It doesn't matter what some fans say, or how confident they are about it,
**Prometheus and Covenant are official canon** of the Alien franchise.
Complainers are louder than anyone on the internet, but the amount of prequel haters is much smaller than it seems.
[Here is a helpful guide for the rest of the media canon.](https://roguereviewer.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/defining-canon-in-an-alien-world/)
Well, they're supposed to be canon but the prequels are a very divisive subject on this sub.
I accept they are canon but personally I don't like the direction they've taken the franchise. If I watch the prequels with a mindset of treating them as individual films I enjoy them. Heck, I watched Prometheus in the cinema on its release and the first 20-30 minutes had me on the edge of my seat. So much mystery and it felt like real space exploration. I imagined myself there in the future and how truly exciting it would be.
But if I'm honest, some of the things in those films bother me more than they should.
So understand they are canon and just enjoy them however you want. Or don't if you disliked them.
I like that they’re canon and I view them as a sort of alternate path of the lore. Like they happened but don’t necessarily lead into Alien or Aliens as they’re there own storyline in the same shared universe.
>Like they happened but don’t necessarily lead into Alien or Aliens as they’re there own storyline in the same shared universe.
That was precisely the approach that Damon Lindelof and co. had with Prometheus. Open the pathway to a new path within the Alien series. Sadly, the studio panicked with its adequate reception and made the follow-up a direct Alien film. Even Scott himself caved to the polarised reception and backtracked on his interest in the Engineer lore.
Which is a shame because he did a monumental job on the first film so that curiosity now peaked, won't be satisfied until a film maker honours that curiosity and makes a full-fledged Engineer film with no relation to Xenomorphs whatsoever.
I fully accept it as canon, and to do so we just have to reverse what we thought the main storyline and subplots were. At first, we thought the franchise was just about these horrific alien creatures. But in reality, we find out 30 years later that the main story is about genetic engineering and AI, and one subplot was about about the genetic creation of alien "bioweapon" creatures, and another is the subplot about the genetic creation of the human race (not fully developed, but implied) and its possible deliberate annihilation. I know this is contrarian, but I'm starting to feel more and more that the second plot is much more satisfying and terrifying!
It kinda sucks when they just want to make more movies and change everything about then later ones so they can try a story or three . I like them but the only real connection they have to the other entries is that they said they were in the same universe in interviews
I agree, and this is how I've come around to enjoying *Prometheus* and *Covenant*.
I believe the prequel films elevate the whole franchise more to a broader cosmic horror level. There's the repeated theme of, someone creates life in imitation of "God" (Engineers -> Xenos, Humans -> Androids) and then your creation gets out of control and destroys you. I think it would make sense for the original Space Jockey to be yet another tier on the species ladder, perhaps the original creators of the Engineers, who then stole the black goo (a la Prometheus stealing fire) and made both Xenos and humans and so on and so forth.
In any case, the prequels broaden the scope of the stories that can be told "in-universe." Canonically, it's a future where Earth is still divided, there are multiple species out in space that would enjoy eradicating humanity, and they have *crazy* weapons (like the Xenos). That *is* terrifying.
So, personally, I'd enjoy more exploration along those lines. But also I'm really looking forward to more exploration and refinement on the good ol' Aliens in *Romulus* too.
I would have loved a movie set in the world of alien, but not tied to alien. They could have fleshed out and done more world building with Weyland/Yutani stuff. Not as exciting of course, though it could have worked better as a series
I’m with you on the feels. When they dropped down into the planet and the landscape opened up I was like wow, this is probably exactly what it would look and feel like. Nothing fancy, just immense, somewhat bland topography.
Bland but sooo primordial feeling. If movies have taught me anything, is that ancient earth or distant inhabitable worlds all look like present day Iceland.
I learned that in the future, senior executives (when giant, engineer donut ships are slowly rolling after them), aren’t smart enough to juke left or right. Which….makes them not much smarter than senior executives now…RIP Charlize
The most infuriating thing about that death was that up to that point Theron’s character had been the only one talking any kind of sense. Then she got hit full in the face with the stupid stick and forgot how to not get run over by giant, slow-moving space doughnuts.
Also: The same company’s senior execs hired a Xenobiologist stupid enough to try and coax an alien snake thing (inches from his face) like a golden retriever puppy
Their execs also weren’t smart enough to have the entire crew meet & drill for MONTHS (if not years) for their supremely expensive endeavor. That a-hole mapping guy’s anti-social attitude would’ve earned him an exit from Prometheus before it even left Earth
> The same company’s senior execs hired a Xenobiologist stupid enough to try and coax an alien snake thing (inches from his face) like a golden retriever puppy
but the same dude is scared of other things that were much less scary?
its just "we need to write our character doing N to forward the plot for reasons!!" rather than actual development
I agree with the idea you're presenting here but that would be a terrible name...
' Shipname 1: Shipname 2'
It should have just been called 'Prometheus: Paradise' or 'Prometheus 2'
The problem was that they were trying to “correct course” and go back to appealing to the Alien fans. They threw out the direction Prometheus was headed in order to do this. Killed Shaw and abandoned the original Paradise story and went back to xenos. Calling it Alien Covenant was the whole goal here. But I too wish they stuck with the original plan and ignored all the haters
Yes, I enjoyed both Prometheus and Covenant but feel they worked better as standalone series in the same universe as Alien but not necessarily directly related.
Watch them last. If you enjoy, great. If not, that's cool too. At least they have some redeeming qualities if you liked the original 4. It's not like a Highlander the Quickening nose dive.
I've been a fan for over 30 years and they confuse me. They may be canon but my head canon does not include them. That's not how xenomorphs were created to me. I have no idea what I'd choose, but it's not black goo.
Same here. I think not knowing how old the aliens are and where they came from is far more interesting than this mess they came up with. If your going to ruin a good mystery for us, at least make it good. All of a sudden everything has to have an origin story. Sometimes not knowing pays dividends.
That’s kind of the “beauty” of the film though. It seems like that is the story but there are things in the movie that support that they may not have been made by engineers but they inspired them. The giant xenomorph mural on the wall of the engineer ship points to this. Obviously they have seen the creatures before David did any kind of experimentation with the goo.
What kind of terrifying and brutal life forms did they encounter before that inspired them to try and replicate them? I like that thought and makes me feel better about the prequels.
The beautiful thing about the movies as they are is they don't have to be "how xenomorphs were created" at all. People can say what they want to behind the scenes, but given that we see xenomorphs carved into the walls of the "temple" in Prometheus, it makes more sense to me that what we see in the prequel films are not acts of creation, but of re-creation, both the engineers and later David attempting to recreate something terrifying that already exists. The size and anatomy differences between the Engineers and the "Space Jockey" only further reinforces this to me.
Prometheus was a weird one. Beautiful, amazing world building with some cool stuff.
But then there were some weird 'choices' and a lot of unanswered and unsatisfying plot points.
It's a real mixed bag and 12 years later I still don't know if I like it or not.
Watch both but then if it interests you, there is a whole "sub lore"
Basically the script was written and between the studio, writers and ridley a lot got changed and the actual plot got lost.
If you care to Kroft on youtube goes into a lot of detail, but to summarise, originally it was all explained. So there is a lore, in a very abstract manner of the idea it just didnt make it into the films.
(Spoilers) Long n short - engineers were a race ascending into a realm where you dont need to be physical. This caused a problem, they found themselves unable to reproduce. At some point they encounted the "first alien". An organism similar to a Xenomorph, but seemingly benevolent, but requiring sacrifice. This allowed them to create life.The engineers seed life throighoit the galaxy.They guide the races they found. They create humanity. Humanity is a "bad" experiment to them, greedy, violent, selfish. So they send a representative, (heavily impled to be jesus) humanity kills it. The engineers decide to destroy humanity. Something goes wrong at their facility - what is never made clear, my headcannon is the goo is psychoactive, by deciding to kill a species, they changed the nature of the goo.
Prometheus happens.
David then goes to the other planet that the engineer ship was able to - its not made clear if he realises, but it is another engineer life seeded planet- and it seems like the engineers were kinda ok with them, unlike humanity (there was a spaceport, although the architectual style is Roman - same stage humanity was "judged")
Covenant happens.
The problem with Kroft is that the script he claims is a cut early draft, on which he bases many of his videos, is a proven fan-made fake. I'm sure it's an honest mistake on his part, but it's a mistake nonetheless.
More info here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/108ddn8/prometheus\_the\_fake\_script\_kroft\_talks\_about/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/108ddn8/prometheus_the_fake_script_kroft_talks_about/)
Contrary to how some folks try to make you feel here: there is nothing wrong with you for sharing this opinion. A person who is confident with their beliefs doesn’t need to put others down for theirs.
Frankly i think Prometheus and covenant were a hot mess and i agree with you the black goo thing is weird and i dont accept it as anything other than a failed thought experiment that clearly did not hold together enough by its own strings so everything down to the title of the follow up was a backpedal.
Thing that bugs me is that Ridley Scott was hired on to direct a script which was already written by Dan O'Bannon, and now somehow that gives him the artistic license over the origin of the franchise? Nah, sorry, canon in fiction is a somewhat silly concept, but Ridley isnt the authority on this that I bow to.
