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So I was reading through Prey and came across this interesting little tidbit. Several times throughout the story Dachande says that the Yautja's blood actively counteracts the acid of the xenomorphs. A very specific nullification wouldn't you agree

Now obviously during the 90s when this book was written, nobody actually knew about prometheus. But with Prometheus and the lore changed now, what if the Engineers directly designed predators to fight xenomorphs or police them so to speak. Figured I'd start this conversation.

Various comics and novels show them melting under acid just fine though.

Was Wolf supposed to have copped some acid in the face, hence the scarring?

Yes indeed.

Well obviously they still get burns from it but not as severe as humans. They don't melt and the blood supposedly neutralizes it partially, dachande even spits some blood on an alien finger before marking noguchi

Human flesh neutralises acid blood to an extent anyway.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 03, 2020, 06:29:07 AM
dachande even spits some blood on an alien finger before marking noguchi

Not in the comic he don't.

Nor does Scar in AvP.

This note is the basis for Predator's campaign in AvP2010.

David created the Predators using the raw materials on the Covenant to fight the Aliens, then sent them back in time to fight Arnold.

Also going by Covenant Aliens didn't exist until the 22nd century - and weren't created by Engineers - so it would've taken some fantastic foresight so develop Predators to deal with a nonexistent threat.

Skynet can see to it.

You all know that aliens have existed since Egypt from AVP. Whether you like it or not 😌

We never see Egypt in AvP.

If you're going to add in the Alien prequels then you have to accept what the Alien prequels show. Otherwise the entire question of what Engineers may have done is irrelevant.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 03, 2020, 11:52:40 PM
We never see Egypt in AvP.

If you're going to add in the Alien prequels then you have to accept what the Alien prequels show. Otherwise the entire question of what Engineers may have done is irrelevant.

At least Egypt. Since Predators are the ones who helped us create pyramids and hunted them during that time. Besides since all of it is canon anyway we have to reconcile. So David found a blueprint for the Alien and made it again in covenant. But this is all so distracting from my true point that Predators are biologically disposed to being less vulnerable to the aliens than humans which must be a byproduct of thier creators aka the engineers. Ergo we have to ascertain whether this was on purpose in universe.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 04, 2020, 01:43:31 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 03, 2020, 11:52:40 PM
We never see Egypt in AvP.

If you're going to add in the Alien prequels then you have to accept what the Alien prequels show. Otherwise the entire question of what Engineers may have done is irrelevant.

At least Egypt. Since Predators are the ones who helped us create pyramids and hunted them during that time. Besides since all of it is canon anyway we have to reconcile. So David found a blueprint for the Alien and made it again in covenant. But this is all so distracting from my true point that Predators are biologically disposed to being less vulnerable to the aliens than humans which must be a byproduct of thier creators aka the engineers. Ergo we have to ascertain whether this was on purpose in universe.

You could make an argument that the Predator flesh and blood can naturally resist acid; but once you include Engineers everything falls down.

Quote from: SM on Aug 04, 2020, 02:48:31 AM

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 04, 2020, 01:43:31 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 03, 2020, 11:52:40 PM
We never see Egypt in AvP.

If you're going to add in the Alien prequels then you have to accept what the Alien prequels show. Otherwise the entire question of what Engineers may have done is irrelevant.

At least Egypt. Since Predators are the ones who helped us create pyramids and hunted them during that time. Besides since all of it is canon anyway we have to reconcile. So David found a blueprint for the Alien and made it again in covenant. But this is all so distracting from my true point that Predators are biologically disposed to being less vulnerable to the aliens than humans which must be a byproduct of thier creators aka the engineers. Ergo we have to ascertain whether this was on purpose in universe.

You could make an argument that the Predator flesh and blood can naturally resist acid; but once you include Engineers everything falls down.

Agreed.

While I think most of us could take or leave the current AVP flicks, the Alien prequels made sure to retcon their relevance. Even the Alien skull on the ship in P2 becomes null and void.

The AVP concept could still work as long as it took place after the Alien prequels (maybe even during the prequels). But the idea that the Engineers specifically designed Predators to combat Aliens just doesn't work.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 04, 2020, 03:21:45 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 04, 2020, 02:48:31 AM

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 04, 2020, 01:43:31 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 03, 2020, 11:52:40 PM
We never see Egypt in AvP.

If you're going to add in the Alien prequels then you have to accept what the Alien prequels show. Otherwise the entire question of what Engineers may have done is irrelevant.

At least Egypt. Since Predators are the ones who helped us create pyramids and hunted them during that time. Besides since all of it is canon anyway we have to reconcile. So David found a blueprint for the Alien and made it again in covenant. But this is all so distracting from my true point that Predators are biologically disposed to being less vulnerable to the aliens than humans which must be a byproduct of thier creators aka the engineers. Ergo we have to ascertain whether this was on purpose in universe.

You could make an argument that the Predator flesh and blood can naturally resist acid; but once you include Engineers everything falls down.

Agreed.

While I think most of us could take or leave the current AVP flicks, the Alien prequels made sure to retcon their relevance. Even the Alien skull on the ship in P2 becomes null and void.

Ehhhh, not exactly.'Covenant' says one thing, 'Alien' says something very different. :)

Working from 'Alien', the AvP concept could certainly work.

I literally just told you how to reconcile the two lol since you can't invalidate one since each are equally canon. David followed some engineer blueprint on how to create aliens, boom problem solved. It's never directly stated that he made them to start with and even if he did, maybe he made a different species type, because of the other Canon you have to find ways to fit the pieces together.

He says several times in the film that he created them.  And the latest official take on things is that Alien and Prometheus are one thing and AvP is another thing.

Don't bring canon into it and then make up things like 'engineer blueprints'.

Also if everything could stop being Six Degrees of Engineers that would be great.

Canon war!

Quote from: SiL on Aug 04, 2020, 05:52:33 AM
Also if everything could stop being Six Degrees of Engineers that would be great.

Amen.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 04, 2020, 05:54:11 AM
Canon war!

It is only natural for it to start again.

Since the Jockeys lost their mysteriousness, I don't like the idea of ​​Engineers being responsible for everything. Actually, even with a cooler concept it would be too much in my opinion. 

Quote from: Samhain13 on Aug 04, 2020, 02:46:45 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 04, 2020, 05:54:11 AM
Canon war!

It is only natural for it to start again.

This is a war to end all wars.

(https://i.ibb.co/QKwLmLC/4afnnw.gif)

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 04, 2020, 05:54:11 AM
Canon war!

Oh fine.

Quote'Alien' says something very different.

Even if we take Dallas' word as gospel, the film only says the Jockey and ship are old. The pathogen creates organisms that explode from inside depending on delivery method as shown in the prequels. So the ship and Jockey being old but the eggs being new still doesn't contradict anything Alien actually says - the exploded chest could be pathogen related (and we know that stuff's at least 2,000 years old) and the eggs could still be only a few years old.

Sigh.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 04, 2020, 11:00:20 PM

Quote'Alien' says something very different.

Even if we take Dallas' word as gospel, the film only says the Jockey and ship are old. The pathogen creates organisms that explode from inside depending on delivery method as shown in the prequels. So the ship and Jockey being old but the eggs being new still doesn't contradict anything Alien actually says - the exploded chest could be pathogen related (and we know that stuff's at least 2,000 years old) and the eggs could still be only a few years old.

Sigh.

When you thought nothing more can be retconned at this point.

Sigh

Milburn: Maybe it opened up from the inside. Looks like it exploded.

(https://i.ibb.co/9Nv5NQN/IMG-20200804-192149-395.jpg)

(https://i.ibb.co/745mthK/unnamed.gif)

Dallas : Bones are bent outward, like he exploded from inside.

(https://i.ibb.co/wypHsJW/tumblr-l48f5ez-Vo-Q1qa1o5zo1-1280.jpg)

I hate it with every fibre of my being.

Also, Fifield says: It looks like they were running from something.

Plus one can hear a roar when the holo-recording is activated by David. So I am going to assume that some Engineers died from the black pathogen. But something was chasing them at the same time.

(https://i.ibb.co/cF0KDrZ/IMG-20200804-225542-702.jpg)

The CG wizards omitted it because that would ruin the surprise at the end.

I mean early script stuff had the engineers returning to kill humans before they killed Jesus, its safe to say the intent was for them to literally be gods

Quote from: SiL on Aug 04, 2020, 11:00:20 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 04, 2020, 05:54:11 AM
Canon war!

Oh fine.

Quote'Alien' says something very different.

Even if we take Dallas' word as gospel, the film only says the Jockey and ship are old. The pathogen creates organisms that explode from inside depending on delivery method as shown in the prequels. So the ship and Jockey being old but the eggs being new still doesn't contradict anything Alien actually says - the exploded chest could be pathogen related (and we know that stuff's at least 2,000 years old) and the eggs could still be only a few years old.

Sigh.

That's super disingenuous and you know it. :)
Just like you like to say that Covenant, as it's own movie, indicates unequivocally that David made the Alien, likewise does 'Alien', taken as its own movie, indicate that the Space Jockey, Derelict, its cargo, and therefore the Alien, are unequivocally ancient. The obvious intent of the movie was that the Alien is an ancient organism and that's how the Jockey died. Only by introducing the prequels can you start reinterpreting it to fit a different narrative, which is my point. It's a two-way street, you can reach very different conclusions depending on which end you start from and neither answer is "wrong".

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 05, 2020, 02:12:21 AM
That's super disingenuous and you know it. :)

It's not disingenuous at all.

The film says the ship and pilot are old. It says the pilot died from something bursting out of its chest.

The information in the prequels that there are other things that make holes in chests and the eggs are new don't go against that.

Alien doesn't say anything about the age of the eggs, so strictly speaking there's no conflict.

The Jockey is old, it died via Alien, therefore the Alien is also old.

Also I'm right and you're wrong, someday you will SEE THE LIGHT.

But maybe it died of a sporeburster? If the Jockey grew out of its chair and was facehugged, where's the facehugger??!?!

I always wondered where the chestburster went as well.  Did it stay on the derelict, grow into adulthood and just die of old age in some dark corner of the ship?

Quote from: SiL on Aug 05, 2020, 02:26:49 AM
But maybe it died of a sporeburster? If the Jockey grew out of its chair and was facehugged, where's the facehugger??!?!

The jockey ate it for nourishment before he died.

He's just that hardcore.

Well we see with specimen 6 that it doesn't have to come out of the chest, could have just gone through the butt  8)

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 05, 2020, 02:36:23 AM
I always wondered where the chestburster went as well.  Did it stay on the derelict, grow into adulthood and just die of old age in some dark corner of the ship?

Spoiler

(https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/d799fcc0-5e66-4952-a373-fc85200d57a3/dap0n5e-0696a682-17eb-4059-bf32-c9a01b772d36.png/v1/fill/w_1024,h_1408,q_75,strp/dead_xenomorph_by_cinemamind-dap0n5e.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwic3ViIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl0sIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiIvZi9kNzk5ZmNjMC01ZTY2LTQ5NTItYTM3My1mYzg1MjAwZDU3YTMvZGFwMG41ZS0wNjk2YTY4Mi0xN2ViLTQwNTktYmYzMi1jOWEwMWI3NzJkMzYucG5nIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEwMjQiLCJoZWlnaHQiOiI8PTE0MDgifV1dfQ.CR5nj8vL-SA9vrdpyROc2y6TBa_TMWsykoMZ-BQWw1Q)

[close]

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 05, 2020, 02:36:23 AM
I always wondered where the chestburster went as well.  Did it stay on the derelict, grow into adulthood and just die of old age in some dark corner of the ship?

I never could make out a skeleton in that storyboard.

Middle of the image, above the crew.

Kinda like the Rock Jockey (https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/rock-jockey/#comments) idea.

(https://i.ibb.co/n7K1BLW/alien33-1.jpg)

It's the same thing. Jockey scene was out for a while so the skeleton was just going to be hidden in the rock formation.

The Jockey's facehugger could have crawled away and died afterwards, like we saw with Kane's facehugger.

Also, seeing as we have Aliens, could the Jockey burster not have become the Queen after all that time?

Even in Prometheus the alien burster at the end bore some resemblance to a Queen with its pointed head and the construction of the mouth. 

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 05, 2020, 01:18:02 AM
(https://i.ibb.co/cF0KDrZ/IMG-20200804-225542-702.jpg)

The CG wizards omitted it because that would ruin the surprise at the end.

Do you remember where that was said?

---

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 05, 2020, 05:52:38 AM
Kinda like the Rock Jockey (https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/rock-jockey/#comments) idea.

https://i.ibb.co/n7K1BLW/alien33-1.jpg

Did we ever find out where that image came from? Some sort of matte painting that got done?

It's also just as likely the facehugger rotted away long ago, whereas the more robust space jockey, through its natural biology or through arcane biomechanoid technology integrating it with the ship, essentially fossilizing it. We saw how quickly the Acheron facehuggers started breaking down after having done their duty.

The Jockey could have also been implanted by a "super facehugger" which could very well have crawled off waiting to implant someone else, or like the gap in time between Kane's hugger falling off and the chest bursting, it could have just occurred elsewhere on the ship before the Jockey went upstairs and slurped into the pilot seat.

That artwork of the ancient mummified Ultramorph is beautiful! Is it fan art or concept art?

It was always one of my favorite parts in the River of Pain audio drama when Anne and Russ Jordan discover the alien bodies who killed each other in battle in the lower levels of the derelict while they were rooting around. Pretty much any excuse to see more corners of the Derelict is money in my book, like the weird oscillating doodad in the novelization that Dallas discovers and suspects is the beacon, or the rad beacon device that Marlowe breaks in Isolation. For that matter I really wish they'd filmed the entire script for The Crossing.

---

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 05, 2020, 05:52:38 AM
Kinda like the Rock Jockey (https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/rock-jockey/#comments) idea.

https://i.ibb.co/n7K1BLW/alien33-1.jpg

We were at the ship,
Everybody had matching trowels,
Somebody went out of the 'lock,
And there they saw a rock,
It wasn't a rock,
It was a rock jock-ey!

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 05, 2020, 02:36:23 AM
I always wondered where the chestburster went as well.  Did it stay on the derelict, grow into adulthood and just die of old age in some dark corner of the ship?

It's grown and become to be known as LV-426

---

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 05, 2020, 02:54:48 AM
Well we see with specimen 6 that it doesn't have to come out of the chest, could have just gone through the butt  8)

The real question is:

Spoiler

CAN YOU BE BUTT-HUGGED ?

https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=62259.msg2391695#msg2391695 (https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=62259.msg2391695#msg2391695)

[close]

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 05, 2020, 02:54:48 AM
Well we see with specimen 6 that it doesn't have to come out of the chest, could have just gone through the butt  8)

The burster clearly came out of the chest though ???

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 05, 2020, 06:42:45 AM
Even in Prometheus the alien burster at the end bore some resemblance to a Queen with its pointed head and the construction of the mouth.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found the mechanism and design of the deacon's jaws similar to the queen  :laugh:

(https://i.ibb.co/0DqPJpw/f61796f1ec4ee4659b1a080f99ff5cef.gif)

(https://i.ibb.co/7nbK7m2/gif-1.gif)

---

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 05, 2020, 07:36:44 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 05, 2020, 01:18:02 AM
(https://i.ibb.co/cF0KDrZ/IMG-20200804-225542-702.jpg)

The CG wizards omitted it because that would ruin the surprise at the end.

Do you remember where that was said?

---

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 05, 2020, 05:52:38 AM
Kinda like the Rock Jockey (https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/rock-jockey/#comments) idea.

https://i.ibb.co/n7K1BLW/alien33-1.jpg

Did we ever find out where that image came from? Some sort of matte painting that got done?

According to @wmmvrrvrrmm (http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/1979/09/grotestque-rock-formations-in-alien.html?m=1), the rock formation was presented to the world in the form of a topps card.

Quote from: Alien ExplorationsGrotesque rock formations were first observed in the form of the Topps card. I soon realised that this backdrop was based on a section of the Giger's painting for the bone landscape work 385 as seen in the Giger's Alien book.

~ Bob Penn © 1979 20th Century Fox (source of photo: Charlie Lippincott) ~



~ Elongated vertical landscape feature streaming down in both Giger's painting on the left and the background painting on the right ~



~ H R Giger posing with the Landscape painting (from Giger's Alien Diaries) ~

It was part of the set. I guess it can't be seen in the movie though.



~ The rock formation as seen from an angle in the distance on the Alien film set  (Source: photograph just below from Giger's Alien) ~



~ The film set showing the planetoid landscape with rock formation to the left
(Source: Giger's Alien) ~

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 05, 2020, 03:53:30 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 05, 2020, 06:42:45 AM
Even in Prometheus the alien burster at the end bore some resemblance to a Queen with its pointed head and the construction of the mouth.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found the mechanism and design of the deacon's jaws similar to the queen  :laugh:

https://i.ibb.co/0DqPJpw/f61796f1ec4ee4659b1a080f99ff5cef.gif

(https://i.ibb.co/7nbK7m2/gif-1.gif)

Nice! Love seeing them side by side.  :D

Also, great info on the artwork and BTS shot!

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 05, 2020, 03:53:30 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 05, 2020, 06:42:45 AM
Even in Prometheus the alien burster at the end bore some resemblance to a Queen with its pointed head and the construction of the mouth.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found the mechanism and design of the deacon's jaws similar to the queen  :laugh:

https://i.ibb.co/0DqPJpw/f61796f1ec4ee4659b1a080f99ff5cef.gif

(https://i.ibb.co/7nbK7m2/gif-1.gif)

(https://media0.giphy.com/media/xT0xeJpnrWC4XWblEk/200.gif)

Quote from: SM on Aug 04, 2020, 05:30:20 AM
He says several times in the film that he created them.  And the latest official take on things is that Alien and Prometheus are one thing and AvP is another thing.

Don't bring canon into it and then make up things like 'engineer blueprints'.

He created the ones we see in the movie but that isnt 100% proof that he created them completely on his own, the official novel adds more details and there its more on the side of him recreating what has existed prior but Davids own version which would explain why the alien in covenant is so different looking and behaviour wise from the big chap and the remaining alien movies:
-Burst out from the host after a very short time in transparent smaller version of its adult self. (original alien would been fleshy chestburster which looks more like a snake than a mini xenonorph.
- The body is slimmer and taller than the standard xenomorph and its backpipes are more merging into two rather than being 4 separate ones and it lacks the neckpart.
-way more aggressive and dumb, attacks a machinerys arm as if it thinks its alive......Darwin awards goes to.
-the eggs looks more like plants and is way different from the normal eggs we saw in alien and aliens etc.

To me this xenomorph can only qualifly as a prototype as its too different from the other xenomorphs and life behaviour.
Its like saying a donkey is the same as a zebra.

Okay now some might say novels of a movie isnt canon while in star wars they are....but to me all materials released about the movie, comics, novels, series etc is canon.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 04, 2020, 11:00:20 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 04, 2020, 05:54:11 AM
Canon war!

Oh fine.

Quote'Alien' says something very different.

Even if we take Dallas' word as gospel, the film only says the Jockey and ship are old. The pathogen creates organisms that explode from inside depending on delivery method as shown in the prequels. So the ship and Jockey being old but the eggs being new still doesn't contradict anything Alien actually says - the exploded chest could be pathogen related (and we know that stuff's at least 2,000 years old) and the eggs could still be only a few years old.

Sigh.

Its pretty clear from the beginning and hr gigers design and what they discuss in the 2003 documentary that the space jockey is a fossil and old and its own creature that is half creature and half derelight space material hence why its grown out of the chair. I dig the idea that the species is like plants and is grown to their role and this one is the pilot while what could been the other crew members looked different and also grew out of the derelight but is now all the bones we see in the egg silo.

Also I agree with this youtuber where he discuss that the derelight is huge and he shows the shots I meant where you only see the tiny lights of the nostromo crew as they walk towards the derelight which is just massive.


(https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/7d6993df-3d77-4fbb-878f-4afdb136d515/de2t58b-e1c613c1-a3b0-4537-9c17-7ffc09e9d9f8.jpg/v1/fill/w_894,h_894,q_70,strp/ece4r9zxgaavyph_by_warrior1944_de2t58b-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD0xMDgwIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvN2Q2OTkzZGYtM2Q3Ny00ZmJiLTg3OGYtNGFmZGIxMzZkNTE1XC9kZTJ0NThiLWUxYzYxM2MxLWEzYjAtNDUzNy05YzE3LTdmZmMwOWU5ZDlmOC5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTA4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.lKEVDtOD3j9l771UVmHyiKRdm-o1wNhzZwL43jp39HU)

Oh boy, here we go again.

(https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia3.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2FwBJLObNGrYfmw%2Fgiphy.gif&hash=72f5ff748f0e18d7f988f7192349aa446ba9c00b)

ffs

The official novelization is far from an accurate source on anything. ADF confirmed that that random aside was an invention of his own and not in the script, because he didn't like the script.

The fact of the matter is, in Alien (a film that Scott had final say over) Dallas speculates that the Jockey and Derelict must be ancient. In Covenant, Scott retcons that to have David explicitly spell out that he created the Alien (and Scott has confirmed outside of the film that David is correct in this assessment). That means that Dallas' speculation was incorrect.

Covenant is interesting enough to me that I am very ok with that, and regardless, I'm not really hung up on continuity so much as I am what the individual films are trying to say. If one has something interesting they want to try that doesn't mesh perfectly with what came before it, the Alien franchise is one where I am very ok with that; there have been so many different creative forces, all with their own visions, involved in the franchise at this point that that is inevitable.

But, as we stand today, canonically speaking, David designed the Alien on Planet 4. There were plenty of Alien-esque beings using the same template and the pathogen as a raw material that pre-date him; see the mural in Prometheus, whatever killed the Engineers on LV-223, the Hammerpede, the Trilobite, the Deacon, etc. But it was David that took this (potentially very, very ancient) pathogen and used it to create the particular form that we see in the original films, and the is made clear as day in Covenant.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 07, 2020, 01:07:44 PM
The official novelization is far from an accurate source on anything. ADF confirmed that that random aside was an invention of his own and not in the script, because he didn't like the script.

The fact of the matter is, in Alien (a film that Scott had final say over) Dallas speculates that the Jockey and Derelict must be ancient. In Covenant, Scott retcons that to have David explicitly spell out that he created the Alien (and Scott has confirmed outside of the film that David is correct in this assessment). That means that Dallas' speculation was incorrect.

Covenant is interesting enough to me that I am very ok with that, and regardless, I'm not really hung up on continuity so much as I am what the individual films are trying to say. If one has something interesting they want to try that doesn't mesh perfectly with what came before it, the Alien franchise is one where I am very ok with that; there have been so many different creative forces, all with their own visions, involved in the franchise at this point that that is inevitable.

But, as we stand today, canonically speaking, David designed the Alien on Planet 4. There were plenty of Alien-esque beings using the same template and the pathogen as a raw material that pre-date him; see the mural in Prometheus, whatever killed the Engineers on LV-223, the Hammerpede, the Trilobite, the Deacon, etc. But it was David that took this (potentially very, very ancient) pathogen and used it to create the particular form that we see in the original films, and the is made clear as day in Covenant.

So how are we suggesting that we get from where Covenant left off to where Alien begins?

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 07, 2020, 02:53:04 PM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 07, 2020, 01:07:44 PM
The official novelization is far from an accurate source on anything. ADF confirmed that that random aside was an invention of his own and not in the script, because he didn't like the script.

The fact of the matter is, in Alien (a film that Scott had final say over) Dallas speculates that the Jockey and Derelict must be ancient. In Covenant, Scott retcons that to have David explicitly spell out that he created the Alien (and Scott has confirmed outside of the film that David is correct in this assessment). That means that Dallas' speculation was incorrect.

Covenant is interesting enough to me that I am very ok with that, and regardless, I'm not really hung up on continuity so much as I am what the individual films are trying to say. If one has something interesting they want to try that doesn't mesh perfectly with what came before it, the Alien franchise is one where I am very ok with that; there have been so many different creative forces, all with their own visions, involved in the franchise at this point that that is inevitable.

But, as we stand today, canonically speaking, David designed the Alien on Planet 4. There were plenty of Alien-esque beings using the same template and the pathogen as a raw material that pre-date him; see the mural in Prometheus, whatever killed the Engineers on LV-223, the Hammerpede, the Trilobite, the Deacon, etc. But it was David that took this (potentially very, very ancient) pathogen and used it to create the particular form that we see in the original films, and the is made clear as day in Covenant.

So how are we suggesting that we get from where Covenant left off to where Alien begins?

Hell if I know.

Maybe the Derelict crashes between Covenant and Alien and a pathogen leak leads to that biomechanical, mummified look of the original ship.

Maybe the Derelict is ancient and the eggs were put there recently.

Maybe the Derelict and the eggs are ancient, and it is re-retconned to say that David was incorrect and he didn't actually create the capital-A Alien.

There are quite a few possibilities. But as it stands now, I'm just working with what's given in the films we do have.

I think it's clear how, eventually, Covenant crosses paths with the Derelict ship, but how things play out between that interaction on up to Alien will probably be left for the imagination.
I wish we were getting that 3rd prequel...

At some point though maybe David outsmarts the Engineer by infecting it which leads to whatever bursts out of it to "infect" the rest of the ship before it crashes.

lol this topic again?

We see David creating a xenomorph but the films never said Xenomorphs had a single creator. Therefore, if you follow the titan books, David didn't create them. If you follow Scott's intentions, He did.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 12:20:03 AM
We see David creating a xenomorph but the films never said Xenomorphs had a single creator.

"Soon enough I began a bit of genetic experimentation of my own. Cross-breeding, hybridizing, what have you."

"You engineered these, David?"

"Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, Captain. Come, this is what I wanted to show you. My successes."

You guys shouldn't have panned covenant so hard, maybe the third one would have been half decent smh

I enjoy it mostly.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 08, 2020, 01:13:08 AM
You guys shouldn't have panned covenant so hard, maybe the third one would have been half decent smh

Nearly three quarters of "us guys" didn't pan it. (https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=57277.1725)

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 08, 2020, 12:37:26 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 12:20:03 AM
We see David creating a xenomorph but the films never said Xenomorphs had a single creator.

"Soon enough I began a bit of genetic experimentation of my own. Cross-breeding, hybridizing, what have you."

"You engineered these, David?"

"Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, Captain. Come, this is what I wanted to show you. My successes."

This was debated years ago. Those lines still work even if Xenomorphs existed before David, since "You engineered These" are only referring to the Xenos found in the lab

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 02:04:31 AM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 08, 2020, 12:37:26 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 12:20:03 AM
We see David creating a xenomorph but the films never said Xenomorphs had a single creator.

"Soon enough I began a bit of genetic experimentation of my own. Cross-breeding, hybridizing, what have you."

"You engineered these, David?"

"Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, Captain. Come, this is what I wanted to show you. My successes."

This was debated years ago. Those lines still work even if Xenomorphs existed before David, since "You engineered These" are only referring to the Xenos found in the lab

And yet,

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 12:20:03 AM
If you follow Scott's intentions, He did.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 08, 2020, 02:48:20 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 02:04:31 AM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 08, 2020, 12:37:26 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 12:20:03 AM
We see David creating a xenomorph but the films never said Xenomorphs had a single creator.

