[SPOILERS] So Covenant confirms that AvP and AvPR are not canon films.

[Corporal Hicks]

In short since Fox didn't establish official canon Aliens, AvP and Predators do not have official canon/canons.

They do. They just wont come out and say it publicly. As it stands (for the Alien series), Fox currently considers Prometheus, the Alien films, Alien: Isolation, the initial Titan trilogy, The Rage Wars, Aliens: Defiance, Aliens: Dead Orbit, Fire and Stone and Life and Death canon. Their view had been that anything going forward would be canon. How that stands with Covenant's apparent intention behind the origins of the Alien, I don't know.

[Russ840]

Totally right Hicks.

I think everything is still intact for now. It will depend on what happens between Covenant and the original Alien.

[gantarat]

Totally right Hicks.

I think everything is still intact for now. It will depend on what happens between Covenant and the original Alien.

Fox would not greenlit "Life and Death" if they don't know Covenant script right ?

[Russ840]

Totally right Hicks.

I think everything is still intact for now. It will depend on what happens between Covenant and the original Alien.

Fox would not greenlit "Life and Death" if they don't know Covenant script right ?

Darkhorse work closley with Fox when producing these comics. They had to make changes to Fire and Stone due to the pre-production of what was Prometheus 2 and then became covenant.

I would say that Life and Death also had vetting as well.

[Xenoscream]

In short since Fox didn't establish official canon Aliens, AvP and Predators do not have official canon/canons.

They do. They just wont come out and say it publicly. As it stands (for the Alien series), Fox currently considers Prometheus, the Alien films, Alien: Isolation, the initial Titan trilogy, The Rage Wars, Aliens: Defiance, Aliens: Dead Orbit, Fire and Stone and Life and Death canon. Their view had been that anything going forward would be canon. How that stands with Covenant's apparent intention behind the origins of the Alien, I don't know.

When did they say isolation was canon - not that I have a problem with that but I distinctly remember that creative assembly didn't tout that... and what about CM? Old Randy never shut up about the canon.

[Corporal Hicks]

Nothing public or that I can really quote with any certainty to dispel doubt. However, the timeline in the WY Report is intended to be canon and it's listed in there. Any new stories after the release of that book were intended to be canon.

[EJA]

In short since Fox didn't establish official canon Aliens, AvP and Predators do not have official canon/canons.

They do. They just wont come out and say it publicly. As it stands (for the Alien series), Fox currently considers Prometheus, the Alien films, Alien: Isolation, the initial Titan trilogy, The Rage Wars, Aliens: Defiance, Aliens: Dead Orbit, Fire and Stone and Life and Death canon. Their view had been that anything going forward would be canon. How that stands with Covenant's apparent intention behind the origins of the Alien, I don't know.

Covenant has rendered them all non-canon, folks. The new movie simply doesn't fit at all with everything else.

[gantarat]

In short since Fox didn't establish official canon Aliens, AvP and Predators do not have official canon/canons.

They do. They just wont come out and say it publicly. As it stands (for the Alien series), Fox currently considers Prometheus, the Alien films, Alien: Isolation, the initial Titan trilogy, The Rage Wars, Aliens: Defiance, Aliens: Dead Orbit, Fire and Stone and Life and Death canon. Their view had been that anything going forward would be canon. How that stands with Covenant's apparent intention behind the origins of the Alien, I don't know.

M

Covenant has rendered them all non-canon, folks. The new movie simply doesn't fit at all with everything else.

Maybe Covenant Novelization and Prequel novel hint something ?

[Corporal Hicks]

Hopefully we'll get some explanations from them.

[YutaniDitch]

