The Mala'kak / Space Jockey from Alien before Prequels / Engineers

[@Jedistarship]

I prefer the Space Jockey as a separate Alien from the Engineers. I think it makes the Alien origin story mysterious but it also pays homage to H.R. Giger who's intent for it was not to be a Humanoid Engineer underneath (This degrades his art). Ridley Scott made this up, all these many years later. It clearly is a larger size compared to the Engineers as it would be taller than 15 feet when standing. Also let me mention, up close you can distinctly see Alien teeth inside it's mouth not humanoid teeth. Then there's the fact that we are looking at a fossilized creature and not some bio-suit so the events that took place in the derelict spacecraft happened not within a 100 year period but over thousands of years. Still, Ridley wants us to believe otherwise. I like some of the Comic Book material but I'm sure they could have made a origin story movie based on them and the Xenomorph WITHOUT HUMANS. This is just Ridley's lack of vision. Personally I would have loved to a see a Space Jockey version of a Xenomorph. Lastly, I just want to say this whole business with David the Android is pure GARBAGE (if you seen Covenant you know what I mean).

[@richardgregory3684]

I _hated_ the way Prometheus took one of the best bits from Alien and threw it in the garbage can. The Space Jocke was brilliant in concept and realisation; it was as much the _alien_ in Alien as the xenomorph. It looked amazing, so alien and strange, and projected a terrific air of mystery and ancient horror. Nothing was ever explained, the audience was left to imagine what could have happened, adding to the atmosphere of the movie, as nothing is as scary as the unknowm. And then along came Promethius, and it turned into a bald body-builder wearing a frickin' spacesuit. Out went all the mystery and strangeness

[@V-man117]

Sometimes I wish neither the prequels or the comics had touched on the spacejockey and what had happened before the first movie. The whole mystery sorrounding the ship, the eggs, the spacejockey, where were they going, for what purpose, where did they come from. It added so much mystery and scariness. It encouraged you to make your own theories, on what was going on. Some things are better be left unanswered...

[@TheManaLord]

Seems like you didn't read the comics. There comes significantly more mystery and intrigue with their story

[@dadbuffins4524]

Agreed 👍🏾

[@mezmerized4lifejay654]

Knowing Ridley it will end up being David in the chair. I like the idea of the Space Jockey being more advanced & a differ species than the Engineers. The Engineers infected an egg to make it large enough to infect the jockey with a bigger facehugger going by some sites. Most people go by the comics though & consider them cannon after the movies. There's so much great mythology to draw from yet we get boring androids creating xenos.

[@Irodeapentaceratopstoragnorok]

The Space Jockey/comic versions all the way. The Engineer design is WAY too humanoid and really takes away from the Cosmic Horror elements of the first few movies. It would be like reading Call of Cthulhu and just as Cthulhu appears, he pulls off a mask to reveal a human is underneath. The Space Jockey was weird, disturbing and- appropriately- alien looking. Prometheus and Alien Covenant have stripped the series of that very sense of alien-ness. I think from now on I'll just stick with Alien, Aliens, the Dark Horse comics and Giger's art. Oh and the Predator movies

[@roryscott2941]

"Good job Scooby! You caught the indescribable cosmic anti God in his own yellow robes. Now let's see who he really is. Old man Lovecraft!"

[@croluka2798]

@@roryscott2941 „And i would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling“

[@cavemancult1999]

I gotta disagree with you there, I always found the old versions rather silly looking whilst the more recent ones have an uncanny valley feeling to them. Even when they talk as they look like us but are better in a way, way stronger, probably more intelligent all the while looking like statues people would have erected in Ancient Rome or Greece but now with somewhat dead-looking eyes, the original just look like star wars background characters.

[@Irodeapentaceratopstoragnorok]

@@cavemancult1999 I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I personally think the “silliness” actually makes it more creepy/disturbing in a weird way, like the extinct invertebrate Opabinia. Also I personally can’t stand overly humanoid aliens in science fiction and I also can’t stand the New Agey Ancient Astronauts angle that the Engineers brought to the franchise. There would have been a way to make the ancient astronauts angle work had it been more Lovecraftian, less New Age. Just my opinion though.

[@ammagnolia]

I like the Alien series and how many different routes could be YOUR alien story. Mines... Prometheus, Covenant, Alien, Aliens special edition, and the audiobook Alien 3 starring Hicks and Bishop and with some newt in there but, not Ripley.

[@affirmingtoe15]

Mind trick don't work on Space Jockies, only money.

[@DJRitty]

no other comment needed LMAO

[@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462]

@AffirmingToe The Jockeys had psionics in the Old Alien FUZION RPG game made by Chris Dias based on Earth-Hive the novel because the survivor Jockey mind-scanned Billie.

[@Ghost7065]

I prefer the idea behind them being half-machine and half-organic.