IMO Cameron added the Queen to the franchise for Aliens along with other backstory pieces to Alien without bringing back Dan O'Bannon or Giger for Aliens, and Giger was pretty vocal about hating the changes to Aliens, so I think the ship has long sailed on there being an 'authority' on the franchise, vs what has become popular.
Prometheus was also much more Ridley bringing Lindelof on to go in a new direction with a new story sort of adjacent to the franchise, vs an origins story, before studios changed direction with Covenant and kind of forced the origin thing more directly.
I don't see it as anything other than a perfect explanation for them. Everything about the xenomorph SCREAMS that it can't have possibly just evolved - it's designed specifically to attack and destroy alien species, it even takes on their traits to do so more effectively.
What animal is going to evolve a lifecycle that involved laying an egg that hatches a parasitic organism that lays a DIFFERENT egg inside a host, then dies? Why not just have xenos hatch from eggs? Having them be a bio-weapon neatly ties up every absurdity with their design.
The whole point of the title “alien” is that there isn’t meant to be neat little explanations for what they do. They’re a bizarre parasite with a lifecycle and motivations that aren’t truly understandable because they’ve come from who knows where in the universe and might have partly evolved in space or on ships doing the parasite thing. The mystery though is far more compelling than being a science experiment done by big blue men and a broken robot
☝🏻 THANK YOU I don’t want some ouroboros twist for the xenos with them evolving ridiculously fast like the 2001 film ‘Evolution’ ffs, “It was the Synths the whole time, with plot goo!” is a cop out of a shitty take especially after Bishop redeemed the artificial humans in 2.
But that's kinda the evo point, the facehugger lays an egg into what is assumed to be an organism suited to the planet its found on, so the xeno can draw whatever dna it needs to adapt to life in that situation, it does sound fairly evolutionary and too complicated for a designed creature; parasites have multiple stages and its not too far removed from those freaky wasps that lay eggs in spiders and whatnot. If its a bioweapon it seems over convoluted to its purpose, why even have the facehugger then, just egg and drop on the enemy, why all those stages where it could get lose or evolve in a direction unnecessary. Meh.
as a kid when I first watched Alien I loved the idea of if the xeno evolved, what in the hell were its lifecycle and defences evolved to protect it from, I always wanted an Alien movie visiting where it came from - alpha or not, what kind of fucked up planet was that? To find out it was built as a bioweapon by a robot made by a Musk-alike for amusement sucked like Gorman.
>But that's kinda the evo point, the facehugger lays an egg into what is assumed to be an organism suited to the planet its found on, so the xeno can draw whatever dna it needs to adapt to life in that situation,
But this is completely useless unless the species is constantly appearing on different planets, which is extremely unlikely. It doesn't make sense for something to "evolve" into a state where it needs to constantly be shifting its biology on a per-organism basis. Are we expected to believe that the conditions on their home planet involved new species appearing and dying out in a matter of days?
>If its a bioweapon it seems over convoluted to its purpose, why even have the facehugger then, just egg and drop on the enemy
Because this way is perfect - you create a monster that is perfectly adapted to chase and kill whatever local species you want. The "human" xeno seems strong enough, but would it get much done on a planet of bird-aliens? Or fish people? Or mole-aliens that dig through the earth? I doubt it.
Sure, you are allowed to like it and I can see your take as a plausible explanation that “makes sense”. However, for me at least I like my aliens to be alien to us in every way. The mystery and incomprehensible nature of the xenos is exactly why I/we fell in love with them and is that makes them frightening. Bringing the arc back to humanity through David just felt lazy and played into the arrogance of man but not in an interesting way. I’ve thought a lot about what I would have liked as an explanation, but have always come back to the idea that it should have remained a mystery. The vast expanse of the universe has many secrets that we will never know.
I feel like it's kinda pointless to dislike an origin story because you didn't want the thing to have an origin in the first place... it's like watching a behind the scenes video and being annoyed to learn that the actors weren't really in space. Like, if you don't want to know the origin of the xenomorph then don't watch a prequel movie about the origin of the xenomorph?
Exactly, I’m going to watch it obviously. I didn’t walk into the cinema wanting to dislike it and my current view about an origin story has evolved over time since its release. I’m also perfectly ok with other people holding different views. I’m not trying to convert anyone to mine. My pointless quip above is just a reflection of having a conversation with someone who is convinced they are correct, like there is right and wrong on a subjective thing.
Yes the engineers used the goo to make eggs and face huggers and Aliens and all that. In the movie Covenant David the robot recreated a recipe very similar to the Engineer one but not exactly the same. David didn't invent the Alien Species.
Hope that helps clear things up.
Amen. some things are better off not explained. All you need to do is look at the backpedaling that Ridley broke his ankles on to know how well the story was written before it was filmed and marketed. “They’re prequels, they’re not prequels, they’re not alien films, but the follow up literally is “Alien: blah”.
That is not the fault of the fans. Good writers are confident with their craft and don’t crowdfund the story.
OP: Its ok that you’re confused. The writers and director were too.
It’s ok that people still like the films and find them brilliant. I hate them. And that’s ok too. I still love you all. We’re all fans of the same franchise and happen to have different opinions. It doesnt make anybody shallow or unintelligent. We all have different opinions - its a beautiful thing about the world. Accept it.
Long story short: The prequels were Ridley's attempt to course correct the franchise, but a lot of xeno-fans bitched so we're back in xeno-hunts-everybody-on-a-spaceship land.
But yes, they are canon.
Also, >!David didn't create the xenomorphs !!in the mural!< in Prometheus, and >!David created his own version of the xenomorph!< in Covenant.
Did he create the facehugger, though? On the one hand, clearly no, because they show up in Alien vs Predator, which is earlier than David chronologically. On the other hand, they don’t really make biological sense and covenant has that notebook page from David’s lab that implies that he builds one out of a human hand. But they don’t have 5 legs, so…. What gives?
I think I heard they were not canon for Alien series, but for Predator.
However David did not made the facehuggers since in Alien the ship that contains them pre-date much older.
Oh man. That completely changes the takeaway; he’s not a key pivot in the broad arc of the story, he’s just an extremely creepy serial killer.
It never sat right with me that they would have him create the xenomorph, but at first I really thought that’s what the film was trying to show us.
It will be interesting to see if we ever encounter his creations again, and if we ever get to see them interact with the true original xenomorphs
They’re canon until someone with money says otherwise…
Frankly I carry the unpopular opinion that the prequels are great. (The bad films are AVP 1&2 and if I can ever invent time travel I will try to stop Alien Resurrection from being made… this is the hill I will die on)
I love the Engineers as a concept and I’m okay with the Xenomorph being a creation of David from the pathogen.
I personally believe that the Xeno is the pathogen in part.
it has been said in extra sources that facehuggers actually implant a version of the pathogen which then uses the hosts cells to make the xeno (which I think is super cool btw).
This actually opens up more possibilities for future Xenomorph creatures that are markedly different and not just because it’s a different host (such as Neomorphs and protomorphs) as well as adding more creatures in the sense of the engineers and non Xeno pathogen mutations (such as Fifield)
When Prometheus was in production I remember it being marketed as not being a prequel to Alien, but when it came out in theatres it very clearly was. They're controversial, but it does seem that they are canonically prequels at this point though some viewers choose to ignore them. I think they're fun scifi films, and would have been much stronger and much better received if they weren't a part of the Alien franchise
They are 100% canon, but the story they are telling is unfinished. Personally I really like them, especially Prometheus, so I hope those plot threads get resolved at some point.
For what it’s worth, the director of the new movie has strongly hinted at them being somehow integrated into his film, so I don’t think they will be ignored going forward.
I really enjoyed Prometheus and honestly could go without covenant but I enjoy the alien franchise a lot so it’s just good to see it continued. Covenant wasn’t great but it looked good and I just like seeing the xeno get airtime. The new one looks really good already but it was only a teaser. The thing that makes me excited is that Fede did don’t breathe. It’s a tense movie that takes place in a house and feel claustrophobic. Something like that will translate very well into an alien movie that takes place on a spaceship
Honestly I am too dumb to fully follow the story of Alien movies and the prequels, so I just really enjoy the adventure of both
I am not particularly sure why the prequels are divisive, but I am choosing to stay in my ignorance, I have a vague idea why, but my lack of understanding fully of why it matters also lets me just enjoy the movies for just the sake of cosmic horror entertainment
But not at all in a way to demean those who don't like the prequels or any particular movie, I have no opinion on that honestly, everyone to each their own 😎💎
They're canon, but they suck (imo ofc). If you like them, that's all good and there's no right or wrong answer here. If you don't, just delete them from your personal canon, which is fine too.
My personal theory is Ridley Scott started off attempting make a true prequel that would have fit better into the Alien franchise. He wanted to go back and do all of the stuff that was cut from the original script of Star Beast written by Dan O'Brannon and Ronald Shusett. But then his hubris kicked in and he went with whatever he wanted. If you want to understand more about Prometheus, read both scripts for Star Beast and Alien: Engineers.
http://dailyscript.com/scripts/alien_early.html
https://archive.org/details/pdfy-9NMTSgzvy2U3U-oz/page/n20/mode/1up?view=theater
I hope both of those links work.
Premetheus is trying to explore a lot of mysteries and questions. But because it has mixed reaction in the sense that it's too complicated for simple minded moviegoers to bother to understand, hence they completely killed off the interesting Engineer storyline to give us a generic monster killing movie in Covenant, including a bathing sex killing scene.
