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...

I know what you mean....when I first heard Ridley talking about the derelicts Space Jockey wearing a suit, that blew away a really great idea in my mind....a living space ship. Why didn't he just get up out of the chair when he realized he was infected? I would have if it was me....we'll see what Riddles has got....