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

The space-jockey is not a fossil, it is a skeleton. Fossils are mineral castings from the molds formed by the hard tissue remains of a dead organizism that has been buried in the ground for ages. They are not organic remains!

[@jesssiemers665]

I couldn’t disagree more i am in the few I much more like the engineer idea than those stupid elephant things

[@phrayzar]

@@JohnSmith-eo5sp John Hurt's character actually says "it's petrified" suggesting that the skeleton/exoskeleton/non carbon based lifeforms has been there for long enough for it to become mineralised. Not a fossil , but as old.

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

@@phrayzar Huh? I never saw nor head nor read that in the film or its novelization. It was Tom Skerit's character who described it as "alien life form, completely fossilized"

[@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462]

@@jesssiemers665 it's okay we know you don't have much of an imagination.

[@djay6651]

I first found the Dark Horse comics when Billie was still Newt. I like the idea of the xenomorphs being an ancient species.

[@maxbrandt6]

I always thought the Space Jockey was like Pilot from Farscape, a creature specially bred and adapted to operate that weird spacecraft, bonded to it so they become one. I prefer the Mala'kak explanation over the stupidity of the recent Alien movies, not buying it was just a bio-suit!

[@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462]

@Max Brandt Or you can look at the Engineers like I do as a creation from the Jockeys. Much like the Annunaki and their slave children the Igiggi from mesoptamian myth and how there was a war in heaven and the Jockeys were overthrown.

[@Predalien195]

Scott said, "Nobody ever asked about the Jockey" I said, "Bullshit" because LOADS of people asked about that... in fact people questioned that so much they wrote about them in the comics and novels to expand on who they are, what they are, and why they are there. So Scott can keep his delusional thoughts to himself and keep them away from any future Alien related material.

[@AbuHajarAlBugatti]

Yeah that dude is just a senile fool nowadays that doesent want anyone beside him to touch his precious Toy (Alien franchise) like a little egoistical child. He doesent care if he produces contradicting garbage as long as he is the one producing it. The irony about it is that he himself stole the Alien Design from HR Giger and acts like he came up with it

[@c0l1n_m45]

I think who he was referring to when he said "Nobody" were the directors and writers that came after him and worked on the sequels following Alien. In an interview for Prometheus I believe, he is quoted as saying that he was disappointed that the sequels never explored the space jockey or the derelict ship because he felt that it was an part integral to the universe of Alien.

[@bpo1975]

Well said!

[@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462]

@@c0l1n_m45 Academic. He screwed up everything by making them smaller and humanoid.

[@0utc4st1985]

What are these "Prequels" and "Engineers" you speak of? ;)

[@ultradeathboy]

The ones that are canon, unlike AvP

[@sentinelmoonfang]

Everyone (thought they) wanted to know about the guy in the suit.... or the guy who was the suit/the ship. Ridley Scott has no idea what he's talking about. There's a fantastic interview with Harrison Ford about another, far superior sequel to a Ridley Scott film where Harrison proves he knows far more about what people love about these films than Scott or many other authors. When asked if we'll ever find out if Deckard is a replicant, Harrison replies, "No, of course not. Because then people wouldn't have the pleasure of discussing it." That right there. That quote is what people like Scott don't understand. It's not always about explaining everything. People like to speculate. They like to make their own theories, and when you explain something mysterious and fun, you rob people of the pleasure of discussing it. That's the reason I despise the Alien prequels and probably would despise those comics. It is much more fun not to know.

[@cfG21]

Forget that nonesense, who wants tonsit there and wonder about whatbifs for thebrwstbof your life? Most people want closure

[@sentinelmoonfang]

I'm going to sit here and wonder what the hell you were trying to type for the rest of my life.

[@valerie93_]

God Ridley threw such a great idea in the trash: "A mind bogglingly tantalizing mummy alien that people have wonder over for 34 years? Nah! It's a hUmaN! LOL"

[@DarkMegaPlague]

why Ridley why didnt you read the comics like the rest of us ....WHY!!

[@patrickbateman4541]

@@AbuHajarAlBugatti covenant never portrays David as the creator, just portrays his narcissism and megalomania trying to be one, it's pretty obvious. That's what makes him a good likable villain

[@ultradeathboy]

​@@AbuHajarAlBugattididn't know fanfics were canon now

[@ultradeathboy]

They're literally not human but ok

[@locdasmoke]

While I enjoyed both Prometheus and Covenant, I feel that Dark Horse Comics and novels are allot better and feel more original regarding the space jockeys. I would've much rather seen Fox use the comics when writing their scripts and making their movies in many cases

[@mikefm4]

This dark horse interpretation of the space jockey always scared the living crap out of me as a kid. The size and intelligence and far surperior strength made this being down right terrifying. I enjoy the movie on its own but if we're comparing there's no contest, the comic books win every day.

[@FunkMastaMegaFlex]

Same here. I totally agree with that.

