It is Impossible

[SM]

That would follow.

Problem is he released that book so is now a prime target for IP theft.

[Voodoo Magic]

Ah, yes, the book.

[SM]

That's the one.

[Biomechanoid]

Ah. Well then. Time to add 'oblivious' to my long list of character traits. 

Natural misunderstanding. All's cool. I just didn't want you to think I was criticizing the flow of this thread.

Most of us employ the mocking description mode from time to time to convey our dissatisfaction with a given film or plot element. But I am curious about something......here's Samhain's mocking description.......

"Just don't make the ALIEN a creation of a sexually frustrated android with daddy issues that mixed space goo with wasps because he couldn't knock Shaw up. Geez how did we get to this?"

A challenge for any Prometheus/Covenant admirers here to pick up the gauntlet: Spin this prequel ALIEN description, but with a positive tone rather than Samhain's mocking tone.......Forum Word Game of the Day.

[SiL]

I don't admire either film but hey:

An advanced AI haunted by the awareness of its own limited, imperfect existence and obsessed with the idea of creation breeds terrifying life of its own that it can use against its former masters.

[Biomechanoid]

Excellent! Great description!

Just don't make the ALIEN a creation of a sexually frustrated android with daddy issues that mixed space goo with wasps because he couldn't knock Shaw up. Geez how did we get to this?

An advanced AI haunted by the awareness of its own limited, imperfect existence and obsessed with the idea of creation breeds terrifying life of its own that it can use against its former masters.

I nominate these two quotes as the Forum's Yin Yang Descriptions of the Day.

[Xenomorph60]

I feel that David copied a ancient Engineer design but the original was different and it was scrapped before it when anywhere.

[The Old One]

David's Drawings/David's Alien Birth

@Voodoo Magic

[Voodoo Magic]

Ohhh, that book. 

[yhe1]

So I guess we're concluding as long as David handles his Xenomorph manufacturing internally, he'll be fine?

Way too late for that now. Pussyface already crashed his party.

[SM]

Ohhh, that book. 

I never would've guessed.

[Necronomicon II]

That wasp is actually a mote, up close, a shock troop.

[Xenomrph]

If it's that flimsy, then it's not "concrete". We'd have to agree the Derelict is old to say it's concrete proof Covenant is wrong.

By the same token, we'd have to agree that David is infallible to say the Derelict suddenly isn't as old as we believed it was for the past 30+ years.

The Derelict may be old, but unless Riddles changes things, it being full of eggs and/ or sat on LV-426 is not.

That bold part is really important.

The other really important part is that Covenant says nothing about the Derelict or its cargo, and interpreting the Derelict as "old" is just as valid as it was in 1979.

It does not have to be in Covenant. It is part of the same overall story. And in that story David created the creature, making it impossible for the eggs on the Derelict to be older than that. As proof, we have the actual movie and Ridley confirming it. I don't know what more proof you need.

That overall story still shows us a Derelict that looks old, and Covenant doesn't address this. It's impossible for David to have created the Alien *and* for the Derelict to be old, and right now we don't know which one is correct because, again, Covenant doesn't address the Derelict in any way.

You take ancient Derelict and David as the creator as equally viable and go from there. But they are not equal. David created the xenomorph, stated in Covenant and by Ridley therefore the Derelict can't be ancient. That may change in the future, but until then this is the story that is beeing told in the movies.

No, it's the story being told in 'Covenant' - where we go from there is unknown. Prometheus set us up for the continuing adventures of Shaw and David('s head) as she went to find the Engineer homeworld and get her answers. By your logic, the "correct" prediction would have been that Shaw would go to the homeworld and get her answers, because that's clearly what Ridley Scott "intended" and demonstrates on-screen.

Instead, Covenant kills Shaw off-screen and she never gets her answers. So much for that "correct" prediction, or Ridley's apparent "intent".

Nah, I'll stick with what is actually shown on-screen, rather than pretending that I know the future (especially when Ridley Scott of all people is involved).

I don't get your point here.

The point is that you're basing on your conclusion on a movie that doesn't exist. We don't know what "the story being told" is because the dots haven't been connected from David creating an Alien to the Derelict in the first movie. Is David going to crash that ship on LV-426 or something? Is he going to have a revelation that he didn't make the Alien, when he finds an ancient Derelict full of Alien eggs? We don't know.

Ridley Scott/Covenant
says nothing about
LV-426's Derelict.
Or it's Eggs.

Bingo.

It states David created the creature, so the eggs can not be older than that.

It states that he created *an* Alien, the Derelict and its cargo aren't in 'Covenant'.

That was completely removed, so it's irrelevant.

But equally the Derelict isn't proof of anything. It's a talking point and an issue to be resolved, but hardly the concrete proof Xenomrph is trying to make it out to be.

It's concrete proof that it's not a "fact" that David created the Alien, and that it's open to interpretation because we have contradictory evidence from an equally-valid source. Will it be resolved? We'll have to wait and see.

No it is not concret proof. "It looks ancient" is no evidence. Certainly not equal to David stating himself as the creator in the movie and Ridley stating that as correct. You can only interpret something that has room for interpretation.

"It looks ancient" was evidence for over 30 years.
Just because David says something doesn't mean he's automatically correct, even if he doesn't realize it. The movie even lampshades this thematically by having David mess up the author of his favorite Ozymandias quote.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree that there isn't room for interpretation.

BTW, i hope i do not come off as kinda dickish. English is not my first language and it is hard for me to find the right tone sometimes

Nah you're cool. We're just talking on the internet, and for what it's worth I think your English is great.

The Eggs can be older than that.
Regardless of what Covenant currently suggests.

For the record, I do believe the intention in Covenant;
is that David is responsible for all things Xenomorph.
And stating otherwise for the purposes of canon or the film- is grasping at straws.

