Director Ridley Scott is returning to the Alien franchise he launched back in 1979.  Over 30 years later and now Scott is directing the prequel and revealed to MTV that it will be set 30 years prior to the events of the first Alien movie.  Said Scott:

"It's fundamentally about going out to find out 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle - there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair. Remember that?"

Indeed we do, Mr. Scott.  Hit the jump for what he had to say about creating a new female protagonist, having original artist H.R. Giger come up with some new designs, and setting up the backdrop of humanity's terraforming of planets.

The Alien franchise created one of the all-time best female protagonists with Ellen Ripley.  Will they do it again?  Scott says probably:

"Well, the main character [in the prequel] will be a woman, yeah.  We're thinking it could go down that route, yeah. When I started the original 'Alien,' Ripley wasn't a woman, it was a guy. During casting, we thought, 'Why don't we make it a woman?'"

Of course, if the protagonist is the a woman, I think we already have a fair idea of "who the hell was that Space Jockey?"  Then again, it's a prequel.  I think it's fair to say that the xenomorphs are going to give Space Jockeys the business.

Speaking of the xenomorphs, Scott says that H.R. Giger's original designs for the creatures are "worn out" and he would like to collaborate with the artist on coming up with something "completely different."  I think that's a fantastic idea.  For all the silliness of human-alien and predator-alien hybrids, I would like to see new creatures within the xenomorph world.  We know our face-huggers, chest-bursters, full-grown creatures, and the queen, but what other horrors does this species hold?

Finally, Scott provided a broad idea of the film's set-up:

"[The film] is about the discussion of terraforming -- taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life," he explained. The initiative will be led by the Weyland Corporation, an early iteration of the Weyland-Yutani Corp. that causes so many problems throughout the series. "Weyland hasn't joined Yutani yet, so they go and see Weyland."

Just a shot in the dark here, but I'm going to bet that they'll want to harvest the alien for financial gain.  In their defense, it's a prequel so they wouldn't know what a horrible idea that is.