[@loweni7460]

It's only weakness seems to be a little chest burster lol but then again chest bursters are no joke

[@bannettt9561]

They took a cool ass concept and turned it into... a helmet...

[@greenwitchinc.1682]

Man...How great would it have been to continue the Aliens Cinematic Franchise by emulating actual "good writing" from the Extended Universe...

[@gunbladelad7772]

In my opinion, Ridley Scott's "Engineers" are NOT the Space Jockey race from the original movie. Yes, Ridley Scott did direct the first film - and his biggest contribution back then was bringing H. R. Giger on board to design the creatures - but the entire story was by O'Bannon and Shussett - so therefore unless there is confirmation from the sole surviving author that Ridley Scott's perversion of the series is what they had in mind from the beginning, then all the prequels are - in my opinion - is a side-story, nothing more.

[@MrZayne8]

Just watched Prometheus again, for the 20th time. The scene where the Engineer is awakened (with deleted dialogue included) , climbs into the chair and activates the Juggernaut navigational system has become one of my favorite scenes in cinematic history. The implications and mystery surrounding his actions are so epic that I want to see an alternate ending where Janek fails to bring the Juggernaut down and The Engineer completes his mission. Just to see how they intended to carry missions out. To ponder that he had been in stasis (since humankinds primary means of travel was horseback and was still 1,900 years away from flying a simple plane 20 feet) for so long in an enigmatic biomechanical machine capable of intergalactic travel is just awe inspiring.

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

You've got your facts about Kitty Hawk all screwed up.

[@MrZayne8]

John Smith say what?

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

Orville first flight that day at Kitty Hawk lasted for 20 seconds, not twenty feet. On the second flight he even performed banking turns on its second flight

[@Bobbobson69420]

Here here!

[@spaceflight1019]

Stellar cartography does have a certain kind of beauty, doesn't it? One of the curious things about the Prometheus Engineers is that we never see them use anything you could call a weapon, other than the door that beheaded their infected colleague. So, is it safe to assume that the Juggernaut scales ships carried no weapons, or even a proximity alert system, because it never tried to avoid being rammed by the Prometheus? He might have arrived at Sol only to be blown out of the sky by Earth defense forces.

[@northprime_unlimited]

I remember these books. They should’ve went in this direction, it was much more epic than what we got.😐

[@phantomxof3269]

NorthPrime Production & Design agreed agreed👌

[@TheKain202]

You got a single detail wrong on "Destroying Angels". The Alien fossils found on Earth are dated at 1 billion years old, which is just before Earth started developing complex life. It kinda reinforces the Mad Doctor's point, the Aliens wiped out the Jockeys 3,5 billion years ago, and also wiped out something on Earth along with the entire complex ecosystem, knocking it back down to single cell organisms 2,5 billion years later. That comic book was goddamn eerie, and how IMO, the Space Jockey subject should have been handled, the OG Alien took inspirations from Lovecraft's work, so to expand the setting, one should double down on the Cosmic Horror elements that makes humanity seem small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. A polar opposite of what Scott did with Prometheus, making revolve around humans and making the setting seem incredibly small.

[@Dellaluna13]

Everything about the alien, the jockey, and the derelict ship completely embodied “alien”. But the more people tried to place it all under a microscope, in bright daylight, to explain it into something more familiar destroys it. As a kid, the space jockey looked like it were a part of the ship itself, which was such a unique concept for a spaceship. Instead, many people can’t accept that, because something alien has to be as familiar to life as they know it in order to accept it.

[@syntaxed2]

I never read the comics but have heard of the Malakak...always assumed they created the engineers.

[@NYKgjl10]

The Mala'kak comic story line is much better.

[@Vynzent]

These are the things better left unexplained. Neither the comics nor prequels provided a backstory worth exploring in the first place.

[@frostyvenom8280]

Man Space Jockeys are so much cooler than Engineers. It's possible that they are two separate species that both exist within the universe.

[@alexhenderson1312]

Frosty Venom My feelings exactly. Although I like the Engineers as a kind of precursor to Humans. Nevertheless the original Gigeresque Space Jockeys should return to the Alien Canon + I loved the idea suggested that the Xenomorph is quite literally a cosmic force of nature, or a super-plague unleashed by something ..more eldritch!😎

[@bobcrutch8905]

I always thought the space jockey looked like a living creature freeze dried by the vacuum of space...the prequels are garbage

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

It wasn't in outer space, it was on the surface of a planet

[@MrZayne8]

