miyazaki made both movies.
I sorta like the idea that the xenomorphs' presence is corrupting the whole ship. It takes that theme of infection and pushes it further.
On the other hand, a world of HR Geiger architecture is also interesting...
Personally, I think the space jockey was in a suit of some kind. It sorta makes sense from a technological perspective. Of course, he wouldn't necessarily be wearing a helmet...
Hey Ace, nice to see ya again :-)
As for the scenarios: I would agree, that in the context of the plot of the first movie, yes - the Derelict / SJ is a device to show what is to come. After witnessing Kane's demise, you should re-evaluate if you found the SJ species to be scary or ominous, and you should think: "Ah, same thing happened to that poor chap in the Derelict..." - so I agree, it evokes sympathy.
However, even when first seeing the movie, I found the Derelict sequence mesmerizing and I have the tendency to overthink / overanalyze anyways, so I could not just see this excellent work of art as a mere plot device. I always wanted to interpret this from a broader perspective. The universe is so vast, and in the scene we have too little information about the SJ species to surely tell what exactly were they doing there. So kind of "anything goes" which is the prime fuel of Alien's other aspect (apart from the plot / body horror) - the existential dread and cosmic horror. That we have zero chance to understand where the alien species came from and where the SJ species did.
So this is primarily the reason I prefer to the "bomber" theory over the "peaceful explorers met a horrible fate" interpretation, but I'd take the third option: we don't know and we can never know - both species are too "alien" for us to know.
You, too!
Yes, upon rewatches of Alien, I always find myself imagining that what happens to the crew of the Nostromo clearly already happened to the space jockey and anybody else who might have been on the derelict ship.
Where I let my imagination run riot is on what the derelict was doing. I like to try and eliminate any "human" options. The Nostromo are out hauling fuel - interstellar truckers and all that rot - and so I scratch that off the list. Exploration, warfare - anything that a human can think of as a reason to cruise the cosmos is something I'm never satisfied with for the Jockey. I almost imagine him as a nomad who just lives in space. But he could've just as easily been a sacrifice to the xenomorphs as part of some cult ritual. He could've worshipped the 'morphs himself and chosen to be chest-bursted.
I agree with your third option. We can't know. We shouldn't know. Whatever he was up to, I want it to be strange and uncanny.
Fully agreed! I actually read a lot of Lovecraft short stories before I saw the movie, and I immediately recognized the vibe of the Derelict as lovecraftian. There just cannot be a solution / scenario that we (humanity) can comprehend...
shareDid you see Color Out of Space? The Nicolas Cage film? I really liked that movie ("enjoyed" might be the wrong word, though...) and I haven't read the Lovecraft story it comes from (yet). If you've seen it, I'd be curious to hear your opinion.
shareTHX for the recommendation, it's on my watchlist :-) I can't promise an exact time, but will get back to you once watched and formed an opinion.
shareAnother possibility is that the aliens take over not only the hosts, but the ships. Maybe the ship was in the process of being converted over to being as alien as the xenomorphs themselves.
It seems like everything they encounter they "xenoform," kinda like the Borg (I know Alien came first); in First Contact the Borg waste no time in refitting the Enterprise (well, the decks they're on, anyway) with Borg tech. So, even though it's more biological, the xenomorphs seem to do the same thing.
I'd suspect it's intentional, too. This isn't just an organism operating on instinct alone; I always figured the xenomorphs were cleverer than that - that they possess a human-level intellect, albeit an intellect that thinks very differently than we do (with different processes and priorities and soforth).
It's weird how people decades later try to find meaning in stupid, but entertaining, science fiction movie.
It was after that the Ridley Scott decided that the less logic you have in a movie and a story the more it causes some people to have an itch in their head they can never scratch and will pay again and again to experience the movie, and talk forever about it.
Maybe that is where religion comes from in human society ... inability to let compulsive thoughts go.
It was after that the Ridley Scott decided that the less logic you have in a movie and a story the more it causes some people to have an itch in their head they can never scratch and will pay again and again to experience the movie, and talk forever about it.
