Michael Bishop

[Local Trouble]

There were plenty of people who insisted that Bishop II was an android long before AvP introduced Charles Bishop Weyland.  Sounds like PWSA is one of them.

[Corporal Hicks]

The majority's incorrect.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In your opinion, until we have an in-universe answer or official statement.

There's an in-universe answer for about 5 years now.

From discussions with SM it seems that he has interpreted the fact that Alien, Predator and AVP are different licenses as them being different canons/universes. Which isn't necessarily true.

I'll happily wait for Fox's official canon statement which, according to Hicks, is on the way.

As SiL said, Fox considers them separate continuities (though the view seems to be AvP is a part of Predator but 100% not Aliens). I'm keen to see that proper timeline/list out, though.

Can't wait for the official timeline to come out. Should stop at least a small percentage of these debates.

Same as currently, though, I imagine those that simply dislike the information will continue to argue against it.

The Alien franchise is currently considered its own thing, separate from AvP and Predator.

Whether Predator and AvP are intertwined or not is largely irrelevant to the fact that Alien has its own current timeline and continuity. As far a I'm aware, there's no group keeping track of Predator like there is for Alien.

Since when is that standard procedure?

It's always been that way. Anderson said the AvP films were their own separate continuity when he made the first.

[The Old One]

A Official registration of Canon materials; Indeed, you can ignore entries the timeline lists, but you can't ignore entries the timeline rejects.

(Canon discussion.)

[SiL]

you can't ignore entries the timeline rejects.

Watch as people absolutely do just that.

[Samhain13]

Yay.

[Russ]

I think its great fun trying to make them fit. As I say, I saw (I think on Alien Theory but I could be wrong) a piece that made AvP Bish fit with Prometheus Weyland.

The debate is fun... and I'm glad that Michael Bishop's funny ear has been explained - I never realised he was enhanced... and never really got the whole funny ear thing.

OR he's a replicant and we can have the "is Blade Runner part of Alien-verse." (In my head, it is. As is Outland.).

Canon seems to be a transient thing for Fox - as someone pointed out, ACM was the official sequel for a bit... that was the final word. Until it wasn't.

As for the other part of this conversation; it seems to me no one apart from Ridley seems to think that David creating the Alien is a great idea... but that's what we've ended up with. I DON'T think its open to interpretation - even if its a shit idea, its the shit idea that's the "reality."

Then again, he also states in his commentary that the xenos can now put themselves back together like a T-1000 - thank goodness THAT didn't make into the film.

As has been said - hopefully the mess that Covenant left will be cleaned up in a final movie.

Also, as much as I want AvP to fit into Alien as a whole, we can twist and turn and make it work by and large, but it really isn't.

On the other hand, I wonder if it works better that the AVP is part of the Predator-verse and ignores the events of Prometheus, A:C, Alien and so on (until we get that Predator movie set in the future vs Colonial Marines).

[The Old One]

David's Creation, Enoch, Evanus, Necronomicon, Muthur 9000 and others enjoy the idea David's the Alien creator.

I appreciate the idea and the resultant implications, but disagree.

[Russ]

I don't know - the idea that we have to have the xeno explained offends me.

I liked the idea that it was this ancient thing that - once taken out of its natural ecosystem - was an uncontainable virus. Or just that it was ancient ... the crew of the Nostromo are the archaeologists unleashing the xenomorph "Tutankhamen curse."

David the Creator always felt to me like doing something that everyone in the room thought would be a brilliant idea but was actually shit. Like "Martha" in BvS - I mean, the fact that their mum's have the same name is a uniting factor... I can almost hear the excited conversation when they hit on that one... and look how that turned out.

It's entirely personal - if other people think its great, more power to them... I just hate the idea.

[The Old One]

I'd say though the H.R Giger bio-mechanics,
the fact that it
"just so happens to be explicitly evocative of human genitalia"
is what makes it so "Alien" in the first place.
Ironic as that is.

Ultimately, because of this a "natural" origin
feels farcical, coupled with the acid for blood and being near impervious to handheld weapons as far in as the early 22nd Century.

It being created by space humans (Engineers) is equally, farcical because it assumes that we can be masters of all, all we need is time; but that's in direct opposition to Alien.

Ultimately something other entirely, undefinable- extinct, at the hands of the Alien, creators of the Alien would have made the most sense... but otherwise for the reasons
Necronomicon stated; David wins.