I stopped reading comics years ago, before the Space Jockeys were expanded upon. So my first experience of the Space Jockey since I saw the original ALIEN when I was a kid was with The Engineers in Prometheus. Going back and reading over all of the Jockey material thats out there I still love The Engineer direction *by far*, I just think the story telling on that front was poorly managed. I am a huge fan of the implications in Prometheus and while I love every bit of Kang Lee's recently released early concept art for Covenant (which I believe can still be used in a sequal to right the ship) along with much of the early script content for Covenant that was cut out and elements of the recently released early script content for Prometheus......you can see just how chaotic development of what we got on film was. The storyline should have been ironed out in trilogy fashion before filming for Prometheus even began but Xenomorph fan outcry, writing and vision changes have left such great content in dissarray with so much potential to blow fans away. We needed 3-hour films and at least three films to expand on Space Jockey & Xenomorph origins properly. Fox would have made much bigger profits had they handled it better and stopped cutting content. Anyway. If Disney incorporates what we saw in Kang Lee's concept art into a sequel I can see Engineer lore being resurrected. If Planet 4 ends up being the *original* Engineers, an ancient ingenious humanoid race that created the Destroyer/Albino Engineers (advanced organic synthetic AI's) from Prometheus millions of years ago, we can salvage this debacle. The Prometheus Engineers could have been created to serve but over time outgrew their creators and took over. Confining them to Planet 4 and creating their own home world(s) in the distant past, which we see in Lee's concept art. They have been at it long enough to build their own culture and they rapidly advanced sophisticated Engineer technology even further, allowing themselves to live for hundreds of thousands of yeaes. With their own ideas in mind and to undo what their creators started, they established outposts throughout the Universe where they formulated variations of the pathogen to achieve a variety of effects with the intention of wiping out life originally seeded by original Engineers on thousands of worlds over millions of years. LV-223 was the outpost for this quadrant of the Universe with dozens of Juggernauts loaded with pathogen and ready to depart. Each to a different world, before the outbreak 2,000 years ago stopped everything cold. The original Jockey could have been a part of a great battle millions of years ago, in which the Prometheus Engineers defeated the original Engineers quickly and decisively, but containment was breached when a revolting, original Engineer stowed away on the derelict sabotaged the ship with a live egg that eventually produced a face hugger that subdued the pilot., forcing him to land and set the warning beacon after awaking. This way the Jockey from ALIEN can still be ancient and David could be on his way with his ship of horrors to a Prometheus Engineer home world, set to unleash his enhanced Xenomorohs upon them.

[@StJimmy89]

Nope, we see an Engineer creating humanity in the opening of "Prometheus". Also Ridley confirmed David IS the creator of the Xenomorph as we know it.

[@StJimmy89]

The pathogen was created by the engineers for many uses incuding creating humanity as we see the engineer drinking the goo and the subsequent creation of humanity. The point is the Xenomorph is only a small part of the larger tapestry that Ridley is working on. And I for one love that Ridley is exploring other areas of the universe instead of making the first movie over and over which is what a large amount of small minded fans seem to want.

[@MrZayne8]

James Davidson Yes. I did not clarify. On this particular spin, what I am saying is that the Engineer we see seeding life at the beginning of Prometheus was a 2nd or 3rd Generation synthetic AI Engineer that was sacrificing himself as he was ordered/designed to do by the original Engineers. The AI Engineer revolt came possibly thousands of years later. As far as Ridley saying David created the Xenomorph.....you cannot take anything said as fact. Most comments are meant to be elusive and evasive so as yo not give away true plot details. It would be ridiculous to come out and give away a key plot point years before it ends up on screen.

[@StJimmy89]

Synthetic AI engineer? where is this coming from? Ridley is word of god on this, what he says goes as far as im concerned.

[@spaceflight1019]

Ridley Scott can say what he likes but the facts can be found in Ash's analysis of LV426's atmosphere. It takes a very long time for things to fossilize in oxygen, much longer in an inert atmosphere.

[@deviantknight7009]

Finallyyy someone gives note to these :)

[@marble_orchard_spectre4363]

I always thought the tube apparatus going down from the head looked more like a facehugger tail, and my favorite concept is that the jockey was face hugged in the chair, died there and what the nostromo expedition finds was just old alien overgrowth

[@albertlamar5938]

I prefer the Space Jockey being a separate species from the Engineers. Though, I love the Engineers also.

[@BigHosMan]

Cool video,thanks! I prefer the space jockey as its own separate race to the later engineer version. Took some of the magic and mystery away for me.

[@SkyStarNova]

Not Billy, she is Newt. When Alien 3 came out, all the reprints of that storyline were edited. I still own earlier versions of the comics and the main characters are Newt, Hicks and later Ripley on Book 3 called Earth War, later renamed Female War.

[@CplDwayneHicks11]

Dark Horse did recently reprint all the original comics back to Hicks & Newt so people can read the correct stories. Unbelievable when heard that name seriously insulting when he just showed us James Cameron!

[@scifiexplained]

I know, like I said, I'll cover that when I cover those comics.

[@plaguedoctormasque8089]

Ive been obsessed withrhe Space Jockey since 79.

