Coolhand's Guide to Super Vehicles - 01 - Blue Thunder

Welcome to part one of my guide to super-vehicles, where to be considered, the vehicle is both superior to its contemporary machines and also the star of the show.  There are many examples but we begin with Blue Thunder, this has turned into a real trip down the rabbit hole with information from a vast amount of sources collated with some opinion and speculation on the greater meaning of the machine itself and those fictional characters behind it.

I think we're gunna need a bigger gun. 

Brainchild of the sadly departed script writer Dan (Alien) O'Bannon, 1983's Blue Thunder revolved around an action thriller plot about a fascist government agency seeking to oppress a population, and more importantly, the freakin' awesome technological terror of a helicopter they invented to help them do it!  It's a film well worth watching, so if you haven't seen it I suggest you go and do so right now before I spoil anything for you.

"One civilian dead for every ten terrorists, that's an acceptable ratio!"

The late, great Roy Sheider stars as Officer Frank Murphy and gives a solid performance as a seasoned, and frequently reckless police helicopter pilot in a fictional version of the LAPD: Astro Division.

Murphy suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a hellish tour in Vietnam, where he witnessed at least one 'wet-job', an execution of a Viet-Cong officer who was thrown from a helicopter piloted by Murphy. This trauma, along with suffering a life threatening shrapnel wound, leaves Frank coping with insomnia, nightmares and even the occasional flashback. Sheider conveys a character who is out of phase with his peers, seemingly unable to relate to them or the trivial aspects of everyday life like following orders or obeying traffic laws.  He uses a watch on several occasions to measure his own perception of time, believing this to be a measure of his own sanity. The earlier drafts of the Blue Thunder script found Murphy going totally postal in an even more heavily armed helicopter, wreaking chaos upon LA. So the version of Murphy who made it to film is somewhat toned down, and he retains a sensitivity and socially awareness, contrary to the traumatised aspects of his personality.

The idea of the damaged Vietnam war veteran seems cliché today, perhaps even passée in the wake of more recent and ongoing conflicts.  The superlative First Blood from 1982 introduced possibly the most famous  PTSD victim, John Rambo.  In fact, Blue Thunder shares several themes with First Blood, and both have stood the test of time quite well. Coincidentally, also in '82, the concept of a veteran haunted by his traumatic past was explored in the complementary super-vehicle action flick, FireFox, and we'll explore that one at a later date.

Anyway, more Blue Thunder spoilers, after being grounded for incompetence, negligence and possible insanity, Murphy inexplicably winds up a test pilot on the Blue Thunder program. Through the course of the film he meets and later kills the man who traumatised him in 'Nam; learns of and exposes a sinister, secret government program; and finally wrecks the Blue Thunder helo by train, lest it ever be used to spray twenty mike-mike explosive tipped rounds @ 4,000 RPM into populated areas.  So now you don't have to see it, right? Wrong, you'd be missing out on some of the best helicopter action ever committed to celluloid, John Badham clinical and realistic in his style of direction gives up some thrilling aerial choreography, of the kind you just wouldn't see made for real any more.

Blue Thunder in real life consisted of two full size flying machines, a static mockup or two and several miniatures, some of which were remote control flying models. The full sized machines are the ones we're interested in and they're based around Aérospatiale, SA-341G "Gazelle", turbo-shaft powered civilian helicopters. This made both machines rare examples of near fully functional movie props, as even after conversion they could still manuever under their own power and flit around the LA skyline with surprising grace.

All the same, the helicopters had their limits, and miniature special effects take over for many situations like the famous loop-the-loop sequence, but it still counts for the amount of on-screen flying time the machines had.  The Video below demonstrates both flying machines visible at the same time, redressed for the later "Amerika" TV production.

Allegedly one of the original Gazelle Helicopters prior to conversion, serial numbered as 1066 and 1075 they were used by mining companies in the US prior to purchase for conversion.  I found this image on http://www.gregdonner.org where it was submitted by Bayard Lawes.

Design-wise, the rounded, optimised-for-aerodynamics styling of the basic Gazelle as shown above, wouldn't have cut it for illustrating this sinister, heavily armoured and featured-packed helicopter. Looking at the styling of the redesign, the AH-64 Apache Gunship - first flown in 1975 - must have had a massive influence on the canopy re-design and the overall mean and ugly facelift the aircraft received.

Designed in the early 70's by Hughes Helicopters to destroy well equipped Soviet opponents, this prototype YAH-64 basks in the sun, somewhere in the US. It's role shifted after the end of the cold war and is now more frequently employed against the types of targets that Blue Thunder was devised to deal with. 

The on-screen design is often erroneously credited to legendary set designer Mickey Michaels, but that doesn't make much sense, since he's a set designer.  Philip Harrison, credited as production designer for Blue Thunder is possibly, more likely, to be involved. The helmet controlled targeting system (very similar to the TADS of the Apache,) is named after him - The Harrison Fire Control System - HFCS.