The movies are the original source, hence why they are the canon... Otherwise and maybe because of that self-inflicted inconsistency, we have a complete mess coming out of COVENANT... The lore, canon is supposed to give consistency, coherence and logical chronology and causality of events, but instead we have comics contradicting movies, games contradicting movies and vice versa, we have prequels that feel and actually are more like retcons, etc... Canon is supposed to exist to make movies coherent, be it sequels and/or prequels... Without that, we get this mess, where comics are considered canon even though they are never addressed in movies nor do the directors or even writers take them into any consideration, we have games that, for instance,  resurrect dead characters that are still non canon because there are no movies still that address it.. That misconception of what canon is supposed to be is why we have fans saying with a straight face that each fan creates his own canon... Canon, by definition, is a guidebook you can only add to and not change... Movies are the source material, so they are the canon... The rest are mere creative derivations that create interesting stories but that ultimately are not taken into consideration in the movie making... ALIEN started it, ALIENS added to it, PREADATOR, PREDATOR 2 ( where we saw a Xeno skull, also undermining David as ultimate Xeno creator), and PREDATORS directly addresses Dutch and his team's encounter with the Predator, so it is also part of the canon... AVP's only contact point with the ALIEN movies, besides the Xenos, of course, is Lance Henriksen's Charles Bishop Weyland, and that alone is not enough to make it part of the canon, but it also does not say it is not... The contact point with it is so tenuous and vague, with this Weyland being perfectly able to be Peter Weyland's ancestor... COVENANT changes way too much to not directly conflict with ALIEN, ALIENS, PREDATOR 2, etc... And even though it is possible for Ridley to be able to tie these prequels to the original ALIEN quatrilogy, minus AVP and PREDATOR 2, which FOX itself will have to address eventually, it still begs to wonder what will Ridley do to tie these movies with ALIEN... He already said these are prequels to ALIEN,so he is not aiming to retcon it...even though publicly stating that David, and not the Engineers, created the Xenos, is a retcon to me...

[EJA]

In short since Fox didn't establish official canon Aliens, AvP and Predators do not have official canon/canons.

They do. They just wont come out and say it publicly. As it stands (for the Alien series), Fox currently considers Prometheus, the Alien films, Alien: Isolation, the initial Titan trilogy, The Rage Wars, Aliens: Defiance, Aliens: Dead Orbit, Fire and Stone and Life and Death canon. Their view had been that anything going forward would be canon. How that stands with Covenant's apparent intention behind the origins of the Alien, I don't know.

M

Covenant has rendered them all non-canon, folks. The new movie simply doesn't fit at all with everything else.

Maybe Covenant Novelization and Prequel novel hint something ?

I wouldn't count on it.

[HABIT]

Covenant doesn't have to confirm that. AvP movies are cross-overs. They never been part of canon.

According to who? Both the AvP films and Prometheus/Covenant are produced by 20th Century Fox - and they have never (as far as I am aware) confirmed what is canon or not. The default position until Covenant was that they were canon due to be produced by the same company. Covenant confirms they are not though.

Let's not forget Alien Colonial Marines were cannon for a certain time.
Fox didn't make a official canon, AvP is not officially a crossover.

Alien, AvP and Predator media cannot make a coherent cannon without butchering the whole thing with time travel and extremely improbable scenarios.

It is possible to create multiple possible cannons however in every one of those some content has to be rejected.

Do we really have to push our favorite version of cannon down each others throat to feel better about the whole thing?

Simply make your own version of cannon that suits.

My version of cannon has Prometheus, A.C. Alien, Alien Isolation, Aliens and Alien 3 (+ some other content) as Alien cannon. It is elegant, it has no holes, and I had also ejected Alien Resurrection from it and placed it into "that shitty alien movie" universe.

And at the same time I had made my own AvP cannon that includes all Predator movies, all AvP movies (and 2 games) and some Alien movies.

Mate, it's 'canon' not 'cannon'.

[klesk4ever]

In short since Fox didn't establish official canon Aliens, AvP and Predators do not have official canon/canons.

They do. They just wont come out and say it publicly.

So there is a official Fox alien canon, however if both of us argue about something being canon or not we can't use it because... they never published it?

Mate, it's 'canon' not 'cannon'.

English is not my first language I had originally learned it as "cannon", I know it is "canon" however often I start writing it as "cannon".
Sorry about that.

