Facehugger question

[Cranyx]

Just watched Alien and something confused me. The facehuggers seem specifically sized to fit a human head, which would be fine regularly, there could very well be similarly sized creatures in space, but the creatures (or what little we see of what's left of them/it) is much larger than a human. It just does not seem that a facehugger would properly fit around their head which is about twice the size of ours.

Could someone explain this to me?

 

[FilipJPhry]

First, it's Science FICTION. Some stuff doesn't need explaining.

Theoretically speaking, the face-huggers' biology is designed to clamp on other things other than their own kind. Their limbs could have some sort of super glue on them until they laid their offspring into the stomach. What weirds me out is that the resulting Xenomorph offspring that comes out depends on the biology of the host. Predator vs Alien is what I'm referring to. What if they attached themselves to a gorilla?

 

[MisterShine]

Could someone explain this to me?

Doesn't need to fit around the head, really. Just needs enough for its "feet" to cling to, and a throat to wrap its tail around, threatening the host with strangulation if it pulls it off before its done doing its thing.

For example, in the 3rd Alien the facehugger grabs a dog. A dogs mouth/throat is nothing like ours, yet the facehugger manages.

Also it seems in Prometheus we'll get to see the Jockey (the alien you see dead in the chair) in action.

 

[Cranyx]

a) I like to ignore anything in the series that takes place after Aliens (ESPECIALLY AVP)

b) "It's science fiction you don't have to explain shit" is a horrible response. I'm someone somewhere has asked even the most mundane of questions relating to scifi, I think this is a decently valid one.

 

[tippy2k2]

http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Facehugger

Boom. Here's your answer. Don't want to look there? Good thing you've got your buddy Tippy2K2 to paraphrase!

The creature is not designed to attack Xenomorphs, it is designed to attack creatures that are roughly human sized (dog in Aliens 3 and Predator in AvP for other examples). IF it comes across a creature that is not human sized, facehuggers swarm like ants to take the creature down and then force feed the embryo using just their inner-tail things. If the creature is REALLY big, evidently the facehugger itself could just crawl down it's throat to deposit it's alien goodness.

Also, the creature in that you see is indeed a Jockey (or Mala'kak as they're officially known as apparently according to the article below), NOT a Xenomorph

http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Jockey

The bit that is important for your question:

"The scene inside the derelict's interior with the Jockey pilot was, according to the writers, an essential scene, although the Fox production company wanted to pull it from the movie for cost reasons. Eventually the filmmakers won and the scene was filmed, the Space Jockey and interior being built full-scale by Giger."

 

[DoPo]

Well, there are some hints that the xenomorphs aren't entirely "natural" - they might have been genetically engineered in some way for the facehuggers to "fit" onto heads roughly similar to human's. It's just some bad luck they are perfect fit for us, too. Alternatively, they may have evolved to this form - we see that the space jockey is sort of humanoid-ish, the Yautja even more so, and then there are humans. Maybe the other alien species aren't that different.

But, at any rate, it is shown that the facehuggers can work with anything, really, so the fact that they fit perfectly on the face of people may be just a coincidence. Or, you know, just creative license to make them more icky.

 

[Cranyx]

I apparently misunderstood, I didn't think the creature in the chair WAS a xenomorph, because well, it looked nothing like them. In fact they said it exploded from the inside, implying that there was a chestburster. It seemed that there was a crew of whatever was in the chair and the xenomorphs took over.

 

[DoPo]

No, the space jockey isn't (as far as anybody knows) a xenomorph. But it is a different race than the humans and predators, hence a viable target for face rape surprise sex by the xenos. Whether the xenomorphs were genengineered or just evolved, their targets are roughly the same in anatomy - same enough for the facehuggers to work on them all.

 

[CAPTCHA]

Part of the reason the Alien is so successful is that it inherits a portion of its hosts DNA so that it can better adapt to its hunting groud and prey. The larval face huggers are no different in that they are bred to match potential hosts. In the case that a strain of Aliens encounter a species they are not suitably adapted towards they will take more extreme approach to implantation, such as having drones forcefully afix face huggers to incapacitated prey or direct insertion of the embryo.

 

[Nouw]

Spoiler: Prometheus spoilers

Have you ever considered that head being a helmet? And again, watch Prometheus, it'll probably answer your questions about the pilot. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to leave before real spoilers arrive.

There are heaps of hybrid aliens. Mantis aliens, gorilla aliens, predaliens...just go on xenopedia.