Aliens,Predator and Terminator Q&A (Anything!)

[SilentSurfer]

The Jockey race is pretty fascinating with all their 'grown' technology like the ship (which makes sense that Aliens were made by them, or at least come from their world). If they did a movie about them, would they have to redesign the Jockey though? As it is, it seems hard to picture one of those walking around, and they are giants.

That brings up couple questions:

1) How the hell did a facehugger hug that giant head when it would barely fit over that mouth?

2) If Aliens take on charactersitics of the host species (only since ADI took over creature design with Alien 3) would a Jockey Alien be huge, or would it be the same 7-8' size? I really don't like the way ADI has taken the bio-mech out of the Alien design. They're just beasts now. But I suppose you can justify that generationally having been removed from the original Jockey bio-mech physiology.

3) If Aliens have tube heads whethere they come out of humans or dogs or oxen (Alien 3 original version), then why does a PredAlien look completely different and maintain some version of the dreads? I know the answer is really cause the director wanted it that way, but inside the AVP universe what could the reason be?

 

[Faken]

AvP is pure ^^^^ and shouldn't even be part of the equation, period. The entire concept of the AvP makes no sense simply because they brought it to earth in present day, and that was retarded.

Anyhow, with that said, I can offer some theories for you Surfer But of course NO ONE can answer these questions, it's all fanboy speculation and getting our geek on at this point

1. We are only assuming it has to clamp over the mouth... for all we know, on something that big it may have actually entered the body and latched on to some internal parts near an area it decided to use for the embyro.

2. I think they would stay around the same size, and you can see multiple exit wounds on the space jockey in the film where the chest bursters exited. And don't forget, the space jockey is built in to the ship... he doesn't get up and move around.

3. Again, AvP is a dog's breakfast, but one idea that I liked was that because of the Predator's evolutionary superiority, their DNA is more dominant than the typical earth-based mammals we've seen infected so far, so more of their traits appear in the hybrid alien's overall physiology.

 

[SilentSurfer]

Great answers for 1 and 3. The Judges accept those.

On 2: I tend to agree with the 'same size' theory, especially if you consider the fanboy theories that they were engineered to be weapons against Predators who are roughly comparable size. But since Alien came way before Predator, thus making that total BS, It acually doesn't make sense for the Alien to be so much smaller than the Jockey, excepting that it came out of a human and became somewhat of a hybrid scale species from what it may or may not have been designed to be.

Or the Alien always looked like that, and the Jockey, for whatever reason, was just trasporting thousands of eggs, including all the already empty ones you can see in the 'endless' chamber.

I don't remember multiple exit wounds on the Jockey, but one large one that bent the bones outward (maybe because the Alien was already larger by the time it exited, or because the Alien birthed from this species was actually bigger). Regardless, the Nostromo crew only took notice of one of them, so what are you talking about multiple chestbursters for?

They also took notice that the Jockey appeared to have "grown out of the chair". That could either mean that it was grown from within the chair, or it remained there so long that it outgrew the chair. It doesn't suggest to me that it was 'built' into it.

Ultimately we're talking about alien species here, so no human reasoning need apply, but it's fun to wonder.

 

[boba_fett300]

Got some more questions bout Alien's life cycle.

1. How long does it take for chestbuster to mature to full grown?
2. Once the alien are full grown, how long do they live for?
3. How long does the queen live for?
4. Anyone have any info about what the baby queen would look like in the life cycles?

 

[FACEBOX]

That's why I was careful to say, "if you accept AVP..."

I surely don't consider it canon. To me it's like a live action cartoon based on the Predator and Alien characters.

PS back: If by 'interior' you mean one shot of just inside the crack they entered through, then yeah. No egg storage. No Jockey. Of course I have the Special Edition.

LOL. Oops...didn't see that "if you accept AVP..." part.
Furthermore, my point was simply to state that the derelict ship was there in aliens. We just didn't get to (or need to) see the Space Jockey again. IMO, it would be very similar to what happened in ALIEN.

I think Faken's got the idea.
(I'm not sure about the multiple holes in the Jockey though)
I saw one exit wound, and it was HUGE.

I love that idea and would love to see them make a movie out of that. The Jockeys are way too ignored and there's so much potential to explore there. A Predator/Space Jockey/Alien war would be a sight for sore eyes.

Me too!

Got some more questions bout Alien's life cycle.

1. How long does it take for chestbuster to mature to full grown?
2. Once the alien are full grown, how long do they live for?
3. How long does the queen live for?
4. Anyone have any info about what the baby queen would look like in the life cycles?