"Soon enough I began a bit of genetic experimentation of my own. Cross-breeding, hybridizing, what have you."

"You engineered these, David?"

"Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, Captain. Come, this is what I wanted to show you. My successes."

This was debated years ago. Those lines still work even if Xenomorphs existed before David, since "You engineered These" are only referring to the Xenos found in the lab

And yet,

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 12:20:03 AM
If you follow Scott's intentions, He did.

And if you follow Scott's intention, Fire and stone wouldn't exist.

Fire & Stone conformed to Scott's intent at the time it was published.

I don't pay much attention to the EU in general (Apart from the occasional random pieces that grab my attention, like The Cold Forge and Phalanx) and haven't read Fire and Stone, so that doesn't really change my outlook on anything.

It seems to be a strange argument anyway.

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 04:03:37 AM
Fire & Stone conformed to Scott's intent at the time it was published.

Fox envision the New/rebooted universe as AVP despite knowing the Scott was anti-AVP.

Still not seeing the relevance.

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 04:28:32 AM
Still not seeing the relevance.

Scott's intentions are not official?

Why would David lie about making the Aliens and not just claim to have invented the accelerant itself? It's not like the people he's talking to would know any different.

His whole thing was wanting to create. Stealing someone else's blueprint and passing it off as his own isn't his style.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 04:31:22 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 04:28:32 AM
Still not seeing the relevance.

Scott's intentions are not official?

The films hold a higher "tier" of canon than other media. If something is established in a comic and then a film comes and contradicts that, then the film supercedes that and becomes the new established "canon."

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 04:38:43 AM
Why would David lie about making the Aliens and not just claim to have invented the accelerant itself? It's not like the people he's talking to would know any different.

His whole thing was wanting to create. Stealing someone else's blueprint and passing it off as his own isn't his style.

This. From his talk leading up to the revelation, it seems like he pretty quickly got bored just letting the pathogen run amok. "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop."

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 04:03:37 AM
Fire & Stone conformed to Scott's intent at the time it was published.

It's almost as if "Scott's intent" is a fickle and amorphous thing and shouldn't be used as an "official" gauge for anything.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 04:38:43 AM
Why would David lie about making the Aliens and not just claim to have invented the accelerant itself? It's not like the people he's talking to would know any different.

His whole thing was wanting to create. Stealing someone else's blueprint and passing it off as his own isn't his style.

He's not lying if he doesn't know he's wrong. :)

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 08, 2020, 04:44:59 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 04:31:22 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 04:28:32 AM
Still not seeing the relevance.

Scott's intentions are not official?

The films hold a higher "tier" of canon than other media. If something is established in a comic and then a film comes and contradicts that, then the film supercedes that and becomes the new established "canon."

"Scott's intent" is not a film. :P

What the film shows us is that David created an Alien (and certainly thinks he created all of them) but that may or may not be the case because of evidence in 'Alien'. The films themselves don't attempt to explain those discrepancies since the Derelict and Space Jockey aren't in 'Covenant'.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 08, 2020, 04:44:59 AM
then a film comes and contradicts that,

There's no contradiction because films never said Xenos had a single creator.

Which film shows us the other creators?

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 04:31:22 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 04:28:32 AM
Still not seeing the relevance.

Scott's intentions are not official?

When they end up on screen they are, yes.

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 05:06:44 AM
Which film shows us the other creators?

We don't need to see other creators, we just need to see Aliens that predate David (such as in 'Alien').

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 05:06:44 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 04:31:22 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 04:28:32 AM
Still not seeing the relevance.

Scott's intentions are not official?

When they end up on screen they are, yes.

So when those intentions change, they're "no longer on screen" I guess? Or are there multiple competing intents? Why should the "newest" one supercede the others? What if Scott is lying when he tells us what his intent is? Why is Scott's intent so important when filmmaking is such a collaborative process?

Leaning on this "intent" thing seems really unreliable and fallacious, I don't know if we should do it!  :o

David claiming he created them doesn't have to be factual anyway, he's not omniscient. With his experiments he could have easily just accidentally replicated something that was around before that. Moreover, David could just be wrong and evidently he is since AVP exists, P2 exists, and a thousand other stories with the aliens pre covenant exist.

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 05:06:44 AM
Which film shows us the other creators?

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 04:31:22 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 04:28:32 AM
Still not seeing the relevance.

Scott's intentions are not official?

When they end up on screen they are, yes.

Scott's intention didn't end up on the screen, because the film never said Xenos had a single creator.

---

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 05:06:44 AM
Which film shows us the other creators?

The EU, and covenant doesn't contradict them, because covenant never said xenos had a single creator. 

Thought as much.

(https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia3.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2FxUA7b7HcF126GuwoiA%2Fgiphy.gif&hash=425f8ae2ce72497590cb3d756024521954ac6427)

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 05:14:22 AM
The EU, and covenant doesn't contradict them, because covenant never said xenos had a single creator.

It doesn't say they have more than one, either.

---

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 04:51:29 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 04:38:43 AM
Why would David lie about making the Aliens and not just claim to have invented the accelerant itself? It's not like the people he's talking to would know any different.

His whole thing was wanting to create. Stealing someone else's blueprint and passing it off as his own isn't his style.

He's not lying if he doesn't know he's wrong. :)

We know my stance on assuming facts not in evidence. ;)

Quote
It doesn't say they have more than one, either.

Titan books said aliens destroyed an ancient civilization, so there must be an ancient creator?

Written before Covenant was conceived.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 11:47:42 AM

Quote
It doesn't say they have more than one, either.

Titan books said aliens destroyed an ancient civilization, so there must be an ancient creator?

Alien film makers have never stopped to say "Wait a minute, will this mesh with the EU continuity?"

Alien films have been invalidating the EU since the early 90's

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 11:47:42 AM

Quote
It doesn't say they have more than one, either.

Titan books said aliens destroyed an ancient civilization, so there must be an ancient creator?

Dark Horse comics said Newt grew up.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 09:34:59 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 04:51:29 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 04:38:43 AM
Why would David lie about making the Aliens and not just claim to have invented the accelerant itself? It's not like the people he's talking to would know any different.

His whole thing was wanting to create. Stealing someone else's blueprint and passing it off as his own isn't his style.

He's not lying if he doesn't know he's wrong. :)

We know my stance on assuming facts not in evidence. ;)

There is (thematic) evidence, he goofs up the author of his favorite quote and doesn't realize he's wrong.

I'm all about differing perspectives, hey Sil, what's your take on how we bridge the gap from Covenant to Alien?

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 01:05:46 PM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 11:47:42 AM

Quote
It doesn't say they have more than one, either.

Titan books said aliens destroyed an ancient civilization, so there must be an ancient creator?

Dark Horse comics said Newt grew up.

which goes back to the point of "There is no contradiction between Covenant and the Titan books, because Covenant never said that Xenos had a single creator"

The entire reason of why this debate happens is because covenant never said there was only one creator.   

Covenant does show us David creating the Alien, its pretty clear in the film. It's clear thats what they are showing us, that he is THE creator. The writers shouldn't have to be so on the nose as to include a line where he says " I'm the only creator of the Alien ever! Haha!"

If another film comes along and says otherwise then great, but until then...

Basically, it boils down to the fact that David can still create another xenomorph, even when xenomorphs already existed. And thats why the debate will never stop.

Well technically we never see Xenomorphs in the film.

David has no pheremones to speak of and he can seemingly manipulate the protomorph like a puppet, this must mean they view him as creator but their instincts haven't developed yet and they don't have a queen yet (obvious from the film) meaning they aren't fully matured.

None of that however invalidates the idea that David merely replicated them. After all, doesn't everyone agree a being powered by acid blood with such a specific life cycle is a bit of a... specific creation for David to create? Maybe the xeno's already existed inside the black goop and slowly with expirimenting David brought them out IDK. Either way they existed back in AVP, concrete Jungle, and P2 which means David can't have created them. Gg

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 06:49:31 PM
Basically, it boils down to the fact that David can still create another xenomorph, even when xenomorphs already existed. And thats why the debate will never stop.

But the film (and Ridley, for that matter) literally spells out that, while the pathogen and all kinds of alien forms that spawn from it pre-date David, the specific incarnation of the Alien that we see in Covenant and the original films is the direct result of David's work with the pathogen and lifeforms native to Planet 4.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 08, 2020, 06:54:22 PM
Well technically we never see Xenomorphs in the film.

They aren't completed, sure, but they really only seem a step removed from what we have in Alien, and the film literally ends with him prepping his next experiments on board the Covenant to get us there.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 08, 2020, 06:54:22 PM
None of that however invalidates the idea that David merely replicated them. After all, doesn't everyone agree a being powered by acid blood with such a specific life cycle is a bit of a... specific creation for David to create? Maybe the xeno's already existed inside the black goop and slowly with expirimenting David brought them out IDK.

The raw materials were there. The acid blood, the gist of the lifecycle, etc. We already know that stuff is baked into the pathogen thanks to what we see unfold in Prometheus. What David did is take that raw material, impue his own ideas (and a whole lot of sexual frustration and self-deification) into it, mix it with native life forms until he found the result he was looking for, and created a form – the capital-A Alien – that is much more specific than the more randomly generated spawn that the pathogen has unleashed in the past without his guiding hand. The pathogen and the general form of these alien beings pre-date David's work, in the way that marble and the human form pre-date an artist carving a sculpture, but the sculpture is still the artist's and the Alien is David's.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 08, 2020, 06:54:22 PM
Either way they existed back in AVP, concrete Jungle, and P2 which means David can't have created them. Gg

None of which are considered canon to the Alien films.

The Xeno in covenant is the result of David's work. The Xenos in the original films, thats debatable since the Derelict and space jockey are not in covenant.

Basically, its "old Derelict proves David is recreating the creature" instead of "David proving the Derelict is young" The cause is still because Covenant never said there was only one creator.   

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 07:46:27 PM
The Xeno in covenant is the result of David's work. The Xenos in the original films, thats debatable since the Derelict and space jockey are not in covenant.

Basically, its "old Derelict proves David is recreating the creature" instead of "David proving the Derelict is young" The cause is still because Covenant never said there was only one creator.

And? Alien says nothing about creation. The Space Jockey is not important to the story. All you have is Dallas saying something about the alleged antiquity of the Derelict.

Is there any Alien movie that explicitly says that there is "more than one creator"?

Thats why I said you could follow either the Titan Books, or Scott's intentions.

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 08, 2020, 08:19:26 PM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 07:46:27 PM
The Xeno in covenant is the result of David's work. The Xenos in the original films, thats debatable since the Derelict and space jockey are not in covenant.

Basically, its "old Derelict proves David is recreating the creature" instead of "David proving the Derelict is young" The cause is still because Covenant never said there was only one creator.

And? Alien says nothing about creation. The Space Jockey is not important to the story. All you have is Dallas saying something about the alleged antiquity of the Derelict.

Is there any Alien movie that explicitly says that there is "more than one creator"?

As mentioned, 'Alien' doesn't need to say anything about creation - it just needs to show Aliens which are older than David's creation (which it does, that's the filmmaker's intent).

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 06:22:32 PM
which goes back to the point of "There is no contradiction between Covenant and the Titan books, because Covenant never said that Xenos had a single creator"

It goes to the point that the books don't have much of a say in anything in the long run.

QuoteThe entire reason of why this debate happens is because covenant never said there was only one creator.

This debate happens because people live in denial.

Like I said, I don't see how people could champion's Ridley's intention as official or canon, when FOX directly turned his universe into an AVP universe against his will.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 09:52:31 PM
This debate happens because people live in denial.

lmao nah, that's not the only reason and that's been covered many times in the past :)

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 10:08:06 PM
lmao nah, that's not the only reason and that's been covered many times in the past :)

It absolutely is the reason. It's denial that that's what the plot is and trying to hold on to what we thought before. Everything else is dressing.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 10:00:46 PM
Like I said, I don't see how people could champion's Ridley's intention as official or canon, when FOX directly turned his universe into an AVP universe against his will.

I haven't said anything about intention.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 10:16:40 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 10:08:06 PM
lmao nah, that's not the only reason and that's been covered many times in the past :)

It absolutely is the reason. It's denial that that's what the plot is and trying to hold on to what we thought before. Everything else is dressing.

I believe we'll have to agree to disagree on that. Trying to pigeon-hole people's opinions like that feels like a bit of a disservice but hey, it's your opinion and I'm not here to change it. :)

I'm not talking about the plot of Covenant, we've gone over that. I'm talking about how it fits into the larger narrative, it's not "denial" to say 'Alien' said something different and that's what I prefer.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 10:23:21 PM
I'm talking about how it fits into the larger narrative, it's not "denial" to say 'Alien' said something different and that's what I prefer.

It is literally the definition of the word to not accept Covenant changing the larger narrative and preferring an alternative ???

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 10:37:36 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 10:23:21 PM
I'm talking about how it fits into the larger narrative, it's not "denial" to say 'Alien' said something different and that's what I prefer.

It is literally the definition of the word to not accept Covenant changing the larger narrative and preferring an alternative ???

The way you're using it has a certain negative connotation to it. ;)

loving the bloodshed here. A canon war worthy of my time. But I will once again appeal to Oscar's Razor here.

*inhale*

The most logical explanation that satisfies all of the lore is that he simply recreated the Xenomorph.

Whether or not you deem P2, AVP, or the novels and games as valid canon on par with ridley Scott is kinda irrelevant. Take for example star wars, George Lucas doesn't get to f**k up the entire ancient sith era by spouting some offhand quote about how the first sith was Darth Bane, instead you work within the confines of the Canon set up and try to overlap with a creator. A creator only has so much control, again take the brothers from AVPR who say that the film Predators, City, and Jungle are all inexperienced novices and the AVP preds were on the cusp of manhood, and wolf is a veteran. The brothers are correct in Wolf being a veteran. They are correct in the idea that the AVP preds were youngbloods. They are not correct about jungle hunter. We know from various sources including: Skled's keep, AVP war, and Prey that a SEEMINGLY unanimous rule among yautja is that only blooded or above can hunt man or other sentient life. So the brothers statement is null and void because the universe disagrees.

Now regardless what you think, Alien does not belong solely to Ridley Scott. The franchise was licensed out for crossovers, spin offs, and toys that reveal more about the lore. Whether Ridley Scott's Aliens were created by David is irrelevant to the discussion. What we are concerned with is the fictional universe itself, where we clearly see from other stories Aliens existed before David. If you go the route of arguing "they aren't canon to Ridley's universe" that's fine, but it doesn't change the overall universe

*and exhale*

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 10:23:21 PM
I believe we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

No!  It's too soon for that!  :'(

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 08, 2020, 11:19:38 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 10:23:21 PM
I believe we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

No!  It's too soon for that!  :'(

MUAHAHAHAHAHA

I sense a holy war a-brewin'! It's Catholics verses Protestants all over again!!

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 08, 2020, 11:12:11 PM
loving the bloodshed here. A canon war worthy of my time. But I will once again appeal to Oscar's Razor here.

*inhale*

The most logical explanation that satisfies all of the lore is that he simply recreated the Xenomorph.

Whether or not you deem P2, AVP, or the novels and games as valid canon on par with ridley Scott is kinda irrelevant. Take for example star wars, George Lucas doesn't get to f**k up the entire ancient sith era by spouting some offhand quote about how the first sith was Darth Bane, instead you work within the confines of the Canon set up and try to overlap with a creator. A creator only has so much control, again take the brothers from AVPR who say that the film Predators, City, and Jungle are all inexperienced novices and the AVP preds were on the cusp of manhood, and wolf is a veteran. The brothers are correct in Wolf being a veteran. They are correct in the idea that the AVP preds were youngbloods. They are not correct about jungle hunter. We know from various sources including: Skled's keep, AVP war, and Prey that a SEEMINGLY unanimous rule among yautja is that only blooded or above can hunt man or other sentient life. So the brothers statement is null and void because the universe disagrees.

Now regardless what you think, Alien does not belong solely to Ridley Scott. The franchise was licensed out for crossovers, spin offs, and toys that reveal more about the lore. Whether Ridley Scott's Aliens were created by David is irrelevant to the discussion. What we are concerned with is the fictional universe itself, where we clearly see from other stories Aliens existed before David. If you go the route of arguing "they aren't canon to Ridley's universe" that's fine, but it doesn't change the overall universe

*and exhale*

You mean this Oscar's Razor?

(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/64483147.jpg)

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 08, 2020, 11:19:38 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 10:23:21 PM
I believe we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

No!  It's too soon for that!  :'(

What you need is a new recruit with a hostile temperament, controversial viewpoints, and a raging hunger to share the answers that only they were ever smart enough to figure out.

But there'll be none of that for you today Mr. Man. No sir. You're in for the mental spinach of mutual understanding and good behavior.

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 08, 2020, 11:36:29 PM
I sense a holy war a-brewin'! It's Catholics verses Protestants all over again!!

Nothing sets it off like, "F*ck y'all, I'm baptized".

Quote from: SM on Aug 08, 2020, 11:45:50 PM

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 08, 2020, 11:12:11 PM
loving the bloodshed here. A canon war worthy of my time. But I will once again appeal to Oscar's Razor here.

*inhale*

The most logical explanation that satisfies all of the lore is that he simply recreated the Xenomorph.

Whether or not you deem P2, AVP, or the novels and games as valid canon on par with ridley Scott is kinda irrelevant. Take for example star wars, George Lucas doesn't get to f**k up the entire ancient sith era by spouting some offhand quote about how the first sith was Darth Bane, instead you work within the confines of the Canon set up and try to overlap with a creator. A creator only has so much control, again take the brothers from AVPR who say that the film Predators, City, and Jungle are all inexperienced novices and the AVP preds were on the cusp of manhood, and wolf is a veteran. The brothers are correct in Wolf being a veteran. They are correct in the idea that the AVP preds were youngbloods. They are not correct about jungle hunter. We know from various sources including: Skled's keep, AVP war, and Prey that a SEEMINGLY unanimous rule among yautja is that only blooded or above can hunt man or other sentient life. So the brothers statement is null and void because the universe disagrees.

Now regardless what you think, Alien does not belong solely to Ridley Scott. The franchise was licensed out for crossovers, spin offs, and toys that reveal more about the lore. Whether Ridley Scott's Aliens were created by David is irrelevant to the discussion. What we are concerned with is the fictional universe itself, where we clearly see from other stories Aliens existed before David. If you go the route of arguing "they aren't canon to Ridley's universe" that's fine, but it doesn't change the overall universe

*and exhale*

You mean this Oscar's Razor?

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/64483147.jpg

f**k my phone and it's autocorrect

Quote from: Huggs on Aug 08, 2020, 11:50:20 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 08, 2020, 11:19:38 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 08, 2020, 10:23:21 PM
I believe we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

No!  It's too soon for that!  :'(

What you need is a new recruit with a hostile temperament, controversial viewpoints, and a raging hunger to share the answers that only they were ever smart enough to figure out.

But there'll be none of that for you today Mr. Man. No sir. You're in for the mental spinach of mutual understanding and good behavior.

:D

Quote from: Huggs on Aug 08, 2020, 11:50:20 PMBut there'll be none of that for you today Mr. Man. No sir. You're in for the mental spinach of mutual understanding and good behavior.

(https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia1.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2FIIjH0wN7F3uzS%2Fgiphy.gif&hash=767815a2823edebe24199e6aa98a1a06476389e6)

QuoteBut I will once again appeal to Oscar's Razor here.

Typo notwithstanding, Occam's Razor is about making as few assumptions as possible.

"The continuity has been retconned" isn't even an assumption; it's just what they did, and so wins by relying on 0 assumptions.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 12:37:15 AM

QuoteBut I will once again appeal to Oscar's Razor here.

Typo notwithstanding, Occam's Razor is about making as few assumptions as possible.

"The continuity has been retconned" isn't even an assumption; it's just what they did, and so wins by relying on 0 assumptions.

Does it fit with all the other evidence though? If not, it isn't the simplest or best explanation. it's silly to say it outright retconned anything, Ridley just made his movie how he wanted to make it, doesn't mean the lore bends to his will to make the universe how he sees it.

The movies are the lore... next movie will be too, regardless of the director.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 09, 2020, 12:42:33 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 12:37:15 AM

QuoteBut I will once again appeal to Oscar's Razor here.

Typo notwithstanding, Occam's Razor is about making as few assumptions as possible.

"The continuity has been retconned" isn't even an assumption; it's just what they did, and so wins by relying on 0 assumptions.

Does it fit with all the other evidence though? If not, it isn't the simplest or best explanation. it's silly to say it outright retconned anything, Ridley just made his movie how he wanted to make it, doesn't mean the lore bends to his will to make the universe how he sees it.

Yes, it does.  The source material for a film franchise is the films.  It has been thus since Cameron decided egg morphing was stupid and created the Queen.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 09, 2020, 12:42:33 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 12:37:15 AM

QuoteBut I will once again appeal to Oscar's Razor here.

Typo notwithstanding, Occam's Razor is about making as few assumptions as possible.

"The continuity has been retconned" isn't even an assumption; it's just what they did, and so wins by relying on 0 assumptions.

Does it fit with all the other evidence though? If not, it isn't the simplest or best explanation. it's silly to say it outright retconned anything, Ridley just made his movie how he wanted to make it, doesn't mean the lore bends to his will to make the universe how he sees it.

Well, not a single piece of expanded media that released after Alien: Covenant acknowledged Aliens existing prior to David, as far as I'm aware.

Alien EU has always been reactionary to whatever is going on in the films. Nothing is really concrete at all. Hicks and Newt adventures! Oh, never mind, Alien 3. Here's a story about the Space Jockey! Oh, Prometheus changed that, let's move on and do something on LV-223 with Aliens and... wait now Covenant says Aliens didn't exist yet.

There's a "canon," sure, but it has always been very malleable and has always adapted to choices the films make, not the other way around. And thats fine. I still really enjoy some stories that aren't canon. Sacrifice and Salvation take place in a continuity where Aliens invaded earth and everybody knows what they are. That's not canon, but I still enjoy the comics.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 09, 2020, 12:42:33 AM
Does it fit with all the other evidence though? If not, it isn't the simplest or best explanation. it's silly to say it outright retconned anything, Ridley just made his movie how he wanted to make it, doesn't mean the lore bends to his will to make the universe how he sees it.

It does, same way killing off Hicks and Newt made the lore bend to the will of the filmmakers in 1992.

The precedent's been set for almost 30 years.

Like I said, Fire and stone came out after Prometheus and it clearly contradicts Ridley's will.

It used Ridley's version of Weyland Corporation.

Ridley hates AVP. Ahab exists. Somebody at FOX clearly overrides Ridley's will.

No, the licensing department just wanted a big crossover to tie in to Prometheus. Licensing and film departments are two seperate entities, but the film department ultimately calls the shots.  Hence the changes made  to the comic. I don't recall anything off the top of my head F&S that treads on what ended up in Prometheus.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 09, 2020, 01:55:49 AM
Like I said, Fire and stone came out after Prometheus and it clearly contradicts Ridley's will.

And then Covenant came out even later and said nope to ancient Aliens.

Ridley also didn't address AvP in Prometheus so as has been said; it's what ends up on screen that matters, no what he personally feels. He put an android making Aliens in a lab on-screen. He didn't put "AvP is shit" there.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 02:19:17 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 09, 2020, 01:55:49 AM
Like I said, Fire and stone came out after Prometheus and it clearly contradicts Ridley's will.

And then Covenant came out even later and said nope to ancient Aliens.

Ridley also didn't address AvP in Prometheus so as has been said; it's what ends up on screen that matters, no what he personally feels. He put an android making Aliens in a lab on-screen. He didn't put "AvP is shit" there.

The screen shows David making an Alien, nothing about ancient aliens not existing. Even if Xenomorphs were created by the Engineers, Covenant would happen exactly the same way.

Ironically, the time he actually said nope to ancient aliens was in an interview. But like you said, that falls under his personal feelings and doesn't matter.

The screen shows David inventing a new life form, which he reveals to be the Alien.

That's plenty about no ancient Aliens.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 06:49:31 PM
Basically, it boils down to the fact that David can still create another xenomorph, even when xenomorphs already existed. And thats why the debate will never stop.

As long as some choose to reject reality.

But reality upsets people.

Quoteit's what ends up on screen that matters, no what he personally feels.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 09, 2020, 03:10:01 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 06:49:31 PM
Basically, it boils down to the fact that David can still create another xenomorph, even when xenomorphs already existed. And thats why the debate will never stop.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 09:52:31 PM
This debate happens because people live in denial.

If you deny the part where it clearly says he's made a new organism by manipulating the local wildlife, anything's possible.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 03:23:38 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 09, 2020, 03:10:01 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 08, 2020, 06:49:31 PM
Basically, it boils down to the fact that David can still create another xenomorph, even when xenomorphs already existed. And thats why the debate will never stop.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 08, 2020, 09:52:31 PM
This debate happens because people live in denial.

If you deny the part where it clearly says he's made a new organism by manipulating the local wildlife, anything's possible.

The screen shows that he made a organism. "New" is Ridley Scott's personal feelings and contradicted by the EU.

New is explicitly what the film says. David explains in detail how he invented a new life form by manipulating animals he found infected by the pathogen. It does not show he used an Engineer blueprint, it does not show the Alien existed elsewhere; it shows him creating life like he always dreamed.

Saying the film shows anything else is, as I keep saying, living in denial.

Quote from: SM on Aug 09, 2020, 02:07:40 AM
No, the licensing department just wanted a big crossover to tie in to Prometheus. Licensing and film departments are two seperate entities, but the film department ultimately calls the shots.  Hence the changes made  to the comic. I don't recall anything off the top of my head F&S that treads on what ended up in Prometheus.

Funny you should mention that, because Ahab being an elder and being marked and blooded as shown in fire and stone means xenos have been around before David.  ;)

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 03:48:04 AM
New is explicitly what the film says. David explains in detail how he invented a new life form by manipulating animals he found infected by the pathogen. It does not show he used an Engineer blueprint, it does not show the Alien existed elsewhere; it shows him creating life like he always dreamed.

Saying the film shows anything else is, as I keep saying, living in denial.

Even if the events of the Titan books happened, David can still explain whatever he wants.

Just like when earth was overrun by aliens years after Newt and Hicks returned on the Sulaco.  ::)

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 09, 2020, 12:51:40 AM
There's a "canon," sure, but it has always been very malleable and has always adapted to choices the films make, not the other way around. And thats fine. I still really enjoy some stories that aren't canon. Sacrifice and Salvation take place in a continuity where Aliens invaded earth and everybody knows what they are. That's not canon, but I still enjoy the comics.

It's almost as if "the canon" doesn't matter at an end-user level. Read/watch/play what you want, enjoy it however you want, disregard the rest, and let other people do the same.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 03:48:04 AM
New is explicitly what the film says. David explains in detail how he invented a new life form by manipulating animals he found infected by the pathogen. It does not show he used an Engineer blueprint, it does not show the Alien existed elsewhere; it shows him creating life like he always dreamed.

