SFC is showing the original Alien and I started wondering; did any of the books or comics ever explain the origin of the aliens? Since the alien ship and the alien were both designed by H.R. Giger, they share a similar look, but they obviously aren't advance enough to have built the ship. And what's the story of the 'Space jockey'?
Any ideas?
Supposedly,the Space Jockey was carrying the Alien eggs to infest them upon other planets(since,I guess,that his race created them as super warriors to conquer other planets,but it all got out of hand,and killed his whole race,as well),but one of them broke out,and got him.
This was part of several stories lurking around in articles that were contained in the likes of "Famous Monsters","Omni"(anybody remember that magazine?!),"Fantastic Films"(another long-lost treasured magazine),and "Starlog" in the early 80s as early plots for "Aliens"(before James Cameron stepped in and filmed it),which had either the Aliens' planet exploding,and its chunks(with eggs attached)descending to Earth,the Aliens attacking a rescue ship that picks up Ripley and Jones(the cat),or the Space Jockey's race helping Ripley battle the Aliens.
Now,everybody here can fully agree on that these early plot ideas would have been better used for "Alien3"than what David Fincher was forced by the studio to unleash upon the screen.
Anyway,that's all of the interesting facts that may help explain a little of the Aliens',and the Space Jockey's,origins.
I always wanted to see the space jockey's race appear in one of the films, maybe coming to the rescue of the humans.
When Alien: Resurrection came out, I thought it would have been interesting to have the ship, laden with alien eggs, deliberately crashed on some desolate planet, with a beacon warning travellers to stay away. Thus, the story would come full-circle.
The original source of the space jockey is in Mario Bava's SF/Horror movie PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, which featured a couple of gigantic alien skeletons in an alien ship who had previously been killed by the "vampires." Quite a number of the plot points in ALIEN came from PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, including the mystery beacon, the landscape of the world, and the alien ship.
Other obvious earlier film inspirations for ALIEN are:
IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE
- an alien gets aboard a spaceship and hunts down the crewmen one-by-one
- it uses the ventilation system at one point
- it's killed by blowing the airlock
QUEEN OF BLOOD (beware SPOILER)
- signal from a crashed alien ship
- crew knocked off one-by-one
- done in by the silitary remaining member of the crew - a woman
NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST
- alien embryos implanted and developing inside astronaut's body
Queen of Blood also had the alien laying slimy, pulsating eggs aboard the ship, with the implication that there would be trouble when they reached Earth.
>Quite a number of the plot points in ALIEN came from PLANET OF THE
>VAMPIRES
Well, I was talking plot-wise, not script-wise.
I have always believed that the dead aliens in the first "Alien" movie had nothing to do with the origin of aliens, that they were only accidental victims, as the members of the "Nostromo" in the future. That leaves the alien origin unclear, and frankly, I prefer it that way.
About inspirations to the creators of the movie, I like one of the unconfirmed rumours I have heard: Dan O'Bannon had the idea of the aliens ripping from the inside of the astronauts because he's experienced cronic stomachaches for a great part of his life. Don't want to imagine what films Cronemberg will make if he gets anything venerean.
Open to interpretation, but I really don't see a creature like that evolving naturally. I was under the impression that it was a genetically designed weapon of some sort by an advanced life form.
Perhaps the "Predators" made them for sport hunting...?
Yeah, the alien ship looked like it was designed to transport the eggs, possibly to engineer and grow them out in space, away from the home planet.
I once saw a study that somebody wrote on the aliens, speculating, based on available information, what sort of a planet they must have evolved on, what sort of natural hosts and prey they might have had, etc. Seemed like too much of a stretch.
I'd have to say that anything that first attaches itself to indigenous life, alters its form to match its host, then proceeds to attack everything in sight has to have been designed to wipe out societies and possibly whole ecosystems.
I like Chadzilla's idea. Because if you remember at the end of Predator 2 as they scan the wall of skulls you can see an Alien skull on the wall. Lower left hand side if my memory serves me well.