The movies are the original source, hence why they are the canon... Otherwise and maybe because of that self-inflicted inconsistency, we have a complete mess coming out of COVENANT... The lore, canon is supposed to give consistency, coherence and logical chronology and causality of events, but instead we have comics contradicting movies, games contradicting movies and vice versa, we have prequels that feel and actually are more like retcons, etc... Canon is supposed to exist to make movies coherent, be it sequels and/or prequels... Without that, we get this mess, where comics are considered canon even though they are never addressed in movies nor do the directors or even writers take them into any consideration, we have games that, for instance,  resurrect dead characters that are still non canon because there are no movies still that address it.. That misconception of what canon is supposed to be is why we have fans saying with a straight face that each fan creates his own canon... Canon, by definition, is a guidebook you can only add to and not change... Movies are the source material, so they are the canon... The rest are mere creative derivations that create interesting stories but that ultimately are not taken into consideration in the movie making... ALIEN started it, ALIENS added to it, PREADATOR, PREDATOR 2 ( where we saw a Xeno skull, also undermining David as ultimate Xeno creator), and PREDATORS directly addresses Dutch and his team's encounter with the Predator, so it is also part of the canon... AVP's only contact point with the ALIEN movies, besides the Xenos, of course, is Lance Henriksen's Charles Bishop Weyland, and that alone is not enough to make it part of the canon, but it also does not say it is not... The contact point with it is so tenuous and vague, with this Weyland being perfectly able to be Peter Weyland's ancestor... COVENANT changes way too much to not directly conflict with ALIEN, ALIENS, PREDATOR 2, etc... And even though it is possible for Ridley to be able to tie these prequels to the original ALIEN quatrilogy, minus AVP and PREDATOR 2, which FOX itself will have to address eventually, it still begs to wonder what will Ridley do to tie these movies with ALIEN... He already said these are prequels to ALIEN,so he is not aiming to retcon it...even though publicly stating that David, and not the Engineers, created the Xenos, is a retcon to me...

Canon is what the owner of franchise establishes as canon. We have this mess because Fox doesn't maintain official list of canon material. Or if it does it doesn't publish it.

And we have a bunch of arguing not because fans create their own canons to their linking (some fans want to create a coherent canon, while some are willing to butcher it to include as much content as possible, and some are willing to butcher it to include their own favorite eg. comic) but because some fans feel a great need to push their own version as official canon and push it down other fan's throat.

A.C. still hasn't retconed Alien, Aliens... because there will be more movies that lead into Alien, and the creature in question is proto-morph (xenomorph prototype). However it is still possible that Ridley will retcon the shit out of everything behind Alien.

My canon is Prometheus, Covenant, ... , Alien, A. Isolation, Aliens, Alien 3 (none-butchered version, but dog was impregnated because I like it that way better). There is also some content that I didn't mentioned (such as short Covenant prequel on youtube) to make this list short.

You may notice that I had added Alien Isolation, and there is no Alien Resurrection on my list. This is because I consider Isolation to fit nicely inside the canon, and I also consider it to be a material of great quality. While I consider Alien Resurrection to be an utter piece of shit (although it is a movie) that would ruin my whole experience.

I do not push my version of canon down anybody throat. It is mine, made for my pleasure. I like it. Even if Fox releases official canon I may keep mine because I like it more.

At the same time if some other fan had made his own canon that includes AvP / Predator movies, comics etc. Either by not including some content, or by butchering the whole thing with some very improbable explanations (eg. time travel) I have no problem with that as longs as the fan is not trying to push his version of the canon down other people throats as official canon.

Heck sometimes I help other fans to create more believable explanations that would make their versions of the cannon more coherent.

[YutaniDitch]

In short since Fox didn't establish official canon Aliens, AvP and Predators do not have official canon/canons.

They do. They just wont come out and say it publicly.

So there is a official Fox alien canon, however if both of us argue about something being canon or not we can't use it because... they never published it?

Mate, it's 'canon' not 'cannon'.

English is not my first language I had originally learned it as "cannon", I know it is "canon" however often I start writing it as "cannon".
Sorry about that.

The movies are the original source, hence why they are the canon... Otherwise and maybe because of that self-inflicted inconsistency, we have a complete mess coming out of COVENANT... The lore, canon is supposed to give consistency, coherence and logical chronology and causality of events, but instead we have comics contradicting movies, games contradicting movies and vice versa, we have prequels that feel and actually are more like retcons, etc... Canon is supposed to exist to make movies coherent, be it sequels and/or prequels... Without that, we get this mess, where comics are considered canon even though they are never addressed in movies nor do the directors or even writers take them into any consideration, we have games that, for instance,  resurrect dead characters that are still non canon because there are no movies still that address it.. That misconception of what canon is supposed to be is why we have fans saying with a straight face that each fan creates his own canon... Canon, by definition, is a guidebook you can only add to and not change... Movies are the source material, so they are the canon... The rest are mere creative derivations that create interesting stories but that ultimately are not taken into consideration in the movie making... ALIEN started it, ALIENS added to it, PREADATOR, PREDATOR 2 ( where we saw a Xeno skull, also undermining David as ultimate Xeno creator), and PREDATORS directly addresses Dutch and his team's encounter with the Predator, so it is also part of the canon... AVP's only contact point with the ALIEN movies, besides the Xenos, of course, is Lance Henriksen's Charles Bishop Weyland, and that alone is not enough to make it part of the canon, but it also does not say it is not... The contact point with it is so tenuous and vague, with this Weyland being perfectly able to be Peter Weyland's ancestor... COVENANT changes way too much to not directly conflict with ALIEN, ALIENS, PREDATOR 2, etc... And even though it is possible for Ridley to be able to tie these prequels to the original ALIEN quatrilogy, minus AVP and PREDATOR 2, which FOX itself will have to address eventually, it still begs to wonder what will Ridley do to tie these movies with ALIEN... He already said these are prequels to ALIEN,so he is not aiming to retcon it...even though publicly stating that David, and not the Engineers, created the Xenos, is a retcon to me...

