Why Is The Space Jockey in ALIEN Much Larger Than The Engineers?

It's not. If you look closely at the Engineer standing up and walking over to the chair in the navigation/map room, it's exactly the same size as it was in ALIEN. That hallway scene (where it's going after Noomi)...maybe it's a different one or it hasn't grown fully yet ...or it may be a visual trick that makes it look smaller in that particular shot.

soon to be locked..talked about way too much

It's probably due to different Space Jockeys under the influence of different gravity fields upon different worlds leads to bigger meduim about the same and smaller looking versions (hybrids) of the same "common" version... Like if we terraformed Mars there would, in time, be steps within our own common Human ancestor affected by gravity and long-term generational effects/exposures of being on other worlds and exposed to their enviromental conditions smaller or about average to our 1 G. And in space where no real local gravity exists we may loose the use of perhaps our legs for good as they serve no real purpose for long duration space exposure. Unless we can work out ways to consistenly maintain as artificial gravity effects as we can reproduce realisticly. So if you are a long-term colonist on a Mars-like world you will inevitably grow taller and slender over time (think the Na'Vi - Avatar) upon a world similar to that of the Earth and the life foms will be roughly a little less or slightly more as what we are already familiar with regarding life. A larger body of gravity on a Super Earth or near-Super Earth and you would get a Pygmie-type common species or less.

I dunno, Man...the original looks to be 2 to 3 time larger than a grown man. Still not convinced, 1900. Thanks for the input though! ~N

@jdax Open or closed...what's your soulution to the size issue?

size matters..but in the case of the engineers I think they are big and I think that the space jockey from Alien is not so relevant.

you never know, that dude on the pic with shaw could be mutated holloway, perhaps, or another crew member?

Yes, so he's just mutated from being Holloway but given time the mass-effect upon him sup him up to be more super sized I guess! I wonder if Ridley Scott is indirectly playing with the Hercules myth in some way. Think of it for a minute: Holloway goes from a "normal" human man to aquiring special powers and begins to expand like a bionic man and become a bigger version of his former self. Playing upon Greek mythology again I think...

Possibly, would link in with the whole mythology, whatever ridley does itll be good, he is the Master!!!

Mr Continuity Nazi here... I have to give Ridley a chance on this one......and with all the very creative theories out there, this issue and a few others must make visual sense, it has to be filmed, depicted in a way that the audience can easily follow along, supplemented by dialogue. I think there are 2 different species, Engineers and Space Jockeys, who were created by the Engineers....the Jockeys being a species similar to our own, lower technologically than the Engineers. For all the detail that Ridley is famous for, it is inconceivable that things in this film relating to Alien won't match up

Do you think the Bio Engineers are to the Space Jockeys what Ash, Bishop Analee Sass/Caas, Rachel, Pris, Roy Battey, Zora, Leon and Rick Deckard are to us: their version of androids? I wonder... Possibly not due to the other plot thread little inconvinience of the chestburster being explained as being in that particular Derilict, but still... I wonder...

I hope your right, Forever War. I dig your handle by the way...FOREVER WAAAAR...

Maybe the first, original Space Jockeys, are extinct...a dead race. N

I haven't the slightest doubt that this film is another groundbreaking visual masterpiece, but story and conceptwise...I'm on the fence. But I also recognize Ridley as a master of manipulation

Yes they could have devolved in someways to the point at where the Blue Engineer is seen...

You are right there Forever War, I'm certain he is going to weave all sorts of themes and mythos and indirect or indeed direct references, nods and connotations of a varying degree for us all to pick-up on, chew over and ruminate upon.

I don't know about this, I'm struggling to retroactively fit aspects of ALIEN into another films content...altering my comfortable, personal imaginings forever. I fuckin' hope this works out... N

@Neurion. There is an undoubted and tremendous difference. The fact may be explained away, it may not. As it seems evident, to me, that several small tweaks of history have already been made to make a new story work, personally, I am prepared to remain unconcerned about relatively minor inconsistencies in favour of that new story - depending on how good that new story turns out to be. This subject has been discussed ad infinitum. I would anticipate lock.

If you take the screen cap where David is checking the sarcophages you can clearly see that the engineers are about the same size (maybe a litle bigger) then David... so something desn't add up... just my 2 cents...

