ALIEN: The Weyland-Yutani Report (S.D. Perry, 160 pages)

[Xenomrph]

The problem with this line of thinking is that the AvP movies don't totally contradict 'Alien'.

No, but they expect us to believe everyone involved in the nuking of an entire small American town in the second film then totally forgot there had been Aliens there.

And that not one person managed to film footage of one on their smart phone and upload it to YouTube.

They didn't know what was there, they just know they were weird and pissed off and obviously hostile. They didn't even know the Aliens were from another planet - they could have been literally anything. No specimens were recovered, and it's over a century before 'Alien', it's hardly a stretch to conclude that no one made the connection that they were the same creatures in 'Alien', especially with so little data recovered in AvPR.

[HuDaFuK]

There mere fact they dropped a thermonuclear warhead on the town implies they knew something.

That's not exactly the next step up the ladder after national guard.

On topic, I have a question for Perry, if she's still around - one of the preview pages we've seen from the Report has Hicks mentioning Marines being stationed at Hadley's Hope before the events of Aliens. Is that designed to tie in to the River of Pain novel? The blurb for that makes mention of Marines being present at the colony.

[SM]

Some of the comic panels that have been released support that assertion.

[happypred]

About smartphones and Youtube...I believe the film is set in 2004

[Xenomrph]

There mere fact they dropped a thermonuclear warhead on the town implies they knew something.

They knew something was extremely dangerous and out of control. The town got nuked in 'The Crazies' remake, and there's no extraterrestrials in that movie whatsoever. The characters narrowly averted a town getting fuel-air-bombed in 'Outbreak'. A city got nuked in 'Resident Evil: Apocalypse', as well.
Taking drastic measures to contain an unknown outbreak doesn't automatically mean they knew about capital-A Aliens.

[Vrastal]

its too bad i dont have a massive chunk of money to drop on a damn book...

[FiorinaFury161]

When exactly is the pre-order for the limited book again?

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

Wow, some good questions! I don't want to be a big spoiler person, so I'll try to address as many as I can without going overboard...

OK, in no particular order:
-Yes, there will be a standard edition, so far as I know.
-I wrote about ten pages of material of the fictional Space Beast, telling the story of what happened on Fury 161 in Morse's voice. So, like 10 pages from a book. I haven't seen the very final version, so some of it may have been cut... BTW, WAY fun to write.
-Yes, there's a timeline. I did my best, but it was a major undertaking. Thankfully, my editor and his contact at Fox had several uber-fans contracted to check for continuity, so it should be fairly comprehensive. I was asked to reference some of the new stuff coming out (Fire and Stone, the game, etc), so that upcoming projects would be included in canon, but there aren't a lot of details in the report, just references.
-The USCM tech manual was a great resource, but I don't think this book is much like it... totally different visuals, and a lot of Company voice in this one. This is more about WY's take on the xenomorph than a tech book, though there is a lot of tech stuff included. The art is amazing.
-The big mysteries, like how did the egg get on the Sulaco... I addressed some of these things but didn't definitively answer them. Remember, these were movies, there was a ton of artistic license taken when they were made, and while I did my best to supply plausible theories, I didn't necessarily solve anything.
-The WY report is written a few months after the events in Resurrection.
-With Prometheus, I had to be very, very careful about discussing Alien origin, because there are new things being written and I wasn't invited to speculate. That's all I can say, I believe. Except that I'm pretty certain it's Milburn, one L. Online sources disagree in either direction, but it was Milburn in the script...
-The Walmart thing... my editor and I decided that was a rumor. WY just had to go underground for awhile.
-Oh, and I came up with XX121. Honestly, I just put it in as a reminder to go back and put in whatever WY really called the things, but the higher ups decided that XX121 worked just fine. Apparently, that is now the creature's designation. Go figure!

Did I get everything so far? Thank you so much for asking, and for your kind words. I'll still be around for a few days, so please ask more... If I can answer, I will. Cheers!

