Dark Horse To Reboot Comic Series

[SM]

Maybe not, but he wouldn't have much say in the matter.  Cameron already changed the life cycle in Aliens.  Fincher killed off Hicks and Newt.

Well, the Strauses put the Aliens in a public city which many fans thought was heretical.  Also, I think many fans claimed the eggbarfing method violated continuity standards.

The Strauses were noobs who did what they were told, and despite their supposed input into the script, they'd never have the clout to say 'Let's not set this in contemporary America'.  Davis wanted it that way and Salerno wrote it that way.

[predxeno]

Maybe not, but he wouldn't have much say in the matter.  Cameron already changed the life cycle in Aliens.  Fincher killed off Hicks and Newt.

But at least those films had the decency to acknowledge the ones that came before.

Maybe not, but he wouldn't have much say in the matter.  Cameron already changed the life cycle in Aliens.  Fincher killed off Hicks and Newt.

Well, the Strauses put the Aliens in a public city which many fans thought was heretical.  Also, I think many fans claimed the eggbarfing method violated continuity standards.

The Strauses were noobs who did what they were told, and despite their supposed input into the script, they'd never have the clout to say 'Let's not set this in contemporary America'.  Davis wanted it that way and Salerno wrote it that way.

Well, I wouldn't know every continuity flaw in the film; as you already know, I'm a fan of the flick, not a critic.

[Xenomrph]

The theory that the Space Jockeys and the Engineers are different species with some similarities, is nothing more than that. Theory. Most especially fan theory and perhaps fanfiction at best.

It's not without basis, though - there's ample evidence for the idea in 'Prometheus', and it's thematically appropriate given the film's content.

It's not so much a problem but more like shock that you are suggesting that Big Red is canon. Also, the NECA backstory does imply that Dead End did infact happened, but because of legal red tape issues they are not allowed to directly mention Batman.

It implies it, but it doesn't confirm it - there's similar "canon" situations in the Star Wars EU, for example. Official sources have made reference to fan-films, but that doesn't make the fan-films canon wholesale. What the official sources specifically mention becomes canon, and nothing else.
Using that reasoning, Big Red could be canon, and him potentially facing off against some kind of masked vigilante would be canon (note that that didn't actually happen in Dead End, anyway), but anything more specific than that (including the identity of the vigilante) wouldn't be "canon". Frankly I've got no problem with that.

Also they seem to imply that Fox lets their liscencees get away with a lot of things when it comes to producing EU material. For example, the Hish mythos and as much as I really hate to bring this one up-- the four armed Predator. I also find it funny that Dark Horse claims that Fox raises flags when it comes to something not fitting the canon, or even so much something which comes from fanfiction because otherwise if that were the case, we wouldn't have had the Hish mythos or even the four armed Predator.

The thing is, that's for FOX to decide. If they want to allow four-armed Predators, that's their prerogative, no matter how dumb other people might think it is (and believe me, I'm not the hugest fan of the concept, but I'm willing to roll with it anyway). Per those quotes, apparently there ARE things that FOX has flagged and sent back for revision, even if we're not aware of what those things are.
I also recall reading somewhere that FOX has apparently retroactively nixed the Hish concept in some capacity - not so much "retconned" it out of existence, but just forbade it from being referenced again. I'll have to do some digging for a source on that, though.

And as for contradictory historical threads.. That's already happened with the films, and Fox doesn't seem to be going out their way to fix it. Now with this new continuity, well.. considering that it doesn't really connect or even retcon the old expanded material and isn't even going to use the AvP movies, well.. to me it kind of suggest that there is now another continuity and timeline despite Rodriguez and Scott not wanting PREDATORS and Prometheus to cross into AvP territory.

This attitude strikes me as a little premature. You're welcome to it, but I'd prefer to wait and see how things play out before throwing my hands up in the air and saying "there's no salvaging this!".

Prometheus did work fine.  It didn't mess anything up with the original source material.

Ehhhhh not so sure I agree on that one. EU aside, I always liked the idea of the Jockey being an otherworldly extraterrestrial creature, and Prometheus undoes a lot of that.

They've never cared about continuity, at least not to the point of enforcing it.

Yeah not sure I agree on that one, either - we've got specific quotes from licensees (and FOX themselves, in the Quadrilogy supplementals) saying that's not the case.

And Fox has never told comic or novel authors they must conform to other comics and novels - just the films.

We don't know this is true. 

Video games constantly revisit the Derelict on LV-426.

Yeah, and it's yet to be a continuity problem.

I still think Ridley should have had the courtesy to at least acknowledge previous installments in the series; he wouldn't like it if somebody just wrote an Alien sequel that completely wrote over Prometheus.

I'm actually not sure he'd care, but not for the reason you'd think.
As a filmmaker, he wants to tell the story he wants to tell, and he accomplished that. If some other movie comes out and reveals that Prometheus was all a dream, it doesn't change the fact that "Prometheus' exists as a film and people can watch it and be influenced by it and talk about it. It's the same basic idea for people who complain that [insert movie here] "ruined the series". The prior movies still exist and anyone can go watch them, independent of all other factors.
I'd say that Ridley Scott is old-school enough that he wouldn't necessarily care about "franchise continuity" no matter if he's on the giving or receiving end of the bulldozer - "franchise continuity" is an ancillary component to storytelling, and one could argue that on a long enough timeframe, it ends up being *detrimental* to effective storytelling.