This uncredited sketch apparently originally came from a company called "Cinema Air", I found it on http://www.gregdonner.org where it was submitted by Bayard Lawes.  Note what appears to be a padded material on the underside, radar absorbing material or flexible, kinetic energy absorbing armour?

Looking for answers I found the below video by Trailers from Hell, on Youtube, with commentary by the director himself, John Badham, which more or less credits Philip Harrison for the Blue Thunder helicopter design.

Badham also implies that the production team were perhaps unaware of the Apache, but I don't think it was a "Black Program" or hidden from the public during development, so I think its highly likely they would have studied images of the prototype Apaches and taken cues as appropriate, just look at the forward sensor arrangement, surely too close to be a fluke.

An ugly bug smoking a cigar, its just a cigar, not a big gun, no wait its a gun, especially when its smoking....

As well as a definitive answer on the designer, I've also had a hard time finding who built the conversion, some state that Hughes Helicopters made the conversion, but this seems to be incorrect, but its possible that they worked on the Hughes types also used in the production.

Bayard Laws, who owned and then sold one of the Gazelles tells his story over at gregdonner.org.

"I used to fly the original SA341 Gazelle (N777GH) which I sold to Columbia Pictures for the film. I delivered the ship from Detroit, Michigan to Cinema Air in Carlsbad, California, who fabricated the conversion to Blue Thunder."

Another company sometimes mentioned is R.W. Martin, in conjunction with these, a name that has cropped up for both the design and the build is aviator, effects specialist and aircraft restorer, Bill Yoak, who passed away earlier this year.  According to a thread at Warbirdinformationexchange.org, Bill worked for Aerospace Specialties, though at the time it may have been called The Metal Cage.  This Company also converted another Gazelle, and a Puma helicopter for Rambo 3.  Bill's son, aviator and stunt pilot Scott Yoak, credits his father with the design of blue thunder, and also claims that the design was directly inspired by the number two Apache prototype:

"This (Apache) taxied by dad's hangar one day and it inspired his design, note the #2, thats the second prototype apache that crashed."

Scott presently flies demonstrations in the P-51 Mustang his father built, which may be the finest Mustang flying. http://quicksilvermustang.com/Crew.html

A partially built Blue Thunder flyable effects prop. The Gazelle canopy has been cut away and a box section steel frame has been added to carry the plexi-glass window panels. Image courtesy Scott Yoak. 

It seems to be a case that there's a chain of companies sub-contracting to each other or dealing with separate elements of the purchasing and converting.  Whoever responsible, they surely understood that a machines purpose of existence informs the design - form following function is key to creating a plausible looking prop. This is as important as the concept of the machine itself - it must appear fit for its purpose or all suspension of disbelief is lost. Blue Thunder succeeds in spades, its brutal looking, super-cool in an ugly, scary, insectoid way. clearly it still flies, even if looking *just a bit* front heavy.

Badham, with his commentary in the Trailers from Hell video, also compares this chopper to a physical extension of an Orwellian state - and presumably only of use to such a state. Essentially, its form and features are tailored specifically to become the extension of totalitarian rule, and I think it appears as sinister as that implies.

He suggests that the prophecy of Blue Thunder has come to pass, in a sense, with the kinds of electronic surveillance perpetually going on all around us, such a vehicle today would be obsolete. Everyone presently reading this blog in 2013 might be using a digital, spiritual descendent of the Blue Thunder surveillance system via electronic interception of communication and the covert co-operation of the online services and software providers we choose to use, or not use.

All the same, an armed helicopter is capable of far more than passively monitoring and spying. So while Badham would still be correct about the need for such a machine to surveil citizens being diminished by modern technology, a strong arm might also still need to be employed by a fascist state or faction from time to time. Of course in order to accomplish this and still have the bulk of the population and armed forces on your side, certain scenarios would have to play out.

The movie Blue Thunder does not miss a trick here and in the absence of such a scenario appearing spontaneously, the project 'THOR' - Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response - is devised by a small group of conspirators who are also key players in the aircraft's testing and production program. To implement THOR itself is to engineer a tragic situation artificially, a race war, thus cementing the need for such a weapon in the eyes of the greater, less fascist branches of government and the unwitting population, justifying its usage.

We're never told why this is necessary, perhaps the group represents a government gone mad with power, or military industrialists seeking to clean up with lucrative contracts for more Blue Thunders.  Maybe they represent both, and demonstrate the kind of corrupting potential that the Military Industrial sector can have on governments.

Tellingly, Blue Thunder doesn't employ any active countermeasure systems and none are described in the text, as it does not expect to meet such sophisticated weapon systems. This leaves the machine vulnerable to true military vehicles. To make up for this deficit, Murphy twice uses heat sources found in the city environment to defeat heat seeking missiles launched by attacking F-16's, inflicting varying amounts of chaos on the city.  This lack of a countermeasure system confirms that its use is primarily against poorly equipped enemies, like domestic terrorists or the wider civilian population. 