Saying the film shows anything else is, as I keep saying, living in denial.

yhe1 can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he's talking about 'Covenant' in a bubble.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 09, 2020, 03:52:43 AM
Funny you should mention that, because Ahab being an elder and being marked and blooded as shown in fire and stone means xenos have been around before David.  ;)

Before Covenant Scott had said the derelict was already waiting on LV-426 during the events of Prometheus. That changed.

Just like the whole Earth War saga.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 09:41:40 AM

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 09, 2020, 03:52:43 AM
Funny you should mention that, because Ahab being an elder and being marked and blooded as shown in fire and stone means xenos have been around before David.  ;)

Before Covenant Scott had said the derelict was already waiting on LV-426 during the events of Prometheus. That changed.

We don't know that that changed - Covenant doesn't say anything about the Derelict or LV-426.

Okay, pivoting away from Covenant, let me ask you all this, does anyone here accept the content of dvd or Blu-ray menus over what's presented on-screen in a film's final production?

Nope.

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 09, 2020, 04:28:17 PM
Okay, pivoting away from Covenant, let me ask you all this, does anyone here accept the content of dvd or Blu-ray menus over what's presented on-screen in a film's final production?

No, but I'm still curious where you're going with this.

Okay, Controversy Theatre time!

In the film Prometheus, there is no onscreen evidence in support of the idea that LV-223 is in the Zeta Reticuli system, and moreover everything relevant in the film indicates that it explicitly does not take place in Zeta Reticuli.

Bum-bum-buuuummmm! #truestorytho

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 09, 2020, 04:11:48 PM
We don't know that that changed - Covenant doesn't say anything about the Derelict or LV-426.

Sure, the derelict might be there.

But the film is very clear in saying the Aliens are this new thing David just invented so the eggs wouldn't be.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 09:02:51 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 09, 2020, 04:11:48 PM
We don't know that that changed - Covenant doesn't say anything about the Derelict or LV-426.

Sure, the derelict might be there.

But the film is very clear in saying the Aliens are this new thing David just invented so the eggs wouldn't be.

Taking 'Covenant' in isolation, perhaps, but 'Alien' still exists and indicates otherwise. The ancient space jockey got killed by an Alien, therefore the Alien must also be ancient.

We seem to be going in circles, so let's break this down:

- 'Covenant' says the Alien is a new thing made by David. Taken in isolation, yes, that is what that movie says. That is the filmmaker's intent.

- 'Alien' says the Alien is an ancient organism, found onboard an ancient ship, having killed its ancient occupant. Taken in isolation, that is what that movie says. That is the filmmakers' intent.

- When you combine the two, they're contradictory. We don't know which one is "right", because they're currently equally "right" and neither movie says anything about the other. David isn't in 'Alien', and the Derelict and its contents aren't in 'Covenant'. One isn't "more right" just because it's "newer".

Covenant retcons Alien though. Generally thats how these things go.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 09, 2020, 11:05:31 PM
Covenant retcons Alien though. Generally thats how these things go.

Why? It's not like it's some kind of "rule".

One could just as easily say Covenant contradicts Alien, the original source material.

Pivoting back away from Covenant, true story though, you only need to know two things in order locate another body in space, the direction in the sky and the distance, Prometheus provides us with both. Somewhat near Alzirr (Xi Geminorum) in the sky and 34.56 lightyears, or 327,000,000,000,000km from Earth.

(https://bn1305files.storage.live.com/y4pEhYdug0gbGwS4ntZif3HPm4k9FYhEyBq-C9w5soxn0ItPx5epURYQRQD-CgQeWh0JqOpmtM4ooC8PiL3WBiAW4Pk8fjH88iiKJJiRF_DsoTefq_BWYROeakcP8_LIP5W0mVBcfZ6gXDNu9apalwqFDOniI7h-hPNcbyEZe5IC3QAa3-oPfZ23Yny2ymHQcc4NAYtFCKRmJThFJIesLi_1B8Rl3ACKEZT82RS688lJQI/new%20prom%20star%20study%20-%20Copy.png?psid=1&width=835&height=403)

Kinda nowhere near Reticulum. The film is pretty clear on this. Everything given in Prometheus says it isn't Zeta Reticuli and nothing in film says it is.
...controversy....

I agree that putting them in the same system is a pretty goofy and unnecessary retcon.

Will you make it fit anyway?

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 10, 2020, 01:36:26 AM
Will you make it fit anyway?

lol

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 09, 2020, 10:08:16 PM
Taking 'Covenant' in isolation, perhaps, but 'Alien' still exists and indicates otherwise. The ancient space jockey got killed by an Alien, therefore the Alien must also be ancient.

Except taking both prequels we know Aliens aren't the only things that explode out of body cavities, and the pathogen is known to be very old. You still end up with an old dead Jockey with an exploded chest and a cargo full of new eggs.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 12:16:00 AM
Why? It's not like it's some kind of "rule".

That new supersedes old? Sure is the precedent that's been set for almost 30 years.

That's an explanation, sure, but I don't personally agree with it. We don't know that "the pathogen" is involved in anything in 'Alien'.

I'm only playing Devil's Advocate for accepting the derelict is still ancient when it very probably isn't.

That's a wild use of "very probably" right there. ;)
We were "very probably" going to see Shaw go to the Engineer homeworld and get some answers. This is Ridley Scott, the man who says a lot of things. Who knows what the f**k he's going to do (or if he'll get a chance to do it).

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 02:56:02 AM
That's a wild use of "very probably" right there. ;)

There's more explicit evidence in the films that Aliens are young than that the derelict is old :)

Well I mean, if you omit 'Alien' I guess. A reminder that the Derelict isn't in 'Covenant'.

Definitely gonna have to agree to disagree on that one, sorry.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 03:06:25 AM
Definitely gonna have to agree to disagree on that one, sorry.

(https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F1uZGXw6.gif&hash=14b50681328a377f61854bcedef9ef07304ffa00)

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 03:06:25 AM
Well I mean, if you omit 'Alien' I guess.

There's nothing explicit about the age of the derelict in the film so no.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 10, 2020, 04:52:48 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 03:06:25 AM
Well I mean, if you omit 'Alien' I guess.

There's nothing explicit about the age of the derelict in the film so no.

Other than it looking old and one of the characters commenting on how old it looks. That feels pretty explicit.

Like I said, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 04:57:00 AM
Other than it looking old and one of the characters commenting on how old it looks. That feels pretty explicit.

But it's not evidence. That is a ridiculously low bar for evidence. You 100% would not accept something that flimsy from me because you know damn well "It looks like something" doesn't prove anything.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 10, 2020, 05:06:37 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 04:57:00 AM
Other than it looking old and one of the characters commenting on how old it looks. That feels pretty explicit.

But it's not evidence. That is a ridiculously low bar for evidence. You 100% would not accept something that flimsy from me because you know damn well "It looks like something" doesn't prove anything.

I, well, no I don't believe I agree with any of that at all. ???

I've been arguing "it looks old, one of the characters comments that it's old, that's the filmmaker's intent" for a really, really long time my dude. ???

Also it absolutely is evidence. Anyone who says otherwise is (wait for it) living in denial.

We are both damned to go round and round on this forever. We seem to be made to suffer; it is our lot in life.

(https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/2-c-3po-and-r2-d2-sebastian-plat.jpg)

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 01:15:42 AM
I agree that putting them in the same system is a pretty goofy and unnecessary retcon.

Agreed, but I happen to love Fire & Stone and Life & Death, so now I'm all in. Despite the fact that it is chicanery unsupported by the film.

Quote from: SM on Nov 23, 2014, 09:42:48 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Nov 21, 2014, 02:06:00 AM
Where was LV-223?

Zeta 2 Reticuli.

Despite what the film says, they intended it to be in the same systems as LV-426, if not circling the same primary.  I did object in the WYR, but I think the horse had bolted.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 10, 2020, 05:30:36 AM

Quote from: SM on Nov 23, 2014, 09:42:48 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Nov 21, 2014, 02:06:00 AM
Where was LV-223?

Zeta 2 Reticuli.

Despite what the film says, they intended it to be in the same systems as LV-426, if not circling the same primary.  I did object in the WYR, but I think the horse had bolted.

What the film says and shows, I might add.

So like I guess the only counterargument to my idea of "making things fit together as best we can without invalidating the old or new material" is the people that just say "yeah but the new movie says that's not true."

I mean guys... why does one movie take precedence over the other? Do you really believe that a pretentious android created the aliens which invalidates all other stories? I mean christ sakes, the fairly recent predator novel "If it bleeds" (released after covenant) talks about warriors being blooded since Viking times. So I guess if we go by "newer equals more valid" Aliens have still been around pre david.

If for some reason you want to seperate the films and EU (no reason for it) then fine. Your aliens existed since cov- oh wait? Huh... that damned AVP spoiling everyone's fun. Keep denying reality my brothers.

Dread it.

Run from it.

AVP arrives all the same.

AvP is a different license and continuity.  Arguably the same continuity as Predator.

It's a film franchise - films take precedence.  Alien 3 invalidated the Earth War in the comics.  Resurrection invalidated nearly all the other comics.  Licensed media is beholden to the films; not the other way round.

Bit this isn't something that hasn't been said a hundred times already.

But it references The Rage War, doesn't that make it takes place in the peter weyland continuity?

No, for reasons he just explained.

I think the references link back to out of the shadows

I don't understand the argument to disregard  what the Alien Prequels are doing because of the comics/books/toys/games. Some fans don't bother concerning themselves with any of those other mediums. The films are what started the series so any movie continuation of the first film should hold more clout in terms of distinguishing the official lore (as disappointing as that may be with certain installments made). What you choose to accept, ultimately becomes head canon unless another movie comes along and retcons anything that fits your head canon.

The fact that the Alien series is licensed by the same company as other movie series doesn't mean squat by way of what takes place within the Universe of that series. With that logic we should add some Star Wars into the mix of Aliens and Predators then too.

AVP started because it was a fun concept. It was for shits and giggles when they added an Alien skull onto a Predator's ship in P2. From what we did know of both franchises, pre- Alien prequels, the AVP spin-off worked and we got a bunch of comics, books, toys, games, and two crap movies (which should have never taken place on Earth anyways). Now we have new info that supersedes any of it.
The concept of AVP could still work but some adjustments to the AVP lore would have to be reworked if you want it to stay in tune to what both the Alien and Predator films are separately establishing.


As for the Derelict ship being ancient, that may be true, seeing as we see the same ships still flying about in both Prometheus and Alien Covenant. But maybe the event that caused the ship to crash didn't happen quite as long before.

I personally like to think that what burst out of the Space Jockey on the Derelict also caused the creation of all the eggs that the ship carried (as well as the gooey alien walls that we've seen in around the hive in Aliens).

Probably the biggest issue between Covenant and Alien is that Dallas comments how the Space Jockey looks "fossilized".
But who's to truly say the process the body went through on a cold, dark, rock planet? When it's decaying on an Alien spacecraft and the potential of black goo being involved. I might be grasping here to make it all work but there was supposed to be a third prequel movie dammit and something  happened.  :laugh:

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 05:09:53 AM
I've been arguing "it looks old, one of the characters comments that it's old, that's the filmmaker's intent" for a really, really long time my dude. ???

Take away intent and "it looks old" doesn't hold water as explicit evidence.

Don't take away intent and, y'know *gestures at Ridley explicitly saying in interviews David made the Alien*

I believe he also said fossilized and we know that's not possible. Nothing in alien says the derelict is old, just that it looks that way.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 10, 2020, 11:32:03 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 10, 2020, 05:09:53 AM
I've been arguing "it looks old, one of the characters comments that it's old, that's the filmmaker's intent" for a really, really long time my dude. ???

Take away intent and "it looks old" doesn't hold water as explicit evidence.

Don't take away intent and, y'know *gestures at Ridley explicitly saying in interviews David made the Alien*

I think we're going to have to, yet again, agree to disagree Re: evidence - it feels awfully explicit to me. The filmmaker's intent in one movie doesn't suddenly override the intent of another; in fact, it's more apt to say the intent doesn't matter in the first place.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 10, 2020, 12:36:41 PM
I believe he also said fossilized and we know that's not possible. Nothing in alien says the derelict is old, just that it looks that way.

The Derelict was considered old for the better part of 40 years; suddenly denying it is some wild revisionist history "the emperor has no clothes" bullshit, by the way.

Dallas is the audience mouthpiece, he's using terms the audience can quickly grasp to convey a point if they didn't catch on already. It's called shorthand and it's extremely common in screenwriting - Dallas even does it again later in the movie when he comments that the facehugger bled "some kind of molecular acid"; ALL acids are molecular. :P

Dallas is telling the audience what is going on even if the technical terms aren't 100% accurate; it doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about, perhaps he was using layman's terms to make sure a Lambert and Kane understood, just like the screenwriters were using layman's terms to make sure the audience understood that yes, the Derelict and its contents are in fact old.

If intent doesn't matter then what's on screen in Covenant is stronger proof than what's on screen in Alien.

Dallas had never seen an Engineer and so had no idea if it is old, just that it looks old - but as far as his knowledge is concerned, he couldn't possibly know. He's not an expert in Engineer aesthetics.

No amount of logic is going to budge this conversation obviously.

Agreed, what it comes down to is that people are going to believe and enjoy what people are going to believe and enjoy, which is cool. It's whats makes a diverse fandom.

What isn't cool is other people gate-keeping or flipping out when others don't believe what they believe, and then subsequently trying to force others to comply or to try and ridicule or insult or intimidate them into doing so.

The fact of the matter is that no one here is an official voice with tablets on high from the great mouse and anyone who claims to be, or others who exalt them to be is a false... mouse...

So until the real mouse shows up and starts parting seas or killing first born children. I say we just love and embrace our nerdery in celebration of our diversity.

Well I guess my next question is, if you think Ridely Scott is the end all be all for Alien canon, are you willing to accept the idea that Bladerunner takes place in the same universe?

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 09, 2020, 10:08:16 PM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 09:02:51 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 09, 2020, 04:11:48 PM
We don't know that that changed - Covenant doesn't say anything about the Derelict or LV-426.

Sure, the derelict might be there.

But the film is very clear in saying the Aliens are this new thing David just invented so the eggs wouldn't be.

Taking 'Covenant' in isolation, perhaps, but 'Alien' still exists and indicates otherwise. The ancient space jockey got killed by an Alien, therefore the Alien must also be ancient.

We seem to be going in circles, so let's break this down:

- 'Covenant' says the Alien is a new thing made by David. Taken in isolation, yes, that is what that movie says. That is the filmmaker's intent.

- 'Alien' says the Alien is an ancient organism, found onboard an ancient ship, having killed its ancient occupant. Taken in isolation, that is what that movie says. That is the filmmakers' intent.

- When you combine the two, they're contradictory. We don't know which one is "right", because they're currently equally "right" and neither movie says anything about the other. David isn't in 'Alien', and the Derelict and its contents aren't in 'Covenant'. One isn't "more right" just because it's "newer".

Good post :)

Dont forget what we saw in prometheus and what was said back then and what fans said about it:

- We see the life of the xenomorph on the murals and get it described how to make a xenomorph like creature which ends up doing the same things according to what we see painted and shown in the movie and as someone said: even signs of the original xenomorph drawn at places.
And at the end with the deacon, most fans and movie makers made it out that this was the original and first xenomorph. Which covenant later contradicts...

-Also in the 2003 documentary dano brandon and others in the interviews descibes the derelight as ancient and old and that was their idea for it, and why they made the space jockey to look ancient/fossilised which they used dallas to point out.
I will have to when I can and have the time rewatch alien 1 documentary of 3-6 hours and see but have memory they said it there, and ridley scott said the eggs onboard was either its cargo or the ships weapons.

And the whole issue with the space jockey being a fossil or not, although it do look old and the ship too: do we have someone or know someone who is a fossil expert and hear with that person? That should end that discussion :P

But yes, in the end its all down to each fan to have their own headcanon, what the issue is, is probably how the movies contradict themself and the info given out from the moviemakers, plus the materials released for the movies, which just ends up confusing us hardcore fans.
Just wish and hope ridley get to do his third movie, covenant was good and way better than what disney will come up with... And hopefully he could then finish the trilogy and show how everything fits together, and then this discussion can end if he ends up working with people like in alien and do a well thought out movie which are aware of all contradictions.

My own headcanon that makes it all fit and work together with what has been shown is: the derelight ship crashed long before the engineers started doing their experiments, the space jockeys being their own species that is so unlike humanoid life that they are outworldy and are rather grown as plants and created the engineers and also the xenomorphs as they made as the ultimate weapon which ended up killing them, the engimeers worships the space jockeys and design their suits and technology to look like them and are themself trying to replicate the xenomorph and with the pathogen trying to resurrect the space jockeys as the pathogen in some way reworks dna and life into alien plant like beings.

Prometheus then happens and the engineers are still around but few of them and David finds out about the pathogen and from the murals and the dna inside get the ideas they were working on, he uses the raw pathogen to see what would happen and infects shaws boyfriend and ends up experimenting and in the end of the movie we have a xenomorph like creature, but david is unaware of this one. Once he and shaw takes a ship and goes to one of the engineers colonies: wipes it out with the pathogen and uses the planet to do his experiments in trying to create this deadly creature the engineers seemed to worship and make it even deadlier and use it against them and humanity, in which his sexual frustration is added and he soon manages to create a xenomorph like being but unknown to him this species already exist and his version is a poor mans version but to him its exactly what he is searching for. But after the version he made fails to kill off the covenant crew he uses the colonists to either make more of them or more likely make them better. While on LV426 we have the derelight ship waiting with the original xenomorphs.

Well that is how I imagine the alien world lore should be like :P
But I wont fight other fans ideas or if one follow what ridley said in the release of covenant, every person have the right to make up his/her own headcanon :)

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 10, 2020, 06:40:30 PM
Well I guess my next question is, if you think Ridely Scott is the end all be all for Alien canon, are you willing to accept the idea that Bladerunner takes place in the same universe?

Nobody is saying that Ridley is the be all, end all. He's only made three of the six films.

He did, however, make the most recent film. And the most recent entry is the one that essentially "dictates" the general direction.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 10, 2020, 06:40:30 PM
Well I guess my next question is, if you think Ridely Scott is the end all be all for Alien canon, are you willing to accept the idea that Bladerunner takes place in the same universe?

What is with this "You guys worship Ridley" BS?  No one here is saying that and it's getting old fast. I'm starting to wonder about your reading comprehnsion.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 10, 2020, 07:45:33 PM

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 10, 2020, 06:40:30 PM
Well I guess my next question is, if you think Ridely Scott is the end all be all for Alien canon, are you willing to accept the idea that Bladerunner takes place in the same universe?

Nobody is saying that Ridley is the be all, end all. He's only made three of the six films.

He did, however, make the most recent film. And the most recent entry is the one that essentially "dictates" the general direction.

^This

The newest film in a series dictates the direction of the story and can recontextualise things in previous films. Both prometheus and covenant retcon things we thought we knew in Alien. If you can't except that then its called denial.

Do y'all feel the same for the dictated direction we were left with in The Predator?

Yeah ofcourse, officially that's the current canon and just like with AC much of it can be walked back in a future film, but until then that's the way it is.

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:07:58 PM
Do y'all feel the same for the dictated direction we were left with in The Predator?

I hated the movie and will never watch it again but, at the end of the day, until 20th Century Fox Studios says otherwise:

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 10, 2020, 09:15:43 PM
Yeah ofcourse, officially that's the current canon and just like with AC much of it can be walked back in a future film, but until then that's the way it is.

Right on! Then I say it's high time we embrace Shane Black and his intentions for the franchise going forward, to do anything less would be futile.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Apr 12, 2020, 10:57:39 PM
Maybe the Engineers wanted to kill us because they knew the Predators would discover our autism and exploit it like a superweapon.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 10, 2020, 09:39:45 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Apr 12, 2020, 10:57:39 PM
Maybe the Engineers wanted to kill us because they knew the Predators would discover our autism and exploit it like a superweapon.

I love you :P

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 10, 2020, 09:39:45 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Apr 12, 2020, 10:57:39 PM
Maybe the Engineers wanted to kill us because they knew the Predators would discover our autism and exploit it like a superweapon.

You think time has come for an 'Eggs on Derelict' thread?

I wouldn't say Alien Covenant was on the same level of absurdity or undermine as The Predator. Maybe if you compared The Predator to Resurrection though.


While we're on the subject...

Their dreads are NOT sensors and all the Predators in the past were written to be male.  ;D

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 10, 2020, 09:47:36 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 10, 2020, 09:39:45 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Apr 12, 2020, 10:57:39 PM
Maybe the Engineers wanted to kill us because they knew the Predators would discover our autism and exploit it like a superweapon.

You think time has come for an 'Eggs on Derelict' thread?

Dont give him more ideas xD

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:36:21 PM
Right on! Then I say it's high time we embrace Shane Black and his intentions for the franchise going forward, to do anything less would be futile.

More like I just hope they walk it back in the next film or ignore it. I guess we'll find out if they make another one.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 10, 2020, 06:40:30 PM
Well I guess my next question is, if you think Ridely Scott is the end all be all for Alien canon, are you willing to accept the idea that Bladerunner takes place in the same universe?

Setting aside for a moment, that this is a dumb question posed in bad faith; Cameron inserted Blade Runner into Alien, and even then didn't make it visible - not Ridley.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 10, 2020, 09:59:49 PM
I wouldn't say Alien Covenant was on the same level of absurdity or undermine as The Predator. Maybe if you compared The Predator to Resurrection though.


While we're on the subject...

Their dreads are NOT sensors and all the Predators in the past were written to be male.  ;D

Don't remember the thing about the dreads being sensors, but I have to butt in and say female preds have been around since AVP: Prey and big Momma. Though I would be remiss if I didn't mention the massive nerf they got lol, they used to be like huge and regarded as strong warriors, but Hunting Grounds made them smaller more lithe and more reliant on technology, it's a shame tbh.

Don't have a problem with female preds either way, I think in some ways it's kinda cool to have a Huntress out there floating around. A true "Pussyface" if you will.  ;D

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 10, 2020, 11:18:06 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 10, 2020, 09:59:49 PM
I wouldn't say Alien Covenant was on the same level of absurdity or undermine as The Predator. Maybe if you compared The Predator to Resurrection though.


While we're on the subject...

Their dreads are NOT sensors and all the Predators in the past were written to be male.  ;D

Don't remember the thing about the dreads being sensors, but I have to butt in and say female preds have been around since AVP: Prey and big Momma. Though I would be remiss if I didn't mention the massive nerf they got lol, they used to be like huge and regarded as strong warriors, but Hunting Grounds made them smaller more lithe and more reliant on technology, it's a shame tbh.

Don't have a problem with female preds either way, I think in some ways it's kinda cool to have a Huntress out there floating around. A true "Pussyface" if you will.  ;D

Yeah, Casey makes a passing comment about how the dreadlocks could be some type of receptor. Something to that affect.

Of course I don't mind the concept of female Predators!  :laugh:
I just don't think Jungle Hunter or City Hunter were females because, you know, 'brotherhood' of hunters and all that. But until a character goes lifting up a loincloth- to each their own!  :P

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:07:58 PM
Do y'all feel the same for the dictated direction we were left with in The Predator?

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:36:21 PM
Right on! Then I say it's high time we embrace Shane Black and his intentions for the franchise going forward, to do anything less would be futile.

Not even in the face of armageddon.

Quote from: Samhain13 on Aug 11, 2020, 12:47:28 AM

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:07:58 PM
Do y'all feel the same for the dictated direction we were left with in The Predator?

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:36:21 PM
Right on! Then I say it's high time we embrace Shane Black and his intentions for the franchise going forward, to do anything less would be futile.

Not even in the face of armageddon.

Could be argued The Fugitive Predator is better than a certain predator taking the head of a pregnant woman's husband to her as a display of pride and nonchalantly walking over. Of course when this woman does the appropriate violent self defense response he merely cocks his head at her pistol seemingly mesmerized by her beauty. Now that same woman goes on to fall in love with this creature and sell massive amounts of reverse engineered predator technology and becoming a living breathing power conduit for a reformed New York city which mind you, was literally blown up at the start of this riveting tale and yet this woman surives.

I mean, it at least makes more sense  :D

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 11, 2020, 01:28:54 AM

Quote from: Samhain13 on Aug 11, 2020, 12:47:28 AM

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:07:58 PM
Do y'all feel the same for the dictated direction we were left with in The Predator?

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:36:21 PM
Right on! Then I say it's high time we embrace Shane Black and his intentions for the franchise going forward, to do anything less would be futile.

Not even in the face of armageddon.

Could be argued The Fugitive Predator is better than a certain predator taking the head of a pregnant woman's husband to her as a display of pride and nonchalantly walking over. Of course when this woman does the appropriate violent self defense response he merely cocks his head at her pistol seemingly mesmerized by her beauty. Now that same woman goes on to fall in love with this creature and sell massive amounts of reverse engineered predator technology and becoming a living breathing power conduit for a reformed New York city which mind you, was literally blown up at the start of this riveting tale and yet this woman surives.

I mean, it at least makes more sense  :D

That seems off topic. Why you bringing my boy Scarface out of nowhere? And yeah I will take PCJ plot over The Predator. I can headcanon my way into anything from PCJ to work, that shows how much I love it.

Fugitive is barely considered at the same league as the Predators that needed to team up with humans to survive, imagine comparing him to the One Predator Army himself.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 10, 2020, 03:48:25 PM
No amount of logic is going to budge this conversation obviously.

In either direction.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 10, 2020, 08:42:58 PM
If you can't except that then its called denial.

No, it's what one chooses to believe. :)

Quote from: Samhain13 on Aug 11, 2020, 01:56:14 AM

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 11, 2020, 01:28:54 AM

Quote from: Samhain13 on Aug 11, 2020, 12:47:28 AM

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:07:58 PM
Do y'all feel the same for the dictated direction we were left with in The Predator?

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 10, 2020, 09:36:21 PM
Right on! Then I say it's high time we embrace Shane Black and his intentions for the franchise going forward, to do anything less would be futile.

Not even in the face of armageddon.

Could be argued The Fugitive Predator is better than a certain predator taking the head of a pregnant woman's husband to her as a display of pride and nonchalantly walking over. Of course when this woman does the appropriate violent self defense response he merely cocks his head at her pistol seemingly mesmerized by her beauty. Now that same woman goes on to fall in love with this creature and sell massive amounts of reverse engineered predator technology and becoming a living breathing power conduit for a reformed New York city which mind you, was literally blown up at the start of this riveting tale and yet this woman surives.

I mean, it at least makes more sense  :D

That seems off topic. Why you bringing my boy Scarface out of nowhere? And yeah I will take PCJ plot over The Predator. I can headcanon my way into anything from PCJ to work, that shows how much I love it.

Fugitive is barely considered at the same league as the Predators that needed to team up with humans to survive, imagine comparing him to the One Predator Army himself.

Lol, just playing with you, I like PCJ too ofc, though scarface is overrated.

