Derelict cargo hold or Silo

It's supposed to be the cargo hold of the ship. You are correct in thinking that doesn't really work though. Initially the eggs were supposed to be in a separate pyramid then that was changed to a Silo, but those ideas got scrapped for the cargo hold on the ship idea. This Strange Shapes blog post explains it all in detail. (I freaken' love their blog posts, the writers are amazing, you can find anything about the ALIEN movies in there.)

Link to the Blog post--->  (Strange Shapes) The Derelict/Pyramid/Silo

Yeah I noticed this also since I first saw it around 1980. The cargo hold looks bigger than the ship itself, so I wondered if it was a subterranian "cave of some sorts", as Kane puts it.

But the cargo hold theory makes more sense, and its just a scaling error by the special effects department.

Kind of like how the Engineer looks all too human in size in some of the scenes in Prometheus.

May be a recurring thing with Ridley. I've read comments that the Coliseum is depicted as too large in Gladiator.   

Didn't something dig its way down there?  Dispite the fact that it's a discrepancy in the film making, I love this mysteriously odd demonsion to the derelict.  I have two ideas on what it is 1.) The cavern was built automatically by the derelict as part of it's perpetual fractal terrorforming operations 2.) the derelict is like the Tardis from Doctor Who, making the derelict a portal down the Giger Tube that Alice didnt come back from! 

   I agree the 'cargo hold ' is too big compared to the size of the ship. In the distant back ground of the picture you posted, it seems to go off in a different direction too. The chamber is not the same shape of the derelict.

   The idea of the silo, pyramid and ship was originally scripted, but sadly were not either filmed or edited out. It's another detail that can completely change the whole alien story line.

The ship/cargo hold and pyramid/silo/ship both tell two different stories. Ship and cargo hold can suggest either it crashed there or landed. The pyramid ideal can suggest a base like that on prometheus.

What svanya said.
The derelict is much
Bigger than the ship
In prometheus.

Perhaps a plothole or 
Something that just 
Doesn't add ip gets
Accepted in the long run.
Just like prometheus.
But they really overdid it
In prometheus.

I guess......

(Dodging bullets - angry crowd attacks....

I am going to try a new theory here. We all know that this ship is from 2000 years in the future. It could have been built to carry its bio-weapon cargo. I really never thought the cargohold looked to big for the rest of the ship. Ridley did use smaller sets for the navigation chamber on prometheus. I cannot say for sure wether he was trying to make us believe the Engineers where space jockeys from the original film. Honestly every time this topic comes up now it makes think we got shim shammed with the engineers. When I saw the art of the 15 foot tall engies I really liked that a lot. So all of this is a bit out of place for me. I hope this all gets sorted in Paradise.

Redant, where do you get "this ship is from 2000 years in the future"? To my knowledge, time travel is not invoked anywhere in the accepted Alien cannon.

Please let me clarify. LV223 Which possibly only has one Engineer in hybernation from 2000 years previously also has the ships that this Engineer tries to get off planet and go to earth with.

LV423 in which the movie Alien happens on could possibly have a ship that is some 2000 years later after what we find on LV223. Just like we do not all drive cars from decades ago imagine what we would be using some 2000 years from now. Would we still be using combustion engines?

It is also possible that all these events happen in a realtive time frame of each other we do not know the age of the shipe on LV423. I am only going on an assumption.

This is just another problem we had with scale that Ridley tried to convey but then in other scenes just contradicts.

As yes the Egg Chamber is larger than the Derelict, the problem we also have is that Ridley said that the Ship had crashed on LV 426 with a Cargo of Eggs.

He has of late said that the Derelict had crashed and something had evolved from the Cargo.

I have before tried to clear up the Egg Chamber by suggesting that the Derelict could maybe attach it self to the Cargo, like how Thunderbird 2 does, or like how some Helicopters carry a Large Cargo Crate via chains etc underneath, maybe the Derelict can attach to a separate Cargo Hold that it simply drops this Cargo Hold off then flies off.

Then the Cargo Doors open and allow the Cargo inside to be able to then leave the Cargo Hold etc.