This impressive aerial war machine has even more destructive power than Blue Thunder, but would be too large and too noisy for the types of missions that Blue Thunder was invented for. However it needed every ounce of its capabilities, and more, to defeat the US supplied heat seeking missile systems that armed Afghan soldiers in the 80's. After suffering numerous losses, The Soviet Army quickly added countermeasures dispensers to launch flares in an attempt to spoof this new threat away from the helicopters.

Chekhov's Gun.

The playwright Anton Chekhov once said:

"Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a 20mm rotary cannon hanging on the underside of the flying death machine, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

And so adhering strictly to this rule, throughout the early parts of the movie we are introduced to the various features of the Blue Thunder, which are all relevant later; we aren't shown anything that isn't later used and the helo probably has no capabilities beyond what is needed for the plot.  Lets talk about these features.  As well as one inch thick armour, easily capable of stopping rounds from small arms, the highly visible feature of Blue Thunder's ferocious Gatling style turret mounted cannon would provide a powerful visual deterrent to any insurgent or terrorist unlucky enough to be in its path.  It's hardly a surgical weapon per-se, but it could easily wipe out large numbers of clustered civilians, defeat fairly thick armour, or penetrate structures like civilian houses with ease. Perhaps it was simply to look cool on film, but it also conveys the extreme ideology driving its fictional inventors.

If you're a government and need to use this kind of firepower against your own people, you're doing something totally wrong, probably everything. Image courtesy Gary T Mason.

The crowd control: You're-doing-it-wrong style demo, set somewhere in the deserts of California, show the Blue Thunder helicopter using its cannon to carve up a street full of cardboard cut-out civilians and terrorists - blowing up cars and busses with little to no discrimination. Although the scene presented is one of saving the population from an imagined terrorist assault on the planned Olympic Games, as one of the sinister program directors quietly states to Murphy: "It wouldn't be used unless our worst case scenario came to pass, like armed insurrection, it's comforting to know you've got it on tap." 

I'm sure its great when you have these things "on tap," but careful it doesn't turn around and bite you on the...

This failure demonstrates to Murphy that the system is actually far from ideal for its stated role of protecting the population, and that its true purpose is likely more evil, and even less discriminate.  Murphy is clearly not impressed by this demo, or those in charge of the program.   Both the quoted statement above and the performance are contrary to the commentary provided by the evangelising army sergeant during the demo show.

Everything makes more sense in the presence of project 'THOR', and vital to Murphy exposing this plot are a pair of high-gain microphones which adorn the upper fuselage. Situated behind the canopy on a rotating mount they appear highly directional. There must be more to these than meets the eye, as they might have significant problems operating in a conventional way while so close to the engine and props.  There is a real world technology which projects a laser beam and optically measures distortion caused by air vibration which might be immune to these effects. Using this system a conversation can be heard clearly at long range, even through a closed, multiple layered or armoured window.  All the same, the underside would have been a far more logical place to mount these, just from the point-of-view of being able to aim them at a target beneath the chopper.

Twin mics on the upper fuselage, perhaps the other thinner probes are some kind of pitot tube and perhaps resemble the feelers on an insects head. note the second 'Thunder flying around in the background. Courtesy of Gary T Mason.

Blue Thunder also has a suite of cameras for seeing visible and infra-red light - a magic kind of Hollywood infra-red that can see through walls.  Some of these may be mounted in the electronics pods on the sides of the aircraft, these may also have something to do with the 'Whisper Mode' feature, which allows the craft to get close enough to use these systems effectively without alerting anyone in advance.

The electronics pods, or whatever they are, welcome to my definitive guide to Blue Thunder...  Courtesy of Gary T Mason.

Even more sinister, but more subtle, these weapon and surveillance systems are all tied together with an advanced avionics suite, which is networked to a central database - perhaps a data-link.  This database is something like the prototype of the NSA systems which we now know store all our details and monitor all our email, this system can even tell the chopper crew whether you're at home or not. Watching the movie today, this wizardry seems like mundane, primitive stuff but its essentially the same system that's being used right now.

Surf the Net like its 1982, because it is.  This is the network terminal in of the JAFO station, where the rear-seater umm, sits, and works the magical electronics arrays. There are many different systems for the back-seater but this console  allows crew to network with the central database, perhaps to also play some Space Invaders. Image courtesy Gary T Mason.

Although it plays no part in the movie and is never mentioned, a textured material, perhaps a kind of foam, conformally coats the ventral surfaces of Blue Thunder. This foam matches the positions of the padded looking surfaces in the sketch show earlier in the article, again this material may be armour, or something to enhance the machines stealth aspects by absorbing radar.

The foam covered underside, looking a little frayed, but the wear all adds to the effect and enhances the realism.  Image Courtesy Gary T Mason. 