It would take another film to outright show that David isn't the creator...
for him, to not be the creator.

BUT
The Eggs STILL can be older than the ones David created,
but a new piece of media would have to firmly establish this.

Absolutely agree.

I agree, too - with a caveat. I believe 'Covenant' is saying David made the Alien, that's clear within the movie itself, but I don't feel that jives with what we saw in 'Alien' and I don't think that's by accident. Covenant is clear on its own, but it's when you apply it to the larger franchise that things get murky.

Most of the movie-going public doesn't give a shit about "canon".

Au contraire mon frère. Movie canon they're very familiar with. Just the other day I brought up Phantom Menace to my wife (a casual movie goer - no in depth knowledge - would never be caught dead in a fan forum) in a rotten tomatoe discussion and I brought up Darth Maul, and she remembered him as the "red faced guy". I asked her if she knew he was still alive, and she answered 'no he isnt. He's dead. He was chopped in half".

My point is if people don't see it in the movies, it's not movie canon. Especially when we're talking events thst occurred in novelizations.

Has your wife seen 'Solo: A Star Wars Story'?
That's a movie that shows that Darth Maul is alive (somehow). Granted the "somehow" is explained pretty in-depth in non-movie stuff.
On the topic of Star Wars, Disney/Lucasfilm has been very open about everything being published post-EU-reboot being "canon" and on-par with the movies, regardless of medium.

What I'm getting here is I think you picked a bad example.

Speaking of casual moviegoers, I've seen a lot of people on non-AvP forums respond to 'Covenant' with "Wait, David couldn't have invented the Alien, there was that old ship in the first movie."
Anecdotal evidence, but I've seen it happen a lot.

Luke confirmed it using the search your feelings crap with the Force. Besides Lucas is known for retconing his way through his work aka making up shit as things go along. Vader wasn't going to be Luke's father in New Hope, that wasn't even on The Empire Strikes Back original script, he added the line during the filming because well f**k it. Leia wasn't suppose to be Luke's sister, C3PO wasn't suppose to have been created by Anakin, the clones mentioned on New Hope weren't suppose to be the original stormtroppers, Obi-wan wasn't suppose to have fought on a war with R2D2, the Space Jockey wasn't suppose to be an albino squidward on steroids inside a suit...

Just to add a comment here, and let you carry on with Voodoo Magic. I would agree some elements added to a writer's fictional universe may come across as "tacked on" to me, but consider the alternative. What if they did not attempt to answer various story questions? Then...you are back to....who is Luke's father? Who created C3PO? Where did the egg come from in Alien? What's the story behind the Space Jockey species? Who/what were the Clones?

Writers seem to be in a damned if you do, damned if you don't eternal penalty box. Fans complain because they have questions with no answers. Writers attempt to answer those questions and their answers are found unsatisfactory by some fans. Some of this can be accounted for with fans who have in the meantime imagined their own fan fiction to answer those questions and when the original creator finally provides answers, it was nothing near what the fan imagined in his fan fiction. Therefore, in that fan's eyes, it's the writer's failure. I'm not saying in all cases, but not usual to see fans complain about how a long standing question is finally answered .

I think the answer to a lot of the hypothetical questions you offered as examples is "who cares"?
No, seriously. The origin of the Alien was an off-limits topic within the fiction for like 30 years and fans and audiences were completely okay with that - heck, I'd argue that a not-insignificant percentage (of not a majority) preferred not knowing where the Alien came from. The problem with Prometheus/Covenant (and with many prequels) is it answered questions nobody asked, or nobody wanted answered.

"Fans" are an unavoidable problem for popular media. Like you said, writers are damned if they do, damned if they don't; from a purely artistic standpoint, "ignore the fans, tell a good story" is the appropriate way to approach pretty much any project, but then you end up with 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'. The flip-side is when you have projects helmed by people who are self-proclaimed fans and want to load their movie up with fanservice and callbacks and familiar stuff, but they forget to make a good, coherent movie while they're at it - then you end up with 'AvP: Requiem'.
The ideal middle-ground is really hard to do, where you tell a good, self-contained story that isn't using the prior movies as a crutch but still offers enough familiar material to engage "fans". Stuff like 'Aliens', 'Blade Runner 2049', the recent 'Halloween', 'Terminator 2', etc.

[SiL]

By the same token, we'd have to agree that David is infallible to say the Derelict suddenly isn't as old as we believed it was for the past 30+ years.

We'd need proof he was lying. And as we've established in previous discussions, a capacity to lie is not proof of a lie.

The Derelict's existence and appearance, as I said, is a discussion point to be addressed -- but it's not proof.

[Voodoo Magic]

Most of the movie-going public doesn't give a shit about "canon".

Au contraire mon frère. Movie canon they're very familiar with. Just the other day I brought up Phantom Menace to my wife (a casual movie goer - no in depth knowledge - would never be caught dead in a fan forum) in a rotten tomatoe discussion and I brought up Darth Maul, and she remembered him as the "red faced guy". I asked her if she knew he was still alive, and she answered 'no he isnt. He's dead. He was chopped in half".

My point is if people don't see it in the movies, it's not movie canon. Especially when we're talking events thst occurred in novelizations.

Has your wife seen 'Solo: A Star Wars Story'?
That's a movie that shows that Darth Maul is alive (somehow).

And that's basically my point. She will know Darth Maul is alive after seeing last year's Solo movie, not a novelization, not an animated show, not a video game or comic but a movie, and not before.

Speaking of casual moviegoers, I've seen a lot of people on non-AvP forums respond to 'Covenant' with "Wait, David couldn't have invented the Alien, there was that old ship in the first movie."
Anecdotal evidence, but I've seen it happen a lot.

The casual moviegoer is not on forums discussing movies.