[@ne0nle0n25]

The Engineers are so much better in my opinion. I just love the whole idea of putting themes related to gods and greek mythology here and there, the Engineers' look, for example, was inspired by greek statues, just like the ''David'' name, i think that these themes fit pretty well with the idea of the creation of the perfect organism, it makes so much sense to see someone (David) with a god complex creating this organism and that makes even more sense when you remeber that David was once in the presence of godlike beings. I just dig their greek statue look and metaphor with the gods more than a creature that looks like an elephant fly.

[@scifiexplained]

I'll admit, I love both! The engineers are so awesome to me! I love the whole "your maker made you for bad reasons, and doesn't care about you" idea. I think it goes deeper than that, but on the surface, its really cool. Their design is amazing and the metaphors you mention make me love it. It also makes me see why some hate it, but oh well, I like them! That said, I love the space jockey ideas, but I gotta say, every concept art of them with the trunks and all, usually look silly.

[@DerHammerSpricht]

King David in the Bible is described as a "man after God's own heart". David the Android, is sort of like a "man after God's own heart" in a world where God is long dead... I also really like how the scene where Weyland and co wake up the Engineer and start asking it about immortality is an mirror inverse of the scene in Blade Runner where Roy confronts Tyrell about his mortality. Both scenes show creation and creator being sorely disappointed and divorced from each other after a long lapse in communication.

[@DerHammerSpricht]

+marrues ham lol you have to be a troll or just a person with a weak mental immune system who has succumbed to the PC virus. This movie was directed by a British man, so he drew from the history and mythology of his own culture, the judeo-christian-greco-roman mythos. If the King of Saudi Arabia directed it it would have a different skin but the themes would be similar since ultimately this movie is about things that are addressed heavily in all major religions.

[@ainternet239]

Yeah, but why shoehorn these ideas into an Alien movie?

[@joeschmoe3815]

@@ainternet239 ^this. Greek mythology is cool. But it doesn't belong in an Alien movie.

[@voidbeyondtaken4257]

I have always loved the Jockey’s design... If only it was in Prometheus...

[@edgehodl4832]

89

[@plaguedoctormasque8089]

The Space jockey has always been a personal favorite of mine. I was so disappoint Ed when nothing was really done with him. Thanks for clearing that up.

[@stephanieyanes9405]

I think these aliens look hideous and goofy vs the engineers that are beautiful. The comic books you mention do tell a good story. I love that part.

[@supr75]

?! What? Ive been asking about 'the origin of the space jockey' since I saw alien in 79'!!!!!

[@JaguarCats]

The Mala'kak no question! These truly look alien! And they really just work better as a separate race with it's own agenda. As not everything has to trace back to Earth!

[@steveshattuck5343]

Pretty cool I find it more believable than those craptastic prequels. So disappointing too bad Ridley Scott didn’t read those lol

[@mattischastan7967]

Very interesting to see most versions agreeing on some sort of antagonism/weapon maker between "space jockey" and xenomorphs. And of course, as always, extended universe got a better and more exotic story out of it! (I don't blame blockbusters for avoiding raising too much questions, though, but extended universes always got great shots at making mind blowing stuff out of details!)

[@huverdoose]

The weapon he used to kill the xenomorphs fired tranquilizer darts filled with Pepto Bismol.

[@jeremiahakerman7333]

This was something else that could've been very awesome to have within the Alien movie franchise that Ridley Scott just threw in the garbage. The Space Jockey design from the comics is and always will be better than the engineer design of Scotts lame prequel films he's so proud of.

[@PaganPilot]

Mala'kak over engineers, one hundred percent. Comics and original Alien eu, makes them a threat but still keeps them alien. Maybe elements across the original Alien eu, rpg, and Dark Descent could be combined, while keeping them a mystery.

[@elgiron5600]

Like David said; "Nice work!" I like the comic version.

[@dennisdistant]

I always thought of the Pilot as a benevolent, non-hostile being who was on a mission of peaceful exploration and discovery. Somewhere he got attacked by a facehugger and the resulting Alien killed him and his spaceship crashed into the planet.

[@scifiexplained]

Ash said they were peaceful in the Alien movie, but the comics and movies went the other way.

[@nicholasdickens2801]

I know it’s been said but the Alien backstory created from 1988 in the Dark Horse Aliens comics - which was the far better story.

[@tlotpwist3417]

From the two parts about the Space Jockey telepathy and the bigger size of his parasite xenomorph, there's one cool scenario we could have: Space Jockeys used these eggs that they grow themselves with their technology as bio weapons (as already stated) but it was only when one of them (derelict ship one) got infected than a Queen Xenomorph appeared, stealing the ability to reproduce from their creators hands. (The queen in aliens seems to have some mind control over her praetorians) The one born from the SC has to have been the mother of the eggs found by the Nostromo crew, for that it's the source of Hadley's Hope infestation, and it has a queen. Going forward with speculation; if any of the other storage pools in the Derelict Ship had still eggs when the SC queen was born, she may have destroy/eaten them to lay her own batch of eggs with a superior version of the species.

[@sarahpusey9052]

Love your videos, keep em coming!!