Finally, the propulsion system is a bit mysterious with additional upper pods on either side of the central engine & gearbox, which appear like turbo-shaft engine nacelles from some angles, but are the wrong shape in cross section. Blue Thunder has a 'Turbo Boost' for its propulsion system so perhaps they have something to do with this? The "nacelles" are also hollow of machinery as shown several times in the movie, perhaps they're a kind of oddly shaped pulse-jet?  Otherwise it seems to rely on a single turbo-shaft engine, similar to the one used by the Gazelle but with a new cowling over the turbine, which seems made of the same material that coats the underside.

The Gazelle Turbo-shaft engine to the right, the boost-pods to the left, bearing the 02 marking. Image courtesy Gary T Mason.

Sadly, as with the fictional version, both real flying machines and the static mock-ups are now all considered to be destroyed. They were used for a while in other productions, a watered down TV show of the same name, MacGuyver, Amerika, a Wang Computers TV commercial, the cockpit mock-ups even appeared in FireFox, but at some point were either dismantled and sold for parts or left to rot in the Universal Studios backlot and finally scrapped.

Today, all the parts and pieces and technology one totally for real, from noise dampening airframe designs to sensors that can see through roofs, walls even.  We can even go much better and add active camouflage to the list of features and who knows what else.

It may be worth asking why no one has put something like this together. However, the essential fallacy of the Blue Thunder weapons system is very the reasoning behind its existence; it has no actual valid purpose, since a government should neither be secretly spying on its own population, or mowing them down with chain-guns. So ultimately while everything it does is practically possible, easy to accomplish even, it should be difficult to seriously propose such a machine for either purpose and get a government to allow its use, again hence the need in the film for the secret project THOR, to create a justification for the machines existence and usage.

Much has been revealed recently, of the very secretive monitoring of our communications by government agencies, and its been going on for a very long time.  Reaction has been a mix of shock, outrage, acceptance, even approval and to some it was merely a confirmation of what they already suspected.

With his Blue Thunder script and concept, Dan O'Bannon warned us about putting total faith in the powers that be; not everything they implement may be in our best interests, even if it seems that it is; or that one individual or small group can through negligence or design pervert these interests for their own ends. Even if we consider we have nothing to hide, even if there are some valid reasons for secretive letter and number agencies knowing every aspect of our lives, everything has a downside. Our governments are not infallible and the individuals who form them are flawed human beings just like the rest of us. From corruption to the commonplace hacking of government systems; malignant industrial influence or sheer incompetence like leaving laptops full of data on public transportation.

Whether you trust your governments with your data or not, who knows where it could end up. So it is perhaps not such a bad idea to place limits on what we let them know about us, and that's probably going to be our personal responsibility to try and stay ahead, we will only live in the Orwellian style state that O'Bannon feared if we allow it to happen.  However, if monitoring the people is kept secret, like in some fascist dictatorship like the USSR or North Korea; if we aren't informed about it, by our governments, by Google; Microsoft; et-al, then how can we even make that choice? Isn't democracy and a free market about the right to choose? How do we justify all of this?

Finally, lets add some near meaningless numbers to lighten the mood, a bit.

Scores in each category out of a maximum of 5.

Design: 4 - Totally conveys a sinister purpose with its mean looks and over the top cannon.

Speed: 2 - Quick enough off the mark to dodge an incoming sidewinder, but overall not a speed demon, unable to outrun either a fully loaded police Jet Ranger or an MD-500

Maneuverability: 4 - Capable of swift changes in direction and free travel in three dimensions with 6 axes of freedom, what could be more manueverable than a helicopter? It also was able to out-maneuver the same Jet Ranger and MD-500, to the point where they crashed and stalled out respectively.

Lethality: 3 - With its dastardly purpose and stealth systems, this is one bird you don't want sneaking up on you. Limited to cannon, no long-range or guided armament, but what a gun!

Practicality: 5 - Perfectly crafted for its heinous purpose, plausible and something you could really build.

Durability: 3 All over one inch thick armour is fairly impressive, but not impenetrable to anything heavy-duty enough. Also lacks any active defensive systems like ECM, flare dispensers etc.

Feel-Good Factor: 0 - Its systems were eventually put to good use by Murphy, but this really wasn't the machine's intended purpose and so do not count. Neither does anything from the far lighter TV series with Hightower from Police Academy, and Garth from Waynes World.

Dark-side Factor: 5 - Probably the most evil super vehicle devised, too evil to live.

Cool Factor: 4 - Coolness knows no ideological boundaries.

Total: A highly respectable 30 out of a maximum 45.

Thanks for reading, its taken a long time put this together so if you liked it at all please hit the share buttons below! I wish this could have been more definitive, as I know there is still some mystery here. Blue Thunder also dips into some heavy territory, which may be even more relevant today - normally I'd like to keep the blog more escapist and fun, but that's not the case here. Feel free to leave a comment if you'd like to add something, tell me how unbelievably wrong I am about something, or would like to suggest which super-vehicle to cover for the next article.

Catch you later....

Prometheus - Ridley Scott's new / old Epic?

