Alien franchise "canon"

Hyper Nova, good luck with your glowing new career in International Relations. LOL!

The only films are canon are Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 (maybe) Alien Resurrection and the new game Aliens Colonial Marines is also canon to the series. The others: Aliens comics, novels and the AVP stuff They were just made for money not made to be canon.

@ hypernova Near everything you wrote in your last post here makes good sense to me, yet selling the idea that the queen was there on lv426 for a long long time does not. I mean if they add that aspect into Prometheus sequals, than of course it would hold, but as of right now there is nothing to point us in that direction. Quoting Ridley(which contradicts some of my previous posts on other threads), the cavern under the derelict was not a cavern, but a cargo hold, storing a bio weapon of some kind. He goes on the say that he always saw it to be that way and that the jockey was a victim of its cargo. The question for me would be,"why have a queen along for the ride?"

Whats with the sarcasm FreePlanet, its just not necessary. Yet another example of attacking someone for no justifiable reason because that is easier then trying to flesh-out what they are proposing instead. Your just a kid, a little boy. Try being a young man for a change and you'll notice the diference - as will I.

Hyper Nova, "Both life cycles co-exist for the Alien xeno, it is capable of either-or. The Queen was already in existence while the events of Alien were unfolding its just we never see her." that's the reason for my 'boyish sarcasm'. A film with ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for a Queen and there ya go INVENTING one, just like Cameron did - evoking Satan for his own nefarious purposes etc. Alien was PURE (elusive, biomorphic, alluring like a vampire) and there was no need for a Queen. Even with a PLANET-full of aliens, doing what they did, on their homeworld, preying, parasitic. The eggs-morphs could have been planted on the floor aeons ago by an ALIEN RACE vowing to escape 'some sort of tragedy on their homeworld' like a NOAH'S ARK or something, sacrificing themselves to make as many egg casings as possible In my mind, when a human becomes an EGG he is in a praying position, hands together, that's where the FACEHUGGER comes from - hands and spinal column. No need for Queen, just a desperate race of loners coming together (ha, sounds like the internet). Though the laser mist still gives me a problem, unless that was a property of the original derelict's security. And we STILL need to know who the original GANESHA-like elephant race was, because I'm still of the opinion that Engineers back-engineered the Space Jockey for themselves i.e. Prometheus didn't even answer THIS question; this fundamental question for its existence as a project, thirty years later. :)

@ Freeplanet and hypernova You both have ideas that with an open mind I would consider intriguing. However, both are speculation and personal interpretation. It's hard for me to understand where sarcasm and defensive reactions come from when both of your ideas are equally stretching the implied story lines. I would like to make it clear though that both of your ideas or opinions are intriguing and post interesting ideas about where a Prometheus sequal will go. @ Hypernova....will you elaborate on why you feel the queen has always been their? Obviously a lot of die hard fans think the queen was an abomination to the franchise. I believe it was a logical next step for a writer to take and consider the queen to be canon.