1: seems to be close to a few hours.
2: no one knows for sure...ALIENS typically never get the chance to live long enough. However, it's safe to say from what we find out in ALIENS, that it's at least 2 weeks+.
3: ??? no clue. If you like AVP, the answer would be "indefinitely".
4: See ALIEN 3

 

[SilentSurfer]

Got some more questions bout Alien's life cycle.

1. How long does it take for chestbuster to mature to full grown?
2. Once the alien are full grown, how long do they live for?
3. How long does the queen live for?
4. Anyone have any info about what the baby queen would look like in the life cycles?

1)In AVP it took about 10 minutes based on the shifting pyramid which is total BS, but in Alien, they were drydocked on LV 426 for 36-48 hours before leaving the planet. They were already hooked back up to the refinery before Kane burst.

2)With prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions, who's to say, but the Aliens that infected the colonists were around for quite a long time if you consider that Ripley and the marines were in stasis hybernation for the long journey there. I forget how many months away from Earth the Nostromo was when they were diverted to LV 426 in A1, but it seems like it was at 6 months.

3)Frozen = indefinitely. Thawd = who knows.

4)Sideshow made the fetus version based on the poster art for A3, and Halcyon made a 1:1 model kit of the burster.

 

[Randysgut]

Addressing the book you are reading, Randysgut, why do the books, comics, and AVP movie keep putting Preds in the f'ing snow? Sure it's visually interesting, and you can come up with cool stories for them there, but Predator 1 and 2 made very deliberate mention of how hot it was. Multiple characters all the way through P2 comment on how hot it is. Even the news reporter says LA is experiencing record heat. In P1, Blaine and Mac talk about how hot it is, and Anna, the female captive, while talking about the 'demon that makes trophies of man', says, ..."We began finding our men sometimes without their skin... Only in the hottest years this happens, and this year it grows hot."

Lets put two and two together, shall we. Predators only come when its very hot (until the comics missed that and did whatever the hell they wanted with the Preds, and then the book(s), and then Paul A-holeson). That suggests that Predators come from a planet way hotter than ours if they can only stand to come here when it's almost too hot for us. I can't stand when people take a property, and pay no attention to the details.

Sorry, Randysgut, enjoy your book

actually silent surfer, in the book its summer, its hot and buggy as hell apparently. i dont know why they put predators in the snow, i guess the only reason they did it in avp was because there was some damn good hunting down there in the pyramid

 

[Biojex]

id like to know what happened to the Alien that burst out of the jockey in the first movie.

 

[Faken]

Great answers for 1 and 3. The Judges accept those.

On 2: I tend to agree with the 'same size' theory, especially if you consider the fanboy theories that they were engineered to be weapons against Predators who are roughly comparable size. But since Alien came way before Predator, thus making that total BS, It acually doesn't make sense for the Alien to be so much smaller than the Jockey, excepting that it came out of a human and became somewhat of a hybrid scale species from what it may or may not have been designed to be.

Or the Alien always looked like that, and the Jockey, for whatever reason, was just trasporting thousands of eggs, including all the already empty ones you can see in the 'endless' chamber.

I don't remember multiple exit wounds on the Jockey, but one large one that bent the bones outward (maybe because the Alien was already larger by the time it exited, or because the Alien birthed from this species was actually bigger). Regardless, the Nostromo crew only took notice of one of them, so what are you talking about multiple chestbursters for?

They also took notice that the Jockey appeared to have "grown out of the chair". That could either mean that it was grown from within the chair, or it remained there so long that it outgrew the chair. It doesn't suggest to me that it was 'built' into it.

Ultimately we're talking about alien species here, so no human reasoning need apply, but it's fun to wonder.

Well first off, the entire theory about aliens being made to attack preds is nonsense... the entire concept of Predator didn't even exist, so that was nowhere in the creator's mind at all. Any connection between the two is more of a joke than anything at all.

On the original prop maquette, the piece had several exit wounds, not just the one seen in the movie. If you google around, you should be able to find photos of it. And from the original storyline, the Jockey was a biomechanical being integrated in to the ship, it was not mobile. That's not fan based, it's from the original concept storyline. He was basically "linked" to every aspect of the ship and was permanently grown in to the ship. That's why he has no legs and requires a huge rotating gear mechanism to move the scope.

Or he just ate too many twinkies

 

[Faken]

id like to know what happened to the Alien that burst out of the jockey in the first movie.