I've been waiting for this for a long time, another good scifi horror in the vein of seminal classic: "Alien."

Is this movie going to live up to expectations? - Probably a near impossible task but at least the right name is at the helm.

First the above roughly 1 minute long trailer was released, quickly followed up by several more, I count at least 4 distinctly different trailers (though showing much the same thing)

"Imax" version

We also have the "international" version, which shows a few more extra snippets and is probably the definitive version of the trailer so far.

Warning: Conjectural spoilers Ahoy!

I've noticed one or two comments about whether this is the real movie, I guess there is always the chance it could have been some (VERY) elaborate fake to highlight some unknown FX team, and maybe that says more about the quality that amateurs and low budgets are capable of attaining with CGI  than anything, but there is something a little minimalist about it.

Maybe a reason why some commenter's found it a little unconvincing is that there is perhaps something a little in-congruent about the visuals combined with the more minimalist style of the first trailer:  The landscape in particular, Archeron's moon and Furina were the settings for the first 3 Alien movies; with the formers twilight cold and twisting (albeit plaster cast and matte) landscape and the latters fiery junk-yard, they maybe don't hold up so well today, but really looked like another world.  Much of the Prometheus trailer appears - as in [I]classic [/I]Dr Who style - to be set in a quarry, abeit a very large quarry.

A shot from the upcoming eagerly anticipated sequel to Joss Whedon's Serenity featuring a much larger Firefly mk2... Oh sorry, I mean Ridley Scott's eagerly antic... 

After years talk about another movie,  about going to the planet the Xenomorphs / Spacejockeys came from, and with the wonders of digitally extended sets and CGI; I had some crazy preconceived notion of an actually alien looking world, and perhaps other viewers were also expecting something a little more un-earthly?  Even the atmosphere looks earth-like, with a blue-ish tinge that gives away its apparently earth-like composition and clearly enough pressure to support cloud formations, which appear to be water vapour... Makes you wonder why the crew even need full suits... Perhaps they are merely being used as environment suits and there's nothing really stopping them from taking off the helmets and breathing, it really looks like that... So is it deliberately made to look Earth like for reasons of plot?

I'll be honest I'm really disappointed that I probably wont be feasting my eyes on a fully realised Giger designed world of epic scale with fully realised bio-mechanical cities.  This is all of course merely dressing, but part of the spectacle that make the classics so memorable.

What we can perhaps glean from this with regards to the story is that as well as looking a little bland in comparison, it perhaps indicates that the planet is simply an outpost, infact it may be Archerons moon / LV-426 - the planet on which all the trouble began in 1979.   Contrary to this analysis, the colour of the air and so on don't seem to indicate that planets 'Primordial' atmospheric soup, and there are lots of other things to suggest that its not quite the same place.

A shot of Prometheus (spacecraft) above the atmosphere of presumably the films destination planet.  Note the large planet partially occulting the systems star, indicating that our heroes are flying over a moon of a much larger planet.  Does this support the notion that both planets in both movies are the same? LV-426, the planet landed on in Alien and home to the crashed derelict from the first two Alien movies is also a moon of a gas giant type planet.  

However you perceive the location, seemingly on this quarry planet we have nothing other than an underground base / space-port, and perhaps one that has been long shut down.  Since the creatures that built it probably would have prevented the humans from breaking in or even landing in the first place, had they been awake. So perhaps the inhabitants are just sleeping as the humans do, to travel large distances or perhaps to await the results of an experiment started long ago.

I hope that not too much is set outdoors as the interiors and sets look fantastic, holding true to Alien in just the right way and clearly suggest this is the real deal.  In the human spacecraft, the layout of the soft cushioned panels and lines of the bulkheads are evocative of the Ron Cobb designed set, originally built at Shepperton studios in the late 1970's and long since destroyed.  The alien interiors are equally loyal to Giger's original concepts built for the Alien movie, and indeed for this aspect they may just be illustrating the exact same ship, or at least the same class of craft as that found derelict on LV-426 - if our quarry planet is the same place then its likely the same ship.

If it is the same place then the crew of Prometheus are far better equipped than the explorers who came later, whether these vehicles shown below will have the same kind of lasting appeal as the classic designs like the Colonial Marine vehicles from Aliens remains to be seen - or perhaps I simply can't see a thing behind my near opaquely rose tinted welding goggles.

Mostly looks like the set of  Bladerunner... Mostly. 

A beautiful backlit shot of a spectacularly seamless effect, but a very Earth-like world is revealed from behind the cargo door, also, needs more Giger.... 

Interviews with Ridley Scott from decade old alien DVD extras perhaps reveal some of the overall plot of this new movie. In particular his comments that the derelict spacecraft in Alien is in essence a 'bomber' or a 'carrier'.  Both military terms for a weapon which will drop the eggs to infest and destroy potentially competing civilisations.  The Xenomorphs that are produced from the infected population are  presumably just the right size to both deal with that population and also fit the structures that the population created;  your genetic weapon is useless if it doesn't fit through the target civilisations doorways. Crucially, the Xenomorph as an imperialist weapons system, like a neutron bomb or a biological plague, leaves those doorways and other infrastructure intact. Though if using that infrastructure is important, who then exterminates the bugs so that it becomes usable?