Canon is what the owner of franchise establishes as canon. We have this mess because Fox doesn't maintain official list of canon material. Or if it does it doesn't publish it.

And we have a bunch of arguing not because fans create their own canons to their linking (some fans want to create a coherent canon, while some are willing to butcher it to include as much content as possible, and some are willing to butcher it to include their own favorite eg. comic) but because some fans feel a great need to push their own version as official canon and push it down other fan's throat.

A.C. still hasn't retconed Alien, Aliens... because there will be more movies that lead into Alien, and the creature in question is proto-morph (xenomorph prototype). However it is still possible that Ridley will retcon the shit out of everything behind Alien.

My canon is Prometheus, Covenant, ... , Alien, A. Isolation, Aliens, Alien 3 (none-butchered version, but dog was impregnated because I like it that way better). There is also some content that I didn't mentioned (such as short Covenant prequel on youtube) to make this list short.

You may notice that I had added Alien Isolation, and there is no Alien Resurrection on my list. This is because I consider Isolation to fit nicely inside the canon, and I also consider it to be a material of great quality. While I consider Alien Resurrection to be an utter piece of shit (although it is a movie) that would ruin my whole experience.

I do not push my version of canon down anybody throat. It is mine, made for my pleasure. I like it. Even if Fox releases official canon I may keep mine because I like it more.

At the same time if some other fan had made his own canon that includes AvP / Predator movies, comics etc. Either by not including some content, or by butchering the whole thing with some very improbable explanations (eg. time travel) I have no problem with that as longs as the fan is not trying to push his version of the canon down other people throats as official canon.

Heck sometimes I help other fans to create more believable explanations that would make their versions of the cannon more coherent.

Lazy creative abortions like retcons and remakes mean nothing to me... ALIEN COVENANT making a man-made android behind the creation of the Xenomorph is lazy writing at best, and intellectually offensive at worst... The Xeno had his underlying human-like skull because of the Engineers, not because of some farfetched insemination of wasp DNA mixed with the deus ex machina black goo (still find it a very slow, inconsistent weapon to be used... A chemical weapon would be far more efficient and far less likely to backfire like it did to the Engineers on LV-223...

But going back to the topic at hand, yes, there is an awful lot of confusion as to what truly makes the canonical Alien saga... I believe it is the movies and so far, none of the movies have addressed nor expanded any content present in the games, comics, novelizations, etc... That is why I do not consider any other media besides the movies to be canonical, for the simple reason that their content has never been addressed nor confirmed in the movies that constitute the fundamental core of the Alien saga... I understand that fans want to consider what they liked best to be part of canon, but that is not what canon is and is supposed to be as I have mentioned in my previous post...

Also, David creating the Xenos, unless Ridley steps back and actually states that he did not create them but just recreated, conflicts directly with what the Nostromo found on the Derelict... I think it was an utter mistake to dismiss Prometheus like that, to do an 180 on where the story was going, and ktherefor missing a golden opportunity to make the sequel better... The story was not perfect, but it had a lot of potential, which Ridley gave up on just to focus on the most unbelievable android I have ever seen onscreen... A crying android, a psychopathic android, a grinning, sarcastic android, is not an android... Feelings like rage, anger, are based on emotion, something unprogrammable, as emotions are often triggered by hormonal unbalances... I have always despised the ways androids are portrayed onscreen... Androids do not feel rage and certainly Weyland did not program David to do self thinking... This is why David, which I considered the worst part of PROMETHEUS, is even worse in COVENANT... Ridley just ought to do what he set out to do with PROMETHEUS and not retreat 'cause of bad reviews... An artist should stand for his creation regardless...

[newbeing]

I stopped caring about canon for this series because it's obvious Fox never bothered to care. All they care about is getting your butt in the theater. Any careful or respectful approach to this series is meaningless to them. Remember when Aliens: Colonial Marines was going to be canon?