For the first time in almost a decade, an Aliens story will be featuring in Dark Horse Presents, it has been announced:
The story is written by John Layman and the artwork is being done by Sam Keith. It was also revealed back in July that these pair would be working on a new Aliens series. Whether this is related to that series is unknown at the moment.
Liam Sharp’s novella, Alien – Fast Track to Heaven, was also recently released. You can find that online or in your local comic shops. Look out for news of an upcoming 2nd novella.
I didn't know that about the origins of egg-morphing and the derelict scenes, it's very interesting. I do recall the eggs being scattered around very hive-like, and the floor had sticky resin covering it, but I always assumed it grew from the eggs.
The egg-morphing is very alien, but it seems like the queen made the alien a more dangerous and rapidly-producing organism. In my personal opinion, I like to think that all of the life-cycles apply to the alien, they're just for different circumstances to ensure survival.
hanks for sharing your knowledge of the movies, I enjoy learning new things about them after all of these years. I'm too cheap to get the Anthology, only have the Alien Triple Pack from Wal-Mart Shame on me.
While those are valid points, the "crew is the eggs" intention is actually what was intended by the egg-morphing scene when they were making the movie. The original filmmaker's intention was that the audience was supposed to see the egg-morphing scene and make the connection that that's where eggs come from, and therefore all the eggs on the Derelict were once living beings that got egg-morphed. I'm not just making that up off-the-cuff as an alternate interpretation, that's literally the point of the egg-morphing scene according to the creators.
Keep in mind that the hole Kane descends through isn't a natural hole, it's got burnt and corroded edges all around that look like acid-scarring. It's not like it was an intentional hatch or ladder descending into the cargo hold. Also, the eggs aren't in neat rows in 'Alien' - they're scattered all over, just like they are in the hive in 'Aliens'.
The thing about the eggs in the derelict all being from the crew I have several issues with. Where was the drone to incapacitate and turn all of them into the eggs? Why did a ship that size have so many crew members? How did they all get so neatly placed in the holding areas that looked like they were specifically designed to transport large numbers of eggs? From the audiences point of view, it appears that the eggs were very much there on purpose, hence the protective fields, and that the Derelict might have actually been piloted by only a single crew member thanks to the one funky seat. I always thought that, or that the rest of the crew was killed by the jockey chestburster that also was missing.
I'm sure if you read the novel you could have arrived at the more unnatural conclusion of "all of these eggs may have been morphed" since that deleted scene was the only evidence of any life cycle at that point, but the normal reaction to an egg is "what laid the egg?" The queen to me was just a natural next step.
I've just never heard that theory and don't buy it at all. It's very illogical unless it was explained in the story, like the Jockeys let the Aliens morph a bunch of eggs for them in a controlled setting.
Yes, I bet you have.
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The introduction of the Queen changed that, and filled in that gap in the Alien's lifecycle.
The revelation that Leia is Luke's sister is a retcon, but it doesn't actually contradict anything we didn't know - it just fills in more information, and by doing so it changes how we view those two characters and their interactions up to that point. Such as the scene in Empire Strikes Back where Leia kisses Luke - that scene evokes a completely different reaction from the audience with the later knowledge that they're brother and sister, even though that "fact" doesn't actually change anything within the story itself.
The 'Saw' series is filled top-to-bottom with retcons, revelations that certain characters were in certain locations or did certain things which changes your perceptions of how those events originally played out. The events themselves didn't change, but learning that other things were happening "off-camera" that don't actually contradict what was going on in the prior movies, they just fill in blanks.
I dunno, I've been able to work around a good number of the "continuity errors" in the AvP movies.
Aliens didn't contradict anything in Alien that it couldn't explain. Even if the egg-morphing was in the theatrical release, it doesn't make the queen a retcon because for all we know, the aliens could do both life cycles. No foul requires no explanation, just expansion.
The EU has problems, but it pales in comparison to the AvP movies and their cornucopia of sloppy continuity errors.
