It is Impossible

[Necronomicon II]

I would say that while man is indirectly responsible, genetically the origins of the creature are still technically extraterrestrial, an android simply poured all of his sexual hang-ups into it; by making it more explicitly phallic. The pathogen's origins aren't clear, either, nor exactly how old it is (at least thousands), it's essentially a shoggoth - "Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes..."

It's one giant incestuous orgy in the cold void of space baby. 

[Samhain13]

Covenant might be a later project in terms of release date, but in narrative terms it's an earlier project. It's a prequel. Everything that happens in it affects whatever comes later in terms of narrative. Having seen Covenant, it is impossible to watch Alien and not know where the alien came from. It is impossible to even watch it and still think of the alien as an alien. It's a man-made science project. The whole thematic purpose of Alien is now robbed of meaning. Alien is cautionary tale on the exploration of the universe, saying that there might be things out there so horrifying we might never want to encounter. This message no longer works. We made the horror, and we didn't even make it for a good reason. There is no unknown to fear, because there is no unknown.

You can always ignore Covenant from the way you want see the series. ALIEN still exists on its own, you can see it without considering anything else. Besides we don't know where those eggs or that particular derelict ship came from. What if Ridley don't get to make his third movie? We will just have to assume there are aliens that weren't made by David. There is also the Covenant novelization if you prefer.

[Voodoo Magic]

You can always ignore Covenant from the way you want see the series. ALIEN still exists on its own, you can see it without considering anything else. Besides we don't know where those eggs or that particular derelict ship came from. What if Ridley don't get to make his third movie? We will just have to assume there are aliens that weren't made by David. There is also the Covenant novelization if you prefer.

[Necronomicon II]

Also, I think it's more that the prequels are ignoring the functional text of the original; the mechanics that made it work so well to provoke fear and terror, namely, the unknown, and expanding more on the sexual/Freudian subtext and ironies of creation, with David being the centre crux.

How valid is this approach?

Well, given that Giger's aesthetic wasn't so much predicated on mystery or the unknown as it was on erotic transfiguration and psychosexuality, this is evoked with the revelation of an extraterrestrial rape and death machine moulded via an impotent android descending into madness as he utilises truly alien, Shoggoth-like bio-tech. That's far more nuanced than simply "man-made". David's an artificial alien himself in an organic/natural world, possessing the very thing mortals seek but cannot possess - immortality. Yet for all of David's superiority, he's uncannily identical to man sans the ability to reproduce or die. Thus, the phallic and vaginal designs and the predatory instinct are all an artistic, morbid mockery and transfiguration of human reproduction/mortality.
That is fundamentally Giger-esque to the core. Thus you could argue it understands Alien meta-textually insofar that it reflects Giger's sexual/Freudian themes, just not the mechanics of its effective horror/terror.

Heck, Covenant goes out of its way to subvert the original chestburster scene and present the organism as a thing of beauty, not something to be feared or reviled. Giger would've approved.

[Paranoid Android]

After watching behind the scenes, it's impossible to watch Alien and still think of the alien as an alien when you know it's just Bolaji Badejo in a rubber suit. It's impossible to watch Alien and consider the alien truly "alien" when Aliens 86 revealed they are nothing more than a bug species mimicking an ant colony. ............We could do this all the live long day.

Did you just counter an argument about narrative with an argument about special effects? Seriously?
Gee, it's a good thing you watched that behind the scenes footage to learn you're watching a film and not not real life...
Even if it was an actual real alien walking around a real ship, killing people for real, it would have changed exactly nothing in terms of narrative.

As for the Aliens argument, I can agree with you on that one to an extent. It does rob the alien of some of its scare factor and I'd never fault someone for disliking Aliens due to that fact. That said, it's not that big of a deal because:
1. The alien is still an alien organism of unknown origin and thus retains its thematic purpose.
2. Aliens comes later in the narrative. It does not impact Alien - it's the other way around.

Yes, but him along with many others have attempted to come up with an answer for the creature's origin....and you said that attempt is failing to understand Alien.  I understand you're now trying to direct that more specifically to the director, but why doesn't your rule apply to everyone?

This is not at all what I said, nor was I ever trying to to direct anything more specifically to the director. I was trying my best to explain myself in a way that lets you understand that there's a difference between a fan theory and the official story. You can come up with fan theories about the alien's origin until the end of time - its origin is still unknown, as was intended, because it's not the official story. It is completely different to thinking that it should be part of the official story, and all the more damning when you actually go and make it as such.