Come on, dude, you don't get to characterize Alien like that. Riddle me this please: There are zillions of movies without logic (or with ridiculous, faulty logic), that decades later are completely forgotten. Yet, Alien is still standing, still discussed to this day. That's not random, and not due to "lack of logic".
By your statement, all random dumb movies would be discussed for decades, and this is clearly not the case.
As for the Derelict - it is a competently presented mystery. There is a difference between having "less and less logic" in a movie because of laziness to detail a concept and between presenting a mystery deliberately. In Alien, the Derelict is the latter - it is intended to be mysterious, and not just something that was thrown in just to provoke discussion. Even that is a challenge: you seem to think it is easy to generate discussion, but the majority of films fail to do that. Wonder why is that?
> Yet, Alien is still standing, still discussed to this day. That's not random, and not due to "lack of logic".
That is because the number of good science/fiction/horror movies is so incredibly low. The market for good science fiction is out there, Hollywood doesn't know how to sort the good plots from the bad ones.
> [delelict] it is intended to be mysterious, and not just something that was thrown in just to provoke discussion.
The probem is that you just can't do that, so what they do instead is to create a fetish, an object with a spirit in it - but it couldn't exist or wouldn't exit. It is just something to keep up looking at it wondering what it is or how they came up with it. One thing that was good was how in Alien they hid the monster in short bursts of frames in dark spaces.
Once you've seen the monster it's not that scary, in fact to me anyway, it was disappointing. Disappointing because of that goofball set of choppers on that thing. It looked like a fly's sucker, how it needed to extend out, with dentures on the end of it.
I love the second theory.
The first one is quite lame.
The alien doesn't have to be manufactured, it could be just modified to make it a better weapon (or the reverse could work too, the SJ just took some trait FROM the alien and used it for other stuff, like on their ship).
The first one is quite lame.
Why would it be "lame"? We don't know anything about the SJ species, so there is no basis on which to exclude that scenario.
The alien doesn't have to be manufactured
The alien doesn't "have to" be anything. But it "could be" manufactured. The movie leaves this open. So from this point on, it is a matter of personal taste / subjective interpretation.
I thought the Space Jockey was a ship designed to house these ALIENS while transporting them across the Galaxy?? I enjoyed PROMETHEUS, if for anything, the visuals & FX were top notch, but Dr. Holloway and her equally dumb boyfriend jeopardized the entire crew traveling to a hostile planet they knew 0 about 500,000,000 Miles away from home and all over some cave drawings they saw while holding hands??
shareNo, the SJ is NOT the ship, see the AVP wiki article
https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/The_Pilot_(Engineer)
Sadly, it was renamed from Space Jockey to "The Pilot (Engineer), but that is because of Prometheus, which ruined the mystery (discussed in the other posts of this thread). But pre 2012, it was called Space Jockey. See this article as well, referring ot it as such:
https://www.herocollector.com/alien-the-space-jockey/
Also, I don't see the problem with Prometheus being the fact that they tried to discover a planet based on a cave painting. It was not the best way to kick off the plot, but it was sufficient, provided there was internal logic going forward. But there wasn't too much of that... the crew itself behaved in idiotic, out of characeter (for scientists) ways, which ruined the plot. Also, there was no exciting new idea in the film, it was the same old "we were created by aliens" plot, which by 2012 really was not special at all. Also, the horror in the film was much less atmospheric and effective than in the 1979 original.
EDIT: Oh, and the ship was always referred to as "The Derelict".
> they tried to discover a planet based on a cave painting.
The thing is that we know from archeology that there is no such commonality among ancient civilization and their art. Right from the start I understood that so the movie from that point was just nonsense.
Real science fiction tries to speculate or riff on real unknowns in an interesting way, not just revisit stuff we all already know is BS.
Well, come to think of it - I would agree. That plot point is just one more checkmark next to a myriad of other illogical things in the movie...
shareI don't want to kill your enthusiasm, but what happens in Prometheus likely is the real origin story, although I doubt that back in the 70s they thought it out in such details.
