Space Jockey (Alien)

infobox fictional creature
name = "Space Jockey"


caption = A fossilized Space Jockey, with its ribcage bent outward, in "Alien"
classification = Alien lifeform
first = "Alien"
last =
created by = Dan O'Bannon
Ronald Shusett
portrayed by =

"Space Jockey" (or "The Pilot") is the nickname given to a type of extraterrestrial from the "Alien" series of movies and games, first appearing in "Alien" (1979).

Production

The "Alien" production team nicknamed the creature aboard the derelict ship "The Space Jockey". H. R. Giger, who designed the derelict and the Space Jockey, as well as the titular Alien, originally named the Space Jockey "The Pilot". "Aliens" director James Cameron also called the creature the "Big Dental Patient".cite journal | year = 1992 | month = 11 | title = James Cameron's responses to Aliens critics | journal = Starlog | issue = 184 | url = http://web.archive.org/web/20000311004345/http://www.loop.com/~thrawn/cameron/article4.htm | accessdate = 2008-07-27 | quote = Presumably, the derelict pilot (space jockey, big dental patient, etc.) became infected en route]

According to the writers, the scene inside the derelict's interior with the Jockey pilot was essential. Although the Fox production company wanted to pull the scene for cost reasons, the filmmakers won and the scene was filmed. The full-scale Space Jockey prop was 26 feet (7.9 m) tall. A smaller version of the prop was destroyed by arsonists while on display at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.

In an application of the special effects technique of "forced perspective," Scott dressed his own children in scaled down Nostromo spacesuits and filmed them walking around the Spacejockey's dais to make the whole set appear twice as large than it actually was.

"The Book of Alien" notes that the actors and crew felt instinctively that the Space Jockey was a benign creature, though they could not say why. In the bonus materials of the special edition "Alien" DVD, director Ridley Scott expresses the opinion that a film exploring the backstory of the Space Jockey would be an interesting direction for the series to take.

Depiction

"Alien"

The Space Jockey is discovered in "Alien" when the commercial starship "Nostromo" sets down on the unsurveyed moon LV-426 to investigate an unknown signal. The crew finds a crashed derelict spacecraft with its fossilized pilot -- the Space Jockey -- inside.

The derelict ship contains several thousand alien eggs. Scott suggests in his "Alien" DVD commentary that the Jockey's ship was a "bomber": alien eggs could be dropped on an enemy planet, and the aliens would proceed to kill the population as they spawned. According to Cameron, the Space Jockey's craft picked up alien eggs and the pilot became infected by the dangerous cargo; the ship landed on LV-426 and the Space Jockey transmitted the signal as a warning. John Mollo and Ron Cobb's "The Alien Portfolio" and Alan Dean Foster's novelization of "Alien" state the Space Jockey encountered the aliens on LV-426.

In Foster's "Alien" novelization, Ash describes the Space Jockey's race as a noble people and hopes that mankind will encounter them under more pleasant circumstances. It also states that they were larger, stronger and possibly more intelligent than humans. Foster's novelization states that the Jockey was trying to warn humans away from the aliens.

Other appearances

In Steve Perry's "Earth Hive", the Space Jockey's race are referred to as "collectors" because they collect Xenomorph eggs. In Michael Jan Friedman's "", the race is referred to as the "Mala'kak". According to the comic book "The Destroying Angels", the Aliens caused the species to become extinct 1.6 million years ago.

Mark Verheiden's "Aliens" graphic novel depict the Space Jockey's race as malevolent; they refrain from attacking humans due to their immense hatred of their common enemy, the Xenomorphs, and they intend to wipe out and/or enslave humanity once their war with the Xenomorphs is over. In the series, a Space Jockey-like creature communicates telepathically with humans.

The game "Aliens versus Predator 2" involves an experimental lab built on the species' artifacts and technology. At the end of the marine campaign, the player fights a Queen Alien in a large room with a Space Jockey in the center.

In the film "" (2007), a skull resembling the Space Jockey's appears briefly in a scene in the trophy room of the Predator ship, as a reference to the original "Alien".cite video|people = Strause, Colin and Greg (Directors)|year = 2008|title = |format = DVD commentary|publisher = 20th Century Fox|location = Beverly Hills, California|time = 0:02:45|quote = This is the trophy room. I actually had a lot of fun there. If you look up on the right, there's actually the space jockey...I think that's a cousin of the Jockey that was in Ridley's movie. A second cousin, I think.]

References

External links

* [http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Jockey Space Jockey at Xenopedia]