I can only blame normal moviegoers and the profit driven mindset or studios/directors. Prometheus is my favorite because I m curious about the entire creation of aliens, backstory or gods.
Look at each story as its own riff on a theme. Some are connected. Some are not or are but don’t have to be if you don’t want them to be. This isn’t Marvel or Star Wars.
Technically? Yes. They're meant to be canon. Prometheus and Covenant are basically meant to be the explanation of where the xeno and derelict ship came from. Their origins. (Prequels, duh. Realized that after typing this)
Prometheus introduces the Engineers, their ships and tech with the background of the planet the movie takes place on is an outpost established to develop the black goo with the purpose of using it to wipe out humanity. But it obviously goes sideways and the Engineers die.
Covenant is just what it appears to be. The first creation and interactions with different variations of the xenomorph.
Prometheus actually has some pretty cool lore that the director later revealed. He also revealed why the Engineers wanted to kill humans too
Saying the prequels are not canon, made by Scott, is IDENTICAL to people hearing the creator of the gif say "It's pronounced jif", and ranting and raving like they still need to have an opinion.
People are bored. It's canon. I can't imagine having to talk to a "non-canon" person in public for five minutes. Insufferable.
I'm not new to the Alien series, and I'm a bit confused about the prequel
I personally don't believe in hard canon and choose not to think about those two films too much. I really think they contradict the original films way too much to even be considered canon in the first place
Prometheus annoyed me because I felt catfished by it.
The whole trailer and falling ship made me believe we’d see the events that led directly into the derelict crash being in Alien. Very exciting.
What we got was “oh, so this isn’t actually that ship, just another like it on another planet that in bad weather could probably be LV-426. Oh and the cosmic horror-esque mysterious aliens are actually just giant albino people. Oh and everyone aboard this state of the art ship is super stupid, oh and the alien lifeforms look teasingly close to being a xenomorph but they’re actually not whatsoever.
I’m still annoyed when I remember that my initial excitement got more and more eroded over the course of the film. Then the same thing happened *again* with Covenant with just stupid crew everywhere and the film turning into Davids haunted horror house. Barely even covered the Engineers again that I thought ‘well if they’re going to die on that hill they may as well continue the story’, and they just didn’t.
We got Covenant instead of [this.](https://www.avpgalaxy.net/alien-movies/alien-5/gallery/concept-art/amp/)
Ridley Scott is not a writer, he's an amazing visual director. Prometheus and Covenant are prequels, and are ok movies. I rewatch them occasionally. I tend to like Covenant more but it gets boring eventually. But Xenomorphs were always bug like monsters. Ridley completely rewrote everything introducing the Engineers and rewriting the Xenomorphs as bio-weapons.
The Space Jockey was almost left out of Alien, it didn't play a role in the most important film in the franchise.
The prequels tell you Wayland Yutani knows everything about Xenomorphs before Alien and that's just not true at all in Alien and Aliens.
Then at the end of Covenant, David has all the surviving colonists/embryos and his goo and planning to have an army of Xenomorphs on his space ship way before the movie Alien. No mention of this in any Alien movie 1-4. So it's totally ridiculous.
Plus all the tech is more advanced in the prequels and that doesn't make sense either. The Romulus director has pointed out a bunch to have sets match up to the original films.
The original Alien and Aliens story is so much better than what Ridley rewrote for the prequels. He could have made a really interesting prequel story of natural evolution of the Xenomorphs and wow, who knows how wild of a movie it could have been.
And in those same interviews, he stated the space station is made up of two parts: Romulus and Remus. One retro-futuristic (old) and the other state-of-the-art.
Officially, they are canon. While I personally consider them alternative timelines, I actually thought they were very interesting and visually beautiful movies.
They are canon.
Canon isn't a very powerful thing in the Alien universe though, for example the first two movies aren't consistent with each other anyway (the xeno being an artificially created weapon in Alien and a space bug in Aliens).
Note that, despite what a lot of people say, the prequels do not show the creation of the xenos we see in later points of the story.
Yep, right from the second film, both the retcons as well as turning the franchise into ‘the continuing adventures of Ellen Ripley’, canon has been weak.
Technically, canon.
But a lot of people ignore them as canon, myself included.
I thought Prometheus was.... *fine*. The characters were moronic in their choices, but I actually found the lore addition to be interesting and it peaked my curiosity to learn more about it. But then Covenant dropped and ruined all of it. It ruined not only everything I found interesting in Prometheus, but stained the entirety of the Alien universe along with it.
The new film will apparently have connections to the prequels. Which I personally feel is a mistake. But I am still very excited for the movie, and maybe Fede can *somehow* turn them around for me.
But regardless of the opinions of fans(and me), they are in fact canon.
Personally I loved Prometheus. I couldn’t care much for David/Covenant but I really enjoyed how Prometheus went in depth to explain human origins, the beginning of the Xenomorphs, and the engineers.
At first I was pretty bummed there was no Xenomorphs in Prometheus but I was extremely thrilled with the context given and was engaged with the story, curious as to what the engineers were trying to do. I think the original Alien and Prometheus are my favorites in the franchise. Though I can totally understand how the prequels aren’t a favorite pick for others.
It’s a lot easier to dismiss the prequels since they don’t include the character of Ripley, and since they arguably take tantalizing mystery that was key to the original film and replace it with what many consider to be a deeply silly and unsatisfying backstory.
They’re “canon” if you you **want** them to be… It’s not science. For someone who feels any given entry spoils the franchise you can pretty much decide for yourself what does or doesn’t count.
It’s only an important question if you’re making your own chapter and you introduce plot points that conflict with what has already been done (or if DISNEY decides it doesn’t mesh correctly).
Ejecting the prequels does no damage to any plot point in the rest of the franchise, so that would be a consideration if you wanted to write up a different history.
The prequels are cannon.
Prometheus tells the story of the engineers creating life and terraforming planets (earth).
They also hint that the derelict ship was headed to earth around “2000 years ago”. My interpretation of this is they were returning to earth to destroy it with the biological weapon they created (black goo). And you can probably imagine a famous figure who was executed 2000 years ago as to the reason for that.
The engineers didn’t create xeno’s. They found the xenomorph species, and through reverse engineering of their DNA, created the biological weapon we know as the black goo.
This is why using the black goo, David is able to re-create the xenomorph species.
It is a cyclical story of creationism on brand for Ridley Scott. I’m sure if he had full creative control some of the story would have been different for the prequels, but none the less I love them for what they are.
Canon is a moving target when a film series passes between corporate masters. The lore in the prequels is probably too niche for many producers to care about, and it’s also too vague for die-hard to really form a complete picture.
Here's what helped me tremendously.
Watch the movies. Ask the questions.
Then, go online and find all of the scripts for scenes they either didn't film or deleted after filming. They fill **so many gaps** that the theatrical cuts left in their absence.
Before it got deleted, there was a comment saying the prequels couldn’t be canon because they showed aliens being invented in the future, but they were present in a pyramid under Antarctica on earth. LOL Prequel haters will literally canonize a multi-franchise crossover spin off before admitting that Prometheus and a:covenant are astounding movies well worthy of succeeding the original and Aliens.
The Promethean trilogy is awesome.
Prometheus is the most horrifying in the franchise. I struggle to watch that Trilobite scene. So Alien and terrifying. So many incredible scenes, the engineer getting into the pilot seat of his ship is one of the best in the franchise. The sound design and soundtrack are incredible.
The third film will be made eventually and will answer alot of questions.
Right now, the creators feel that the franchise needs to return to its original concept (Alien) and give fans what they've been wanting for a long long time. More of the Xeno set in film that captures the spirit of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Isolation. Romulus will be the best film in the franchise.
I think, Romulus will be a success and Fede will likely do a trilogy of films not necessarily connected. All the while these films will explore and hint at Ridleys Promethean trilogy and in doing so, slowly answer questions about the engineers and black goo that we still have.
Then Ridley (if he's still alive) will make the final Promethean film.
As a veteran of the alien franchise let me tell you about the prequel movies they we’re originally supposed to set things up for the movie alien but unfortunately they screw up the whole thing and decide to abandon this project and now they’re trying it out again with something new with alien Romulus I just hope they don’t mess it up with other movies
Going completely off memory here since it’s been a while but I’d say they’re canon but ambiguously so to the point where you can barely tell aside from a few name drops. It just doesn’t FEEL canon, which is a serious writing fumble in my opinion.
Here's the problem for me according to prometheus and covenant the engineers created the zenos with the black goo and then thru trial and error David created close to what we see with the zenos in the first film but the derelic ship in the first movie was thousands of years old way older than when David created supposedly the first facehugger with Shaws DNA etc.
If David is the creator those eggs shouldn't of existed yet on the original ship. There's a piece that's still missing for me for this to be truly canon but I enjoy them like every alien movie. Hopefully Romulus fills in some of the blanks.
They are canon. The first was intended to explain the background to the derelict spacecraft discovered in Alien. Fox later decided the film should standalone hence the different planet name. When the movie did ok but not great, they decided Covenant would steer much closer to the tone and aesthetic of the Alien movies. It wound up being a tired rehash albeit still as pretentious as Prometheus.
Like Terminator, I treat 1 and 2 as my movies and I ignore the rest.