The comics are just all over the place, and I think this is made worse by the fact that there hasn't really been a solid Aliens comic on-par with the movies and their level of storytelling and production since Nightmare Asylum. Some nice side stories, Eternal is one of my favorites, but no big central series that gives people that same magic that the movies had.
A lot of the EU does stay close to the movie canon (although "movie canon" is a hard thing to define, since the movies themselves vary so drastically from each other in terms of style, tone, and content - for example, which "movie canon" would you prefer they stay close to? 'Alien', or 'Aliens'?). Staying close to "the canon" isn't the solution. Having a quality product is the solution. 'Aliens' strayed from 'Alien' in a lot of ways, but most people ultimately didn't have a problem with it because it was a good movie.
What was the purpose of discussing whether the creation of the queen was a retcon or not?
The topic was continuity, in a thread about a new Aliens comic.
A comic would definitely be taken more seriously, and lend a hand to repairing the franchise, if it were to stay as close to the movie canon as possible. But nobody holds comic books to that kind of standard anymore.
When you retcon something, the entire point of what makes it a retcon is that you have to change something that's already been established within a canon.
No origin for the egg was ever established in Alien, therefore the queen didn't change anything. It was simply the expansion of the Alien creature.
If Cameron did something like change the acid blood, and made up a story about how the Hadleys Aliens were exposed to something that neutralized their acidic blood, that would be a retcon in order to facilitate that change in fact established by Alien.
The queen is not. We can just agree to disagree, because that's my final answer. No negativity intended.
"Some retcons do not directly contradict previously established facts, but "fill in" missing background details, usually to support current plot points." also from Wikipedia. That's exactly what happened with the Queen concept, which is why the Queen is a retcon.
Retroactive continuity (retcon for short[1]) is the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work. From Wiki.
Egg morphing wasn't in the theatrical release, so there was no retcon required. All Cameron had to do was think up the queen and put her in the film. It was kind of natural considering facehuggers come from eggs and are parasitic, the insect thing, I mean.
Predxeno and I do it fairly frequently.
Reinterpreting something so that it fits with canon sounds fine, but I've never seen someone on this site try and actually sort out the mess that is the EU and try and interpret it to where it all makes sense, retcon or no.
It would be a daunting task.
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But ignoring something isn't the same as reinterpreting it.
Also the users on this site don't retcon - retcon would imply we were actually contributing something official to the franchise, and we're not. We're interpreting things other people have officially created, that's a pretty important distinction.
'Aliens' retconned the existence of a Queen into the (off-screen) backstory of 'Alien'. The fans making up explanations for incorporating egg-morphing anyway is not a retcon. The AvPR blu-ray mentioning egg-morphing, however, could be seen as a retcon since it's officially licensed material.
By definition retconning can be a form of reconciliation.
Least not how it's done on this forum.
Doesn't mean it makes sense.
Not sure a continuity with myriad irreconcilable contradictions can be accurately referred to as "one continuity".
The best parts of those books were the Raymond Swanland covers. They really fumbled the ball with that mini relaunch. Horrible blotchy computer inking on the art pages. It's like they inked over the pencil art with sharpie markers. Or lipstick.
If they refer in any meaningful way to the third or fourth films, then they're following the movie continuity, not comic continuity.
I have to agree with the first half of your post. I never understood why so many folks out there seem to hate an artist's work because it's different from the norm. I guess I'm just more passive when it comes to these sort of things - I see the multitudes of comics and stories as unique entities that are all good in their own way. I'm going to be purchasing the new series once it releases regardless of prior public opinion Also need to pick up Fast Track to Heaven.
It's difficult to cry foul on the use of an individual artist when it comes to an anthology series. They are all temporary, so just roll with it.
However, I am concerned about the writing. I can't recall having ever read anything by John Layman but if Fast Track to Heaven is any indication then Dark Horse really needs to step it up in the quality control dept. That whole thing was just stupid with it's pretentious Biblical references and generic scarred up soldiers
If we're lucky, this new series will start with the films as a base and ignore the comics that came before.
You realize they've recently released Fast Track to Heaven, right?