It's why people didn't (and to a lesser degree, still don't) care about the myriad continuity errors in ancient religious texts, or why the ancient Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians didn't care that there were numerous contradictory depictions of their famous heroic icons. The story itself and the minute details of the events weren't what mattered, it was what you learned from the story that mattered.

A similar argument comes up regarding superhero comic book continuity - with characters like Batman or Captain America having been around for over half a century, "continuity" is an absolute nightmare especially with the characters never aging or anything like that. They're so choked by continuity that they become stagnant. There's a pervasive school of thought that Marvel and DC should disregard all continuity and essentially treat their characters like the modern mythic heroes they are, where stories can happen to them and each one is self-contained and unrelated to any others beyond basic defining character tropes, and "contradictions" don't matter (or might even be *expected*) because it's each writer's personal interpretation of the hero.

[SM]

But at least those films had the decency to acknowledge the ones that came before.

Why did Riddles have to acknowledge AvP?

Well, I wouldn't know every continuity flaw in the film; as you already know, I'm a fan of the flick, not a critic.

I'm not sure of any major continuity flaws in AvP:Poo.  At least with other films.  The egg barfing aside which is just too moronic to even contemplate.  There's internal issues - like when it's supposed to take place.  Looks warm for October, especially when one of the characters says 'I thought Halloween was in October' - it IS October idiot.  But that's so minor to the point of nitpicking.

[predxeno]

But at least those films had the decency to acknowledge the ones that came before.

Why did Riddles have to acknowledge AvP?

Because it's a story that happened in his franchise.  Is there a more valid reason than that?

[RakaiThwei]

Because it's a story that happened in his franchise.  Is there a more valid reason than that?

I'm sure he would've acknowledged it if the movie had been, you know.. well received. But then again I'm not sure if he was against the concept of the two franchises meeting each other. Didn't he say that he wished Fox would've approached him to do it?

-Rakai'Thwei

[predxeno]

Fair enough, I can understand that reasoning, but even so, if Ridley cared more about the franchise than his own pride, he should have done acknowledged the work of other directors.

[SM]

Riddles has to pay the most attention to Alien (he's inadvertently created continuity errors with Aliens - twice), but is in effect creating a new franchise which is an entirely new license.  He doesn't have to pay attention to the seperate AvP franchise/ license.

It's not like Anderson was paying attention to Alien3 when he created the Weylan character anyway.

He has no responsibility to care for the franchise at all.  He's supposed to care enuogh to create a film that satifies him creatively as well as making money for his patron.

[predxeno]

Prometheus may be a new license but it DOES exist in the same universe as Alien and AVP; those were his words and the consequences of those words.  As for Paul Anderson, I think even Lance Henriksen said they forgot about the Bishop II from Alien 3; that was more of a messup than a deliberate attempt at sabotaging a previous film.

[SM]

Ridley said it's supposed to be the same universe as AvP?

It's pretty obvious he thinks AvP isn't worth considering, and if Fox wanted to enforce some continuity, they could've with the Prometheus promotional material - but they clearly weren't interested.

For the umpteenth time.

[RakaiThwei]

Prometheus may be a new license but it DOES exist in the same universe as Alien and AVP; those were his words and the consequences of those words.

Alot of sources would suggest otherwise. Lindelof even being one of them that he tried persuading Ridley to use the AvP timeline and connect it with Prometheus and Ridley Scott gave him the evil eye just for suggesting it.

I would like to a source for this quote. Can you provide a link?

-Rakai'Thwei

[predxeno]

I think you guys misunderstood my post; Ridley's "words" were that this movie takes place in the Alien universe and the "consequences" were that it would also take place in the AVP universe by design.

[SM]

Well obviously it doesn't.

By design.

The film is ambiguous about the Charles vs. Peter thing, but Fox would've approved all the promotional material, which unequivocally ignores AvP in the Prometheus continuity.

[RakaiThwei]

Well obviously it doesn't.

By design.

The film is ambiguous about the Charles vs. Peter thing, but Fox would've approved all the promotional material, which unequivocally ignores AvP in the Prometheus continuity.

Pretty much this. I mean sure, you could tie the two timelines together but that is once again nothing more than fan theory and perhaps a valiant effort to tying the two timelines together. But I'm pretty sure that Ridley Scott wanted something as an insurance to keep the two timelines away from each other, and the TED Weyland Corp timeline is that insurance.

I think you guys misunderstood my post; Ridley's "words" were that this movie takes place in the Alien universe and the "consequences" were that it would also take place in the AVP universe by design.

Well, if you also want to take into account.. so does Blade Runner too, if you happen to count the numerous references to Tyrell Corp and the references to Replicants as well. Which opens up another barrel of fish but let's not get into that.

I like AvP, and I like Prometheus but the fact of the matter is Ridley Scott didn't want his movie anything to do with AvP or Predator. The same could be said for Robert Rodriguez but with Predator 2, AvP and Alien.

-Rakai'Thwei

[predxeno]

From what I understood, the few references to Blade Runner were deliberately obscure so as to not cement any actual connection between the 2 franchises.