Quote
No, it's what one chooses to believe. :)

That doesn't stop it being denial :-\

Quote from: SiL on Aug 11, 2020, 04:29:21 AM

Quote
No, it's what one chooses to believe. :)

That doesn't stop it being denial :-\

Pot calling the kettle black  :-\

Like I said, we should agree to disagree :)

Or you could aggressively disagree.  :)

 I'm with LT here, I like the bloodshed. Alien fans just can't accept that they've been getting destroyed by Yautja since the dawn of human civilization  8)

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 11, 2020, 05:23:30 AM
Or you could aggressively disagree.  :)

Nah

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 05:09:31 AM
Pot calling the kettle black  :-\

I'm not denying anything from the films though.

I acknowledge the derelict looks old. That's all the film says.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 11, 2020, 05:32:36 AM
Alien fans just can't accept that they've been getting destroyed by Yautja since the dawn of human civilization  8)

(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/PalatableJampackedBunting-small.gif)

Quote from: SiL on Aug 11, 2020, 05:55:52 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 05:09:31 AM
Pot calling the kettle black  :-\

I'm not denying anything from the films though.

I acknowledge the derelict looks old. That's all the film says.

And that's good enough for me :) (although I'd say the film says a little more than that, as I've mentioned repeatedly)

I'm not denying anything from the films, either.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 06:09:32 AM
(although I'd say the film says a little more than that, as I've mentioned repeatedly)

I know you would, but all that's in the film is "it looks old".

QuoteI'm not denying anything from the films, either.

You're denying David made the Aliens.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 11, 2020, 06:25:08 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 06:09:32 AM
(although I'd say the film says a little more than that, as I've mentioned repeatedly)

I know you would, but all that's in the film is "it looks old".

Then you are in denial ;)

Quote from: SiL on Aug 11, 2020, 06:25:08 AM

QuoteI'm not denying anything from the films, either.

You're denying David made the Aliens.

That's not what the film says, though. It says he made *an* alien (and he's very proud of having done so), the implication that he made every single one is cited from authorial intent. 'Alien' says he's wrong, and that's a perfectly valid way to interpret it.
As pointed out repeatedly, Covenant doesn't say anything about the Derelict, as it's not in the movie.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 06:27:24 AM
Then you are in denial ;)

What other evidence is there in the film that it's old?

QuoteThat's not what the film says, though. It says he made *an* alien

No it doesn't. It says he has invented a new species by manipulating local life. It's quite clear on this. Suggestions that it's just "an" Alien aren't in the film itself.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 11, 2020, 06:39:28 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 06:27:24 AM
Then you are in denial ;)

What other evidence is there in the film that it's old?

Dallas comments on its age (twice). In 'Alien', the derelict is old. The only thing that calls that into question is the introduction of 'Covenant'. Claiming that 'Alien' doesn't say that the Derelict is old is full-on revisionist history and you know it. For the better part of 40 years everyone (including you) believed the Derelict was old; you tell me why that is. :P Acting like the movie magically changed and no longer says what it used to say is the denial in question.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 11, 2020, 06:39:28 AM

QuoteThat's not what the film says, though. It says he made *an* alien

No it doesn't. It says he has invented a new species by manipulating local life. It's quite clear on this. Suggestions that it's just "an" Alien aren't in the film itself.

We see an Alien being created, but we have no indication that this leads to all other Aliens we know of in the other movies.

Besides, there's a shitload of eggs on an ancient derelict that we saw in the first movie.

Again, you're conflating what one movie is saying versus what the franchise says.

Like I said 5 pages ago...

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 09, 2020, 10:08:16 PM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2020, 09:02:51 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 09, 2020, 04:11:48 PM
We don't know that that changed - Covenant doesn't say anything about the Derelict or LV-426.

Sure, the derelict might be there.

But the film is very clear in saying the Aliens are this new thing David just invented so the eggs wouldn't be.

Taking 'Covenant' in isolation, perhaps, but 'Alien' still exists and indicates otherwise. The ancient space jockey got killed by an Alien, therefore the Alien must also be ancient.

We seem to be going in circles, so let's break this down:

- 'Covenant' says the Alien is a new thing made by David. Taken in isolation, yes, that is what that movie says. That is the filmmaker's intent.

- 'Alien' says the Alien is an ancient organism, found onboard an ancient ship, having killed its ancient occupant. Taken in isolation, that is what that movie says. That is the filmmakers' intent.

- When you combine the two, they're contradictory. We don't know which one is "right", because they're currently equally "right" and neither movie says anything about the other. David isn't in 'Alien', and the Derelict and its contents aren't in 'Covenant'.

When I have to start literally quoting posts I wrote in which I said we're going in circles, I think that means we're at an impasse. :P

Like I'm giving you a really easy out here - giving 'Alien' precedence over 'Covenant' is absolutely a valid way to interpret the franchise, and allowing people to do it shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the movies or what you feel is "true".

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 06:49:45 AM
Dallas comments on its age (twice).

So the answer is "none". Dallas says it looks old twice. That's all the film says. It looks old.

I'm not denying that.

QuoteWe see an Alien being created, but we have no indication that this leads to all other Aliens we know of in the other movies.

We see a new species that's been newly made from local wildlife which in turn was only recently contaminated with Engineer goo. The film is clear that this is a new creation; that's the obvious indication all the other Aliens stem from these.

The other parts of my post were pretty important too :(

I'm trying to figure out the endgame here; you realize I'm not arguing to convince you (we know that won't happen), I'm arguing for the sake of everyone else reading this thread, whether they're choosing to post or not. If I've convinced even one person, or put into words what they couldn't articulate, then mission accomplished.
Considering every poll on the topic has come down really hard on the side of "David didn't make the Alien", I feel like I shouldn't even have to. Why people believe "David didn't make the Alien" is irrelevant, whether they're "denying the canon", or citing 'Alien' or whatever, there's a ton of people who rejected 'Covenant' and are happy in the knowledge that David didn't make the Alien. That's their "truth" and they're welcome to it.

This is absolutely a logical fallacy and I'm openly admitting that, but considering that we're talking about interpretations of fiction it kind of doesn't matter. :P

This is purely anecdotal, but on other, non-Alien forums I post on, the idea that David invented all Aliens isn't just rejected, it's generally treated as "of course David didn't do it, the first movie has old stuff in it" and the idea that Covenant is changing anything never enters their head. Like it's really fascinating, it's damn near universal. Even when I've genuinely tried playing devil's advocate, people respond with "what, that's stupid."
Again, totally anecdotal, purely my personal experience. I just thought it was interesting.

QuoteWe see a new species that's been newly made from local wildlife which in turn was only recently contaminated with Engineer goo. The film is clear that this is a new creation; that's the obvious indication all the other Aliens stem from these.

I agree with everything except that last bit.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 06:49:45 AM
giving 'Alien' precedence over 'Covenant' is absolutely a valid way to interpret the franchise, and allowing people to do it shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the movies or what you feel is "true".

Quote from: SiL on Aug 11, 2020, 06:55:12 AM
We see a new species that's been newly made from local wildlife which in turn was only recently contaminated with Engineer goo. The film is clear that this is a new creation; that's the obvious indication all the other Aliens stem from these.

Is there anything ruling out that the Engineers could have experimented on the same wildlife with the same results?  After all, it was their planet long before David arrived.

They were alive and not been wiped out by pathogen.

So?  We experiment on lab animals in controlled environments all the time.  The Engineers couldn't do the same without unleashing the pathogen on the entire planet?

Goo mutations seem to be random, which would be a pretty big setback.

Okay.  I'm not sure why that rules anything out, but okay.  The Engineers had thousands (if not millions) of years to tinker with the goo and their local fauna.  David had, what, ten?

David had the right mutation to do what he wanted it to do, then did a lot of trial and error that involved lots of designs and iterations.

Would it be impossible? No, but the chances of going through the same stages to get to the same result are infinitesimally small.

Just a reminder to keep it civil. None of these pot-shots at other fandoms - looking at you Tichinde.

Hey, you guys remember Space: Above & Beyond? I hear Fox had the full-scale Hammerhead fighters made down in Australia at some RAAF Base. While they were being stored aboard the freighter before shipping, some Russian crewmen were caught taking pictures of them, thinking they were some kind of new United States advanced tactical fighter.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 08:20:22 AM
Just a reminder to keep it civil. None of these pot-shots at other fandoms - looking at you Tichinde.

Was a joke meant to lighten things up around here but alright

Quote from: SiL on Aug 11, 2020, 07:52:53 AM
Would it be impossible? No, but the chances of going through the same stages to get to the same result are infinitesimally small.

except that it pretty much already happened. A black neomorph isn't a deacon, but would look almost indistinguishable from the outside.

---

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 09, 2020, 04:14:07 AM
Just like when earth was overrun by aliens years after Newt and Hicks returned on the Sulaco.  ::)

The Difference is that While Newt and Hicks cannot be both alive and dead, David can lie. So If we have evidence that ancient aliens still exists, it doesn't mean the covenant never happened, it just means David is lying. And Predators If it bleeds seems to do that, as the references seems to go to back to Aliens Out of shadows.

It's not as if this is the first time a film director has backtracked on something they were initially going towards and it's not as if the concept doesn't work within the big picture of the Alien films specifically.

The Engineers, their ships, and the black goo are ancient- that remains true. The Alien species is not.

In Prometheus, Janek made it clear that the Engineers weren't dumb enough to mess around with the black goo on their home world. But even if they did experiment with the local wildlife, they still wouldn't have come up with the Xenomorph we see by Alien Covenant and Alien. The final product requires human DNA. Even the Deacon, which was the closest thing resembling  the Alien in Prometheus, required Shaw in the making.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 09:14:48 AM
except that it pretty much already happened. A black neomorph isn't a deacon, but would look almost indistinguishable from the outside.

---

Deacons and neomorphs have very different lifecycles to each other, let alone the Alien. A dark blue Neomorph would also look very different to the Deacon, especially the head.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
The final product requires human DNA.

Engineer and Human DNA are 99% identical

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 09:43:19 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
The final product requires human DNA.

Engineer and Human DNA are 99% identical

Forgot that bit lol. Well it required her uterus then.  :P

This is all circular logic anyway. The interpretation that "Xenos are old" requires David to be lying, which he can do. The interpretation that "xenos are young" require Dallas to be wrong, which he could be.

David is deceitful and off base in his knowledge, but have we seen him outright lie?

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
It's not as if this is the first time a film director has backtracked on something they were initially going towards and it's not as if the concept doesn't work within the big picture of the Alien films specifically.

The Engineers, their ships, and the black goo are ancient- that remains true. The Alien species is not.

In Prometheus, Janek made it clear that the Engineers weren't dumb enough to mess around with the black goo on their home world. But even if they did experiment with the local wildlife, they still wouldn't have come up with the Xenomorph we see by Alien Covenant and Alien. The final product requires human DNA. Even the Deacon, which was the closest thing resembling  the Alien in Prometheus, required Shaw in the making.

Although we see on the murals and wall statues that the engineers already have created deacons/xenos and seem to hold them like gods/worship, plus all other giveaways in prometheus. And taking many attempts to create something david did? In the outbreak we had deacon creatures which are very much alike xenos running amock and that without using a whole planet, so I dont think it would be too hard :p as someone else said: humans and engineers are 99,9% same so they could easily do the same things. Im on local troubles side here: they had thousands of years to experiment on the xeno dna/pathogen which creates xeno like creatures so its easy to imagine they have done all david has before. As i mentioned in my headcanon 2 pages back.

Back when prometheus came a lot of fans saw the murals as prof and later with the deacon thats the first xenomorph or engineers invented the xenomorph no Im not going to forget all those discussions back then :p 
So yeah we have all the prometheus stuff to considr into to the equation and that indicate strongly they did this stuff too.

The pathogen makes Alien-like things, but none of them are the Alien proper.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 10:28:01 AM
David is deceitful and off base in his knowledge, but have we seen him outright lie?

Shaw died in the crash?

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 11:27:12 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 10:28:01 AM
David is deceitful and off base in his knowledge, but have we seen him outright lie?

Shaw died in the crash?

Well shite.

Quote from: judge death on Aug 11, 2020, 10:29:23 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
It's not as if this is the first time a film director has backtracked on something they were initially going towards and it's not as if the concept doesn't work within the big picture of the Alien films specifically.

The Engineers, their ships, and the black goo are ancient- that remains true. The Alien species is not.

In Prometheus, Janek made it clear that the Engineers weren't dumb enough to mess around with the black goo on their home world. But even if they did experiment with the local wildlife, they still wouldn't have come up with the Xenomorph we see by Alien Covenant and Alien. The final product requires human DNA. Even the Deacon, which was the closest thing resembling  the Alien in Prometheus, required Shaw in the making.

Although we see on the murals and wall statues that the engineers already have created deacons/xenos and seem to hold them like gods/worship, plus all other giveaways in prometheus. And taking many attempts to create something david did? In the outbreak we had deacon creatures which are very much alike xenos running amock and that without using a whole planet, so I dont think it would be too hard :p as someone else said: humans and engineers are 99,9% same so they could easily do the same things. Im on local troubles side here: they had thousands of years to experiment on the xeno dna/pathogen which creates xeno like creatures so its easy to imagine they have done all david has before. As i mentioned in my headcanon 2 pages back.

Back when prometheus came a lot of fans saw the murals as prof and later with the deacon thats the first xenomorph or engineers invented the xenomorph no Im not going to forget all those discussions back then :p 
So yeah we have all the prometheus stuff to considr into to the equation and that indicate strongly they did this stuff too.

Good point on the Deacon mural. Might have to watch these two movies later to freshen my mind again with all the details.
I'm enjoying all this conversation though as I wasn't around for the last Alien Canon War lol.
For the sake of discussion, it's pretty interesting to think that the Engineers went as far as creating a mural with the Deacon in the center. It is as though they see it as a sort of god or ultimate weapon. This does say a lot in the way they deem the Deacon to be the ultimate form, which leaves me to wonder if they would bother "perfecting" the creature.

Looking at what is seen from the movies, you can still argue that it takes more to create the Deacon than the neomorphs or anything else we have seen the black goo produce. But the Xeno took a lot more engineering.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 11:47:11 AM
I'm enjoying all this conversation though as I wasn't around for the last Alien Canon War lol.

To my dismay it's a weekly occurrence.  :-X

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:50:53 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 09:43:19 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
The final product requires human DNA.

Engineer and Human DNA are 99% identical

Forgot that bit lol. Well it required her uterus then.  :P

Her uterus is ultimately the goo too. The goo really doesn't mutate randomly. It unerringly creates human DNA which is engineer DNA. It's clearly a teleological device.

With uterus and sperm it creates a very facehugger like creature which creates a very Alien like one. If the deacon lays eggs the cycle completes itself on its very own. The rest are more aesthetical/minor differences imo.

So maybe the Alien is just the ultimate goal of the goo and it's determined to get there, with or without David? Could be why its worshipped like that by the LV-223 engineers... Life in its ultimate form. Ash just came --

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 12:07:18 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 11:47:11 AM
I'm enjoying all this conversation though as I wasn't around for the last Alien Canon War lol.

To my dismay it's a weekly occurrence.  :-X

You are a Corporal. You were trained for war.

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 11, 2020, 12:46:52 PM

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 12:07:18 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 11:47:11 AM
I'm enjoying all this conversation though as I wasn't around for the last Alien Canon War lol.

To my dismay it's a weekly occurrence.  :-X

You are a Corporal. You were trained for war.

:laugh:

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 12:36:43 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:50:53 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 09:43:19 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
The final product requires human DNA.

Engineer and Human DNA are 99% identical

Forgot that bit lol. Well it required her uterus then.  :P

Her uterus is ultimately the goo too. The goo really doesn't mutate randomly. It unerringly creates human DNA which is engineer DNA. It's clearly a teleological device.

With uterus and sperm it creates a very facehugger like creature which creates a very Alien like one. If the deacon lays eggs the cycle completes itself on its very own. The rest are more aesthetical differences.

So maybe the Alien is just the ultimate goal of the goo and it's determined to get there, with or without David? Could be why its worshipped like that by the LV-223 engineers... Life in its ultimate form. Ash just came --

I think it's obvious there's a bit more supporting the concept that David is the one who created the ultimate form that is the Xenomorph.
Why wouldn't the Engineers worship a creature that took more effort to design like they do the Deacon?

I suppose this whole narrative could be retconned if another movie came along and said there were 'blueprints' but it's definitely not the narrative being pushed with what we have currently.

well, its implied that the deacon made three engineers flee, something a xenomorph definitely can't do.

Indeed. Considering they hadn't been invented yet.

Quote from: SM on Aug 11, 2020, 01:12:25 PM
Indeed. Considering they hadn't been invented yet.

Yeah, about that...

;)

Quote from: SM on Aug 11, 2020, 01:12:25 PM
Indeed. Considering they hadn't been invented yet.

If "David is Honest and Dallas is wrong" is a valid interpretation, then conversely, "Dallas is right and David is lying" must also be an valid interpretation.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 01:03:03 PM

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 11, 2020, 12:46:52 PM

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 12:07:18 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 11:47:11 AM
I'm enjoying all this conversation though as I wasn't around for the last Alien Canon War lol.

To my dismay it's a weekly occurrence.  :-X

You are a Corporal. You were trained for war.

:laugh:

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 12:36:43 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:50:53 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 09:43:19 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
The final product requires human DNA.

Engineer and Human DNA are 99% identical

Forgot that bit lol. Well it required her uterus then.  :P

Her uterus is ultimately the goo too. The goo really doesn't mutate randomly. It unerringly creates human DNA which is engineer DNA. It's clearly a teleological device.

With uterus and sperm it creates a very facehugger like creature which creates a very Alien like one. If the deacon lays eggs the cycle completes itself on its very own. The rest are more aesthetical differences.

So maybe the Alien is just the ultimate goal of the goo and it's determined to get there, with or without David? Could be why its worshipped like that by the LV-223 engineers... Life in its ultimate form. Ash just came --

I think it's obvious there's a bit more supporting the concept that David is the one who created the ultimate form that is the Xenomorph.
Why wouldn't the Engineers worship a creature that took more effort to design like they do the Deacon?

I suppose this whole narrative could be retconned if another movie came along and said there were 'blueprints' but it's definitely not the narrative being pushed with what we have currently.

Maybe the deacon is way more advanced than Davids Alien? It's not like we see it action. David still tried to make his own thing out of sheer egocentricity. Bit did he really invent something new? Imo its a bit like saying Elon Musk invented the car. Even if Davids Alien is more advanced, what part of it is truly new/unique compared to the stuff Prometheus showed the goo being capable of?

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 12:07:18 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 11:47:11 AM
I'm enjoying all this conversation though as I wasn't around for the last Alien Canon War lol.

To my dismay it's a weekly occurrence.  :-X

:laugh: Thanks Hicks I legit laughed out loud! Gotta love a good canon war aka AVPG's favorite futile exercise  ;)

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 01:20:49 PM

Quote from: SM on Aug 11, 2020, 01:12:25 PM
Indeed. Considering they hadn't been invented yet.

If "David is Honest and Dallas is wrong" is a valid interpretation, then conversely, "Dallas is right and David is lying" must also be an valid interpretation.

If a future film ever makes it so David is incorrect, I hope they just don't cop out and say he's "Lying." At this point the Alien and the act of creation is so intertwined with his narrative that if he winds up being incorrect, the only way to do that justice would be for it to be just as much a shock to him and to really explore how he deals with that – and what he creates beyond that in an attempt to further distance himself from his predecessors.

Dallas isn't a geologist.

David is faulty and remembers things wrong.

There is no third prequel.


Therefore, it's Schrödinger's canon. David both did and did not create the original alien. Wasn't this thread supposed to be about AVP?  ;)

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 11, 2020, 01:26:32 PM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 01:20:49 PM

Quote from: SM on Aug 11, 2020, 01:12:25 PM
Indeed. Considering they hadn't been invented yet.

If "David is Honest and Dallas is wrong" is a valid interpretation, then conversely, "Dallas is right and David is lying" must also be an valid interpretation.

If a future film ever makes it so David is incorrect, I hope they just don't cop out and say he's "Lying." At this point the Alien and the act of creation is so intertwined with his narrative that if he winds up being incorrect, the only way to do that justice would be for it to be just as much a shock to him and to really explore how he deals with that – and what he creates beyond that in an attempt to further distance himself from his predecessors.

This. I genuinely hope they walk it back, but it needs to absolutely be a huge shock to him, and define his story moving forward because ultimately he still hasn't succeeded in his goal of creation, and of surpassing mankind and Engineerkind.

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 01:21:42 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 01:03:03 PM

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 11, 2020, 12:46:52 PM

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 12:07:18 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 11:47:11 AM
I'm enjoying all this conversation though as I wasn't around for the last Alien Canon War lol.

To my dismay it's a weekly occurrence.  :-X

You are a Corporal. You were trained for war.

:laugh:

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 12:36:43 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:50:53 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 09:43:19 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
The final product requires human DNA.

Engineer and Human DNA are 99% identical

Forgot that bit lol. Well it required her uterus then.  :P

Her uterus is ultimately the goo too. The goo really doesn't mutate randomly. It unerringly creates human DNA which is engineer DNA. It's clearly a teleological device.

With uterus and sperm it creates a very facehugger like creature which creates a very Alien like one. If the deacon lays eggs the cycle completes itself on its very own. The rest are more aesthetical differences.

So maybe the Alien is just the ultimate goal of the goo and it's determined to get there, with or without David? Could be why its worshipped like that by the LV-223 engineers... Life in its ultimate form. Ash just came --

I think it's obvious there's a bit more supporting the concept that David is the one who created the ultimate form that is the Xenomorph.
Why wouldn't the Engineers worship a creature that took more effort to design like they do the Deacon?

I suppose this whole narrative could be retconned if another movie came along and said there were 'blueprints' but it's definitely not the narrative being pushed with what we have currently.

Maybe the deacon is way more advanced than Davids Alien? It's not like we see it action. David still tried to make his own thing out of sheer egocentricity. Bit did he really invent something new? Imo its a bit like saying Elon Musk invented the car. Even if Davids Alien is more advanced, what part of it is truly new/unique compared to the stuff Prometheus showed the goo being capable of?

Even so this still would make David the creator of the Alien.

I wish we would have seen more from the Deacon though. As cool as it was to see an Alien in action again, Covenant should have focused more around the Neomorphs and maybe have the Deacon as the threat they needed to kill on the Covenant. Oram still could be facehugged and have him brought back to the ship unconscious and without anyone's knowledge of the looming threat...

A third prequel could help them fill in some gaps. Maybe include a flashback of David and Shaw. Perhaps even include a Deacon on the Derelict ship depending on the events that are taking place.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 01:34:15 PM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 11, 2020, 01:26:32 PM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 01:20:49 PM

Quote from: SM on Aug 11, 2020, 01:12:25 PM
Indeed. Considering they hadn't been invented yet.

If "David is Honest and Dallas is wrong" is a valid interpretation, then conversely, "Dallas is right and David is lying" must also be an valid interpretation.

If a future film ever makes it so David is incorrect, I hope they just don't cop out and say he's "Lying." At this point the Alien and the act of creation is so intertwined with his narrative that if he winds up being incorrect, the only way to do that justice would be for it to be just as much a shock to him and to really explore how he deals with that – and what he creates beyond that in an attempt to further distance himself from his predecessors.

This. I genuinely hope they walk it back, but it needs to absolutely be a huge shock to him, and define his story moving forward because ultimately he still hasn't succeeded in his goal of creation, and of surpassing mankind and Engineerkind.

I agree with both of you.

Quote from: Stitch on Aug 11, 2020, 01:32:41 PM
Dallas isn't a geologist.

David is faulty and remembers things wrong.

There is no third prequel.


Therefore, it's Schrödinger's canon. David both did and did not create the original alien.

Ridleys ultimate goal: A second 'Deck a Rep?' type scenario.

Only took him three films this time.


David dreaming of a Xenomorph in the beginning of Prometheus incoming.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 02:21:08 PM

Even so this still would make David the creator of the Alien.

Its just... I wouldn't say he who adds the last 10 or 15% to a 85% finished product is the creator of that product.

I mean he didn't even really invent the design cause even the dome is already in Prometheus (on top of the facility and - to an extent - the Deacons dome).

What did he genuinely create? The tongue (mouth-in-mouth mechanism: Deacons first)? The skull? At least Locals true enemy is hereby revealed --

The problem is Prometheus is a film about the Alien without the Alien. And everything Alien is already there via the goo (including humans as the not so accidental host). This kinda limits the room for innovation significantly in my eyes.

Then again: Pink Floyd can surely be seen as (true) creators although they didn't event music or even Rock. Guess human language and the discourse it creates is a tricky thing. Probably why the engineers wanted to wipe us out: to prevent threads like this.  ;D

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 12:36:43 PM
Her uterus is ultimately the goo too. The goo really doesn't mutate randomly. It unerringly creates human DNA which is engineer DNA. It's clearly a teleological device.

That's what I thought.

So with access to the same resources and way more time than David had, I still don't see why it's so unlikely that the Engineers could have achieved the same results. 

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
In Prometheus, Janek made it clear that the Engineers weren't dumb enough to mess around with the black goo on their home world.

They could have easily transported specimens of their wildlife to their laboratories on other planets (like LV-223) for experimentation, thus ensuring any catastrophic accidents wouldn't happen on their homeworld.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 01:34:15 PM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 11, 2020, 01:26:32 PM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 01:20:49 PM

Quote from: SM on Aug 11, 2020, 01:12:25 PM
Indeed. Considering they hadn't been invented yet.

If "David is Honest and Dallas is wrong" is a valid interpretation, then conversely, "Dallas is right and David is lying" must also be an valid interpretation.

If a future film ever makes it so David is incorrect, I hope they just don't cop out and say he's "Lying." At this point the Alien and the act of creation is so intertwined with his narrative that if he winds up being incorrect, the only way to do that justice would be for it to be just as much a shock to him and to really explore how he deals with that – and what he creates beyond that in an attempt to further distance himself from his predecessors.

This. I genuinely hope they walk it back, but it needs to absolutely be a huge shock to him, and define his story moving forward because ultimately he still hasn't succeeded in his goal of creation, and of surpassing mankind and Engineerkind.

Absolutely this. Covenant is already a gothic horror story, having the "mad scientist" get his comeuppance tends to be the way those stories end. What better way than to have everything he believed come crashing down?

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 11, 2020, 03:15:03 PM

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 12:36:43 PM
Her uterus is ultimately the goo too. The goo really doesn't mutate randomly. It unerringly creates human DNA which is engineer DNA. It's clearly a teleological device.

That's what I thought.

So with access to the same resources and way more time than David had, I still don't see why it's so unlikely that the Engineers could have achieved the same results. 

I mean despite all random circumstances and a timespan of millions of years the goo unwaveringly mutates into mankind as an end result. Tells you everything you need to know about the technological level of the engineers. Hell their own wildlife is probably 100% bio-engineered.

David can't even clone a human (Shaw) to generate a host for 'his' Alien.

Quote from: Stitch on Aug 11, 2020, 01:32:41 PM
Dallas isn't a geologist.

David is faulty and remembers things wrong.

There is no third prequel.


Therefore, it's Schrödinger's canon. David both did and did not create the original alien. Wasn't this thread supposed to be about AVP?  ;)

Succinct. Sensible. Logical. Correct.

