We have just uploaded the 184th episode of the Alien vs. Predator Galaxy Podcast (right-click and save as to download)! In our latest episode Alex White, the author of Alien: The Cold Forge and Alien: Into Charybdis joins regular hosts Corporal Hicks, RidgeTop and Xenomorphine to discuss the topic of canon.
We discuss the interpretations of canon, whether it matters to us as fans, whether it should matter to us as fans, working within the franchises and how canon affects the people who do, and plenty more!
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To me, that is really all that matters. Does it matter if Bishop Weyland in Alien-cubed was a human or a synthetic? Well, he was an android in the Colonial Marines video game, does that count? In so far as how that might restrict a future director? Highly unlikely. It won't matter.
Same thing for the events in comic books. Ideas might get taken from the old comics, but probably not more than cosmetic ideas like a director saying "oooh that looks neat, send that to the design team and tell them the monster in this scene ought to resemble that and come up with some ideas based on it." And this is in the unlikely event they even see something from the comics at all.
It's also possible that future directors will be allowed to disregard the events of movies that didn't do well in theatres. If you factor in the production cost, the marketing cost likely equaled, and the theatres taking their half, and the net is in the red, as in the movie lost money, then the studio execs could very well look at the whole thing like something they want the audience to forget going forward, and might even insist a director disregard the events of a film.
Basically, the only hard predictive rules are that we shouldn't expect something obscure from the Dark Horse EU or video games to show up, references to the events of movies that lost money, or anything from another IP to show up. As Alex White pointed out, they cannot reference anything having to do with predators when the license is only for Aliens.
So, what do I treat as "canon" for discussing what we might see in a movie? Basically, the events of Alien and Aliens.
I'm still allowed to hope egg morphing and alternate ways of alien reproduction, besides the queen, are shown.
Now that absolutely doesn't mean that we, as fans, shouldn't have fun speculating and discussing EU events in their own context. There is a lot of great stuff there for fun conversations. But we ought not pull hard rules from them and think they need to apply to anything a current author is doing.
We also shouldn't devalue something just because it doesn't hold predictive power either. Want to discuss the stuff in Aliens: Genocide? Cool. How about a video game you loved? We shouldn't dismiss a topic just because it's about something non-canon either. I mean, we could watch all that the studio sees as canon in under 24 hours, but it would take much longer to re-read through all the comics, novels, and replay all the games. So, being non-canon shouldn't mean less value to our entertainment or imagination or that it is somehow less valuable for discussion. Again, we just shouldn't think hard predictive rules can be made from it. In fact, in regards to the Alien itself, it's better that there are fewer hard rules and more freedom for creatives so that they stay unpredictable and mysterious.
Bot flies are gross but they do come very close to the Alien in some form.
There is such thing as the Human bot fly. It lays its eggs into a mosquito(the vector.) from there the mosquito will bite a human and then deliver the eggs into the bite wound. Then the eggs will erupt from painful lesions in the skin. Not too dissimilar from the Alien life cycle.
As far as bacterial or fungal like infection that may prevent attack from the host's immune system, it's definitely an interesting take. Usually when an invading bacteria overtake the normal flora of the host, infection may occur.
EDIT
Here we go (I don't know when Mike wrote this, but Anchorpoint has been offline a long time now)
Didn't The Anchorpoint Essays refer to it as a viral mutagen?
I'm sure I've said elsewhere that 'viral' theory has been fan theory long before White put it in a book. Though I don't recall the exact term 'viral' being used.
People have been trying that (very lacking in detail) line for years though, and it's been a non-argument the whole time. What else do embryos do? A human embryo is formed when sperm meets egg and implants in the uterine wall. With Aliens it's 'sperm' from hugger interacting in the host; resulting lifeform is implanted.
No - people have been bitching about it for years, so who's this "we", kemosabe?
There are so many points mentioned here that resonated with me. The most true statement(forgive me im paraphrasing)was cannon doesn't matter to you unless it goes against your held views or goes against what you believe to be true.
That's got to be why I disliked the direction of covenant. To me Alien has always been a horror born in the deepest darkest recesses of space. NOT something created by Engineers(or David) for that matter. Turning the Alien into a tool seems to pull back the curtain too much and make it less mysterious and frightening.
As far as cannon goes, I hold the Alien films, book and comics, and AVP as different cannons, but hey that's just me.
But it is, so we aren't.
That all being said, it does seem like the knife is twisted more when the guy that was at least partly responsible for how good Alien is, managed to screw the lore even worse than AVP ever did.
If it wasn't Sir Ridders the fandom would be going crazy over the changes.
The only departure was behaviour. Physically it was similar to the Fiorina creature or Ripley's Queen. Fair way from Kane's original that had little nubs instead arms and no legs.
Still, Covenant one was a BIG departure in comparision to the other ones
For example, you could argue the Derelict's eggs were dormant for a long period of time so the metabolic reaction of the Face hugger's payload was as a result slower, more sleepy in growing.
The only other long gestation in the franchise is Ripley's Queen in Alien 3. She had been in hypersleep so maybe a delay factor in that too.
Covenant's fast gestations can be explained as just a result of a very fresh creation that David made eggs without a Queen & harnessed direct from the pathogen with human dna so there was a more rapid reaction perhaps.
Anyway don't think it is an unfillable plot hole or an unsolvable contradiction
Alien in Aliens have different heads, Alien in Alien 3 has no dorsal tubes and has a different biomech structure. Plus that burster was different too.
Design differences does not necessarily mean different species.
As far as the movie and Ridley is concerned, its the Alien and David created it. You don't have to like it, I don't, heck most don't
They're right there on screen! The chestburster in Covenant even looks different to the regular version, telling us that this is a distinct variant of Xeno.
That's pretty amazing. Wow, what a gig! Shame about the crickets from Disney.
That's exactly the problem...
AvP at least remembered what Chestbursters look like. I mean, even AvPR's chestbursters were more accurate and closer to the original chestburster, than Ridley's "creative" endeavor in Covenant, which is hillarious. I know why he did it, I get the symbolism. The design is still ridiculous. You could've gotten the same message across with a different design. And that scene is a lot less important anyway. You can still make it to look like David's triumph without the silly hands in the air.
Praetomorph life cycle is faster than the regular Xeno, deal with it.
He was trying to intentionally contradict AVP with his prequels too.
Kinda find it laughable that the maestro Ridders does the dirty on the lifecycle in a way that's worse than AVP Anderson but people make excuses.
I blame Ridley for this, guy just doesnt give a shit and dick slaps any canon on his way into extinction.
They needed another alien on the movie, easier to just add the insta implantation crap. So since people wanted to fit in with his retcon they tried to follow on it.
I certainly hope these monk activities are happening on a wooden planet.
I was paid by Fox so it was their property to provide to licensees. They weren't required to credit me. I ended up in the Special Thanks box with a million other people.
It's down to SD Perry who put me in contact with Fox licensing while she was writing the Weyland-Yutani Report, and Willie Goldman who put me in touch with them again after staff changes and I lost contact.
After the Disney takeover the licensing staff were all laid off and I've not had contact since.
Wow. So many questions I want to ask you @SM. Never knew this. How does one get into a position to be even asked to write such a thing - I'm very intrigued (and forgive my ignorance if this is covering old ground for you).
So they used it and didn't even credit you?
So unless you're talking about something different - another bible - I'm not sure? The one I worked on is not the one Ridley talked about in interviews around the time of Covenant.
Have I missed a controversy? As in stole from the Timeline/Encyclopedia, or taking credit for something you did at Fox?