This idea makes sense as to the whole purpose of carrying a cargo of Bio Weapons to drop on a World as simply how can Eggs survive being dropped just a Bomber would with its Arsenal?

While the idea above is sound and plausible, it does have one problem to the keen eye but no more problem than if we accept the Cargo Hold is in the Derelict and not attached under it.

That problem being again, how large the Egg Chamber looked when we see Kane climb down etc as shown in the image posted in the OP.

They could still change things though, we could be made to forget what Ridley has ever said as far as Cannon goes and only go by what we could be shown...  If Ridley ever on film explains LV 426, than another explanation could be that LV 426 is used as a storage facility for the Eggs.

And that the Derelict was docking with this underground Egg Chamber.

@Redant

Ridley had hinted at the age of the Derelict, he said the ship had crash landed, (well he said it had gone to land but last minute there was a hick up) This event had occurred within a few hundred years of the events of the outbreak on LV 223 that wiped out all but one Engineer.

So Prometheus is set near 2100 thats the events of the Last Engineer and the movie.  The dead bodies they found of the Engineers had been there for around 2000 years give or take they said.

So the outbreak on LV 223 that was caught on the hologram scene had occurred between 0-100 AD give or take... so the Derelict must have landed on LV 426 anywhere between 200BC to 200AD

Ridley also said the Engineers Technology was over a Million years old, this was his first hint that the Derelict may had been on LV 426 for maybe a Million Years, but his other comment about the crash landing occurring within few hundred years of the LV 223 outbreak 2000 years before Prometheus, would suggest that the Derelict was on LV 426 for about 2000 years also. Give or take few hundred years.

But his Engineers Technology Question gives us a idea that maybe they had the Juggernaught class ships and Space Jockey suits and Pressure suits for maybe a Million years or few Million.

Or again he could be on about the Goo that we saw in the opening Scene, but if that was Earth well the movie would show us this scene had occurred at latest 500 Million years ago.

As i think the movie is depicting Engineer intervention around the time or after the Cambrian Explosion event.

However Ridley did say that the Sacrificial Scene does not have to be on Earth and is just a way to show how these Engineers seed their Genetic Material to allow complex life to start to Evolve.

@Redant....I agree about the possibility of time travel. In fact the more I think about it the more it makes the nonsense make sense. A quantum time continuum reflux distortion paradox quagmires of incomprehensible complexity.  Screw Carbon dating technology here.   

@BigDave....I love ur eloquent explanation....simplified! if their technology is millions of years old they must be able to time travel and if their ships use wormholes to travel across time and space well...shit happens

@Mr Ruhaniya

LOL 

GIGGITY GIGGITY GOO......

I do however hope they dont go the whole time travel route because then, well it would make things even more less sense, like if that was the case the Engineers could just go back before Mankind was created and not take part in what ever steps was required to create Mankind... Unless we was needed because their whole Agenda was to use us as Hosts for Xenos.....

Anyway there is a such a thing as time travel within the Movie as far as one way travel..... Cryo Sleep is Time Travel, if you invented Cryo Sleep Chamber and it could last as long as the Engineers ones.

Well you just build it somewhere secluded and go pop in and next thing you know, you wake up and it could be what 3014, or 4014 etc...

However looking at the Derelict Craft at the Crash Site and then looking at the prop, and then looking at the image when Kane was lowered down into the Egg Chamber we can see the halls of this Chamber curve around, so it follows the boomerang shape of the Derelict.

This pretty much confirms it is part of the ship, and the only problem we are left with Again is the Scale.

We have to remember Ridley intended this craft to be HUGE! the first glance we get at the Space Jockey was to create the illusion of a 26ft tall Race, but they scene seemed to show us he was about 21ft Tops, but still looked big.

But the close up shots where they replaced like 3.5ft Children with Adults shows us the Space Jockey to be smaller.... and about 13-15ft.. Now this is not another Space Jockey size debate, as i wish to go back to the first shot where they used the Child Actors... if we take this shot and the scale and then the Egg Chamber shot and consider these lie under the craft, it kind of makes some sense....

Only when we see the crew enter the ship and from outside and difference in height and height we see in Aliens, shows that there is no way the Egg Chamber and larger looking Pilot room shot would fit inside such a craft.