---

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 02:22:48 PM

Its just... I wouldn't say he who adds the last 10 or 15% to a 85% finished product is the creator of that product.
...
Guess human language and the discourse it creates is a tricky thing. Probably why the engineers wanted to wipe us out: to prevent threads like this.  ;D

That would indeed be akin to saying Damon Lindelof 'created' Prometheus.

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 11, 2020, 04:16:17 PM

That would indeed be akin to saying Damon Lindelof %u2018created%u2019 Prometheus.

Sorta but with David it's even worse. David's a dog breeder among guys who control and have probably invented natural selection (the goo is just one of their tools, I doubt they get knocked out of their socks when the Alien is presented to them).

But again, I don't really mind calling David a creator, maybe more in an artistic sense though (What about 'arranger'?). After all what is true invention/creation... I just don't get the fuss about him 'creating' the Alien (on his own). Always felt like Prometheus is clearly putting him in his place...

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 04:39:03 PM
I just don't get the fuss about him 'creating' the Alien (on his own)

It takes an ancient, unknowable organism that could be lurking anywhere in the darkness of space, ready to ruin somebody's afternoon, and turns it into an android's science project that was made in the last 20 years. It actively undermines some of the strongest and most interesting Lovecraftian tropes in 'Alien' in favor of giving David something to do.

I'm not saying David isn't important or interesting, they just didn't need to try and radically recontextualize (ruin) one of the most iconic and interesting horror monsters of all time to do it.

Likewise with Engineers vs the Space Jockey, for largely the same reasons.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 11, 2020, 04:53:02 PM

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 04:39:03 PM
I just don't get the fuss about him 'creating' the Alien (on his own)

It takes an ancient, unknowable organism that could be lurking anywhere in the darkness of space, ready to ruin somebody%u2019s afternoon, and turns it into an android%u2019s science project that was made in the last 20 years. It actively undermines some of the strongest and most interesting Lovecraftian tropes in %u2018Alien%u2019 in favor of giving David something to do.

I%u2019m not saying David isn%u2019t important or interesting, they just didn%u2019t need to try and radically recontextualize (ruin) one of the most iconic and interesting horror monsters of all time to do it.

Likewise with Engineers vs the Space Jockey, for largely the same reasons.

Ja what I meant... I never saw him as this type of creator in the first place. Not in the light of Prometheus. I get the fuss you describe - I don't like it either (the hate probably passed over the years :laugh:), but for me the object of nuisance always been the goo or better the engineers themselves.

They are the gamechanger, David's just a pawn.

I guess with them, the Lovecraftian angle stays intact at least partially (the ancient aspect). Then again the connection with mankind and the whole universe shrinking that's going on with the prequels kinda ruins it after all.  ::)

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 11:27:12 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 10:28:01 AM
David is deceitful and off base in his knowledge, but have we seen him outright lie?

Shaw died in the crash?

We see him lie several times in prometheus and covenant, and the most fake android Ive seen:
Obeying weyland yes but he lies all the time to his daughter, lies to shaws boyfriend, lies to shaw, tricks her to put his head back in his body and tricks her and lies to her, says its safe for that reserve captain of covenant when he asks if its safe/dangerous, lies to the crew and what is going on. I wouldnt believe anything he says.

QuoteIt is as though they see it as a sort of god or ultimate weapon. This does say a lot in the way they deem the Deacon to be the ultimate form, which leaves me to wonder if they would bother "perfecting" the creature.

Either that but as some fans speculated back then, some murals seem to idnicate and that one looked more like a queen or xenomorph and would explain their worship of it. I have a theory that the pathegon is actually the core of the xenomorph dna which ends up creating new life that is similair in behaviour and design to the xenomorph and by enough mutations and breeding becomes to its true form, which David tried to get to.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 12:07:18 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 11:47:11 AM
I'm enjoying all this conversation though as I wasn't around for the last Alien Canon War lol.

To my dismay it's a weekly occurrence.  :-X

How do you stay sane? xD But well the canon wars back when prometheus came out was way worse, like when covenant came out, would call them canon world wars and these discussions weekly more as small skirmishes :P

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 01:10:07 PM
well, its implied that the deacon made three engineers flee, something a xenomorph definitely can't do.

Well I would run too if one had this thing after you, its damn huge :O
(https://i.ibb.co/cF0KDrZ/IMG-20200804-225542-702.jpg)

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 11, 2020, 01:34:15 PM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 11, 2020, 01:26:32 PM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 11, 2020, 01:20:49 PM

Quote from: SM on Aug 11, 2020, 01:12:25 PM
Indeed. Considering they hadn't been invented yet.

If "David is Honest and Dallas is wrong" is a valid interpretation, then conversely, "Dallas is right and David is lying" must also be an valid interpretation.

If a future film ever makes it so David is incorrect, I hope they just don't cop out and say he's "Lying." At this point the Alien and the act of creation is so intertwined with his narrative that if he winds up being incorrect, the only way to do that justice would be for it to be just as much a shock to him and to really explore how he deals with that – and what he creates beyond that in an attempt to further distance himself from his predecessors.

This. I genuinely hope they walk it back, but it needs to absolutely be a huge shock to him, and define his story moving forward because ultimately he still hasn't succeeded in his goal of creation, and of surpassing mankind and Engineerkind.

Agree and this is what my headcanon I posted earlier is about and to me its the best way to finish the trilogy and making older fans and new ones and everyone to winners:
David makes more of his breed of xenos onboard of covenant and ends up meeting engineers who are seeking revenge for him wiping out one of their colonies nicknamed paradise and they have help from space jockeys which surprises him as they are even mighier than the engineers and releases xenomorphs in their purest form which ends up beating his type of xenomorph, realising he has just been doing the same/recreating a weaker version of something the engineers already knew about which ends up being his death.
Okay someone more clever and has the time can probably write a much better story :P
But then we have space jockeys and the mystery of them back and the engineers as coloniest and seeders of life as prometheus showed and they have their deacon like creatures or xenomorph depending on what one want to achieve. MAking it clear the xenomorph already existed long ago and david was just recreating his own version without knowing it, and we have the mystery back and everything fits together. unlike now.

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 02:22:48 PM

Quote from: Stitch on Aug 11, 2020, 01:32:41 PM
Dallas isn't a geologist.

David is faulty and remembers things wrong.

There is no third prequel.


Therefore, it's Schrödinger's canon. David both did and did not create the original alien.

Ridleys ultimate goal: A second 'Deck a Rep?' type scenario.

Only took him three films this time.


David dreaming of a Xenomorph in the beginning of Prometheus incoming.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 02:21:08 PM

Even so this still would make David the creator of the Alien.

Its just... I wouldn't say he who adds the last 10 or 15% to a 85% finished product is the creator of that product.

I mean he didn't even really invent the design cause even the dome is already in Prometheus (on top of the facility and - to an extent - the Deacons dome).

What did he genuinely create? The tongue (mouth-in-mouth mechanism: Deacons first)? The skull? At least Locals true enemy is hereby revealed --

The problem is Prometheus is a film about the Alien without the Alien. And everything Alien is already there via the goo (including humans as the not so accidental host). This kinda limits the room for innovation significantly in my eyes.

Then again: Pink Floyd can surely be seen as (true) creators although they didn't event music or even Rock. Guess human language and the discourse it creates is a tricky thing. Probably why the engineers wanted to wipe us out: to prevent threads like this.  ;D

Correct, the black goe or pathogen is probably just xenomorph dna or created upon xenomorph dna which ends up creating new life that is like them and by enough breeding and experimenting one can recreate it to  true xenomorph. But also be used as life creating device as they did with earth. The pathogen is the purest form of the xeno in my head.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 11, 2020, 03:15:03 PM

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 12:36:43 PM
Her uterus is ultimately the goo too. The goo really doesn't mutate randomly. It unerringly creates human DNA which is engineer DNA. It's clearly a teleological device.

That's what I thought.

So with access to the same resources and way more time than David had, I still don't see why it's so unlikely that the Engineers could have achieved the same results. 

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 11, 2020, 09:36:39 AM
In Prometheus, Janek made it clear that the Engineers weren't dumb enough to mess around with the black goo on their home world.

They could have easily transported specimens of their wildlife to their laboratories on other planets (like LV-223) for experimentation, thus ensuring any catastrophic accidents wouldn't happen on their homeworld.

Agree, theres nothing in the movies that says the engineers with all the time and resources and technology couldnt have done that long ago, just what David said in covenant which is contradicted in prometheus and what everyone before me here have said.
But until we have more material/prof/new movie we cant determine which is more right, its like someone said: schrödingers situation :P

David creating the Alien > Engineers creating the Alien

I don't prefer it but I can live with it lol :laugh:

I wouldn't be unhappy if they walked it back. But left them a mystery. Unknowable

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 11, 2020, 10:15:22 PM
I don't prefer it but I can live with it lol :laugh:

I wouldn't be unhappy if they walked it back. But left them a mystery. Unknowable

Absolutely! The epitome of cosmic horror.

I've grown to really like the the idea of David creating the Alien and sort of prefer it over the Engineers. I appreciate and enjoy the prequels more and more after each viewing so I can't say I mind how they fit in with the films that have come before.

The only way I'd want them to backtrack on the concept of David creating the Alien is if David learns of his shortcomings in the most devastating way.

Quote from: judge death on Aug 11, 2020, 07:51:43 PM
Either that but as some fans speculated back then, some murals seem to idnicate and that one looked more like a queen or xenomorph and would explain their worship of it. I have a theory that the pathegon is actually the core of the xenomorph dna which ends up creating new life that is similair in behaviour and design to the xenomorph and by enough mutations and breeding becomes to its true form, which David tried to get to.

The only mural I recall had a creature with a long but very tapered/pointed head, which is the Deacon's design. Also, David actually does create the Alien.

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 11, 2020, 02:22:48 PM

What did he genuinely create? The tongue (mouth-in-mouth mechanism: Deacons first)? The skull? At least Locals true enemy is hereby revealed --

They never made clear what all the capabilities of the Deacon are so the differences likely go further than just aesthetics. 

So if a Deacon is what officially chased and killed the engineers and infected the beheaded one, then we know that it spreads this pathogen differently. Whether or not the Deacon lays eggs hasn't been depicted. There are no signs of egg morphing, no signs of egg laying, nor does it seem to have the ability to build hives- like the Alien.

If we are to believe that David created the Alien, then he designed a creature that has a true life cycle that allows for it to continuously reproduce both facehugger and Alien.   

Yeah I think if they changed it again it can't be because David was lying - he has to believe the Alien is truly his creation and some revelation that he can't actually create would be his final defeat.

Him lying doesn't even make sense. The goo is literally creation juice. Just say you made that, bro.

Which is precisely why I wouldn't like it if he were lying about it.

If only they could write in another character who knows about his TE Lawrence fanboyism to narrate his failure and rub it in:

QuoteAnd there you have it, David.  Miles and miles of that which you claimed credit for creating.  Only...how could that be when they've clearly existed since before London was even a village?

You're nothing but a counterfeiter, David, masquerading as a virtuoso. 

It must be humiliating. 

I'd pity you if I didn't already loathe you, so all I can offer is this: the trick is not minding that it hurts.

Then he gets torched by a flamethrower.   It could be the "I drink your milkshake" moment of the prequel trilogy.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 12, 2020, 12:20:50 AM
I've grown to really like the the idea of David creating the Alien and sort of prefer it over the Engineers. I appreciate and enjoy the prequels more and more after each viewing so I can't say I mind how they fit in with the films that have come before.

The only way I'd want them to backtrack on the concept of David creating the Alien is if David learns of his shortcomings in the most devastating way.

It has grown in me too. There is a taste of beautiful anachronism. An ancient archetype about creation rebelling against its creator. David is Lucifer's alter ego. Once free, the synthetic man plans to reign in hell instead of serving in paradise.


With that said, I subscribe to two ideas: the literal Prometheus and a symbolic one. There is an idea that the real Prometheus is this figure that seems to "warn" us of the LV-223 installations (cave painting). But at the same time I can't help but portray in my mind the mythological Prometheus, Victor Frankenstein and David as essentially similar: science taking over nature, seemingly forbidden knowledge sometimes stolen from a higher realm, smart men who become delusional or the mad scientist, etc. I think similar about Weyland too.

---

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 11, 2020, 10:15:22 PM
I don't prefer it but I can live with it lol :laugh:

I wouldn't be unhappy if they walked it back. But left them a mystery. Unknowable

It's not a matter of concern anymore.  Because seriously, I bet Disney is going to reboot or continue in another direction. So they're going to leave us with nothing but..

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 12, 2020, 04:27:10 AM
If only they could write in another character who knows about his TE Lawrence fanboyism to narrate his failure and rub it in:

QuoteAnd there you have it, David.  Miles and miles of that which you claimed credit for creating.  Only...how could that be when they've clearly existed since before London was even a village?

You're nothing but a counterfeiter, David, masquerading as a virtuoso. 

It must be humiliating. 

I'd pity you if I didn't already loathe you, so all I can offer is this: the trick is not minding that it hurts.

Then he gets torched by a flamethrower.   It could be the "I drink your milkshake" moment of the prequel trilogy.

Played by a de-aged Ian Holm.

You mean Martin Freeman?

He can do mo-cap.

You should make some calls.

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 12, 2020, 05:07:33 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 12, 2020, 12:20:50 AM
I've grown to really like the the idea of David creating the Alien and sort of prefer it over the Engineers. I appreciate and enjoy the prequels more and more after each viewing so I can't say I mind how they fit in with the films that have come before.

The only way I'd want them to backtrack on the concept of David creating the Alien is if David learns of his shortcomings in the most devastating way.

It has grown in me too. There is a taste of beautiful anachronism. An ancient archetype about creation rebelling against its creator. David is Lucifer's alter ego. Once free, the synthetic man plans to reign in hell instead of serving in paradise.

(https://i.ibb.co/CHvmkQt/Pics-Art-08-12-12-20-22.jpg)

With that said, I subscribe to two ideas: the literal Prometheus and a symbolic one. There is an idea that the real Prometheus is this figure that seems to "warn" us of the LV-223 installations (cave painting). But at the same time I can't help but portray in my mind the mythological Prometheus, Victor Frankenstein and David as essentially similar: science taking over nature, seemingly forbidden knowledge sometimes stolen from a higher realm, smart men who become delusional or the mad scientist, etc. I think similar about Weyland too.

(https://i.ibb.co/LZ3rgNB/Pics-Art-08-12-12-19-41.jpg)

---

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 11, 2020, 10:15:22 PM
I don't prefer it but I can live with it lol :laugh:

I wouldn't be unhappy if they walked it back. But left them a mystery. Unknowable

It's not a matter of concern anymore.  Because seriously, I bet Disney is going to reboot or continue in another direction. So they're going to leave us with nothing but..

(https://i.ibb.co/R0rjScV/4b6grm.gif)

Don't compare Peter Cushing and Frankenstein to a movie where Fassbender "does the fingering" to himself  :)

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 12, 2020, 06:30:17 AM
Don't compare Peter Cushing and Frankenstein to a movie where Fassbender "does the fingering" to himself  :)

We're here free to compare what we want to whatever we want

Like Portal vs ACM?

Well, if it pleases you, sure. Like I can do anything about it

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 12, 2020, 06:30:17 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 12, 2020, 05:07:33 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 12, 2020, 12:20:50 AM
I've grown to really like the the idea of David creating the Alien and sort of prefer it over the Engineers. I appreciate and enjoy the prequels more and more after each viewing so I can't say I mind how they fit in with the films that have come before.

The only way I'd want them to backtrack on the concept of David creating the Alien is if David learns of his shortcomings in the most devastating way.

It has grown in me too. There is a taste of beautiful anachronism. An ancient archetype about creation rebelling against its creator. David is Lucifer's alter ego. Once free, the synthetic man plans to reign in hell instead of serving in paradise.

(https://i.ibb.co/CHvmkQt/Pics-Art-08-12-12-20-22.jpg)

With that said, I subscribe to two ideas: the literal Prometheus and a symbolic one. There is an idea that the real Prometheus is this figure that seems to "warn" us of the LV-223 installations (cave painting). But at the same time I can't help but portray in my mind the mythological Prometheus, Victor Frankenstein and David as essentially similar: science taking over nature, seemingly forbidden knowledge sometimes stolen from a higher realm, smart men who become delusional or the mad scientist, etc. I think similar about Weyland too.

(https://i.ibb.co/LZ3rgNB/Pics-Art-08-12-12-19-41.jpg)

---

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 11, 2020, 10:15:22 PM
I don't prefer it but I can live with it lol :laugh:

I wouldn't be unhappy if they walked it back. But left them a mystery. Unknowable

It's not a matter of concern anymore.  Because seriously, I bet Disney is going to reboot or continue in another direction. So they're going to leave us with nothing but..

(https://i.ibb.co/R0rjScV/4b6grm.gif)

Don't compare Peter Cushing and Frankenstein to a movie where Fassbender "does the fingering" to himself  :)

How about Giger.

1 - Both are creators of the Alien. (I guess Black Goo is like Necronomicon).

2 - Their creation evoques erotism and sexuality.

3 - Nightmares / dreams are fuel for such arts.

4 - Both found inspiration in women with whom they had a relationship.

David and Doctor Frankenstein (or, the modern Prometheus) is a very apt comparison.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 12, 2020, 02:13:16 AM
Him lying doesn't even make sense. The goo is literally creation juice. Just say you made that, bro.

Agreed, there's no reason anyone would claim he was lying, just like he's not lying about Byron. He's just broken and deluded like Walter says he is.

He's just a relentlessly self-improving menagerie owner from England with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. His prototype was a four year old offworld replicant named Roy with webbed feet. His father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse roombas of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.

---

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 12, 2020, 04:27:10 AM
If only they could write in another character who knows about his TE Lawrence fanboyism to narrate his failure and rub it in:

QuoteAnd there you have it, David.  Miles and miles of that which you claimed credit for creating.  Only...how could that be when they've clearly existed since before London was even a village?

You're nothing but a counterfeiter, David, masquerading as a virtuoso. 

It must be humiliating. 

I'd pity you if I didn't already loathe you, so all I can offer is this: the trick is not minding that it hurts.

Then he gets torched by a flamethrower.   It could be the "I drink your milkshake" moment of the prequel trilogy.

That's genius, actually, beautiful and tragic, a lovely thematic symmetry. Maybe even Weyland, back as a Replicant, not the eternal life he always craved per se, but the next closest thing, disgusted with just how wayward and deficient his nigh perfect "son" has become.

Quote from: SM on Aug 12, 2020, 05:41:56 AM
Played by a de-aged Ian Holm.

Nice. Alien: Covenant 2 - Ashes to Ashes.

I can't quite decide if David created the Alien or he was trying to replicate them?

At this point - whatever you like more

The canon war will continue until we all agree to agree.

I dis/agree

Quote from: TStyx on Aug 12, 2020, 04:30:29 PM
I can't quite decide if David created the Alien or he was trying to replicate them?

Depends on whether you want to go by what the film that establishes him as their creator spells out or not.

Creep, Creep, Creep, Creep....

~drop~



Creep, Creep, Creep, Creep....

Are we really going to talk about Ridley's intentions some more..?

And the counter to that will always be that somebody turned Ridley's Alien universe into an AVP universe against his will.

I don't see how the canon war can still continue. It is literally just whether you believe David or Dallas.

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 12, 2020, 06:13:27 PM
Are we really going to talk about Ridley's intentions some more..?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEp_ncFOxEM

And this is supposed to make me say.... que?

HR Giger mentioned :D RIP he is my god.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 12, 2020, 05:00:38 PM
The canon war will continue until we all agree to agree.

It will go on until some media is released that ties all these loose knots together and make them fit together and explains it all. Until then we have several theories which has been stated several times that just dont fit together at the moment.
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A3IxC2J0maU/WZ3N4Wmj8OI/AAAAAAABAaQ/Ew5A0BcwPUQbu-P4eSsDgrX982wjLnb1QCLcBGAs/s1600/r1.gif)

Ridley scott has said a lot of different things and seem to change his opnion on it more times than not.

Quote from: judge death on Aug 12, 2020, 08:11:07 PM
HR Giger mentioned :D RIP he is my god.
...
Ridley scott has said a lot of different things and seem to change his opinion on it more times than not.

Pretty much my thoughts on the matter.

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 12, 2020, 08:39:40 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 12, 2020, 08:11:07 PM
HR Giger mentioned :D RIP he is my god.
...
Ridley scott has said a lot of different things and seem to change his opinion on it more times than not.

Pretty much my thoughts on the matter.

Has Ridley come out and changed his mind on this since releasing Covenant?

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 12, 2020, 06:40:27 PM
I don't see how the canon war can still continue. It is literally just whether you believe David or Dallas.

Hardly. I believe Dallas thought it looked like the Jockey was dead a long time. I also believe David.

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 12, 2020, 08:52:20 PM

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 12, 2020, 08:39:40 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 12, 2020, 08:11:07 PM
HR Giger mentioned :D RIP he is my god.
...
Ridley scott has said a lot of different things and seem to change his opinion on it more times than not.

Pretty much my thoughts on the matter.

Has Ridley come out and changed his mind on this since releasing Covenant?

I think Ridley changes his mind on things every time he comes out. Love the guy, but that's kinda just his style.

---

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 12, 2020, 06:52:27 PM
And this is supposed to make me say.... que?

Hey, making people say que is my specialty!

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 12, 2020, 09:08:40 PM

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 12, 2020, 08:52:20 PM

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 12, 2020, 08:39:40 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 12, 2020, 08:11:07 PM
HR Giger mentioned :D RIP he is my god.
...
Ridley scott has said a lot of different things and seem to change his opinion on it more times than not.

Pretty much my thoughts on the matter.

Has Ridley come out and changed his mind on this since releasing Covenant?

I think Ridley changes his mind on things every time he comes out. Love the guy, but that's just his style.

So no?  Currently it's current?  (until it's not?)

I think people confuse their own opinions with official canon now. If I don't like it, it didn't happen I guess.

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 12, 2020, 09:14:17 PM

So no?  Currently it's current?  (until it's not?)

If the question is in earnest, and not just a dig or a lead-in for more canon-fodder, here is one of his most recent takes on the matter, if there's something even more recent than this, I do not know. Also who would be potentially by directing this latest script treatment from Hill and Giler, I do not know, but this it the latest hot take from Scott on the matter...

From an LA Times article back in 2020-05-31:

QuoteScott returned to the world of the story with 2012's "Prometheus" and 2017's "Alien: Covenant." And he may not yet be done.

"I still think there's a lot of mileage in 'Alien,' but I think you'll have to now re-evolve," Scott said. "What I always thought when I was making it, the first one, why would a creature like this be made and why was it traveling in what I always thought was a kind of war-craft, which was carrying a cargo of these eggs. What was the purpose of the vehicle and what was the purpose of the eggs? That's the thing to question — who, why, and for what purpose is the next idea, I think."

So, despite him being very vocal in that past regarding David, he's a bit more circumspect here, so who knows, if he does get to make his movie, ideas may continue to change and evolve in mid-production as they often do in his films, or if some people get their wish it may be David inside that Space Jockey suit after all.

Quote from: judge death on Aug 12, 2020, 08:11:07 PM
HR Giger mentioned :D RIP he is my god.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 12, 2020, 05:00:38 PM
The canon war will continue until we all agree to agree.

It will go on until some media is released that ties all these loose knots together and make them fit together and explains it all. Until then we have several theories which has been stated several times that just dont fit together at the moment.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A3IxC2J0maU/WZ3N4Wmj8OI/AAAAAAABAaQ/Ew5A0BcwPUQbu-P4eSsDgrX982wjLnb1QCLcBGAs/s1600/r1.gif

Ridley scott has said a lot of different things and seem to change his opnion on it more times than not.

There is nothing to fit. David creating the perfect organism doesn't contradict Alien. Dallas didn't use any technological device to measure the age of the Space Jockey, unlike Shaw in Prometheus.


Dallas is just guessing. Plus, I don't think the Space Jockey is fossilized. Unless the Space Jockey is the result of permineralization, which I doubt, it is not a fossil...maybe a space mummy though  :laugh:

Quote from: University of California Museum of PaleontologyA common form of fossilization is permineralization. This occurs when the pores of plant materials, bones, and shells are impregnated by mineral matter from the ground, lakes, or oceans. In some cases, the wood fibers and cellulose dissolve and are replaced minerals. Sometimes the mineral substance of the fossils will completely dissolve and other minerals replace them. Common minerals that form this kind of fossil are calcite, iron, and silica.

The fossils take the original shape of the tissue or organism as the pores of the organic tissues are filled with minerals, or the organic matter is replaced with minerals. However, the composition of the fossils will be different and they will be heavier.

What is permineralization?



As I said, natural mummification is more possible, since dry conditions seems to be good for spontaneous mummification. I bet you can find these conditions inside the Derelict or even LV-426. And guess what...the process only takes 3 months!

Quote from: New York TimesBodies left in hot, arid environments can typically mummify in about two weeks, while the process typically takes a couple of months in enclosed locations. Remains in mild environments take about three months.

When a person dies the countdown to decomposition begins, as digestive enzymes start breaking down cells inside the body. When the person was alive these enzymes were held within parts of the cell known as the lysosomes. But when the person dies, the membranes of the lysosomes weaken, allowing the enzymes to spill out and digest the cell.

In most cases enzymes need to be in an aqueous environment to work, so if the fluids are removed, decomposition slows down. During spontaneous mummification, the body loses water more rapidly than the enzymes' destructive actions can operate, according to Dario Piombino-Mascali, an Italian anthropologist and a visiting researcher at Vilnius University in Lithuania. Bodies buried in crypts can accidentally mummify if ventilation keeps them dry, as was the case in Lithuania's Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit where Dr. Piombino-Mascali works.

How to Make a Mummy (Accidentally)



All that said, unless the fossils of the Alien universe are created in a different way than the real world (since it is science fiction after all), I'd say that the Space Jockey just looks like something ancient.

Now about what Ridley Scott / Dan O'bannon originally had in mind (cosmic horror in the case of O'bannon) you must remember that Darth Vader was not always Luke's father.

And as others have already mentioned, with the new lore the Space Jockey: it may have been killed by something else, the eggs may be new with the ship wrecked for millennia on LV-426.

Nothing to debate here, just one side doesn't fit as snuggly as the other  :)

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 12, 2020, 09:34:40 PM
So, despite him being very vocal in that past regarding David, he's a bit more circumspect here, so who knows, if he does get to make his movie, ideas may continue to change and evolve in mid-production as they often do in his films, or if some people get their wish it may be David inside that Space Jockey suit after all.

It may evolve indeed. But it hasn't yet.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 12, 2020, 09:18:34 PM
I think people confuse their own opinions with official canon now. If I don't like it, it didn't happen I guess.

Yeah, I was running into that recently in regards to The Predator, where magically I was told Predators experimenting with hybridization is no longer canon anymore, all while Illfonic and Titan are continuing lines from that film like Stargazer and Peter Keyes, fixing and conveniently weaving around unfavorable aspects where they can. I get they don't like that aspect of The Predator, most do not, but disliking it shouldn't be allowed to shape reality. It would have been better detailed in film, but fortunately with hybridization, Shane Black confirmed not all Predators do it and Nimród left it open that Super Predators may do it.  It gives content creators wiggle room at least.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 12, 2020, 09:18:34 PM
I think people confuse their own opinions with official canon now. If I don't like it, it didn't happen I guess.