[@simonfarrell6585]

The trunk of the space jockeys face in my mind was always the mummified tail of the face hugger that impregnated him

[@Jeffrey314159]

2:30 This is sometimes called: thinking in solid images (opposed to abstract). I am reminded of a scene in the 1970's remake of: Island of Doctor Moreau - - the one with Burt Lancaster and Michael York

[@shallah777]

I liked the idea of them being less human looking. I don't care much for the Engineer look. Kinda took the mysterious aura away.

[@Nox-bf7jj]

I love your vids bro!

[@n8n8n8n]

The concept of David creating Aliens as we know is very interesting but also disappointing at the same time. I really wanted to see something like in Alien Comicbooks. Alien saga has ended on the Alien 3, when Ripley died.

[@morlockmeat]

I go for the comic version.

[@lordcthulhu627]

Same, the Prequels don't really work...... Whereas the Comics actually work...

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

Yes and no, it would not translate well unto the big screen without it looking juvenile or silly.

[@FunkMastaMegaFlex]

Same here. That thing looked beast mode knocking out those synthetics.

[@dogma9609]

John Smith, why would it look silly?

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

@@dogma9609 If it was made into a CGI animated movie it might work

[@spencerlower7256]

I don’t think we needed to know so much about the Space Jockey, but the idea in the comics about how Xenomorphs are a universal plague throughout the galaxy, or even the universe, is very intriguing. It adds a good blend of biblical Lovcraftianism. Especially if this “plague idea” is just a hypothesis or belief of the characters in the story. Much like how in Alien 3 after the prisoners all witness The Dragon killing Superintendent Andrews, Dillion leads a prayer service saying “.... the Apocalypse is upon us! Let us be ready, let Your mercy be just!”

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

Everything is Lovecraftian these days :-S

[@facorread]

Watto? Can't unsee. Thank you very much for that.

[@TheWinterSailor]

I just finished reading Original Sin a few days ago, so this is a perfectly timed video. Great video!

[@BNK2442]

The destroying angels version is my favorite one. It reminds me of the Yithians and flying polyps.

[@SK4Madhi_Freal]

I was always fascinated with the Elephant looking engineers, but i also like the new albino ones. theres so much to explore with them.

[@wilhelmhesse1348]

Great vid loads of info on the Xenomorph background

[@mr.joshua8664]

To where Alien is going right now since Prometheus and Covenant, I still like it. Am with Ridley all the way. Note the civilization we see in Covenant was far different from the one we saw in Prometheus, making them a probable creation from the Engineer in the first. very interesting. Hoping for more answers in the 3rd installment Alien: Awakening which is expected to lead up to the events of Alien. Excited. Very very excited, tho I would've loved to see this take as well. Very Cthulhu

[@cocopud]

The whole engineer concept ruined the franchise for me, so the original elephant face space jockey was much better.

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

I disagree, if the original space-jockey is a race of beings with trunk-like snouts, that would not have been fossilized. I think there is a Wikipedia site about this

[@TheZXKUQYB]

Ya I always thought the trunk on the space jockey in the comics was dumb back in the day. I always thought of it as a unimaginative creation, like an alien creature looking at a person in an old gas mask and think humans had trunks.

[@NKA23]

+John Smith, well, it ISN´T fossilized. Remember that Dallas wasn´t a biologist or palaentologist. He just said that it looked fossilized to him. Probably it was just mummified.

[@Darkclaw86]

The orignal concept was, that the Pilot is a part of the ship, it is grown together with the pilot chair and the trunk is for, that the creature can breath in the vakuum, becaus I think, that the ship itself wasn't under pressure. But it wasn't never planed, that the Pilot supposed to be a dump gray 3m human in a suit, that created the mankind. With this Van Däniken preastronauts probaganda stuff, Scott's shrinks the univers, makes it less mysterious and brings in full of stupid stuff like the Black Goo and the god complex David.

[@Nin_the_Shinobi]

Of course it's soooo much better than just a giant pale man, at least the original design was ”alien" and not a normal human looking thing

[@abelsauvaneix3951]

I largely prefer this design to the one we have now. A fossilized elephant like giant bound to its chair is more mysterious and creepier than a tall white dude in a costume that looks weird for no reason. Now, don't get me wrong, the 8à's comic book version was silly looking but just imagine the one in the movie, with the same look but some parts skin colored. Like a shell acting as a bio-mechanic suit

[@phrayzar]