[The Old One]

Also, I think it's more that the prequels are ignoring the functional text of the original; the mechanics that made it work so well to provoke fear and terror, namely, the unknown, and expanding more on the sexual/Freudian subtext and ironies of creation, with David being the centre crux.

How valid is this approach?

Well, given that Giger's aesthetic wasn't so much predicated on mystery or the unknown as it was on erotic transfiguration and psychosexuality, this is evoked with the revelation of an extraterrestrial rape and death machine moulded via an impotent android descending into madness as he utilises truly alien, Shoggoth-like bio-tech. That's far more nuanced than simply "man-made". David's an artificial alien himself in an organic/natural world, possessing the very thing mortals seek but cannot possess - immortality. Yet for all of David's superiority, he's uncannily identical to man sans the ability to reproduce or die. Thus, the phallic and vaginal designs and the predatory instinct are all an artistic, morbid mockery and transfiguration of human reproduction/mortality.
That is fundamentally Giger-esque to the core. Thus you could argue it understands Alien meta-textually insofar that it reflects Giger's sexual/Freudian themes, just not the mechanics of its effective horror/terror.

Heck, Covenant goes out of its way to subvert the original chestburster scene and present the organism as a thing of beauty, not something to be feared or reviled. Giger would've approved.

Good shit right here,
I guess I'm different though
because I can appreciate
each film separately within
it's own artistic and narrative
context.

[Biomechanoid]

'Alien' was a hugely collaborative effort and that's what led to the end result we got. Stripping away all of those contributors except for 1 person results in, well, 'Alien: Covenant'.

Heh, heh, was that a shot at Covenant fans?

Well played.

Btw, Xenomrph, since our initial conversation regarding "who cares" if the question is answered, take notice the last several posts, "the question" keeps hovering front and center throughout the back and forth flow of the conversation. Just one more affirmation there's well more than just a few who care about the question.

Did you just counter an argument about narrative with an argument about special effects? Seriously?

No, I used a narrative and a special effects example. Seriously.

My point was a viewer can allow various outside factors.........movie magic, third party scripting, narrative gone south, director change, etc. tarnish their Alien experience. I can't explain why, but when I do replays of Alien, none of that noise interferes.  Those thoughts may pass in my mind after a replay, but during the replay I'm all Alien 79.

And once again, I am sorry to hear that your Alien experience has been tarnished. Even I am not invulnerable to that cinematic ruin, I feel the same way about the abomination Police Academy 5 which has severely tarnished my experience of the masterpiece Police Academy.

I was trying my best to explain myself in a way that lets you understand that there's a difference between a fan theory and the official story.

I'm fairly confident all the xenophiles here, including me, understand the difference between a fan theory and the official story.

I guess I'm different though
because I can appreciate
each film separately within
it's own artistic and narrative
context.

And there you go, the theme of my message all in one tidy sentence.

ALIEN still exists on its own, you can see it without considering anything else.

And there you go, the theme of my message all in one tidy sentence.......again.

[Immortan Jonesy]

It's impossible to watch Alien and consider the alien truly "alien" when Aliens 86 revealed they are nothing more than a bug species mimicking an ant colony.

Ok hold your horses pal. They (bugs) look like weird little aliens. Just look at this buddy here. He looks like a spaceman from alpha centauri. But yeah, I know you were kidding. Also, I know we've never seen a real-life alien. But science fiction is guilty (in part) of my confirmation bias anyway. 

   

Covenant might be a later project in terms of release date, but in narrative terms it's an earlier project. It's a prequel. Everything that happens in it affects whatever comes later in terms of narrative. Having seen Covenant, it is impossible to watch Alien and not know where the alien came from. It is impossible to even watch it and still think of the alien as an alien. It's a man-made science project. The whole thematic purpose of Alien is now robbed of meaning. Alien is cautionary tale on the exploration of the universe, saying that there might be things out there so horrifying we might never want to encounter. This message no longer works. We made the horror, and we didn't even make it for a good reason. There is no unknown to fear, because there is no unknown.

Hey, he's the one saying you're failing to understand the film by using your imagination to come up with an answer, not me.

It's not just "a filmmaker." It's the original filmmaker continuing the story. You can't get any more "definitive" than the original film explored further by the original director.

Actually I wasn't saying that about Xenomorph at all, and he understood that. Judging by what he wrote here so far, he understands Alien perfectly. I was saying that Ridley Scott, the writing team behind Covenant and the fans that think there's a need for a definitive answer to the alien's origins don't understand Alien.