The SJ in the suit we see in the preview is not the same size as the original SJ; you can tell if you look at the length of the arm and the height of the head relative to the back of the chair. There is a photo that shows statues or suits of two different sizes. Those on the left are much larger than those on the right. [url=http://www.prometheus-movie.com/gallery/view/img/47][img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheusmovie_11512_5.jpg[/img][/url] If you ask me, those on the left look bigger. I know the closest one on the left is closer than the closest one on the right, but it still looks bigger. Look at the feet. Ridley doesn't overlook details like that. If you've been reading the articles so far, especially the recent french translation, you know there is no way RS would be paying attention to all the minute details the articles describe and miss this one or decide to ignore it. My guess is the larger SJs are something that will remain secret until after the movie is out. For all we know, they live 1000 years and grow the entire time. There is definitely mention of age differences between the SJs in the movie. The sacrificial SJ, which is the one in the opening sequence, is said to be a young one. I don't remember any direct relation to size, but it's logical to think the older ones might be bigger. And it's been stated many times now that the creature we know as the Space Jockey is just one of the large humanoids, called the Engineers by RS, wearing the bio-mechanical suit that must be worn to pilot the ship.

I guess it's because the Jockey in Alien wasn't supposed to interact with humans, it was meant to be huge and make it an eye opener for the audience. The Jockeys in Prometheus had to be smaller cos they get into fight with the crew. It would look ridiculous, the Alien Jockey would stomp the crew with it's feet. Its not an angle thing, think about it. Although I bet Scott will have an explanation for the size difference, cos he knows we know.

Very, very true Asgardian Playboy! You're logic makes perfect sense to the apparant filming inconsistencies. And I am sure Ridley Scott will have a reasonable explanation as well. Good call on that comment! ( irbese )

If I could get up and kill myself because I have a deadly parasite inside me....I would. I would rather die by my own will rather than the way the parasite will kill me. But I can't get up....I'm growing out of the chair I am in....what do I do? Strangle myself with these big ass arms? Oh well, whatever, Nevermind....

What if the size of the Space Jockey in Alien was an error on their part? Maybe the Space Jockeys are really just naturally seven feet tall. The reason for the size of the one in Alien is partly because of how it's augmented to the chair....eh I dunno...

Neurion, this has bothered me from day one. But, since we haven't seen the film yet, we've got to give RS the benefit of the doubt I suppose. If however they go back to that scene in this film or the next and that SJ is smaller, than I'll yell WTF?

I'm sure someone's mentioned that this has been talked about before and in those early threads it was brought up that the Engineer that the chair attaches to in the Pro trailers is WAY smaller than the one in Alien. So I don't think it grows bigger after chasing Shaw. Unless of course he gets in the chair BEFORE he chases Shaw. Personally, I wouldn't mind if it's just a design change and the Engineers aren't the exact same size and have the long ass arms like they do in Alien. I don't think that will be the case because RS usually has a reason behind EVERYTHING in his films. I even heard him say, and I'm paraphrasing, something like "humor is great in film but it has to have a reason and make sense. Humor for humor's sake isn't my style." Like I said those weren't his EXACT words but those are close and it was something to that effect.

Its true, Ridley Scott may have in some ways, backed himself into a corner of sorts and now he has got to creatively write himself out of it . I'm certain he can do it! :- )

Maybe what we know as the space jockey in Alien is considered a god by the space engineers. That may be one of many reasons the engineers attack the humans. Remember in the clips were we see the elephantine head, or mask in the possession of the humans in the laboratory. One of the humans might have taken (stolen) the head from the lair of the engineers, pissing off the engineers in the process.

RS did not "back himself into a corner." Idiotic fans might back him into a corner in their own minds with their even more idiotic expectations but that's not his problem.

OK let's be serious. Ridley has a 140 mil. bugdet to make an R-rated Scifi-Horror movie. He doesn't give a shit about size and so on. All he thinks of is make a plus, and scare people. Understand the man, he got to make money and if to do so he have to change some things to make it work. It's all buisness and a bit of passion, and since he's hoping for a sequel to prometheus he got to make compromises. He will make the sequel and Cameron will rewrite his books to make good scifi, and by the time Avatar 2 comes out it will be the best thing ever. One pushes another to the limit like in the old days, that would be wonderful.