For me the whole notion of men in suits, we are creators thing, is much less interesting than the original take on Alien. I saw the whole biomechanic aspect of the xenomorph, jockey etc to be what was so interesting. A life form so different that it is hard to relate to at all. Tapping into phobic notions, parasitising, insectoid, basic to a degree, yet complex as a whole. The suggested time span on the derelict "it's petrified". I always took it that all the Geigeresque design aspects(derelict, space jockey, xenomorph, nesting areas etc.)were all part of the alien lifeforms ephemera. The aliens have a limited ability to procreate, they need a host to combine the DNA with their own and evolve. They also have the ability to gestate modified individuals as the need arises(such as de-alate ant, termite's and bees produce queens when required). I see the jockey and the ship as one and the same, as literally the manifestation of one of these necessitys'. To travel through space "it appears to be growing out of the chair". The xenomorph's characteristic has taken on aspects from this stage of their development. The ship looks like an alien lifeform, because it was. For me all these things gave the original so much possibility and depth, the things that all good sci-fi should have. Just shrinking down the jockey in size to a muscly dude in a suit and erasing all that has already been delivered was a bizarre move. Having David "creating" the aliens, even though there are depictions of xenomorphs and their lifecycle actually on walls within that same film is just a giant truncation in their own scenario. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed several aspects of Prometheus, at least, but not as it related to Alien.

[@jacobthemonk]

I try to tell all the other guys that have alien channels on youtube but they never respond or listen. I would say just look at the comics, it explains all this you showed. I have the comics and collected them when I was younger. the alien vs predator comics and the judge dredd vs predator. my fav was batman vs predator novel

[@Darkmatter105]

Such a bummer they abandoned this version of the space jokey. The design of these aliens is SO MUCH BETTER and more cosmic horror style.

[@FernandoGarcia39921]

i prefeer and ai love the designs of the space jockeys before prequels of ridley scott,

[@GeeVanderplas]

The comics to me highlight the problems with the Space Jockey. It is just very difficult to make it into a convincing looking alien creature. Seeing it wearing a space suit, or those colorful robes, it just looks silly. Imagine that on film, it would take away from the creepy atmosphere of the movies. So Ridley Scott had to figure out a way to make it work. It being a suit was the best option considering the story he wanted to tell. Could it have been better? Perhaps, but I fear it would become silly fairly quickly. I'm happy we got the Engineers over these designs (and that horrible name...)

[@rhedinrage1601]

This could make more sense, but also some of the theories around the prequels beyond " lol they suck " are equally interesting, this version offered in the video tho is a bit easier to wrap up I think.

[@MoshTMA]

There is still a gap between Covenant and the original Alien film so I'm not ready to give up on the space jockey concept. By the time Covenant ends we are under the impression that the engineers were wiped out by David & that he is heading to the planet Origae-6 where he would create aliens and a Queen. 2 decades after Covenant is when the derelict ship is discovered on LV-426 containing the fossilized space jockey that is much larger than an engineer and appears to have been dead a very long time, with a cargo of thousands of eggs. There is a huge mystery there, for sure. How are we even sure that the pilot of the derelict is an engineer like the one from Prometheus? Maybe it's a being from the race that created the engineers... large elephant faced creatures who passed their technology on to engineers who honored their image and ways, and maybe the space jockeys engineered the Ovomorph eggs long before David and one space jockey pilot was victimized somehow by getting impregnated and crashed on LV-426 with a giant cargo of eggs that were left untouched for a long time... although one has to also wonder what became of the alien that burst out of the space jockey too.

[@scifiexplained]

Scott has said its an engineer in the derelict in Alien in interviews. Size differences aside, he sees the same race throughout. Not all engineers were killed off either, some are out in space still. Scott intended for Awakening, the 3rd prequel to have the surviving engineers come back and fight David and his Aliens for what they did on Planet 4. We still have the standard "malakak" guys in the expanded universe stuff at least. As for what came out of that "Jockey"...I like the Ultramorph concept by Huante...there has also been the "Jock xenomorph" in the comics and games. The Raven from A:CM game was also thought by some to be a possible spawn from the lv426 Jockey.

[@robinschicha4712]

I like the idea that it is up to everyone who or what the space jockey was. Was it a bad creature and did he bring the eggs as bombs to devastate innocent planets? Or a scientist / archeologist who just found the eggs without knowing their contents? Is the space jockey an intelligent being or nothing more than a battery for the ship?

[@YuuzahnDragon]

What if BOTH versions of these mysteries can exist within the same universe and continuity. So far, in Alien (1979), the Pilot of the crashed ship on the barren planet is practically fossilized, has a light-brown color, has giant arms with a very large head and size. Not only that, but the Pilot seems to have been killed by infection by Xenomorph larvae as noticed by the hole in its "armor". When compared to the Engineer pilot in Prometheus, the armor is black, the sizes of the helmet and chair are much smaller, and that the Engineer was able to escape from his chair after the ship was disabled due to the Prometheus crashing. The Question should be who these two individuals are? More specifically, who the Pilot in Alien 1979 is and how it knew the Engineers? PS, unlike the Engineers who used the Black Goo canisters as an agent of destruction initially, the cargo of the derelict ship was only the recognizable Xenomorph eggs. Which could mean that there had to be a Queen in existence before the events of Alien 1979.

[@scifiexplained]

I have a similar idea in my Alpha videos!

