Ridley Scott Prometheus: NOT the Alien Prequel Details

[phase pistol]

Other mysteries:

The first image in the trailer is this bird thing.

Production company logo, or is that the bird that flies off at the end of Blade Runner. :lol

Rank pins: we see some kind of silver badge on the space suits... they sort of resemble the insignia worn in ALIEN. Continuity?

 

[Jeyl]

It's the biggest egg Scott & Company had to break in order to serve up this particular cinematic omelet

Big time. I hate the "In thy image" trope with a vengeance because it just spells "We'll use this so we don't have to spend money on stuff". I hated it in the new Battlestar Galactica and I'm not liking it here. The fact that this film's budget is so huge to accommodate lots of practical sets and visual effects just leaves me scratching my head. I remember Ridley Scott mentioned that if he were to do another Alien like movie, he would have it be something that we've never seen before like he did with the first Alien, and that should have been the approach. But no, it turns out it was us all along.

:sleep

Enterprise.... Mother freaking Enterprise. A series that broke so many continuity layers from the Trek lore just just to appease a stupid story didn't break this egg.

Now that's a freaking Tholian. I was very proud of the series for not having that face we saw from the classic TOS episode "The Tholian Web" be just some helmet that a humanoid was wearing.

 

[Jedi2016]

I'm fairly confident that we're still going to see the "classic" Jockey at some point, hopefully later in the film when one of the Engineers dons the suit (I'd rather do it that way than introduce them in-suit first, then take the helmet off).

I also imagine this fits heavily into the story, and there's still so much we don't know about the story (like.. everything).

I guess we'll see.

 

[messfx]

My point is, 'just wanting to rework things' simply because you can, without lifting a finger to explain WHY they now look different, is a slack approach to filmmaking which wouldn't have passed muster in our grandparent's day. Harrumph, and all.

I think you are assuming he actually cares to explain the subtle differences between the designs or whether this is the same ship. He is not a scifi geek and this film was made over 30 years later. Don't be surprised if he simply leaves things unanswered.

 

[Clutch]

This^^

 

[SSGT Kitten]

Don't forget, with leaving questions unanswered, he leaves us with mystery. Mystery is one of the reasons why ALIEN was so cool to begin. I do hope we get some more info on that universe, but I am perfectly happy with Ridley leaving us with even more questions.

Charlie

 

[Stormy320]

I think if the jockey is wearing a space suit it doesn't change the coolness of Alien. To me it just adds to the mystery. I never would have thought it was a suit, so it just makes the image even more mysterious and adds another surprise.

 

[ghostryder]

Don't forget, with leaving questions unanswered, he leaves us with mystery. Mystery is one of the reasons why ALIEN was so cool to begin. I do hope we get some more info on that universe, but I am perfectly happy with Ridley leaving us with even more questions.

Charlie

Right?

J.J. Abrams on Mystery vs. Knowledge | Video on TED.com

 

[Nwerke]

Go on AVPgalaxy and read some of the comments in threads about what people think this film has in it and is about, then come back here & tell me they're not deluded :lol

Amen. They WILL NOT BE TOLD.

It was slightly upsetting even for me that the Jockey looks humanoid

Right there with you.

It's the biggest egg Scott & Company had to break in order to serve up this particular cinematic omelet, and the extent to which they can be forgiven will depend entirely upon how much we like the finished product.

Well put. Right now I am very willing to be forgiving, lol. Fingers crossed.

I'm fairly confident that we're still going to see the "classic" Jockey at some point, hopefully later in the film when one of the Engineers dons the suit (I'd rather do it that way than introduce them in-suit first, then take the helmet off).

I don't understand what you mean. The actual Jockey from Alien, on Acheron? Let's hope not. We do see an Engineer about to don the suit in the trailer. It's not the same Jockey chamber, Jockey chair or character, however.

I think you are assuming he actually cares to explain the subtle differences between the designs or whether this is the same ship. He is not a scifi geek and this film was made over 30 years later. Don't be surprised if he simply leaves things unanswered.

You're not parsing my comments correctly. I'm not assuming anything, I was advancing an opinion on a hypothetical situation which does not occur in the film. The ship looks like a different ship because it is a different ship.

And I do get that Ridley is a director, not a continuity girl. All that fussy continuity stuff, so passe anyway. Really don't have any idea why Hyams bothered having that Discovery built for 2010, you know. It's not as if anyone would have noticed, had he used some broomsticks and shoeboxes painted white instead.