I guess until we get to see what Disney or 20th Century Studios decides to do, no one knows what the official canon is, only what previous 'canon' iterations may have been. But as for now we can only speculate based on what Disney has done in the past, and the Star Wars franchise seems like the closest comparison to base that speculation upon, or Marvel and the reset they did on Spiderman.

The 3 most recent development rumors are Ridley's Hope, Giler and Hill's Alien 5, and Speculative Emma Watson project, so the next thing we could see could be a continuation, a diversion, or a complete redevelopment. Until then, we'll just have to keep waging bloody war until we see who gets the golden ticket.

---

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 12, 2020, 09:49:37 PM

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 12, 2020, 09:18:34 PM
I think people confuse their own opinions with official canon now. If I don't like it, it didn't happen I guess.

Yeah, I was running into that recently in regards to The Predator, where magically I was told Predators experimenting with hybridization is no longer canon anymore, all while Illfonic and Titan are continuing lines from that film like Stargazer and Peter Keyes, fixing and conveniently weaving around unfavorable aspects where they can. I get they don't like that aspect of The Predator, most do not, but disliking it shouldn't be allowed to shape reality. It would have been better detailed in film, but fortunately with hybridization, Shane Black confirmed not all Predators do it and Nimród left it open that Super Predators may do it.  It gives content creators wiggle room at least.

It's an interesting parallel since as near as I can figure out, the aspects people are most flipping out with regards to that franchise are the speculations of a non-authoritative character within the film. In this way Casey Bracket is a lot like Dallas or like David, either un-authoritative or unreliable, with only our meta-contextual knowledge of director interviews and unofficial comments to bolster claims in either direction. Regardless of what may or may not have been said outside of the context of the film, I'm not going to take Casey's guesses about what may be going on with the structure or intentions of Predator society as gospel, and I personally think it would be absurd to do so. But I understand that not all people feel that way.   

Also, I am chomping at the bit to hear the interview you guys did with the Predators writers, when's that coming out again?

Quote from: SiL on Aug 12, 2020, 08:59:07 PM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 12, 2020, 06:40:27 PM
I don't see how the canon war can still continue. It is literally just whether you believe David or Dallas.

Hardly. I believe Dallas thought it looked like the Jockey was dead a long time. I also believe David.

Of course you are free to believe David, but you need to respect those that believe Dallas' observations. Dallas could be wrong, and David just lied about Shaw's death.

Dallas looked at something he had never seen before and said it looked old.

David walked us through a lab with his all of his working and designs and failures on full display, explaining the process.

Not really equivalent arguments. Dallas doesn't make any measurements, runs no tests, and would be the first character to say they were wrong and don't know what they're talking about ("Anything to do with the science division, Ash has the final word.")

If Ash had been on the expedition and said it I think the "David didn't make Aliens - Jockey is fossilised!" crowd would have a leg to stand on.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 12, 2020, 09:18:34 PM
I think people confuse their own opinions with official canon now. If I don't like it, it didn't happen I guess.

"Now"?

;D

Since we are talking about it, fossils are bone-shaped rocks. I don't think the Space Jockey is a giant piece of rock in the shape of a once-living organism.  :laugh:

What Dallas saw is a mummified biomechanical suit / exoskeleton at best.  :)

But he said fossilised so obviously that makes it fossilised.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 12, 2020, 11:32:57 PM
But he said fossilised so obviously that makes it fossilised.

And David just said he made something new.

They are equivalent arguments since there is zero evidence on either side, both are just characters saying stuff.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 12, 2020, 11:38:03 PM
And David just said he made something new.

They are equivalent arguments since there is zero evidence on either side, both are just characters saying stuff.

David is literally surrounded with his works in progress, showing different stages of the design process, with cross-sections and technical drawings and concept designs everywhere.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 12, 2020, 11:45:44 PM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 12, 2020, 11:38:03 PM
And David just said he made something new.

They are equivalent arguments since there is zero evidence on either side, both are just characters saying stuff.

David is literally surrounded with his works in progress, showing different stages of the design process, with cross-sections and technical drawings and concept designs everywhere.

You know as well as I do what the problem is. None of that proves what he was creating was new. So its back to David's word vs Dallas' word.

The evidence is in the dead jockey itself: The space jockey was never buried. It's a basic requirement of what most people believe being "fossilised" means. Which rules out permineralisation, castings and other processes where materials are leeching through surrounding material.

That leaves 2 main possible means of fossilisation. Desiccation - where the specimen is dried out - and freezing are very viable processes in this case as the sample does not require burial. Both/either can take place within a matter of days for smaller samples or within months for large specimens.

Take into account Acheron's harsh, windy climate. The dry interior of the derelict. Ash's description of both the atmosphere and geological make up and his comment about "deep cold" makes conditions perfect for a frozen, desiccated sample of such size to occur quickly.

So yeah, it's possible the SJ is less than a decade old.

-Windebieste.

The only way to Prove that David was creating something new is if David has access to something the engineers didn't have access to. But its seems that David and the engineer has access to the exact same stuff.

Whole lotta people forgetting what "audience shorthand" means, and that Dallas may not have actually literally meant "fossilized" and was just picking a convenient word to convey to Lambert and Kane (and the audience) that the Space Jockey and Derelict were old.

Just because he's not in the science division doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about, or that he's wrong. I'm an accountant by trade but I could write a book about esoteric topics related to World War II and how they're depicted in fiction.

Quote from: Kradan on Aug 12, 2020, 04:56:15 PM
At this point - whatever you like more

This guy gets it.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 12, 2020, 05:02:49 PM

Quote from: TStyx on Aug 12, 2020, 04:30:29 PM
I can't quite decide if David created the Alien or he was trying to replicate them?

Depends on whether you want to go by what the film that establishes him as their creator spells out or go by the first movie in the series, which establishes that he can't be right.

Went ahead and fixed that for you.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 12, 2020, 09:18:34 PM
I think people confuse their own opinions with official canon now. If I don't like it, it didn't happen I guess.

None of it happened because it's fiction, some people are simply starting to figure out that "official canon" doesn't matter at an end-user level (see also: the links in my signature).
What matters is what you believe, and what gets you to enjoy the series the most. If you don't like something, then go ahead and ignore it (or reinterpret it, or recontextualize it), who cares?

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 12, 2020, 09:49:37 PM
I get they don't like that aspect of The Predator, most do not, but disliking it shouldn't be allowed to shape reality. It would have been better detailed in film, but fortunately with hybridization, Shane Black confirmed not all Predators do it and Nimród left it open that Super Predators may do it.  It gives content creators wiggle room at least.

There is no "reality" because none of this is real, it's fiction.

If someone wanted to believe that all the Predators in all of the movies were hermaphrodites, there's really nothing stopping them from thinking that way - the only reason you know they think it is because they chose to share that knowledge with you on a messageboard. If they can articulate why they think it then that leads to better discussions, but still kinda doesn't matter. Maybe you'd be able to change their mind, but even if you can't convince them to agree with your "reality", who cares? People can have interesting discussions without forcing others to bend to the will of "consensus" or "authorial intent" or "official canon".

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 12, 2020, 09:57:44 PM
Until then, we'll just have to keep waging bloody war until we see who gets the golden ticket.

It turns out the real golden ticket is the friends we made along the way.

How do you even organically design something like david did anyway?

Either or, 21 pages all because I said the engineers created the Xenomorph 😂

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 13, 2020, 12:48:15 AM
How do you even organically design something like david did anyway?

Joke answer: ask H.R. Giger

Semi-serious in-universe answer: David, being non-human and with a non-human brain, could potentially conceive of things humans could not. Thematically David would be the first one to break the "designed in their own image" cycle, but that's a side point.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 12, 2020, 11:59:06 PM
None of that proves what he was creating was new.

Except the part where he explains how he made something new of his own design and shows his working.

Quote from: Tichinde on Aug 13, 2020, 12:48:15 AM
How do you even organically design something like david did anyway?

Selective breeding, pathogen use.

Quote
Except the part where he explains how he made something new of his own design and shows his working.

So its back to Dallas can be wrong vs David can lie, which is what I originally said.

No, because Dallas being right just means the place looks old.

It comes down to David having evidence and Dallas not even trying to offer any because it's literally not his job.

I'm suprised this still didn't get locked. Keep the war going buddies.

Can't wait for the third prequel to end with the Derelict crashing on LV-426 as pathogen leaks everywhere in the ship, on David, and in the swarm of Aliens and eggs being transported. The whole ship becomes a melting pot of android, Alien, and ship, as the ribbed, biological forms of the original Derelict begin to take form and the vessel takes on its mummified appearance. David screams in agony as the worst thing he could possibly imagine is happening to him. His mechanical form is becoming increasingly more biological as this soup of genes merges together, first taking the form of creators, and his creators' creators, becoming another example of one of those fleshy races that he hates. He becomes fused to the chair, to the ship, and then, finally, one of his own creations turns on him as a facehugger latches onto his face, and thus the first proper biomechanical Alien is born.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 01:00:15 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 12, 2020, 11:59:06 PM
None of that proves what he was creating was new.

Except the part where he explains how he made something new of his own design and shows his working.

New to him doesn't mean new, period (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery).

I can discover, on my own, how to create matches, or a combustion engine, or a paper airplane, but that doesn't mean I invented them before anyone else did.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 01:10:44 AM
No, because Dallas being right just means the place looks old.

I'd say Dallas being right means it is old.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 01:20:53 AM
Can't wait for the third prequel to end with the Derelict crashing on LV-426 as pathogen leaks everywhere in the ship, on David, and in the swarm of Aliens and eggs being transported. The whole ship becomes a melting pot of android, Alien, and ship, as the ribbed, biological forms of the original Derelict begin to take form and the vessel takes on its mummified appearance. David screams in agony as the worst thing he could possibly imagine is happening to him. His mechanical form is becoming increasingly more biological as this soup of genes merges together, first taking the form of creators, and his creators' creators, becoming another example of one of those fleshy races that he hates. He becomes fused to the chair, to the ship, and then, finally, one of his own creations turns on him as a facehugger latches onto his face, and thus the first proper biomechanical Alien is born.

I quite like it.

Only thing is: Why would David of all send out a warning signal?


Or maybe Ripley was wrong (like Dallas... Shaw...)?  ::)

Alien: In space everyone is wrong!

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 01:26:03 AM
New to him doesn't mean new, period (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery).

Which is a way they could totally write themselves out of it.

Or they could not.

Until they do, acting like it's not perfectly clear what they were trying to say and what course the franchise is currently taking is still abject denialism.

If people just acknowledged that David being the creator is 100% the current company line on the matter there would never be an argument. It's when people keep trying to act like it's somehow actually vague or intentionally left wide open to interpretation that we get these dumb arguments. This is the conclusion we reach every time, yet here we are.

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 13, 2020, 01:35:15 AM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 01:20:53 AM
Can't wait for the third prequel to end with the Derelict crashing on LV-426 as pathogen leaks everywhere in the ship, on David, and in the swarm of Aliens and eggs being transported. The whole ship becomes a melting pot of android, Alien, and ship, as the ribbed, biological forms of the original Derelict begin to take form and the vessel takes on its mummified appearance. David screams in agony as the worst thing he could possibly imagine is happening to him. His mechanical form is becoming increasingly more biological as this soup of genes merges together, first taking the form of creators, and his creators' creators, becoming another example of one of those fleshy races that he hates. He becomes fused to the chair, to the ship, and then, finally, one of his own creations turns on him as a facehugger latches onto his face, and thus the first proper biomechanical Alien is born.

I quite like it.

Only thing is: Why would David of all send out a warning signal?


Or maybe Ripley was wrong?  ::)

Alien: In space everyone is wrong!

I can only like it if whoever runs this concept is in deep knowledge of this gem.

---

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 01:26:03 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 01:00:15 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 12, 2020, 11:59:06 PM
None of that proves what he was creating was new.

Except the part where he explains how he made something new of his own design and shows his working.

New to him doesn't mean new, period (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery).

I can discover, on my own, how to create matches, or a combustion engine, or a paper airplane, but that doesn't mean I invented them before anyone else did.

Are you saying that David reinvented the wheel thinking that he invented it?  :o

~Even the monkeys stood upright at some point~  :o  ???  :-X

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 01:37:44 AM
If people just acknowledged that David being the creator is 100% the current company line on the matter there would never be an argument. It's when people keep trying to act like it's somehow actually vague or intentionally left wide open to interpretation that we get these dumb arguments. This is the conclusion we reach every time, yet here we are.

I'm not saying that it's not the company line (it is), I'm saying that the company line doesn't matter. :)

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 12:46:49 AM
None of it happened because it's fiction, some people are simply starting to figure out that "official canon" doesn't matter at an end-user level (see also: the links in my signature).
What matters is what you believe, and what gets you to enjoy the series the most. If you don't like something, then go ahead and ignore it (or reinterpret it, or recontextualize it), who cares?

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 12:46:49 AMPeople can have interesting discussions without forcing others to bend to the will of "consensus" or "authorial intent" or "official canon".

That said, "the company line" =/= "what the movie says". Ridley Scott thinks Deckard is a replicant. "The company line" for decades was that Aliens were easy-to-kill cannon-fodder in books, videogames, and comics, but that's not "what the movies say". :P

the company line includes all post out of the shadows EU, right? Predator if it bleeds references out of the shadows, so xenos destorying an ancient civilization happened.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 01:44:15 AM
Ridley Scott thinks Deckard is a replicant.

And Denis Villeneuve refused to acknowledge that either way in Blade Runner 2049 because, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. All the really matters
is that Deckard, who believed himself to be human, was nothing more than a robotic killing machine, and Batty, the replicant, was the one trying to make a real life for himself. By 2049 Deckard is now making a very "human" choice, as is K, and the film makes it a point that a person's origins are entirely irrelevant.

Ridley can have his belief that Deckard is a replicant and Ford can have his belief that he's human, but at the end of the day that's not the relevant information. What matters is that Deckard strted as a "robot" and now he's a "person."

In Alien: Covenant, however, the nature of creation and origins is baked right into David's central function as a character.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 01:55:26 AM
the company line includes all post out of the shadows EU, right? Predator if it bleeds references out of the shadows, so xenos destorying an ancient civilization happened.

There's also that - the company line as far as the public is aware is that the entire EU from OotS onward is "canon". I know SM insists differently, but as far as we know what SM is saying is from internal documents and not meant for public consumption. It's almost as if  "the company line" is useful on an internal level, and the general public shouldn't concern itself with it.
People can say "Covenant contradicts _________ therefore it isn't canon", but that's not what the company line says. :P

MASSIVE DISCLAIMER - I AM NOT TRYING TO START AN EU CANON DISCUSSION, JUST USING IT AS A SIDE EXAMPLE TO ILLUSTRATE A POINT. THANK YOU, THAT IS ALL.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 01:59:09 AM
In Alien: Covenant, however, the nature of creation and origins is baked right into David's central function as a character.

And it can continue to be even if he's "wrong". Shit, that's the nature of gothic horror villains.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 01:55:26 AM
the company line includes all post out of the shadows EU, right? Predator if it bleeds references out of the shadows, so xenos destorying an ancient civilization happened.

One department looks after movies and another department looks after licensing.  The film department isn't beholden to material in non-film media.

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 02:03:08 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 01:55:26 AM
the company line includes all post out of the shadows EU, right? Predator if it bleeds references out of the shadows, so xenos destorying an ancient civilization happened.

One department looks after movies and another department looks after licensing.  The film department isn't beholden to material in non-film media.

That's not what they tell the public.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 02:04:56 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 02:03:08 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 01:55:26 AM
the company line includes all post out of the shadows EU, right? Predator if it bleeds references out of the shadows, so xenos destorying an ancient civilization happened.

One department looks after movies and another department looks after licensing.  The film department isn't beholden to material in non-film media.

That's not what they tell the public.

They are trying to sell stuff, canon is just a marketing thing for them.

Quote from: Samhain13 on Aug 13, 2020, 02:07:43 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 02:04:56 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 02:03:08 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 01:55:26 AM
the company line includes all post out of the shadows EU, right? Predator if it bleeds references out of the shadows, so xenos destorying an ancient civilization happened.

One department looks after movies and another department looks after licensing.  The film department isn't beholden to material in non-film media.

That's not what they tell the public.

They are trying to sell stuff, canon is just a marketing thing for them.

Bingo, yes exactly yes.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 12:46:49 AM

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 12, 2020, 09:49:37 PM
I get they don't like that aspect of The Predator, most do not, but disliking it shouldn't be allowed to shape reality. It would have been better detailed in film, but fortunately with hybridization, Shane Black confirmed not all Predators do it and Nimród left it open that Super Predators may do it.  It gives content creators wiggle room at least.

There is no "reality" because none of this is real, it's fiction.

There is reality in what 20th Century is treating as canon right now with Predator. And canon was this discussion, the part you left off while quoting me:

QuoteYeah, I was running into that recently in regards to The Predator, where magically I was told Predators experimenting with hybridization is no longer canon anymore, all while Illfonic and Titan are continuing lines from that film like Stargazer and Peter Keyes, fixing and conveniently weaving around unfavorable aspects where they can.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 02:04:56 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 02:03:08 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 01:55:26 AM
the company line includes all post out of the shadows EU, right? Predator if it bleeds references out of the shadows, so xenos destorying an ancient civilization happened.

One department looks after movies and another department looks after licensing.  The film department isn't beholden to material in non-film media.

That's not what they tell the public.

They have never said the film department is beholden to the licensing department. They have, however, been saying the opposite since 1992.

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 13, 2020, 01:42:14 AM

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 13, 2020, 01:35:15 AM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 01:20:53 AM
Can't wait for the third prequel to end with the Derelict crashing on LV-426 as pathogen leaks everywhere in the ship, on David, and in the swarm of Aliens and eggs being transported. The whole ship becomes a melting pot of android, Alien, and ship, as the ribbed, biological forms of the original Derelict begin to take form and the vessel takes on its mummified appearance. David screams in agony as the worst thing he could possibly imagine is happening to him. His mechanical form is becoming increasingly more biological as this soup of genes merges together, first taking the form of creators, and his creators' creators, becoming another example of one of those fleshy races that he hates. He becomes fused to the chair, to the ship, and then, finally, one of his own creations turns on him as a facehugger latches onto his face, and thus the first proper biomechanical Alien is born.

I quite like it.

Only thing is: Why would David of all send out a warning signal?


Or maybe Ripley was wrong?  ::)

Alien: In space everyone is wrong!

I can only like it if whoever runs this concept is in deep knowledge of this gem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOhpLNLd334

Alien: Scorn


I'm intrigued  :o

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 01:37:44 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 01:26:03 AM
New to him doesn't mean new, period (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery).

Which is a way they could totally write themselves out of it.

Or they could not.

Until they do, acting like it's not perfectly clear what they were trying to say and what course the franchise is currently taking is still abject denialism.

If people just acknowledged that David being the creator is 100% the current company line on the matter there would never be an argument.It's when people keep trying to act like it's somehow actually vague or intentionally left wide open to interpretation that we get these dumb arguments. This is the conclusion we reach every time, yet here we are.

This. With emphasis on the part in bold too.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 03:25:55 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 02:04:56 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 02:03:08 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 01:55:26 AM
the company line includes all post out of the shadows EU, right? Predator if it bleeds references out of the shadows, so xenos destorying an ancient civilization happened.

One department looks after movies and another department looks after licensing.  The film department isn't beholden to material in non-film media.

That's not what they tell the public.

They have never said the film department is beholden to the licensing department. They have, however, been saying the opposite since 1992.

You're acting like their actions speak for them, and yet we're supposed to also believe their words even when they contradict their actions.

It's almost as if they're inconsistent and shouldn't be listened to, or at best their words and actions don't matter.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:11:58 AM
You're acting like their actions speak for them, and yet we're supposed to also believe their words even when they contradict their actions.

They have never acted or said that films followed licensed material. They have consistently acted and said that licensed material follows the films.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 04:17:29 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:11:58 AM
You're acting like their actions speak for them, and yet we're supposed to also believe their words even when they contradict their actions.

They have never acted or said that films followed licensed material. They have consistently acted and said that licensed material follows the films.

And yet they keep saying certain things are "canon".

If the "company line" is that "things are true, until they're not", then why should I listen to them at all?

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 04:17:29 AM
They have consistently acted and said that licensed material follows the films.

So Predators if it bleeds should contain no more references to ancient xenomorphs, Yet it still does. And its other references lets us know that it is in the same universe as Covenant. 

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 04:24:56 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 04:17:29 AM
They have consistently acted and said that licensed material follows the films.

So Predators if it bleeds should contain no more references to ancient xenomorphs, Yet it still does. And its other references lets us know that it is in the same universe as Covenant.

It isn't. The Alien "Universe" is limited to the Alien and Prometheus licenses. Predator and Alien vs Predator are separate entities.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 04:28:46 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 04:24:56 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 04:17:29 AM
They have consistently acted and said that licensed material follows the films.

So Predators if it bleeds should contain no more references to ancient xenomorphs, Yet it still does. And its other references lets us know that it is in the same universe as Covenant.

It isn't. The Alien "Universe" is limited to the Alien and Prometheus licenses. Predator and Alien vs Predator are separate entities.

As mentioned before, Fire and stone uses Ridley's version of weyland Yuanti and Engineers

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 04:31:35 AM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 04:28:46 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 04:24:56 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 04:17:29 AM
They have consistently acted and said that licensed material follows the films.

So Predators if it bleeds should contain no more references to ancient xenomorphs, Yet it still does. And its other references lets us know that it is in the same universe as Covenant.

It isn't. The Alien "Universe" is limited to the Alien and Prometheus licenses. Predator and Alien vs Predator are separate entities.

As mentioned before, Fire and stone uses Ridley's version of weyland Yuanti and Engineers

And also pre-dates the release of Alien: Covenant.

(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/PointedThickGlassfrog-size_restricted.gif)

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 04:34:18 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 04:31:35 AM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 04:28:46 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 04:24:56 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 04:17:29 AM
They have consistently acted and said that licensed material follows the films.

So Predators if it bleeds should contain no more references to ancient xenomorphs, Yet it still does. And its other references lets us know that it is in the same universe as Covenant.

It isn't. The Alien "Universe" is limited to the Alien and Prometheus licenses. Predator and Alien vs Predator are separate entities.

As mentioned before, Fire and stone uses Ridley's version of weyland Yuanti and Engineers

And also pre-dates the release of Alien: Covenant.

The point is, Ancient aliens references still exist in Ridley's universe even after Conveant was released.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:21:59 AM
And yet they keep saying certain things are "canon".

And if that's a licensed thing you know that only holds until a movie says otherwise.

Guess who doesn't give f**k about "canon" ?

Spoiler

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/R_logo.svg/1200px-R_logo.svg.png)

(https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BC%D0%BE-%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%83%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B8-i-3527433.jpg)

(https://st3.depositphotos.com/1439888/16727/i/450/depositphotos_167279036-stock-photo-fire-letter-d-of-burning.jpg)

(https://image.freepik.com/free-vector/floral-capital-letter-l-alphabet-vector_53876-87377.jpg)

(https://static8.depositphotos.com/1472772/980/i/450/depositphotos_9800845-stock-photo-neon-font-letter-e.jpg)

(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/L8PdL8ydI28/maxresdefault.jpg)

[close]

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 04:40:18 AM
The point is, Ancient aliens references still exist in Ridley's universe even after Conveant was released.

The point is they don't in post-Covenant Alien material.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 04:55:57 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 04:40:18 AM
The point is, Ancient aliens references still exist in Ridley's universe even after Conveant was released.

The point is they don't in post-Covenant Alien material.

There is no pure Aliens universe anymore, both the old (Charles Bishop Weyland) and New/Ridley (peter weyland) universes are AVP.

Except that the details in Prometheus (which features a totally different Weyland company, founded by a different man) and Covenant (which establishes that the Aliens are a new invention) make it impossible to reconcile setting these films and the AVP films in the same universe.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 05:11:25 AM
impossible to reconcile

David is Lying. What did you think we were talking about?

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 05:06:00 AM
There is no pure Aliens universe anymore, both the old (Charles Bishop Weyland) and New/Ridley (peter weyland) universes are AVP.

Disney's licensing department would disagree. Alien, AvP, and Predator are all separate licenses. The Alien license follows the Alien films.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 05:14:23 AM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 05:11:25 AM
impossible to reconcile

David is Lying. What did you think we were talking about?

Is he?

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 05:11:25 AM
Except that the details in Prometheus (which features a totally different Weyland company, founded by a different man) and Covenant (which establishes that the Aliens are a new invention) make it impossible to reconcile setting these films and the AVP films in the same universe.

I think you are confused, nobody is trying fit the AVP films into the Ridley universe. The AVP I am talking about is fire and stone, which has nothing to do with the AVP films.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 05:20:29 AM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 05:11:25 AM
Except that the details in Prometheus (which features a totally different Weyland company, founded by a different man) and Covenant (which establishes that the Aliens are a new invention) make it impossible to reconcile setting these films and the AVP films in the same universe.

I think you are confused, nobody is trying fit the AVP films into the Ridley universe. The AVP I am talking about is fire and stone, which has nothing to do with the AVP films.

But you used Charles Bishop Weyland as a frame of reference, and he is a character from the AVP film.

Also, Covenant came out after that comic book and redefined the continuity.

Also, Disney/20th Century Studios considers Alien, Predator, and AVP separate licenses (and, thus, separate universes) at the moment.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 05:15:27 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 05:06:00 AM
There is no pure Aliens universe anymore, both the old (Charles Bishop Weyland) and New/Ridley (peter weyland) universes are AVP.

Disney's licensing department would disagree. Alien, AvP, and Predator are all separate licenses. The Alien license follows the Alien films.

Did you forget that details in Fire and Stone were changed because of prometheus to confirm that they take place in the same universe?

Did you forget it came out before Covenant?

Quote

Also, Disney/20th Century Studios considers Alien, Predator, and AVP separate licenses (and, thus, separate universes) at the moment.

No, because details in fire and stone were changed to fit with prometheus.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 05:38:06 AM
No, because details in fire and stone were changed to fit with prometheus.

Yeah, almost like the licenses follow the films...

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 05:40:37 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 05:38:06 AM
No, because details in fire and stone were changed to fit with prometheus.

Yeah, almost like the licenses follow the films...

So why doesn't Predator If it bleeds follow covenant? Both are confirmed to take place in the Peter weyland universe. prometheus and fire and stone prove that a separate license isn't a separate universe.

Licensing have treated the licenses as separate universes for a number of years now.

Fire & Stone was changed so it wouldn't potentially tread on the then mooted sequel to Prometheus.  It wasn't changed to fit with Prometheus.  It was spawned out of Prometheus.

And it was also six years ago and plans, focus and staff change in the licensing department.  The most recent focus was Amanda, Zula and it would've been Olivia Shipp if not for Brian Wood being an awful turd.  No Predator, no crossover.  The Thicker Than Blood comic had no impact on the main Alien story taking place.

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 05:51:28 AM
Licensing have treated the licenses as separate universes for a number of years now.