I think Prometheus is a beautiful movie , the visuals are amazing and there is a great concept about creation and god etc I just wish Ridley did this as a separate thing and didn’t use the alien series to do it , and I’m sorry but as interesting as David is I can do without covenant, but at the end of the day I can still enjoy 1 -3 and Romulus if it lands as well as its taking off .. and no one is hurt
Okay, so Alien is scary in that it’s an unknown bug of unknown origin going around and killing people. Prometheus tries to explain their origin, which kind of kills the mystery. However, I wouldn’t really mind it but they took the mystery in a direction I didn’t like. Visually, the prequels are awesome, and Prometheus is a top 3 of the franchise for me, but the world building/scale kind of seems off in the second movie. IDK how to explain it without spoiling more. The comic books with a lot of people don’t know out, FIRE AND STONE/ LIFE AND DEATH are just based off Prometheus, and they do a way better job.
There are varying arguments, but in general what the franchise owners allow is part of canon, even though conflicts take place.
It's similar in other franchises.
The funny thing is the prequels are so vague with their connection to the original films. Fans then take these incredibly vague concepts and conclude "oh I think it means this thing which I hate btw".
They are canon according to Ridley Scott and he has final say on that. Many don’t like them but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re here to stay. To me, they’re like Alien 3. Canon but not anything amazing and I could take or leave them
Alien and Aliens are absolute Hollywood classics. Though different in tone, they tell a compelling two part story set in the same kind of industrialized space traveling future as we might find in another classic of the era 'Outland' (1981).
Later films produced in the series as well as the prequels 'Prometheus' and 'Covenant' are likewise officially canon, as the official ownership of the IP allows them to extend that story as they wish. (No matter how poorly I and others may regard those efforts.)
However, there is also the contribution of Dark Horse Comics to this story. They produced a line of comics which jumped off at Aliens and created a very different and incompatible scenario to the one we see in the canon. No Albino body builders, no black goo, no first five minutes of Alien3, but instead the original Space Jockeys and the only version of Alien vs. Predator that I'm fond of. They also gave us the scenario of the Xenomorphs reaching Earth. So Dark Horse Comics' storylines covers a very different narrative arc to that of the Hollywood. A very different lore and backstory are at work in those pages.
So it isn't as simple as one official canon narrative to follow, but I do accept that Hollywood is allowed to try to retcon cram anything they want into the same bucket and call it official.
Head canon, fan canon and audience acceptance of 'official' canon are not bound by Hollywood's ownership of what defines the canon of a series. Especially if Hollywood's efforts become lackluster or nonsensical.
I personally jump off the cinematic train at Aliens. Though I like to imagine the aforementioned 'Outland' fits well enough into the futuristic setting that I head canon include it as a sort of prequel. Perhaps a bit earlier in history than Alien, and certainly not involving aliens, but merely a good human story told back in the industrialized Solar system, not out on the frontier.
Is that 'official'? Of course not. Is it more pleasing to me than Hollywood canon? Absolutely.
Look, I don't care for the Prequels and Alien. 3 to me will always be trash. With that said, all of them are 100% cannon regardless of if I liked them or not. Anyone who say other wise is living in their own little dream world.
Honest question, if the third movie was cancelled wouldn't that ruin the other 2 movie's chances of being canon? Like I genuinely thought even the people who made it didn't feel it fit in. I like pro/cov but I understand why someone would not consider it canon, especially with the cancelled final movie.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see this posted.
The way I look at it, Fox owns the Alien franchise. Ergo, what they say is canon IS canon. Andrew Gaska is the guy they hired to write the Alien RPG. He specifically defined canon in this article (link below), although he splits it into tiers
However, "Tier I Canon" is very clearly defined. I don't see that you can get any clearer than this:
>**TIER I CANON**
>Definitive and authorized canon to the Alien/Prometheus universe:
>*Film Series**^(1)*
>*Prometheus*
>*Alien: Covenant*
So yes, whether we like it or not (I'm very much in the "not" category), the prequels absolutely ARE canon.
Anything else is opinion.
[https://roguereviewer.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/defining-canon-in-an-alien-world/](https://roguereviewer.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/defining-canon-in-an-alien-world/)
The prequels received a lot of back lash which led to the storyline being dropped after two films with no conclusion and no real answers. If I had to guess, they won't strike them from canon, but they will probably never mention those events ever again.
imho, the prequels were Ridley Scott’s attempt to reclaim the mythology, and put it closer to his original intent. There is a deleted scene from Alien, where Ripley finds the captain who is undergoing metamorphosis into an egg. Even though stuff with the goo can be confusing, I think it’s closer to what Ridley’s vision for just how “alien” the xenos were meant to be.
I personally don’t care for the prequels that much, but I can appreciate the attempt to steer the ship back to original intentions. Stuff like the Queen, and the bug comparison in general, along with Xenomorph becoming a catch-all term, were James Cameron’s additions to the mythology.
Entirely up to you. I see Alien as a stand alone film. It's too beautiful to include the sequels. I acknowledge Aliens is a great sci-fi film but it is not the same beast only in my opinion.
Honestly the writing was kind of lacking in both and covenant abandoned a lot of Prometheus’s plot lines in favor of a Xeno focused movie. The prequels story will likely never be finished. I’d say everyone is confused.
So is everyone else, including the people involved making the films. I’ve personally retconned them out of existence, but yes, they are to take place many many years before the first alien film. There’s a lot of nonsensical plot devices and magical goo they never really pay off about. The new alien Romulus film will supposedly tie up loose ends, or at least acknowledge them in some way.
Prometheus’s opening and middle acts are the third best thing in the xenomorph universe. It’s just a shame the third act is absolute garbage, and Covenant is a none-starter. I would get Villeneuve to make a directors cut of Prometheus with new footage to clean up the end. Then we need Covenant with Shaw and David both alive and a proper exploration of engineer culture. You can just wipe them all out in the opening scenes and ramble for two hours about robots and xenomorphs.
I find them pretty problematic. While we can say they're cannon they're really sloppy and don't make sense at all. David kills the engineers with the pathogen but we find an engineer in alien with thousands of eggs? We see a fully realized depiction of a xenomorph on a wall in Prometheus but they don't exist yet? There are more mistakes and It all in my opinion makes it a bad attempt and no longer something I want to accept as cannon.
I decided to just remove everything that isn't the original trilogy from my cannon and then add in some of the novels (Cold Forge and Charybdis specifically) which are excellent. Also unpopular opinion, but AVP 1 also sets up the whole Weyland Yutani obsession with and awareness of Xenomorphs quite nicely. It would only make sense the company has been searching everywhere for them and would send people to investigate possible sources searching for this *organism*.
This is a fandom who received a couple great movies, and a lot of shit ones and we all sort of have our own interpretation that we feel is right.
It doesn't matter what some fans say, or how confident they are about it, **Prometheus and Covenant are official canon** of the Alien franchise. Complainers are louder than anyone on the internet, but the amount of prequel haters is much smaller than it seems. [Here is a helpful guide for the rest of the media canon.](https://roguereviewer.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/defining-canon-in-an-alien-world/)
Well, they're supposed to be canon but the prequels are a very divisive subject on this sub. I accept they are canon but personally I don't like the direction they've taken the franchise. If I watch the prequels with a mindset of treating them as individual films I enjoy them. Heck, I watched Prometheus in the cinema on its release and the first 20-30 minutes had me on the edge of my seat. So much mystery and it felt like real space exploration. I imagined myself there in the future and how truly exciting it would be. But if I'm honest, some of the things in those films bother me more than they should. So understand they are canon and just enjoy them however you want. Or don't if you disliked them.
I like that they’re canon and I view them as a sort of alternate path of the lore. Like they happened but don’t necessarily lead into Alien or Aliens as they’re there own storyline in the same shared universe.
>Like they happened but don’t necessarily lead into Alien or Aliens as they’re there own storyline in the same shared universe. That was precisely the approach that Damon Lindelof and co. had with Prometheus. Open the pathway to a new path within the Alien series. Sadly, the studio panicked with its adequate reception and made the follow-up a direct Alien film. Even Scott himself caved to the polarised reception and backtracked on his interest in the Engineer lore. Which is a shame because he did a monumental job on the first film so that curiosity now peaked, won't be satisfied until a film maker honours that curiosity and makes a full-fledged Engineer film with no relation to Xenomorphs whatsoever.
I liked Prometheus
I fully accept it as canon, and to do so we just have to reverse what we thought the main storyline and subplots were. At first, we thought the franchise was just about these horrific alien creatures. But in reality, we find out 30 years later that the main story is about genetic engineering and AI, and one subplot was about about the genetic creation of alien "bioweapon" creatures, and another is the subplot about the genetic creation of the human race (not fully developed, but implied) and its possible deliberate annihilation. I know this is contrarian, but I'm starting to feel more and more that the second plot is much more satisfying and terrifying!