Thanks for taking the time to answer all our questions Ms. Perry. I'm even more excited about the book now!

Seeing as how much you enjoyed writing the Space Beast segment, would you consider doing a full-length novel if you were asked to submit a pitch again? There appears to be a strong interest in Morse's book & story and the topic has been brought up quite a few times on the forums.

Were you privy to the Jack Paglen/Michael Green Prometheus 2 script drafts or did you simply try and avoid areas/topics that might conflict with the possible forthcoming Prometheus sequel?

[FiorinaFury161]

Seeing as how much you enjoyed writing the Space Beast segment, would you consider doing a full-length novel if you were asked to submit a pitch again? There appears to be a strong interest in Morse's book & story and the topic has been brought up quite a few times on the forums.

I would gladly pitch for that book!

[Local Trouble]

Another thumbs up (way up) from me if this book completely ignores the EU and the AvP movies. 

[RakaiThwei]

Another thumbs up (way up) from me if this book completely ignores the EU and the AvP movies. 

She did mention that it does incorperate the Titan Publishing books, Isolation and Fire and Stone.

But I am willing to bet that it does ignore the old EU which was published from '88 to 2010.

[Ultramorph]

Another thumbs up (way up) from me if this book completely ignores the EU and the AvP movies. 

She did mention that it does incorperate the Titan Publishing books, Isolation and Fire and Stone.

But I am willing to bet that it does ignore the old EU which was published from '88 to 2010.

It's pretty much confirmed that the "Old EU" is being tossed, as Sea of Sorrows (which is set 100+ years post-Resurrection) makes no reference to the Big Deletion or anything such as that.

[Xenomorphine]

I think it's important to remember that, as SM points out, this book is being written from the perspective of Weyland-Yutani, not the US government (or whichever future government Call gained access to the secret files of).

Anyway, questions! Welcome, Ms Perry and many thanks for contributing what you can for us here!

1: Was there any attempt to provide an explanation for why some Aliens have ridged heads and others don't? I've always assumed Cameron's theory made the most sense; that it was reflective of them being older. The old 'caste' theory never seemed to account for why we never saw combinations of the two designs in the same nests. Curious to know if this has been addressed.

2: Think this needs to be asked now... Any mentions of events from the 'Colonial Marines' game, like portraying Hicks' survival? Or should this now be officially assumed as 'non-canon'?

3: During research, was there anything which made you completely revise an assumption or theory you previously had about the creatures/events/characters depicted in the films?

4: Was there anything Fox was able to provide you, by way of research, which you found unexpected/surprising?

5: As the book essentially revolves around the creatures, did you contact the late HR Giger before he passed away?

6: Has undertaking a book in this style made you want to do something similar for, say, Predators or another property's villains?

7: If you were suddenly given the time, which section in this book would you like to expand upon the most?

8: Has there ever been a book you've been handed a brief for, which you've thought would be very by-the-numbers, only to find it much more inspiring/fascinating than you could have thought?

9: How much influence did you have over the layout and visual side of things? If you felt something could be better illustrated with a couple of pictures, rather than several hundred words, could you write a note for the editors and say something like, "NEED MAP OF HADLEY'S HOPE COLONY HERE" or "PICTURE OF A CGI DROPSHIP SHOOTING STUFF"?

10: Any news on whether this shall be available for Kindle and other electronic book formats?

[RakaiThwei]

It's pretty much confirmed that the "Old EU" is being tossed, as Sea of Sorrows (which is set 100+ years post-Resurrection) makes no reference to the Big Deletion or anything such as that.

So Alien-Predator essentially got the Star Wars treatment.. I guess I can say.. that's where the franchise ends for me. I liked the old stuff, I liked the old stuff a lot so.. This is.. really disheartening.

[SM]

You didn't seriously think they could make a book that could successfully incorporate 25 years worth of conflicting storylines?