Dan O'Bannon admits that he was ripping off Lovecraft. He took the his philosophy of cosmic horror and some plot lines. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness tells a story about an ancient alien race that genetically engineered the mindless slave race of Shoggoths, that rebelled against their masters and (almost) completely wiped them out. This ancient alien race also seeded the life on Earth.
For "Alien" they stripped the mythology but they put it back in "Prometheus". Actually, Del Toro was not able to adapt At the Mountains of Madness because it would have been the same movie, basically.
I wish they kept the mystery, especially considering the shocking stupidity of Prometheus, but that is it. The movies after "Alien" are also blamed for not even reminding us about the mystery of the aliens' origins.
'The movies after "Alien" are also blamed for not even reminding us about the mystery of the aliens' origins.'
As well they should! Aliens is a fun movie, but one of the reasons I have always rejected the frequent claim of its superiority comes down to the fact that Aliens takes the cosmic dread end existential terror of the original and replaces it with pulse rifles and miniguns. It doesn't care about an uncaring universe, it only wants carnage. It's not a bad movie, but it's not as deep on a philosophical level, and I just don't find it as interesting as the first film. It is a rip-snorting fun time, though...
Well, let me add a different perspective about Aliens. While I agree with it not containing the lovecraftian / cosmic horror element prominently, I always saw that movie as it being primarily about Ripley's journey.
So Cameron tried to create the perfect antithesis of the Nostromo situation.
On the Nostromo, Ripley had to defeat the alien at the end, with zero experience, unarmed
At the end of Aliens, Ripley had experience about the aliens, and had weapons on her side.
After the events of the Nostromo, Ripley had PTSD, and without a chance to conquer her fears, there was no chance of mental recovery.
Aliens was the perfect therapy: full on confrontation with the aliens, this time with empowerment (weapons, soldiers), and Newt as someone to do it for - besides herself of course.
I think I mentioned it in a previous thread, but Rob Ager had a video about the structure of the two films back to back: Poison and antidote, which from a character POV, I find very fitting.
Of course, going back to the grand scheme of things, yes, if you put a gun to my head to say something about Aliens I am not satisfied with, that would be the lack of cosmic horror aspects, that's for sure. But the movie overall is so good, and so expertly accomplishes what it set out to do... that I can easily forgive that.
Those are good points. Yes, Aliens empowers Ripley.
I suppose, for me, the problem isn't that Aliens has a complete lack of interesting themes, it's that it is just far more interested in spectacle than Meaning. The first movie explores the nature of fear from basically every angle, from the primal to the cosmic, and in so doing investigates the human condition. Aliens has, as you say, a good closure arc for Ripley, and I would also acknowledge a theme of motherhood (Ripley to Newt and the Alien Queen) that are interesting.
However, my problem is that, while Alien fully explores its themes and bakes them into the plot (the whole "show, don't tell" adage is on full-force there) the sequel film is happy to hit some surface level stuff and maybe dig a bit, but it then realises it has jump scares to effect and triggers to pull.
I will also fully acknowledge that the jump scares and triggers are fun and cool, so I don't think it's a bad movie, it's just not as deep as it could have been.
I consider Aliens to be the best in the series.
It is the best entry and a masterpiece of action movies.
Obviously Alien and even Alien3 have deeper questions in it and more mystery. But as a movie, for what it is, I think it's the best.
Having said that, I also think Aliens completely ruined the whole premise of Alien, and the horror is completely gone.
Actually, the aliens are now a bunch of whimps that get their asses kicked left and right by a few humans.
Only the moment the humans fuck up, betray themselves and lose all their weapons, the aliens can do a little bit, but only slightly more than a tiger or a lion. Seriously weak for a space threat.
It takes not only the horror, but even the danger out of the series, all down to the final showdown with Ripley....: a giant alien queen, which should be THE most powerful alien, has trouble killing two girls in a cargo suit. WTF. Can these alien actually kill anybody?
Aliens is certainly an action masterpiece, so I won't dispute that point. Maybe it's just that I prefer the investigation of the big questions along with some thriller/horror elements.