[@CGossRunnn]

I don't even recognize Prometheus or Covenant as part of the franchise. They are nothing more than bad fan fiction that got made into movies.

[@starfan4019]

Scott says nobody asked about the space jockey because it was a huge ‘lift’ from the film Planet of the Vampires. In that film the crew of a ‘Nostromo like’ ship discover a derelict craft with a huge dead, alien pilot. Perhaps that I total statement should read, Scott was ‘hoping’ no one would ask about the space jockey because of the potential threat of intellectual copyright infringement.

[@scifiexplained]

All films have inspiration, IT, the creature from outer space is the movie that most influenced Dan Obannon though in my opinion. Alien would go on to inspire countless movies and games since then.

[@javierr.castillo1101]

The older Comics were far more captivating. No movie can compare and in my opinion; a mockery.

[@Matchhead79]

Dan O'Bannon's story along with giger's disturbing biomechanical genitalia artwork are the only truly scary way to go. If Tom Skerritt says he was grown out of a chair, then that's the way to go.

[@edgarr8339]

I'm confused in the cinematic universe are the engineers and Jockey the same species? This novel version looks more like a mosquito.

[@KillerBill1953]

I have been very disappointed with the recent films. Prometheus promised a lot and barely delivered, Covenant cold have delivered far more but killed off the only good character. I found David to be one-dimensional and a rehash of Ash and am baffled that he was developed instead of Shaw. The "Space Jockey" was an interesting character and Dark Horse did an excellent job of developing the space faring race and their motives. The "reveal" in Prometheus, that the creature was a bald, grey, Mark Strong wearing some kind of bio exoskeleton removed the mystery in what I considered to be a boring way. The aliens with elephant trunks offered far more potential than the engineers. I have always felt that Alien 3 destroyed the franchise and the Alien Resurrection was an interesting, but obvious, way to go. The basic plot hole was how did Ripley get infected, and by a queen? Getting rid of Hicks and Newt closed off some very promising options and the William Gibson script, while needing some polish, was a much better idea for a third film that what we eventually saw. Even with a low budget, surely more could have been done? A poor script is always the death of a film, but a small budget need not be.

[@poligonzo5300]

The song at the beginning of the video it's like Jurassic Park I thought it was the T-Rex or the velociraptors 😂

[@patrickfarrell490]

With the size of the space jockey. Wouldn't the facehugger have to be extra extra large?!. Perhaps from a queen facehugger.? What size are they?

[@Pcastagnaro]

Both versions are great, tought the prequel version we don't know a lot yet...

[@setalehti1092]

Wait, you’re Howitzer? God, I love your channel(s)!! Can’t believe I found your other channel

[@jamesfrench7299]

You simply are meant to not know the origins of the apparent pilot in the chair. That was the whole idea. The mystery and you being left to put together many scenarios in your mind, any one or non could be right. The ship itself looked related to the biology of the xenomorph.

[@Super987987]

Nice work.

[@blaggzear3152]

Makes sense. The Aliens use brute Force, and the Engineers use PSI Ability, both superior Abilities, which would destroy us Humans in a blink of an Eye.

[@GioAtero]

The design of the Space Jockeys in these comics seem to me ridiculous. They even have a robotic lizard tail. 🐊🤣 I prefer the Ridley Scott's vision. 💪🏻💀👍🏻

[@thunderhorse6666]

Freakin love your channel!!!

[@BillyDolomite]

Now I'm confused. The space jockeys and the engineers have the exact same space ship and space suit but you saying they are different. How

[@Cuzco08]

Why haven't any of these been adapted into series or movies?

[@UltrEgoVegeta]

I like the comic version best

[@e.blakebklyn5402]

I find the first the unknown adaptacion to aliens far more interesting than the film The version I hope to see more thank you

[@danischeel4846]

Space Jockey by far!

[@nevadafurtrapper68]

I prefer they never revisited the space jockey in later prequels or in comics so it always remained a mystery of what it was exactly so people could use there own imagination.

[@Potalot]

for me alien is geigers creation ,hes artwork should set the creepy narrative..he did much more then just xenos , he had a whole universe of gothic creatures

[@the-trustees]

So sad that Ridley, who gave us the Alien, screwed all the extended lore about the elephant aliens. :(

[@clonecamando9]

The best space jokeys

[@Chris-qr1io]

This version is what they should have gone with not the engineers version. They can fix it by having these be a separate species not the same as the engineers

[@WAFFLEooFILMS]

What's wrong is that movies these days don't want to do the slow crawl it's straight to the action! The first Alien movie showed everything from the crew waking up to exploring the ship. It took time for the big bad to come out and 8 didn't care the engineer seen for the first time was AMAZING! nothing like it. To see one of those alive in the series would have been incredible but once they did it was over our eyes were treated to dumb human like jesus creatures with no imagination and it left a lot of people empty still wanting to see the REAL version of that amazing being from beyond the stars.