Spoiler

Ridley Scott changed his mind from the Engineers creating the Alien to David creating the Alien, and he's right- out of those two options an A.I that's essentially "Other" to begin with, creating the Alien is far more appropriate than what's essentially space humans.

[close]

"I think Dead Space nailed the origin story of an existential space horror,
being that the Markers use other species to bring them into existence.

You could do a similar thing with Alien, the original resource from which
the Pathogen came, eventually always pushing the evolutionary tree towards
something that generates the Xenomorph.

The "origin" of the Alien should've never been defined, thankfully all you need to do
to return them to being undefined, is make it clear David's incorrect."

[Local Trouble]

Agreed.

[The Old One]

TY.   

My idea extension:

Spoiler

Push the creator, creation angle even farther by revealing the SJ's created the Engineers eons ago, some cataclysm happened and they disappeared. They discovered the Alien, it destroyed them. The Engineers, millennia later inherited their technology.

The Pathogen, which the SJs derived from the Alien, somehow (the audience isn't told) is all that remains of that Galactic extinction event. Ruins, and technological remains. The SJ's wanted to fight fire with fire with the Pathogen, but the Pathogen- although destructive to worlds- couldn't infect or best the Alien. In fact it always worked it's way towards something resembling the Alien more and more with each use. All the Space Jockey's race die, all but a few. They're effectively extinct.



So the Engineers, in their hubris- flying too close to the sun, make the same mistakes in using this almost "seductively" powerful Pathogen, believing they can control it- it leaves their civilizations in ruins LV-223 being the source of the main disaster, which they abandon. So obviously they banish the Wolf, undo their creation but in the process become the insular and primitive society we see in Covenant.

David gets the wrong end of the stick, believes he's creating something original but in reality it is guiding him to almost supernaturally, resurrect the Alien from extinction.
He would realise this when he discovers the Derelict, or the Derelict discovers him- and that would be his grand downfall- not just physically but mentally.

[close]

[Voodoo Magic]

It's always been that way. Anderson said the AvP films were their own separate continuity when he made the first.

Anderson actually said AvP was a prequel to Alien and a sequel to Predator.



Where does The Predator Holiday Special fit into all this?

[Samhain13]

TY.   

My idea extension:

Spoiler

Push the creator, creation angle even farther by revealing the SJ's created the Engineers eons ago, some cataclysm happened and they disappeared. They discovered the Alien, it destroyed them. The Engineers, millennia later inherited their technology.

The Pathogen, which the SJs derived from the Alien, somehow (the audience isn't told) is all that remains of that Galactic extinction event. Ruins, and technological remains. The SJ's wanted to fight fire with fire with the Pathogen, but the Pathogen- although destructive to worlds- couldn't infect or best the Alien. In fact it always worked it's way towards something resembling the Alien more and more with each use. All the Space Jockey's race die, all but a few. They're effectively extinct.



So the Engineers, in their hubris- flying too close to the sun, make the same mistakes in using this almost "seductively" powerful Pathogen, believing they can control it- it leaves their civilizations in ruins LV-223 being the source of the main disaster, which they abandon. So obviously they banish the Wolf, undo their creation but in the process become the insular and primitive society we see in Covenant.

David gets the wrong end of the stick, believes he's creating something original but in reality it is guiding him to almost supernaturally, resurrect the Alien from extinction.
He would realise this when he discovers the Derelict, or the Derelict discovers him- and that would be his grand downfall- not just physically but mentally.

[close]

Spoiler

Make The Space Jockey Great Again

[close]

It's always been that way. Anderson said the AvP films were their own separate continuity when he made the first.

Anderson actually said AvP was a prequel to Alien and a sequel to Predator.

Apparently he said both things. Or one source is wrong. I remember that he said on a video that the avp predators were teenagers about to become grownups and on a magazine interview he said that they were about to become elders on the movie. Wouldn't be the first time to have 2 contradicting statements from him.

Colin was the one that always said the AVP movies were prequels to Alien, the ending of AVPR was meant to explain how human technology advanced to where we got to on Alien.

[Frosty Venom]

What's this in in-universe answer we've had for almost 5 years?

The Weyland-Yutani Report doesn't mention Charles Bishop Weyland but it also canonised Out of the Shadows, which would mean David isn't the creator of the Xenomorph.

[Samhain13]

I lose it everytime you say canonised. Please keep doing that.

which would mean David isn't the creator of the Xenomorph.