And when we consider the size of the Juggernaught when we see Shaw and David leave it and the crashing scene again there is no way the Egg Chamber would fit....

So i guess Mr Ruhaniya we cannot rule our TIME TRAVEL.... as the only way the Derelict makes sense is......... if it is the same as Dr Whos TARDIS... that would explain how something can be vastly larger inside than it appears on the outside..

A cargo hold but yeah the scaling error is a tad distracting. 

Anyway, it's interesting to compare the two cargo holds; one is a chilled room with stacked pillars of Ampules and the other something more akin to an incubating farm.

It's interesting to ponder whether the Engineers used worms to cultivate the eggs, given the wormy attributes of the classic xeno lineage, I wonder if the comics will address all this in more detail. 

Well I think it's best to watch this from only watching the film alien it total looks like a cavern under the ship and that's what it is for me they . It curves back and forth and is not the curve off the part of the ship we see outside and yes way to big...it's a cavern unless it's a tardis  :-P .the end

@djamelameziane

You have raised a spectacular point! Indeed! Just because we all see the melted hole that Kane goes through we assume only that the area where kane goes into has to be part of the ship.

I like this idea a lot that Kane goes into a cavernous area underneath the ship and why not! In the original script they wanted to have the aliens be discovered in an underground pyramid.

Seems to me maybe Scott thought that a pyramid would distract totally from the Alien's mysterious nature and I would have to agree.

Going into the film if we personify the Alien creature with a very clearly defined pyramid structure then it is not as scary and as such it would have been a much different film. Alien is a masterpiece I do not care what anyone says. The movie is far better than almost all sci-fi horror movies produced today. I go back to it again and again and never tire of it.

This area where the eggs are discovered was conceived by Ridley and the effects crew. O’Bannon was amazed at how well they were able to take what he had written from the first part of the screen play an enhance it into what you see in the movie.

Thank you for that wonderful post you made my day. I think from now on I will consider this as what really happens when Kane goes through the burned acid hole in the ship. He goes down into an Engineer underground cavern where the millions of Alien eggs wait for transport. Outstanding!

What if the cavern wasn't even built by the Jockeys...? What if the Derelict landed on LV-426 for whatever reason, whether it crashed or not, and happened to land on top of another Alien structure, which housed the Alien eggs? We saw no type of similar "barrier sheild" in the Juggernaut from Prometheus. Remember too, the Alien was put up on a mural in one of the rooms in the temple on LV_223. I've said it before and many others agree, the "Xenomorph" could be regarded as the higher being, or the blueprint to whatever the Engineers were working on in their facility on LV_223.

Perhaps the beings which created the Engineers, originally created the Xenomorphs and stashed them across the galaxy, along with other "perfect" organisms and as a result of their discovery by the Engineers, they attempted to mimic the power of creating and altering life, much like scientists do today.

More over, I think the Alien organism itself is the goal for the Engineers and the main purpose for their testing on LV_223 and probably many other installations. They probably used LV_223 due to it being close to the LV-426, offering easy recon of samples from LV-426 to further their testing and studies. 

Notice the Urns, similar to eggs, but lacking the 100% organic nature. The Engineers managed to understand some of the secrets hidden in the creation/alteration of life, but obviously created an unstable product. Much like Humanity in this Universe, creating the Android to mimic the creation of life.

I think it's the same issue just on a whole other level. The truth and the message I believe Prometheus and Ridley Scott are trying to convey is - we will never achieve such a feat as the creation of true life. We might be able to alter life, mutate it, even create intellegence, but no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to unlock the key to creating a Soul - which was a main point Weyland brought up in his "holographic speech". David will never have a soul he says. To further add, the Xenomorphs, since they have no eyes - and they say "the eyes are the window into the soul" - leads me to believe that the Xenomorphs themselves were a "false" creation and thus could "live" but would never have a "soul". Not "true" life.

Prometheus will never answer the question of who created us and it will never show "God" - it can't. But it will insinuate that the same challenges we face today will remain a challenge forever, and remind us that there are universal challenges which we will never be abe to explain or exploit.