O.k. I will tell you. With regards to the Space Jockey, the film makers of Alien wanted to indirectly introduce us 'the human race' both as characters and viewers alike to a near Humanoid race that has already befallen tragically to the intentions of the Xeno that were later made abundantly clear during the unfolding events of Alien. It was put there as a warning from history, inter-stellar, galactic history more to the point. It can be a good bet to make an educated guess with objective, use your head reasoning that what ever emerged from the SpaceJockey may have been the 'cause' for the cargo left aboard The Derilct; a process that was mirrored with Kanes 'infection' and subsequent birthing ordeal. The Space Jockies remains, whetther fossilized or otherwise, serves as a reminder to us that this is the fate that awaits any and all other beings in the galaxy whom have the unfortunate concequence of happening upon this Derilict space craft or this organism as a whole. But, the organism in question is capable of multiple life cycle 'get-out clauses' should evolution be steering their species towards extinction. It seems more than likely that what the producers were trying to suggest was that some being had emerged from the Space Jockey and 'caused' all of the eggs down in the silo to be laid - a queen xeno in this case. The next possibility is that the 'cargo' was already in exsistance and the Space Jockey got infected after the fact. But that could still have been a Queen and made its way out of the Derilict and set up a hive elswhere and never returned to the Derilict to retrieve the eggs for reasons unknown. She is away doing her thing perhaps in a cave or something but she was 'birthed' from the Space Jockey as in a former set of events playing out the life forms in the Space Jockies possesion were then isolated from the proximity of their main colony so their natural instinctive cycle of life went into over drive and began spawning a queen parasite/embryo post-facehugging the SJ. 'She' hatches and thus a whole new colony can be built, later on down the generations the events of Prometheus an Alien play out which then lead into Aliens and the later films in the franchise and so now here we are currently debating the time line 'canon' for posterity. This is why I can say it is moe than likely she has been in exitence for quite a while, perhaps not millions of years, not even hundreds of thousands of years or tens of thousands of years for that matterand maybe not even just merely thousands of years but certainly i would be confident to say many centuries at least - several, that would suit the 'tone' and condition the Derilict was found in. perhaps many more at a stretch but I would find it compelling that the Derilict had been around for much longer than that as it would add to the end of a species plight. Their tradegy is now to become our tradegy soon should we continue exposure with the alien organism.

"It seems more than likely that what the producers were trying to suggest was that some being had emerged from the Space Jockey and 'caused' all of the eggs down in the silo to be laid - a queen xeno in this case." The problen with this HyperNova, is that the queen concept was an invention of Cameron well after the first film was in the can and on the screen. It was never orginally intended for there to be a queen/hive biology to this organism. As it was originally conceived and written, the alien used its victims as a central part on an entirely new means of procreation: The body of said victim is cocooned and covered in a bile-like secretion that transforms its organic matter into a new egg. There was never any hint of the queen/hive biology in the original concept, script, shooting script or finished print of [i]Alien[/i]. If anything, the finished theatrical cut merely omits that aspect of the organisms life cycle. It doesn't definitively display that aspect either way...so to suggest that the producers suggested this notion of the newly born alien laying the eggs in the cargo hold just isn't right.

Now, at this juncture, you have to just be willing to marry the Alien cycle now with the Aliens cycle and put it in your mind that this is the capacity of this life form and bring yourself to accept both procreation cycles as redundancy to the other. It does both and has done ever since it has been in existence...

Canon aside, last night I watched Blade Runner and noticed something I had not noticed before...the dcut does not have Deckards narrative. Theatrical cut does, dcut does not. No big deal really, but it shows that for whatever reason, sometimes the director adds or removes aspects for whatever purpose they see fit. In Alien theatrical there are scenes or aspects of scenes that have been removed for the dcut and visa versa. When the theatrical version was cut, who knows, maybe the intention was for us the audience to assume that the creature that birthed from the jockey was responsible for the eggs in the "cavern". Yet!...Ridley says that the cavern was a cargo hold and the jockey was a victim of the cargo. It makes me think that during the time of Alien production, there was no thought of a sequal. Ridley had two choices: 1. Put together the old team or 2. Let the story go to the next guy...Cameron(not that he could predict this). Alien was just that...A L I E N. Whether it be the Nostromo or the derelict, the jockey or the alien, the face hugger or the chest burster, the planet or the stellar location and finally, the story and how we were to perceive it...it was just plain alien and out of this world.

I do see where you're coming from, each so-called: 'cut' is left open to interpretation which is ultimately dictated by what is left in and what is taken out, then perhaps re-istated for posterity at a later given date.