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

The most impressive speculation on the physical nature of the derelict pilot comes from the Nostromo crew in the first film, ie, that it had 'grown out of the chair'. That feature is precisely the kind of head****ing Giger otherworldliness that helped lift Alien from B-movie exploitation status. How sad to deflate that now with notions of mere exo-skeletons and suits (passe for years since Independence Day, in any case) that humanoids climb into... Better be one stunning story to warrant the jock being smeared with such ho-hum-ness...

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

Ridley Scott would stop a shoot on both Alien and BR to stir the fog by hand - to get exactly what he wanted to see on film. I'm sure he'll be no less exacting here.

But this cuts both ways. Ridley wanted to see an utterly un-Roman, utterly extra-historical fantasy-art helmet on a gladiator in ancient Rome, and unfortunately got it.

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

My point is, 'just wanting to rework things' simply because you can, without lifting a finger to explain WHY they now look different, is a slack approach to filmmaking which wouldn't have passed muster in our grandparent's day. Harrumph, and all.

Sadly, I don't put this beyond Scott. There is, across the culture, a compulsion to update every damn thing. Just in the world of SF, you gotta have continually souped-up Vipers, constantly revised Jabbas and Enterprises and so on. I can easily see Scott thinking, 'I'm bored with that old Giger design, let's soup it up a bit'. Even if it is a different ship, Scott may well have been responding to such a revisionist impulse when it came down to the design. If that is what he's done then for my money it wasn't worth the candle because the result is sub-vintage Giger, at least in the jockey room, in the jockey chair, in the big head room, and much of the ship exterior. Giger's original designs for Alien are Sacred Art. You can't soup them up. You might as well try and improve or update a Blue Period Picasso. Can't be done.

 

[Jedi2016]

I don't understand what you mean. The actual Jockey from Alien, on Acheron? Let's hope not. We do see an Engineer about to don the suit in the trailer. It's not the same Jockey chamber, Jockey chair or character, however.

No, I just meant any Engineer in full "flight suit" or whatever you want to call it. And preferably not just when they're sitting in the chair. Seeing one walking around in the suit is as close as we're going to get to seeing the "live" space jockey that everyone's been pining for for thirty years.

The most impressive speculation on the physical nature of the derelict pilot comes from the Nostromo crew in the first film, ie, that it had 'grown out of the chair'. That feature is precisely the kind of head****ing Giger otherworldliness that helped lift Alien from B-movie exploitation status. How sad to deflate that now with notions of mere exo-skeletons and suits (passe for years since Independence Day, in any case) that humanoids climb into... Better be one stunning story to warrant the jock being smeared with such ho-hum-ness...

I would not be surprised in the least to see the suit somehow "meld" with the chair when the pilot sits down, giving the appearance that they're one and the same. Space Jockey equivalent of a safety harness.

 

[Howard]

It looks like from the cap Karl posted of the medical bay, that perhaps they cut off the jockey's head and are examining it? Perhaps that explains the ragged line seen in the cap of the jockey in the room?
EDIT: Ignore me - Jason beat me to it, having gone back through the thread - sorry guys.

 

[Jedi2016]

I think that's the one they find on the floor in the ampule room.

 

[Jeyl]

I'm more concerned about how many of our characters are naturally or unnaturally gendered.

 

[phase pistol]

Please, the preferred term these days is "xenosexual." :sleep

 

[HAL9000]

What I'm praying for is CRT monitors on those ships. If they've got flatscreen touchpanels - I'm out of there!!!

 

[phase pistol]

Just wait, Ridley's gonna pull an Abrams and change everything just to change it.

 

[Jack T Chance]

Moon. It contained not one cringe-inducing moment. The only such new SF film I've seen in decades.

Just for starters...

• Gattaca
• Children of Men, although it's a bleak, depressing movie.
• The Road, which is even MORE bleak & depressing than Children of Men!
• Moon
• District 9
• Source Code
• In Time (Written & Directed by Andrew Niccol, who also gave us Gattaca! thumbsup)

As always, Your Mileage May Vary, but to anyone that does NOT agree that these are all great SF films, I would humbly suggest that you MIGHT possibly be suffering from an error of the PEBCAS variety: Problem Exists Between Chair And Screen!