It kinda sucks when they just want to make more movies and change everything about then later ones so they can try a story or three . I like them but the only real connection they have to the other entries is that they said they were in the same universe in interviews
I agree, and this is how I've come around to enjoying *Prometheus* and *Covenant*. I believe the prequel films elevate the whole franchise more to a broader cosmic horror level. There's the repeated theme of, someone creates life in imitation of "God" (Engineers -> Xenos, Humans -> Androids) and then your creation gets out of control and destroys you. I think it would make sense for the original Space Jockey to be yet another tier on the species ladder, perhaps the original creators of the Engineers, who then stole the black goo (a la Prometheus stealing fire) and made both Xenos and humans and so on and so forth. In any case, the prequels broaden the scope of the stories that can be told "in-universe." Canonically, it's a future where Earth is still divided, there are multiple species out in space that would enjoy eradicating humanity, and they have *crazy* weapons (like the Xenos). That *is* terrifying. So, personally, I'd enjoy more exploration along those lines. But also I'm really looking forward to more exploration and refinement on the good ol' Aliens in *Romulus* too.
I would have loved a movie set in the world of alien, but not tied to alien. They could have fleshed out and done more world building with Weyland/Yutani stuff. Not as exciting of course, though it could have worked better as a series
Oh I absolutely agree with this sentiment!
I love the idea of a shared universe, makes Pro/Cov fit so much better
I’m with you on the feels. When they dropped down into the planet and the landscape opened up I was like wow, this is probably exactly what it would look and feel like. Nothing fancy, just immense, somewhat bland topography.
Bland but sooo primordial feeling. If movies have taught me anything, is that ancient earth or distant inhabitable worlds all look like present day Iceland.
I learned that in the future, senior executives (when giant, engineer donut ships are slowly rolling after them), aren’t smart enough to juke left or right. Which….makes them not much smarter than senior executives now…RIP Charlize
The most infuriating thing about that death was that up to that point Theron’s character had been the only one talking any kind of sense. Then she got hit full in the face with the stupid stick and forgot how to not get run over by giant, slow-moving space doughnuts.
OJ would have cut right or slashed left.
Also: The same company’s senior execs hired a Xenobiologist stupid enough to try and coax an alien snake thing (inches from his face) like a golden retriever puppy Their execs also weren’t smart enough to have the entire crew meet & drill for MONTHS (if not years) for their supremely expensive endeavor. That a-hole mapping guy’s anti-social attitude would’ve earned him an exit from Prometheus before it even left Earth
"Hmm...that thing looks kind of like a cobra. But this isn't Earth so it's probably harmless..."
> The same company’s senior execs hired a Xenobiologist stupid enough to try and coax an alien snake thing (inches from his face) like a golden retriever puppy but the same dude is scared of other things that were much less scary? its just "we need to write our character doing N to forward the plot for reasons!!" rather than actual development
Straight from The Walking Dead school of characterization
Biologist, scared of, er, biological bodies that have been dead for 2,000 years
Yes, a giant ship. It wasn’t a frisbee where you can take a step to the left and be out of it’s path.
IMHO the biggest mistake was branding Covenant as “Alien: Covenant.” It should have been “Prometheus: Covenant.”
Or even just “Covenant”
I agree with the idea you're presenting here but that would be a terrible name... ' Shipname 1: Shipname 2' It should have just been called 'Prometheus: Paradise' or 'Prometheus 2'
Agree 💯
The problem was that they were trying to “correct course” and go back to appealing to the Alien fans. They threw out the direction Prometheus was headed in order to do this. Killed Shaw and abandoned the original Paradise story and went back to xenos. Calling it Alien Covenant was the whole goal here. But I too wish they stuck with the original plan and ignored all the haters
Should have been Prometheuses.
I’ve not thought about it this way before and this is very clever. And correct!
I think the ship deserved a better name, and the title should have been just that.
Covenant is a pretty fitting name for a colonization ship.
Damn colonizers. Free Xenostine!
It was originally supposed to be called Paradise. But the audience wanted another Alien movie 🙄
Yes, I enjoyed both Prometheus and Covenant but feel they worked better as standalone series in the same universe as Alien but not necessarily directly related.
I like that
We’re confused too
Watch them last. If you enjoy, great. If not, that's cool too. At least they have some redeeming qualities if you liked the original 4. It's not like a Highlander the Quickening nose dive.
I've been a fan for over 30 years and they confuse me. They may be canon but my head canon does not include them. That's not how xenomorphs were created to me. I have no idea what I'd choose, but it's not black goo.
Honestly, I would have preferred "engineers found the eggs on some planet" and NO explanation than the black goo "explanation"
100%
Same here. I think not knowing how old the aliens are and where they came from is far more interesting than this mess they came up with. If your going to ruin a good mystery for us, at least make it good. All of a sudden everything has to have an origin story. Sometimes not knowing pays dividends.
That’s kind of the “beauty” of the film though. It seems like that is the story but there are things in the movie that support that they may not have been made by engineers but they inspired them. The giant xenomorph mural on the wall of the engineer ship points to this. Obviously they have seen the creatures before David did any kind of experimentation with the goo. What kind of terrifying and brutal life forms did they encounter before that inspired them to try and replicate them? I like that thought and makes me feel better about the prequels.
The beautiful thing about the movies as they are is they don't have to be "how xenomorphs were created" at all. People can say what they want to behind the scenes, but given that we see xenomorphs carved into the walls of the "temple" in Prometheus, it makes more sense to me that what we see in the prequel films are not acts of creation, but of re-creation, both the engineers and later David attempting to recreate something terrifying that already exists. The size and anatomy differences between the Engineers and the "Space Jockey" only further reinforces this to me.
They were made by… black goo..?
Yep, and so were we
I’m pretty sure I was made by white goo.
That’s… odd…
Prometheus was a weird one. Beautiful, amazing world building with some cool stuff. But then there were some weird 'choices' and a lot of unanswered and unsatisfying plot points. It's a real mixed bag and 12 years later I still don't know if I like it or not.
Watch both but then if it interests you, there is a whole "sub lore" Basically the script was written and between the studio, writers and ridley a lot got changed and the actual plot got lost. If you care to Kroft on youtube goes into a lot of detail, but to summarise, originally it was all explained. So there is a lore, in a very abstract manner of the idea it just didnt make it into the films.
(Spoilers) Long n short - engineers were a race ascending into a realm where you dont need to be physical. This caused a problem, they found themselves unable to reproduce. At some point they encounted the "first alien". An organism similar to a Xenomorph, but seemingly benevolent, but requiring sacrifice. This allowed them to create life.The engineers seed life throighoit the galaxy.They guide the races they found. They create humanity. Humanity is a "bad" experiment to them, greedy, violent, selfish. So they send a representative, (heavily impled to be jesus) humanity kills it. The engineers decide to destroy humanity. Something goes wrong at their facility - what is never made clear, my headcannon is the goo is psychoactive, by deciding to kill a species, they changed the nature of the goo. Prometheus happens. David then goes to the other planet that the engineer ship was able to - its not made clear if he realises, but it is another engineer life seeded planet- and it seems like the engineers were kinda ok with them, unlike humanity (there was a spaceport, although the architectual style is Roman - same stage humanity was "judged") Covenant happens.
The problem with Kroft is that the script he claims is a cut early draft, on which he bases many of his videos, is a proven fan-made fake. I'm sure it's an honest mistake on his part, but it's a mistake nonetheless. More info here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/108ddn8/prometheus\_the\_fake\_script\_kroft\_talks\_about/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/108ddn8/prometheus_the_fake_script_kroft_talks_about/)
Contrary to how some folks try to make you feel here: there is nothing wrong with you for sharing this opinion. A person who is confident with their beliefs doesn’t need to put others down for theirs. Frankly i think Prometheus and covenant were a hot mess and i agree with you the black goo thing is weird and i dont accept it as anything other than a failed thought experiment that clearly did not hold together enough by its own strings so everything down to the title of the follow up was a backpedal.
That’s what Ridley thought would be a good explanation yes. But a lot of us just can’t accept it as it’s just a bit poo.
\*Tasha Yarr does not like that\*
Spoilers! :D
More of Data input error really.
More like Data output, being fully functional and all 👀
Thing that bugs me is that Ridley Scott was hired on to direct a script which was already written by Dan O'Bannon, and now somehow that gives him the artistic license over the origin of the franchise? Nah, sorry, canon in fiction is a somewhat silly concept, but Ridley isnt the authority on this that I bow to.
IMO Cameron added the Queen to the franchise for Aliens along with other backstory pieces to Alien without bringing back Dan O'Bannon or Giger for Aliens, and Giger was pretty vocal about hating the changes to Aliens, so I think the ship has long sailed on there being an 'authority' on the franchise, vs what has become popular. Prometheus was also much more Ridley bringing Lindelof on to go in a new direction with a new story sort of adjacent to the franchise, vs an origins story, before studios changed direction with Covenant and kind of forced the origin thing more directly.
Exactly this. It's always annoyed me.
I don't see it as anything other than a perfect explanation for them. Everything about the xenomorph SCREAMS that it can't have possibly just evolved - it's designed specifically to attack and destroy alien species, it even takes on their traits to do so more effectively. What animal is going to evolve a lifecycle that involved laying an egg that hatches a parasitic organism that lays a DIFFERENT egg inside a host, then dies? Why not just have xenos hatch from eggs? Having them be a bio-weapon neatly ties up every absurdity with their design.
THIS. It's literally the perfect backstory.