Long since died... the aliens are essentially a big parasite with a short life cycle. It's been suggested in the past that in Alien when the alien is aboard the escape shuttle and crawls in under that shelf and doesn't want to come out, it's actually getting in there to die.

This all ties in to the original premise of the Aliens being designed to wipe out an enemy and then allowing the handlers to land on the planet or area safely once the aliens have died off from either the battle or end of life span. Would be pretty useless if they wiped out an enemy but then took over the place never allowing their creators to take over hehe

 

[Biojex]

Long since died... the aliens are essentially a big parasite with a short life cycle. It's been suggested in the past that in Alien when the alien is aboard the escape shuttle and crawls in under that shelf and doesn't want to come out, it's actually getting in there to die.

This all ties in to the original premise of the Aliens being designed to wipe out an enemy and then allowing the handlers to land on the planet or area safely once the aliens have died off from either the battle or end of life span. Would be pretty useless if they wiped out an enemy but then took over the place never allowing their creators to take over hehe

ah interesting. i always had it in my head that Aliens pretty muched lived however long they wanted to, unless killed. thanks for that bit of fun info.

 

[SilentSurfer]

It's been suggested in the past that in Alien when the alien is aboard the escape shuttle and crawls in under that shelf and doesn't want to come out, it's actually getting in there to die.

Sorry to disagree with you, but I don't buy that at all. Why would it go there to die, when in the director's original cut, the Alien has a nesting area set up with its collected victims, of whom Dallas is still alive. And again, in Aliens, those Aliens have been there for a long time before the Sulaco arrives. It takes weeks just to send a communication to and from Earth. How much longer would it take (6 months at least for the Nostromo) to get their by ship?

My take on the shuttle thing is that the Alien was smart enough to secure a hiding place for escape from the ship, knowing that Ripley was trying to get in there. It wasn't interested in killing her right off because it needed her to get to wherever she would be going. It only came out when Ripley drove it out. Then it knew she was up to something and had to defend itself. Remember, every movie has made it pretty clear that Aliens are instincitvely very intelligent problem solvers and quick learners.

As for life span, I'd like to submit to you what Ash said about the Alien:

"Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. It's a survivor. A perfect organism." --Ash, Science Officer, Nostromo.

This is not how you describe something meant to birth quickly, do a lot of damage, and die off right away. This describes a creature that is meant to last a good while. A survivor. And it's safe to assume that the "funny way (the facehugger had) of replacing its cell with polarized silicon which gives it a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions, making it a tough little son of a bizitch" should also apply to the adult Alien. Prolonged for what, if it dies in a matter of days?

Also, the company put Ash on the Nostromo at the last minute before Nostromo's last assignment in order to secure the Alien for their bio-weapons division. What good is it if it's dead long before it gets back to Earth in 6 months?

My feeling is that the Aliens aren't designed to be short assignment soldiers who go away after their mission, but are designed for genoside, world destruction.

"If just one of those things gets down here, than all of this, this BS you think is so important, you just kiss all that goodbye!" --Ripley, Aliens.

How much of a threat could one Alien be to the entire planet if it will just die off soon enough?

 

[Sabres21768]

Faken is correct. According to Scott, Giger and O'Bannon, the Alien was supposed to have an EXTREMELY short life span.
When it was in the shuttle with Ripley, it was at the end of it's life cycle.
It's been suggested that, if Ripley had left it alone, it probably would have left her alone and just died.

Again, this is based solely on the first movie...before Cameron turned them into big ants.

So yes, we should also take into account the Alien's original reproduction method...Egg morphing.

The nest in the Nostromo landing gear was mearly that particular Alien propigating it's species. There were now new eggs to infect future victims.
That's all Kane and Dallas were to be. The eggs obviously have a MUCH longer lifespan than the final creature.

This is all based on interviews done with Giger, Scott and O'Bannon as well as the book "GIGER'S ALIEN".
So, it's based on fact, not conjecture.

If we view the Alien as an engineered creature, then that make's perfect sense. The Jockey species obviously had a way to control the eggs.
But, if you're using the Alien as a weapon...would you want that weapon up walking around when you arrive to take over/conquer/whatever?
No, you'd want a creature that goes in and VERY quickly turns victims into the manageable eggs and then dies off.
Ash could very well have been refering to the Alien as a whole...not just the final creature.
A self perpetuating weapon would be a "perfect organism".

