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Before he stumbled on the xenomorph eggs, Kane came across the fossilized corpse of a larger alien from a different species- was this alien supposed to be from the same species as the engineers in Prometheus?

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Alien was around for decades before Prometheus was conceived. The Space Jockey (as it is usually called) in Alien was intended to be a mysterious alien spaceship pilot, integrated into the cockpit in a manner very unlike earthly biology or technology. The characters, and the audience, learn nothing more about it. It is deliberately left as an unexplained, unexplored mystery.

In Prometheus, an Engineer emerges from an essentially identical “chair”, implying that he is the type of being that was in there all along.

This was a retcon. I would not say that the Space Jockey was “supposed to be” a Prometheus Engineer from the point of view of Alien, but it seems to be the explicit intention of Prometheus to assert that they are “supposed to be” the same.

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    +1 and also: It is deliberately left as an unexplained, unexplored mystery... a pity they later decided to explore the mystery and it turned out to be so disappointing. Ideally I would leave the Alien(s) universe alone, but if it must continue, I really hope Engineers go the way of midichlorians. Commented Jan 9 at 17:58
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    @AndresF. Sometimes the question is more interesting than the answer. That the Space Jockey was obviously inhuman, almost unrecognizable, yet clearly an advanced life form made the universe seem huge and us a tiny part of it. That it should be an obviously humanoid dude with a historical link to our planet makes the universe seem tiny and our part in it huge. A very different effect, making this, in my opinion, a drastic and unfortunate retcon. Commented Jan 11 at 2:20
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    I completely agree with you. You've articulated exactly how I feel. Commented Jan 11 at 2:22

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