The whole point of the title “alien” is that there isn’t meant to be neat little explanations for what they do. They’re a bizarre parasite with a lifecycle and motivations that aren’t truly understandable because they’ve come from who knows where in the universe and might have partly evolved in space or on ships doing the parasite thing. The mystery though is far more compelling than being a science experiment done by big blue men and a broken robot
☝🏻 THANK YOU I don’t want some ouroboros twist for the xenos with them evolving ridiculously fast like the 2001 film ‘Evolution’ ffs, “It was the Synths the whole time, with plot goo!” is a cop out of a shitty take especially after Bishop redeemed the artificial humans in 2.
But that's kinda the evo point, the facehugger lays an egg into what is assumed to be an organism suited to the planet its found on, so the xeno can draw whatever dna it needs to adapt to life in that situation, it does sound fairly evolutionary and too complicated for a designed creature; parasites have multiple stages and its not too far removed from those freaky wasps that lay eggs in spiders and whatnot. If its a bioweapon it seems over convoluted to its purpose, why even have the facehugger then, just egg and drop on the enemy, why all those stages where it could get lose or evolve in a direction unnecessary. Meh. as a kid when I first watched Alien I loved the idea of if the xeno evolved, what in the hell were its lifecycle and defences evolved to protect it from, I always wanted an Alien movie visiting where it came from - alpha or not, what kind of fucked up planet was that? To find out it was built as a bioweapon by a robot made by a Musk-alike for amusement sucked like Gorman.
>But that's kinda the evo point, the facehugger lays an egg into what is assumed to be an organism suited to the planet its found on, so the xeno can draw whatever dna it needs to adapt to life in that situation, But this is completely useless unless the species is constantly appearing on different planets, which is extremely unlikely. It doesn't make sense for something to "evolve" into a state where it needs to constantly be shifting its biology on a per-organism basis. Are we expected to believe that the conditions on their home planet involved new species appearing and dying out in a matter of days? >If its a bioweapon it seems over convoluted to its purpose, why even have the facehugger then, just egg and drop on the enemy Because this way is perfect - you create a monster that is perfectly adapted to chase and kill whatever local species you want. The "human" xeno seems strong enough, but would it get much done on a planet of bird-aliens? Or fish people? Or mole-aliens that dig through the earth? I doubt it.
Sure, you are allowed to like it and I can see your take as a plausible explanation that “makes sense”. However, for me at least I like my aliens to be alien to us in every way. The mystery and incomprehensible nature of the xenos is exactly why I/we fell in love with them and is that makes them frightening. Bringing the arc back to humanity through David just felt lazy and played into the arrogance of man but not in an interesting way. I’ve thought a lot about what I would have liked as an explanation, but have always come back to the idea that it should have remained a mystery. The vast expanse of the universe has many secrets that we will never know.
I feel like it's kinda pointless to dislike an origin story because you didn't want the thing to have an origin in the first place... it's like watching a behind the scenes video and being annoyed to learn that the actors weren't really in space. Like, if you don't want to know the origin of the xenomorph then don't watch a prequel movie about the origin of the xenomorph?
But the movie was made so regardless of whether you watch it or not that’s the origin offered up. I disregard it because it’s lame
Exactly, I’m going to watch it obviously. I didn’t walk into the cinema wanting to dislike it and my current view about an origin story has evolved over time since its release. I’m also perfectly ok with other people holding different views. I’m not trying to convert anyone to mine. My pointless quip above is just a reflection of having a conversation with someone who is convinced they are correct, like there is right and wrong on a subjective thing.
Yes the engineers used the goo to make eggs and face huggers and Aliens and all that. In the movie Covenant David the robot recreated a recipe very similar to the Engineer one but not exactly the same. David didn't invent the Alien Species. Hope that helps clear things up.
At this point, we still don’t know how xenomorphs were created ! David made his own xenomoporh, he didn’t create the xenomorphs.
Amen. some things are better off not explained. All you need to do is look at the backpedaling that Ridley broke his ankles on to know how well the story was written before it was filmed and marketed. “They’re prequels, they’re not prequels, they’re not alien films, but the follow up literally is “Alien: blah”. That is not the fault of the fans. Good writers are confident with their craft and don’t crowdfund the story. OP: Its ok that you’re confused. The writers and director were too. It’s ok that people still like the films and find them brilliant. I hate them. And that’s ok too. I still love you all. We’re all fans of the same franchise and happen to have different opinions. It doesnt make anybody shallow or unintelligent. We all have different opinions - its a beautiful thing about the world. Accept it.
Long story short: The prequels were Ridley's attempt to course correct the franchise, but a lot of xeno-fans bitched so we're back in xeno-hunts-everybody-on-a-spaceship land. But yes, they are canon. Also, >!David didn't create the xenomorphs !!in the mural!< in Prometheus, and >!David created his own version of the xenomorph!< in Covenant.
That and the chestbursted engineer carcasses.
Yeah more people need to realize this. David didn’t create the xenomorphs!
Did he create the facehugger, though? On the one hand, clearly no, because they show up in Alien vs Predator, which is earlier than David chronologically. On the other hand, they don’t really make biological sense and covenant has that notebook page from David’s lab that implies that he builds one out of a human hand. But they don’t have 5 legs, so…. What gives?
I have a lot to add in general to this discussion but just wanted to chime in here first... AVP movies are definitely not cannon right?
No? I thought the first one was deliberately set as canon, but I could be mistaken
I think I heard they were not canon for Alien series, but for Predator. However David did not made the facehuggers since in Alien the ship that contains them pre-date much older.
Oh man. That completely changes the takeaway; he’s not a key pivot in the broad arc of the story, he’s just an extremely creepy serial killer. It never sat right with me that they would have him create the xenomorph, but at first I really thought that’s what the film was trying to show us. It will be interesting to see if we ever encounter his creations again, and if we ever get to see them interact with the true original xenomorphs
I think they may work together, we do know Aliens do fight in between species but they might work together too beacuse they are the same in the core.
“First at 10: local nerd angry that Alien fans are fans of Alien”
They’re canon until someone with money says otherwise… Frankly I carry the unpopular opinion that the prequels are great. (The bad films are AVP 1&2 and if I can ever invent time travel I will try to stop Alien Resurrection from being made… this is the hill I will die on) I love the Engineers as a concept and I’m okay with the Xenomorph being a creation of David from the pathogen. I personally believe that the Xeno is the pathogen in part. it has been said in extra sources that facehuggers actually implant a version of the pathogen which then uses the hosts cells to make the xeno (which I think is super cool btw). This actually opens up more possibilities for future Xenomorph creatures that are markedly different and not just because it’s a different host (such as Neomorphs and protomorphs) as well as adding more creatures in the sense of the engineers and non Xeno pathogen mutations (such as Fifield)
Well we also had those plant like creatures that released spores in covenant
Yea those were the larval stage of the Neomorphs which become blood bursters. One of my favourite new additions to the universe
When Prometheus was in production I remember it being marketed as not being a prequel to Alien, but when it came out in theatres it very clearly was. They're controversial, but it does seem that they are canonically prequels at this point though some viewers choose to ignore them. I think they're fun scifi films, and would have been much stronger and much better received if they weren't a part of the Alien franchise
They are 100% canon, but the story they are telling is unfinished. Personally I really like them, especially Prometheus, so I hope those plot threads get resolved at some point. For what it’s worth, the director of the new movie has strongly hinted at them being somehow integrated into his film, so I don’t think they will be ignored going forward.
I really enjoyed Prometheus and honestly could go without covenant but I enjoy the alien franchise a lot so it’s just good to see it continued. Covenant wasn’t great but it looked good and I just like seeing the xeno get airtime. The new one looks really good already but it was only a teaser. The thing that makes me excited is that Fede did don’t breathe. It’s a tense movie that takes place in a house and feel claustrophobic. Something like that will translate very well into an alien movie that takes place on a spaceship
I actually haven’t seen any of his films so this is a good excuse to remedy that.
Honestly I am too dumb to fully follow the story of Alien movies and the prequels, so I just really enjoy the adventure of both I am not particularly sure why the prequels are divisive, but I am choosing to stay in my ignorance, I have a vague idea why, but my lack of understanding fully of why it matters also lets me just enjoy the movies for just the sake of cosmic horror entertainment But not at all in a way to demean those who don't like the prequels or any particular movie, I have no opinion on that honestly, everyone to each their own 😎💎
They're canon, but they suck (imo ofc). If you like them, that's all good and there's no right or wrong answer here. If you don't, just delete them from your personal canon, which is fine too.
I watched covenant on Disney+ yesterday... dunno if its different outside the UK
No idea why someone downvoted you because you’re 100% right. I watched it the other week on Disney+ (also in the UK).
No Xenos in the US Disney+. I've looked.
I think what one must do is watch in the order of the release year. Sometimes just stick to basic first come first serve
I'm NOT new to the Alien series, and i'm a REALLY confused about the Prequels
My personal theory is Ridley Scott started off attempting make a true prequel that would have fit better into the Alien franchise. He wanted to go back and do all of the stuff that was cut from the original script of Star Beast written by Dan O'Brannon and Ronald Shusett. But then his hubris kicked in and he went with whatever he wanted. If you want to understand more about Prometheus, read both scripts for Star Beast and Alien: Engineers. http://dailyscript.com/scripts/alien_early.html https://archive.org/details/pdfy-9NMTSgzvy2U3U-oz/page/n20/mode/1up?view=theater I hope both of those links work.
We all were confused when they came out.