Maybe these guys also made the Yautja to fulfill that very role (i really hope not;))

This is what I think gives a real purpose to the facehugger concept: Beyond the parasitic, sexual horror aspects it autonomously ensures that you can seed many worlds with the same weapon and have it deal equally well on a physical basis with all sorts of populations. Anything that we would typically consider a humanoid or animal species that a facehugger can wrap itself around and snake a tube down.  It seems apparent after analysis of the trailer footage that perhaps here we might see a different creature with a similar parasitic, reproductive purpose.  I have not spotted any Xenomorphs or facehuggers beyond a slightly suspicious looking pile of parts in one shot - a shot which otherwise appears to reveal nothing at all. And I think there are several reasons why they are not in this movie, and which might partly because related demographic concerns as much as anything.  It certainly seems that while the tone is very similar to the Alien movies, and certain elements remain, other elements have been quitely dropped or replaced with other, perhaps less offensive things... More about that later.

So the Space Jockeys (or is it Spacejockeys?) are considered (though never explained in canon) masters of genetic manipulation, and this has been a constant theme throughout the Aliens franchise.  Combined with this, the "Ancient Aliens" theme, much derided in the most recent Indiana Jones is apparently in full effect here, and the story will likely deal with issues regarding creation myths and perhap the realisation that Humans, Jockeys and Xeno's are more closely linked than had previously been suggested.

In the legend Prometheus defied the gods and drew their anger, with a theft of information as much as anything, Our Human participants in this story logically would occupy the role of Prometheus, so does that make the Alien Space Jockeys the Gods?  Note that in one of the scenes a large human face is built into one of the sets and its not just an excuse to put another giger designed set into the movie. The face is a set peice in a room filled with identical vaguely egg shaped canisters... Perhaps containing Human, umm, stuff? Or whatever that ooze is... something specifically meant for the humans? Clearly something was there, waiting to be found by humans (as one of the characters says in the extended trailer - "it's more of an invite")

It's pure guesswork but I think this subtly suggests the room has something specifically for the humans...;) Seems implied that this is the source of the infection that seems to grip some of the characters, and perhaps a small creature that fits inside those truncated vessels.  Also, Gigers artwork here makes for as powerful an image as ever.

Is this character manipulating one of the "creatures" from a sample container?  This container is about the same diameter as the truncated 'eggs' in the above screen.  These may be the same creatures seen slithering inside space suits in the international trailer, forget the 'ooze' I think its really these little beasties that fulfil the facehugger role here and the ooze is simply a secretion, and nod to the sticky gunk left everywhere by Xenomorphs. 

Perhaps the entire facility they discover really is an elaborate genetic trap, either to transform the Humans into something else (clearly there is some sort of disease at least represented and possible mutation) or kill them off entirely.  If the alien ship, already described as a 'bomber' is taking off and heading for Earth and the human characters have to stop it, yeah its an old cliche really, but it's obviously not going there for the health of humanity as we know it.

to sum up so far, for those brave souls who have ventured thusfar into this impossibly long winded post I now present the plot of Prometheus revealed! with pictures, and for extra fun, I'll turn to my good friend Erich "Ancient Aliens" Von Daniken. No stranger to speculation about the various otherworldly creatures who have visited mankind, remember he merely asks questions...

Has these alien species known to Alien franchise fans as "The Space Jockeys", masters of genetic manipulation; long ago created man or perhaps interfered with life on this planet?  - I ask the question and science does not respond. 

A Space Jockey craft lurking in the fog over this waterfall?  Is this Earth? There is vegetation visible in this shot (though barely visible due to lighting and heavy colour processing) 

Supporting this theories, at the beginning of the long trailer we see a large object, a Oo-FO type thing  with an apparently irregular but overall oval shape hovering over a waterfall, we also see a man, he must be a primitive man, perhaps twenty to thirty-thousand years old and science cannot disprove this.  He is unprotected with no visible technology or clothings standing  near the same waterfall with some strange 'things' crawling around under his skin. I ask the question that science refuses to answer; Do these things have relatings? is this the start of the genetic manipulations or some kind of software update for the DNA, like my laptop? It no longer works after apple update and SCIENCE insists it will not assist me in fixing it unless I switch to a real computer. 

 Up on the ridge visible in the previous shot, this appears to be earth as there is vegetation and running water in this scene along with a bald unprotected human male who is perhaps standing under where the spacecraft is.  The theme of alien creatures getting under the skin of the characters seems to play out later on in the trailer.

Was this perhaps to a create new weapons systems, or something that would benefit these aliens, or as we, as primitives would call them, the Gods who came from the skies.  