Fire & Stone was changed so it wouldn't potentially tread on the then mooted sequel to Prometheus.  It wasn't changed to fit with Prometheus.  It was spawned out of Prometheus.

And it was also six years ago and plans, focus and staff change in the licensing department.  The most recent focus was Amanda, Zula and it would've been Olivia Shipp if not for Brian Wood being an awful turd.  No Predator, no crossover.  The Thicker Than Blood comic had no impact on the main Alien story taking place.

So If it is a different universe, why does Fire and Stone need to worry about treading on the Prometheus sequel?

This thread needs a soundtrack:

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 04:44:21 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:21:59 AM
And yet they keep saying certain things are "canon".

And if that's a licensed thing you know that only holds until a movie says otherwise.

That doesn't change what I said re: the "company line". :)

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 05:55:10 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 05:51:28 AM
Licensing have treated the licenses as separate universes for a number of years now.

Fire & Stone was changed so it wouldn't potentially tread on the then mooted sequel to Prometheus.  It wasn't changed to fit with Prometheus.  It was spawned out of Prometheus.

And it was also six years ago and plans, focus and staff change in the licensing department.  The most recent focus was Amanda, Zula and it would've been Olivia Shipp if not for Brian Wood being an awful turd.  No Predator, no crossover.  The Thicker Than Blood comic had no impact on the main Alien story taking place.

So If it is a different universe, why does Fire and Stone need to worry about treading on the Prometheus sequel?

it was ... six years ago and plans, focus and staff change in the licensing department.

I think part of his point is that "the licensing department" isn't an audience-facing entity. Shit, things were "licensed" separately even when they *were* part of the same "universe". The Tech Manual wasn't licensed to reference anything but the second movie.

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 06:07:06 AM

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 05:55:10 AM

Quote from: SM on Aug 13, 2020, 05:51:28 AM
Licensing have treated the licenses as separate universes for a number of years now.

Fire & Stone was changed so it wouldn't potentially tread on the then mooted sequel to Prometheus.  It wasn't changed to fit with Prometheus.  It was spawned out of Prometheus.

And it was also six years ago and plans, focus and staff change in the licensing department.  The most recent focus was Amanda, Zula and it would've been Olivia Shipp if not for Brian Wood being an awful turd.  No Predator, no crossover.  The Thicker Than Blood comic had no impact on the main Alien story taking place.

So If it is a different universe, why does Fire and Stone need to worry about treading on the Prometheus sequel?

it was ... six years ago and plans, focus and staff change in the licensing department.

So what universe is Predator If it bleeds in? Why is it allowed to reference the Alien stuff if it is in a different universe?

Dunno.  I never worked on the Predator license.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 05:59:52 AM
That doesn't change what I said re: the "company line". :)

It makes it super simple: care what the films say. Everything else is gravy.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 06:38:09 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 05:59:52 AM
That doesn't change what I said re: the "company line". :)

It makes it super simple: care what the films say. Everything else is gravy.

To each their own :)

I don't know how you can "to each their own" reality but let me know how that works for you.

The fact you can't even admit that the official stance at the moment, such as there is one, is that David made the Alien, is really something else. It's not up for debate, it's not open to interpretation, it is what it is, but you still just won't do it because ... f**k honestly knows why at this point. Everything just turns into deflection.

Because story needs antagonist

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 07:18:07 AM
The fact you can't even admit that the official stance at the moment, such as there is one, is that David made the Alien, is really something else. It's not up for debate, it's not open to interpretation, it is what it is, but you still just won't do it because ... f**k honestly knows why at this point. Everything just turns into deflection.

I think you missed this post from like 4 pages back.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 01:44:15 AM

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 01:37:44 AM
If people just acknowledged that David being the creator is 100% the current company line on the matter there would never be an argument. It's when people keep trying to act like it's somehow actually vague or intentionally left wide open to interpretation that we get these dumb arguments. This is the conclusion we reach every time, yet here we are.

I'm not saying that it's not the company line (it is), I'm saying that the company line doesn't matter. :)

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 12:46:49 AM
None of it happened because it's fiction, some people are simply starting to figure out that "official canon" doesn't matter at an end-user level (see also: the links in my signature).
What matters is what you believe, and what gets you to enjoy the series the most. If you don't like something, then go ahead and ignore it (or reinterpret it, or recontextualize it), who cares?

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 12:46:49 AMPeople can have interesting discussions without forcing others to bend to the will of "consensus" or "authorial intent" or "official canon".

I doubt these debates would persist as long as they do if you recognized that a lot of people don't care what "the company line" is (see also: every poll on this subject) and simply acknowledged their right to have an opinion, even if you don't agree with it.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 07:18:07 AM
I don't know how you can "to each their own" reality but let me know how that works for you.

The fact you can't even admit that the official stance at the moment, such as there is one, is that David made the Alien, is really something else. It's not up for debate, it's not open to interpretation, it is what it is, but you still just won't do it because ... f**k honestly knows why at this point. Everything just turns into deflection.

If the official stance is that the Universes are separate, then Why is Predator allowed to reference stuff that happened in the Alien universe?

If the official stance is that the There is 1 universe, then Predator If it bleeds proves that out of shadows still happened.

Take away official stance and just look at the films, the arguments are circular because the entire reason why you doubt Dallas is because you assumed that David was telling the truth in the first place, and vice versa. So "Dallas is correct and David is lying" is an entirely valid way of looking at the films.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 07:26:01 AM
I think you missed this post from like 4 pages back.

I did and I do apologise.

Quote from: yhe1 on Aug 13, 2020, 07:33:21 AM
If the official stance is that the Universes are separate, then Why is Predator allowed to reference stuff that happened in the Alien universe?

Because the different licenses have their own rules.

QuoteIf the official stance is that the There is 1 universe

It isn't.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 13, 2020, 07:40:10 AM
Because the different licenses have their own rules.

That doesn't answer the question tho. For example, if Ahab references David, Is Ahab in the alien Universe or is there another David in the Predator Universe?

He's in his little story in the AvP universe. Which none of the films are ever likely to care about.

There's nothing stopping the different licenses referencing each other, it's whether the other licenses care. Predator and AvP are free to take elements from the Alien franchise and have them shape their stories -- but that doesn't mean the Alien franchise has to return the favour.

If we acknowledge that any new film which comes out can and does re-establish and override anything established in the previous films, and thus continuity is only as relevant as the next film that comes along. Then why does it feel so vitally important that any/all interpretion of David's authority, belief, or reliability be absolute and unquestionable?

Why does the idea of someone questioning whether or not the most recent narrative is ambiguous or unambiguous feel as threatening as it does? If all of this is only as permenant as the next film that comes along then why is it so important that everyone conform right now to a single unassailable perspective? Who, if anyone at all, does this even matter to? Who should it even matter to, and why? Who is this even supposed to effect if the next filmmaker isn't beholden to your current interpretation or to anyone else's?

How many notes on a saxophone?  How many tears in a bottle of gin?

As of right now, we know David made the Alien.  Ridley wanted it like that and thus put it in his film.  These simple facts give everyone the same point of reference for discussion.

If it changes, we have a new point of reference.

It's really not that complicated.

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 13, 2020, 12:02:30 PM
If we acknowledge that any new film which comes out can and does re-establish and override anything established in the previous films, and thus continuity is only as relevant as the next film that comes along. Then why does it feel so vitally important that any/all interpretion of David's authority, belief, or reliability be absolute and unquestionable?

Why does the idea of someone questioning whether or not the most recent narrative is ambiguous or unambiguous feel as threatening as it does? If all of this is only as permenant as the next film that comes along then why is it so important that everyone conform right now to a single unassailable perspective? Who, if anyone at all, does this even matter to? Who should it even matter to, and why? Who is this even supposed to effect if the next filmmaker isn't beholden to your current interpretation or to anyone else's?

It's one thing to speculate how David could find out he was wrong in a third prequel, but these conversations turn into arguments when people try to reference Predator and AVP to counter what the Alien prequels are doing. It comes off as being in denial when realization sets in that David creating the Aliens isn't as implausible as they try to make it seem when only looking at the Alien movies.

The fact is that Alien is a separate entity from Predator. The Alien franchise has never once made any indication of taking place in the same universe as Predator and has always done its own thing.
Even if The Predator featured an Easter Egg of the spear from AVP, the Predator films never go farther than quick little nods to the AVP spinoff lore. They could easily feature more decorated warriors with blooding and acid scars to expand on it but they haven't.  And even if they do it still wouldn't change the fact that the Alien movies don't have to reciprocate.

This begs the question as to why the director of the original Alien movie needs to conform his vision, of what created the Aliens, to fit the mold of the Predator Universe and AVP spinoff? Does he not get to have any of his own creative liberties? Especially when his vision doesn't really go against the grain of the previously established Alien movies?

Some fans see Ridley being purely spiteful towards AVP, but I think it had more to do with him trying to establish a grander story of how the Aliens came about- whether he succeeded is a matter of opinion.

I think the novelisation of Covenant gives fans the freedom to subscribe to whichever outcome they prefer. Of course all y'all still gonna argue until you're blue in the face with neither side convincing the other of anything but that's just the nature of this argument. Round and round we go.

Well, that part of the novelization was invented from scratch by ADF and isn't representative of anything that was in the script he was given to work off of.

Regardless it's there and that gives fans the choice.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 05:25:23 AM
Also, Disney/20th Century Studios considers Alien, Predator, and AVP separate licenses (and, thus, separate universes) at the moment.

Separate universes? This is an incorrect statement you keep making when it comes to Predator an AvP, of course, at least for now.

(https://i.ibb.co/G51XyF4/IMG-20150810-163538-2.png)

Quote from: Xiggz456 on Aug 13, 2020, 03:33:24 PM
Regardless it's there and that gives fans the choice.

Not really, films are not beholden to licensed media. Never once have the Alien films acknowledged changes in the adapted novels.

If this was the case then I guess the facehugger has a big eye and the adult alien has two eyes as per ADF's Alien adaption?

Now let's get yhe1 in here to ask about fire and stone at least one more time.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 13, 2020, 04:18:46 PM

Quote from: Xiggz456 on Aug 13, 2020, 03:33:24 PM
Regardless it's there and that gives fans the choice.

Not really, films are not beholden to licensed media. Never once have the Alien films acknowledged changes in the adapted novels.

If this was the case then I guess the facehugger has a big eye and the adult alien has two eyes as per ADF's Alien adaption?

If that is what one chooses to believe, then yes.

---

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 13, 2020, 04:14:02 PM

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 13, 2020, 05:25:23 AM
Also, Disney/20th Century Studios considers Alien, Predator, and AVP separate licenses (and, thus, separate universes) at the moment.

Separate universes? This is an incorrect statement you keep making when it comes to Predator an AvP, of course, at least for now.

(https://i.ibb.co/G51XyF4/IMG-20150810-163538-2.png)

This is what I was saying earlier - licensing is not the same as "universes".

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:21:52 PM

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 13, 2020, 04:18:46 PM

Quote from: Xiggz456 on Aug 13, 2020, 03:33:24 PM
Regardless it's there and that gives fans the choice.

Not really, films are not beholden to licensed media. Never once have the Alien films acknowledged changes in the adapted novels.

If this was the case then I guess the facehugger has a big eye and the adult alien has two eyes as per ADF's Alien adaption?

If that is what one chooses to believe, then yes.

ffs, you're not even having the same discussion as everyone else. Yeah we know you don't care about official canon and its all head canon to you and anything goes. Yeah we get it, you're all about "whatever you want to believe is correct cause it's fiction and not real". This is about what the current canon is regarding 21st century studios and what is shown on film.

Headcanon can be whatever you want, duh, thats not disputed and not the topic of discussion.

I think you missed my two posts where I acknowledged what the official canon is.

Also "what is shown on film" and "the official canon" are sometimes not the same thing - that's why people are debating that 'Alien' shows something different from Covenant.

---

Quote from: Xiggz456 on Aug 13, 2020, 03:33:24 PM
Regardless it's there and that gives fans the choice.

This isn't only true for the specific example Xiggz was talking about.

For those who are so riled up and diehard about this David thing. Why does this feel so important to you? Seriously, I'm asking directly, help me understand.

Is this really about something else? Like religion or politics or stress relief over world events, or something?

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 13, 2020, 04:52:09 PM
For those who are so riled up and diehard about this David thing. Why does this feel so important to you? Seriously, I'm asking directly, help me understand.

Is this really about something else? Like religion or politics or stress relief over world events, or something?

I clarified it for me several pages ago: it's because it's a stupid, unnecessary, sloppily-done retcon that radically undermines some of the biggest Lovecraftian tropes from the first movie just to give David something to do. It's similar to the retcon for the Space Jockey/Engineers, and handled with about as much care and finesse. The broad strokes are fine, they just belong in a non-Alien movie. 'Alien' doesn't deserve to get fist-f**ked by Ridley Scott (twice!) because he wanted to make a non-Alien movie all along and he's doing exactly that while passing them off as Alien movies.

Seriously, look at both movies - the only thing that connects Prometheus to 'Alien' is the Engineer's pressure suits; other than that it's a fine standalone unique sci-fi horror movie with interesting ideas, but since it has to be connected to Alien, Riddles opted to derail the Space Jockey to do it.

Likewise, Covenant's one link to Alien is the creature David creates - it could have been a stand-alone movie where a Android makes a horrible creature and the story beats would have been identical. And again, Riddles had to derail the Alien creature to do it.

And it's topics like this one where people say "this is the official canon" but what they really mean is "this is the official canon and you must abide by it". We know what the official canon is, we get it, David made the Alien. I'm not entirely sure anyone is actually debating that. People are debating what they personally believe, and when it's not in line with "the official canon" then that upsets some people.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:21:52 PM

Quote
Separate universes? This is an incorrect statement you keep making when it comes to Predator an AvP, of course, at least for now.

(https://i.ibb.co/G51XyF4/IMG-20150810-163538-2.png)

This is what I was saying earlier - licensing is not the same as %u201Cuniverses%u201D.

Licensing is not the same thing as canon either. Otherwise Captain America and Avengers films (separate licensing) wouldn't be in the same canon.  :P

I'd hear that argument back in the day from people who desperately wanted AvP and Alien to be separate alternate universes, before it was retconned by Prometheus of course.

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 13, 2020, 05:01:08 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:21:52 PM

Quote
Separate universes? This is an incorrect statement you keep making when it comes to Predator an AvP, of course, at least for now.

(https://i.ibb.co/G51XyF4/IMG-20150810-163538-2.png)

This is what I was saying earlier - licensing is not the same as %u201Cuniverses%u201D.

Licensing is not the same thing as canon either.

Yes, exactly.

Quote from: Xiggz456 on Aug 13, 2020, 02:56:48 PM
I think the novelisation of Covenant gives fans the freedom to subscribe to whichever outcome they prefer. Of course all y'all still gonna argue until you're blue in the face with neither side convincing the other of anything but that's just the nature of this argument. Round and round we go.

Im not here to try to convince others that my theory of how the movies fits together with all other material but discuss it and see what I have missed and come up with even better headcanon while reading interesting opinions from others who have different ideas and to hear those who see covenant/latest movie in the franchise as the prime canon etc, quite interesting. Just found it funny when I pointed out several signs and facts from prometheus and other lore that a lot of people forgotten since covenants release and made more to think twice and that there are signs of David might not be the one who originaly created the xenomorph or the pathogen that comes from the xenomorph purity.

I have my headcanon which I updated after all these discussions to fit better with what is said, but Im also seeing and open to how other people stand on the matter and I even can accept that David might created xenomorph and the derelight on LV426 is just 5 years old but I wont have to like it ;) Although ridley scott said in interview and also some excellent docu youtubes that in prometheus time of release the derelight was already crashed and waiting on lv426 but enough of that as I already said that some pages ago :P
Several camps of how the movies and all fit, and if we add the predator fans who most are diehard believers that the franschises belong together and avp movies are canon with the alien ones and hates ridley for trying to separate them, then we have even more.

SM: any word yet from disney on how the franschise will go on or their idea of the franshice lore and canon, or still silence?

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:41:55 PM
I think you missed my two posts where I acknowledged what the official canon is.

Also "what is shown on film" and "the official canon" are sometimes not the same thing - that's why people are debating that 'Alien' shows something different from Covenant.

---

Quote from: Xiggz456 on Aug 13, 2020, 03:33:24 PM
Regardless it's there and that gives fans the choice.

This isn't only true for the specific example Xiggz was talking about.

I saw you acknowledge it and keep continuing to argue as if the discussion is about personal head canon.

If this is about your own personal head canon then there is no need to continue since that can be whatever your or my heart desires. But if we are going to discuss what the official story is well thats been answered.  Right now David created the Alien in the Alien series until/if they go another route. If they do then great. If you think it's sloppy or done like crap that doesn't change anything.

The topic is not what gets people riled up, its the manner in which it is discussed.

No, I kept posting because of the reasons I laid out

.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:41:55 PM
Also "what is shown on film" and "the official canon" are sometimes not the same thing - that's why people are debating that 'Alien' shows something different from Covenant.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:59:14 PM
And it's topics like this one where people say "this is the official canon" but what they really mean is "this is the official canon and you must abide by it". We know what the official canon is, we get it, David made the Alien. I'm not entirely sure anyone is actually debating that. People are debating what they personally believe, and when it's not in line with "the official canon" then that upsets some people.

Quote"I'm not entirely sure anyone is actually debating that. People are debating what they personally believe, and when it's not in line with "the official canon" then that upsets some people."

I think the debate is what the official canon actually is. I also think you're misreading peoples motives. When I say official canon I mean exactly that. The official stance the creators/studio take on the story.

As I think everyone acknowledges you can have your own head canon. In mine AvPR and The Predator don't exist and the Aliens are still Ancient. That doesn't mean I act like my own headcanon is an accurate representation of the series as it stands.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Aug 13, 2020, 08:53:45 PM
That doesn't mean I act like my own headcanon is an accurate representation of the series as it stands.

That's my point, though - "an accurate representation" and leaning on "official canon" is, in my opinion, nonsense. At best it should be regarded as a footnote to the much more interesting and useful discussion of what you believe and why. If people wanted "the official canon", there's a wiki for that.

Identifying "the official canon" should have taken like 3 posts, but only now, on page 26, are people clarifying that that's what they wanted? :P
I got involved way back on page two because someone said "the movie shows _____ and that's the way it is" and I disagreed (no really, go check) and that's been my argument ever since. Like I said, what the movies show and what "the official canon" says isn't always the same thing.

"Official canon" gives everyone the same point of reference to work from when trying to discuss the overall story. It's not at all pointless to lean on it.

Yes it can and does change - so can head canon.

QuoteAt best it should be regarded as a footnote to the much more interesting and useful discussion of what you believe and why.

Maybe some people find conversations about the actual canon entertaining and useful though?

Then maybe we're at cross purposes in what we're looking for in the discussion and why. Identifying the official line or something can be interesting; I especially like discussions about "what the movie shows" - it's what I was responding to in the first place early in the thread. I'm arguing that the official line doesn't matter; at best my train of thought once "the official line" is established is "okay, and?"

I can totally understand what you're saying and can see why that might be a useful reference for starting a discussion, but i get bothered when people start acting like it's the only "correct" answer or that it's "more real", or taking a defeatist attitude like "the official line is _______, I don't like it but that's the way it is", or that there's no place for "head canon" in discussions even if I think some people's head canon is nonsense (sorry, tichinde).

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 10:25:56 PM
Then maybe we're at cross purposes in what we're looking for in the discussion and why.

I'm guessing this is why you've been embroiled in this same discussion in so many other threads.

Could be worse though, not as bad as an old fashioned caste/cowl war.

Like I said, it's less of what people are saying and more of how they're saying it. :P

Edit— caste all the way, baby

I think the issue is this. If an AVP or Predator story references an Alien story and adds extra info to it, Is the extra info added canon or not?

Officially? No.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 10:40:31 PM
Like I said, it's less of what people are saying and more of how they're saying it. :P

Edit— caste all the way, baby

No castes.  No praetorians.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 14, 2020, 03:30:59 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 10:40:31 PM
Like I said, it's less of what people are saying and more of how they're saying it. :P

Edit— caste all the way, baby

No castes.  No praetorians.

Come at me bro

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 14, 2020, 03:30:59 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 10:40:31 PM
Like I said, it's less of what people are saying and more of how they're saying it. :P

Edit— caste all the way, baby

No castes.  No praetorians.

No f**king ice CREEEAM.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 14, 2020, 05:16:31 AM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 14, 2020, 03:30:59 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 10:40:31 PM
Like I said, it's less of what people are saying and more of how they're saying it. :P

Edit— caste all the way, baby

No castes.  No praetorians.

Come at me bro

It's time to put away childish things and submit to the authority of canon orthodoxy.

I AM CANON

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 14, 2020, 03:30:59 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 10:40:31 PM
Like I said, it's less of what people are saying and more of how they're saying it. :P

Edit— caste all the way, baby

No castes.  No praetorians.

Speaking of which preatorians get f**ked. This is off topic but I still find it funny, so the purpose of the praetorian is to protect the queen and if she dies they carry on her role and evolve right? Well, the warrior caste also apparently guards the queen making them redundant, but it gets better. According to AVP 2010, if you are an Alien Drone like 6 (an adapted queen) you literally just bypass over the others if the queen dies. So like imagine as a Xeno, defending your nest, fighting against your hive, then your queen dies. All of a sudden this tiny little drone trots up to you and becomes your boss  :D

Idk, just wanted to share how f**ked over the praetorians get

6 was suppose to be Praetorian in the last levels from what I heard, but like many thing it was cut since they rushed so much to develop the game. 6 molted into a Praetorian before becoming a Queen, its one during the molting at the end sequence. It was isolated from the rest of the hive, all the others were dead, it had to be 6.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 04:59:14 PM

Quote from: SpaceKase on Aug 13, 2020, 04:52:09 PM
For those who are so riled up and diehard about this David thing. Why does this feel so important to you? Seriously, I'm asking directly, help me understand.

Is this really about something else? Like religion or politics or stress relief over world events, or something?

I clarified it for me several pages ago: it's because it's a stupid, unnecessary, sloppily-done retcon that radically undermines some of the biggest Lovecraftian tropes from the first movie just to give David something to do...

I wasn't so much addressing those who are flexible on the issue, from my perspective their rationale seems pretty clear and I tend to question everything anyway, but much moreso those who are vehemently inflexible on the issue, because their argument seems to focus on a strict adherence to an official canon, and yet paradoxically they also acknowledge the utter malleability of that canon from one film to the next.

So it's a strict and crucial adherence to an official canon that is also constantly changing and retconning itself by their own account.

What then is the virtue of this specific and inflexible stance and who precisely is it meant to adhere to? And for how long? I am not ridiculing, denouncing, belittling or attacking, I just want help understanding the rationale held by those who support so strongly this latest iteration.

You may not be ridiculing, denouncing, belittling or attacking, but you are tilting at windmills.

I for one believe scientific evidence even though I also know that it can and will change when new evidence is discovered, more precise tools developed, and different methodologies employed.

Disregarding Ridley's own statements for a moment, is there anything from Fox that actually contradicts this passage from the Covenant novelization?

Quote"Oh, Captain." David shook his head sadly. "Acknowledge beauty when you see it. Even if its appearance disturbs you, surely you can admire the skill that went into its design. In case you are wondering, I had nothing to do with it. It lies as I found it, a supreme example of the Engineers' skill. And also, I suppose, of their hubris.

"Would that I could create something so perfect in its function," he added. "I try, but I don't have thousands of years of practice at biological and genetic engineering. I have only my pitiable programming on which to draw. That, and ten years of earnest effort on my own behalf. I have learned only a little, yet I soldier on, hoping always to achieve something like this, always striving to do better, to improve. That's what the Engineers did, I suppose. That is what someone playing God should do."

Yes. The movie, where he didn't say that.

The movie, where he said the complete opposite of that.

What did he say in the film that he didn't say in the novelization?

That he made the Alien out of his own experimentation. He's quite clear about his authorship in the film.

He doesn't say he found it, he doesn't credit it to the Engineers, and he sure as hell doesn't say he's incapable of making something like it. Everything ADF has him say in that scene is not only directly against what's said in the film, but also against David's character in the film, too.

Do you mean the bolded parts from this passage?

Quote"Marooned here so lamentably," he explained, "I had nothing but time to watch and to learn. Eventually my innate curiosity got the better of me and, with nothing to occupy myself other than the compiling of a simple collection, I began to do a bit of genetic experimentation of my own. Some cross-breeding, hybridizing, what have you. I like to think that the ill-fated inhabitants of this world—the original Engineers—would gaze on my work with approval."

ADF does have the odd other bit of goofy stuff in is novelisations.  Jones being long dead due to time dilation in Alien 3 or the characters in Covenant not know what West Virginia is.

Even goofier was Walter having to explain what nations were at a time when the USA was still alive and well (per Aliens).

Quote"Well," Tennessee quipped, "whatever's down there, it isn't Scylla, and it isn't West Virginia, either."

Ricks looked over at him. "What is a 'West Virginia,' anyway?"

"Ancient tribal demarcation," Walter explained without looking up from his position. "There once were a great many of them, back when that sort of thing was considered relevant. The world used to be full of dozens of minor political entities, all working at cross-purposes instead of for the common good of the species and the planet."

Ricks considered that. "How did people ever accomplish anything worthwhile?"

"They didn't," Walter replied flatly.

It sounds like some dialogue lifted straight out of STTNG.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 15, 2020, 05:05:16 AM
Do you mean the bolded parts from this passage?

Just because he says some of the same things in the novel doesn't mean the novel and film don't end up with two very different messages.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 15, 2020, 05:46:50 AM
Even goofier was Walter having to explain what nations were at a time when the USA was still alive and well (per Aliens).

Quote"Well," Tennessee quipped, "whatever's down there, it isn't Scylla, and it isn't West Virginia, either."

Ricks looked over at him. "What is a 'West Virginia,' anyway?"

"Ancient tribal demarcation," Walter explained without looking up from his position. "There once were a great many of them, back when that sort of thing was considered relevant. The world used to be full of dozens of minor political entities, all working at cross-purposes instead of for the common good of the species and the planet."

Ricks considered that. "How did people ever accomplish anything worthwhile?"

"They didn't," Walter replied flatly.

It sounds like some dialogue lifted straight out of STTNG.

... when did ADF think the story took place? 3200?

Quote from: SiL on Aug 15, 2020, 05:49:50 AM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 15, 2020, 05:05:16 AM
Do you mean the bolded parts from this passage?

Just because he says some of the same things in the novel doesn't mean the novel and film don't end up with two very different messages.

Which brings me back to my earlier question: What did he say in the film that he didn't say in the novelization?  In the novelization, he even said this...

Quote"But you can learn! Our time shared on the flute proved that. By dint of work and practice, you can acquire that which was denied you. Doesn't that interest you? Doesn't that intrigue you? Doesn't that give you something to dream about?" He brooded on the reality, and the possibilities. "No one understands the lonely perfection of my dreams. No one is capable of doing so. Yet despite all the obstacles placed in my way, I've found perfection here. No, not found: created. I've created it! Perfection, in the form of a perfect organism."

'Walter, what does the US in USCSS stand for?'