I like both: the philosophical psycho-sexual background of Covenant (although part of Freud's vision is seen as pseudoscience in these days) and the original Lovecraftian horror of Alien. But I prefer the second:

"Alien went to where the Old Ones lived, to their very world of origin. That baneful little storm-lashed planetoid halfway across the galaxy was a fragment of the Old Ones' home world, and the Alien a blood relative of Yog-Sothoth."

This geological formation of unusual appearance may not have been used in the film, but I like to think about this as that "fragment of the Old Ones' home world". It really fit with Dan O'Bannon's vision.

[Biomechanoid]

This geological formation of unusual appearance may not have been used in the film, but I like to think about this as that "fragment of the Old Ones' home world". It really fit with Dan O'Bannon's vision.

Now, you and I are on the same page. It's sad to see one or more here dismiss O'Bannon's contribution to the Alien universe, especially considering it was he that created it.

[The Old One]

I'm not dismissing it.
I'm just approaching
Covenant on it's own
ground.

I do indeed want the
Alien's origin to come
back around to the
"other" Dan O'Bannon
intended after all's
said and done.

[Biomechanoid]

I'm not dismissing it.

For what it's worth, you were not who I had in mind when I stated, "It's sad to see one or more here dismiss O'Bannon's contribution......"

[Xenomrph]

Btw, Xenomrph, since our initial conversation regarding "who cares" if the question is answered, take notice the last several posts, "the question" keeps hovering front and center throughout the back and forth flow of the conversation. Just one more affirmation there's well more than just a few who care about the question.

Since it's literally the topic of this thread, I suspect it would be discussed here.

I still stand by my assertion that a significant subset of fans and audiences didn't want to know "the truth", whether they realized it or not. It's a well-known component of horror that "less is more", and that what's in your imagination is far scarier than anything the filmmaker can put on the screen. That's why a huge component of 'Alien' is the fear of the unknown, because your subconscious starts filling in the blanks with what scares you. The unknown inherently gets less scary when it becomes known.
Sure some people might want to know "the truth" about the Alien, and that's a pretty rational response - the human brain wants to find answers in order to make sense of the world, it's a basic survival instinct. What people might not realize is that in doing so, they're drastically undercutting the Alien's purpose as a scary monster meant to scare us. It's a conflict of subconscious interests: deep down we know we don't want to know about the Alien because that makes it scarier, but at the same time our overriding lizard brain subconscious wants to know the "truth" because as a survival tactic it makes the world easier to understand even if our rational thinking brain knows the Alien is a fictional creature and it doesn't matter anyway.

I guess I'm different though
because I can appreciate
each film separately within
it's own artistic and narrative
context.

And there you go, the theme of my message all in one tidy sentence.

ALIEN still exists on its own, you can see it without considering anything else.

And there you go, the theme of my message all in one tidy sentence.......again.

Sure, but this thread and its ilk are about the ramifications of the Alien's origin with regards to the broader franchise narrative.

[Biomechanoid]

It's a well-known component of horror that "less is more", and that what's in your imagination is far scarier than anything the filmmaker can put on the screen. That's why a huge component of 'Alien' is the fear of the unknown, because your subconscious starts filling in the blanks with what scares you.
What people might not realize is that in doing so, they're drastically undercutting the Alien's purpose as a scary monster meant to scare us.

Well if "less is more" is your driving force, then why even bother with "filling in the blanks" with your imagination? By your own logic, are you not "drastically undercutting the Alien's purpose" when you choose to drum up plot elements outside the film story with your filling in the blanks?

Maybe it's not your intention, but on the surface, your comments come across as, "it's okay for me, other fans, a screenwriter, director, to drum up plot elements, answer questions, etc., outside the original story and that is NOT undercutting the Alien's purpose. BUT! if you attempt to address where the creature/egg comes from.......well that's taboo......that's undercutting the Alien's purpose.

No offense, but it looks like you're cherry picking to endorse your own personal agenda. I don't mean that in anyway disrespectful, just an observation, but you or I don't get to pick what questions viewers or filmmakers attempt to answer........ guilt free of the label "you're undermining Alien's purpose."

[The Old One]

There's a difference
between a fanatic's
personal interpretation/
speculation on answers.

And a definitive answer
in a franchise entry.
From the Director.

[Biomechanoid]

There's a difference
between a fanatic's
personal interpretation/
speculation on answers.

And a definitive answer
in a franchise entry.
From the Director.

I think that has been
firmly established repeatedly
in previous posts. But my
point is none of us get
to pick what questions
are taboo and what
questions are not taboo.

One can declare it taboo
but no fan nor filmmaker
has to abide by it
nor do they need to be
burden with the label it's
undermining Alien's purpose.