I suggest that which science will plainly not accept today; that they not only created us but left big clues behind to show *US*, where the ancient libraries may be hidden

Some kind of clue? A Scientist when stopped in the street and asked this exact question in a made up alien language refused to confirm, or even deny...

I ask the obvious question, is this the obvious trap? Science feels ostracised and misunderstood.

It appears that the planet is not the seat of their civilisation and never was.  For some reason this alien equipment was left there so that any race discovering it would be destroyed autonomatically and therefore would we would never be capable of threatening the Gods of our ancestors. They are fearful of us as science fears the truths! 

God? -  Erich

Once Humans awaken the facility everything for them seems to go badly wrong, is it a sign that we have become too advanced to be easily controlled by our gods? Or a sign that their experiment is concluded? Science again is timid and uncooperative.


The Gods have but one option: Destroy the Humans before it can infest the galaxy and undercut all their manufacturing industry. Science has tried his best rid the Earth of us, but still we the Humans exist, Ultimately the gods will do no better. The remainder of the movie deals with preventing the aliens from preventing our aforementioned ruining of the galaxy with our terrible ways.  


The final ramming of the ship of the gods with the Human ship indicates what science stubbornly resists confirming, that it is a very good day to die. 

In order to destroy the alien space craft it is necessary to manually shoot proton torpedoes into the small thermal exhaust port, right above the three main Vaginas.   Not sure if the damaged area is shown in Alien - if they are the same vessels then there might be some continuity between visibly damaged areas.  It also appears to land in basically one piece (as the alien derelict is shown in one piece), despite crashing down at an odd angle... I guess its just really, really strong.

(It is also revealed in the International trailer that the ship tips into its resting position as seen in Alien and the damaged section  - the hole punched by Prometheus would be more or less hidden in that position.) 

So, thanks Erich, surprised to hear you quoting the Klingon at the end there.

Prometheus seems to tell a tale of similar scope to 2001, perhaps the first movie to deal with the Theme of Ancient Aliens, but the outcome is not so much about expanding our perceptions through a spiritual transformation or merely alerting the creators, but perhaps just automatically killing the Humans for knowing too much or becoming too powerful. Or, possibly like 2001, rather than destroy the Humans with the bomber, its purpose is genetic alteration which also is clearly not desirable to the bulk of the films surviving characters at that point.  But really I'm not keen on the concept of luring humans somewhere, under their own power just to see if they can do it and offing them if they do, it would see at that point the cat is out of the bag anyway, so rather than destroy it implies a more complex relationship which ties back in with themes of genetic manipulation.

There is certainly an aspect of mutation implied in the trailer (duh!) of the characters physically becoming something different, clearly shown at several points it's likely that at least one Human is transformed into what has been commonly thought of as a different species, the Space Jockey, and therefore there might be an entirely different class of species running the whole show.

I wonder if there will be some sort of dialogue between the Human characters and what appears at one point to be an alive Space Jockey, are they the gods of this plot or simply a transformed human puppet?

A Navigation room, perhaps the same one as shown in Alien, with the scope of a partially deployed Navigation chair (the big phallic seat/scope thing from Alien that the 'Space Jockey' is seen residing) which rises, devoid of occupant,  from the centre of this space, in another shot this male is seen striding toward the empty chair.   I'm fairly sure those bio-mechanical features on the large males body are not the standard  Human-tech suit or any human tech at all.


Are all the crew infected? Presumably there is at least one survivor - I already hope it isn't Theron, perhaps unfairly so as she doesn't seem to do much in the trailer.  but there are no shots showing her in anything other than a perfect state of health. perhaps boarding an escape pod at one point, several of the characters, like the one below appear to be 'gonners' in the trailer already. 

Alien infection or  an application of Tan-in-a-Can gone horribly wrong?

What is the other alien looking humanoid that we only see from the waist down? Is this the same creature as depicted in this image sequence? Again I feel this is likely a transformed Human being - one of the crew of Prometheus, transformed by some parasitic intervention, rather than a distinct new species, perhaps the Space Jockey (pictured below) is not what it appeared to be in Alien (see captions)  but time will tell I suppose.

The dark almond shaped eyes and hint of a nasal trunk bear a striking similarity to the 'head' of a Space Jockey, it looks slightly formless and empty like flexible leather helmet, like the ones George Lucas keeps in his underpants drawer. 

A mutated Humanoid strides toward an empty navigators seat.

Perhaps following from the above shot, is this a bona-fide "Space Jockey" a Human, or modified Human in a suit? Note how structures like the large ribs  that appeared to be all part of the same creature in Alien all appear to be part of a seat restraint system instead, which in motion appear to be closing in on the humanoid... Earlier in the trailer a human seems to be standing near a deploying version of a empty 'navigators chair'  If this sequence is taken at face value it is to be expected then that this production might re-write some well established rules and preconceptions of the Alien-savvy audience.