A big flaw in Aliens is, for me, exactly what you said: the threat of these creatures just goes way down. A few flaws like this, plus a lack of depth (at least, compared to Alien) is what makes me bump Aliens firmly into the second place in the Alien Saga.
Space Jockey is such a stupid half-assed name for whatever that was.
A jockey is a guy who rides a horse in a horse race, or an enthusiast of some endeavor.
Alien was "weird science fiction horror" and it succeeded well because it was so weird.
But what kind of a species put the piloting or controls of their ship on a platform so uneven that someone that size would trip and fall just trying to get up there to mount up. Not to mention the whole inside of the ship and the controls. That is a throwback to 1950's science fiction. Same with Star Trek and their alien's technology.
All they aimed for was to keep it weird.
Its also called "the pilot".
shareSome interesting takes in this thread. . .one thing that hasn't been mentioned is the original Dark Horse Comics treatment that came out, WAY before the severely flawed Prometheus/Covenant flicks. They have a COMPLETELY different take on the origins of the space jockey/aliens:
https://www.amazon.com/Aliens-30th-Anniversary-Original-Comics/dp/1506700780
Interesting stuff, at the very least.
Hmmm... Maybe Ill take a gander at that book ;-) A bit expensive though :-(
But I think I know a little bit the comics interpretation of them being a elephant like creature and its still humanoid.
What I like about alien is that it has an X to its form. the Xenomorph was a hybrid between something X (that came from the facehugger) and human (Kane). Therefor it walked on to legs, and had human like shape. BUT that was because it was part human. How the xenoes looked like in their original shape could be anything (if it even has an original shape. Perhaps the facehuggers are as close as they get? But what produced those eggs? Yeah, it may be cocooning).)
So what I would be looking for in a Space joykey would be something otherworldly. I see others have mentioned it here, but I guess I shall to, a bit of lovecraftian "what the hell is that?!" type thing. The problem with that is that often it can become unintentional comedic, right? Like the spaceguild thing in Lynch´s Dune. Its both otherwordly, gross, terrifying and comedic at the same time.
But I think I would have prefered something unintentionally comedic that had some ounce of orginality, than albino humans.
"Space Jockey is such a stupid half-assed name for whatever that was."
true , but it doesn't bug me half as much as "xenomorph" does.
The word is tossed out once in a half assed un defined way in that briefing, and now its the universal name for that species .
What little context there is even suggests its a general term that could apply to a wide selection of unrelated species, in the same way "shapeshifter" would.
OK, xenomorph and space jockey, stupid descriptors.
I'd just like to know why everything that Ridley Scott does is so well done, but full of crap in terms of logic, consistency, the laws of physics.
A movie about what goes on in his mind as far as these plots would be more fascinating than the movies.
But what kind of a species put the piloting or controls of their ship on a platform so uneven that someone that size would trip and fall just trying to get up there to mount up
Hey, how do you know the pilot was not grown out of the platform? The arrangement of the bone structure itself makes this scenario also possible. I think you are thinking in a too narrow scope about this.
As for the artistic intention - this is not a throwback to the 50s, this is a throwback to Lovecrfaft's works, and I think it succeeded in that department.
> Hey, how do you know the pilot was not grown out of the platform?
Because, I just know. Also, it's nice to conserve energy an all, but how about a little light in that alien ship. There were bright floodlights all over the Nostromo dropship.
Because I know every mutha-loving intelligence species in the universe loves to be able to work in enough light to see what the hell they doing.
And a note on the name: Space Jockey was not an official name for the creature, it was how the sculpture was called behind the scenes, and this is how it got adopted by fans, as a more mysterious name than "the pilot".
This descriptor kind of stuck on the creature, since there was (and to this day there is) no official name given for it.
I played Aliens: Fireteam Elite (2021) some days ago and was suprised that they mentioned the "x"in xeno. That they dont know how aliens would look like in its original form.
The game is tedious and boring, but that was something. I think most people think that the Alien we see is the orginal form. That it would look like that no matter where one found them.