I have an idea, but similar to how I started the thread, it's just an idea and open to interpretation and debate. Until a writer/director contradicts what we have seen in the theatrical releases, I am going to assume that introductions such as the cocooning sequence are not canon as far as the lifecycle goes. After all ridley may have said that the cocoon was consuming Dallas and Brent, but he never said they were being turned into eggs...albeit it looks that way. The queen in my mind is canon. Did the queen lay the eggs in the derelict? That could be open to interpretation, after all, that question has never been answered by any of the movies. Canon is a funny thing and can be argued from many angles. When I first posted my desires for stories such as pred 2 and newts tale to be alien canon, some responses were to say that pred and avp etc are not canon...bottom line. This is probably true, yet where the preds are not canon to alien, the trophy room dictates that the alien does exist in the predator universe. Again, it seems that it is up to our interpretation until the writers decide to contradict the known storyline.

just for the record, I'm with Craigamore. I also, don't agree with the re-issued dictats in Guidelines that allows ANY OLD CRAP to be called 'canon' and not be called on. There are two forms of canon; original and adapted -- for me, there was ENOUGH in 'original', without the need to conflate and convolute the 'mythology'. As far as 'adapted' was concerned, "The best part of the post-Alien canon was AVP."

What is the point of having a discussion about "canon", when most people adhere to there own definition of what they consider to be "canon" based upon their own opinions and tastes.

If you consider the cameron adding the Queen not canon, tell me who laid all the eggs inside the spaceship where Kane gets facehugged. A drone of "Kane's sons" size couldn't POSSIBLE lay eggs of that size. If not the Queen then who?

@ snorkelbottom The point of having a conversation about canon is to work out the various perceptions, feelings etc so as to help educate those who are not quite sure what to believe. Right now as it stands, the many movies, books and games have created a universe that does not necessarily contradict itself, but shows clear signs of being a convoluted mess. Until Peter Weyland came around in Prometheus, I was thinking that Charles Weyland and Ms. Yutani from AvP were intended to be canon. Now I am more of the belief that neither really play a part in the universe to come. I always took the comics to reflect certain points of canon, yet at this point I doubt it. The predator 2 trophy scene was so cool when I first saw the movie, but now I am thinking maybe I should look at it as a "just for fun teaser". I didn't realize that there was a cocooning scene until recently, so as you can imagine, I am a little confused as to what is what. At no point have the various writers made clear what the real scoop is, so, I leave it to us, the community to decide. If we could stay on target with the original attempted idea I had for this thread, we would all have looked into our memories of all the various aspects of the franchise and maybe, just maybe we would have added and removed a few things we liked and disliked. Example: I posted my desire to have the trophy room be the first time a human viewed a xeno skull....in a long time anyway. I posted that with the introduction of the queen, I would prefer that the cocooning scene be just what it was, cut out. I posted that Newt's Tale would make a nice buffer between alien and aliens. All that I propose is that members look into their memories for things they liked about the WHOLE franchise and try to piece things together that allow for symmetry in the overall story. Canon if you will. I may not have worded my ideas very well when stating the thread, but as things have progressed, I made my desire for this thread clear. If everyone wants to argue, then argue away. I am trying to get everyone who has the desire to write up a post to reach in there deep and tell us what they liked and disliked about ALL of it. I will bet that many of you can bring up points and ideas that I am not familiar with...I am excited to hear them.

Wiplazh, if the original ALIEN xenomorph can exude 'stuff' to transform Dallas and Brent into EGGS, and decorate Giger-style all around it (so it has something to feed on? (so that the egg has 'lungs' or whatever lungs are for an alien? (so that its race can continue on?))) Remember, at this point in the original ALIEN, the alien realises that 'there aren't too many crewmembers left, and Ash won't taste good or be regurgitatable as 'scenery' or 'egg-making bile' ... and here's an aside, why the alien shoot its second mouth into the frontal lobes? COLLAGEN ... yeah, that stuff ladies get sucked out of their asses and inected into their lips. That was never explored in alien, either, though it's true. Maybe my romantic idea of the alien being a(n X-Files) TOOMS type character, readying himself for hibernation via those few eggs isn't too far fetched after all. THE SHIP ON LV-426 FULL OF EGGS? Well that, to me, looks like a whole clan of aliens sending their legacy out into the stars using the ELEPHANTINE Space Jockey hyperspace telescopers -- believe me, they intended to land on LV-426. :)