As for the Space Jockey...
If you notice, when inside the Derelict, Lambert asks the question "Where's the rest of the crew?" This alludes to the fact that there should be more. And they're not Jockey sized. The walkway (and it is a walkway...see "GIGER'S ALIEN") they first travel through in the Derelict is much too small for a Jockey to walk around. This suggests that more "human sized" lifeforms crewed the ship. When Kane is lowered down into the egg chamber, we see what happened to the rest of the crew...Eggs.

In fact, Giger had painted "HIEROGLYPHICS" to be used in that walkway. The Nostromonaughts were supposed to pass by that and examine it. You'll notice that the creatures depicted were NOT Space Jockeys, but a much smaller (again, human sized) creature. Very similar, but definately different than the Jockey. More evidence that the Jockey DOES NOT get up from the "chair".

The painting "HIEROGLYPHICS".

 

[SilentSurfer]

actually silent surfer, in the book its summer, its hot and buggy as hell apparently. i dont know why they put predators in the snow, i guess the only reason they did it in avp was because there was some damn good hunting down there in the pyramid

How hot can it get in Alaska? L.A. hot? Central America hot?

The only way I can justify the setting in AVP is that the location of the Pyramid in ancient times was not polar. The flashbacks weren't snowy. Perhaps (and this is going out on a limb for the sake of argument) the rotation of the Earth was different back then.

I feel so dirty defending AVP like that. This must be how lawyers feel.

 

[SilentSurfer]

Faken is correct. According to Scott, Giger and O'Bannon, the Alien was supposed to have an EXTREMELY short life span.

After my big old rebuttal I typed up, I stand corrected. I did have valid points based on what was said in those movies, but if it's in Giger's Alien, which I have but only looked at the pictures, then who's to argue.

I bow to your superior knowledge on this matter, Faken and Sabres. I think I will definitely read that book tonight. Very curious now. I'm actually not unhappy with the short life span idea. Kinda makes them even more interesting and goes along with the quick gestation and growth that is very clear in that movie.

 

[sscalltheway]

wikipedia has some pretty interesting stuff on the space jockey. I know it can't be trusted but it's really cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Jockey_(Alien)

 

[SilentSurfer]

Dental Bomber. I love it!

Excellent link. Thanks.

 

[sscalltheway]

Dental Bomber. I love it!

Excellent link. Thanks.

Also at the very end it says that in AVP:R WOlf had a skull of the space jockey or something that looked similar to it. I know AVP isn't canon but it would support the idea of Predators fighting the Space Jockey's.

BTW I would so watch/buy a movie on the history of Aliens and Predators. Instead of them facing off they could just make a movie that tells us about their history (I don't like using imagination, I want facts) and also show us glimpses of new Predators and Aliens that way HT can make new preds and aliens. Plus the movie won't suck and it won't have to be AVP but A&P.

 

[Sabres21768]

Also at the very end it says that in AVP:R WOlf had a skull of the space jockey or something that looked similar to it. I know AVP isn't canon but it would support the idea of Predators fighting the Space Jockey's.

BTW I would so watch/buy a movie on the history of Aliens and Predators. Instead of them facing off they could just make a movie that tells us about their history (I don't like using imagination, I want facts) and also show us glimpses of new Predators and Aliens that way HT can make new preds and aliens. Plus the movie won't suck and it won't have to be AVP but A&P.

Wolf doesn't have it. It's on the wall of trophy skulls in the Pred ship at the beginning of the movie.

Yes, it's supposed to be a Space Jockey skull...but that is just one of the more ridiculous parts of that movie.

Alot of the other skulls were very cool though.

Anyone else notice the Ray Harryhausen CYCLOPS skull.
Or did anyone else notice that the Alien Warrior skulls all have a boney protrusion on their foreheads? Perhaps these are Preatorians?

 

[SilentSurfer]

I've seen that skull, but never realized it was a Space Jockey because of the bones that flare out. Huh.

What's with the Trike skull? That ship has been coming to Earth for 65 million years, or have they been hunting Hammond's dinos on Isla Sorna. Hey, look at that, I just incorporated Dinosaurs into the AVP universe. Now I want to see a T-Rex Alien.

Oh wait, they did that with the Queen in AVP. Hey, that explains her size then doesn't it. Cool. I like that queen way more now.

Oh wait, no it doesn't. She's been frozen the whole time JP has existed. Crap

Here's a question: If an Alien has an exoskeleton, especially the Aliens versions, then why do the skull trophies, especially the one on the P2 ship, look white instead of whatever color the exoskeleton already is?