'It stands for United States, Pilot Ancient Demarcated Area Starting With T.'

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 15, 2020, 05:58:36 AM
Which brings me back to my earlier question: What did he say in the film that he didn't say in the novelization?  In the novelization, he even said this...

That he started from scratch using local mutated wildlife.

What was the line though?  I'm not finding it.

It's the one about the genetic shock troopers with the closeup of the mosquito-like thing.

This?

QuoteDavid smiled again. "Until there are no more hosts. Ten years on, all that remains outside of the original, untapped containers of virus are these gorgeous little beasts."

Quote"Like all good naturalists," David continued, "I observed the fecundity of life at work. When engaged in such study, patience is everything. Patience and time. I am naturally imbued with the former, and circumstance has provided me—however unwillingly—with plenty of the latter. From the egg sacs came these parasites. Airborne and gifted with a very primitive but dutiful hive intelligence, once released into the atmosphere they are relentless in their purpose. The shock troops of a genetic assault, always searching for a potential host."

Within the tinted but otherwise transparent material, the captain could see frozen in place various stages of the pathogen's life cycle. Motes inserting feeding tubes into insect-sized subjects and pumping eggs into their unfortunate bodies. The eggs growing, hatching, and maturing, to finally burst free even from the diminutive hosts, only to begin the cycle again.

Quote"Entering the host and rewriting the DNA, the pathogen produces mature offspring whose appearance and characteristics are wholly dependent on the nature of the host itself. The progeny of a parasitized insect, for example, will look very different from the creature that issues from a quadruped host. The ultimate aim, as I gather it, was to produce something like these enviable unions... my beautiful bestiary..."

As far as I can tell, it's all there in the novelization (with the usual embellishments and modifications common to novelizations, I grant you).

Except with the added context of the Engineers doing it first and David discrediting his own abilities.

The additions in the novel add information that directly contacts the movie even if it does work in the same words. It completely recontrxtualizes it.

The words are there, the meaning isn't.

I thought that was the point.

You're saying nothing contradicts the book because all the words are there.

The context is the contradiction and it's a big one.

I'm aware of that, which is why I initially asked if Fox has actually said anything that contradicts the novelization.

And the answer was the film itself.

And when pressed, you kept referencing dialogue that you evidently thought was absent in the novelization.  I take it you won't do that again, so at least we're making progress.

Did Fox have no control over what the novelization stated?  Why does the film represent Fox's side of this controversy?  Aren't they both essentially Fox products?

In other words, couldn't I just as easily say that Fox contradicted the film with the novelization?

QuoteAnd when pressed, you kept referencing dialogue that you evidently thought was absent in the novelization.

I was pretty clear from the outset that the key difference was context. You kept asking for specific lines; I haven't read the novel and only had your paragaphs to go from. Turns out all the words are there; great. But the context still wasn't so the original point never changed.

QuoteDid Fox have no control over what the novelization stated?

We went over the difference between film department and licensing department a dozen or so pages back.

People are going to hear what they want and believe what they want at this point but the director's intentions, and how it all comes together, are laid out.

I found this video to be interesting- though maybe the information is nothing new to anyone around here lol. It does fill in some gaps and maybe even paves the way for a would-be Alien Covenant sequel.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K9iIoz8MYYc


Even if David could be wrong about creating the first Alien ever, that wouldn't take away from the fact that he was the one to create the official Alien and all the eggs in Alien. He may have even sacrificed himself in final process in an attempt to make it his own.

That being said, the idea that the Engineers chose not to play around with the black goo is still also plausible considering what is shown between Prometheus and Alien Covenant. The mural depicts a Deacon (with a tapered head) as if that's where they stopped in their exploration of the creature. As though it were the ultimate bioweapon. There's no sign of Xenomorph within those tombs and, if we are to believe that a Deacon is what attacked the Engineers, there isn't any sign of a cycle that is similar to the Xenomorph (i.e. eggs and hive building).

(https://www.biography.com/.image/t_share/MTE1ODA0OTcxNzgxMDMxNDM3/sir-ridley-scott-9477021-1-402.jpg)

Quote from: SM on Aug 14, 2020, 10:35:32 PM
You may not be ridiculing, denouncing, belittling or attacking, but you are tilting at windmills.

I am I, Don Quixote.

---

Quote from: SM on Aug 14, 2020, 05:28:51 AM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 14, 2020, 03:30:59 AM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 13, 2020, 10:40:31 PM
Like I said, it's less of what people are saying and more of how they're saying it. :P

Edit— caste all the way, baby

No castes.  No praetorians.

No f**king ice CREEEAM.

No rubbers, even.

Quote from: SiL on Aug 15, 2020, 06:27:24 AM
Except with the added context of the Engineers doing it first and David discrediting his own abilities.

The additions in the novel add information that directly contacts the movie even if it does work in the same words. It completely recontrxtualizes it.

The words are there, the meaning isn't.

Is that different from how 'Covenant' (and 'Prometheus') "recontextualize" 'Alien'? I mean conceptually; the easy answer of "it's not a movie" need not apply here.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 15, 2020, 09:41:56 AM
Even if David could be wrong about creating the first Alien ever, that wouldn't take away from the fact that he was the one to create the official Alien and all the eggs in Alien. He may have even sacrificed himself in final process in an attempt to make it his own.

We don't know any of this, like, at all. :P
Like, in this context, what is "the official Alien"?

EDIT: When I started typing this up, there was another post above speculating about David recreating the Alien without having seen the Trilobite/Deacon in Prometheus. This post was vaguely a response to that, but I'm going to leave it here anyways.

There seems to be a lot already baked into the pathogen. The acid blood, the general lifecycle in which an orgamism uses another creature's body as a host, etc. And the pathogen is absolutely ancient; either the Engineers created it, or they found it.

What we saw in Covenant was a depraved,  psychotic android take that raw material and use it as the foundation for his "Perfect Organism," a being that he sees as transcending his creators and the other unrefined creations/creatures that were a precursor to his own, while fulfilling his goal of turning his hatred of humanity into a creature that stands in defiant mockery of human reproduction and desires.

When a human creates a sculpture or a song or a new hybrid lifeform, there are certainly pre-existing building blocks upon which that artistic and/or scientific creation is built upon. And when David created his Alien, we know from both Prometheus and Covenant that there were other forms that laid the baseline foundation upon which he built his Alien, but that doesn't mean that the Alien that he made (and the one that we then see in the original films) is any less his own.

Sorry NA I deleted my post cause I wasn't satisfied with it (like at all). And I completely forgot to factor in the Neomorph.

What you're saying is the crux of the matter for me though.

The main question for me is: How much is already determined by the goo.

An extreme example: Someone who's building a Lego-set using the manual is not the creator of that set. Nor is he in any way 'innovative' in my book.

Even if he is not using the manual and is working from a picture or even the logic of the individual parts, he surely is smart as fk - yet he wouldn't be considered the creator of the set.

And the film establishes that David wasn't using anything resembling a manual. What David did is more comparable to a composer writing a brand new song using the musical notes that are already pre-existing.

You're simply too fast for my brain.  :laugh:

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 15, 2020, 06:53:45 PM
Even if he is not using a manual and is working from a picture or even the logic of the individual parts, he surely is smart as fk - yet he wouldn't be considered the creator of the set.

Plus the programming of the goo can be seen as a manual of sorts imo (with the hugging, bursting etc already embedded... )

Seems to me that what he did is more the equivalent of dumping the pieces out, throwing out the instructions and box, mixing in some pieces from a totally different set (that being, the lifeforms native to Planet 4), and building something of his own design that has a bit of a baked-in shape due to the way that some of the set-exclusive pieces work, but is, at the end of the day, his own unique work made using the assets that he has available to him.

Fair enough.

My problem with this

Quotethrowing out the instructions and box

is that he miraculously ends up with more or less (imo: more) the same beats that the goo constitutes completely autonomously (Dome-shaped head, mouth-in-mouth, hug'n'burst, transmission via mouth-rape, aggressive Killing Machine [Fifield] etc).

This to me strongly indicates that what is ultimately 'createable' with the goo is actually quite determined by it's inherent programming from the start, hence why I think Davids role as a creater is a tad bit overrated.

I give him the egg tho. But minus the hugger --  :laugh:

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 15, 2020, 08:03:42 PM
My problem with this

Quotethrowing out the instructions and box

is that he miraculously ends up with more or less (imo: more) the same beats that the goo constitutes completely autonomously (Dome-shaped head, mouth-in-mouth, hug'n'burst, transmission via mouth-rape, aggressive Killing Machine [Fifield] etc).

This to me strongly indicates that what is ultimately 'createable' with the goo is actually quite determined by it's inherent programming from the start, hence why I think Davids role as a creater is a tad bit overrated.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 15, 2020, 07:36:42 PM
[...]has a bit of a baked-in shape due to the way that some of the set-exclusive pieces work[...]

Take this set for example.

(https://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/GUEST_94c120f2-a739-4795-8aa1-68112a9940d0?wid=488&hei=488&fmt=pjpeg)

That window/bubble in the front of the helicopter is pretty set-specific. No matter how creative that you get with the pieces in front of you, no matter what wild concoction you make, that particular piece is only going to really function in that one way. The stuff surrounding that function, you can basically bend to your every whim however you choose.

I see the "baked-in" parts of the lifecycle as being like that window bubble piece. David modified how the pre-existing part attached, and thus got some variations like the Neomorph motes and the Facehugger, but ultimately those similarly-functioning building blocks wound up more importantly serving as the basis on which he instilled what really mattered to him - that being, the terrible rape monster that violates humans specifically. Those vile intentions, and drawing those specific elements out of the pathogen, came directly from within him, using those pieces that he had and making them bend to his own conscious design.

Quote from: kwisatz on Aug 15, 2020, 08:03:42 PM
Fair enough.

My problem with this

Quotethrowing out the instructions and box

is that he miraculously ends up with more or less (imo: more) the same beats that the goo constitutes completely autonomously (Dome-shaped head, mouth-in-mouth, hug'n'burst, transmission via mouth-rape, aggressive Killing Machine [Fifield] etc).

This to me strongly indicates that what is ultimately 'createable' with the goo is actually quite determined by it's inherent programming from the start, hence why I think Davids role as a creater is a tad bit overrated.

I give him the egg tho. But minus the hugger --  :laugh:

This is largely why I like the theory that the goo itself is derived from ancient capital-A Aliens.

Could argue the alien he made isnt the one we see in the original films either:
- Looks different, the backpipes are very different, lacks the spikey neck piece, much more fleshy looking than big chaps and aliens warriors biomechanical look, way dumber attacking anything that moves and mistakes machinery for living things, unlike big chap and the other aliens we saw in the originals, the eggs are different looking, and they burst out of the host differently and are a miniature of the adult self and the body can be seen through and see its skeleton, not something the originals did either. Facehugger can implant the host by merely touching the mouth for a few seconds.

Only way to know if he created the original alien would be another movie where he idneed makes a xenomorph that fits the bill of the originals. Until then all we can do is speculate :P

- the pathogen is probably taken from the first xenomorphs and is really its dna that has been weaponized and can be released as we see in prometheus and covenant and creates xenomorph manned creatures that has most parts of what we see in the alien series, and from prometheus we see the lifecycle of the being and signs that david worked after that, I think one even saw old ancient rolls in covenant too that could have info from the engineers but thats speculation on my part.

- We dont know much about the deacon so its hard to speculate its life cycle, it may have lived like a xenomorph by eggmorphing etc or it may not, no evidence for either besides how it looks like and that its deadly.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 15, 2020, 08:16:03 PM

I see the "baked-in" parts of the lifecycle as being like that window bubble piece. David modified how the pre-existing part attached, and thus got some variations like the Neomorph motes and the Facehugger, but ultimately those similarly-functioning building blocks wound up more importantly serving as the basis on which he instilled what really mattered to him - that being, the terrible rape monster that violates humans specifically. Those vile intentions, and drawing those specific elements out of the pathogen, came directly from within him, using those pieces that he had and making them bend to his own conscious design.

I see your point, I think. A fitting example of that kind of transforming a given source material would probably be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKAwPA14Ni4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKAwPA14Ni4)

One thing though, but I don't think we're actually (strongly) diagreeing here is that I sometimes get the impression people are trying say he took the window bubble piece and created something like this with it:

(https://media.outnow.ch/Movies/Bilder/1984/KazeNoTaniNoNaushika/dvd-film.ws/08.jpg)

when in fact what he basically made is another helicopter, albeit one with the specifical purpose (and therefore abilities) to (psychologically) torture and kill humans.

Generally I like the thought that it's primarily the nastiness that David added to his Alien. For example one could say that he 'invented' the period between being hugged and the burst, where the victim is feeling safe and sound and then out of nothing goes through the horror that is chest bursting (plus the human is alive and fully conscious when it happens, the engineer seemed rather dead or comatose from the hugging part in Prometheus).

QuoteThis is largely why I like the theory that the goo itself is derived from ancient capital-A Aliens.

I guess this is partially backed up by the whole 'worship' aspect in Prometheus (the ampules with their seemingly ritual arrangement; the murals etc).

Quote- Looks different

So do the Aliens, Alien 3 and Resurrection.  Different head, hands, arms, back pipes, etc, etc.  So do the eggs and chestbursters in those films.

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 15, 2020, 06:39:43 PM
EDIT: When I started typing this up, there was another post above speculating about David recreating the Alien without having seen the Trilobite/Deacon in Prometheus. This post was vaguely a response to that, but I'm going to leave it here anyways.

There seems to be a lot already baked into the pathogen. The acid blood, the general lifecycle in which an orgamism uses another creature's body as a host, etc. And the pathogen is absolutely ancient; either the Engineers created it, or they found it.

What we saw in Covenant was a depraved,  psychotic android take that raw material and use it as the foundation for his "Perfect Organism," a being that he sees as transcending his creators and the other unrefined creations/creatures that were a precursor to his own, while fulfilling his goal of turning his hatred of humanity into a creature that stands in defiant mockery of human reproduction and desires.

When a human creates a sculpture or a song or a new hybrid lifeform, there are certainly pre-existing building blocks upon which that artistic and/or scientific creation is built upon. And when David created his Alien, we know from both Prometheus and Covenant that there were other forms that laid the baseline foundation upon which he built his Alien, but that doesn't mean that the Alien that he made (and the one that we then see in the original films) is any less his own.

While I generally agree, I don't think acid blood is baked in.  Neither Fifield nor the Neomorphs had acid blood.

Hammerpede bleeds acid though. Does Fifield bleed? I mean ja, he gets squashed and burned - but we don't really get to see what that does to the ground, or do we?

He gets shot a bunch of times in the hangar as well as being run over.  No shots or mention of holes in the bottom of the ship.

Could be a mild ;D form? In a sort of proto state, like everything else Alien. Enough for Fifields helmet but not whatever the Prometheus is made off.

I kinda always assumed Holloway was sorta burning up from the inside too.

Trilobite not bleeding acid, when Shaw cuts the umbilical cord (or she's hardcore like that).

Ok dunno, it's pretty inconsistent --

So do the Aliens, Alien 3 and Resurrection
In aliens besides a few tiny details besides the biggest change the ridged head: it has almost the exact body and biomechanical look of big chap, as cameron said: these were older xenos and had shredded their dome head for a ridged one.
Alien 3 runner comes from a dog/ox and is still biomechanical looking, the changes is due to it coming from different host.
Alien resurrection are clones and not true xenomorphs.

The eggs in alien and aliens dont differ much and most people mistake them for each other anyways as they are very similair, rounded in shape and not the oval like what we have in covenant, way taller too and opens up way more too, just the inside that is the same.

Facehugger looks pretty much the same even in covenant, tiny small details that differs here. If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent. Alien 3 its different as it has legs and all when its born, either it gestates longer than any other version or its due to the host dna that explains the very different design, although it do change as it grows and again its not transparent.
Covenant: transparent body, mini xenomorph that is closest to the dog alien in that but seeing its organs and skeleton is something no other chestburster has done.

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
these were older xenos and had shredded their dome head for a ridged one.

Whoa hey now

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 15, 2020, 11:47:09 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
these were older xenos and had shredded their dome head for a ridged one.

Whoa hey now

I should rewrite the phrase :P

But taken from an interview:
In universe, Cameron has explained that as the creatures get older the domed head gets ridged.

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent.

In universe speaking, the Alien from Covid is the original. Also, according to people who worked in the film; the future is biomechanical. About chestbursters, the one from Aliens has long and already developed arms.

(https://i.ibb.co/2hcyBJ6/k73h8Xr.jpg)

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:51:23 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 15, 2020, 11:47:09 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
these were older xenos and had shredded their dome head for a ridged one.

Whoa hey now

I should rewrite the phrase :P

But taken from an interview:
In universe, Cameron has explained that as the creatures get older the domed head gets ridged.

No no, I take issue with the very concept. :P Caste/cowl debate, etc.

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 15, 2020, 11:52:52 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent.

In universe speaking, the Alien from Covid is the original. Also, according to people who worked in the film; the future is biomechanical. About chestbursters, the one from Aliens has long and already developed arms.

(https://i.ibb.co/2hcyBJ6/k73h8Xr.jpg)

Small change as you can already see something like arms on the big chap chestburster but just not as grown yet, the rest is strikingly very similair, same build, color etc. The difference could be that it gestated longer inside the host than kanes did.

---

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 15, 2020, 11:54:11 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:51:23 PM

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 15, 2020, 11:47:09 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
these were older xenos and had shredded their dome head for a ridged one.

Whoa hey now

I should rewrite the phrase :P

But taken from an interview:
In universe, Cameron has explained that as the creatures get older the domed head gets ridged.

No no, I take issue with the very concept. :P Caste/cowl debate, etc.

Ahhh! xD Yeah these been a lot of discussing this, cameron said one thing, some movies different, have a theory on it myself I developed with a friend but this isnt the place for that discussion :P

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
So do the Aliens, Alien 3 and Resurrection
In aliens besides a few tiny details besides the biggest change the ridged head: it has almost the exact body and biomechanical look of big chap, as cameron said: these were older xenos and had shredded their dome head for a ridged one.
Alien 3 runner comes from a dog/ox and is still biomechanical looking, the changes is due to it coming from different host.
Alien resurrection are clones and not true xenomorphs.

The eggs in alien and aliens dont differ much and most people mistake them for each other anyways as they are very similair, rounded in shape and not the oval like what we have in covenant, way taller too and opens up way more too, just the inside that is the same.

Facehugger looks pretty much the same even in covenant, tiny small details that differs here. If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent. Alien 3 its different as it has legs and all when its born, either it gestates longer than any other version or its due to the host dna that explains the very different design, although it do change as it grows and again its not transparent.
Covenant: transparent body, mini xenomorph that is closest to the dog alien in that but seeing its organs and skeleton is something no other chestburster has done.

You started badly with "a few tiny details" and just went downhill after that.

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 15, 2020, 04:45:23 PM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 15, 2020, 09:41:56 AM
Even if David could be wrong about creating the first Alien ever, that wouldn't take away from the fact that he was the one to create the official Alien and all the eggs in Alien. He may have even sacrificed himself in final process in an attempt to make it his own.

We don't know any of this, like, at all. :P
Like, in this context, what is "the official Alien"?

Meaning the eggs and Big Chap in Alien.

Of course we don't know but considering the direction Ridley was heading, it's likely along a similar path.

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 15, 2020, 11:52:52 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent.

In universe speaking, the Alien from Covid is the original. Also, according to people who worked in the film; the future is biomechanical. About chestbursters, the one from Aliens has long and already developed arms.

(https://i.ibb.co/2hcyBJ6/k73h8Xr.jpg)

It's hard to see with all the blood but the chestburster in Alien also has arms.

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 12:07:14 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 15, 2020, 11:52:52 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent.

In universe speaking, the Alien from Covid is the original. Also, according to people who worked in the film; the future is biomechanical. About chestbursters, the one from Aliens has long and already developed arms.

(https://i.ibb.co/2hcyBJ6/k73h8Xr.jpg)

It's hard to see with all the blood but the chestburster in Alien also has arms.

Must have short dino arms  ;D

(https://i.ibb.co/kmkLxnG/55cuu4u812901-removebg-preview-1.png)

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 16, 2020, 12:20:22 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 12:07:14 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 15, 2020, 11:52:52 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent.

In universe speaking, the Alien from Covid is the original. Also, according to people who worked in the film; the future is biomechanical. About chestbursters, the one from Aliens has long and already developed arms.

(https://i.ibb.co/2hcyBJ6/k73h8Xr.jpg)

It's hard to see with all the blood but the chestburster in Alien also has arms.

Must have short dino arms  ;D

(https://i.ibb.co/kmkLxnG/55cuu4u812901-removebg-preview-1.png)

Never mind, I thought I remembered an image where the arms were carved into the body but I stand corrected.

I'm outta my element, dudes  :D

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 12:23:38 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 16, 2020, 12:20:22 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 12:07:14 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 15, 2020, 11:52:52 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent.

In universe speaking, the Alien from Covid is the original. Also, according to people who worked in the film; the future is biomechanical. About chestbursters, the one from Aliens has long and already developed arms.

(https://i.ibb.co/2hcyBJ6/k73h8Xr.jpg)

It's hard to see with all the blood but the chestburster in Alien also has arms.

Must have short dino arms  ;D

(https://i.ibb.co/kmkLxnG/55cuu4u812901-removebg-preview-1.png)

Never mind, I thought I remembered an image where the arms were carved into the body but I stand corrected.

I'm outta my element, dudes  :D

I think you are right. On the left is that chicken wing and on the right it looks like there is an arm wrapped in a layer of skin, like a sausage.

(https://i.ibb.co/F4KSbFV/PSX-20200815-202342-2.jpg)

Edit:

(https://i.ibb.co/d2xZ2QR/6a44056d5b47d256dbae7e76d42b4cb6.jpg)

Edit again: unused design  :laugh:

(https://i.ibb.co/ZKhW1f6/com-google-Chrome.jpg)

Quote from: Xenomrph on Aug 15, 2020, 11:54:11 PM
No no, I take issue with the very concept. :P Caste/cowl debate, etc.

Let's explore that.

In-universe I guess it makes the most sense to me that the dome sheds off to become the rigid head seen in Aliens, but honestly, I don't even put that much thought into the different designs.

All I see it as is a creative distinction between two different creative teams with different ideas behind the scenes, stemming from Cameron and Winston's practical decision regarding cracking domes during action scenes.

The soldier aliens shed their cowls when their ridged craniums solidify upon reaching full maturity.

(https://i.giphy.com/media/mlpCWv8dVK2Ji/giphy.webp)

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 16, 2020, 12:28:18 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 12:23:38 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 16, 2020, 12:20:22 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 12:07:14 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 15, 2020, 11:52:52 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent.

In universe speaking, the Alien from Covid is the original. Also, according to people who worked in the film; the future is biomechanical. About chestbursters, the one from Aliens has long and already developed arms.

(https://i.ibb.co/2hcyBJ6/k73h8Xr.jpg)

It's hard to see with all the blood but the chestburster in Alien also has arms.

Must have short dino arms  ;D

(https://i.ibb.co/kmkLxnG/55cuu4u812901-removebg-preview-1.png)

Never mind, I thought I remembered an image where the arms were carved into the body but I stand corrected.

I'm outta my element, dudes  :D

I think you are right. On the left is that chicken wing and on the right it looks like there is an arm wrapped in a layer of skin, like a sausage.

(https://i.ibb.co/F4KSbFV/PSX-20200815-202342-2.jpg)

Edit:

(https://i.ibb.co/d2xZ2QR/6a44056d5b47d256dbae7e76d42b4cb6.jpg)

Edit again: unused design  :laugh:

https://i.ibb.co/ZKhW1f6/com-google-Chrome.jpg

Fiendishly Inventive sent me this little article in regards to the arms.

https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/facehuggerchestburster/

So yeah they went with lil chicken wing arms for Alien.  :D

I never noticed the eye bubbles on the final chestburster design before- that's pretty cool!

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 02:28:53 PM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 16, 2020, 12:28:18 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 12:23:38 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 16, 2020, 12:20:22 AM

Quote from: PredBabe on Aug 16, 2020, 12:07:14 AM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Aug 15, 2020, 11:52:52 PM

Quote from: judge death on Aug 15, 2020, 11:44:39 PM
If the rest of the creature in covenant was this close in look to the original I would accept.

The chestburster:
Alien, aliens and alien resurrection and most alien moves have the classic snake like newborn and fleshy and yellowish color, not transparent.

In universe speaking, the Alien from Covid is the original. Also, according to people who worked in the film; the future is biomechanical. About chestbursters, the one from Aliens has long and already developed arms.

(https://i.ibb.co/2hcyBJ6/k73h8Xr.jpg)

It's hard to see with all the blood but the chestburster in Alien also has arms.

Must have short dino arms  ;D

(https://i.ibb.co/kmkLxnG/55cuu4u812901-removebg-preview-1.png)

Never mind, I thought I remembered an image where the arms were carved into the body but I stand corrected.

I'm outta my element, dudes  :D

I think you are right. On the left is that chicken wing and on the right it looks like there is an arm wrapped in a layer of skin, like a sausage.

(https://i.ibb.co/F4KSbFV/PSX-20200815-202342-2.jpg)

Edit:

(https://i.ibb.co/d2xZ2QR/6a44056d5b47d256dbae7e76d42b4cb6.jpg)

Edit again: unused design  :laugh:

https://i.ibb.co/ZKhW1f6/com-google-Chrome.jpg

Fiendishly Inventive sent me this little article in regards to the arms.

https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/facehuggerchestburster/

So yeah they went with lil chicken wing arms for Alien.  :D

I never noticed the eye bubbles on the final chestburster design before- that's pretty cool!

That's very kind. Thank you for the information.  :)

About the eye bubbles, yeah. These are close to the blueprint plus a scrapped design.

(https://i.ibb.co/g63NR75/3036983-poster-p-2-hr-gigers-original-design-to-do-list-for-alien-was-awesomely-weird.webp)

The Big Chap also had those bulgy eye bubbles. Originally, I used to think they were its eyes, until I found out about the skull hidden inside. Now I assume they are just some droopy "pipework."

TC

Right, you can even see them in the movie still of the chestburster.

Maybe the fact that they go away has more to do with shedding and growing into its full adult form.

They're cheeks my friends.

And Local says, "OK, cheeks, why don't we elaborate on that?" ;)

(https://i.ibb.co/ZBZhvSJ/4bodjd.gif)

You could just pinch 'em.  :P  :laugh:

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 16, 2020, 01:56:18 PM
The soldier aliens shed their cowls when their ridged craniums solidify upon reaching full maturity.

https://i.giphy.com/media/mlpCWv8dVK2Ji/giphy.webp

A common misconception.

I hear tell the cowl side won in the GameGossip thread though.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Aug 17, 2020, 02:36:08 AM
I hear tell the cowl side won in the GameGossip thread though.

Another misconception, though less common. :)

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 05, 2019, 02:13:49 AM

Quote from: Kimarhi on Sep 04, 2019, 10:59:05 PM
Caste vs cowl.  One of the best ever threads. :laugh:

Looking at things today it seems like cowl won, mostly.

It sounds like an epic war from days of long ago.  Like the Horus Heresy.