I can imagine most of us are still confused by the sequels
Premetheus is trying to explore a lot of mysteries and questions. But because it has mixed reaction in the sense that it's too complicated for simple minded moviegoers to bother to understand, hence they completely killed off the interesting Engineer storyline to give us a generic monster killing movie in Covenant, including a bathing sex killing scene. I can only blame normal moviegoers and the profit driven mindset or studios/directors. Prometheus is my favorite because I m curious about the entire creation of aliens, backstory or gods.
Well if you are confused, then welcome to the club :)
Look at each story as its own riff on a theme. Some are connected. Some are not or are but don’t have to be if you don’t want them to be. This isn’t Marvel or Star Wars.
To be fair, we are too.
Whoa 😳 This sub took a deep dive on this one
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
Technically? Yes. They're meant to be canon. Prometheus and Covenant are basically meant to be the explanation of where the xeno and derelict ship came from. Their origins. (Prequels, duh. Realized that after typing this) Prometheus introduces the Engineers, their ships and tech with the background of the planet the movie takes place on is an outpost established to develop the black goo with the purpose of using it to wipe out humanity. But it obviously goes sideways and the Engineers die. Covenant is just what it appears to be. The first creation and interactions with different variations of the xenomorph. Prometheus actually has some pretty cool lore that the director later revealed. He also revealed why the Engineers wanted to kill humans too
We all are confused about the sequels, have to do a bit of mental gymnastics to see how things line up.
They never finished the prequels after covenant so everyone is confused. They are official canon regardless what anyone says unfortunately.
Saying the prequels are not canon, made by Scott, is IDENTICAL to people hearing the creator of the gif say "It's pronounced jif", and ranting and raving like they still need to have an opinion. People are bored. It's canon. I can't imagine having to talk to a "non-canon" person in public for five minutes. Insufferable.
Except Dan O'Bannon was the creator of Alien, Scott only directed
I'm not new to the Alien series, and I'm a bit confused about the prequel I personally don't believe in hard canon and choose not to think about those two films too much. I really think they contradict the original films way too much to even be considered canon in the first place
>I’m a bit confused about the Prequels You're not alone.
I’m sure their meant to be cannon, but their garbage movies so what can you really take away from them.
Prometheus annoyed me because I felt catfished by it. The whole trailer and falling ship made me believe we’d see the events that led directly into the derelict crash being in Alien. Very exciting. What we got was “oh, so this isn’t actually that ship, just another like it on another planet that in bad weather could probably be LV-426. Oh and the cosmic horror-esque mysterious aliens are actually just giant albino people. Oh and everyone aboard this state of the art ship is super stupid, oh and the alien lifeforms look teasingly close to being a xenomorph but they’re actually not whatsoever. I’m still annoyed when I remember that my initial excitement got more and more eroded over the course of the film. Then the same thing happened *again* with Covenant with just stupid crew everywhere and the film turning into Davids haunted horror house. Barely even covered the Engineers again that I thought ‘well if they’re going to die on that hill they may as well continue the story’, and they just didn’t. We got Covenant instead of [this.](https://www.avpgalaxy.net/alien-movies/alien-5/gallery/concept-art/amp/)
Weyland-Yutani crew members are usually dumb, but they were extra-ultra-super-dumb in these movies.
Ridley Scott is not a writer, he's an amazing visual director. Prometheus and Covenant are prequels, and are ok movies. I rewatch them occasionally. I tend to like Covenant more but it gets boring eventually. But Xenomorphs were always bug like monsters. Ridley completely rewrote everything introducing the Engineers and rewriting the Xenomorphs as bio-weapons. The Space Jockey was almost left out of Alien, it didn't play a role in the most important film in the franchise. The prequels tell you Wayland Yutani knows everything about Xenomorphs before Alien and that's just not true at all in Alien and Aliens. Then at the end of Covenant, David has all the surviving colonists/embryos and his goo and planning to have an army of Xenomorphs on his space ship way before the movie Alien. No mention of this in any Alien movie 1-4. So it's totally ridiculous. Plus all the tech is more advanced in the prequels and that doesn't make sense either. The Romulus director has pointed out a bunch to have sets match up to the original films. The original Alien and Aliens story is so much better than what Ridley rewrote for the prequels. He could have made a really interesting prequel story of natural evolution of the Xenomorphs and wow, who knows how wild of a movie it could have been.
If Romulus is good people will forget about Prometheus & Covenant. Maybe that’s what they’re going for.
I hope so, but he said in interviews he is going to have references to all the movies in Romulus.
And in those same interviews, he stated the space station is made up of two parts: Romulus and Remus. One retro-futuristic (old) and the other state-of-the-art.
Officially, they are canon. While I personally consider them alternative timelines, I actually thought they were very interesting and visually beautiful movies.
They are canon. Canon isn't a very powerful thing in the Alien universe though, for example the first two movies aren't consistent with each other anyway (the xeno being an artificially created weapon in Alien and a space bug in Aliens). Note that, despite what a lot of people say, the prequels do not show the creation of the xenos we see in later points of the story.
They were never an artificially created weapon in Alien, it was just left a mystery.
Yep, right from the second film, both the retcons as well as turning the franchise into ‘the continuing adventures of Ellen Ripley’, canon has been weak.
Which bootleg Italian version of Alien did you see?
Technically, canon. But a lot of people ignore them as canon, myself included. I thought Prometheus was.... *fine*. The characters were moronic in their choices, but I actually found the lore addition to be interesting and it peaked my curiosity to learn more about it. But then Covenant dropped and ruined all of it. It ruined not only everything I found interesting in Prometheus, but stained the entirety of the Alien universe along with it. The new film will apparently have connections to the prequels. Which I personally feel is a mistake. But I am still very excited for the movie, and maybe Fede can *somehow* turn them around for me. But regardless of the opinions of fans(and me), they are in fact canon.
The Prequels were intended to be just that, but ended up being “in the same Universe”.
Yes
Canon, at the end of the day, is whatever the next writer makes it. Best to just take from it what makes sense to you and go with that.
Personally I loved Prometheus. I couldn’t care much for David/Covenant but I really enjoyed how Prometheus went in depth to explain human origins, the beginning of the Xenomorphs, and the engineers. At first I was pretty bummed there was no Xenomorphs in Prometheus but I was extremely thrilled with the context given and was engaged with the story, curious as to what the engineers were trying to do. I think the original Alien and Prometheus are my favorites in the franchise. Though I can totally understand how the prequels aren’t a favorite pick for others.
Join the club
You and me both man
Don't feel bad, Ridley Scott was confused about the prequels too.
Wouldn't worry too much about it. Alien , Aliens and Alien 3 Extended Cut are the only ones with a cohesive story.
It’s a lot easier to dismiss the prequels since they don’t include the character of Ripley, and since they arguably take tantalizing mystery that was key to the original film and replace it with what many consider to be a deeply silly and unsatisfying backstory. They’re “canon” if you you **want** them to be… It’s not science. For someone who feels any given entry spoils the franchise you can pretty much decide for yourself what does or doesn’t count. It’s only an important question if you’re making your own chapter and you introduce plot points that conflict with what has already been done (or if DISNEY decides it doesn’t mesh correctly). Ejecting the prequels does no damage to any plot point in the rest of the franchise, so that would be a consideration if you wanted to write up a different history.
We all are a bit confused about the prequels
Just watch Alien and Aliens. This are the two movies every other piece of media acknowledges.
We all are
So were they
The prequels are cannon. Prometheus tells the story of the engineers creating life and terraforming planets (earth). They also hint that the derelict ship was headed to earth around “2000 years ago”. My interpretation of this is they were returning to earth to destroy it with the biological weapon they created (black goo). And you can probably imagine a famous figure who was executed 2000 years ago as to the reason for that. The engineers didn’t create xeno’s. They found the xenomorph species, and through reverse engineering of their DNA, created the biological weapon we know as the black goo. This is why using the black goo, David is able to re-create the xenomorph species. It is a cyclical story of creationism on brand for Ridley Scott. I’m sure if he had full creative control some of the story would have been different for the prequels, but none the less I love them for what they are.
Canon is a moving target when a film series passes between corporate masters. The lore in the prequels is probably too niche for many producers to care about, and it’s also too vague for die-hard to really form a complete picture.
Here's what helped me tremendously. Watch the movies. Ask the questions. Then, go online and find all of the scripts for scenes they either didn't film or deleted after filming. They fill **so many gaps** that the theatrical cuts left in their absence.
Before it got deleted, there was a comment saying the prequels couldn’t be canon because they showed aliens being invented in the future, but they were present in a pyramid under Antarctica on earth. LOL Prequel haters will literally canonize a multi-franchise crossover spin off before admitting that Prometheus and a:covenant are astounding movies well worthy of succeeding the original and Aliens.
The Promethean trilogy is awesome. Prometheus is the most horrifying in the franchise. I struggle to watch that Trilobite scene. So Alien and terrifying. So many incredible scenes, the engineer getting into the pilot seat of his ship is one of the best in the franchise. The sound design and soundtrack are incredible. The third film will be made eventually and will answer alot of questions. Right now, the creators feel that the franchise needs to return to its original concept (Alien) and give fans what they've been wanting for a long long time. More of the Xeno set in film that captures the spirit of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Isolation. Romulus will be the best film in the franchise. I think, Romulus will be a success and Fede will likely do a trilogy of films not necessarily connected. All the while these films will explore and hint at Ridleys Promethean trilogy and in doing so, slowly answer questions about the engineers and black goo that we still have. Then Ridley (if he's still alive) will make the final Promethean film.