Perhaps the Xenomorphs that terrorised Ellen Ripley over the course of 3 good movies and one **** one (To save arguments I'll leave it to the viewer to decide which was the **** one) don't even exist at this point in the aliens universe history. Which would certainly explain their complete absence in this trailer, perhaps the efforts of the Prometheus crew somehow created the Xenos as a side effect, or maybe thats what it was all about, all along, a plan laid out by some smug higher being.  I would certainly like this to be true as it would totally scupper the back story to those awful AVP movies.

Despite any reservations about how it fits with other stuff, the possible cliches in the plot, the trailer clearly represents a mystery and the movie will hopefully enrich a classic franchise while not really being a part of it, or something.  I just hope there is a really interesting story as Prometheus so far looks like the grand adventure, more than the "Seven Little Indians" of Alien but seems to tread some of the same ground, albeit in a slightly different form.   I've had no doubt all along  that this movie would be very closely tied with the Aliens films and perhaps Ridley being somewhat evasive (and even continuing to be) about this is more political than anything or he's simply having some fun.

I hope that with solving some of the mysteries surrounding the Jockey ship as the movie appears bound to do, it doesn't detract at all from the earlier sequels by spoiling what remains of the air of mysticism that has always surrounded the series.  Alien is an important movie and quickly became part of our modern culture, its slick style and slogans like: "In space, no one can hear you scream" emulated by all sorts of imitators. One of the great enduring things about it, keeping the orginal movie relevant as with 2001, is that not all is explained and discussions between fans of what the creatures really are and where they really come from will perhaps be eroded or obliterated by a new reality imposed on the audience by this movie.  Many preconcieved notions of these creatures origins by long term fans will have to be thrown out of the window as it inevitably narrows a wide range of possibility into one definate mythology - indeed already has with the recent trailers.  This aspect has been completely untouched in the canon for as long as the franchise has existed, safe from the fumbling hands and strange ideas of the incompetants who were involved in making the later movies the low rent souless movie trash that they truely were.  Fitting then, that if this has to be done; if the gods of studio economics feel the world is ready to cash out to see such a work, that it is the seminal director for Alien who will now expand upon on these ideas that he originally helped to craft and who will finally be held responsible if it turns out to be awful.  I also feel that Sir Ridley Scott offers the production considerably more weight than any other director could possibly give it, which should improve its acceptance with the long term fans who seem to be enthralled with how this is developing.

Ultimately I think its something that most fans of the Aliens series will want to see even if just to learn more of the backstory to Alien, but then if you're all the way down here in this post then you already knew that, what are you; desperate for a decent sci-fi movie or something? Well its not like hopes have been dashed before about a prequel movie... *cough* Phantom Menace *cough* I'm not being too cynical when I say the movie is being crafted to make money, it is being crafted to suit a much wider audience than Alien, thats just logical, movie making in hollywood is a business so it stands to reason that investors want a large return on their investment.  I'm sure no one really knew how Alien was going to turn out and the studio mostly thought it would flop, how wrong they were.

As suggested by retired Fox executive Sandy Lieberson in one of Dennis Lowe's excellent "Alien Makers" documentaries, back in the late 70's, movies were not crafted so much by demographics as they were today. Even large budget "A" feature movies were apparently still created as more of an art than a science.  Infact as it turned out, while a popular franchise, even the most popular editions of the Alien saga never attained universal popularity as Star Wars or other less edgy productions because certain demographic groups utterly hated the entire series. I'm pretty sure this is one great reason why we wont see any face rape, explosive birthing fatalities or overtly penis headed monsters in this movie: Facehuggers with suggestive features are now worm like snakes that burrow under the skin and instead of skinny tall aliens with ribbed wang shaped craniums we are apparently presented with mutating Humans, which presumably aren't going to end up looking like the Xenos in shape for the aforementioned reasons.  But these things still perhaps fill roughly the same sorts of roles as the earlier entities.

Of course there is that thing apparently built into a wall, but even that has had the shape altered and is clearly not a Xenomorph, but like the Xenomorph, follows the same 'Necronom' pattern, as developed by Giger prior to working on the first movie.

As movies have sought to cast a wider and wider net over the last few decades, and how to do this through analysis of demographics and focus groups over an additional 30 years (of successive topping of box office records) they have perhaps naturally become dumbed down, in order to not offend a particular group or appear off putting.  Now more than 30 years later, can Prometheus tick all the demographic boxes needed to pull in a fresh audience, make it successful for the studio while also satisfying the fans and not completely ruin the back story to a popular pre-existing series backstory in the process? Should you or science care if it has the "Aliens" or not in it? No, not a bit as that aspect has already been done to death, cloned from some skin cells and after several failed attempts is now reborn as Ripley Eight Prometheus.

I'll finish with a link to trailer of  the 1979 classic Alien, back from the era when extra stuff was shot just for the trailer it seems, including what resembles an Ostrich or Dinosaur egg on a cracked plaster moonscape which looks nothing like the actual thing in the movie.  No doubt to keep the actual egg it fresh for when you actually paid up (hope they put it in the fridge! ho ho ho).