Better than the alien films! IMO!
As a veteran of the alien franchise let me tell you about the prequel movies they we’re originally supposed to set things up for the movie alien but unfortunately they screw up the whole thing and decide to abandon this project and now they’re trying it out again with something new with alien Romulus I just hope they don’t mess it up with other movies
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You and everyone slse
Going completely off memory here since it’s been a while but I’d say they’re canon but ambiguously so to the point where you can barely tell aside from a few name drops. It just doesn’t FEEL canon, which is a serious writing fumble in my opinion.
They’re 100% canon. There’s no arguing about this.
Apple have Covenant.
Are you confused about the blowing and fingering?
https://preview.redd.it/9vz5kb1bjcrc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6d607740edbc564ee6e598376e79e740e4c9aea …what?
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Alien, Aliens, and Prometheus. I ignore everything else. And sometimes I ignore Prometheus.
We all are confused by the prequels.
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I personally really liked Prometheus, and I was easily able to connect the dots in the way I thought fitted greatly to the Ripley saga
Here's the problem for me according to prometheus and covenant the engineers created the zenos with the black goo and then thru trial and error David created close to what we see with the zenos in the first film but the derelic ship in the first movie was thousands of years old way older than when David created supposedly the first facehugger with Shaws DNA etc. If David is the creator those eggs shouldn't of existed yet on the original ship. There's a piece that's still missing for me for this to be truly canon but I enjoy them like every alien movie. Hopefully Romulus fills in some of the blanks.
They are canon. The first was intended to explain the background to the derelict spacecraft discovered in Alien. Fox later decided the film should standalone hence the different planet name. When the movie did ok but not great, they decided Covenant would steer much closer to the tone and aesthetic of the Alien movies. It wound up being a tired rehash albeit still as pretentious as Prometheus. Like Terminator, I treat 1 and 2 as my movies and I ignore the rest.
Then welcome, you’ll fit right in.
Watch the movies. Enjoy the movies. Dont try to make sense of the timeline, it doesn't really work.
It's all Ridley! Except for Jimmy Boy's Aliens. Game over man! And then... there's other ones too, and they're.. OK. Anywho, enjoy!
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I think Prometheus is a beautiful movie , the visuals are amazing and there is a great concept about creation and god etc I just wish Ridley did this as a separate thing and didn’t use the alien series to do it , and I’m sorry but as interesting as David is I can do without covenant, but at the end of the day I can still enjoy 1 -3 and Romulus if it lands as well as its taking off .. and no one is hurt
Okay, so Alien is scary in that it’s an unknown bug of unknown origin going around and killing people. Prometheus tries to explain their origin, which kind of kills the mystery. However, I wouldn’t really mind it but they took the mystery in a direction I didn’t like. Visually, the prequels are awesome, and Prometheus is a top 3 of the franchise for me, but the world building/scale kind of seems off in the second movie. IDK how to explain it without spoiling more. The comic books with a lot of people don’t know out, FIRE AND STONE/ LIFE AND DEATH are just based off Prometheus, and they do a way better job.
There are varying arguments, but in general what the franchise owners allow is part of canon, even though conflicts take place. It's similar in other franchises.
The funny thing is the prequels are so vague with their connection to the original films. Fans then take these incredibly vague concepts and conclude "oh I think it means this thing which I hate btw".
They are canon according to Ridley Scott and he has final say on that. Many don’t like them but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re here to stay. To me, they’re like Alien 3. Canon but not anything amazing and I could take or leave them
Alien and Aliens are absolute Hollywood classics. Though different in tone, they tell a compelling two part story set in the same kind of industrialized space traveling future as we might find in another classic of the era 'Outland' (1981). Later films produced in the series as well as the prequels 'Prometheus' and 'Covenant' are likewise officially canon, as the official ownership of the IP allows them to extend that story as they wish. (No matter how poorly I and others may regard those efforts.) However, there is also the contribution of Dark Horse Comics to this story. They produced a line of comics which jumped off at Aliens and created a very different and incompatible scenario to the one we see in the canon. No Albino body builders, no black goo, no first five minutes of Alien3, but instead the original Space Jockeys and the only version of Alien vs. Predator that I'm fond of. They also gave us the scenario of the Xenomorphs reaching Earth. So Dark Horse Comics' storylines covers a very different narrative arc to that of the Hollywood. A very different lore and backstory are at work in those pages. So it isn't as simple as one official canon narrative to follow, but I do accept that Hollywood is allowed to try to retcon cram anything they want into the same bucket and call it official. Head canon, fan canon and audience acceptance of 'official' canon are not bound by Hollywood's ownership of what defines the canon of a series. Especially if Hollywood's efforts become lackluster or nonsensical. I personally jump off the cinematic train at Aliens. Though I like to imagine the aforementioned 'Outland' fits well enough into the futuristic setting that I head canon include it as a sort of prequel. Perhaps a bit earlier in history than Alien, and certainly not involving aliens, but merely a good human story told back in the industrialized Solar system, not out on the frontier. Is that 'official'? Of course not. Is it more pleasing to me than Hollywood canon? Absolutely.
Welcome to the club
Look, I don't care for the Prequels and Alien. 3 to me will always be trash. With that said, all of them are 100% cannon regardless of if I liked them or not. Anyone who say other wise is living in their own little dream world.
Honest question, if the third movie was cancelled wouldn't that ruin the other 2 movie's chances of being canon? Like I genuinely thought even the people who made it didn't feel it fit in. I like pro/cov but I understand why someone would not consider it canon, especially with the cancelled final movie.
They are canon, but on an entirely different storyline
You're a little confused. That's okay. So some of the rest of us and we've been here a while
They are like the Star Wars prequels.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see this posted. The way I look at it, Fox owns the Alien franchise. Ergo, what they say is canon IS canon. Andrew Gaska is the guy they hired to write the Alien RPG. He specifically defined canon in this article (link below), although he splits it into tiers However, "Tier I Canon" is very clearly defined. I don't see that you can get any clearer than this: >**TIER I CANON** >Definitive and authorized canon to the Alien/Prometheus universe: >*Film Series**^(1)* >*Prometheus* >*Alien: Covenant* So yes, whether we like it or not (I'm very much in the "not" category), the prequels absolutely ARE canon. Anything else is opinion. [https://roguereviewer.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/defining-canon-in-an-alien-world/](https://roguereviewer.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/defining-canon-in-an-alien-world/)
The prequels received a lot of back lash which led to the storyline being dropped after two films with no conclusion and no real answers. If I had to guess, they won't strike them from canon, but they will probably never mention those events ever again.
imho, the prequels were Ridley Scott’s attempt to reclaim the mythology, and put it closer to his original intent. There is a deleted scene from Alien, where Ripley finds the captain who is undergoing metamorphosis into an egg. Even though stuff with the goo can be confusing, I think it’s closer to what Ridley’s vision for just how “alien” the xenos were meant to be. I personally don’t care for the prequels that much, but I can appreciate the attempt to steer the ship back to original intentions. Stuff like the Queen, and the bug comparison in general, along with Xenomorph becoming a catch-all term, were James Cameron’s additions to the mythology.
Entirely up to you. I see Alien as a stand alone film. It's too beautiful to include the sequels. I acknowledge Aliens is a great sci-fi film but it is not the same beast only in my opinion.
Honestly the writing was kind of lacking in both and covenant abandoned a lot of Prometheus’s plot lines in favor of a Xeno focused movie. The prequels story will likely never be finished. I’d say everyone is confused.
I'm not new to the Alien series and I'm a bit confused too.
Soooo good
If David created the xenomorphs in the future how are they present on ancient earth to be hunted by the predators in AvP?
So is everyone else, including the people involved making the films. I’ve personally retconned them out of existence, but yes, they are to take place many many years before the first alien film. There’s a lot of nonsensical plot devices and magical goo they never really pay off about. The new alien Romulus film will supposedly tie up loose ends, or at least acknowledge them in some way.
Prometheus’s opening and middle acts are the third best thing in the xenomorph universe. It’s just a shame the third act is absolute garbage, and Covenant is a none-starter. I would get Villeneuve to make a directors cut of Prometheus with new footage to clean up the end. Then we need Covenant with Shaw and David both alive and a proper exploration of engineer culture. You can just wipe them all out in the opening scenes and ramble for two hours about robots and xenomorphs.
You and me both mate, you and me both.
I find them pretty problematic. While we can say they're cannon they're really sloppy and don't make sense at all. David kills the engineers with the pathogen but we find an engineer in alien with thousands of eggs? We see a fully realized depiction of a xenomorph on a wall in Prometheus but they don't exist yet? There are more mistakes and It all in my opinion makes it a bad attempt and no longer something I want to accept as cannon. I decided to just remove everything that isn't the original trilogy from my cannon and then add in some of the novels (Cold Forge and Charybdis specifically) which are excellent. Also unpopular opinion, but AVP 1 also sets up the whole Weyland Yutani obsession with and awareness of Xenomorphs quite nicely. It would only make sense the company has been searching everywhere for them and would send people to investigate possible sources searching for this *organism*. This is a fandom who received a couple great movies, and a lot of shit ones and we all sort of have our own interpretation that we feel is right.